The Home Biz Blog

Time for a Holiday: But How?

When you've been working long and hard at your home business for a while, you might feel like you've earned yourself a little break. There are home business owners out there who haven't taken a real holiday since they started their business -- including some who started their business as long as five years ago!

After all, how can you ever just desert your business and your customers and go bronze yourself on the beach? How can you avoid being on call 24/7 throughout your holiday? Well, everyone deserves some time to themselves at least once a year, if they want to keep being productive and avoid stress. Here's what to do.

Tell People When You're Going Away.

You can't just disappear when you're running a home business -- you need to let people know long in advance that you're not going to be available, and make sure that they have everything they need to manage without you while you're away. It's best to schedule your holiday not to interfere too much with the business.

However much you might want to have your holiday in the summer, it's important to remember that every business has its quiet months, and you should schedule your holiday in the period where they seem to be.

Change Your Answerphone Message.

A quick and simple way to let people know that you've gone away is to change your answerphone message. This allows you to still hear what people have to say when you get back, and stops them from wondering why you never seem to answer your phone.

A good format for the message is as follows: 'Hi, this is [your name] at [company name]. I'm sorry I'm not in the office right now, but I will be back on [give a date]. If you leave a message, I will be sure to get back to you'.

Set Up an Email Autoresponder.

Similar to an answerphone message, but less commonly used, is the email autoresponder. Again, you don't want people to wonder why their emails are going unanswered, so your best bet is to set up your email program to automatically reply to any email you get with a message saying that you've gone away.

Example: 'Hello, and thank you for your email. This is an autoresponder, as I'm away on holiday until [date]. I have received your email, however, and will respond to it upon my return. I apologise for any inconvenience to you, and I am willing to make an offer of 10% off your next order to make it up to you.' The special offer for people who get the autoresponder is a nice touch -- it makes them feel lucky that they emailed you while you were away, instead of frustrated.

Don't Stay Away Too Long.

Of course, when you go on holiday, you're relying on people being willing to wait for you. That means you can't really take the kids to Disneyworld for two weeks, or spend a month staying with a friend abroad -- it's just too long to be away from your business for.

You should regard a weekend away as ideal (it avoids the whole problem for the most part), and a week as the maximum you can allow yourself. Don't let people make you feel bad about only taking one-week holidays: after all, you could always have more than one each year.

Alternatively: Get Someone to Look After the Business.

If you really want to get away for longer, or it's essential that your customers don't have any break in service, then you could consider getting someone to look after your business. This could be an existing member of staff that you make your 'deputy', to be in charge while you're away, or it could be someone who's related to you and has some experience running a business. You could even hand the business over to a competitor that you're friendly with and share the profits with them, if you think they're trustworthy and they could handle it.

Enjoy your holiday!

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

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Going International

At some point in your business' life, you might be contacted by someone in a far-away land who's heard about your business somehow (probably through the Internet). This will be your first encounter with the international market. For many businesses, once you've conquered your local area and done business by post or email with other areas of the country, dipping a toe into international markets seems like the next big step.

Preparing to Export.

When you're preparing to export your products, there are quite a few things you need to do. Firstly, make them as light as possible for the purposes of international shipping. Check that you'd be able to get the things you're selling to the place where you plan to sell them without it becoming prohibitively expensive. Next, check if there are any customs requirements -- you might find that either your own country or the target country has laws that will require you to register what you're sending and perhaps pay extra taxes. On the other hand, selling internationally may mean that you don't have to charge your own country's sales tax.

Obviously most of these things don't apply to non-physical products. One thing that you still need to be careful about, though, is currency fluctuations -- how stable is the currency you plan to start trading in? If it has problems, you might want to price products in your own currency instead.

Look for Niches All Over Again.

When you're trying to sell things to international customers, you need to make sure that there is a market in each country. Something that is very useful and in-demand in your country might just cause confusion abroad -- or, likewise, something that's only moderately popular where you are might be seen as revolutionary.

If you're not sure, you could talk to a few local businesspeople about how they think your product would be perceived, and they may be able to suggest a suitable target market for you. As always, research is key.

Produce Internationally, Supply Internationally.

If you're going to start exporting, you might want to consider importing as well. If you buy in bulk, you can generally get things far cheaper from developing countries, especially the 'Asian Tiger' countries like China, Taiwan, Indonesia and South Korea. Give it a try -- you could be delighted to find that they can make your product for a fraction of what it costs you, and all you have to do is a little quality control.

I understand that this approach is particularly useful for clothing products, which are labour-intensive yet can be produced cheaply and well by these countries. Note that you're unlikely to be exploiting anyone -- the country you're importing from simply has a lower cost of living. To be extra sure, shy away from offers of having things made in developing countries or dictatorships.

Try to Be Culturally Sensitive.

When you're dealing with international customers, you need to take their culture into consideration. In some countries everyone knows English, while in others they would be offended if you didn't get your materials translated. For all you know, the name of your product might be a rude word in some language or another, or the marketing might be focusing on benefits that people from some countries are unlikely to respond to.

This is one of the reasons why you're best off selling to countries that you have some experience with. Ideally, you should have the ability to speak the language, as well as having spent some time in the country. Failing that, read as many guides as you can and see if you can meet with people of that nationality socially.

Note that you should be especially careful about dealing with countries where there is some history or possibility of political unrest, as you can lose a lot this way.

You Are Not a Jetsetter.

Finally, remember that it's a bad idea to start flying around the world to pitch your products or meet your customers, especially in the age of the Internet when almost everything can be done from your home. Did you really get into home business to throw away your profits on expensive flights and hotels? Exactly.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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What to Do if You Need Staff

If you grow large enough, the time may come when there's no getting around it any longer. You simply don't have the time in the day to do everything that needs to be done. You need to hire some staff.

Staff Create Profits.

The chances are that you've worked for a wage for a decent part of your life, but you might not have realised the exact nature of the transaction that was going on. Essentially, you were hired to create profit for the company -- if hiring you wasn't profitable, they wouldn't have done it. By taking a wage, you agreed to create profit for them, while your wages remained relatively flat ('stable') whatever you did.

In theory, this protects you against the consequences of your work being unprofitable. You could see what's happening as being something like you giving the company a percentage (a big percentage) of your earnings in exchange for them being the ones providing the resources and taking all the financial risk.

In practice, of course, if you stop making money for the company, you lose your job. Thus you can see that the situation becomes win-win for your employer: they get to keep most of the profits you create, while maintaining enough control over you that you can't really create any extra risk for them.

Employing people, then, is like investing -- you put in some money as wages and get more out of it. If you stop getting more back, you can cancel and change your investment by getting rid of them and employing someone else.

The Interviewed Becomes the Interviewer.

The first step in finding staff that are going to make you a good profit is to advertise the job. You shouldn't have too much trouble with this, since there are always people looking for work -- put up a few signs, go round a few agencies, tell some people you know. You'll pretty quickly have people beating down your door.

The next step, then, is the interview process. Since you've probably been through the interview process a few times, it'll feel good to be sitting on the other side of the table. Don't get carried away, though: remember that the purpose of the interview is to try to figure out whether the person you've got in front of you would do a good job for your business if you employ them.

Here are a few ideas for questions:

'Tell me about yourself.' While this sounds cliched, the applicant's response to this will give you a good idea about their personality and what they think is important, as well as their ability to think on their feet.

'Why should I hire you?' You're looking for the person who's been listening to what you've said you're after and responds by telling you how they meet your needs.

Give an example of a real problem in your business and ask them how they would solve it. This gives them an opportunity to help you and impress you in the process.

