Starting and Running a Home Based Business

Starting and Running a Home Based Business

by: Darrell Knox

The allure of a home based business is very strong these days with uncertain economic times and the pressures of working long hours for less pay. More and more people are exploring the home based business world to see if it is right for them.
More women are seeking home based businesses as the corporate life and pay just don’t seem to justify the time away from home and children anymore. Men tired of working for others and also loosing their entire lives with their families to a job that requires more than 40 hours a week just to survive, are learning more and more about the internet and working at home.
There are many ways today to start a home based business. The internet offers the easiest, least expensive way to start a home based business ever. Never before have people been able to start up an entire, legitimate business just by signing up for a hosting account and selling information or other products from their web site.
Even the least internet savvy person can start an online home based business even if all they know how to do is retrieve and send email. In fact, one you know how easy it is, you will be amazed that you hadn’t started sooner.
Any home based business is hard work. But ask yourself this question: Will your current job pay you more for working harder? In most cases the answer will be no. Your current employer will not only happily pay you the same amount whether you work hard or not, they will profit from the work you do because they own the business you work for.
The key to true wealth is to own the business, not work for it. A home based business owner is the top dog in their small company. That means any windfalls a new product or service you create or resell belong to you! That also means all the overhead and other expenses belong to you too. With the power of a home based business comes the responsibility too.
This is why you should thoroughly research a home based business opportunity to make sure you have all the bases covered and you are approaching working for yourself in a responsible manner.
Below are a couple of home based businesses that are very profitable and hot right now:
Virtual Assistant: A person that hires their time out to busy executives to complete various tasks like appointment setting and other things busy power brokers don’t have time to do. Executives like doing this because they can hire a virtual assistant for shortterm projects and not have to pay for insurance or any overhead since the VA is a private contractor.
Information Sales: This is what I do and I love it. I am an affiliate for several topselling products that people want and buy everyday. My job is to promote my website and recommend products to my visitors. With a little training and guidance from people I have met online, this kind of home base business is a snap and can be very profitable.

About The Author

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Free Home Business Tips Newsletter at: http://www.cashgroup.biz/biztipspop.html Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgibin/index.pl

This article was posted on April 30, 2004

by Darrell Knox

Successful Marketing for Home Based Businesses

Successful Marketing for Home Based Businesses

by: Declan O’reilly

กA successful marketing strategy is not based on doing what you like but liking what you do…ก

Are you looking for information to build and grow a homebased business? If so, you are in the right place! Here you will find information on implementing a successful marketing campaign and growing your home based business.

The Problem

Many homebased business owners don’t know how to best market their businesses. Some ignore marketing altogether, hoping that customers or website visitors will appear out of thin air. Others market in a scattershot way producing untargeted traffic or unqualified prospects. Either approach will keep you from achieving your business potential and reaching your financial goals and possibly even damage your reputation.

The Solution

Whether youกve been thinking about starting a home business or you’re already a seasoned homebased business owner, the principle remains the same. Your businessก survival and success rests on how effectively you market your business or product. Examine some of the following marketing strategies and tools to help you boost your home based business profits.

HomeBased Business Advantage

Low overhead costs, no commute to work and the ability to work around your children are some of the few advantages for home based business owners. Gear your marketing efforts to capitalize on these and other homebased strengths including:

Adaptability Information Technology has escalated the rate of change in the marketplace. To survive and thrive, you must be prepared to act, and act quickly. As a homebased business owner, you can make adjustments instantly, without having to cut through the red tape of bureaucratic decisionmaking procedures common in larger businesses.

Technology Computers, the Internet, PDAกs, and other emerging technologies can take home based businesses to a more level playing field with bigger companies, empowering home based business owners to accomplish tasks that used to require hiring staff to perform. Try to keep uptospeed with technology.

Flexibility. Unlike traditional businesses that require fulltime attention and high overhead costs, home based businesses can be operated parttime, at low cost, and depending on your financial goals can be phased into fulltime operations.

Taking Your Business To The Next Level

A common reason home businesses fail is because owners neglect the upfront planning needed to position their ventures. Once you have defined your market position and where you want to take your business in the 12 months you will have moved one step closer to success.

If you already have a business begin by taking inventory of where your business is right now. What specific goods and services do you provide? How do you set yourself apart? What is your businessก reputation? How are you perceived by your customers or clients as far as your prices, reliability, and other elements of your products or services?

