Archive | September, 2021

If you want to achieve success in an online home business, you’ll want to be seen as an expert in your field. Why? Because people pay attention to and follow experts.

The beauty of the world we live in today is that it’s easier than ever to gain knowledge and share that knowledge with others. In fact, Google itself allows you to tap into the world’s brain instantly. Here’s some ways you can start sharing knowledge and solving other people’s problems in a way that will position you as a real expert in your field…

• Blog Regularly Toward Your Audience – Start a blog on your website and blog directly to your audience with many forms of content, discussing many issues that the audience has. It’s a great way to get traffic, but it’s also a great way to demonstrate expertise.
• Write a White Paper about a Problem – A white paper is a long report that addresses a problem and then offers solutions to the problem. If you write a paper or two about individual problems your audience has and demonstrate viable solutions, you’ll be able to show your expertise even though you’re just starting out.
• Publish a Book about Your Expertise – Writing a book and authorship is always a great way to show your expertise. Direct the book to your target audience and answer questions they may have. Address one problem and solve it and then you’ll get more respect that you know what you’re talking about.
• Make Checklists to Help Your Target Audience – If you know the types of things that your audience has questions about, create helpful checklists, cheat sheets, or tip sheets that are available for view and/or download on your website or blog.
• Share Answers Freely on Social Networks – Social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and even forums and message boards are great places to answer other people’s questions in a way that highlights your expertise.
• Become a Contributing Writer – Blogs, websites, newspapers and magazines all want more content and will take well-written, expertly delivered articles. Some of these will even pay you for the content. Write originally for each and rely on your bio to send traffic your way.
• Get on a Speaking Circuit – Create a couple of presentations that you could easily turn into public speaking fodder. Practice by putting that information on video, YouTube, your blog and other places that publish videos online.
• Create a Dedicated YouTube Channel – Many people have become famous because of YouTube, and you can too. Use YouTube as a way to demonstrate your expertise on the topics of interest to your audience.
• Host a Free Webinar or Teleseminar – Technology enables you to do a lot to spread the word about your knowledge and expertise. You can create “how to” videos, tip videos and more to show the world and most importantly, your audience, what you know.

Demonstrating your expertise when first starting out doesn’t require you to have a huge customer list, established earnings or even a following of subscribers yet. Implementing any of these ideas is what can help you gain a following, increase your website traffic and ultimately help you build the home business you’re dreaming of.

One of the biggest things about trying to find a real work-from-home job or business opportunity that turns a lot of people away is the prevalence of many different scams.

Here are some ways to tell whether an opportunity is real, or if it’s too good to be true:

• No Legitimate Contact Information – If the business opportunity is real, they will have a real business website with a real business email address at the minimum, not a Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail address. You should easily be able to look up the people and the name of the business to find out more information. Ideally, the business will also provide a physical address and telephone number that you can verify.
• Promises of Riches Overnight – Any plan that claims you’ll become rich overnight is a scam. It’s just not going to happen. Working from home at a job, or running your own business, requires patience, skill development and plenty of work to make money. The idea that you can setup a website or join a business opportunity, do nothing and get paid is simply false.
• Upfront Investments (Beware) – Many legitimate MLMs (Multi-Level Marketing) companies and affiliate programs do ask for money up front, which is a business investment. Even if you do not like MLMs, some of them are legitimate companies that offer a great opportunity. However, some jobs or opportunities only want your money. You should have plenty of time to do research before opening up your wallet and pulling out your credit card. Never pay for a job, although an investment in a business opportunity is considered normal.
• You Feel Pressured to Act Now – If you’ve been contacted by someone making a lot of promises to you about making tons of money and insisting that you must act right now or you’ll lose out forever, your red flags should go up. It’s true that there are time-sensitive offers and opportunities, but just keep in mind that a real business opportunity is going to be there tomorrow and for many years to come. Make decisions based on the long-term expectations you have for the company you are working with and an honest self-evaluation of your own commitment to work hard and do what it takes to succeed.
• Western Union and Money Orders – Sorry call out a legitimate company like this, but it’s often true; if you need to use Western Union to send money to anyone for joining a business, be very skeptical!
• It Sounds Too Good to Be True – Trust yourself first. You know it in your gut that it’s just too good to be true, but you are tempted. Stop. Take some time to research the company and not just the people and places they give you to research. Do your due diligence and walk away if you can’t prove they’re legitimate.
• Random Email Job Offers for Opportunities You’ve Never Heard Of – This happens sometimes when you apply for or fill out an application for different job opportunities online. Your contact details may be shared or sold as someone who is interested in a work-at-home job or online business, and you could receive unsolicited job and business opportunity offers by email. If you didn’t request information about a particularly company or opportunity directly, delete the email and make sure you unsubscribe if there is a link available in the mail to do so.
• Outlandish Pay for Low Wage Positions – This is a common sign of a scam. You’ll see the advertisement on a seemingly legitimate website that promises a lot of money for many different positions that normally don’t pay that kind of money. Be realistic. You won’t make $45 dollars an hour as a receptionist.

