So You Want To Be A Consultant?

So You Want To Be A Consultant?

by: Matt Bacak

Letกs say you have more than 20 years experience in your chosen field. For the sake of this article, letกs say you have been in the nonprofit field for 25 years and are at the very top of your game. And letกs say you’re a bit bored with the humdrum daytoday routine of being an executive director. You love nonprofit sector, but you need more of a challenge and you yearn to help people grow and achieve success in their nonprofit careers. Plus, youกd like to earn a little bit more money and are a bit tired of the board of directors overseeing everything you do.

Perhaps itกs time to go into business for yourself. Perhaps itกs time to become a consultant, a coach, a speaker and trainer. The thought is exciting, albeit a little frightening. You’re current salary is certainly respectable for a person with your skills and experience, and the health insurance and retirement plan are comforting benefits that you don’t want to relinquish. But none of these factors have been able to sufficiently scratch that darned itch that keeps telling you itกs time to start your own nonprofit consulting business.

Going into business for yourself as a consultant, coach, or speaker (or all of the above) requires determination, a little selfsacrifice (in the beginning), and a lot of experience. People hire consultants because they need the expertise of someone who has been there and done that…hundreds of times. There are consultants in literally every career field, and once they become accustomed to the process of generating clientele, they can make over double what they were earning as employees. In fact, recent statistics show that successful and established consultants can make anywhere from $1,200 to $5,000 per day.

There is power and prestige in consulting that can rarely be found in management positions, even executive positions. The power comes from calling the shots as a business owner and making sure people know they need you; the prestige comes from being the very best in your field…and making sure people know it.

But thereกs a not so subtle difference in owning your own business and owning your own consulting firm. Lots of people own businesses. My fiancé owns a deli, my father owns a small publishing business, and my mother owns a bakery. But owning your own consulting firm lets people know that you’re the crème de la crème in your field and if they want to rise to the top like you have, theyกll hire you to help them.

Consulting firms, like the one you will soon own, can be anything from a one man show to a large agency boasting senior and junior associates. Most consultants make their day to day income from coaching and mentoring individuals in the field charging anywhere from $300 (for junior level staffers) to $500 (for senior executives) per hour. They also assist clients with organizational development, strategic and financial planning, and a host of other services including workshop facilitation and board and staff retreats. And if they like to speak in front of audiences, many consultants make thousands of dollars simply talking to a crowd for a few hours about their experiences and knowledge.

While itกs not as easy as 123 to quite your job and start making $5,000 a day as a consultant, itกs certainly not as difficult as it looks especially if you’re very very good at what you do and have expertise that few can match. Start off as a moonlighter, which is the term used when someone has a ขday jobข but works on their own business in the evenings. Make a simple business card for yourself and during your lunch hour at work, go to chamber of commerce or rotary meetings where you can network and talk to people about your new consulting practice.

Itกs not too difficult to pick up a small client or two this way, and once you do a good job for them and build confidence in yourself youกll begin to branch out and up. People will hear about you, your phone will start ringing, those simple business cards you handed out at the rotary meetings will change hands and generate bigger clients, and youกll begin to realize that maybe you really can quit that humdrum job and make it big on your very own.

About The Author

Matt Bacak became ก#1 Best Selling Authorก in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s eBiz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com

This article was posted on August 08

by Matt Bacak

The Mountain Highs & The Valley Lows When Starting

The Mountain Highs & The Valley Lows When Starting A Home Based Business

by: Kirk Bannerman

The emotional aspects of starting a home business can have you experiencing high highs and low lows. In addition to the immediate luxuries of being your own boss, setting your own working hours, and avoiding a stressful commute, there are also significant things on the other side of the ledger…starting and building a home business is not just an automatic trip to the promised land. The need for self discipline is important…since you don’t have a boss and a place to report for work, it is now up to you to schedule your time and perform productive tasks on your own.

Set actual work hours. Decide what hours you are going to work each day and stick to it as much as possible. This is one of the beautiful things about a home based business…you get to make this choice based upon your own personal situation for that particular day. Make ‘to doก lists for each day. Then, as you complete the items, check them off the list. You can transfer anything you don’t get done on a particular day to the next days list and make some notation so that you can see that it is a carryover from the previous day…however, remain constantly aware of the procrastination trap which leads you to keep putting things off until tomorrow. Hopefully, this will help you to stay organized and on task and allow you to make some real progress in developing your home based business.

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 days or weeks…you should be prepared to give it your best effort for at least 6 to 12 months in order to begin to build a solid income base.

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 ขtraditionalข corporations and have experienced lots of business cycles (corporate ขups and downsข), but the natural ขups and downsข that occur in a home business (particularly in the early stages) can be emotionally brutal 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 high 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.

