Are you a small business owner?  If you are, you will likely face a large amount of competition from others; others who may be larger than you and others who may have more resources at hand than you do.  Although it may seem as if you are at a disadvantage because your business is a small business, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a number of different ways that you can make sure that your business is able to successfully compete with your competition, even your competition that may include large, national companies.

When it comes to competing with your larger competitors, it is important that you remember exactly what you are, a small business.  This automatically makes you unique right away.  Each year, a large number of small business owners end up closing their doors.  While this may not sound promising to you, it should give you a little bit of hope. There are actually a large number of consumers who like doing business with small businesses, just like you. In fact, some prefer to do business with them.  The less competition you have from other small businesses, the greater your chances are of staying profitable and in business are.

While you may not necessarily be able to control the competition that you do and do not have, one thing that you can control is your business’s public perception. For instance, if you were to run a pet supply store or a clothing store, there are a number of other businesses where your customers could go to buy the same products at, like a large department store.  To prevent that from happening, you want to give your customers a reason to come to your store, as well as reason to keep on coming back. The first step is to make sure that your establishment is well-kept and always clean.  You will want to pickup your sales floor, if your business has one, each and every day, dust, mop the floors, and keep all of your entranceways cleans.  To many consumers, nothing is more unappealing that a dirty business.

In addition to making sure that your establishment is well-kept and always clean, you need to examine the type of service that you and your employees provide your customers with.  Most small businesses are known for their personal feel.  When it comes to doing business with a small business, there are customers who want to feel like they are known by name, even if they aren’t actually, or feel like they can stop and talk with you and your employees about nothing in particular, like the weather, just because.  This is what will essentially set your business apart and make it easier to compete with larger businesses.  Unfortunately, many of today’s larger corporations have more of a focus on “don’t waste company time or money,” than they do the customers.  Making sure that all of your customers receive the best service available, as well as thank you every time, is the best way to compete and win against your larger competitors. 

The above mentioned ways are just a few of the many ways that you can make sure that your small business is running just as strong as the competition.  Even if you run an online business, instead of storefront one, a personalized, friendly service is an important component of being successful.  For additional methods that may help your business stay afloat, you may want to think about turning to your customers for suggestions.  A simple suggestion box may give you insight into your customers, as well as their wants and their needs.

There are two type of people in the world. Those who see the glass half empty and those who see it half full. This experience was heightened for me when I had lunch with an old colleague from work and he began to complain about how only rich people could start a business. I thought he was joking.
 
As I sat and listened he ranted for almost ten minutes giving all the reasons he could not start his own business and get out of the rat race. He talked about the high cost of start ups,  franchising and real estate development. When he finally came up for air I decided to ask simply ask him one question. Mark, “Have you ever asked yourself what kind of low cost businesses with high profit margins are out there?”

He looked like he had been run over by a truck. I went on to say, “You are just asking the wrong question.” He sat for a minute and said, “Ok, if you’re so smart give me some ideas.” I said, “Great. Oh! and by the way, let’s make it fun and focus on the ones you can work from home in your pajamas.”

Here are the 5 low cost high profit businesses I shared with Mark.

1. Internet Marketing: Do you have a computer in your home? If so you could be sitting on a gold mine. People use the internet to do all types of things. From a multimillion dollar wire jewelry making enterprise to a young kid from Long Beach California who created his empire teaching people how to play music by ear. Everyday people are getting on the internet and pursuing their own dot com fortune.
               
2. Tele-seminars: If you not a very technical person one of the best strategies is tele-seminars. With simply a telephone and a conference call line for your guest to call in on you can offer a class or seminar. You can either use it as a lead generator or you can sell your product or service from the seminar itself. An additional product can come from recording the class. Once you record the class it can become an instant product you can create passive income from.

3. Joint Ventures: If you like the idea of not needing a product or money of your own than the idea of joint venturing could be for you. This business is simply the art of the deal. You are paid in direct proportion to your ability to bring together two parties who would not otherwise know each other outside of your introduction.

For example if you combine company A’s products, knowledge, resources and partner it with company B’s client list you get to share in the profits. And it would not cost you one cent.