Above all, trust yourself and be diligent in your research. Have confidence knowing there truly are many very good online home business opportunities and jobs you can do from home which will allow you to earn a reliable income. While skepticism is healthy and encouraged, you must also remain optimistic and determined to find the right income opportunity for you. It exists and I trust that you will discover it soon. 🙂

When you first realize the possibilities about working from home, it’s normal to get super excited and believe everyone else will be too. But oftentimes the family isn’t as happy as you are, nor as trusting. They think it’s just a pipe dream, or worse, a scam. They haven’t done the research you have so they do not realize the true possibilities and potential surrounding the idea of working from home.

Provide Your Research to Them

Many times your family just cares about you so much that they simply want to protect you. But, if you show them the research that you’ve done, they may quickly realize that you’ve done your homework, and that you’re not going to get scammed.

Give Examples of Others Doing It Successfully

More than likely, at this point you have a circle of influence that includes work-at-home success stories. Let your partner and family in on the fact by talking about how so-and-so is making x amount of money and all while working from home. Explain what they do, and put the bug in their ear of the possibilities and potential.

Write Out a Business Plan

Banks want business plans to ensure that you’ve looked at all aspects of the business you plan to run. They want to see the numbers, and how you plan to make more money in the short term and the long term. Your family will feel better seeing these numbers, too. Even if you don’t plan to get a loan for your business, showing them everything down on paper will impress them.

Transition Slowly Timing Is Everything

Don’t expect everyone to be on board from day one. The idea takes time to sink in for some people. Mostly out of concern for you, but sometimes also from fear. Spouses fear what they don’t understand and not everyone is entrepreneurial or likes taking what they see as risks. Even though telecommuting has been around for a while, it’s still rare enough that people are shocked to find out that their home shopping orders are being taken by someone in their home office.

Work after Hours to Show Them the Money

If you’re not getting any place with discussion, start working after hours until you can show them the money. Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character in the movie, Jerry Maguire, had it right. People think differently about many things when they see the cash. If you have a spouse or family like that, you can work around their schedules doing something to earn money and then show them by paying for something fun, like a family vacation.

Explain to the Children about “Work” Time

You’re going to have to talk to the children a lot about work time. You might even need to have this talk with your spouse too. It’s a myth that you can work in chaos and constant interruption. You need a place you can work, and that people realize to leave you alone when you’re doing it. You can use a sign on the door, timers, and other incentives to get everyone on board to understand your needs. As for family members that live outside your home, just don’t answer the phone or door when you’re working. Everyone will get accustomed to it eventually.

Turn Your Family into Partners

As your family gets accustomed to the idea of you working from home, reward them by making them part of your business. You can hire family members and spouses on a contract or hourly basis and pay them. Then deduct these expenses from your business taxes. Once your kids or spouse is making some extra money from your business, they’ll be truly invested in your success.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

The most important aspect of talking to your family about working from home is to keep the lines of communication open at all times. You want to be honest with what is working and what is not working, and you’ll be surprised at how much your family is on your side with the goal of you working from home.

Family can sometimes be a hard sell, but it’s not because they don’t love you. It’s because they do love you and want you to be successful. Sometimes it’s just because they’re not aware of what working at home means. This is especially true of older individuals who may not understand technology.

We live in a brave new world that offers unprecedented opportunities to work at home and be the captain of your own financial ship. Getting your family on board and believing in what you are doing will be one of the important pillars of your long-term success.

If you’ve decided that you want to work from home with your own business, you may need to have a form of steady income while you finish creating products and developing your business infrastructure. The good news is there are a number of ways in which you can bring in some extra income while you get your business off the ground.

