You and Your Website

Every business should have a website. It doesn't matter if you are a large corporation or a small mom and pop shop. A website provides you with the ability to reach customers far beyond your local boundaries.

As a small business owner myself, I have found that most of my customers come from areas far beyond my local surroundings. I have customers from right here in the East and from way out West. Without a website I could not have accomplished that.

When considering the type of website you will have, keep the following in mind:

• Hosting - I would stay away from free hosting sites. You've heard the old saying, "you get what you pay for." Most free hosting sites only offer you limited bandwidth and their uptime of your website is not adequate. Your website's uptime needs to be at least 98% of the time. You lose potential customers if your website can not be accessed.
• Necessary pages of your website include: Privacy page, Terms and Conditions page, Shipping & Returns page, Links page, About Us page, Contact Us page, FAQ (frequently asked questions) page
  
• Consider your colors. While you may like certain colors, your potential customers may be turned off by them. Do your research based on the type of products you are selling. See what your competitors are doing and if you see a common thread. If everybody else is doing something, there must be success in that area.
  
• Your website should embody a part of your personality. Give your website personality by designing with a little flair based on who you are. Of course, keep it professional

While your website is an important tool to help you grow your business, don't forget that you are more than just selling a product and service. Interact with your customers by offering newsletters and following up via emails. Your website is only as successful as your ability to interact with people

Organizing Your Business

While I'm struggling to keep my sanity during this 5 Day Cleanse that I'm doing, I still feel compelled to write and keep all of my blogs on focus so here's today's post:

A very important aspect in running a successful business is being organized. Keeping your important documents, invoices and financial records etc. organized will make you feel more in control.

In order to be successful working at home and running your business, you must be responsible at maintaining an organized records system. Since you are running a home business, you probably don't have the money at the beginning to hire an accountant do maintain all of your records. However, you should allow the accountant to complete your income taxes. Your sales tax returns, you can do yourself. They are not very difficult. If you are just a sole proprietor then you won't have to worry about this but you still need to be organized.

When organizing your important documents, follow these simple steps:

1. File paid bills, canceled checks and other documentation in a safe place in an organized manner utilizing file folders, filing cabinets or filing boxes. Ensure each file is clearly labeled
   


2. Categorize your receipts throughout the year so you don't have to go searching for them at tax time
   


3. Consider using a small business program such as Quick Books to keep track of sales invoices, expenses and inventory.

While I don't personally utilize a program to track my expenses, I do keep an excel spreadsheet and I file all of my invoices and sales receipts in an orderly fashion. I also have a built in program for my websites to track all of my sales, customer information and profit margin. This greatly helps to keep things organized and easily accessible. Of course, I wasn't always this organized and I'm still a work in progress but now I have less papers everywhere! Being organized only leaves one with a feeling of being out of control. Once you have organized your business documents, you have taken a very important step to setting the stage for your business to be successful.

Bartering for Business

When you first begin your business chances are you have very little money to move your business forward. The exception is that you already have a ton of money already at your disposal or you have taken out a loan. If that's the case you can still benefit from what I'm about to share to help you to save the money you already have.

There's a cool thing called bartering your services for that of another. There's no money exchanged but make sure to get a written contract drawn up so that there are no misunderstandings about the bartering services.

If you view the chart above you will see an example of bartering among different industries. To further explain bartering let's say for example you have started a website design business and you need advertising to give your business some exposure. You could reach out to an advertising business and "exchange" services with them. You would design or offer to enhance their website and in turn they would provide you with some free advertising on their website or other form of media.

The important thing to know about bartering is that while it can be a successful relationship with another business, make sure that the services they are offering you are of equal value to you. Once you have come to a mutual agreement on the type of services bartered, length of time etc, with the other company, bartering can be very successful for you both.

Build Relationships

The cornerstone of any successful work from home business is relationships. If you go into business for yourself with the attitude that you are just "in it to win it", you may be sadly disappointed. Nothing breeds failure like self-centeredness. Not only that, but it's important to recognize that there's always someone better at what you are doing than you are and it is wise to leverage relationships so that you can draw from others strengths as well as have them draw from yours.

I don't have much to say in this post because not only are words precious and not to be wasted, so is time. So, I will wrap up today's Work From Home Success Tips with this:

Recognize your limitations but also your strengths. Share with others what you are learning and learn from what they have already learned. Be open to change and remember you were not put on this earth for business or any other purpose so you could be a lone ranger. You were put here to develop relationships. Do so in business and you'll find more success.

Count the Cost

Before becoming an entrepreneur in action, there is one thing you must do if you are going to succeed. Before you go out and rent office space, before you go shopping for supplies and buying advertising, you MUST count the cost.

Any venture that is entered into should always begin with counting the cost. Now when I say counting the cost, I am not necessarily talking about the monetary cost. While ensuring that you have the proper financing in place is very important, BEFORE you even do that, you need to count the cost of how much time you are going to need to work on your business, how much time are you going to have to take away from your family and other things you need to and want to do. You also need to count the cost of how much sleep you may need to lose.

When starting your own business working from home or even outside of the home, you will need time to plan your business (create a business plan or have one done for you). What are your goals, short term and long term? You will need time to educate yourself and familiarize yourself with your market and your competitors.

The Bible says in Luke 14:28, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it" This is very wise advice that can be applied to anything you do in life but especially with respect to starting a business.

Until next time...

Earn a Healthy Residual Income Selling Essential Oils

While there are many choices of work at home jobs, you must carefully consider what is most beneficial to you. Obviously compensation is very important. However, wouldn't you want to be able to stand behind the products you promote? Network marketing isn't just about promoting products. It's about relationship building. In order to build a relationship with people in network marketing and to show them the network marketing arena you've chosen to work at, you need to work with a company and/or products with proven success.

Young Living is a company that offers Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils and holistic health products such as toothpaste, deodorant, soap, household cleaners diffusers, and more. I am very impressed with this company and it's products. The therapeutic grade essential oils are just that, therapeutic. They have many health benefits, promote maximum relaxation and a host of other benefits. To top that off, there are tons of individuals with great testimonies.

Here's what a distributor of Young Living can expect to receive:

• Start a successful business based on a simple plan with extensive corporate support and training.
• Begin with minimal costs, unlike expensive franchises and other small businesses.
• Work part-time or full time; set your own hours so you can spend more time with family.
• Have access to successful people who are eager to teach you one-on-one.
• Enjoy residual income.
• Benefit from the tax savings available to small businesses.
• Build a solid retirement you can count on.
• Help your friends and family enjoy a better quality of life.

Visit: To Become a Distributor or Learn More about Young Therapeutic Grade Living Essential Oils Use Sponsor Number 1066504 to register as a distributor

I hope you join this very lucrative team.

Best
Michelle

Success at Home

It's been a while since I've last updated this blog. Busy busy with work!

Success is defined as the achievement of something desired, intended or attempted. When considering working from home, count the cost:

1. Is what you are doing now something you see yourself doing in the future?
2. Is what you you are doing now producing for you?
3. Are you happy where you are?
4. If you decide to work from home, do you have enough in savings to cover your expenses until your work from home job begins paying off?

These are all questions that you need to consider before working from home. Do not let any company convince you that you can just work from home and it's just that easy. Different people have different situations to consider.

For those without a source of "protective" income, perhaps consider work at home as a form of residual income and then if all pans out, you can move slowly into working from home full time. As a rule of thumb, don't quit your day job until your work from home business is producing enough income to cover what your day job was covering, for at least 9 months.