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

Easy Content Building For The Lazy Webmaster

Easy Content Building For The Lazy Webmaster

by: JP Lafferty

Free content builder.

Articles are the best way to add free content to your site. Thereกs hundreds if not thousands of article sites out there on the web that can be searched for free information.

The only problem I have with free articles is that you have to add the writers resource box to your site. Now this in itself is not a major problem. You could read several articles and then make your own in your own words.

This works well and is a quick and easy content building strategy that I would recommend to anybody. Also if you write your own content this way you should definitely consider posting a few of your own articles to the free article submission sites. This generates oneway links to your own site and over time can really build traffic to your site.

Just google กfree article submissionก or กarticlesก or anything of that nature to start building a list of article sites. The more you have the better.

Building content with ebooks

Free ebooks are a great source of free content and there is no shortage of them out there. Most free ebook sites have ebooks that were at one point being sold across the web. These are generally an excellent quality source of information.

To really benefit from ebooks you must first read them and take note of the main topics discussed. One way I find that works well is to write up a short report after reading the ebook and then building on that as I go through the ebook a second time. When I find something interesting I add it to the report in my own words. This is great for developing a better understanding of the material.

Of course after all this you may want to write a few articles about what you just read. As always you should share these articles with the rest of the web by submitting them to article sites.

This isn’t as tedious and time consuming as you might think. After your first or second go you will find yourself becoming more confident and this may well lead to you taking a more creative approach to your writing. In time you will be very efficient at writing your own reports and using them to create more articles and content for your websites.

I would advise you save every ounce of work you do. The more you write the more content and personal resources you have to pull from this makes it quicker and easier to create your own material. After a while you may realize you could put all your work into a ebook of your own and sell it:)

What should I write?

In short anything you want. Every human on this planet is a powerhouse of information. Even if your young you still have alot of experience to pull from.

Some people find that coming up with ideas of what to write about is quit easy but actualy writing it is the hard part. Others find the writing the easy part and the brainstorming the hard part.

If you fall into either camp then there is still hope for you, due to the fact that most humans will fall into either camp! Your not any different from me or anybody else out there. The best way to over come either problem is to get comfortable and just start writing. It is not hard!!

Pick something and start writing about it. What did you learn after a tragic event in your life is a great way to get your brain setup in the right direction. Pulling from personal experience realy helps to get you thinking and once that starts you will find it hard to turn your mind off.

Keeping it fresh.

The only way to keep information fresh is to write it in your own words. Add your persona to your material. Play with it before you publish it. Try to write as if you were explaining something to a friend. It comes across more respectful and easier to understand.

Also no matter what your writing about make sure you explain everything down to the letter. You may understand what your talking about but your reader wont always be as interested as you might think.

Always remember no matter where it is you can generaly go back and change it later. For instance if you have published a 5 page report to the web and your not happy with certain aspects of it well then you can take it down later and add in or delete whatever you want.

About The Author

JP Lafferty

To gain a helping hand in building content for your site head to http://imcontent.blogspot.com/

New content added daily. All content free of copyright.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 12

by JP Lafferty

Running Your Own Race

Running Your Own Race

by: Elena Fawkner

There was an article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times Friday that caught my eye. The headline was "Small DotComs Thrive While Industry Giants Melt Down". Here are the opening paragraphs …

"Beneath the chaotic dotcom busts of the last halfyear, an overlooked breed of Internet companies mostly small and nimble is thriving.

"They have no public stock, no Super Bowl commercials, no milliondollar product launch parties, and no naming contracts with professional sports stadiums. Their small size has allowed many to weather a storm that has quickly taken down hugely stupid, profligate and unlucky internet firms.

"This yearกs grim portrait of the Internet economy has largely been painted by bigmoney Wall Street nose dives such as those by Priceline.com, Drkoop.com and Etoys.

"By contrast, the mundane dotcom survivors are small operations with few employees that have trudged along, slowly but steadily, in a parallel universe that more closely resembles the socalled Old Economy."

Well, gee, no kidding. Finally the dust begins to settle and the resulting landscape resembles, well, something suspiciously like the real world. And WE, the "mundane dotcom survivors" are the ones trudging along in a parallel universe? I think not. Weกve always been firmly rooted in the real world. Itกs the "hugely stupid, profligate and unlucky [and whatกs "luck" got to do with it?] internet firms" that were always living in a parallel universe of their own imaginations.

So whatกs the lesson of the great internet shakeout of 2000? Itกs this: just run your own race. Forget about what the socalled mega dotcoms are doing. They’re not operating in the real world, they’re in some la la land where venture capital is a (for now) bottomless pit and the bottom line doesn’t seem to matter. Yet. Whatกs the future for such businesses? They’re destined to bite the dust! I don’t care how much money they have at their disposal, sooner or later they have to pay the piper. There is NO successful business model on earth that doesn’t, at some point, require black ink on the allimportant bottom line.

