How To Start A Business In Your Own Home And Make Big Bucks

In these times, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get by or make ends meet with just one source of income. Thus, more and more people are investigating the possibilities of, and indeed, the idea of, starting their own extra-income businesses. Most of these part-time endeavors are started and operated from the comforts and privacy of these people's homes.

Most of these people are making the extra money they need - some have wisely and carefully built these extra income efforts into full-time, very profitable businesses - while some are just keeping busy, having fun, and enjoying life as never before. The important thing is that they are doing something other than wait for the government to give them a handout, to improve their lot in life - and you can do it too!

The fields of online products and services (information products, eBooks etc) mail order selling, multi-level marketing, and in-home party sales have never been more popular. If any of these kinds of extra-income-producing ideas appeal to you, then for sure, you owe it to yourself to check them out. But, these aren't the only fields of endeavor you can start and operate from home with little or no investment and learn as you go. An hour or so searching on Google will give you countless ideas.


The first thing you "must" do however, is some basic market research. Find out for yourself, first-hand, just how many people there are - particularly in your local area - who are interested in your proposed product or service, and "would be willing to stand in line to pay money for it." This is known as defining your market and pin-pointing your customers. If after checking around, talking about your idea with a whole lot of people over a period of one to three months, you get the idea that these people would be paying customers, then your next effort should be directed toward the "detailing" of your business plan. The more precise and detailed you write out such a plan - covering all the bases relating to how you'll do everything that needs to be done, and when - the easier it's going to be for you to attain success. Such a plan should show your start-up investment needs, your advertising plan, your production costs as well as procedures, your sales program, and how your time will be allocated. To often, enthusiastic and ambitious entrepreneurs "jump in" on an extra project and suddenly find that the costs are beyond their abilities, and the time requirements more than they can meet. It pays to lay it all out on paper before you get involved, and the more detailed you can "see" everything before you start, the better your chances of success.

Assuming you've got your market targeted - you know who your customers are going to be and how you're going to reach them with your product or service offer; and you've got all your cost as well as time requirements itemized - the next thing is to set your plan in motion and start making money.


Here is the most important "secret" of all, relating to starting and building a profitable home-based business - Regardless of what kind of business you start, you must have the capital and the available time to sustain your business through the first six months of operation on the basis of not taking in any money. Most importantly, you must not count on receiving of spending any money coming in from your business, on yourself or for your bills, during those first six months. Any and all the income from your business during those first six months should be reinvested in your business in order for it to grow and reach your planned first year potential for it.

Best of luck!

Bring Your Presentations To Life and Get A Standing Ovation

Presentation techniques are the tools that help us to bring a page of written text to spoken life. They are the means by which we animate words, inject interest and build audience rapport. Learn the following 7 techniques and you'll have your audience clinging to every word you say.

1. Speak To Their Ears. Remember that your audience receives your words through their ears. They aren't reading it. That's why you should continually ask yourself, "how will this sound to my audience?". In particular, you should check for…
• the use of jargon, technical and bureaucratic language, long phrases and gobbledeegook. Avoid them.
• specific meanings: "next Friday" is better than "soon".
• concrete words rather than abstract words: "microphone" is better than "sound amplification facilities".
• Anglo-Saxon rather than Latinised words: "talk" is better than "communicate".

2. Use Conversational English. Speakers who lack the confidence to speak directly to their audience tend to lean heavily on their prepared texts.
This creates the risk of speaking the written word which can sound artificial and stilted. Conversational English on the other hand is natural and flowing. By creating the feeling of a personal chat, the conversational style helps to build audience rapport.



Idiomatic, conversational English is distinctly different from written English. It allows for occasional ungrammatical and incorrect use of words and sentences, as long as the meaning is clear and sounds right. You would not, for example, say the grammatically-correct "For whom is it?" in place of the colloquial "Who's it for?"

3. Make Everything Make Sense. One of the most important points to remember about a presentation is that written English does not always make the same sense to a listener as spoken English. When we read written English we go at our speed and can pause, go back or jump ahead. When we are listening, we rely on the speaker to make sense for us. Notice the difference between these two ways of expressing the same sentence.

Not: "The user will no doubt be familiar with the consequences of a machine failure at difficult moments."

But: "I expect you know the sort of thing I mean. You're right in the middle of something worth saving when, Phut!, the whole damn thing goes up in smoke. Before your very eyes..."

4. Signpost Where You Are Going. The technique of Signposting, or Labelling, can be used throughout a presentation. Signposting, like the signs on a street, is a way of letting the audience know in advance what is coming next in your talk. It is used to tell the audience what you want them to understand from it.


• we can signpost the whole talk when we start: "I'd like to do three things this morning. First, I'd like to look at our current position; then our plans and finally, the costs."
• we can signpost a sub-point: "My second area is to look at plans. First, this year's; then next year's..."



• we can signpost any issue: "Let me give you an example of what I mean..."
• we can signpost the end: "Just one more point before I finish..."

Audiences appreciate signposting because it helps them know where they are.