The next step is to project where you want to take your business in the 12 months. What market position do you want to occupy? Is the niche market you want large enough? How will your benefits outsell those provided by the competition? Do you have the ability, capital, resources and support to make your market position a reality? Your answers will give you the information you need to begin designing or updating your marketing plan.

Planning Ahead

Once you have determined where you want to go, outline the essential steps to get there. Begin by writing a one sentence purpose (mission) statement for your marketing campaign. The rest of your plan should include a brief description of each of the following:

Benefits of your products and services.

Your target market.

What marketing tools will best help you achieve your mission.

Your market niche. What sets you apart in the market place.

Your marketing budget.

Keep your marketing plan brief. The more concise you make your marketing plan, the more effective it will be in evaluating your marketing efforts.

Finding Your Niche

This is often the hardest task for a beginning homebased business owner but also one of the most crucial. In order for your venture to survive in a competitive marketplace, you must distinguish yourself from other businesses and find a niche. What makes your business unique? Why should someone choose to buy from you over a competitor? Prospective clients want to know. If you can give them a compelling answer, you will position yourself as a leader in your industry boosting your profit potential. Research your market thoroughly before jumping in.

Marketing Tools

No matter how you choose to publicize your business, one quality will set you apart from your competitors: The ability to write effective ad copy. You’re vying for the attention of consumers bombarded each day with advertisements. It is estimated that the average person is exposed to over 1,200 advertising messages per DAY! Make sure your advertisement stands out from the rest of this กnoiseก.

When you have determined your market position and drawn up a marketing plan you are ready to start spreading the word about your products and services. One effective way is using the existing offline media in your area. You have a variety of media choices depending upon your target market and your advertising budget including magazines, newspapers, television, radio, and the internet. Start by evaluating how and where your competitors advertise. Whatกs working for them? Take their best ideas; then design your own winning layout, positioning yourself as having the best offer.

The Importance of Headlines

As the first phrases seen in advertising copy, headlines should arouse enough interest in the reader so that they will want to read or listen on to learn more about your business or product. To get ideas about what headlines will work best for you, scan different types of ad copy, particularly those from your competitors. Create a swipe file of different ads and ideas that you come across from different sources. But remember to be careful of using other peoples copyrighted material.

Capture your customerกs interest with a compelling statement of offer

Highlight the most important benefits

Offer extreme value

Make a call strong call to action.

Testing Your Ads

Advertising can be expensive, but for just about any business a mandatory investment. To get the most out of your ads, test them by the following criteria:

What is the quantity of leads or prospects that the ad generates? Compare this amount in terms of a unit cost of advertising (dollars in advertising per leads generated).

How many of these leads convert into sales? Different advertising media due to the audiences they target will vary in the numbers of actual closes.

Continually check the response from your ads, make changes or run a new ad if necessary. Use ad trackers and keep testing, testing testing until you achieve the response required.

Internet Marketing

Imagine! You can have a salesperson working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week even while you sleep. A web site and effective use of email marketing can turn your small homebased business into a global business putting you on a level playing field with large corporations. With easy and afforbable web design tools getting a web site up and running is within reach of everybody.

Sell Benefits Not Features!

Any seasoned business owner knows that it costs five times more to sell to a new prospect than to an existing client. Studies show that each satisfied customer will spread the good word about your business to at least one other person. On the reverse side of the coin a dissatisfied customer will complain to up to five or ten potential customers. Your mission in getting customer referrals to turn passive satisfied customers into actively enthusiastic supporters who will promote your business. The best way to do this is through:

Offering outstanding value to your customers

Delivering your product on time.

Solving customerกs problems.

Maintaining regular contact with customers through feedback forms

Following up your customers regularly.

Creating longterm relationships with customers.

Personalising your product or service.

Finally…

Whether you’re just launching your home based business or have been building one for years, don’t allow lack of information keep you from achieving your financial dreams. Study your marketing options and decide which marketing strategy will best position you for longterm success.

Declan O’reilly

For more articles on building a successful business and to download FREE marketing ebooks go to: http://www.a1homebusiness.com

About The Author

A1 HomeBusiness was established by Declan O’reilly in Melbourne, Australia in 2003. I am originally from Ireland but I have lived in a number of different countries including the US, UK, the Netherlands and currently living in Australia.

Subscribe to eBusiness Success to find out how I achieved online success. Go to: http://www.a1homebusiness.com for more details

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 22, 2004

by Declan O’reilly

Quick, Easy Money…And Horse Feathers

Quick, Easy Money…And Horse Feathers

by: Kirk Bannerman

Enter the horse feathers.