4. Affiliate Marketing: What if someone else did most of the work but you got to share in the profit pie? Well, that is what affiliate marketing is all about. There are thousands of products ranging from digital down loads, books,seminars not to mention hard products like computers, cell phones and other techie stuff.

Your job is to find the products that your market is interested in and when you sell something you get a percentage of the sale. You can do this without having any inventory or the overhead of a traditional business.

5. Information Products: This is one of the most highly lucrative low cost businesses you can get into. If you have specialized knowledge or can do you can research and reporton it you can create products that are highly profitable. For example, one of the fastest ways to success is to interview experts in a high demand niche market.

Once you have interviewed these experts you can take the information and create several different products from the one interview. Some of the things you can do is sell the recording itself, sell the transcript of the call, use some of the content create an e-book or report or take several of the interviews and put them together for an expert tape series.

6. Network Marketing/MLM: I have always been a fan of network marketing because the business model is as much about self development as it is building a business. The premise is you find a company that you are passionate about the product, has a proven system and strong team leadership. Most of these companies are low cost of entry. And you build your empire leveraging the efforts of many.

Some people incorrectly believe you are going to get rich off the back of someone else. Not true. The very core of network marketing is built on the fact that you get paid in direct proportion of your ability to recruit, train, inspire, support and lead a voluntary group of people. For those who can do this the rewards are great.

7. eBay: I was recently introduced to the eBay craze by someone who in the beginning had no money so he decided to sell a tape set a friend had created. This product was a compilation of interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Their first sale was $37.00 and they went on to build multi-million dollar empire. eBay is one of the quickest ways to get to a profit. You can take things that you have in your garage today and sell them on eBay tomorrow. Remember one mans junk is another mans treasure.
 
At the end of the lunch something interesting happened. My friend Mark was starting to see the glass half full.  How about you? Are you looking for a business you can start without breaking the bank? The above seven businesses are just a few ideas to jump start your thought process. However, make no mistake you can start a low cost high profit business and enjoy it while lounging in your pajamas.

As a solo entrepreneur you can get overwhelmed trying to wear all the hats. If you are just starting out you are the CEO, the sales person, the book-keeper and the dish washer.  You know that I mean?  You might have heard the phrase create leverage and, if so, great. However, once you make that discovery you are now simply exposed to so many options it’s hard to know what to choose.

As a work at home business one of the goals is to create an experience for the customer that is as easy as if they were buying from a Fortune 500. So how do you make it happen?

One of the best things you can do is look for good products that can demonstrate value to the customer but involves little to no work on your part.

Here are 10 tools that are easy for the non techies but add great value to the customer.

1. www.Efax.com: EFax is an online fax service that eliminates the need for a traditional fax  machine, another line and all the associated expenses such as paper and ink cartridges. You get a real fax number that’s tied to your email. 
 
2. www.Aweber.com: If you want to keep in touch with your customers automatically and personalize the communication an auto responder can be an important tool.  For a small monthly fee you are able to create email campaigns or a single message and broadcast it to your customer list. There are a variety of ways to increase the personalization and as a result will help you develop a better relationship with the customer.

3. www.VoiceShot.com: How would you like to instantly send a voice mail broadcast message to one or thousands of customers at a time? Imagine the power of being able to send reminders, alerts, product announcements or even so interactive polls or surveys right from the web. There are no set up fees or monthly minimums. You simply pay for the calls that are delivered. You truly can call more than one person at a time.

4. www.SendOutCards.com: Have you ever wanted to send a thoughtful card to someone but forgot or it simply did not happen because you ran out of time? Well Kody Bateman CEO of send out cards has not only revolutionized the greeting card industry he has made it his mission to change peoples lives one card at a time. With over a couple of cards in the inventory you can send cards to anyone.

I love this product because in less than one minute you can choose a card, personalize it, even add a picture, write it with your own handwriting, put a stamp on it and hit send. This is no e-card that may never get opened. You can set yourself apart from the competition and touch the heart of people you care about with this revolutionary product.

5. www.AudioAcrobat.com: Audio Acrobat is easiest way to add audio to your website or email. Would you to create your own online radio show? Audio Acrobat helps you record conference calls, podcast, interviews, and more. You can also learn to create products such as marketable CD’s.