'What did you like or dislike about your last job?' This gives you an opportunity to spot problem candidates -- if they use it as an excuse to have a bit of a moan, you probably shouldn't hire them.

If in doubt, just remember that you can ask anything, as long as it's open-ended. Whatever you do, don't ask yes or no questions.

Finally, it's important to know that, by law, you can't ask as anything that could be thought of as discrimination, including questions related to age, race, religion, nationality, marital status, medical history or disability.

Paying Their Taxes.

Finally, when you hire people, you need to remember that you're setting yourself up for all sorts of tax complications. You will usually need to pay their income taxes for them, as well as various other medical and security/insurance taxes. If you get this wrong, you can set both you and your employees up for a lot of inconvenience

By now you hopefully have an accountant who can help you. Still, make sure you're paying enough that working for you will still be worthwhile for your employees after tax.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
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Once You're Established: Planning Your Growth

If you've got a profit-making home business on your hands, the next step is growth -- expansion into new markets and new products. But how can you grow when the physical space you have is so restricted?

Outsource More.

A typical problem when your business starts to grow is that you find yourself spending a lot of time on all the small administrative tasks your growth creates, leaving you with less time to do all the extra work you're getting.

The answer is to start outsourcing those small, time-consuming tasks, like bookkeeping, invoicing and the rest. Outsourcing lets you concentrate on what you're best at while getting the other things done by professionals. They'll have a system in place that lets them do what you're taking hours over in a matter of minutes -- after all, it's what they do. Don't forget, though, that you need to hold outsourced work to the same standard of quality you hold your own to, since your customers won't be making the distinction.

Create a Growth Plan.

Remember that business plan you made when you started it all? Well, growing your business isn't that different to starting a new one: you still need to plan ahead, and know what you're doing. Take out your existing business plan and look at what needs to be brought up to date, what still stands, and what needs to be added.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you turn your business plan into a growth plan is this: don't forget your core focus. Tempting as it can be to diversify into all sorts of areas as a way to grow, you don't have experience in these areas -- try to do more of what you know, and keep new things to a minimum.

Financing Your Growth.

While running your business, you might have become frustrated with how much more you could do if you just had a little money to invest. Equity finance is a popular way to raise money to invest in a business. It involves you selling a small share of your company to someone who is interested in investing. They don't have to have any involvement in the running of the business, necessarily -- the only real condition is that you agree to give them a percentage of your profits equal to the percentage of your business that you sold them, known as a dividend.

But Don't Grow Too Fast.

One thing that can be fatal for home businesses is trying to grow too fast. Some people have a tendency to let success go to their head, and will borrow tons of money to expand their business at an amazing rate, only to have a breakdown when they realise that they just can't manage a business that large.

Have You Considered Raising Prices?

If you've got more business than you can handle, that's not expansion -- it's overtrading. You might be doing more work than you need to, when you could just raise your prices. Try out a few different levels, and you'll find the one that gets you a manageable amount of business. It's a simple question of supply and demand: you should be earning the same as you were before or more, but doing less work.

Remember that growing your business doesn't necessarily have to mean getting more customers. You can expand your business financially just by selling more to your existing customers, or providing extra 'premium' services on top of the ones you already provide.

Could You Franchise?

This obviously won't apply to every kind of business, but if you've found a successful formula, you could consider franchising it. Franchising is especially common in the food business, where risk-averse people starting new businesses often want to do something that's tried and tested. You can, effectively, sell your business plan, marketing materials and the experience you've gained in business so far to these people.

Even though you should wait a while before you actually do it, it's worth at least considering whether this could be an option for your business, and starting to standardise everything and get it down to a formula and assets that could be sold on.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
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Reviewing Your Performance

So you've made it through your first year. When you quit your job, you probably thought you'd escaped performance reviews for good, but I've got some bad news for you. It's actually a really good idea to review your performance at your own company, to take a look back and see what you did wrong and what you did right.

Did You Make a Profit or a Loss?

The first, and most important, question to answer is this: what does your balance sheet look like? You need to honestly add up all the numbers -- don't be tempted to add on money that you think you're a few days from getting, or take away bad purchases that proved useful in your personal life, for example. Hopefully you kept electronic records, so this shouldn't be too much trouble.

Once you know how you did, you need to look at how to do better. If you made a loss (as almost everyone does in their first year), what can you do about it? Where did the money go? If you made a profit then, well, congratulations! But you still need to think about how much of your profit to re-invest in the business, and how you can increase your profits next year. Remember that money makes money: once you're making a profit, wise investment can make it grow exponentially.

How Many Customers Did You Get?

Now, take a look at your customer database. What's the total number of people who dealt with you this year? How many is that per day, and how much did each one spend? Once you have this information, you can work out how much customers were paying you overall weekly, daily or even hourly. If it seems like a lot more than you saw, you need to ask yourself if you spent too much of their money on expenses. If it seems like hardly anything, then you're in trouble. Sorry to be blunt, but either you need to consider raising your prices, or you're just not doing enough marketing or working hard enough.

How Many Came Back?

Of course, a more important metric than the total number of customers you had last year is how many of them came back more than once. Work out what percentage of your business that was repeat business -- note that this means you count someone twice if they bought from you three times overall, three times if they bought from you four, and so on.

An easy way to do this is to simply take your number that says how many times a customer has dealt with you, subtract one from all of them, and then add it up. Once you know the raw amount of repeat business, you need to divide it by your total number of customers and then multiply by 100. This gives you a percentage. If your repeat business is lower than 20% or so of your total business, this is cause for concern. Are you doing enough to stay in touch with your existing customers?

What Did Customer Complaints Say?

I hope you kept hold of every customer complaint you got, even if you fixed it at the time. You need to take a good look over what you did right, what you did wrong and what you messed up. I know you dealt with things as they came up, but looking back over everything can help you to see the big picture. It's all too easy to miss quite simple patterns when you're in the thick of it day-to-day, and looking at the complaints can reveal a trend that you weren't expecting.

What Have You Learned?

It can be useful to write yourself out a list of lessons at the end of the year, even if it's things like 'quarter-page magazine ads are just as effective as half-page ones' or 'make lunch later in the day so you eat it faster'. Your accumulated knowledge is valuable: you've paid for it in cash and in sweat, so make sure you don't forget it. See if you can come up with a list of positive things to do next year to make your business even better!

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
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The Top 5 First-Year Mistakes

Even once you've got past the starting-up stage, there are still plenty mistakes to be made, and most of them are going to be made in your make-or-break year -- the first one. Here are the top five things to avoid.

Waiting for Customers to Come to You.

Too many people wait for their customers to phone, or come to the door, or whatever. They get one or two customers through luck, but nothing like enough to even begin paying their costs. These people sit around, looking at their competitors doing lots of business, and wonder what they're doing wrong.

You can't be like this. You have to go out there and actively try to find customers. Talk to people, call them, meet with them -- whatever you do, don't just sit there!

Spending Too Much on Advertising.

So everyone tells you that the only way to get ahead in business is to advertise. Well, that's true, but you need to make sure that you stick to inexpensive advertising methods when you're starting out. Spending hundreds of dollars for an ad in the local newspaper might turn out to get you very few new customers, and you will have spent your entire advertising budget on it.

Make your money go further with leaflets, direct mail or email -- these are easily targetable campaign methods with high response rates and low costs. Remember that it is always better to spend money on an offer than on an ad, and always better to spend money on an ad than on a delivery method.

Being Too Nice.

