Home-Based Business – The Eeyore Factor

Have you ever considered how much your attitude reflects your ability to succeed?

"Nobody tells me. Nobody keeps me informed. I make it 17 days come Friday since anybody spoke to me." Eeyore

I remember watching cartoons with my kids and watching the ragged little Eeyore on Winnie the Pooh. His house would fall or his tail would come off or he landed unexpectedly in the river and Eeyore, in a deep monotone voice would say, “"When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest in an attempt to hoosh you there."

Eeyore always expected something bad to happen – and it usually did. We often laughed at his misery either because we find it profoundly funny or ironic. Sometimes art really does imitate life.

Charlie Brown, Sad Sack and Ziggy were also among the ranks of cartoon’s great pessimists. And if they weren’t altogether pessimistic then they were at least bereft of the proverbial ‘break’ that would grant them success.

We all watch these cartoons and we laugh because we have been where they are. Perhaps we are really laughing at ourselves because we can identify with the feelings of failure.

If you are seeking to start a home-based business you need to know that by choosing your attitude you can dramatically alter how you respond to the difficulties that come up.

Take this little quiz.

1. Do disappointments make you feel like a failure or do you look at the disappointment as a new opportunity?

2. When you hit a roadblock are you more inclined to stop dead in your tracks or look for a new route to success?

3. Do you go into a business idea with the underlying belief that you will probably fail or do you ultimately believe you will succeed?

4. Are you exited about your home-based business or do you feel slightly apathetic to the notion of owning a home-based business?

The answers to these very simple questions can help you understand if your view of home-based businesses is bound up in pessimism or if you are more optimistic in your outlook on life and business.

"No Give and Take. No Exchange of Thought. It gets you nowhere, particularly if the other person's tail is only just in sight for the second half of the conversation." – Eeyore

Sometimes I wonder what the statistics might be on home-based businesses that failed simply because the owner had given up before they ever really got started? Honestly, don’t you wish there was a way to track that information. It would likely have a profound impact on our own business outlook.

We all like to be around people who have a positive attitude and a good idea about where they want to go with their life and business. A positive outlook is attractive to others, yet it seems fewer and fewer individuals possess something they can ultimately choose, but opt for rejection instead.

If you’ve been acting a bit like Eeyore maybe it’s time for an attitude adjustment? Your home-based business may just depend on it.

How To Cultivate The Trust Factor In Business

In today’s highly competitive economy, it is difficult to maintain a significant market advantage based on your professional skills alone. Developing trusting relationships with your clients is vital to your business success as well. No matter what business you are in, the most powerful value-added contribution you can make to any business relationship is the trust factor.

The trust factor is even more critical in today’s business climate with the level of trust in Corporate America continuing to be at an all-time low, and suspicion of “all things corporate” remaining on the rise. To make matters worse, large corporations and small businesses alike continue to use antiquated techniques, such as gizmos and gadgets, to try to win over new clients. When instead, they should be trying to address the heart of the matter by utilizing trust-building techniques that will most effectively resonate with consumers and new prospects.

Clients and prospects are in search of trust in their business relationships, but building trust and credibility does not happen overnight. To cultivate trust, it takes the risk of being open with clients and prospects. This enables them to perceive you as a real person—one with strengths and weaknesses that come into play as the relationship develops. When trust is reciprocal, you will find that your confidence in others is rewarded by their support and reinforcement of what you also stand for as a business entity.

What is Trust

What is trust? Trust can be defined as a firm belief in the honesty of another and the absence of suspicion regarding his motives or practices. The concept of trust in business dealings is simple: Build on an individual’s confidence in you and eliminate fear as an operating principle.

Letting Go of Fear

Let go of fear, which restricts your ability to relate to others. Letting go frees you of behavioral constraints that can immobilize your emotional and professional development. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being hurt, fear of the unknown—all these are roadblocks to developing and growing a trusting relationship with clients. Let go of your fear of losing an account or not having the right answers. Leave all your fears at the client or prospect’s doorstep.

Other critical steps in cultivating trust are knowing who you are and knowing your potential value to your clients. The relationship that forms because of this can have a tremendous impact on your sales. People don’t just buy from anyone. They buy from people they can trust. The rapport and credibility you can establish with the trust factor go a long way toward building a client’s confidence in your ability to meet his business needs.

Trust has both an active and a passive component in a business relationship. The active feeling of trust is confidence in the leadership, veracity, and reliability of the other party, based on a track record of performance.

The passive feeling of trust is the absence of worry or suspicion. This absence is sometimes unrecognized and frequently taken for granted in our most productive relationships.

Building Trust With Care

So how do you build trust with clients? First, you need to care about them. Obviously your clients care about your knowledge, expertise, and accomplishments. However, they care even more about the level of concern you have for them. Successful trust building hinges on four actions: engaging, listening, framing, and committing. The trust factor can be realized once we understand these components of trust and incorporate them in our daily lives.

