Call center management software is becoming increasingly popular, even with businesses that have only a few workers. More often called “contact centers,” call center management software has the ability to control and handle the many different needs of businesses today. Many features include instant routing of important customers to the best agents, reduce holding times for customers, and offer more efficient scheduling of employees and detailed reporting. Your call center management system will help your customers and corporations talk to each other by managing their interactions. It is said that by using the right call management center software will have an immediate positive impact on your business and customer satisfaction. By not making your customers wait, being able to connect them immediately with the right service people, will improve customer perception. Now days, with technology making things faster and faster, customers' expectations are high and they expect your business to be on its toes and have the information they want—yesterday! The best thing you can do is upgrade your system with good call center software, and keep your customers happy. Happy customers spend more money.
Your investment can reduce your costs, depending on which call center system software you buy. The sooner your business is able to handle more calls, the sooner you can start making more money. Efficiency is key and a call center system can provide a wide selection of reports that give you detailed information, from live statistics on hold times and drop-off rates to yearly overviews of the entire operation. This will help you find out which employee is successful and which ones may need a bit more training. It is suggested before you call a dealer or go online looking for the best call center management software to fit your needs.
• How many requests do you handle per month?
• Where do your requests originate from? (phone, fax, email, web, online chat?) How many to
• What are your primary calls? (Inbound or outbound? sales or service? internal or external?)
• How many agents handle these calls? In how many locations?
• What metrics do you currently use to measure performance?
• What phone system are you currently using?
• What systems will the call center need to connect with? (Existing phones, databases, CRM, etc.)
• What's your budget for this purchase?
• What IT resources are available to help integrate and maintain the system?
• How will you measure the success of the new system?
Hopefully some of these tools will help you decide whether you need or want to get into call center management software. These are just some of the idea's out there that can help you decide. Always check out your different options that are out there for you to decide.
Will Call Center Management Software Improve Your Business?
Easy Business Incorporation
Business incorporation a decade or two ago is a tedious process that businesses often reach bankruptcy before being awarded corporation status. However, recent developments in the business world and the creation of Business Corporation Act make the process quicker and easier. Business journals outline three steps for business incorporation: securing corporate name, submitting required documents, and paying filing dues. These process can be done with the services of your lawyer or you can opt to D-I-Y.
First, secure and ensure a corporate name. Check other businesses' names before deciding on yours. Business incorporation processes are usually disrupted by businesses filing names already owned by other companies. Also, avoid naming your corporation names that sound and spell like other companies' names. Not only same sounding names might confuse possible clients, these can also cause your business to be overshadowed by the other company. This is especially true if they have been in the business longer, hence more popular.
Second, prepare all documents pertinent to business incorporation application. File these documents as early as you can for quicker processing. Third, pay all required state fees for application; taxes and other fees is a must if you want an efficient processing of your papers. State filing rates vary from state to state, these can be as low as $100 or as high as $400. Paying these dues is necessary to establish your company in that particular state.
These can be tedious steps if you opt to apply by yourself. D-I-Y application requires you to be knowledgeable about state laws concerning business incorporation. Preparing and collecting required documents alone is a long and ardorous task. In addition, you must follow-up and inquire about the status of your application with the authorized agencies yourself. However, using incorporation service groups reduces your burden considerably. After furnishing these companies with information, they will check the corporate name for you, file required documents, and even pay initial dues for you. In addition, they will also assume the duty of following up and inquiring about your application with the respective agencies. These companies have also done these application process many times, which translates into knowing key people inside these agencies which can give your paper or application a push in the right direction. This will result to an easy and efficient business incorporation application for you as their client.
Lastly, these service companies require minimal and nominal fees aside from state filing dues. To promote fast processing, they even allow clients to submit necessary data and information online. Though lawyers can do the job for you, you have to pay them hourly for their service. The cost alone might drive you to cancel business incorporation plans as it usually takes a month or so to be fully incorporated.
7 Tips To Save Money on Marketing a Business
The most effective marketing methods such as advertising in newspapers, popular magazines, on TV are very expensive for small businesses, especially for most start-ups.
