Former Restaurant Owner Enters the Home Business Arena

One-on-One Coaching Makes Sense

Before Peter Vlahos decided to leave his “day job” and devote all his time to working from home as a business and marketing coach, he had taken the phrase “Hard Work Pays Off” to a whole new meaning. Only, he was still waiting on the “Pay-off” part.

Peter lost his father when he was only 6 years old. Being raised by a single mom, he was taught to work hard, and that’s just what he did.

At 29, he had already owned three different restaurants. He realized early on, that competing with all the food chains out there can make you a living, but all of his “living” was done in the restaurants. In 2005, he left the long hours of the restaurant business, to devote his time and knowledge of business management, and to become a district manager — managing multiple store locations in 3 different industries.

By age 37, Peter was married to Maria (pictured above with Peter) with two kids and a third on the way. “My life was good, but I wanted it to be extraordinary.  Both my wife and I were working very long hours and not spending the time we wanted to with our kids.” The anxiety of raising three children and the determination to create the life he wanted, pushed Peter to build a unique coaching business for home business folks that has not only replaced his previous income, but quadrupled it, and allowed his wife to stay at home with the kids full-time. “I had dabbled in a few MLM models as a way to add income to my existing paycheck and found that they all had one thing in common: Most failed at it.”

Peter quickly saw a need for hospitality, or “service,” in the home-based business arena, and he made a decision to be a home business owner and help others adapt these models to today’s simple, but effective, marketing techniques. “People are just MORE confused in a society of the Internet with all these new shiny biz ops. Unfortunately, nobody really provides any ‘real’ help,” he said. Peter is now using this unique business model and his love for helping people become successful, to teach others through 1-on-1 coaching sessions how to sit back and wait for the calls to come in. To learn more, visit: www.petescoaching.com.

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Why Crowdsourcing Is Riskier Than You Think

Research reveals the advantages and risks of crowdsourcing, and the crowdsourcers behind the content and ideas

This infographic can be found at https://www.itr.co.uk/crowdsourcing/

Crowdsourcing has proved to be a successful way for small and medium sized businesses to access services and skills online, which are otherwise out of their reach. Crowdsourcing can hugely benefit SME’s, but are businesses aware of the risks and pitfalls?

ITR.co.uk have recently created an infographic , based on the research they conducted, highlighting the pros and cons of crowdsourcing.

The potential risks of using crowdsourcing include the following:

• Without written contracts, you will need to be aware of any security issues
• It’s essential to closely manage your projects as it can become complicated dealing with a large pool of people without a system.
• Crowdsourcing is an open public forum, giving your competitors free access to your project ideas and content.

If you think that crowdsourcing could work for you company, you should take the time to familiarize yourself with the possible pros and cons, which are both featured in a new infographic by ITR.co.uk.

Are you aware of how your business could use crowdsourcing?

Research has identified that some of the most popular uses for crowdsourcing are as follows:

• Web development
• Translation
• Photography
• User testing
• Design work

This has made it a great way for start-ups and SMEs to access ideas and content that they otherwise might not be able to afford.

Research on who the crowdsourcers are

ITR’s research has revealed some interesting information on the demographics of those who partake in crowdsourcing.

• Over 50% of the workforce are millennials (people born after 1975).
• Over 50% of the workforce have a bachelors degree, with a further 20% achieving a masters degree.
• The majority of crowdsourcers are females.

The infographic also highlights some successful, and unsuccessful, crowdsourcing projects carried out by notable companies and brands.

Lego encouraged users to submit product ideas via a dedicated website. Any idea with 10,000 supporters was submitted to the company for review. Successful submissions include the Ghostbusters range.

However, crowdsourcing can also be unsuccessful. For example, David Bowie attempted to crowdsource a tour set list by allowing fans to vote for their favourite song. The project had to be scraped after fans decided to vote for Bowies’ early novelty single “The Laughing Gnome” from 1967, which reached the top position.

Once brands are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of crowdsourcing, the infographic suggests a number of dedicated sites that offer specific crowdsourcing services including:

• Flickr
• AmazonMechanicalTurk
• UTest
• 99 Designs

If you’re wondering whether crowdsourcing could work for your business, reference ITR’s infographic for everything you need to know to help you decide.

Notes for editors

ITR.co.uk specialise in localization and translation services for a range of technical content including software applications, online help systems, corporate websites and eLearning content.

Their services are geared towards stretching a client’s budget as far as possible, and with experienced linguistic teams in over 50 global markets, ITR guarantee complete end user satisfaction – whatever their client’s language requirements, business sector or file formats are.

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What is My Business Worth?

Valuing Your Home-Based Business
By Bill McBean

What is my business worth? It’s a question I’ve asked myself hundreds of times over my more than 40-year-long ownership career. And valuing your business, as an exercise, is a great thing to do from time to time — it gets you thinking and dreaming, which is not a bad thing. But it wasn’t until I started buying, expanding, and selling my own businesses that I really got a feel for what valuing a business means.

Now, after completing more than 100 buys/sells for myself and others, my understanding of value has become very clear.

When you start to value a business, whether you’re doing it because you’re selling or buying, there are three essential Facts of Business Life you need to bear in mind.

• The best time to sell a business is when you don’t have to, because that’s when it has the greatest value.
• If you don’t pick your own time to exit a business, regardless of why you’re doing it, something or someone else will, and that’s a value killer.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder — that is, the buyer — and the buyer’s banker.

These three issues have an overriding effect on your business’s value, and if you don’t understand their power it can be terribly costly.

