Saturday, June 23, 2007

Managing Your Home Business (So It Doesn’t Manage You!)

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The Problem of Time Management

If you already manage a home business, then you are also probably aware of how it can consume most of your time. Most likely, this happens against your will. After all, there are probably many things that you want to do with your time, such as spending time with your spouse and your children, going out with your friends, listening to music, reading some books, or what not. And yet, the task of managing your home business seems to take up all of your time. What can you possibly do?

What was described in the first paragraph is a classic example of a time management dilemma. Millions of people, not just home business owners, feel that they are not in complete control of their time. This tends to make people miserable, since most people want to feel in control of their lives. After all, what is your life but a measurement of your time? As long as you are unable to spend your time in a manner that you wish, you will never be truly happy, no matter how much money you earn or how many accolades you receive.

Managing Your Time Properly

Set your priorities. The cardinal rule of time management is this: Set your priorities. In life, there is probably nothing more important than setting your priorities, since they will set the stage for just how much time you will spend on each area of your life. You must clarify in your mind exactly what you want in life, and determine to spend more time on those things that you feel are most important.

In the immortal words of Goethe, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” If your home business is the most important to you, then it is only right that you use most of your time on it. But if it isn’t, you should begin to scale back on the time you spend on it. You can either 1) get someone else to do the job for you; or 2) scale back on the amount of work you are already doing. Remember: You own your home business; it doesn’t own you.

When you work, work. Time management gurus tell us that most people don’t really work all the time that they work. This means that they may be putting in 8 hours at work, but they’re not really working for all of those 8 hours. They may spend an hour here chatting with officemates, another hour there for lunch, and another utterly distracted. This causes work to pile up and problems to surface at a later time.

To avoid this, work all the time you work. While you should definitely take creaks whenever you need them, make sure you are not kidding yourself and taking more than time than you need to. By focusing on the task at hand, you will get it done quicker and with less effort, freeing up more time for the other things you want to do.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
http://incomewave.net

Friday, June 22, 2007

Making Scrapbooks For Fun and For Money

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If you are one of those creative and enterprising people who love to work on scrapbooks, you might want to turn your hobby into a very lucrative home business. There are endless possibilities when it comes to scrapbook making. Note that a lot of people love to have some really nice custom made keepsakes for different occasions. However, due to the fast paced lives that we have, most of us could not find the time to sit down and assemble our mementos into a scrapbook. Since there a strong demand for scrapbooks in the country today, one can easily earn a good living by doing the things that he or she truly loves.

Setting up your business

To get started with your scrapbook making business, you will need to clear out a space in your house where you can work undisturbed. If you don’t have an extra room in the house which you can turn into an office, just find a quite corner with good ventilation and lighting. You might want to work near a window so that you can take advantage of the daylight. To get started, you will need a working table, some glue, pencils, pens, coloring materials, scissors, cutters, paper punches, trinkets and lots of paper.

If you have children in the house, you might want to invest in a filing cabinet with a lock where you can keep all your stuff. Children are usually attracted to colorful trinkets and papers so it is better to hide your scrapbook making materials. There is really no point of quarrelling with your kids about papers and scrapbook making materials.

Once you have everything that you need, start by making some samples and take digitals pictures of your creation. Post the pictures of your creations online together with their short descriptions and their prices. Once you have everything in place, you can start marketing your products by sending out e-mails to friends, relative and colleagues invent them to take a look at your products. You can also ask your friends, relatives and colleagues to invite their friends to take a look at your site. You may also send out press releases to free public relations websites and join forums to invite people over to your site. Although there are really no guarantees that press releases and open invitations at forums will generate you some business, it can still help your site gain some mileage.

To help you get your first batch of customers, you may want to offer some perks to your would be clients. For instance, you can offer 50% discount to your first 10 clients and offer 20% discount on repeat orders. The good thing about giving out discounts is that a lot of people will be enticed to buy your product to avail of the discounts.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
http://incomewave.net

Thursday, June 21, 2007

How To Market Your Home Business

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Everyone knows that marketing a home business is one of the most tricky things about having one. You have to be sure that you are doing it correctly, because no matter what your business is, chances are good that there are a lot of people who have home businesses that are going to be able to compete with yours. Because the internet is open to everyone all over the world, you are going to find that it often comes down to people choosing the business that markets themselves the best.

