Home based travel business

The seven commandments of home based travel business.

Having your own small business, isnt too far fetched a dream for anyone today. Tremendous number of opportunities to start on your own home based business will spur up once you start your search. And one extremely interesting and lucrative trade that is welcoming newcomers is the travel industry.

The industry has now got a lot of potential for the business seekers and in fact has done a lot of good to the people who have entered the waters already. If you are getting keen on entering the industry to start up your small home based travel business then you are on the right page, as we will give you seven great points to ponder and work on. And we decided to address these as commandments, because we know if you follow these in full faith you are bound to meet up with success in your new venture.

Get informed: use all your possible resources to get every bit of information on the travel business and home based travel business. Understand the concept of the business and all the advantages, drawbacks and challenges involved. Get hold of some good business start up guide books, it will be better to get those specifically targeted at starting a home based travel business. The more you are well versed with the information on the topic, you will be better able to handle situations and will be able to cut down costs, increase profits and get the best out of your business.

Know the rules of the game: there are lots of technicalities and legal formalities which you must complete before you get into action with your business. Knowing well about them and handling them well in time will ensure no trouble later on. In the US you will come across various zoning restrictions that must be complied with before you set up a home based travel business. You may also be required to get a permit from the local authorities on starting up the business. It is quite possible that your state may require you to sign up with the travel seller registration programs. You can have all the details about the legal complications and requirements from the office of the attorney general of your respective state. You could even get the information from certain government and travel trade related websites. The four areas of concern are zoning laws, permit requirements, registrations and insurance.

Office: spend some money and have a part of your home converted into an office. Do up the office well to make it comfortable and create an ambience which will make the place look more professional. The basic things you will require are an office table, some comfortable chairs, computer with printer, scanner and internet access, phone, waiting couch, file storage. The more interest you take in arranging these things will certainly make a difference, as all these with the entire presentation of the place will make an impression on your customers. Also choose that part of the house where the outside disturbance and noise will make the lease effect.

Get together: as this will be a home based travel business you certainly can go ahead and have your family members involved in it. Discuss your plans with the family and take decisions after taking into consideration their views as well. Getting the family involved will help save money as you need not hire someone from outside. Also the work pressure gets divided and you will have a more efficient business.

Spread the word: even before starting the business you must start letting your friends, neighbors, relations and acquaintances know that you are starting up a travel business from your home. Dont keep it a secret, let as many people know about it as possible, because some of them may get you business. The more the word about your business spreads, the more will be the number of customers entering your office. And as at the beginning you would be having scarce funds it will be the best thing to advertise by word of mouth.

Free is the thing: who in this world does not love the word free. Add the word free to anything and you can have loads of people showing interest. Travelers are indeed no exception; they too love offers which have a lot of free stuff added to it. You can have small items bearing your logo givenm off as free gifts, which will serve to purposes. One, this will leave the customer pleased and two, the free gift will advertise for you as it has your logo onto it, this could even help get repeat business from the same customer. You could have various free things added to the offer to give the customer a fuller felling.

Get on the net: if you have still not thought about it, its time you must start thinking on the issue of getting online with your business. When you are on the web you have more people who would know about your business and so more customers for you. Get a well designed website made for your business with facilities for online bookings and payments. So you will save a lot of time while you may have a more global reach. So you are not to depend solely on the local business. Use internet marketing to have more people coming to your site. Advertising on the net is much simpler and costs very low as compared to all traditional methods of advertising. You can also have a periodically sent newsletter.

Just follow the seven commandments in entirety and you will have a successfully running small home based travel business.