Category: Home Business Ideas

    Home Business or Work-at-Home Job – Which Is Right for You?

    Many people often want to work from home for a variety of reasons. Maybe you just had a child and want more work-life balance, or perhaps you have an illness that makes it difficult for you to get out of the house. Or maybe you just like being home and want the freedom to work your own way.

    Whatever the reasons you want to work at home, you’ll need to choose whether or not you want a job from home, or you want a business from home. Here are eight questions to help you decide.

    1. Are You Self-Motivated?

    If you want your own business so that you can set your own hours, you will need to be very self-motivated. You’ll need to take time out of your day for marketing, interviewing clients, closing the deal and then doing the work too. You’ll be 100 percent responsible for delivering the work, billing and collecting. You’ll even be responsible for deciding the methods you’ll use to do the work. To do that you’ll need to be a very self-motivated individual.

    2. What Skills Do You Have?

    Take a piece of paper and write down a list of the skills you currently have, based on what you’ve already done in the past. Can any of these translate into a business? Label them appropriately. Do any of these translate into common work-from-home positions such as call center agent or transcriptionist? Some skills cross over into both, but which side of the list gets full faster?

    3. What Sort of Lifestyle Do You Want?

    With a work-at-home job you’ll be required to “show up” for work on time each day that you’re scheduled, and you may have little control over that schedule. What’s more, with work-at-home positions it’s a lot harder than typical jobs to call in sick, whether it’s you or a child who is sick. Often the first 90 days you cannot miss your schedule at all if you want to keep the position. Are you ready for that? Or, would you prefer a more family-oriented type of schedule that can be adjusted more easily and is more deliverables-based than hourly-based?

    4. Do You Already Have a Business Idea?

    If you have already researched a business idea, and feel as if you want to do that instead of working for someone else, can you pull it off? What steps do you need to take to make it a reality? Are you the type of person to be able to organize and take the steps needed to get your business off the ground? Can you find and afford help if you’re not sure what to do to get the business going? Does the thought of all this stress you out?

    5. How Do You Feel about Punching a Clock?

    For some people the idea of clock punching is relaxing, for others it feels like a nightmare. Neither feeling is right or wrong as it takes all types of people to make this world work. If you know up front that you are fine with punching a clock and you’d rather someone else tell you when to be someplace and what to do, then a work-at-home job is best for you. If that feels like prison to you, then a business is probably better if you can do what it takes to get it going.

    6. Do You Have Money to Start a Business?

    Starting any type of business, even an online business, requires an investment not only of time, but also of money. Have you worked out a business plan and do you know how much money you need to get started? Do you have that money available? If not, do you have a way to get it? Perhaps working at a job first, while you save for and work on your business on the side, is the way to go if you don’t have the funds to start.

    7. Do You Need Training and Education?

    Both working at a job and owning a business sometimes require skills that you don’t have yet. But that’s okay. Decide if you want to invest in the training yourself to get your business off the ground, or if you would like to try to find a work-at-home job where they will train you from the ground up even if you have little experience and due to that the pay may be low.

    8. What Is Your Biggest Dream for Your Life?

    When you think of the future, what do you see? Does it sound relaxing to get up in the morning, have some breakfast, and move to your home office where you sign in to work at your job, taking a break when needed by telling your manager that you have to use the restroom, or go eat lunch and so forth, then when you get off work you’re totally and fully off? Plus, each week you collect a certain paycheck? Or, do you like the idea of being able to do what you want when you want (and likely working more hours than you ever thought you could) but without the surety of income each week, knowing you’re forging your own future?

    Whatever you decide, neither is right or wrong. They are both good choices for you. Whether you want a work-at-home job so you can sign off after the day and focus 100 percent on your family, or whether you want a business that will cross boundaries into family time and vice versa but that puts you 100 percent in charge – both are good choices and choices that you are fortunate to have in this age of high speed internet.

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    Recycled Clothing Business

    Although it might sound surprising, recycled clothing businesses are actually quite lucrative. There are many benefits of opening and running a recycled clothing business, and many different methods of doing so.

    Perks of a Recycled Clothing Business

    * Recession-Proof – If there is one thing that people will always need, it is clothes. Running a second-hand or other recycled clothing business is recession-proof, if only because people need clothes and love getting great deals. People always shop at these kinds of stores, in good times and in bad, so there is always business to be done.

