Best Home Based Business

The options available for people to work from home today are immense and growing all the time. Whether you want to create a full-time or part-time home business you have more opportunities today to make your dreams come true than at any other time. Coming up with the best home based business is an impossible task, because what suits one person will not suit another.

The purpose of this article is not to list the best home based business ideas but to present some broad ideas that can be utilized to start your own home based business. I hope that this article will get your own creative juices flowing and set you off on a brain storming session to come up with your own ideas to start your own business.

One of the most popular ways people are using the internet to start their own business is to use the age-old trading model of buying and reselling. Sites like eBay and Amazon plus a lot more less well know sites offer entrepreneurs a venue to sell their products Ebay is the most popular at the moment and is a fast way to get a business established for very little investment.

You can have a shop up and running on eBay within a few hours and start trading. Many successful online retail businesses started this way. The advantages of using sites like eBay to start your own business are huge. There’s very little risk involved and you can start with little investment.

EBay is also a great learning experience, like your own business university course taking place in real time. You will learn all the skills required to run a successful ecommerce business on eBay. Marketing. SEO, copywriting, desktop publishing and customer relations to name a few.

After getting the trading experience on eBay, you will be well equipped to open your own ecommerce store and take your business to the next level. Many people are earning a good income from home by adopting this model.

There’s more to the internet than buying and selling goods however. We all have skills that society needs to function on a daily basis. Whether you are a plumber, electrician, builder, desktop publisher, lawyer, skilled in photo manipulation software to list a few, you have something that people need.

Getting the message out about your skills has never been easier. Putting up an information website advertising your skills is relatively easy. If you can’t do it yourself, you can go onto elance and hire someone to do it for you for a reasonable price. There’s also plenty of other sites where you can advertise your services free.

The internet has revolutionized the way we work and the revolution is not over yet. There are immense opportunities for people willing to look and take advantage of them. Virtually everything we do is on the internet, from shopping, to reading news, booking holidays to contacting people.

Anyone operating on the internet requires the skills of web developers, graphic designers and copywriters to name just a few of the many skills people need. If you don’t posses any of these skills then you can soon learn them. A motivated person can acquire essential skills studying at home for little cost within a few months.

I speak from experience. I studied and passed the Cisco qualification CCNA within four months at home using online material. Most of it free. The only things I paid for was one book and the cost of the exam. The same course was running at a local college for 2 years at a cost of £2000.00.

The opportunities tom start a home based business have never been better. Anyone can get in on it. All you need to take advantage of these opportunities is a flexible mindset, a willingness to learn new things and a determination to succeed and the ground is open for you. Don’t let these great opportunities pass you by, wherever you are now, however old you are, regardless of what you have done in the past, the internet is offering you the chance to make a new start. Don’t hesitate. Take it.

Working From Home

Not so long ago working from home wasn’t so easy to do. Most thought it was just a fad perpetrated by futuristic magazines, you know the type that shows smiling families flying between skyscrapers in some flying car. Today however it’s becoming more and more common as work changes. For middle-aged people as the job market contracts and we are shaken out. Working from home in some form of small business may be our only opportunity to remain economically active. The alternative is to sink into inactive depression.

If we can get over the years of belief we have had forced into our heads about associating employment with attending some place where we turn up for so many hours and perform some task for so long before going back home, then we can get to grips with the new ways of working. The internet has completely changed the jobs market and we need to come to terms with these changes.

For the older generation this is a great bonus if we are prepared to adapt to these changes. For the first time we have opportunities to use the internet to start, a small business much easier than has ever been possible. A flexible mind and a willingness to learn new things are essential to surviving in these times.

If you are still in work now is the time to start exploring ways to earn another income through the internet. Even a small extra income can help towards your retirement savings. Think about it if you could earn an extra £250.00 every month above your own wages you can soon build up a respectable retirement pot. Also, when you do eventually retire you have another income coming in.

The days when we got one job, stayed in it until we were sixty-five then rode off into a state financed retirement are well and truly over. If you’re still harbouring under this illusion then open your eyes and wake up fast. All the taxes you’ve paid all your working life have been squandered away. Crooked politicians and businessmen have trousered them. The pot is empty. If you are relying on the state then you are heading towards a retirement of penury.

Throw off your old belief systems and step into the now. Times have changed and we have to change with them. Start now to lay the foundations of a small business then when the inevitable happens, you won’t be wandering around job centres all day. You won’t need to keep waiting for another rejection letter. You can power up your business. Apart from giving you another income, you will maintain your dignity. Become proactive and survive.

