New to a home based business? Download 3 FREE Training CDs to get the jump start on your competition with MLM Training by Dani Johnson.

July 28, 2007

Research And Questions Can Help You Make Money Online

By studying how other people make money on the internet and asking some questions, you will likely discover that you can make money online too.

People make money online with all kinds of different items from physical goods that are delivered to the customers to information and services. There's ebooks, works of art or writings, affiliate products and the like. You can even start up your own non profit organization and help other people. Non profit organizations can pay they employees of the company (i.e. you) but not make any money after expenses. If you're earning a wage, it's still money in your pocket, it's just not called profit. If your life long dream was to help any particular group, this might be the most rewarding for you.

If you do a little research on work at home opportunities, you might find a lot of ideas that you never even thought of. Some of the most common ideas are medical billing, network marketing programs or selling items on ebay. In fact, many people try one or all of these things and think, that's it, I can't make money online.

But there really are so many other ways to do it. If you wanted to take some classes, you could learn how to design web pages or create small programs that automate tasks for other internet entrepreneurs. You could write articles for ezine publishers for pay. You can even design the graphics for company logos, letter heads and other templates.

I know a woman who sews used overalls and adds appliqued characters onto them and sells them for a small fortune on eBay. There are many crafts that do well at online auctions. If you are good with technology you might think about building custom computers for people or fixing them. You can even offer to go to their homes and help them fix their computer.

Whatever your skill or talent, you can find a way to generate an income from it. And if you lack skill or talent, follow your passion and develop it. Then you can turn it into a way to make money online.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 26, 2007

How To Write Autoresponders That Sell

The key to writing effective autoresponders is to have a clear objective from the beginning. Since autoresponders are being sent to those who are interested in your goods and services, chances are they have already visited your site or have made a purchase in the past. Autoresponders are a way to earn repeat business or to sell a new product. They should not be long and they should have a point that is easy to understand.

While many people use autoresponders as a way to reach a large number of people without having to send each person on their mailing list a personal message, you should keep in mind that automated messages do not sell products. Even though your message will be read by thousands of people, making each of them feel special is the goal. Those who receive your message should feel like it was to them from you personally. When writing your message, use a conversational tone. Always include your full name, your company name, and URL so customers can click on it easily when they want to visit your site. Your message should only be one or two paragraphs in length and should mention your web site once or twice.

Don't use autoresponders to plug everyday products. This is a waste of time and if those on your email list receive too many messages, they will want to opt out. Save autoresponders for holidays, special sales, new products launches, or any other time you have something important to say.

In your opening paragraph, introduce your product. Tell the customer when it is available and where they can find it. Since most people do not take the time to read entire emails from companies and small businesses, you should include contact information in the beginning and at the end of your message. In second paragraph, you can describe the benefits and features of the new product and offer advice on using it.

Since sales letters are generally ignored by customers, an effective autoresponder should not sound like you are trying to sell something. Instead, it should sound more like an update or a friendly reminder to visit your web site. In the subject line, you should include your company name so people will know it's from you. Since spamming has become a big issue in recent years, wording your message and your subject line correctly will keep your message from the bulk mail pile.

After sending autoresponders, track their progress to see how many hits you receive as a result. If your message was effective, you will experience an increase in business a few hours after sending the message. Give it a few days to measure the success of your autoresponder.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 24, 2007

Four Ways To Encourage Customer Loyalty

Just about anyone can make a sale, but very few can make subsequent sales to the same people on a regular basis. The first time a customer visits your business and makes a purchase they are entering into a tentative business relationship with you and that is the time to begin encouraging customer loyalty. Some stores seek customer loyalty through frequent shopping incentives or lower prices for people with a loyalty card, but for most shoppers, loyalty goes beyond price.

A company hoping to build customer loyalty by price alone may be surprised to find their customers going to another location and paying more for the same items. Price may get them in the door and if the quality meets the price, may even get them through the checkout line the first time. However, to have them be loyal to your store or your service, will require more steps. There are essentially four ways to encourage customer loyalty and looking at potential customer loss backwards, can help define those steps.

Customer loyalty is based on four basic tenets including communication, relationship strength, perceived alternatives and the resolution of critical experiences. With those in mind, examine your daily business operation. If customers ask to speak to someone in charge, do they get passed around from person to person or are they put in touch with a person who can handle their concern immediately? By communicating with the customer and trying to help them the best way you can, will communicate to them your desire to keep them as a customer.

Even if the resolution to one instance is not to their satisfaction they will be apt to continue their relationship with you than if you simply said no. It would be in the best interest of any company that the only person allowed to say anything to a customer is the owner or highest ranking manager at the time.

