Sunday, September 30, 2007

Scammers Target Stay At Home Moms

Once the kids to back to school and mom has a little more time on their hands they may begin to consider ways to bring in some extra cash. Spending time on the internet searching for work at home opportunities can often be rewarding, provided you understand that there are many scams being offered, many targeted for the stay at home parents looking to make money.

Working at home is an inviting concept and many opportunities exist that present a legitimate means of finding work. Unfortunately, there are plenty more where the only ones who make money are those offering the opportunity. Beware of headlines such as “Learn how to crack the code to internet riches,” and “I was a victim of 37 scams until I stumbled across this opportunity.”

When looking through offers for an internet business opportunity you need to ask yourself some serious questions about the offer. Many will carry a similar theme indicating they have found a way to make bundles of cash online and want to share the secret. You need to ask yourself, why? Here is perfect stranger, willing to share with me the secret they use to make millions of dollars online. Of course this secret is not going to be free, and sometimes it is available for a limited time price of just $19.95 and you will receive their complete information package of how you can make money.

Why aren’t they sharing this information with family and close friends so they can have an entire family of wealthy relatives? Why are they offering this opportunity to strangers? Possibly because their family and friends were suckered into their last get-rich-quick scheme.

One of the most prolific scams online is signing up to be a secret shopper. There are many companies that do use secret shoppers to visit stores and restaurants and turn in a review to the company informing them how a particular unit is performing. To claim this company can hook you up with many companies where you can get paid up to $40 an hour doing things you love to do and keep everything you bought, is nothing more than a scam.

Yes, these companies have the names and addresses of the companies that use secret shoppers and that is what you will be buying. Once you send in your payment, which varies from $19.95 to $39.95, you will receive a list of companies that use secret shoppers and instructions on how to fill out their online applications. If the company is looking for more shoppers they might contact you for a future interview. Most of these offers carry no guarantee that you will ever be chosen to be a secret shopper, let alone get paid $40 an hour for going to a restaurant.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Running Home Business Requires Dedication And Discipline

One of the most common causes of failures of work at home businesses is the fact the person operating the business should never have started in the first place. Not everyone has the dedication and, more importantly, the discipline needed to run their own business out of their home and will quickly find that setting their own hours and being at home all day, everyday is the rosy picture painted by the stories about self-employment.

Running your own business involves someone to handle sales, production, orders, billing and all of the other departments necessary to keep a business operating. When you first start out in a home business, the people that do the work will most likely be you and it will not take long to realize just how many hours are required to get everything done.

Then there’s the promise that often comes with home business opportunities about having the time and money to spend on vacations and having more time with the family. While the business is in its infancy, that is just not going to happen. There will be time spent with the family, but usually it is while you remind them that you are working and need to be left alone. The biggest adjustment when you start a home-based business is having family and friends understand that while you are at home, you are still working.

If your new business can be done completely from home, it is better to have a separate office area in which to work. An area that is off limits to other family members during your business hours, during which you can concentrate on the task at hand without interruption. One suggestion made by successful home business operators is to get a watchdog to sit at the door of your office to keep interruptions to a minimum. While this tip is given in jest, it is important to make sure your home office is treated as though you were working for someone else.

With most work at home businesses, you can set your own hours and, if possible, it will make your home life easier if you establish work hours around your family’s schedule. If there are hours when no one else is home, that should be time in which the bulk of your work is done.

You have probably heard the stories about people working at home in their pajamas and while this opportunity may be available, it probably isn’t a good idea. You will need to establish your work schedule, just as you would if someone else was writing your checks and then work your schedule. Your clients or customers are paying you to deliver a product or service in a timely manner and you will have to present professionalism to yourself as well as potential customers. By being at work when you are scheduled, you can get the promised work done on time and gain new clients based on your reputation.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Room For a Home Business

There are many things that you want to think about when you start up a home business, and finding room for your business is a huge part of it. A home business is going to be just that - you are working at home. And unless you have a lot of money and can afford to have a place that is set aside for your home business, you want to think very carefully about how you can have your home business and your home at the same time.

It is not something that is impossible, no matter what you might think. In fact, having a home business in your home might be easier than going to work each day, as long as you do it right.