So, don’t stress out over what your megacompetition is doing. Look to your niche and focus on that. Ever tried emailing one of those mega sites? I have. You get autogenerated responses. No such thing as personal service. And how could there be? They’re in a parallel universe, after all, where such things as basic customer service are delivered by autoresponders, not real humans.

For you and me, the "mundane dotcom survivors", the trick is to focus on *business* and not get caught up in the hype and swirl of The Internet. We understand that the internet is but a tool at our disposal, not some mystical plane where you can afford to throw out antiquated "old economy" principles such as the fact that revenues must exceed expenses in order to make a profit.

The LA Times article profiled a small dotcommer who is thriving despite the so called "meltdown". A soleemployee business, this entrepreneur "turned her idea for a couponclipping Web site into a profitable business by keeping expenses low". Fancy that. Keeping expenses low. What an epiphany. The business took a year and a half to turn a profit with expenses of around $800 a month. It has remained in profit ever since, generating a salary of between $75,000 and $125,000 a year for its owner.

Even more startling is the fact that "the vast majority of Internet companies have never seen a drop of venture capital or had a public stock offering. Of the about 10,000 dotcoms in the United States, fewer than 500 have publicly traded stock. Only a quarter have received venturecapital money, depending instead on money from more patient private investors, their own checkbooks and credit cards or remarkably company revenues."

Fancy that.

About The Author

Elena Fawkner is editor of the awardwinning A HomeBased Business Online … practical home business ideas, resources and strategies for the workfromhome entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com

This article was posted on January 20, 2002

by Elena Fawkner

The Only Way To Succeed In MLM

The Only Way To Succeed In MLM

by: Gino Harteel

Let assume you found the perfect mlm business, you did your homework of course, you contacted the head office and the local support, if available, asked some innocent questions and checked how fast and professional they responded.

You also tested your sponsor, finding out, how committed he or she is with the business of your life.

And if everybody passed the test, you finally join the opportunity of lifetime.

Thatกs what I did in 1997. As I am a good talker, I had no problem finding and introducing people to this wonderful opportunity.

I searched around and asked my upline for the perfect way to organize my downline.

To make a long story short, I have come a long way, but let me explain, what IS working very well.

Please review www.infolotto.com. It is a site of my own that I dedicate to new Euro Millions and UK Lotto players, they can become an affiliate and if they find 5 people who join the syndicate lotto, they play for free.

Well, I could register as many people as I could directly under me and receive 20 % commission, this is the first level rewards.

But instead, I transfer the new member to my second level, third level and what do I notice ?

People realize the potential that finally they will play for free and in the second phase, earn a monthly income.

In my own experience, this is the way to conduct your mlm business and youกll succeed !

It is working for me, take my advice and apply it to your own group.

Good luck.

About The Author

Gino Harteel has been involved with mlm since 1997 and has been building downlines in different ways. On www.infolotto.com you can find out how he has been building his downline with success.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 19, 2004

by Gino Harteel

I Want to Do an Ezine! Part 1

I Want to Do an Ezine! Part 1

by: Terri Seymour

I have been getting numerous emails lately from people who want to start publishing an ezine, but really don’t know where to start. So, I am going to write this series of articles from start to finish in the hopes of helping some of my associates get started with their own ezine! Please feel free to email me if you have questions about anything stated in these articles.

First of all, what is an ezine? An ezine is simply an electronic magazine or newsletter sent out periodically to a list of Opt In subscribers. Opt In means they have voluntarily signedup to receive your ezine and were not added to the list without their knowledge or permission.

This is one of the reasons an ezine is so valuable to your business. Your subscribers have given their consent to receive announcements, promotions, ads, recommendations, etc. from you!

BUT, let me stress this, you must treat your subscribers with respect, provide valuable and helpful content and be there for them when they want or need you. You do not want to USE them as a mailing list for every ad that comes down the pike.

Ok, to get started, one thing you should do is look over a few successful ezines to get a feel of how they are done. Each publisher will add his/her own style, personality, and soul to their ezine which in turn is what makes it unique and successful.

A few ezines I would recommend are:

Rim Digest at http://www.rimdigest.com

Simple Biz Ezine at http://www.simplebizpublications.com

Ideas By Post at http://www.ideasbypost.com

and also, My Own Ezine at http://www.myownezine.com 😉

These ezines are very well written and each publisher has a very distinct style and personality to go along with the useful content.

What you want to do with your ezine is establish a trust relationship with your readers. You want them to get to know you and learn that they can trust you and your recommendations. Be there for them if they have questions, if they need advice, or support, or if they just want to talk with someone who has more experience.

