Rest Your Eyes Frequently

The first most important asset for home-based online business owner is the eyes yet many online business owners tend to suffer eye strain without knowing it. Prolong staring at the computer screen will result in blur vision and dry eyes. In some extreme cases, dry eyes will lead to sharp pain when moving the eye balls while some will develop into annoying floaters. Therefore, prevention is better than cure, don’t forget to rest and blink your eyes often. Try to take enough vitamin A to maintain healthy eyesight and vitamin B too, it can help to reduce the redness in the eyes.

In addition, if possible, invest in a pair of eyewear to protect your eyes from prolonged staring of the computer screen. Such eyewear will reduce glares from the monitor and protect the eyes from screen radiation which eventually will help to reduce eye strains and headaches.

Don’t Forget to Rotate Your Wrist

Another common health problem for online business owner is the pain around the wrist and stiffness of the index finger. Due to the constant repetitive movement of clicking and moving the mouse, it causes the muscle to become strain and thereby injury, the medical experts called it as Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI). To avoid such injury, it is advisable to get a good wrist cushion for support and rotate your wrist frequently to relax your muscle. Try to alternate between using index and middle fingers for clicking so as to avoid overusing of one finger.

Maintain Good Posture

Most home-based online business owners have limited space for the working area so it is not surprise that the computer is placed in an awkward position. For example, the computer screen might be too high; the mouse is too far away; the table or chair is too low or high. All these will cause excessive tension for the neck, shoulder, arms, wrists, back, thighs and legs. The bad computer posture might eventually lead to spinal injury or dysfunction. So do a little adjustment to your desk or computer set up will goes a long way to your health. Be conscious with your posture and stretch yourself often to avoid maintaining the same position for too long.

Don’t Eat in Front of the Computer

I must say I’m guilty of this! I always eat in front of the computer to save time but this will cause indigestion and gastric problem. I was not aware of this until I’ve gastric problem about five years ago and it led to more complication. I’m also having indigestion and constipation problems now as my stomach is too weak to function well. As a result, I often feel weak, dizzy and no appetite. So stay away from the computer when you are taking your meal, the consequences could be worst than you expected.

Get Out and Get Fresh Air

Working alone as a home-based business owner can be very stressful. You have to multi-tasks among many jobs and overwhelmed with daily challenges but there is no reason you should stay in front of the computer all day. Get out of the house, do some walking and get some fresh air. This will not only help to improve your blood circulation but also help to relax your body muscles which eventually lead to well being.

#####

In short, do not neglect your most important assets as it is the fundamental of building a successful and sustainable business. When you lose your health, you lose your wealth so take care of your health so to gain more wealth. Take care!

No related posts.

It is important that you select a business model carefully because it will affect your home-based business and living in the long run. The most common business model adopted by most home-based business is services and product-based model. The business owners trade their times to sell services and products for profit, if they want to earn more, they would have to charge more. While there is nothing wrong with these business models but often home-business owners find they have to struggle constantly to find new customers and market aggressively to remain profitable. All these could drain up the home business owners’ time and leave them little time to focus on other areas. Another main disadvantage of such business models is it relies too much on the business owners’ health and time, if these two were lacking it could affect their earnings tremendously.

What make a Good Business Model?

A good business model should have the following characteristics.

• Offer unique value that other competitiors cannot match
• Winning business model is hard for competitors to imitate
• Successful business model is grounded in reality

Finding a good business model is therefore important for startups, once you get it right from the start, it will save you a lot of headaches, time and resources. A good business model should help you to generate profit passively without too much of manual intervention and costs. Today, there are many new and innovative business models that have brought amazing success to the businesses, some good examples such as in the computer industry – Dell Computer has managed to eliminate the middleman channel and allowed customers to configure their own PC and purchase directly online at a lower price. In the airline industry, there is budget airline that cater to the general masses. In the software industry, users do not need to buy expensive software now but is able to subscribe to membership at a lower fee per month. These new business models have changed the way businesses are operating and some even have even replaced the old business models.

