Quit That 9 to 5

Are you ready to use your home for something other than a place to eat, sleep, and prepare for another day of work? Do you think that your home could be base to a great business opportunity? If you answer in the affirmative, you are not alone! As a matter of fact, there are people just like you all over the country who are suddenly realizing that their home has an untapped potential that might permit them to get out of the rate race with a well timed and well executed business opportunity!

You might be wondering how to go about using your home as base for your business opportunity, and while one size definitely does not fit all, there are some tips that should get you started!

If you business opportunity involves an inventory of goods, carefully consider which part of the house could be dedicated to adequately house them. Once you have found that spot - perhaps a garage, cellar, attic, or spare bedroom – contact a tax professional to see if there is any way to write off that portion of your home when taxes are due again.

Should your business opportunity require the use of a home office, make sure that you find an adequate area in your home that will permit you to fulfill the aspects of your business. For example, if you will require the use of a phone, consider having a second line installed in a spare bedroom or in a less used area of the house, so that you may speak to customers or clients undisturbed. Additionally, you want to make sure that you will always have access to your business line – which is an important bit of advice if you have teenagers in your home!

Of course, using your home as base for your business opportunity also means that you might have clients or customers come to your doorstep to purchase services or goods. Is your home set up accordingly? Do you have a small home office into which you could usher your business related visitors? Will you be able to keep the professional feel when they come to your personal residence? This is a somewhat precarious tightrope to walk, but with a few modifications, and a few minor design touches, you will be able to transform a portion of your home into a business office that will have customers and clients feel comfortable that you mean business.

As you can see, using your home as a base for a business opportunity does not have to be a tough juggling act. As a matter of fact, it will save you money, since you do not have to rent an office space, and may actually bring some tax benefits along the way!

Dawn Robertshaw
http://www.quitthat9to5.com

Do you want to start your own home business? Are you a bit scared because you think that you will lose all of your money? Does it seem to you that every home business fails? If you answered yes to any of these questions you are in the majority. There are thousands of people from one side of the world to the next that want to start their own home business. But even though they are thinking about it, they do not move forward because they are scared to lose money, or that they will fail before they even taste success. Even though these are viable concerns, you need to get past them so that you can be a success.

Believe it or not there are many home business success stories out there. Have you ever heard any before? If not, there are places that you can go to get a good dose of them. If you need a bit of motivation, a home business success story is the way to go. And to find home business success stories you do not have to look any further than the internet. There are hundreds of people that have successfully started their own home business who will be more than willing to share their story with you.

To find success stories you will want to go to your favorite search engine and type in “home business success stories.” This will give you plenty of results to search through. Within an hour or so you will have the motivation that you need in order to get over your fears, and start your own home business.

If you cannot find any success stories that have already been written there are other places to look. Become a member of one of the many forums that are available. After becoming a member make a post asking for success stories. Soon enough you will have plenty of people telling you how they got started, as well as where they are today. This is also a great place to get questions answered, and to find a mentor.

There are people who have successfully started their own home business. It may seem impossible for you right now, but the fact of the matter is that it can happen. The best way to realize your potential is to read the success stories that are online. This will give you the motivation that you need, while also allowing you to become familiar with what it takes to reach your goals.

Find success stories if you too want to be a success. Follow your goals of owning a home based business, and do not stop until you reach what you have been striving for.

Working from home is everyone’s dream - after all, who would not want to forego the daily commute during rush hour, and instead run a business from home? Here are some ideas how to go about it without also running up your credit cards, running out of patience, or simply spinning your wheels.

Running a business from home takes time and dedication. You need to have the time to work on whatever it is you choose to do without interruption. You need to have the dedication to the business to set business hours. If you have children in the home, this may require some finagling, but with a bit of finesse, you should be able to come up with a workable plan and schedule. Try to set your time for doing business when the children are at school or at a play date. Don’t try to squeeze in a little business before dinner or while the kids are brushing their teeth. Business time belongs to the business, and family time belongs to your kids. The two should not mix.
Find a home business which will interest you and which will fit into your life style. For example, if your passions are dogs, find something you can do that involves your canine friends. Marketing bird seed will not satisfy half as much as selling dog food. Do not compromise your interests!