Your ezine is much, much more than an advertisement for your business. It is a bond between you and your readers. Treat it as such!

Ezine publishing can be a very rewarding, fun, challenging and if done right, profitable venture!

In next weekกs article, I will be dealing with layout, design and format and also naming your new ezine.

About The Author

Terri Seymour owns and operates MyOwnEzine.com

Learn to publish and promote your own ezine. mailto:[email protected]

For a complete list of my articles available for reprint please email: mailto:[email protected]

ATTN: Ezine Publishers, save hours of your valuable time! http://wetrack.it/eza/af.cgi?710

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 1, 2002

by Terri Seymour

When Internet Marketing Gurus Sell Their Souls

When Internet Marketing Gurus Sell Their Souls

by: Gobala Krishnan

If you’re just getting started in Internet Marketing, you may be awed by the amount of กInternet Gurusก out there, all making millions of dollars (or so they claim) and for some reason seem more than willing, for a fee, to teach you their biggest, most intimate secrets.

I believe in one thing If it sounds too good to be true, it most probably is!

While I have no doubt on the specialized skills and techniques used by these gurus, it can get way too frustrating simply getting into all their hype, and find almost no value at the end of the day. Hype thatกs one thing I agree these guruกs are really good at. For some of them, unfortunately, hype is the only thing they’re good at.

So the question, for those who are trying to master Internet Marketing, might be:

Can I learn anything from these gurus without paying money?

Who is real and who is not?

Whose methods should I follow?

Can You Learn Something for Free?

Most guruกs have optin newsletters on specialized subjects like website marketing, PayPerClick, search engine optimization or whatever specialized skill they have กmasteredก. Almost all of them ask you to subscribe to their newsltetter in return for some kind of กbreakthroughก report, and promise to deliver กvaluable informationก weekly or monthly to your email address. Sound great.

Hereกs what happens 2 weeks later You realize that the กbreakthrough reportก is the same old regurgitated information which you can find almost anywhere. You might also relize that the กvaluable informationก never comes in full, without any hidden agenda. The กvaluable informationก is actually a softselling (sometimes even blatant advertisements) ad for the guruกs products, or even worse, some other Internet marketerกs products.

Iกm not trying to shoot down any marketer here, but the irony is in their teaching. Almost all internet gurus would advice you to offer valuable, free information that benefits other people. Profits, as they say, is secondary to actually helping people and making a difference in their lives. What a load of BS. How come they don’t practise what they preach? Of is that how the Internet Marketing Game is played?

Fortunately, not all guruกs are the same. There are still some jewels to be found, and they offer some great information in their newsletters, such as:

Vishal Rao: http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com talks about home based businesses.

Mike Cheney: http://www.magnet4web.com talks about building an effective and efficient business web site.

Jill Whalen: http://www.highrankings.com talks about Search Engine Optimization.

Of course there are more out there, but it is not necessary to subscribe to every Internet Marketing newsletter just to hope for nuggets of gold that may never come. Instead, give the guru a ‘trialก month, and if you don’t find anything of value from them, just unsubscribe. It will only be a loss to them, not you.

Whoกs Real and Whoกs Not?

To answer this question, you really have to กget aroundก the Internet a lot. Go to forums where you will definately find topics on infoproducts offered by these gurus, and see what others are saying about them. Forget about all those blaring testimonials that the guruกs compile on their site. Forums are where the real testimonials are. You may also want to consider this site:

GuruDaq : http://www.gurudaq.com

Taking on a Nasdaqlike approach, this site lists all gurus according to ratings and กstock priceก. Although I would advice to take it more as an entertainment that actual recommendations, perhaps this site will allow you to get a glimpse of กwhoกs whoก in Internet Marketing.

Whose methods should I follow?

Honestly, nobodyกs. At least not wordforword of what is thought in their newsletters or ebooks. The important thing to realize is that you need to develop your own technique to be really successful. The guruกs don’t teach you everything, anyway. They almost always feed you the crop but keep the cream for themselves. In other words, no one really tells you the กhot moneymaking secretsก, especially those guruกs that have sold their soul a long time ago.

Its really up to you to learn some tips and tricks of the trade from them, but set out on your own course. In order to be successful in anything, you need to do your own thing. Be original in you approach, whether itกs writing sales letters, doing email marketing, payperclick or search engine optimization.

Don’t look to someone who has sold their soul to lead you to the path of success. Thatกs wishful thinking.

Copyright 2005 Gobala Krishnan

About The Author

Gobala Krishnan is an internet marketer and home business owner. Visit his site at http://www.sfidreamteam.com to start your own Internet based home business today, and get a free kickstart package, oneonone coaching and a clear, proven system to earn a six figure income.