The Customer Is Not Alway Right

The adage the customer is always right is wrong. In my opinion anyway. There’s only so much I will take from awkward customers who we all get at some time or another. Now I will go out of my way to help people, but there are some people whom just like being awkward. No matter what you do for them, they will not be happy. Eventually you have to realise that such customers are not worth having.

They will consume too much of your time having to deal with their constant, and usually unjustified complaints. My philosophy is to get rid of them. Sort out whatever they are complaining about, I’d personally just give them a refund, and tell them not to come back. Awkward customers suck the energy out of you and cause stress well beyond their value to your company.

Apply the 80/20 rule here. If you’re not familiar with the 80/20 rule let me explain. An Italian economist discovered the 80/20 rule in 1906 called Vilfredo Pareto. He observed that 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth. Now you may be thinking what does this have to do with running a small business. I’m just about to explain.

Once the 80/20 rule had been discovered other people working in other fields discovered the rule also applies to their field. And this includes almost every endeavour in life we choose to undertake.

In any undertaking the 80/20 rule can be applied, and it means that 20% of your activities are vital to your success and the other 80% are not has important. So let’s have a look at how this works. In a fitness program, for example, it’s the 20% of training you engage in that results in 80% of your increase in The other 80% has little effect.

In business, this rule means that 80% of your success will result from 20% of your work. 80% of your return sales will come from 20% of your customers. Anyone who has managed a project will know that 20% of the project will consume 80% of the time. That’s getting the project off the ground first and tying it all up. We can apply this rule to any area of our lives and when we understand it, it can help us to maximise our efforts into the things that matter in building our business.

Large businesses know that 80% of their sales come from 20% of their sales force and that 80% of their staff problems come from 20% of their staff. In a factory, 80% of the productivity comes from 20% of the workforce. Are you getting the concept? Once you do, you’ll start to see this everywhere.

How to Apply It

The value of this rule to us who are trying to build a small business is that it focuses us to identify the 20% of valued productive activity we need to engage in to build our business. Think about it, only 20% of the things we do to our business during the day are effective. The secret is finding the 20% and focus on it. Cutting out the unproductive 80%

The so-called super managers recognise this rule and apply it to their working day and you should too. Your time is limited so you need to squeeze every minute from it. By applying the 80/20 rule, you can do this. Make sure you are focused on the 20% of activity you need to do to add value to your business. Apply the principal to your own time management. Make sure you use 80% of your time on the 20% of important issues that will help to drive your business forward.

Since discovering the 80/20 rule, I have applied it with great success to my own life and seen my productivity rise. Today I wanted to post to my blog so this post takes some of the 20% of the time I have allotted to my business. Nothing else matters to me at the moment. Once I have finished I will move onto something else that will add value to my business.

We all waste time procrastinating, I’m guilty of this, especially when I have a task in front of me that I don’t like. On Monday, for example, I got my books up-to-date, now I hate bookkeeping but I applied myself and by the end of the day, everything was in order. I had applied, albeit, reluctantly 80% of my time to the task. When I had finished them, I had that glow of satisfaction that comes when we complete an essential task.

In my own business ArtsCraftsandHobbies, I know that 80% of my return sales come from the same 20% of my customers so I give them 80% of my time. I know that 80% of my sales come from 20% of my stock. Knowing this allows me to get rid of slow moving stock and look for replacements. By adopting this rule, we can break down our day into productive activities ignoring the unproductive ones that give us little return.

The difference between someone who appears to have a lot of energy, and gets things done, and someone who drifts about from one project to another never completing any, is simply the productive person has identified, and incorporated into his/her daily schedule the 80/20 rule. The productive person is focusing 80% of his/her time into the 20% of activities that matter, ignoring the rest. Tangible results can be seen from this.

This brings me back to where I started about awkward customers. Apply the 80/20 rule to these. 80% of all your stress and hassle will come from 20% of your customers so just get rid of them. You don’t need them and you can’t afford to have your energy drained by these energy vampires. I’m not talking about the customer who has a genuine complaint because you have made a mistake. I’m talking about the customers who just have to complain. Who feel because they have made a purchase from you that they own you and have the right to abuse you and compl

They don’t. An example is a customer who bought an art instruction DVD from me a while back and complained the artist didn’t explain how to paint a sky clearly enough. This apparently was my fault. After a number of emails that wasted time I had planned for other things it was obvious that this person was never going to be happy. I asked for it back and refunded the person’s money. I then put in place measure so that person could not purchase from either my eBay shop or my website again.

Complainers Don’t Win

I hear many people complaining about EBay’s rising costs. Most of the people complaining are unhappy that they are not making enough money once EBay have taken their share. Many people selling on eBay are looking around for alternative sources to sell their stock on; I am too. It’s a logical part of business to look for cheaper sources and more profitable outlets. I was reading on a number of forums about people who have closed their shops on eBay and packed in because they couldn’t make enough money.

