Tag: business

    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!

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    Social Media can be #1 Time Waster when starting a Home Business

     

     

     

    “Get on Facebook.” “Find your fans on Twitter.” “Do a livestream on Instagram Stories”

    You need to get out onto the Internet to connect with your potential customers. But when starting a home business online there are so many systems to have in place and time spent that you need to be strategic with your time.  There are only 24 hours in a day and you need to sleep for some of that time.

    Social media marketing is the #1 time waster when you are starting a home business. It is easy to spend hours checking out cat pictures or entering discussions on what is your favourite 1980’s song.

    Your #1 priority when starting your home business is “What get’s you closer to your money.”

    What can you do in the next half hour that attracts a potential customer to your product or service or creates the newest sales page?
     

     

     

     

     

     

    The more focused you are on getting the sale every minute of the day, the less likely you will go down that time wasting vortex that is social media.

    How to do social media in your business

    Connecting and posting on social media can attract your ideal customers but do it strategically.  Create a Marketing Plan  just for social media so you can take an hour or two on one day to create your messages and set them up to broadcast when your potential audience is on their favourite social media channel and monitor so you can interact and comment if needed with audience.

     

    To learn more about how to create a marketing plan and set up systems in your new business, join The Business of At Home Business membership where you can be productive with your time getting skills and  strategy of being online to save you time and money when setting up your home business.

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss Tags: Tags: , , ,

    7 ways to get the time to start a home business?

    Are you stuck in overwhelm wondering how to start your own home business?

    Do you find that your days are filled with your job, commuting and family chores that you don’t know how you can find the time to think about starting a home business let alone actually having the time to do it!

    Ask yourself just how committed are you to starting a business that can improve your life?

    You can find the time if you REALLY want to have your own business.

    Here are 7 ways to find the time to start your own home business

    1. Stop watching T.V.

    Television is such a time waste when you think of what you could be doing in that hour to take action in your business. If you “have to be social” with the family then at least bring out the laptop or phone to work on your business while you are there.

    2. Get up one hour earlier every day

    If you were to get up at 5 a.m instead of 6 a.m. just think of the action you could take planning your business in the quiet of the morning. Staying up late to work isn’t recommended as you aren’t getting the sleep your body needs to work during the day.

    3. Take 15 minutes a day for you

    Fifteen minutes for 30 days is equal to 450 minutes or over 7 hours you have spent to move your business forward. I use a small book to write in my ideas and next action steps.

    4. Take the time while commuting or waiting at appointments

    Just think of the minutes and hours you spend just travelling or waiting in life that you could do something productive towards planning and taking action to start your business. I like writing down ideas and next steps in my Moleskine notebook because I like the visceral feel of the book and paper but you can just write on your phone or record your thoughts.

    5. Get a Mentor

    Find someone who already has a business and ask if you could ask questions of him or her about starting a home business by email or on the phone. A mentor can help you save time by preventing you from making common mistakes and helping you take action.

    6. Allow yourself to take baby steps of action.

    You have to celebrate whatever small action you may take every day to move forward. If you celebrate rather than counting the number of things you need to do that will help with overwhelm.

     

    7. Read a book about business instead of a novel at bedtime

    If you don’t know someone successful in business, you can read about entrepreneurs and starting a home business to absorb the lessons they have learned whether it is “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson or “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

     

    If you want to learn about starting, running or growing a home business all in one place, you should join “The Business of At Home Business” membership where you can learn and implement about what it takes to start an online or offline home business all in one place!

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Your Big Why -Why do you want to start a home business

    Welcome this is Jane Gardner and welcome to start your own home business on Tuesday.
    No don’t start it today 🙂 just start your own business Tuesday.

    So,let’s start by talking about why do you want to start a home business.

    For those of you who are thinking of starting a home business ask yourself “Why” first and then ask yourself “Are you willing to do the things that are needed in order to start a home business?”
    “So why are you starting a home business?” Is it because you want to make more money in your life or do you want to be in control of your own life and be able to be your own boss? “Are you desperate for money?” “Are you wanting to support your family better than you are now?” Do you think that it will be a quick way to make more money but you are disillusioned because starting your own home business will always be a challenge. It will always have its freedom and it may always have its challenges as well as its triumphs. So let’s have a sit down and figure out exactly why “what’s the big why” for why you want to start a home business.