Make Your Mark

So, how can you make your mark on the world and be sure that you are noticed? First of all, you have to have something that no one else does (your unique selling proposition). Chances are good that other people have your same idea, unless you have come up with something that no one has ever heard of before. So, this means that there has to be something about your business that is unique, whether it is in your web site, the way that you do business, or the product that you are offering. You have to be sure that you can easily say that you have something no one else can offer, and that when you say this, you can actually mean it. If you can do this, you are going to be on the right track.

Market Market Market

Another thing that you have to be sure to do is to market yourself. No matter what you are doing, there is a place somewhere that is going to be able to market you. You have to rely on yourself and do your own research, and figure out where you can best market yourself. If you are just starting out, a good thing to do would be to search online for your product or service, and see what comes up. See what your competition is, and then figure out what they are doing to market themselves. Then, see where you can get your name out there and how you can make yourself known in the world where you want to be.

Another thing that you have to do is to get creative about how you market yourself. This could even be the thing that sets you apart from all the rest. If you can be sure that you really know what you are doing, you might be able to find your way to the top of something, and you might be able to be more of a success than you ever thought it would be possible for you to be. Get out there and market yourself, in the best way possible, and see if you can bring yourself to the forefront.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

How to Handle the Unexpected with a Home Business

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No matter what type of business you run it is always important to make sure you protect your financial interests. Even if you have a personal home based business you want to make sure you are protected in case you experience a sudden growth or change. Preparing for unexpected events can be one of the toughest things to consider when running a home based business. However, there are three things you can do to help give you peace of mind when it comes to running your business.

The most important step is to make sure you have the proper business insurance. Make sure your business will still be able to make money even if you become injured or ill and cannot work for three months or longer. Even one month without earnings from a business could hurt someone financially.

For the home based business owner there are various types of insurance that you could look into purchasing. To find the best insurance for your business it is a good idea to talk with a professional and they will help you determine which insurance option will fully cover your business.

Speaking with a professional is also important since the requirements for business insurance will often change depending on the state you are living in. There are some companies who won’t sell you a policy unless you have been in business at least three years so they can estimate your future earnings based on your historical earnings.

If your business calls for customers to visit your home then you will likely need to purchase liability insurance as well. For those selling products it may be necessary to purchase product liability insurance. For those who work with services such as pet grooming or walking it may be beneficial to purchase malpractice insurance.

Another important aspect of being prepared for the unexpected is making sure your family is ready should you die unexpectedly. This is why it is important to make sure your will is up to date. This isn’t something a lot of people like to do, but it is very important since the reality of life is that anyone can die unexpectedly at any time. Having an up to date will can take care of both your family and your business in the event that you die unexpectedly.

With a home based business even a short term absence can cause issues. It may be a good idea to have an operations manual on hand so that someone can easily fill in for you should you need to take a leave of absence for some reason. A good operations manual should contain contact information, banking access, policies, procedures and any information important to the operation of your business.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

How To Move A home Business Online

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If you have had a home business for awhile, chances are good that you have a great local following that provides you with most of your business. This might be great but you might feel as if you have reached a ceiling as far as your payment goes, and what you are going to be making from your home business. If you feel like you can’t go any farther with the local responsibilities that you have, you might want to move your home business online. This is something that you should consider if you find yourself wanting to grow, but don’t’ find the avenues for it locally.

First Steps

First, you have to decide if you are going to benefit from being online. Remember that if you move your home business online, you can expect more business right away. So you have to decide whether or not you are going to be able to handle more business, and if you are, you have to decide if it is going to be worth it. If you have the time and the resources to be able to handle a jump in business, then you might be ready to move online.

Next, you have to find a good web hosting site and get a website that you can use. What you do here is going to depend on how good you are at websites. IS this something that you can do on your own, or is it something that you are going to need help with? The decision is up to you, but you have to be reasonable about what your skills are online, and whether or not you are going to be able to maintain and build a website. If you feel that you can’t do a very good job you should hire it done. Remember that online today there are lots of great sites, and you are going to have a lot of competition. This means that if you are going to have a site, you had better make sure that it is good.

