Home Based Business Opportunities - Two Types

You may be looking for home based business opportunities, but are you clear about what type you want? There are businesses that can be run from home, but still require you to go out to make a sale. These include services like office cleaning and dog walking. You don’t need a separate office or storefront location, but you do have to work outside of the home.

Then there are the home based business opportunities that are not only based at home, but can actually be run without leaving the house. Let’s take a quick look at both.

Home Based Businesses

It is nice to work from home for a variety of reasons. Even if you have to go "out in the field" to provide the products or services you sell, you still get to be home more than if you had a separate storefront or office. That means more time with family, and also means lower overhead costs. Some of the businesses that are (or can be) home based include:

Window cleaning services

Carpet cleaning

Small baked-good businesses

Delivery services

Handyman services

Though there are some product sales businesses that can be run from the house, it service-based ones that are the most common.

Home Based and in the Home

The other type of home based businesses are those that can be run from home and allow you to actually stay in the house every day. The advantages of this type are obvious. Lower costs are common, time with family is a given, and even those who have physical disabilities can operate a business from the house. This type can be further divided into internet-based and offline business. The latter includes:

Daycare

Writing for magazines

Renting rooms in your house

Telephone consulting

Customer service contracting

There are many other possibilities in that category as well. But the home based business opportunities that are most exciting to myself (and many others) are those that involve the internet. The advantages are many, including no direct contact with customers, the ability to run the business from anywhere in the country (and possibly the world), and the fact that you can often choose your hours. Some examples:

Selling e-books online

Running informational websites and getting paid for the advertising

Recommending the products and services of others for a commission

Writing articles and ages for webmasters

Selling products online (there are hundreds of businesses in this category alone)

Blogging and selling advertising on your blog

The list goes on, and most of these types of home based business opportunities give you the ultimate in flexibility and freedom. This page could have been written whenever I felt like it, for example, and from an internet café in France if I wished. And yes, I do make a good living at this.