Starting a Home Based Business: Fear is the Biggest Obstacle

By: Alan Liew

The most common reason people don’t start their home based business is the fear involved with it. Many people are not willing to sacrifice all of their time for their business and make it their top priority. Sacrifices must be made in order to put the time needed to build and grow your home business and people are afraid of that.



Time isn’t the only thing people are afraid of. Money plays a big part when thinking of working for yourself. If things don’t go as planned it can financially ruin a family. The needs of a family must still be met even if the business isn’t making the money it needs to. Health insurance premiums must still be met along with all other normal bills. Many people believe that starting their own business means they will not be able to afford quality health insurance coverage for their families.

Some people are lucky to have a spouse that works and has a good insurance plan to cover them and the whole family. When a couple goes into business together, this is not the case. Couples think they have nothing to fall back on if the business isn’t as profitable as they had once hoped.

The daily expenses are what a lot of people think about when starting their own business. You must still eat and make the car payments along with any mortgages or rent regardless of how much money your business make. The thought of this keeps many people staying on their old job everyday no matter how unhappy they are with it.

While all of these fears are a real concern, when the potential for success is weighted against the possibilities of failure, some people decide it’s worth it and take the risk of starting their home business. But, unless these people have a quality product or service that is going to make them money from the first day, they will need to have a plan for converting from a 9 to 5 employee to a successful home business owner.

The plan could include starting out part time with your business while maintaining your employee status and health benefits. Starting your business part time while continuing to work reduces the amount of fear normally found when venturing out on your own. Once the business starts showing enough profit, then you can move away from being an employee and enjoy the benefits of being a business owner.

Many times when working towards making this transition. Many people become frustrated with the way the new venture is going but you must realize that building a profitable home business takes time. You must realize that the business probably wouldn’t grow any faster than if you were working on it full time. But that doesn't mean you should quit your day job immediately to work full time on your business. Don’t make the mistake of leaving your job before the new business can totally support the living of your family.

Instead of letting the fear you feel keep you away from starting a new business at home, let the fear guide you about when the time is right for you to quit your current job. Those who have no fear may jump right in and become successful from the start, but there are also many failures that come from going full time too soon. Use the fear to understand the challenges you are faced with and think of it as a partner that will help you instead of letting the fear stop you from even trying.

Article Source: http://add-articles.com

Alan Liew owns a blog that publishes articles and content to help people succeed in their home based business.

7 Basic Rules for Internet Marketing

Internet marketing strategies involve driving targeted (people who are interested in what you have to offer) traffic to your website, blog, or sales page.

That traffic then has to be converted into sales. This simple formula illustrates this process:

Traffic + Conversions = Sales

Keeping this formula in your mind will help you in your internet marketing efforts because you will realize that you not only have to generate traffic, but also turn those visitors into buyers.

Furthermore, here are 7 basic rules to follow when applying this formula. These rules are relevant to all forms of marketing but are especially important for online marketing where inexperienced people can "burn" a lot of money quickly and become very discouraged.

1. All marketing involves RISK.

Whether you are trying something new or "copying" a strategy that has brought good results for others, there is still an element of risk.

When speaking of risk, you tend to think of gambling which makes for an appropriate analogy here.

For internet marketing, we try to reduce the risk and swing the odds in our favour by doing keyword research, learning skills like ad writing, article marketing, and pay per click, and other general marketing activities such as knowing what your target market is interested in.

2. Test small first.

Reduce your risk by testing a marketing approach on a small scale first. If it works, then increase the scale and create momentum.

This is how to make money!

3. Be consistent.

Successful marketers do something to propel themselves forward everyday. That is their secret.

A good practice is to create a to-do list every night featuring 5 actions that you must complete the following day.

By doing this at night before you go to sleep, you engage your subconscious mind and the next day you will know what you have to do and be on target to complete these tasks.

This is a very powerful process. Try to do this, one day at a time, until it becomes a daily habit.

4. Set a budget.

Determine what you can afford to spend on advertising on a monthly basis. In this way you can set and manage your expectations.

This should also prevent you from trying things you cannot afford.

5. Diversify.

Spread your efforts as much as you can over many different sources. This will also reduce your risk and help you to discover what works.

Remember that if one internet marketing method that you try does not produce results, you have not failed. This just means that you are one step closer to finding something that DOES work.

6. Learn how to write effective copy.

The skill that will make or break you in internet marketing is copywriting.

It is especially important to learn how to write headlines. There is a ton of good information online that is free regarding headlines and copywriting. Just do a Google search.

7. Take action, test, and track.

Tracking is essential because you absolutely need to know the results of your marketing efforts.

Once you start getting results, you can employ simple tests to see if you can improve. Often this testing involves strategies that are free.

One such strategy that comes to mind is split testing. You can do this for free, and it can provide incredible returns. Generally speaking, split testing involves making slight changes to a landing page or adwords ad, often just the wording of the headline, and testing it against a current version.

I have seen very simple changes DOUBLE the productivity of an ad. It's not only amazing, but also a lot of fun! Marketing takes work. You simply cannot get something for nothing. Massive action creates massive results.

So take action and do not be afraid to fail. Remember to minimize your risk.

About the Author: Mark McCullagh is the author of the internet marketing strategies that work, especially for network marketing.