Does it ever end? Iกve been involved with Internetbased home businesses for some time and I continue to be exposed to a seemingly endless barrage of offers (all costing me money, of course) claiming to be ‘the secretก for making a fantastic income, in a very short time, and with very little effort involved.

I must admit that I may have a slightly selfserving reason for addressing this topic. My articles are published on my homebased business websites for the purpose of trying to give prospective team members a true sense of what is really involved with starting and developing a successful home based business. The selfserving part, I suppose, is that I want people joining my team to have the straight scoop going in so that we don’t waste each otherกs time. I admit to being selfish in this regard (I don’t want to waste time working with people that have unrealistic expectations), but it is also very efficient for both parties involved, so it is not a totally oneway thing.

Now, back to the topic at hand. Thereกs no magic here, folks. Once you have selected the home business that you are going to pursue, there are no substitutes for time and effort in developing your business. A dream of being an กovernight successก is just that, a dream.

I can tell you from personal experience, that once you กpay your duesก and begin to have real success with a home based business, it is really terrific. Think about Nirvana or Valhalla, take your pick, but in any event itกs really sweet.

When I started developing a home based business, making a good income was obviously an objective, but I also had other subobjectives. One of the most important things was to have nearly total time flexibility (I mean, if I was willing to continue to wear the 95 MonFri collar I could just have just stayed in the previously ‘traditionalก work force).

Time flexibility was (and still is) a กbiggieก for me. Many people working at home have the same need for various reasons. For work at home moms, a home business can be a real godsend to accommodate the hectic time pressures, particularly when the kids are quite young and mom is also spelled ‘transportationก. In my own particular case, the reason is not quite so noble…I just want (need?) to be able to pick up my fly rod and go fishing at a moments notice (sometimes Iกll be gone for a week or two at a time, but now the business has enough momentum that it keeps on operating just as well as if I were here tending to it on a daily basis).

Bear in mind, I am only able do the breakaway thing now that I have put in all the upfront time and effort and now have developed enough kinetic energy in my homebased Internet business to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and resides in California. For more details, visit his website at http://businessathome.us.

This article was posted on February 02, 2004

by Kirk Bannerman

Get Real … The Necessary First Step Before Startin

Get Real … The Necessary First Step Before Starting A Home Business

by: Kirk Bannerman

I have helped a large number of people start up their own home based businesses using the Internet. Over time, I have come to recognize two of the most important factors for identifying people that should NOT start a home based business. If a prospective entrepreneur says something like…

ขI’m broke and need to make some money…fast!ข

or,

ขI want to start a home business, but I don’t want to spend anything on it until after I start earning some money.ข

…it is certain that they have not ขgotten realข and should not attempt to start a home business under either of those conditions. I refer to them as the ขdeath sentencesข for starting a home based business.

Almost equally important is the need to have realistic economic expectations when undertaking a home based business. There is no magic here, folks. A home based business provides many rewards such as working in the comfort of your own home, avoiding a stressful commute, being your own boss, setting your own hours, no dress code, etc., etc., but anyone that is also expecting ขinstant richesข is sadly mistaken.

There are a tremendous number of home business and work at home opportunities offered on the Internet. Many of these are all hype and try to convince you that you will be making huge amounts of money in very little time (you know, stuff like…ขyou will be making $5,000 per week, and more, in just a few weeks!ข). You should avoid these like the plague…if they were for real everyone would be doing it.

Study the opportunities carefully and select home business opportunity that seems to fit your own particular style or talents. What is a good choice for one person may be a very poor fit for someone else. The common thread that applies to everyone is that you must be ขfor realข (as indicated above) and the business opportunity itself must be ขfor realข.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and resides in California. For more details, visit his website at http://businessathome.us

This article was posted on September 25, 2003

by Kirk Bannerman

What Is The Difference Between A Home Based Busine

What Is The Difference Between A Home Based Business And A Home Based Job?

by: Jim Kelly

As a home business entrepreneur who is primarily involved with a program wherein I sponsor Affiliates in a downline, I often find that I am the recipient of emails from new enrollees who are clearly confused on several fronts. Commonly received initial emails consist of questions such as ขWhen do I start my assignment?ข and ขWhat is my position in your company?ข Somehow, these individuals are under the mistaken notion that by registering for a home business program, they have been hired by a company and are embarking on some sort of nonexistent home based career.

It is apparent that a fairly generalized confusion exists among people desiring to work at home between a work at home job and a work at home business. Further, it seems apparent that individuals are not thoroughly researching an entity’s background, specifications, and compensation PRIOR to enrolling. Therefore, it is the goal of this article to define a home based job, a home based business, and to outline the differences between the two so that those desiring to work at home may make informed choices prior to clicking on enrollment forms online.

