It wasn’t always as easy to start a legitimate home-based business as it is now with the advent of internet. There are numerous home-based businesses out there but the sad part is that there are even more scams. If you can weed out those scams, the possibilities of legitimate home-based businesses are limitless. I am sure that you know several such success stories where people started their home-based business and went on to become successful millionaires.In this article I am going to list top 4 legitimate home-based business opportunities available on the internet that can be started with little or no capital.Information Product PromotionPeople are hungry for information. There are thousands of paid information products available on the internet and marketers promote them every day as their full time business. If you are an expert on a topic, you can create your own product or you can promote other people’s products as an affiliate. Many websites provide affiliate programs where you can promote products created by other people and earn 30% to even 90% commission. ClickBank is one such website that provides a variety of good quality product that sometimes can also be very easy to sell because all the work from developing a product to creating a sales page has already been done by experts and all you have to do is send visitors to the sales page through your affiliate link. This is probably one of the most profitable legitimate home-based businesses.ServicesThere is a huge market on the internet for service providers and freelancers. If you have skills you can leverage on your entrepreneurial drive such as graphic designing, copywriting, web development or maybe you are a research expert – you will always be able to find a huge demand for your services.ConsultationIf you are an expert, having a legitimate home-based business should be no problem for you – you can provide your expert advice through consultation services. For instance if you are a child psychology expert or a business reputation management expert, you’ll find that there are plenty of people out there who need your expert advice and are very willing to pay for it. Usually social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are great places to build credibility and find clients who need your help. Having a business website and writing for different publishing networks as an expert is a great way to promote your consultation business.Blogging for MoneyThe best thing about making money with blogging is that you do not have to be an expert on your topics. Some bloggers would disagree with this but the fact is that there are many well monetized blogs that are not maintained by experts. You can monetize a blog by contextual and banner advertising using programs like Google AdSense. Lead based CPA offers – provided by sites like NeverBlueADS are also great for monetizing a blog. Another great way to monetize a blog is by posting paid reviews for other websites. There are different websites that can help you find clients who want to buy reviews on your blog. SponsoredReviews is one such service but there are many more out there. Last but not the least, you can promote affiliate products from your blog by posting reviews with your affiliate links. These are some of the reasons why blogging has gained so much popularity as one of the legitimate home-based businesses today.
Tips About a Home Based Business
Many people starting up a home-based business find it difficult to start working from home, especially if they have gone out to work every day of their working life.Having a home-based business is just like going to an office to do your daily work but without some of the negatives. You have flexibility in the working day because you spend less time travelling. For those new to a home based business are a few tips:-• Plan your working day and working week – so each day you know what you have to do before you start• Be disciplined – if your plan is to be in office at 9 make sure you are at your desk at 9• If your home-based business is part time and you only have, for example, a couple of hours a day to spend working, be disciplined and do those two hours a day – every day• The most important item you need when you have a home-based business is a desk – have an area of your home that you use as your office. It may be a spare bedroom, dining room or even a converted garage! Or you may be lucky enough to have a study already set up• You will need a phone. If you have a landline and want a separate number there are several options you may wish to look – internet phones or free phone numbers can both be obtained very cheaply• Access to the internet – a brilliant way to communicate with potential customers. If you have a Blackberry or equivalent then this will help you get started• Stationery – when many people start their own home-based business, they think they need letterheads, compliment slips, business cards and brochures. In most cases when you start perhaps the only one of these you will use is business cards – this may depend on your business. Don’t spend money on stationery unnecessarily until you need the items.• If you have family members in the house during the day make them aware that if you are in ‘your office’ and are not to be disturbed I have had a home based business for over 18 years, starting when I had two small children.I love having my office at home and I wouldn’t ever consider taking office premises. My office has a laptop, printer, photocopier, phones, radio – and more importantly no one to distract me! I think home-based businesses are the way forward, especially with so much work these days being done on the internet and with many having to pay for childcare.
Home-Based Business: Should You Start One?