6. www.FreeConference.com: Have you ever wanted to give a tele-seminar but did not want have the money to get started? Or maybe, you wanted to put a group of your customers or support team on the line to mastermind. A great way to not only develop a bound with your customers but to develop your content to them is through tele-seminars or tele-classes as they are sometimes called.

If you are just starting try www.FreeConference.com . You will receive a phone number where up to 25 participates can call in and listen to your seminar, boot camp, book reading or whatever content you want to deliver.

As you grow in experience you can choose other companies that will allow a larger number of participates as well options such as recording and creating a MP3 file.

Conference calls are great leverage because you can speak to several people at one time from the comfort of your home.

7. www.freeonlinesurveys.com: Would you like to know what your customers are thinking? You should. It’s simple to do when survey them. You can use this free online service to tap in the heart and mind your customer and uncover what they want from you. In less than 10 minutes you can be up and running. It’s easy to use with no software to install.

8. www.ilovechecks.com: Current figures show that 20% of all online transactions are check-based and that more  than 75 million Americans do not have a credit card. Now your business can accept online checks and get fast verification of account status. You don’t even need a shopping cart to process online checks with their virtual terminal and ATMVerify services. Don’t lose business because you don’t take checks.

9. www.EVoice.com or www.EVoicePlus.com: If you are a start up or home based business you may not want to miss your  customers calls or have them go to a voice mail. Providing a quick response gives your clients to assurance that you are a well run business.
      
The ability to answer a customer or get back to them quickly is a crucial part of customer service. There are several different ways to accomplish this. However, www.evoice.com and www.evoiceplus.com are two lost cost highly effective tools.  EVoice allows the messages to be send to your email and with EVoice Plus your messages can go right to your cell phone.
      
10. www.PDF995.com:  One of the keys to leverage your business is to create free reports, products, e-books and other publishing documents. The power of this strategy is once you develop a product you can either give it away or sell it over and over. You can even add free give-away rights which will allow someone to give your report away without changing any of the content. This can start a buzz and spread like a virus.

While there are only 24 hours in a day choosing the right tools can surely help you leverage the time. Think strategically when you are looking for products and service to help you build your business. Don’t just think about what you need right now. Always ask your self the question, “How can this tool help me grow into a million dollar business?”

In whatever you do, organization is a vital factor for increased productivity. At your home office, this needs to be stressed more deeply since one could easily develop a relaxed state of mind that lets go of the idea of working at all. When it comes to your home office, you have to deal with excessive amount of paperwork and documents.

Home office organization reflects how you do business. If you are unable to keep your home office organized, how can your client expect you to deliver when it comes to business? Therefore, it is an important part of business that you need not neglect.

Getting Started

If you have problems trying to organize the clutter of mess in your desk, try to solve this problem by taking slow but precise steps. Organization is a habit that you need to develop and practice overtime. Hence, address little by little. Spend a few weekends trying to arrange your files and furnitures. Soon enough, it will become instinctive on your part.

It helps if you have items on hand that will provide accessible means toward organization. For example, secure a trash bin near your desk so you can have some place to throw any paper files or documents that you no longer will be using. Also, clear your desk to leave enough space for you to do your work. You will soon realize how convenient it is for you while doing work.

Daily Organizational Method

As with standard routines that you perform when working at an office, you also need to practice daily routines relating to work at your home office. This will allow you to take care of basic operational needs at work and get more done in the least time possible.

• Make it a habit to defragment your computer on a daily basis. It will cost you a lot of time when you decide to put off doing this later.

• If you don’t have a daily planner, secure one. This is an essential item to have if you want to achieve more organization. Here, you can take note of important activities or schedules. This will also serve as an area where you can store important details such as clients’ contact information.

• Refrain from piling up documents on your desk. Secure a proper container or drawer for storing them.

• Clean the area as you go. When a day of work at your home office is done, make sure that you have returned all files where they belong.

• If you use your computer on the home office most of the time, running it for a constant virus scan will ensure that it runs at its best condition.