Despite the national trend of allowing more and more people to telecommute rather than spending 40 hours per week at a desk on site at a given company, demand for home based or telecommuting jobs staggeringly outstrips the supply and landing a home based job with a consistent paycheck as an employee is in reality quite hard to land. Further, telecommuting or home based jobs rarely allow for working solely at home 100% of the time. Generally, some ขon siteข time away from home will nearly universally be required. The best way to search for telecommuting jobs is to directly inquire about telecommuting opportunities in ones geographic locale. A formal employment application process, interview, and resume will certainly be required to procure a telecommuting job.

Midway between a telecommuting position as described above and home business entrepreneurship is freelancing. If one has a highly developed and marketable skill such as typing (particularly specialized typing such as medical transcribing, or legal document preparation), bookkeeping, data entry skills, or other highly developed specific knowledge that is in demand, it is possible to match oneself up with companies needing ones skills. One can generally compete with other Freelancers and bid ขper pieceข or ขper projectข. A company will generally select the most reasonably priced and highly skilled bidder and pay them per the prearranged terms at project completion.

A home based business is by definition ones self creation or in essence ขgiving birthข to sole ownership and development of ones own entity. Home business entrepreneurship involves designing and developing a new business from scratch where the home business entrepreneur is responsible for their own expenses and supervision and where pay is nearly universally 100 commission based. If one does not have specific skills, education, or a product to sell, home business ownership is still possible and indeed can provide a lucrative income if approached in a strategic and wellresearched manner. Wellestablished companies that are recognized by the Better Business Bureau exist. Programs to seek out would be those offering free signup, an array of quality products that are in demand, free training, and access to ขliveข mentors.

In summary, telecommuting salaried jobs do exist but the competition is fierce for these positions. Freelancers with highly specific skills can often work from home by bidding and being paid for individual projects. Finally, home business ownership is open to all, regardless of skill level or educational background and no formal application process is required. Home business ownership offers unlimited potential return, yet requires research, strategy, and the willingness to carefully invest some money for promotion in order to develop a solid and ongoing return.

About The Author

Jim Kelly resides in Los Angeles, California and is Webmaster of Make Extra Money At Home http://makeextramoneyathome.com and Nutrition: Vitamins Antioxidants & Minerals http://vitaminsantioxidants.com

This article was posted on January 13

by Jim Kelly

Reflections On The First Year Of Working At Home

Reflections On The First Year Of Working At Home

by: Kirk Bannerman

For reasons that escape me now, I kept sort of a diary during my first full year of working at a home based business. It was nothing close to being a complete daily diary, but was more of a collection of scribbles about things that I felt were worthy of note at the time. Since quite a bit of time has passed since then, I decided to revisit these notes.

In no particular order, here are some of the things that I had made note of.

Choosing the path…in the beginning, my enthusiasm was very high (perhaps too high?) and I was chasing off on several different homebased business opportunities at the same time (exhibiting the กdog in a meat marketก syndrome, I suppose) and not focusing my efforts enough to be successful at any single one of them. I finally reigned myself in and focused on a single work at home business opportunity.

In other notes I find reference to emotional and/or psychological issues that I experienced and are probably typical for most people when starting a home based business. When working at home a person can, at times, experience a feeling of isolation which is probably brought on by the lack of interaction of a work force environment.

There were also periods of doubt in the early going…did I pick a viable business opportunity?…am I doing the right things to develop my business?…when will I start making a profit?, and so on.

Many of the entries in my socalled diary had to do with the proverbial ‘two steps forward and one step backwardก thing and the everlooming temptation to become discouraged. Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, it is now obvious that as long as you have more steps forward than backward you will eventually get ahead! Isn’t hindsight wonderful?

Other entries reflect the fact that relatively minor events can seem huge in the early stages of developing a work at home business and can really contribute to an emotional roller coaster ride. For example, if you are just starting out and you have two customers/clients and you lose one…thatกs a 50% drop! However, if you fastforward in time to the point where you have hundreds of customers/clients and you lose one…thatกs just a mere fraction of 1%! Same event, just at a different point in time.

Looking back on it now, some of the stuff I recorded now seems humorous, but Iกm pretty sure that I was not amused at the time I made the notations.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. For more information visit his website at http://www.homebasedbusinessteam.com.