This communication will also help build the relationship strength as the customer knows they can count on the business to do what is right by the customer in any given situation. They will also learn through the communication effort that the customer is not always right.

When customers believe they have alternatives, even at slightly higher prices, they are less likely to give your business another chance if communication fails to help build on your relationship. When the relationship is strong, consisting of strong service to the customer, they may find a business offering similar products or services at a lower cost, but the foundation of your relationship will keep them coming back.

At any time a major problem may occur and how that problem is handled will make the difference in customer loyalty. Starting with the question, “what can I do to make it right,” is the beginning of a negotiating session where you and the customer can work out a solution that benefits both parties. Failure to do so will cause the loss of a customer, and once loss due to a critical situation, it is unlikely they will ever return.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 21, 2007

Start a Home Business With Online Auctions

There are many ways that you can start your own home business and enjoy the rewards that come with it. This articles is going to discuss generating extra income by starting your own home business from online auctions.

Did you know that there are other places on the internet besides Ebay that you can sell your items. There are Yahoo and MSN auctions, as well as another site that gets a great deal of traffic and potential buyers-Amazon. Some of the great things about all of these sites is that they take very little experience to get started, very little money and not too much time. Additionally, and very important to sales is that these sites already have a great deal of built-in, targeted traffic. It’s hard to make a sale when no one knows where to find your items.

Finding products to sell isn’t that hard either. You can get started with some old CD’s or movies or books to get used to the process. Then you might start expanding by cleaning out your own garage or attic. If you don’t find much there… take it a step further and offer to clean or organize garages for your neighbors for a fee. If there’s anything they don’t want, tell them you will dispose of it for them. If it’s something you think you can sell, all the better. Then you can earn money from the service provided and the items that you come away with, not a bad home business.

When you get your auctions listed, be sure to have clear, detailed pictures of each item. You know the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But remember, a picture isn’t enough. You want to write a great description of each item that you list. Tell people things like how it looks (in case the picture doesn’t load or they just want to read about it) how old it is, any relevant history, what the current going rate is for a new item like yours and what the dimensions are. People like to know what they’re buying and will buy from the person who gives the most information for them to make their purchasing decision.

Make sure you have a descriptive title, not a flashy one. Flash doesn’t help you get found when someone is searching for you, good key words and descriptions do.

Do some research looking at other items similar to yours and see who has the most bids. Then, see what you think made that item more attractive, and apply that knowledge to your own auctions. With a little practice and effort, you could have a booming home business in no time.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 20, 2007

Four Tips On Building An Online Presence For Your Company

In a day and age when the Internet is mushrooming and there are virtually no corners on the globe left that are not connected or at least connectible, as a business you will have to have an online presence to stay competitive. Of course, building an online presence for your company is not as easy as it sounds, and the number one mistake made by those who might be small business owners is to do it themselves and cut costs wherever possible. This leads to a host of sites that look or feel simply unprofessional.

Here are four tips on building an online presence for your company:

1. Hire a professional web designer and ask to see samples of their work. You want to see currently working sites that have been put together by the outfit to ensure that you like what the finished product would look like. It is too easy to be wowed by a web designer’s low price tag only to later end up with a site that is either run of the mill – as it the case with many software programs that only offer for one or two variations on a theme – or so packed full of slow loading graphics and flash footage that some consumers who are still not up to date with computing items will be left out.

2. If you decide to go it alone, pay to have your site hosted. While a free host sounds good, your website will also become an advertising solution for the free host. Thus, you will have to display banners, ads, pop ups, and other undesirable bits and pieces in order to have that free site set up. Instead, purchase your domain name and pay for the hosting.

3. Do not overproduce your site. This applies especially to first time webmasters. It is so tempting to add as many “drag and drop” elements on a site as possible. Resist the urge to have email buttons, counters, guest books, weather forecasts, map functions and other items on your site all jostled together. Instead, each page of your web site should be clear, concise, and quick loading. Furthermore, the less links you offer, the less chance there is for a broken link. Consistently stay on top of your links to make sure that customers do not get error notifications.

4. Last but not least, perhaps the most important tip on building an online presence for your company is to have content that is sticky and that will be so useful to your customers that they will either bookmark your site or come back time and again from memory. The goal is to offer unique content, articles, news, and other web content that your clients or customers will appreciate, use, and perhaps also pass on to others.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 19, 2007

Bringing In Inspiration Through A Career/Motivational Speaker

If you have noticed the moral at your office isn't what is used to be, you may want to consider hiring a career/motivational speaker that will talk about career and life goals. Motivational speakers can give insight on issues that are important within the office and allow employees to generate new ideas and help them learn to work together as a team. Most offices go through times of transition and need advice and counseling in order to get through it.

