There are certain traits that anyone must have or learn to have a good chance at success in a home business. Despite what you may hear from others, running a business from home is not particularly easy and will be made harder if you have a family to look after and perhaps another job as well, since the majority of beginner internet marketers start out part-time and are only able to give up their previous work once they are receiving income from their new internet business

Expect to have to make some sacrifices in the amount of free time you have, both for yourself and for your family. You may also find that when you switch to working at home, many people will tend to consider that it is not a ‘proper’ job and expect you to drop work on your home business to suit their plans. If this happens, you need to be prepared to take a stand, stick to your guns and declare that your home business is very much a business and not a hobby. If you treat your home business this way, others will be forced to do the same.

The 7 essentials are:

1. A burning desire to succeed – start by creating a clear picture in your mind of the end result you are aiming for, know why you want to achieve this result and decide how long you are prepared to take to get there. The desire might be something you want for yourself, your children or the whole family, the who does not matter too much, what is important is that the desire must be strong enough to make you willing to leave your comfort zone and make sacrifices to achieve it. It is an often quoted saying that if you keep doing what you are currently doing, you should not expect life to be any different than what it is now. Imagine what you would do every day after you have achieved your goals and be assured that you already have within you all the qualities you need to succeed.

2. Set goals and make plans – After identifying what you want to achieve, set intermediary goals that will guide you on the way. SMART goals, those that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely will be of great benefit here because a SMART goal has a much higher chance of being achieved than one that is vague or not very well defined. For example, instead of saying that you want to lose weight, a SMART goal would be to lose 1kg every week for 10 weeks. This is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. This example may well not be relevant for your personal situation, but it illustrates the idea of using SMART goals, so you will easily be able to work out one for yourself.

3. Routine and self-discipline – when you work from home, you do not have someone else to decide what you will do each day – you become your own boss, so now the onus is on you to plan the work flow, allocate time for what you want to achieve in each area of your new life; time for work, time for family and some time for relaxation, even a little is important for you to stay balanced. Scheduling some tasks for regular times each day may suit you and if this is the case, it will be beneficial to draw up a timetable with tasks allocated to particular time slots. In many cases this will also help family and friends to respect your work time, teenagers especially as this is a familiar concept for them from school. Another benefit is that forming a habit of doing certain things at certain times makes those tasks more likely to be attended to than if left to be done whenever time is available. Try not to let home life intrude on your work time and work time intrude on home time.

4. Learning what you need to know. How to register your business, how to keep good records of your expenses and income, tax requirements applicable to your business, local government regulations are all things you need to know or find out. You also need a good understanding of how the Internet works, the various different kinds of Internet business you can run, whether you will need a website or not and if you do, how to register a domain name, get hosting and upload your website to your hosting, how to send automated replies so you do not have to manually answer every email. If you do not know all these things already, it will take you time to learn. A coach or mentor will speed this learning process up, but you will have to pay for it. Depending on your circumstances, this may or may not be an option.

5. Persistence – never give up! The majority of people fail with building a home business because they do not persevere when they face challenges and obstacles. Try not to let that happen to you. If your family continues to support you, that is a bonus because often their support wanes when you are no longer able to do all the things for them that they have become accustomed to you doing. Perhaps you could think up strategies to get them involved with some aspect of the business, or maybe set aside special no-work times or other special rewards for their cooperation. Remind them of the benefits long-term and ask for their assistance and patience until that time comes.

6. Passion and need – it is commonly believed that you need to base your business about something you are passionate and enthusiastic about because this helps you through the tough times. It is always easier to spend time on the things you enjoy most and as you will probably be aware, when you are enthusiastic about something, your enthusiasm shows through, whether you are speaking or writing. However, you still need to ensure that there is a genuine need in the marketplace for your product or service. What this means is that you must base your business around some need or urgent desire of others, whether it is a basic need such as finding ways to get or save money, a health problem people cannot solve alone, a service not being met, or a desire for entertainment, for example. If your business does not fill a need, you will have a hard time making sales.

7. Respect your home business – have set work hours as much as you can and make those times off-limits to other demands, whether from family or friends. Spend time every morning or night making a list of what you want to achieve in the day, do the hardest thing first and then tick them all off as you go. Some tips are to dress as you would if you were working in a business belonging to someone else even when you expect not to go out. Apart from feeling more as if you are “at work” you will be instantly ready if a business opportunity comes along. Learn when to say “no” and when you can say “yes”.

Following these seven strategies in setting up your online home business will give you an edge and set you up for success and not failure in your new online home business.

I hope you have found this article of value. Please visit my blog at http://trishfindlay.com to find out about great resources to help you build your own online home business.

The eBook “Online Home Business Success” is a beginners’ guide written to help new internet marketers decide what type of online business would suit their particular needs and it gives invaluable information about how to get started and continue to run a successful business. It is available from http://www.onlinehomebusinesssuccess.com