How To Choose A Business To Start From Home And Start Earning Immediately

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A good business to start from home is the one for which you have the greatest conviction, talent and means. The choice should be uninfluenced by your friends or any commercial ad.

Following steps will help you decide on your choice of a business to start from home.

1.Evaluate your skills

Evaluate yourself for your strengths and weaknesses. For example, you may have an artistic nature or have good communicating skills, or you love to interact with children or animals. Your skills will be the basis of your successful home-based business. After assessing yourself, ask yourself, “With these skills, what type of home based business can I start?” Supposing if you have excellent accounting and managerial skills, you can have multiple home-based business ideas not limited to just payroll, submission of tax and returns, year-end accounting etc. This accounting talent further combined with other skills might as well open doors to various other related home based business opportunities. Don’t restrict yourself with a few home business ideas. Make a list of all your ideas at this juncture.

2. Take a test for your business idea

Now from this list, strike off those businesses which are difficult or simply not possible to run from home, like starting a manufacturing unit in a residential area. You also have to consider that you can’t run a home-based business, if it involves dealing with a lot of clients coming and going. Many people start a home-based business with the first business idea coming to their mind and they plunge into it. Don’t do this. You will ruin your precious money and time.
The success key to a home-based business is to go through the business selection procedure.

3. Profit and Business Plan Are Major Keys to any Business to Start from Home

The two important factors to be considered before starting a “business to start from home” is to calculate expected revenues and preparing a business plan. To make your home-based business a success, you got to take these factors into consideration.

4. Figure out the profit aspect

It is important to know how much revenue will be generated from your home-based business. You may be very talented, but if you are not able to sell your product or services, your home-based business will not see success. You have to assess if people would be prepared to pay for this product or service? Will you make enough profit as per your expectation? Business survives on profit, and you will have many bills to pay.

Go through your list of business ideas again and evaluate the profit aspect of each idea. If any business idea does not provide satisfactory answer to the profit aspect, strike off that idea.

You have to decide on the revenue figure you want to achieve. Many people run part-time home-based businesses to earn supplement their home income and are happy with that. But is that your motive to start a home-based business? If no, then you have to do a lot of groundwork to find out the profit-making ability of your business idea.

5. Prepare a business plan to evaluate the success aspect

It is imperative that you make your business plan. Your idea when put into black and white will help you spot lacunas and give you an opportunity to mend it. A business plan not only helps you gain certain clarity but helps you keep in touch with your vision and guides you while you manage your business. Remember that it does not cost you anything to write and rewrite your business plan. However, once you are in business, every mistake proves costly. Sweat more on this. It will ensure that you manage your business better.

By following the above steps, you’ll find yourself better equipped to choose a business to start from home that will stand better chances to be successful, earning you not only the money but lots of satisfaction too.

By: Harrold Swalve

Harrold Swalve is a much sought-after online home business expert and has already published several online home business bestsellers including his latest E-book "Profit Shockdocs" in which he teaches how to Make Money Online for Free. Find out now how you can find the best Business to Start from Home

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Telecommute. Kill a career?

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Employees who frequently telecommute may damage or kill their chances to advance within a particular career.

Over 60% of 1,320 global executives surveyed by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International said they believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers in comparison to employees working in traditional office settings. Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said.

Oddly enough, despite this assertion, 48% of respondents indicated that they would consider a job which involved telecommuting on a regular basis and the vast majority 78% stated that telecommuters are either equally or more productive than those who work in offices.

When asked which type of flexible working arrangement they found most attractive, 46% of respondents most preferred the option of working flexible hours, Korn/Ferry said.

The study’s results fly in the face though of a growing movement. Since 1990, the number of teleworkers has grown to more than 45 million from about 4 million says the Telework Coalition. Even President Bush and other top administrators have championed telework as a vital part of business-continuity plans. Gas prices, traffic congestion and housing costs are also factors driving telecommuting.

Large companies also have taken up the telecommuting gauntlet, though. A recent Network World story said IBM’s efforts to create a flexible work telework environment have been so successful that 40% of its 330,000 employees work from home, on the road, or at a client location on any given day.

Big Blue even sparked new life into an old tradition: IBM Club, which brings together employees for intramural sports, picnics, movies and other types of social, cultural and recreational activities.

IBM Clubs organize activities for employees in a geographic area, says Mary-Ann O’Connor, a work/life flexibility and mobility specialist at IBM who has traveled the world to revive the network of IBM Clubs. The clubs are run independently by local volunteers, and the common thread is that “they all allow people to come together, to network, to get to know each other,” she says. Membership has grown to 90,000 today.

Still, for many employees the isolation of working from home takes all the appeal out of telecommuting.