After scheduling a speaker and sending on the information to everyone in your office, you should prepare them for what will happen next. If there are internal issues that are disruptive to productivity, then they should be addressed prior to the speaker's visit or let those in the office know they will be addressed during the presentation. Motivational speakers can help employees by giving them the tools needed to be successful. This can include adopting a new attitude, becoming a better salesperson, staying organized, and learning how to earn promotions.

With these tools, employees should be able to interact more professionally in the office. Speakers can also address office politics, how to remain professional during certain situations, and how to better communicate with others. Even though many companies have HR departments that are supposed to help, a speaker from the outside may be more influential because they are a third party and are not familiar with employees and how they usually act.

When choosing a motivational speaker, you should find one that is energetic and who understands your business. This will make relating to employees much easier. Most speakers have exercises that they give to the group during the presentation to see if employees are learning from it. If you have a large group, you may want to ask the speaker to refrain from doing any exercises because it will take too long. Most presentations last an hour or two.

If your office is a happy one, you can still bring in a motivational speaker who can talk about personal finances, investing, or taking better care of one's health. There are many topics that speakers can talk about that will inspire and change the lives of employees. Many employees don't know how to invest properly or they haven't taken the time to learn how. A motivational speaker can give tips and advice that they can begin using right away.

Inspiration can come from many sources. Sometimes it can come from total strangers. If your office needs a boost or wants to learn about a topic that is important, then hiring a motivational speaker is one way to help your employees in their careers and in their personal lives by following some of the advice they receive.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa

July 18, 2007

What are Auto-responders?

Have you ever sent an email and had a message that bounced back stating that person was out of the office or was unavailable at that time, but to contact someone else at the following email address? It happens quite frequently in a world where emails are the fastest way to make contact with a co-worker, friend or loved one. Auto-responders can be great, for when you need someone to know something important, when they are trying to reach you, but they can be a problem too, when you are in urgent need to contact someone and you receive an auto-response.

Auto-responders are software programs that automatically send a response when an email is sent to an individual that has set their limits to have an auto-response. These can be as simple as you would like to make them or as complicated. Having a simple message can make things easier for those that will receive the reply email. Having an auto-response to emails that come in regarding your company can be a quick way of getting information out, before you address a specific question or problem. This works exceptionally well if you set it up on an email account that is a broad email or is specifically used to relay information to a possible customer.

Auto-responders can be added to your computer system in two ways. The first is to pay an outside company to run those for you. They can be costly, but will not take much time to program for the computer savvy company. You will just need to specify to them what you would like it to say and to which email addresses you would like it connected to. A second option is buying and installing a program that you can manipulate from your office. This takes someone who knows something about programming and some skill in using advanced programs.

Be careful when using an auto-responder for emails. If the emails are sent to a third party email address, then it can be marked as spam and deleted or sent to the trash file on the original sender’s email server. When this happens repetitively, it can cause your auto-response to always be sent as spam. One way to combat these problems is to set your spam filters on low or do not set them on at all. This will open up your email to a lot of possible spam and unwanted mail.

Auto-responders can be good for the company as a whole and cut down on a lot of back and forth emails between persons. New or important information will be automatically delivered to someone who may be in need of information that is frequently ask, and will not tie up email or phone lines.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 17, 2007

Email Marketing: What Good Does It Do?

In many cases batch email marketing can be a waste of time and money, especially if you are sending emails to people who have not agreed to accept emails from you. In that case it could be considered spam and lead to being booted off your internet service provider. It can also create animosity with your subscribers if they receive a constant flow of emails from you that appear to be advertising only, with no benefit to them.

Email marketing can be an integral part of your marketing plan and if done right can bring in tons of business. If done wrong it will bring in tons of complaints. Consider when signing up for information online that you are agreeing to accept emails from that company as well as third party companies. One day you open your mailbox and have hundreds of email for items or websites that you have no interest in visiting. You will have to go through each one to stop receiving mail from them and even placing their address in a spam file does not mean none will get through.

Use email marketing as a target advertising technique, sending email filled with information the subscribers to your email list will be interested in receiving. Even if they do not read each and every piece you send them, your name will be on their mind and if it is of interest to them, your name will not be put in the trashcan list.

If you have different segments to your business, consider a separate email list for each segment. If you offer products and service, there needs to different emails for each one and sending all information to everyone will only serve to aggravate people who get information in which they have no interest in receiving.

