Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog
Having recently moderated the panel on blogging at WOMMA’s WOMBAT 2 conference, Debbie offered her five tips on confronting your fear — and launching a blog in spite of it:
Tip #1. Think about blogging strategically
Ask yourself these questions: Why does it really make sense for you to add a blog to your marketing communications strategy? What is it that you really want to say? What are your customers really interested in?
Tip #2. Consider starting an event-specific blog
If taking on a project with no end to it feels overwhelming, begin a blog surrounding a certain event. You may find that there’s a long-term tie-in, and you can continue the blog. Or, you may find that you’ve had enough, but now you have some experience under your belt and may not feel as apprehensive.
Tip #3. Get familiar with the convention of blogging
Give it a try. If you don’t tell anyone, the blog will stay private and you can practice for as long as you like until you feel comfortable. Show colleagues and ask for their input before making it public.
Tip #4. Don’t worry about running out of things to say
It doesn’t matter what your widgets are, because you’re not going to blog about your widgets. You’re going to blog about things related to your widgets.
For example, a blog from an all-natural yogurt company wouldn’t be very interesting if it focused solely on yogurt. A blog about organic farming would have a much wider appeal.
Tip #5. Just do it
You’ve got some experience. The blog is up and running (if only for your own purposes). You’ve figured out what you’re willing to say, and what your customers are interested in that is related to your products and services.
Now, simply keep it up.
When writing your ad it pays to remember the Top 8 direct marketing offers of all time. They work again and again and again… why not put them to work for you? I’ve listed them with my comments. Click through for Dean’s comments!
From Dean Rieck
1. Free Trial – If it’s something they’ll love, let them fear living without it.
2. Money Back Guarantee – The longer the guarantee, the more people are reassured the less likely they are to ask for it, but the more you sell.
3. Free Gift – Excellent way to get people to walk in your shop or make that first contact with you.
4. Limited Time Offer. Urgency sells if it’s believable. Hard to do with ebooks unless they are a “limited edition”.
5. Forced “Yes” or “No”. Like “The Matrix”… they must choose the red or the blue pill… they are forced to understand the implications of their decision either way like those one time special offers where “you’ll never see this page again ever”!
6. Negative Option – “Till Forbid”…You keep shipping and charging them unless they say “no”. AOL has this down to a fine art… they never let you say “No”. Try to be a little less zealous please.
7. Credit Card Payment – That’s why America’s broke. Need I say more?
8. Sweepstakes… Publisher’s Clearing House did it with magazines…States run lotteries…people want something for nothing.
Read the whole article with his comments…
Dean Rieck is president of Direct Creative (directcreative.com), a full-service creative firm. E-mail: DeanRieck@DirectCreative.com.
Call your Chamber of Commerce or extension agent and ask what’s being done in YOUR area to encourage Home Businesses?
From the Sun Herald
ENGLEWOOD — Women who have home-based businesses now have some hometown support.
Beginning Thursday, the Women’s Resource Center in partnership with the Englewood-Cape Haze Area Chamber of Commerce will offer the Women’s Home Business Network. It will be held every fourth Thursday.
The network is a home-based business information and support group for women that began in the Venice WRC office. The group will meet from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Chamber of Commerce, 601 S. Indiana Ave.
“Everybody has an idea,” said Connie Ellis, South Sarasota County off-site coordinator for the WRC. “It’s amazing what advice other women can give you.”
The cost is $5 per person to cover the cost of presenters and any material provided.
This month’s facilitator will help guests create business ideas, think about who their customers might be and determine where their market area is.
Some of the content, Ellis said, will include information such as the 10 most important steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
She said each month the group meets there will be a guest speaker at the beginning of the program with a subject relating to an in-home business.
After the lecture, Ellis said, the group will hold a brainstorming session with experienced home-based entrepreneurs giving advice and support to novice businesswomen.
For more information or to register, call the Venice WRC at 941-485-9724.
The Women’s Resource Center is open Thursday afternoons in the Englewood United Methodist Church at 700 E. Dearborn St. The WRC offers several other support programs.
