1. Self-Confidence

This maybe sounds old, but self confidence is the first step to success. Without faith in yourself and your abilities you never will have the drive to finish things or when things get tough. Try to be optimistic and start thinking positively about the things that you are trying to accomplish and in the things you do. If you don’t believe in yourself than why should anyone trust you or your online business.

To gain self-confidence is know every in and out of the field your in. Learning and keeping your knowledge up to date is the key! Do research before you start your work from home business. The knowledge that you gain will be the foundation of your self-confidence and is the beginning of the road to success.

2. Passion for your Home-based Business

Besides self-confidence, passionate for your work from home business is very important. What matters is that you like what you do, this will motivate you and will keep you going when things get difficult or complicated. Being passionate about something will not go unnoticed by others. Your passion for the things that you do will attract others and if they notice you, they will notice your business.

3. Discipline in Work at Home Tasks

Working from home doesn’t mean that you can sit back and relax. In fact you will probably have the work harder (at least in the beginning) then you have ever done before, but you have to remember the many perks working from home has.

The key is to plan everything and that you manage your time well. Once you’ve created a plan you have to stick with it and most important, you’ve to finish things.

Additional reading on time-management:

• Simple Time Management for Work from Home Parents
• Work from Home – Time Management Tips
• Work From Home and Take Control of your Time

4. Persistence

All businesses owners (home-based or not) make failures, whether minor or more serious. Keep in mind that doing business always have a certain degree of risk. Important is that you have the feeling that you have done everything you could if something is not going according to plan.

Making mistakes is a part of life. Important is how you deal with the mistakes you make. As long as you learn from your mistakes and make changes in your business planning process to avoid the same mistakes. If you doing business with this in your mind than you not get so frustrated if some things go wrong (it’s a mindset.)

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Essentials for a home-based Entrepreneur

We certainly want to delay the launch of the home-business, but you should take a moment to read the checklist below of the top 10 things every home-based business needs:

1. A Market for the Product or Service

We hope you have done your homework, but if not then go no further, because this is the most crucial step to a successful business – finding a market for your products! Most beginning entrepreneurs are so excited about their product (and this is of good) that they forget to do some market research if people also like the product and who would buy the product (and this is bad of course.) You need to know if there are people who want to buy what you have to sell!

2. Separate Office Space

It’s not mandatory, but it would be nice if the office of your home-based business is in a separate room in your house. You need a space that is distinctly your workspace and that can be closed off from the rest of the house.

3. Ergonomically Workstation

You need to put money into a good and ergonomically chair and desk to put your computer on. Remember that years of sitting on the wrong chair can leave you with disabilities and poor posture. Spend money on this one, especially the chair!

4. Phone, Fax and Internet

Make sure that the phone line of your office is a separate line from the phone line in the rest of the house. You should also make sure that you have a good internet connection for your research and e-mails. This connection should have a high enough speed, but should for most be stable. Also a fax (with its own number if possible) is a must.

5. Business Bank Account

Try to keep your personal money separate from your business money by opening a business bank account. It’s also wise to use finance software program to keep track of your business and personal finance.

6. Licenses and Tax ID Number

Make sure that you have the appropriate business licenses and that you know the countries rules on running a work from home business. In most countries you also need to get a tax id number of some sort.

7. Business Website

Every business should have a business website these days, even if you don’t make money online. Make sure you register a .com domain name that matches the name of your business. (Come up with a name that is easy to remember, check here on how to choose a domain name for your business.) Don’t use hotmail or yahoo mail accounts for your business. This doesn’t look very professional. The good thing is that almost every hosting package for websites comes with unlimited e-mail accounts. These e-mail accounts are using your domain name. (Another reason to make sure that the domain name is your business name.)

8. Business Cards and Stationary

Get some stationary and plenty of business cards with your business name on it. Spent some money on the business cards by choosing a high grain paper and order in bulk! Hand out a business card whenever you get the opportunity, so you will need a lot of them.

9 Health and Liability Insurance

If the home-business is only part-time and you have a full-time job elsewhere then you probably don’t need separate health insurance, because in most cases the health insurance of that comes with your “normal” job will cover it (Check this!). If the home business is your full-time job you’ll need to get your own health insurance. In both cases you need liability insurance! Check with your insurance agent what types of insurance your need.