Most people scan the subject before opening an email and if they do open it, the first20 to 30 words must be enough to draw them into the rest of the email. If not, they will hit the delete key. The subject has to have an interesting and promising title, and must also pertain to the email. If they get a piece with the subject stating they have won a million dollars and the email tells them about a new mouse trap, they will get upset with you. Keep it honest.

Email marketing will only work if the subject line relates to the message and the information being sent is of interest to the recipient. Sending the same email every week will not garner any support from your list members, but will only make it appear that you have nothing new to discuss and should not be wasting their time. Keep the message simple, keep it honest and leave it the discretion of the recipients to remain on your list. Asking them for a reason they want our of their list if they choose that option is OK, but do not continue to press for a reason once they tell you to go away and take your emails with you.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 16, 2007

Are Online Ads Worth Your Buck?

Whenever you are surfing the internet looking for information you will see a plethora of online advertising offering virtually every conceivable product or service under the sun. As more people hit the information highway, often shunning traditional information sources such as print, television and radio, advertisers are also making the switch. Online advertising can be a cost-effective method of reaching web surfers and getting their message in front of a different audience.

One of the biggest advantages of online ads is also one of the biggest disadvantages. Online ads can reach a wider audience and if you have a global internet business can expand the boundaries of your customer base. In most cases you have the ability to determine the types of sites on which your online ads will appear, but in many instances once you place the ad, especially if going through an online ad agency, your site could end up on sites that are inconsistent with you beliefs.

If your business is strictly locally based, with print, television or radio advertising you can restrict the geographic locations where the ads will be heard or seen. For many local-only businesses this type of target advertising reaches only those are likely to be interested in your business and be reasonably expected to visit in person. It all depends on whether you want your advertising effort to have a shotgun effect or a rifle shot.

While a shotgun approach can reach more people in the least amount of time in a much wider area, it will also have many of the ads whiz out into cyberspace with no contact with potential customers. With the rifle approach you can aim your advertising at a specific customer base and even with a potentially higher cost can often realize a better return on the advertising dollar.

When considering online advertising you have to look at the potential return to determine if they are worth your investment. With internet advertising, as will many other forms, it is a numbers game. If you anticipate that 10 percent of those who see the ad will respond and ten percent of those respondents will result in a sale, you should consider that 10,000 advertisement in print media would see 1,000 respondents resulting in 100 sales.

With online ads, your advertisement may reach a million viewers, resulting in 100,000 respondents and 10,000 sales. Weighing these purely hypothetical numbers would seem to make online advertising a good investment. However, depending on the placement of online ads, such as on sites that customers for your products or service rarely if ever visit, the number of respondents may be considerably lower, reducing the potential return on your online ad investment.

If you have an online business, it may pay to advertise where your customers are looking. If your business is completely offline, advertising online may simply make the business with which you advertise the recipient of any income.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 15, 2007

Advertising Is Key To Home Business Success

There is no question that advertising is key to the success of any business – large or small, new or old. Without advertising and marketing practices a business simply cannot succeed or last long. To ensure long and lasting success, a business must engage in marketing and advertising in some way. If you have heard the old adage that “it takes money to make money” then you know that advertising does not come for free. A business must consider an advertising campaign budget to keep their numbers up.

It has been said that the best form of advertising is word of mouth advertising. Word of mouth advertising is free and lends an air of credibility to the business. Usually, word of mouth advertising comes from happy and satisfied customers and clients that wish to share their positive experience. Most of the time, they tell their friends, family, and coworkers about a particular product or service and in turn new customers come to the business.

While word of mouth is a wonderful and free way to get the word out about a business, it is not the “be all end all” of advertising. Advertising with television spots, radio spots, on billboards, and in print are all still very effective ways to get the word out. These methods of advertising are quite expensive and not as realistic for many small businesses.

A more economical yet effective way for a business to advertise is online. The Internet is such an integral part of daily life now that it is hard not to advertise on the World Wide Web. The ways in which a business can advertise online are seemingly endless. There are several types of email marketing campaigns, banner advertising, link advertising, websites, and viral marketing. Usually, to engage in a successful email marketing campaign, a business will send past customers an email to announce new products or specials on their website or in their store.

Many business owners engage in strategic networking with other business owners in an effort to advertise their businesses. Strategic networking is a way for business owners to meet each other, get the word out about their company, and even to expand their resources and business prospects.

One of the newest ways to get the word out about your business and successfully advertise is that through social networking. Social networking is much like strategic networking in that it is usually free and occurs through meeting and discussing issues and products. However, social networking is done through modern media such as websites, blogs, and the Internet community. It is highly effective and inexpensive.