Thanks to Internet, in the recent years, some very powerful, and cost-effective, even free marketing strategies have become popular.
Here are some tips to help you save money on marketing your business without sacrificing quality or results. In fact, some of them are very affective to boost your business cost effectively and fast. Implement them repeatedly and save a lot of money and time while attracting hundreds of thousands of more visitors to your website.
1. Link Exchanges
To exchange links with other Web sites is the most popular marketing strategy used by travel and tourism related businesses. Link exchanges help increase link popularity, and the chances to get higher search engine placements and ranks.
In addition, you will have higher chances to be seen by more surfers, to attract more visitors to your Web site, which will highly increase your sales, and return on investment (ROI).
To find the Web sites which are willing to reciprocate links, without the risk of spamming anyone, go to a major search engine such as Yahoo!, Google, MSN, and write in the search bar, for example, "Travel & Tourism Link Exchanges" or, "Travel & Tourism Reciprocal Links".
The Web sites listed in the first 20 in these sections will provide you with the high quality link exchange resources. To exchange links with these higher ranked Web sites will also help your Web sites get higher ranks.
2. Directories
It is a good strategy to submit your Web site to Travel & Tourism Directories. Because directories have a lot of surfers and visitors who are trying to find the travel and tourism related businesses who offer the best deals to match their needs.
You can reach millions of targeted prospective buyers among these directories' visitors who might be your loyal customers later on. So, you should not underestimate the power of Directory marketing, and start to submit your Web site to the Travel & Tourism Directories as soon as possible. They will help you promote your business affectively, and mostly for FREE.
You can also find important marketing tips and resources in Directories to grow your business fast.
3. Pictures & Photographs
Images are vital elements to attract readers' attention to your ads, to your articles & press releases, to your Web sites. Make sure you use charming photos everywhere you can.
How and where to get such charming photos? Always keep in mind that almost all photos and images you can find on the Internet have Copy Rights, which means it's illegal to use them, so you should never re-publish them without the written permission of the original owners. Or, you will have to pay big amounts of money to settle the possible sues.
You can buy photos online if you find the ones you would like to use. But, the prices of real nice photos are high.
The best cost-effective solution is to take photos yourself, which will also give you the freedom to choose the places, angles, lights, and colors before taking the pictures to your heart's content.
When taking photographs, try to get as many shots in as possible. Then you would not need to pay other photographers to purchase photos to use in your websites, articles, press releases, and advertisements.
To take photographs yourself will save you a lot of money. If you have a library of images for your advertising needs, you will not only save tremendous amount of money, but save a lot of time, too. You can use them in your brochures, articles, press releases, as well as in your websites, and in your advertisements whenever you need..
4. Try to do What You can Yourself
You can, of course, hire experts to design your website, for writing press releases, articles, copy writing, advertising, photography, professionally.
But, you can do them, at least some of them, yourself when you want to save money. You will then spend money only for tasks that really need the expertise of a professional.
Keeping this in mind, we have provided information in the 'Grow Your Business Fast' program, on how to write a successful article yourself, how to write press releases in a traditional news story format, that will look real professional, how to market your products, services, informational material, affiliate programs to become a marketing champion in a few months very cost effectively, saving a lot of money.
5. Articles
When you write an article you can send it out yourself, or send it to a free or pro article distributor who will disseminate it to newsletters, e-zines, magazines, local and national newspapers, websites; follow it up and see if it was published in any of these publications. If it was, you can be sure that it covers certain required values.
Then you can use your 'accepted & published' article, or at least parts of it, in your website, in your sales letters, in your advertisements, you can even write it in the traditional news story format, and send it to a press release distributor to be sent out to media outlets.
6. Press-Releases
The best way to send your press releases out, is to submit it to a free or pro press release distributor. If you select a good one, they would send your press release to the media outlets where you would get the best results.
Some of them are experts who know how to do it, depending on their own experiences. If you choose a pro distributor, your chances to get outstanding results would be higher.
Your press release(s) that an editor wrote a news on and published in a popular publication would attract a lot of visitors to your Web site, eventually increases your sales tremendously; also it would be a good sample for you to use the same values in your future press releases.