Market your business from home by building a professional looking website, amending your email signature to point people to your new endeavor, and by coming up with creative new ways of showing folks in your neighborhood what you are doing.
Get your family involved into your new passion by assigning your children little tasks, and perhaps getting your spouse to help out as well.

Networking with other businesses in your area is a great idea to really become successful in your own business. For example, if you are selling a certain brand of dog food, let the local pet groomer know what you are doing, and maybe s/he would refer clients to you if you offered them a discount on the product and also promised to refer your clients to the groomer’s.

As you can quite easily see, running a business from home can be a lot of fun and it can become a goldmine, if you go about it the right way. If it is just another thing that you try to fit into an already packed schedule, the odds are unfortunately against you. So go ahead and invest your time, energy, and a reasonable amount of start up capital into a venture that you love, and that you foresee loving for a long time, and the money will soon follow!

Dawn Robertshaw
www.quitthat9to5.com

One of the reasons why many entrepreneurs would fail in the first six months of operations is that they lack the proper systems to run their business. Building your home business system should be one of the main considerations you should take before you start out your enterprise. Putting home business systems in place would require a lot of cooperation from all family members so you should inform all members of your household about the things you are doing or going to do to avoid miscommunications and possible mishaps.

What should you do when building your home business system? There are a number of things you should look into to get your systems running. First stop would be the office space. You could not seriously run a home business if you don’t have the proper workplace where the children will not tinker with your equipments and your records. No office systems will ever survive if your kids will have access to everything that you are working on. Kids are very curious, they like to experiment, so unless you want your website corrupted, better find a secure place to work at home.

Second concern if you want to get your home business system up and running would be the telephone. Having teenagers in the house would mean you could forget about using the house phone for your business. It’s not going to work so get your own line. Make sure that everyone in the house understands that your phone is yours alone and it is meant for business. Nobody is allowed to touch that phone unless it is an absolute emergency. To get your point across, put that phone in your office space and attach an answering machine to it. If you are not home, that means the answering machine takes the call and not whoever is home.

Now that you have a working space and a telephone line, get yourself a secure filing cabinet preferably with a good lock on it. All your files important files should go into the filing cabinet and not lying around in your working space. You don’t want anybody accidentally spilling something on it and ruining your work so hide them. Now for that computer, put an especially difficult to crack password on it. You will never know who would be tempted to play games on your computer so take precautions.

Your home business system will not be complete if you have no financial management system. If you are handling you family finances, don’t mingle your household money with you business money in one bank account. Open a separate bank account for your business and record expenses separately. You won’t be able to trace your business expense if you start mingling it with your personal expenses so always have separate accounts.

Copyright 2006 by Willie Crawford

Almost every day, I get at least one email or phone call from a subscriber or potential client who is in a financial bind. Often they need $1000 or more for rent or car payments within the next few days. They’re looking for me to give them a quick-fix solution, so that they can then focus on building a solid online business.

I “shudder when I hear someone say that they need to do something “now” because I’ve seen so many people in similar situations make very bad decisions. Often when they implemented poorly conceived plans it ended up costing them much more in the long run.

Here are the top suggestions that I offer to Internet marketers who find themselves in the above described situation:

1) Write an ebook and offer resale rights to it. Currently Internet marketers love resale rights to ebooks. If you can put together a complete package that includes a website that’s even better.

Writing an ebook is no harder than writing a high school research paper and then converting it to PDF format. If you are really stuck, you could get a ghost writer to do it for you, but that means you need capital upfront.

Creating a website is no harder than visiting any of hundreds of template sites(which offer many free templates) and choosing a suitable template. Then you edit the template in your favorite html editor.

If you do offer the website with the ebook package then you also need to come up with the copy. The absolute easiest way to do this (for me) is to pretend I’m explaining, to someone sitting across from me, what problem(s)the ebook solves and why they need it. Then you go back and add things such as a guarantee, bonuses, and perhaps testimonials. To get the testimonials, offer free copies of the ebook to online associates in exchange for feedback. If the feedback they give you is negative, then that tells you where you need to fix the ebook.

