--Oliver Wendell Holmes

There are many choices to make as you embark on choosing a home business. How do you sift through the amazing number of opportunities out there? And, how do you know whether a possible home based business is the right type of business for you?

To get started, I suggest taking a quick inventory of your own knowledge, skills and interests before you make your choice:

1. Broadly speaking, are you more of a people person, machine person or information person?

In other words, if you were sent away to an isolated island for a year and could only choose to take one "companion", would it be a person, your toolbox or a box of books (or i-Pod or Kindle)?

2. What's on your list of topics you know something about, would be happy to learn more about, and enjoy talking about to other people?

3. What do you know how to do that is practical and you would enjoy helping other people learn to do?

4. Do you consider yourself more of a:

• technician (know how to do something really well),
  
• manager (really good at organizing processes and things to make something work),
  
• or leader (have a vision of the future and want to communicate that with others to keep them focused and motivated)?

Knowing a bit about yourself and the strengths and challenges you bring to choosing the right type of home business is invaluable. To explore more about the fit between you and any type of business you are considering, try this exercise, no writing:

Ask yourself: Why is someone with my talents, background, strengths, skills, knowledge.....a strong candidate for building this type of home business?

What got me thinking of you (entrepreneur with a new home business) today, though, was these words:

"Nothing happens in your life until you make a decision. So make one. Decide you are ready to start a business at home. Find a spot in your house. Pick a day on your calendar and get started."

If you haven't started making your home business dream a reality, what's holding you back?

Have no idea what kind of business to start? That's okay. Pick TODAY as your start date, make a one page plan and put "Research" at the top of your list of important things to do. Find something that gets you jazzed and doesn't require you to sign away your home or first born child, and just get started.

Here's some more advice from David Bach:

"But just get started. A cause set in motion creates action that begets results." (p. 202, Start Late, Finish Rich)

What are your personality strengths -- and which entrepreneurial attributes do you need to strengthen while you build and market your home based business? 

Excerpt from “Age of the Entrepreneur”

"Today, it's risky to work for a corporation!

"Today, it's far more sensible to go to work for yourself.

"We're in the midst of a boom in home-based businesses, and it shows no sign of slowing. More than one out of every eight U.S. households contains a home-based business. In 2000, more than 50 percent of all small firms were home-based businesses, and they generated about 10 percent of the nation's entire economic receipts."

Paul Zane Pilzner is a world-renowned economist, multimillionaire entrepreneur, college professor and author of seven best-selling books. Paul Zane Pilzner contributed the article, "The Age of the Entreprenuer" (link to it above), to an edition of Success From Home Magazine. You can purchase Success From Home Magazine at newstands and bookstores like Barnes & Noble, Borders and B.Dalton.