I am sure most moms have once dreamt of working from home but don’t know. If you are one of them, I am here to help you to understand it.

1. Do what you love. Since you are going to devote a lot of time and energy into starting a business and building it into a successful enterprise, it’s really important that you truly enjoy what you do.  Use the problems you have experienced at past jobs, or in life in general, to develop an entrepreneurial idea.
2. Know your target market. What problems do they have, how can you provide a solution.  Targeting your market makes it easier to design your products or services to meet consumer needs.
3. Get clients or customers first. Don’t wait until your officially up and running to get prospects in the door. You want to test the waters and make sure your target market exists and this is what you want to do.
4. Find a mentor or coach. Ask friends, family and colleagues. Contact successful entrepreneurs and find a mentor who you respect and who has already achieved what you want to do.  
5. The Money and the Plan. Save up if you have to. Approach potential investors and lenders. Figure out your financial fall-back plan.
6. Outsource, Outsource, Outsource. Over the last 10 years outsourcing has become critical to the success of millions of small businesses around the world. Many start up’s have obtained substantial growth in a short time once they started to outsource.  

As a living testimony, I am a proud work at home mom for many years and I have never regretted joining this noble field. I enjoy creating my wealth while working on projects for my clients from a conducive home environment as my own boss. You can also be one as long as you have self discipline, determination and focus on what you need to achieve in your life.

Ready to turbo charge your business? Join Lucinda Cross of Corporate Mom DropOuts along with Traci Bisson the founder of “The Mom Entrepreneur who are currently sponsoring a Business Baby Shower Contest to celebrate entrepreneurial moms .

A good way to increase profits, reduce risk and broaden your market is by joining forces with a competitor. Maybe not all the time but a project or two may be a good way for both of you to grow your businesses and to see if a long-term association is worthwhile. If you have multiple businesses, the joint venture may be just one of those businesses, and the others you continue to run on your own. For instance, if you’re both life coaches, you can offer more seminars in more places for mutual benefit. A shared company name will also help to brand your services.

However, be careful. Make sure the venture is on an equal footing. It’s probably a good idea to get a legal agreement that clarifies exactly what is shared and who is boss, things like that. A legal document gives you the way in and the way out, if you need to end the venture.

It’s imperative that there’s a business plan for the venture. The plan should detail what the goals are and how you’re going to reach them together. You can’t be working at cross purposes if you want to succeed.

Of course, the most important factor in a joint venture is trust. Without mutual trust and openness what could have been a successful venture (the usual result of a joint venture is success) will fall flat on its face. PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS.

Just because you decide something has to change in your business or you finally decide to actually take the steps to change doesn’t mean you know how to do it. It is learning, then, putting the knowledge to work that leads to change. There are eight stages to learning to change. Use them as a framework and you will begin to see the transformation.

1. Resisting change. I began talking about going into business for myself for five years before taking the appropriate steps. I resisted change for a while. I refrained from learning and doing what was necessary to start my own business. Complacency and ingratitude for my many gifts, and being creative without driving changes were limiting my success.

2. Accepting change and new values. Eventually, I knew I needed to accept the value of freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. I needed faith and courage to replace my fear, and gratitude to become proactive.

3. Reflecting and self-dialogue. This stage leads to making decisions and taking action. It can last days, weeks, months or – in my case – even years.

4. Demonstrating values in behavior. Freedom and responsibility were the two main values for me. In this stage, it is normal for the behaviors demonstrating the values to be done inconsistently. For me, that meant that my marketing efforts were inconsistent. Thus, the results were inconsistent. This is part of the learning process. Experience moves knowledge from the head to the heart and always involves some missteps.

5. Evaluating oneself. I developed a system for tracking my business activity and monitoring each aspect weekly. This data was a way of evaluating my performance against my goals. What mattered was not whether I hit my goals, but that I was doing the activities and process. Monitoring my activities kept me motivated, which in turn, kept me on track for developing my business.

6. Developing supportive relationships. I developed supportive relationships with people who could help me learn and support my development. I was helped by colleagues who served as my coach and mentors. I developed relationships with clients and prospects. I developed relationships with people less experienced then me who I could coach and mentor. Through these relationships, I evolved and grew. As a result of my personal growth, my business grew.

7. Increasing knowledge and understanding. This stage is a natural progression from the previous six. Knowledge and understanding will eventually come.

8. Performing behaviors consistently. Finally, the change is complete.

If you’re ready to make the change take the necessary steps by signing up for the Business Baby Shower Contest, and be connected and committed to creating something great.