7. Your Ads
You can implement the same strategies explained in #3 above, for your ads, too. Watch closely which of your ads generated more traffic and sales. Then, use them at your website, in your newsletter, other related newsletters, use the most powerful lines in your signature file, in your classified ads, in the safe mailing lists, e-zines, in your solo ads ... everywhere possible, over and over again. Get the same positive results repeatedly.
Your Home Business Success Starts With Your Passion
In whatever career you may find yourself in, there is no such thing as "information overload." Know as much as you can, do what others do, and what the entire company does. Equip yourself with a total knowledge of your work environment, enough to make you feel like you own the network. Who knows, you may someday.
Walking an extra mile, being organized at work, honesty, trust-worthiness, dependability, being a team player, loyalty, and resourcefulness are the must-be characteristics of your passion.
Are you the type of worker who is always looking forward to Monday morning? Or you are the type of worker who’s pleading and hoping that it will always be Friday the other day? There are workers who are called TGIF workers? What is TGIF? TGIF stands for Thank God It’s Friday. TGIF workers can’t wait for their minimum of 8 hours a day to finish. If you classify yourself as a TGIF worker, then you are certainly lacking something or missing something important in your career life – passion.
What does it take to be passionate in your job? There is always that old maxim “Do what you love the most.” A passionate worker always has the appetite to go to work every day. He or she doesn’t mind if it's Monday or Friday. He or she treats everyday as an important day in his or her career life. What do you think is the result of being a passionate in your career life? When you are passionate in your job, you enjoy it and even seek for more. There is always the idea in your mind that you can always do better than that. You are not satisfied to mediocre work. And it pays to be a passionate worker not because you will be accelerated into higher position nor you will be given extra compensation, but because you can get things done in your work with a sense of appreciation.
In your work as an entrepreneur at home, you got to have extra passion. Why do you need it? You might be asking. Take this for an instance; can you able to sit a little longer whenever a meeting comes? Can you stay a little longer if you’re transacting some business matters to a customer that asks too many questions? In short, can you be patient enough but maintaining the passion in you? You can be energetic enough in your work but it demands greater than that. Still, you need passion in your work.
So, what separates a passionate worker to a worker that only minds work?
People who practice passion in their work always perform their work at their best. They always strive for perfection in everything. They see perfection as unattainable in most things. But their eagerness drive them much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as an imperfection. Passionate workers put extra care in their work and they aren’t satisfy for anything less.
At this point you might be asking either one or more of the following questions:
1. Do I need passion even though my work is just a home business?
2. To whom will I use passion?
3. What will passion do for me? What is its impact in my performance?
4. How may I know my passion?
The last question on the list is very interesting. In one way or the other, passion creates a difference in terms of performance between a passionate worker and the other. What do you like the most? What are your interests? What type of job do you enjoy the most? The answers to these questions vary depending on the personality of a worker. But whatever will it be, if you can answer the questions then that will be your checklist on how you may know your passion. Each worker has different passion. One’s passion is not the same with the other. Your job as a home business representative takes a little talking to different people. If you found that your passion is more on communication, then you are really entitled for the home business. If you like to deal with different people and enjoy front liner’s job, you are really fitted for the home business.
What is Business School All About Anyway?
The ultimate goal for those who enroll in an MBA program is career advancement. What form this advancement will take depends completely on each individual's personal agenda. One student may plan to return to work for a former employer in a more sophisticated context, while another may seek to change careers entirely, transferring to a field that is more challenging or fulfilling. Other more entrepreneurial students may attempt to launch an independent business. Whatever the case may be, MBA programs are designed to guide the student toward the path of their choosing while providing the skills that will be required when they reach their destination.
How do they do this you ask? Well, the most successful MBA programs strive to gather groups of students with diverse backgrounds and goals and then facilitate the sharing of their experiences in the context of the study of theoretical business applications. Before we get in to the academic elements of the MBA program, let's first take a look at some of the different techniques schools are currently using to cultivate leadership qualities in their students (besides the standard lectures, papers, exams, etc?).
