When I started my first direct sales business from home, I remember meeting with a business mentor. She seemed to have it all. She was extremely wealthy very successful. Her teenage daughters seemed to be well-adjusted and bright. She had been a sales consultant and stay-at-home mom for over twenty years. Clearly, she was able to balance her work and home-life. (At least that’s how it appeared).
Many home-business companies use the phrase “part-time hours, full-time pay” in their advertisements. Is this really possible? I always wondered how many hours per week the most successful at-home business people put into their work. Twenty? Thirty? Forty? Sixty? I was fairly successful in my previous direct sales career and while I never sat down to track my hours, I certainly put in more hours than I’d planned to when I started.
When I hit my breaking point a few months ago and decided to throw in the towel on my direct selling business, I realized that in order to maintain the same level of success I’d been having I would have to continue to devote more and more hours to my business at the expense of my family. That was not a choice I was willing to make.
So, how successful do you want to be? Have you given it any thought? If you are just starting out, you should. Personally, I don’t believe the ads that promote part-time hours. I know too many successful work-at-home moms who are working upwards of forty hours per week from home just to pay the bills.
Have you considered how many hours you are willing to work? When I started out, I simply wanted to earn $500 per month. As I started to work longer hours (and experience levels of success) the $500 turned into $800 which turned into $1000 which turned into $2000 per month. I’d quickly forgotten why I decided to work from home in the first place.
Rather than setting a dollar figure, perhaps you should set your goals based upon the number of hours you are willing to work. Chances are, if you work consistently during those hours your paychecks will go up. On the other hand, if you shoot for a dollar figure, you will end up devoting more hours to your business and less to your family. I doubt that is what any of us want.
By the way, I was talking with a friend about my decision to quit my business the other day. I told her about my mentor (who my friend knew well). “Boy, I wish I could have made it work like ‘Sally’ did”, I said. My friend replied… “Traci, she is the last person who should have been mentoring you. She hardly spent any time with her kids. She was constantly working”.
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