When you're running your own business, it can be tempting to be everyone's friend, giving discounts at the drop of a hat and making sure that you don't hassle or inconvenience anyone. That's all well and good, until you find that your Good Samaritan act has just halved your profit margin without lowering the cost to the customer by very much at all.

Sometimes, you need to realise that you've got to be harsh to make a profit. Give people discounts to encourage them to buy or to come back, not because you like them or feel sorry for them. Don't be afraid to be ruthless in your pursuit of home business success. Nice guys don't finish last, but they are running in a different race -- one with much less prize money. If that doesn't bother you, of course, then feel free to go for it.

Not Using the Phone.

You'd be surprised just how common phone fears are -- if you're scared of the phone, you're not alone by any means. Many people are terrified of making phone calls, and avoid them wherever possible. I have seen more than one home business owner reduced to tears on the phone and trying desperately to hide it from the customer.

You need to try your best to overcome your fears, as talking to customers on the phone is almost as good as meeting them for real. Letters and emails are useless by comparison. The best way to overcome phone fears varies from person to person, but it can often be as simple as making the phone fun, by calling friends and relatives often for a while and getting used to it. Alternatively, try working in telemarketing for a while -- if that doesn't make normal phone use look like a walk in the park by comparison, then nothing will.

Hiring Professionals for Everything.

It can be tempting to think that, since you're starting out, you should just find a company or person to do every little thing you need. People seem to especially overspend on design services.

You might think it'd be great to have fancy graphics all over your website, but would it really increase sales? If I saw it, it would put me right off. Likewise, a slick brochure often fails to say anything more than 'I'm going to charge you a premium to pay for my expensive brochures'. Don't hire someone unless you can demonstrate that the service they're going to provide will increase your profits by more than the amount you're spending -- if you're not sure, try it yourself first, and you can always upgrade it later.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
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Tax, Tax and More Tax

When you run a business, it can feel like you spend far too much of your time worrying about tax. Here's a quick guide to the what you need to know about tax.

What Do You Qualify For?

There are all sorts of tax breaks for home and small businesses, to try and make it easier for them to survive. To qualify for them, though, you will need to be using your home as the primary place where you do business. If most of what you do takes place in some space elsewhere that you rent, then you won't qualify for home business tax rules. You also are unlikely to qualify if you haven't set aside a specific part of your home as the 'business area'. Be prepared for the fact that you might be audited, to make sure that you are running a legitimate business from your home.

Records You Need to Keep.

You need to keep records of everything -- literally everything -- you spend on your home business. You should especially keep records of things when their use might be shared between personal and business, such any business-related travel expenses you run up on your car. If you have stock, you need to go through and inventory it at least once a month.

What You Can Deduct from Your Home Expenses.

Because your home office is in your home, you can claim any tax back that you pay on that part of the home. You can also claim back tax on part of your utility bills. For example, if your home is 2,000 square feet and you use 100 square feet for your home office, you can claim back 5% of your utilities. If you rent, then you can claim back this percentage of the rent, and if you have bought the house then you can claim it as a discount off your mortgage interest. Any equipment you have that depreciates (becomes worth less) because you use it in your business may also be eligible for a tax deduction.

Self-Employment Taxes.

When you work from home, you are legally self-employed. This can put you in a sticky situation, meaning that you have to pay for medical and other taxes that your employer would normally pay for you. In the US, for example, you will be responsible for your own social security and Medicare payments, while in the UK you will need to pay national insurance.

Get Tax Software.

If you're not sure where to begin, get some tax software. Choosing your circumstances from its lists and giving any additional information it asks for should show you most of the tax rules that apply to you.

Get an Accountant.

If you want to save as much as you can on your taxes, don't rely on things you read on the Internet, or even on computer software -- get an accountant. They'll be up-to-date with all the latest tax laws, and will know thousands of tips and tricks that there's no space to list here. See if you can find one who will take a percentage of what they save you in tax as payment instead of charging a flat fee -- this is an ideal solution for you and for them.

Do Your Taxes Online.

Most developed countries now give the option to do your taxes online, eliminating a big paperwork headache. You may even find that your tax software can send its tax report directly to the online service, without you doing much more than clicking a button. Of course, if you do things this way, be sure to call and confirm that everything went through alright.

Don't Be Late.

Whatever you do with your taxes, you absolutely must not file them late or pay them late. It's an all-too-easy trap to fall into, but there are automatic fines. Tax collection agencies will look upon you very unfavourably if you pay late, and are likely to start immediately charging interest on any money you owe them. Write your tax dates on your calendar and underline them in red. Twice.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

Keeping Customers Loyal

It's a well-known fact that it costs many times more to acquire a new customer than to keep doing business with your existing ones. For this reason, the best way to become profitable is to have loyal customers who keep coming back again and again. It's all about relationship building. So what can you do?

Customers Aren't as Loyal as They Used to Be.

It used to be that customers would find one service that met their needs and stay with it for absolutely years. Now, though, customers are fickle, and can all-too-easily be tempted away by a competitor's offer if they feel that it sounds cheaper or better than yours. So-called 'loyalty management' has become more of a science than it ever used to be, and it's one that you need to make use of if you don't want to be constantly failing to retain your customers.

Offer Discounts for Repeat Business.

You will see some businesses who give people a 'first-time' discount, as a hook to get people to try their services. This is entirely the wrong way to do it. What you should be trying to do is reward loyalty by giving people a discount each time they use your services. Over time, this makes it so that moving to the competition looks like a ridiculous proposition for them -- why would they when they get a 20% discount from you every time?

Keep Mailing Lists.

You should have at least two mailing lists: one for your prospects (people who might buy from you), and one for your customers (people who have bought from you). You should lavish attention on both lists, but especially on the existing customer one -- and really lay it on thick for anyone who's bought from you more than once.

You need to be in contact with your regular customers as much as you can, always understanding their needs and when they might need you again. Don't worry about this costing masses in direct mail, as you can always do it by email. The secret is this: contact, contact, contact. Send your regulars Christmas cards, invite them to meet with you for lunch -- anything you can think of. A good tip is to always use the techniques that your competitors are neglecting.

If your service is one that the customer will need at regular intervals or a certain time of year, make sure you keep track of this in your customer database and send something out then. There's nothing worse than losing out on a customer's business just because they didn't have your phone number at hand and had a little extra time to see an offer from a competitor.

Another good thing to send to your mailing list is a newsletter, either by email or post. Take a few hours each month to write something with useful information about your industry that your customers are likely to keep and find useful, and put your logo on the top so that they can be reminded of you when they see it. As a bonus, you can keep this material archived on your website too, so it can be found by people searching for related words in search engines.

Be Crazy About Feedback.

You need to phone up as many customers as you can to get their feedback after they deal with you. Make sure they were satisfied with what you provided, offer to fix anything that they're not happy with, and ask them if they can think of any way you could improve. Customers will appreciate this -- and they'll like it even more if you actually implement their suggestions.

Provide a Personal Service.

Go the extra mile to make your customer feel like they're your friend, and not just a tracking number in your database. Tailor everything you do to their needs, and make everything easy for them -- don't leave them to do legwork that you could be doing. After all, they're the customer.

Finally, cheesy as it might sound, customers really appreciate a little thank you note when you've received their payment. For an extra personal touch, you could handwrite it.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

Cashflow Problems: How to Get Your Money

One of the most common problems that affects businesses is that their customers owe them money. When you've done the work but people are being slow to pay you, you can get behind with bills and be short of money to invest in your business. This is, understandably, an annoying situation -- you're being chased for debts that other people refuse to pay. There are, though, a few ways to improve your customers' payment speed.