The first thing that you need is space. It is simply great if you can afford to have a room in your home that is only used for your home business, but if you can’t, don’t fret about it. There are still going to be lots of ways that you will be able to have a home business. First of all, you have to think about the needs of your business. Do you have a business where you simply do work at your computer - work that can be done with just a computer and some storage space for files? If this is the case, it is very easy to set aside some space in a room to have a computer. Remember though, it is going to benefit you if you are able to have a computer that is only for the business. This is especially important if you have children who are going to be using the family computer. It will always be better if you are able to have a separate place to store all of your files and your work items.

If you need more than just a computer for space, you are going to have to be a little bit creative. There are many things that you can do if this is the situation. First, remember that you are going to have to make decisions based on what you have to work with. If you have lots of product that you have to keep, you are going to have to make storage space so you can have enough room for your product. This can be anywhere, as long as it is safe and secure and you can keep it out of the way of the rest of your life.

The trick to maintaining a home business and your home at the same time is to make sure that there are distinctions. If you need to use a big table, try to set one up in an unobtrusive place - don’t simply use your dining room table just because it is there.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Researching Home Business Opportunities Right For You

With today’s job market being diluted by outsourcing, many people are suddenly finding themselves out of a job. Sitting around the house all day worrying about what you will do when your savings is gone is not a good thing, and with the number of opportunities available for operating you own home business continually growing, many find themselves as a home business owner is default.

However, finding a business you can operate from home will take some research and should be aligned around your interests, knowledge and experience. Once you being a home business, you will need to work it as a traditional job because income from that business is what will pay your bills and keep you from going hungry. It will also consume a lot of your time and energy so it needs to be something that you like.

Most people hear, as they are growing up, that the best job in the world is the one you would do for free if you didn’t have to worry about your bills. The same holds true for starting a home business. It should be something you like to do and are willing to work at in order to pay the bills. Otherwise, it’s just another job.

For example, a person who has a lot of experience working with their hands and building things out of wood or metal may find a home business performing furniture repair or refinishing suited to their hobby. They can also create and market woodcraft items, selling them through local retailers or at craft markets, effectively having their own home business selling things they make in their home workshop.

Another example could a person who has worked as accountant for someone else for years who suddenly find his or her job has been eliminated. They can open their own accounting service performing billing and invoicing for other small businesses. Many new businesses cannot afford to hire a full-time accountant and by working with several small companies, you can create several income streams to help make ends meet.

Simply drawing on your experience and knowledge learned while working for someone else can often lead to ideas for starting a home business. In many cases, most of the work can be done at home, telecommuting with clients. In other businesses, you may have to travel to meet with clients or attend shows at which to sell your products. Either scenario will provide an income earned through your home business while paying the bills.

Before deciding to open a home business, you should check with your local zoning department to make sure there are no zoning laws against operating a business out of your home. Typically, if the business has no reason for clients to visit and no signs are posted in the front yard, there are few problems with a home business. If you plan a deluge of customers increasing traffic on your street and blocking the sidewalk when they visit your shop, you may have to rethink your home business efforts.


To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Monday, September 24, 2007

Qualities that Entrepreneurs Need

One of the biggest myths regarding starting your own business is that you are doomed to failure unless you have a natural aptitude or a natural talent for business. In other words, if you weren't born to be an entrepreneur, then you are going to be sunk before you even start. Needless to say, this is an untrue notion. While there are a number of skills that you absolutely have to be a successful businessman, there are ways for you to develop those skills along the way. Instead of those skills, what you need to be thinking about are the qualities inherent to all good entrepreneurs. There are some of them and there are some things you need to have, but if you are interested in starting a business chances are you have them already.

The first one is perseverance. Starting a business is like the exponential version of working on a project for school. When you are learning a new concept for that project, you are going to have to go slow, but steady. If you just start, do it for a bit and then leave it alone, you are going to fail the project. But if you start it and then keep at it little by little, you are going to end up with a successful final product. This is what you need to do in business; you need to keep at it until you get to the point of being successful.

In addition to perseverance, you need to have a thick skin. In the business world, you are going to meet a number of cut-throat individuals that would like nothing better than to see you fail so that they can succeed. While it is good to have business relationships with other companies, what is not so good is taking anything negative they say as the gospel and taking it completely to heart. If you do that, then it won't take very many negative comments before you hang up your business for good. Consider taking people's advice if it is constructive, but do not listen to anyone that is completely negative.

