There is not a better time than now to start your work at home career. High gas prices and the long commute are incentive enough to find a legitimate work at home business. Then there are the other obvious reasons like spending more time with family, working when and where you want, not having to answer to unreasonable bosses, and of course making more money. I think a majority of the population would favor working at home over a traditional job. Then why don’t more people work from home? It’s probably due the fear of failing on your own. Plus, it takes a lot of self motivation and hard work to succeed with your own business.

There are two types of work at home situations. One is when you are lucky enough to have a job that allows you to perform daily tasks from your own home. These are rare and you still have to answer to the boss. The second and more favorable work at home situation is owning a home based business. A home based business can range from walking dogs to starting a web design business to my favorite- running an online network marketing business. If you find a legitimate network marketing home business that provides real products that people want, you WILL make a ton of money…..Full Article: All About Working from Home

If you have been online looking at your options to work at home, you have probably come across several sites, forums, and online bulletin boards where you can meet and talk with other women all over the world! When you work at home by yourself, this is a lifeline to learning and friendship. Networking online with other moms on message boards is very easy! Find a forum that you like, register an account and post an introduction message right away. Let the other moms know where you are from and what you want to accomplish while working at home.

Everyone’s got different things they bring to the discussion. You’ll meet women who can provide you with advice on how to start a business, information on a wide variety of subjects, favorite resources, and they will be more than happy to lend an ear when you need to complain about a bad day. Most of these sites have somewhere that you can list your business and tell a little about what you do. Visit the different Web sites – eventually you will find a few work-at-home moms that have businesses similar to the type you would like to start.

Most people would be glad to answer your questions – we all like to talk about what we enjoy and do! Keep reading and replying to posts regularly; you will find that people have questions about things you are an ‘expert’ in. By building relationships and establishing credibility, people will come to you when they have a need for the product or service you provide. Develop a little sign-off for your own posts, called a “sig file,” which gives a summary of what benefits or services you offer. Include your Web site URL if you have one so readers can find out more. This is a great benefit of networking online. Seek out the services of other home-based moms when you need help with something….Full Article Here

From OpportunityWorld.com”

During my four years of working from home I have learned a lot about where to find work, how to find work, what is actually work and what is a business. With so much to learn, it can be difficult to know where to begin. That is why I came up with these 10 tips.

1. Never pay for a job. You should not have to pay someone just for the opportunity to work for or with them. This does not mean it doesn’t cost anything to start working from home, it may — depending on equipment and other items you need to do the job, such as software, background checks or becoming incorporated. If you are ever confused about an expense, however, ask the company directly for an explanation and check the company out at the Better Business Bureau or Ripoff Report (www.ripoffreport.com).

2. Ask people you know, or local companies, if they use work-at-home contractors (people paid to work, but not considered employees) or if they would hire people to work from home. You may even be able to ask your own boss if you are working outside the home as well.

3. Keep track of whom you contact, whom you speak to, when you applied, and similar information. This way, you can keep track of where, and if, you have applications pending with different companies.

Tips 4-10 Here.

Here is an article excerpt from a brand new resource from Entrepreneur.com that focuses on work at home women and women entrepreneurs:

Fear is a motivating factor in our lives. In some ways it’s healthy–it prevents us from driving too fast or stepping too close to the edge of a cliff. In other ways, though, it can inhibit us from doing things that’ll benefit us.

Many women who consider starting a business encounter unexpected mental roadblocks that prevent them from moving forward. Here are some of the most common fears experienced by women who want to launch their own businesses–and how you can overcome them.

Fear of Financial Consequences
This fear is natural and completely rational. After all, if you’re investing time and money in a business, you assume some level of risk. There’s the fear of losing money invested, the fear of losing collateral, such as a home, and the fear of being unemployed if the business fails.

