Home Based Business – Choosing One That’s Right For You – Here’s Your 10 Point Checklist

 I read somewhere that a staggering 97% of Home Based Business Owners FAIL within their first 3 Years. Would you like to be in the other 3%?
 
Then you need a Checklist.I have spent a mammoth amount of time and money trying to find the “perfect” Home Based Business that will make me an “instant” fortune.Then I realised something…and I’m going to tell you what it is.Firstly, let me ask you something – Have you ever had a job and if so, did you make $10,000 a month after working there for just one month?Of course not. You had to learn the job first! Hopefully you were taught as you went along until you got it right. Even after that I dare say that the job never paid you $10,000 a month. That’s why you’re here. If you have never been in a Home Based Business it can be quite foreign but once you have learned the skills you need to succeed it can be very, very rewarding. By that I mean “financially” rewarding as well as “life” rewarding. Nowadays, it is our family who decides when our holidays are taken…not when a ‘boss’ says it’s ok. It feels so good.I realised that a successful business of any kind is built over time. You have to learn the ropes. I also realised that I didn’t want to do some of the things that were required of me in order to make an income while working from home. So I started writing down what it was that I was looking for, what I was comfortable with and what I was prepared to do consistently each day.This is important if you’re to work from home because there isn’t a boss hovering over your shoulder making sure that you are working. You have to want to do the work and when the money starts coming in it will give you even more incentive.When looking for a Home Based Business you must be sure that you have a check list.
 
 What is it that YOU want? Create one of your own. If you’re unsure, here’s my list to give you some ideas.

TRAINING Is there ongoing Training and Support to achieve the desired income?

PERSONAL CONTACT Can I talk with someone in the prospective business? Is there a phone number or contact email?

INTEGRITY Does the company mean what it says?

EQUIPMENT Do I need a computer, a phone etc? Do I get my own website?

COST Is the start up cost within my budget? This means, do I have the money now or am I prepared to go into debt to invest in this particular home based business and where will the money come from?

PROFITS Are they good or will I be working a long time to create a worthwhile income? Is the company promising an unrealistic income?

ONGOING FEES Is there an ongoing Membership to pay? This is most important to know (and in my opinion to avoid especially when you are new) because if there is a monthly fee, they will charge you EACH and EVERY month whether or not you are making any money!

PRODUCTS Are the products or services highly sought after?

VERSATILITY & DIVERSITY Does this home business teach me things that I can apply to other businesses or other ways to create more income? I am a great believer in Multiple Streams of Income. I like to “Provide For Life”.

PRIDE & COMFORT Am I happy to talk with my family and friends about my new home business that I have undertaken, without them running a mile thinking that I’m going to recruit them! Heaven forbid.
You know, This is my checklist and I was late in creating it but as they say, “Better late than never”. Now you know what I look for in a Home Based Business that suits me and I am happy to share it with you. Maybe you are looking for something with similar traits. I hope this list has been of some assistance to you.