Additional Tips For More Organization

When it comes to home office organization, it only requires a practical approach and methods. Here are some additional basic organizational tips you need to apply if you want to save your energy and time:

• Get yourself a desktop standing file for documents or files that you will be using regularly. For those that are considered for a special project, you can assign them space in your drawer where they’d be securely stored until you are ready to use them again.

• For loose paper files, make sure to label them. This will prevent confusion when you are looking for those files, or to prevent throwing them away inadvertently.

• If you have a planner, make sure to use it for its purpose. Jot down all important events or notes that you will need for a specified date.

• Set a specific time within the day that you will allot for doing paperworks. It is best to do this on times of the day wherein there is little to no distractions.

• It is advisable to have a desk clock available at your home office desk. This will provide an accessible means to keep up with time, which is essential at work.

Self-employed individuals who had to utilize their homes as office space face a different kind of challenge that does not directly involve work. It is their ability to focus on work and free themselves of any idea that they can slack off because of the lack of pressure. However, if you do intend to make a living out of your home based business, then you need to be professional in your use of home office as well.

Designing Your Home Office

Trivial as it may seem, focusing on proper home office design can contribute to your productivity at home. You must begin by deciding on which part of the house you need to setup your office. An important consideration to make is that this space must provide you with enough privacy to concentrate on your work. This is also important in warding off any form of interruption that may arise while you are working.

Then, come up with a design that enables you to maximize the space available within your office. It should be able to provide organization and elicit productivity. You need to provide areas where you can keep important documents or files, to prevent your children from destroying them in case they manage to sneak into your office.

Develop a Working Schedule

Creating schedule will help provide the organization you need to become productive with work at home. As opposed to working your regular 9 to 5 job, it is easy to find yourself working until the wee hours at home. There are added pressure when it comes to your schedule as you also have to allot enough time to spend with your family and there’s the rest to dedicate to your work.

By creating a proper schedule of your activities, it will help ensure that all tasks are done and accomplished on time. It also allows you to prioritize tasks so you can have a more focused set of activity for a given day.

Balance Work and Family

One of the biggest misconception about working from home is that it is not as demanding as any regular office job. Truth is, it requires more attention and work on your part. Therefore, you cannot afford to have interruptions from your family or friends while doing work. The best way to deal with this situation is to let your family know what your schedule is so that they can refrain from disturbing you during working hours. Let them understand when you need to work and when you are available to them for recreational activities.

Know Your Priorities

Recognizing priority tasks and accomplishing them first will help you move on easily to other tasks. Doing so will help reduce the amount of pressure and stress that is entailed with trying to beat a deadline. This is a very likely occurrence for people working at home since they tend to relax and exert less effort with work, especially with lack of proper motivation.

The best way to prioritize your activities is to identify billable and non-billable hours while working at your home office. With billable hours, it refer to the amount of time you dedicate for tasks that are directed to your clients. Thus, it helps you generate the income you need. On the other end, non-billable hours are those that you waste on doing activities that offer no income.

Give Yourself a Break

Whether you are working or doing some other productive activities, it is important to give yourself a break from time to time. When you overwork yourself, you tend to wear out and you consequently reduce your performance and productivity. Therefore, it is advisable to allow yourself enough rest and regain the energy you need to tackle on whatever tasks you need to do.

Wouldn’t it be great to get some good, affordable, reliable help, even though you work out of your home? But finding workers and figuring out where to meet or when to bring them into your home office can pose some difficult juggling, personal and security issues.

A popular solution is outsourcing. When you outsource, you can hire experienced people and let them use their creative talents while you focus on other tasks. Another benefit is that the workers you hire may be more up to date on the latest information and technology in their specific fields and can be assets to your clients, as well, offering improved quality service.

Here are the basics to outsourcing:

Focus:

Focus on outsourcing some of the major tasks of your workload. First, sit down for a breather and look around your ‘To Do’ lists and office area. What CAN you outsource? Which work seems to pile up the most?

For example, maybe you can’t seem to find time to update your website each month. Maybe your newsletter is STILL not getting out regularly. Or perhaps your direct mail campaign is not quite as direct as it should be, that is it’s sitting directly in the same pile it was three months ago.

Then write out one-page project description for these major tasks. Focus on WHAT exactly you’d want done, WHEN and HOW the end product should turned in to you.

