8 Home Business Mistakes to Avoid

Running a home business is demanding enough, making mistakes can lead to bankruptcy. Learn what you need to avoid so you are successful. Below we will discuss 8 home-based business mistakes to avoid. They include, lack of research, drive and education. Making yourself aware of the pitfalls is a sure-fire way to put you on the right track to success.

1. Not Researching Your Business Idea First

Make sure you research every aspect of your home business idea first. You don't want any surprises jumping out when you least expect them. Particularly be aware of all the financial risks your home-based business entails.

2. Treating Your Home Business As A Hobby - It's a Job

Your home-based business is exactly what the name says. It is an economic system wherein goods, and services are exchanged for money. If you don't take it seriously, you won't make any money. It's as simple as that.

3. Attempting To Master Everything At Once

The human brain is not set up to learn everything at once. It learns in stages. This is why the education system is designed the way it is. If you try to master every aspect at the same time you will exhaust yourself. Learn everything in stages. Don't try to do 10 things at once, it doesn't work in business.

4. Not Being Willing To Work Over-time To Succeed

The more work you put in, the more profit you make for yourself. You can't have the attitude that you will only work a limited number of hours. You are self-employed when you own a home-based business. You are the key money-maker and problem-solver. There is always something you can do. Remember, if you don't do it, no one will.

This doesn't mean that you will never have a day off. In fact, you should always take at least one day off a week, to rest. This will help drive you for the other six days.

5. Not Investing In Your Home Business When Needed

There will always come a time that you will need to invest money in your business. You can never do enough marketing, and there is always product or service improvements to make. For example, one investment you will have to make is placing paid ads in newspapers, magazines and the internet. Even though there are a lot of ways to advertise for free, these methods have limits.

As well, you will eventually get exhausted doing everything yourself. At some point, you have to outsource. If you try to save money and don't invest in an expert, parts of your business will suffer.

6. Investing Too Much Money Without Seeing A Return

If something isn't working, try a new method. Always monitor your investments to see if they accomplish what they are meant to. Just because you hear that something did wonders for another business, it doesn't mean it will have the same effect on yours.

7. Not Managing Your Time Effectively

Time management is the key to any business, use your time wisely by following these 5 tips:

• Prioritize tasks from most important to least important
• Set goals for each task
• Set specific times for social marketing (it is too easy to get side-tracked).
• Take breaks
• Do your most important tasks when you are more alert, and save the ones that need the least mental focus for later in the day.

8. Not Promoting Your Home Business Or Researching Effective Marketing Methods

To start up and grow your home-based business you have to promote it constantly. You always want new customers, and the best way to find them is by marketing your business. There are many ways to market your business effectively, so always research new methods and test them out. Educating yourself only makes you better in business.

By avoiding the above eight mistakes, you have a great chance of being successful with your home business. Take these points to heart and plan for success.

Koralee Phillips-Er is a freelance writer and legal virtual assistant, who works out of her home. She maintains an informational website on everthing you need to know about working from home writing and other home-based businesses.

If you are looking for ways to make a living from the comfort of your own home please visit http://workfromhomewritinginfo.com

Tips for Decorating Your Home Office on a Budget

With so many people choosing to work from home nowadays, the need for a home office is becoming more and more apparent. Having a space that is clearly defined as a work area can help put you in a professional mindset and avoid the distractions that home life inevitably brings. If you're just starting out with your home business, you may not have a huge furniture budget. However, many find that a spartan home office is actually more conducive to work than an elaborate executive suite. By following a few simple steps, you can set up your own office without breaking the bank.

First, consider where your work area is going to be located. If you're lucky, you'll have a spare room to convert, but you may need to take over a corner of your living room or computer room. Try to pick a spot that does not experience heavy traffic, lest your workday be constantly interrupted. Determine how much space you have, and then prioritize furniture based on available room.

Generally, most home offices will need a computer desk, chair and computer. A printer, scanner and fax machine are also invaluable. These six items are the most expensive office furnishings, but many homes already have them. If you don't, they are often available second-hand, at good quality, for a fraction of their retail price.

Once you have the basics set up, you can personalize your home office depending on your budget, work and taste. Some prefer a chic, minimalist style with a few prints and a filing cabinet, while others like a cozy study with full bookshelves and comfortable armchairs. Pictures of your family are optional, for obvious reasons, but many find that a lamp and a houseplant are perfectly sufficient to spruce up a desk.

You will also need to consider your needs based on your individual career. If your home office will see regular visits from clients, it's best to spring for higher-quality furniture and a more corporate atmosphere. A graphic design artist will need some space to make quick sketches, or to house a tablet. If you're blogging or freelance writing, you will most likely have more freedom with your office setup. No matter what your style, experiment with your workstation until you've found the right blend of practical and personal.

Working from home takes away the hassle of commuting and spending all day in a cubicle, but it presents unique challenge of its own. Many find that staying on task and focused while surrounded by the distractions of the home is their biggest impediment to success. Designating a specific area as a work station can help keep you in a professional mindset, and anyone can set up such a space at minimal cost. If you find your mind wandering in the middle of that long blog post, consider creating your own home office today.

Britney Fuller is a writer who enjoys writing on a number of different verticals. For more on your workspace, Build Direct offers readers information on desk designs for your home office.

