How to make a swtich from contracting to home business

[Gulliver]

Hi Guys,

I'm in the process of transitioning from contracting to home business. It's not easy.

My home business already earns the 20% of what I would need. One of the home business project is ebay and it could be potentially boosted in Dec due to xmas, other project are web maintenance and SEO and an eshop selling templates so these are not effected positively by the holidays.

My contracting business is an IT consulting business which requires me to be on site. It runs well, earns well but requires all my time when I'm doing a project.

Usually I had 2-3 week contracts, then 2-3 week working on home business. Obviously this cycle was not helpful for setting up the home business. for 2-3 weeks I was not able to work on home biz and so it suffered every time. Plus the mental switch also takes time. But I liked that at least every month I had the chance to work on my home biz. It kept it alive.

Now I have a longer 3 months contract and they want to extend it 5 months. The return commute is 3 hours door to door. Obviously, my home business suffered. I had to cease ebay trading as I have no capacity next to this contract. Only catching up with what I can at the weekend for the other businesses. I could take it an opportunity to earn a bigger chunk of money and then take off 9 months for home business?

The other thing I was thinking of is finding a job or part time job where I live. if I could reduce the 3 hours commute that would give me some time to do my home biz. Yes, I would earn much less and hate being employed but want to switch to my home business. And I'm ready to sacrifice. Part time job would be maybe better as my household income is also contributed by my wife. So if we wanted to keep it little tight a part time job would be sort of enough especially as my home biz is already generating 20% income.

What I really need to make home business working is time - which is scarce, and contracting - home business cycle kills it.

Any ideas or tips welcome.

[chasesfish]

You're saying switching from contracting.

What type of work?  It sounds like you're a site/project manager and have to go be on site for months at a time.  Whats your contracting background, is it hands on experience?  If its GC type work, there are plenty of small options you could open up yourself without too much trouble.  Taking a few project management assignments on very small jobs plus your ebay job should allow a lot of freedom

[Gulliver]

You're saying switching from contracting.

What type of work?  It sounds like you're a site/project manager and have to go be on site for months at a time.  Whats your contracting background, is it hands on experience?  If its GC type work, there are plenty of small options you could open up yourself without too much trouble.  Taking a few project management assignments on very small jobs plus your ebay job should allow a lot of freedom

My contracting business is an IT consulting business which requires me to be on site. It runs well, earns well but requires all my time when I'm doing a project.

[the fixer]

I've experimented with part-time jobs while self employed. The main benefit to me was that it helped give me a regular routine that otherwise takes a lot of discipline to have if you're working from home.

The web maintenance part of your home business could be expanded rather easily. Are you on freelancing websites like oDesk, Freelancer, Guru? They'll take a percentage of what you make per hour and you're competing with people in parts of the world that think $20/hour is a lot of money, but you can find clients and build a reputation.

Given the above, I would suggest you take some time off to work on growing your home business. For the first couple weeks focus as much time as possible on business development, and set a goal for yourself like "line up $X/week in revenue." If you fail to meet the goal, it might be wise to find a 2 day/week part-time job doing something totally unrelated to computers that you still enjoy. It will give you a little bit of income certainty, a way to get outside and work with people, and might improve your time management on the other days of the week.

[Gulliver]

I've experimented with part-time jobs while self employed. The main benefit to me was that it helped give me a regular routine that otherwise takes a lot of discipline to have if you're working from home.

The web maintenance part of your home business could be expanded rather easily. Are you on freelancing websites like oDesk, Freelancer, Guru? They'll take a percentage of what you make per hour and you're competing with people in parts of the world that think $20/hour is a lot of money, but you can find clients and build a reputation.

Given the above, I would suggest you take some time off to work on growing your home business. For the first couple weeks focus as much time as possible on business development, and set a goal for yourself like "line up $X/week in revenue." If you fail to meet the goal, it might be wise to find a 2 day/week part-time job doing something totally unrelated to computers that you still enjoy. It will give you a little bit of income certainty, a way to get outside and work with people, and might improve your time management on the other days of the week.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I don't really have trouble to stick to a regular routine even when working at home. So part time job would not help me in that. Contracting pays me about 4x more than a regular salary, so that's why I'm doing it instead of generally being employed.