Friday, October 20, 2006
Finding the "Perfect" Work-at-Home Opportunity
Finding the "perfect" work-at-home opportunity is often a difficult proposition. While there may not be a "perfect" solution to your needs, I believe that by considering a few factors you can find an opportunity that will fit your lifestyle.
There are probably thousands of home business opportunities available today. And, while many of these opportunities are similar in their desire to help you make money, they are very different in their approach.
When deciding which work-at-home opportunity to pursue, consider the following factors:
1. Cost to start - Depending upon which direct sales opportunity you choose you may be charged an initial fee or merchandise charge. Don't immediately be put off by this fact. Many of the best direct sales opportunities - such as Passion Parties or Mary Kay - require you to purchase merchandise before you begin.
2. Profit percentage - The amount of profit given to direct sales consultants varies greatly by company. I've seen some companies that only pay 25% of the profit to its consultants while others pay 50% and up. Pay close attention to how much of the show profit you will recieve as payment for your time.
3. Perks - Many direct sales companies offer special incentives to their consultants. These incentives might include trips, cash bonuses, or a car allowance. If you are someone that is highly motivated by free travel or other incentives you want to pay close attention to these factors.
While these are three of the most important factors in considering a direct sales opportunity, there are certainly other factors that apply. Feel free to compare opportunities and choose the best one for you.
Investing In The Stock Market
Had you invested in real estate over the past 30 years or so, you would have done very well.However, prices have now reached such a level that it may not be such a good investment especially in the short-term. Over the long-term, prices are sure to appreciate once again. Outside of bricks and mortar, the stock market still provides the skilled individual with one of the best opportunities for a rise in capital.
With the globalization of markets now accomplished enabling an individual to trade in almost any market across the globe from anywhere, we will concentrate on the American market, which is still the biggest and most liquid market. Having decided to concentrate on the American market, you now must decide on what sort of companies offer the best opportunities for making a profit.Small technology or biotechnology companies can sometimes offer spectacular gains in the short-term. However, your chance of picking them out of the bunch in advance of the significant move in their share price, unless you are equipped with insider knowledge, is pretty slim. Therefore concentrating on large established companies is a much safer route to profits.Concentrating on the constituent members of the S&P 500 index provides the investor with ample scope for investment in established companies. It is therefore best to concentrate your attention on the latter to provide the necessary fodder.
When viewing companies in an index such as the S&P 500, you have got to be aware of the different sectors within it. In order to reduce your risk, it is inadvisable to invest in more than one company in any one sector at a given time. Picking on a sector that is currently advancing, or about to advance, and then looking for the most eligible company within that sector likely to profit from the favorable tide can be very rewarding. The company chosen need not be the market leader in that particular sector. If Xxon Mobil, for instance, dominates the Oil and Gas sector, a second or third line company in that sector, such as Occidental Petroleum, may give you a much better opportunity to profit from rising oil prices for example.
Ideally, you are looking for an established company in a sector that is advancing, or likely to advance, that is paying increasing dividends from rising profits, and with a p/e ratio ( that is payment/earnings) less onerous than it's peers.P/e ratios are only relevant when comparing companies within the same sector. Another approach to picking a company whose share price is likely to advance, is to pick a large company with good prospects when it is temporarily out of favor with the market. Both AIG Group and Pfizer have been in the doghouse over the last couple of years enabling astute investors to profit from their short-term unpopularity.With this strategy, timing is of crucial importance.
If you segregate ,say, $20,000 as starting capital for investment purposes from other funds required to live from month to month, the best place to initially put it is into a high- interest bank account until such time as you are ready to invest. This account should pay 4% or better interest per year.You would then limit your investment in any one share to 15% of the total, or $3,000 including dealing expenses per investment. It is inadvisable, especially in jittery markets, to have more than 70% of the total invested at any one time. The market has moods and when everything looks black on the horizon, good shares will fall back with the bad and the ugly ones giving you a chance to buy a good share at cheap prices for recovery.
If you do your own research, it is best to use an execution- only broker who are cheaper than those offering investment advice. Pick a large broker with many years service in the market. If you want a broker offering investment advice, go for one who has a proven record of offering impartial advice in the market as recommended by a friend or acquaintance.
The #1 Missed Marketing Opportunity For Home Businesses
This is something it took me a year or so to actually see the big picture. This is a practice you will see that is familiar if you look around at most of the worlds major companies. Think about the last time you called and ordered a pizza from Papa Johns. They answered the phone promoting their newest pizza. They have a database with your name, phone number, and street address giving them detail about your previous orders. After they repeat your order to you they try to do what they call “suggestive selling”, which is asking you if you need any cheese sticks or sodas, all based upon your order history. If all goes well and you get a nice looking hot pizza within the time they quoted you over the phone you are going to order from them again. On top of all this, Papa Johns has sent me special flyers from my hometown store that sells me my pizza, with special promotional items and discounts for that store specifically.
