“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” – Peter Drucker
The home based business is a critical cog that animates the modern entrepreneurial landscape. Recent research indicates an estimated 69% of US entrepreneurs start their business ventures at home. Surveys also indicate roughly a third of small businesses start operations with less than $5,000 while 58% have a seed corpus below $25,000. Significantly, the small business operator employs roughly 57 million people in the US, even as fresh and experienced entrepreneurs begin about 543,000 new small business ventures each month. Interestingly, the gamut of home based business enterprises includes brick-and-mortar businesses, financing companies, consultancy services, small e-commerce stores, garden supply operations, equipment maintenance services, etc. In this scenario, the dashing entrepreneur could use the agency of flowcharts to plan the contours of a home based business. These inter-linked expressions of linearity offer an unmatched visual ability to help plan the operations and expansion of such an enterprise.
Social media platforms have emerged as the leading technique that dominates the marketing strategy of a modern home based business. In line with this, entrepreneurs that work from home could fashion flowchart diagrams in a concerted bid to spread awareness, engage with new customers, drive customer conversions, expand the scope of business operations, and turn customers into advocates. Such an illustration takes shape as a hexagon that describes a coherent marketing strategy premised on social media platforms. Individual operators of the home based business can elect to fashion specific thrusts in the flowchart diagram; however, the common intent is to create innovative marketing campaigns at low cost to the business operator. Ergo, designers can re-invent and refine the major planks of said illustration in tune with business realities. We note such refinements emerge as the norm as the business traverses different stages of its journey toward high revenue and superb profitability.
Cash flow problems bear a singular potential to dent business prospects and limit the expansion of a home based business operation. An astute bid to counter such problems emerges when entrepreneurs design flowchart mechanisms to defeat adverse cash flow situations. The different stages of such a diagram could outline a balanced perspective in terms of managing operational expenses, assessing business income, driving investment activities, financing new product and service lines, etc. Essentially, the flowchart emerges as a tool of analysis that presents the home based business operator with a snapshot of the financial situation of the business. In certain situations, an analysis of the illustration could indicate an imperative to curb business expansion and fuel existing sales campaigns. Alternatively, a flowchart-driven cash flow management system could encourage the business operator to assess the rate of return on investment prior to investing in fresh business ventures.
A home based business operator may require the benefit of outsourced services in a scenario wherein the primary business is registering steady growth. This assertion finds credence in the fact an estimated 66% of home based business operations outsource certain services to other small businesses. Such actions generate a virtuous circle that can be plotted within the expanse of a flowchart diagram. The diagram can emerge as a matrix of four buckets, wherein each bucket outlines the nature of services outsourced to an external vendor. Accounting services, transportation services, engineering services, and consultancy could represent the hypothetical buckets in such a flowchart. The emerging visual aid allows the primary operator to offer streamlined business services to clients and thereby enlarge the expanse of the customer base. Interestingly, small businesses can utilize the flowchart to develop unique outsourcing (and profit sharing) strategies thereby expanding the commercial envelope of the home based business model.
Business expansion remains a core concern for the average home based business entrepreneur. Such expansion must be predicated on the current state of a business; it also requires careful planning and orchestration best executed through a visual platform – the flowchart diagram. In line with this, an operator could visualize the various aspects of a business, such as distribution, costs, value configuration, business infrastructure, target customer segments, product and service capabilities, partner networks, enterprise management systems, etc. These elements could represent a mosaic of information on the flowchart; the subsequent analysis could result in outcomes that may help create the outlines of a validated business expansion plan. We note the flowchart essentially serves as a visual aid that co-relates the various (operating and strategic) aspects of the modern home based business while helping develop a business case for commercial expansion.
As of 2018, market research indicates there were an estimated 9.9 million women-owned and operated businesses in the mainland United States. This indicates a sizeable participation by women in the home based business category of modern commerce. Women entrepreneurs could further this trend by writing a business plan, exploring a potential market, speaking to consultants, conducting research about a product or service, designing a vision for a future enterprise, and driving the different stages of effective execution. These stages, when positioned inside a flowchart, empower the woman entrepreneur to craft the contours of a modern home based business. In essence, the flowchart serves as a roadmap that allows for an effective realization of a woman’s entrepreneurial vision as an expression of diversity in the home based business category. Additionally, interventions from the woman entrepreneur can transform variants of the illustration into an effective roadmap.
The calibrated extension of a small business into new geographies and additional markets is a manifest imperative for operators of the home based business model. In line with this, an operator could chalk a local and regional expansion plan within the expanse of a flowchart diagram. The contents of said diagram could include twin silos that detail planning actions and execution strategies for the business operator. The former could include the outcomes of a feasibility study, information gathering exercises for entry into new markets, the development of an appropriate commercial strategy, the articulation of a business vision, etc. Meanwhile, execution could include various points such as due diligence, the hiring of local personnel in new markets, expert opinions from specialist consultants, negotiation support, go-to-market strategies for each new territory, etc. The emerging diagram bears the potential to vault a home based business to the league of a small enterprise, thereby enhancing the ambitions and supporting the commercial worldview of a home based entrepreneur.
These lines of analysis and thought leadership allow readers to visualize the various moving parts of the modern home based business. Flowcharts and their projected outcomes represent the ability to articulate such actions owing to their marked ability to delineate various forms of linearity in such ventures. The ambitious entrepreneur could devise business documents that depicts the successive stages of growth and development in such businesses. Additionally, the flowchart enables entrepreneurs to track market developments and the actions of their peers and competitors. Such information, when appended inside the flowchart, empowers home based operators plan ahead in terms of expanding the remit and scope of operations. Further, business operators could act in conjunction with professional designers to enact the creation of multiple editions of such flowcharts; when viewed in unison, these discrete diagrams could assist a master entrepreneur articulate an overarching vision for a still fledgling enterprise. In doing so, the flowchart represents value in terms of pure utility and impeccable business logic.