Remember You're a Credit Provider.

When you do work and invoice afterwards you are extending credit to your customers. As such, if the cost is going to be high, you should consider running a credit check on them before you start work. This will show you whether the company you're about to do work for is in trouble, and can help avoid lots of problems later on. You can usually run credit checks online for next to nothing.

Give Invoices a Due Date.

A mistake many home businesses make is to send invoices that have a fancy layout and say how much the customer owes, but don't contain any direct instruction to pay now. This results in customers receiving the invoice and putting it on their 'unimportant chores' pile -- you know, the one that doesn't get done for months.

To avoid this, a good strategy is to give your invoices a due date. Set it two or three weeks from when you sent the invoice, and make sure you highlight it. People will see your deadline and realise that you mean business -- they'll think 'oh, I'd better deal with this' and you'll get your payment sooner rather than later. If you don't, a follow-up phone call saying 'I wonder if you realised that your invoice's due date was yesterday...' will usually do the trick. Almost no-one refuses to pay if you confront them directly -- they just do it because they think they can get away with it.

In some places, the practice of putting due dates on your invoices might even entitle you to charge interest on money you are owed, or charge fees. Check your local laws.

You Could Try Debt Factoring.

Some businesses have success with a technique called 'debt factoring'. This is when you sell your invoices to a third party who specialise in administration and collection, and they give you the money for the invoice straightaway instead of you having to wait for the customer.

If you try this approach, though, you should consider the percentage of your invoices that the company is taking, and whether they're treating your customers the way you would want them to be treated. It might be best to only sell invoices to debt factoring companies when they haven't been paid by the due date, letting them act more like a collections agency.

Collections Agencies.

Of course, your last resort is to sell the debt to a collections agency. This will cost you around 10% of the debt. The collections agency will try to intimidate your customer into paying, ultimately taking them to court if necessary, and they might try seizing the customer's assets. Make sure you check out the agency you plan to use beforehand, though -- you don't want them to be doing anything illegal.

You should always try to talk to the customer before you take this route, as if they're not paying the chances are that there's a reason. You might be about to force them out of business. On the other hand, they might just be forgetful, in which case they won't be too happy about you setting debt collectors on them.

Be Prepared to Settle.

Sooner or later, you might end up being owed money by a business that is in financial trouble -- you're just one in a long list of creditors, as everything falls down around them. In this situation, you need to be prepared to settle with them for less than the original invoice price, or you risk getting nothing. It is a bad situation to be in, but it's better to give someone a break and get some money instead of pushing them further towards bankruptcy and getting nothing.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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When Customers Complain

You probably won't have been in business too long before you get your first complaint. It just can't help but happen: low-end customers pay nothing and expect the Earth, while high-end ones pay a lot but expect an inhuman effort in return. You just can't please all of the people all of the time, even if you run yourself ragged trying -- there will always be someone who's not happy with what you've done. So what can you do about it?

Don't Be Rude or Dismissive.

The customer's complaint might seem stupid to you, or even insulting -- but that doesn't mean that you can respond in kind. You must treat every customer complaint seriously, and always act as if it is 100% your fault that things weren't to their satisfaction.

Remember that every unhappy customer will talk about their experience to your potential customers (research varies, but some say that they might tell as many as 20). Those potential customers won't get to hear your side of the story. Going the extra mile to keep unreasonable customers happy is, above all else, a defensive technique to prevent them from damaging your business. Don't be scared of complaints: you should, instead, be actively soliciting them, to give you a chance to put things right before they tell anyone.

Write a Letter of Apology.

People will really appreciate the effort you've gone to if you take the time to write them a formal letter of apology, and say that you're sorry things weren't to their satisfaction and you appreciate them taking the time to tell you so that you can improve. For example:

'Dear Sir,

It has come to my attention that you weren't happy with the service you received from my company in respect of the delivery of items to your home. We have now contacted our delivery service and fixed the issue, although I understand that this came too late to avoid inconveniencing you.

I would like to sincerely apologise to you for the bad experience you have had with my company, and hope that this will not harm our chances of doing business together again in the future.'

Make sure you sign the letter yourself, in pen. People hate seeing letters with printed signatures on.

Offer a Partial Refund.

The closing part of your letter should offer a refund of as much as you can afford to give -- in this scenario, for example, where there was a problem with delivery, you should offer to refund the full cost of delivery, plus a little extra to cover the inconvenience.

In this way, you can turn your dissatisfied customers into some of your most satisfied ones. They will tell everyone they know that there was a small problem that wasn't your fault, and they probably complained too harshly, but you handled it courteously and sent them a refund.

Having people know that you respond well to complaints is some of the best word-of-mouth marketing you can get. What's more, that customer you treated well is surprisingly likely to come back and do business with you again -- although, of course, they'll be very annoyed if things don't go well the second time either.

Do Some Complaining Yourself.

A large amount of the time, when a customer complains about something, it wasn't caused by you -- it was some kind of problem with your supplier, or someone else you rely on. Of course the customer didn't know this, but you do, and you need to do something about them. Write them a letter of complaint, like the following:

'Dear Sir or Madam,

Due to your service being unavailable this week, I have received the attached customer complaints. I hope you will understand that I am very displeased, and I am currently considering alternative suppliers.'

With this letter, enclose a copy of every customer complaint you got thanks to them. Your supplier will often be eager enough to keep you on as a customer that they will offer some kind of compensation package -- which you can then pass on to your customers, or use to cover the cost of refunds you have already given them.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
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Putting It in Writing: Contracts for Customers

When you're dealing with customers, sometimes things can go wrong. It might be your fault, it might be their fault or it might be no-one's fault -- but if you didn't make a contract, then you'll all suffer.

Why Do I Need Contracts?

A contract gives you a sound legal base for your business, and some guarantee that you're going to get paid for your work without you having to ask the customer for payment in advance. In the event of a dispute, the contract lays down what the agreement was so that you can point to it and say what was agreed. If you ever end up having to go to court (let's hope you won't), the contract is what the judge's decision will be based on.

Without a contract, you leave yourself vulnerable and open to exploitation. Someone could claim that the terms they agreed with you were different to what you say they were, or that they never signed up for anything at all and so they won't pay. It's especially common to see big businesses mistreat small ones, thinking that they won't have the knowledge or the money to do anything about it. Essentially, contracts take away your customers' ability to hold non-payment over your head, and give you the ability to hold it over theirs instead.

Written and Verbal Contracts.

It is important to point out the distinction in the law between a verbal (spoken) contract and a proper, written one. A verbal contract is binding in theory, but in practice can be very hard to prove. A written contract, on the other hand, is rock-solid proof of what you're saying.

You might think that you're never going to get into a dispute with your customers, but it's all too common to find yourself in a little disagreement. They will often want to get you to do some 'small' amount of extra work to finish the job or make it better, not realising that doing so would completely obliterate your profit margin.

For this reason, you should be very wary of doing anything with nothing but a verbal contract. On the other hand, if you were incautious or too trusting and only got a verbal contract, it could still go some way towards helping you, especially if there were witnesses.

Won't It Be Expensive?

Written contracts don't necessarily need to be formal contracts, which are drawn up by a lawyer with 'contract' written at the top and signed by both parties. These kinds of contracts are the most effective, but can be expensive to have produced, not to mention intimidating to customers.

The most common kind of written contract, oddly enough, is a simple letter. If you send a customer a letter (or, indeed, an email) laying out your agreement before you start work, and they write back to agree to it, that is enough to qualify as a written contract, with most of the protections it affords.