This won’t give you the best copy in the world but will give you something that can be reworked several times. After you’re out of that bind, if you want to become a really good copywriter, then you get a top copywriting course, such as the one I own (Yanik Silver’s Ultimate At Home Copywriting Course): http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com

After the ebook package is created, you can offer it to your list if you have one. If not, you can offer it prominently on your website. Make the offer irresistible. You can also offer it through online forums, and community-type sites, where they allow you to advertise. In a real pinch, you can offer it through Ebay auctions, but realize that Ebay buyers are generally looking for a bargain.

2) Create, or have created, a piece of software and offer resale rights to it. Practically everything said about marketing the ebook package applies to a software package. You can go to numerous sites such as Elance.com and RentACoder.com and place a description of the software you want created. “Techies” registered at these sites then bid on your job. You review their bids, their references and portfolios, and then choose one to do the job.

There are techniques and intricacies to hiring out work through these sites. I won’t explain them here because there are countless articles on the topic that you can find through the search engines. Read several of these articles, and you should be equipped with the do’s and don’ts of hiring out work through “lance-type” sites.

3) Offer your services. If you’ve been online for any amount of time, and been seriously learning the skills required, then you should have marketable talents. Many online marketers do the tasks that they do best and outsource the rest. If you make it known that you are available to do some of these chores, you should be able find jobs.

One problem that I’ve noticed in this area is that someone will offer to pass along work to another person (as a favor to get them out of a bind), and the person gaining the work will quote outrageous fees. Don’t do that! The person offering the work will just go find someone who charges reasonable fees.

The are numerous Elance-type sites where you can go to list your availability and/or to see what jobs may be listed. You can also post your availability on certain discussion forums and community-type sites.

4) Sell an affiliate product using article marketing. This is one of my favorite selling techniques, and one that I teach often to “serious content marketers” such as members of Content Desk where I sometimes help conduct webinars. It’s at, appropriately enough : http://MassiveCashFromArticles.com

My system, which should be easy for you to adopt, is to first identify a product that’s really needed and wanted by your marketplace. It should already be selling well. Identify the problems that this product solves. Then you write an article about the PROBLEMS. Emphasize why these are really serious problems that your reader really wants to solve. Then you show why the affiliate product that you are marketing is the perfect solution. This is a proven formula!

After you’ve written the article, you can distribute it to article directories and publishers using article submission software. You can also use article submission services which may be a little more expensive (but can also be more convenient). The software that I use, submits to over 700 sites, and comes as part of my membership in Content Desk.

You can also submit your article directly to the publishers of your favorite ezines. Use a personal approach with each one. Explain that you are a longtime subscriber, and why you feel that this article is perfect for their ezine. Explain how their readers would benefit from the article and therefore be further endeared to the ezine. By explaining the “what’s in it for them and their readers” you increase the chances of them using your article dramatically.

5) Run a sale from your site of specially selected product(s).If you have a steady flow of repeat visitors, this can solve your cash flow problem very quickly. What’s critical here is that you make absolutely certain that the product is fresh, in-demand, and properly priced.

After identifying a product that you plan to sell, do a search on Ebay to confirm it’s not being sold dirt-cheap over there. Then do a search on your favorite search engine for the product, and visit a few sites selling the product to see what they’re selling it for. Unless it’s your own product, or brand new, you should be able to find it in the search engines. If you see a lot of sites giving the product away, that’s a sign that you should seek another product (one that’s not being devalued).

Find, or have created, a good product, place it on its own page on your site (with NOTHING else), and then direct traffic to that page. Then use standard copywriting techniques to sell the product. Prove to them that your price is better than they can find it elsewhere. Prove to them that the product will solve their problems. The easiest way to do this is with testimonials. Ask them for the order, and make it as easy as possible to place the order.

Any of the above five techniques will enable you to generate some quick revenue in a pinch. I’ve used 1, 2 and 4 numerous times with fantastic results, although I wasn’t in a pinch. The reason that I don’t use number 3 is that I don’t like trading time for money, which is what you’re doing when you offer a service. Your earnings are limited by the amount of time that you can offer. I rarely use number 5 but when I have used it, it’s worked well too.

