Many small business opportunities are nothing more than get-rich-quick schemes that tend to not pay off in the long run. While it’s possible to start a small business with a relatively little financial investment, the time you invest is more precious … and you’ll never get it back. Be prepared to devote a lot of time to a new small business, and be wary of opportunities that gloss over this.

Ultimately, the best small business for you is one that incorporates your strengths and interests. Screaming banner ads may claim to know what the best opportunity for you is, but that’s just advertising. You will succeed in an investment that connects to your abilities and backgrounds; starting a business in a field you know nothing about (except that the ads looked good) is naive.

A little research goes a long way; so does consulting a business broker. Gathering as much information from trusted sources is the best preparation a prospective business owner can get. Opportunities that require large investments–of time or money–shouldn’t be jumped into hastily; take your time, inform yourself, and go in smartly.

Start your own business from home and never drive during rush hour again. It’s not just losing the twice-daily commute that encourages people to work at home. It’s the boss, and the cubicle, and the time clock. When you start your own business from home, you can say adios to all those reminders of a 9-to-5 job, and hello to a new lease on life.

How to Start Your Own Business from Home: Research, research, research–did I mention research? It’s not all buckets of money when you start your own business from home–although it can be if you pick the right line of work. And what would that be? Well, only you know the answer to that … and that’s why you have to do some research.

The best business for you is the one that you are most compatible with. The flyer at the coffee shop may claim that stuffing envelopes is the best home based business for you, but it’s probably not. The secret to succeeding in the home business market is starting a business that you know and love: if you don’t have an understanding and enthusiasm for what you’re selling, you won’t sell it. Research businesses for things you like and know.

For example, some people are natural marketers. They studied it in college, sold cookies while in the Girl Scouts, or just know how to be comfortable talking to others. There are many marketing opportunities that will let you be the boss, let you make money, and let you work from the privacy of your own home. That’s a home business worth writing home about.

Are Some Business Opportunities Better for Me Than Others?
When it comes to finding the right business opportunities, people sometimes want to hear the easy answers; unfortunately, there aren’t any secret companies that will turn you into Donald Trump overnight. However, there are a number of recommendations that business experts suggest; they won’t make every opportunity a hit, but they’ll put the odds in your favor. Since most new businesses fail, you want every advantage you can get.

First, pick a business, networking plan, or franchise that you have some knowledge about–running a business you know nothing about is a plan for failure. Also, make certain it’s something you enjoy–you’ll be doing it for a while (especially a lot of it at first) and you need to maintain your enthusiasm. Starting there will head you in the right direction. Remember, it takes time, work, and luck to turn an opportunity into a reality–but it’s possible.

Business opportunities are around every corner; it just takes the entrepreneur with the right eye to see them. Ray Kroc, for example, saw a small restaurant that a pair of brothers ran like an assembly line. He saw the potential of the business, bought it, and even kept the brothers’ name: McDonald’s. Now McDonald’s are around every corner.

There are plenty of other business opportunities that are ripe for the picking; they just need to find the right partner. A business and a business owner have to get along just like a husband and wife because they are a team. If the match isn’t right, there could be a rocky relationship ahead–maybe even a divorce.

Business Opportunities Become Realities with the Right Partners

Take a look at Tupperware, or Mary Kay Cosmetics. Those are examples of business opportunities that succeeded and became business models. Why? Simple: there was a great fit between the business and the operators. These businesses made it because the women who ran the Tupperware parties “fit” with the lifestyle of their products.

Can you picture a withdrawn teenager or an absent-minded professor showing a group of ladies the advantages of the latest Tupperware products? Of course not–they don’t match the product line. And even if they did, who’d feel comfortable buying something from them? The match between product and seller is crucial.

Believe it or not, eBay is the ‘BEST’ home business opportunity you can use right now to make money online in the dropshipping business from the comfort of your own home.
Thousands of people just like you use eBay auctions on a daily basis to sell and buy products on the Internet; now it’s your time to START your own dropshipping home-based business and succeed in the eBay auctions ‘game’!

There are no special skills required for this dropshipping business, all you need is a computer, Internet access and some basic computer / Internet knowledge.

Dropshipping is when you sell products on the Web, forward the orders to the dropship supplier and, in return, the dropshipper ships the product to your customer (buyer).

You act as the middleman between the dropshipping supplier and your buyer. You can take orders by credit card, PayPal fax or any other method you can think of. You can sell via your own Web Site, Yahoo store, or even through e-mails.

