Running a small business from home: 5 professional tips

(Last Updated On: May 18, 2023)

Over 50% of small businesses today are based out of home. Why? Running a small business from home means better tax incentives, saving money on the commute and renting an office building. Even better, you get the liberty to work in your own space.

But running a small business from home is not for everyone. Many still prefer or are accustomed to the hustle and corporate feel of an office, because home is for other activities like rest, family time and TV.

So, if you are working from home during this tough time, do not worry.

Benefits of runnings a small business from home

Before we head to the tips on running a small business, let us reassure ourselves on why this is a good idea.

1. Time-saving: If you, like many city dwellers, spend a ton of time sitting in traffic. The average commuter spends over 10 hours per week in traffic. Running your own business from home saves you the time you could otherwise spend meeting vendors or network.
2. Cost-saving: Pretty obvious right? When you start your own business, it is advisable to test run it from home, or any space of your choice for a few months, before you rent out an office space.
3. Less Stress: With the right organisational schedule, you will feel less stressed about what’s going on at home, if you learn to balance work and home responsibilities out of a common space.
4. Tax benefits: You can deduct a part of your home’s operating and depreciation expenses on your home as business expenses. This can be a percentage of your mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities, and/or the expenses of household maintenance.

Tips to run a small business from home

Bank on low-cost online software:

If you are saving money on personnel when you start your small business from home, invest it instead into your online management tools. For example, let’s say you have a home business, you still need a team to help you, or in this case tools.

For accounting – Profitbooks

Profitbooks is a simple cloud computing accountancy SaaS tool that helps you create custom invoices, manage inventory and track expenses without having any accounting knowledge. Your small business must keep track of planning, budgeting, forecasting, core accounting, billing, and invoicing, and time tracking.

ProfitBooks is a fast-growing tool and simple to use. It lets you create beautiful invoices, track expenses and manage inventory without any accounting knowledge.

You can easily share the transaction data with your accountant/vendors. 

P.S: If you are curious to know more about accounting, you are in luck. We conducted a LIVE webinar recently with the Co-founder of the company! If you want to know a little more about accounting, before you invest in the software, watch the video.

For email marketing – Mailchimp

You need to send emails to your clients and customers. More than a tool, Mailchimp acts as a good channel to redirect your customers to your online forums.  Email is not dead. If you have a list of customers and you have their emails, think about creating a monthly newsletter. You can use free or paid tools to personalize your messages like Drip and MailChimp.

Luckily, if you have an Instamojo account, you can take care of the email community using Instamojo’s MailChimp. Watch how you can use it in the video below:

For organisation management – Slack

If you have a small team to manage for your business, Slack is one of the best project management tools you can use. For a short monthly fee, you can keep track of all your business projects, schedule timings and also keep in touch with your team members round the clock.

For payments and invoices – Instamojo

If your business needs to collect payments online, Instamojo offers payments gateways services at a minimum cost to your company. If you are running your small business from home, a trusted payment gateway is necessary to ensure you get your payouts on time. You can also generate invoices on Instamojo, ship your products to customers using mojoXpress and more.

For customer relationship management  – Syrow

Syrow is a top customer service outsourcing SaaS company. What sets Syrow apart from the rest of the customer support companies out there?

The company’s success in this venture is largely due to a unique and futuristic AI + Human-based approach towards customer care. If you are looking for a futuristic approach to taking care of your customers, sign up.

For social media scheduling – Buffer

Buffer works as both a scheduling and social media analytical tool.  The tool comes as both Free and paid, depending on what plan you opt for. Buffer suggests the best time for marketers to schedule or publish their social media posts.

Network aggressively online

This is your opportunity to get online and hunt for potential networking groups. Apart from joining Facebook groups of entrepreneurs who conduct businesses like yours, you can also sell online. For example, Sangeetha, an Instamojo small business owner, sells sarges via Facebook LIVE. She uploads videos where she displays sarges of different kalamkari styles and allows customers to buy them through Instamojo.

Simple, yet effective.  If you do not have the funds to open a store yet, you can use Instamojo’s online store to sell your products. This brings us to our next point.

Get your products/services on a multi-purpose platform

Setting up a small business rule number 1 – get your business online. That means to get a brand presence. Got a name for your business? A logo? A social media handle? A website? Set it all up. Now what? Start selling.

If you want to spend wisely, get on a platform that allows you to sell your products with minimal upfront investment – like the Instamojo online store. It’s a plug and play method and allows you to start selling online quickly.

Keep cash flow positive

Be thrifty with your cash flow. As a solo entrepreneur working from home, every paisa must be counted even more strictly. If you need to handle cash flow effectively, don’t worry – we have the whole ebook you can download for free.

You can also: create an emergency fund for your business.

Keep a timetable

And also a checklist. We wondered if this sounds too preachy but turns out over 72% of small businesses today do not make it past 3 years. One of the main reasons? The inability to push past competition. You might be home, but you are not safe from the outside world of 1 million startups with your idea.

But that should not scare you. Several entrepreneurs refrain from working from home due to the fear that they could feel lethargic to work from home. Running a home business can prove tricky for your energy. You are in your comfort zone after all. So it helps to keep a checklist, and a timetable as you would in your office space.

“Each morning, before you begin work, write down the items that you need to accomplish by the end of your day. It helps to rate each item according to priority, from high to low. Even if you don’t complete your list, the high priority items will get done first. Remember, you can’t blame unfinished work on your co-workers!” – Franklin Antoian, IBodyFit.com

Running a small business from home is more than answering calls whilst holding your toddler in your lap. It is a good lesson in management and gives you a more solid footing for when you are ready to get out there.

On an important note, a lot of us are working from home at this time. Remember to keep a schedule, follow it thoroughly and take care of your health. If your business ever needs a platform that makes work just a little easier for you, check out how we can help you.

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