• Provide a Service – If you plan to make your own products and sell them, you likely have skills that other people will want to use. Try finding out if anyone needs the types of service you could offer. Perhaps you’re good at graphic design, database management, transcription, or something else entirely. Put it out there and people may buy your time. A couple places you could start listing your services for hire are popular freelance sites such as Fiverr and Upwork.
• Get a Part-Time Job – If you can’t wait for services to take off, you can get a part-time job. Sign up to be a substitute teacher or a temp at an agency, or head over to your nearest fast food place and you’re likely to be hired on the spot.
• Get a Work-at-Home Job – There are many legitimate work-from-home jobs that you can get pretty quickly if you have experience, education and skills. Look for call center work, and you could be bringing in extra money within the month.
• Sell Items on eBay – Have too much stuff in your house? Try selling some of it on eBay. You can also buy from stores on sale, and then sell for a higher price on eBay. Believe it or not, everyone isn’t able to get to the same sales you can.
• Sell Items on Amazon – This is the same idea as eBay, but you may not be aware that you can sell your old books and pretty much any items that Amazon sells, right from your home office. You can even ship some qualifying items to their fulfillment service and then sit back and collect checks as Amazon does the heavy lifting for you. Look up “Fulfillment by Amazon” to learn more.
• Have a Yard Sale – One of the fastest and most reliable methods of bringing in some cash is the old-fashioned yard or garage sale. Or go virtual and use services like Craigslist or VarageSale to sell your unwanted household items to local buyers.
• Sell Your Body – Seriously, you can sell your blood, plasma, breast milk, sperm, and hair to appropriate locations. Sometimes it’s not very quick, such as with sperm and breast milk which require a lot of tests, but with blood and plasma you can walk right in, answer a few questions, give and get paid on the spot. With hair, you may have to locate a hair broker, or try selling it on eBay.
• Babysit or Dog Sit – One of the fastest ways to make a buck is to babysit or dog sit, but make sure you do it in their house or you’ll have to worry about licensure. Tell everyone you know that you would like to babysit or provide animal care (or both). Truly caring caregivers are in high demand and if you choose this path, you’ll find many opportunities to earn extra income this way.
• Return Stuff You Don’t Use – Have you made recent purchases and the tags are still on them? Do you have the receipts? Typically you can take those items back for a full refund. If you’re not using them right now, why not take them back. Most of us have far more stuff than we need anyway. Even online purchases from Amazon are easy to return for a full or partial refund.
• Rent Out a Room – Do you have an extra room or two in your home that you could rent out? If you do, extra money is just a few clicks away. Use services like Airbnb (The Unique Alternative to Hotels) to list your property and start attracting renters today. Or go old school and list your room in the classified section of the newspaper. Either way, if you’ve got some extra space, you can turn it into cash!
• Join a Medical Experiment – Human trials and studies are often conducted right in your area at your local hospital. You can usually find out which studies are being done with a quick search on the net. You’ll be paid for your time, and get free healthcare for the associated issue.
• Join an Affiliate Program – Affiliate programs give you the opportunity to join free or for a small fee and sell other company’s products for a commission. Some affiliate programs pay 40% or higher in commissions simply for sharing their products with others, and many people have been able to turn online affiliate marketing into their full-time income. In fact, take a look around my website today and you’ll find some of the top affiliate programs that I’m using to make money from right now.

Never lose hope or let a lack of money in the present moment keep you from moving forward in your life or business. There are always ways to get cash when you need it while you get your business off the ground. It simply requires you to stay positive and look for opportunities. Then be decisive and take steady action toward your goals.

Everyone is after more work-life balance. Some jobs are better than others at allowing at least some work-life integration possibilities, but some business owners are slow to catch on. If you have a job that would make it simple to work part time from home, then you’re in a good position to try to convince your boss to let you work part time from home by following these steps.

Figure Out the Logistics First

Before even approaching your boss about the idea of working from home, you’ll need to figure out whether it’s possible. What tools do you need at home that you have at the office to make it work? Are you willing to come out of pocket and set this up for yourself, or are you going to ask your boss to foot the bill?

Provide a Well Thought-Out Plan of Action

If you can demonstrate exactly how everything will work, including showing up at meetings on time, then you’re half way there. Create a report for your boss showing how you’ll do each area of your job while you’re at home so they can visualize the potential.

Provide Supportive Research

Include supportive research that shows people who work from home at least part of the time are more productive, instead of less productive. Be ready to prove this by increasing your productivity when you’re given the opportunity to change your work location.

Develop a System

Set systems in place well in advance so that you know they work. Test them out before approaching your boss so that you know they will work 100 percent. Ensure that you won’t have dead spots in your house when you answer your phone, or that sounds like the TV don’t interfere with calls.

Provide Assurances about Required Meetings

If meetings are planned in advance there should be no issues about you getting to meetings on time. But, if your place of business often has last-minute meetings, that could be a problem. You could set up technology to help with this, but it will require help from others. Alternatively, if you live close to the location of your job, you can state that you can be at any meeting within an hour if they’re important.