Your profit is generated on the difference between your selling price and the price the dropshipping supplier charges you.

Thanks to dropshipping you can start making money ‘instantly’ without any investment in inventory, warehousing, shipping, equipment, employees or office space.

Read Full eBay Dropshipping Article

Article Excerpt from Entrepreneur.com:

“I love talking about choosing a great home business idea because it’s one of the most exciting and fundamental parts of starting a work at home business. But thinking up a great idea is just the first step–it’s critical that you take the time to thoroughly examine the idea that’s to become your future livelihood. As most business owners eventually learn, it’s not the person running the business, the marketing or the employees that make or break a company’s success–it’s the quality and profitability of the idea behind the company.

When you go into business, you have to look at the idea or business opportunity driving it from a different angle than you might assume. Most people wrongly choose a business based on one of two personal biases:

It’s a business they already know. The hairdresser opens a salon, the lawyer his or her own practice and so on. Generally, a huge mistake. They’re thinking about the job–not the business. Just because you’re a good chef doesn’t mean you know how to run a restaurant. More important, it doesn’t mean a restaurant would be successful in your market.

It’s a product or service they’ve fallen in love with. Again, just because you love something doesn’t mean a profitable business will come of it. This is especially true for first-time entrepreneurs. Learning to run a business is hard enough; you don’t need to make it any harder by doing something you love rather than something customers love paying you a good profit for.
How can you be sure your intriguing idea is also something from which you can truly make a profit? Read Full Article Here.

Below is another great article excerpt from Entrepreneur.com:

“Starting a low-cost home business on the weekend is one of the easiest and most risk-free ways to dip your toe into the waters of entrepreneurship. It only takes your free time, a small investment in marketing materials and business supplies, and some hard work.

Michelle Anton and Jennifer Basye Sander interviewed more than 100 people living their dreams through weekend home businesses when they wrote Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash (Entrepreneur Press). Here, we excerpt four great ideas for people who love to work around the house. If you’re already spending your evenings and weekends cleaning, organizing and improving your home, why not put those skills to work in a part-time business?

Holistic Housecleaning With Allergy-Free Products
Did you know that approximately 50 percent of Americans suffer from some kind of chemical sensitivity? Or that nationwide, every single day, 32 million pounds of household cleaning products are poured down the drain? Kind of makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

Christmas Light Installer
This is a great seasonal business that specializes in providing the labor for holiday decorations. Once a year an opportunity to make excellent extra money arrives–installing and then later removing decorative outdoor Christmas lights for people who just don’t have the time or the energy to do it for themselves. Jennifer recently went to a spring dinner party at the home of a distinguished couple in their late 70s. Although it was May, the house was still hung with colored Christmas lights outside. These folks and others like them, busy or not quite in physical shape to remove their own lights, are your target audience.

House Staging
Have you ever been inside a house for sale, and although you liked the house itself, the furnishing and decorating gave you the willies? Some real estate agents insist that empty houses sell better; it allows a prospective buyer to “see” themselves living in the space when it isn’t all cluttered with the current owner’s things. “Less is more” when it comes to staging a house for sale, and an objective eye can help cut through the clutter that the longtime owner can’t see anymore.”

Read More from Entreprenuer.com

Most women hate the idea of having to leave their children with a babysitter or day care center at a very young age. Unfortunately, the financial obligations for many families these days leaves them little choice. Unless you could earn a significant income working at home. The solution for those moms who want to stay at home with their children and still earn money is to participate in the perfect opportunity - freelance jobs.

Freelance jobs are ideal for the stay at home mom because it offers flexibility, the ability to work from home and still earn a decent living to help tackle those family financial obligations. Plus, stay at home mom’s can get money-saving tax benefits for their families through their freelance jobs. This further reduces the financial strain by increasing their incomes.

Finding and participating in freelance jobs is very easy for stay at home mom’s compared to other home based business opportunities. There are many freelance job websites on the internet where you can go and apply for freelance employment. These sites should provide plenty of work to keep you busy while still caring for your children….Click Here to Read Full Article.

If you are considering telecommuting and are currently searching for a home based opportunity, then you need to research freelance home based jobs.

Many home based opportunities are scams and do not provide a significant income for someone wishing to use telecommuting avenues. Freelance work provides great home based jobs that are risk-free and give you the chance to work from the comfort of your own home while still being assured of legitimate employment from companies who will pay you for your services. In our opinion, freelancing is the best home based opportunity.

