Start a Home Based Business in Retirement? Part 1 – Will a Home Based Business Solve Your Problem?

Congratulations. You’re retired and you thinking about starting a home based business.You’ve probably heard that at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting each person gets up and starts his talk by saying, “Hello, I’m __________ and I’m an alcoholic.”What they’re doing is admitting they have a problem, and they want help and support in solving it.Well, now that you’re retired, you’re reading this because you have a problem, so say aloud “I’m retired, and I have a problem.” That’s right; the first step in solving your problem is to admit that you have a problem.Perhaps your problem is:

Your retirement nest egg has been severely hurt by the drop in the stock market, or You can’t afford to take the vacations you want to take, or You have trouble paying your bills, or You’re just bored.

 
Whatever your problem, you’re wondering whether starting a home based business is a solution for you, and if it is, which business opportunity should you select, and what do you have to do to make it successful enough that it solves your problem.I started a home based business because my wife had a serious accident, and I needed to spend more time with her at home. I solved my problem by starting a home based business. Before making a decision, I thoroughly researched all the data available, so I could make an informed decision.I spent months collecting data. Hopefully, by giving you the results of my search, you will find your answers in a much shorter time.Briefly, what I found out is that a home based business can be a way to solve your problem. A great many people are making a very good living from their home based business, but many, many more are not only not making money, they are losing money.People lose money because they believe the hype that it is possible to make a lot of money in your spare time without any expertise and with very little expenditure of time and money. When they find out that this hype is a lie, they give up.A home based business is like any other business. You can make a lot of money in a home based business, but like any other business, it takes hard work, marketing skills, and an investment of time and money.Also, you can run a home based business part time, but you can’t run it in your spare time. You have to dedicate a specific amount of time to your business, and allocate that time to the various tasks that you must do to have a successful home based business.The key to a successful home based business is (1) using modern marketing methods and (2) finding a mentor who will help you get started. If you do these two things, you can succeed in any opportunity you choose. However, for a retired person, some opportunities are better than others.In succeeding articles, I will discuss these points in more detail.As I said at the beginning, you probably are looking for help and support to solve your problem. If you want help in solving your problem, don’t hesitate to email me, and I will do my best to help you.

Starting A Home Based Business – 3 Tricks For Faster Success

Are you ready to start making some extra money on the side, or even to start earning a nice full-time income all from the comfort of your own home? If you said yes, then you are not alone, as more and more people are turning to their computers to start earning a living from home. Even though it is simple to get started, it is not easy to succeed. There are some very confusing messages out there of what you should actually do in order to achieve success when working from home, and most of it is incorrect. If you want to achieve success in your home-based business, you absolutely have to get advice from someone who has been there and done it already.With that said, let’s take a look at what my top 3 tricks are for achieving success in your own home based business:Trick #1 – Sell electronic productsIt is so easy to sell information products online (ebooks, MP3′s, etc), and if you have anything you can share with others, then you have what it takes to make it in the information product business. Millions of people are searching for solutions to their problems online every single day, so if you were to create some simple products then you can sell them online and keep 100% of the profits. On top of the ease of selling these products, there is no need to store them in your home, and the cost to send them to your customers is free, since they are sent electronically.Trick #2 – Treat your home-based business like a real businessMany people make the mistake of assuming that a home-based business is somehow easier to run and make profitable then a brick-and-mortar business, but if anything it is actually harder. You are essentially creating something out of nothing, so if you want to be successful, you should be prepared to work long hours for quite some time in order to become established, build your reputation, and become profitable. One of the great things about a home-based business in today’s world is that you can become profitable almost immediately since there is very little overhead involved in your start-up.Trick #3 – Don’t be afraid to failOne of the most common causes of failure in starting your own business is the fear of making mistakes and failing. If you want to make it in business, you have to have the guts to go outside of your comfort zone and just go for it. Don’t be afraid to seek the counsel of someone who has successfully started their own home-based business already, as these people can help you to significantly cut the learning curve and therefore become successful much, much faster than if you tried to figure it all out on your own.

Home-Based-Business: How to Be First and Get Deals With No Competition At Every Garage Sale!