1) Problem-Based Learning (a.k.a Case Studies)
Rather than simply conveying material to the students through lectures, business schools are now using the problem-based learning format to force students to think for themselves rather than regurgitate material that they've memorized.
Classes are subdivided into small groups and each group is presented with a particular management issue or problem.
As a team, the students must research the case they've been presented with and apply what they've learned from their studies to come up with a solution to the particular problem.
This type of exercise forces students to become "horizontal thinkers" who must consider ALL factors related to a particular decision rather than simply looking at an issue from on particular perspective (ie. accounting vs. marketing vs. finance).
2) Studies in the Field
Many schools are now supplementing class lectures and individuals study time with studies in the field
Although most students coming into MBA programs already have significant work experience, schools continue to stress the importance of "learning from doing"
The interpersonal skills that are crucial to strong leadership cannot be taught in the classroom setting but rather must be observed first hand in the field.
3) Team-Based Learning
While many of the projects assigned in business school require students to work in groups, team-based learning focuses specifically on how to work as team.
The goal isn't so much to complete a particular assignment or project on some managerial issue, but rather the to learn how to work closely with others.
Setting goals, assigning responsibilities, and learning to rely on others are some of the skills involved.
Because team project and work groups have become so common in the business world, the schools are stressing teamwork abilities now more than ever..
The Curriculum
Now of course, underlying all of these different teaching techniques, is the curriculum itself. The first year courses of most MBA programs make up what is known as the core curriculum. While each school tries to present the material in what they believe is a unique or progressive manner, there remains minimal variation in these courses from school to school because every MBA student must ultimately have a fairly extensive level of knowledge in the following areas:
Business Strategy Analysis
Financial and Managerial Accounting
Management Statistics and Data Analysis
Managerial Economics
Marketing Management
Managerial Finance
Managing Organizations
Operations Management
For a detailed description of any or all of these courses, please browse through the course calendar or website of the particular business schools you are considering.
Once this core curriculum has been completed, most business schools allow their students to spend the remainder of their course time on electives. Many schools are recognized for particular programs that they offer and this recognition tends to revolve around these second year elective courses. Often business schools will have faculty who are eminent leaders in their field lecturing for these courses, providing the class with cutting edge research and the latest advancements in the area. Some of the areas that a second-year MBA student can specialize in include:
Accounting
Arts Management
Educational Administration
Entrepreneurial Ventures Finance
Government
Health Care Administration
Human Resource
Management
Management Consultants
Management Information
Technology
Manufacturing Management
Marketing
Not-for-Profit Organizations
Operations Management
Small Business Management
So as you can see, it's no longer possible to pigeonhole business schools as gathering places for society's elite, who put in a couple of years before taking over the family empire. A degree from a reputable business school can now place you on the fast track for a leadership position in any one of an incredibly diverse number of career paths. The MBA has become just as important in public service domains such as education, government, and healthcare administration as it is in the more traditional corporate sectors.
What to Expect for the Costs you have Sunk In?
Having established that going to business school represents a pretty serious financial burden, let's see what you're actually getting for all those dollars your laying out. What are the "frills" schools are using to attract students, and the impact that the program can have on your ability to attract employment and your earning potential once you've found the job you've been seeking.
Facilities:
Talk about plush. Be prepared to work extremely hard when you get to business school, but if your at one of the better ones, take solace in the fact that you'll be doing it in style. The fact is that many of the schools (and not just the powerhouses) are investing heavily in infrastructure to woo you. Remember, there's a definite element of reciprocity in the relationship between schools and applicants. To put it simply, they want you to like them just as much as you want them to like you. As a result a significant proportion of a business school's dean's time is spent fundraising. Many schools are building brand new buildings, with brand new classrooms, libraries, conference rooms, cafeterias and students lounges all supplied and state-of-the-art technology. Just as one example, Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management has built a simulated trading floor with the exact same technology being used by real analysts.