5 Tips in Becoming a Person of Influence With Your Home-Based Business

Becoming a person of influence is important whether you have your own home-based business or you work for someone else. There are still contributions you can make that can be a benefit to others, never sell yourself short. I have a few tips that one can follow in order to become a person of influence in whatever you set out to do in life.

1. Have Integrity - Soundness of moral character. As important as integrity is to your business success, it is even more crucial for life. Integrity is something that seems to be missing in the world around us and especially in the work place. Peoples' morals seem to have diminished these days, so if you are a person with integrity and high morals, you may seem square to some but believe me it will pay off in the end with big dividends. Integrity is our foundation, that is why it is number one on my list. The foundation is the most important part of a building as with your own life, it is that important. For without the proper foundation, the whole building will crumble around you. Nineteenth Century clergyman Phillips Brooks maintained, "character is made in the small moments of our lives." Integrity is from the inside out-how well do we treat those that can not benefit us? Integrity is something that keeps us on the right path, that inner voice that tells us something is right or not right. Always follow that small voice of your inner man! This will make you a person of influence.

2. Values Others Opinion - Are you the type of person that lifts people up, and just makes them feel good whenever they are around you? Everyone wants respect, whether they are a janitor or the owner of the company. Give others the respect they deserve and need. Make them feel success, put them in a place where they can achieve small successes, this gives them confidence to try something harder. When you encourage people, you're not only encouraging just them, but you're encouraging all the people they encourage. Always make others feel they are a 10 in your eyes, this in turn will make you a person of influence in their eyes.

3. Be Honest With Yourself & With Others - Be a person others trust, this comes by being honest with those around you. Sometimes being honest hurts, but if you want to be a person of influence, trust must be earned. Nurture trust. Take pride in the fact that people in your life trust you. It is an honor, and should be treated as such. If you actively nurture the trust you have been given you will see that others will return it. Trust others, and they will trust you and see you as a person of influence in their lives.

4. Empower Others - To empower others is giving them the confidence and the ability to make the right decisions in their life. When others see integrity in you and value in themselves from your eyes and you have earned trust from them, then you can empower them to go forward in whatever they choose in life. Having the right people in one's life is very important and is life changing, for the wrong people can be toxic to ones mind-set. Negative people can be very harmful to those that are trying to be successful in life. Choose the right people to be in your life and value those people and the relationships with them, and when you do, you are laying a foundation for empowering others and in turn empowering yourself.

5. Permission to Succeed - Believe it or not but there are some people that are scared of success. When we have successes in life, even little ones, it enables us to move forward to greater successes. Confidence in oneself and in others is vital in life and business. Novelist Robert Louis Stevenson said, "To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life." Many people would love to succeed in life but many do not, one reason is the misunderstanding of growth or change. Growth hurts and so does change but life is always changing and we either embrace change or we let it go by the way side and never live up to our potential. Change hurts, but if we never take responsibility for our growth, it won't happen. Growth is not automatic, it is ever changing and we either change with it or not. So embrace your successes in life, live with integrity, be an honest person to yourself and others. Value yourself and others in life and this will empower you to become a person of influence in everything that you set out to do.

Lisa Barker

Blog Marketing Tips - How To Use Technorati To Increase Your Traffic

If you are using a blog on your website and you are not optimising it with Technorati you are missing out on a huge source of unlimited free traffic and potential customers. It costs nothing and is so easy to implement that there really is no excuse for not using it.

Technorati is a search engine specifically for blogs and it works by allowing bloggers to tag their posts with relevant keywords so that the content appears in the results pages when those keywords are searched. It gives you full control over where your content should appear on the website and you only have to wait a few days for it to be indexed.

There are three categories on the website, the first is "blog posts" which finds any posts that contain the search term, the second is "tags" which finds individual posts that are tagged with the search term, and the third is "blog directory" which finds individual blogs that are tagged with the search term.

The first thing you will need to do is create a free account on the Technorati website which only takes a few minutes to do and you will then be able to list every post on your entire blog and other members will be able to add your blog to their list of favourites.

As more people link to your blog and add you to their list of favourites your ranking will increase and so will the traffic you receive. This is important because there is a huge amount of free traffic available if you can improve your rankings so you need to create a free account and register your blog to benefit from the incoming links you will receive.

Every time you post new content on your blog you will need to tag it using a special link which will help Technorati categorise your content and group all posts with the same tag together with the most recent at the top. Whenever someone searches for the keyword phrase that you have used for your tag your post will appear in the results pages of the Technorati website.

There is no limit to how many tags you can use but if you use too many your blog can start to look ugly so its best to use less than ten. To help save space you can use the smallest font size available for your tags and you can also use anchor text so that only a few words will show and not each link.

Its also very important that you use relevant tags for each post that you make on your blog because you don't want to risk losing your account for targeting unrelated topics. There really is no point in using unrelated tags because the traffic you will receive will not be interested in your content because its not what they were looking for.

Another feature you will want to use on your blog is the link for people to add you to their list of favourites and its best if you place it in the side bar of your blog either by using anchor text or by using an image. The more people who favourite your blog and the more incoming links you get will increase your authority score (which improves your rankings).

The last thing to remember is that the success of your blog will depend on how good your content is so its essential that you only use high quality articles that are relevant to your website. To make it profitable you should customise your blog with recommendations for products or Google Adsense ads. You can also add a subscription form in the side bar if you want to collect leads for your opt in list.


To see an example of how to use Technorati on your blog just go here: http://www.marketingoasis.com/blog/

This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Simon_Akers