You've decided to start a home based business.

Congratulations! and welcome to the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship.

While there is a lot to learn, your efforts will pay off!  The thrill of watching your business grow, the freedom and flexibility to set your own hours, and the possibilities of financial rewards are all wonderful reasons to start your own home based business.

Now that you've decided to start your business, you might be wondering "How can I get it off to the perfect start?" These tips will help:

1) Set up a separate working space in your home. It doesn't matter if this is a small bedroom, one part of the garage, or a corner of the living room. The important thing is to have space that is designated as your working area only. This will give you the space you need to build your dream.

2) Stock your working space with materials. This sounds basic but one element of success is that you have easy access to the tools, materials, and other resources you need. Keeping everything close by keeps you from wasting time searching for it, so this can be considered a time management strategy as well.

3) Define your business. What days and hours will you work? When and how will you market your business? When will you provide services or products to clients? How will you keep all of this straight? Write out a weekly plan with these items addressed and it will help to keep you on track.

4) Balance action with planning. One of the most common pitfalls to successful entrepreneurship is getting caught up in action without enough planning. This means that you confuse "being busy" with "working on important projects."  I know I've done that plenty of times myself!  The best thing you can do is identify your next three work-related goals and then work backwards to create action plans to reach them. Once you have the plan, then it's time to take the action.

5) Network, Network, Network! One of the fastest ways to grow any business is to make connections with other people. Be sure to share your passion and enthusiasm with others at every opportunity. Let people know who you are and what you offer. Remember, people can't buy if they don't know you're selling. Network through yahoogroups, MSN communities, MySpace or other online forums. If you work mainly offline, join some community business groups and introduce your new business.  You can donate products or services to fundraisers, raffles and give-aways to get your home business noticed.

6) Hold a professional image. If you want to be treated as a professional, present that kind of image. Set up a separate bank account for your home business. Install a separate phone and fax line. Get an 800 number (I use Opex communications for mine and it is CHEAP!) If you would like a referral to Opex, please feel free to contact me.  Also create professional marketing materials. Be pleasant in all your customer facing interactions. Basically, just be someone people want to do business with.

7) Automate your business as much as you can. You are just one person (right now) and might have a lot of extra time to take care of all the details. This won't work into the future as you get busier and busier. It's best to set up automatic systems and processes right from the start to free up your time to concentrate on the most profitable activities.  I use Aweber to do my email customer follow up and to send out announcements to a batch of customers. This has saved me a ton of time and it has been the best thing I have added to my home business resources in a long time!

These seven tips should get your home business growing in the right direction. I wish you the best of luck! Remember, it takes time and dedication, but it is worth every minute of it when you finally see the end result.