Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog
It started as a home based business move to a storefront and is becoming a franchise! Here’s Tracy Ahern’s story.
From Stuff.co.nz
Tracy Ahern’s decision to close her home-based beauty therapy salon and open a store at Westfield Riccarton is proving worth the risk.
The Christchurch woman is now franchising her All About You business, after opening a second clinic at The Palms two years ago and one in Auckland.
“We’ve just had an offer on our Palms store and as we sell one franchise we will focus on the next one, hopefully that will be in Wellington.”
Ahern plans to sell one franchise a year, and wants to have a clinic in most of New Zealand’s big cities.
Some years ago Ahern owned a salon at the Elmwood Shopping Centre and sold it to spend more time with her four children. She established a small salon at home but that gradually got bigger. She employed staff and the neighbours started complaining about all the cars coming and going at her home.
Image courtesy Stuff.co.nz & Tracy Ahern
The old saying went – you need a fax machine the first time someone says “do you have a fax?” Maybe the same is true for Skype. You need it the first time someone asks if you have it.
Unless you’re on dial up of course.
Skype 3.5.202 was recently released.
Here’s what Ubberreview had to say (in part):
The new version has been billed as a major update and that is exactly what it is. The menus look and feel the same, but there have been at least three new additions. You now have the ability to capture video of yourself or the person that you are talking to, you can also share videos and transfer calls to your Skype contacts. The latter inclusion may make Skype more of a hit with small business operators, or people telecommute. Video does seem to be thoroughly integrated in Skype 3.5 as opposed to being an afterthought in Skype 3.0
There is no word on the website relating to security, but it has to be a consideration. As more and more people use Skype, you can bet that there will be more people hunting out exploits. The updates have been coming quickly and look certain to continue. The next major one should be Skype 4.0.
In marketing, you either invest cash equity or sweat equity.
In the only world, sweat equity means … placing manual ads, blog posts, forum entries, etc.
To help you generate traffic and sales through forum entries, you’ll want to download and read Harvey Segal’s “Forum Marketing Super Tips”
Here’s what you get (for free):
Every day across countless thousands of forums on the Net, people are asking questions.
What an opportunity for those who can answer them !
It could be you and this book explains exactly
- how to find exactly what forum visitors are looking for
- how to quickly create a resource that will answer their questions
- how to make superior postings to get people to visit your resource – with no hype and no ads and no affiliate links
- how you will profit handsomely from these visits
Forum Marketing SuperTips, written by Harvey Segal (Mr SuperTips) is neatly set out, easy to follow, written without hype and not littered with annoying links.
It’s packed with solid tips on “How to Post at Forums – for Profit”
According to Business Week British workers yearn to telecommute.
A survey of more than 1,000 white collar workers, commissioned by mobile phone operator T-Mobile, has found many believe they would be more productive– and creative — if they could work in different locations.
Nearly half (48 per cent) of workers surveyed said a change of scene would increase their productivity levels, while almost one-third said switching location would make them more inspired.
The research also found an appetite for working from home: 23 per cent of office workers would like to be able to sign on remotely in future.
Glynn County GA officials are wanting to tax and regulate “home businesses” who employ outside workers. “Home Occupations” where the workers in the business also live in the home like medical transcriptionists, virtual assistants, etc. would possibly be exempt.
From The Brunswick News
It may soon cost individuals more to work out of their homes in Glynn County. [Georgia]
Those who operate businesses out of their residences may face added regulations and added fees to pay for enforcement of them.
The intention is not to discourage entrepreneurs or new enterprises, but to better control what work is being done out of a house, as well as its impact on the neighborhood.
Glynn County officials say they are considering requiring individuals who operate commercial enterprises from their homes to purchase a permit – in addition to an occupational license required of all businesses – from the county.
Cost of the proposed permit has not been discussed yet, said York Phillips, county planning manager. An occupational license now costs from $78 to $528, depending on the number of employees a business has.
Staff members from the county’s Planning and Zoning Department are working to update the language concerning enterprises that are operated from residential dwellings.
“The big change, structurally, would be the creation of two categories,” Phillips said. “We would keep the current one – home occupations – but add the home business category.”
The main difference between a home occupation and a home business is that for a home occupation all employees must live at the residence where the business is operated.
With a home business, owners may employ outside assistance.
The biggest danger facing teens using MySpace in addition to predators stalking them is … future employers.
It’s becoming a common practice to search MySpace for profiles of potential applicants. In fact, it can keep you from working and landing lucrative contracts because what you put there (unless you remove it of course) can show potential bosses what they consider your “dark side” or the “down side” that will emerge once you’re working and your happy interview face is off.