    Next week, we’ll look into researching and thinking about what kind of home business you want to have. Just so you know, I am interested in talking about online Home businesses as well as offline Home business. Obviously being in a structural engineering firm, our own business that is local and we work in the local area. And obviously we’re not doing any international work or otherwise I would have mentioned it. So, but of course, now there are very few home businesses that are always local. You can always get customers on the Internet now and expand into the Internet.

    So, we’ll be talking about offline home businesses as well as online home businesses.

    But today I want to just sit down and ask yourself ” why you want to start a home business?”

    So for example, my husband and I are in our home business and we’re both in our 50s to 60s. We’d like to retire well but basically my husband cannot retire without closing down the business or he would have to get someone else to take over. So my big “Why” is to try to figure out how I can help others start their own home business by sharing my knowledge and wisdom and some of the practical skills and technology and resources that you can use to start a home business. while at the same time, adding some revenue to our life so that we can retire.

    We’ll talk about a practice as a business another day (I’ll just write that down). But our practice is not really a business. For someone who’s an individual like a doctor or dentist or an engineer where basically the business is you. So we’ll talk about that another time and another night whether you want to choose that kind of business.

    But today my big why is to try and set up another business so that we can retire and enjoy our retirement as well as earning some revenue to enjoy our life while we’re retired and sharing my wisdom.
    So what’s your big why?

    Do you have family that you want to support? Certainly we all do have family members who need to have some support from us in terms of money. Do you have children that you want to help go to school or you want to help your grandchildren? Do you want to help other family members with some resources?
    Are you looking to earn some extra revenue so that you can enjoy your retirement earlier than you expected or even not retirement just being able to support your family because the job that you’re doing right now, your day job is not fulfilling and you need another choice?

    Is your Why you want to start a home business big enough so that you can be able to continue on to start your home business without quitting basically. So my big why is basically I’d like to be able to retire from our engineering firm and my husband as well and  because otherwise we’ll be working till we are 75.  So this is just my Big Why is being able to share my wisdom in order to have the revenue come in so that we can we close our engineering firm.

    So what’s your Big Why?

    Are you looking to support your family members? Do you have big medical bills coming up that you need to have support for? Do you have family members who are not in the best form of health and you need to help support them? Some of these things can really help you to have a think  before you start a home business to realize that you need to support yourself and your family with this.  In those days where the day is long and you’re struggling and you’re having a challenge or you don’t have the amount of money you’d like to come in that you know you have the potential to come in with your business- your WHY has to be Big!

    I will help you to remember that Why you’re doing this and the days that you’re spending time in front of the computer or learning a skill or phoning up clients to find out what you need to do or even doing the work for your clients on the weekends instead of  spending  time with your family.

    Are you willing to sacrifice that kind of time in order to have a better life for your family?

    So that’s what you have to think about  before you start a home business. It’s whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice some time with your family or sacrifice your pleasures. Spend less time in front of the TV or take some time on the weekend and do some work that will help you move forward in your business. Or maybe you have more immediate desires to start your home business because it’s an urgent need for money. You have to realize that when you start home business you really need to have a very strong Why or why you’re doing it in order to get through the days -when you’re starting the business and when you’re struggling to get clients or you are starting to figure out something on the computer or you’re not going to your son’s baseball game because you have to do some work in order to move forward with this business.

    You have to figure out if you’re willing to sacrifice that kind of time with your family in order to make a better life for your family.

    So think about  your Big Why.
    Why do  you want to start a home business?

    Are you just tired of getting you know your current job. You don’t think it’s going to move you forward in your life. You won’t  get  the house that you wanted or the family life you want?

    Are you willing to sacrifice some time and some money probably just to get started on your home business?
    Whether or not, you that would sacrifice time to  get through the time that you need to work on make your whole business successful?
    So next time I think we’ll talk about some of the ideas for an offline home business  because I find that no one on the Internet is actually talking about offline business.

    Since we started as an offline home business,  I think we should go over some of the ideas and the things that you need to have in terms of being an offline home business. Some of the simple businesses you could have offline as a business as well as maybe  some consulting businesses you might be able to do.  So, we will talk about off line business next week.

    So, have a think about your Big Why.  Think about whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice your time and maybe a little bit of money in order to get started with your Home Business.