    * Low Overhead – Depending on the size and location of your store, recycled clothing stores often have lower overhead than other types of stores. Clothing, once it is cleaned and hung up, is pretty low maintenance and recycled clothing is typically fairly cheap to obtain.

    * Environmentally Friendly – Owning and running a business based on any kind of recyclable items or material helps our environment. It helps cut down on waste in a big way, especially when you consider how much waste and pollution many factories that create the fabrics and dyes for clothing produce.

    Ideas for Recycled Clothing Businesses

    * Consignment – A consignment-type store allows the products to come to you. So basically you are letting other people produce the clothing to be sold, and then you get paid when those items are bought. Consignment stores typically have very unique items, which makes them popular. You can also market your store as a specialty consignment store; for example, you can carry only children’s clothes or only men’s clothes.

    * Buy/Sell/Trade Stores – Stores where people can sell or trade their gently used clothing as well as purchase are getting more and more popular. Having a business like this can also help you keep up with current trends and styles while still keeping your stock completely recycled.

    * Thrift Stores – People shop at thrift stores everywhere for all sorts of items. From interesting household items, to furniture, and yes, clothes, you can find just about anything in a good thrift store. Lots of thrift stores focus mostly on clothing and have a smaller stock of other items.

    * Vintage Marketing – One way to have a recycled clothing business that is super-trendy and popular is by selling vintage clothes. Now, just because clothes are old does not necessarily make them vintage. A vintage clothing shop is going to sell items that are going to be stylish and trendy specifically because they come from another era. For example, you might find that vintage prom dresses and vintage band t-shirts will be quite popular, and lucrative.

    A recycled clothing business has many benefits that might make it the perfect business opportunity for you. Combined with the popularity of second-hand clothing stores everywhere, the low overhead and easy maintenance of one of these businesses might really appeal to you. Check out stores in your local area to see what is available, and maybe even look around for some really great finds.

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    For a Successful Business Have a Clear Plan

    When you go on a trip, typically you get out a map or you use GPS to ensure that you get to where you want to go in a relatively uncomplicated manner. You don’t just strike out without any idea of where you’re going or how you’ll get there.
    The same thing should be done when you start a business. Map out a plan, starting with the end. Where do you see your business when it’s most successful? How can you ensure that you get there in a reasonable amount of time?

    In order to make the plan, ask the following questions:

    * Who Are You? – This question really has two parts; one, who are you personally and two, who is your business? How you want the public (and customers) to view you as a business is important, because it can inform how you proceed with every aspect of your business.

    * What Do You Offer? – It’s true that you offer something that can easily be named, xyz service or xyz product, but what you really need to answer is what solutions are you providing? Is it freedom? Is it time? Is it something else? If you can answer that, you’ll be able to move your business forward faster.

    * Who Is your Customer? – Customer identification is an important part of owning and running a successful business. It doesn’t end once you figure out who your customer is either, because you will need to continue to study them over time. Try creating a customer avatar so that you can look at it and know exactly who you’re doing it for.

    * What Differentiates Your Offering? – Usually, someone else is offering something like yours or close to it. But, there is always something that makes yours stand out from anyone else’s. What is that thing? How can you emphasize the thing that makes yours better, different, or special?

    * How Will You Deliver It? – It’s important to know the means by which you’ll get your product or service to your audience. Without knowing that, it will be difficult to succeed in your business. Work out these plans in advance.

    * How Many Do You Need to Deliver for Success? – One thing many business owners forget to do is figure out how many widgets they need to sell (or hours if you’re in a service business) to break even, and then how many to be successful. When you know this answer, you can break that down to how many a day you need to sell. That then helps inform the rest of your plans.

    * What Is Your Timeline to Profitability and Success? – Once you know all the other information, it will be easier to determine how long it will take for you to be successful. Knowing that info you can start from the date you want to show your first dollar profit, going backwards and entering in the actions you need to take each year, month, week, day and even – if you wish – hour of your day.

    When you answer these questions seriously, you can easily create a workable daily plan of action. Before you know it, you’ll be successful because you have a clear plan.

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    How to Identify Your Ideal Customer

    The fact is about 20 percent of all your customers will generate 80 percent of your income. That is because the other 80 percent aren’t totally in line with your ideal customer. There is a way to improve your income exponentially, and that’s by hyper focusing on your ideal customer so that you can attract more ideal customers and fewer who aren’t ideal.

    1. What Benefits Does Your Product or Service Offer? – Make a list of all the benefits that your product or service has. When you are thinking like your customer, you will always think about “what’s in it for me?” Your customer wants to know why they should use that product.