Different Home-Based Business Models

We can see that finding an innovative and sustainable business model is crucial to one’s success and it is even more crucial for home-based business as small businesses cannot afford to make too many mistakes. There are many business models in the various industries but we will only focus on those that are suitable for home-based business. Below are some common home-based business model examples:

Online or Web Business Models
This is the probably most common and popular business model for home-based business due to the ubiquity and convenience of Internet technology. Professor Michael Rappa has categorized the online or web business model into the following main categories, you can check out his website for detailed description of each model.

Affiliate Marketing Business Models
The affiliate marketing business model is probably the fastest and safest way to make money online. It eliminates the major business operations such as creation, manufacturing of the product to distribution of the product. Business owners who opt for this model only need to promote the merchants’ products and services and get commission for referring sales.

Blog Business Models
Blogging business model is one of the hottest business models of making money online now. Many people have become full-time bloggers and some even have made a fortune out of blogging. The Blog business model can be further broken down into several models, check out the Australian famous blogger – Darren Rowse and his 10 innovative blog business model here.

eCommerce Business Models
If you intend to sell products or services online, you can consider setting up an eCommerce store and there are few eCommerce business models you can consider such as Business to Consumer (B2C), Business to Business (B2B), Consumer to Consumer (C2C), Peer to Peer (P2P) and mobile Commence (m-Commence). You can learn the definition of each model from this article. If you find it is a hassle to set up your own ecommerce store then check out eBay, a platform that allow you to sell goods and services online with a small fee.

Social Enterprise Business Model
If you intend to produce products or services for social or environmental purpose and care less of the money aspect, you are in for the social enterprise business model. This has increasingly become a popular business model and may become the future business model because customers usually like businesses who have a good cause and social responsibilities.

Networking Marketing Model
The networking Marketing Model is also known as Multi-level Marketing Model (MLM), there is much confusion about MLM as it is perceived as a pyramid scheme but in fact it is not. It is a legitimate business model but was somehow abused by many businesses especially in the health, nutritional and beauty industries. Click here to learn more about MLM and its pros and cons, who knows, it may help to clear the air and become one of your money-making business model.

Franchise Business Model
This could be the least risky but the most expensive business model for home-based business. There are now a lot of home-based franchise opportunities in the market, you can check them out at Franchise Solutions or Franchise Sales at UK.  Adopting a franchise business model could be the fastest way to start a home-based business as the business concepts has already been tested and supports will be given whenever help is needed.

The above are just some business models that have tried and tested, there may be other new business models appearing but it is not made known yet. New business owners may have misconception that they can only adopt one business model at a time which usually is not the case. In fact, there are many businesses that use several business models together in order to achieve greater efficiency and profitability such as a membership subscription model combines with advertising and affiliate models.

If you can find a winning business model for your home-based business, you are already close to success. However, the adopted business model will constantly evolve with the time, changes in business practices, industry trend and environment. Therefore, finding a successful home-based business model requires constant review and checking so as to keeping up with the changes. Moreover, choosing the right business model for the first time may not be easy but don’t be discouraged, an average home-based business will take 3-5 years to trial and succeed.

I wish you all the best in finding a successful home-based business model and if you have an interesting business model, I would like to hear from you too.

Related posts:

1. Why Finding a Niche Market is Important for Home-Based Business?
2. The Fastest and Safest Way to Start a Home-Based Online Business

One of my resolutions this year is to diversify my sources of income as the economic forecast for the year 2012 is not that optimistic. When the economic growth is slow, it will affect consumers spending which thus affect businesses. So I predict my earned income will be affected by this trend. This leaves me only two other options which are the portfolio income and passive income to focus on. Just in case, you are not aware the different types of income we could have, check out the diagram below.

I first learnt about these 3 types of income from Robert Kiyosaki’s book – Rich Dads Retire Young Retire Rich. According to what Robert said, earned income is the income we trade using our labor and time; portfolio income is the income generated from stocks, bonds and mutual funds while the passive income is generated from business or real estate. It can also be a royalty income from patents or use of one’s intellectual property such as songs, books or others.

Since the economic is expected a slowdown this year, it is even more important to depend on portfolio and passive income especially when one is growing older each year. When one grows older, it hard to maintain the same physical and mental energy require for a job and when we stop working, our earned income will stop too. As what Robert Kiyosaki suggested, it is best to start building on passive and portfolio income early so that even when we stop working or retire, they still able to generate steady stream of income for us. By that time, we can retire free and easy without financial worries. This is what I hope to achieve during the slowdown period, take time to acquire and build more assets.

