The benefits to having your own home based business are very exciting. You can be your own boss! You decide when you want to work. You go to work straight from the bedroom. Not having to deal with traffic, rude clients or demanding bosses can be quite a relief.But wait a minute, have you seriously thought about what kind of small home based business opportunity you should bank your future on?Before you start your own small home based business, do the following and you’ll get your home based business off to a good start.What marketable skills do you have that you can use to work from home? Some examples of people who have made a good transition to home based businesses are accountants, sewers, teachers as tutors or educators of toddlers, musicians who teach musical instruments, etc… If you have a skill, you can market it and have a home based business.What’s your capital and operating budget? Even businesses from homes need capital investment. Find out what your home based business needs. It can be as simple as having space for office files and to meet clients. Your home based business still needs the veneer of professionalism.How do you get clients for your own based business? You can start with your present company. Some companies are happy to pay for outsourcing services. The specialist they’ve hired is knowledgeable about them and can be trusted. From there you can add on more clients.Advertising and promoting your home-based business is crucial. That’s right…even if it’s a small home based business, you’ll need to advertise and promote. Print your business cards on the home printer, and distribute them. Or put your company details on a promotional calendar and give it away for the holidays. These are small things to do for your home based business, but they do make a big difference.Lastly, add up your monthly expenses and check your savings and insurance. When your home based business starts, you may not gross enough. Make a projected budget and see what the bare minimum you can live on while the home based business is just starting out.By doing your research on home based business opportunities and educating yourself on the various scenarios, you’ll set yourself up for success. For you’ll be better equipped on solving future problems such as competition taking business from you, low cash flow and any other problem that may crop up as your home based business grows.Reference: [http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/article.php?mcid=1&scid=12&aid=1258]Copyright 2005 Kent Thompson
Unsolicited Paper Advertisements Should Be Illegal For All But Small Businesses and Non-Profits
Don’t you get tired of seeing large businesses advertising on every medium? From billboards and radio to YouTube and television, large businesses (the businesses that make millions of dollars a year, even though by some accounts these businesses are still considered “small”) have the cash flow and subsequent budget required to fund these advertisements, which gives them a huge marketing advantage over small businesses. Since government officials are always so fond of saying small businesses are the drivers of job creation and growth in this country, it would follow that any advantage these businesses can muster would be helpful for America. As such, I believe legislation which would make it illegal for large businesses to send unsolicited paper advertisements to private residents would be beneficial for a multitude of reasons. Large business advertisements already flood the airwaves and reach millions of people, so here’s why I think paper advertisements from said businesses should never be allowed to reach my mailbox or driveway.
The most obvious reason in favor of this approach would be the newfound marketing niche over which small businesses would enjoy a monopoly. Oftentimes, the budget of small/microbusinesses is so minuscule that business cards and flyers are the only way they can reach the consciousness of consumers. This being said, a second advantage of this approach becomes obvious. That is, if small business advertisements were the only game in town, or in this case, a citizen’s mailbox, they would garner more attention then they would when mixed in with dozens of other flyers and advertisements from larger businesses, the dilution effect of which would make the small business ad just another piece of paper in a sea of advertisements. Keeping this in mind, a third advantage of this approach would be correlated to the sheer volume of paper produced. Fewer paper advertisements would mean fewer trees destroyed and less waste, plain and simple! In addition, fewer paper advertisements would mean people like you and I would need to spend less time disposing of them. For example, many unsolicited paper advertisements I receive from large companies have my name and address emblazoned on the envelope and on documents inside, which for me means I have to shred them. All of this takes time, and since I never wanted these advertisements in the first place, I almost feel like I should be getting paid to receive them! After all, practically anywhere that you want to advertise in America requires you to pay for the use of that advertising space, so why should my mailbox be any different? However, as someone who cares about jobs for Americans, I would have no qualms about allowing small businesses to send me paper advertisements.
The almighty dollar drives this country, and as such it is nigh impossible to avoid advertisements in America. However, I don’t want to receive advertisements at my home unless I say so, since I own my home, not the mega corporation. Look, I am not against capitalism, as capitalism fuels job creation and American competitiveness in the global economy. However, when my wife and I take a walk and see planes flying above us carrying streaming banners for huge insurance companies, it is not hard for us to see small businesses need to be given niches that the large businesses cannot access. If my wife and I can see this point of view, then in my opinion, astute legislators who care about America and its small businesses should not only see this point of view, but they should act on it. Disallowing paper advertisements from any for-profit business except a small business would be one such action.
Effective Marketing Strategies in Product Creation
Marketing includes matters such as pricing and packaging of the product and creation of demand by advertising and sales campaigns. There are other options, of course, like product creation, resale rights marketing, joint ventures and the likes, but they are merely secondary to the above.
If you take the freelance route, it is important to ensure that all rights to profit from the final product, or any materials produced in its making, remain yours. Bookkeeping, physical product creation or delivery of goods can be done better with specialized help. Determining the purpose of the product is vital in niche product creation.
Implementation of Methodology – The choice of implementation of Six Sigma methodology depends on whether development is required on existing processes (DMAIC) or on new process/product design creation (DMADV). Determining what you really want to sell, something that you can be relaxed selling is the first step at the creation of a niche product. With the technological advancements in the hosting industry, from automated control panels and scripts that simplify creation of accounts; to complete turnkey solutions, there is no excessive need to worry about spending time on the actual product sold to the customer.
For instance, you should be prepared to either perform yourself or to subcontract the completion of the following tasks:- Product idea research (are there any existing products or patents already existing for this idea)- Product specification document training (what it will do, how it will look, how will it be powered, and how the user will interface with it)- Marketing study (what it will be named, who would buy this, how much would they pay, how will we get customers to purchase the product)- Schematic or electronic circuit design process- Creation of a bill of material or BOM and an approved vendor’s list or AVL for each component in the design, preferably with multiple sources identified, with a BOM and AVL for each assembly level in the product- Printed circuit board layout design process (single sided board, double sided board, or multilayer board; size of the PCB; board material)- Mechanical packaging design with user interfaces (displays, buttons, switches, key. This removes all product creation costs from your budget as a marketer.
No other database of affiliate programs offers such a possibility for profit on either the affiliate side or the product creation site. Your chosen niche should allow for the creation of more than one product or service.
There are several marketing strategies that are necessary in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site – Email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers – Effective use of auto responders (generate automatic email messages) – Online Newsletter – Online Form / Survey to capture your prospect’s email address – Electronic Product Delivery (if you sold a digital product) – Advertisement (Ad) Tracking – Back End Sales – Affiliate program etc.