As you may know by now, I have a few different home based businesses. The reason for this is simple – I do not want to put all of my eggs in one basket. In today’s economy, an important survival skill for the home based business owner is the ability to draw on his or her multiple talents and offer a variety of products and/or services through one or several home based businesses.
Some home based businesses may lend themselves well to encompassing a variety of products and services under one business name. Others do not. For example, the reason that I have multiple businesses is that one of my businesses is a small, solo law practice. It would not make sense for me to say on a business card, web site, or other piece of information about myself and my businesses, “Lawyer, Freelance Writer, and Baker-For-Hire”. Whether your multifaceted business activities are all part of one business or several smaller ones, the advantages are the same.
The first and most obvious advantage of providing multiple products and/or services is an economic one. Demand for every product and every service is not guaranteed to be steady. If some of your products or services are selling well now, that’s great. You are bringing in money even if other products or services that you offer are not selling as well. Imagine what trouble you would be in if you had based your business around just one of those products or services that is not doing very well right now. Also, who knows what will happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Consumers want different things at different times, so today’s hot seller may be tomorrow’s slow mover, and vice versa. Offering an array of products and/or services helps to ensure that you are always making some money.
Another less obvious but still important benefit to having multiple business activities is that you use more of your talents. You are a unique individual with a lot to offer the world. It feels good to let yourself do more of the things that you can do instead of using just a small subset of your talents while others languish.
One note of caution: In order to avoid being unfairly labeled as a “jack of all trades, master of none”, be sure to target your marketing to your potential clients. It is more important that they each know about the specific product or service that you offer that can help them than that they know you offer all of these diverse products and services. Other than that, enjoy your multifaceted work life and the security and satisfaction that it provides.