Call in Sick

This one’s a little sneaky, but can be very effective… Prime your boss before approaching them by calling in sick but working from home while you’re sick. Just state that you don’t want to make others sick, but you’ll get your normal work done from home. You can actually wait until you’re really sick to try this so that you won’t get into trouble for lying, although being productive when you’re truly sick may be a challenge.

Ask for a Trial Run

Once you present the idea to your boss, ask for a trial run. Say that you’ll work two days a week from home such as Thursday and Friday, which are usually low meeting days anyway. Then if you get the permission, do a great job with the opportunity you’re given.

Over Deliver

Be prepared to up your game if you do get the go ahead to work from home. Make sure you find ways to connect with your boss, and show them what you’re doing so that you won’t be seen as someone who’s not even needed. Yes, there’s a risk to not being in the office… It’s one step closer to being an actual business owner. Deliver more results once you’re home, and your boss will be pleased and probably give you even more freedom.

Working from home does come with unique rewards and challenges, so be prepared to work out some kinks and perfect your systems as you go. Many bosses are keen on having some of their employees work from home these days, so why not you?

Many people want to work from home for a variety of reasons. Maybe you just had a child and want more work-life balance, or perhaps you have an illness that makes it difficult for you to get out of the house. Or maybe you just like being home and want the freedom to work your own way.

Whatever the reasons you want to work at home, you’ll need to choose whether or not you want a job from home, or you want a business from home. Here are eight questions to help you decide.

1. Are You Self-Motivated?

If you want your own business so that you can set your own hours, you will need to be very self-motivated. You’ll need to take time out of your day for marketing, interviewing clients, closing the deal and then doing the work too. You’ll be 100 percent responsible for delivering the work, billing and collecting. You’ll even be responsible for deciding the methods you use to do the work. To do that you’ll need to be a very self-motivated individual.

2. What Skills Do You Have?

Take a piece of paper and write down a list of the skills you currently have, based on what you’ve already done in the past. Can any of these translate into a business? Label them appropriately. Do any of these translate into common work-from-home positions such as call center agent or transcriptionist? Some skills cross over into both, but which side of the list gets full faster?

3. What Sort of Lifestyle Do You Want?

With a work-at-home job you’ll be required to “show up” for work on time each day that you’re scheduled, and you may have little control over that schedule. What’s more, with work-at-home positions it is a lot harder than typical jobs to call in sick, whether it’s you or a child who is sick. Often the first 90 days you cannot miss your schedule at all if you want to keep the position. Are you ready for that? Or, would you prefer a more family-oriented type of schedule that can be adjusted more easily and is more deliverables-based than hourly-based?

4. Do You Already Have a Business Idea?

If you have already researched a business idea, and feel as if you want to do that instead of working for someone else, can you pull it off? What steps do you need to take to make it a reality? Are you the type of person to be able to organize and take the steps needed to get your business off the ground? Can you find and afford help if you’re not sure what to do to get the business going? Does the thought of all this stress you out?

5. How Do You Feel about Punching a Clock?

For some people the idea of clock punching is relaxing, for others it feels like a nightmare. Neither feeling is right or wrong as it takes all types of people to make this world work. If you know up front that you are fine with punching a clock and you’d rather someone else tell you when to be someplace and what to do, then a work-at-home job is best for you. If that feels like prison to you, then a business is probably better if you can do what it takes to get it going.

6. Do You Have Money to Start a Business?

Starting any type of business, even an online business, requires an investment not only of time, but also of money. Have you worked out a business plan and do you know how much money you need to get started? Do you have that money available? If not, do you have a way to get it? Perhaps working at a job first, while you save for and work on your business on the side, is the way to go if you don’t have the funds to start.

7. Do You Need Training and Education?

Both working at a job and owning a business sometimes require skills that you don’t have yet. But that’s okay. Decide if you want to invest in the training yourself to get your business off the ground, or if you would like to try to find a work-at-home job where they will train you from the ground up.

8. What Is Your Biggest Dream for Your Life?

When you think of the future, what do you see? Does it sound relaxing to get up in the morning, have some breakfast, and move to your home office where you sign in to work at your job, taking a break when needed by telling your manager that you have to use the restroom, or go eat lunch and so forth, then when you get off work you’re totally and fully off? Plus, each week you collect a guaranteed paycheck? Or, do you like the idea of being able to do what you want when you want (and likely working more hours than you ever thought you could) but without the guarantee of a specific amount of income each week, knowing that you’re forging your own future?

Whatever you decide, neither is right or wrong. They are both good choices for you. Whether you want a work-at-home job so you can sign off after the day and focus 100 percent on your family, or whether you want a business that will cross boundaries into family time and vice versa but that puts you 100 percent in charge – both are good choices and choices that you are fortunate to have in this age of high speed internet.