Freelancing allows you to search home based opportunities through submitting applications on available positions that people are offering where you can telecommute or simply work in your own home office. If you have the skills then you have a great chance to find a home based job that fits your talents and expertise….READ MORE…

Entrepreneur.com

5 Home Design Businesses to Start

There’s a good reason why cable TV networks like HGTV, The Learning Channel and DIY Network have such a huge following from coast to coast: The home design and improvement industry is hot, hot, hot and is showing no signs of cooling off. There may be no better time than the present to tool up your skills and fire up your enthusiasm for a career in this creative and fulfilling field.

But while Americans are keenly interested in home improvement and home design and have made household names out of “Extreme Makeover: Home Editions” Ty Pennington, professional organizer Peter Walsh from “Clean Sweep” and other home design show hosts, the fact is many don’t have the time, talent or inclination to undertake such projects themselves. Or they enthusiastically take up a paintbrush, rearrange the furniture or make a stab at organizing their lives, then toss up their hands in defeat when they realize it’s not as easy as it looks.

All this means there are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs like you to start what we are broadly calling a home design business. In our startup guide Home Design Services, we’ve outlined the information you need to start five different home design services: interior design, interior redesign, professional organizing, building preservation/restoration, and faux painting. Here’s a closer look at each of those businesses so you can get feel for the opportunities available in this industry, and what will fit your personality and creativity the best.

Click Here to Read Full Article from Entrepreneur.com

Actually, this is not a job at all, but a work at home freelance opportunity. There are many Type at Home Job listings that claim you can make a lot of money typing at home. Beware! These are not jobs at all. If you are looking for a salary or hourly pay, stay away from these adverts. However, if you are looking for a real home business opportunity then you can make a lot of money typing at home.

These typing opportunities involve you typing up and submitting ads on your own schedule. You can do as many as you want with no restrictions. This is a successful money-making system with unlimited potential. You will learn all the steps to the exact system used to make money posting ads for companies online. It runs virtually on autopilot. Once your ads have been submitted, they provide you with a recurring income. You can even be making money while you sleep. After you set them up, they will continue to make money for you day after day.

LegitOnlineJobs provides you with networks of thousands of companies you can work. Many people like to work with companies that relate to their interests. You just need to sign up for free with these companies and then you can start typing up short 4-5 line ads for them in various online forms. You earn money every time your ad generates a transaction, between $25-$75 per transaction processed! Just one ad can earn you hundreds of dollars. After typing up a few ads and submitting them, you could start seeing money show up in your earnings account. The more ads you post, the more you earn. You can either use the free methods or the paid methods to post your ads. It’s your choice! The difference is, with the paid methods, you can start making money within minutes.

These can be legitimate money-makers as long as you know what is involved before you invest in the small fee these companies charge. They simply teach you how to type the ads, show you where to post them, and hook you up with the free companies that pay you the money.

Go here for our recommended type at home opportunities.

Inc.com
Half of U.S. businesses are home-based and almost two-thirds are self-financed, according to a pair of new Census Bureau reports.

Nearly 2.5 million firms were interviewed for the two reports, which were released Wednesday as part of the bureau’s ongoing 2002 Survey of Business Owners.

Home-based businesses collectively generated a remarkable amount of economic activity, especially for women and minorities, Louis Kincannon, the Census Bureau’s director, said in a statement.

The survey found that 49 percent of the nation’s businesses were home-based. Fifty-six percent of both women- and American Indian-owned firms were home-based, compared to 33 percent of Asian-owned businesses.

Companies in certain industries were more frequently run from home, with professional, scientific, and technical services, construction, and retail companies topping the list.

In addition, “most businesses are started by people and families who dig into their own pockets,” Kincannon said.

Seventy-seven percent of companies with paid employees were started by entrepreneurs who used their own assets, or those of their families. The figures were slightly lower for companies with no paid employees, at 59 percent…. Read Full Article from Inc.

Hot Home Based Business Ideas for 2007 from Entrepreneur.com

There are thousands of home based businesses to choose from when you decide to start your own. How do you know which ones will be the most profitable in the years to come? To help you get started, here are five up and coming businesses to consider for 2006 that have the potential to be the next home based trend.

