Home Based Business and Self Employment

With today’s dire economic conditions a home-based business may be your answer to financial security. However, with literally thousands of home-based business opportunities to choose from it is critical to know you’ve selected the right company for you. Knowing what to look for is essential.
Here are 4 critical questions you need to consider.1. How long has the company been in business?Studies indicate that approximately 60% of businesses fail within their first 2 years. It is important to make sure the company has been around for a while. You want a company that is solid and stable. The last thing you want is to spend countless hours promoting a product or service only to watch the company collapse. Do your home work and research the company.2. What is the background of the company officers?
The quality of its management has a dramatic impact on how well a company does. You want to look for a company with leaders who have had major accomplishments. Leaders with proven success in prior ventures. Look for an established team where the members have already proven themselves based on their accomplishments.3. Does the Company have exclusive products?
This is one of the most important variables that any company can possess. You do not want dozens of other companies marketing the same of very similar products and services that you’re trying to market. Look for a company whose trademarked products are patterned and cannot be duplicated by another company. Regardless of what you are marketing it is important that the product be legally protected.4. Are you truly passionate about the company’s product?
Be a product of the product, this is how you get paid. Enjoying your products and being passionate about them is absolutely essential. Sometimes people make the mistake of being caught up into how much the company pays out and forget what the business is really all about. Your attention should be geared toward how much you can help others. Be passionate about helping others find the products or services that they need and you will be rewarded monetarily.To your success.

Home Based Business Ideas – How To Succeed Online

Nowadays everybody is aware of the amazing success of internet. In less than 10 years, internet has completely changed our lives and it has open a lot of opportunities that did not exist before. Everybody want to work from home, and everybody has his home based business ideas ready to be implemented online, but the problem is that sometimes these business ideas are not really doable, so now I’m going to share with you how people make money online.Home Based Business Ideas:- Affiliate marketing: One of the most famous and fastest way to make money from home is through affiliate marketing. If you do not know what is affiliate marketing let me explain it. Affiliate marketing is when you sale people’s products and you gain a commission on the sale, there is no limit for you in terms of sale, because you can sell products from ten different companies and make a good living on it, there are some people online who earn as much as six figures per year just by selling others people products. If you’re interested in affiliate marketing as a good home based business idea, all you need to do is type in Google what you want to sell and just add affiliate program, so for example if you want to sell bags, you type “bags+affiliate program” on Google on you’ll be on your way to make money.- Blogging: Blogging is an other home based business idea really relevant online, people make a lot of money just by blogging. All they do is create a blog around a topic of their choice and start bringing traffic to their blog, you may wondering how do they monetize their blog? Well it’s really simple, they can sell ad space on their blog to advertiser who may be interested in their traffic or they can use affiliate marketing as well, it’s really easy to do it, also if you want to start blogging do not limit yourself to one blog, create 50 blogs that make $5-10 per day and that’s it your earn 5 figures per month!- Pay Per Click: The other biggest business online is through paid traffic, what is paid traffic business you may be wondering, is exactly the same as affiliate marketing but in bigger proportion, people will pay each time you click on their ads on Google, Facebook, Yahoo, MSN between $0.50-5 and hoping that you will buy their product, what is the benefice of PPC is that it brings instant traffic to your products, you do not need to wait weeks or months before people find your products as you may do with affiliate marketing through blogging, the only problem with PPC is that you can lose a lot of money if you do not know what you are doing.Here you have learned just few of the ways to make money online and start your home based business, it may sound difficult but it’s really not, it just needs action and perseverance.

Home Based Business – Follow the Basics to Carry on With Flying Colors

Who does not want money in this world? Money for basic needs and comforts is required by everyone. How about making money without leaving home? Yes, there are lots of work at home business ideas on internet. You may be in need of source of money that may be part time or full time. In either case home based business can be a perfect way of earning. Unfortunately not all opportunities available on internet are genuine; they are either short termed or scams. Also to be very successful in working at home is not possible if you avoid following the basics. Here are few simple but significant things to be remembered in making your internet business at home profitable.Most of the people want to get rich in a day. The people opting for home based business are no different. They want to make money from the very next day they join any home based job. The mind frame of most of the people is to have millions in no time. The fact is there is no shortcut to real success.Any business works well on certain strategies. All those strategies which have been proven good with time are to be adopted in your home based business also. To implement proper strategies to the business is the next stage; the first stage is to have knowledge about those strategies. The most powerful tool for any success is the knowledge. Perfect knowledge about the ways to be successful will take you to your destination of making it big in the field of home based business.Someone has rightly said big battles are fought in mind not on battlefields. When you have started with a home based business if your frame of mind is to strive for success then most of the obstacles on the way will be passed with little effort. Proper frame of mind will make you understand every minute detail of things that are required to carry on your home business with flying colors.

