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Business Ideas

Small Home-based Business Ideas for the Work-at-home Mom

workfromhome_mom

Article Contributed by Hazel Mae

You want to be an always-available mom to your kids, and yet you also want to maintain your economic independence and continue to make contributions to the house bills and living expenses. How can you achieve these two goals without having to sprout an extra body to assist you? Being a work-at-home mom may be the answer to your dilemma.

Small Home-based Business

Setting up a small home-based business may be harder, but definitely more gratifying, since the benefits of your hard work all flow directly back to you. As owner of your business, there will be no middle man to take a cut off your hard work’s pay, plus, it would look great on your resume if in case you ever want to hit the job market again after the kids have grown up. Being CEO of what’s-your-company sounds productive and pretty impressive for a stay-at-home mom.

Here are some small businesses you can start at home:

  • Daycare Center/ babysitting services

– Not all moms have the choice to be able to stay at home to take care of their kids. As a work-at-home mom, you can offer piece of mind to other parents who have to work outside and leave their kids by having your own daycare center/babysitting services. Let their kids stay with you and your kids, caring for them all as you would your own brood. Other parents in your neighborhood would be surely relieved from worrying about finding the right sitter and will be willing to pay for a work-at-home mom they personally know to take care of their babies right.

  • Laundry Services

– Parents who work outside have to deal with travel time on top of all other tasks at work and those that they need to accomplish for their family. Maybe you can offer to check “laundry” off their to-do lists by offering this service. You can even offer the added perk of delivering right to their doorstep if you start marketing around the residents living in your neighborhood. Makes good exercise and exploration for you and baby, too. Just make sure you have your baby harness ready so baby doesn’t wander off while you’re busy transacting.

  • Mini canteen/eatery – people can be so busy nowadays, but now that fast food has earned such a scorching reputation, you can offer your own healthier alternative without the steep pricing of other high-end, so-called “healthy eating” restaurants/catering services.
  • Consultation/Tutoring/Coaching services – if you’ve had a specialized career before, especially if it’s related to law, health care, physical education, or if you know a foreign language or can at least teach basics such as reading, math and science, setting up your own consultation/coaching/tutorial services business might be right for you. Sessions can either be done via skype, email correspondence, chat, phone calls, and personal appearances, or a combination of all, whichever suits your client and your curriculum best.

Set up your home-based office

Setting up a business means you’re going to need some time and space isolated specifically for business or work purposes as opposed to mom or home duties. This sets a space that allows you to focus on getting things done.

What you’ll need:

  • Appropriate furniture

– Since this will be an at-home office, you don’t need to worry too much about getting expensive or designer furniture. Just a comfortable work desk and chair will do fine. Also, a computer desk beside your main work desk, or a convertible computer-writing desk will do just fine.

  • Wifi router

– This is a powerful force any business aiming to get big must not be caught without: an Internet connection. If online gaming is not going to be connected in any way to your business, then opt for a connection that’s decent enough for you to, in the very least, make video conferences with. If you can afford it, pick a wifi router that you can use at home and have a portable wifi device you can lug around with you when you have to go outside or travel.

  • Desk lamp

– Waking up earlier or sleeping later than everyone else in the household is a common way work-at-home moms actually get some work done after family duties time. Having a lamp ensures that you can keep a light on when you’re trying to get productive without disturbing the rest of the household. This is especially useful if you’re setting up your office or desktop near your child’s room or letting your child (especially if he/she is still a baby) co-share in your room. This also lets your spouse sleep undisturbed if your home office is sectioned off in a little corner of your master’s bedroom.

  • Smart phone

– As a business owner, you’ll more likely need at least two or more of the following necessities: an organizer, a calendar, an alarm, a notepad, a voice recorder, a mobile communications device, a portable document-editing device, a camera, video camera, a portable wifi-ready device, and the like. To have all these needs answered in one place, the best solution would be to get a smart phone with decent specs that you can use to conduct your business tasks with even when you’re on the go.