Finally, in addition to perseverance and a thick skin, you also need to have the ability to deal with failure. There are a number of people that do not have this ability and in fact there are people that give up on something after having one unsuccessful try at it. This is something that you need to avoid in business because you're going to fail at things again and again. The most successful businessmen of today were failures at some point yesterday; what makes them successful businessmen is that they did not give up. You shouldn't give up either; if you have one quality out of these three, make sure it is the ability to deal with failure.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Putting Your Business On Hold

Everyone likes to be in control of when they work and when they don’t. So, if you own a home business, you might think that you can simply walk away for a week to go on vacation, or when you have a family crisis to attend to. And of course, you can, it is just that with your own business, you have to be sure that you are taking precautions to keep your business going while you are away.

See, when you are working for someone at a business, you can take leaves of absences for reasons, if your boss lets you, and you don’t have to worry about the business itself. You might have work that piles up when you are away, and you might have to do some catching up when you get back, but because the business is in someone else’s hands, you will find that it will still be there when you get back.

However, when it is your business, flying away for a week for vacation is much harder. If you’ve got someone on your payroll or a partner, it might be easier, but if you are running a business out of your home and it is just you, there are going to be things that you should think about.

First of all, how can you make sure that the business runs while you aren’t there? There are several things you can do. If you have only a few clients, you can let them each know personally that you won’t be around for a week. A lot of clients will appreciate this and will actually like it. If you have more clients, you can use a mass email or an automatic email response to let them know that you will be out of the office.

No matter what, the key is to let people know. You never know when you are going to have people who are looking at you as a prospective business, and if they catch you while you are on vacation ,you might lose the chance to gain them as clients. So, be sure that you have an auto response on your email that lets everyone know you are gone and also when you will be back so that they can expect an email. If you have a phone number, set the message to allow people to know this information as well.

Another thing to remember, as well, is that you have to be sure you are being professional at all times. You want to make sure that no matter what, you are talking to clients in what is always a professional manner. This will make sure that you aren’t losing any business while you are out of the office.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Friday, September 21, 2007

Protecting Your Privacy When Working At Home

Operating a business from home does not mean that your life is an open book for the world to read. You will have to set specific boundaries between your work life and your private life in order to insure that your family is not interrupted by your work. You will need to establish specific working hours for your home business and at the end of the day go home. If you let your business consume every waking moment of the day, you will quickly burn out as well as causing an interruption to your family’s life.

If you can afford at the start of your business, have a separate phone line installed that is strictly for business. Use an answering machine for after hours calls and unless a client or customer leaves a message that it is an emergency, call them back the next business day. If possible, do not give out your home telephone number as a contact number. You never know if little Johnny or Susie will answer the phone leaving a bad impression on a potential customer.

There are many services that will cross boundaries between your work life and your private life and understanding where they meet will help you keep your sanity when working from home. When you first start the business, it may be easy for your spouse to ask you to get things done around the house while they are at work. You will need to remind them gently that you will be working and no, you don’t have time to finish the dishes, or throw a load of laundry in the washing machine and you definitely don’t have time to paint the bathroom.

Unless the business requires you to meet with clients and there is no way around it, do not entertain business associates at your home. In fact, clients probably should not even have your home address. Using email and the telephone for client contact is in the best interest for privacy, as you don’t want an irate customer banging on your door while you eat supper with the family. A post office box is not overly expensive and can be used for most shipping and helps protect your family’s privacy.

Remember, this is your business and you need to remember that your spouse and children are not employees. You may be working out of a home office, but it is still your family’s home and you need to make sure you have definite boundaries established. Just as you do not want them crossing into your office space while you are working, you need to show the same respect to your family by not allowing work to cross into their private space.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Planning Your Budget

A budget is everything to a business; it is the epitome of professionalism as well as the lifeblood of good planning. It is absolutely impossible to do anything well in business without a budget to go by and indeed in the cases of some more established business models it is actually illegal not to have regular budgets that show exactly what is going on with the business in a financial sense.

When it comes right down to it, planning your budget is one of the most crucial things you could ever hope to do for your business. A properly planned budget that is then executed well is going to be a great help to any business and of course a poorly planned budget is going to be the downfall of most businesses; usually before they've even had a chance to succeed.

So, what exactly makes a good budget? Well, reducing it down to first principles any budget that has inflows to cover the outflows is a good start. More so than that however, the inflows need to be at least equivalent if not in excess of the outflows and the outflows combined have to create something that is competitive to the business itself.