Connections:
The business world is ALL about connections. We're not going to feed you the line that "it's who you know not what you know" but rather that it's "who you know AND what you know". For that reason, an MBA program has become incredibly important for young people trying to get their foot in the door. At business school you're going to educated in the "what" and immersed in the "who." Without even realizing it, you're going to be spending two full years networking. Whether it's faculty who have pivotal roles in major corporations, corporations who've formed alliances with the school, or fellow students, over the course of the program you're going to be in close contact with individuals who are currently, or will be in the future, extremely influential in the business community. Imagine your new best friend happens to be the next Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, David Filo, or Jerry Yang just waiting to surface. Well that's the kind of relationship that fortunes are built on.
Jobs:
The following excerpts come directly from the Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools (6 th ed.). It summarizes the relationship between MBAs and corporate hiring so well that felt we should pass it straight on to you completely unadulterated. We further recommend that you find the complete article from which this excerpt was taken (available on the web) for supplementary reading and that you use the guide as one of your resources for choosing the right business school for you (in our opinions it's one of the most informative).
As we approach the millennium, the MBA is unquestionably the hottest degree you can hold, particularly from an elite school. The stats prove it: At virtually all of the best schools, GMAT scores and starting pay packages are setting records. Applications are too, although a large part of the boom is coming from overseas...The 61 schools surveyed by business week for its 1998 rankings waded through 116,912 applications for the Class of 2000, and the average GMAT score was 667 for those attending the Top 25 schools, up from 649 just two years earlier.
Today, the MBA is on its way to becoming a requirement for anyone who hopes to build a career in Corporate America, and, indeed, much of the world... Certainly, it's true that corporate recruiters can't seem to hire enough MBAs these days. The 259 recruiters who participated in business week's 1998 survey of the best business schools hired 10,348 MBAs in total, a 28 percent rise from 1996. And they would have hired even more if they could have: Grads of the Top 25 business schools averaged 3.2 job offers each, up from 2.3 in 1992, and compensation exploded. The median pay package (salary, bonus, and extras such as stock options or moving expenses) at the Top 25 hit $111,420, up 19 percent from just two years ago. Another telling figure: Median pay topped $100,000 at 18 of our Top 25-versus 5 two years ago.
Promoting Your Business On A Shoestring Budget
Have you ever wondered how you can create a business with a great client base, without spending thousands of dollars on ads? The truth is that advertising is not cheap and public relations can be costly as well. But a savvy business owner can often get the company’s name out to the public for very little money. Notice, there is no mention of getting everything for free, but there are ways to participate in advertising for considerably less money than you would expect. In fact, if you get creative you may find better ways to advertise than you’d ever imagined.
If you own a restaurant, or have one in the community that does a great business, consider going in with other businesses to create placemats the restaurant can use, and offer them for free. Anywhere from 12 to 20 businesses can place their ad on a placemat and the restaurant uses them on their tables. The price for each participating business will only be 1/20th of the cost to produce and the ads are going to be in front of a captive audience.
This can be a one-time deal or a lasting business partnership between the advertisers and the restaurant. If there are more than one location of the same restaurant, getting the placemats in all restaurant can create consistency in your advertising efforts.
There are also opportunities to team with professional services by sponsoring informational pamphlets to place in professional offices. For example, if you offer child care services, buying pamphlets from companies that offer informational items on childhood diseases, with your name on them, can be placed in doctors offices as well as in pharmacies. Many of these are available and can be an inexpensive alternative to direct advertising.
Get involved in community affairs and if the budget permits, sponsor a local sports team. The expense of uniforms with your business name on the back or front is a good method of getting your name out into the public. Awareness for your business as well as becoming known as one that supports the community can often provide better public relations than many other paid means.
Press releases are often thought of as free advertising and most newspaper editors can see through a press release and the intentions in which they are sent. A good press release, and one that has a chance of being printed, will offer information useful to the public instead of just a blatant attempt at self-promotion. If you have information about a new product important to the paper’s readers, then there is a realistic chance of it getting printed.
An article about a promotion of a local resident or a new product that save money will be more welcome and having it appear in as editorial content in the paper gives it more credibility than when it appears as a paid advertisement. Think before you write because once editors get used to seeing your pitches as looking for a free ad, they probably won’t read any of the ones you send in.