Emailing, texting, chatting, checking your social media updates, online conferencing, maneuvering apps, processing payments, setting up to-do lists and reminders on your calendar, recording pictures/videos of stuff for potential clients or business ideas, can all be done without cell phones, of course. But do you really need all the extra bulk of carrying around multiple devices? Just one do-it-all investment can help you achieve most of these things.

  • Decent laptop or business computer setup

– Have a desktop set up at home in your office that’s preferably separate from those for-home-usage devices. This ensures that your business files will be safe from the risk of getting wrongly accessed or getting lost due to malfunction.

Sharing computers or laptops with the household could expose your pertinent files to certain risks, especially if your kids play online games, browse in high-risk sites or download content from various unknown sources. To avoid getting your business information compromised, invest in getting your own for-business-only desktop or better yet, a good business laptop, for added portability.

  • Business phone line

– To avoid embarrassing encounters with clients calling and your children or tired spouse answering your professional calls, again, if you can afford to, invest in getting your home office a business phone line separate from your home line.

  • Mobile signal booster

– having a mobile signal booster ensures that you never run out signal or encounter communication problems. Running a business is a hectic job and you’re going to need all the stability and reach-ability you can get, especially when it comes to communication.

  • Website

– Just like having a decent business laptop and internet connection is a necessity, having a website now is also an investment any business owner would be wise to make. In fact, nowadays, it’s par for the course. Set up a website so you can have a platform for you to market your business to the world without worrying about advertising costs (unless you plan to do sponsored ads or posts).

A website must be an easily accessible portfolio you can showcase to more potential clients and it can also function as a passive advertising tool for you. You can go to bed, spend time with the kids or with your spouse, but your website will still be there, full of searchable and browse-able content that you don’t need to actively promote ALL THE TIME.

  • A business email

Fullname@company.com looks more professional than hottiemommyloveskids@hotmail.com doesn’t it? And actually getting a reply from katanderson@toddlertutorials.com or at least, katanderson_toddlertutorials@gmail.com looks more promising (and reassuring) to a potential costumer than hottiemommyteacheskids@hotmail.com now, doesn’t it?

  • Financial management software

– You’re going to need all the invoicing, money tracking and budgeting help that you can get. But to avoid hiring extra work force, you can opt for time-saving and money-saving software that can be found for free, or at least a more reasonable cost on the internet. App marketplaces have a lot to offer such as Wave Accounting software, Expensify, Mint.com, Square, InDinero and the like.

Conclusion

With the right information and tools together, all that’s left for you is to persevere against the ups and downs of  owning a business. Do not give up early in the game, when it’s more difficult and you’re only just beginning to get a handle on things. Rely on the staying power of your will to carry you through the challenges of managing both career and your parenting duties for the longer term. You just might become the next mommy mogul on the block that your kids will look up to.

About The Author

Hazel Mae does financial information research and editing full time for a multinational ratings company. She has also been a freelancer with at least 10 years of experience and is currently working as a content creator and marketer for MyAmplifiers, a leading provider of mobile signal boosters for small business and personal use. She also writes for Sourcing Pen and enjoys topics on business, technology, economics, finance, psychology, careers, productivity, motivation, music and writin

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Business Trends

The 6 Most Startup-Friendly Cities

indianapolis-visitors

Article Contributed by Ryan Currie

What makes for a great startup city? Definitely a relatively low cost of living (see ya, New York), lots of burgeoning industry, and definitely an available workforce, right? What about things like affordable office space and green space and even good public school districts? The things that make a city great for starting a business are complicated but a few mid-sized cities are just right, at least right now, for startups.

Here are six of the most startup friendly cities in the U.S. that you may have not considered…

Indianapolis, Indiana

Indiana? Yes, Indiana. Indianapolis has a lower cost of living for self-employed individuals than the national average and it’s got just enough residents to support new concepts, provide skilled workers, and even test multiple locations of a business. Office space is insanely cheap here and Indianapolis International Airport provides a streamlined hub for cross-country business travel. Angie’s List is Indy’s most famous startup.