Passive Income
To the home online business owners, we know that passive income has a different meaning.  The word “passive income” has almost synonymous with “affiliate marketing” and “blogging”. To most of us, it means building a successful business online and it continues generating a steady income without much intervention from the business owners.

I’ve been trying to build a passive income over the past years but it was too slow. This year, I hope to increase my passive income to at least 60% and at the same time, look out for more affiliate programs that offer recurring commission.  It’s a great way to generate residual income as it is one-time effort.

Portfolio Income
I’ve little knowledge when come to creating portfolio income. Over the years, I’ve left it to my financial adviser but realized lately it was not performing as it should be expected. So instead of building up a solid portfolio, I’ve made more losses than profit over the years. Look like it is a high time to fire my financial adviser but it is also part of my mistake for not monitoring closely and taking pro-active action on my portfolio income.

So, one of my goals this year is to increase my financial literacy. The only way to benefit from this income is to increase my context and content and learn how financial things work. Fortunately, there are a lot of free financial information on the website and one of them is Robert Kiyosaki’s website – richdad.com, it offer free financial education, resources and news. There is a wealth of information at his website, I’m grateful to Robert for his generosity and what he taught gave me confidence that income does not necessary have to come from one source. There are many other ways and sources to generate income that are beyond my knowledge. I’m glad I found it now, may be slightly late but better late than never.

#####

If you are worry about the economic slowdown and how it might affect your earned income, it is high time you look around and check out alternate income. Maybe, you can do well in other incomes than your earned income. Good luck to you! If you have any successful story in building alternate income, please share it at the comment below.

No related posts.

In this post, I would like to share with you one powerful and effective tactic from an internet marketing guru – Kim Roach. She has recently launched a tutorial site – Traffic Dashboard which featured tons of powerful and robust traffic generation tactics. Unlike other traffic generation tactics taught by others, Kim’s tactics are free organic traffic which is not only targeted but sustainable even in long period. This is almost the dream of every home business owners who want free and steady traffic for their sites.

What is eBook Syndication?
The first tactics covered in the tutorial is eBook Syndication. It is a technique where you repurpose the content of your blog into ebook for maximum exposure. This technique does not require additional effort from you as you are recycling the content so it can be done fairly quickly and easily. The content can either be your current blog posts or a summary of those older popular blog posts you had written before. You can then compile the blog posts into an ebook and distribute to free eBook directories for additional exposure and traffic.

How it is being done?

1. Select the articles or posts you want to convert to eBook.
2. One criterion is to pick the articles or posts that are most popular and most visited at your site.
3. Compile the articles or posts into logical order and add in a book title and pagination for ease of reading.
4. At the end of the eBook, add a backlink to your website or blog so that the traffic will be directed back to your site.
5. Alternatively, you can have a promotion page which will entice clicks from readers that go directly to your squeeze page. This is a good way to build up your subscribers list.
6. Once you are done with the layout of your eBook, convert it to PDF format for easy distribution.
7. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, you can go to www.doc2pdf.com to convert your article to PDF format.
8. You may want to make an eBook Cover so your eBook will look more presentable.
9. You can either do it on your own or try to get one at Fiverr.com.
10. Add the eBook Cover to your previously converted eBook and your eBook is now completed.
11. You are now ready to submit your eBook to top free eBook directories such as www.Free-eBooks.net.
12. To attract targeted traffic, make sure you select the right category to submit your eBook otherwise you might receive unwanted traffic from the free eBook directories.

The above steps are not difficult to achieve, give it a try and you will find it is an excellent way to drive free targeted and sustainable traffic to your site.

There are still about 19 more different traffic generation tactics to be covered in future posts but you are anxious to know all the tactics immediately, you can check out at Kim Roach’s tutorial site – Traffic Dashboard. Alternatively, you can also sign up our mailing list so that the rest of the tactics will be emailed to you automatically.

If you have tried the eBook syndication traffic generation tactic, how do you find it? It is effective for your business and niche market? Please feel free to share it in the comments below.