10. Business Hours and Personal Life

Try to don’t fall in the trap that many starting home-based business owners do and that is that they don’t have regular business hours. Before they know it they work all the time and don’t have time for a personal life, such as spending time with the family. So shut the door after business hours and don’t answer the business phone.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Top 10 Things for a Home Based Business

Today we look at seven businesses that are considered perfect for working from home. But before we do that, we first look at three specific criteria that you should consider before you start a business from home:

1. Contact with Clients

Client contact is the first issue that you should look at. You should determine whether a business can remain and for most prosper at home, or whether it’s best to move the business to an office building or industrial site. You should think carefully about how much and what sort of client contact your business may bring. Is that client contact suitable for a home office or would it better to hire an office away from home?

Tip: if it possible you should consider making a separate entrance to your home office.

2. Business Brand

Branding is very important whether or not you should work from home. You should always try to look true the eyes of the clients; what do they see? A professional organization that is run from a home office or an organization run from a kitchen? You, the location, the skills and how things are organized determine how clients will see your business.

This doesn’t mean you can’t achieve positive branding with a home office. But it does depend on the type of business that is run from home and the brand that you’ve built up in the past (for instance as an expert in a specific field)

For example an attorney can work from a home office, but big companies will most likely not hire this attorney. But if this attorney is the best in its field, big companies will most likely hire the attorney.

Think about how you would like others to see your business and if this is still possible from a home office. And remember branding start from day one!

3. Forced to Move

No matter how professional you keep things at home-business, in most cases there will come a time that you are forced to move, whether it is because you need more storage space or need additional space for new employees. Think about this issue before you start a work from home business.

Do you like products stocked all over the house? Do you want employees in and around your house?

On the other hand if your business is only intellectual or something that you can do on your own, chances are better that you’ll are able to stay at home.

Some Good Home-Businesses

With the considerations described above in mind, you should look at some businesses that are suited to have a work from home office:

Architect – This is one of the more ideal work from home businesses. Not because you do almost of all of the work yourself, but having prospective clients stop by your home will actually help sells your business. Because you should always want to see the house of an architect before you even want to hire him or her. Common sense!

Interior Designer – As with the work from home architect, the same goes for an interior designer. You want to see the house of an interior designer before you hire him or her. So this makes it an ideal business to do from home.

Home Builder – The same as the previous two, it’s good to see what they have built for themselves before hiring them.

Caterer – Not possible in every country! It is an ideal work from home business, because you can do the cooking and preparations easily at home. But as mention before in some countries it is not allowed to prepare large quantities of food for business purposes in your own home. Check your local laws and guidelines on this subject!

Cooking professions – Cooking related professions such as writing cookbooks, food reviews or creating new recipes are ideal to do from home.

Service Professionals – What we mean here are those businesses where the bulk of the work is done in other people’s homes or business. For example: cleaning services, carpenter, home repairs, house painter, electrician and so on. Most of the work that you would do in your home – with these professions – are making phone calls to clients (can also be done on your mobile from your car) to setup appointments and doing some paperwork or maybe accounting.

Computer professions – Computer related professions such as a software engineer, graphic designer or web designer are ideal to do from home. In most cases it is solitary work, with no or modest storage space needed.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

7 Businesses Perfect for Working from Home

There are a lot home-based businesses that run successfully with kids let in the work vicinity. But that’s not to suggest that children and home businesses fold together naturally. It takes planning, flexibility and some guidelines. Below you’ll find some tips to help you on your way.

1. You’re in Business Now

You should spread the news that you’re in business. Spread the new amongst friends and family. Tell them that you don’t have time during business hours and that they shouldn’t disturb you unless it’s an emergency.

2. Who is on Kids Duty?

However you set things up, don’t assume that working from home eliminates the need for child care. Especially young children require a fair amount of ongoing supervision. The kid’s duty is one of the first issues you’ll need to confront as a home business owner. Maybe your spouse is also around the house during business hours, than you’re in luck!

But in most cases your spouse is most likely not available. Look into things like, play school, a sitter or play dates with neighbor’s children. Try to create a block of time for uninterrupted work, at least for one morning a week. (A day would be better, but in most cases this is already too much to ask for.)