You Can Successfully Reach Financial Freedom With A Home Based Business
The power of entrepreneurship and the rapid growth of the direct selling industry have business-savvy investors and large, respected companies sitting up and taking notice. It’s no surprise to the 13.6 million Americans and 55 million people worldwide already part of the direct selling industry that business is booming. Whether you know it as network marketing, multi-level marketing or referral marketing, the industry is making a powerful impact on the way people do business and how they live their lives.
How is it possible that this industry is thriving when so many are feeling an economic pinch? Well, that is simply a matter of perspective. The glass –is-half-full camp believes this is a time of massive economic change. And discerning entrepreneurs who recognize these shifting trends and stake their claim in these new and emerging industries will be the ones to gain enormously. As Fortune magazine recently stated.” Forget the paycheck; your W-2 days are over. It’s a 1099 world now”.
Today’s direct selling distributors also called representatives, associates, or independent business owners tell customers, typically people they know, about products and services that can improve the quality of their lives during the course of everyday, normal conversations. These person-to-person conversations might take place at home, at work, or at a coffee shop. And you don’t have to be an experienced salesperson to make money if what you’re selling is a product you use and believe in.
The ease of entry makes direct selling a practical, accessible method for millions to earn additional part-time income without having to quit their job. The typical direct selling company provides all the tools systems and training needed to be up and profitable immediately for a nominal entry fee.
The beauty of direct selling is that it’s all done for you. You don’t have to create a business plan. You don’t have to create a product. The only thing you need to do is find a reputable company, one that you trust, that offers a product or service you believe in and can get passionate about. Anyone can do this!
As the ultimate equal opportunity solution, direct selling represents the purest form of equality through free enterprise. In fact, that’s one of the most striking features of the industry: It involves men and women from all walks of life: all ages: all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
In fact, the top earners in direct selling also represent a diverse group of successful case histories. According to the direct selling association, the industry’s trade group, 24 percent of direct sellers have high school diploma or less education; 35 percent are college graduates; and one in 12 has a postgraduate degree.
In my opinion the best way we can secure our own future is to take charge of it early on. We can do this by creating multiple streams of income. There is one thing that can provide you financial freedom and that is residual income.
Residual income is money that keeps coming in long after you complete the work that created it. This can include the monthly income from a rental house, dividends from stock investments and even oil, gas, book or song royalties. Regardless of the source, residual income is the name of the game, and the genius of the direct selling model is that it makes residual income a very real possibility for absolutely anyone, regardless of age, background, education or skills. Not everyone is going to own a valuable piece of real estate or write a best-selling book. But anyone can run their own direct selling business.
Best selling author Stephen Covey says” Direct selling helps affirm people’s worth and potential, and can open up a whole new alternative income stream that can make a huge difference in their life. It is entrepreneurial opportunity where people can use their talent and their passion towards a greater good.
Direct selling’s status as the business world’s best-kept secret may soon be in jeopardy. But that’s what happens when business is booming.
Top 10 Tips For Using Web 2.0 To Promote Your Business
We hear a lot about “Web 2.0″ these days. It sounds neat and it’s trendy to talk about blogging and social media. But does it really affect our businesses? Is Web 2.0 just for kids and tech-hipsters or is it something we business owners should use to help promote our businesses?
I can’t tell you if Web 2.0 is right for your business but I can tell you it’s something to be aware of Ignoring it means ignoring a possible tool that could be valuable in helping you get more customers.
So, to help you get started in thinking about Web 2.0 for your business, here are some things for you to consider.
1. Have a plan.
Don’t dive in just because it’s cool or because you read an article about it. Be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish, how much you’re willing to invest and what time frame you are working on. Like any aspect of your business - plan ahead.
2. Make sure your target audience is online.
Web 2.0 tools are fun but useless if the people who see your stuff don’t want what you offer. Or if they don’t look to the Web for information to help them buy what you sell, then your efforts will be less effective. Like any marketing channel, it only works if your prospective customers are there to see (or hear) your message and they are receptive to it.
