For your home-based business to succeed, consider these tips

MANILA, Philippines — Many Filipinos have taken the route to entrepreneurship to cope with widespread layoffs and pay cuts that have been persisting even months after nationwide pandemic lockdowns.

To keep paying the bills and other necessities, some opted to get creative in the kitchen and sell goodies, others started offering face masks, workout equipment, loungewear and other things online.

If you’re looking to start a business venture during this time, wealth coach Chinkee Tan strongly suggests that you do it online.

“That’s how people transact right now. That’s how people order stuff because of this pandemic,” he said in an exclusive interview with Philstar.com.

“The buying habits and patterns of people have already changed. They don’t want to get out and be exposed just to physically buy products,” he said .

Choosing a product or service to launch

For Tan, there are three important factors to consider in starting a microbusiness during a crisis:

1. It has to be essential.

“It needs to belong to the food category or health and wellness. It’s really booming—Vitamin C, anything that boosts the immune system,” Tan said.

Consumers' budget for eating out and traveling has been transferred to food, medicines, vitamins and other essentials. “Anything that deals with PPEs, face masks, sanitation mats, face shields—that’s a growing industry.”

2. Online marketing is a must.

“Whether you’re an SME or a big corporation—it’s all digital. There are so many eyeballs right now, people are trapped, people are using online."

3. Make sure you can deliver your products.

“Provide your customers the safety and convenience they need every time they buy from you,” he added.

4. Stand out.

With the presence of a variety of online brands at present, it’s important to be different. After all, the pandemic seems to have changed all the rules.

“It changed the way we do things, changed the way we market, changed the way we live,” Tan said.

Truly, now’s an exciting time to reinvent. “I always tell people that the world used to be round but right now, the world is square and you cannot put a round ball inside a square box. You really have to think out of the box if you want to survive these times and this economy.”

Essentials in running a home-based microbusiness

When your online business is up and running, Tan recommends keeping these two tips in mind:

1. Know how to manage your cash flow and the difference between profit and sales. Compare your input vs output for the day using a notebook and pen or an Excel file.

“Minsan, ang problema sa SMEs ay not only lack of knowledge but also lack of discipline,” Tan mused. “Napaghahalo nila yung pera kaya nalulugi. Hindi sila nalulugi dahil wala silang benta; nalulugi sila dahil naubos na din nila ang puhunan.”

2. Set aside at least three to six months of operating expenses on top of your capital expenditure.

“It doesn’t mean to say that you transacted, you will immediately be profitable,” the wealth coach said. “What if you’re not profitable for three months? You will immediately close.”