The last years a new huge trend has begun and it has been embraced by a lot of people in the developed world. That trend is the home business phenomenon where individuals are setting their own small business with their home as their base. The increase in the start ups from home however is not an all rosy story without any problems or troubles. Home business owners are experiencing a big failure rate. Their dreams of having and running their own business seldom reach fruition and many of them abandon the battle with a hurt ego and unfortunately many times deep buried into debt.

There are many reasons that lead the home entrepreneurs into this situation at a time that are needed more than ever, since the corporate world is shrinking its workforce through new innovations and increased efficiency that help them increase the output they get from each employee. While on the one hand a home based business could be a great solution to the increasing of future unemployment, on the other hand it is a risky endeavor with big failure rates that can push people fast into debt.

But of course the numbers never tell the whole truth.

Although failure rates are big, there is a reason and explanation for that. The people who get into the home business sector, as you understand, they never have any business experience as they usually left a job to pursue their dream. That lack of experience is demonstrated into their start-up, as they seldom manage to take it off the ground and turn it into a profitable business that can provide to them and their family the necessary income to live the life they want.

Another factor that contributes a lot to their failure is the lack of self-discipline. Being employees, probably for their whole working life, they are accustomed to taking orders from their supervisor and follow a system that was given to them. Under circumstances like that they didn’t need much of self-discipline in order to show results and stay productive and efficient by accomplishing the tasks that were given to them.

Unfortunately, in their home, when they changed career, they didn’t have the luxury of following a system and since they were not reporting to anyone, it was easy for them to lax a little bit in the beginning and later, as the steam and passion form the beginning dwindled, they lax even more. Pretty soon their business reached a halting point, as they were behind to such a degree that seemed almost impossible for them to catch up. Not to mention that they got used to a very light working schedule all that time and it would have been difficult for them to overcome easily that acquired “handicap” without a strong push from external factors.

Furthermore, since probably they know nothing about accounting, they usually have problems in controlling their expenses and knowing the returns on the dollars they spent to various tools, equipment, resources, or advertising. In short they have problems to understand if their home business is profitable or not, and if not, to know what expenses they have to cut, or reduce in order to turn their endeavor into a profitable one. Sometimes they may run into cash-flow problems that can destroy any business, even if in paper they would seem profitable. Not knowing what happens in your business economics is like not having any control over it, cause at the end of the day one thing is that what matters most, is it profitable or not?

But are all these a reason for you not to start your own home business and stay put at your position as an employee?

Of course not. All that we mentioned was not in an effort to showcase to you how futile or difficult would be to survive as a home business owner and discourage you. After all we are talking here on how to succeed in home based business and in order to do so we need first to see and identify what are the things the can keep you from becoming successful. As they would have said in medicine unless you find the illness you can’t find the cure. And that is what we were trying to do here.

Starting your own business and working from home can be very rewarding and give you a quality of life that cannot be found in the corporate world. But unless you know exactly what you have to do it’s very easy to fail.

So then how can you succeed with a home business?

Well, the first thing you have to do is to invest in your education and training. Besides the time you have to allocate to learning things related to your business, you also need to spend some time in seminars, courses, and books that can teach you the ins and outs of any business and how to avoid deadly mistakes that can ruin your start-up and leave you penniless. Of course don’t over do it and get analysis paralysis from the information overload. You don’t need every available bit of information in order to start. Good enough is good enough. You need a good, all-around, and balanced knowledge that can help you get started correctly, not a degree in business administration.

Second, you have to develop some form of self-discipline that can keep you productive and protect you from wasting your precious time to non productive activities. One thing that can help you in that area is to have a schedule that you would follow. You can’t wake up in the morning and start wondering what should I do for my home based business today. That’s a recipe for disaster. Every real businessman has a schedule that follows it no matter what and he doesn’t deviate from it unless he can’t do otherwise. You have to define what is your money making and necessary activities for the smooth operation of your business and insert them into your schedule so you never forget or excuse yourself from doing them.

Third, some knowledge on accounting would be beneficial in order to better control your expenses and avoid spending mistakes. If you can’t get that knowledge yourself, use a good accountant that can keep your books and advise you in that area in order to run a financially healthy business. A good accountant can many times foresee future problems from just a glance to your books. So don’t try to save money when it comes to bookkeeping and use a good professional for that function. Trust me on this, he really worth every penny that he is getting paid.

Of course, all these are a few of the things that can help you run a successful home business. There are many other things equally or less important that can define your future success such as a good business-plan, goal setting, a mission statement, etc.