Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Home alone? - fighting isolation in home-based business
Working at home doesn't mean you have to be isolated. Use these tips to stay connected.
Home-based business owners have got it made, right? There's no clock to punch, no boss peeking around the corner and no early Monday morning meetings to attend. But with these perks comes a pitfall--solitude.
It's not unusual for many home-based business owners to feel isolated. In many cases, it's just you and your computer. But working from home doesn't mean you have to be home alone. There are many ways you can stay connected to the outside world. Here are five ways you can break the silence.
* Hold meetings outside your office. While the telephone is an important tool for the home-based entrepreneur, it doesn't have to become your sole means of communicating. Instead of making conference calls, discuss business over a meal.
* Attend trade shows and business conferences. Conventions provide networking opportunities, increase your visibility in the business community, create awareness of your products/services and keep you abreast of current events in your industry. Visit your local chamber of commerce for lists of upcoming events.
* Take a course, Enrolling in a business class or seminar at your local college can help sharpen your skills and provide the interaction you need to stay productive.
You can take a class that relates to your work or one that simply breaks the monotony of your daily grind.
* Perform community service. Getting involved in neighborhood activities is good exposure for your business. In fact, it can serve as a great low-cost marketing tool and help you foster relationships with others interested in your field.
* Join a home-based business organization. You can develop relationships with other home-based entrepreneurs, share ideas and concerns and partner on projects, and gain access to discounts on products such as office supplies and equipment.
Do your homework before joining an organization. Review the group's membership package and newsletter. Obtain names of existing members and ask what they think of the association. If possible, visit the headquarters or branch nearest you to observe the facility. You may also want to check with your local Better Business Bureau to ensure that no complaints have been filed against the organization.
Managing your home equity line: Todd Brown used credit to build his real estate business
Todd Brown, 28, stumbled onto his now full-time career of buying, rehabilitating, managing, and selling homes. From age 16 to 19, he worked in his brother's Queens, New York, barbershop, saving money while he lived at home with his mother. He persuaded his mother to let him use $7,500 of his savings and cosign on a used Lexus, but his fiancee and a few months of paying the weighty $900 car note persuaded him to begin looking for a home.
Brown sold his precious Lexus and in October 1997 used $8,000 of his savings to put $14,000 ($9,500 down, plus $4,500 in closing costs) toward his first home--a $95,000, three-bedroom, single-family home with a finished basement in Queens Village. When he realized that his $831 monthly mortgage was less than the Lexus payment, the value of homeownership became vividly clear. "My wife, Kimmy, and I lived in the basement and rented out the upstairs for $900 so the house could pay for itself," says Brown.
The following year, Brown opened his own barbershop in Jamaica, Queens, with $2,000 of his savings, $3,000 from Kimmy, and $4,500 in credit card charges. He hired other barbers and averaged about $65,000 a year. Meanwhile, each mortgage payment he made helped build equity in his home. By 2001, he was able to secure a $50,000 home equity line of credit (HELOC) because his home had appreciated in value to about $220,000.
A HELOC allows you to borrow against the value of your home, generally at lower rates than are available through refinancing. To qualify, there must be sufficient equity in the home to make the loan, and the borrower must have maintained a good mortgage payment history and possess a credit score above 620. Another advantage of using a HELOC is the bank doesn't need a lot of new information for this type of transaction and it takes about 30 days to complete.
Brown used the $50,000 HELOC to begin acquiring other properties. In July 2001, he used $21,500 to purchase a $215,000, single-family home in Uniondale, New York. He had relatives in Virginia, so he looked south for better real estate bargains.
Brown obtained an $89,000, one-family home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with $4,000 (5% down), which he rented out. He then sold the home in Uniondale for $240,000, netting a $24,000 profit. In July 2002, he took those proceeds and bought and moved into a $211,000, four-bedroom, three-an&a-half bathroom, newly constructed home in Suffolk, Virginia, complete with a two-car garage.
Passenger business develops new strategy: a new philosophy is evolving within German Rail's passenger division in response to evolution in Europe and
THE new strategy being developed for German Rail's (DB) passenger business is a far cry from the disastrous Plan & Save scheme that plunged the railway into crisis in the early months of 2003. Instead of the complexities (and flawed thinking) of Plan & Save, DB's passenger division has now firmly adopted "simplicity" and "ease of access" as its guiding principles.
According to Mr Frank Klingenhofer, the railway's head of strategy for passenger transport, DB also wants to provide value-added services packaged within a mobility pass based on the core business but with elements beyond the core. Conscious of the fact that DB's share of the passenger transport market is only 8%, Klingenh0fer also wants to reach out to motorists who constitute most of the rest of the market.
DB learned some hard lessons from the Plan & Save debacle. After three years of planning involving 500 DB staff plus training for 24,000 railway staff and 20,000 travel agents, the 200 million [euro] scheme was designed to reward passengers willing to book ahead for travel on specific trains by offering discounts of up to 40% depending on how far in advance the reservation was made.
Penalties, including a 45 [euro] fee plus the difference between the discounted fare and the standard fare were imposed if travel plans were changed. Apart from creating friction between DB and its customers, this also made the cost of a trip more expensive than if the passenger had bought a standard ticket in the first place. The effects were dramatic. DB suffered a 7.1% revenue reduction and a 13.5% traffic reduction on long-distance services in the first quarter of 2003.
Campaign
Part of the campaign to win back hearts and minds was a one-off exercise earlier this year that addressed the challenge from low-cost airlines and also turned the Plan & Save concept on its head. It involved selling 1.2 million tickets at 49 [euro] for two people through the German supermarket chain, Lidl. The tickets sold out within two hours, and the key to the success, apart from the price, was undoubtedly that there were no booking or other conditions attached to the offer.
"We wanted to do things differently with more aggressive and sexy pricing. People did not need to decide where they wanted to go or when. They just bought the ticket at a fixed price, and then they could go anywhere in Germany when they wanted," said Klingenhofer.
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