Author: jgardner

What Home Business can a College Graduate start out of College?

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As the question is from a college graduate then whatever you have learned in college, you should be able to share with the world part-time while working fulltime in a job. Being a Freelance sharing your skills should be fairly economical.

For example, if you graduated with a Liberal Arts Degree, I believe you have training in English, literature and other liberal arts. Well, there is always a demand for writing for the internet whether it is for blogging, sales pages, white pages or any english skill. There is Upwork or Fiver where you can write up your skills for others to hire. The demand for people who can narrate video or do audio in good clear English is always in demand. You work as the proposals come in so you don’t have to take work if you are too busy in your job. You are hiring yourself out and your skills so there would be small commission for the internet platform but it wouldn’t require much time or money as all you would need is a mobile phone video skills to make your bio etc.

To learn more about starting a home business go to The Business of AT Home Business membership and check it out!

Categories: Home Business Ideas

Just WHO is your Competition?

The first step of the competitive analysis is to determine who is your local competition whether offline or online.  This can be done quite simply by driving around and observing and by searching through a telephone directory or searching in Google for similar businesses.

The main question will be one of range and determining just how far customers are prepared to travel to obtain your competitors goods and services. As well as local competitors some businesses also have non-local competitors such as in the form of mail order companies for example.

To analyze the competition, it is necessary to determine what market or market segments they serve and what benefits they offer. It is necessary to determine why customers buy from them and also to gather information about their products and or services, their pricing and promotion.

Gathering information could be done by physically visiting a business or checking their website. Several physical visits to a business will enable a person to determine information about their product and the company’s treatment of customers. Invest in a course or product of your competition to see how they deliver their goods and how is their customer service.

Good sources of information about a company come from the company’s vendors, suppliers and employees. Attending a trade fair where the competitors are exhibiting is another excellent way of gathering information.

Once the information has been gathered it needs to be analyzed. By analyzing what a competitor does offer it is then possible to determine a niche market that can be targeted by offering something that the competitor does not.

The goal of the analysis is to identify and expand your competitive advantage by focusing on the benefits your business can offer that the competitor can’t or won’t offer.

Categories: Business plan

What is #1 Priority when starting a home business?

The #1 Priority for any business whether home based or brick and mortar is Cash Flow!

The biggest concern with any business is cash flow.
At all times you have to be marketing, selling and
fulfilling the service of your home business.

You need a minimum cash flow every month just to cover your business
expenses and living expenses.
You can start by looking at your own bank account and
see what are your expenses to live every month.
Then do an analysis of the expenses needed in order to do your business
(by doing a business plan).
Add all the expenses together and that will be the income minimum
you need to make just to cover your expenses.

In most businesses you don’t make a profit which is income above
what you need for expenses for a few months or more.
So, you need to have some startup funding (whether savings or family support etc.) in the first year.

At all times, it is cash flow which can make a business profitable or a loss.
At all times as an owner you have to have three hats on:

The Marketer Cat

Cat wearing felt hat with feather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Marketer Hat where you go out and make people aware of your business. Okay, yes, I am not a cat but doesn’t he look like a marketer cat! 🙂

 

The Seller Cat

Portrait of cat wearing straw hat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Seller Hat where you close the sale when you have someone asking about your business. This is where you are serious and know what you want to say just like the Seller Cat.

 

The Business Cat

Cat wearing red hat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Business Hat where you fulfill the promise of the sale that you made
whether to fulfill a service or produce a product. The Business Cat is professional at all times in fullfilling the promise!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband and I have had a home based business for 20 years.
Just like any business, we have to have cash flow.
In one day, you can be meeting a potential client to fulfill a service
by a deadline while fulfilling another promised service
in the 8 hour time period
and responding to enquires with quotes over the internet.
At all times, you have to be a marketer, salesperson and service provider.
That is common to any business, homebased or otherwise,
if you don’t have the cashflow needed for your business,
you will get into serious trouble.

#1 Priority for Any Business is Creating the Cash Flow!
For more go to http://boahb.com on how to start run and grow a home business!

Home Business Startup Checklist

Who is your target market?
 What products or services will you be offering?
 Who is your main competition?
 What is your value proposition?
 How will you deliver your products or services?
 What will you name your business?
Administration
 Where will you work? Determine where your office space will be.
 Purchase or set up your office equipment and supplies (eg, desk and good chair, computer, printer, phone line, software, basic supplies, etc.)
 Set up a separate business address for correspondence.
 Set up a separate business email address.
 What kind of legal entity will you create? Complete the legal requirements and registration. Identify a lawyer or accountant to help you.
 Obtain an Employee Identification Number (EIN). If you are a sole proprietor, this may be your social security number.
 Register your name and buy the matching domain name.
 Purchase web hosting, if you are going to have a website.
 Order business cards.

