Work at Home Based Business

Archive for April, 2008

I love when Trent Brownrigg tells it like it is. Reminds me of myself on a bad day at the cleaners. I get cranky with people too when they don’t do the things that they’re supposed to, especially when it comes to running their business. Well, in this article, I’m going to take Trent’s post just a little bit farther. I hope you get something out of this.

Telling somebody not to waste their time is fine, and Trent gave some excellent advice on some things to do. But even before you can do anything, you need to learn HOW to discipline yourself. That’s not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. The sad truth is, many people don’t have a clue how to discipline themselves to do the job that needs to be done.

Well, that’s where I come to the rescue.

I was complimented just today by another marketer about how I am able to do so much in one day. Some people find it almost hard to believe. Well, there is no big secret to it. I don’t have any magic formula for working at my business. What I do is very simple.

I make a schedule and stick to it.

I personally use an Excel spreadsheet. I write down the task I have to do in one column and in the column to the left of it, I put a number from 1 to whatever the last task is. Today, my to do list has 15 items on it. This post being one of them. I then simply go through the list, one item at a time, and as I finish an item, I delete the number in the one column.

The reason I do this is because I can actually see my list doing down. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. That psychological feeling is very important when you’re running a business. Trust me, there are going to be days when things don’t go so well and you’re going to need these little victories to keep you going.

It’s important to estimate how much time each task is going to take you. For example, I know I can write an article in about 15 minutes. So if I need to write 4 articles that day, I need an hour to do this. Eventually, the more you do things, the better you’ll get at estimating time.

I know this seems like very basic stuff, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t even do this much.

So stop surfing the net and checking your stats every 5 minutes. They don’t change that often. Instead, make a schedule and stick to it.

Your business will thank you for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
4 Steps To Starting A Successful Business

There are thousands of people who call themselves “internet marketers” sitting at their computers right now with the intentions of making money online. However, most of them will not make any money, or if they do make some money, it’s won’t be nearly as much as they were hoping to earn.

So, why is it that so many internet marketers are not making money?

It’s because most of them are simply wasting their time when they are “working” online! There are countless ways this can happen. Often times when internet marketers think they are working, they really aren’t. One example is checking your email 20 times per day. I could go on and on giving you examples of how you are wasting your time each day but instead I challenge you to sit back and think about that for yourself.

I will, however, tell you that one of the biggest things internet marketers do to waste their time is blogging. I bet that got your attention! You have been conditioned to think that blogging is vital for online business so you are probably wondering why the heck I would say that it’s a waste of time and will not make you any money.

Here’s why…

In order to make money online, you need traffic to your website or blog. There is no way to get around this fact. However, when you spend all day writing blog posts, you forget to do one very important thing… Market your blog! As an “internet marketer” the most important part of your job is to market.

You can have the best blog in the world with more original content than all ten of the top blogs in your niche, but that means nothing if you don’t get any visitors. Your site might contain the secret to life, but if nobody knows about your site they will never read it. Do you see what I mean? Unless you get visitors, you won’t make money!

But you can’t just get any kind of traffic either. You don’t want untargeted traffic. You don’t want Web 2.0 traffic. You don’t want other internet marketers and bloggers as your main source of traffic. Why? Because those are the people that won’t click your ads, buy from your affiliate links, or even notice any of the things you have on your site that will make you money.

You need to get traffic from the search engines! The visitors you get to your website/blog from search engines are targeted, they are actively searching for your topic, and they don’t have a clue what Adsense is or what affiliate links are. Plus, if you have done your research and are in the right niche, they are ready to spend money. These are the visitors you make money from.

So, what’s the lesson here?

Simple… Stop wasting your time posting to your blog just hoping someone will come read it. Or wasting even more of your time on digg, myspace, delicious, or any of the other social bookmarking and social networking sites that will bring you traffic but not the kind that will make you any money.

Instead, spend more time each day getting inbound links and working on other search engine optimization techniques. Use as much time as you can each day getting your website/blog ranked at the top of the search engines so you can bring in more of the type of visitors that will make you money.

Doing this one simple thing will greatly increase your chances of making money online so you can quit your job to become a full-time internet marketer and live the life you’ve always dreamed of. Now, stop wasting your time and start making money!