3. Working Hours

As home-based business owner with kids running around the house you’ll need to acknowledge that you may not get all the work done, all the time. If you think that you or your business can’t handle this, then you should give it a serious thought as to whether working from home is a good idea at all.

Don’t try to start a business from home if the business is confined to “usual” business hours, your working hours need to be flexible, especially with kids around. In most cases you only have continuous time of an hour max. Try to plan work time during naps, play time, etc.

4. Kids Free Workspace

Try to create an office or workspace that is completely separate from other parts of the house. This doesn’t mean guarantee privacy, but you can use it to setup some rules with your family (of course only if the children are old enough to understand the rules and old enough to leave them alone for an hour or so.) Tell them for instance that if the door is open they can come in at anytime. If the door is almost closed, they can come in if it’s really necessary. If the door is closed, don’t disturb. Also tell them that they can disturb you in case of emergency, after all they are kids, they need to feel save!

5. Opportunities

While kids and work from home may seem to boil down to compromise, you also bear in mind the possibilities that it can offer. For instance, additional income, change of kids home-schooling (handy if you live in the country side), a career and the ability to talk to grownups or talking business during the day time (instead of talking to children during the day time.) This are only a few valuable opportunities, made possible because of working from home.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

5 Ways to a Happier Home Business

Of course, all these things are important, but there are many work at home businesses that have been started with a small profit margin or a low budget. These things are inconvenient, but such a home-based business can still thrive, as long they understand basic marketing. Marketing and advertising are essential to any business, so they are also very important for a work from home business.  No one can buy from a business if they don’t know what the business is selling.

The party planning business is an excellent work from home opportunity, but you have to remember that a home business is not different from a “normal” business. You have to do some marketing and most of all you need to concentrate on getting new bookings. (New bookings can potentially lead to even more new bookings, so concentrate on getting NEW bookings and NEW means not from people that are already your customer.)

Some things you could do to grow your work from home business (and not only for party planning business):

1. Party Plan Home-based Business Website

You should really create a website for your work from home business. If you’re not technical, you can get someone to do it for you, for around $50. Make sure you get a .com domain for your business! (If it is possible, choose a domain name that reflects you business name or is your business name.) Create some email addresses and always send your emails from your new domain. Local business means local internet marketing, so use keywords in your content for the local area that you serve.

2. Business Cards for your Home-based Enterprise

Create or order some business cards for your business (besides your number, make sure you also mention your website and email address.) You should order as many as you can afford. You should hand them out at any opportunity you get. Always give away two business cards at a time, because people will give them away to other people. This is exactly what you want; you want your business cards in circulation.

3. Create Flyers for your Work from Home Business

You should definitely create or order some flyers for you home-based party planning business. You can create some standard flyers, but you should also create some flyers with a special monthly offer on them. As with the business cards, try to get them in circulation. For instance you should put some up at the local groceries stores and convenience store windows.

Tip: put a couple on a string, so people can take one of to take it with them.) Another good place to leave your flyers is on the food table of the party you’ve planned (if people like the party, they maybe they take a flyer home with them.)

Another tip: ask friends and family to spread the word (also give them some promotional materials that they can hand out.)

Last tip: never put a price on the website or the flyer. The goal is to get the people to contact you, so you can sell them your service (and maybe negotiate about the price.)

4. Create a Newsletter

To keep people up to date of new party trends or new services that you offer, you should send out a newsletter. This newsletter can be send by email or snail mail. If possible, use email, it’s cheaper.

Tip: you can also do both, for instance send your normal newsletter by email, but send a snail mail “special” newsletter every three to six months.

5. Use giveaways in your Work from Home Business

Things that always work good to get new leads are so called giveaways. These are in-expensive items that are in your product line. You can hand them out at parties (or if the guest are going home.) Make sure your business name or website is mention on them. Some example of giveaways: soap, candles, colouring pencils for children’s parties, etc.

6. Throw yourself a Party

To generate new bookings, you could throw yourself a party. This should be the best party you’ve ever done! People need to see that you can throw a party, so invite everyone in your database. (Yes we know it is expensive, but it is the best advertisement you can make!)