This article was posted on February 28

by Kirk Bannerman

The Biggest Temptation When Working At A HomeBase

The Biggest Temptation When Working At A HomeBased Business

by: Kirk Bannerman

From what I have seen and experienced, to quit is the greatest temptation during the first year of working at a homebased business. If smoking was like working at a homebased business, the occurence of lung cancer would be dramatically reduced.
It is a known fact that a majority of the people that undertake a work at home business do not achieve real success. There are several reasons for this, but one of the primary reasons is that these people get frustrated and do not allow themselves enough time to succeed.
In the early going, one of the most difficult things about developing a new home based business is dealing with the emotional roller coaster that can result from the highs (successes) and lows (temporary setbacks) you are almost certain to experience. Once you have done the research and decided on a particular home based business opportunity, you really need to focus on persistence and realize that any real business will not just automatically become successful in a matter of days or weeks. You should be prepared to give it your best sustained effort for at least 6 to 12 months in order to begin to build a solid business base and begin to see some good income.
Highs and lows were something that I began to notice when I first started a home based business. I have many years of top level management experience in ‘traditionalก corporations and have experienced lots of business cycles (corporate กups and downsก), but the natural กups and downsก that occur in a home business (particularly in the early stages) can be brutal from an emotional standpoint if you don’t prepare yourself in advance for the fact that it is a basic law of nature…it will be a rocky road until you have spent enough time and effort to build your business to a level that sort of smoothes out the peaks and valleys.
The impact of the highs and lows you will probably experience in developing your home based business is amplified by the fact that you are now in business on your own. You are the boss and get to make all the decisions, but you are also on your own in dealing with the frustrations that will occur along the way while you are developing your business.
When working at home a person can, at times, experience a feeling of isolation which is probably brought on by the lack of interaction of a work force environment.
There can also be periods of doubt in the early going…gee, did I pick a viable business opportunity?…am I doing the right things to develop my business?…when will I start making a profit?, and so on.
You are most likely going to experience the ‘two steps forward and one step backwardก syndrome and the everlooming temptation to become discouraged. However, keep in mind that as long as you have more steps going forward than backward, you will eventually get ahead! Simple, but often overlooked.
Relatively minor setbacks can seem huge in the early stages of developing a work at home business and can really contribute to some noticeable กmood swingsก. For example, if you are just starting out and you have four customers/clients and you happen to lose one…thatกs a 25% drop! However, if you fastforward in time to the point where you have hundreds of customers/clients and you lose one…thatกs just a mere fraction of 1%! Exactly the same event, just at a different point in time.
Hang in there and just keep on keepinก on. If you have chosen a viable home business opportunity (one that has been around for awhile and in which some other people are having success) you will achieve success, but it takes time and there will be ups and downs along the way. Remember the old saying…กit takes a long time to become an overnight successก.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and resides in California. For more details, visit his website at http://businessathome.us

This article was posted on May 19, 2004

by Kirk Bannerman

Look out PDA, here comes TDA!

Look out PDA, here comes TDA!

by: Chris N. Fernando

First it was the Smartphone that threatened to oust PDA. Now, the PDA is all set to take on the heat from next generation PDA the TDA

Whats it all about?

Novinit a French company has developed the worlds first TDA or Tactile Digital Assistant. The TDA is based on touchscreen technology and relies entirely on your thumbs for input, which are harder to lose than a stylus. The TDA is named Jackito and comes with two simultaneous touch points so you can operate it with your thumbs at the same time and so no need for a stylus. Using the TDA is very easy, since you can search a database or a large address book, with just your thumbs. Using the device with your thumbs is actually much faster than a stylus well at least thats what the company claims. The device comes with a variety of features like fingertouch control, battery life, fast graphics, multitasking, realtime processing, interchangeable skins and much more. The idea of a device like Jackito was conceived from the fact that the worlds first touch screen based PDA was already developed by a US company called Litton in 1978 for the US and German armies. After some years Novinit pondered If theres a touch screen based PDA for the armies, why not for the gizmo lovers? Arnaud de la Fouchardire of Jackito says, The architecture chosen for Jackito focuses on user friendliness. Fingertips (as opposed to a stylus) are used as a natural device for touching the options displayed by the LCD touch screen. About 200 engineers from 10 countries for over 10 years, have worked on making this device better and $50 million has been invested in these efforts.