Regardless of the method of advertising used, a business must use constant advertising campaigns to keep success on the horizon.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 14, 2007

6 Tips to Regularly Increase Sales

Every business runs on the amount of financial stability that they have. Without it, no company would be able to maintain their level of expertise and precision. There are several ways a company can increase their sales on a regular basis. The most important tip to increasing business for the company is to have a variety of products and services that are highly needed in that area. By adding new products and services or having trial periods with possible new products, the company will draw in new clients or bring in repeat customers.

Tip number two is to sell a higher quality of products. Customers will feel more secure using the company if they know that the products will last for a longer period of time and will with stand up to being tested. Having higher quality products can give one company a lead over others that sell close to the same products.

Having lower prices can also persuade customers into choosing one company over another. Being able to save money, even by a few dollars, can lead a customer to feel that the company in question is giving them a fair deal. Many of us have been over charged on a product and well begin to have harsh feelings towards the store.

A fourth tip is to have proper advertising. Advertising can make or break a company. The more a company advertises the larger of a customer basis they will secure. There are several ways to advertise, such as on the internet, in local newspapers, on television or even fliering local neighborhoods. Word of mouth is another great advertisement. Every happy customer is sure to tell a friend or family member about their experience. When that friend goes to find a company who does the same services, they will look towards that company as a possible option.

Having great customer service will make a customer’s experience worth while. A good experience when purchasing a product, especially when the item is expensive, can cause a customer to return to the store for future products or accessories. Making a customer feel that they have all of the support and attention they can, is an important business strategy that can make each customer feel that they are the center of attention.

Customer appreciation is also very important to increasing sales. A customer is more likely to return when they feel that their needs are being taken care of and the company truly wants to have their business. One of the ways to show a customer that they are appreciated is to offer special deals to repeat customers or offer special percentages off store-wide.

The way to increase sales is to make customers happy and to make the company better known in the community. Increasing sales will mean that the company will remain in business for a considerable amount of time and profits will soar.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 13, 2007

Be Good To Your Clients & They Will Stick Around

Have you ever received customer service that was so bad it almost bordered at abuse? You know the kind of treatments some low-paid, uncaring, overworked, and unappreciative company reps mete out to the client: the eye rolling, the shortness on the phone, the deep sigh of the employee when the client needs something to be explained again and again, the chip on the shoulder, and the downright rude comment “that” (whatever “that” is) does not fall within the rep’s job description.

Being good to your clients will ensure that they will stick around; in a day and age where the Internet provides competition – either by virtue of doing many tasks virtually or by enabling vendors and service providers from across the globe to connect with eager clients from all over the world – that has already forced many companies out of business, you have to be wise when it comes to client treatment. You need to understand that without your employees and your clients, you would be unable to sit in your office and keep on the lights or pay for the water bill. Thus, even the most callous customer service phobic will acknowledge the need to be good to your clients.

Doing so is actually easier than you think! For example, your service needs to be easily accessible. Make sure your phone system is up and working, have enough people to answer the telephone, and ensure that in case of messages being left, someone from your company will return the call within 24 hours. Excessive hold times and missed call backs are a first rate complaint that has sent many a potential client seeking out the competition.

Additionally, make sure that your prices are in keeping with the national average. Do not raise rates while failing to raise customer service levels. While rate increases are necessary at times, expecting your clients to stick around if they do not receive added benefits is unrealistic. Soon you will find that they will go elsewhere. Interestingly, most people do not mind paying more for a service, if they perceive that they are receiving more for their money. Failure to provide more for the requested price increase is the great gift that many television cable companies have given to satellite television providers who time and again made the cable companies the butts of their commercials and jokes.

Being good to your clientele means keeping your word: if you promise a certain level of customer service, a specific benefit, or simply an in-home appointment to take place between the hours of 8 and 12, make sure you deliver! A client will forgive a call asking to reschedule or expression serious regret at a specific benefit no longer being available and offering a comparable benefit in exchange, but no-call, no-show companies are notorious for losing clients. Be food to your clients & they will stick around!

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa

July 12, 2007

4 Reasons Customer Loyalty Is Vital To Your Business

Have you ever wondered why some businesses may set up shop in areas that might not be very conducive to business and do quite well, while others are placed at major thorough fares where walk by and drive by traffic are all but guaranteed, yet within six months they fold and the place goes up for lease or sale? The truth of the matter is that success is not always determined by your location – although it does play a vital role – but more often than not it is dictated by customer loyalty.

Here are four reasons customer loyalty is vital to your business:

1. First and foremost is the fact that a loyal customer is a repeat customer. This person will know about your business practices, about what to expect from your goods or service, the advantages and the disadvantages, and she or he will do business with you in such a way that it is a mutually satisfying transaction.