Easy Home Based Business and Lifestyle Products

Are you looking for opportunities to work from the comfort of your own home?Do you have any Easy Home Based Business ideas? Are you ready for this change in your life? Do you have the right mindset and attitude for it?Working from home sounds like a great idea but it hides a lot of differences from an office job. A lot of people think they are ready for it because it sounds so simple! But the truth is a lot further away. Starting your own easy home based business takes a different mindset and discipline for it to work out and pay off.Ask yourself these before you embark on your own home business and know if you have what it takes to operate your own easy home based business.The first thing is discipline. An easy home based business means you are in total control of your time. If you choose to slack off, there is no boss around to scream at you and you can pretty much not work should you choose. Working from home is not physically demanding but you need to put in consistent time into your work.Before you embark on your easy home based business, having the correct mindset is important. Having your own business and working from home may sound very simple to most people but not many are prepared to take a variable pay check with the risk of earning very little money at the end of the month. It takes time to build up a client list and get a decent amount of income. Being prepared for it helps to see you through.Make sure you read up on the experiences of other home business owners and get as many tips as you can. Going into the business blindly is risky and it is highly recommended that you get help and information from as many sources as possible.However, for those who have the right mindset and determination, having the opportunity to start your own Easy Home Based Business, working at your own pace and time in the coziness of your own home and being your own BOSS, reaps priceless benefits.

A Guide To The Best Home Based Businesses

Home based businesses are much less complicated to start up with today’s technological innovations than they were a few years ago. And technological innovation is the key if you are looking for the best home based businesses.Some people may be anxious that they have no technological know-how but the world wide web is an easy place to get started with a work at home business if you follow a few simple steps.Affiliate MarketingAffiliate marketing is one of most popular and best home based businesses to get started with. Basically, you promote other people’s goods and services on the internet and, when somebody buys the products or services that you are advertising, you get rewarded a commission by the product owner. You do not have to worry about producing products, holding any stock, dealing with the fulfilment or any client queries.There are so many different items which are readily available to promote. You can find a large choice at Clickbank, a popular online marketplace. It has paid out billions of dollars in commissions to affiliates over the past 10 years. There is no cost to join Clickbank and you can browse through their categories to see which items suit you best.PayDotCom and Commission Junction are two of the other big online networks who specialise in digital products and of course there is the Amazon online programme if you are interested to promoting actual physical items.Online Information MarketingInformation marketing is another one of the best home based businesses available today. If you have information about a particular topic it can be turned into extra income. People use the world wide web to look for information and are willing to pay for it. You do not need to be an expert, just so long as you know more than a regular person on your chosen subject. If you do not think that you have any useful information then you can go and talk to experts and then transfer that information online for sale.Education and TrainingThe owners of the best home based businesses have all been prepared to learn new skills and techniques for their work from home jobs. You would not expect to start a new job in an office, store or factory without another person showing you what to do, so why should your work at home business be any different? You have to make sure that you are up to date with your marketplace and know about the techniques used to attract new customers and retain existing ones. All of the best home based businesses require continual knowledge and training if you are to succeed.It is a well known fact that over the past years there has been a surge in the number of individuals buying goods and services online. As this trend continues to grow it is the online businesses that provide the greatest opportunities for the best home based businesses.

Using Social Networking to Grow Your Real Estate Investing Business For Free – 10 Quick Tips

If you’re not leveraging the internet to grow your real estate investing business, you’re really missing out. There is a lot you can do in the internet marketing space, but this article specifically discusses how to leverage social networking for real estate investing. Many social networking applications enjoy widespread use and best of all, they are free! Below are 10 quick tips on how you can use popular social networking tools.

Twitter:

(1) Use Twellow to identify real estate investors in your local areas and follow each one of them. This tool is like the Twitter Yellow Pages and categorizes Twitter users by industry. You can quickly do a search on the Real Estate category and put the name of your city in the search box. You’ll find a lot of people I’m sure! Also, a new feature called Twellowhood also allows you to find people based on location so check that out as well.

(2) Use a free tool such as TweetLater to set up automatic direct message responses to all of your followers that includes a URL to your website or squeeze page. (On a related note, be sure to turn off all email notifications on your Twitter account…unless you actually want your email inbox to be completely swamped!)