This article was posted on January 10

by Gobala Krishnan

11 Awesome Ways To Explode Your Affiliate Commissi

11 Awesome Ways To Explode Your Affiliate Commission

by: Kusuma Widjaja

1. Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs that go with the theme of your web site and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory. You will earn commissions and gain subaffiliates. Plus you could start an affiliaterelated ezine too.

2. Do not drive all your visitors directly to affiliate website, instead send your visitors to your optin page mechanism first before going to your main affiliate website. That way, you can make followup later on and build your own lists so that you can offer another related products or services another day. You can build a massive list in minimum time at http://www.whycity.net/coregistrationservices.html

3. Sell to the people who join your affiliate program. They are more likely to buy your products because they are interested in selling them for the commission. Itกs important to train and support your affiliates so they will know you will be there to help them. Tell them itกs good to write ads about their personal experiences with your product so that it will persuade customers to buy.

4. Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other peopleกs questions, and ask your own questions. Include your affiliate text link under each message you post. If they read your message and like it, they may click to see what else you have to offer them.

5. Recruit lots of subaffiliates and make it easy for your them to make sales. Give them proven ads to use, make it easy for prospects to order, provide helpful affiliate statistics, notification of sales, lifetime income, residual income, add their commission by giving part of your commission to them, provide a good tracking system and professional training just like at http://www.whycity.net/nitroknowledge.html, http://www.whycity.net/myaffiliatecenter.html and http://www.whycity.net/nitrowebcasts.html

6. Persuade ezine publishers or webmasters to run your ad for free. Just allow them to join your affiliate program and earn commission on the sales. You could also offer them a freebie, such as the product you’re selling for free, an advertisement in your ezine in return, etc. It also helps to compliment the publishers as well as praising their ezines.

7. Use Online Referral Strategies at http://www.whycity.net/instantreferralsystems.html to get lots of order yourself or subaffiliates order. Referral system can also be a good way to increase your affiliate commissions if you can give incentives to motivate people to refer and tap deep into peopleกs network of friends, family, and associates. They don’t just stop at the occasional, oneoff referral.

8. Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that does not give you an edge over your competition. Use a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates. Learn how you can Create Powerful Offers so irresistible for prospects until they buy from you at http://www.whycity.net/powerfuloffers.html

9. Give free email consultations or services to your customers who buy or will buy the product or services through your affiliate link. When you email them back your advice include a small ad or distribute branded affiliates viral marketing tools to use like ebooks or articles for the affiliate products your are selling. Just include your ad somewhere inside them.

10. Email targeted ezines and ask them to do a joint venture with you. Ask them to run your ad and in exchange they would get a percentage of the profits. You would just have to get them to join your affiliate program to be your subaffiliates. To give them better incentive, you could offer them a higher commission than the rest of your normal affiliates by giving part of your affiliate commissions for 2 years.

11. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your affiliate web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price, cut from your own commission. This will turn one sale into three sales. You could also offer them other things in return for referrals like free ebooks, free software, coupons, discounts, etc.

Finally! Everything you need to make a whole lot more than $100,000 a year with affiliate programs.

http://www.whycity.net/affiliatebootcamp.html

About The Author

Kusuma Widjaja is President of Yahoo Cyber Technology, CV., based in Surabaya. He has over 2 years experience in Internet Marketing Arena, Custom Web Site Design and Graphic Design Services. For more information go to http://www.whycity.net or you can reach us at +628315838474.

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 20

by Kusuma Widjaja

Is Working at Home Really Right for You?

Is Working at Home Really Right for You?

by: Wendy Betterini

If youกve just begun your search for a work at home job, you probably have a beautiful concept of what working from home is like. You probably imagine yourself waking up whenever you want, sliding your feet into fuzzy slippers and shuffling to the kitchen to get some coffee, then shuffling along to your office to put in another wonderful day at work, then later going to the mailbox to pick up your weekly paycheck of several thousand dollars. I hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work that way. Actually, let me clarify that and say it doesn’t always work that way.

The truth is, working at home is usually a lot harder than working in an office somewhere. Scammers and hypedup business opportunity ads have given us the belief that working at home is ohsoeasy. We just relax on a tropical beach, then go collect our paychecks. Iกm sure youกve seen ads like that. Those of us who already work at home know better!

Here are some things you should consider before jumping into a work at home job:

How much do you want to earn? If you want to work for an employer as a telecommuter, be prepared to earn less than you would at a job outside the home. A job that pays $11.00 an hour in the regular workforce might pay $7 or $8 an hour at home. There are exceptions of course. Some jobs, like virtual assisting, web design and graphics, medical transcription and coding and other professional jobs will probably pay more than a simple data entry or customer service job. Many work at home jobs don’t pay hourly either. For data entry work, you might get paid per piece, and for telephone jobs you might get paid per ‘talk minuteก (only those minutes you are actually on the phone with a customer.)

