When people know that you have a home business, they often become interested in getting “sweet hook ups” from you. I know that family and friends often want to use my editing or writing services on certain projects. If it’s only occasionally, I don’t mind looking over a school paper for my siblings or helping my mom with a bit of writing. With friends, I often ask that they watch my son for an hour or two in exchange for doing a little work for them. Overall, this works out. My family and friends are pretty used to the idea that my time is money, and that my home business is, in fact, a business.

But what if my acquaintances weren’t so understanding? Laura Spencer at Freelance Folder offers this insight into how you can make sure that your friends and family understand that you are running a business when you work from home:

When talking about your business with friends and family, make sure to occasionally include some of these more mundane topics in the conversation along with the more exciting aspects of your business.

For example, when asked how the business is going instead of just talking about the exciting new logo design project you’ve been assigned to work on you could also mention the overdue invoice that you’re having trouble collecting.

This sets the stage for making sure your relatives and friends understand that you have work obligations and other time commitments. As long as you are consistent, you should be able to say “no” if someone tries to take advantage your relationship to get discount services as you work from home. When you do help, make sure that you make it clear that this is not something that can be regular. Make it clear that you are only helping out because you have the time to do so at the moment, and let them know that next time, you might not be available.

How do you handle requests from family and friends?