5. Use Jokes To Build Rapport. Jokes are a way of amusing an audience while at the same time sharing something with them. The point of contact is the shared laughter. If a joke works it brings you together; conversely, if the joke doesn't work, it pushes you apart. Jokes need to be appropriate, well-presented and, of course, funny. A blue joke from the Rugby club dinner speech probably won't work well at the annual conference of the Women's Institute. Equally a joke told badly where you miss your timing, tell it too quickly or forget the punchline is worse than no joke at all.

This joke told by Patrick Forsyth seems to catch the mood of a farewell speech:
"I remember the day after Nigel joined us and overhearing the impression he'd made on two young ladies from Accounts.
"Doesn't that Mr Green dress well," said one.
"Yes," replied the other. "And so quickly."

6. Pause For Maximum Effect. Some of the best moments in a speech are, surprisingly, those moments when you stop. Knowing when to stop is the art of the creative pause. It can work for you in a number of ways:

• to tease the audience, perhaps after a provocative question: "I bet you'd like to know how you could make a million..."
• to pause before the punchline of a joke
• to wait for an audience to settle after laughter or a general discussion
• to give the audience time to think (for example, when looking at a new overhead)
• to show you're in total control by holding the pause just slightly longer than you need to.

7. Show Don't Just Tell. Turning a simple presentation point into a narrative or story can entertain and involve the audience on a different level. It is a way of showing them not just telling them.

Not: "Our personal computer has three kinds of memory storage: the random access memory, the hard drive and the floppy drive."

But: "Designing the storage memory for this particular computer was always going to be a tricky problem. The first team to look at it was Rob James and Ellen Smith. After several experiments they discovered that they could build in a huge RAM but their problem was what to do with the hard drive. This was new territory. Neither of them had worked on anything like that before. First, they tried a separate box. No good. Then a new casing. Still no good. They were about to give up when news came from Japan about an amazing new microchip..."

Master these simple techniques and you'll raise your presentation expertise to heights you'd only just dreamed of before!

4 Key Points to Branding

Here are four things you should keep in mind as you build your company's brand:

1) Own the "Significant Thing": Dole tried to be all things to all people spend your time focusing on a single clear message. Mercedes-Benz owns " Engineering " in the car industry because it's focused on that singular message for decades.

2) Consistency is key: consistent presentation will ensure that your customers recognize you. Be consistent in the use of logos, taglines, visual elements, tone, and ad copy. Coca-Cola it is one of the most recognized brands in the world because they haven't changed in decades. Make sure your brochures, website, Direct mail, and all the other advertising have the same feel and message.



3) Make your message relevant: know your audience, know what they care about and how to speak to them. Make sure what you sell is what they need. Remember the conversation should always be about your audience, not you.

4) Use a strong offer to motivate: you want your audience to remember you and you want its members to buy from you. You need to move them to action. A strong offer should give them a reason to buy. Make the offer clear and appropriate for your brand.

Every time a customer comes in contact with your brand, they will have either a positive or a negative experience. Those experiences will add to their perception of your brand. Those experiences are recalled later when it's time to make a purchasing decision. How do you want your brand to be remembered when the time comes for a prospect to buy? You need to start building that positive perception today and do whatever is necessary to maintain it.

Good luck.

How do I Value my Small Business?

The problem with selling any small business ($500,000 and below) is how can a realistic value be put on the business. If a business is valued too high no one will be interested or worse value it too low prospective buyers will think there is something irregular. Also where it is listed for sale is important, EBay is a tremendous medium for certain things however fraud is common place.

Unfortunately there is no fixed system when it comes to valuing any private business, the IRS, Courts of Law and the Inland Revenue all use there own systems. There are also many wonderful mathematical formulas that can be used; however there is no fixed system. To be honest the whole system is complicated with no fixed rule apart from one. What price is a person is happy to sell a business for and what is the buyer happy to pay?


If you are either buying or selling a small business do not be afraid of negotiation, it is a natural process within business. There are many good negotiation techniques; Maitland Kalton of Kaltons Solicitors London is considered an expert in this field.

The following list is a simple aid to assist people who are interested in finding a value of a business, either for the sale or purchase.

1. Does the business have employees either full time or part time? Prospective buyers should be aware that any business in the UK which employs 5 or more people has specific duties in regards to Health & Safety.
2. Is the business purely an internet business? Be warned it is very easy for an online business to appear to be doing very well, when the truth is completely the opposite. This practice unfortunately is leading to the devaluation of genuine online businesses



3. Does the business have fixed assets or stock? It is much easier to value a garage where real estate and equipment can easily be valued, where as it is less easy to value a business with no fixed assets i.e. Legal specialists, Solicitors, Health workers etc.
4. Does the business have a full audit trail; it is surprising how many small businesses listed for sale do not.
5. What area is the business in; it goes without saying that businesses located closer to major cities are valued higher than businesses in a rural district.
6. What are the future growth prospects for the business?
7. Will the business require insurance/liability policies?

These are just a few factors that have to be considered, as you can see there is much more to take into account than how much revenue is generated by the business. I hope this short article has been of some assistance to any potential buyer or seller of any small business.