The final thing you have to do after deciding to use any of the above techniques is to DO it. Make a plan and then take massive action. Don’t over-analyze. That’s what stops too many people from extricating themselves from that crisis!

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Willie Crawford has been teaching Internet marketing for over 9 years. Take advantage of his uncanny insights and unusual candor by subscribing to his free, information-packed newsletter. Also visit his top-rated blog. Do both at: http://WillieCrawford.com/blog/

A major part of evaluating home business opportunities is determining if the product the entrepreneur wants to sell is marketable, if the market is saturated, and what a competitive asking price might be.

Even if someone wants to start a home business opportunity that is not Internet based but rather marketed in the local area, an online auction vendor or aggregator site is still a great way to determine what is out there in the industry, and what the going price is.

Rule of thumb, according to online merchant experts, is to price the item at about two thirds of what the major online auction sites are asking for the same or similar item, or 65 percent of the top bid over the past sixty days. In evaluating home business opportunities for local sales the buyer must take into consideration that the local cost of living can alter the asking price. Market research for evaluating home business opportunities in this case would weigh most heavily on other local competitors in the industry.

Some of the standard procedures an entrepreneur should do in evaluating home business opportunities are to check both the credibility and the performance of the parent firm.

Home Business opportunities should be evaluated poorly just because they don’t report big dollars in revenue. A small company can be a sound home business opportunity. One advantage of working with a small firm is the accessibility to the executives in the firm, to help answer the evaluating questions about the home business opportunity it represents but to help the entrepreneur get started.

Great sources of information when evaluating home business opportunities are people you know and trust that have dealt with the company. If the small business owner doesn’t have any such resource she or he should then turn to financial statements if it’s a public corporation or to firms such as Hoovers for information about the stability of the firm. Local help would be the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau.

Vendors of the firm that the entrepreneur is evaluating for home business opportunity are great resources, as they can tell you that the firm pays their bills on time and has been ordering large quantities of products for an extended period. This means sales are good. One important thing for a hopeful entrepreneur to do in evaluating the company is to ask for current and former customers and contact them for honest critiques of the firm. Evaluating home business opportunities should never rely only on the clients the firm offers. The entrepreneur should seek out others that the firm hasn’t put forth as good testimonials.

Dawn Robertshaw
http://www.quitthat9to5.com

Source:
http://www.hotlib.com/articles/show.php?t=Evaluating_Home_Business_Opportunities
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,291618—-8-,00.html

There are many business opportunities for stay at home mums that fit well with their busy and often irregular schedules. These business opportunities should be carefully thought through and studied before stay at home moms take them on, however.

One caution that is very important for stay at home mums to realize is that seldom do business opportunities and child care go hand in hand. Small children need all a caregiver’s attention to be safe and secure, while that business opportunity might well be demanding the same – especially if customers are involved. Stay at home mums embarking on business opportunities should assume that child care is still going to be a necessary expense while they grow their business.

The one exception might be a child care center in the home. Many stay at home mums succeed at this, enjoy their business and still have time for their children. There are stringent regulations for at home child care centers, though, and these vary by state. Let’s look at a few of the regulations for these business opportunities for stay at home mums.

The state of Texas has actually made this business opportunity impossible for a stay at home mum, stating that licensing is only given for child care centers outside of the owner’s home.

In the state of California all stay at home mums or other caregivers who want to start a home child care business opportunity must attend a state-run orientation. They must be licensed, with a few exceptions. Anyone who is watching only her or his own children and the children of only one other family in their home need not be licensed. A cooperative arrangement where each parent of some members of the group of children being cared for takes her or his turn watching the children does not require any licensing.

The only circumstances under which such a coop would require licensing is if one or more of the adults supervising the children was not a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or lawful guardian of at least one of the children; or if anyone is paid for the child care services; or if more than 12 children are being supervised.

