Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Amber Wilke shows off a few of the personalized items she has made. Wilke has been operating home businesses for many years.
According to Forbes.com more than half of the American public work in small business and 52 percent of all small business are home businesses. That is roughly 80 million people in the U.S. alone.
Although there is currently is no way to know exactly how many home businesses there are in Kimball County, we can estimate that approximately one-fourth of our population has some sort of home business. We can guess with some accuracy that every person reading this knows of at least a few people who currently run some sort of business out of their home.
The people who have home businesses range as widely as the business they own and the reasons why they choose to make a living like this is just as broad. These people range from single individuals, stay at home mothers, married people, retired folks; anyone really.
The businesses they have range from services such as house cleaning and accounting to craft makers and retailers selling items directly out of the home or drop shipped from third party distributers. Avenues of availibility range from sales out of the kitchen to specialized retail websites, social media and personal websites. A number of local home business entrepreneurs got their start as consultants thru third party businesses that encourage sales of certain types of products.
Interestingly, many of them run more than one business out of their homes. Several local residents actually have at least two completely separated types of businesses that they run from their homes. The reasoning was the same in that neither business was enough to make a living, so they needed to add another to supplement. It does seem to be working for them however.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are five main reasons to start a home business: low risk, flexibility, earnings potential, financial independence and personal fulfillment.
Reasons for starting home businesses are nearly as unique as the people that start them. Some people start their home business because they simply like the product and want to make it available to their friends and family while getting a discount for the products they love.
One local woman was on vacation and noticed a necklace worn by another woman at the resort. After asking where to purchase the jewelry, she found that it wasn't actually available through stores, only through home business. It did not take her long to decide that was something she would enjoy doing in addition to her full time job.
Many people start their business out of necessity, whether that is additional income to their current jobs or the fact that there just are not as many jobs available in the area as there are people living here. Although the decisions of Kimball residents to start home businesses is not terribly different than the rest of the country, the lack of employment opportunities in the area is certainly a factor locally.
A local woman, who was born and raised in Kimball, has had several home businesses over the past 29 years. Amber Wilke started her first business when her children were young because she wanted to raise them herself. Over the years her home business focus has changed and she now does it because, "I like the freedom."
Not only does her home business bring in income for her family, it allows her a huge amount of freedom. She can stop what she is doing with her home business to lend an extra hand with her family's farming activities.
"It's the best of both worlds," she said.
Another Kimballite started her home business not long after moving to town. Although there were job openings at the time, she was either under or overqualified for the ones that were available. In her words, "I had no other choice than to figure out how to make a living on my own."
Whether a person chooses to start a home business out of necessity or for fun, the idea isn't a bad decision. According to businessforhome.org, "70 percent of Home Based businesses succeed after 3 years vs 30 percent of traditional "brick and mortar" businesses." The numbers prove it, an estimated $427 billion is made per year by home-based businesses according to incfile.com.