Packing up your tent and leaving the field because things are not going as planned is not the way to go if you want to succeed. We have to operate in the world as it is not as we would like it to be. And we have to accept the conditions in which we enter the game.

EBay have a monopoly and they behave as all monopolies behave; arrogantly. Safe in the knowledge that at the moment there is no other sales site that can match them for the amount of traffic they generate every day. Millions of people log into eBay everyday. Twenty-four hours a day the great shopping mall is open and if you want to sell goods online that, you simply can’t ignore it.

It’s a big generator of traffic and you have to plug into it if you are serious about building a business. I know there are other sites trying to get established and I hope one day they will and offer some serious competition to eBay. At the moment, however they are not in the same league. I read about people packing up from eBay and moving to another auction site. I won’t mention the name to protect the innocent. After a month of waiting for their first sale, they return to eBay.

So let’s get real. Ok we’re not happy about some of the policy changes eBay keeps inflicting on us. And we’re certainly not happy about the charges that are too high. To those who complain that they can’t make any money I would suggest either they are selling the wrong product or they are not sourcing it cheaply enough.

I sell on eBay as a part of my business strategy but I will never sell anything that doesn’t return me a good profit margin. There is quite a lot of work involved in selling on eBay and you need to make a decent profit or it’s not worth it. I have dropped quite a few products from my line because they didn’t bring the return I wanted.

Most of them sold fast enough but not at the margin I wanted so I dropped them and looked for replacements. Now many businesses will sell on eBay at a loss just to attract a buyer to their website where they will then up sell other products to the customer. This is a viable and successful strategy which I may employ myself at some time. At the moment, however I want a decent return on my investment.

If you’re feeling a little depressed about your progress on eBay, and who doesn’t at some time, it’s part of the human condition. Stop for a while and re-evaluate your position. Look at your products and ask yourself are they really the right products to be selling? Can you source them cheaper? Are you making enough profit on them? If the answer is no then look for different products or increase the price.

There’s no point complaining about eBay prices, policies just accept them and work with them I’ve said this before, and I’ll no doubt repeat it many times but make sure you factor all the eBay costs into your price. Don’t absorb the costs. Factor in the costs then add you margin. People who buy on eBay are getting a service. Good products delivered to their home, they have to pay for that service. With the price increases eBay has instigated over the last year or two it’s impossible for sellers to sell cheap and make a profit. So don’t. If shoppers coming to eBay decide the price of things is going up and leave then that’s eBay’s fault and they will have to deal with it.

Bad weekend on ebay

I’ve had a bit of a disaster on eBay this weekend. It started on Thursday. EBay is instigating another change for sellers. They are updating the look of EBay stores. This is an update that will come into effect in March, whether you like it or not. I went into my control panel and saw eBay had given me the option of previewing the new store. I didn’t have to accept it yet but I could look at it and if I liked it, I could keep it running.

So, with nothing to lose (so I thought) I clicked the preview button. Everything looked great. I really liked the new look, it’s crisp, clear and attractive so I decided to keep it, why not? So, I applied the change and carried on doing what I was doing.

By Sunday afternoon, I was getting a bit worried that my weekend sales had dropped off drastically from eBay. This was unusual; my sales have been consistently climbing, even on a bad day I sell a certain amount on eBay. To be honest I was enjoying the break but this lack of activity was starting to drag my daily sales average down. A situation I could not allow to go on for long if I am to achieve my yearly/monthly/weekly/daily income goals.

So I moved into investigation mode. The first question I asked myself was “what’s happening?” I moved into my eBay control panel and opened my traffic reports. A brief examination showed me that my traffic was way down. A more thorough examination revealed that my traffic had plummeted since last Thursday.

Now what happened last Thursday? Yes, that’s right I changed my eBay store over to the new look store. I had done nothing else. The drop in traffic and correspondingly sales occurred from the time I swopped over so I concluded this must have had something to do with it.

Further investigation led me to the eBay forums and confirmation of my theory. Other members were complaining about the same thing. They had switched over and lost traffic and sales. A few were quiet irate about it and who can blame them. I did a Google search and found more people complaining about the same thing.

Going back to my control panel, I returned to my original shop front. Within hours, my sales had kicked off again. EBay had introduced the new shop fronts without checking what other effects they would have. Fortunately, there will be no compulsory introduction until March, by which time I hope eBay has sorted the problem out. If not there may be another exodus of sellers who are still smarting from price increases and other anti seller legislation. Eventually the people running eBay might wake up to the fact that they won’t be a monopoly for long if they don’t stop making life difficult for sellers.

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