California, as do many other states, requires that stay at home mums and others seeking home child care business opportunities attend several hours of emergency health care training including CPR, first aid for children, prevention and recognition of infectious disease, child nutrition, sanitary handling of food, emergency evacuation and recognition and reporting procedures if child abuse is suspected.

Child care business opportunities for stay at home mums are plentiful but do require preparation and strict attention to the little ones in their care.

Source:
http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/getinfo/pdf/fcc.PDF
https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Care/

Just this past month South Africa announced the latest of its country’s pyramid schemes. One of the local banks in Namibia put out a strenuous warning to illegal money makers who were running the new pyramid schemes.

The bank called on the help of the public to aid in enforcing the country’s law by reporting these pyramid schemes to the bank. The announcement also asked the country’s leaders and other influential civilians to aid in teaching others the detrimental effects of these pyramid schemes on its victims, especially those who lived in poverty-ridden areas.

The illegality of the pyramid banking schemes, according to the bank announcement, was a violation of its Banking Institutions Act’s Section 5 which says that no one can receive, accept, advertise, take or solicit public deposits without being a registered banking institution.

What makes these scams qualify as pyramid schemes is that the primary money making activity of them is the successful hiring of others to pay for the opportunity to join the pyramid. In investigating the work at home schemes, bank officers and other government officials found many of the perpetrators were from other neighboring countries. Some had been closed down in prior years but were beginning to crop back up again in newspaper ads. Some were direct marketed, though, while others were solicited face to face by those already in the pyramid scheme and trying to build their own pyramid under them to make their money.

What the bank and the country officials determined is that people were making money in the pyramid schemes until and unless someone doesn’t deposit the required money or recruit new people. Then the pyramid doesn’t support everyone in it and begins to crumble.

The bank blamed the success and prevalence of pyramid schemes in the country partly on its high unemployment rate. The consequence, unfortunately, they said, was to make poor people poorer and reward only the few that started the pyramid schemes in the first place. The fine in South Africa for pyramid schemes, besides financial penalty, is up to ten years in prison.

Source:
http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1Y1:94391740&num=2&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20a%3ASR%3AResult&ao=&FreePremium=BOTH&tab=lib

One of the best home business marketing ideas is a business blog. What makes a business blog one of the top notch marketing ideas for a home business is that it’s easy to create, it’s inexpensive to build and run and it’s so casual and conversational that the owner can draw consumers in a non-threatening way.

Trust is the key to successful home business marketing ideas and blogs build trust. The approach is non-confrontational, subtle and encourages two way conversations. Trust comes in the openness of the blog. It’s a fact that people buy people, they don’t buy products. Consumers have to trust and like the entrepreneur or they don’t buy the product. Blogs build this relationship that brings in the sales.

So, what makes a blog one of the best home business marketing ideas is that it drives a lot more traffic to the business Web site, it generates more business sales, and it creates a secondary income stream, and offers personable, efficient and timely customer service.

To create a great blog and use it successful as a marketing tool for the home business the owner must become a talented blogger. There are three things she or he must accomplish to achieve great blogging status. The first is a distinct blog voice. A blog should have the tone of a forum, a place where the ideas of the blogger and others can flourish and where topics totally unrelated (or seemingly unrelated) can be discussed and debated without disparagement of other’s opinions. It doesn’t take an Ernest Hemingway to write a great blog. It just takes an interest in and devotion to the subject matter.

The content must be relevant to the audience, however, so while it doesn’t have to be exactly on topic it does need to have some relevance. In other words, a landscaper might have a blog that discusses various lawn care ideas and the forum postings might segue over to neighborhood eyesores and what to do about them – and that’s okay. Why? Because the blogger may add some suggestions which will present him or her as an expert on how to create a beautiful front yard from a garbage heap. What wouldn’t be very useful is to let the discussion get around to the price of auto insurance. What help is that going to be to ideas about marketing the home landscape business?

Regular blog updates are great marketing ideas and the key to bringing people back often to the home business site. To not update regularly would be to invite people to stay away. After all, who wants to read yesterday’s news? Especially if they already read it yesterday?

Dawn Robertshaw
http://www.quitthat9to5.com

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,327038,00.html