You’ve asked yourself this question for the thousandth time. You’ve heard all the hype and skeptically turned your head away from the opportunity, only to find yourself attracted to it once again. You’ve seen the advertisements and laughed at the idea, but somewhere deep inside you wonder if it’s really possible.The question keeps coming back…Is it crazy starting a home-based business?With all the negative misconceptions surrounding home-based businesses, I feel it is important for you to understand the main reasons people start a home-based business in the first place. The purpose of this post is not to sell you on any one business opportunity or to convince you to even start your own business.The purpose is to help understand the mind-set of individuals who seek to create a different future for them self and/or their family. Perhaps you landed on this article, because you are looking for a better way to secure your future.Maybe you have already convinced yourself to start a home-based business, but are skeptical that you even have what it takes to succeed in your own business. Whatever your purpose may have been that found you reading this post, I hope you take away a fuller understanding of what led you to the world of entrepreneurship.It is well known that a home-based business is not everyone’s cup of tea. So, why do so many even venture into this career path?1. Dissatisfied With Current EmploymentHow many of you have walked into your place of employment bright and early on Monday morning and said to yourself, “I can’t wait for Friday afternoon to come!”? I can safely assume that the majority of you right now are raising your hand in your mind.There is no shame in feeling this way. Most of us live for our weekends, when we can relax with our families and get tasks completed from our to-do lists. We can sleep in past 6:00am and go to bed later than 9:00pm.Weekends = Freedom.Now, many are perfectly content with staying in their current 9:00-5:00 job. This is okay, because this equates to familiarity and stability for so many.For others, however, they are dissatisfied with their job and with the restrictiveness of its expectations. They are tired of missing birthdays and holidays, vacations with the family. We spend more time with our co-workers during the day than we do with our own family and friends.Activities and events are all planned around our work schedules and, many times, it is easier to just cancel the event than to try to request the time off from work.Now, there are two types of individuals who are dissatisfied with their current employment: those that are hungry to do something about it and those that will continue punching that time card. Again, it is respectable to stay in one’s current job, because they are taking care of their responsibilities and, possibly, working hard for that next promotion.However, for those that are hungry to make a change, starting a home-based business has proven to be the answer to their problem.As a home-based business owner, you make your own schedule and you dictate the amount of time you are able to spend with your family and friends. You are afforded the luxury of time, because there is no boss to report to but yourself.2. The EconomyIt is no secret that the state of today’s economy is one of uncertainty. Property values have fallen and unemployment rates have risen. Recent college graduates struggle to find employment, after racking up thousands of dollars in student loans. More and more families have to apply for government assistance just to meet their most basic needs.We are currently in the middle of a presidential election year and what has been a significant focus of both campaigns? The economy.With the current state of the economy, more and more people are looking for ways to secure their financial future, because they are not confident in placing this in the hands of their employers and of their government.With a home-based business, many have been able to start building a financial cushion for them self and for their family and all from the comfort of their own home. This is especially suitable for those currently employed and/or have families, as they are able to grow their business part time if need be.3. Financial Freedom & SecurityWith a home-based business, the potential to earn a significant amount of money is so much greater than with a traditional job. In a regular private or government job, the only way to increase your income is to obtain a promotion or get hired in a higher paying job.With a home-based business, your efforts and commitment truly does predict the amount of money you can earn. There is no interview, there is no politics. There is simply your ability to reach the maximum amount of your target audience (your ideal consumer) and be able to attract them to your product or opportunity.The dream of financial freedom and security is realistically attainable, and more individuals are recognizing this potential within the home-based business industry. Financial freedom and security is important to many in various ways, but there is one common benefit to all: the opportunity to live the lifestyle one has always dreamed of.
Inactive and Active Real Estate Agents in Ontario Who Park Their License – Explained
Before getting into the explanation of an inactive agent and an active agent we will begin with a short summary of how the real estate Brokerage system works in Ontario. We will refrain from getting into too much detail and thus the following will be a very simplified version.
In Ontario we have a Brokerage governing board called R.E.C.O. or the Real Estate Council of Ontario. A Brokerage is registered with R.E.C.O., pays its fees and dues which include errors and omissions insurance and is then ready to trade in real estate in the Province of Ontario only. The Owner/Broker may work alone as a single entity or invite licensed real estate salespeople and Brokers to join his or her Brokerage Firm and trade in real estate on behalf of the Brokerage.
A real estate Brokerage in Ontario may apply to become a member of its local real estate board. If accepted, the Brokerage will pay the board fees and dues which may include fees and dues applicable to the Ontario Real Estate Association and the Canadian Real Estate Association. If this option is taken by the Brokerage, then all the registered realty agents with this Brokerage must also become members and pay their applicable fees and dues to the said board and associations. In very rare cases, the Brokerage will cover these fees and dues for selected agents. The difference between being a board member or not is, the board members will have the privilege of all the services available to them from the board and associations including the multiple listing service which has proved invaluable to the real estate full timer and professional.