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to make your work from home business work. Be creative, try new things and advertise, advertise, advertise! Always try to think of new ways to make your business known to the world.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Growing your Party Planning Work from Home Business

• Ultra VNC – an open-source remote access tool, thus free. A powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely.
• Techinline Remote Desktop – With Tech-inline you can view, diagnose and rapidly solve your customers’ problems anywhere in the world. Tech-inline Remote Desktop lets you instantly access and control a remote computer over the Internet, across firewalls and proxies, using any browser. They have two sorts of licenses: A subscription license for $30 a month or a pay per-session license for $20 (5 sessions.)
• LogMeIn Rescue – LogMeIn Rescue is used by IT helpdesks to provide instant remote support to customers and employees. Gain control of a remote PC, Mac, or smartphone over the web in seconds, without the need to pre-install software. You can get a free trial, watch a demo or buy for $129 a month or for a whole year for $1188.
• Teamviewer – TeamViewer is the fast, simple and friendly solution for remote access over the Internet. You can remote control your partner’s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it. It is free for non-commercial use and for commercial use you pay from $169 to $998 depending on which pack you choose.

In Conclusion
As you can see the prices may vary from free to around $1000. So first they a good look if the feature that you need is supported before you purchase on of the software packs.

If you know of another remote desktop tool or if you have a good experience with a specific remote desktop tool then please leave a comment!

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Remote Support Software Tools for Small Businesses

Developing a useful, well-written online survey that extracts the information you need from your users can be a challenge, because there is a good and a bad way to conduct a survey! Below you can find 15 tips for creating a useful and successful online survey.

1. What is Essential to know?
You start by writing down what you want to achieve with the survey. Make sure that it is possible to achieve the goals with just one or two questions.

2. Only ask what you need
Ask questions only if the answers will give you the data you need and can use. If a question is not important enough to include in your report on the survey’s findings, then remove the question.

3. Interesting Questions
Try to start the survey with the most interesting questions you can think of. Interesting questions will inspire the respondent to complete the survey.

4. Multiple Choices
Multiple choice questions are better than open questions. You get better answers, because you’ve written down the multiple choice answers. It is also easier for the respondent, because they normally only have to click a bullet-point in the form.

5. Yes or No
If you can ask the question in a yes or no way then it is even better than multiple choices. (You can also add a bullet-point “Don’t know.”)

6. Easier
Multiple choices or Yes/No answers are easier, because the results gathering are so much easier than with open questions. Especially if you use a web-form with a PHP script under the save button, that add the results to previous results.

7. Use simple language
Use the simplest language possible. You also need to respect the respondent’s dignity when you construct the questions. Your survey respondents will undoubtedly come from many different groups, and more often than not, are less expert in the field than you are.

8. Use neutral language
The online survey that you are developing is made to find out what others think and not a forum for you to air your opinions.

9. Formal or Not
Don’t use to formal language, so relax your grammar a bit. An example: the word “whom” is technically correct, but in a survey the word “who” is better.

10. Test Run
Do a test run before you add the survey to your website. For instance you could let your co-workers or friends/family take the survey.

11. Only one at a time
Make sure that the questions sentences only contain one question. Multiple questions in one sentence are hard to answer and also to interpret.

12. Multiple choice answers
Make sure that the multiple answers make sense.

Good example:

“How many times a month you go to the movies?”

1. Zero times a month
2. One to three times a month
3. Three to five times a month
4. More then five time a month

A bad example:

“How often do you go to movies?”

1. Almost never
2. Once in a while
3. I go there regularly
4. Almost everyday

The results of the first “good” example are easier to interpret and are more precise.

13. Name and Introduction
Write a brief introduction for your survey. You also give the survey a compelling title.

14. Email
If you send out the survey in an email then you have to make sure that the title is very compelling, otherwise people won’t even open the email.

15. Offer an incentive
A good way to ensure that people will complete your business survey is by offering them something for free or with a discount. People love free things and almost always free the time to complete the survey.

In Conclusion
While not exhaustive, the points listed above are enough to get you started in the right direction. A well written online survey is an effective method to gather information. The better the questions, the higher the completion rate of the survey.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Online Survey and a Change at Winning…!

Luckily, getting more income from your clients isn’t that hard. It all comes down to using a few strategies that can boost their spending. Below you will find some tips that you can do after you have landed a client.

Think a Services Ahead
There is a great chance that the client that is hiring you has more projects in the future. So take a look at the service you’re providing and try to think about what the next logical step would be for the client. Maybe you can offer an extension of related service.