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss Tags: Tags: , , , , , ,

    5 Reasons to have a Blog in your Business

    Marketing – the action of promoting and selling your products or service. 

    5 Reasons why you should  blog in your business?

    1. It is a free marketing tool to use on your website and in social media.
    2. It brings awareness to your Brand as other businesses learn about your company who may want to connect or partner with your business.
    3. It is good to showcase your authority and knowledge about your product or service.
    4. Visitors find a way to connect and enjoy reading about company activities or events.
    5. Most importantly, visitors get to know, like and trust your business as a company they could do business with and they are more likely to find that your business has the solution to their problem.

    Click Here to Get “Blogging for Business Made Easy!”
    You may say you don’t have time to blog on your website about your business but you are letting a free opportunity for you to market to your customers slip away if you don’t! Blogging has become a way to market yourself and your products or services to website visitors and out on social media. People do want to hear what you are all about when they are looking for a solution to their problem. If you are out there blogging and doing social media posts, whether you are a small home business or a large corporation, your words will speak for your business.

    The more insight and peeks behind the scenes you get, the more that people will see you have authority in your field and line of work/service. Why You Need to Stop Waiting and Start Blogging (like TODAY) – SoulScripts
    Click Here to Get “Blogging for Business Made Easy!”
    Even if your business is a large one, and you’re setting out to create a blog that speaks to your customer base, there are always ways to make it personal. Show that you understand the issues they’re facing and the problems they’re looking to solve. Use your blog posts to demonstrate to your audience that you’re the best solution to those issues and problems.

    Having a voice doesn’t just mean the act of talking or writing. It means having a point of view, being distinctive, and maybe even a little opinionated or controversial. There is a lot of noise on the Internet, and one of the biggest challenges that people face is sifting through all of that noise in order to find the content that’s interesting.

    How are you going to create all the content for your blog?

    According to Neil Patel, if you write 10 ideas per day then by the end of the year, you will have 3650 ideas!

    The great thing about writing down 10 ideas a day is that you’ll become, as James Altucher says, an idea machine. by Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging Consistently

    Then if you save an hour before day just to focus on your blog content; it may take you a few days to write 300 -500, words and then a couple of days to add images, proofread and add a call to action then you will have new blog post every week only from one hour a day!

    If you aren’t into writing content but find it easier to do audio then collect your thoughts and jot down the important points you want to make and then get out your microphone and record! Your audience may also be busy and they would enjoy listening to you and your personal thoughts then reading. Who has time!?

    The voice of your blog should be a good fit for the product or service you’re selling. For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for natural health care products, then a writing voice that’s positive and nurturing is almost certain to be more appropriate than a voice that’s “in your face” or that uses risqué humor.

    For more on blogging for your business check out

    Click Here to Get “Blogging for Business Made Easy!”

     

    Categories: blogging Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    The Challenges and reality for Babyboomers as they get close to retirement

    Have the challenges of the Babyboomer generation made it impossible to retire?

    According to Gallup article, babyboomers still work even though they are eligible for retirement.

    Although the first wave of boomers became eligible for early retirement under Social Security about six years ago, the generation still constitutes about one-third (31%) of the workforce, similar to percentages for millennials (33%) and Generation X (32%). via Many Baby Boomers Reluctant to Retire | Gallup

    So, why aren’t more Babyboomers retiring?  Well, besides the normal challenges of increased cost of living there are other expenses that were not considered:

    For example,

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    Medical expenses for themselves or their family members

    When we were younger , did we think that we’d have to pay $10,000 for dentures?

    Lack affordable health insurance plans, rising medical costs in general, long wait time for procedures and the massive explosion of the babyboomer population entering the years where they will need more health care, the rising phenomenon of medical tourism also called medical travel or international health travel via Medical Tourism Being Seen as an Alternative To Obamacare

    Inconsiderate planning for retirement

    Did you have training when you were younger on how to save for your retirement?

    Over half of over 55s who currently earn £20k – £30k have saved less than £30k for their retirement. This translates to an income of around £165 per month. Yet despite this, almost a quarter of people (23%) in this category anticipate a retirement they describe as “comfortable”, demonstrating a dramatic difference between what they are used to and what they might actually afford. via Babyboomers reinvent retirement pJ 

    Unexpected support of family members

    When you were young did you know that besides supporting your children, you would be supporting your parents as they got older? It is not usually planned that you will be the caregiver of your parents. 

