The good news for home based business entrepreneurs is that the online business environment is growing stronger every day. The process of starting a home based business has been made much easier with the internet. Starting your own business is now more cost effective and more rewarding than was ever thought possible.Affiliate marketing is a successful home based business model, where you don’t have to purchase any stock, create payment systems or worry about product shipping and delivery. The product owner takes care of these issues and your business is about selling the products to a market that wants to buy them. But that’s not saying that a home based business on the internet is easy money. Regardless of the services or products you sell, no matter online or offline, the best home business will always need to have these 3 essentials:1. A List Of Potential Customers.It is essential to develop a list of prospective and actual customers who you can email about your products and services. List building is the key to developing the best home business, particularly on the internet.With affiliate marketing, you can just send potential customers directly to a vendor’s sales page. But if they don’t purchase right away the buyer is lost to you. On the other hand, if the prospect is on your list, they may buy something else from you at a later date when you send them information about another product or service. By building your own list for your home based business you are in control of your income and in control of which products you choose to promote to your subscribers.The main challenge you will have is encouraging people to opt-in to your list. This is typically done by using autoresponder software and offering some kind of free gift such as a free report or video download. This brings us on to the next essential item for your home based business.2. Always Providing Value.This next point is connected to getting someone on to your list. As mentioned, you want to provide your subscribers with a free gift in return for their email address. If you are focusing on customers who have, say, an hair loss problem your free report could address this issue. Then within the report you add your affiliate links for products that provide a solutionEven if your customer does not buy something immediately they are now on your list. This gives you the opportunity to follow up with them and make additional suggestions, as well as providing more free information and tips.Don’t just continually send out sales messages. Use your emails to provide information that your subscribers will find useful. Send out a video, a slide presentation, MP3 recording or an interview. By taking the time to put in a little more effort into your affiliate promotions the people on your list will start to trust you, see you as an authority and be more willing to buy from you.3. Being Consistent And Not Giving Up.Starting a home based business is reasonably straightforward. But when the going gets tough, many people just throw in the towel and give up. If you had the guts to make your home business ideas a reality you are one step ahead of the many other people who don’t even get to that first step. Everyone in life who has ever done anything big has failed. But they didn’t let that failure stop them from carrying on. Failure doesn’t have to be the period at the end of an attempt. Instead, failure can be the teacher that shows you a way that won’t work and spurs you to keep looking for a way that does.
Home Educating: Why More and More Families Are Choosing Home Education
The number of families who are choosing to home educate is rising every year. According to the National Center for Education Statistics that there are approximately 1.73 – 2.35 million children in grades K-12 being homeschooled at this time. Research shows that the homeschool population is growing at a rate of 2% – 8% per annum.
Just a decade ago home educating was still considered a rogue alternative but today it is almost mainstream. How their children will be educated is a very personal choice for every family. However, some of the reasons families are choosing home education are:
The Educational Choices in Your City are Less Than Ideal
All public schools are not created equal. First and foremost, each family needs to evaluate if the public school in their area is meeting the needs of their child.
If your child is falling behind academically, being bullied at school or generally not thriving in the public school environment it may be time to closely evaluate what is going on at school.
Many teachers have a large number of students in their classroom and are not able to meet the needs of each child. In some cases, the classroom atmosphere itself may be hard for very kinesthetic children to adjust to. In the traditional public school setting, young boys are 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.
Parents Want to Customize the Learning Environment for Their Child
Children almost always benefit from having one on one instruction. Daily interaction with your child will uncover his strengths and weaknesses and can greatly encourage him over a learning hurdle.
Many home educating families also realize that certain curriculum choices can have a huge impact in how well your child processes the information. We observed this first hand with all of our children. What curriculum worked for one may not necessarily work for the others.
In a traditional school setting the teacher must find the best teaching approach to reach the greatest number of children. However, if your student is not able to respond well to that teaching approach, your child may end up falling behind.
Academic Performance
Scoring 15 to 30 percentile points higher on standardized achievement test than their public school counterparts, homeschooled students typically do better academically.
This also holds true on the ACT and SAT tests used by college admissions. Homeschool students score above average.
An interesting fact from the National Home Education Research Institute ( NHERI ) states, “Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income.”
Social and Emotional Health
Home educating children also do above average when being measured for emotional, social and psychological development. Leadership skills, peer interaction, self-esteem, family unity and community service were among the research measures evaluated.