A recent study I read revealed that fifty percent of the sales for each item sold was from previous customers. Most companies spend more time and money into keeping existing customers than they spend on getting new ones. Once a customer has bought from you, they feel they can trust you, and that is very important. When the trust is already established something as simple as sending your customers email promoting your brand new product can produce a lot of sales. If you do not keep a customer database record or do not have a newsletter column on your website then you should consider planning on investing something into your customers instead of using a lot of effort trying to target new ones. Think about it, if you have a customer database with ways to reach your customers then that second and third sale you make to them cost you very little for advertising. This is how to get better sales, if you sell a quality product and place heavy importance on your customer satisfaction compliance, you will be able to sell almost anything at even higher prices.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
It’s Never Too Late to Start a Home Based Business
Many people think that life after 50 is all down hill. With the onslaught of Baby Boomers getting ready to retire, 50 is the new 40! NOW, TODAY, right after reading this article, is a great time to start your own Home Based Business! The benefits of a searching for a retirement "Pot Of Gold" are so numerous, that the downside of possible failure almost becomes a non-issue no mater what your age. There are literally thousands of MLM, MRM, Referral Based and Residual Based business’ floating around today. Somewhere, there is a home-based business opportunity that’s perfect for your life style!
* First - lets talk about the tax benefits:
I am not a tax accountant and I recommend you speak with your to get the complete story. With that said, my experience in business ownership has been very favorable especially when it comes to tax incentives. Regardless of your income bracket, we could all use more tax breaks!
- Young Whippersnapper:
If you are in you early 30’s don’t let the preverbal grass grow under your feet! The sooner you get started, the longer you have to grow your business. Treat your home-based business like you would if you were investing in stocks. A little everyday, don’t quit and over the long haul, you can bank big-time!
- Pre-Retirement:
If you happen to be approaching mid life, the tax advantage will come in very handy Now & Then when it is time to retire. In addition, unless you are one of the 20% of the population that has their retirement act together, you are going to need extra income. Wouldn’t it be great that you worked at Wahl-Mart because you wanted too as opposed because you had too! Enough said about that.
- The Golden Years:
If you are already retired, you may not be paying taxes because you do not make enough money in the first place. Naturally, many retired people are afraid that if they make more money they will have to pay taxes. If you get yourself into the right home-based business, that amount of money you make will more that offset that amount of taxes you will owe. And lets not forget the initial tax advantage you may get right fro the start which could put more money in your pocket.
* Second - Lets talk about the income:
There are so many home-based business opportunities available; it can be difficult knowing where to start. My husband and I are involved in entirely different companies but our rule of thumb has always been, “Don’t sell a company that you wouldn’t use yourself!” I have found through my years of marketing, that when you believe in a product, you can promote it with conviction! If you are going to be successful, you may have to make it through those lean times or struggling times when your business doesn’t seem to be getting off the ground quick enough. You will need to treat your business like a child. Don’t abandon it when it misbehaves! Don’t abandon it when it’s costing money like a teenager! Instead train it, make adjustments to fit your life style both time-wise and financially. Stick with it and it will come around! To us, that has been the importance of conviction.
Harley Davidson & Home Business
When you saw the title of this article, I’m guessing that your first thought was, “What in the heck does Harley Davidson have to do with home business”.
And if you were like most, you’d immediately assume that there’s no correlation.
If so, you’d be wrong.
One of the biggest strategies I teach my clients is how to build a HUGE subscriber list.
Doing so gives you the opportunity to actually have a relationship with your prospects, subscribers and clients, with very little effort (or time invested) on your part.
You see…
Very few business owners make any attempt whatsoever to maintain a relationship with the people who frequent their establishment.
I mean think about it:
When was the last time you visited a restaurant, used a dry cleaning service, hired a carpet cleaner, or took your vehicle to a mechanic?
After doing so, did the owner of that business make any attempt to contact you (after you’d just spent money with them)?
Of course not!
They didn’t send you a postcard, a letter, an email or give you a phone call.
They did none of that.
But had they done so, you would’ve been blown away. And I can guarantee that it would’ve made one heck of a lasting impression on you.
I’ve been using this strategy for almost 7 years with my little online mold business (at getmoldsolutions.com), and that’s precisely why I’m able to put $7,000.00 to $10,000.00 a month into my bank account.
Now here’s the rub.
You don’t usually see big companies using this kind of smart marketing.