    The number of older people with intense care needs will outstrip the supply of informal care from family members in 2017, with the consequent ‘care gap’ affecting as many as 230,000 people by 2030. via Thousands won’t be able to rely on family in old age. We need a contingency plan

    Little did you know that when you had your children graduate from college that due to the economy and or cost of living, they return to your house a few times to live. Your children want a life of their own but the uncertain economy has made them return to their family home.

     

    In the past decade and a half, according to the Economist, about 3.2 million 20- to 34-year-olds have gone back to live with mum and dad via Let’s see some babyboomer rage about Generation Jobless

    Many seniors are realizing that what they’ve saved for retirement years isn’t going to be enough to support them and even provide them with necessities – much less the luxuries they’d like to enjoy.

    That’s why so many seniors are building online businesses well before the retirement party. One of the benefits of building a part time business in your spare time before you retire is that you’ll already have an income and it can increase as your business grows.

    Having a second business to pursue after retirement keeps your mind sharp and you won’t ever get bored if you’re committed to your business pursuits. But this time you can set your own hours and only answer to yourself as the boss!

     

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    Special Reports

    close up shot of notepad and pen

     

     Build your List and Make Money

    Does your business enterprise need a boost? Consider using special reports to add revenue and build a business contact list for future use.

    What are special reports?

    Special reports are short reports that contain helpful information on a subject. The reports are anywhere from a few to 30 or so pages in length. If you have the know-how, you can write them yourself or hire a writing service to do it for you. There is very little work involved in creating them but they are versatile tools for building an online business.

    One popular subject for special reports is how-tos. They direct a reader, step by step, how to do something. If you are knowledgeable with computer software and hardware, that is a perfect niche for special reports on your website. People are always having trouble figuring out their computers and you could help.

    Marketing special reports

    There are options for marketing your special reports. If you are trying to build a business list of customers, use these special reports as a freebie when any visitor signs up to be a part of your email mailing list. For this type of promotion, use a shorter report like a five page report on how to navigate problems with Windows Vista (if your website has a computer niche).

    You can create a five-part course and use the first part as the free promotion. It is your hook. Once they sign up for the mailing list, you can grant them access to the other installments through emails that also advertise your website products. Signing up for a business newsletter subscription can also be the reason to gift a free special report.

    Making money

    All of your special reports don’t have to go towards list building. Besides your other products or services, you can sell special reports on your website. Many reports sell for between $5 and $20 a piece, but if you offer very valuable information, you can command a higher price. Sell single reports or create various courses to interest your customers.

    People love to learn about money-making opportunities. They will pay the money for any information that is a how-to guide to making money on and offline in various ways. How have you made money? Begin there with the subject of your special reports.

    As your business grows, create an affiliate program. This gives customers a way to help you make more money and also make some for them. Offer certain special reports as additional compensation for reaching a certain selling level in the affiliate program.

    There are a number of ways to use special reports. As you build your library and your lists, alternate the free promotional reports and continue to sell your entire library, creating combination offers such as Buy Two, Get One Free.

    While your special reports are building your contact list, they are also making you money. With such a low cost to create them, your profit margin will rise.

    For more marketing tips, subscribe to The Business of At Home Business newsletter. 

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Dropbox

    400px-Cloud_computing

    Be More Productive with DROPBOX 

    Never have to email a File again and get it bounced back to you because your web provider has a maximum Bandwidth per day for you to use.  

    In our engineering office, we would always get calls from the contractor saying “My zipped pictures got bounced back to me or my Web Provider says, it can not send the file.” Well, we had to explain that their Web Provider only gave them a maximum bandwidth to upload files and it isn’t our issue because we were paying for increased bandwidth several years ago. Once Autocad drawings could become pdfs and more than two photos attached to an email meant the Email file was too large, it has become harder to transmit large files by email.

    As noted in Wikipedia, when Apple developed iCloud in October 2011 as free service for its members to store music, podcasts,pictures and files from iTunes and all its IOS devices, it had 320 Million Users as of July 2013. Other companies like Microsoft and Dropbox offered free storage to people to encourage them to store their files in their Cloud service. 

