Work at Home Based Business

Archive for June, 2009

Everyone likes to think their home based business is solid as a rock, I know I do! Sit back and think about yours for a minute. Is it REALLY as solid as you think it is or could it be gone in an instant?

It’s very difficult for us to realistically look at our business model and determine if it’s solid or not. That’s why I am writing this post, I’m going to force you to take a good hard and long look at your home business model. Hopefully, after you do that, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether or not your home based business is built on a solid foundation or if it’s on the verge of crumbling to the ground.

The best way to do this is with an example…

If you’ve been an internet marketer long enough then you surely remember the “Made for Adsense” sites of the early part of this decade. If you don’t remember then just imagine. Internet marketers were making a killing with them! Then, something tragic happened…

Google decided that all these sites were basically worthless and put an end to them. They got removed from the index and all of the income they were producing for marketers dried up overnight. And I won’t even mention how many people completely lost their Adsense accounts forever. A lot of online home business owners never recovered from that event.

Okay, let’s take a closer look at this business model to show why it wasn’t solid. What did it depend on? It was built on the Google Adsense program… A third party site. In this case, the internet marketer had no control over the program itself, in particular, the Terms of Service of that program. If Google changed the rules, which they did, it could have adversely affected the income of each online home business owner, and it did. In fact, these changes in policy may have been the biggest disaster in terms of adverse effects on home business owners in the history of making money online. Another similar home based business killer was when eBay banned the sale of digital products.

Do you see what the point is here? I know it’s impossible to predict the future, but you need to look at your home business model and see how much of it is within YOUR control and how much of it is being controlled by a 3rd party site like Google or eBay? If more of it is being controlled by other sites, then you have a business model that could fall down around you at any minute.

Once you recognize this, you can then take steps to correct the problem. That might mean you need to come up with a whole new home based business model to ensure you have an indestructible business.

If you don’t do this then all you can do is hope for the best. But in the ever-changing internet marketing world, I wouldn’t count on anything!

Many people who attempt to make money on the Internet for the first time try to do it by filling out surveys. These people often hope this will lead to a steady income and instead, end up being very disappointed. One reason they fail is that they have their sites set too high because of all the lies and misinformation that abounds online. In reality, surveys don’t pay near enough money to provide an income and there are a limited number of them anyway.

Once these people get discouraged with the surveys, they often realize they can make additional money by learning how to refer other people to the site. Many survey sites pay you a bonus if you can bring in referrals and it is possible to get these referrals by using both offline and online methods. The offline ways include such methods as printing up fliers and business cards and leaving them around town on bulletin boards and other similar places. Getting family and friends to sign up is another popular way of obtaining referrals.

Getting referrals online through the Internet is, however, the far superior way of bringing in referrals as you can reach so many more people online than you ever can offline. If you want to try the online method, you should make a blog or website and then get people to sign up through your link. The real trick is how to get the right type of people to come to your site that will be interested in signing up. If you can figure out how to get the right type of traffic to your website and lots of it, you will have in reality learned how to do Internet marketing.

Most beginners try to get referrals by chasing social traffic and hanging around forums. They sign up for traffic exchanges other such things and try to get any kind of traffic they can to their blogs. But if you are serious about making money online, you need to know that all traffic is not the same. If you want to make money, you need to attract the traffic that is looking specifically for what you are selling. Any other type of traffic will most likely not be productive.

Anyone who attempts to make money online in this fashion must understand that it is a long, hard process. If you don’t have patience and gain some knowledge along the way, the likelihood of you succeeding is slim. Most people give up because they are too impatient and never set down the right path to begin with. However, if you stick with it and know that there will be frustrating times, you will continue to learn and ultimately figure out what works and what doesn’t. You really can make money with some of the GPT and survey sites: you just have to do it through referrals!

Please visit Alan’s website Online Surveys For Money where he will show you more CashCrate referrals tips and more ways to make money by referring.

Should you find free home business training or pay for the information? This is a debate among internet marketers that will probably go on forever. Which side are you on? Do you think it’s better to pay for your home business training or get it for free? Before you answer that question, you need to know some of the pros and cons of each and that’s exactly what I am going to cover in this post.