If you are doing high-value work for some clients, though, it could be worth the time and trouble of having your lawyer write a formal contract, or at least of doing it yourself and getting a lawyer to look it over. Formal contracts will give you more protection if the worst happens, and there's nothing to stop you from making it a one-off expense only by re-using the same contract for multiple customers.

Contracts for Small Purchases: the Terms and Conditions.

Obviously it would be silly to expect everyone who buys some $10 thing from you to sign a contract, or write back indicating their agreement to your terms. In this situation, you should have a statement of the 'terms and conditions' that your customer is agreeing to by buying from you, and they should have to tick some kind of box indicating their agreement before you send anything.

Luckily, it isn't usually so necessary to be paranoid about contract law with small purchases anyway, since customers will be paying you first and receiving the goods or services afterwards, not the other way around. If you plan to offer any kind of payment plan or other long-term agreement, of course, this should always be backed up with a signed contract.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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Finding Who You Need: Advisors, Accountants and More

When you run a home business, there are all sorts of professionals whose services you need. They are often indispensable, saving you two or three times what they cost. But what do you need, and how do you know who to choose?

Choosing People.

The best people to hire are people who you've heard about by word of mouth. Failing that, you should spend as much time as you can afford comparing people and services before you make up your mind. Don't worry, it's not all wasted time: the way you go about comparing others' services this might give you a few insights into how to improve your own marketing.

I find that the best way to do it is to narrow the people you're considering down to a shortlist, and then do as much research about them as you possibly can. Seek out their clients and their premises, find out how long they've been in business for and who the business is owned by -- make sure there's nothing you're uncomfortable with.

Lawyers.

Whenever you're dealing with the law, you really shouldn't try to go it alone -- and when you're running a home business, you'll be hitting up against the law quite often. It's important to build a good working relationship with a lawyer in your area, so that you have them available both for day-to-day things and for emergencies.

Sooner or later, you'll probably need a lawyer to help you with licenses, permits, regulations, contacts, or employment. You need to get one straight away if someone violates your trademark, copyright or patent, or someone threatens to take legal action against you for some reason.

Accountants.

Accountants are mostly useful for saving on tax, but you will find that tax is a big business expense, at least if you do it wrongly. Accountants know the tax laws inside out, and will be able to point out all the savings you might be entitled to without even realising it, as well as the best ways to do things like taking money out of the business without paying a ton of tax.

It is best to try to find an accountant who will keep in contact with you occasionally, reminding you of tax deadlines and telling you if anything changes in the law. They should also be able to advise you on bookkeeping methods, and suggest computer software that could be helpful for this.

Business Advisors.

You may wish to contact a business advisor if there's anything you're still unsure about when it comes to running your business -- they can be affordable yet very helpful. They are also very useful people to be able to contact in a crisis.

Financial Advisors.

If you're trying to manage a lot of debt, you might want to get a financial advisor. They can help you structure your business so that it pays debt off quickly while still leaving you enough to live on, as well as suggesting ways to get debt repayments down. Quite apart from the practical elements of this, it can be a big relief to know that there's a plan and your debts are being dealt with.

Advertising Agencies.

If you don't want to handle advertising yourself, then advertising agencies can be a good alternative. They'll produce a slick, professional ad, and place it in ways that they know produce results. Look for one that specialises in home businesses, and will allow you to try out a relatively small advertising budget with them to begin with to see what kind of results they could get for you. You could be pleasantly surprised.

Make sure, though, that any company you choose isn't so big that you'll get lost amongst all their clients, and that they understand your business and your industry. Since most ads for home businesses should be local, it's worth sticking to your own town when you're trying to find someone.

Web Designers.

Keeping a web designer as a semi-regular contact is important if you're going to have a website and don't know too much about them yourself -- they could be needed occasionally add new sections you might think of, or fix the thing if it all goes wrong.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

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Trademarks and Copyrights

So you've put all this work into your business: you've got a name, you've made some marketing materials, even written some things for your customers. If you don't want your competitors to be able to take what you've done and exploit it, though, you're going to need to take some steps to protect yourself.

What's in a Name?

Your name is one of the most important assets your business has -- it's how your customers identify you. Knowing your name is the first step to trusting you and recommending you to others. But what can you do if you're afraid that someone else might start using your name, or simply start another company with a similar enough name to confuse people?

The answer is that you can register a trademark. A trademark is a word or logo that distinguishes one thing from another, and you have the right to register any names or logos your business uses, in order to stop other people from using them. Coca-Cola, for example, is a trademark of the Coca-Cola Company -- if I start selling my own drink and calling it 'Coca-Cola', or even something like 'Cocoa-Cooler', then they have grounds to sue me.

Making Your Mark.

You can trademark both your business' name as well as the names of any products you sell. The only condition is that they can't be too similar to names that someone has already trademarked, and you can't usually trademark words that are in common use.

It costs a few hundred dollars to register a trademark, and you can do it through the patent office. It can be a waste of money to trademark too many words, so you should only bother with it if you think one of your names could be threatened by competitors.

Once you get your trademark, it's yours -- you can do whatever you want with it, including giving others permission to use it or selling it to them. Remember, though, that your trademark usually only applies in the country where you registered it -- you will not usually be protected from competition where foreign businesses are using your trademark. Also, your right to use the trademark will only last for a set number of years (usually a decade from the date of registration). After this time, you will have to pay again to renew it.

Don't Copy Me.

Copyrights are similar to trademarks in terms of the kind of protection they offer, but different in how they work. In almost all countries, ownership of copyright is automatic, and costs nothing. The moment you write (or draw, or record) something, you own the copyright on it, and can take action against anyone who makes a copy of it without your permission. This article you're reading right now, for example, has the automatic copyright. If you decided to copy it without permission and put it on your own website, then that would be illegal. Not that you would do such a thing, of course.

It is possible to own the copyright on almost anything that exists but isn't physical: music, graphics, writing, computer programs, and so on. It does not, however, cover physical things (that's patents), nor does it cover names (that's trademarks).

A copyright lasts longer than a trademark: typically it lasts until you die, and then a set number of years after that, depending on your country and the kind of thing that was copyrighted. After the end of this time, the work becomes 'public domain', free for anyone to use.

Of course, copyright is a right, not something that you absolutely must go along with. If you want to give people permission to freely use and redistribute something you've made, then you have the legal right to do this. You can even give up your copyright on a piece of work altogether, simply by writing on it that you no longer want to own the copyright.

Since you're in business, though, the chances are that you'll want more protection for your materials, not less. Look into registering your copyright at the patent office, as doing this will give you an even stronger case if you ever need to use it.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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A Computer and Internet Glossary

When you use computers and the Internet in your business, it's all too easy to start feeling like you're drowning in a sea of nonsense. Computer-related things tend to have a language all their own, and while you don't need to know all of it, there are many confusing words and phrases that you're going to come across sooner or later. Here's a quick primer.

Bandwidth. Bandwidth is the amount of data that your website can send each second, as well as the amount of data that the visitor to your website can receive. If either one doesn't have enough bandwidth, then the website will appear slowly. For this reason, you should choose a host with plenty of bandwidth, as well as testing that your site doesn't take too long to download on slow connections.

Browser. A browser is the software (see below) that visitors to your site use to view it. The most popular browser is Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which comes with Windows. But Firefox is gaining on IE as its biggest rival.

