Archive for June, 2007
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Being a work at home mom is great in many ways. You can set your own hours, work when you want to, be with the kids more, and you are your own boss. The perks are wonderful. But having a home business can also become overwhelming quickly when it comes to balancing work and caring for the home and family.
It’s important for a WAHM to be organized so that the home business and the home and family are taken care of. Being organized doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself. Enlist the rest of the family to help out.
Instead of trying to run your home business and do everything around the house that needs to be done, delegate chores out to the rest of the family. This can either be done on a rotating basis where the chores change each week, or you can assign certain chores to family members that they will be responsible for on a daily or weekly basis. Almost everyone can do something.
In assigning chores to be done, it’s helpful to remember that the kids and hubby will no doubt not do things the way you do them. Unless something is really needing taken care of better or in a different manner, don’t go behind them and redo it or complain to them. The idea is to get help so that you can work. If you go behind them, you’re not getting work done.
Kids are very capable of helping with day to day chores around the house. Have them clean their own rooms and do their own laundry and take turns doing the dishes. Those that are old enough can also take turns, along with the hubby, in cooking dinner. Even young kids can help fold clothes and put them away, plus vacuum and take out the trash.
Work at home moms absolutely need a work schedule. Organizing your time helps you to work more efficiently. Your work schedule doesn’t have to be the same time every day. Schedule around events such as school and after school activities or homeschooling, shopping, going out, family time, etc. A day planner is very helpful for keeping up with important dates and events so that you can schedule work time around things you want to do.
Your work time should be just that, work time. Once you have an established schedule, family and friends need to know that this is your work time. Let the answering machine pick up phone messages unless it’s business. Have ready made and easy to prepare snacks for the kids.
Being a WAHM can easily become overwhelming without being organized. To prevent yourself from burning out with a work at home business, get the entire family involved in helping to care for the home. Your home will be organized, and your business will likely be more successful when you aren’t stressed out in trying to do it all.
Posted in Articles, Get Organized | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
When deciding on what your newsletter will be about, it’s important to hone in on a niche topic or area of expertise. Picking a niche will help to ensure that subscribers are getting the information and resources they are looking for about a particular topic.It allows you to focus on one niche area rather than trying to cover an entire area.
An opt-in mailing list is a mailing list that a person subscribes to and has to verify that they did indeed subscribe. An opt-in mailing list is preferable because it cuts down on the possibility of spam in that the subscriber asked to get your newsletters.
Before beginning the niche newsletter, do some research and find out how many, if any, other newsletters there are out there that focus on your desired niche. Generally speaking, the fewer the better. Having fewer newsletters already on your topic means that when someone is searching for said topic, they will find you much easier. Having a niche area that’s rather obscure will mean it might be slower building your opt-in mailing list, but at the same time, you might gain more simply because there aren’t many newsletters on your chosen topic.
When making your website on your niche, use a lot of keywords and use them often. You might consider archiving your newsletter on the site to help draw in readers. The keywords will help to generate more traffic and thereby boost your mailing list subscribers. If your niche happens to deal with any brand names, use those brand names often through your site and in your newsletter. The key is to not only drive traffic to your site and gain subscribers but to make sales.
If your desired niche for your newsletter is special needs kids, consider focusing in on that idea. Rather than trying to cover all things about special needs kids, think about a tighter niche such as autism. Special needs kids with autism is still a big area, so focus even tighter. You might consider a niche about an autism diet for special needs kids, the Gluten Free Casein Free Diet, or GFCF Diet.
So instead of publishing on a wide topic area of autism in special needs kids, your niche topic would be about the GCFC autism diet. This would mean that readers who are not interested in information and resources about the GCFC autism diet wouldn’t subscribe to your opt-in mailing list, but those readers who are wanting resources would sign up to your mailing list. You might tighten the niche even more by offering only particular products for sale that deal with this topic.
Building an opt-in niche mailing list will result in having subscribers who want only what you are offering, thereby increasing the number of subscribers and sales.
Posted in Articles, Self Promotion, Publicity, Working the Web, Advertising | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Real estate has become big business, more so today than ever. One of the oldest trends in real estate marketing is to purchase a home in need of restoration, do repairs and restore the home, then flip it for a substantial profit.Buyers have been flipping houses for years but the popularity of house flipping has greatly increased, possibly with the help of the internet in locating homes for sale.
The classified section of the newspaper often has ads for low priced homes for sale in need of being fixed up or repaired. Sometimes the repairs are simple and inexpensive. Sometimes the home is very damaged and in need of a lot of overhauling to be livable again. Whatever the problem with the house, the owner wants to sell it and sell it cheap. Their loss can be your gain.
House flipping is a very lucrative business. Purchasing a house at a very low cost allows the buyer to be able to spend money on repairing the home. After the buyer does the home repairs, the house will be put put up for sale by the new owner. The buyer sells the home at a huge profit.
In order to make a profit when you flip a house, it’s important to remember to keep spending down. If you are buying the house only to fix it up and then resell it to make money, your main goal is to keep costs low so that profits will be high.