    2. Identify Pain Points That You Can Solve – What sort of pain points does your product or service solve? Does it free up time? Does it end boredom?

    3. Determine Who Needs These Issues Solved – Once you’ve gathered a list of benefits your product offers and pain points that your product solves, you need to figure out who needs those benefits and has those pain points.

    4. Determine Your Customers’ Potential Characteristics – Once you have a list of those who might benefit from your product or service, you can make a list of demographics and other factors that people in that group share.

    5. Determine Your Customers’ Behavior – Find ways to research the list of people you made above so that you can get a better idea of the type of behavior your target audience displays.

    6. What Career Does Your Ideal Customer Have? – Can you determine what type of career your ideal client has from the information you’ve gathered above?

    7. What Price Point Can They Afford? – Once you know what type of career your ideal client has, you can also determine a fair price point for your product or service based on what they can afford to pay and the value of your offering.

    8. Test Your Assumptions – Once you have a fair idea of who your ideal client is, you can test your assumptions by identifying some influencers within your audience and asking them to try your product or service.

    9. Repeat – Take the answers you get from the information above and the test and improve upon your offerings so that you can truly please your ideal customer.

    Using the information learned from all of the above actions, you can truly focus your marketing efforts toward your ideal client. In addition, you can use the information to retain the right customers in order to take advantage of repeat customers and a high level of customer satisfaction.

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    Current state of Entrepreneurship in the World

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    Public Domain from pixabay

    Things are looking brighter in the startup of small businesses than before the crisis in 2008 according to a OECD Worldbank and Facebook collaboration on survey of smaill businsses.

    Trend start-ups remain below pre-crisis rates in most OECD economies, although in Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom rates were higher at the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016 than before the crisis. Trends in the most recent periods are pointing upwards in most OECD countries, from http://www.oecd.org/std/business-stats/entrepreneurship-at-a-glance-22266941.htm

    calculator
    Public Domain from pixabay

     Give the ‘lure rather than the fish itself’

    Many countries are recognizing that micro businesses will be the wave of the fuure to get their society off government support. In this report on Borneo, there was successful micro-entrepreneur startups to get people off of welfare. If you give a person the lure to catch the fish is much better than  giving them the fish according to the report from

    http://www.theborneopost.com/2016/10/31/micro-entrepreneurship-can-help-break-poverty-cycle/

    Some new Trends in Entrepreneurship

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    Public Domain from pixabay

    Get into the Industry you know

    Rather than trying to learn a new industry a lot of successful entrepreneur are working in industries they either were a customer or worked in local business. So, they knew what problems or challenges that industry has so they can be more proactive in solving the problems.

    For example, Steve Sullivan was a ski bum who hung around on the ski slopes and then knowing the challenges of the weather and clothing he decided to work creating clothing that actually functioned in that environment.

    We get to actively test the products that we are making every day. I can run out from our office and do a tram lap for lunch and check out the fit and function of a new jacket that we’re trying. . . . The culmination of that leads to better products. viaTo Increase Your Chance of Success, Get Into an Industry You Know

    New type of entrepreneur

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    Instead of working a 9 to 5 job 40 hour week, a lot of new entrepreneurs are doing more than one business to give them the flexibility of hours spend at work and at home.

    Savvy consultants told us they value being able to make almost as much money as they did at a big firm, but doing so by working late at night so they have more time with their kids from Wanted: Creative Solutions to Shape a Workable Future

    If you are thinking about starting your own business try the Be Your Own Boss  quiz.

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    There are 3 Billion People online-Your Tribe is out there!

    multi ethnic hands reaching for globe ball

    There are 3,279,088,431 people on the internet today!
    Tweet: There are 3,279,088,431 people on the internet today!

    Your message
    Your product
    Your service
    Your passion will serve those who need or want you to help them solve a problem or fulfill a need.
    Don’t be intimidated by the idea of reaching EVERYONE!
    You aren’t in the Everyone Business , according to Darren Scott Monroe.

    There are 3 Billion Online and your TRIBE, your AUDIENCE, your CUSTOMERS will find you if you message is clear and you go to where THEY are.

    How do you find your Customers?

    Define who your Customers are and this will tell you where they like to hangout on the Internet (or whether they don’t come onto the internet).


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    How to Steer your Customers towards you!

