Starting Your Small Business - Full Time Job Vs. Part Time Business

"Wages earn you a living - profits make you a fortune."
This post is part of an power packed information series Starting Your Small Business.


If you are interested in running your own business, but are not yet ready to make a full-time commitment, starting a part-time business is a better approach than starting a business as a hobby. The difference between a part-time business and a full-time business is the extent of the commitment. Starting a part-time business is different from running a hobby business because you commit to a part-time business whatever resources—time, energy, money, etc.—that you have available and that are necessary to get the business up and running.

Even though you are running a business on a part time basis, make sure that the rates you charge for your goods and services are comparable to those of your competitors. There are several reasons for this.
The quality of these goods and services are at least as good as or even better than your competitors’. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t even consider offering them for sale, would you? Since they are comparable, why should they be offered at a lower cost? To offer them at a lower cost might suggest that you and your business are not quite as good as the competition.

Running a part-time business is a no-lose scenario. If you start the business on a part-time basis and it becomes successful enough that you are prepared to operate it full time...congratulations! You are off and
rolling. If, however, you gave it your best shot and found out it’s not what you want to do, no problem—
you still have your regular job to fall back on.

A very good tip on part-time business:

"In a part-time business, compete on the basis of value instead of cost."


Anyone can attract business by offering lower prices. Charging competitive prices can show how
successful you might be in running your own business. If you offer deeply discounted rates, you don’t
know if clients will continue to deal with you when you start charging the rates you need to survive over
the long term. On the other hand, if you charge market rates and customers continue to come back
to you, you can expect to succeed over the long term.


Read more of the series Starting Your Small Business.