Aug 7, 2008

Do You Have Time For A Work At Home Business?

In order to have a successful business, you must have time for it. I guess that is a rather obvious statement. Most people, when starting an internet business from their home, will still be working a 40 hour a week job elsewhere. That complicates matters.

When I first signed up for a work at home opportunity, I didn't think much about it. That is because basically the first two months I didn't do much with my online business. Then I really go involved and the time crunch hit.

Recently I have had thoughts like, "I wish I didn't have to sleep, so I could work more." or "I wish there were about 30 hours in the day."

If you are working for someone else plus starting your own business I bet you have had those thoughts also.I figure that I probably spend close to 30 hours a week on my own business. Factor in hours worked at your other job, commuting time, family obligations, etc. and you have a pretty hectic schedule. It seems like you are always working.

I don't mind that. What does bother me is that I have so many ideas of things I want to do to promote or expand my business.What is the solution to this problem of a lack of time? If I had the answer I would probably be rich.

One thing you have to learn to do is prioritize. As long as you feel you need your regular job you have to allow time for it. Perhaps you could cut back a few hours because of the money you are making at your own business.

You would have to consider whether the increased earning from your business would be more valuable than "x" amount per hour.Certainly do not exclude sleep from your daily regime. Some people need close to eight hours a night.

Others can get along fine on 5 hours or less. Your health is more important than your business. Do not neglect it. Get the sleep you need. Find another way to have extra time.Don't take on more than you can handle.

This is a tough one. You have so many ideas. I started a second website. I enjoyed doing it, but looking back, I think I should have spent the time fine tuning my first site. Now I have to think about advertising two sites, checking on both to make sure everything works. Everything is double...except that I don't have double the time.

So, take this warning. It is best to have one project fully developed before you begin another. Don't unduly stress yourself.The ideal is to not have a "regular job". I have a friend that I met on one of the forums.

I am so envious. She has lots of time to spend on the forums (an invaluable source of knowledge and information). She lost her job a year ago due to downsizing. So now she spends all hertime on her work at home business.

There is a lot of wishing going on...wish I could work fulltime at this, wish I didn't have to go out in the freezing weather to go to work, wish I didn't have to face this commute twice a day.Some people will take a chance on themselves.

They "know" they will succeed and they are willing to drop the sure source of income and devote all their time to the business. I am convinced that I will succeed, BUT I am a very conservative person financially.

That means, to me, that until there is sufficient profit I will have to continue working another job.You have to decide what is best for you. No one can tell you. It is a totally personal decision.

To succeed in a work at home business you must be highly motivated and highly disciplined. I know that I will succeed. I know that one day you will be looking through articles and find one written by me entitled, "How Great It Is To Work At Home Fulltime".

And you can imagine how big my smile is while I am typing it.

I'm Back

Hello again,

Yes, it is me, i'm back again after a few months on holidays. New articles. post and products are comming soon so do not forget to visit the blog every day for more info for your bussines and please do not forget either to send me your comments and tell me which issues do you want me to write about on the blog.

See you soon

Siam

Apr 21, 2008

Advertising doesn't just sell, it is a tool!

Advertising: Advertising doesn't sell to your audience, it is a tool similar to the male ostrich tail; its job is to get you noticed for the specific things you do well. Advertising promotes the distinguishing features, benefits and advantages of your offer to a wide market.

The goal of advertising is to bring in valuable leads for the selling process to take place.I've sold Yellow Page advertising to business owners who initially felt that Yellow Page ads brought a lot of callers who were just shopping around.

They didn't want to waste time with "looky loo's".If someone takes the time to make a phone call or send you an email regarding your product or service, why treat them with disdain? These folks are looking for the right answers to their problems. Even more important, they each know about 250 other people personally.

Each opportunity to make a connection or a sale should be treated as equally important.Selling: Once advertising has attracted the potential buyer, the selling process takes over. This is done either by personal sales or the use of point of purchase materials (ie., a store display, video demonstration etc.).

Selling should come into play after a prospect has been determined to be right for the product or service.The mystery and confusion begins when a business owner must decide what tools to use in the process of client acquisition.