When searching for a house to purchase that you plan to repair and sell, you want to first consider the price of the home. Then you will want to do a thorough walk through of the home and determine the amount of work the home needs, and the approximate cost of the home restoration. It’s also a good idea to check the value of the property value of the homes surrounding the house you are thinking of buying. This will give you an idea as the possible selling price you can expect after restoring the house.
After you have a buying price of the house, the approximate restoration costs, and the potential resell value of the home, you can make a decision about buying the property. You will also want to factor in the time that you personally spend on the home repairs. The idea of buying a home to flip it for a profit is just that, to make a profit. If you don’t find yourself making a profit that is worth the investment, time, and effort put into the house, then you might want to pass on this particular house and look for another.
Using the profits of the first house that you flip to purchase another home to repair and flip adds to your profit because it undoes the need to a bank or credit loan. Once you flip your first home, you can be set for a lot of house flipping simply by using the profits of one sold home to continue purchasing, repairing, and flipping more houses. House flipping can be a nice and profitable living.
Posted in Articles, Work at Home Jobs, Home Business Tips | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
You’ve built the ultimate website. The layout looks fantastic, it’s easy to navigate, and you’ve got a nice selection of content for your readers to enjoy. You’ve promoted your site and the hits have been coming in, but suddenly there’s a huge drop in your hits.What’s going on and how do you keep traffic returning to your website?
First of all, to keep visitors returning to your website, you have to give them something to return to. Promotion and marketing is great, but if you don’t give a reader a reason to return, why are they going to return? Studies show that repeat customers make you a profit as much, if not more so, than first time visitors.
Following are some tips and ideas that can keep traffic returning to your site and increase profits from your affiliate marketing and sales from your site.
Keep fresh and updated content on your website. New articles are a must to a content site. Visitors who return to your site want to see new content added for them to read. A good rule of thumb is to add one to four articles a week, perhaps more so, depending on the size and topic of your site.
You can write articles yourself or you can hire someone to write for you to your specifications. You can also look at article directories online and find free articles that pertain to your website. Often people will provide free articles in exchange for links back to their site, something that benefits both you and the author of the articles.
Offer a free download to your readers. Offering free downloadable ebooks is another way to keep traffic coming back to your site. Change the ebook each week that you are giving away so that the customer has something new to download. You can also offer free patterns if you have a craft or sewing site, free music samples if you have a music site, etc. The point is to offer something new on a regular basis.
Run a contest. People love to win things! Offering a contest on your site is a sure way to increase traffic and have visitors coming back. Offering a new contest on a regular basis will improve even on this idea. You can give away books, DVDs, CDs, ebooks, designer jewelry you created, handcrafted baby items, beauty samples, gift baskets, run writing contests, etc. Keeping a new contest going will ensure more repeat web traffic.
Offer special discounts and/or coupons on items. People love sales and bargains! Offering a regular sale or discount on something that you sell on your site can help with repeat web business. Changing the sales weekly or monthly will give readers something new to look for on your site, so they will visit to see what you are offering.Saving money is something that just about everyone wants to do, so if you offer something at a nice savings to the customer on a regular basis, chances are they will return to see what you have available.
Have a blog and a newsletter. Keep in touch on a personal level with your readers by means of a blog and a newsletter. Blogs have become very popular, and they are much more personal in nature. Newsletters offer the opportunity to tell customers what’s new on the site, what areas you have updated, specials you have going, etc. Blogs and newsletters are great business tools in that they offer direct communication with your readers and customers, thereby bringing in repeat traffic. You can add links in your blog to your latest articles or contests. Offering a gift when they sign up for your newsletter helps to gain subscribers.
Host a forum or chat. Allow your customers a place to talk to you or to others interested in your site. Getting on a personal level with your readers shows the readers that you are real and are interested in their thoughts about your products or services. It also helps to bring them back to you site for repeat business.
Bringing repeat traffic back to your website isn’t hard to do, but it does require that you keep your site updated and that you communicate with your readers. Keeping fresh content up in the form of articles and news and giving the reader something new to look forward to will not only bring back customers to your website, it will add more profit in your pocket.
Posted in Articles, Self Promotion, Publicity, Working the Web, Advertising | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Finding the time to write isn’t always easy. Working from home often leaves the impression that you are available to do anything at any given time. Learning to tell someone NO isn’t easy but is often necessary.While you obviously don’t want to hurt feelings, having a freelance writing career isn’t something you can obtain if you can’t find the time to write. If you are writing for a hobby and not doing it to make a living, then this article won’t apply to you.
Well meaning family might call you up asking you to eat lunch with them. Friends might show up unexpected at your front door. The neighbor might come over asking if you want to go shopping with her. The phone rings with a friend calling just to talk about her child’s birthday party. Your sister calls telling you all about her newest diaper craze. None of these people are intentionally trying to stop you from working, but each one of them are distracting you because you haven’t set it straight that this is your work time and you have bills to pay.