About the author:

Trent Brownrigg is a successful internet marketer, blogger, and online business mentor. His passion is helping people start their own home business and make money online. He will also teach you all you need to know about working at home.

You have permission to republish this article on your website or blog as long as you keep it fully intact, with the about the author box, and live links.

You are starting out with your home business amongst way too many people doing the same thing. You need to make a name for yourself or “brand”yourself. Your goal is to have your name and website associated with a certain niche. So how do you do it??

Post on business forums and do it now. This is one of the best ways to get people to see that you are knowledgeable and excited about your business. Post often and intelligently. Look for interesting threads where you can ask a good question or answer with a thoughtful response.

Use your full name as your username. Always be honest, helpful and possibly useful to someone who is reading the thread.

Keep in mind that people who are researching a home business will do many searches to seek legitimate businesses and will end up on a forum. They may not post at all but will read about things they are interested in and flock towards someone who seems the most trustworthy.

They are often seeking a mentor (whether they realize it at the time or not) and someone who will lead them in the right direction. I know this for a fact and have received many emails, calls and private messages from people who have read my posts in forums.

These people who are searching can be your best “targeted traffic” because they truly want to have a home business. You just have to show them the way.

Written by:
Laura Licata
www.moneymakingmathteacher.com/blog

There are plenty of Internet Marketers out there who fall under the spell of procrastination from time to time, me included.

But that’s not really what I’m about in this post. I’m talking about the physical dangers that lurk in the dark corners of the body of every writer, programmer, web developer, Internet Marketer and anyone else who sits in front of a computer for too many hours a day.

Of course we all know the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, but that phrase conjures up the image of a lazy overweight slob lying on a dirty sofa stuffing pizza into his (or her – let’s not be sexist here!) mouth whilst watching TV for sixteen hours a day.

After all, that’s not us – we’re working!

Unfortunately the sedentary lifestyle also depicts those like us who work long, tough hours but don’t balance those hours of physical inactivity with regular bouts of exercise. The impact to health reads like a very long menu to disaster!

Some of us have already had nasty warnings, but in a way they are the lucky ones. Worse is not to have any warning at all, just to be typing away one minute and the next… it doesn’t bear thinking about.

So although this post doesn’t have anything whatsoever to do with procrastination or slacking off the workload and sneakily playing a few rounds of computer golf while no one is looking. It has a very poignant message for all of us to set aside some time each day to get outside in the fresh air and get some light exercise. For me, walking the dogs twice a day up and down the steep hills around where I live is pretty good exercise.

Doing even light exercise like that each day could mean the difference between seeing my ongoing projects bear fruit – or seeing the inside of the ER.

I know what I’d rather be seeing.

Terry Didcott
Freedom Writers
Author of For Dogs

Today has been one of those strange days. I got up with every intention of doing my daily routine when my Internet connection wouldn’t kick in. Well, I called my cable company and sure enough, there was a nationwide outage. They had no idea when it was going to be restored either.

Fortunately for me, I have dial up as well. Oh yes, I don’t just rely on one way to get onto the Internet. You never know what’s going to happen. So as a result, even though I’m working a little slower than usual, I am still able to get my daily chores done and even write this article, which you are reading now.

And this is just one of the many areas, Internet connection, where things can and do go wrong. So the question I put forth to you today is simple. Do you have a backup plan? If something goes wrong with a part of your business, do you have something to fall back on? And I’m not just talking about a temporary thing like an Internet connection going down. I’m talking about when a whole business model goes up in flames.

Think it can’t happen? Remember all those made for Adsense sites that were all the craze about 2 years ago? Well, guess what? After Google cracked down on those crappy pages, people who were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month were suddenly out of business. So make no mistake about it…business models DO crumble.

So again I ask…do you have a backup plan? More to the point, are you diversified or do you have all your eggs in one basket? I have so many different product lines out there that I can’t even keep track of them all. But at least I don’t have to worry if one of them stops selling.

It’s certainly something to think about.

If you’re having trouble even thinking of one business to run, let alone several, you might want to sit down and think of other niches to get into besides the one you’re stuck in. It doesn’t take long to do niche research and get some ideas. As a matter of fact, I have a free book that will show you just how to do niche research and pick out a niche that has the potential to be profitable. You can find it in my signature.

Point is, you don’t want to be waking up one day and find that your bread and butter has turned into dust.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Niche Research In Plain English