Do you need benefits? The majority of work at home jobs do not provide benefits like health insurance or life insurance. Again, there are exceptions.

Taxes There are companies that will hire you as an actual กemployeeก and they will take taxes out of your pay. But some will only hire you as an กindependent contractor,ก and you are responsible for paying your own taxes.

Work availability If you are hired as an independent contractor, itกs important to understand that your employer is not obligated to provide any work for you. Most companies have busy seasons and slow seasons. During a busy season, you might be working 4050 hours a week, and then the slow season arrives and suddenly you’re fighting to get even 10 hours of work per week. If your income is especially important to your household, definitely keep that in mind. However, many people choose to work more than one job at a time. If one slows down, they simply start working more for the other.

How motivated are you? If you are the type of person who usually needs a kick in the rear to get moving, working at home will be very hard on you. You have to be extremely disciplined to sit down at the computer, log in and actually WORK each day. There are so many distractions in the home that will pull you away from work if you let them. You have to be very focused and set a schedule for yourself, just like you would at a job outside the home.

Do you mind solitude? Working at home can be lonely. If you thrive on social interaction, working alone can be difficult to adjust to. However, you can ease this by spending time with friends frequently, or joining some online groups to chat with like minded people.

Flexibility Some employers require you to work a specific set schedule, while others might be more flexible, allowing you to choose your own hours. Give some thought to which type of schedule would work best for you. When I first decided to work at home, I made the mistake of choosing a job that had a rigid schedule, and I hated it! I had forgotten that that was one of the things I disliked about working outside the home living by someone elseกs schedule. Think about how you work best, and choose accordingly.

Childcare So many mothers want to work at home so they can raise their own children, rather than sending them to a daycare. However, working at home with small children underfoot is no easy task! Itกs not impossible, and it depends greatly on the ages of your children and what type of work you are doing at home. If you work a telephone job, most employers will require a very quiet background, which is impossible if you have small children. You also can’t stop working every few minutes to entertain the kids, unless you want to put in a very long day at the computer to make up for all the interruptions. There are certainly things you can do to make it easier, like have a neighborhood teenager come in for a few hours to watch your children while you work, or work only when your spouse is home and can keep an eye on the kids.

Choosing work that fulfills you This is SO important! Right now you’re probably thinking, กI don’t care what type of work I do, as long as it brings in a paycheck.ก I guarantee that attitude won’t last long. Like I said, you will need to be extremely selfmotivated and selfdisciplined to work at home, and your job will be a lot easier if you actually like what you do! Think about the type of person you are, and the type of work that suits you best. Are you creative and freespirited, or nosetothegrindstone efficient? Give some thought to your กvisionก of working at home, and try to find a job (or business) that will complement that.

Do you even want a กjob?ก When some people decide they want to กwork at home,ก they don’t want a regular JOB at all. What they want is the freedom to set their own schedule and do work they love. Itกs certainly possible to find those qualities in a job, but it can be difficult. If this describes you, consider starting your own business instead, focusing on your existing talents and abilities. I think many people shy away from this idea because it seems so overwhelming. But people do this every day! Itกs not hard at all. If you don’t know much about business but have an interest, start learning! There are so many great resources on the internet today. If you’re still not sure what type of work at home is best for you, get out a pad of paper and a pen. Write this sentence along the top of the page: I want to work at home because . . . and then write down as many endings to that sentence as you can think of. If most of your answers have to do with freedom and passionate, fulfilling work, a กjobก might not be the best thing for you.

Regardless of what type of work you decide on, understand that working at home can be difficult and challenging. But for most of us who do it, it is also wonderful. Personally, I wouldn’t trade it for anything! And once you find the right job or business, you will probably feel the same.

If this article has given you the impression that working at home might not be for you, remember that you can change if you want it badly enough. If you’re not very motivated, work on that. Give yourself little challenges every day and strengthen your level of selfdiscipline. If you need health benefits, keep searching for a job that provides them, or research other possibilities like affordable health insurance for the selfemployed. If your resolve is strong enough, you can make it happen! Never give up on your dreams.

About The Author

Wendy Betterini is a freelance writer and web designer who has been successfully working from home since 2003. In 2005 she launched http://www.CreativeWorkAtHome.com, a community and resource center for homebased professionals, and those who aspire to be. Visit today for tools, tips and information on how you can create your own homebased career, or further improve the one you already have!