3. Create good content.
Web 2.0 is the social web but it’s still content-driven. Lousy content leads to lousy marketing, no matter how flashy it is. Make your content relevant, interesting and real. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and answer their questions with your content.
4. Don’t sell.
Help, inform, educate but do not sell. Web 2.0 is all about people connecting by helping each other. No salesman allowed! Think education, not advertising. Deliver useful, nuts and bolts stuff or honest opinions they can believe. That’s how you build credibility and trust that lead to new customer relationships.
5. Start with a free hosted blog.
www.Wordpress.com and http://www.Blogger.com both have very useful and simple blogs you can setup for free. Use them to start blogging and get a feel for how it works and how people use Web 2.0. Dip your toe in the water before diving in.
6. Talk to kids
Chat with some kids (ages 8 to 18) and find out how they use the web. They are the trend-setters. What they’re doing now, the rest of us will be doing soon. Learn what they do and why. This helps you understand the web from a different perspective.
7. Do it yourself.
Web 2.0 is about being real. It’s real people connecting with each other. It’s okay to hire a pro to advise you. But to keep it genuine, make sure you or your employees create the content and do the work. Otherwise people will know you’re faking it.
8. Buy a camcorder and start shooting
Go to Best Buy or Radio Shack and buy an inexpensive camcorder, tripod and lapel microphone. Buy 20-30 tapes too. Then take a weekend and shoot film. Practice, practice, practice. Get comfortable being on camera so you’re not nervous or dorky. Then, write a funny or useful how-to sketch and film it. Use Microsoft MovieMaker to edit and then upload to http://YouTube.com.
9. Buy an inexpensive audio recorder
MusicBarn.com has a package that includes M-Audio’s MobilePre USB recording interface. Add a microphone and you have a high quality setup to record podcasts and MP3 audio files whenever you want. Then buy NGWave sound editing software to make it sound professional and you’re in business.
10. Surf ’till it Hurts
Surf blogs, YouTube, Google Videos, http://Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati and other social media websites. Get a feel for how they work and who goes there. Become part of some social media communities. Make new friends online. Immerse yourself in the Web 2.0 culture so you know how it works and if it might fit your marketing plans.
Startup Costs For Homebased Business
Just about everyone jumps on the web with a web site without realizing all that is involved. It's the horse and the cart. Recently, we tested a new way of solving the primary reason people, especially homebased business or work from home moms and dads, look to the Internet as a fast and easy way to generate income.
Traditionally, the first thing you think you need is a web site. But if you look at sites such as Ebay, Amazon and Yahoo!, you realize that a person doesn't need a website to make money on the Web! Savvy sellers take advantage of auction and direct sales sites to sell their wares with little to no cost. These smart marketers have the right idea! Marketing is first.
For others, how to make money on the Internet and what to do first is a mystery. So they follow the pack and search for a web designer. Unfortunately, some are left with little funds to attract buyers to their shiny new website. And so goes the tale of a million sites on the Internet that don't work, don't pay for themselves, and certainly don't generate the income a work at home mom hopes for.
One of the biggest obstacles is the copy on a web site page. Both search engine optimization and persuasive sales copy require additional funding in addition to web design and development. Nearly all novice web owners who we come in contact with don't realize that they have to provide the content for their web pages. It's usually an unpleasant surprise to find out that web designers don't write copy although someone on the company staff may provide this service. It calls for an extra fee.
Our solution to this conundrum is to start with your marketing objective and then develop the pieces that deliver the objective. For example, when you want to sell teddy bears, look for a domain name that includes teddy bears in the URL. Next, discover who wants your teddy bears and how you're going to let these buyers know about your bears. Then, make a list of why your buyer would want to own your teddy bear more than your competitor's teddy that looks a lot like yours. Once you have this basic information, consider all the parts you need to invest in to bring your offers to market on the Internet.