Take Action:

Then look for service providers. For example, with the sample tasks above, find people who can help with Internet websites, newsletter creation and sending out direct mail campaigns. Call round and surf the Internet and ask other home based business operators which companies they recommend. Check forum posts; inquire for advice and suggestions. Shop around for comparisons.

Then set up trial periods and test a couple. Remember, no one is perfect. See who you can communicate with pretty easily and who’s flexible to work as a team player. Check out the quality (and quantity) of their work. Then choose a candidate. Remember, this decision is not carved in stone. And you can always hire the other person as a back up or second helper down the road. So be kind to all who test, make decisions and keep your business moving forward.

ROI:

Make the most out of your investment and get a great return by investing in your time wisely, too. Outsourcing will hopefully free up more time for you to focus on the work you like and allow more time for marketing and advertising, to increase sales and projects. Don’t forget to brush up on your skills and keep up with the industry now, too. Read the latest ezines in your field and take a brush up course or workshop to improve your skills.

Network and seek out joint venture opportunities.

Outsourcing is a great way to help small businesses grow larger while still remaining at home. So reach out and give it a try!

Here’s an interesting notion:  Do you realize that there are mistakes you can make at various stages of your business’ growth that can be slowly killing it for months or even years if you don’t watch for them? 

Well, these mistakes do exist and they are not just reserved for the rookie companies.  Many working businesses, including those you might think are “successful” because they’ve been around for 10+ years, are often still making them… and are possibly losing a lot of money and/or wasting a lot of time in the process.

Although some of these big and sneaky mistakes seem aimed more at service type companies, they really do fit the bill for almost any type of industry.  I’ve done my best with the listings below to give examples to prove it.

Underestimating Project/Service Time- This is a big one and it pertains to service companies as well as companies that sell a product. This is a service company’s bread and butter. If you don’t estimate your time to perform each and every service in your repertoire, you will get burned and there is little you can do about it but bite the bullet and learn from it.  The best way to estimate time is to do it once yourself or watch your best employee do the task and then throw in a little fudge factor on top of it. For product companies, time becomes an issue with logistics so be aware!

Not Knowing YOUR Company Numbers/Incorrectly Setting Prices- Notice I emphasized the word “your”. It’s a common mistake to use a competitor’s as your pricing gauge without actually knowing why they use those numbers.  Think about the nightmare you will get yourself into if you take a competitor’s price, cut it by 10% and then start selling. What if the competition has a bad pricing structure and is barely making money or even losing money?!?!  What if your costs are more than theirs?!?!  You can use competitor as a starting point but you can’t base your whole strategy on it.

Different industries have their own variables as far as costs go and you need to be aware of them for your project or product pricing.  What you pay for a product you are going to sell is not the only cost to have in your head when you are pricing products.  How much your labor and materials cost for a service is only a piece of an hourly rate.  Employees cost more than just salary and not every employee is part of your labor cost. Every company has insurance to pay for. There are tons of overhead expenditures that need to be part of your price. Oh, by the way, the big one that many people forget about in their price is the quality factor. What you include as “standard services” or “standard product features” as well as job site etiquette or in store service or warranties all need to go into your pricing. I’ll get to more on why in the next segment.

Not Charging for All of Your Time & Costs- This seems like a stupid statement to some but I bet most business owners will admit that they have given away a little too much of the farm at times. Hey, there is nothing wrong with giving a little extra here and there to show you care. But either way, that’s not what I’m talking about here. What concerns me are those that put a lot of quality into their work or products or stores and do not cover the cost for it. As an example, say you run a service company and your competitors don’t do a certain standard service that you do. You can’t just undercut their price to steal a job; you need to have that cost covered in your rate and advertise the fact that it comes with the price upfront. Stores undermine themselves, for example, when they put more people on the floor for customer service but don’t charge for it. These things cost you money and when your competitors don’t do them it costs them less money.  Put out better service and then under price them, and your competition just has to wait a little bit for you to fall on your face so they can swoop back in.

