Home-based business helpers

There are several ways of getting someone to help you manage all the tasks of being a home-based business owner.

- If household chores take a back seat to work when the office is at home, hire a housekeeper, nanny, cook or other household help so you can concentrate on your business.

- If running the business requires too many hats, hire another home-based or small business owner to handle some of the "chores" you either don't like to do or don't have the skills to handle (like bookkeeping or marketing).

Think you can't afford the help? Think of it this way: Focus on what you do best and what you can charge for. If you spend five hours struggling with balancing your checkbook or developing a marketing letter, and your billing rate is $75 per hour, you have lost about $375. If a bookkeeper charges $40 per hour to balance your checkbook and it takes them 1.5 hours to do so, you've just saved more than $300. It is at least time you could have spent marketing new prospects increasing your chances of making more money.