Cookie. Cookies are data files that your site can save on the computer of someone who visits that site, to allow it to remember who they are if they return. You will find that problems people have in ordering from you will almost inevitably be related to cookies -- they will need to have them turned on.

Download. Transferring data from a website to a computer.

Favourite. A favourite is a website that a user has stored to look at again, by choosing 'Add to Favourites' in their browser's menu.

FTP. File Transfer Protocol. This is a common method of uploading (see below) files to your website.

Javascript. A common language for writing 'scripts' on websites, which are small programs that make the site more interactive. Another common cause of problems for visitors.

JPEG. Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the name of the most popular format for pictures on the web, named after the group that came up with it. If you want to put pictures on your website, you should save them as JPEGs.

Hardware. Hardware is computer equipment that physically exists. It is the opposite of software.

Hosting. If you've got a website out there on the Internet, then you'll be paying someone for hosting. It is the service of making your site available for people to see.

HTML. HyperText Markup Language. A kind of code used to indicate how web pages should be displayed, using a system of small 'tags'. The 'b' tag, for example, causes text to appear in bold, and the 'img' tag displays a picture.

Hyperlink. A hyperlink is when a piece of text on a website can be clicked to take you to another site, or another page on the same site. For example, if clicking your email address on your website allows someone to email you, then your email address is a hyperlink.

Programming. This is when the computer is given instructions to tell it what to do, using one of many 'programming languages'. Programming languages for the web include PHP and Perl.

Server. The server is where your website is stored, and it is the server that people are connecting to when they visit the site. If someone tells you, for example, that your server is 'down', it means that your website is inaccessible. Note that server refers both to the hardware and software of this system.

Software. Programs that run on the computer, or that make your website work. Microsoft Word is software, for example, as is Apache (the most popular web server software). Opposite of hardware.

Spider. Don't be scared if a spider visits your website! Spiders are simply programs used by search engines to scan your site and help them decide where it should appear when people search. It is good to be visited by spiders, as it means you should start appearing in search engines soon.

Upload. Uploading is when you transfer data from your own computer to your website. For example, you might upload your logo, or an article you've written. Opposite of download.

URL. Uniform Resource Locator. This is just a short way of saying 'web address', meaning what you have to type in to get to your website. Sometimes pronounced as 'Earl'.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
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The Art of e-Commerce

So you've got your website, and people can email you about your products and services. The next step, if your home business is suitable, is to start selling them directly online.

Why E-Commerce?

E-commerce can be a massive business booster. If you sell reasonably small, easy-to-ship products (or services that don't need shipping), it can expand your market from your local neighbourhood to the whole world! You will also find that you get more repeat business, since people can easily re-order from you without having to call you again, and you might find that you can afford to sell lower-value things in your web store than you could in real life, thanks to the reduced overheads.

Setting Up E-Commerce.

If you've already got a website, setting up e-commerce can be surprisingly easy. The only real requirements are that you get some e-commerce software (it's not that expensive, and some like OScommerce are even free), and that your web hosting will support whatever programming language the software is written in.

If you think that sounds a bit too technical, just take a look through the help section of your hosting company's website -- you should find something there that explains your specific situation. You never know: some hosts already have everything set up for you, and all you have to do is press a button!

Consistent Design.

It is important for the e-commerce section of your site to appear to be integrated into the rest of it. You should have clear links to your store on each page of your website, and the design of the store itself should be consistent with what has gone before. If your store looks out of place, it shouldn't be too expensive to get whoever designed your website to quickly adapt that design as an e-commerce template.

A Matter of Inventory.

Once you've got your 'shop' up and running, the next step is to configure it. This mostly involves telling it what you plan to sell, i.e. entering descriptions and prices for the items, as well as uploading pictures. Take some time with the pictures, and make them large and easy to see on the screen. The descriptions should list every feature and benefit each product has, and you might wish to set the prices 10% or so below your normal levels, as an 'online discount'.

It is important, though, that once you put your items on your e-commerce website you do not allow them to go out of stock. There are few things more frustrating for a customer than seeing something they want to buy and not being allowed to buy it -- or, worse, paying for something only to be told that it'll take weeks to arrive. Think like a customer, don't forget about your website, and keep things running smoothly.

Delivery.

Depending on what you sell, your delivery methods can vary. We could be talking about a package in the mail, or perhaps just a follow-up email. Whatever you're doing, though, make sure you do it quickly. Customers will get very nervous waiting, and won't appreciate it. Keep your customers updated at all times on how things are going -- never leave them hanging.

Inputs and Outputs.

Once you get these things down, though, e-commerce is simple enough that it can mostly be left to run itself. It's like a system of inputs and outputs that multiplies everything put in: you spend an hour or two telling it what you've got, and out of the other end come orders and money. You'll find that almost all e-commerce stores easily pay for any time you put into them as soon as you make one or two sales.

Don't Forget to Advertise It.

You won't usually need any separate campaign for your e-commerce operation, but it's well worth mentioning its existence on your marketing materials. A few simple words before your web address on anything you hand out can work wonders: 'visit www.yourwebsite.com' becomes 'learn more and order online at www.yourwebsite.com'. You'll find that many customers will be more eager to check out what you're selling when they can do it as easily as typing in a web address.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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Setting Up a Website for Your Business

There are very few businesses these days that don't have websites, and as a home business your website is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. A good website can really work for you, but you need to know what you're doing.

Hire Foreign Designers.

Web design really is something that you shouldn't try to do yourself, unless you really know what you're doing -- I'm sure you've seen what happens when people try this. Hiring a web designer, though, can be prohibitively expensive. Luckily for you, the Internet puts you in touch with designers all over the world, and it's easy to hire one of them very cheaply to design your website. They don't do any worse of a job than someone in your country would, it just happens that your few hundred dollars is worth as much to someone in India as a few thousand would be to you or I.

Use Search Engine Optimisation.

There are a heck of a lot of websites out there, and search engines will return everything relevant to a user's search. How can you possibly get your site above the thousands of others that the search engine thinks are relevant to your keywords?

The answer is to use basic search engine optimisation techniques. For example, make sure you often use phrases that you think your target market will be searching for (your 'keywords'), and make your web addresses contain them too. For this article, for example, www.website.com/home-business-website would be a much better web address than www.website.com/articles/205. That's just a brief introduction -- there's a whole SEO industry out there, if you go looking for it.

Have Lots of Useful Content.

When you have a website, you're not just trying to reach people who were searching for you -- you're trying to get people to check your website, read your latest news and offers, and the rest. The best way of doing this is to have fresh and useful content on there. Write short articles about the kind of things your customers might be interested in. If your home business is computer repair, for example, you could keep track of the latest virus threats on your site and offer help to anyone affected.

Make It Easy to Update.

You should make sure that whatever software you're using to write your website makes it easy to post new articles without too many problems. If you have go to around putting HTML tags into your articles before you can upload them, then you should think about changing the way your website works.

Keep a Weblog.

One of the simplest ways to have fresh, useful content on your site is to keep a weblog (or 'blog'). A blog is a series of entries, like entries in a diary, that are displayed on your site starting with the most recent first. It is easy to log in and quickly write a new entry, and it can be as short or as long as you like.

For your home business' blog, the only rule to stick to is not to post anything there that isn't related to your industry and your work. It might be great that you've got a new baby or sad that your cat Mr Tibbles died, but you should start a personal blog on another website if you want to post about that kind of thing.

Let People E-Mail You with No Hassle.

One of the worst mistakes people often make when they're starting a website is to think that it would be a good idea to give their customers a 'contact form' to fill in. People really, really don't like filling in forms, and you'll lose a lot of interested customers if you require them to tell you all sorts of things before you'll even talk to them over the Internet.

