Start Your Own Home Business After 50. Robert W. Bly

business will look like. What will you offer as a freelancer that a potential employer couldn’t find among his own employees? Who will you market your services to that other freelancers in your field might be overlooking? What will your business look like one year from now? How about five years from now?

      Having a vision of your business allows you to determine how you will make your service or product better than most others on the market, and it will help you decide how detailed your plans need to be when you are getting started. You can say to yourself that you want to freelance so you can be your own boss and take vacations whenever you want, but to make that happen, you have to create a successful business. And the way to build a successful business is by focusing on what benefits and features you will be providing to clients. For your business to be successful, everything needs to be directed to your customers, especially if you want repeat business.

      A home-based freelance business can be incredibly simple or highly complex. If your previous job included computer programming, for example, you could choose to tutor local high school students one-on-one in your home so that they can learn simple skills. Or, you could choose to create intricate programs that address problems common to a particular field and then market those programs to multinational corporations around the world.

      If you use your imagination AND do your homework, you can soon be thriving in a business you thoroughly enjoy.

       STRAIGHT TALK FROM BOB

      One day, my wife, my oldest son, and I went to a beautiful little stable in Pennsylvania so we could ride horses.

      Well, they rode the horses. I declined. The truth is I am not crazy about horses.

      So, while they rode for an hour, I sat outside at a picnic table and read my favorite publication, the New York Review of Books. It was a beautiful autumn day. I was surrounded by hills with an explosion of trees decorated green, brown, yellow, orange, and red.

      After their ride, my wife and son told me, “You really missed out on all the fun.”

      That’s what they thought, but I didn’t think I had missed out on anything. I did what I wanted to do, and I really enjoyed myself.

      You shouldn’t do what others think you should do just to make them happy. You should do what you want to do to make yourself happy.

      When I graduated from college, I took a corporate job, which pleased my father to no end. In his mind, it paid a steady salary and was safe and secure. But I was bored. So I became a freelance writer.

      He felt I was making a mistake, giving up my safe and secure corporate job and my steady salary. Early on in my freelancing, I did a large job for a software company and got a check for $10,000 (that was a lot of money in the early 1980s).

      Wisely, I copied the check and showed it to my father. He never again complained about me quitting my corporate job.

      Make yourself happy. When you do, those who care about you will eventually be happy for you.

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       Home-Based Business Opportunity #2: Consulting

      Consulting is an ideal home business for over-50, white-collar professionals. How is it different from freelancing? There are several ways, but the key one is this: Freelancers perform particular jobs or tasks; consultants tell other people how to perform particular jobs or tasks in order to attain desired outcomes.

      Let us delve into the reasons why, at this stage in your life, you might decide to become a consultant. Chances are you fall into one of the following three scenarios, or a combination thereof:

      •Scenario I. You have voluntarily retired and are looking for a way to remain socially and mentally active, as well as supplement your income.

      •Scenario II. You have re-evaluated your life and want to earn a living doing something that is both intellectually and personally satisfying.

      •Scenario III. You were laid off or forced into early retirement, leaving you needing money to pay the bills.

      The one common factor in each of these scenarios is MONEY. You want or need to earn some money. There is no question that consulting is a way to make money, but you first must establish income goals and a plan for achieving those goals.

      At this stage in your life, you probably are not looking to become rich. If unimaginable wealth is a consequence of your consulting endeavors, you probably will not shun it, but it is not your overarching goal. More likely, your goal is to earn enough money to do one or more of the following things:

      

      •Maintain your current lifestyle

      •Build an inheritance or college fund for your children and grandchildren

      •Finance special projects like kitchen remodeling or a vacation abroad

      •Build up your retirement nest egg

      •Purchase a second home or new car

       SET AN INCOME GOAL

      Whatever the reason you want or need money, you should be able to articulate a specific dollar figure as your total annual income goal. A realistic annual income target is one that you can attain within a few years.

      In determining your annual income goal, you should start with the amount of money you need to live comfortably for a year. Then, double it. So, if your annual living expenses total about $30,000 per year, your annual income goal should be $60,000.

      Does this sound ambitious to you? Well, it is ambitious, but it is also achievable. Many consultants earn $100,000 to $250,000 or more. Also, if you are receiving Social Security or retirement benefits, part of your annual income goal has already been met, reducing the money you need to make from your consulting business.

       ESTABLISH YOUR RATES

      Knowing your annual income goal is essential to establishing your fees and setting your compensation rates for your consulting services. If you know how much you need to make, it is easier to determine what you need to charge for your services.

      Novice and even experienced consultants sometimes find themselves struggling to determine the amount they should charge for their products and services. If you approach this issue believing that you, with all of your business and life experience, add value, then it makes determining your own rates that much easier.

      The dilemma arises from the need to strike a balance between charging enough to maximize the demand for your services so you can make this endeavor financially worthwhile and not charging so much that you lose out on jobs to other consultants. Many consultants, especially novices, charge too little at the beginning in the hopes of getting the job, and then they become resentful when they realize they are doing too much work for too little compensation. Yet they are afraid to charge higher prices for fear the potential client will object, saying “Your price is too high.”

      There are other factors to consider as well. Unlike when you worked for a company, you will now be footing the bills for all aspects of your business, such as overhead, labor, cost of materials, and profit margin. There are also intangible factors. For instance, if you are the cheapest consultant in town, you may be erroneously viewed as less experienced or less skilled. You may be conveying a message that your expertise is so inexpensive because you are not as good as the more expensive consultants.

       HOW BOB DOES IT

      A sign on the shop floor of a manufacturing facility showed a triangle. Each corner was labeled: One was GOOD, another was FAST, the third was CHEAP. The caption under the triangle said PICK ANY TWO.

      It makes sense to me. If you are cheap and fast, you probably aren’t very good.