Craigslist is offering a self employment forum on their site now. When you go to the “jobs” forum, you can then click on a link to the “self-employment forum”.
I’ve just started browsing it but it seems like an interesting place to make content and learn things to say the least.
The Amway and Quixtar promoters were taking a beating but otherwise civil conversations seemed to be taking place.
For example…
Here’s a fellow, for example, seeking to sell his Tree Service.
For the last 16 years I’ve done above average work on trees and have a pretty strong and loyal customer base. Business is sole proprietor exempt, licensed bonded and insured.
Now comes the time to make a move following an injury and divorce.
Standard business valuations would suggest a price of 3 x net or 80% gross = $100k to sell but I am struggling to spark interest at $45k to sell business including tangibles.
any suggestions?
Response…
I’m wondering
How do people hear about your business for sale?
And then how do you tell them the price?
I’m wondering if the price sort of gets blurted out instead of being built up so that it sounds like a bargain.
You’re an entrepreneur.
You wouldn’t want anyone to pull the wool over your eyes.
So instead of saying “Experts say a business is worth…X” how would you want someone to explain the value to you?
Just wondering out loud.
Chuck
Is there money handling equipment leases for other businesses?
This franchise hopes so.
Whether it profits or not, it’s existence shows that the small business, home business, microenterprise field is growing prominently as people seek leasing options for boostrapping their businesses.
From St. Paul Pioneer Press
Equipment leasing franchises are an unproven concept. Wirth is one of only two such businesses in the country (the other is part of Volvo, the Swedish truck and equipment maker). Since Wirth began offering franchises last fall, two other franchise units have opened in Dallas and San Diego. Company officials hope to have up to 15 franchises by the end of the year and as many as 100 eventually.
Though Faras says he understands the risks, some industry experts are skeptical about Wirth.
“Credit is a difficult thing to franchise. You really have to know credit to be in that position,” said Credit Suisse financial analyst Moshe Orenbuch, who follows large equipment-leasing companies.
Interest rates tend to be high because leasing is short-term and borrowers can be higher risk. Wirth charges around 9 percent to 14 percent today compared to a bank prime-lending rate of 8.25 percent, Morgan said. Winmark and its franchise owners earn a profit by building fees into the interest rate, much like points that are added to a home mortgage loan.
Wirth franchise owners pay an average of $60,000 to do business in a certain geographic area, including franchise, computer and marketing fees. In exchange, the company provides the brand, the business model, cash for leases, training, marketing and the collection of overdue leases.
Segway’s creator, Dean Kamen, just keeps on inventing.
According to Start Up Journal , his company which is funded by research and development contracts mainly for medical research is currently working on two items that will provide survival essentials and infrastructure for entrepreneurship in the Third World…
A portable water purifier and new breed of generator.
Mr. Kamen saw the Segway as a way to combat pollution and traffic congestion in the industrialized world’s cities, but he imagines his power generator and water purifier could drive huge advances in the basics of life in parts of Africa, Asia and Central America.
The power generator, a kind of machine known as a Stirling engine, comes in various sizes, ranging from 50 pounds to 300 pounds and can output between 400 and 5,000 watts of power; in late 2005 it kept two villages in Bangladesh running on electric power systems for 24 weeks while using only cow dung for fuel.
The water purifier, a 300-pound, dishwasher-sized machine, will use vapor compression distillation, an existing technology that purifies water by vaporizing it and returning it to a liquid state with the impurities separated out. The end result, Deka says: 40 gallons of water an hour. Deka says the water purifier is still a prototype and not nearly as close to market as the engine; the company is working with a nonprofit group, Safe Water Network, to make the technology work more efficiently and on a smaller scale.
Here’s a clever way to stop ebook theft… It was done manually by a seller but I’m sure it could be automated for immediate download.
I purchased an online manual that would arrive in adobe acrobat’s Portable Document File format.
Instead of making it downloadable, they sent the book by email.
It’s obviously a book created on a Word or Word Perfect document printed out as the PDF file.