There are several ways to make time to write. The one common thing in any method you choose is that you simply must make it known that just because you work at home, that doesn’t mean you are available to do just anything with anyone just because they think you don’t have a ‘real’ job. Writing is your job and you are getting paid to write. You can’t make money and make a living at writing if you can’t make the time to write.
Make it a habit not to answer the phone when you are working. Make it clear to family and friends that unless it’s very important, not to call during whatever time you have set as your work time. Define what you consider to be important to prevent any misunderstandings and hard feelings. Give a time frame that you will be working.
Friends and family that drop by unexpected can wreak havoc in your working schedule. There’s nothing really wrong in this especially if it’s someone you don’t see that often. But if it’s done on a regular basis, you need to let them know that this is your work time and give them a time frame that’s acceptable for them to come over and visit. Let it be known that you are writing and stick to that thought. Visiting is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills.
If you don’t hold to your own schedule, don’t be upset if someone calls or comes by and you are working but gave them a different working schedule. Set a working time and stick to it.
If you have kids, especially young kids, you might find it very difficult to care for them properly and write. Toddlers that are in and out of your office, or older kids that constantly go in and out, are simply making it difficult to concentrate. Give older kids something to do for a specified time while you write.
Little ones need constant supervision. Giving the children the supervision they must have and writing simply do not mix. You cannot have your full attention on both, and therefore one will suffer. The way around this is to make time to write when the children are asleep or in the watchful eye of another adult.One idea is to hire a babysitter to watch young children while you work.
Getting up early or staying up late also allows for peaceful writing time. Working when others in the home are sleeping offers quiet time and less distractions. By the time the rest of the household are waking, you can have a lot of writing accomplished.
If you simply cannot get quiet time in your home, one option is to go to another location to write. The library is an excellent place simply because it’s usually very quiet. Any area that you can write in peace without interruptions will work.
You can find the time to write and make money writing if you learn to say NO to being interrupted and keep a good time schedule going.
Posted in Articles, Freelance Writing, Time Management | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
You’ve created some wonderful work. You want it to be seen and noticed. You want people to buy your creation. You want publicity. After all, how can you make money if what you have created to sell is never seen by the general public?That’s where promoting and marketing yourself comes in.
Regardless of what you have created, the principle is the same. In order to sell, to be seen and noticed, you must promote and market your creation. It can be a book you wrote, handcrafted designer dolls, fabulous paintings, or handcrafted jewelry.
If you are someone that simply creates things for the fun of it, for a hobby, and you don’t do it to make a living, then there is of course no need to worry about promoting or marketing anything. But for the rest that create in order to sell and earn a living, marketing and publicity is a necessity. No one will purchase or order something that they don’t even know exists.
The number one rule of promoting is shameless self promoting. If you don’t promote yourself, no one will! Toot your own horn! Tell others about your creation, your site, your book, your articles, your crafts, etc. Whatever it is that you have created that you are wanting to sell or promote, tell about it! Don’t sit back and expect someone else to market you if you will not market yourself. Self promotion will get you everywhere, but sitting back and not telling about what you are offering won’t make sales.
Make a website. A website is paramount today for just about any business related venture. Have clear photos of your what you are wishing to sell or market, and give very accurate descriptions of items. If you are promoting a book, offer a sample chapter for free. Offering the book in a downloadable ebook format can also increase sales.
Have a newsletter. This offers you the chance to tell your readers what you have new, about sales and specials, or to alert subscribers about updates to your site. A newsletter is one of the best publicity and marketing tools you have, because it allows you to communicate directly with all of your readers.
If you are in an area that had art fairs and craft fairs, reserve a spot to sell your wares. If you have written a book and want to promote it, ask local bookstores about setting up a table in their store to sell books and sign them. Offer a free book to every 100th person to want a book or something similar. Face to face sales have an advantage to internet sales in that it’s more personal. Internet sales have an advantage in that you can reach so many more people online.
If it’s feasible offer samples of your products. Giving away free samples can often bring in sales by allowing a potential customer to try before they buy. The best way to offer any free samples is by face to face contact rather than over the internet.While the web offers a lot more people, a lot of freebie web surfers are simply looking for a freebie with no intention of buying anything. Face to face contact gives a better chance at making the sale and offers you the opportunity to speak directly with the person, making it a much more personal experience and therefore allowing the potential customer to more than likely remember you.
The simple fact is that unless you hire a promotional or marketing expert, no on is going do market for you and promote for you. You can ask family and friends to help get the word out, and word of mouth is good. But it all starts with you. Marketing will make sales and sales make money. Promoting yourself will make yourself known and the profits will roll in. Sitting back and expecting to be found by some streak of luck just isn’t reality. If you took the time and energy to create something, take the time and energy to market that something and promote it shamelessly. Shameless self promotion will have you laughing all the way to the bank, while the person that didn’t think it was the right thing to do will be still sitting there waiting to see the green.
Posted in Articles, Self Promotion, Publicity, Advertising | No Comments »
