Doug Collins went from corporate executive to home-based entrepreneur and best-selling author.

Doug Collins has a wealth of experience some employer might gladly welcome aboard their team, but that’s not the life he wants to go back to living any more.

The Bedford, Nova Scotia resident has a solid background in business and marketing, having spent 22 years in marketing, supply chain and operations in the industrial products industry.

In 2008, when he was 41 years old, he decided to leave his career as a senior corporate executive to pursue his dream of becoming self-employed in a home-based business — a dream that had actually begun 20 years previously.

Starting out

“I started my first home-based business in the late 1990s as a young man in my 20s during the early days of the Internet,” he explained. “I taught myself how to build a website and marketed a line of wellness products that quickly grew into a nice little side income.”

Collins’ caught the entrepreneurial bug from his father who had worked as a home-based insurance salesman.

“He was always home for us as kids and, as I got older, I wanted that lifestyle.”

Collins grew up in Halifax and started his career working in Burnside. In 2004, he was recruited by a competitor to take on a national position and moved his family to New Brunswick.

“Not long after this move, I found myself a single father of three young children,” he said. “Along with the demands of single parenthood, I had to deal with this new career, long hours at work and extensive travel.”

By 2008, Collins had established his current home-based business.

“I gained valuable experience in time management, balancing family dynamics as a self-employed parent and running a successful home-based business,” he said of the career change. “I also created a self-learned expertise in home-based tax write-offs, through my own desire in reducing my taxable income.”

Like many of us, creating a home/work life balance was a challenge for him.

“As a full-time stay-at-home dad, it was difficult to separate the two,” he said. “Despite being skilled in time management, the busy demands of a young household created numerous distractions. On a daily basis, I found myself juggling multiple demands and responsibilities.”

Stability for the family

One positive change, however, was the increase in the time he spent with his children.

“As a single parent working in the corporate world, one of my biggest challenges was finding reliable 24/7 childcare while traveling,” he said. “For several years, I was away from home for two weeks out of every month, usually for meetings in Toronto or the U.S. I also worked on a business expansion project for a few months in Alberta. After leaving the corporate world, being home with my three kids made a significant positive impact for me and them by providing stability for the family.”

Collins’ daughter Allyssa now lives in Calgary, Alta. She was 14 years old when her father started his home-based business in 2008 and 16 years old when he left his corporate job in 2010.

“All I really remember from back then was that he was always leaving for a flight to go away for work and how hard that was,” she recalled. “My dad tells me about all the notes that I would leave for him on his suitcase telling him how much I would miss him.”

When his corporate job ended, she didn’t understand much about what was happening. “Looking back, however, I do remember the feeling of him being more present in our lives and available to us by being home all the time,” she said. “I remember we purchased a camping trailer that summer and we had a lot of camping trips.”

For Alyssa, the best part of her father’s career change for her was the stability the family got from him being home with them before school, after school and in the evenings every day.

“We no longer had so many different babysitters because he was away travelling for work,” she said. “We benefited greatly from the quality time he was now able to provide to us all at such a young, developmental age.”

Focus and transition

Just before leaving the corporate world in 2008, Collins started another business that became his main focus after his corporate departure in late 2010.

“Alongside that, I also started a consulting business that I ran on a part-time basis for a few years,” he said. “In those early days of working from home, I often found myself becoming a distracted serial entrepreneur, as I saw opportunities everywhere. However, I soon realized that focus was crucial for success and my own well-being and I closed those businesses.”

In the early months of 2011, Doug’s wife Benjie took on an administrative role to support Collins, which allowed him to focus on expanding his business to replace his employment income.

She said they recognized an opportunity in the market and, in August 2011, they opened a retail store with her taking on the role of general manager, running it full-time for the next three years.

“While Doug owned the business, he took a mostly hands-off approach as he was focused on growing his home-based business,” she explained.

Assisting her husband after he left his corporate job was both a thrilling and nerve-wracking experience for Benjie.