Home Based Business Work – How to Overcome the Number 1 Problem

If you’ve ever done home based business work before, then you know that it really is work. There are several top companies as well as great products that you can try to sell, but the one constant in them all is the purchase of products or services. Some type of product/service must be purchased for you to make a profit. And in order to do that on a big level, you certainly must have leverage. So you can work your tail off and try to make as many one-on-one sales yourself or work smart and leverage your abilities and time by taking advantage of systems to replicate yourself into a sales force of many to sell more products and services to more people. Does that make sense?With home based business work, the problem lies here. People just don’t know how to effectively and inexpensively create that leverage to dramatically increase their results so they can achieve the amount of success they desire! If done right, you actually end up sacrificing less hours to get better results in less time.Now let me say that first of all, if you’ve been failing at home based business work for months now – or maybe even years – realize that it is not your fault. Myself and many other people have suffered with the exact same issues. You simply were never trained and for that reason never knew the right tactics of how to utilize the web and other tools to be successful. That’s like trying to do open-heart surgery after taking a few CPR lessons – it is specialized schooling. But in this case it will not cost you several $100,000′s to master the skills and tools required to become successful with your business; utilizing just a few crucial tools with the right marketing system & training will make your home based business profitable very quickly (depending on how much leverage you apply!).So here’s the number 1 issue with Home Based Business work: getting your business in front of enough interested and qualified people! Again it’s all about leverage – you want to get your message out to more people on a regular basis without spending lots of money or wasting precious time trying to sort through “suspects” one by one yourself (whether in person or on the phone, etc). The bigger your organization, the better your power to move more product and at the end of the day make more money.In order to build a group, you would prefer a system already in place that has the ability to pre-qualify and sort through your interested prospects on autopilot, notifying you of the more serious prospects so you know where you can spend your time for maximum results. Replicate yourself by developing a team to help reduce your Home Based Business work load and multiply your earnings. Show your organization how to utilize the system and how the people they recruit can do the same thing and once this occurs, you will have done a full cycle and completely replaced yourself while your income continues to expand.

Three Key Benefits for Starting a Home Based Business Today!

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last five years, you undoubtedly have been impacted in some way by the state of our global economy. It is a fact that many have lost homes, jobs, and in some cases their lives due to the economic downturn that has had a largely negative impact on the way that people live, work and think about earning a living. Though much is said about the negative aspects of the financial times in what we live in, I would charge that this is the best time, and most importantly a vital time to either begin a home based business or re-energize a business that may be dormant. There are three key reasons that I make this statement.The first reason is for tax benefits. Unless you plan on going to jail or living on ‘the run’ for most of your life you will have some tax liability and exposure if you earn an income. Many miss the point and think that if they can just make more money, all their problems will disappear and life will be great. There is nothing wrong with making more money, but what is more important is keeping more of what you make! Home business ownership allows you to make legitimate deductions that will lessen your tax burden and result in you keeping more of your money. Some of the most notable deductions that you can make for having a home business are: Home office (Space, and utilities needed in running the office), Office supplies, Furniture, Other equipment (e.g. computers, copiers, faxes), Software and subscriptions, Mileage, (Travel, meals, entertainment and gifts), Insurance premiums, Retirement contributions, Social Security, Telephone charges, and Child labor (as in employing your own children). This initial dozen are a great start, but by no means is a completely exhaustive list. You can build an additional income stream by having a home based business and keep more of your money in the process.The second reason for establishing a home based business is to create an additional revenue stream to compliment any full time employment that you may have outside of the home. CAGR, inflation, and all of the other indicators basically tell us that everything is more expensive today than yesterday and will continue to go in an upward trend. Plain and simple, it takes more money to maintain the same standard of living year over year. Most corporations are not increasing their pay to employees at the same rate as inflation. In fact, most pay less within recent years. To cover the gap individuals must become creative in producing additional income for themselves and their families. Home based businesses allow for almost a limitless variety of options to accomplish this task, while keeping overhead low and the potential upside high. Best of all, if the business is chosen carefully, it can become an asset that can be transferred from parent to child or other family members to create perpetual generational benefits.Last, but certainly not least, the home based business can be the ultimate ‘Plan B’ in case your full time work ceases. In the event of a lay-off, down-sizing, company closure, a home based business can provide the revenue to keep your home above water and repel creditors (mortgage companies, etc.) while you replace your lost income, or decide to invest 100 percent of your time and energy in your home based business. Having the peace of mind that additional revenue streams exist during tumultuous change in the corporate world is priceless. To under estimate the importance of having a ‘Plan B’ is like not having car insurance. You just don’t want to go there, because sooner or later you will need it. In addition, the security of having additional income in the face of medical emergencies or for retirement is huge. How many times do we read that medical emergencies are the number one reason for individuals filing bankruptcy or that people who should be retired have to continue to work because they simply can’t afford retirement?If you have not thought about starting a home based business, give it serious thought and find something that you believe in and go for it. If you have a business, but have not done anything with it for a while, get busy. Death and taxes are a reality that we all must face, but if you can reduce your tax burden and live a quality life as long as possible, I think we all can agree, would be a great thing.

