Summary: As corporate downsizing continues to make news and the internet makes telecommuting ever more productive more and more entrepreneurs are discovering the benefits of running businesses out of their homes. If you are looking to get out of the rat race, to spend more time with family and friends, and to live a more balanced life, a home-based business may be the right decision for you.<br> <br> Home-based businesses are quickly becoming the fastest growing form of business start-ups. Growing your business out of your home allows for flexibility that is difficult when renting or buying office and warehouse space. Although<br> <br> working at home requires self-discipline, the benefits can be substantial-especially in the start-up years.<br> <br> Starting a Home-Based Business<br> <br> Nearly one million Australians are running a business from home according to the Australian government. Forbes reported that home-based businesses were quickly becoming the fastest growing form of business start-ups. With a slowing global economy this statistic can only be expected to grow.<br> <br> Benefits of starting a Home-Based business out of your home<br> <br> There are many benefits and each would appeal to you differently but here are my top five that I find to be key:<br> <br> 1. Ownership - Yours to build and grow<br> <br> 2. Flexibility - No commute and freedom to structure your working hours<br> <br> 3. Taxation - Put simply...the system favours business ownership<br> <br> 4. Low Overheads - Investment can be low, no large office lease expenses<br> <br> 5. Leverage - Ability to leverage your efforts and scale up<br> <br> Personal lesson<br> <br> My late dad was an Accountant - I took after him, he worked long and hard for over 20 years in senior management for a Swedish ball bearing manufacturer. I got back home from boarding school one summer, and dad sat me and my older brother down to let us know that he had been "let go".<br> <br> Life quickly changed in a space of 6 months - moved out of the company house, no company car, no driver and no more executive perks.<br> <br> It became clear that though dad had a great job employment by nature generally does not provide any "business equity" - he got paid his redundancy package (maybe a year's salary) and that was it, back to the drawing board...which was starting a home based consultancy business in accounting.<br> <br> This was my first encounter with the difference between business ownership and employment. You get to make your own conclusions here as to how you would respond to such a situation...I have shared in Episode 077: Five Things Redundancy Social Welfare Taught Me, how social welfare became an unwanted reality for me and my wife a few years ago when we went through the same scenario<br> <br> The 5 key benefits of starting a home-based business<br> <br> 1. Ownership - Yours to build and grow<br> <br> Building a business means that you will be building equity for you and your family, if you work it right; and even if it takes you say 20 years to really get it established, that is just under half of your working life, you can build a substantial enterprise that is willable, saleable and transferable.<br> <br> The best time to start is while you are at the peak of your career which for most people is right now, start from your home and grow it from there - don't just focus on building equity in your home, build some business equity as well.<br> <br> 2. Flexibility - No commute and structure your working hours.<br> <br> A colleague said to me she spent about 2 hours last week getting home because there were two accidents on the major roads during peak hour...that's happened to me several times before!<br> <br> The ABC reported that Australians on average spend close to an hour each day on the daily commute to and from work.