To whom should you advertise? Where should you advertise and why? How do you advertise? What kind of return should I expect to make on my advertising program? When do I use the other tools of marketing to bolster my advertising program? What should my ratio be between advertising and selling?

To whom should you advertise? Let's be very clear about this one. You should never put a single dollar into advertising until you know who you will eventually sell your product or service to. You should not even be in business if you have no clue who you want to do business with.Marketing is used to identify your ideal market. Sure, you may not get 100% of your ideal market, but if you know who will most likely benefit from what you have to sell or service, you can get more of them.

For example, if you're a chiropractor in a big city, your ideal market might be the couple in their late 40's to early 60's that're health conscious and active. They are looking to stay fit and are open to CAM's (Complimentary and alternative medicines.).

They may have an unfavorable view of the current healthcare system and wish to take a proactive approach to health maintenance. So let's say after determining your ideal market, you identify 15,000 of them in your market region. So now you have 15,000 likely prospects to reach on a regular basis.Where should you advertise and why? If you wanted to find a 34 year old Buddhist from Cambodia where would you look for one?

The question may seem a bit silly but you know that you wouldn't start by going to all the mosques in the area.Sometimes you do have to eliminate all the unlikely places to search until you get to the most likely ones.

You must, of course choose the targets of your ad programs based on how many of your intended prospects will likely see your message.

If the local health club in your area has a demographic membership of over 3,000 45 to 65 year olds, you might want to advertise in their monthly newsletter. If they don't have a newsletter, you may want to sponsor one for them.Remember the "The best place to go fishing is where the fish are biting". Take the time to know about your target audience and their buying habits.How do you advertise?

Imagine that your very expensive Mercedes breaks down and the mechanic says that it's your fuel pump. He needs to change it so he's going to take a blow torch and cut through your hood, crack open your engine block and then replace the fuel pump. Once he's done, he'll weld all the parts back together and get your vehicle back to you.Would you give this guy the OK to go to work on your vehicle? Of course you wouldn't.

Once you determine what you need to do, you have to be careful about how you execute the solution.Coming back to our chiropractor, if he finds that the best way to reach the 15,000 couples ages 45 to 65 in his area is through the Yellow Pages; then he needs to decide if it's cost effective, timely and competitive.The goal now is to figure out the best way to reach all or most of those 15,000 ideal prospects.

Will he get comparable results from the repeated exposure in the health club newsletter where he'll have a captive audience and no competition?There's no reason not to use both the Yellow Pages and the health club newsletter if they pull their weight economically. The goal of advertising is to gain valuable leads for the selling process to take place.What kind of return should I expect to make on my advertising program?

My answer to my clients to this question is usually a shocker; the answer is a big fat zero (0). How can a business owner spend so much money on advertising and expect no money in return?This is the basis of the confusion between marketing, advertising and selling. Advertising's value in the marketing mix is in lead generation.

When properly used as such, the measurement of its effectiveness is in how many leads are generated.This is why it's so important to distinguish between the various tools of marketing. If our chiropractor had 20 leads coming in each day from his ad campaign and the front desk had a lousy conversion ratio, I bet that he'd blame his ad for not pulling in more clients.Gauge your response rate when quantifying advertising results. Measure the number of leads coming in and adjust the ad copy to test for better results.

When do I use the other tools of marketing to bolster my advertising program? Advertising should never be used alone. Please remember that the average adult has to deal with over 2700 messages a day from all types of media.Marketing should be seen as a combined effort to reach the minds and hearts of your target market. You should be using at least five of the seven tools of marketing every week.

Depending on the age of your business and your business plan, you should be budgeting 10 to 15% of your estimated annual revenues for marketing. If you just opened your doors in the last five years, crank that up to 20%. There's a reason that Pepsi and Coke spend over 400 million a year each to satisfy their shareholders bottom-line.What should my ratio be between advertising and selling? Think of the relationship between advertising and sales as a complimentary one.

If your advertising is generating a large number of leads, tailor your sales strategy to convert at least 30% of your leads while capturing all your leads for systematic follow-ups.Keep in mind that at any given time, 3% of your market is ready to commit to your product or service. The goal is first to convert the 3% of your leads.