The best thing to do is to simply list your email address on your site, as a clickable link, and advise customers near the link of the kind of information it would be useful for them to include in an email. It might sound strange, but people are far more willing to go through the trouble of typing things in when it's on their own terms, and not into an annoying web form.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
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Hardware and Software: Using IT in Your Business

There's almost no-one nowadays who doesn't have a computer -- it's more-or-less a given that you've got a computer in your home office, and that you use it almost every day. But are you getting as much out of it as you could be? Here are some things your computer can do that you might not have thought of.

Keep Track of Customers in a Database.

Once you start to get some customers, you'll need to keep track of their contact details, as well as making sure you know who they are in case you forget. You have a choice: you can keep a file for each customer in your filing cabinet, or you could enter their details into a computerised database.

The good news is that if you have some office software, then you should already have a database package. Starting a database of your customers isn't too difficult to figure out, and lets you do all sorts of things -- you can sort them by the area where they live, or list everyone who's bought one of your products but not another, for example.

Graph Your Sales.

Once you've got your database telling you what you've sold to who and when, you can use it to produce all sorts of graphs and other reports that could help you to spot trends and see what works and what doesn't.

Do Your Accounting and Tax.

With inexpensive accounting software, it's not hard to use your computer to keep track of all your incomings and outgoings -- it can even be integrated with your customer database. Since you'll have all your sales data electronically already, it'll be a snap to do your taxes at the end of the year, where for people who have it all on paper it can be a complete nightmare.

Design Your Own Marketing Materials.

Modern desktop publishing software makes it dead easy to design your own logo, leaflets, brochures, and anything else you might want. With a little practise, you can produce things as good as any graphic designer a home business could afford, and save the money for distribution. Make sure you run your design by a few people first, though, to check that it's readable and there aren't any mistakes or flaws that you've been staring at it for too long to see.

Follow Market Trends.

With Internet access, you can read articles from the specialist press of the whole world, and keep up to date with all the latest technologies and trends in your industry. It's worth picking out the top five or so most important sites to your business and spending a few minutes each day checking them. After all, you don't want to get left behind.

Accept Credit Cards.

Many people don't realise, but Internet merchant accounts aren't just for accepting card payments over the web. You can also open one to use as part of your home business over the phone or by post, with you simply entering the card numbers and amounts into a website to process the payments. This is a powerful way of giving your customers more alternatives when it comes to paying you.

Promote Your Business.

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of the web as a tool for promotion. You should definitely take the time to list your business on every directory listing people in your industry -- make sure that someone searching for your profession and the town where you live would be able to find you listed easily.

Pay Your Staff.

When your business gets big enough to employ staff, you'll find your computer is a useful tool for keeping track of how many hours each person has worked, how much they should be paid, and how much of that amount needs to be kept behind as tax. Trying to do payroll manually is a big headache.

Keep Backups!

There's one thing, though, that it's important to always remember: when you use your computer to store any data that you can't afford to lose, make regular backups and keep them in a safe place. It's really not that much trouble, and if you don't do i then a simple computer failure can devastate your business.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

Guerrilla Marketing: a Cheaper Alternative

So you've spent an enormous amount on advertising in the media and got very little response -- or maybe you were scared enough by the prices that you never put the ads there to begin with. You're annoyed at how expensive it is to get even the simplest and smallest ad in front of anyone, and how useless the whole thing seems to be.

That's because media advertising, in the main, isn't designed to cater to home businesses. No, if you want to get ahead as a home business, you're going to have to do the advertising yourself.

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla marketing is a way of advertising when you have an almost non-existent budget. Instead of thinking of your business as a smaller version of a big one, you have to realise the situation you're in, and behave accordingly to maximise your profits while minimising your marketing costs. Essentially, you're going to try to do anything to get publicity.

Telemarketing.

Don't worry, I'm not talking about telemarketing of the nasty call centre variety here. It's B2B (business-to-business) telemarketing you want to be doing -- basically, phoning up local businesses and making yourself known. You'll be surprised at just how effective this can be, since businesses tend to appreciate the effort you've made to contact them and offer your services far more than a customer does if a business phones them at home.

Direct Mail.

It shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of a mailing list that covers your whole area -- ask your local post office if you're unsure, as they'll often be able to help with bulk mail campaigns. Alternatively, if you don't even want to pay for delivery, you could hire a few local teenagers to go round putting your letters in people's mailboxes. This will work best if you keep your message to one small page or even just a business card, so that people will keep it if they're interested and call you in their own time.

Outdoor Leafleting.

Another effective guerrilla marketing technique, at least for some kinds of business, is to hang around outside giving out leaflets to passers-by. This gives you an opportunity to 'meet and greet' people, and lets you do some free targeted advertising by choosing your location carefully. If you do odd jobs in people's houses, for example, you could stand outside the DIY store, handing out leaflets that say 'Why Do It Yourself? I'll assemble and install everything you buy today for only $50!' If you custom build and sell your own computers, you could stand outside a big-box computer store with this leaflet: 'Get your computer tailor-made, for half the price of [big store]'. You get the idea.

Free Gifts.

You'd be surprised just how effective it can be to stand around handing out free gifts. If you do something that relates to children, then hand out balloons to them in the mall. You'll make some kids' days, and your name and perhaps website address will be written there on the balloon for all to see. Free pens are a very effective thing to give away if you provide a more serious business service -- people are always short of pens, so they'll keep your pen in their bag and be reminded of your business each time they use it. Even better, the cost of getting thousands of balloons or pens printed with whatever you want is almost nil.

Attack the Competitor.

Nasty as it might sound, hardcore guerrilla marketers regard their competitor as their sworn enemy, and will do anything to bring them down so that they can replace them in the marketplace. A little disturbingly, this can be quite simple to do -- fake a few letters complaining about a business to a local newspaper, and you might find that they follow through and do a feature on it without even checking the story out.

In the end, with guerrilla marketing, there are endless ideas -- it's all about being inventive, and having the guts (and the patience) to try them out. When you get your first customer without buying a single media ad, it'll all be worth it.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
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A Guide to Advertising in the Media

The media is a powerful thing -- the average person spends an enormous amount of their life consuming it in one form or another, and will spend a significant percentage of that time looking at, listening to or watching advertisements. If you want to use the power of the media, though, you need to know what you're doing.

Advertising in Newspapers and Magazines.

There are two kinds of advertising you can get in newspapers and magazines: classified and display. Classifieds are the small ads towards the back of the publication, while display ads can be almost any size, from a small corner of a page to a massive double-page spread.

If there's a publication you're interested in advertising in, either go to its website (the rate card section) or call its advertising department to find out the rates it charges. Now pick your jaw up off the floor. Yes, advertising in the print media really is that expensive, and for most home businesses it probably just won't be that economical.

There is, however, an exception: niche and trade magazines. If you've ever looked around in a newsagent, you will have seen just how many magazines there are out there, filling every conceivable gap in the market. You need to find the magazine that people who are interested in your services might read. For example, if you're a wedding photographer, look for a magazine called 'Your Wedding', 'Bride', or something similar. Advertising in these magazines will be far cheaper than placing an ad in a general-audience publication, and far more likely to actually get some responses.

Advertising on the Radio.

Wherever you are, the chances are that there's a local radio station. Once your home business grows to a decent size, you might consider buying some time on it.