Related posts:

1. Recurring Income Tactics: Write and Sell Your Own eBook

Unless you can seek help earlier otherwise you will be stuck in your business forever. But the problem of most home-based business owners is they either do not know what they do not know or do not know who or where to seek help. I was in the same dilemma for the past few years until I came across an online business coaching program by Rich Schefren recently. It is known as Business Growth System (BGS) which focuses on developing strategies and tactics for growing one’s online business. It might sounds intimidating when the words like “strategies” and “tactics” are mentioned especially we are only a home-based not corporate business but they are a necessary evils if you want to get a breakthrough.

The BGS program covers a lot of concepts and practical advises and there are a few of them though not new but surprisingly, gave me some eureka moments. It made me realized my way of thinking and working were actually the cause of my business stagnant. Let me share with you some of them I find it useful.

Get a Vision

Rich Schefren in the BGS program mentioned that “you read a book from the beginning to the end but in business you do just the opposite”. Why? The reason is if you have a vision in mind, you can work backward to achieve what you want. A vision acts as a beacon in the dark so you can see clearly and guide you along the way. Without a vision, there is no way to know you have reached your destination; you are just watching your day gone by meaninglessly.

I always knew about getting a vision when starting a business but never take it seriously but after reading the statement “building your business from the end to the beginning” re-ignite what I have overlooked and re-align me to the correct path. For that! I’m very grateful to Rich’s program.

Change Your Role

To achieve breakthrough for your business, you should not perform the same roles as you started your business. Initially, you might be playing more of the employee and manager roles but you need to gradually withdraw yourself from these roles and elevate to the founder role. You should work on the business than in the business as you need to focus on growing the business rather than involved in the daily operation of fire fighting and challenges. You need to grow with your business; you should not be stuck in the same roles throughout your whole business phrase.

Stop Doing Everything by Yourself

Many home-based business owners tend to do all the works and usually the hard works by yourself. You could be either limited by budget or do not want to commit to extra responsibilities. However, you are not superman or wonder woman, it is impossible to do everything by yourself. You will be limited by time, energy and skills. In addition, you might lack the ability and knowledge to do certain job. For example, I’m hopeless in figures so accounting is not my forte, it will be best if I outsource it to some professional than doing it by myself. It could take me months to figure how to get my Balance Sheet balance but a professional accountant only takes a few minutes to do it.

Systemize Your Business Process

The program emphasizes the importance of systemizing your business into different processes. Edwards Deming ever said “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” Therefore, by systemizing your business into smaller processes help you to see the flaws and dysfunctional areas. In other words, if you view your business as a system, you could find the most efficient and under performance areas at bird-eye view. These allow you to quickly take corrective actions and re-align your business back to optimal performance.

This concept may sound aloof to home-based business but after trying it out myself, I find it extremely helpful. It allows me to see the loop-hole or gaps that I have missed out for my work process and I could describe the process in detail when I outsource to virtual team. The process is also a good reminder as sometimes I could forget the steps when I’m overwhelmed with works.

Hopefully, you find the above helpful to elevate your business. If you are interested to take a peek in the BGS coaching program, I have them listed as below.

Module #1:
The Big Damn Secrets to being a Real Entrepreneur that Almost everyone misses

Module #2:
Isolating, Developing and Profiting from Your Money-Making Strengths

Module #3:
Marketing Your Turf, Total Clarity on Your Big Objective, Generating Immediate Momentum

Module #4:
Your Mafia Offer – How to Re-Craft Your Business to Make an Offer that Cannot be Refused

Module #5:
The most powerful marketing strategies that No One Teaches or Talks About

Module #6:
Your Master Plan to Blasting Through Every Obstacle that Stands in Your Way Right Now

Module #7:
The Secret Language of Business Metrics

Module #8:
Set It and Forget It – Systemization and Putting Everything on Autopilot

Module #9:
Project Management – Exactly to Spec, On-Time, Below Budget, Every Time

Module #10:
Assembling Your Business Building SWAT Team

Module #11:
Making it All Seamless: Your Well-Oiled Machine

Module #12:
You’re Free … Now What?