2. As you establish a relationship with your customer, you are also establishing a relationship with the customer’s family. Thus, it is not uncommon to have the wife bring in the dry cleaning for the family and turns her mother, mother in law, aunt, and best girlfriend on to your business. As the husband is sent one day to pick up the dry cleaning he becomes familiar with the business, and he will tell his brother, business associates, and others who are looking for a dry cleaner. Thus, you are suddenly becoming a commodity which is being shared with others.

3. While family referrals are great, business referrals are even better. If you are a dry cleaner, you will want the dress maker down the street to recommend your services to its customers. Similarly, if there is bridal shop with which you may have some professional ties, then these business referrals are simply priceless! Customer loyalties – when you have other business owners or clerks shopping at your store or utilizing your service – are quite often the gateway to a great number of new walk in customers.

4. Yet the fourth and perhaps most important reasons why customer loyalty is vital to your business rests in the fact that many major purchases are not made during the initial contact. For example, if you are a furniture store, you might have someone come in looking for a computer desk. While these may be expensive – depending on the materials – by and large these items are small fish. Yet if the consumer is satisfied with the product, the delivery, the setup and also the price, the odds are good that she or he will be back when it is time to furnish the nursery, buy that new wall unit, or acquire that bedroom set that was saved up for!

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 11, 2007

Writing A Business Plan

The business plan is the guide to your business. According to experts, the business plan is one of the most important tools when it comes to setting up a new business or expanding an old business. People who formulated business plans before they start their business generally have higher rates of success as compared to those people who just jump into a business opportunity without really bothering to find out what they are up against.

Writing a business plan is not really as mind boggling as building a rocket ship that will travel to Mars in just a few days. In fact, anybody who is inclined into business can come up with their own simplified business plan. As long as the entrepreneur knows what he or she wants and have some ideas on how he or she will achieve his or her goal, he or she can already come up a simplified business plan.

What should the business plan contain?

A business plan should include an executive summary which give a very short description the content of the business plan, a description of the company and its operations, the market analysis, the strategies of implementing the business, a profile of the management team and a detailed financial plan. A comprehensive business plan could reach up to several pages. In fact, business plans for bug companies and organizations could well reach over a hundred pages depending on the complexities of its operations and other factors. Note that big business operating several plants all over the country need to create a plan that will encompass the operations of the all the segments of the business so normally these companies will have some voluminous documents as part of their business plan.

The Financial Plan

According to experts, the financial plan is one of the most important parts of the business plan. Under the financial plan, the expenses for business operations, the cash flow, sales and other financial aspects of the business will be presented. The figures in the financial plan will be based on sound assumptions. When we say sound assumptions, we mean that the figures that are used in the projected financial statements are results of extensive research and price analysis.

Investors will most likely go directly to the financial plan when reading through the business plan and the business strategies. These parts of the document will tell them how profitable the business can be and what are the possible improvements that can be introduced to make the business more profitable. From the financial plan, the investors can already gauge as to whether or not the business is worth their money or not. In most cases, if the financial plan is not properly laid out or if the financial plan is bloated, the investors will shy away from the business.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa

July 10, 2007

Why It Is Better To Work For Yourself

Good-bye daily grind, long commutes, noisy fellow workers and dictating bosses. It's time to step out and start your own business. The time has come to put your talents, ideas and education to work for you. Be brave, you can do it. In deciding to work for yourself you might want to reflect on what you are leaving behind.

The first thing you might be missing is a steady and reliable paycheck. This sense of security however might be holding you back. Benefits, such as insurance, is another big draw in the work field. There are plenty of insurance companies that would love to have you as a client. Last but not least is a retirement package. Start your own. Sure you won't have a company matching what you put in, but if you are successful you can exceed their amount.

Now that we have looked at what you are leaving behind, let's look at the future. You can now be your own boss. You get to make all the decisions. Success and failure now depend upon you and how hard you are will to work. Also, most business owner can't and don't fire themselves!

A huge draw in starting your own business is flexibility. Will you work today or not? Will you start at 7 am or noon. Don't feel like working today, take the day off. No one will care! Seriously, to be successful you will have to work, probably harder at first than a 9 to 5 job, but you can enjoy a more flexible schedule.

Women who decide to start their own businesses, do it so they can be home with the children. They feel they are providing a more stable and secure environment for their little ones. They also have the flexibility of schedules for doctor appointments and
childhood illnesses and accidents.

Happiness is a big reason for starting you own business. It's true that you may never be extremely wealthy but a sense of accomplishment is wonderful. Keep your goals simple. Aim for lifestyle over riches. Contentment is preferable to riches. Doing what you like to do goes along way to personal happiness.