How can you deal with these fears? Arm yourself with knowledge. If you don’t understand the financial aspects of your business–how to read a balance sheet, how to forecast and how to price–fears can mount. While it may not be practical to go back to business school, mentors can help. Try contacting your local SCORE chapter, which provides counselors to small businesses. The National Association of Women Business Owners also offers resources. And don’t forget to ask for help from your accountant and read as many business books and magazines as you can….Full Article Here.

From YahooFinance:

If you own your own home and need to borrow money for your business, a home equity loan may be an option. As with any loan, there are risks, but home equity loans are unique in that if you default on your loan, you may lose both your home and your business.

Borrowing against home equity has become a popular source of credit, especially for small business owners. To accommodate the demand, lenders are offering home equity credit lines in a variety of ways.

Here are some of the advantages of taking out a home equity loan to finance your business: Article Here

Companies which allow employees to work from home will be doing their bit to ease traffic congestion and reduce climate change, campaigners said yesterday.

National Work Wise week started yesterday with a call for as many people as possible to work from home tomorrow to show how productive they can be.

Work Wise campaigners say the widespread introduction of smarter working practices will significantly reduce the need for travel to work and on business, making a huge impact to the levels of carbon dioxide emissions from cars and other means of transport.

Earlier this year, the Stern report predicted environmental apocalypse and huge damage to the British economy if action wasn’t taken to reduce climate change. And this week a report said that the 1.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by call centre staff each year could be cut by allowing them to work from home….Full Article.

Improved productivity heads the list of the top 10 benefits of home working according to a survey of companies by Ceridian, one of the largest providers of human resource services in the world.

Top 10 benefits of home working
1. Higher productivity, ability to work uninterrupted, especially on “project work”
2. Skill retention, greater commitment from staff, greater loyalty
3. Happier staff, higher morale, more motivation, good staff relations
4. Better work/life balance, “family friendly”, fit with domestic arrangements = people able to work for us
5. Contributes to ability to offer flexible working conditions, hours
6. Office space and other facilities go further
7. Continuity for our clients, better customer service
8. Reduced overheads
9. Creates a positive image for the company, dynamic, flexible
10. Lower stress for staff, greater well-being

Read More…

From Entrepreneur.com:

I’ve been told that when it comes to reaching their goals, male entrepreneurs tend to create a course of action and figure it out on their own, whereas women entrepreneurs will seek out support and resources to accomplish their goal. That has definitely been the case for my own journey. Why should I re-invent the wheel if I don’t have to? I’m continuously amazed at the number of valuable resources that are available to entrepreneurs and at how many are perfect for wor at home moms specifically. So in this article, I want to share a few of my favorites.

Websites
Let’s face it: The web is the tool of choice for most entrepreneurs. It’s quick, to the point and can help you track down information on just about any topic you need. But searching endlessly on the web is a time waster that most mompreneurs can’t afford. Use these great resources to find what you need quickly: Full Article

From Entrepreneur.com:

After buying their first home, Debra Cohen and her husband faced the unenviable chore of finding reliable home improvement contractors. Fed up with blindly picking names from the Yellow Pages and waiting for contractors who didn’t show up, it occurred to Cohen that if she and her husband were having trouble finding contractors, other homeowners in their community must be facing a similar predicament. This bleak reality sparked the creation of a unique service that has since expanded into a profitable cottage industry across the U.S. and internationally.

After extensive conversations with lawyers, business consultants, contractors and insurance agents, Cohen, 38, started Hewlett, New York-based Home Remedies of NY Inc.from her home in February 1997. This stay-at-home mom used a $5,000 loan, a computer and a refurbished fax machine to launch her part-time business. Right away, the response from homeowners was tremendous, and after three months in business, she repaid her loan. Her gross earnings in the first year were almost $30,000.