It’s not a question of deciding whether or not to pay for something just to save money. There’s a lot more to it than that. Below I have given you a little bit of information about each so you can decide which direction you want to go in, or combine them. There’s no reason why you can’t get some home business training for free and also pay for some of it. Anyway, let’s look a little deeper into this debate…

If you ask 100 people the question, “Which is better, paid or free education” you’ll probably get a split right down the middle on the answers. Nobody can really say what the best road to take is. The reason is probably because there are some big problems with both methods.

For example, let’s start with free home business training. One of the biggest problems with it is knowing where to get it. You can’t just go to a random website and find the latest and greatest information on starting and building a successful home business. You have to go out and really do some searching for the information. That means going to forums, search engines, blogs, or wherever else and getting as much information as you can. You’ll find it all over the place.

And therein lays the problem… There’s no order to this information. It’s kind of like going to a restaurant without getting a menu or a waiter to ask. Unless you go to each table, you really don’t know what they have or what’s good. And of course going around to all the tables is a very time consuming process. Now, imagine if there was a menu that said, “Pick of the day” where you could pick out the chef’s suggestion and a waiter to ask whether it’s really good or not. That would not only save you a lot of time but it would also probably land you a good meal without taking much of a risk.

Having said that, there is never a guarantee that the home business training you pay for is going to be a good one either. There are plenty of crappy ebooks, courses and membership sites out there. And that’s the problem with going the paid route. Sure, you can ask for a refund in most cases, but in the meantime, you’ve wasted all that time going through the lousy material and now you’re back to square one looking for another paid source. Plus, you might not get a refund, and you’d be out of the money that you didn’t really have to spend in the first place.

And then, of course, some paid home business training is very expensive. Even if every internet marketer in the world says it’s the best thing since sliced bread, there may be a very good chance that you just can’t afford it. Then what do you do? And then what would you do if you found out that the same information was out there for free… Provided you could find it?

As you can see, there is no perfect solution here. Learning anything, whether it’s for free or not, comes with a price tag attached to it… You either pay your time, your money, or both.

Ultimately, finding home business training, free or paid, comes down to what’s most important to YOU!

When most people start looking for a way to work at home online they don’t really know what they are looking for, even if they think they do. The phrase “work at home” is actually very general and several different things fall under it. You are most likely looking for one of these three things: A work at home opportunity, a work at home job, or a home business. They all have quite a few similarities but they also have some very big differences.

Below is an explanation of the three types of “work at home” so you can see the similarities and differences. There is a lot of natural overlap between them so it’s almost impossible to perfectly categorize them, but I have done it as closely as possible.

A work at home opportunity is somewhere in between a work at home job and a home business. It’s a way for you to make money at home without actually working for someone else, but you aren’t really in business for yourself either. You can sometimes earn pretty good money this way but you’ll never become wealthy doing it. Your pay will mostly depend on how much time you can put into performing tasks and you obviously only have so much time in a day so it limits your income potential.

Your typical work at home opportunity will consist of taking paid surveys, completing free offers for money, paid forum posting, getting paid to blog, and other “get paid to” or GPT programs. You might also do some freelance work or some sort of data entry. Although those are more “work at home jobs” than anything.

A work at home job is where you work for someone else performing a certain task (job) or a number of tasks for them but you do it from home. It’s basically the same as a regular job that you do offline but you are doing it from home instead. These jobs can pretty much involve anything but often times it will be technical support, customer service, telemarketing, transcription, data entry, and other similar jobs.

The thing you have to remember is that you are working for someone else when you have a work at home job. Even though you are working at home, you will still not have the freedom you might think and you will never get paid very much money this way. If all you really need to do is make a little extra money for whatever reason but want to do it from home, then finding a work at home job would be ideal. The best part is that you know exactly what you have to do to make money and exactly how much you will be paid for doing it.

Starting a home business is the best way to work at home, in my opinion. You have the freedom to work when you want and make money from home doing something you choose and enjoy. There are virtually unlimited things you can do to build a home business and this is the only way you can actually create complete financial freedom for you and your family.

