Home Business

Having a home-based business is a kind of double-edged sword. Surely, there are the usual the perks of having financial independence and great flexibility. Having no bosses to please and office politics to contend with is something that many people appreciate. However, establishing a home-based business is challenging and can result in failure without having certain skills and attitudes. Here are some things to keep in mind before jumping into the fray:

1. Establish a business plan.

Business plans are to entrepreneurs as navigational tools are to ship captains. They provide a sense of direction and serves as a roadmap in achieving certain goals and milestones. While it is certainly possible to employ a trial and error approach, this can be costly and more likely to fall flat. Business plans, while they may not guarantee success, can alleviate some of the risks of starting a business or help entrepreneurs prepare for certain inevitable occurrences.

2. Have a realistic mindset.

There’s nothing wrong with aiming high when starting a home-based business. As a matter of fact, ambition is a key component of success. However, having unrealistic expectations can sometimes cause people to make bad decisions. When starting a home-based business, it is usually better to start small and then expand in the future as opposed to spending too much for a start-up that has an unproven chance of success.

3. Failing does not necessarily mean outright failure.

New and experienced business owners are bound to encounter heartaches and disappointments along the way. Learning to treat failures as learning experiences is usually what separates successful people from the rest of the pack.

Thomas Edison, before being renowned as a prolific inventor, had to go through countless failures in his career. Instead of treating his flopped creations as a discouragement, Edison merely retorted that he had simply discovered ‘a thousand things that don’t work’.

4. Learn to balance passion with financial considerations.

New entrepreneurs are often adviced to start a business related to something they are passionate about. There is nothing wrong with considering one’s hobbies when starting a business, but the problem with that approach is that it sometimes blinds people from other businesses that are potentially more profitable and fulfilling. Home-based entrepreneurs must learn to keep an open mind to succeed.

Anyone can start a work from home business, but success can only come to those who have the right mindset and expectations.

The combination of technological advances and strong commerce infrastructres today have created diverse business opportunities that can be operated from home. The Internet, in particular, has made it possible for individuals to start home-based businesses that can reach the global marketplace. One good example is information marketing, which is considered by some as the most profitable online venture today.

Information marketing is the business of selling informational products such as e-books, audiobooks, e-zines/e-newsletters, webinars, online classes, and/or special reports that are sometimes called ‘white papers’. Getting into the information business is fairly cheap and can be started by almost anyone. In this business, it is more important to possess some knowledge of a particular subject than to have big start-up funds. There are countless people today who are willing to pour in their money to obtain certain types of information.

When targeted properly, even simple information can be highly profitable. Not only can informational products be created and re-sold for very little overhead, they can also be a source of residual income. In other words, a product will continue to make money for as long as it is on the market. The key to success is to spot ‘niche markets’, which are tight-knit sub-groups within an umbrella market. For instance, within the college population, there are niches such as athletes, musicians, fashionistas, and math majors.

How to Get Started:

1. Decide which niche to target. It is much easier and profitable to have a small but tight customer base with highly similar needs as opposed to having a wide audience with scattered interests.

2. Purchase some basic equipment. Having a computer and a PDF software is a must. However, some people may also need to buy web cameras or audio recording software to create their products.

3. Create a product. Today’s multimedia tools have made it easier for home-based entrepreneurs to produce their material. The real work lies in creating value for the product and in establishing one’s expertise on a subject. Doing this may require some research and/or interviews with proven experts.

4. Sell the product. This can be done either by creating a website or selling through online megastores like Amazon or Ebay. The latter is ideal for those with limited technical expertise in designing websites.

Information marketing is a great way to make money and is perfect for people who love to share their knowledge to others.

A work at home business can be one of the best decisions of your life!

Using Pros to Craft Your Web Presence

And what about your web page? There are several basic functions you will need to cover when you have a web presence, and it is very rare to find one person who has all of these skills. However, you should be able to find

• Webmasters, who have the technical know-how to create and maintain the site you want. Some might only create the site, leaving you to go elsewhere for maintenance.

• Web designers, who are more concerned with how the site looks (from a graphic design perspective).

• Web marketers, who can help you drive traffic to your website, and get it noticed.

• Web hosts, of course, merely keep your site on display on the Internet. Because of the many specialties needed, you might have a webmaster who consults with your marketing person and graphic designer (to keep your website focused on your message and to give it the same look and feel as your printed materials, respectively). Covering all the duties involved is more important than what a person might call himself.