What Does a Commercial Property Management Company Do?

Have you ever wondered what a commercial property management company does? Or better yet, what they should be doing?

If you’re asking either question and reading this article, then it’s safe to say you probably own commercial real estate or are considering purchasing commercial investment property. The answer to this question is simple, “Whatever you want them to do”. Ok, it’s not that simple. Practically speaking, the range of service varies quite a bit from company to company, depending on who you speak with. However, there are some basics that are essential and necessary regardless of your reason for needing or wanting professional property management. In this article you will find the answers to what you should expect from a commercial property management company.

The basics:

Accounting Services

Reporting- Monthly accounting reports that include, a balance sheet, income & expense statement, general ledger, rent-roll, rent ledger, expense ledger and a copy of the bank statement are the basics. There are various other reports you may want or need depending on the property and ownership type. For instance, with a self-storage property you will want in addition to the above, a copy of the audit and daily deposit report.

Narrative Report- This is a narrative monthly summary of exceptions in the budget, income and expenses or any unusual activity on your property, this report should be prepared by the property manager responsible for your property.

Collections (AR – Accounts Receivable) – Collecting rents and other monies owed. This function is generally considered an accounting function, until the point there is a problem (which is quite frequent these days). You will want a company that has a clearly defined process and system of responsibilities when it comes to collections, ask them, Who? – who will do what in the collection process. What? – what will be done. When? – when will it be done.

Payments (AP – Accounts Payable)- Now that they have collected your money, you will want them to pay the bills. Again, you will want them to clearly define, Who, What and When this will occur. You may want to define for the accounting staff the details on payment of your expenses, including when and how much to disburse to you, as well as other details such as reserves for taxes, insurance or capital improvements.

Lease Processing – This task is generally a group effort, with a defined patterned or specific routing to a number of people within the company, including the accounts receivable department and property manager. Each has a specific function and items they are looking for. However, one person generally inputs the lease into the computer. This part of the process is extremely important, as a missed date or dollar amount could result in serious repercussions down the road. Detail and a process that includes multiple layers of people checking the input process is Key.

Management Services

The Property Manager – This person is “One” of the focal points by which you make your decision on whether you hire a company or not. The property manager is the person that will make the critical day-to-day decisions that go into operating a property. Their responsibilities include – relationships with your Tenants and Vendors, physical condition of your property, oversight of the collection process, payment of bills, budgeting, lease administration, monthly reporting, generally all aspects of the operation of your commercial real estate. Most importantly they will be your contact and source of information about your real estate investment. Make sure you feel completely comfortable with this person and their abilities.

Site Visits – site visits are a critical part of any property management contract, minimally you want your property manager on your site once per month, weekly is preferred. Many things happen during the course of a week on a commercial property. The frequency of the managers’ visits will depend on the type of property they are overseeing. The purpose of the property managers’ visit will vary from property to property as well, however, here are a few tasks your manager should attend to while on your property:

Real Estate Law – Five Laws Real Estate Investors Need to Know

The idea of investing in real estate has appeal in that it offers a potential supplemental income for the buyer. You may have heard terms like “flipping homes,” where you buy a home at a low price, fix up, and sell for profit; or, you may be interested in buying up property for the purpose of seasonally renting it to part-time residents. However you came to be interested in real estate investments, know that there are a number of laws and regulations, as well as common courtesies, that you should be aware of before you start bidding on contracts.

Let’s take a look at five situations that will require you to understand how real estate law works, and how to proceed during conflicts.