Some related services examples:

1. You have written some articles for a client. The change is great that the client needs more articles in the future. Offer some ideas for an entire series of articles, that you of course gladly want to write. (If they hesitate offer a special price!)

2. You have created a logo for a client that is planning a new website. The change is great that the client need more graphics work for the website. Offer to do additional work.

These are just a few examples, but I bet you can come up with something your client needs. If not, then just offer your services for future projects. Communication is very important!

Think Months Ahead
One of the smartest and best moves a freelancer or someone who works at home can do is to find a way to turn a one-time projects into a monthly stream of income. This is the best thing to do, because this way you generate a steady profit.

Some examples to generate a stream of income:

1. After writing some articles for a client then offer the client a good deal where you will write one (or a couple) article(s) each week.

2. After creating a logo for a client then offer to create a graphic each week for the client.

3. If you have done some SEO for a client then offer to produce a SEO rapport each month.

If you can’t come up with ideas for the service you are offering then check the websites of competitors to check which extended service they are offering.

Think Clients Ahead
Of course you want new clients with the least amount of legwork. A good way to achieve this is by getting word of mouth advertising. Try to use no-pressure strategies to leverage the client’s network to get new clients.

Some examples to achieve word of mouth advertising:

1. Do the best work you can do and communicate professional.

2. Give a discount as a sort of “thank you” for a next project.

3. Use the above example and give discount coupons that the client can give away to other people the client knows.

4. Ask for client testimonials. Add them to your portfolio. Portfolios should be e-mailed to clients. The change is that other businesses ask your client if they know a good freelancer is great. So if you mailed your portfolio then there is a change that the client will send it on.

Share your wisdom and experience in the comments below. Give us your tips to think ahead after landing a new client!

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Think Ahead After Landing a New Client

In this article we described a good way how a brainstorm session should go.

Below you’ll find some basis conditions for a good brainstorm session:

• Provide a good atmosphere – every employee should have time to present their ideas. Make sure that everyone respect (even the stupid once) the ideas of a colleague.
• Critique is good, but make sure that everyone that have negative critique also tells something positive about the idea.
• Stimulate the employees to think ‘out of the box’
• Get someone from outside the business, to lead the brainstorm sessions. Maybe you can make a deal with a colleague business owner that he/she will lead some brainstorm sessions for you and you’ll do the same for them. (Of course it should not be a competitor of you.) Maybe you hear a great idea or learn something, during their sessions.
• Also look at other business and fields, maybe you will find some good ideas. A good idea is to take employees to another business in the morning and have a brainstorm session in the afternoon. Talk about things that you and your employees have learned from that business and how they could be implemented in your business. A good example; the first fast-food restaurants implemented ideas and techniques from the automobile assembly lines.

Brainstorming can be very powerful! It stimulates the team spirit and most of the time the employees come up some brilliant and surprising ideas.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

Brainstorm Sessions with Employees. You’ll be Surprised!

For instance you can use your home-office door for this. An example:

• Door open – ask me anything you want.
• Door half-closed – don’t interrupted me if not necessary.
• Door closed – I don’t want to be disturbed (see note).

Note: always let people (especially children) know that if it is really important (for instance in case of an emergency) they can interrupt you.

2. Headphones
Headphones are great to safeguard you from noises in the house that can distract you from your work. Of course you need to make sure that the music if not playing to loud, otherwise you can’t concentrate.

3. Webcam
Web-cams can be used for many things. For instance you can use them for video-conferences. Some face to face time with someone can help to avoid many phone calls (that are a distraction) during the workday.

Another place where you could hang a web-cam is at your front-door. This way you can see who is at the door from your office-chair and of course to assort which people you want to see or not.

4. House chores
The biggest mistake you can make is doing house chores during your work day. Make a plan when you work for your business and when you do other things such as house chores, pick-up the kids, etc. And most of stick to the plan you’ve made.

5. No other choice
Sometimes your home-office isn’t quiet enough to do your work. For instance on holidays; when your kids are running through the house and your spouse is vacuuming the house. If this is the case than take your laptop, mobile phone and go somewhere else, like a neighbourhood park for instance. Sometimes you don’t have any choice, at least if you want to be distracted and get the “work from home” job done.

Original post by MoneyAside.com

5 Tips to Avoid Distractions in Your Home Office