Then to work on selling to the ones who are on the fence. Whether through personal sales, direct marketing, or point of purchase sales, your ratio will be determined by several factors, the offer, the product or service and the immediate need of the prospects and of course, price.Don't get too anal about the ratios.

The most important thing to remember is that marketing is an inexact science. You will have to keep testing and trying for better results as the market changes.Determine the value of a new client and the life time value of your clients.

Once you do that, be sure that your marketing efforts are bringing in enough new business to cover the cost of getting new clients and that your sales efforts cover the cost of keeping you in business.Tweak the numbers and track consistently.

If your estimated marketing budget is $37,500 for the year, and your estimated revenue is $250,000 then you have a standard starting point.

At the end of the year your numbers should add up.

If you haven't made the $250,000 don't simply blame your advertising, look at your leads list and determine if you've converted the required number into sales.

Apr 12, 2008

ACT NOW !

In this day and age so many things are rushed. Sometimes we want to shout, “Slow down”. But sometimes in our own lives we are guilty of the opposite extreme. Our fears stop us from acting when we should. I am a prime example. I got fired a year ago. There I was, on my own and I needed an income. The ideal, I thought, would be to work from home, but I did not have the self confidence to do that. I look back now and realize how much further ahead I would be if I had conquered my fears and started a business.

What fears do you face when you think about starting a business? The major one is….MONEY.

You are afraid you will lose the money you invest in a new business. You have to be careful. A lot of online businesses are just waiting to take your money. My first venture into an online business was with a company that took my money and then did not deliver what they promised. If that happens to you, here is a tip. Don’t let up. Keep calling and emailing, requesting your money back. Don’t back down if they did not give you what they promised. I did get my money back. That gave my confidence a boost. The second one was an MLM company, this time i end up loosing my time and my efforts.

There are two websites that you should visit before investing. One is http://www.scam.com
The other is http://www.rip-offreport.com

If a business has a report on either website, I would exercise caution. Fortunately my third venture into the online business was a much wiser choice. I kept getting email about one particular site. It sounded good. I could tell that if I became an owner, there was a lot of material, training, and all kind of support available for me to learn from. This was important to me. I wanted a good foundation. Sometimes my head spins because I am now putting so much information into it. And there is so much more to learn.

There are so many benefits of having an online business. Conquer your fears. Give yourself a chance to grow. You are the only one who can put yourself on the road to success. Have determination and you can do it. Start Today!

Siam
http://www.abillionairesecret.com

Apr 11, 2008

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Apr 10, 2008

Overcoming Fear of Startup

Think about this famous quote by Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I never really understood this quote until I started working with people who wanted to start their own practices, and until I started my own businesses. I have thought a lot about fear and the way it can paralyze us and I have seen this paralysis first-hand.

For example, I spent a lot of time, and many phone calls and emails, helping a grad with the startup process. He would go only so far, only to stop. He would find a practice to buy, and then he would back out of the deal because it wasn't quite right. Or he would find a location, but never actually sign a lease, convinced that this location wasn't perfect. He couldn't find a loan, but he only tried a couple of banks then gave up. After months he finally decided to stay as an associate, where he was unhappy; for all I know, he's still there.

Why does fear paralyze us?

1. Old voices. We all have voices in our heads, from times when someone (parent, friend, spouse) told us, "You can't do this," or "This is stupid. You'll fail," or "Don't risk failure." "If you fail, it will be terrible." As long as we listen to those voices, we don't move ahead.

2. Perfectionism. It's great to want to do things well, but we often are way too picky about how things must be. For example, the guy who wanted the perfect location. A friend of mine gave me some advice about writing: "My rotten published book is better than your perfect unpublished one." So I'm sending it off to be printed.

3. "Don't just do it." We figure we have to start at the beginning and work toward the end, in some kind of specific sequence. Then when we get stumped at a certain point, we figure there's no way around. Not necessarily. Sure you will have to get a loan before you can start buying equipment, but there are lots of things you can do to get started with little money, and there are lots of paths, not just one.