Home Business Start-Up Checklist (continued)
Finances
 Set up a separate banking account for your business. Obtain a separate business credit card.
 Determine how you will pay and get paid. Set up the systems you will use (eg, Paypal and/or credit cards).
 Set up a system for tracking your finances.
 Prepare an initial budget and financial forecast.
 Set your initial business and financial goals.
Support
 Identify relevant industry websites and forums. Start networking.
 Identify and join a mastermind group.
 Decide which training you will use, if needed. Get started.
 Find people who can perform the tasks you will not be doing yourself. (e.g., website design and development, accounting).
Promotion
 Create your marketing plan and calendar.
 Create an action plan with deadlines.

Take a deep breath and get started!!
Come and get resources, support and action moving forward in your home business at http://boahb.com/

An Entrepreneur Never Hesitates

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Never hesitate.

Always taking action is how you should frame it in your mind because that’s a positive instead of a negative.

You should eliminate hesitation from your mindset.

This is the most important thing I can tell you about this. It’s easier to correct a wrong decision than indecision, because a wrong decision will tell you at least, “This way doesn’t work. You should probably look at these other alternatives instead.”

Indecision doesn’t tell you anything. You have absolutely no idea. So it’s easier to correct a wrong decision than it is to correct indecision. It’s actually easier to make a wrong decision right than to get the right decision right off the bat, because you’re usually never right right away. You’re usually close, and then you correct the rest of it to get right on the money.

And speaking of money, money is very attracted to speed.

Money loves speed.

It’s so seductive.

Speed seduces money and says, “Hey baby, want to go out on a date with me?” Money goes to those who act quickly, and so knowing that’s a money magnet you should say, “If money loves to be around people who are quick to act, maybe I should be quick to act. And if I can’t, I have to create a strategy that will then allow me to.”

I like to ask people, “Has there been a time in your life where you absolutely acted immediately and you never hesitated?” And they’re like, “Absolutely.” And I’m like, “OK, so you can do that. Now we just gotta figure out your strategy that gets you in that state of mind so you can take action,” and then we do that.

Do you want to be a waiter? Or do you want to be a receiver? Getting it done and getting some stuff from it.

So don’t hesitate, because you just won’t get anything from it.

The biggest difference between successful people and the norm is their speed of implementation like we were talking about earlier. There’s only a handful of differences that separate the winners from the losers. There’s only those two or three or four daily tasks and their approaches to those, and one of those tasks is winners are very quick to take an idea and turn it into something tangible.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your business; meaning that if these are problems for you, you should be setting aside some time every single day where you’re doing this stuff to

become better at taking action;

to be better at learning how to handle criticism;

to be better at creating undeniable and insatiable desire.

If these are problems for you, you have to handle them. You have to set aside time every single day where you become better as a person with your qualities. So work harder on yourself than you do on your business until you get those qualities that you want. Then you can do anything you want in any business.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset is one of the topics in The Business of At Home Business Membership 

What Is The Biggest Obstacle You Face When Starting A Home Business?

So you want to start a home business?

When you look at starting a home business as a new entrepreneur, you look at all the things you need to do to get started.

Website

Sales Pages

Traffic

Product creation

Design graphics

Social media

Funnels – what are funnels?!

All the other requirements like taxes, books, government regulations and so on ..

All you want to do is find the customers who need your solution to their problem or what they desire…..

All the equipment or technology you need to create a functioning business can seem like the biggest obstacle to starting a home business but it is not the biggest obstacle.

The biggest obstacle to starting a home business is YOU!

Paralysis

Your brain will get overwhelmed by all the “things” you have to do in your business.

Your Mind is powerful and it is great at collecting knowledge from here, there and everywhere.

But that can be overwhelming and cause “Paralysis Analysis.”  You will become overwhelmed by all the information and get STUCK. What should I do next?!

Well… take a deep breath ..and make a step by step checklist of what you need to do and cross it off as you do it.

Perfectionism

Don’t try to be Perfect.

Perfectionism can also cause paralysis in terms of “waiting” till I get this done and it takes longer than you thought and suddenly, it has been three months of you trying to perfect a sales page.

Imperfect Action is better than no Action.

Perfect is unattainable so don’t even try for Perfect. Just Perfect Enough to get moving!