Finding Professionals to Hone Written Marketing Materials

Here is a list of the most commonly used professions to help you market your business via written documents – and what to look for:

• Graphic designer – This is someone who takes care of how your marketing materials look. He will take the text, logo, and other information you give him, and lay it out in a way that is visually pleasing. You might believe you can do these tasks yourself, but think carefully about this decision. Layout and design is both an art and science, requiring a professional sense of what catches the eye, how much whitespace is needed, and whether the page is balanced to laying out the materials in a way that fits web or print specifications. Some designers will do web materials as well as printed matter, although most who do will limit their activity to technically simple sites (for example, with no e-commerce or linking databases).

• Printer—Yes, this is the person or business who prints your materials from postcards to flyers to brochures to business cards. When selecting a printer, ask for samples of her work and a written estimate of cost and turnaround time. Look for the little details that can make your life easier, too, such as free local delivery and an explanation of why it is best to print a particular document in a certain way. Don’t be afraid to ask about price breaks, either. Most printers can offer substantial per-piece discounts when more of a particular item is printed. So if you’re thinking about printing brochures, for example, ask for an estimate to print both 500 and 1,000 brochures. The price difference might be minimal. Some printers specialize in environmentally friendly inks and paper, but their prices might be substantially higher than traditional printers.

• Writer – These individuals can craft the language you use in your flyers, brochures, and other printed or web materials. They might also help you write speeches or come up with written handouts to give to audiences when you speak. As with the printer and graphic designer, the writer should be able to provide you with a written cost/time estimate and relevant examples. Delivery of the text should be relatively easy, too – be sure that the writer has the software you need, or can easily email text to you in a useable format.

Using Professionals to Help You Market Your Business

Although you can do many of the low-budget marketing activities on your own, it also makes sense to hire someone else to help you in many instances. The most likely people you will want to speak to are a marketing strategist and/or a public relations specialist:

• A marketing strategist looks at your overall marketing plan and recommends ways to improve it. She might suggest how to improve your current marketing efforts (such as making your current web presence more effective) or suggest a venue you aren’t currently using (such as appearing at a special event). She might also suggest ways to bring more focus to your marketing approach and minimize a scattered, trial-and-error strategy. When considering a marketing strategist, look for someone with broad marketing experience and a knack for maintaining focus and organization.

• A public relations specialist works with you to get you noticed by the media. This means suggesting story ideas involving you and your business to television, radio, and newspapers (also called “pitching” a story). When hiring a public relations specialist (or publicist), look for someone with key media ties. He might have actually worked for one or more media outlets. He can also usually help you craft a press release, and if hired, might insist on doing the writing himself (with your input) to achieve the desired result. For both of these professions, they should be able to provide you with a set price for a one or two hour consultation. This allows you to invest a relatively small amount of money while also making sure that each is the right person to undertake more expensive projects.

After the consultation, consider what was suggested and whether you’d like to extend your marketing efforts with the professional or simply act on the advice provided. Also, both of these professions tend to specialize, so ask what industries their clients generally come from – for example, publishing, high-tech, small retail businesses, or some other specialty. Be sure that they have the industry background you desire, while providing sufficient assurances that work on your particular project is not merely a cookie-cutter repeat of what they have done for your competitors.

During or after the initial consultation, each one should be able to tell you what is unique (and marketable) about your business so that the boilerplate approach is avoided or minimized. Other marketing professionals commonly used include

• Image Consultant/Voice Coach. This person might help you appear more professional when you meet people or focus solely on a particular venue – for example, how you look on television or sound on radio. The idea is to get the world to notice you, and not bypass you because of the way you look or sound. Most will offer a set fee for classes, making budgeting easy to do, with the option of more one-on-one consultations if desired. Your publicist should know of someone to refer – or ask friends who appeared on television or radio who they used.

• Marketing Coach. This is someone who acts as a coach with a focus on helping you market your business. This person might offer many of the services provided by a marketing strategist or publicist, but generally do so with an emphasis on providing you with tools, help, and insight to do the work on your own, as opposed to doing it for you. As such, they should be both certified coaches and have a strong background in marketing. Visit the website of the International Coach Federation (coachfederation.org) to find a certified coach specializing in this in your local area. Other coaches specialize in helpful, marketing-related activities, such as public speaking.