This article was posted on August 03

by Wendy Betterini

10 Steps to Getting Paid for Your Marketing Materi

10 Steps to Getting Paid for Your Marketing Materials

by: Paulette Ensign

How many times have you heard the same sound bites come out of your mouth to your clients, prospects, and audiences, almost boring yourself to tears in the process? Imagine generating money directly from those sound bites, from those pearls of wisdom that effortlessly trip off your tongue. Yes, it is completely possible, and here’s how to do it.
1. Capture those tidbits of information as soon as they come to mind. Jot them down in a notebook or get them into a Word document. They can be in a raw format, with just enough information to jog your thinking about what you mean. There will be time to refine them later.
2. Let a couple weeks go by, allowing most of the information to surface in your thoughts. It rarely happens by declaring two hours on a Thursday afternoon to sit at your computer to think of it all.
3. Refine and organize the tips. Divide them into categories and edit the text. Use a writing style similar to what you are reading here.
4. Be sure to include your contact details so readers can easily reach you. Add a brief section about your background so people will know your qualifications for presenting the information.
5. Hire a graphic designer to make the words look good on the page. Your completed product will be a tips booklet measuring about 3 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches when printed. The designer will create their part of the finished product as a PDF file.
6. Send the PDF file from your graphic designer to a printing company. Do an initial print run of 1,000 copies.
7. Think about who can benefit from using your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause. Send them a sample of your booklet and a cover letter describing some of the ways they can increase their sales or further their cause by using your booklet as a promotional tool.
8. Consider corporations, associations, publications, and any other group that seems appropriate for the topic of your booklet. Reach out to as many of them as you can, on whatever budget of time and money you have available to you.
9. Realize that every time one of the largequantity buyers sends out your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause, they are also marketing your business. Your contact information in the booklet allows the reader to reach you directly.
10. Enjoy the expansion of your customer base and your checking account. You are now reaching a larger audience than you are likely to do singlehandedly, thanks to the largequantity buyers of your booklet. And you have been paid by your buyers to reach those new people.
Those sound bites you have been saying for years are now reaching far beyond your current clients, helping your buyers, their clients, and your own business. It doesn’t get a lot better than getting paid for your marketing materials.
© 2004, Paulette Ensign

About The Author

Paulette Ensign has sold almost a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. For information on creating your own tips booklet and leveraging a booklet manuscript into other products, contact Paulette Ensign, Tips Products International 8584810890, San Diego, CA http://www.tipsbooklets.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 21, 2004

by Paulette Ensign

Are You SURE You Want To Start Your Own Business?

Are You SURE You Want To Start Your Own Business? Part Two of a Series

by: Charles and Holly Egner

Why, exactly, do you want to go into business for yourself?

Is it because you cannot stand the thought of working for an uptight, demanding, and perfectly dreadful boss?

Is it because you cannot bear the thought of going through another downsizing or restructuring, knowing that your job could be on the line?

Is it because you want to be your own boss, call your own shots, or see more up side in your earning potential, with the possibility of financial selfsufficiency?

These are all good reasons for wanting to go into business. In fact, studies have shown that many entrepreneurs get their start due to some lifealtering experience such as losing a job or finally walking away from a deadend job or a demoralizing work environment.

It is amazing how creative, resourceful, and innovative you can be when, finally, you reach the edge and find yourself in a survival situation professionally. In times like this, the entrepreneurial spirit comes alive and you figure out that you can simply do it on your own.

Does dissatisfaction alone in some area of your life constitute reason enough to venture into business and the life of entrepreneurship? Many potential entrepreneurs get to this bridge and never cross because they do not know how to discover and unleash the entrepreneur within himself or herself.

Many people resist giving credence to their entrepreneurial tendencies no matter what the circumstances, ignoring the potential for selfexpression, independence and the fulfillment of their dreams. Herein resides the real tragedy. Many people experience paralysis from fear of the unknown and fear of failure. Consequently, they never pursue entrepreneurship and the potential freedom that it can bring to their lives.

Although entrepreneurship appears to offer many advantages for personal and professional growth and accomplishment, why is it that so many new entrepreneurs fail? In fact, studies have shown us that out of every 100 entrepreneurs who start their own businesses, 14 will succeed and a whopping 86 will fail in the first five years. The odds, so to speak, are stacked against you as a nascent entrepreneur. Therefore, if you are contemplating starting your own business you should take it very seriously.

The two biggest reasons people fail in a new business are:

they don’t know what they are doing, and

their business is undercapitalized.

When we say they don’t know what they are doing, we mean they literally don’t know what they are doing in terms of running a business day in and day out. It also makes perfect sense that a new business might be undercapitalized (not having enough working capital to run the business). In fact, many new entrepreneurs, who don’t know what they are doing have a hard time finding either equity or debt capital for the reason that lending institutions and savvy investors typically do not like to give money to people who don’t know what they are doing in business.

