Monthly Archives: November 2013

How to Choose a Profitable Home based business

In today’s world, where everyone’s keen to make an extra buck, there has been a lot of buzz around home-based business opportunities. Indeed, there’re millions of home based businesses in United States and across the globe. And the list is growing fast. If you’ve finally decided to try your hand in this field of entrepreneurship, then you must be looking for the best ideas on how to choose a profitable home based business. Here are some of the most practical ideas on how to navigate through this growing sea of opportunities.

Choose a business that matches your ability, passion and interest

From the outset, the best approach towards choosing a profitable enterprise is by beginning from the known to unknown. Here, you need to ask yourself what kind of business would be suitable for your skills, flair, passion or interest. The advantage of starting a business that’s attached to your passion is that you can still enjoy working even when you’re yet to make any tangible profit. Businesses require time and energy before they can start paying back. Choosing a field you know nothing about or have little interest in would make you get bored to tears in your first few years. And possibly opt out.

Make a list of interesting, potentially profitable opportunities

The stuff you’re passionate about should top your list. It could be anything you have a lot of interest in and you think you can turn it into a home based business. It could be cooking, writing, web-designing and so on. If you are into cooking for instance, you may want to begin offering catering services. For writing and designing, you can offer freelance writing and web development services or even start your own blog, dedicated to advising readers on the field of your expertise while earning through advertising or affiliate programs.

Analyze your List, edit and single out the most viable choices

While you need to start from what you’re passionate about, not all hobbies can be converted into profit making businesses. That’s why you need to thin your list down to what can fetch you an income. Your interest is to remain with one or a couple of businesses that can make you good amount of money when working from home. From your list, you need to look at strengths and weaknesses, risks and opportunities, based on the demand or marketability of your business selection.

Conduct your own research on what is gainful and what is not

One of the best ways of knowing whether you are on the right track is through searching online to find what services of your interest are on demand. There are numerous sites where clients post freelance job opportunities, ranging from graphic designs, mobile apps development, data entry, virtual assistants and so on. You may also want to join forums and other social media platforms to exchange ideas and share opinions with other home-based entrepreneurs. You may just know what pitfalls to avoid and what opportunities to pursue.

Be Consistent

After selecting your home-based business idea, you need to organize yourself and any startup capital it may involve. Be consistent, work hard and have a good measure of patience. You’ll soon be laughing all the way to the bank.

Strategies of Starting a Home-Based Consulting Business

If you have some expertise in a particular field, and you’re passionate about a home based business that can build you a reasonable income, then you might have thought about being a consultant. A consultant is simply an expert, experienced in a certain field, who advises a company or another individual. Some of professionals in high demand include, human resource, management, sales, marketing, IT, security, Networking and finance.

Home Based Business Consulting is a booming business

According to a recent analysis conducted by Harvard Business School, consulting jobs generate about $ 100 billion in US every year. A very lucrative enterprise indeed! While it might sound good and straightforward to venture into this potentially lucrative business, the truth is that it’s never that easy. Here are some great strategies on how to start and pull through in a home based consulting business.

1. Follow your Passion

With technology making consulting easier and the market opening up rapidly for home based businesses, there has been increased interest as many people want to try out their problem-solving skills. While a consulting job doesn’t require a lot of skills, and there’s no magic or big secret to becoming a successful consultant, you wouldn’t want to just be another consultant out there. What actually makes the difference between a good and a bad consultant is the passion about ones’ field of expertise and the drive for excellence. If there’s something you like and you can spend hours around it, without getting bored, then that could be your starting point towards being a great consultant. It could be providing information about the latest software, hardware or even managing events.

 2. Take advantage of Existing Knowledge Gaps

To be successful as a home based consultant, you’ve got to fill some existing, pressing knowledge gaps. You need to know what services your potential clients or their full time staff wouldn’t provide and present your skills as a solution for that need.