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (Crown, 2007), has some suggestions for overcoming the paralysis of fear:

1. First, define your nightmare. What is the worst thing that could happen if you fail in your new practice? Spend some time thinking about this. Create a worst case scenario. Then consider two factors: Probability and Severity. These are insurance terms, but they apply. First, what's the probability (on a scale of 0% - never happen, to 100% - guaranteed to happen) of failure? Then look at the severity – the cost – of failure. While I'm not a fan of dwelling on the negative, I do believe you need to look under the bed to convince yourself there really are no monsters under there (like Grover.)

2. Then look at the steps you could take to repair the damage. How could you get your life back on track if you fail in practice? Spend some time thinking about alternatives, like starting again elsewhere, or working for someone else. Think about what's really important, and "don't sweat the small stuff."

3. Consider the outcomes and benefits of more probable scenarios. Think about what your life would look like in a "best case" scenario. Then set yourself to thinking that this is the more probable outcome of starting your own business.

4. Prepare to succeed. Start taking baby steps to overcome your fears by working on the positive steps to success. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. Do one small task every day that will move you toward your start date. It might be as simple as calling the Yellow Pages and ordering an ad in the next book. Work on your business plan. Focus your energy on positive action. By the time you are done writing the business plan, I think you'll find you will see that startup success is not only possible, but you'll feel more confident about starting your practice.

PPC


Although search engine optimization is the most effective means of promoting a website, the problem with search engine optimization is that it can take up to a year before a website starts ranking well for competitive keywords.


The situation is further compounded by the fact that search engines continuously recalculate their rankings, and a search engine optimizer has to stay on top of his game to achieve top rankings on a regular basis.


The odds are stacked against new websites as Google takes nearly 3 months before it starts calculating a website’s ranking /PageRank and any changes to a website take almost a month before materialising into search rankings.


Not all webmasters can afford the luxury of paying thousands of dollars to search engine optimizers or wait for a year before their website start ranking well. When Google launched a unique concept called Google Adwords, a webmaster could pay Google a certain amount to display ads for his website.


Today, Google has a unique PPC (pay per click) advertising model in place. As the name suggests, a webmaster only pays for an ad when a user clicks on the ad and visits his website. Pay per click advertising is one of the most cost effective methods of advertising and it is not surprising that every successful search engine has its own version of pay per click advertising.


Advantages of pay per click advertisingCost effective Compared to search engine optimization, pay per click advertising can be more cost effective. There is no denying that in the longer run search engine optimization is the best option, but pay per click advertising is ideal for websites that are starting up or under search engine optimization. Once a website starts ranking well for ‘organic searches’, the webmaster can choose to end his pay per click campaign.


Target specific keywordsAlthough search engine optimization is also carried out to target specific keywords, pay per click advertising is the only guaranteed way of ranking well for keywords.


A webmaster can choose exactly which keywords he wants his website’s ads to appear for and can choose to advertise his website for more than one keyword.


Equal opportunitiesA website can end up spending nearly $5000 on search engine optimization for competitive keywords, larger organizations have an unfair advantage as they have virtually endless resources to spend on SEO and link building. Pay per click advertising is the only way smaller websites can compete with larger websites.


It is a well known fact that search engine optimization can only do so much for a website, the rest is usually link building and creating search engine friendly content. This is why websites that are looking to rank for keywords without spending thousands of dollars in advertising and link building, prefer using pay per click advertising to publicize their website. In fact, many websites prefer spending their SEO budget on pay per click as it guarantees results and is much faster than traditional search engine optimization techniques.


Get results much fasterA typical website takes around 3 months before it starts showing up for ‘organic searches’. Any changes to a website take an additional month to ‘reflect’. Sometimes, websites do not have 3 months before they start ranking for keywords. For example, a website selling Christmas cards will only do business a few months in a year and a three month delay can make the difference between doing business and not doing any business at all.


Pay per click ads make the task of advertising a site simpler.


Once a webmaster has decided which keywords he wants his website to show up for, the website’s ads are displayed for relevant keywords within 24 hours. In addition, a webmaster can choose to modify his existing pay per click campaign with ease.