Setting up a part time business can be a great option if you want to make some extra money. You get to earn extra money every month, but you still have the security of keeping your regular job too. It’s ideal if you just want a spare time income or if you are looking to test out a new idea without making a full term commitment.
6 Tips For Making Money in Your Spare Time
But a part time business is a special kind of animal! Here are six tips to help you make a success of your new enterprise:
1. Be realistic. Decide how much time you can devote to your part time business, bearing in mind your other commitments. Is it 20 hours a week, 10 hours a week, 5 hours a week?
When you’re looking for business ideas screen out the ideas that are going to take more time each week than you can reasonably commit. You’ll give yourself a far better chance of success.
2. Look for business ideas connected with your hobbies or interests, or perhaps your main employment. For example, do you like cookery, or cars, or cycling or dogs? Part time businesses based on your hobbies are very often successful (partly because you don’t feel you’re giving up your free time to do them!)
3. Go for something that actually works BETTER as a part time business. There are plenty of businesses that work better as part time businesses than as full time businesses! These are businesses that people want to use in the evenings and weekends, rather than during the day.
Here’s an example: If you decided to offer a bookkeeping service to businesses it might be tricky if you can only work in the evenings and weekends because your business customers probably won’t be in the office at that time. On the other hand, if you were offering a home cleaning service to householders that would work better in the evenings and weekends, because that’s when most of your customers will be home.
4. Decide what you’re going to do when you’re not there: if you’re at work during the day what will happen if your customers call or email you? If you can’t receive calls or emails at work try and arrange for your partner, a friend or even an answering service to take calls for you, so you don’t miss out on any business.
5. Be disciplined. Once you’ve decided the number of hours you can work in your part time business each week… stick to it! Try and timetable specific times each day or each week to devote to your business.
6. Be professional! This is one of the most important things about a part time business. Your customers should get the same kind of professional service that they would get from a full time business. In fact, don’t even let on that your business is part time if you can help it.
Here’s why: Making sure your advertising, marketing, products, service and customer care are just as good as any full time business should mean that your profit margins are just as good as a full time business too!