Austin, Texas

What’s not to love about Austin? People love calling this part of Texas home and there are many, many opportunities here to exploit. Not only is Austin quickly becoming a tech-hub in the south, it’s a really insular culture for all things organic, music, and crafty. Austin has the lowest cost of living of any of the big tech cities (ex: Seattle, San Francisco, New York) and the area’s proximity to Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio make it a great startup city.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is currently undergoing a cultural revival which makes it an increasingly appealing place to live. Not only are there a lot of VCs and angel investors with outposts here, nearly 30% of the workforce has a bachelor’s degree making for a rich talent pool for startups to draw from. Carnegie Mellon University provides some great resources for local startups in Pittsburgh, too.

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville hits that perfect-population number with right around 2,000,000 residents and there’s more here than music. Interestingly, the city has proven to be a great home-base for food startups and biotechs. It’s incredibly low cost of living as well as low workplace expenses make it a haven for culture-loving big city types who need a cheaper place to launch their business.

Bend, Oregon

Bend has branded itself as a startup friendly city and you’d be hard-pressed to find an area offering more incentives for startup businesses. It’s proximity to Seattle, Portland, and the Bay Area plus several startup acceleration mentor programs in town, it’s a good place to be in business. Bend’s cost of living is low, the weather’s great, and the city even hosts an annual Bend Startup Weekend.

Denver, Colorado

Colorado actually has several startup friendly cities, but Denver’s the place to be. The fact that Denver hasn’t yet reached its tipping point (i.e. too many startups in too small an area, thereby poaching talent from one another) means it’s a good place to launch. People love living here and there’s no shortage of money or highly-educated professionals to draw from. Denver may just be the next Bay Area.

Ryan Currie is a product manager at BizShark.com, with 5 years experience in online marketing and product development.  In addition to web related businesses, he also enjoys the latest news and information on emerging technologies and open source projects.

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Recommendations

Guru’s Guide to Email Marketing 2013

email-marketing1

Article Contributed by Lyris

Email marketing continues to be popular with marketers around the world because it’s still one of the most effective forms of marketing used today. Email marketing programs are quick to deploy, offer immediate and easily measurable results, enable advanced customer segmentation and personalization, integrate well with other online and offline marketing, and deliver a high return on investment. In fact, email marketing out-performs every other channel on ROI and averages an impressive $40 for every dollar spent.

Guru’s Guide to Email Marketing 2013 provides a wealth of hints, tricks, and suggestions on how to increase the effectiveness of your email marketing programs, including utilizing best-practice based email manager software to give you a leg up. Before you start, however, it might make sense to get a good picture of where your campaigns are today by conducting an email marketing review. This review should include an analysis of key performance metrics, a look at any recipient feedback or surveys, a review of your website analytics, a comparison against internal and relevant external benchmarks, and a review of your creative treatment and content.

What are the most important metrics for your email marketing program? If you are a retailer, it’s probably things like conversion rate, number of orders, average order size, etc. For newsletter publishers, it might be net subscriber growth, referrals, and open rates. For companies sending corporate newsletters, it could be click-through percentages on specific recurring topics, links and subsequent conversions to information, or demo requests. The key, however, is that you determine the critical measures of success for your email marketing program.

Once your email marketing review is complete, you can use what you’ve learned to map out an improvement plan for your email marketing programs using the information in the guide.

Remember: the most important factor in successful email marketing is the list. No matter how good your offer or creative, if you don’t have a good list, you won’t get the response you want. By properly adopting a layered approach, as explained in the guide, your company will build the solid subscriber list so critical for email marketing success with the lowest possible budget expense. This strong foundation, combined with refined content, improved deliverability, and applying the principles of integrated digital marketing will generate better ROI.

Download Guru’s Guide to Email Marketing 2013 to learn more about email list manager tools and how to achieve optimal results from your email marketing campaigns.

Article Contributed by Lyris. Lyris ™ has over 10 years’ rich experience in digital marketing and is a global leader in this domain.

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Entrepreneurship

Overhauling Entrepreneurial Mindset: I Won’t Care, Will Spend Less, and Make More

Make-More-Money

Article Contributed by Lori Wagoner

How expensive is it to start a business?

Pop that question up and you’ll get a ton of answers. Most of these answers are either a reflection of what entrepreneurs already did or what they believe is the right thing to do.