In addition to these, however, there are a number of other important realities you must take into consideration when you begin to value a business:

* There are only two ways to sell, or value, a business — an asset sale or a share purchase — and the more you know about these alternatives, the better you will understand the business’s market value. An asset sale takes place when one party sells and the other party buys the assets of the business, free and clear of liens, so the seller is responsible for paying all income taxes, outstanding debts, etc. In other words, one business winds down and another begins. Most sales and business valuations are done this way. In a share purchase, or valuation, a buyer assumes both the assets and the obligations (liabilities) of the business. This is not a popular way to buy or value a business because there may be financial obligations that the buyer is unaware of, which can raise the cost of the purchase considerably. This method can, however, provide benefits for both the seller and the buyer and, if done skillfully, can raise the business’s net overall value.

*There are only three things to value in any business — goodwill or blue-sky, assets, and real estate. Goodwill is anticipated profits over a certain period of time, usually measured in years. Assets are those things, such as equipment, that can be valued at replacement cost, book value, or some combination, which is usually decided on during goodwill negotiations. Real estate is the value an appraiser puts on the land and buildings. And these are something every bank looks at.

*Accurate financial statements are a must for everyone concerned, including any bank considering lending money to a buyer. But your financials are not the only indicator of your business’s value. There may, for example, be more (or less) demand for your products in the future, and this will weigh on the business’s value. Similarly, if you are a big part of the business’s success, with you gone it may be worth less.

*Supply vs. demand may have a significant impact on a business’s valuation. For example, my friend Charlie Thomas owned the Houston Rockets and sold them in the mid-1990s. He told potential buyers that if they brought their accountant or lawyer with them to a negotiation they would be wasting everyone’s time, because the price he was asking didn’t make any economic sense. Even so, he got what he wanted, because Houston was the only viable NBA franchise for sale at the time.

*It’s important to learn as much as you can about potential buyers and their motives, because not all buyers are created equal. Some may be willing to pay more than others, which affects value. For example, buying your business might give a competitor market dominance, which would certainly make it more valuable to that buyer than others. Similarly, one competitor might pay more just so you won’t sell your business to someone else. In other words, you can increase your business’s value by studying the value “landscape” just as you studied the marketplace, and identify your best buyer — the one who will pay the most — even if he or she doesn’t realize it yet!

Whenever you’re valuing a company — whether as an exercise or because you’re thinking of either selling or buying, it’s a serious business. And, if you’re new to this area, you will need help. The first steps are finding a business lawyer who knows the rules of the road and is willing to explain them to you, getting an accountant who can tell you about your tax consequences, and talking to other owners who have done what you are trying to do. HBM

Bill McBean, author of The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don’t, spent many of his nearly forty years as a successful business owner in the automobile industry where, among many other achievements, he purchased several underperforming dealerships and turned them into a successful business enterprise with yearly sales of more than $160 million. Since selling the company to the world’s largest automotive retailer, AutoNation, McBean has been involved in several new businesses, including McBean Partners, an investment and business mentoring company, and Net Claims Now, which provides administrative services and support to the restoration industry. Visit http://factsofbusinesslife.com .

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Secrecy in the Age of Social Media

Six Ways to Keep Trade Secrets and Sensitive Company Info Offline

In today’s “sharing” culture, your employees are used to posting about the minutiae of their lives on social media—and that can mean bad news for your company. Here, James Pooley shares six tips to help you ensure that your company’s sensitive data, proprietary information, and trade secrets aren’t inadvertently leaked on a social media feed.

You can be sure that most of your employees are active on social media. For younger ones, in fact, Facebooking, Instagramming, and Tweeting are as natural as breathing. But suppose an employee shared pictures of your product prototype? Posted a draft patent application your company was about to file? Messaged a Dropbox link with confidential information (even if only to a fellow employee) over an insecure connection? Crowdsourced a question about a sensitive issue she was handling for a customer?

Do scenarios like these keep you up at night? They should. According to James Pooley, social media and the “sharing” culture it has sparked are very real threats to your organization.

“The Internet—which spawned social media—has changed the way we work and communicate,” says Pooley, author of Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage (Verus Press, 2015, ISBN: 978-0-9963910-0-9, $24.97). “That change has profound implications for a trade secret system that relies largely on human trust.

“I’m not saying openness is inherently bad,” he clarifies. “Obviously, a certain amount is needed if we’re to collaborate for innovation. Yet there’s a dark side to the comfort level that’s evolved around all this sharing. Companies need to acknowledge the risks of social media and work to prevent leaks by improving their employees’ knowledge and good judgment.”

Having recently completed a five-year term as deputy director general at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, where he was responsible for management of the international patent system (PCT), Pooley is an expert in the fields of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data security. Secrets, which thoroughly explains how to recognize and mitigate the risk of information loss in today’s electronic business landscape, is a must-have guide for executives and managers, knowledge workers, consultants, security professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers, and accountants—anyone and everyone who works with information.

Here, Pooley shares six tips to help you keep your company’s sensitive information off social media feeds:

Understand that you’re asking employees to go against their “digital instincts.” By their very nature, social media platforms encourage users to publicly disclose the minutiae of their lives (usually the more, the better). The so-called Facebook generation is conditioned to casually communicate, swapping files and using the Cloud to store and access photos, music, and more. They are experts at revealing a lot using only 140 characters.

“Making sure that social media doesn’t become a hole through which your company’s secrets leak is an especially challenging task because you’re essentially asking employees to check their habits at the door,” notes Pooley. “They’ll need to learn to operate based on a different set of standards that often contradict how they deal with information in their private lives.”