“With my background in accounting, running that retail business gave me valuable hands-on experience in business operations,” she said. “Doug placed a lot of trust in me and allowed me to manage all aspects of the business independently.”

A sole proprietor

Collins’ continues to work as a sole proprietor operating under his own name.

He is an online direct marketer and blogger and specializes in offering food-based products that help counterbalance the impact of today's heavily processed diets.

“My customer base is worldwide and encompasses people from all continents,” he said. “My customers are individuals looking to improve their health, manage their blood sugar levels and find alternatives to solely relying on medication, as well as those who have discovered that traditional diet plans may not be the answer.”

Collins’ also assists and educates entrepreneurs running home-based businesses in North America, with an emphasis on tax write-offs.

He is also active in his local community and volunteers as a registered tax preparer for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) through their Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP).

Collins said his life today is different compared to the days of having a young family.

“I continue to stay very busy working from home and am just as, if not more, passionate about home-based entrepreneurship,” he said. “Having the ability to earn an income from home is not only a dream, but it makes for the ideal retirement lifestyle.”

By 2019, things had changed for Collins. His children were grown up and living throughout Canada. He was self-employed and working from his home in New Brunswick, but was feeling a pull to move back to Halifax.

“In November of that year, I put my house up for sale with the belief that, if it was meant to happen, the house would sell quickly,” he said. “The house sold in just a few days and we embarked on a new chapter in Bedford. However, little did I know that this transition would be met with unexpected challenges, as the arrival of March 2020 brought significant changes for everyone.”

‘The Home-Based Business Guide to Write-Off Almost Anything’

In 2020, inspired somewhat by the impact of COVID-19, Collins added author to his resume.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown implemented in Nova Scotia in March of 2020 had a significant impact on his business.

“Drawing on my expertise in tax strategies, I recognized that many people were not familiar with claiming home-based business tax write offs,” he said. “This led me to use my time to write a book, in order to share my insights with others.”

He said writing and publishing a book was a new and exciting experience for him. 

It took me five months and he released the book, titled “The Home-Based Business Guide to Write-Off Almost Anything: You'll Keep More Money Once You Know These Tax Secrets, in August 2020.”

“That was a huge learning experience, which ultimately resulted in success as the book became a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon,” said Collins.

Collins is already working on an updated and expanded edition set to be published this month.

“Over the last two years, I have had the privilege of connecting with thousands of home-based business owners across North America,” he said. “Through this experience, I received a great deal of feedback on my book and got to really understand the variety of businesses out there, which has been incredibly valuable. In response to this, I have spent the last few months completely rewriting the book and adding new content.”

A new chapter added focuses on the gig economy, which has become increasingly relevant in light of the pandemic.

“Many people have taken on side incomes through app-based work such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, Couryah and Instacart and I wanted to provide guidance on what expenses can be written off on taxes for that audience,” he explained.

Several new chapters have also been added to the book concerning rental income, business registration and legal structures and surviving a tax audit.

“The goal is to have the updated and expanded edition of the book published by the end of January, in time for tax season,” he said.

Money was hers all along

Doug’s sister Pam lives nearby in Bedford and she attests to how much her brother helped her with her own business.

“I owned several rental properties in Halifax and Bedford and prior to reading ‘Write Off Almost Anything,’ I recorded the business income and deductions related to the properties on my income tax, unaware of all the deductions associated with my home-based business I could have deducted,” she said.

With her brother’s book advice and tax course, she says was able to amend her income tax and receive almost $3,000 in additional refund that year.

“I went back two years prior and resubmitted my tax returns and got additional income refunds,” she said. “That money was mine all along, I just didn’t know it was there waiting for me until I read Doug’s book.”

“Thanks for your help and for writing a book for those of us that work hard and just need to be educated on what deductions we are entitled to.”

This story was originally published in the Chronical Herald Newspaper (Nova Scotia, Canada) and the Saltwire.com website on January 23, 2023 by Juanita Rossiter