(3) If you’re a wholesaler, tweet about any real estate deals you’re looking to sell. Be sure to include a link to more information on the property. I suggest using bit.ly a simple to use URL shortener because tweets can only be 140 characters long and URLs can be quite lengthy. Bit.ly is also great because it provides real time click tracking.

(4) Be sure to retweet “RT” other investors tweets that have useful information…this helps you build trust and credibility and will grow your followers. Here’s how it works…let’s say a local investor @BobLocalREI has a great tweet that says “Great article about how to profit with real estate in declining market ” To retweet this, you would simply tweet the following: “RT @BobLocalREI Great article about how to profit with real estate in declining market .”

Facebook:

(5) Join existing Facebook groups with real estate investors from your local area. You can do this by clicking on “Groups” and then searching groups for terms such as “Chicago real estate investors”,”Boston foreclosure investors”, or “Orange county real estate investors” Be sure to introduce yourself to the group and post your offerings on the group’s public wall.

(6) Create your own Facebook group for real estate investors in your local area. Invite the members of the other groups to join your group. Encourage other wholesalers to join as well and post their deals to the group as well. Don’t make it a private group – make it open to all. This will create an excellent buyers list for you and will also connect you to other investors you can do joint ventures with.

(7) Add a form to your Facebook profile that allows people to opt-in to your newsletter that provides tips, news, and details of your wholesale/retail deals. There’s a great blog post from Return on Subscriber that walks you through how to add the form.

(8) Use the “update status” feature on Facebook. Your status can be about the everyday happenings with your real estate investing, it can mention a specific deal, it can be whatever you want. Also there are multiple tools that will integrate your Twitter and Facebook accounts which is a major time saver for those using both applications.

YouTube.com and other Social networking video sites:

(9) Search engines love video! Create videos with useful “How to” tips or information that is relevant to real estate investing (could be focused on buyers, sellers, or both). Consider using the Annotations feature within your videos in order to highlight important points in your video. With Annotations you can make thought bubbles, text in boxes, or links to other videos (but not to external websites).

Be sure that your video title and description are very well written and full of keywords that will help people find your videos. Before you get started, think about who your target audience is and make a list of a few real estate investing related topics that you can create videos for.

(10) Duplicating your video content is ok! You can post the same exact video in multiple content sharing sites (use TubeMogul for free!) and get maximum exposure from the search engines.

Socially Responsible Investing

Values based investing
What is value- based investing?
It is investing in companies which line up with your values.
A value-based investment portfolio can be based on environmental factors, moral factors, or your faith.
Investments based on a set of values is usually called, “Ethical Investments,” but it really all depends on your code of ethics when deciding on what constitutes ethical investing. It is more commonly known as “Socially Responsible Investing,” but I prefer to call it “Values Based Investing,” because not everyone shares the same values.
What may be ethical for one person may not be so for another, therefore, it is up to each one of us to do our homework and read the information provided by the fund’s website. It is important to know what is ethical to you when choosing a fund to invest in.
A prudent investor after he or she has done their homework will discern between what is fact and fiction and whether a company actually lives up to their claims.
Green washing is when a company uses marketing to make claims of being a socially responsible company but in reality they do not practice what they preach.
A company may make donations to charities but that does not necessarily make them green, ethical, or socially responsible.
One company I know has stopped selling coal yet sells imported clothing from third world companies where the working conditions in the clothing factories are unknown.
There are several variations of value-based investments and they come under different names; here are the ones I know of:
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENTS
These are investments which follow socially acceptable guidelines. They invest in companies whose activities are not damaging to the environment. You can be sure that these kinds of investments do not have funds invested in companies which are involved in fossil fuels.
ETHICAL BASED INVESTMENTS
An investment fund based on ethics may not invest in companies involved in the gambling, alcohol, and cigarette industry. Any investment related to the meat industry may also be off limits if you are a vegetarian.
FAITH BASED INVESTMENTS
Some churches have their own investments which are used to fund various church activities. For many investors in church funds the return on their money is a secondary consideration to the work carried out by the church with investor’s money.
GREEN INVESTMENTS
This is basically concerned with climate change and the environment. It is another name for socially responsible investing.
IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Another name for socially responsible investments.
It is important to follow the basic rules of investing and to diversify your investments and invest according to your age and life goals. Investing in mutual funds is an excellent way to reduce your risk as your money is spread over different companies. Diversification as it is commonly known is a good strategy to have particularly when you are older and have less time to recover from financial setbacks. The young ones are able to take more risks.
Balancing risk and reward is an art and to become really good at it requires experience.

How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.

Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.

Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.