As a business owner you need to believe that you are providing your clients worthwhile wares that deserve to be paid for. If you get the chance to explain why your prices are higher, then take that opportunity and do it.  If they don’t like the fact that you include things that others charge extra for later or that you treat them better, then they are most likely completely price shoppers.  You don’t want them as regular customers anyway.  Trust me.

Not Getting Paid Fast Enough- That’s right, the old cash flow issue.  As long as you are actually making enough money to pay the bills, this problem can be solved, prevented or at least made to be not as bad as it could be.  Here’s the deal:

First off all, bill customers very promptly. It is very common for a small business to not have the procedures or systems in place to get invoices generated and out the door in a timely fashion (see the next segment for more). Again, this would seem unlikely since that’s the reason why we are doing the work- to get paid. But it is very easy for the people responsible for getting this info to the billing people to be too busy to get it there or not have enough organization to give it to them the right way.

The second part to slowing down or stopping a regular cash flow crunch is to make the quickest payment deals possible with customers and the slowest possible with vendors and employees.  If there is any way not to pay employees any more than twice a month, you better do it.  Contractors always have an issue with this. If you must pay weekly, then tell them before they are hired that they will be getting the first week held back, essentially buying you a week. It will help, I promise.

Part three involves credit. If your company can get a credit card, then get it. This allows for certain important things to be bought (that you can afford) that might come up during a cash flow crunch.  Better yet, especially if you have no choice but to deal with 45+ day customer payments, do your best to get a company line of credit.  This is a must if you plan on selling to the government or doing commercial service work. These clients often have 60 to 90 day wait periods.

Failure to Have Solid Systems and Procedures in Place- Too many procedures (known as “red tape”) is the reason why many people start their own business in the first place. Unfortunately, having no procedures and systems in place at all is not an alternative. Depending on the type of industry, business owners must come to a happy medium or chaos and the unknown will ensue. Some basic examples where procedures or systems are needed include billing, collections, payroll, hr (interviewing, hiring, vacations, benefits, job responsibilities, etc.), manufacturing, operating equipment, maintaining equipment, inventory, sales calls/visits and logistics to name a few.

Even a one person show needs to have some admin procedures in place.  This will make it easier to hire temps and subcontractors and control what they are doing for you.  Without at least a watered down version of a system or procedure to do everyday work, you will be to blame for causing many major headaches as your company grows. I can’t emphasize how important this is for when you bring on new employees. I’m sure you heard this before, but I am also a big proponent of having an employee handbook even for one employee. It’s amazing the trouble people can cause business owners just because they allow you to pay them.

Spending Advertising Money Just to Say You Advertise-  I would almost rather see my clients not advertise then to spend without regard to tracking the results. There is no point in a marketing campaign if you do not put things in place that allow you to measure how well the plan is working.  The other wasteful part of marketing that many people make the mistake of doing, is not tracking their previously successful campaigns.  Why some people think that just because a $400 dollar a month ad worked once very well for one busy season, that it will automatically work every year after that is beyond me.

Spreading Yourself Too Thin- This is a classic mistake made by every entrepreneur. The key is to figure out when you are at that “wearing too many hats” point and start getting some help.  The solution here is to know your strengths and to be able see when you are not performing the duties that demand these skills. If you are the best sales person on the company, you can’t get caught up in day-to-day operations. If you do, sales will slip and eventually you won’t have any operations to worry about.  Think about this to help you figure out if you are spread too thin: Did you really go into business for yourself to work 80+ hours a week?

Not Getting Help Soon Enough- Set goals to know when to hire people to take over where you are light on knowledge. Not getting help or waiting too long can kill a company. Most people who start a business do it because they are good at the technical end or the sales end.  If you know the best way to make a widget, then your strength is in production and that is where your time should be spent. Hire an outside company or consultant to take care of the sales and marketing and then hire inside when you can afford someone full time.  Don’t be something to your company that you are not. It will only hold you back.

The three big issues people like to tackle themselves but usually are least knowledgeable about are legal issues, accounting/bookkeeping issues and daily operations issues.  The odds are that these three things are your weakest link so if you don’t have a partner that has the background for these subjects, then be prepared to get help as soon as possible.  It’s preferable that you do this before you start a business.