Really, though, the only kind of home business that can benefit enough from radio ads to justify the cost is one that does anything to do with cars. Since radio is almost entirely limited to use as in-car entertainment now, you know that almost everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner, and so might be interested in what you're offering. If you offer something that people need cheaply or even for free, you can get a big response.

Unfortunately, that response could be a little too big -- thanks to the time-sensitivity of radio, you'll get mobbed the next day, and then everyone will forget you again. Radio advertising offers the listener no opportunity to keep your ad and refer to it later, or to find it again in the future. You will find that any ads involving a phone number are spectacularly useless.

Advertising on the Television.

Unless your business is getting pretty big, this would be quite a bad idea. You'd have trouble producing and airing an ad even on local cable channels for less than $10,000. Of course, if there's a market for your product and you've got the budget for this, you could take a gamble and make a mint. The home businesses that tend to do best out of TV ads are ones that have a 'unique and useful invention' product with easy-to-demonstrate benefits -- think infomercial. Research shows that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a free phone number and a price point of $19.95.

Advertising on Billboards.

Here's one that gets overlooked pretty often, but can be very effective if you do it right. Billboard ads are relatively expensive, but they do generally stay up for a long time, and they can be very specifically targeted to an area -- the one where they're physically located. You'll have the best results with this if you can put one near enough to your business that it could say 'turn left at the next junction', or something like that. Phone numbers are, again, pretty useless, although you could have some luck putting a website address up there.

Advertising at the Movies.

Finally, here's one that often gets overlooked. If you turn up to the cinema early, you might have seen that before the big-budget ads, ads for local businesses are run. This can be a great place to advertise relatively inexpensively in quite a high-profile way, and it works especially well for takeaway food businesses.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

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The Secrets of Pricing

An often-neglected part of home business is the pricing of your services. You know what you can do, you know there's a market for it, but do you know how much you can get away with charging, without putting the customers off? Here are a few tips to maximise your profit margin.

Find Out What Your Competitors Charge.

Ring round some of your competitors (you might want to use a fake name), and find out what they're charging for the services you offer. You can then make a price comparison table. If you're working in an industry where price isn't a big thing customers look at, you might charge around the average of your competitors' prices. If price is a big factor in your industry, play aggressively -- put your table in your advertising materials, and price yourself so you beat everyone on the list (you might not be able to do this in some industries, however).

Be aware, though, that you might not always want to be the cheapest out there. Somewhat strangely, you might find that you can take away a competitor's business in some industries simply by moving into that sector and charging a higher price than they do for similar products. One of the biggest secrets of pricing is that people assume price means quality, and purchase accordingly. There's jewellery out there, for example, that is priced at thousands of dollars but only really worth a few hundred -- what people pay for, oddly enough, is the status that comes with buying something with such a high price.

An Easy Formula: Cost Plus Time Plus Margin.

If you'd like to be more scientific about your pricing, here's a way to do it. First, work out your costs. This is any materials that you use for your work, as well as your overheads, such as electricity, advertising, lawyer's fees, and so on. Once you're done, you should have figured out how much each product you offer costs you, before you include the price of your work. You should overestimate this number, but not by too much.

The next step is to factor in a charge for your time. Basically, work out how many hours it takes you to provide a product, and then work out the pricing so you're getting a satisfactory hourly rate. It's up to you what kind of rate to set for yourself -- start at minimum wage, and then work out how each increase would affect the price. A good guide is how much you would expect to pay an employee to do the job for you if you ever expanded to the point where employees were needed.

This is also a good opportunity to see if there are any efficiency savings you could make: if there's a service that would take two hours off the time needed for one product, and it would only cost you one hour's pay to get that service, you should do it.

Finally, once you've added cost and time, you need to add in a margin. This should typically be about 30-50% of the price you've come up with so far. This money will be good for investing in expansion, paying taxes, and covering yourself against anything else that comes up.

Don't Get Emotional About It.

If you're selling something that you've put a lot of work into -- especially something that you've worked hard to make -- you might feel that the market price doesn't represent the value you feel it has. This is a terrible trap to fall into, as you're very unlikely to ever be able to sell anything if you've priced it too highly out of emotional attachment. You need to accept ahead of time the kind of prices you're going to get for things, and think of them as being worth that much.

Always Be Willing to Negotiate.

You will get customers who want to negotiate with you over your prices. Play them at their own game. Make it look like you're making silly negotiating errors so that they feel like they're getting a really good deal. Just make sure that you know the minimum price you're willing to take before you meet with them, and don't take any less.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is currently using the Plug-In Profit Site (PIPS) system to build his online home business. Hannes highly recommends the PIPS system to anyone interested in starting a successful home business - click for more information: http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/pips.html?blog

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
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Don't Forget Yourself: Surviving the Financial Strain

When you start a home business, it's all too easy to get carried away by all your new obligations: keeping your customers happy, earning enough money to live, and so on. Being in such an uncertain financial situation is stressful, but many home business owners simply ignore this stress, instead of dealing with it. When you're worrying about money, you tend to be worrying about everyone else and what will happen when you let them down. What I'm saying is this: don't forget yourself.

The End of Stability... or the Beginning?

Many people get very upset a few months after they quit their job and start their own business, feeling like they threw away the financial stability they had in their job, to chase a dream. Think of this way, though: just how stable were you in your job to begin with? Did you constantly have to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing, for fear of getting fired? Did it always feel like you were one bad project away from the end?

Well, you are in almost all 'real' jobs, when hiring and firing is at the whim of your manager. At least now you work for yourself you can't lose your whole job -- only individual clients. I know many people, especially medical professionals, who feel far more stable working at home than they ever did in their job. They know that there will always be at least enough people coming to them for them to survive.

Living With It.

You knew this was going to be hard on you financially when you started -- it's no excuse to give up. Talk to any home business owner and they'll tell you how much stress they're under. It's part of the way of life. Big companies are designed to take financial strain away from individual employees, since everything is decided by committee and it's the investors who are going to be losing out anyway. You don't have this luxury.

The only advice to give here is that you shouldn't take any more financial risk than you're comfortable with -- decide in advance just how much you're willing to lose before you throw in the towel. You should agree this point with your family before you start, though, and don't let them pressure you into giving in before you've reached it.

Keep Clear Records.

The absolute worst and most stressful thing is not to know exactly what your financial situation is from day to day. While you might think you don't want to know, things are never really as bad as they seem when you've got the numbers in front of you. It's when you leave it to your imagination that things really start to seem bad.

The simplest way to keep records for yourself is to use a simple accounting program, or even just a spreadsheet. Enter what you started with, and then record everything you spend and everything you earn. Remember: it's never that bad.

Don't Start Taking Sick Days.

It can be all too easy to take 'sick days' when the only person you answer to is yourself -- when you feel stressed, the natural reaction is to hide away and ignore whatever it is that's making you stressed. You'll only make your financial situation worse if you do this, so it's important that you only stop working when there's something actually wrong with you, not just when you feel low.

What's the Worst That Can Happen?

Think of it this way: what's the absolute worst case scenario, the thing that you're most afraid of financially? There are very few situations that couldn't be solved by selling a few of the things that have accumulated in your house over the years (you probably don't even use them), or by selling your car and getting a smaller one. Do you really need all those things you subscribe to monthly? Newspapers, cable TV, and the rest could all go in an emergency, right?

Basically, when you run a home business, you might have to make a few short-term sacrifices to get yourself out of trouble. I guarantee you, though, that you will find it very difficult indeed to completely crash and burn.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson publishes the Home Business Tips Newsletter which you can join for free by clicking here.
( http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/homebusinesstips.html )

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
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