Put social media policies in writing. Don’t assume that a few informal warnings and cautionary tales will keep all your employees from tweeting and posting what they shouldn’t. If your company already has general policies about the disclosure of information assets, make sure they become part of the official set of rules that govern employees’ use of social media. These policies will reinforce the need to keep personal and work issues separated and not to post about what is going on inside the company.

Pooley cautions that larger companies need to have these policies reviewed by legal counsel, since typically broad confidentiality restrictions can violate labor laws that guarantee employees the right to discuss their working conditions.

“Additionally, companies need to decide if social media business contacts belong to them or to their staff,” he continues. “According to recent court decisions, if this isn’t clearly specified in the company’s policies, those contacts and the social media account itself can be claimed by the employee when he leaves.”

Train, train, and then train some more. In many organizations, after initial orientation, data protection policies are left on the shelf and more or less ignored. That’s dangerous, because staff can easily forget about the rules or lose respect for the dangers of noncompliance. Meanwhile, they may be working on collaborative projects, examining acquisition possibilities, receiving development proposals, and more. All of these situations can lead to personal social media connections, where you will be relying on the knowledge and good judgment of your employees to control risks.

“You can mitigate much of this risk by creating a quality training program that engages your employees as part of the security defense team,” he says. “They’ll make fewer mistakes themselves on social media (and elsewhere), and they’ll also be on the lookout for the mistakes of others. Keep in mind that the best training is continuous, careful, upbeat, and professional, and does not rely on threats. And be sure to include everyone—not just key knowledge workers—in social media security training. That includes contractors, temporary employees, and interns.”

Know which devices might represent a risk. The growing popularity of “BYOD” policies means that many of your employees may well be storing sensitive information on the same laptops, smartphones, and tablets they use to scroll through status updates in the evenings. That’s cause for concern, because cyberthieves can gain access to these devices’ contents and your company’s systems through relatively easy-to-hack social media accounts and apps.

“In addition to establishing clear policies on social media use and providing continuing training, consider technical mitigation measures,” Pooley recommends. “Mobile device management (MDM) tools can remotely configure devices, monitor what’s on them, and even erase their data if lost. MDM techniques can also include encryption for data stored on or communicated from the device.”

Teach employees to spot social media scams. In addition to using MDM tools, training employees on methods that information thieves often use can help them avoid falling prey to traps on social media. For instance, social media profiles give hackers a lot of information that they can use to compose realistic-looking, customized email phishing messages.

“But beyond that, websites themselves can be used directly to fool people into joining a fake group, survey, or event, sometimes using a money coupon as a lure,” Pooley reveals. “Other traps involve fake ‘like’ buttons, browser extensions offered for download, or compelling offers designed to make the viewer want to share them with friends. All of these social network scams are grounded on the idea that we are all so used to rapidly connecting, sharing, and exposing that we’ll do it more or less automatically with anything that looks attractive. Teaching employees to think twice before clicking can help secrets stay secret.”

Be aware of your official social media presence. While you may not be able to fully control what your employees post on their personal social media accounts, you can certainly keep a close eye on official company Twitter, Facebook, and other social media pages.

“Have a safety net of trusted employees monitoring and maintaining your company’s presence on social media to stop potentially revealing posts from ever reaching the public eye,” Pooley advises. “Also, regularly change passwords to lock out account thieves who may have successfully procured your company’s login information.”

“Social networking has become a fixture of modern personal and professional life, so embrace its many benefits,” concludes Pooley. “Just be aware of the security concerns social media represent and proactively work to prevent breaches, whether they come from employee use or official company activity.”

James Pooley is the author of Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage. He provides international strategic and management advice in patent and trade secret matters, performs pre-litigation investigation and analysis, and consults on information security programs.

Mr. Pooley recently completed a five-year term as deputy director general at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, where he was responsible for management of the international patent system (PCT). Before his service at WIPO, Mr. Pooley was a successful trial lawyer in Silicon Valley for over 35 years, representing clients in patent, trade secret, and technology litigation. He has also taught trade secret law at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served as president of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, where he currently serves as chairman of the board.

Mr. Pooley is an author or coauthor of several major works in the IP field, including his treatise Trade Secrets (Law Journal Press) and the Patent Case Management Judicial Guide (Federal Judicial Center). He graduated from Columbia University Law School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar in 1973 and holds a bachelor of arts, with honors, from Lafayette College.

About the Book:
Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage (Verus Press, 2015, ISBN: 978-0-9963910-0-9, $24.97) is available at bookstores nationwide and on Amazon.

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Critical Tools For Internet Sites

Internet sites have to have a practical system to help their businesses grow if they are to live with this fast changing era of digital technology. To assist you achieve your business goals making your online business better, you need to identify the suitable tools. Many of the most essential tools that any business online would take advantage of are the following.
 
Tools supplied by website hosting
 
Web hosting needs to be important for each and every business online. After finding a great idea about what you wish to achieve with your business, you can just get a reliable web hosting company that may help you with all the service. Your organization website should be hosted on the high speed server if you target giving your visitors and potential leads a 24/7 service. There are lots of free hosting companies that will support your site if you're in the budding stages of developing your online business. A bit sacrifice in spending money on the expertise of a good hosting company can however save you from the shortcomings that accompany free website hosting. Among the best webhosting hosting companies provide a number of tools from web builders to emails and integration of autoreponders that most be convenient for a lot of degree of business automation.
 
Facebook Marketing Tools
 
The effectiveness of the social media may help you reach an extensive audience. Present your company on social media by developing a page on Facebook, connect on Twitter, join Linkedin and share positive customer related material on Instagram. You need a management app with the social websites platform that will help you serve your clients better and attract brand new ones. A social media marketing app can assist you do market research, manage marketing campaigns, centralize posts for online display and schedule right time that will put up posts in the social websites. A fantastic social media tool can too facilitate customer care management.
 