#####

So if you find yourself stuck in your business and wish to free yourself or get a breakthrough, I highly recommend you look through the coaching program yourself. It may ends your frustration early by directing you to the right path and perspective. It has 30-day refund policy so make good use of it and see whether it does any good for you and your business.

No related posts.

If you are just starting or intended to look for a more robust, reliable but yet affordable ecommerce platform for your online store, you might want to consider getting a hosted ecommerce solution. Usually most home business owners would either purchase and install the ecommerce software in their servers or use an extension or plugin to add an ecommerce functionality to their blogs or sites. They are both feasible ecommerce solutions as they give you full control but you will face constant upgrading and maintenance issues which might be a problem for those of you who are not so technical savvy.

What Is Hosted Ecommerce Solution?

A hosted ecommerce solution is all-in-one ecommerce solution provided by the ecommerce hosting companies. They not only provide the hardware but software as well and with additional features like marketing, analytics and reporting tools. They will constantly upgrade their ecommerce software and provide regular maintenance so that bugs could be fixed immediately. This will help to eliminate the upgrading and maintenance issues and give more peace of mind to home business owners.

While there are many advantages of using hosted ecommerce solution, you might want to be careful as some of them charge transaction fee from your ecommerce site revenue. And it could be very expensive when your online store grows bigger but fortunately there are some ecommerce hosting companies do not practice this. One of them is Bigcommerce, they only charge a flat subscription fee for using their services and the fee is very affordable, starting as low as US$25 per month.

An Online Store That Can Be Setup in Minutes

Bigcommerce offers you everything you need to set up an online store. It is like having a real physical store with everything planned, decorated and furnished with relevant cabinets, lighting, furniture and storeroom. What you need to do is to move in your products and lay them out nicely for display.

Similarly, Bigcommerce offers you an online store that is ready for business anytime. They have a helpful step-by-step guide that guide you what to do in order to get your online store up successfully.

Free Online Store Templates

If you are worried about the look and feel of your store, they have 100+ free and beautiful storefront templates that you can pick one to set the look and feel of your storefront instantly. You can also change the colors anytime to match the branding you want to create.

Bulk Import and Export

One of the most time-consuming tasks of creating an online store is inputting the product information and it will become extremely tedious when you have a lot of products. It might takes ages to input all the product information such as product ID, photos, description, pricing, tax rate and shipping cost. Luckily, Bigcommerce has a bulk import function where it can import your spreadsheet but provided your spreadsheet must follow a standard format required by Bigcommerce. At the same time, it can bulk export your product information so that you can save it into external backup.

Automatic Organization of Products

One common problem for every ecommerce business owner face is how to organize products? Whether it should be by categories, sub-categories, sub-sub-categories, brands, pricing, manufacturers, color & size? The list can go on if you have a wide range of products but Bigcommerce makes it easier for you to organize as it has already catered such features in its system. You only need to activate to use it so your visitors then can easily surf through your store based on different criterion.

Viewable on Mobile Devices

If your target customers are smart phone users, you will be happy to know that all the online stores built using Bigcommerce is mobile phone friendly. In other words, you online store can be viewable on most mobile devices without the hassle to build another mobile friendly store.

#####

Looking at the above incredible ecommerce features, you can be rest assured that building an ecommerce website is not as intimidating as you thought. There might be several ecommerce building options available and you can always choose a simpler option to begin such as a hosted ecommerce solution. Once you are familiar with the in and out of ecommerce technology and how the whole things work, you can always look for an add-on or advanced ecommerce solutions.

No related posts.

Blog
Thanks to the information technologies, you are now given many new and various platforms of finding new career opportunity at the comfort of your home and the blog is one of them. Blog has become very popular these days as it allows you to share and showcase your knowledge, skills and expertise to the public easily. If you are not aware what is a blog, check out the video here.

The blog is generally used to share passion, hobby, knowledge, experience and solutions to problems so there are many specific blogs created for specific topics. The blog is a convenient platform to attract customers; easy to set up and cost little compared to a physical shop or office – it is also like a virtual shop and a knowledge sharing center. Blog has interactive interfaces which allow you to connect with your visitors easily and it also has comment features that allow visitors to leave comments and interact with one another.