Today, Home Remedies is a contractor referral service that matches home-owners with reliable home-repair workers. The appeal to customers is that the company takes on the time-consuming task of locating and screening qualified contractors, checking to make sure they’re adequately insured and licensed, and serving as a liaison between the contractor and the homeowner throughout the course of a job. Home Remedies provides a win-win situation for both parties: Services are provided free of charge to the homeowner, and contractors represented by Home Remedies only pay a commission for any work they secure…..Full Article

A Knoxville man has been ordered to stop marketing several envelope stuffing businesses he operates.

A Knox County chancellor granted a request by the state attorney general to prohibit Payton Abernathy from marketing and promoting his “make money from home envelope stuffing” business.

Abernathy had advertised the businesses under at least seven different names, including Peyton Enterprises, Global Mail Marketing, Make Money Stuffing, PC Enterprises, American Mail Marketing, Freedom Marketing, and www.mailingprogram.com.

They were promoted as an opportunity for consumers to “make thousands stuffing envelopes” while at home.

The complaint filed by the state attorney general alleges Abernathy promoted unlawful businesses on the Internet and in classified ads with unfair and deceptive claims like “make thousands of dollars. Guaranteed!”

Full Article

From SmallBusinessInformer.com:

Some true and unique online business or work from home opportunities come along and unfortunately, quite a lot of them are scams and will just want to take your money and you have no recourse to get your money back.

When you have been affected by a couple of these scams, you would be inclined to be totally put off by looking at any business proposition or work from home opportunity again.

I didn’t accept this and spent quite a significant amount of time doing some research and getting educated on finding real opportunities and separating them from the fake ones. I did this by having some key criteria that needed to be achieved so I would see that the opportunity was real.

Whether you accept that the internet is just for information, porn or scams, that is entirely up to you, but if you believe that there are some unique opportunities, then read on.

The criteria is as follows: Full Article Here

From AmericanChronicle.com:

For those searching for ideas to earn extra income from home, the internet is the ideal place to start looking. What could be better than being with your family, in the safety of your own home, while making a work at home income online?

There are thousands of extra online income ideas and it is really important that you do your research to find the right one for you. If you are new to working on the internet then perhaps it would be a good idea to look for programs that provide full training and support.

You need to find a solid program with a good track record that has been around on the internet for a few years, otherwise you could find yourself going from program to program and literally getting nowhere and losing money along the way.

Do not get sucked in by all the hype and promises of high earnings. There are plenty of scams on the internet and you need to understand that the internet does not supply a platform to earn easy money, as many advertisements may imply….Full Article Here.

From Entrepreneur.com:

When you’re operating a home business on your own, don’t be like your fellow employed Americans who, on average, take just nine of their 12 vacation days per year. You’re in charge of your time, and how much vacation and how often you take it is up to you. Of course, there are practicalities to consider.

First, you have to decide when’s the best–or most convenient–time for you to take a break. Many businesses have seasonal rhythms. For example, most wedding planners expect the winter months to be their slowest, while tax professionals are just gearing up. Your business most likely has its own unique seasonal pattern. If you’re a medical transcriptionist, for example, and most of your clients vacation in the summer, that’s probably a good time for you to do so, too.

Second, you’ll need to determine how you’ll cover your clients’ needs when you’re away. Telecommuting consultant Gil Gordon, who wrote a book on the topic of taking a break from your business, Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career, notifies his clients and business contacts well in advance to let them know when he’ll be on vacation and completely inaccessible. If you’re not as brave or resolute about cutting off your customers while you’re away, technology makes it possible for you stay in touch even while you’re on vacation. If you do decide to keep the lines of communication open while you’re away, it’s best to limit the amount of time you devote to work each day, or you’ll find you’re really not getting the break you need…..Full Article Here.

From StartupNation.com:

Imagine a marketing program that can increases sales 10% to 25%–and you don’t pay a dime unless you get results. Sound too good to be true?

