PerfectBusiness - The Entrepreneur Network to Create Your Perfect Business

Table of Contents

Web

Contributing Authors

	Tom Severance Author of Business Start-Up Guide
ORDER NOW: Business Start-Up Guide
	Steven D. Strauss Author of The Small Business Bible
ORDER NOW: The Small Business Bible
	Stephanie Chandler Author of The Business Startup Checklist & Planning Guide
ORDER NOW: The Business Startup Checklist & Planning Guide
	Joe Kennedy Author of The Small Business Owner's Manual
ORDER NOW: The Small Business Owner's Manual

Profit Centers

If your home-based business has topped-out, if you find that you

make x number of dollars every month, month after month, then you

need a new strategy. Some of the more lucrative home-based businesses

add profit centers. Most home-based businesses, indeed, most

small businesses, make a fundamental error not long after startup. It

goes something like this: “Hey, I’m doing it! I am on my own and

making money. I successfully ditched that stupid job and started a

business.” The new entrepreneur has figured out a few ways to get

money in the door. It might be a product that moves well, an ad that

brings in business, or a niche that no one else has filled, but she figured

out something that works.

Then she stopped. Therein lies the rub. Having figured out a successful

strategy or two, the average small businessperson usually begins

to rest on their laurels. Whereas in the beginning she was probably very

creative and active, trying different plans and ideas to see what worked,

once she discovered one or two, if she is typical, that creativity and activity

ended.

One secret to longevity and continued growth, then, is to continue

to plot, plan, and implement new strategies; add more products; advertise

somewhere new; create another niche. The best small business

have not just one or two profit centers; they have multiple profit centers.

They have many different ways of attracting business and many

different facets of their business. That way, when one slows down for

whatever reason, the others continue the cash flow. Richard Branson

started Virgin Records as a small business by bartering for space above

a shoe shop in London. The record store soon begat another profit center,

a recording studio. That in turn begat another profit center, a talent

agency. More profit centers were invented: An airline, a cola, and a

phone company to name a few. Combined, all of those various profit

centers are now called The Virgin Group.

That is what you may have to do, too. By creating new profit centers,

you, too, can ensure that your home-based business will continue

to grow and prosper.