 3. Be Organized

To be a successful consultant, you’ve got to know how to plan your day, not to mention that you’ve got to be a good time manager. Indeed, you’re going to be working for busy clients, some of whom have pressing programs and fixed deadlines.

4. Aim at Building Relationships, not an income.

Consulting is a relationship based industry. Many clients like hiring experts who’ve worked and satisfied their needs and objectives before. And this is what you need to focus on. Avoid giving priority to your cost than first offering how you’re going to solve your client’s problems. Build networks, keep the contacts of your clients and maintain a running communication with them. You don’t know when a pressing need will arise, and if you’re still on the client’s radar, then you’re going to be the first person they’ll contact.

5. Set your Goals

To succeed in a home based consulting business, you need to lay down your goals, both short term and long term. Let your goals be your driving force.

6. Lastly focus on results, not on the service

Avoid making mistakes that may make your clients view you as goods for sale. You don’t have to dwell on your costs and what you’ll use to serve them, or capitalizing on how many hours you’re going to work. Instead, let the client know how you intend to deliver the service, providing a range of modalities on cost and the value you intend to bring on board.

1. Strategies of Starting a Home-based Consulting Business

 

If you have some expertise in a particular field, and you’re passionate about a home based business that can build you a reasonable income, then you might have thought about being a consultant. A consultant is simply an expert, experienced in a certain field, who advises a company or another individual.

 According to a recent analysis conducted by Harvard Business School, consulting jobs generate about $ 100 billion in US every year.  A very lucrative enterprise indeed! While it might sound good and straightforward to venture into this potentially lucrative business, the truth is that it’s never that easy. Here are some great strategies on how to start and pull through in a home based consulting business.

1.      Follow your Passion

With technology making consulting easier and the market opening up rapidly for home based businesses, there has been increased interest as many people want to try out their problem-solving skills. While a consulting job doesn’t require a lot of skills, and there’s no magic or big secret to becoming a successful consultant, you wouldn’t want to just be another consultant out there. What actually makes the difference between a good and a bad consultant is the passion about ones’ field of expertise and the drive for excellence. If there’s something you like and you can spend hours around it, without getting bored, then that could be your starting point towards being a great consultant. It could be providing information about the latest software, hardware or even managing events.

2.     Take advantage of Existing Knowledge Gaps

To be successful as a home based consultant, you’ve got to fill some existing, pressing knowledge gaps. You need to know what services your potential clients or their full time staff wouldn’t provide and present your skills as a solution for that need.

3.     Be Organized  

To be a successful consultant, you’ve got to know how to plan your day, not to mention that you’ve got to be a good time manager. Indeed, you’re going to be working for busy clients, some of whom have pressing programs and fixed deadlines.

4.     Aim at Building Relationships, not an income.

Consulting is a relationship based industry. Many clients like hiring experts who’ve worked and satisfied their needs and objectives before. And this is what you need to focus on. Avoid giving priority to your cost than first offering how you’re going to solve your client’s problems. Build networks, keep the contacts of your clients and maintain a running communication with them. You don’t know when a pressing need will arise, and if you’re still on the client’s radar, then you’re going to be the first person they’ll contact.

5.     Set your Goals

To succeed in a home based consulting business, you need to lay down your goals, both short term and long term. Let your goals be your driving force.

6.     Lastly focus on results, not on the service

Avoid making mistakes that may make your clients view you as goods for sale. You don’t have to dwell on your costs and what you’ll use to serve them, or capitalizing on how many hours you’re going to work. Instead, let the client know how you intend to deliver the service, providing a range of modalities on cost and the value you intend to bring on board.

Ebay Selling Guide for Home Based Business Owners

Many business people are of the idea that making money on eBay consists of the opening of an auction site, and waiting for money to role in. However, it is important to know how to sell on eBay to earn much more than you can expect, and want.

Selling your products online through ebay can be a major boost to your home based business. Whether you sell electronics, books, clothing, antiques or beyond, ebay can really increase sales by amounts that most business owners would die for. But, learning how to make money selling on eBay will take a little time.