Seven Processors and a larger screen

The Jackito runs on seven processors with full parallelprocessing capabilities (two microcontrollers and five accompanying reconfigurable cores), a large 4.5 color QVGA LCD fingertip touchscreen that offers resolution of 320×240 dpi, display with landscape orientation and two SD/MMC card slots. The TDA runs on an operating system called 3ActilOS, has 2.5 MB SRAM and 16 MB NOR Flash memory. The Jackito measures 140 x 80 x 16 mm and weighs just 150 g. It feeds on a single AA battery, which according to the company, can sustain for several weeks. Using the touchscreen with your thumbs or index fingers means that you dont have to carry or use a stylus, keyboard or any other input device. Also Novinit says that the fingerกs contact area is hundred times larger than that of a stylus and a stylus exerts hundred times more pressure on the screen than a finger. Arnaud goes on to say that The Jackito is not only an electronic device, but also a personal companion, supporting the three essential ingredients of a wellbalanced lifestyle works productivity, personal life and edutainment. The Jackito will also come preloaded with about twenty applications, which includes games, puzzles, address book, clock, todo list, synchronization feature, backup application, etc.

Want to buy it?

Novinit hasnt yet appointed any dealers for Jackito, though as of now they plan to make all the transactions through their website. The Jackito is available for sale on www.jackito.com at a list price of 600. Novinit says that if you are interested in buying the product, you will have to order it online through their website by remitting $100 and then wait for about 90 days for the product to be delivered to you. However, you can choose the screen type (color or monochrome), user interface, removable front cover and changeable stickon strips of your choice. The Jackito is entirely customizable you can choose between addons like internal MP3 player, FM radio, microphone, headset, Bluetooth, solar battery charger and much more at an extra cost. According to Arnaud, they will target at กearly adoptersก for this product, but the product is destined for everybody because the product has all the facilities that we lack as human beings gigantic memory, vast capabilities for computation, learning, games and communications.

TDAs the way to go (or is it not?)

The development of the TDA doesnt stop here in fact this is just the beginning. Novinit expects that by April 2005 it will be able to make available innovative accessories for the TDA you will be able to choose from WiFi modules, GPS, digital camera (CMOS based), microprinter, microscanner, barcode reader, smartcard reader, TV module and much more. Though TDA seems to be an in thing with all the features it talks about, there are certain things that work against the very concept of digital assistant. The Jackito doesnt come with character recognition software builtin. It means that you will have to type through the virtual keyboard on the TDAs screen if you want to enter a few important data. This is far more tedious than just scribbling a few notes on a PDA screen with the stylus and leaving the conversion part to the handwriting recognition software. The TDA runs on an operating system called the ActilOS, which no one has even heard of before. This means that there wont be any third party applications for the TDA, at least immediately. Moreover the product is similar to a PDA its just that the TDA can be used with the fingers / thumbs and supports landscape orientation too.

Though the TDA seems promising enough, time will only tell whether it remains stable in the market. So if you want to experience the magic of TDA, logon to the Jackitos website and click on buy!

About The Author

Chris N. Fernando is a Sr. Staff Writer with Magazine 360 an IT magazine published by ITNation, Mumbai (India). He has also worked as Technical Editor with Peer Technical Services and as Reporter for PCQuest and Living Digital magazines. He also writes for The Cheers.com.

Get more of him at: www.chrisfernando.tk

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 21, 2004

by Chris N. Fernando

Sending SMS in Foreign Languages For Example Arabi

Sending SMS in Foreign Languages For Example Arabic, Greek, Hebrew etc.

by: Marinda Stuiver

Mobile phone penetration is increasing globally. With the increase in handsets, being able to communicate with the handset owners in their own language is something that is becoming increasingly important.

The first question that comes to mind is how it works when foreign languages are sent to mobiles from a web site. Based on the fact that computers fundamentally just deal with numbers, letters and characters are stored using a unique number for each and in the past these unique numbers had to be assigned through the use of encoding systems. As a result hundreds of different encoding systems existed, none compatible with each other and none of them containing enough characters to deal with all languages. All this changed with the invention of Unicode. With Unicode one number for each letter has been assigned (a standard has been set) and it is network, platform and language independent. The emergence of Unicode standards and tools allowed web platform owners and developers to develop additional tools which enables end users to send sms in their own language.

These applications are especially important in the Middle East (Arabic), Far East (Chinese, Taiwanese, Hindi etc.) and European countries where normal English characters cannot be used to communicate in data format for example Greece, Finland, Norway just to name a few.

Prior to development of a userfriendly Java based application, users had to be familiar with Hex and the conversion of Unicode characters into Hex in order for the binary data to be sent to recipients via mobile phones from web sites.