After receiving the order, they opened up the master file and in the footer that appears on every page typed “This book prepared exclusively for….”
I liked the personalization but obviously keeps their ebook from being given away as a freebie.
Try it yourself. Obviously unless you can automate this “branding” a best selling ebook will keep you VERY BUSY! (And customers used to immediate download may get upset since the delayed access wasn’t mentioned till after payment in this case.)
I always love it when “experts” (whoever they are) “warn” people about the “dangers” of working at home.
It’s as if working away from home was not a fairly recent development as a result of the Industrial Revolution… working from home has been the norm through human history as couples like this one are finding out!
From NBC4.com
WASHINGTON — With the competing demands of work and home, some couples are seeking alternate ways to balance their lives by choosing to work from home.
News4′s Eun Yang reported that it is not always an easy solution.Ray and Rosy Tetz said they have been married 32 years and for the last 10, they have been working side-by-side in their home office in Silver Spring.
“When our daughter was 3, we pulled into the terminal at Dulles Airport and she looked out the window from her car seat and said, ‘Oh look, there is daddy’s office.’ And that was really a killer moment,” said Ray Tetz.Ray and Rosy Tetz said they made a radical change in their lives, quitting their jobs and forming their own media production company. Ray said he had previously traveled a lot as an executive and Rosy was a teacher.”All the flexibility — being able to do what I need to do when I need to do it. I like it,” said Rosy Tetz.
High gas prices, traffic congestion and family demands are forcing more couples to look for work options such as telecommuting and flex time.The Tetzs and Zelmans have learned to focus on their jobs during working hours and take breaks throughout the day.Experts suggest seeking professional help in making the transition to working from home before you set up a home office.
Craigslist is indeed a “Classified Advertising Site” but that doesn’t mean the ads have to look boring.Some graphic designers are known for their work that specializes in creating ads that pull in orders for Craigslist advertisers.
One of those web designers is LonzoDesigns.com. You can click the link to see more of their custom work.
I originally saw this on Craigslist and pass it along…
VIPdesk Connect provides contact center solutions for national brand leaders- providing premium customer experiences- within the retail, financial services and travel industries. VIPdesk has established a nationwide network of home-based contact center service representatives- Service Ambassadors. This highly skilled experienced network of independent contractors, help companies deliver the highest level of service to their customers via phone, email, chat and fax.
Service Ambassador (Independent Contractor Opportunity)
This home-based contact center contracting opportunity is the focal point of VIPdesk Connect. Successful individuals will serve as home-based Call Takers (Service Amabassadors) by assisting and responding to customer requests for information via phone, email, chat and fax.
What do our Service Ambassadors do?
· Our Service Ambassadors provide inbound and/or outbound call-taking services to customers of VIPdesk Connect’s Clients;
· Our Service Ambassadors handle customer inquiries from home office via phone, email, chat and fax;
· Service Ambassadors research and fulfill inquiries in accordance with Client’s program requirements
· VIPdesk Connect Service Ambassadors apply the highest quality customer service guidelines when servicing customers
VIPdesk most successful Service Ambassadors portrait the following:
· 5+ years of direct hands on customer service experience;
· Have a Hospitality orientation
· They have a college degree or a combination of education and experience in lieu of a degree;
· They are interested in working weekend and holiday hours;
· They commit to work at least 10 hours per week;
· They are Internet savvy and computer literate;
· They are able to type at least 40 wpm;
· They have outstanding communication skills;
· They are polite, friendly and knowledgeable phone demeanor;
· They are detail oriented, ability to multitask, strong sense of urgency, and commitment to excellence;
· They posses excellent English verbal and written communication skills;
· Most of them have Bilingual skills
· They have successfully passed credit, criminal, and business reference security checks;
· They are able to provide a work at home environment that is ergonomically sound, conducive to taking customer calls, silent and free from distraction;
Service Ambassador Compensation:
· Information about compensation will be discussed further in the screening process.
Interested Service Ambassadors (Incorporated Contractors) should submit their work history and answer registration questionnaire via our website: www.vipdesk.com
More on Vipdesk.com careers…