This is an efficient platform that you can utilize to generate life-time goldmines by sharing your insights, experiences, common problems and solutions faced in your profession. Format them into interesting and inviting content then put it on the blog. The main benefit of the blog is it will help to draw visitors from all over the world which may eventually become your loyal fan. This will not only help to raise your profile but also build your reputation as a thought leader. You can then leverage your reputation and expertise to become a paid consultant or coach.

Affiliate Maketing
Once you have a blog with an inviting content, you can further monetize it with affiliate marketing. If you want to find out what is affiliate marketing, check out the successful internet entrepreneur Joel Comm’s video on its definition.

This is an excellent way of getting life-time goldmines because it does not require huge investment in inventory, customer services, logistics or billing to sell product or service at your side. How the affiliate marketing works is that you just find some relevant products or services from the affiliate merchants that would complement your blog’s content then refer them to your visitors. If any of your visitors bought any products or signed up for any services, you will get commissions from the merchants. It is probably one of the easiest and safest ways to find your life-time goldmine when compared to other methods.

Information Product
Information or digital product has become a highly popular product in this information age; this is a good news for you as you have a wealth of knowledge, skills and expertise to share. You can now convert them into highly desired information or digital products that people demand such as an eBook, how-to guide, tutorials, home-study course, online course or continuity programs. This is by far the most popular and new way of earning in the new information age.

Creating an information or digital product may take considerable times but it is definitely worth the effort and times as it will give you the long-term income just like earning royalty from a book.

Online Video Training Course
Similar to information or digital product, online video training course has become another great way to market your expertise. It is considered more effective than a normal eBook because of its multimedia elements. People generally learn faster and better though multimedia elements such as animation, images, audio and video as it engages all senses while learning. Furthermore, reading static information product like an eBook on the computer can cause eyes strain so using video as an online training course is a preferred choice by many people now.

Online Membership Site
To achieve life-time goldmine, you have to have life-time recurring income and one of the best ways of achieving it is through building an online membership site. You can build an online membership site based on the knowledge, skill and expertise you already know and offer continual membership subscription to your blog visitors. It can be a monthly or yearly subscription but in order to make your members stay forever, you have to ensure constant stream of new contents from your membership site.

Packaging the online video training course into the membership site can be a good idea. You can break the course down into several modules and let your members choose to learn at their paces. Once you have established a reasonable base of members, you can add in a discussion forum so that members have a venue to discuss what they have learnt and exchanged ideas. If the discussion forum can grow into a active online community, it can become your another goldmine as it helps to generate content, feedback and ideas for your future training courses.

The above are some of the ways that you can use to convert your skills, knowledge and expertise into life-time goldmines. You can use the above methods individually or combine them together to achieve your objectives. I hope the above will also give you an idea that a new career opportunity can be created without the need for another job hunting. Now you already know the methods of achieving it, the next step will be knowing the exact steps of achieving it.

As each of the methods is quite a specialized topic; I will discuss each of them in details in future posts so remember to check back for more.

Related posts:

1. Laid-off Professionals: Discover Your Lifetime Goldmines

1. Be Mentally Prepared
Starting a business is not easy; starting a home-based business is even more challenging because you are going to face all the risks, difficulties and responsibilities alone. You might be wearing many hats at the same time hence working long hours will be a norm and it can be mentally and physically straining. Be prepared to sacrifice your leisure, holidays and even money during the start up as your business will need time and patience to see result. Also be prepared to bounce back fast when you encounter failures and obstacles. Don’t forget to check with your family, are they willing to accept you working full-time at home as home-based business is still a new concept to many. If you are not mentally prepared for all these, starting a home-based business could be a very painful process for you.

2. Select a Business Type
If you are determined to go ahead then decide what type of business you plan to start in terms of your skills, interest, knowledge and experience. You can click here to check out the list of ideas for home-based business. Select a business that you love and passionate about so you will enjoy your business everyday.

3. Understand your Industry
Research your target customers, competitors and market, if the competition is tough, it will be good to find a niche market so that your business has a higher chance of success. Think of the product or services you are offering that can be different from your competitors and what kind of added values you can bring to your customers.