Big companies typically have to deal with mountains of red tape and answer to a board of advisors, which makes it almost impossible for them to actually implement an automatic income system like this.
Fortunately, for the small business like you and I, we don’t have to deal with all this garbage.
But I’ve got to hand it to Harley Davidson.
They’re currently running a HUGE lead ad campaign, with the sole purpose of building a large list of subscribers that they can then stay in touch with, and build a relationship that will cause the prospect to want to buy their products.
When I first saw their campaign, I would’ve sworn that someone inside their company had participated on one of my teleseminars.
After all, they’re using the very secrets that I’ve been revealing to my clients and subscribers for the last 15 months.
But the truth is, the most likely paid some big, fancy-schmancy advertising agency thousands and thousands of dollars to design this system for them (had they taken part in one of my teleseminars, they could’ve saved all that cashola).
But let me stay on track.
Here’s how it works:
They run what’s called a “Lead Ad” in various locations where their ideal prospect will see it.
The lead ad then prompts the visitor to visit the Harley Davidson website, and in specific the web page at harley-davidson.com/biglife.
When the prospect gets to the site, they’re not so gently prompted (in fact, they’re almost dared) to enter their contact information.
And when they do, the Harley Davidson Company will then stay in touch with that person, continuing to build a relationship, until said prospect decides to purchase a Harley Davidson product.
Are you Struggling to Make Sales from Home? Part 2
For example, if it is one of the envelope stuffing jobs that are found in numerous places online, what you are likely to get is a request to send $x and what you are likely to get in return (if anything) is a photocopied sheet from what is probably an outdated yellow pages and instructions to write to these companies and ask if they have any envelope stuffing jobs. The same applies to jobs such as home typist. Some paid survey jobs do pay but not much, others pay in point which add up into prizes - check out the rules for each site before signing up. You shouldn't lose money on these sites, but you aren't likely to gain much either - although there are a few genuine ones which do pay a couple of dollars for each survey completed, but finding those isn't always so easy!
One way of finding which Internet businesses are legitimate is to join Internet forums connected to work at home issues. Although much of the traffic is trying to get you to buy other people's products, this helps your research because you get a far greater feel for what's available out there. If you see an ad for something that you think you could get very enthusiastic about selling, then check out any links - and even email the person who sent the ad to the list. They will probably be very happy to answer your questions as if you sign up through them, they'll more than likely receive a bonus! These groups are also good at spreading warnings about which businesses to avoid or bring attention to problems with them that other group members have encountered. Passive networking like this can give quite a bit of "real" information about different schemes and businesses and so is worth your time researching.
Once you have your chosen business you need to bring traffic to it. One way is through the search engines that will "spider" your site and allocate it a place in the search listings for whatever your keywords are. This means you need to set up your site so that you offer good keywords that are commonly searched for, and that these not only appear in your text in the site, but also in the meta tags you assign your site when you design it.
Other forms of getting traffic are through placing ads on other websites, or in e-zines, etc. Many of these offer good rates but make sure that you check the circulation or visitor stats before you book your ad space. $5 mightn't seem much, but if the circulation is only 30 members, then it mightn't be worth it, unless it's a very specialized group where most people could very well be interested. Usually it's better to pay $20 for a newsletter that goes out to 4000+ members - and paying an extra couple of dollars for a placing near the top of the newsletter is definitely a good idea, how many times do you read the ads from the middle downward?
You can also set up your own newsletter. Have visitors to your site subscribe to the newsletter and make sure you send one out at least every month. That way you'll be able to keep your business in the mind of people who've been interested enough in your products in the past to visit the site. Offer them information based on what you sell, perhaps a special discount because they're subscribers (great selling point for getting them to subscribe in the first place) and perhaps writing a review highlighting one product in particular each issue.
Affiliate schemes for sites such as Amazon.com are great additions to your existing website. Use clickbank.com to find out what affiliate schemes are available and sign up for those that visitors to your site will find interesting and so click through to see what's available. You will make money on any sales they make once they click through from your site.
Whatever kind of sales business you choose as your work at home business, you need to stay up-to-date with developments in the both the trends associated with it, and the new technologies available that can help you be more efficient and successful in your work. Although it might be ok to follow someone else's sales plan when you first start out, learn your business - what do your customers like, what sells, what marketing works etc, and constantly evolve what you're doing so that your sales keep increasing.
Setting up a work at home business in sales is easy, but setting up a successful work at home business in sales requires you carrying out research to find the right business for you, and then constantly monitoring and improving your sales technique. Once you have a system for monitoring your business efforts, that passion for the products that found you the business in the first place will ensure that the profits keep coming in and that you own a successful work at home business.
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