It can be difficult to avoid this trap. However, since we are trained to respond to the needs of the customer and we can easily feel that some money is better than no money. The problem is we can be too busy to accept a profitable project because we are working long hours for peanuts.

This is especially true for freelancers who bid on freelance job sites. They are not marketing a set rate and are bidding against some very 'hungry' competitors who are bidding low. The temptation is to join them and win that project. After all, it is better to be working than not, right? Well, that depends. While you are busy trying to fulfill your obligations to your client, you are not marketing your services at more acceptable rates.

Neither are you free to take on work at higher rates until you have finished your current project. If you have bid low on a lot of projects, you may have really dug yourself a hole.

While other home based businesses may be quite different from this, spending so much time on unprofitable activities that one doesn't have time to market one's business, is unfortunately common. Fiddling over the details of a website and ignoring the need for fresh SEO content, placing a few classified ads and waiting for people to find you instead of working on driving traffic to your website, knowing you should but procrastinating about finding good affiliate programs and working on short term, time intensive projects with nothing to replace them because you have let your marketing slip, are all common pitfalls for new home based businesses.

It is not easy to avoid this pitfall because reacting to immediate pressures is actually a normal response. However, to be truly successful in your home based business, you need to be proactive rather than reactive. The first and most important step, therefore, is to start out in business with a business plan. Know where you are now and be clear about where you want to go. A business plan helps you to create a map of how to get there. A business plan should define your purpose, your vision and your values. Why are you doing what you are doing? Where do you see your business developing? How do you intend to conduct your business? What are your long term goals and your shorter term objectives?

A business plan will help you evaluate your strengths and your weaknesses as well as the opportunities available to you and the threats you will face. For non-internet based businesses, you should also identify your competitors and acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses. If you have an internet based business, the playing field is global and too large to do this. After you have completed your business plan and have a solid sense of your purpose and direction, it is time to write a marketing plan. This is your specific strategy to market your home based business. You need to specify your long term goals and then break them down into shorter term objectives. If you don't plan the activities of your business (your activities), you will be constantly reacting to the needs and opportunities of the moment and not moving forward in the direction you want. After all, you had a reason for wanting to get into business for yourself. It probably wasn't to be a slave to low paying jobs and 'fiddley' details.

There is no doubt that to be successful at running a home based business, you need discipline. But it isn't the discipline that does a good job and gets things done. No, it is the discipline that is governed by purpose. It is the discipline that does the right job and gets those specific things done that will lead to long desired results. Do you have the discipline to be a home based business success?