That’s pretty much how affiliate marketing works. Through these online programs, you sign on with a partner that markets your product or service, often through a link or banner ad you place on their website. The affiliate then gets a commission based on sales, visits, or customers that result from those efforts. It’s the ultimate in pay for performance. “An affiliate partner will do a lot of the marketing for you. And you only owe money if they provide the outcome you want,” says Marty Fahncke, president of FawnKey & Associates, a consulting firm with expertise in affiliate marketing.

At the same time, successful affiliate marketing requires understanding some basics. Here’s what you should know:

Evaluate your affiliate marketing channels
Your affiliate can be anything from a website or enewsletter to a shopping portal, to name a few. Fahncke points to one client, a small business selling sunglasses, as a case in point. Perhaps their most successful affiliate is a website devoted to bicycling, which recently included an article about the product and a link to their site. The company pays the affiliate a 20% commission on sales. At the same time, however, the firm uses a variety of other affiliates. The bottom line: “You want a good mix of different types of channels,” says Fahncke…..Full Article Here.

From StartupNation.com:

One of the basic financial principals of being in business today: your revenues can be offset against your expenses.

Sure, some expenses, like meals and entertainment, may be only partially deductible. Other expenses may have to be written off, or “depreciated,” over a period of years. But the basic fundamental concept - revenues justifying expenses - is still pretty easy to understand and explain.

But what about those expenses you rack up before your business even opens its doors, your business startup costs? There is good news here, and it has nothing to do with saving money on car insurance. Once you open your business and start generating revenues, you can write off many of those initial business startup costs at tax time.

But there is bad news…the rules for taking advantage of these deductions are not as straightforward as they are for your business’s ongoing expenses.

Six steps to deducting your home business startup costs…click here.

You’ve seen those ads in the newspaper - “work at home stuffing envelopes” - just send $20 and a self-addressed stamped envelope for all the details. It should come as little surprise that what you get for your $20 is instructions on how to put an ad in the newspaper promising to reveal the secret to “make money stuffing envelopes” for only $20 and a self-addressed stamped envelope…

Although you can make money doing this, you’re basically buying a scam and told that in order to make that money you need to scam other people. Sadly, there are enough envelope stuffing work at home offers in newspapers and across the internet these days that thousands of people seem willing to trade their integrity for $20 a pop.

That’s not how I do business and, if you want to truly build an online business, that’s not how you should do business either…. Full Article Here.

From American Chronicle:

The work at home based industry is booming, especially where the internet is concerned. You will never find a better time or opportunity to make money online by working from home in front of your computer. The possibilities are endless when it comes to making money online. With all of the technology available to you today, it is completely possible to manage your entire home based business online from anywhere in the world by using your laptop computer. If you want to stay at home and work with your pajamas on, then you can do that and still make a living for your family. Commuting is no longer required. You do not have to travel and you can save on gas and maintenance on your vehicle. The best part of it all is that you can be your own boss.

The number of people that use the internet continues to grow almost monthly. This is a good thing for those internet home based business entrepreneurs and anyone else that wants to take advantage of working at home and make money online. Statistics show that globally more than 800 million people use the internet. All you have to do is search for home based business opportunities on the internet via your favorite search engine. You will find a lot of websites that promote several of the top home based businesses on the internet, such as paid surveys, network marketing, and MLM businesses. No matter where you look on the internet, every website that you go to is making money from some type of advertising or work from home based business opportunity. The internet has forever changed the job scene and the world economy with all of the new internet home based business opportunities that arrive on the internet everyday…..Read More.

There are many reasons why people choose to start a home-based business. Some of these are:
1. Dissatisfied with your present employment situation.
2. Out of work due for whatever reason.
3. You need to be home to care for young children.
4. You need to be at home to care for an infirm family member or aging parents.
5. You really want to be your own boss.
6. You really could use an additional income source.
7. You wish to have more time to spend with family or friends.

Over the years I have learned to recognize two of the most important factors in recognizing people who should not be starting a home based business. If a prospective entrepreneur says something like…

“I’m broke — I need to make some fast money!”
or,
“I really want to start a home-based business but I don’t want to spend any money on the business until I start making some money.”