Marketing via email tools
 
Making a mailing list is usually important to make your website known.  Consider approaches to attract visitors aimed at your website and acquire them to enroll in free newsletters which have information promoting your organization. Then you're able to email your newsletter in your customers anytime you want to promote something new or give deals.  Customers will more than likely purchase your services or goods should they be fascinated by the information in the newsletter. There are lots of newsletter apps to help you manage potential leads from your email listing. Autoresponders like Aweber or GetReposnse are one of the best e-mail marketing tools for automating the processes of subscriptions and prospecting.
 
There are a variety of tools for virtually every business online process, but it is always prudent to test reviews and find out which tools are very worth investing into. If the tools can successfully automate an operation that would rather be tedious to complete without, then it could possibly be a wise investment on your business. Any business that requires improve performance can take advantage of suitable business automation tools which go a long way in assisting to generate more sales. Discover reviews for a few of the important tools at http://www.mykotown.com/

MILLIONAIRE Spotlight: Randy and Craig Rubin, Owners of Crypton

Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton

Starting out broke and single with two children isn’t the ideal way to begin a home-based business. At that low point, Randy Rubin could only go up. She and her current husband, Craig, began Crypton because they had a great idea: a stain, odor, and bacteria resistant fabric technology.

Randy’s background in marketing to women and for retail companies helped her develop the skills for capturing the women’s market. What mom and homemaker wouldn’t embrace a high-tech fabric that looks new longer? Though it began in the basement, Crypton has developed into a company that invents, patents, and sells a whole line of performance fabrics for apparel and home decor uses.

The couple promotes the business through maintaining public relations, social media, in-store events, direct sales, various consumer design events, in-store promotional materials, and videos. Specialty items also drive business. “When the retailer gives us a need, we create it,” Randy said.

Randy considers going global with Crypton Super Fabrics as their highest achievement. She hopes Crypton will become a household name in the fabric industry, and feels that the company is definitely on its way.  “We created something that never existed—a fabric that would work like vinyl, intended for the contract [commercial] market,” Randy said. “Today we have a 92 percent awareness in the contract market and dedicated sections in design libraries that are for Crypton…We have created the standard for upholstery performance textiles.”

The company has expanded the brand to Crypton Wall, Crypton Vinyl, Crypton Care (upholstery cleaning products), Crypton Mattress, and the Rubins have other products in the works. The Rubins plan to sell through a major national retail chain by the end of 2015. For more information, visit www.crypton.com. HBM

Deborah Jeanne Sergeant has been writing from home since 2000. In addition to writing for Home Business Magazine and other periodicals, she is also the author of The Big, Fat Answer: Lifelong Weight Management for Good Health based upon hundreds of interviews with health care professionals. Visit her online at www.skilledquill.net.

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MILLIONAIRE Spotlight – Consultant

Paul Cherry, President, Performance Based Results

Paul Cherry was in trouble. Personally, he was doing fine, earning a solid salary with nice benefits, but he worked for a floundering company that would likely soon fall apart. He had considered striking out on his own for awhile, but fear held him back. He wanted to provide a good life for his stay-at-home wife and two young children. Starting his own business seemed too risky until he had no other choice. An abrupt layoff yanked out the rug of security from under him.

Cherry sprang into action, calling everyone in his professional network. He printed business cards and began offering sales training, leadership development and coaching from his home. “Fast forward 12 months and wow! I had doubled my salary,” Cherry said. “My only regret is that it didn’t happen sooner.” Instead of a paltry commission and no support from superiors, Cherry’s own efforts brought about his income. He also received recognition for his expertise.

It’s understandable that he enjoys working with companies who want to invest in their sales force. “I’ve worked with more than 200 of the Fortune 500 companies, but love to work with clients in the $8 million to $50 million [range], because that’s where I can create the most impact and drive performances.”

Most of his sales he makes are over the phone, but for the training, he prefers face-to-face. Referrals, social media, webinars, sales prospecting calls, Google keyword searches, and networking at association meetings all help him generate sales.

Working with a ghostwriter, Cherry completed “Questions that Sell: The Powerful Process for Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants” (American Management Association: 2006). He also wrote “Questions that Get Results: Innovative Ideas Managers Can Use to Improve Their Team’s Performance” (John Wiley & Sons: 2010) with Patrick Connor, his managing partner at Performance Based Results. Writing the books are accomplishments that have brought him great satisfaction and helped him promote his business.

Cherry has enjoyed working at home to be available for his family, and to travel whenever he needs or desires. He said, “I have literally no overhead except a computer.” He wants to continue to grow the business, using independent contractors as needed. For more information, visit www.pbresults.com.

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MILLIONAIRE Spotlight – E-commerce

Scott Petinga, CEO of The Scott Petinga Group

Experiences in the US Marine Corps and beating testicular cancer inspired Scott Petinga to adopt the philosophy, “Nobody ever drowned in sweat.” His can-do attitude and instinctive understanding of social media helped him found and promote several businesses and non-profit organizations.

After serving in the military, Petinga worked in a few executive-level management roles. In 2007, he launched AKQUARACY, a communications agency, which he grew into a multi-million dollar marketing endeavor. Now as Chairman and CEO of The Scott Petinga Group, he works to develop ways to mesh business growth with sustainability and philanthropy. He believes that no company should grow without helping its community benefit as well. The Scott Petinga Group encompasses multiple business endeavors, as well as TH!NK DIFFERENT Foundation, a humanitarian organization that promotes housing and healthcare solutions within the United States.