Engaging clients and prospects occurs when you show genuine concern and interest in their business and its problems. Maintain good eye contact and body posture. Good eye contact signifies openness and honesty. And your body language and other forms of nonverbal communication speak volumes about your attitude toward them. By the same token, you want to be cognizant of your client’s or prospect’s eye contact and body language.

Listening with understanding and empathy is possible if you think client focus first.
Let the client tell his story. Put yourself in his shoes when you listen to his business concerns, purpose, vision, and desires. Show approval or understanding by nodding your head and smiling during the conversation. Separate the process of taking in information from the process of judging it. Just suspend your judgment and focus on the client.

Framing what the client or prospect has said is the third action in trust building. Make sure you have formed an accurate understanding of his problems and concerns. Confirm what you think you heard by asking open-ended questions such as “What do you mean by that?” or “Help me to understood the major production problems you are experiencing.” After you have clarified the problems, start to frame them in order of importance. By identifying the areas in which you can help the client, you offer him clarity in his own mind and continue to build his trust.

Committing is the final action for developing the trust factor. Communicate enthusiastically your plan of action for solving the client’s problems. Help the client see what it will take to achieve the end result. Presumably, what you have said up to this point has been important, but what you do now—how you commit—is even more important. Remember the old adage “Action speaks louder than words.” Show you want this client’s business long term. Complete assignments and projects on budget and on time. Then follow up with clients periodically to see how your partnership is faring.

In the final analysis, trust stems from keeping our word. If we say we will be there for our clients, then we should honor that commitment by being there. Trust results from putting the client’s best interest before our own, from being dependable, from being open and forthcoming with relevant information. It is impossible to overestimate the power of the trust factor in our professional lives. Truly, trust is the basis of all enduring, long-term business relationships.

Google Adword - Secret X Factor - Build An Home Business Empire

One of today’s successful internet marketers has built his own home business empire by combining the powerful marketing tool, Google AdWords, with his own Secret X Factor. His secret success formula helped this acclaimed internet marketer find his own personal corner of internet success in an area that was already a favorite hobby and golfing. Keep reading to learn how Google AdWords helped this marketer build a customer base for his online business and to learn more about his secret formula for success.

Leading internet search engine, Google, introduced their AdWords program in 2000. AdWords is a low cost advertising program designed to give small businesses exposure online. Users can choose simple, text based ads or catchier, interactive image ads in a variety of banner sizes.

Over the years, Google has enhanced and expanded AdWords to provide business owners with a number of different advertising options to ensure every business venture, regardless of size or product, can benefit from the program. With AdWords’ Pay Per Click advertising, website and business owners can choose key search words relevant to their product or service. Their advertisements may appear along with Google search results related to their website and advertisers pay a predetermined amount each time a visitor lands on their site through the ad. The proven system makes certain that ads only appear on appropriate pages, meaning more visits and more sales for advertisers.

Google’s AdWords now offers even more advertising flexibility and success with site targeted advertising. AdWords users can select websites that are related to their product or service and place a bid for ad placement on the site. Site targeted advertising allows businesses to get the most value out of their advertising dollars by reaching a broad range of prospective clients who all share an interest in the advertiser’s product.

AdWords ads can appear on industry leader, Google, as well as their partner networks, including AOL search, Netscape, and Ask. The ads may also appear on websites that are closely related to the advertiser’s site and on a variety of other websites that display ads near related context to increase traffic to their site. Most AdWords advertisers see a large increase in visitors to their online business, which, in turn, means more sales and more profit.

Through Google’s professional training course, our successful internet marketer became an expert in AdWords. His understanding of how pay per click advertising works and his expert knowledge of the AdWords program helped him to bring in numerous new business prospects for a mere fraction of most business advertising budgets. Several other low cost methods of online advertising also factor in to this noted entrepreneur’s success in internet marketing.

This internet marketer’s continued experience with Google AdWords furthered his expertise in the area. He developed proven methods of choosing revenue generating keywords that offer the best value for the budget, as well as the keys to writing a successful ad copy with relevant, sales driven results.

Once his expert knowledge of AdWords began to bring visitors to his website, it was time for the successful marketer to put his Secret X Factor to work.

The first thing this successful marketer did was use his special attribute to create a name for himself, not just in the golfing community, but as an internet marketer as well. He gained the trust and respect of every prospective client with his secret recipe for success, significantly expanding his customer base and his profits.

As his customer base grew, the successful marketer continued to use his special success recipe to expand his home business empire to include a variety of products and services his customers would truly appreciate. With his special marketing weapon, he could meet the needs of his clients by promoting the items they want to buy.

The hours needed to run his expanding home business helped this successful internet marketer learn even more important aspects of building a lucrative online business. He learned low cost ways to delegate the tasks associated with his business. As a successful entrepreneur, he learned to manage his time by subcontracting freelancers, especially for jobs that would cost himself a great deal of time or where his work may lack the quality someone more experienced in the area could provide.

This cutting edge internet marketer’s goal in business has always been to provide not only his longtime customers, but each and every prospective client as well, with the best service, the best products, and the best advice. With his Secret X Factor formula, his AdWords expertise, and plenty of hard work, he has built a successful and profitable home based business centered around this goal.