Making the decision to establish a home business is a bold one, which holds significant risks but even greater rewards. When the business proves to be a success, even bigger benefits can be realized through expansion. This next step, like the first step you took in setting up your home business, is equally risky and rewarding.

Fortunately there is a range of support and advice available and choosing an umbrella organization can help to mitigate those risks and maximize the rewards.

Be prepared

There are several points to consider in order to ensure your expansion is truly successful:

Do your research. Make sure you are one hundred percent confident that this is the right thing to do. Understand the direction in which you want to expand, clarify your goal and stick to it.

Prepare for the unexpected. While it is essential to have goals, it is not helpful to be dogmatic about how you achieve them. Things change on a daily basis and it is crucial that you are flexible enough to adapt to these changes and make them work for you.

Seek expert advice. You may have got this far by yourself but expansion will open up a whole new world; a world in which you will not necessarily have a great deal of experience. Speak to people who have done it before and learn from their successes and their mistakes. Also, enlist the help of support services such as Atlantic Umbrella for specialist areas such as payroll.

The early stages

Change can be difficult and sometimes even traumatic and as you set out on your journey of expansion it is important to consider the most cost effective solutions that will allow you to manage workloads throughout this transitional period. Periods of growth expose businesses to potentially serious issues while your time and attention is diverted away from your key areas of expertise.

Consider the following:

Identify your single most cost-effective product or service in terms of profitability relative to the amount of time it takes to deliver. Focus on this as your security during the transition and ensure the business maintains its momentum throughout.

Look for external support. It can be tempting to minimize costs by trying to do everything yourself. The risk here is that you spread yourself too thinly; remember short-term gains can lay the foundation for long-term problems. Check out a number of umbrella companies and select one that can lighten your load, allowing you to focus on a successful expansion.

Give yourself the time and head-space to do some fresh thinking about marketing. Identify new techniques to promote your business in a way that requires little time or input. For example, giving presentations can be effective, but will an online social media presence achieve the same thing with significantly less input from you?

The road to success

With careful planning and expert support, expanding your home business and building on your initial success can be a hugely profitable and rewarding experience.


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