From SBA.gov

There is no way to eliminate all the risks associated with starting a small business. However, you can improve your chances of success with good planning and preparation. A good starting place is to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as the owner and manager of a small business. Carefully consider each of the following questions.

Are you a self­starter?

How well do you get along with different personalities?

How good are you at making decisions?

Do you have the physical and emotional stamina to run a small home business?

How well do you plan and organize?

Is your drive strong enough to maintain your motivation?

How will the work at home business affect your family?

It’s true, there are a lot of reasons not to start your own business. But for the right person, the advantages of business ownership far outweigh the risks. You get to be your own boss.

* Hard work and long hours directly benefit you, rather than increasing profits for someone.

* Earning and growth potential are far less limited.

* A new work at home business venture is exciting.

* Running a home business will provide endless variety, challenge and opportunities to learn.

Learn More from SBA.gov

Save up as much money as possible before starting.
All too often, people go into business without any savings, exclusively using loan money from friends, banks, or the SBA. They except to be able to start paying the loans back right away with their profits. What these business owners don’t realize is that it can take months or years to make a profit. And once a lender discovers a business isn’t as profitable as expected, the lender is likely to call in the loan or refuse to renew it for another year. Often new business owners then have to take out home equity loans or use credit cards to pay off their loans (which puts their home and credit rating at risk). For more information, see Business Financing FAQ.

A better plan is to save up as much of the needed investment money as possible, including your living expenses for the first year, or even two. Odds are that your business won’t be profitable for one to two years. Even if you get plenty of business coming your way — and your customers pay you on time, which isn’t always a sure thing — you’ll want to be able to invest most of that money back in the business for space, equipment, advertising, and insurance needs.

Start on a shoestring.
Think small. Don’t rent premises if you can work somewhere else, and don’t hire employees until you can keep them busy. (You can hire independent contractors or temps in the meantime.)
People who start their small business on the cheap, often in a garage, den, or some other scavenged space, and create their first goods or services with more sweat than cash, have the luxury of making their inevitable rookie mistakes on a small scale. And precisely because their early screw-ups don’t bury them in debt, they are usually able to learn and recover from them.

Understand how — and if — you will make a profit.
You should be able to state in just a few sentences how your business plans to make a substantial profit. For starters, you need to know your costs: how much you’ll spend purchasing inventory, paying the rent, compensating any employees, and covering what is likely to be a surprisingly long list of other costs. Then you can figure out exactly how much you need to sell each month, for how many dollars, to cover those expenses and have an adequate profit besides. These numbers are all you need to create a “break-even analysis.”
Read More from Yahoo Small Business…

Craigslist is a centralized network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs and resumes categories) and forums sorted by various topics. You can also advertise your work at home business opportunity, but only in the Small Biz ad category.

It was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark for the San Francisco Bay Area. After incorporation in 1999, Craigslist expanded into nine more cities in 2000 (all of them in the U.S.), four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of June 2006, Craigslist had established itself in approximately 310 cities all over the world.

As of 2006, Craigslist operates with a staff of 22 people. [1] Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities ($75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York and Los Angeles), and paid broker apartment listings in New York City ($10 per ad).

It serves over 4 billion page views per month, putting it in 30th place overall among Internet companies world wide, 7th place overall among Internet companies in the United States (per Alexa.com on July 8, 2006), to 10 million unique visitors. With over 10 million new classified ads each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over 500,000 new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. [2] The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements, to personal ads and even “erotic services”.

Craigslist received a ton of traffic, so if you don’t spam your opportunity, it can be a very helpful free home business marketing tool.

“Concentration is the discipline of focusing on a chosen project and ignoring irrelevant
matters.” – Sam Horn

A problem many people encounter is a failure to concentrate. As we build our work at home business, we are often challenged with many things which can keep us from concentrating and getting the job done. Whether it is a family illness, children wanting your attention, or even an unsolicated phone call… we can easily find ourselves out of focus.

The word problem, as we talk about the problem of a lack of concentration, does
not necessarily need to be negative. It simply means the existing situation is
not your ideal situation.

A lack of concentration can misguide us many times. To help us concentrate, we
need to have purpose and vison for what we do. We need to have a plan of action
and an understanding that challenges happen to everyone.

While some distractions are out of our control, most distratctions that cause
a lack of concentration are avoidable. The key is to work from a plan and take
consistent action. This will help you develop a habit of focus and concentration. As
your habits develop, so will your motivation and confidence.

NOTE: Success requires a sustainable motivation. A sustainable motivation is
like the Energizer battery… “it keeps you going, and going, and going!” Having
a sustainable motivation will allow you to overcome the ups and downs of building
your own work from home business without getting derailed from moving toward your main objective.
Begin developing your sustainable motivation today by reading at least ten
minutes a day. Read something uplifting and positive!
Developing a sustainable motivation builds confidence and confidence is important
for keeping you on track and focused in building your work at home business.

Unleash Your Work at Home Genius with Leaders Club

Starting an eBay business is effortless with these 10 simple steps.

With more than 2 billion items listed on eBay in the past year, and close to $50 billion sold, the sheer size of this online marketplace can be overwhelming. Fortunately, as eBay has grown, the company has worked hard to make it easier for new sellers to get started and be successful. Here are 10 quick and easy steps for building a business on eBay.

1. Just Do It
Some people aren’t sure where to begin, says Terry Gibbs, founder of IWantCollectibles.com and author of The Auction Revolution. Gibbs has been buying and selling antiques and collectibles online since 1997. At his business’s peak in 2002, Gibbs was auctioning more than 500 items per week. Although the pace of his eBay selling has slowed since, he says, “eBay is the best way to sell [an item] quickly for the most money.”

2. Create a Routine
Next, pick a block of time you’ll devote to your business on eBay. Set aside a certain part of the day, or particular evenings each week, to pack up auctions that have ended, list new items for sale and respond to e-mails from potential buyers, says Gibbs. Not only does such discipline stake out time for your new business, but keeping sold items moving out the door also helps make space for new merchandise.

3. Take a Good Picture
Though item descriptions are important, the photo may be even more essential. Buyers assume the photo is the best-case scenario–that the product probably looks worse in real life, says Justin Hartenstein, 25, founder of Advanced Automotive Concepts in Metairie, Louisiana, which sells custom car headlights. A good photo can make or break a sale.

4. Build Trust
Once you’ve got the eBay process down, your next objective is to boost your feedback rating–the number of positive responses you’ve received after transactions–which helps build trust with members of the eBay community. “If you’re new to eBay, trust is everything,” says Rogers.

5. Stick With a Niche
Once you’ve developed a process for regularly listing and selling items on eBay, it’s time to start specializing. Sellers who specialize in a particular product category have a leg up on people who sell a wide variety of goods. “Specializing gives me the ability to spot a deal,” says Gibbs.

Read More from Entrepreneur….