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Everywhere you look these days, between unemployment, mortgage foreclosures and investment losses, people are getting beaten up. In so many cases, older workers have seen a lifetime of scrimping and saving blow up in their faces and RRSPs and 401Ks have plummeted in value. It's bad enough that it had to happen, but think about all the people on the cusp of their retirement, who suddenly won't have enough money to make the ends meet. Will they need to keep working till they drop dead? There has to be a better idea.
A lot of people are probably looking at the possibility of taking on a second or part time job to get them through the what should have been the golden years of life. But those jobs aren't really all that easy to come by and for anyone who has made a really good income for the last 20 or so years, will working part time in the dry cleaners really make a difference? Or maybe there is a better answer, closer to home, in fact in home. Consider the possibility that your trusty home desktop could be the route so some level of salvation. I'm talking about starting up your own online business and it's a trend that I think is about to go ballistic.
Before you go crazy thinking that a generation who - let's face it- worked most of their lives without computers let alone the internet - are about to leap into a foreign medium and become millionaires. That's not what I mean. Actually, when you consider it, it's not necessary. We're talking about people who have most of the big purchases behind them. They bought the house years ago, the kids have probably already moved out (or at least they promise to soon). They're not looking to make a fortune, just supplement a living and an online business can do that.
Here are the four reasons why I believe that home online business is what many will choose:
1. You can sell pretty much anything on the internet. You can sell collectables, or information, or you can sell niche products that - in a perfect world - you know a lot about. You can sell one product or many. Spend sometime online and you'll soon discover, that if you can think of it, you can probably find it online and while you're looking you just might find a place that you can sell it too.
2. The size of the internet will support you in two ways. It dissolves the need for any physical proximity. If no one in your part of the country shares the interest on which you want to build a business - it doesn't matter. Your customers can come from anywhere and the distance won't matter. And because you can draw a clientele from anywhere on the planet, chances are there are enough people to support just about any good idea.
3. Compared to other types of business start up- the barriers to entry that an online start up needs to deal with can be relatively minor. You can start a business without paying for rent, or fixtures or decorating. You don't need to hire any staff, you don't even need to carry any inventory or package and ship the products yourself. There is of course and investment, and a learning curve, but at least you don't need to ante up fifty grand to buy a franchise.
4. A lot of people I've talked to won't even consider the possibility of starting an online business because they have it in their head that only "techies" can manage. It might have been true once, but with the abundance of very, very easy to learn software to manage any type of business, you don't need to have the technical skills to start. But you have to be willing to learn - a lot. So before you give up, take inventory of what skills you do have, because when you're starting your own business - every skill counts for something.
Reading over what I've written, it might seem that I'm trying to push you into starting up an online business. I'm not. But I am predicting, without any hesitation, that in the next few years we're going to see an explosion of growth on the internet in terms of new one person businesses and I'm also suggesting that if anyone looks behind who is fueling that growth, they won't find a host of bright-eyed twenty somethings behind it. They're find their somewhat jaded parents, some of whom are going to get a second chance to be bright eyed kids again and that's kind of cool.
A lot of people are probably looking at the possibility of taking on a second or part time job to get them through the what should have been the golden years of life. But those jobs aren't really all that easy to come by and for anyone who has made a really good income for the last 20 or so years, will working part time in the dry cleaners really make a difference? Or maybe there is a better answer, closer to home, in fact in home. Consider the possibility that your trusty home desktop could be the route so some level of salvation. I'm talking about starting up your own online business and it's a trend that I think is about to go ballistic.
Before you go crazy thinking that a generation who - let's face it- worked most of their lives without computers let alone the internet - are about to leap into a foreign medium and become millionaires. That's not what I mean. Actually, when you consider it, it's not necessary. We're talking about people who have most of the big purchases behind them. They bought the house years ago, the kids have probably already moved out (or at least they promise to soon). They're not looking to make a fortune, just supplement a living and an online business can do that.
Here are the four reasons why I believe that home online business is what many will choose:
1. You can sell pretty much anything on the internet. You can sell collectables, or information, or you can sell niche products that - in a perfect world - you know a lot about. You can sell one product or many. Spend sometime online and you'll soon discover, that if you can think of it, you can probably find it online and while you're looking you just might find a place that you can sell it too.
2. The size of the internet will support you in two ways. It dissolves the need for any physical proximity. If no one in your part of the country shares the interest on which you want to build a business - it doesn't matter. Your customers can come from anywhere and the distance won't matter. And because you can draw a clientele from anywhere on the planet, chances are there are enough people to support just about any good idea.
3. Compared to other types of business start up- the barriers to entry that an online start up needs to deal with can be relatively minor. You can start a business without paying for rent, or fixtures or decorating. You don't need to hire any staff, you don't even need to carry any inventory or package and ship the products yourself. There is of course and investment, and a learning curve, but at least you don't need to ante up fifty grand to buy a franchise.
4. A lot of people I've talked to won't even consider the possibility of starting an online business because they have it in their head that only "techies" can manage. It might have been true once, but with the abundance of very, very easy to learn software to manage any type of business, you don't need to have the technical skills to start. But you have to be willing to learn - a lot. So before you give up, take inventory of what skills you do have, because when you're starting your own business - every skill counts for something.
Reading over what I've written, it might seem that I'm trying to push you into starting up an online business. I'm not. But I am predicting, without any hesitation, that in the next few years we're going to see an explosion of growth on the internet in terms of new one person businesses and I'm also suggesting that if anyone looks behind who is fueling that growth, they won't find a host of bright-eyed twenty somethings behind it. They're find their somewhat jaded parents, some of whom are going to get a second chance to be bright eyed kids again and that's kind of cool.
About the Author:
By Louise Collins, author of Start Up Mistakes, what every small business start up needs to know.
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