The only downside to a home business, compared the other two ways of working at home discussed above, is that you don’t have the security of knowing just how much money you are going to make and when you will be paid. But you do have the luxury of knowing that your income depends solely on your efforts and has almost no limitations. Use your time wisely doing the right things and you can eventually be making money like it’s nothing.

I hope you now have a much better understanding of the differences between work at home opportunities, work at home jobs, and home businesses. They are similar but they are certainly not the same things. The differences should not be ignored because they can have a significant impact on what you do to make money and how much you can make.

When you are looking for a work at home opportunity you need to be sure you know what you are specifically looking to do so you can find the right system for you.

There are thousands of moms who make money working at home with a “moms home business” on a full time basis or just part time to earn a little extra income. Often times it starts out as a way to make money from home while still being able to stay with the kids, but in many cases it eventually turns into a full time income for the entire family. For single moms, as well as wives with husbands who have lost their jobs, the need to be a work at home mom can be urgent and necessary.

How do moms start a home business?

You need to be careful when you are looking for ways to make money at home. You will see a lot of ads online, as well as offline, and it can be hard to distinguish the genuine home business opportunities from the scams.

First, remember that legitimate home business opportunities do not use spam or any illegal marketing methods. If you receive an ad in an email from a name you don’t recognize or a list that you did not sign up for, you should delete it right away without giving it a second thought. Of course sometimes it is hard to remember what lists you signed up for and what you didn’t, but if it looks or reads strangely or doesn’t have a physical postal address and a way to unsubscribe automatically, it is probably spam.

If you are old enough then you probably remember the scams that used to run as “job” ads in the newspapers that would tell you they had work available but you had to pay a fee to get the instructions or equipment. People would send the money and wouldn’t receive anything, or if they did it would be useless. These kinds of scams do still exist offline but for the most part they have moved online. Never pay for a work at home job, and if you are paying to join a home business opportunity, always be sure that you are getting something for your money.

One of the benefits of the internet is that it is easy to research a company or business opportunity before you join. There are many online forums and blogs where you can find feedback from people who have joined and will tell whether it worked for them or not. Of course with any opportunity there are some people who will like it and some who will not, but with a real scam just about all of the feedback will be negative. So spend a few minutes checking that before you spend your time or money on a moms work at home business opportunity.

One of the easiest ways for moms to get started with a home business is to look for a network marketing opportunity, sometimes called multi-level marketing (MLM). There are many of these in almost every imaginable market. As a mom, you probably know a lot of people who might be interested in stuff for babies, household goods, health care products, nutritional products, beauty products, etc… You can find a home business opportunity selling any of those. Search online for “network marketing beauty products” or “MLM health” or whatever interests you.

Many opportunities will tell you to start out by selling to your “warm market” which is just another term for your family and friends. I advise against that because it is not usually easy to sell to people you know. Close family and friends may buy from you once just to help you out but you may feel bad about it. They also may not like that you are using the relationship to try to make money. Instead of asking your friends to buy your products it is often better to ask them to help out by hosting a get together where you can demonstrate the products to other moms that they know.

However, there is a way for moms to succeed in a network marketing home business without doing any of this. It is called attraction marketing.

“Attraction marketing” has become the buzzword of MLM recently. It involves building up your presence so that people start to hear about you and approach you. This beats the discouraging experience of trying to push your products onto everybody you meet. So you should look for a company that will train you in attraction marketing and internet marketing methods rather than expecting you to find all of your customers from among your personal friends, peers, and contacts.

The internet can be a great place to use attraction marketing. You can set up blogs and websites, and gradually build links to them and get them ranked highly in the search engines by learning how to make money online with SEO. Then people will find you when they are searching for information on the types of products that you sell.

It’s also a lot easier to bring in other members this way to build your personal “sales force” of affiliates or “downline” team as it is typically called in MLM. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure how to do this right now. It’s easier than you think and there is plenty of information and resources online that you can learn from. You will likely need some help along the way, so look for a mom’s home business that understands the importance of training you in how to use internet marketing to build your business.

Attention All Moms! Want to see my top home business pick for you? Here you go… My World Plus