After you have a good website, you have to concentrate on how you are going to market your business. Be sure that you are finding lots of places to advertise your website, because remember that it isn’t going to advertise itself. You have to put the time into getting your name out there, but it is worth it because after you have done so, you’ll find that the business continues to grow. It can be something that is really frustrating, but in the end, it can end up making you the proudest business owner who really knows how to get the business going. If you are confidant, then you can move your business online, and you will see great success.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
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Monday, June 18, 2007

Reasons to Have a Home Business

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If you are thinking about starting up a home business, chances are that you don’t need to be convinced. However, you have to be sure that you are doing the home business for the right reasons, and that you aren’t going to be surprised by anything that might happen while you are working with your home business. Make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons, and you are going to be more likely to be happy with the way that your home business turns out.

Reasons

There are many reasons to have a home business. You need to make sure that you are doing it for a good reason, and that this is going to fit into your life. You shouldn’t decide that you want to open a home business, for instance, if you simply want to work at home. There are many ways that you can work at home without having your own home business, and so if you simply want to have the freedom of working at home, then a home business might not be the best option for you. However, if you really have the drive and ambition to not only work at home, but to be able to create a business from scratch, then it is something that you should consider.

You should also not open a home business simply because you are angry with the way that your boss is running your business. A good reason to open a home business might be that you have new and innovative ideas for whatever field you are working in, and this might be why you want the home business. However, if you are simply doing it so that you can do what your boss does, only try to do it better, you are not going into the business for the right reasons.

You should be opening a home business because you want to make a difference in the field, and also because you truly enjoy what you are doing and think that you are going to be able to do it very well from home. These are all reasons that you might want to consider starting a home business. The idea of working form home and being your own boss should simply be something good that goes along with it. Remember that no matter what, once you start a home business it is going to be in your life, and it is going to be something that you have to plan for in the future. This means that a home business is something that you need to think through and plan carefully before you decide it is for you for sure. This is very important to remember.

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Sunday, June 17, 2007

How To Hang On To Your Home Business When The Going Gets Tough

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Not everyone can put up a successful home business. Beginners usually find themselves at a loss especially in the first few months of operations. More often than not, when the going gets tough an entrepreneur would opt to forget about the whole thing and give up the home business. If you are one of those people who are having trouble getting started and are about to give, hold on a little longer. Things could change for the better if you give it a little more time. Never give up on something until such time when you feel that you have exhausted all your options and still things are not looking better. To help you get through the worst parts of setting up your home business, here are some tips for you.

Conducting Evaluation

When things go wrong, as they most likely will during the first few months of your business operations, take time to evaluate the past events that led to your present predicament. It is always worthwhile to retrace your steps and learn what happened along the way. In most cases, the past events could help you analyze the many aspects of your business and could help you see your business in another perspective.

Conducting an evaluation is the best way to determine what went wrong in your business. Once you know what went wrong, you will be in a better position to find solutions to your problems. When evaluating the causes of your problems, make sure that you look into all the aspects of the situation. Go to the roots of the problems. For instance, if you product fails to sell, you must not just assume that your product is no good. It is possible that you product is good but you did not advertise it enough, the packaging is bad and the price is unreasonable. Take a look at all the possible angles why your product did not sell as you expected.

Studying options

Once you know what caused your business problems, you must now try to find solutions. Make a list of all your available options and rank them according to viability. Choose the best option and implement it accordingly. If the first option does not work, then go on to option two. You can use as many options as you like until you finally find the right one. However, you should also know when to stop. Note that there are cases which are simply too far gone for you to do anything. When you are confronted with situations are beyond help, it is best to simply walk away and let things be. There is really no point of beating a dead horse.

Ask for help

When you feel that there are things which are out of your league, do not hesitate to ask for help. Do not pretend that you know anything and that you can everything on your own. Always remember that somebody out there may have some good ideas that you could borrow.

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Want to work from home? Find the best home
based business ideas and opportunities by visiting:
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