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10 Necessities For A Home Based Business
the Following are the fundamental actions in setting up for home based business success. 1. Attitude The most important thing to your business success is your mind-set. Treat your business like a business. This is critical whether you are working part-time or full-time. One of my colleagues is a mother who works from home around her family. She has always put her family first whilst at the same time developing her business. She says, "I work part-time, but I have a full-time attitude." Put differently, "For people with a hobby attitude you'll have a hobby income, for people with a business attitude you will have a business income." You can be successful working part-time and you can be successful working full-time however it is very doubtful that you will be successful working during your "spare time". 2. Working Environment You need a space that you can call your own, free from distractions for your scheduled work time. You need a comfortable chair and organized desk. Stationery supplies will no doubt be required. For example: - pens - highlighters - stapler - hole punch - sticky tape - note book(s) - a simple filing system - ring binders - manilla folders Consider the value of a broadband connection. Your time is valuable and having a broadband connection can assist you to get extra done in a given time frame. 3. Schedule Develop a schedule that works for yourself, your family (or "significant others") and your business. Whenever you allocate a block of your time for work then make sure you use that time for work. Equally essential is to schedule time for the other commitments - family time, self education such as reading, listening and viewing) "health time" such as exercise, cooking and eating, and leisure time. In these other times don't work. After all if one of the reasons to work at home is to spend longer with your loved ones then you don't want your working at home time to consume your family time. You are working for yourself and your schedule which you create is your "boss". Whenever you have people calling you or dropping around unexpectedly or maybe out-of-town visitors that may want to catch up with you then you need to make a choice. Are you fully commited to your own business success? What will be your choice in these situations? Only you will decide what is important to you. In any family environment you may require to negotiate with your partner and children to have your business time agreed upon, during which you will not be interrupted. Put this schedule prominently someplace so all family members are aware of your work schedule. 4. Describe Your Business Be able to explain your business concisely; a powerful 1 or 2 sentence description that someone can repeat in describing your business to others. A unique and memorable tag line can also be invaluable for promoting your business. 5. Know Your Product or Service Once you have chosen your product or service to sell, it might or might not be something which you use yourself, but you need to know your product intimately. If you are selling ebooks then know the content as well as its value. If you happen to be selling software then use it so you know it "inside out". You will develop a reputation of providing quality information, and because of your product knowledge you'll be able to become the preferred supplier. It is not realistic to use certain products (for example a woman may decide to sell man's shoes or vice versa) in which case the seller will not be a product user, nevertheless the seller can still be familiar with the benefits and features of the product intimately. 6. Administration Use good record keeping practices. This will likely involve a consultation with a tax advisor who can let you know about the optimal method to set up your financial records and what records have to be kept. Your advisor will even recommend "record keeping systems" and you can find out what software may simplify this aspect of your business. Additionally you need to obtain advice on the most effective arrangement for your bank accounts. You'll most certainly be advised to get a separate bank account. Additionally , you will need to keep track of your various logins, usernames and passwords. A very handy little software tool for this is Treepad available as either the free Lite version which doesn't have password protection, or the commercial Plus or Biz versions. For more info go to www.treepad.com There are other helpful tools for this as well from an easy paper notebook to free and commercial password keepers. One popular solution is Roboform that will remember your login details and can automatically fill out your login and other registration forms. for more information go to www.roboform.com 7. Computer Protection Your computer is the lifeline to your business dealings and needs to be protected as well as the data that is stored. You need a virus scanner, personal firewall, anti-spyware and anti-adware and if possible an email scanner with the ability to delete suspect spam email from the server before it will be downloaded to your computer. Some suggestions are: AVG Anti-Virus: http://www.grisoft.com Spybot S&D: http://www.safer-networking.org Microsoft Anti-Spyware: www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx Adaware: http://www.lavasoft.com/ Mailwasher Email Scanner: http://www.mailwasher.net 8. A Domain Name You will almost certainly need a domain name for your business and one cost effective registrar is Domain Cheapsters, http://www.domaincheapsters.com 9. Payment Processing You will require a way to process credit cards; that will mean using services such as: - PayPal https://www.paypal.com - 2 Checkout http://www.2checkout.com - Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com or others. This is by far the most economical way to get started. Once your business picks up you may require to look at your own merchant account for credit card transactions. Consideration may also be given to other forms of online currency such as eGold http://www.egold.com Lastly 10. Email accounts Once you have your own domain you should utilize an associated email account. This will further assist in your marketing of your business and promotes a more professional business image. As a final comment on continuing in your internet business, conduct your business ethically, give extraordinary service and be proud to put your name on the products or services that you'll be selling and you'll be on track to developing a sustainable long term internet business. 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