    Dropbox is exciting in that you as a user can share a file that you have uploaded to Dropbox with another person anywhere or anytime. All you need to share is an email address for that person. You and that person don’t have to know each other or be a part of the same company. You can email a link to a person and there is a link in the email they click which opens up a viewer where they can view, download to their computer or store it in their Dropbox. Unlike Google Drive where both people have to have a Gmail account, you can use any email address to send a message that there is a file in the Shared Folder.

    Dropbox  has a free app available for your ios devices so you can upload video and photos from your smartphone, ipad or itouch. 
    Any file you save to your Dropbox will also automatically save to all your computers, phones, and even the Dropbox website. This means that you can start working on laptop computer in a coffee shop and finish on your home office computer. You are not tied to your home office to do any work! 

    You can: 

    • Share a Folder – you can invite your friends, family and teammates to a folder in your Dropbox. It’ll be as if you saved that folder straight to their computers.
    • View Previous Versions of a File so you can  view a record of changes made to a file. You can choose to go back to an earlier version of a file if you’d like.
    • Browse your Dropbox Folder in the  Web Browser or drag and drop files in the Dropbox Folder on your computer. It will automatically sync folder and add/delete files depending on your actions. 
    • Make a link to any file or folder in your Dropbox. You can then send this link to anyone you’d like to view the file — even if they don’t have Dropbox!

    They reward you with 250MB of extra storage  bonus if you do 5 out of these 7 activities:

    • Take the Dropbox Tour 
    • Install Dropbox on your computer
    • Put Files in your Dropbox folder
    • Install Dropbox on other computers you use 
    • Share a folder with colleagues and friends 
    • Invite some friends to join Dropbox
    • Install Dropbox on your Mobile Devices

    Dropbox is exciting in that you as a user can share a file that you have uploaded to Dropbox with another person anywhere or anytime. All you need to share is an email address for that person. You and that person don’t have to know each other or be a part of the same company. You can email a link to a person and there is a link in the email they click which opens up a viewer where they can view, download to their computer or store it in their Dropbox. Unlike Google Drive where both people have to have a Gmail account, you can use any email address to send a message that there is a file in the Shared Folder.

    So, Dropbox is a free service with 2GB of storage free for you to store files, share files and even do collaboration with another person on editing a file. Have a look at this Dropbox tutorial above by Dotcom Guy Tutorials and you will see the flexibility of Dropbox and how it can help you in your business.

    Now I don’t have an affiliation with Dropbox. In fact, in another article, I will go over the benefits of the other Cloud-based services like Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive and Apple iCloud.  I just wanted to do Dropbox today as I have this great tutorial above and you will see how putting your files up in the Cloud will increase your productivity as you share your projects and files with your clients!  

    The featured image is of Cloud Computing definition in Wikipedia – Thanks !!  

    Categories: Productivity Tags: Tags: ,

    Grow Your Business

     

    mature businessman reading newspaper

    Fred had a successful consulting service serving many clients in his community. He enjoyed his days in his home office but he was finding that he wasn’t spending the time with his family as much as he wanted to do. He hadn’t had a vacation in a year and he wasn’t sure he could be away from his home office without his clients being angry.

    He took the time one day to look at his options for decreasing his workload while maintaining his lifestyle.
    He could:
    1. Hire and train an employee to help with client related documentation.
    2. Partner with another consultant in his field sharing some of the workload while getting a “finders fee” for sending the work to the sub-consultant.
    3. Find a support desk for his office administration who do all the office paperwork leaving him free to do the consulting.
    4. Increase his consulting work by marketing his services on the internet to companies in other communities and setting up a virtual business with lots of automation to reduce his time and expenses in maintaining a home office. He would have to think “outside of the box” as it would be a new way to market his services.
    Fred decided that spending time with his family was a high priority for his lifestyle so he put all four ideas into action by getting advice on resources available on the internet to help him decrease his workload while increasing his revenue. He hired and trained a personal assistant for his home office knowledgable in his consulting work. He paid for virtual office support and he got training in how to sell his consulting service on the internet.
    If you are wanting to move your business onto the internet and international community, you should subscribe to The Business of At Home Business newsletter for tips and resources.

    Categories: Fred's Story Tags: Tags: , ,

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