Check With Municipality Before Starting a Home Business
Question: Can I have a business telephone in my home? There would be no signs in my front yard and no increase in either pedestrian or automotive traffic.
--Jim Crawford, Llano, Calif.
Answer: Home-based businesses are becoming more popular and most local governments are increasingly favorable to them. So, if there’s no outward impact from your home business, most cities will allow you to have an office in your home, including a business telephone line.
Home businesses are growing quickly, although it is hard to quantify how much, given the standard statistics that are reported. One indicator that people are working in different ways is the growing gap between “total civilian employment,” which comes from a survey done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the non-farm employment data reported by the California Employment Development Department.
Up until the late 1980s, these two statistics tracked each other fairly closely, but in recent years they have diverged significantly, probably because the BLS survey now catches home-based businesses and the EDD survey does not.
The basic rule, before starting any business, is to check with your local city clerk’s office to make sure you won’t be violating any zoning regulations or other laws. Some cities now publish information packets on starting a business that will bring you up to speed on regulations and offer you some good local discounts and business contacts. If you live in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County or another Southern California county, call the county clerk’s office for details on home businesses.
--Jack Kyser, chief economist,
Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
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Q: I have several ideas that I toss around frequently in my head but am at a loss to know how to begin working on them. One initial question I have is advertising. What is the best way to advertise with very limited funds when one basically wants to test the market and see if the item creates any interest? Also, is it feasible to get into a variety of unrelated products that one wishes to market and sell?
--Connie Huckaby,
Atascadero, Calif.
A: First off, you certainly don’t want to spend the money and time creating and advertising a product unless you are very certain that there will be substantial interest in it. You have to make sure there’s somebody who really wants to buy your product long before you think about advertising it.
Do some test marketing--and make it as objective as possible. You can show your product to friends, relatives and neighbors and they will likely praise it and say they would buy it--whether they really would or not--rather than risk offending you. It’s better to hook up with your local Chamber of Commerce or a business networking group and ask if you can give out free samples or literature at an upcoming event. You’ll be more likely to get unbiased opinions about your product from people you don’t know.
If you have the funds, attend a trade show that would be applicable to your product line and get a feel for how people respond to your item by talking with them. Or find someone with a complementary product and see if you can piggyback with them to give away free samples of your product when they sell theirs.
Once you’ve got the assurance that there is interest in this product, think about your target market. Who are the people who would buy this product? What do they look at, read and listen to? If they are in a particular geographic location, investigate advertising in local publications or on local cable television in the area that would reach them.
If the product appeals to a particular profession, think about an ad in a professional journal or trade magazine that serves that profession. At this point, I think the Internet is too big and too broad to be of much help to a small company launching a brand-new product.
Again, once you know your target market, you can buy a mailing list and do some direct-mail pieces, sending your advertisement directly to the people who are theoretically interested in buying your product.
As for working on several products simultaneously, that would be very difficult to do unless the products are closely related or you have a large organization behind you. Just launching one product is an enormously complicated and expensive task for most small companies. If you’re trying to get two or three unrelated products off the ground, you’ll come across as terribly scattered and you won’t be able to give any one product the proper resources.
Once you successfully get one product up and running, and you feel like you’re good at what you’re doing, then you can try to sell unrelated things.
--Sylvia Rose, Client/Member
Services, Santa Monica
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If you have a question about how to start or operate a small business, mail it to Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016, or e-mail it to kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. The column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.