However, not everyone starts off right. Some businesses make do with whatever they do and most others will fail. If you are reading this, it’s clear that you want to start or run your business to profit from it. For that to happen, you’ll need to overhaul your entrepreneurial mindset.

Here’s how:

Guts and intent come first. Money is secondary.

Peep into the world of business and you’d think that it’s the money that matters. The need for capital, the run for VC money, the applications for business loans, the thirst to raise cash from any means possible, and the sacrifices some entrepreneurs make to find monetary support to run their business.

Surprisingly, it’s not necessary.

For just as many accounts of these “cash runs” that entrepreneurs do, there are many enterprising businesses that start for less than $100, according to Chris Guillebeau who wrote the book The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love, and Work Better to Live More. Meanwhile, the debate whether you should stake your own money or raise cash will rage on.

The truth is that you need guts, confidence in yourself, the ability to sell, a tendency to take action no matter what, and a strong intent to get started in business.

Tip: Raise a business first; money follows. You’ll find a way to make it all happen.

Get a website up on the cheap

Don’t ever believe it when you read “You don’t even need a website” anywhere.

You do.

Doing business without a website is like going to a formal gathering dressed on the top (and with a tie) but without your shoes on – yes, it’s just as embarrassing when you sit across a client and realize that you don’t have a proper functioning website.

Today, it doesn’t take much to put up a website. This is the age of Instant Domain Search – register a name you like (finding one that’s available is a bit harder, though). Picking the right web host is one leap you shouldn’t make before looking – compare hosting provider options at Who Is Hosting This or CNET and go for one you think is best for you.

Unless you have an online retail model, it’s safe to choose WordPress as your CMS (you can’t go wrong with something more than 55% of websites in the world run) and buy a theme you like from ThemeForest.net. Get your logo designed, choose your brand colors, put a site content strategy in place, and start adding stuff. Now that your site is ready for clients, off you go selling.

Tip: For a website today, there are no excuses. Start with an inexpensive, but functional and beautifully website. You can tweak, redesign, and change it later.

Marketing collateral, branding, infrastructure and equipment

Jason Fried, in his book Rework, states, 

“In most cases, getting a fancy office is more for the entrepreneurial ego than for necessity.”

You can’t help but agree. What you certainly don’t need, especially when you are starting out, is a swanky office in an expensive location (unless you are in retail). You don’t need to hire employees right away, and you’ll certainly not have too many bills to pay.

Depending on where you live, you might have some basic setup expenditure like approvals and licenses as these are necessary. Apart from the basics, no money every goes out until you make enough.

Further, the best marketing tool you have at your disposal is you. Master the art of selling and you’ll find that you’ll never need to make brochures, flex banners, and expense-heavy advertisements when you are in beginning stages of your business.

Tip: Bootstrap like your life depends on it. If you have to spend, do it when you must or when you make so much money that it won’t matter then. 

I won’t care what happens. I got nothing to lose.

Since all you do is to run with an idea and not spend too much, you get into the “I don’t care” mindset – and that’s pure power. Dan Schawbel, a contributor for Forbes.com, interviewed Ryan Blair, the CEO and founder of Visalus Sciences and author of Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain.

Ryan reveals that “adaptation is the key to survival.” He says, “To be an entrepreneur, you got to have fighting instincts,” and also adds that he “hates writing business plans.” In his opinion, “the business plan is the one built from a business that’s already up and running.

Think about it: you won’t even hesitate when you have to pivot, you won’t be debt-ridden when your business fails, if ever. You won’t care if the world doesn’t appreciate your idea: if it works, you are a genius. If it doesn’t, you are one of those smart opportunists who dropped a business and started another one.

You exude power and confidence. You come in from the trenches. You radiate supreme confidence when you sit across customers and face them. When you are in this mode while doing business, you become invincible, unstoppable, and a rolling juggernaut that gathers business lessons along the way.

Go with “Worth Pricing”

It’s time to disrupt and justify.

Most of the markets you might enter into end up smothering in price wars and baseless debasement of product value (include services too). In possibly every market niche, you’ll find competition slugging price arrows to snatch customers away from you.