Petinga also founded the Fairy Foundation, a non-profit organization providing lasting memories for adults with life-threatening medical conditions. He founded Heels That Heal, which sells donated shoes to support local charities.

n addition, relating to his own battle with testicular cancer, Petinga is now collaborating on and funding several clinical trials with USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. One trial’s purpose is to better understand testicular cancer’s impact on male testosterone levels and fertility after surgery. For more information, visit www.ScottPetinga.com.

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MILLIONAIRE Spotlight – Direct Sales

Heidi Leist, founder and CEO of Lemongrass Spa Products

Heidi Leist had dreamed of starting a home-based business. After making bath and body items at a friend’s party, an idea caught hold: could this make a profitable business? “I couldn’t sleep that night because I knew there was something very special about the experience that had transpired,” she said. “The home spa environment…was incredibly appealing.”

Leist learned how to make natural and organic skin care products from local artisans. She formulated the product line herself at home in her kitchen, asking friends to try the items. In 2003, she founded Lemongrass Spa Products, a direct selling company specializing in natural and organic skin care, mineral makeup and baby care products.

Customers loved the home parties where they could enjoy a “girls’ night” and try—and purchase—new skin-care and beauty products. The quality of the ingredients has been a major motivator for the business and a huge selling point.

“Educating guests at my spa parties became my passion after discovering that there were dozens of toxic chemicals contained in many lotions, cosmetics and shampoos,” Leist said. “During my pregnancy, I was especially perceptive of exactly what I was putting on my body as well as what I was consuming.”

Leist’s degree in Business Administration and Economics and a few post-college jobs provided the background that helped her found the business, but hanging out her own shingle truly educated her.

While one woman alone can move quite a bit of product, empowering others to represent her business through direct selling home parties helped her business explode. Leist has enjoyed helping the 3,000 people who have become consultants gain the same flexibility and financial freedom she has enjoyed. “We are able to offer women and men the opportunity to improve their lives through financial security, friendships and community service, while not sacrificing time with their families,” Leist said.

Word-of-mouth advertising and social media have primarily helped promote the business to its core demographic: women in their late twenties and older. But male consultants in their thirties and forties have begun to join in recent years.

“I don’t have to sacrifice quality bonding time with my family to help support them,” Leist said. For more information, visit www.LemongrassSpa.com.

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MILLIONAIRE Spotlight – Business Services

Shane Douglas, Senior Vice President, ACN

Chronically, Shane Douglas fell into a few of the typical entrepreneur’s pitfalls: working 80-hour weeks and starting businesses with heavy up-front investment with little remuneration later. He felt disillusioned about entrepreneurship, since neither financial freedom nor flexible scheduling panned out for him.

When he first learned about a business that earned a residual income, he could hardly believe he could outearn his traditional businesses while staying home to do so. “It just seemed too good to be true,” Douglas said. “But after really looking into the industry, I discovered many people that had achieved incredible incomes.”

Douglas felt that if others could do it, he could, too. He loves the simplicity of the business. “Your income is earned from the monthly bills everyone pays every month and can’t pay off,” he said. “You don’t need to have sales skills with our program; you just need to know people who pay utility bills and essential service bills…Our program gives you the ability to earn income every month when you or someone else pays essential monthly service bills.”

More than anything, word-of-mouth advertising has helped his business grow because customers rave about the money they save on their monthly bills and have the opportunity to receive services such as their cell phone service free each month.  “It’s always exciting to know that you’re in a business that doesn’t have a niche market approach, meaning so many companies today are trying to sell you on why their product is better,” Douglas said. “We’re just saying, ‘Hey, let us see if we can save you money on something you’re already paying for and will pay for the rest of your life.'”

As more people join his business, Douglas feels satisfaction as he’s freeing them from working jobs or schedules they dislike. “[They have] a true opportunity to have no limit on what they can earn or the financial levels they can achieve in life,” Douglas said. “I have been fortunate to be a part of helping many individuals turn their financial lives around.”

He also enjoys passing on the benefits of no commute and total control over one’s time, which he finds is the best part of his business. “The industry has proven that the sky is the limit, and I am looking forward to where we can go and how many can go with us,” Douglas said. For more information, visit www.bthe1.com

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Start Your Own E-Commerce Business

Follow these Seven Guidelines

Here are seven guidelines to starting your own e-commerce business.

1. Research: For products you love, relate to, and wish to sell; Competition – what your chances are of succeeding in that market; Suppliers – who you can find that product for a good price from.

2. Time investment: For your own eCommerce business to be successful, time is your biggest investment. The more time you put in to your business, the greater the chances are of succeeding. However, an eCommerce business can also benefit you if you only invest a short amount of hours in it, as long as your time is being spent effectively.

3. Find a platform that is attentive to your needs: An attentive and passionate customer support team can save you loads of time.

4. Reliable source of information: Ensure that you know where to retrieve information when in need. While running a business, store owners tend to encounter unpredictable challenges. It’s important that once you face a challenge, you have a knowledge base filled with information that helps you overcome it.

5. It’s OK to dream: Convey your dreams through your store design. Technology today barely limits your design aspiration. When choosing a store design template, let loose, but also ensure that it corresponds to your products.

6. Strategies to generate traffic: Once their store is up and running, owners must start attracting customers to their businesses. Therefore, the platform you choose to work with has to have suitable marketing tools (Facebook Store, eBay, and Amazon Integration, Price Comparison sites integration, Coupon Distribution, etc.)