4. Business Plan
Prepare a business plan as it will be the blueprint to lead you from where you are now to where you want to be. The business plan must also include the strategy and tactics to achieve the objective. Click here to view a sample of good business plan.

5. Naming your Home-based Business
Once you’ve decided on the type of business, think of a good name for your business. It should be easy to pronounce and remember. If your target customers are located globally, you may like to check whether the proposed name has been taken and does it has other meaning. Because a same name with the same spelling could mean different things in different countries and cultures.

It is also wise to research on the web first before registering your business name especially if your business name is also your domain name. For example since eHomepreneur.com is also my domain name, I would need to check its availability before registering it. This is crucial because if the domain name is taken, then you would need to think of another name otherwise your company name does not tally with domain name which could cause confusion to your customers. You can check domain availability with your web hosting company or go to networksolutions.com directly to check online.

6. Legal
Before you apply a business license for your home-based business, decide its business structure, will it be a sole entrepreneur, partnership, limited partnership or private limited? If you don’t understand the difference, click here for definitions. Also check whether you need to apply any license for using your home as a business office and any regulations to comply with.

7. Obtain a Business License
Obtain a business license from your city and country permit and check is there any permit you need to apply such as fire, sign and seller permit.

8. Financial Issues
Once you have obtained the business license, you can use it to apply for a business bank account and get a check book. Prepare a financial plan for at least 12 months; determine your startup capital, projected earning, budget and operating costs.

9. Accounting, Record Keeping and Tax Advice
It is advisable to get a professional accountant to establish an accounting system for your revenue and expenses recording before you start your business. A proper accounting system will save you a lot of errors and headaches during your billing and annual income tax filing. In addition, the accountant should be able to advise the most tax-effective business structure and what expenses you can claim.

10. Is your home suitable for Home-based Business?
Check your home whether there is extra room or a corner suitable for running a home-based business? Do you have the necessary facilities, equipments and stationery? Make sure it is well ventilated, lighted and protected so that important information will not be destroyed accidentally.

Also check will your business affect your family or neighbors such as any noise created or any privacy or security issues? Is there any adequate parking area for your customers?

11. Government Grants and Assistance
There are always government financial grants and assistance readily available for startup business. Find out from your local council on how to apply for these grants and thus help to cut down your startup costs.

12. Advertising and Marketing
Advertising and marketing are important as you need to create awareness and publicity for your home-based business. To start marketing your business, you will need to create business identity such as logo, business card, letterhead, envelope and website or blog to differentiate your business from your competitors. Increase your business visibility by exploring different media.

13. Hire Help for your Home-based Business
It could be overwhelming if you are going to run the whole business by yourself, hire extra help if you need to, after all, nobody is good at everything. Some works like accounting, graphic design, advertising and marketing can be outsourced to vendors or freelancers so that you could focus on your core activities.

14. Time Management & Self Discipline
Time management is even more critical when working at home as there are a lot of distractions. It calls for stringent self discipline to plan and manage your time well. Having a work schedule will help you to stay on track and committed to your daily activities.

In addition to the above, you may like to check out this article from BusinessWings, it highlights the A to Z things you would need to consider for a startup business.

Related posts:

1. How to Start a Home-Based Business for Stay-at-home Mum?

It is a mistake to think that your product or service is meant for everyone as everybody needs it. There was a saying when “it is for everyone, it is for no one”. I made the same mistake before for my other business thinking that if I cast my net wider, I should be able to reach out more customers and make more profit. Initially, my web consultancy business was targeting at small businesses but later I thought if I could also sell my services to corporate companies, I should be able to make more sales but I was wrong. There were so many web consultancy companies out there that the customers were only interested in my prices and nothing else. There was no chance for me to prove my expertise and experience. The lesson learned was it is better to be everything to someone than something to everyone. Never try to be a generalist and fulfill everything, you will find yourself facing a lot of competitions and you will have to try very hard to market yourself instead of focusing on your talent and expertise. Offer your customers your unique service or product and quality not the pricing.

If your target market is targeting at “everybody market”, try to break it into a “somebody market”, for example if you are offering graphic design services to small business, try to break down the small business into specific industry then into specific operators such as from a F&B industry to restaurants operators. From the restaurants, you can further break down into specific cuisine like Western, Asian or European. But make sure there is sufficient size and growth potential so that you can profit from this niche market. Most importantly, they have money to spend and pay you.