Basics of Selling On Ebay

The key to selling on eBay for established home based businesses or new businesses is to approach the project just as you would opening a new physical store. First off, you have to set up shop to get started. Then it’s important to draw in customers to buy your stuff. Thirdly, just like a store-front location, you have to protect your business reputation.

Setting up your online shop on ebay

Fortunately, even for those who are not computer savvy, ebay is very user friendly. In fact, the site itself will walk users through, step by step, in creating either individual auction ads or a virtual storefront for your home based business. All that’s really necessary to set up shop is a computer, an Internet connection and an eBay account. From there, the site will help anyone learn how to make money selling on ebay.

Provide Relevant Products

Learning what the buyers like, their interests and what they are looking for is very important. If you take a hard look inside eBay, you will see that the successful sellers are those who can keep a look out for products buyers want, and sell those products. You can visit eBay forums to get an idea of products buyers are looking for.

Best Products To Sell on ebay

Don’t think that the latest consumer products are the best things to be sold on eBay. This is because there are many online sellers for competition with you, and thus will prove it useless trying to sell them. The best thing to sell on eBay are your old stock that you want to clear by selling at discounted prices. After all, people shop on ebay to get bargains.

Another option would be a very specialized product which is uncommon and have few people selling it.

Promoting Your Products on eBay

This is vital for those who want to make serious money selling on ebay. If potential buyers and bidders don’t find auctions, you won’t make money. The key here is finding the right categories for the items you are selling on eBay. It will be easier for potential customers to find your products when they are in the right category.

Be ethical on Ebay

When selling on eBay it is important to protect your online reputation just like you would your actual tangible business. The key to selling on eBay is to be honest, sell what you say you are selling and don’t try to deceive with misleading item descriptions. If an item has a flaw, say so. If shipping will take two weeks, be clear about that.

Anyone can sell on ebay, but those who take it seriously can find their bottom line is really improved by doing so.

Choosing a Domain Name for a Home Based Business

A good domain name for your home based business website will set you apart from competition by ensuring you get more visitors to your website and your web visitors remember your site and be able share it with friends.

If you want to come up with a great domain name idea for your home based business website I suggest you read the following ideas.

First Impression Count

When someone hears about your domain name for the first time, they should be able to instantly and accurately guess at the type of content that might be found there. What comes to your mind when your read CareerBuilder.com, AutoTrader.com and WebMD.com?

Easy To Spell Domain Name

Domain name represent your business and brand name in your online business. You must select the domain name that easy to spell. You will lose a lot of traffic if the visitors miss-spell your domain name.

Keep It short

Short domain names are easy to remember. Visitors are more likely to share your e-commerce website if they can remember it in a split second.

Include the Keyword

A good example is sunglasseshut.com. This name is more compelling than say cheapsunglasses.com. Brainstorm 5-10 keywords of your product or services and see which you like most.

Dot com or country level domain

The rule of thumbs is you must buy a dot com domain name if your home based business websites targets international market. While the “.com” extension is the most popular, as a defensive measure consider also snapping up other extensions of your domain name.  Secure the .net, .info, .biz .uk, .de and similar extensions.

Learn From Amazon.com

Amazon.com is a great online brand but I don’t think it is wise to come up with such a generic brand for your home based business website.  Generic names require investing a lot of money and effort in marketing to educate readers what you sell. If you don’t have the money to do the marketing follow my idea on Including the Keyword. If your business website is backed by a venture capitalist, go for a generic name, they always come up tops in the long run.

Avoid Copyright Infringement

Avoid putting the name of a famous brand next to your domain if you are planning to sell a similar product or service. To understand how brands work online, read why facebook trade marked ‘face’

Lastly, a great domain name does not make a great business website. A good business websites consists of a lot of other good things, such as, a good layout, a good customer experience, great look and feel on the website.