Think ahead.
Whether you want to be an employee or entrepreneur, MySpace can come back to bite you.
I like to promote home businesses whenever I can. Today I wanted to bring this press release to your attention about GoreAdministrativeServices.com:
Gore Administrative Services announces the creation of a new website, www.GoreAdministrativeServices.com , to advance awareness of their full line of virtual administrative, marketing and financial services. Gore Administrative Services is a fully functional, virtual office specializing in providing virtual assistant services to independent professionals, sole proprietors, home and/or small businesses that do not need or have the budget for a full time administrative staff.
Tammy Gore is a Navy wife and mother of two; she is originally from Biloxi, MS however due to her husband’s naval career she is currently residing in Jacksonville, FL . With over twelve years of executive level administrative experience in a wide variety of industry ranging from Architectural, Medical/Dental, and Manufacturing, her experience and expertise allows her to offer clients high quality service in a timely manner without the high cost of full time administrative personel.
Congratulations to another entrepreneur who has entered the virtual assistant business.
Arise.com is a well known name in the home based call center business. Their representatives are required to create their own business entities (S Corp or LLC) to work for the firm. That makes it absolutely clear that the call center reps are not “employees”.
It’s nice to hear about real people who work for the firm and in this industry so I thought I’d pass along this story from New Jersey:
The Arise business plan is simple: The company will train and certify people who are looking to work for themselves from home for a fee of about $100. It then connects those agents with large companies, like Walgreens and Home Depot, that are looking to outsource their customer service, IT or sales operations.
With an initial investment of a few hundred dollars, which includes the training and some materials, just about anyone with a computer and desire to set their own work schedule can become an “Arise certified professional.” Essentially, it means incorporating on your own and getting work through Arise’s pipeline of organizations that seek independents to handle customer service, sales or technology jobs. For an hourly wage and no benefits, trained agents can make their own hours and work from home.
Clifton’s Jasmin Pirkl, at the urging of a friend, became an Arise agent last year to supplement her full-time work as a customer service agent for Delta Airlines at Newark Liberty International Airport. These days, when she’s not dealing with complaints about lost luggage or late arrivals, she’s often talking from home with Walgreens customers who need help using automated prescription services or digital photo software.
Pirkl works from home for the drugstore chain for somewhere between 20 and 30 hours each week, usually earning about $400 weekly before taxes.
“I love it,” says Pirkl. “I get to make my own hours and make some money from my own home.”
Related Links: One of the problems with many work at home call center positions is “down time” when you’re not earning income. Check out Legit Online Jobs for ways to earn money from home during this “downtime”.
Poorly crafted landing pages can be an Adwords Killer for you! They can decrease your click through rates and get your ads canceled because they appear “irrelevant” to the ad. this link helps understand adwords.
But besides keeping Google happy about your landing page, they must be crafted to keep the customer happy and respond to your promotion as well. That’s where this free report comes in. It deals with the client side.
You can download the report here.
Did you know that:
* Search ads perform 30% better when the call to action of the ad is reflected in the headline of the landing page.
* The conversion rate on direct mail averages 50% when using personalized landing pages.
To learn more, download your free copy of the detailed Landing Page Optimization Report, which includes:
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This information is provided by Naehas based on the hundreds of campaigns we have done using the Naehas Landing Page Application. We provide a solution that allows marketers to create, host, and measure personalized and customized landing pages, without any IT support. Using the Naehas Landing Page Application, our clients have seen up to a 500% increase in their conversion rates!
The Yarra Ranges Shire (Australia) is offering a free home business start up guide based on research they conducted on 1500 home based businesses.
From the press release at the Star News
A NEW booklet is available for operators of home-based businesses and anyone thinking of starting a business from home.
The book, Home-Based Business: Opportunities for Establishment or Expansion in the Shire of Yarra Ranges, is produced by the Shire of Yarra Ranges and covers topics from the advantages of running a home-based business in the shire, to hints on expanding an existing business.
It also includes case studies of successful local home-based businesses, with tips from operators on making the business a success.
Yarra Ranges mayor Tim Heenan said the 13-page booklet was the result of a survey of 1500 home-based businesses conducted by the shire’s economic development unit last year.
The survey aimed to find out more about this sector, including the issues operators were facing, the services they used and the support they required.
Cr. Heenan described the booklet as a font of knowledge.
“Based on the number of responses we received, the shire is confident the survey results provided an accurate picture of home-based businesses in Yarra Ranges,” Cr Heenan said.
“The information we gained has helped us to develop strategies to help home-based businesses grow, and the booklet is part of these strategies.”
You can download your copy here.
Image courtesy Yarra Ranges Shire