Here are some rough numbers: Your domain name from Network Solutions is $35 per year. If you're well funded, you might want to start with a web plan, about $1500. Copywriting is next and for a 12-page web site, you are looking at $2-300 per page, that's an average of $3060. A quality 12-page business HTML web site, including web design and development runs about $1500. All this expense and you have not sold your first teddy bear yet. Opt for a good web host, not those cheapy hosting services. In fact, it is a good idea to go with the hosting service your web designer prefers. Not all servers work the same, and you reduce the development and maintenance time and avoid paying your developer for more time when she is intimately familiar with the server tools. A reliable web hosting service costs $20-30 a month depending on the server space your site needs and the bandwidth used from all your web traffic.
If you are like most new web owners, you had no clue that all this was needed. There are still a few more steps to consider. One is the number of pages associated with your website. Twelve pages is a healthy number for most small business people to start with, but that can hardly support all the keywords you have to generate free web traffic. Plan on adding more keyword web pages as time goes on. Consider a competitor site with 100 search engine optimized web pages all devoted to selling teddy bears. Your site will struggle getting a top ranking against this big guy.
Two, is the big enchilada. Internet marketing. And this is where most of your funds go, and it's where most new web owners fall down. Even cutting all the corners, there is usually little left for marketing. And a lot of the time, new web owners are shocked and dismayed with the outpouring of money up to this point and dig their heals in at spending any more, especially when Internet marketing is a mystery for many.
Internet marketing involves several options. The most widely recognized is search engine marketing. You have probably heard the term. Another common marketing practice is CPC or PPC. Cost Per Click or Pay Per Click can be tricky and can drain your credit card quickly. It looks easy, but trust me on this, there is nothing easy about direct response copywriting and that's what placing ad copy on a search engine such as Google or Yahoo! requires. There is a method to determining how much to invest in a CPC bid. So don't rush in, write a few ads, and wait for visitors without knowing what you are doing.
It's a wonder so many people jump on the Web without finding out about all these costs, but they do. I guess it looks easy, but if you have invested hundreds, even thousands, and have yet to recover your investment, you know it is not easy. You don't know why. You only know, you keep trying different things, and you continue to wait for the big return. All you have to do is the smart thing upfront to save a lot of money and get good results in a decent amount of time. Hire a good Internet marketing company who can help you get the outcome you want. You will save a lot of time, frustration and money overall.
Your Ebay Business
One of the easiest and profitable ways to get off the ground with your own home based business is to start with an eBay account and a plan to start making money. An eBay business takes little to no startup capital and can wind up being as profitable and successful as the most prominent independent companies. It takes research, determination, and skill, but if you have these tools and a desire to learn, than you can make a success out of your eBay business.
Many businesses on eBay started off as little more than people seeing others around them selling off their unwanted merchandise, oftentimes for better prices than they would get in the classified section of their local paper. This is the way many eBay fortunes have begun. Simply look around your apartment or house and wonder at all the junk you have accumulated over the years. What is collecting dust today could be making you money tomorrow. Research a bit (which is as easy as browsing eBay for sold items) and see what you might be likely to get for your old, unwanted stuff. If the prices seem worth it to you, go ahead and start selling. At the very least, you’ll get your feet wet and see if eBay selling is something you might be interested in pursuing on a grander scale.
The next thing you’ll want to do is some broader research into the eBay world. First, make a list of about ten items you might want to sell on the auction giant. Then research these items and see how the competition is. It is possible to compete with established eBay companies, but this can be difficult for the fledgling startup. It would be far better to find a niche that seems to be mostly ignored, and target that base. It can even be a subset of a more popular and competitive market. Just by more specifically targeting the base, you can have a successful business on eBay.
Another way to make money on eBay, with almost no need for up front capital, is by selling informational e-Books. There is an entire section on eBay dedicated to these books. Surely you know how to do something better than anyone else you know. If not, research is your friend. If you can write, then you have all the tools necessary to create one of these powerful money making informational e-Books. It costs nothing, and you can sell it for any price you wish. The result, minus insertion fees, is pure profit.
Regardless of what you finally decide to sell, you will have to provide a decent product for a competitive price. Just like in the rest of the world (perhaps even more so), eBay is strictly run by the law of supply and demand. There is too much competition online to think you will make a success of your eBay business with anything less than full dedication and the perseverance needed to make any small company work in the long run.