A good rule of thumb when it comes to making budgets lies along the lines of the cost efficiency principle. The cost efficiency principle basically states that you should not be afraid to spend X dollars if you are going to get Y dollars in return with Y being at least equal to X if not greater. Now, this is an interesting concept but some would argue it is not one that is particularly tenable in the earlier stages of a business because a business needs to spend a lot to get itself off the ground.

This is a good point, but one that is superficial at best. While each item X may not result in a gross income of Y, you can always add items together in order to receive that result. If you have X + Y + Z resulting in A + B + C and both of those equations are equal to D, then there is really nothing to worry about because overall you are adhering to the cost efficiency principle in your budget.

This is exactly what good planning for a budget is. You identify what needs to be done from a financial sense and then you make sure to carry it out in a way that allows you to maintain the cost efficiency principle. Don't ever spend money in a business unless you expect to get money (or something as valuable as money) out of it; otherwise, what is the point of going into business in the first place?

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Planning Various Business Types

The planning stages of a business tend to be a bit hectic if for no other reason than they are where you really are given the chance to develop the plan for your business that you will refer to thousands of times over the course of the life of your business. One of the numerous things that you need to decide during this time (or at the very least give some thought to) is what type of business you are going to run. This has nothing to do with the actual business niche itself, but rather the actual legal type of business that you are going to be involved in. There are a number of different business types in the legal sense and while those types vary from country to country, there are general consistencies along a few major distinctions.

The first of those distinctions is the business type known as a sole proprietorship. This is the most common business type simply because it is the easiest one to start with. A sole proprietorship consists of the business being wholly owned by one person and therefore being associated with that one person. The business expenses and liabilities are assumed by that one person, but at the same time that one person has total control over everything that the business does. Sole proprietorships are free to start in terms of legal registration and do not require a separate tax return in most cases as the income from a sole proprietorship is usually just reported as self employment income.

Taking the next step up from a sole proprietorship, we come to the concept of a partnership. There are a number of similarities between the two business types and the most obvious ones to point out are that partnerships are cheap and easy to run in the legal sense because all of the partners can usually just report their share as self-employment income rather than requiring another tax return for the business. The partners also share responsibility for the business by default in a legal sense unless there is an agreement that specifically assigns responsibility to one partner.

Up from a partner is a private corporation. This is a business that is a separate entity from the people that run it; all of the liabilities are the businesses and for the most part the people running the business can not be held responsible for those liabilities. However, the maintenance of a corporation requires regular fees to be paid as well as up front registration fees and regular records of the business affairs must be kept along with regular board meetings. Also, a separate tax return for the business is required because it is a separate entity.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Planning a Business Concept around a Central Topic

Depending on the kind of person you are, plans for things are going to be either completely familiar to you, somewhat familiar to you, or not at all familiar to you. While it is not necessary to have a completely detailed business plan before you start (especially if your business is online, but also if it happens to be offline), there are some things that you should generally be aware of at the very least before you take towards building up your business.

The first of those things has to do with figuring out the topic that your business is going to be on. This is not a topic in terms of something that a book needs to have, but rather a topic in terms of what your business is going to be about. For example, if a person wanted to open a restaurant, then there would be a culinary topic to their business. If someone wanted to blog, then the topic would be whatever they wanted to blog about. There are a number of different topics available out there today and choosing one for your business is perhaps the most important thing you can plan ahead of time.

Now, when most people are choosing the topic of their business, they tend to use one of two methods. They will either choose a business topic that they are very familiar with, love doing and would really have no problem doing for free, or alternatively they will choose a business topic that they think would generate a lot of interest in the demographics that they can reach. If you are on the internet, then the demographic you can reach is endless, whereas if you are off the internet, then you need to be aware of the people that live near wherever your business happens to be.

While these two methods of business topic choosing both have their ups and their downs, neither one is inherently better than the other. There are certain situations (i.e. blogging for a profit) where one might be obviously indicated as being the better one, but for the most part you can get along choosing either of those two things.

That idea brings us to the big question; how do you know which one of the two methods you should choose? Well, it once again depends on the type of person you are. If you are a free spirit, not really interested in too much planning and willing to take a chance just to see where it takes you, then choosing something that appeals to you and that you would do for free might be the way to go. If you are the meticulous type and are good at keeping things organized, then it would seem that going for the more likely profit would be a better idea. It largely depends on you and while neither of the two choices is wrong, it is very important that you are confident in the choice you make.

To The Top,
Gary Worley
gary@secretinternetwealthformula.com
http://SecretInternetWealthFormula.com