Affiliate Programs - The Best Ones to Start

by: John Farina

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - GOOD STARTERS



Affiliate programs are possibly the easiest type of online business to start running. Why?

Well, in order to start any online business you need a product or service to sell. First, you need to create the product. Then, you will have to create a website, write advertisements and set up a marketing plan. If it's a physical product you are selling then you're going to be limited by the amount of time it takes to make or buy the item, package it and ship it. Then, there's the issue of accepting payments and filling orders. We haven't even started talking about refunds and returns!

This is a daunting task especially if you've never run an internet business.

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS ARE THE ANSWER

So, what ARE affiliate programs?

Affiliate programs allow you to be the "sales force" for someone else's product or service and earn commissions for each sale. You may be pretty internet savvy without ever noticing that many companies offer you the ability to become an affiliate. Check for the "affiliate program" links which are placed in a discreet manner on many sites. One big advantage is that you do not need to build a website (though you can) or handle the transaction or fill the order. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link. When a sale is made, the affiliate will send you a commission!

Signing up to become an affiliate is usually a pretty simple task. It usually involves filling out a web page providing some basic information about yourself. In turn, the company will give you an affiliate link. This is a special URL code that will identify that a customer came to the company's site from your advertising. It is usually the website address with a code attached to the end.

What Commissions Does the Program Pay?

It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that pays very small commissions. You could end up spending more on marketing than you make on sales. It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales.

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How Much Traffic is their Website Getting?

Try to discover the amount of traffic the affiliate owner's website is already receiving. Alexa.com is a very useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, so it's possible that there may already be too many affiliates. If it is ranked below 500,000 it may be no good, or it could be a golden opportunity to make some real money by becoming one of the first affiliates!

Always research a merchant's product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford it. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any negative reviews about it on the internet. Be careful who you listen to though because many people are in the habit of bashing affiliate programs with nothing to really support their comments. If you find a large amount of negative reviews with little positive ones then it would probably be a good idea to stay away from that affiliate program.

How Often Are Affiliate Commissions Paid?

Some affiliate programs pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to continue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid.

Does The Affiliate Program Use Tracking Cookies?

Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant's website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies for their affiliate program, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chances of you getting paid!

Does the Affiliate Program Pay on Subsequent Sales?

Some programs will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable affiliate business.

What Marketing Resources Does the Affiliate Program Offer?

Look at the type and quality of the marketing resources that they provide. Do they provide articles, advertisements, or other content that you can use to put on your site? Do they provide free guides, special offers, free viral e-books, or product samples that you can send to your list? If the marketing material they provide is good then it is likely that the business will provide good support for their affiliates.

Finding the right affiliate program for you can be tough to do. The best advice is to do your own research, follow the advice above, and listen to your instincts. Use the above questions as an aid to finding an affiliate program that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know... You might just strike affiliate marketing gold!

Is their website professional?

Your reputation is on the line every time you promote a product or service. If you're sending your traffic to a website that is on free hosting or just looks unprofessional, then you're going to lose the confidence of your subscribers. Now, many sales letters aren't 'pretty' but they are grammatically correct, and everything is functional, with pictures and testimonials. So, although the website doesn't have to be beautiful, it does need to look 'live'.

Is their website easy to navigate?

If shoppers can't figure out how to purchase, then there's no point in sending your traffic there.

What are the numbers?

If you have two programs you like equally well, you can choose between them or write reviews for each and compare and contrast their benefits. Or, if that doesn't fit into your site, then test both to see which gives you the best results.

Free trial?

Any product that offers samples or service that offers a free trial deserves a look. If you can offer your website visitors a sample of any sort to get them hooked, you'll have much higher results than trying to convince them that the product is good.

Are there any tools to help you? Try out these free programs if you like

The best affiliate programs go above and beyond in their tools and resources section. Not only do they provide the standard text links and buttons and banners, but you also have solo mailings, articles, and even product feeds. These are the affiliate programs that 'get it'.

Once you find an affiliate program that you love, it's still smart to continue to test the results. Just because you think it's great doesn't mean you visitors will. Continually look at the statistics to see how much traffic you're sending and if any of it is converting. If you're not getting results and you're sending a lot of traffic, then you might want to look at a new program.

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About The Author

John J Farina is a successful affiliate marketer. He provides expert reviews on which affiliate programs to join and which ones to avoid like the plague. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at: http://www.johnnysreviewsite.com

NetAudioAds did launch

Many seem to believe that PPP audio ads did not launch today and that NetAudioAds has delayed their launch for 30 - 60 days. Further, some of you believe that if an advertiser buys ads today that their ads won’t play for 30 - 60 days.

Both of these statements are false. They are misunderstandings…
Report by Charles Heflin

NetAudioAds did launch today and advertiser contracts are beginning to be fulfilled this very second. NetAudioAds is rolling out in stages to ensure system integrity at every stage. Any launch of this magnitude has to be throttled up carefully.

When a new advertising contract is set then NetAudioAds will seek to fulfill the order as quickly as possible without compromising the advertiser in the process. This is a delicate balance between integrity of audio ad plays (for advertisers) and fulfilling available ad slots (for you).

All of these misunderstandings stem from human nature to “read between the lines”. Read More

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