7. Analyze and optimize: For a business to grow, its weaknesses must be translated into strengths. Future store owners should guarantee their businesses have the tools and integration capabilities for a thorough analysis of their operations. Thereafter, adjust and optimize their actions consequently. HBM

IzzoNet, which launched in May 2011, has developed online marketing technology that no other company in the world offers. IzzoNet’s e-commerce platform enables anyone (including those without technical expertise in web design or e-commerce) to create a successful online store within a matter of minutes. Furthermore, the company offers a premier support facility and user friendly maintenance management. The company is currently finalizing an e-commerce education system.

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MILLIONAIRE Spotlight – Business Services

Marc Gordon, marketer and strategist

Marc Gordon founded Fourword, a full-service marketing agency that develops an extensive marketing campaign for businesses.

Many covet Marc Gordon’s services as a marketing expert, speaker and strategist. His articles appear in more than 200 periodicals worldwide. After 10 years of owning an automotive equipment importing and manufacturing company, Gordon felt ready for a change and wanted to “commute down the hall” so he could spend more time with his family.

Now operating a full-service marketing agency, he oversees projects involving strategy, print, web, PR and promotion, all from his home. His core team of eight specialists also work from their homes.

Gordon acquires most of his new business from networking and word-of-mouth. He doesn’t market his business externally. “Social media is more of a PR tool that allows me to stay relevant as a marketing professional,” Gordon said. He maintains a strong presence in the hospitality, medical and mining industries, with a client base that is both business-to-business and business-to-consumers.

“Startups are the most fun to work with although they usually have the tightest budgets,” Gordon said. He has grown the business to the point where he can turn away clients who would “be difficult to work with or not value my services,” Gordon said. “When I first started, I took every new client, regardless of how crazy they were. The result was more stress than revenue.”

Working at home provides advantages for Gordon. He enjoys operating a business with lower overhead, less commuting time, easy access to the office at any time, and an ability to schedule non-business related activities into his day, which he calls the biggest perk of all. Before starting his home business, volunteering for chaperoning a field trip would have been difficult, but is now a favorite way to take a break from work.

Gordon hopes to grow his business to the point where he works fewer hours and is able to hire more people to grow his team. He also wants to expand his public speaking and consulting roles. “I could never see myself having an external office again,” he said. For more information, visit http://marcgordon.ca.

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10 Resolutions for Small Businesses

Maybe you need a little help looking at what you should be concentrating on for your business in 2015. Well look no further. We’ve got your back with 10 helpful resolutions that every business should keep in mind for this year.

#1: Remember Your Roots. Make sure to look back on your past year and analyze your weaknesses and strengths.

#2: Utilize Your Own Personal Cheer Squad. Ask your customers to recommend you on social media.

#3: Adopt the Cloud. It will save time and money and help control the BYOD craze for your IT technology.

#4: Stay Social with Friends. Build up your social presence with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

#5: Create Content. Pepper blog posts with pictures, videos, infographics and make sure you have engaging, interesting content to share over social media on a daily basis.

#6: BYOD Mania. Encourage your employees to bring their own device to work to increase their connectivity even when outside the office.

#7: Face-To-Face-To-Face. With Skype, Meeting Burner, and other apps, interact face to face with your clients.

#8: Apps, Apps, Apps. Pick up a few game-changing tools like Kashoo and Google Apps for Business, setting yourself up to reap the benefits throughout 2015.

#9: Keep It Simple. Invest in a platform that will unite all of your apps and files in one easy to access location and watch how much time it will save you.

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Filling an Online Training Void for this Home-Based Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur Helps Businesses Grow Using the Web and Virtual Teams

“It’s important to continuously learn new things that can immediately impact the success of your business.”

By Home Business Magazine

As an overworked corporate consultant, Terra Bohlmann was burnt out. Outside of her day job, her passion was helping others who wanted to start or grow a business. She knew it was time to launch out on her own to help business owners grow their own businesses using the Web and virtual teams.

Terra Bohlmann is the founder of TheWorkingHouse.com and creator of Virtual Team Building Boot Camp.

Terra started TheWorkingHouse.com to provide online business training and solution-oriented coaching targeted to business owners who run their business from home. Creating a community was important to Terra, so she uses social media and blogging as ways to provide free business advice. Running her business from home was a top priority. Besides no commute, the top advantage was she could save money not renting office space to invest in the business.

Terra saw a void in the market to provide affordable, online training. The Working House fulfills the desire for business owners to learn, grow, and take their businesses to the next levels. Terra says, “It’s important to continuously learn new things that can immediately impact the success of your business. Just because you work for yourself, doesn’t mean you are by yourself. The Working House supports other business owners running their business from home.”

The Working House scours the best online training available for business owners to share with the community. She recently published a book titled “The Boss in Bunny Slippers” to give leadership advice to those who want to manage virtual teams from home. This lead to her signature training program, Virtual Team Building Boot Camp, which teaches business owners how to build their own virtual teams.

Terra promotes The Working House using the Web (social media, SEO, and online ads), speaking engagements, blogging, and attending conferences. According to Terra, “I teach business owners how to build their own virtual teams, so I definitely can’t take all the credit for my marketing efforts. I have an amazing virtual team behind me doing top notch work.” Terra has a desire to continuously learn whether it is from training programs, life experiences or other people. In the future, Terra sees TheWorkingHouse.com as a popular community that connects business owners and provides one-stop shopping for affordable online training, services and products dedicated to help grow businesses ― especially those who work from home. HBM

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Self-Publish Your Book

Self-Publish Your Book

Self-published books have transformed both the reading and writing landscape, with hundreds of thousands of authors now eschewing traditional publishing routes. Once reserved for distribution to a writer’s close family and friends, these books are now respected as an affordable option with every bit as much potential for becoming best-sellers as those produced by the New York houses.