This now all changed for end users. The java based application used for sending Unicode, available on www.smswarehouse.com, allows users to send sms from the web site in the language their keyboard is set to. Once logged in, users have the opportunity to choose whether they want to send their text message in Unicode or in English. After selecting Unicode, the user is presented with the opportunity to send their message in Hex or based on their keyboard settings (Keyboard input).

The process is extremely simple and user friendly if your keyboard is set (for example) to Greek, you simply type the message in and click on กsendก the text will be delivered to the recipient in Greek. Unicode is still limited to 70 Characters, which is a GSM restriction, but the use of 160 characters is currently under development.

Visit http://www.smswarehouse.com for more details and a free test account.

About The Author

Marinda Stuiver has been working in the marketing industry since 1996. She worked as International sales and marketing consultant for Station Africa Telecoms where one of her responsibilities was media liaison during sponsored events such as the Camel Trophy 4X4 events, Kathy O’Dowd’s firs ascent of Mt Everest, the 1999 BT sponsored Vasco da Gama Yacht race and many more. She started her own online consultancy in 2000 (ESPECTATIONS.COM) and launched a new division in January 2005 called SMSwarehouse. Her major area of interest is convergence of technologies and she works as a consultant in this specific arena. PR forms a big part of her daily duties and services to clients but she also enjoys writing about her outdoor experiences and adventures.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 10

by Marinda Stuiver

Home Based Businesses Have Their Share Of Frustrat

Home Based Businesses Have Their Share Of Frustrations

by: Kirk Bannerman

The source of frustration addressed in his article may be all too familiar if you happen to work at an Internetbased home business which relies on personal relationships and/or teamwork.

I am often contacted by members of my business team with a tale of woe regarding a lack of response from their affiliates. It typically goes something like…กI send out lots of emails to all of them and I very rarely get any response. What am I doing wrongก.

If your particular internet business involves selling well known branded items, personal feedback is not an issue. Visitors to your website (potential customers) are primarily interested in selection, availability, and price. If it is a returning customer, then you can also throw customer service into the equation. Once the desired item is selected, your mouse does all the ‘talkingก without any human interaction involved.

However, there are many types of internetbased home businesses where feedback and interaction are quite important and getting an affiliate or business team member to communicate with you is a definite objective. Itกs not at all surprising that this can be a challenge when you stop to think that what you are trying to do is initiate a dialog between two complete strangers who have never even seen each other.

Heavily branded websites like walmart.com or amazon.com are household names and carry an implied trust with visitors. However, the vast majority of websites are not well known and are found and visited as a result of searches performed by search engines. In these instances, the visitor is probably arriving at the website for the first time and human nature often dictates a sense of fear or suspicion of the unknown which is manifested by a reluctance to respond to email messages from an unknown party.

It seems that there is no pat answer as to the best way to elicit an initial email response from a person. I have tried several approaches with varying degrees of success. Individual styles will vary, but the following four points should be kept in mind:

*you need to build trust & credibility with thorough knowledge of your business and with straight forward talk about realistic expectations

*don’t oversell or indulge in hype as many people are expecting this and it can be an immediate turnoff

*send messages with at least one openended question that requires a response

*keep the messages fairly brief, long winded messages that go on and on quite frequently will not be read

One other thing to keep in mind is that your messages may not even be reaching the intended recipient and they have no opportunity to give you a reply. At the end of your messages you might want to ask the recipient to send you a return email just saying กgot itก.

We all agree that spam is a very serious problem. These days, many email providers and ISPs have appointed themselves to be the กinformation policeก and are employing various schemes to try to recognize and block messages that constitute spam. Unfortunately, these mail filtering or blocking techniques are often very inaccurate and many messages that people actually want to receive are arbitrarily being sent off into the ozone.

I have some first hand experience with this situation. Not long ago, the ISP that my mother was using suddenly decided that she would not be allowed to receive messages from me! It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but once we did, that ISP was going to soon become history as far as my mother was concerned.

In the final analysis, all you can do is give it your best shot. Some people will respond, some won’t…and the beat goes on. Remember, itกs nothing personal, just human nature at work.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. For more information visit his website at http://www.homebasedbusinessteam.com

This article was posted on April 01

by Kirk Bannerman

How To Choose a Perfect Home Based Business

How To Choose a Perfect Home Based Business

by: Nas Romli

Nowadays, more and more people are becoming a home based business owner. If you make a search on กhome based businessก at Yahoo, it returned a total of 51,000,000. No, I didn’t put any extra zeros. Itกs 51 million! Most of them are promoting business opportunities and others provide home based business information.