Traditional business literature teaches you to price according to cost of goods with margins slapped on it. You’d also price based on intrinsic value of products, or based on your time for your services.

Try something new: price according to what you are worth, or what the product is really worth, or what your services can do for your clients.

Here’s the biggest marketing secret: you’ll find customers at every price point. All customers, by the way, are demanding. So, why price low?

If you find yourself nodding in agreement because you agree, it’s good. If you realize that you did exactly that, you are on the right track. If you don’t agree, do let me know why in the comments!

Article Contributed by Lori Wagoner

Lori Wagoner is an independent content strategist who gives online marketing advice to small businesses. Lori has blogged at Tweak Your Biz, The Social Media Hat and many other business and tech blogs. You can reach her @LoriDWagoner on Twitter.

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Finance & Capital

Five Key Warning Signs That Your Business Is or May Soon Be Running at a Loss

Without the proper accounting and budgeting practices it can be difficult to ascertain whether you’re company is truly running at a loss (not making any profit at all) or operating a potentially profitable business that is simply experiencing temporary financial difficulties. Fortunately though, you don’t have to be a proficient accountant in order to recognise the key warning signs that your company could be, or may soon be, operating at a loss:

 1. Declining Profits and Net Worth for More than 4 Consecutive Quarters

If your books indicate a declining profit for a period of more than 4 consecutive fiscal quarters then you could be well on the way to running at a loss, if you aren’t already. Likewise, if your net worth is in a deficit, or based on earning trends it is scheduled to fall into a deficit within the next 2-3 years, you might already be operating in a state of insolvency. If you haven’t been keeping thorough track of your expenditure and income now is definitely the time to start, especially if you’re already concerned that the business could be failing.

2. Debts that Exceed the Value of Assets

Debt recovery professionals sometimes use a metric known as the current ratio, also known as the cash ratio, which represents the total amount owed in debts and liabilities versus the value of all cash assets (i.e. bank account funds, pending invoices payments, available cash flow, etc.). In short, if the amount you owe in debts and liabilities exceeds the total value of your assets then your chances of being able to get out of debt without significant restructuring are slim.

3. Declining Monthly Budget Cushion

The margin between how much income the business generates and how much it pays to service its debt each month is commonly referred to as the “cushion.” Failing companies tend to lose this cushion gradually as the business makes less profit and/or debts continue to pile up along with interest charges. If you’re noticing that the company does not have a lot of room for error each month this could be a sign that you’re right around the corner from operating at a loss on a monthly basis, and you could find out at the end of the year that you’ve already been running at a loss on an annual basis.

Experts recommend allowing a margin of error of no more than 20% in your monthly budget. If you find that you’re regularly exceeding your budget in operating expenses, or are unable to meet payroll expenses,  your company could be experiencing the early signs of trouble.

4. Engaging in Creditor Negotiations

If you’re finding the need to negotiate with creditors in order to keep them from taking your company to Court, chances are you’re very close to being declared insolvent, unless some type of outside financing can be obtained. When informal negotiations prove to be unsuccessful you may want to consider proposing a formal company voluntary arrangement (CVA) with the assistance of an insolvency practitioner.

A CVA offers a higher rate of approval than informal negotiations conducted independently over the phone or email because it is proposed by a licensed insolvency practitioner, and creditors tend to trust the opinions and proposals of a qualified IP more than a proposal made by the debtor directly.

5. Business Is Stagnant

When a company is failing to land any new contracts, solicit new clients, capitalise on investment opportunities, or progress in any way it is considered stagnant. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing if you remain stagnant at a satisfactory income level. However, when you’re already having trouble paying bills on time and in full, stagnant operations can lead to the expeditious downfall of your company after the loss of just one or a few key clients.

If stagnancy is a real concern you’ll need to consider some cost-effective restructuring and marketing methods to get things moving again.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that there are many more signs that could indicate your company is in trouble, but for the simplicity’s sake the warning signs above are the primary ones to look for.  If you’re dealing with any of the aforementioned issues you should take action urgently if you want to retain any hope of facilitating a recovery.