1) Any decision you make regarding a real estate investment must be approved by legal counsel before everything is signed and sealed. If you want to buy a condo, a duplex, or even an entire building, it is wise to have legal representation if you plan to do more with the property than live in it. You will need to be aware of laws regarding tenants and zoning, where applicable.

2) If you are involved in a legal dispute over property, it is important to have all the correct paperwork to support your case. While it would be ideal to have all transactions involving your property run smoothly, inevitably you may run into conflicts with renters. When claims are made with regards to your property, make sure you have written evidence to back up your statements in the event you wind up in court or in a lawyer’s office.

3) To achieve a sound return on investment, consider long term commitments as opposed to shorter turnarounds on property. If you can find an excellent tenant willing to rent your property in the long-term, you may wish to consider offering multi-year leases. Offer prospective tenants a good deal, and it may save you the headache and expense of advertising your property every six months.

4) Make sure you know exactly what comprises the property in which you invest. When possible, have the property inspected and checking for zoning restrictions. You don’t want to be stuck with a building or lot that you can’t use.

5) Understand the mortgage and payment schedules to avoid defaulting. Make sure you know when to make payments and what your rights are with regards to paying for your property.

How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.

Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.

Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

A Guide on Successful Product Creation and Internet Marketing

Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.

The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.

It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!

With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.

With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.

Considerable Factors Involved in Product Creation & Marketing

The niche you have chosen should allow creation of more than one product or service. With the technological advancements in the hosting industry, from automated control panels and scripts that simplify creation of accounts, to complete turnkey solutions; there is no need to worry about spending time on the real products sold to the customer. The main ones are keyword selection, sales copy principles, graphics, affiliate programs, product creation, online payment processing, auto responders, and search engine optimization.

Once you’ve earned money from this type of information product business, you can invest in the creation of your own products if you want, or start offering more informational products that allow you to sell your knowledge. But the creation and production costs of a similar big ticket in sequence product, although higher, are still pretty low. A key by-product of this process will be the creation of 3-D, Computer Assisted Design art.

The Association for Financial Professionals permits the following activities for repatriating funds: Research and Development activities, advertising and marketing programs, hiring and training new recruits, acquiring patent and other rights to intangible property, improving transportation, funding capital investments with the purpose of job creation and job retention & funding product responsibility or environmental claims.

It prohibits certain activities like: Tax payments, Payment of executive recompense, Payment of dividends, Redemption of stocks, Debt investments and Portfolio investments. Therefore, before repatriating the money, you must consider whether it is worth or not.

Checklist on what artist and product development necessitate includes: Exceptional vocals, musicianship and/or songwriting skills, Continued education and enhancement of musical skills, Quality equipment, Performance ability, Image creation and maintenance, Plan of action, goal setting, excellent promotion materials including photographs, press releases and artwork, Business management skills, Marketing, Publicity and Promotion knowledge, Online and Offline Professional management, Basic knowledge of recording, producing, engineering, and mastering, Basic knowledge of manufacturing, distribution, and sales online, brick and mortar and air-play, Good choices in members, staff and advisors, Physical and mental preparedness, Basic knowledge of finances, accounting Law and legal issues etc.

The goals for doing so are for the product owner to: Communicate the whole, Determine and communicate when releases are needed, Determine what functionality is sufficient for each release & focus on business value derived from the releases. The delivery team on the other hand will see the whole, learn about the steps to realize the vision, learn the business priorities, provide technical input to the roadmap and provide estimates for the projected features. The salesperson must lead the prospect through the various decision criteria needed in order to secure a sale. Whether your idea is the development of a product, launch of a service business, or even the creation of an event or program for a non-profit, creativity is the root of all entrepreneurial efforts starting with the vision itself.

People quickly learn to spend their time on marketing and product creation, rather than repetitive tasks. Apart from empowering companies and individuals, there should be a particular focus on identifying labor intensive businesses that have the potential to make a significant and positive impact on employment creation as well as those businesses that have a product or service offering for export markets with the final objective of booming local economies.