How can you be the first one to every garage sale, every time? How can you get their first, and still get the absolute best prices? How can you just flat wipe out any competition? How can you make a big business out of buying garage sales? Find out right now!I cleaned out my shop last month – it made me think about garage sales. We (my wife and I) have also been business partners for 30 years. We have always been fascinated by business and business marketing, even on the micro start-up level. As I cleaned out my shop, I had the following thoughts a home-based-business based on garage sales.Thought #1: Make an offer they can’t refuse. If you have just one or two thousand dollars in capital to start your home-based-business, you can go to almost any garage sale, survey everything there and make an offer on all of it.This is true today, but it would have been risky home-based-business not that long ago. Simply scan the stuff for the most valuable items. Write down what they are. Walk town the block and get on the internet and check eBay’s Completed Items category to check the actual value – this will show you what actually sold.Garage Sale Home-Based-Business Thought #2: Make the offer for everything. Make your offer is based on the value of the key items, but take everything. You may not want to take everything, but by offering to take everything, you’ll get all the small stuff for free or nearly free because you are taking the problem away for the seller.In other words, do what others won’t and you’ll win. No other buyer is going to mess with the small stuff, so their offers on the good stuff will not have as much value as your offer.You may be saying to yourself as you read this that you don’t want to deal with the little junk – I understand that. However, if you just set up a simple sorting system and donate what you don’t want to resell, you’ll get great deals from the sellers who REALLY don’t want to deal with the small stuff. Dealing with things fast and right is what being in a real home-based-business all about.Garage Sale Home-Based-Business Thought #3: How can you eliminate the competition?How can you always be first to a garage sale without competition? Run Craig’s List ads that say, “I’LL BUY YOUR ENTIRE GARAGE SALE NOW!” Place it in the “wanted” category. In the body of the ad, tell them you’ll pay a price that will make them happy and you’ll take everything to save them the trouble of having a garage sale – you can even offer to sweep the garage out in the bargain. Why? The more you make it a “service” the more seriously your offer will be considered. In fact, it would be good to use the word “service” in everything you do with your new home-based-business.Why? It’s because we are all human. If someone wants to help you, even if they are buying everything you have at a bargain, you’ll be more inclined to think kindly of them and accept their offer. Contrast with the hard and crusty professional buyers you see at garage sales who are simply trying to make low ball offers on only the items they want. You want to be providing a service – the service eliminating all of the hassle for your customer.What are you risking by softening the blow of your offer by offering to sweep the garage? The vast majority will appreciate the offer but won’t have you sweep. Why? It’s because most of them are neat freaks – that’s why they are selling everything at a bargain! They just want to get to the good part, the part they like, cleaning up.This is important: Please understand this – you are advertising to people who are thinking about having a garage sale. You are offering to save them time because they won’t need to have a garage sale at all, because you’ll take all of it. Can you see how you won’t have any competition? You’ll be the only buyer there because you’re there when they are just in the thinking stage – just thinking about having a garage sale!WARNING:Always think in terms of massive action when it comes to business. Advertise on CL and your local throw-away paper like The Penny Saver. Also, make up a flyer and make 5,000 copies for very little money by finding a printer online. Put out 1,000 at a time and see what you get. Be sure to use the same language – you want to buy their entire garage sale of items.Buying at garage sales and reselling on eBay and CL always sounds like a tiny business. STOP thinking small. You could get rich fast doing this home-based-business.What should you do next?

Reasons Why You Might Need a Property Management Company

Having a rental property can be overwhelming for any landlords or owners. And one of the biggest decisions that you can come up with is whether you should hire a property manager to look after your properties. There are many factors that may influence a property owner’s decision it may be his or her accessibility to the property they own, their availability to manage and check their tenants and if they can afford the cost of employing a professional property management firm.

If you live near your property you will be able to keep a close eye on things. Also, you will be able to visit your rental property on regular basis which is required for maintenance, inspections, and collections. On the other hand, if you live further from your rental house or apartment it would cost you so much time and money to visit it regularly. Scheduling a monthly visit to check the condition of your properties and tenants and responding to their calls in the middle of the night can be burdensome for landlords. A property manager can make these things easy for you and ensure you that your property is taken care of even if you are in the comfort of your home.

Not every one of us has the special gift of negotiating with people under pressure. At the end of the day it takes a professional person to handle the ups and downs of your business. Aside from collecting the monthly rent and making a regular inspection and maintenance there are more other problems that may encounter everyday that can push people to their limits.

As the number of rental properties you own increase the more problems you will face as you manage your own properties. Many investors with large portfolios take advantage the service of property managers. It would be more efficient to hire the skilled people to take care of your investments. Moreover, if you do not have the experience in home maintenance and repairs they are the one who can help you get things done. And with the help of a professional property management company you can ensure that the work is done well in timely manner.

Another advantage of hiring a property management firms is they can help you in advertising, fielding calls, help you find a good tenant to decrease your vacancy rate. They can also help you handle the accounting and keeping records for your property.

Customer service is very important in rental property business. We know that each tenant requires attention even to their smallest concerns. The management team you respond to your tenants when an emergency happens in your property. They can quickly fix your property and handle problems immediately. Furthermore, they can help you instantly resolve problems with tenants like late payments. They could also help you ensure that your property is run legitimately to prevent lawsuits.