Alternative Energy Installing
If you’re troubled by the rising costs of heating and lighting your home, you’re like millions of other households that may be feeling the pain of high energy bills. The result is that lots of people are seeking alternatives. They want to get “off the grid.” In other words, be independent of utilities that use electricity, water, gas or propane. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and wireless are among the technologies that are enabling increasing numbers of people to live independent of pipes and wires and rising utility payments.

Collection Agency
Difficult economic developments such as rising energy and health-care bills, record debt loads, the doubling of minimum payments on credit-card debt, and a $5-billion cut in child-support enforcement funds mean more business for collection agencies. These agencies collect bills, debts and non-sufficient funds (NSF) checks for businesses as well as for individuals.

Home-Theatre Consulting
We tried watching the same broadcast of the Rose Parade on both the Discovery high-density channel and on a local television station. No wonder HDTV’s are selling so well! Unfortunately, getting an HDTV calibrated isn’t as easy as plugging in a new TV or even installing a new computer. This is particularly so if you want your HDTV to mesh with other video and audio components. A lot of expertise is required.

Massage Therapy
From time to time, most people enjoy a massage. But for people with injuries or boomers with aging bodies, getting a massage approaches being a necessity since some people use massage as an alternative to more costly physical therapy.

Web Design
Who, today, thinks about starting a business without having a website? What business can keep a website without updating and changing it?

When it comes right down to it, business owners fall into two camps: People who follow their passions, and clear-eyed folks who look for great moneymaking opportunities. Each side says its approach works best.

On one hand, following a market opportunity has glittering allure: A great opportunity can make a lot of cash. On the other hand, following your passion has romantic appeal: All day long, you’re around a product or service you love.

But what are the downsides? Are people who follow their passions more likely to fail? There’s no hard research to support that claim. While the steady stream of bankrupt restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and golf companies does seem to suggest that the passionate approach is weak on results, reality is far more complex.

Beating the Odds
Miles Cook looked like a failure statistic waiting to happen: a 25-year-old guy who loved motorcycles and wanted his own motorcycle dealership. At first glance, he seemed to be headed for disaster. Even the banks thought so. “I was young, and a lot of banks didn’t even want to talk to me,” says Cook, now 32. After five banks declined his application, Cook read an Entrepreneur article listing the top banks for small businesses in each state. Sure enough, one of those banks agreed to loan him the money for his startup. Now Cook’s Rochester Motorsports Inc. in Rochester, New Hampshire, does a brisk business selling the most popular brands of Japanese motorcycles, with nearly $10 million in annual sales.

“It all comes down to passion. Blind ambition is better than 20/20 indifference,” says Cook. “If you’re passionate about what you do, the sky is the limit.”

Read Full Article from Entrepreneur.com

Hot Holiday Toys offer Money-Making Opportunities!

Whether it was the Hoola Hoop, collectible Barbies, Furbies, Cabbage Patch Kids or the original Atari games of the 1970s, there have always been “must have” toys and games that have generated a frenzy at local stores, especially around the holidays. Today, however, in a new age of consumerism, driven by an “absolutely must have at any cost” mentality, gamers, toy collectors and, in some cases, manipulated parents are not only pre-ordering the latest fun favorites but are bidding them up to 10 times their standard retail price on eBay.

This year, cashing in on shoppers’ demands to have it “now” (or even sooner), retailers are touting their offerings earlier than ever by putting pre-order tickets in the hands of the buyers. But with much of the supply sold before the products even hit shelves, a secondary market is emerging: Smart sellers are capitalizing on the public’s insatiable demand for these hot items by using the leverage they have as owner of one of the “golden tickets” to resell them for an exorbitant price–and pocket the difference.

Gearing Up for PS3 & Wii
The latest craze focuses on the forthcoming releases of Sony’s PlayStation 3 on November 17 and Nintendo’s Wii on November 19. Pre-orders at several leading retailers, including EB Games, Gamestop and Toys R Us, allowed those who got in under the early October deadline to secure consoles and even games for the new systems. Some of the early buyers are gaming enthusiasts, but others are “situational” entrepreneurs who are turning around and selling the consoles on eBay, where prices for the 20GB and 60GB PS3s are already topping $2,000 and rising.

Julian Georgescu, a gaming enthusiast who runs the website www.MyWii.com, says prices will most likely hit well over $3,000 by Christmas. “It’s mostly hardcore gamers who are buying them at these prices,” says Georgescu, who camped out overnight last month to pay a $50 deposit for his own pre-order Nintendo Wii. (For full disclosure purposes, you should know Georgescu also works for Entrepreneur.com.)