In order to improve your chances of beating the odds, what is important is that you educate yourself about business development. There certainly is enough information out there on how to start and run a small business. For instance, if you go to Amazon.com and type in a search for books on กEntrepreneurshipกก alone, you will have over 21,000 book choices. Nevertheless, where does one start in deciding what to read, who to listen to, and what to implement?

In the more than 55 years of combined experience in the world of business that my wife and I have had, and working with hundreds of hopeful entrepreneurs, we discovered four basic stages to business development that every entrepreneur must go through to enhance their chances for business success.

Reflect

Envision

Create

Build

Most entrepreneurs, especially the 86 that fail, usually skip one or more of these essential stages of business development and find themselves in a heap of trouble before they know it. Typically, a new entrepreneur will get and idea (envision) and go straight to market (build). They simply unknowingly skip the ‘reflectก and กcreateก stages, and charge into business with an กifIworkhardenoughก attitude everything will be all right.

Well, statistically we know that not everything is all right and it does not work.

About The Author

Charles and Holly Egner are veteran entrepreneurs. They have trained, coached, and mentored hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs. Their last entrepreneurial venture sold for just under $400 million in 1999. BuildOnYourDreams.com was founded to help promising entrepreneurs to build the business of their dreams. For their free Life Strategy Planning Teleseminar, visit http://www.BuildOnYourDreams.com today.

This article was posted on November 04, 2004

by Charles and Holly Egner

Information Products For Profit

Information Products For Profit

by: Matt Bacak

It is no secret that the internet has created the new generation of millionaires in only a few short years. Every few seconds a person starts a home business somewhere around the world, and the amazing thing is that the market does not seem to be getting saturated anytime soon! Business is booming, and for quick easy cash people are turning to the internet.

However faced with the fact that many of us do not have a product to sell, nor do we have the infrastructure set up or the manpower necessary to distribute products. Nevertheless a growing group of people are selling products right out of their home office or their kitchen table; how? Information products! Now regular bookstores and music stores are getting serious competition from our very own neighbors. The technology available to all of us makes it extremely easy to create your very own information product; whether that is a book, a music CD, a course, you name it! All you need is a computer and an internet connection, some time and virtually no investment!

Here are some products that you can create right now!

Ebooks

Ebooks are electronic books; it is like a regular book but they can be read on your computer, or printed out with a regular printer. Because you do not produce a ขphysicalข product you also do not have any printing costs! So therefore, you can already guess, you will keep 100% of the profits you make. Even more powerful however is the fact that you can sell unlimited numbers of your book, and do not need any inventory. Nor will you be stuck with piled of unsold books. You create something now, and you can profit from it forever! You can write about anything you are knowledgeable about, or anything you would like to research further. If you do not feel comfortable with this you can easily hire a ghostwriter who will do it for you.

CDกs

The only thing you need is a CD burner and the sky is the limit; you can publish your ebook on CD, or a collection of books. You can also record you own music CD or publish a course. If you know how to write simple programs you can even make your own software. Or again; all you need is a good idea because you will easily find a professional willing to develop your product for you!

Audio Cassettes

These go along the same lines as CDกs; you can sell a product people can listen to in their car, on their way to work. You can even publish an ebook and a cassette version of the same product to maximize profits! Generally all you need is a tape recorder that can produce good quality tapes, and preferably one with two tape decks so you can easily reproduce the initial tape you made. Audio Cassettes are a bit more labour intensive than CDกs, but if you truly want to reach your entire target market, they are a must.

Special Reports

These are relatively short ขbooksข, or just a collection of pages on a particular topic. Remember those reports you wrote back in school? Think a few of those bunched together, on a topic people want to learn more about.

Self Help Products

All the products above can be used in this category; people are always hungry for information, regardless of the state of the economy. In fact; when there is an economic downturn sellers who specialize in books on how to save money or make money see their profits grow faster than normal! Knowledge is profit; and you are unique like anyone else.

How to Create a Product

You more than likely possess enough knowledge to create hundreds of information products; however because you are unaware of the fact that there are people out there who do not know what you know, you are more likely to think you do not know anything special or worth selling. Think again! Have your friends ever asked you for advice or help on something? Whether in a hobby, at work, or a relationship? Are you good at your job? Or extremely involved in a special hobby? This little brainstorming session should already give you plenty of ideas that you can put to work right now!

The next step is to think of topics you want to know more about. Itกs likely that if you are interested in something, other people are too. Now all you need to do is some research and then develop the product of your choice; you will be doing all those other people a favor by presenting them with a solution to their ขproblemข without having to do any research themselves.

About The Author

Matt Bacak became ก#1 Best Selling Authorก in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s eBiz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com.

This article was posted on August 08

by Matt Bacak