Finally, your decision whether to hire or not a management firm to handle your business will depend if you are financially capable of employing one to manage your rental property dealings. Assess first the opportunity cost that you will be taking once you finally employ a property manager.

Before you decide if you will hire an expert in managing properties think first if you really need them and if it will be beneficial for you to seek for their help.

Real Estate Law – What You Must Know

Real estate or Property law is one of the safest investments and people use it as an investment avenue. It’s not meant for attorneys and estate agents only. Every property investor should understand the basics of real estate law.

A good short note on the law can be of great importance to investors. Investors need to understand it relating to legal procedure that will help in a smooth transfer of title of the property they are acquiring or selling, and other relevant documents and procedures. Investors need to understand the financial implication in acquiring property and the guiding law.

Classification of properties and how basic property laws apply to investors should be the Interest of the investor. The law has different applications to commercial and residential properties and investors/sellers should understand this. The tax laws relating to property are some of the thing that would be of interest to investors. Investors should study taxes on properties; how loans are treated in relation to property law.

Tenancy aspect of the property law should be well understood by landlord/lady who wishes to rent out their property. Investors should not put all their energy on studying the law alone and leaving the investment aspect of it. The law should be left for the expert in this area such as property lawyers and property brokers.

Understanding the various legal terms referred to in property laws can also help you in not only enhancing your understanding of real estate but also help in making your conversations with property attorneys/agents really fruitful. The laws are different from state to state across the country but the basic laws are same especially property tax. Property tax also changes over time but any major changes will be published in the newspapers and any other print media. The law is what any investors must know as a guide to real estate investment

Olusegun Kayode is a Lagos Based Real-Estate Consultant and a Freelance Writer

How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.

Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.

Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

A Guide on Successful Product Creation and Internet Marketing

Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.

The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.

It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!

With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.

With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.

Considerable Factors Involved in Product Creation & Marketing

The niche you have chosen should allow creation of more than one product or service. With the technological advancements in the hosting industry, from automated control panels and scripts that simplify creation of accounts, to complete turnkey solutions; there is no need to worry about spending time on the real products sold to the customer. The main ones are keyword selection, sales copy principles, graphics, affiliate programs, product creation, online payment processing, auto responders, and search engine optimization.

Once you’ve earned money from this type of information product business, you can invest in the creation of your own products if you want, or start offering more informational products that allow you to sell your knowledge. But the creation and production costs of a similar big ticket in sequence product, although higher, are still pretty low. A key by-product of this process will be the creation of 3-D, Computer Assisted Design art.

The Association for Financial Professionals permits the following activities for repatriating funds: Research and Development activities, advertising and marketing programs, hiring and training new recruits, acquiring patent and other rights to intangible property, improving transportation, funding capital investments with the purpose of job creation and job retention & funding product responsibility or environmental claims.

It prohibits certain activities like: Tax payments, Payment of executive recompense, Payment of dividends, Redemption of stocks, Debt investments and Portfolio investments. Therefore, before repatriating the money, you must consider whether it is worth or not.

Checklist on what artist and product development necessitate includes: Exceptional vocals, musicianship and/or songwriting skills, Continued education and enhancement of musical skills, Quality equipment, Performance ability, Image creation and maintenance, Plan of action, goal setting, excellent promotion materials including photographs, press releases and artwork, Business management skills, Marketing, Publicity and Promotion knowledge, Online and Offline Professional management, Basic knowledge of recording, producing, engineering, and mastering, Basic knowledge of manufacturing, distribution, and sales online, brick and mortar and air-play, Good choices in members, staff and advisors, Physical and mental preparedness, Basic knowledge of finances, accounting Law and legal issues etc.

The goals for doing so are for the product owner to: Communicate the whole, Determine and communicate when releases are needed, Determine what functionality is sufficient for each release & focus on business value derived from the releases. The delivery team on the other hand will see the whole, learn about the steps to realize the vision, learn the business priorities, provide technical input to the roadmap and provide estimates for the projected features. The salesperson must lead the prospect through the various decision criteria needed in order to secure a sale. Whether your idea is the development of a product, launch of a service business, or even the creation of an event or program for a non-profit, creativity is the root of all entrepreneurial efforts starting with the vision itself.

People quickly learn to spend their time on marketing and product creation, rather than repetitive tasks. Apart from empowering companies and individuals, there should be a particular focus on identifying labor intensive businesses that have the potential to make a significant and positive impact on employment creation as well as those businesses that have a product or service offering for export markets with the final objective of booming local economies.