The retail prices for the 20GB and 60GB PS3s are $500 and $600, but “They’re only shipping a limited number nationwide–I think it’s around 400,000,” offers Georgescu of the reason behind the pre-order frenzy. Nintendo, meanwhile, expects to sell some 4,000,000 units of the new Nintendo Wii by January. Despite that number, the $250 console has seen bids of $500 and up on eBay…..Read Full Article from Entrepreneur.com

It’s not just a hobby - some small sites are making big money. Here’s how to turn your passion into an online empire.

(Business 2.0) — Michael Arrington is a partying kind of guy. While showing off his home in Atherton, Calif., he boasts about how he crammed 500 people into his one-acre backyard at a bash in February. Then there are the official parties, like the one he threw in mid-August at August Capital, a nearby venture firm. Arrington posted an open invitation on his website at 3 a.m. By sunrise, all 500 spots were taken; the onslaught of traffic crashed his site. “I knew it would be fast,” says Arrington, who houses so many out-of-towners in his ranch home that he often isn’t sure who’s crashing on which mattress on which floor in which room.

Arrington, a 36-year-old entrepreneur behind a long list of unrecognizable startups, has suddenly become one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley. Why? The answer lies in TechCrunch, Arrington’s blog about new technologies and companies. In the year since he launched the site, he has amassed such a strong following that he’s become a go-to person for VCs and tech execs looking to leak corporate tidbits or announce news. More than 1.5 million readers regularly check out his site. But here’s what gives Arrington real distinction: He’s pulling in $60,000 in ad revenue every month. That’s 10 times what the site was making earlier this year, which was when Arrington, convinced of the potentially monstrous riches ahead, quit his day job as president of a startup to blog full-time.

With Internet-like speed, blogs have gone from self-indulgent hobbies to flourishing businesses. Real businesses, with real revenue streams from real advertisers–not overhyped next big things with pick-a-number valuations based on selling out someday to some overenthusiastic big-media sugar daddy. Boing Boing, a four-person operation that bills itself as a directory of wonderful things, is on track to gross an estimated $1 million in ad revenue this year. The digital-media news site PaidContent.org, headquartered in the second bedroom of a Santa Monica apartment, is set to post even more than that. And Fark.com, a site packed with sophomoric humor run by a lone guy in Lexington, Ky., is on pace to become a multimillion-dollar property. In short, some of the most popular blogs, long the bane of the mainstream media, are themselves becoming mainstream…..Read More from CNNMoney.com

“The most successful salespeople are the ones who make things happen where they are, not the ones who jump ship to new companies every year, hoping to find happiness somewhere else.” - Ralph Roberts

I have seen this happen time and time again. People who are in a work at home business and are frustrated because their business is not growing. So what do they do? They start searching for a new business in a hope they can succeed more.

Once they find a new home business they close up shop on the first and start a fresh new game plan with their new business. Most of the time they find themselves frustrated in a few months because they are not succeeding.
Have you ever jumped from company to company in a hope that you will finally succeed?
Have you had downline who jumped ship for the very same reasons? Chances are you have.

It’s a fact of human nature. When things get tough or just don’t go our way we jump ship and go to a new company. Our hope is the grass will be greener on the other side. I have witnessed this with many people only to see them get further behind in their debt and find themselves still struggling toward success.

Unfortunately, jumping ship and starting a new business is rarely the answer. The key is to stay in the business you are in and build with what you have. There is no magical formula that will create the success you are searching for. There is no one best company or compensation plan.

In fact, every company has its strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is you MUST develop your skills. Focus in on longevity with the same company. Overtime, your prospects will recognize you have longevity with your company which can
create a competitive advantage for you.

Realize, if you jump ship all you are doing is starting over. This means you must buy new marketing materials. You must gain new knowledge of products, services, procedures, and new systems. You will even lose any momentum you had with your
current business. Moving to a new business will cost you money.
Succeeding in network marketing requires action. To take action, you must develop your skills. Keep in mind, the successful do not jump around. The successful make things happen from where they are and with what they have.

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 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 of building your network marketing business. Confidence is important for keeping you on track of building your network marketing business.

Article from Leaders Club

Entrepreneur.com

Want to work from home on your spare time? Then network marketing may be the business you’re looking for.