Although looking for these problems at any time is a good idea, the end of a year or season is an excellent business interval to make sure you are not making these errors.  Take the time, or make the time, to fix these problems. If you don’t know how to reverse the problems, then get some help.  If you really don’t have enough time to either figure out if you have these issues or know they are there and can’t break away long enough to do it right, then get some help.

In a troubled economic condition wherein many people are losing their jobs, many have opted for self-employment. This has become a reliable prospect knowing that many people have also experienced financial success with work from home businesses. There are several benefits and yet the earning potential is quite promising as well.

If you are one of these people, then you might want to consider making your home business legitimate with the establishment of your home office. Home business owners might fail to give this priority, especially if they start to enjoy the cost savings entailed with working from. However, creating a home office will offer added benefits for your business.

Your Professional Image

If you intend to make your home business grow, then it only makes sense to set up a home office. You will be able to establish a professional image behind your business that will convince your clients to do more business with you in the future.

Moreover, your home office will serve as the best place where you could hold professional meetings with your client if they wish to discuss business with you or entertain potential customers. Indeed, image plays such a vital role in every form of business as it increases the client’s confidence in your ability to deliver work. This is your first opportunity at impressing them.

Separation From Home Life

Most individuals who are self-employed or work from home are easily distracted in their work with activities at home. Therefore, several tasks are put off and you fail to deliver work on time. Setting up your home office will build that separation from your home life. Although at home, you can still attend to your work from your home office, free of any form of distraction. And yet, when emergencies come up, you’d still be easy to contact.

The idea here is not entirely to separate yourself from family. However, it helps to create a boundary and let the members of your family know that even though you are at home, you need to attend to work and must be freed off any distraction. Make sure you inform them of your working schedule so they won’t be disturbing you during those hours. This is also one reason why you should opt for a separate room in the house to convert as your home office. This creates the necessary separation from work and home life.

Business Growth

With a home office, you are able to open up opportunities for expanding your business and its reach. In a professional setting, there are people assigned to work for a certain aspect of your business. Hence, companies hire people to attend to human resource, technical support, finance, and some other important departments. But with home businesses, especially starting ones, deciding whether to hire employees is a tricky one. There are compensation and insurance coverage that you need to take care of. And yet, you cannot fail to consider the benefits of having employees working for your home business and its success.

Convenience

This is probably the most obvious reason as to why you should legitimize your home business by setting up a home office. You can get savings in your time, energy, and effort. Moreover, you have one specific area in your house that is designed for the purpose of doing business. Here, you can have all the materials and furnitures you need to make doing work convenient. And if you want to step out of the pressure-filled world of your work life, then stepping out to your home life is literally a few steps away.

Wouldn’t it be great to get some good, affordable, reliable help, even though you work out of your home? But finding workers and figuring out where to meet or when to bring them into your home office can pose some difficult juggling, personal and security issues.

A popular solution is outsourcing. When you outsource, you can hire experienced people and let them use their creative talents while you focus on other tasks. Another benefit is that the workers you hire may be more up to date on the latest information and technology in their specific fields and can be assets to your clients, as well, offering improved quality service.

Here are the basics to outsourcing:

Focus: Focus on outsourcing some of the major tasks of your workload. First, sit down for a breather and look around your ‘To Do’ lists and office area. What CAN you outsource? Which work seems to pile up the most?

For example, maybe you can’t seem to find time to update your website each month. Maybe your newsletter is STILL not getting out regularly. Or perhaps your direct mail campaign is not quite as direct as it should be; i.e. it is sitting directly in the same pile it was three months ago.

Then write out one-page project description for these major tasks. Focus on WHAT exactly you’d want done, WHEN and HOW the end product should turned in to you.

Take Action: Then look for service providers. For example, with the sample tasks above, find people who can help with Internet websites, newsletter creation and sending out direct mail campaigns. Call round and surf the Internet and ask other home based business operators which companies they recommend. Check forum posts; inquire for advice and suggestions. Shop around for comparisons.

Then set up trial periods and test a couple. Remember, no one is perfect. See who you can communicate with pretty easily and who’s flexible to work as a team player. Check out the quality (and quantity) of their work. Then choose a candidate. Remember, this decision is not carved in stone. And you can always hire the other person as a back up or second helper down the road. So be kind to all who test, make decisions and keep your business moving forward.