Countless books published this way have gone on to become best-sellers, but you have to have a good product if you want even a shot at success. That means good content that’s well edited; a good cover; good layout; and a good print job. Additionally, you can expect to spend a lot of time and/or money marketing, promoting and getting publicity for your book. The better the quality, the more the book will cost. Your pocketbook and your goals should help make the decision easier.

Sheryn Hara

Independent publisher

Author of Self-Publish Successfully

Founder of Book Publishers Network

www.bookpublishersnetwork.com

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Why You Shouldn’t Leave Your Social Media to a Niece or Nephew

• Experience and education. Simply put, unless one of your family members has a background in marketing and — more specifically — digital marketing, they likely won’t have a real theoretical basis for their methods. Yes, we all know how to “like,” comment, share, tweet, etc., but a real social media expert will have a formal and professional background in their craft.

• Strategy. While most of your young family members may have seriously impressive strategies when it comes to Clash of Clans, they likely don’t have a clue about how to build and execute a proper social media strategy. A true social media manager will have a formal background in marketing, giving them insight that those without experience or knowledge would be blind to. Strategy is important for setting goals and outlining the actions you’ll take to achieve them.

• Tools. When you hire a social media strategist, you aren’t simply paying for their time. A good social media manager will have a gang of tools procured through countless hours of research or through larger-than-you’d-bet credit card transactions.

• Time and attention. When you hire a real social media expert, you gain a new member of your marketing team. Strategists live and breathe social media, but more importantly they love to get their clients results. Just like a chef wants to put out a great tasting meal, a social media strategist wants to have a positive impact on your brand. Their job is to provide you with the support you need to allow you to focus on the things you excel at. A real social media manager gives their time and attention to giving you back your focus.

• Because you love them. Yes, your young family members look up to you and want to help. Unfortunately, social media management is a lot more work than most assume. It takes wit, writing skills, formal training and education, strategizing, and expensive tools. It takes a lot of time, too. HBM

Jay York is a social media strategist at EMSI Public Relations, an award-winning national agency. You can find EMSI Public Relations on Twitter: @emsiPR .

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Benefits to Becoming A Consultant

 When Times Get Tough and Jobs Dry Up, Do What Millions Do
C.J. Hayden, Mcc

An economic downturn may seem like the wrong time to start your own business, but layoffs and downsizing can create new opportunities for one breed of entrepreneur — the corporate consultant.

Companies who lay off full-time workers still have many needs for specific skills, and frequently hire consultants on a short-term or project basis to fill these gaps. If you’ve been laid off yourself, working as a consultant can allow you to earn a good income while salaried jobs are scarce.

 Working as a consultant can have many benefits. You may be able to earn more per hour than you did as an employee, or work mostly from home. You’ll have more independence, increased flexibility, and the possibility of more time with your family. If you’ve lost your job, consulting will keep you current in your field, provide you with useful contacts, and fill the hole in your resume if you pursue another salaried position in the future. A consulting contract may even turn into an offer for a full-time job, once an employer gets to know what you can do.

But not everyone is cut out to be a consultant. You’ll need to be a self-starter, able to work without a boss looking over your shoulder, and manage your time efficiently. You’ll have to learn and employ sales and marketing skills in order to land consulting contracts. And you will also need to present yourself to prospective clients as a skilled professional with a defined specialty, as opposed to just someone who needs a job.

How Consultants Work

As a consultant, your job will be to provide analysis and advice, expert guidance, and/or an extra pair of hands to your business clients. Corporate clients hire consultants by the hour, the day, or the project to help them solve problems, complete essential projects, or handle day-to-day responsibilities, such as when an important position is vacant.

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Some consultants work at the highest levels of the company, analyzing a problem or situation and advising management on how to resolve it. Others work at the mid-management level, overseeing projects, implementing new initiatives, and advising internal staff. Consultants also work as specialists rather than advisors, executing projects and completing tasks in specialty areas such as information technology, marketing, or accounting.

In some situations, consultants work similarly to employees. They travel to the clients’ sites on a daily basis and get paid by the hour or day while they are there. Other consultants work at home or virtually, seeing their clients in person only rarely. Consultants who work off-site sometimes get paid by the project or result they produce instead of for the hours they put in.

While the roles that consultants can play and the nature of consulting contracts can vary widely, to be successful at landing clients, you’ll need to make some choices about what type of consultant you plan to be. New consultants often make the mistake of approaching prospective clients as generalists who can work in many different capacities. But clients prefer to hire people who specialize in providing the specific type of help they are looking for.

Defining Your Consulting Niche

Before you hang out your shingle, make an honest assessment of your professional skills and experience. What level and type of consulting assignments does your background qualify you for? Consider also what types of work you both enjoy and can do well. You’ll be much more convincing to prospective clients if you are enthusiastic about your specialty and can tell success stories about projects you have completed for your employers in the past.

The most successful consultants have a clearly defined market niche. This means that they have identified both a professional specialty and a target market. Your professional specialty is the specific area of expertise you plan to offer your clients — technical writing, for example. Your target market is the industry or field you plan to concentrate on — for example, health care. Your market niche is then the combination of the two — in this example, technical writing in the health care field.

Defining a market niche enables you to target the kind of clients you are most interested in working for, and allows you to position yourself as an attractive solution to their needs. Without a niche, marketing yourself as a consultant can be extremely challenging. You will find yourself pulled in far too many different directions, pursuing numerous unrelated leads and opportunities. And when you speak to a prospective client, it will be much harder to convince them you are the right person for their job.

Getting Started as a Consultant

Once you have chosen a consulting niche, begin by creating your business identity and some marketing collateral. You’ll need a business card and a marketing kit, and you may want to consider creating a web site.