If you decide to work alone, you won't have to worry about fellow employees. Most business owners do, at some point, need help and have to consider hiring others. Hire those with whom you could be friends. Create your own social environment. Just remember that you are the boss and they are your employees.

Speaking of socializing, if you are your only employee, don't become a hermit. Join group or clubs and interact with others. Being with others helps you to grow but can also provide contacts for your business. Now that you have considered the pros and cons of being a business owner, it's time to go for it. If you don't try, you will never know if you can do it. Enjoy yourself and remember success is just one step away.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa

July 9, 2007

Why Buying A Building For Your Business Can Be Profitable

When you have a business, one of the first decisions that you are going to have to make is where you want the business to be based out of. Lots of people start with the business in their homes, and then move somewhere else as their business grows and expands. This is often a good idea because as the business grows and expands, there are new things that can be done with more space. This means as your business gets bigger, you might want to move to a bigger space, so your business can flourish and continue to do so.

One of the questions you are going to have to ask is whether you would like to buy a building or rent. There are many suggestions that say that both of these are good ideas, but there are a few reasons you might want to consider buying a place over renting a place.

The first reason buying a place is a good idea is you are going to be able to simply make payments on the building in the same way you would be paying rent, yet the payments are actually going to be going towards owning the building. This is often the route people go. When they look into a building for their business, they take out a loan to buy the building. Usually, they can find a way to pay about what they would be paying in rent, but have this money go towards paying back the loan. This is a great way to gain property and also to gain assets.

The other reason you might want to buy a building for your business is when you buy a building, that means it is yours, and you can do whatever you want to it. When you rent, you have to talk to the landlord about changing the carpet or fixtures or even painting the walls. This means you are going to have to be under someone else’s control when it comes to these things, and it might be that you want to control them for yourself. If you buy the building, you can feel free to do whatever you want with it. Because many businesses thrive on people coming to the store and being at their establishment, you can feel free to change the building in any way so that your customers will feel more comfortable and will be more happy when they are there, and therefore they’ll be more likely to buy things. Also, if you purchase a building for your business, it means that no matter what happens, you have that building. If you decide not to have your business anymore, you can sell the building and hopefully you will be able to make a profit on it.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa

July 8, 2007

Why Advertising Your Business Can Pay Off

You might think you have a product or a service you sell in your home business that actually sells itself – therefore you don’t need to worry about setting a budget, or advertising, because as soon as you start your business you are going to be bringing in the cash and you are going to find that you don’t have to work very hard. If you think this, chances are pretty good you are deceiving yourself, because this is simply not the way it goes with a home business. If you want the best chance of success, you are going to need to start with advertising, and you are going to need to always continue to be advertising, no matter how successful you think you are.

Choose A Type

When you begin to do advertising for your home business, you are going to have a decision to make. There are several types of advertising, and you have to decide which of them is going to benefit you. The differences in them are what makes them good for one business and bad for the next. The two main types of advertising you might be thinking about would be either online or internet advertising, or local advertising. In order to decide which type of advertising is going to work best for you, the first decision you have to make is where your target audience is. If your home business is something local, like a day care or hairdresser, or something that relies on local customers, you are going to want to focus on localized advertising. However, if you are selling a product that can be shipped any where, or doing some kind of service that you can do from you home, you are going to benefit more from having internet or online advertising. This is because you can have a business that is always open and ready to receive customers this way, and you can find that this is very rewarding and also going to be very beneficial for you.

No matter what you think, advertising is going to benefit you because advertising is the only way that your idea, your product, or your service can get into the hands of the general public. You aren’t going to be able to make money on your own so you are going to have to rely on advertising to get the word out about you and about what you are looking for. By using advertising in a smart and correct manner, you are going to help build the infrastructure of your business, and be way more successful in the long run. It is simply the best way to go about it.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 7, 2007

Wholesale Opportunities For Home Businesses

No matter what your home business is, getting the product into your own hands can be a challenge, and if you don’t do it right, you might find yourself out of products, or out of money to buy new products. This is where wholesale opportunities are going to come in very handy because they’ll be able to give you a chance to buy what you need, buy a lot of it, and buy it cheaply.

Many Opportunities

There are simply too many wholesale opportunities to count when it comes to your home business. It is all going to depend on what type of business you have, what you are selling, and how you are creating the product. If you are simply selling items that someone else is making, you can find many opportunities to buy these items wholesale, and really the only way that you are going to make money is if you are buying them wholesale. You have to be able to buy a lot of the products you want to sell so you can buy them for cheap, and then you can resell them for a greater amount of money. This is a great home business venture, and it is something you can very easily find as a great opportunity for you.