The Next Best Thing

There is no quick way to make money with a home business. It is about building a business that has systems in it to keep the cash flowing. So always following the newest idea on how to make the cash flow will get you into chasing the quick money instead of a business. It is called the “Bright Shiny Object” syndrome and the promise of the “NEW” has always moved people to buy but you don’t want to move “off your path” chasing rainbows, you want to be focused on a path to your business such that you can see how it works.

The Business of At Home Business Membership

As an entrepreneur working in home business, I have (and still know) known the challenges of being in home business so I have developed a Membership to help others get their home business started quicker and easier.

Check it out at  The Business of At Home Business here.

Home Business Startup Costs

onestepforward

Home Business Entrepreneurs are a vital and growing part of the business economy in North America. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2012 United States Report in 2012, over 69% of new entrepreneurs started from home. 55% of the new businesses remained at home even if they hired employees. Also, the average financing was $15,000 with 82% of the entrepreneurs receiving financing from personal funds, family or friend. If you are thinking about starting a home business, it is possible to start from home with less money than you think!

If you haven’t heard the term “bootstrapping”, it is a new mindset for you to save money by doing some of your startup activities yourself and financing your business plan.

1. The first step would be to create a budget of potential income and expenses possible in the first year. Most important would be to define all the expenses as income may not come in the first year.

2. Looking at the expenses, see how you can save by reducing expenses by, for example:

a) doing your own bookkeeping

b) using your existing furniture for your office rather than buying new or go out to garage sales to find used items.

c)asking your computer saavy family member to help you setup your internet in exchange for…

For most service businesses that are home-based, the initial year is the most expensive but saving money by creating an office in your home and using existing furniture and computer equipment helps to reduce costs.

Now on to needing money, a bootstrapping entrepreneur will use:

a) their own personal savings

b)credit cards debt

c)ask family or friends for startup money or if you are lucky, use your family members skills within your business in exchange for whatever you decide on.

The advantage to using your own personal finances is you are not indebted to any other person or company like a bank.

Without knowing what your startup expenses will be, you won’t know what money you need to raise before you even start your business. So, even though the thought of doing a business plan may be something you consider unnecessary, even if you are going to be bootstrapping, a business plan is worth doing to see what you need for the first year.

Government Resources for Writing a Business Plan

The U.S. Small Business Administration has a free resource on creating a business

The Canadian government resources at Canada Business Network

Australian government at Business Plan Template

Great Britain at Write a Business Plan

Go and write up your business plan even if you aren’t going to a bank for financing because it is the guide and plan to use in your first year to keep costs under control!

by Jane Gardner from Jane-Gardner.com To empower and implement your business dreams!

State of Entrepreneurial Spirit!

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WATCH THE VIDEO! INSPIRING!

Today, I learned about this program (that I wished I had when I was young) called Startupskool at early entrepreneurs. It is a foundation whose mission is to create a revolution of social innovators.

As mentioned on their website,

We gave a handful of elementary classrooms each a $100 micro-loan as startup capital, and asked them to raise funds for charity. Rather than running typical fundraisers such as asking for pledges, these classes used the money to start their own small businesses such as building bird houses to sell at a local market, selling green smoothies on Fridays, and creating family friendly events. These students were using their own creativity and imagination to turn our initial $100 loan into thousands of dollars for charity. Building on the success of our original experiment, we partnered with amazing educators and entrepreneurs to launch a full curriculum behind our program. Through media-based lessons and an interactive platform we’ve been able to transform over 120 classrooms across Canada into social innovators. Their efforts have since generated over $80,000 in support of local and global charities.

They now have a website where teachers can register and find out how to run their own program in their class to instill the entrepreneurial training into their children from kindergarten to High School (in Canada).  The internet program can be adapted (and it has been adapted) to other countries.  The children are given $100 for their team and they have to create $500 with a business and the team learns about marketing, costing, pricing and  product creation all through working together in a class.

It is a story like this which makes you realize that anyone at any age can learn how to have the entrepreneurial spirit.  It just takes some training and knowledge about business and guidance from mentors to help you start.

This idea that i can pass on my knowledge about business to another so they can create a business themselves is a desire for this website.  Inside The Business of At Home Business membership there is the information and step-by-step to start a business.

Omni-channel mobile

According to +Think with Google surveys are research, 71% of smartphone users surveyed will use their smartphone for research while IN THE STORE. They are comparing, checking for latest prices, availability, choices in the survey during Xmas shopping season.


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