How to Prep Your Home to Run a Business

Whether you are planning to run an online business or one that involves inviting clients or customers into your house, you will need to do some preparation to get your home ready. The tips below can help you get started.

Understand Zoning Laws

If you assume that because you are a sole proprietor, you’re only running the business part-time or your business is one that won’t choke your quiet suburban street with traffic that you don’t need to think about zoning laws, think again.

Depending on your jurisdiction and possibly even your homeowner’s association, you could be running up against regulations that prohibit whatever you have in mind.

Your motto should be better safe than sorry, and you should look into local laws regarding whatever you have in mind and whether you need to obtain permits or would otherwise be in violation of some regulations.

Your Home Office

You can work from a spare corner in your house or even your bed, but for various reasons, even with online work-from-home jobs, these setups are far from ideal over the long run.

Moreover, many people will have more substantial needs when it comes to the home business, whether you’ll be actually inviting clients into your home, you need a quiet and professional spot to do video calls or you have inventory that must be stored.

You may need to devote an entire room to your home business. If you’re working on your computer for 30 or 40 hours per week, you need to think about an ergonomic setup. Consider what possibilities are available to you given your needs and your budget, discussed below.

Understand Costs

Whether you’re converting an entire section of your house to accommodate your business or you’re planning to set up in the corner of the dining room, for now, you probably need some money to get your business up and running.

Create a budget that takes these and other costs into consideration. You might want to think about keeping your day job so that you have a steady income coming in during the early days. A small business loan is a great way for home-based ventures to get the funding they need.

This can help you with your home office and other costs. Figure out how much you will need, and look for a lender who offers the kind of loan and repayment options that will suit you.

Your Family

If you are running a home business and you have a family, you also need to think about how it will affect them. You may be a stay-at-home parent who is running the business in their spare time, between children’s naps.

You might also be the primary breadwinner, offering services that involve having clients visit you in your home or you may need to work during certain hours even when your family is around.

Whatever the configuration, you will need to talk to your family and come to an agreement about boundaries and understanding that there are times when they need to treat your work time the same way they would time that you might spend at an office away from the house.