More and more Americans are trying to take their jobs out of the office and put them into their home; it was a trend before the economic downturn, and if history is anything to go by, more home businesses get their start in economic down turns than any other time. If you’ve got a skill that you think you can market, read on for how to find a way to turn your skills and your dreams of running your own home based business a reality.

First, let’s look at the downsides. A lot of freelancers like to say “I love working for myself; I work part time, and I get to choose which 14 hours of the day I work.” Working from home is a job. It’s not “getting paid for sitting in your bathrobe and watching TV” no matter what the various ads for multi-level marketing programs like to say.

You’re going to have to work to make this happen; lots of people can do the work. You’re only going to succeed if you enjoy the work. To succeed, look at the following list as an ingredient list. If these traits are part of your personality, then your odds of success are going to be much higher.

1) Problems with authority figure issues. If you hate taking instructions from someone who you feel is dumber than you are, then, guess what. You’re probably on the first step towards entrepreneurship. You may be someone who becomes a serial entrepreneur – starting businesses, getting them up and running, then selling them off because they’ve become less interesting to you.

2) A strong desire to do your best, even if it means taking less money, or getting less prestige. This ties into the “problem with authority” item above in a couple of interesting ways: If you’d rather get paid less, but do the work you want to do, and do the work you think needs to be done to succeed, then this is another positive trait for an entrepreneur.

3) Working for the challenge. If you’re the sort of person who needs someone to tell you something can’t be done to thrive, if you thrill from the idea of proving them wrong, and have the ego to take your idea and shove it into the face of the people who told you you’d fail…well, you might be an entrepreneur.

4) Innovation and uncertainty make you thrive. If you’re constantly looking for a new or better way to do something, then entrepreneurship is probably already calling for you. If you are willing to take a risk with your own (or investor’s) money, then take on the goal of starting your own business. While these traits can be enhanced by training, they really only manifest themselves when you’re running a business.

You’ll also note that we didn’t mention what hot skills you need to have, be it computer programming, graphic design, or being a top-flight editor or writer. We’re assuming that if you want to be in business for yourself, you’re going to invest in your craft and your skill, and any skill we recommend to you as being “good for an entrepreneur” is either going to lead you astray, or be laughable, because if you’re going to run your own business, you already know what you love doing.

Keeping your business going requires an entirely different set of skills from founding it, and will be another article.

posted by Chris Simpson