Once you become specialized in one niche market, you are intimately familiar with the market needs and problems; you can then start offering niche product or service variety; that is either to increase its breadth or depth where your competition cannot offer. This is a good way to beat your competitors as unique selling proposition (USP) is hard to replicate and you can use this strategy to position yourself against your competitors and dominate the niche market.

By focusing on a specific niche market also helps in creating precise marketing messages easily. We know that customers do not respond well to general messages so when crafting marketing message that contains their lingo or languages, you will find that your customers respond far faster and frequently. At the same time, knowing your customers’ lingo also helps in your website keyword research and planning. Knowing what type of keyword phrases your customers are searching is important to attract quality traffic to your website. In addition, knowing related keyword phrases that they used is equally important as it gives you a good idea of what else your customers are looking for and how often they want it. Use keyword research tool such as keyword elite software to find out more related keywords that could bring you more sales. It’s also an excellent tool to reduce your advertising cost if you are planning your PPC ad, you will know which exact money-making keyword to target to generate leads.

With all the above said, you will realize that why finding a niche market is therefore important while planning your business; the last thing you want is not to waste your precious time and energy focusing on the wrong market and customers. As this is one of the vital steps to a successful home-based business, it’s worth spending some time to research and identify your niche market before starting your home-based business.

Related posts:

1. Finding a Successful Home-Based Business Model
2. Checklist for Starting a Home-based Business
3. How to Start a Home-Based Business for Stay-at-home Mum?

Moreover, majority of people today especially the generation X and Y have higher expectations on their jobs. They expect to work lesser, smarter and are no longer motivated by money alone. Job satisfaction and career advancement are important criteria for them. If these were not found in their current jobs or elsewhere, starting their own home-based business could be their alternatives especially they are more well-exposed to entrepreneurship today than their parents’ or grantparents’ era.

The high rental of today’s office spaces is another contributing factor for professionals to move their business back to home. Instead of paying the high overhead of office rental, utility and taxes, these could be saved and add to the profit for the business.

The change of economic structure which is now driven by information, technology and service is also another contributing factor. The innovation of Information Technology (IT) such as the Internet has brought great convenience and flexibility for many business owners. Working at home eliminates unnecessary traveling time and leave them more time with their family which ultimately help them to achieve work-life balance.

However, the change in economic structure has also brought up the cost of living. Majority will find that their salaries cannot catch up with the high cost of living and have to resort looking for second job or supplementary income. Starting a part-time job at home therefore become a popular choice. Fortunately, the facilitation of IT has created many new jobs and helped to bring down the cost of starting a business at home.  Some popular home-based businesses include the following:

• Accounting, Auditing and Finance Services
• Art & Craft Services
• Affiliate and Internet Marketing
• Blogging
• Designing Services: graphic design, interior design, illustration, web design, fashion design and jewellery design
• Writing, Translation and Copywriting Services
• Consultancy Services
• Coaching Services
• Art & Craft, Drawing and Painting
• Internet Marketing, eCommerce and Programming
• Education, Training and Tutoring Service
• Tailoring, Sewing and Alteration
• Plumber, Electrician
• Photography
• Setting Virtual Store via eCommerce or eBay
• Software and Application Development
• Virtual Assistant

The list is not exhaustive, there should be more other services other than the above-mentioned. There are also some home-based business owners who have successfully converted their hobbies into a business like cooking, baking and art and craft.

Besides the Small and Medium Business, the Home-based Business has become another fastest growing industry today. According to the research company - IDC in its U.S. Home Office 2004-2008 Forecast, as of 2005, there were about 13.8 million income-generating home-based business in USA alone. It has the potential to reach new height in the next two years as more jobs are cut. Despite the uncertainties, the home-based business can become the next main contributing force to a country’s economic.

If you are seeking a new job opportunity or change of career, why not take advantage of the current growing trend and try a home-based business today. May be you could become the next successful home entrepreneur.

Related posts:

1. How to Start a Home-Based Business for Stay-at-home Mum?