How to Know When Its Time to Shift from Home Business to Small Business

Establishing and growing a home business is no easy task. When you’re wearing multiple hats and juggling a handful of tasks, it’s easy to forget to take a step back and evaluate when your home business has outgrown its shoes and needs a new pair in the small-business section.

Know When It’s Time to Make the Jump

As every business is unique, growth happens at different speeds, and it can be tricky to know when your business is thriving enough to invest more in daily operations. But when your home business is still using residential internet services instead of small-business internet, you could be hindering your growth.

There are a few common growing pains home businesses may experience when it’s time to make the jump to small-business services:

1. Occasional internet outages throw a wrench in your schedule. When we’re not on the clock, a router acting up means we can’t enjoy Netflix. But for a business, it can result in lost revenue and productivity.
2. Backing up data to an off-site center or cloud service is a nightmare. With something as important and ongoing as backing up data, you shouldn’t need to cross your fingers in hopes that it works. If it doesn’t work smoothly and consistently, your business could lose sensitive information and files.
3. You’ve started working early hours in the morning to avoid the afternoon lag. When the neighbors come home from school and work, you may notice your internet slows down significantly to a point where you’re too frustrated to continue working.
4. You need to establish and host a server that other employees can access remotely. An ever-changing IP address means your server and business email may not be reachable if you ever turn off your modem or router.
5. Requiring a repair means shutting down your business for hours or days. Need someone on-site to repair an issue you’re having with your modem? Depending on availability, you may have to wait hours or even days and lose revenue as a result.

If you’ve experienced any of these instances, it’s time to replace your residential internet with a small-business internet package.

Benefit from Switching to Small-Business Internet

Internet services can be frustrating, as many residential customers experience frequent lag, slow upload speeds, poor customer service, and expensive bills. And as internet service providers (ISPs) implement data caps, it’s all too easy to find yourself hitting your download limit by mid-morning.

Often, home businesses stick with their residential internet services because they assume business internet is solely for big companies with multiple employees and a generous budget. However, small-business internet is affordable and benefits one-person or remotely staffed businesses operated from a home office. You can reap the following advantages with business internet:

1. Work on your schedule, not your internet’s. Residential internet bandwidth pulls from the same port as your neighbors, so speeds slow down during peak hours. Business internet has dedicated bandwidth, meaning the connection only goes to that business’s location, resulting in faster, consistent speeds and fewer lags.
2. Upload data as quickly as you download it. Most residential internet services focus on download speeds because most users are streaming and downloading content. However, small businesses frequently upload files and data to their servers. Business internet offers more symmetrical connections, making it just as easy and fast to upload as it is to download.
3. Run a business server from your home office. Residential internet typically features dynamic IP addresses that can change without notice and are less reliable and not as secure. With business internet, you can maintain a static IP address, so devices in your home office and in other locations used by remote employees can always connect to the business’s server. This feature is important if you host a website and email, run a file server in your network, or use a remote access program.
4. Enjoy unlimited data. Even though the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality rules say ISPs can’t inhibit internet access, that doesn’t stop providers from establishing data caps on how much data consumers can use every month. With business internet, you never have to worry about your connection slowing down, regardless of how much data you use each month.
5. Access better tech support. With dynamic IP addresses and residential internet users pulling bandwidth from the same port, it can be more difficult for an ISP to service residential customers when there’s an outage or a connection problem. Business internet customers have dedicated support lines, thereby receiving faster service no matter when they need it.

Business internet can transform the way you work as you make the jump from owning a home business to starting a small business. Learn more about the advantages of dedicated business internet and see what’s available in your area for your specific needs.