The question is now, if you want to start your own home based business, without having to go through all 51 million sites, how do you find the perfect business that really suits you?

Letกs begin.

Basically there’re 2 types of business that you can run. Iกll go through one at a time.

1. Selling a new product.

If you’re a super genius who knows what the marketกs wants, that this type of business is for you.

Advantage: You will be the owner of the product which means you control everything; from pricing to the product type. Youกll become the expert and people will see you as genius who create new product line.

Disadvantage: You will have to design your own marketing plan; sales letter, website design, autoresponder email system and everything. So, in other words, your business might no begin within 1 or 2 month after you develop your product. Even you already setup everything, your income might come in rather slow since most people are afraid to buy new product.

2. Selling other people product.

You sell other people product and you earn income by receiving your sales commission.

Advantage: You don’t have to design any market plan (most of the time). Everything will be provided to you. All you need to do is using these tools to market their product. Since everything is there, you can start promoting them almost immediately and so do your cheque.

Disadvantage: You don’t have the power to change the market plan, product or any tools. You have to use them whether you like it or not.

Which one you choose is wholly up to you. But for me who is so lazy of doing any thinking and working, Iกd choose option 2.

Still, you have to make filter out millions of products that you can promote for your business.

Here are the guidelines for choosing them:

Available marketing tools: Are they giving me any marketing tools? eg. email ad, banner ad, sales letter etc. The marketing marketing tools provided, the better.

Product is suitable for huge market: Choose a product that can be use by many people and not only for certain group of consumer.

Recurring commission: For me this is the most important factor. Some product, you earn your comission only once when you make one off sales. Normally, you earn a recurring commission when you sell product that needs the buyer make recurring payment every month. So, you will earn your commission every month as long as the buyer makes the payment.

It is easy, isn’t it?

Letกs we summed up everything that we learn.

If you want to start you home based business immediately, promote other peopleกs product. This product should have excellent support, all marketing tools are provided to you, many people use it and the buyers have to pay them every month.

There you have it. A perfect home based business for you (at least it is for me ;)).

About The Author

Nas Romli runs a site that help people to start their own home based business within 24 hours.Many have benefited from this service.Drop by at his site for more information about this amazing service: http://www.cashflowsecret.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 23

by Nas Romli

Home Based Business Opportunity

Home Based Business Opportunity

by: Darrell Knox

The allure of a home based business opportunity is very strong these days with uncertain economic times and the pressures of working long hours for less pay. More and more people are exploring home based business opportunities to see if they are cut out to work for themselves.
With the economy ever uncertain, employers are cutting back on everything. They are cutting health insurance benefits, pay, and they are outright eliminating jobs left and right.
There are many kinds of home based business opportunities. The internet offers the easiest, least expensive opportunity to start a home based business ever. Never before have people been able to start up an entire, legitimate business just by signing up for a hosting account and selling information or other products from their web site.
Careful What Home Base Business Opportunity You Choose
Not all opportunities are really what they seem. While any home based business opportunity involves hard work, some of them are just not worth the work you put in. They never pay back dividends the way you anticipated or the way the sales letter stated. That’s why when searching for the proper, legitimate home based business opportunity you need to watch for a couple of things.
Is the business wellestablished?
Are you buying into a franchise style business? If so, is the market saturated with other people doing the same thing and competing for visitors?
If the home based business opportunity involves network marketing, does it comply with federal and state laws regarding multilevel businesses?
The key to true wealth is to own the business opportunity, not work for it. A home based business owner is the top dog in their small company. That means any windfalls a new product or service you create or resell belong to you! That also means all the overhead and other expenses belong to you too. With the power of a home based business comes the responsibility too.
This is why you should thoroughly research a home based business opportunity to make sure you have all the bases covered and you are approaching working for yourself in a responsible manner.
Finally, you need to be aware that while it is very tempting to go for one of those cookiecutter ขbusinesses in a boxข, the greatest opportunity in the world on the internet is creating your own products and mixing them in with affiliate products that compliment yours.
A home based business opportunity many times is an opportunity a driven, hard working and creative person creates for themselves. Usually the most successful home based businesses are run by people who just had a great idea and ran with it.
Pick a home based business opportunity you love, that you are passionate about and hopefully knowledgeable about. You credibility shoots through the roof with your customers, and you work much harder on something you love to do rather than something you feel like you have to do!

About The Author

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience. Free Home Business Tips Newsletter at: http://www.cashgroup.biz/biztipspop.html.

Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgibin/index.pl

[email protected]

This article was posted on May 29, 2004

by Darrell Knox