So, what is an inactive real estate agent? Simply put, an inactive agent in Ontario is one who is licensed under R.E.C.O. and for whatever reason has decided that he or she will not be trading in real estate and has not been doing so for a specified amount of time. There are still many agents in Ontario who remain with their current Brokerage and if that Brokerage is a board member, then even though an agent is inactive, he or she may still be paying fees and dues. Fees and dues may also include their Brokerage monthly fees, desk fees, franchise fees and other expenses. Since this is obviously a big waste of money these inactive agents will seek other Brokerages that will allow them to park their license without the wasted expenses.
Here are some of the terms used when referring to a Brokerage that will accept inactive real estate agents in Ontario. “Park your license”, “warehouse my license”, “hang my license”, “hold your license”, “real estate license holding company or Brokerage”, just to name a few.
A real estate agent who decides to park their license will still have some fees to pay but the difference will save them hundreds if not thousands of dollars yearly. Some of the fees will be to R.E.C.O. like their license registration fees due every 2 years and the errors and omissions insurance will still apply. In Ontario, they must earn 24 credits in their continuing education requirements as well and these credits are due on renewal.
What about the real estate Brokerage that provides the license holding services? Here the agent must do their due diligence. Seek out a trusted and proven Brokerage Office who is not a member of any real estate board. Ask for the highest commission split available to you in the event you do sell a property or 2 or if you refer sales out to other Brokerages or agents you may know. Even though your license is on Park, and you are inactive, your license in good standing is still active. Make sure you do not pay any ridiculous desk fees, extra monthly fees, franchise fees etc. Having said that, there most likely will be a small membership fee applicable for their services. Shop around for the best deal but remember to keep the experienced Brokerage that park or holds licenses a priority to you.
Inactive then, refers to the actual agent who is not active in the day to day trading of realty properties. As long as the license is registered with the Real Estate Council of Ontario and remains in good standing, your real estate license is “active”. If you decide, as an agent, to become inactive, you now have a wonderful and money saving choice to transfer and join an Ontario Brokerage that you can park your license with. This Brokerage will hold your license and this will allow you the opportunity to keep your license active so it does not fall by the wayside and lapse or be terminated.
I shudder to think about if I had to go over the process and expense of getting my Realtor license all over again..yuk! If you now have this valuable asset and are thinking of becoming inactive for whatever reason, think hard about keeping your license active because you never know how valuable this asset will be for you in the future. Hang it, park it, warehouse it, hold it, keep it active! Good luck.
Always Bet on Safe Real Estate Investment Rather Than Quick Investment
Financial planning and investment is all about finding out where to invest your money so that you can get the best possible returns. Real estate investment has always been considered as safe because seldom the demand for real estate witnesses a dip. Property investment is the safest and there are strong reasons as to why it is given priority than other forms of investments like mutual funds, bonds, stocks and ETF. You can literally grow your money through property investment with minimum risk.
Investors skittish of stock market investments prefer to invest in the real estate market but there are many who have not yet got over the 2008 downturn. Scars of those days have not yet healed for many and they are not ready to invest just for the sake of property investment. They need strong and logical reason behind this investment; they prefer to wait it out rather than put in all their money hastily.
If you take property investment decisions in haste, chances are high that you will end up with something in your portfolio that would fail to produce the desired ROI. In property investment, only four different routes prevail; however, here we are going to look at only two of the most popular ones.
First: You can go ahead and invest in a rental property
Second: You can buy shares in the REIT or real estate investment trust
Buying the rental property is quite straightforward method wherein you buy a rental property and give it out on rent. However, this type of investment is not for everyone as many fail to juggle their professional lives and at the same time upkeep a property like a landlord. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain the property you buy unless you are using the services of a management company. You can obviously use the services of a management company but be ready to take a cut in your profits.
On the other hand if you invest in REIT, you don’t have to actually own a property on the ground and go into the landlord-mode. It operates just like a mutual fund and the only difference here is that it is property investment. The trust is a group of investors who make property investment and lets the individual investors buy its shares. The trusts are able to receive tax benefits as they pay a major chunk of their income to their shareholders. You can buy shares on public investments, which implies that your investment is quite liquid. You are ensured of regular dividends.
Two other methods of property investment that are often used by investors include notes and croudfunding portals.
Notes – You will be able to invest in second mortgages, paper notes etc. You can even sell or buy notes just like other real estate invest estates. The best thing is that there are no brokers involved in this.
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.