Why the Interest in Network Marketing?The main reason so many people are entering network marketing is that it fits the current marketing trends. If you haven’t figured it out by now, the baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are in control. Seventy-six million strong in the United States, and over a billion worldwide, the boomers have dictated what’s hot, from baby food to fast food to minivans to SUVs. Now the boomers are looking for products that’ll help them look and feel younger, and for ways to secure their financial future and enjoy more time freedom. Network marketing offers the answers.

Tired of the corporate rat race, many people are starting home businesses in record numbers. CNN reported that a new homebased business is started in the United States every 11 seconds. The home-business boom is the next big trend, and network marketing is one of the hottest home businesses available. It offers low start-up investment and monthly overhead, and entrepreneurs can start part-time, while still employed, and build the business to replace their current job income. Age, gender and race aren’t barriers in network marketing; in fact, well over half of the success stories are women.

Is Network Marketing for You? Read Full Article…

Entrepreneur.com

If you were to ask a business consultant how to evaluate the “right” business opportunity for you, you would probably receive these guidelines:

1. Make an honest evaluation of yourself and your abilities.

2. You must run your business enthusiastically.

3. You must have complete knowledge of the product or service with which you are involved.

4. Make a market evaluation of the product or service to be offered.

5. Find out how many buyers have been in the business successfully for a respectable period of time.

6. Check the training and experience required to run the business properly.

7. What is the company’s profit ratio to sales; to time and service requirements; and to the financial leverage requirements?

8. Do you have to work more hours to make the same amount you do now?

9. Check with current operators to see how they’re making out.

10. Research company’s history.

11. Is there financial strength and strong credit behind the business opportunity?

12. Evaluate the policies and plans of the company with the associations and business groups in which the parent company or seller is involved.

13. The Better Business Bureau will give you a report if others have lodged previous complaints against the company.

14. Having an attorney, accountant or business consultant conduct an in-depth study of the company may be an excellent idea.

15. Visit the headquarters of the licensor-seller.

“Owning a franchise or business opportunity is within your reach–it’s just a matter of finding the right one.

Your first million may be the hardest to make, but an edge, a system, a method can get you a fair shot at it. Franchising has cleared the path toward your first million. Find a successful franchise concept that’s knocking them dead in the marketplace, and buy and build one of your own. Then do it again, and your net worth starts to zoom toward the next seven-digit plateau.

Finding the right system for you will take some research, persistence and franchising street smarts–but you can get there if you take the following steps.

The Right Fit
There’s no perfect franchise; there are only franchises that fit perfectly with the franchisee. And it’s high time you got away from your singular association of franchising with food establishments. Restaurants have led the way in franchising, no question, but the franchising concept has spread its wings in dozens of other business categories, from specialty product distribution to publishing, from fitness centers to children’s parties. The first time you research franchises on the internet, you’re confronted with hundreds of opportunities.

Your first job is to sort through your own objectives, personal preferences and resources so you can knowledgeably evaluate the choices. Also, give some thought to what work you would enjoy doing. Do you see yourself dealing directly with the public, working a retail counter or selling services to businesses? Do you dream of owning a restaurant or a commercial cleaning service, or do you live for working on cars or teaching people how to use computers? As daunting as the number of choices may be, franchising presents a remarkable opportunity to find a business you’ll love.

Also consider your financial resources. Write down your liquid assets, the assets against which you can borrow money and funds you can scrape together or borrow from friends and family. You need a sense of the level of business investment you can afford. For instance, if you can borrow up to $100,000, that dramatically affects the categories of franchise businesses you can consider. Most leased and built-out retail locations cost $350,000 and up, but you can operate scores of franchise businesses in your investment range from home. Think hard about these issues and start to close in on the challenge of finding the perfect fit–the real key to making your first million…..”

Read Full Article from Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneur.com

“With the proliferation of home design shows on cable TV networks, as well as last year’s return of domestic guru Martha Stewart, interest in interior design has never been stronger. But there’s one segment of this industry that’s experiencing especially strong growth and presents a great opportunity for creative people who are interested in careers in home design.

Interior redesign (aka interior arrangement or one-day decorating) is a close relative of interior design. Instead of creating an entirely new decorating scheme with new furnishings and accessories, as an interior designer does, an interior redesigner works with whatever the homeowner already owns–including items purloined from other rooms in the home–and rearranges it to give a room an entirely new look. The result is a decorator look without the decorator price tag.