In the 2005/2006 National Technology Readiness Survey, released in June, 25% of 1,015 respondents said they have supportive employer telecommuting policies or jobs that would allow work from home. Yet fewer than half of those who could feasibly telecommute would choose to do so more than two days per week, according to the survey by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and technology research firm Rockbridge Associates.

Roughly 14% of eligible teleworkers said they would not telecommute at all.

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'Alternative' moms find their niche

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Sarah Brassard of Baltic wanted to network with other parents who take a slightly alternative approach to raising children. Gretchen Lally of Waterford wanted her son to be able to ease into learning to walk.

Now, both women and their children are taking classes at a new business in Norwich aimed at helping parents bond better with their babies.

"When I had my son, I didn't have a network of friends, and I had just moved to Norwich. My mom had passed away, so I was mothering without a mother," said Amy Camassar of Norwich, one of three partners who opened Papoose, a new family learning center in Norwich.

"I want to be there for mothers so that they have an easier time then I had it," she said.

Growing fast

Camassar and her partners, Holly Salegna and Salegna's mother, Carol Pennell, opened the business March 1, and said they are already outgrowing their space on New London Turnpike. The three offer classes for parents on breast-feeding, baby signing, babywearing, baby yoga and infant massage.

Papoose even offers a "warm line" where moms with breast-feeding questions can leave messages that are returned almost immediately.

"There isn't a lot around here for people who are slightly alternative in raising babies," Brassard said. "There are places where you can find story hours, but if you wear your baby in a sling at the grocery store, people look at you weird. I wanted to go somewhere where there were other people with the same parenting philosophy."

Salegna said she grew up watching Pennell, a retired nurse, assist new mothers and became fascinated with the idea of "attachment parenting." The approach, made popular by pediatrician William Sears, centers around the idea infants crave closeness with parents.

Providing resources

Salegna said she and her partners aim to provide support for new mothers they can't find elsewhere.

"You can read about this stuff in books, but new parents don't exactly have a lot of time to do that," she said. "It's very hands-on. If someone is taking the babywearing class, they can come to me and say, 'The baby is sitting up now, how can I hold him now?' And I can answer their question. You don't get that kind of support at other places."

Gretchen Lally said enrolling her 15-month-old son, Christopher, in the Itsy Bitsy Yoga class at Papoose has allowed the two to bond during an activity that gets them both out of the house and interacting with other moms and babies.

"He's starting to do the motions from class at home now," she said. "He looks forward to it."

Camassar said one of the biggest obstacles she, Salegna and Pennell are trying to overcome is the idea classes for parents and babies are expensive. Many of the introductory classes at Papoose and other centers like it are free.

The owners are also looking to add classes this summer so parents can bring their infants and older children to the same place to learn. Salegna is also an instructor in hypnobirthing (giving birth with only the use of self-hypnosis), and has begun to teach another class on making your own baby food.

Brassard said she feels more bonded with her daughter, Nora, 1, through the techniques she's learned at Papoose in the past few months. Rather than worrying about what people think about her wearing Nora in a sling, she said she's more concerned with what is best for her daughter.

"Some people really do think it's odd, but you get out there and see other people do what you believe in. It's a great opportunity. There's nothing like that in this area," she said.

Norwich Bulletin - www.norwichbulletin.com - Norwich, Conn.

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Business startup rate drops to 10.1 percent in U.S.

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Slightly more than 10 percent of American adults are starting or running a new business, according to the 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.

That's down from 12.4 percent a year ago, but within the statistical margin of error, according to GEM researchers.

Peru, at 40.2 percent, has the highest percentage of adults engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity. Belgium ranks last at 2.7 percent.

In China, 16.7 percent of adults are starting or running new businesses, up from 13.7 percent a year ago. One-third of Chinese adults expect to start a business in the next three years.

In every country except the Philippines, men are more likely to start a business than women. However, the gender gap is most pronounced in high-income countries.

Individuals, ages 25 to 34, are the most likely to start new businesses; adults in the 55 to 64 age range are the least likely.

The annual GEM research project is directed by Babson College and the London Business School.

Meanwhile, the U.S. ranks No. 4 in the Heritage Foundation's latest Index of Economic Freedom, behind Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. North Korea and Cuba are at the bottom of the rankings.

Countries are measured in 10 categories, ranging from business freedom to freedom from corruption. Nations that increase their economic freedom levels grow faster, according to the foundation.

Another survey, however, found that, for the first time in five years, European business leaders are more optimistic about their economies than U.S. business leaders are. Asian business owners are the most confident in the world, according to the Grant Thornton International survey of 7,200 business leaders in 32 countries.

For more, see www.gemconsortium.org, www.heritage.org or www.internationalbusinessreport.com.

Find tax forms at Business.gov

Businesses that need federal tax forms and guides can easily find them on Business.gov, the official business link to the U.S. government.