Making Products

The other way you can use wholesale opportunities to enhance your business is if you are making the products that you are selling, and if you are making them from products that you can buy wholesale. This is often going to be even more rewarding when it comes to the money you are bringing in because you’ll find that the easiest way to deal with making new products is to buy all of the pieces wholesale. You’ll be able to get a much better deal, and once you have created the item that you are selling in your home business, you’ll be able to sell this item for even more money, which is going to make you even more money as well.

There is nothing quite like the opportunity that buying wholesale can offer you. This means you are going to be purchasing items in bulk, a lot of them in other words, for very little money. There are many companies that make their own money selling you items in bulk because they can have the items made even more cheaply and this means that everyone is benefiting from this idea.

For a home business, no matter what size home business you might have, you are going to want to look into buying items wholesale. There is simply no other way that this can be a success for you – there is something great about buying wholesale and about enjoying the benefits.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 5, 2007

When To Know Your Business Needs Revamping

Is your business steadily growing or is it slowly falling apart? Are profits less than last year or the year before that? Is the market for your services still out there? Are you not getting the business like you did before? Maybe it is time for a change or just some revamping what you already have.

Check out the basics and see if they can be improved. Is your web site and/or brochure colorful and interesting? Do they focus on your business and it's services? That's okay, but does it really provide an understanding of a client's concerns or issues? Try reading them as a future client, instead of a business owner. Would you use this business based on the brochure or website?

Another area to examine is your marketing team. Do they explain your services in depth?

Are you matching you competitors? Are they "cold" calling new prospects each month? Do they continue to follow up with them on a regular basis? Are they explaining the uniqueness of your company?

Making sure you are focusing on solving the client's issues and situations is more important, than making your company look good.

Advertising is another area to check for "staleness". Is it flashy and very loud? Is it bland and boring? Shake it up a little bit. Client testimonies with a ring of honest, make for good advertising. Pictures of finished projects speak volumes about your work.
Another avenue to use is having someone from your marketing or sales team present papers at various business related events. The paper doesn't have to be specifically about your company, but will get your company name out there to the public. When giving a paper, just make sure it is not loaded with facts and figures, but establish a mutual understanding of the issue.

If your business has been revamped and you are not bringing in the clientele that you were prior to the need to revamp, then maybe it's time to consider a change in the products or services that you offer. It may be beneficial to you to add a small service to your original company. This small increase maybe the key to returning the customers to your front door. It is possible you may offer services that are time consuming, that are not necessary, and do not bring in the revenue that you want. These are services you might consider dropping from your business.

Revamping your personal business maybe just what you need to bring in return customers. It may also bring the business out of a financial slump you maybe in. This may be your chance to feel rejuvenated and get excited about owning your own business again.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.

July 2, 2007

What Your College Professor Didn’t Tell You About Running A Business

There are many things that you probably aren’t aware of that you are going to have to know as you embark on the process of running your own business. First of all, remember that your college professors probably gave you lots of good advice when it comes to running your business, and there is probably a lot they told you about how to do things and when to do things. However, you know there are many things that you weren’t told, and some of these things are very important.

It’s Hard!

You probably weren’t told this, but running your own business is hard. Not just slightly hard, but really hard. When you start out, you are going to have a period of time in which you have no money – in fact, in which you are losing money. Businesses need start up costs, and in order to make money you are going to have to spend money. This is hard because you are going to have to eat into your savings and probably take out some loans to cover it.

No Sleep!

The other thing you might not have been told is that as you are running a business, you might not be sleeping very much. When you first start out, you probably don’t have enough money to hire anyone, which means that you have to be in charge of everything. You have to set up a website, coordinate emails and orders, fill the orders, make or ship the product, collect the money, keep track of all of the taxes, and be sure you do this all in a manner that speaks highly of you and makes others want to continue to use your business. Count on not getting very much sleep for awhile, because as you start to run your business you are probably going to be sleep deprived, and this is probably going to last for quite some time.

Remember though, it is going to be worth it. No matter how hard it seems now, and no matter how much you have to do at the start, when you have your home business up and running and it begins to be a profit to you, you are going to find that it is completely worth it. You can set your own hours, take care of your business the way you want to, and you can be completely in charge of your financial future. This is a fantastic place to be, and you can be there – if only you have the strength to get yourself through the hard parts at the beginning.

======================================================
About the Author:
Sheila enjoys working part-time from home. She also enjoys sponsoring and mentoring others, and helping them find success with their work from home base business. Click here to contact Sheila and learn how you can start a work at home-base business.
Posted by Picasa