This research also shows that homeschool students are regularly participating in educational and social activities outside of their homes. Scouting, 4-H, sports teams, church programs and volunteering in the community expose children to many people outside of their immediate families.
Naturally, education choices for your family require much thought and will look different for each family. Home educating families are here to stay, and may represent what can happen when parents truly get involved in their children’s education.
A Simple Product Creation and Product Launching Formula
If you tried to think of people involved in product creation, who would come to mind? You may think of Edison, Franklin, or maybe Henry Ford. Would you ever think of yourself as someone who can create a quality product? Product creation is actually relatively easy and product launching is not that tough either! If you follow a few easy to understand steps, you could be starting the product creation and product launching process sooner than you think.
The first step in creating your information product is to know and understand your market. This can be very time-consuming, especially if you are unsure of what to do or where to look to know your market. Studying your niche market and understanding the buzz words and buying patterns can ease the process dramatically. Personally, I would recommend networking with someone who has had success in the niche market you are considering and learn from their results. If they are into product creation and not very business savvy expect some hesitation. If they only sell products and have nothing to do with product launching or product creation you may your first affiliate (sales person)! Something else you can use to find hot trends is with the Google Trends tool.
The second step is the product creation process. Take your niche market and brainstorm ideas and topics relating to it. There are a lot of product launching contests going on recently relating to a newly created internet marketing tool. There are so many aspects to the mentioned niche that literally, and unfortunately, anything can be considered an Internet Marketing tool. The reason that anyone can basically create an Internet Marketing tool is because of something called Private Label Rights products.
What I use private label rights products for, and highly recommend them in this specific manner, is to cure writer’s block especially when it is lingering. Many people base their entire product creation and product launching on a private label rights product. This is where you can start to shine and build a strong brand for yourself. If you set goals for yourself, short-term goals to be exact, you can see your product creation come into being much faster and there is a good chance with less revision needed. If you keep hitting time restraint road blocks; however there is nothing wrong with a slow and steady approach, you can consider outsourcing portions of your project. Outsourcing can be an extremely huge benefit or just as great of a disaster.
You can find someone to outsource work to at a freelance site such as Guru.com or eLance.com. When reviewing proposals it is almost mandatory you perform a background check on them as you are in essence hiring them. Doing a background check on freelancers is as easy as asking for samples of their work and reviewing feedback on the freelance site from previous customers. Depending on the size and requirements of your project this can add up to a decent sized investment, so caution is very important. One tip I always recommend to people looking to hire an individual is to ask them what they can provide you that no one else can. This simple question gives them a chance to “toot their own horn” and acknowledge where they feel most competent as far as their skill set.
The final portion of the product creation and product launching formula is the launch. This can literally make or break the effort, time, and maybe (if you invested) money you put in to your project. There are numerous aspects to product launching and although their relevance is debated in terms to their effect, experts agree all must be followed. The person in your field who you asked for product advice from can help you substantially if you have kept in touch. If not, the first thing you need to do is to create a visually appealing website with flawless design work.
I also mentioned outsourcing before, this is one aspect of product launching I have little strength in and I always outsource this portion. The website does not have to be large however the content (ad copy in Internet Marketing) must be stellar and as perfect as possible. This is where advertising knowledge or experience is beneficial. When the site is set up you now put a lead capture form on your website.
I put two lead capture pages on all products I create on the internet and is one of the best methods of getting a solid start when you are in the product launching stage. When you gain information from a prospect or someone looking to get paid for referring sales you are able to provide them updates or specials. Many people abuse their prospect or affiliate lists by in turn emailing them with a new product daily and I find the recommendations to be totally unrelated to their original need, problem, or interest.
Another stage in the product launching stage is creating a free report or demo version of your product to entice the product to sign up to your email list. Using proper follow up with this can help generate numerous sales for you. One thing you need to ensure is that your free product completely relates to your main product that you are looking to sell.
You are now ready to advertise your product launching to customers as well as the opportunity to sell for affiliates. This is the single aspect that many product creations and launches fail on. It is actually not entirely difficult. One thing you can do is write articles (and a good amount of them) on topics relating to your product. I am a huge advocate of giving a solution in forums. When you join a forum you are normally offered the opportunity to create a signature. In your signature, you should enter the link to your opt-in or lead capture page. When you respond to posts, you are advertising your opportunity.
It is not impossible to create a product and it does not have to take a long time. You need to setup a plan and stick to it. If you get stuck, look at similar and successful products to your own and try and see how they did it. When you sit down and brainstorm you will be surprised with what you can imagine.