Your business card can be one of the most important marketing tools you’ll have. Make sure that your card includes a few words about your market niche or capabilities in addition to your contact information. You don’t necessarily need a business name or a job title, although some consultants like to position themselves as “president” or “principal” of their own consulting firm. If you’re a one-person shop, using just your name on your business card is fine.

In addition to business cards, you’ll need a marketing kit. Most consultants use a folder with inserted pages rather than a pre-printed brochure. This allows you to be flexible about what you include in your kit, and also to get started with very little expense. You can purchase folders at an office supply store and print the inserted pages on your home computer.

A typical marketing kit includes a professional bio or resume, a description of your services or capabilities, examples of the benefits or results you provide to your clients, and testimonials or endorsements from people familiar with your work. You might also include an article you have written, a fact sheet about your specialty, or a case study of a successful project.

If you are planning to enter the consulting field permanently, you’ll definitely want to create a web site. But even if you believe you will only be consulting for a short while, you may wish to build a simple site. Having a description of your expertise available on the Web will build your credibility with prospective clients and make you appear more professional. It will also allow you to take advantage of opportunities to spread the word about your availability online.

Deciding What to Charge

With your marketing collateral in hand, you’re almost ready to start seeking out potential clients. But first, figure out how much you need to charge. In most cases, clients will ask you to set your own price rather than offering you a pre-determined amount. Keep in mind that your consulting rates must pay not only for your time, but your overhead expenses, marketing costs, and more.

In addition to covering your business expenses, your fees should be high enough to cover the benefits you received as an employee which you will now have to pay for on your own. These might include health, disability, and life insurance coverage, a retirement plan, sick leave, vacation time, and one-half of your Social Security payments.

Also, don’t set your fees expecting to bill 40 hours per week. Over the course of a year, most corporate consultants bill an average of only 20 to 25 hours per week. You may be working for your clients only part-time, or have gaps between full-time contracts.

Once you know how much you need to charge to cover expenses and earn a comfortable living, compare your rates to what others in your niche and geographic area are charging. Surf the Web looking for posted fees, or ask your professional association. Even if your financial needs are low, you shouldn’t charge significantly less than the competition.

If You’re Still Employed

If you still have a job, the most practical thing you can do before becoming unemployed is to line up your first client in advance. Failing that, set up your business as completely as possible before you leave. Buy business cards, develop a web site and marketing kit, and buy or upgrade needed computer equipment.

If you are leaving your job with your first contract in hand, you should have three months living expenses put aside. If you don’t yet have a client, your emergency fund should hold enough for six months. Apply for all the credit you think you might need while you are still employed. If you’ve been thinking about refinancing your home, do it now. Investigate your health insurance options before leaving, too.

Marketing Your Consulting Business

When you’re first getting started, begin by telling everyone you know about your new business. Go through your address book and holiday card list. Review the rosters of associations you belong to and directories of companies where you’ve worked. Send a card, email, or note to these contacts letting them know what you’re doing now, and follow up with a phone call. Ask your existing associates to refer you to potential clients, prospective companies, and other useful contacts to expand your network.

Remember to emphasize your defined market niche in these conversations. Don’t make the mistake of saying, “I can do anything in the area of…” Maybe you can, but clients will want to know what you do best.

For a one-person consulting business, spending money on magazine, newspaper, or directory advertising, or on mass mailings, is almost always a mistake. You don’t have the budget to sustain an effective advertising campaign, so leave that to the big consulting firms. The best ways for independent consultants to get business are usually personal referrals, networking at live events and on the Web, speaking to professional groups, and publishing articles about your specialty.

Look around your local area for events you can attend to meet potential clients and make new contacts in your field. Seek out meetings of professional and trade associations for your specialty or industry, business mixers sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, networking groups designed for professionals to meet each other, and lead exchange clubs such as Business Network International or LeTip.

When attending meetings like these, don’t try to sell yourself on the spot to everyone you talk to. Instead, make it your goal to meet people, have brief conversations on a topic you have in common, and collect their business cards. Then follow up the next day with anyone who seems like a useful contact in your search for clients.

The same events you might attend to meet people can also be good places for you to speak. Public speaking is an extremely effective form of marketing for many consultants, because it allows you to visibly demonstrate your expertise. Many association meetings and networking groups are always looking for speakers who can share useful information with their members, so it can be easier than you might think to get yourself booked as a presenter.

Will You Ever Go Back?

You may find that you enjoy consulting so much that you wouldn’t ever consider becoming an employee again. If you develop your sales and marketing skills enough to create a steady stream of clients, you may even decide to expand your one-person business into a consulting firm, hiring or subcontracting work to other professionals.

On the other hand, you may grow tired of always needing to sell yourself and managing a fluctuating income. Many consultants also suffer from feelings of isolation, or find themselves procrastinating endlessly. The prescription for these self-employment ills is to build some structure and support into your new lifestyle. Stick to a regular work schedule. Set goals and deadlines for yourself, and use a coach, mentor, or mastermind group to help you see things through.

Most importantly, try to spend time with other self-employed people to share ideas, experience, successes, and challenges. No one will understand what you’re going through like someone who has been there. HBM

C.J. Hayden is the bestselling author of Get Clients Now! A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants and Coaches. Since 1992, C.J. has been helping self-employed professionals make a better living doing what they love. Thousands of professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. “Get Clients Now!” is more than just a book; it’s a complete support system for marketing your business. To find out more and get a free copy of the special report Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need, visit www.getclientsnow.com .

Previously published in the August 2008 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($15.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit www.homebusinessmag.com

V15-4 Add: 02/09  HP: ?  CAR: 2/25/11

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