How Much Marketing Is Enough?

The suggestions in this article can make marketing sound like a never-ending process. Although it will continue for as long as you own your business, there are several circumstances indicating you might need to take a break:

• When you are tired of talking to strangers (or people, period), give yourself a break. That’s enough for the day. If you still need to do some marketing activity, focus on researching prospective clients or some other activity that doesn’t involve meeting the public. (Just don’t make “research” the only marketing task you perform.)

• When you need all of your time to perform work for clients, go ahead and take a brief marketing pause. (By brief, I mean one to two weeks.) If you are always taking “breaks” from marketing, you might need to look at your schedule and figure out a way to make the marketing process a more natural fit. For instance, you might make Friday night a postcard-labeling-andstamping party, with pizza afterward. When you receive responses from the postcards, schedule the meetings when you would be taking a break from working anyway – perhaps at lunch or over mid-morning or mid-afternoon coffee.

• Longer projects might require your full-time attention. That’s okay – but compare your marketing cycle to the project’s time frame and schedule marketing appropriately. For instance, let’s say that you are working on an intensive project lasting six months. Your marketing cycle (from initial marketing activity to signed contract) generally lasts two months. This means that during month four of your large project (at the latest), you need to gear up and begin marketing again.

Why? You don’t want to come off a large project with nothing to do and no money coming in – you want to have other work to do as soon as the large project ends. At some point, your marketing will downshift. When you have steady work coming in, month after month, you are probably at a point when you don’t need to do special marketing “pushes,” such as postcards or ads.

Here’s one work at home business example:

Let’s say that it is early April. You look at your spreadsheet and see you have work lined up for this month (April), as well as May and early June. In a week or two, work for the rest of June is pretty much lined up. At this point (and assuming your monthly total of all business is sufficient to meet your needs), you can probably avoid huge mailings (for example, mailing postcards and flyers), speaking strictly for marketing reasons, and other marketing activities that seem to take up too much of your time. At this point, you want to shift to “maintenance marketing” – one or two regular activities you do each week that will continue to generate fresh leads, yet take a minimum of time and money. (By the time you get to this stage, you will know precisely which activities those should be, based on what has worked and not worked in your home based business.)

Here’s an example: Several years ago, I “downshifted” to a maintenance marketing schedule. While I might send out a postcard mailing every one to two years, on special occasions, I’m not sending two to four mailings a year, as I used to do when my business was new. Nor do I write as many articles or perform as many speaking engagements solely for the publicity. But every week, I attend BNI (Business Network International), and network with other small business owners for about two hours. This is now my primary marketing activity. If I see a company that would make a particularly good client, I might write the key decision maker a letter introducing myself. For the most part, however, the bulk of the marketing is being done during those two hours per week. (I also meet with BNI colleagues over lunch or coffee, and this might add another hour per week.)

That’s not a lot of time, really – particularly when compared with the early years of my business, when marketing was a 20–30 hour per week commitment. The loss of a client, a project falling through, or other setback might bump up my marketing to 5–10 hours per week, but only for a brief period of time.

Announcing Your Home Based Business is Key

So, here’s one basic marketing exercise to get you started. Go through your Rolodex (or contact manager or address book). Write a letter announcing your business to almost everyone you know – anyone who might conceivably use your business or recommend it to someone who might use it. Put the letter on your new letterhead. Why send a letter to almost everyone you know? Everyone who knows you, and might refer people to you in a positive manner, should be aware of the opportunity to do so. One of the most overlooked chances to get new clients is failing to mention the business – or failing to directly ask for referrals. Why write a letter? A letter provides the recipient with a visual reminder, written information about your business, and (because you will tuck business cards inside this), cards to hand out to referrals they meet. Well crafted, this letter should provide the recipient with key words and (if room) suggestions of people to look for (for example, “Do you know anyone who…”).

Choosing the Right Recipients for Your Work At Home Business

Because I said ”almost” everyone you know, there are, obviously, a few exceptions. You might not want to send the letter to

• People who know you but don’t like you. Stick to people who respect and admire you.

• People who simply are not in a position to refer your business to others, such as those who are seriously ill or in prison (unless those groups are part of a key target audience for your business).