This help might be particularly useful this month, as employers prepare W-2s for their employees.

"January may be a stressful time for a business owner, and one of Business.gov's main goals is to ease the burden of federal compliance on businesses," says Steven Preston, who heads the Small Business Administration.

The SBA manages the Business.gov site.

For more information, see www.business.gov.

© 2007 New Mexico Business Weekly

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Netflix-Like AV Rentals

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http://www.meetingtomorrow.com/

Meeting Tomorrow offers business customers easy access to audio visual equipment. Hotels often charge extortionate prices for renting a projector or display screen, and other meeting venues don't always have the equipment needed for a presentation.

On Meeting Tomorrow, you choose the equipment you need, order it online or by phone, and the equipment is delivered to your home, office, hotel or meeting location on time. Advance orders are delivered the day before the meeting, and same day orders are welcome. (Meeting Tomorrow offers same day delivery to 95% of the US, and next day service to the rest of the country.)

The beauty of the concept is how simple it is for customers, who can rely on the equipment arriving on time and don’t have to go out of their way to pick up or return a projector. For returns, Meeting Tomorrow takes a cue from Netflix: pre-paid adhesive FedEx return labels are included with projectors and laptops.

After using the equipment, customers slap on the label and drop the cases in any Fed Ex drop box. Bulkier equipment, such as screens or sound systems, are picked up after the event. Pricing is straight-forward, too: no matter where the equipment is needed, customers pay the same rental prices and a flat delivery fee.

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The Best Business Advice You Can Ever Get
Twain the entrepreneur drifted toward disaster

Hard driven seniors spin profit

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Chatting over sushi on a week night in the Cafe, seniors Robert Burns and Sarah Schoen seem like typical Bowdoin students—except for the fact that they just made more than $50,000 in profit with their recently founded computer resale business, which was founded just four months ago. And that is only the beginning.

The idea for the business first struck Burns last summer while he was working for the Maine Department of Education in Augusta. He learned of a program through the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), which leases Apple iBook computers for every seventh and eighth grader in the state's public schools. After the computers' four-year leases end, MLTI buys the computers for about $40 each from Apple and sells them at extremely low prices in a surplus warehouse in Augusta.

Burns saw an opportunity for quick profit by updating the computers and reselling them on Web sites like eBay and craigslist.org. Burns, a computer science major, was familiar with easy and efficient tasks like reimaging a computer's hard drive and upgrading the memory chips, which greatly increases the laptops' selling value. In August, Schoen partnered with Burns on his entrepreneurial venture, and together they pooled their savings to buy 12 computers, planning to survive the remainder of the summer on canned spaghetti if their investment fell through.

However, the small-scale Internet scheme was so successful that it quickly escalated into a full-fledged business called Appleton Computers (both a play on the merchandise they sell and a tribute to Burns's first-year dorm). Following a lawyer's advice, Burns and Schoen registered with the State of Maine as a limited liability partnership in order to protect their personal assets. Within two months, Schoen and Burns recruited three Bowdoin friends and Burns's father as investors by offering a convincing sales history and handsome profit shares. The extra cash allowed them to expand the operation, and soon they were selling 90 to 110 laptops a month to customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany.

Appleton Computers currently boasts a 100 percent customer satisfaction rate on eBay, but the Web site has been less than satisfactory for business. So far, eBay has suspended the business' activity twice without warning or explanation, which significantly disrupted sales.

"We believe that they thought the computers were stolen. It was like: suspend and ask questions later...There was a real lack of communication," explains Schoen. During the three weeks it took to straighten out the matter, the pair would probably have sold well over 40 computers, so the setback was "a major hit."

Another difficulty Schoen and Burns have faced is discerning reliable buyers from scammers. They have been warned of certain groups from Africa and Asia that send fake money orders, so Schoen and Burns personally monitor all the e-mail purchase requests they receive carefully.

Despite a few bad experiences, Schoen enjoys dealing with the customers and occasionally makes generous exceptions in order to please them: "Sometimes we'll get messages saying things like 'I'm a single mom, I'm working two jobs, I could really use this computer, but I can only afford to pay this much' and we'll say 'Okay, you've touched our hearts, that's fine.' Then we'll get a follow up message that says 'This really means a lot to me and it made a big difference in my life.'"

Over Winter Break, Schoen and Burns attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is the largest industry-wide convention.

"We went there to find some more business contacts. We talked to a few people, and we didn't really find too many people who would sell us Apple computers, but we found plenty of people that would sell us other electronics, like digital cameras, so we're toying with the idea of branching out into more than just computers right now," Burns says.

Schoen and Burns also hope to develop their own Internet auctioning Web site and enlarge the business to include textbooks. They want to market the site to students on a budget by posting links on university Web sites. However, at this time both Schoen and Burns are unsure of their post-graduation plans.