…it is certain that they have not addressed reality and, with that mindset, they will most certainly fail.

Full Article: Tips For Starting Your Homebased Business

From Entrepreneur.com: How the internet has led to a franchise boom, and how your franchise can benefit from it.

For the last several years, record numbers of new franchisors have entered the marketplace—more than half the franchisors in the marketplace today are less than 10 years old.

Why this explosion?

In part, businesspeople are becoming more aware of the power and the benefits of franchising. But beyond these factors, another not-so-obvious factor has instigated this explosion: the internet.

Perhaps more than any single factor, the internet has helped level the playing field for the new franchisor. Never before has someone been able to get the message of a new franchise to a broad market this fast.

Two decades ago, if you wanted to compete with “the big boys,” you would need to advertise to get franchise sales leads. Back in the Dark Ages of franchising, about the only way to get any real exposure would be to run full-page ads in Entrepreneur magazine and two-column-by-three-inch ads in the Wall Street Journal. That kind of advertising commitment was simply not economically feasible for most startup franchisors…..Full Article.

From Entrpreneur.com: Take the low-tech, high-touch route to network marketing with these tips for throwing successful home product parties.

Tupperware, Avon, Pampered Chef and Mary Kay have used home parties to build large, lucrative companies, but what about your business? Could you also market through home parties? Depending on your product, it just might be the best way to build your business.

Most network marketers are focused on getting new business online, but home parties will move you from high-tech to high-touch. It’s an opportunity to see, touch and try the products, ask questions and receive immediate answers, and hear others’ opinions.

So are home parties right for your network marketing business? First, you need to determine whether your business is suited for them. Do you have a product that can be sampled or demonstrated? Second, are you the type of person who likes to entertain? Third, do you have a home that’ll comfortably seat a group of five to 20 people? If you answered yes to these questions, home parties could work for you…..Read More.

For Mother’s day this year, Two WAHMS have teamed up to sponsor a “Mama Said There’d be Days like This” essay writing contest. Baby boomer author Beverly Mahone of North Carolina and Internet Radio Host Rebecca White of Ohio decided to join forces after recognizing they were doing the same thing individually. Mahone says, “When Rebecca announced she was hosting a Mother’s Day contest on one of the sites where we network together, I contacted her and suggested we join forces. It just made sense for us to pool our resources together and broaden our base.” And broaden their base they did. When the two combined their prize list, they ended up with over $1000, which will be distributed among the five finalists. They were even able to enlist the services of two-time super bowl champion Dwight Hicks (San Francisco 49ers), who will judge the essays.

In 800 words or less, participants are asked to write about a warning their mother gave them when they were younger but they failed to listen to the advice. Later on, however, they discovered their mother had been right all along….Read More.

From Entrepreneur.com:

They may not have invented the popular gaming console, but that doesn’t mean these entrepreneurs can’t make a profit on it.

It’s a giant among video game consoles, a brand name like almost no other, an entertainment product that needs no introduction. Ladies and gentleman, give it up for Nintendo Wii.

Some products and services are so well known, they hardly need an introduction. Nintendo Wii may not have the name cache of McDonald’s or Wal-Mart. But it does have brand recognition that startups can only dream of.

That’s why there’s something to be said for the “aftermarket,” the concept of tailoring your business to the customers of a much bigger, famous or already-existing product or service. For instance, think of eBay and the drop-off centers that have cropped up, companies that make products out of recycled materials or even the books published that analyze the phenomenon of the Harry Potter series and TheDa Vinci Code.

Nintendo Wii is just one of the latest products to inspire entrepreneurs to start new businesses or adjust their current offerings. For instance, one component of the Wii is the Mii, which lets game players create their own characters by choosing from an assortment of facial characteristics. Many online retail outlets are selling T-shirts, mugs and statuettes with Miis on them…..Full Article Here