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    Have you ever really listened to your customers? If you did, there might be a change in focus in the direction that your business will take.
    I thought that when I started that people would want to have a way to go step by step from idea to launching and then growing your business. I know ,they need this type of guidance as being in home business, I know the challenges and stress of being your own boss.
    But I have found with the years of hanging out on the internet and listening to people on Facebook and in group calls and masterminds that people want the quick solution. People want either a quick way to have a “business” or they talk about it but they aren’t willing to put the work in.
    So, my focus has changed to listening to what people are saying. Then putting out an offer to them to see if they are interested. If not, then ask them more questions to see what they REALLY wanted. If they want it then create it with their participation.
    No long term commitment to create the content and find out no one wants it.
    Keep this in mind when you have an idea you want to create before you invest time and energy!

    Check out Resources for more inspiration!

    Categories: Ideal Customer

    Five Questions to Ask about Your Competition

     
    Understanding your competition is important. When you understand them, you can position your business to stand apart. You can create an effective SEO and keyword development strategy. You can maximize your competition. And finally, you can position your products and services to sell.

    When you created your business plan, you likely did a competitive analysis. If you didn’t, then now’s the time. Once you have a solid competitive analysis, the work’s not done. The world changes and so too does your competition. It’s important to stay abreast of their change. While it’s not a good idea to stress about your competition, it is important to review them semi-annually or quarterly.

    So…how well do you know your competition? Here are five questions to get you thinking about your competition. Answer these questions, take action, and achieve better profits and a website that sells.

    Question #1 – Do you know who your competition is? Do you have a competitive analysis? It’s difficult to differentiate your business if you don’t know who your competition is. Your USP, Unique Selling Proposition, is often created with your competition in mind. You need to know what you do better or differently so you can offer value and benefit to your audience.

    Question #2 – How often do you presently analyze and evaluate your competition? Again, it’s not wise to obsess about your competition. However, it is wise to create an analysis strategy. Semi-annually, annually or quarterly are common periods to review your competition and update your analysis.

    Question #3 – What are your competitions’ primary keywords? What are their Alexa stats? How do you compare? It’s important to know not only where your competition stands, but also where you stand in comparison. Create a chart or system to track this information.

    Question #4 – Do you follow your competition on social networking sites? Do you receive alerts when they publish new content? Do you subscribe to their blog or newsletter? Simple strategies can help you stay abreast of your competition. You can collect the information and review it when appropriate. Or you can review it as you learn about it. Often, your competition’s actions and content can be helpful to you. Their actions might inspire a new content idea, product or service.

    Question #5 – Does your competitive analysis and strategy include:

    * Keyword analysis
    * Linking analysis
    * Products/services analysis
    * Content analysis
    * Advertising analysis
    * SEO page ranking

    Rest assured your competition is watching you. You might return the favor. Take advantage of automated technology to track their activities. Create a plan to assess your competition and reassess your strategies and tactics. There’s a lot to learn from the people that challenge you. Your competition may be the motivating force you need to take your business and website to the next level.

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    Education

    Photo Source

    Are you thinking that you don’t have the skills you need to do a home business?  Do you wonder how long it would take to learn the skills for a home business idea you would like to do?  Twenty years ago, you would have to consider:

    1. taking a vocational or university course at only certain times of the year
    2. the tuition costs IF you could get into the course you wanted
    3. the time off of work in order to do the course.

    Now, with the internet, you have the freedom to explore different home business ideas you might be interested in.  You can change the direction of your life by getting education in a new field.  Develop your skills in a new field and see where it takes you. There are many accredited universities that have online courses for their own courses as well as developing courses for other interests.  For example, our local university has whole series of courses developed for the senior crowd to try on a part-time basis from going to Mexico and living in a town to learn Spanish or writing course hosted by well known playwright.  

    Ongoing education is a critical trait for any entrepreneur and I’ ll be speaking further about places and resources to learn the skills and knowledge for an entrepreneur.  To learn more about how to develop the skills of an entrepreneur, subscribe to our newsletter! 

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    Be a Teacher

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    You would like to spend more time with the family. The years seem to be slipping by and the children growing up without you. You’d like to make some more money or find a new way to make money where you can spend more time at home.

    But what can you do, you ask?

    Have you thought of looking at what you know, what experience you have or what skills you might have?

    You might create a business idea that might have never existed before or even create a business that is common but you can put on your own spin!

    If you can get out your iphone out and record video or use the webcam and headset to make a video, you can create a video course.

    See the article below about Caitlin Pyle who created a video course on her Proofreading business.

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