"The greatest part about running an Internet business is that you can live anywhere in the country and still operate," Burns said.

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4 Great Reasons to use Google Analytics

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Having used a large number of web site visitor trackers over the years, I first approached Google Analytics some time ago, with the somewhat jaded attitude of someone who's 'seen it all' or at least 'seen most of it'. What could possibly make this particular utility stand out in such a large crowd of competitors?

But first... What is Google Analytics?

Analytics is Google's very own visitor tracking utility, allowing webmasters to keep tabs on traffic to their site, including visitor numbers, traffic sources, visitor behaviour & trends, times spent on the site and a host of other information gathered via two pieces of JavaScript embedded in the source-code.

Unlike other free visitor trackers, which insist on displaying annoying and often amateurish badges or buttons when they are being used, Google Analytics simply runs quietly in the background, gathering the necessary information without any visible signs of its presence.

Which brings me quite neatly to Analytics' first major plus-point; the price. What webmasters are effectively getting, is a fully fledged visitor tracking utility without all the irritations and limitations normally associated with free products of this type.

Ok, so its free; but is it any good?

In a word; yes.

The sheer depth of information gathered, really leaves very little to be desired. From search engine analysis to page views, bounce-rates and more, the available data is presented so as to give users an easy overview of the most essential elements, with the ability to 'drill down' to less commonly accessed or more in-depth statistics and figures.

Additionally, on the 18th of July 2007, the Google Analytics old user interface was discontinued, making way for a newer, more ergonomic look which makes reports more accessible and the interface itself more intuitive for the user.

The new Dashboard provides 'at a glance' visitor statistics for the previous month, as well as a graphical breakdown of your visitor's geographical locations in the form of a world map. A pie chart clearly shows what proportion of visitors reached the site through search engines, by referral or through direct access, whereas the 'Content Overview' provides a list of the most commonly accessed pages.

What makes Google Analytics special though?

Although Analytics boasts all the features and statistical data to be expected from a top-class keyword analysis and statistics tracker, it also features a number of additional tools which put it ahead of the most of the pack where ease-of-use and depth-of-information is concerned.

1. The Map Overlay

Essentially, this feature brings up a map of the world, highlighting the countries a site's visitors stem from. Clicking on a country produces a close-up view, along with a geographical breakdown according to the region and/or city from which visitors accessed the site. This tool in itself is invaluable for all those webmasters with geo-specific sites, concentrating on a particular catchment area.

2. The Site Overlay

This is conceivably Google Analytics' single most important feature from a webmaster's or online business owner's perspective, as it provides a hands-on view of visitor behaviour. When clicked, 'Site Overlay' opens the tracked web site in a new window and, after a moment's loading time, overlays each link on the screen with a bar, containing information about clicks to the target page and goal values reached [more about goal values in a moment]. Since it allows the webmaster or site owner to navigate his or her site and see exactly how visitors flow through it, it is difficult to imagine a more effective tool than this as far as raising a site's conversion rates is concerned.

3. Goals and Funnels

Unless the site being tracked is an information site which does not rely on generating sales or enquiries, conversion rates are as important as sheer visitor numbers. The 'Goals & Funnels' feature allows users to set up specific goals for their site, such as tracking a visitor to the 'Thank you for your enquiry' page for instance. It also allows the user to set up specific monetary values for each goal, and thus track the site's financial performance and profitability during any given period of time.

The term 'Funnels' refers to the specific path a visitor takes to reach the goal's target page. Since most web sites sell a number of different product ranges or feature a number of ways to enquire, all of which lead to a single 'Thank You' page, the funnel allows for the tracking of each individual path with a minimum of fuss.

4. Graphical Representations

A great many visitor trackers out there will present the collected information in a certain way, be it a list, graph, pie chart, flow-chart or whatever. Whilst all these methods of presentation are of course valid, it is nevertheless a fact that most users are different, and a pie-chart is not necessarily ideal for those users preferring to work with graphs or vice versa. Google Analytics however, allows users to choose between views on many of its reports. Although this may seem like a relatively minor point, it nevertheless makes things easier, as it allows the user to work with the view he or she is most comfortable with.

In Conclusion:

Google Analytics provides webmasters and site owners with a highly effective means of tracking visitors and analysing statistical data, easily the equal of most subscription based services in the industry.

Although some concerns have been voiced amongst more paranoid internet users, that Google puts everyone's collective data to its own evil demographic uses, there really are precious few reasons not to recommend this fantastic tool as one of the best means to boost any web promotion and marketing campaign.

About the Author: As a technical writer with over a decade's experience, Sasch Mayer has been living and working in the Republic of Cyprus since 2005. Currently under contract to IceGiant Web Design and Promotion Services, he mainly covers topics such as SEM and Site Promotion.

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