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Wake Forest Home Business Outlook:
6/27/05 Wake Forest.Biz
Businesses with 4 or less employees continue to dominate the number of new business startups. Although there are a number of new commercial properties being built in Wake Forest, even the most humble office spaces are not affordable for business startups. The cost of gasoline and the long commute through traffic which was not properly planned for by either the Wake Forest town planners or the NC DOT is also a good reason to work from home. The sizes of the houses being built in Wake Forest are so huge that there is usually plenty of space for an office, workshop, and even a small distribution shop. The trend is for more and more home businesses in the Wake Forest, NC area. As more and more people lose their jobs to offshore outsourcing, and promises, such as pensions, become lies, people are becoming disillusioned by the promises of Corporate America. The former stock, trust, and credence the working class once took in following the guidance of the wealthy has abated, even here in North Carolina, as a result of so many jobs being lost due to overseas deals. It’s pretty difficult to see your favorite NASCAR hero pitching for a company that once made most of its’ wares in the state.
Many people think overseas outsouring has been good, because they think they are paying less for the products they buy. Let’s face it. If you lost your job, and 250 people apply for every job you apply for, even if you were able to get overtime pay at WalMart, you would have a very difficult time earning a living. People have to do something. Home based businesses, even though they have an extremely high failure rate, are often the answer.
The home office is going to become commonplace for many professionals activities such as accountants, Ebay sellers, lawyers, psychologists, realtors, and insurance agents.
The way that the Wake Forest Home Business will be advertising is going to move from the yellow pages of the telephone directory to more direct mail advertising campaigns. One reason is the loss of credibility caused by the proliferation of such phone directories. There are now about 10 different directories. A foolish entrepreneur in a startup venture could spend the entire advertising budget by going after all available directories.
Many of the internet sellers are using a combination of Ebay sales and sales from their own web sites, if they can get their site to be popular enough. Many who realize how difficult it is to make their own sites popular are teaming up with the wrong people. There are many new web sites popping up which are from out of state and out of the country even. They pretend to be the best source for local information, even though they’ve never been to the area, and what they do is copy info from other web sites, often illegally. Some of the more sophisticated search engines, such as Google, are intelligent enough to determine what sites are using copied scripts that are done in mass production, so forming a linking alliance with the wrong sites can actually be harmful. There are some methods that work real well, so you are usually better off hiring a web site designer that has a proven track record. Many people consider their web site to be just something else, so they have some schoolkid who knows about computers but has no business experience do it for them. The web site is often an afterthought rather than integrated with the business.
Computer Repair: Is this a boom or bust home business? On my small street alone, out of 7 homes, 3 are in the computer repair business. That’s a whopping 43%! They basically hop in their car or truck and make computer housecalls whenever they are called. Two of the people actually paid tens of thousands of dollars to buy into a franchise computer repair business. For that, they will usually be guaranteed a certain area, with some areas costing more than others. One of them seems to be getting some work, but it is a slow start for the other. Data backup and retrieval seems to be the service that is in the most demand. Computer prices are so low they are almost disposable except for the importance of the information.
Computer Instruction: Several years ago, this was looking like it could be a boom, but to get into the business now in Wake Forest would be a bust, unless it was to do specialized computer tutoring to make up for any shortcomings with the school systems computer curriculum. There is a point of diminshing return that every school system hits, wherein it is impossible to provide training for all the variations of computer science. It’s called taxes. We spend a lot of money on education, often at the expense of other services, and education is important. Even so, the public school system cannot be expected to teach everything that was formerly only known by people with masters in CS. At one time, there were some businesses which taught computer courses. They taught some really basic adult ed kind of courses such as Windows Basics, or how to do word processing. That doesn’t cut it now. Better courses in this day and age would teach a person how to use your computer while trying to avoid identity theft, what agencies to report spam to, and how to deal with a system registry that has been hacked by a malicious program.
Tradional Trade Skills: Trades such as carpentry, plumbing, electricians, and heating and air conditioning will still be in high demand, particularly due to the increase in home sales. The average income in Wake Forest is now extremely high, so the high demand for skilled tradesmen is going to continue over time.
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