Work at Home Businesses Versus Work at Home Jobs

Is a work at home business better than a work at home job? You bet. Hands down. But each option has pros and cons. It may be that for right now you're just not ready to start a work at home business. Its a big committment. That's OK. But if you're dedicated, smart and willing to work harder than most, settling for a work at home job could be selling yourself short.

Two Best Reasons To Start a Work At Home Business

1) Business owners build equity in their business. Work at home employees just get a weekly paycheck. If you take a work at home job, you'll have to continue working, hour by hour, as long as you want the money to come in. When you finally quit your work at home job, the paychecks will stop. If you can start a work at home business, you'll not only have a steady income once it is up and running, but you'll have the option to sell your business when the day comes that you no longer want to run it.

Some people launch and grow their businesses with the goal of selling them later; others just get their business started and then decide, say, five years later that they want to get out. But getting $250,000 for your work at home business after five years of building it beats the pants off just calling your boss and giving two weeks notice. No employer gives that kind of retirement bonus!

2) Business owners hire people. Work at home employees have to do the work themselves. As a business owner you can do whatever you like whenever you like- so long as its profitable. In many cases your business will actually do better the less you work in it, and the more you work on it. Viewed this way, your real job as the boss is to create systems for getting things done, complete with bullet-proof instructions so people can almost train themselves. As soon as each work-flow system is created and running smoothly, the owner (you!) finds someone to follow the directions. Then that new hire picks up the job you used to do, and you either take a break or continue building the company and its profits.

Two Reasons To Just Find A Work At Home Job

1) Risk. This is the big factor. Most businesses fail. There are actions you can take to radically improve your business's chances of success (like writing a detailed, real-world business plan and interviewing 3-5 business owners in the same industry you want to go into), but no business plan is perfect. By sticking with a simple work at home job, you can rely on that paycheck and let someone else worry about how that paycheck gets paid.

2) More Work. Despite the view that the boss taking it easy in his office while his employees slave away, the business owner may work harder than anyone. The employees, after all, get to go home. The boss may have to keep working until after 10. There's no making excuses if you're the owner - you must either hire somebody to deal with it, or deal with it yourself.

This is the flip side of the benefit of not having to do all the work - you can delegate it all out, but there's an incredible amount of work to do, and most of it all needs to be done all at once. If you aren't someone who's comfortable "changing gears" or "wearing many hats", you either need a flawless business plan (plus the will and money to execute it), or you need to realize that working at home as an employee might best for you. As I've mentioned, having a business has more benefits, but if getting to those benefits risks you working yourself to death, stick with a work at home job.

About The Author Pamella Neely writes about work at home jobs for www.WorkAtHomeABCs.com and other sites. She's successfully worked at home for three years, and now makes significantly more working at home than she ever did in an office.