Working for the comfort of your own home sounds like an ideal situation. But there are some things to think about before trying it.
First of all, WHY do you want to have your own business? Do you think it will be fun? Do you need the money? Or do you just want a new challenge? Your answer to that question will determine your focus.
A lot of newcomers to Internet marketing don't enter into it as a business. If you're just doing it for fun, that's okay. But, if you really want to earn make it a success, you must treat it as a business.
It will be difficult. You will not only be the boss, but you will be the accountant, the assistant, and the administrator. You'll be doing it all, at least in the beginning.
The next step is to determine if you have the qualities that you need to work from home; some people do not. You must have the following qualities:
1. You must have the self-discipline to do the work that is necessary. That means not allowing yourself to watch television, read a novel, or take a swim in the pool while there are still tasks left undone for your business. Of course, those tasks are never-ending, but treat your work day just as if you were working outside the home: 8-5 or 9-5.
2. You should be able to totally focus on a problem from beginning to end to determine the best way to solve it. Problem solving is a big issue because problems will come up — count on it!
3. Organization is also important to a business. You should have the ability to organize your "office" space, whether it be an actual office or just a desk in another room. Paper and information will accumulate and you'll need a system to handle all the filing storage and information management.
4. You will also need to be able to communicate with other people. You'll have to be able to explain both problems that you are having but answer customers' questions about your own products.
5. And finally, you must be able to work hard. If you think that working for yourself will be a lot easier than working for someone else, you're in for an education! No matter what business niche you decide to go into, you will have "bosses" — someone will always be asking you to do something for them.
There are two more important tasks that MUST be done to make sure your business succeeds.
The first is to have a plan. Set goals and write a task list to help you reach those goals.
And most important: Take ACTION! You can plan all you want but if you don't take action, the planning won't ever yield any results.
If you've decided that you DO have the qualities that you need to have to succeed in owning your own business, then go for it! Have faith in yourself and your decision. Have the courage to keep on going when those inevitable problems arise. And be DETERMINED to make your business a success. Faith, courage and determination will lead to your success.
Now maybe the reason you’re interested in setting up a home business is because you’ve seen an ad somewhere, or you’ve been approached by someone. It was all about a great work-from-home money-making opportunity, and you’re excited. Finally, you can quit your job!
If you’re thinking of working from home by someone else’s rules, though, you have to realize that at least 99% of the offers out there are scams — after all, if it was that easy to pay a few dollars and make thousands, wouldn’t everyone be doing it by now? Here are the biggest scams out there, how to recognize them, and how to avoid them.
Location, Location, Location.
Where did you see that work from home offer? If you got it in the post, or by email, or saw it on a poster taped around a telephone pole, then I can guarantee you right now that it’s not a legitimate offer. If you saw the ad in a newspaper, in a jobs magazine or on a job's website, then it’s a little more likely to be legit — but not much. Always check out any offer, and assume it’s a scam until you have iron-clad proof to the contrary.
Envelope Stuffing.
This is the most established work-from-home scam, and it’s been going for decades now. Basically, once you pay your money and sign up to work from home, you’re sent a set of envelopes and ads just like the one you responded to. You might make some money if someone responds to your ad, but eventually there just won’t be a market for it anymore. Anyway, work from home offers like this are illegal pyramid schemes.
You won’t make any money putting letters in envelopes — get over it.
Charging for Supplies.
The practice of charging for supplies is hard to pin down to any one scam — it’s the way almost all work-at-home scams work (including the envelope stuffing, above). You’ll be asked to make a small ‘investment’ for whatever materials would be needed to do the work — and then you’ll be sent very shoddy materials that aren’t worth anything like what you paid, and you’ll find that there’s no market for the work anyway.
If anyone asks for money upfront, run. A real company should be willing to deduct any ‘fees’ from your first paycheck — if they won’t do that for you, then that’s because they don’t ever plan to pay you.
Working for Free.
This variation on the scam is common with crafts. You might be asked to work at home making clothes, ornaments or toys. Everything seems legitimate — you’ve got the materials without paying out any money, and you’re doing the work. Unfortunately for you, when you send the work back, the company will tell you that it didn’t meet their ‘quality standards’, and will refuse to pay you. Then they’ll sell on what you made at a profit, and move on to the next sucker.
Never do craft work from home unless you’re selling the items yourself. Note that you don’t need to be selling to consumers (you could be selling to wholesalers), but you still need to be the one deciding what you make and getting the money.
Home Typing, Medical Billing, and More.
