It's all down to discipline

By ELLEN READ

Discipline is the hardest thing about working from home, says Heather Douglas of Home Business New Zealand.

She should know - Douglas runs the operation from a front room in her Devonport villa.

The discipline involves both sticking to work while you are at home and then sticking to home when work is over for the day or week, she says. While it gets easier with practice, after several years Douglas still has to watch herself.

The flipside is the flexibility and saved travelling time.

"Realistically, though, there's not a lot of choice about being disciplined if you take your work seriously," Douglas says. If you don't do it, there's no one else to pick up the slack.

Douglas and business partner Vicki Fowler established Home Business New Zealand in early 2000 as a web-based resource and community for people working from home.

Ninety per cent of what happens with the company takes place on the free website - www.homebizbuzz.co.nz - as this is the best way to reach the widespread and often isolated home business community.

"It's an efficient way to reach them at their desktop and it means that with the least amount of resources we can provide the most information," Douglas said.

The services and information have grown exponentially since the site was established, as has the awareness of home-based businesses.

This week is the country's second Home Business Week, aimed at raising the profile and credibility of the 200,000 home businesses.

They represent a growing sector of the economy - a recent report shows small business growing faster than the economy as a whole.

The trend to working from home is fuelled by cost-effective technology, ready access to information over the internet, demand for lifestyle, corporate downsizing, traffic problems, tax advantages and, of course, the New Zealand entrepreneurial spirit.

The Home Business New Zealand website is free to access, with the money coming from sponsorship, advertising and the site's online shop.

With Douglas the only employee, the company uses a lot of outside contractors - often home-based themselves - for things such as design and IT work.

One of the biggest challenges home businesses face is marketing, Douglas says. Social and professional isolation can also be a challenge.

To address this, homebizbuzz has forums and live chat sessions and a regular free newsletter. There is also an extensive directory of home-based businesses.

"Being home-based ourselves means we know a lot of the challenges," says Douglas, whose background is in media and communications.

One of her hardest tasks has been learning the e-commerce aspect of the site.

"E-commerce is definitely a big learning curve. We feel we've put a toe in the water and are overcoming some of the challenges," she says.

While Home Business New Zealand doesn't have the resources to act as a lobby group to central or local government, Douglas hopes it can be a voice for the country's home businesses.

Homebizbuzz