“Redesigners are a ’safe’ version of the traditional designer,” says Julea Joseph, 44, owner of Reinventing Space in Chicago. “People are no longer looking for an interior designer to sweep into their home and say, ‘Dahling, everything must go.’ Instead, they’re educated consumers who just need someone to pull everything together.”

“[Redesigners] are nonjudgmental about the homeowner’s belongings, and they’ll work with any constraints or within any budget,” says Michele Roark, owner of Interior Arrangements By Michele Roark in St. Michaels, Maryland, and vice director of Interior Redesign Industry Specialists, the redesign industry’s leading membership organization. “No matter what the homeowner has, a redesigner will work with it and make it work.”

Read Full Article

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….

“It is one thing to eliminate ways in which you have blocked yourself, but another to develop the skills to complete things you begin.” - Kenneth Christian

In the world of a network marketing home business we are often faced with the challenge of doing the things others are unwilling to do. In fact, if you desire to become a great leader of leaders in network marketing you must do the things others are unwilling to do.

Many of these things from prospecting to recruiting to leading a team to duplicate your efforts can be a challenge in and of itself. Most people fail miserably at these tasks. They fail not because they can’t complete the task but they fail because they have underdeveloped skills needed to complete the task.

Too often these same people will continue to search for the magical tool or secret formula to help them dramatically take a failing effort to multi-millions in an overnight adventure. Only they find that there really is no magical tool or secret formula. But they continue to search.

It takes 12 years of school plus 4 years of college to get educated to start a $30k to $50k a year job in the traditional workplace. Yet, in network marketing, people will join a business and expect to be earning $10k a month within the first few months. If they don’t earn it, they are off to the next best business opportunity.

Why does this happen? In network marketing, the cost of entry is minimal and most people have a misguided belief that it also requires a low skill level. No wonder 95%+ of those who enter into the network marketing industry fail so miserably.

If you truly want to succeed in your network marketing home business, you must treat it not only as a business but as one would in any profession. This means you start with getting your education. This education begins at Leaders Club. Tap into the training. get coaching. Most importantly, make a commitment to yourself
and the industry to invest in mastering the skills necessary in becoming the success you have always dreamed about becoming.

TIP - Do NOT just eliminate the things standing in your way. You MUST also develop and master the skills necessary to face the challenges and complete the task at hand.

MSNBC:

“….. I often hear B-school advisors vigorously warn new grads against entering a business they know nothing about… “If you’re picking a business,” they say, “pick something you know and love.” The reason? Since you’re going to be spending most of your waking hours fussing, worrying about, and promoting it… you darn well better love it!

In the story I’m currently working on, the problem is not that too many enter a world they know nothing about… but the opposite… it’s a world they love far too much — haunted houses.

A hidden industry
In all honesty, I wasn’t even aware of this as a viable industry until I spoke with Leonard Pickel of ‘Haunted Attraction Magazine.” This guy is amazing… he’s got his ‘claws’ into just about every aspect of the haunted house industry… And, I do mean “industry”… complete with several national trade shows www.hauntcon.com … monthly published trade magazines, a cadre of time consultants and endless vendors and suppliers of such specialty products as: Zombie Pinups from www.sinistervisions.com , Haunted Windows www.apparition3d.com , and Sinister Scents “you can smell the fear.”

Read More….

Don’t Get Stalled at Startup

If you’re like most new or wannabe work at home business owners, you want to hit a home run right from the start. And who can blame you? You’re probably investing the majority of your life savings in your business, so you need it to succeed, right?

Here are eight guidelines you’ll want to follow to help you make sure the home business you’re starting or buying has a fighting chance to survive–for both the short and long term:

1. Find something you’ll enjoy day-to-day.
You’re going to be working a lot of hours each week, most weeks of the year, without much time off at the start. It’s important that you enjoy both what your company does and what running the company entails.

2. Don’t start if you can’t ensure a solid profit margin.
So often people try to get by on the slimmest of margins and wonder why they don’t enjoy owning their business for very long. Make sure your business will have a solid profit margin, which is vital to long-term success.

3. If it’s your first home business venture, think about buying an existing business or a franchise.
You’ll already have enough to learn about running your own business without having to invent everything yourself. Your first business will always be the toughest because you have so much to learn. An existing business or franchise provides a shortcut through much of that process.

Read Tips 4-8 at Entrepreneur.com