There are lots of work-from-home scams that involve persuading you that some industry has more work than it can handle, and so has to outsource to people working from home. For example, you might be told that you’d be typing legal documents, or entering medical bills into an electronic database. These scams have one thing in common: they all say that all you need is your computer, and they all then go on to say that you need to buy some ‘special software’.
This software might appear to be from a completely unrelated company, but don’t be fooled — the whole reason the ‘work-from-home’ ad was there to begin with was simply as cynical marketing for the software.
As you can see, running a ‘home business’ that just involves ‘working’ for one company is a bad idea. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Here’s the clincher, though: even with entirely legal work-at-home offers that do pay you for your work, you still won’t make anywhere near as much as you can with your very own home business. So why bother with them at all?
Being of a perverse nature and having a tendency to question things, I decided to do some research on the derogatory term 'Luddite' (as in " what do you mean you're not going to upgrade to XP, you Luddite!"). A Luddite in conventional language these days is someone who is opposed to new technology. Using this definition, a dedicated Luddite would presumably do mathematical calculations using a stick and wet sand on the beach. Provided the stick wasn't manufactured, of course! Seems far-fetched, doesn't it?
As it turns out my natural instinct for smelling injustice was accurate. The Luddites were a group of English cottage industry craftsmen of the early 1800s who were fighting to retain their way of life. As we know, history is written by the victors, which in this case was not the Luddites. As a result the smear campaign of the time, promoted by the government and factory owners, stuck, and they were painted as idiots afraid of change. It is this dis-information that gave rise to the modern definition of a Luddite as a technophobe. What they were actually protesting was the destruction of their way of life by the introduction of large-scale textile factories.
And what an enviable way of life it was. Picture this, (please go to iTunes download and play 'Morning' from the Peer Gynt Suite), a small cottage in the bucolic English countryside. Butterflies flit from colorful flower to colorful flower whilst the birds sing sweetly in the lush green trees by the babbling brook. Inside the cottage the weaver is contently finishing his latest creation destined for the markets of Europe and because the price of his goods never changes, he knows how much he will be paid. His wife and children are happily helping him in his tasks. Pausing to refresh himself from his labors, he wanders out into the garden to check on the progress of the spinach, pull a few weeds out of the potato patch and throws the chickens some food left over from the family lunch..... I think I could cope with that!
So these craftsmen, faced with the life that they had built for themselves being destroyed by machine technology, petitioned parliament, but to no avail. Eventually they took more drastic measures and began to destroy the machines that were the source of their problems. They were not technophobes, they were people reacting to a very real threat to their idyllic cottage industry way of life. They did not target all technology, but rather those technologies that would have a negative effect on their lives and this is the point.
A quick look at the real history of the Luddite movement reveals that it was well-thought-out and that it was not change itself that the Luddites were afraid of, but rather the negative effects that the change would bring about. The Luddites predicted quite accurately that the factories would destroy their largely independent and self-sufficient lifestyles. Their movement was well organized and lasted for more than a year before the British army violently quashed it.
So a more correct definition of a Luddite would be someone who is against technology that does not enhance what it is to be human and someone who believes that not all technology is good technology — take the Pogo stick for example!! Luddites were not fighting against technology but the effects of technology on the quality of life. Do you remember what computers were going to do for the quality of life? The paperless office, all menial and tedious tasks were going to be automated and computerized, the average person would only have to work two days a week! Yeah! Right!
In essence most people are not much better off today than the textile mill workers of the 19th century who were locked in a factory away from their homes and families, with no quality of enterprise. It's just that today the 'Dilbert' cubical is air-conditioned!
The problems that the Luddites faced are still with us; the difference for us is that we were born in to them, so we think it is normal.
But good news. Thanks to computer and satellite technology a new generation of pre-Luddite entrepreneurs is emerging. In our droves we are reversing the movement, leaving the factories and starting home based businesses just like the weavers of old.
Thanks to appropriate technology, we have the opportunity to conduct business whilst packing the kids off to school, planting the spinach, feeding the chickens and maybe an afternoon delight between google-ads.
The computer has replaced the weaver's loom, the internet has replaced the traveling merchants, software has replaced the yarn, but I bet you we have the same aspirations for peace, joy and happiness as our ancestors.
So now is a good time to plan your escape from the open-plan office and work station that enslaves you 8+ hours per day, that you spend 1+ hours getting to and 1+ hours getting home from.
Create the lifestyle that you want, visit me and I'll show you a way.