• What about people you know who are students or unemployed? These are judgment calls. Generally, students are not good referral sources unless they are in graduate studies or working as interns. Unemployed people are likely to be so stressed over their job search that they won’t think to refer you to someone—and it might even be awkward. (“Well, because I blew that interview and you won’t hire me, how about using a friend of mine? He just started his home business.”)

• In general, the closer a person might be to your potential clients, the more likely you should send him a letter. So, a retiree who stays in touch with the corporate office is worth the letter. But a retiree who is out on the water jet skiing, having eschewed contact with former colleagues, should probably be skipped. Although your list can be winnowed, don’t overlook people simply because of how you know them. Yes, you know Betty because you both have kids in the “Mommy and Me” class you both attend. But Betty isn’t restricted to that role even though she might be a full-time mother. She still knows people, stays in touch with them, and could be extremely helpful if she knows the details of your business.

Marketing You and Your Business is very important.

One of the more interesting questions I get is the question, “How do you market yourself?” or “How do you market your business?” Perhaps the question itself isn’t as interesting as the implications that go along with it. The person asking the question is awaiting my answer, expecting it to be succinct. He is hoping to find the one silver bullet that will kill the need for any constant marketing efforts, the one-step, easy routine to riches. Usually, he is disappointed. I tell him to think of a dozen ways to market himself, and I have probably tried them (and gotten clients from most). No, Virginia, there is no microwave dinner style solution to marketing. But this is a good thing. Most of the time, you don’t have to pursue a lot of options that just don’t fit your business or your personality. (There’s one big exception here; most marketing requires getting in front of people sooner or later. But just about everything else is negotiable.) first, let’s look at some basic, tried and true marketing ideas that every business can benefit from.

You’ll need list for marketing you and your home business.

- Address book/Rolodex listing of business contacts, associates, friends

- Computer and word processing software

- Business plan

- Calendar

Slow Frying Fish: Understanding that Marketing Takes Time

Yes, marketing is a special kind of slow frying fish. You have to grab the fish out of the pond today and throw it into the pan, so you will have fish to eat next month, next season, and next year.

Sometimes the toughest part of this process is that, when you are sitting in your office with a quiet phone and clean paper and a blank computer screen, it’s tough to get going. After all, what’s one day spent playing solitaire (or Tomb Raider or Pro Skater 4)? Plenty. This could be the day you were destined to catch a very large fish. That’s why you need to flesh out the Marketing section of your business plan. You’re going to come up with a list of things you can do, and put them both in your business plan and on your calendar. You’re only allowed to move them off your calendar if client work or a bona fide emergency crops up (with bona fide emergencies generally involving police, fire, or hospital personnel). This is something you need to do. And you need to keep doing it for as long as you own your business.

To do list for Marketing Your Work From Home Business:

- Draft or revise your marketing plan.
- Make a list of everyone you know.
- Write your introductory business letter and send it to your list.

The Marketing Cycle: A Typical Story

John is a friend of your favorite aunt. He heard about your business, and is considering hiring you. It is late January. You and John talk on the phone. You both like what you hear – he’s your ideal client, and to him, you are his ideal service provider. So, you arrange to meet in early February. There you are in February, snow swirling outside your favorite coffee shop, discussing possible projects and getting to know John a bit better. After an hour or so, the two of you come to the next step. John would like to see what you discussed in a formal quote, with a contract.

You race home from the meeting and prepare the quote and contract. John receives it, thanks you, and says he’ll review it – but he’s going on vacation, so it will probably be early March. He calls you on March 3 and says all is going well. However,

he’d like to expand the use of your services. Would it be possible to rework the quote and present it to his business partners as well? The two of you agree on a date when you will go to his company and make a presentation. It is now late March. Although you are nervous, the presentation goes extremely well. Everyone checks their calendars at the end of the meeting.

Tentatively, you could start on the project in early April. You’ll receive the signed contract, and a deposit, in the mail shortly. Have you noticed that more than two months went by from initial contact to signed contract? Depending on the size of the project, the time could be more or less. The client, too, might be very busy, and simply not as attentive as John was in the previous example. From the time you make first contact until you close, the business could be months, if not a year or more.

This is why marketing your home based business opportunity or program every day, day in and day out, is important. You need to work on your marketing today in order to have business coming in next month, next season, and next year. Plus, John might not have turned into a client. Something might have gone wrong, or you or John might have realized that there wasn’t a good fit. That can happen, and it might happen after you have prepared a quote, made a presentation, and performed other marketing work.