Return On Investment (ROI): Make the most out of your investment and get a great return by investing in your time wisely, too. Outsourcing will hopefully free up more time for you to focus on the work you like and allow more time for marketing and advertising, to increase sales and projects. Don’t forget to brush up on your skills and keep up with the industry now, too. Read the latest ezines in your field and take a brush up course or workshop to improve your skills.

Network and seek out joint venture opportunities.

Outsourcing is a great way to help small businesses grow larger while still remaining at home. So reach out and give it a try!

When it comes to advertising, I’ve tried just about everything. I tried free classified ad sites, I tried FFA sites, I tried banner exchange programs.
The results? Not much.

I was tired of hearing that the Internet is the largest market in human history. Maybe so, but how could I reach those millions of people? The answer, I discovered, is ezine advertising.

Ezines are sometimes called ‘opt-in’ lists because everyone who receives an ezine has chosen to do so.  And, that’s why ezine advertising gets results. People read ezines and they’ll read your ad. And if you’ve matched the ezine to the product you’re selling, you’ve reached your target audience.

There are currently around 90,000 ezines being published every month. So whatever you’re selling, there’s more than likely an ezine that will take your ad straight to the audience you want to reach.

Ezine advertising is not only effective, it’s cheap as well. A 5 line ad in an ezine that goes to 3000 people will cost you between $5 and $20 per issue. As a general rule, you’ll always get back at least the cost of the ad, and usually much more. So there’s very little risk.

But, there are some tips for successful ezine advertising. Here they are:

1. The first and most important rule is: “Track your ads!” Say you place an ad in 5 different ezines and get a hundred responses. If you don’t track your ads, you won’t know which ezines were pulling responses and which weren’t. But, how do you track your ads? The easiest way is to add a ‘code’. Then, when you get a reply with ‘ezineA’ in the subject field, you’ll know which ezine it came from.  For a URL, it’s the same principle. However, if you’re going to code your URLs, you’ll need a good webstats program to track the coded URLs. Here’s another way to code your URLs: for every ezine ad, create a duplicate of your homepage and name the page after the ezine that your ad will appear in. So, if the ad is appearing in EzineA
 
2. Target your audience. It may seem obvious but some advertisers overlook this. If you’re selling a web-marketing course, don’t advertise in an ezine that deals with stock options; they probably won’t be interested. Use the ‘subject categories’ in any ezine directory to find ezines that relate to the product you’re selling. You can find a list of 56 ezine directories in ‘The Free Directory of Ezines’

3. Once you’ve chosen a number of ezines that target your audience, subscribe to them and examine the ads closely. If you see an ad that keeps repeating issue after issue, you can be pretty sure that it’s getting results. You’ve found a good ezine to advertise in.

4. Check to see how many ads are in the ezine. You probably won’t get much response from an ad in an ezine that has 15 or 20 ads per issue. Readers of those ezines have become hardened to the ads and have learnt to skip them.

5. Check to see if the ezine publisher has a policy of never running ads for two similar products in the same issue – your ad will be much more effective if it’s the only one of its kind in that particular issue.

6. Small ezines Vs. Big ezines: bigger is not always better. The big ezines with 1000′s of subscribers tend to have more ads than the small ezines. Also, small ezines with only a few hundred subscribers often have a much more targeted audience than the big ezines.

7. Repeat your ads. Research shows that off the Web, an ad has to be seen about 21 times before someone acts on it; on the Internet it’s about 9 times. If your budget allows, try and have your ad repeated at least three times in a particular ezine. Most ezines offer discount packages for bulk advertising.

8. Email address Vs. URL. The advantage of giving an email address is that it gives you the opportunity to send a powerful sales letter to the person who responded to your ad. It’s also much easier to track your ads with an email address than a URL.

9. Offer something free in your ad copy. It’ll often tip the balance between a response and no response.

10. Keep your ads short, even if you’re not using the number of words you’re allowed. Short ads are more likely to be read. Keep your sentences short too; they pack much more power. Use the word ‘You’. Don’t describe your product but tell the reader what your product can do for them.