Networking Your Home Business

When you need an auto mechanic or an air
conditioning repairman, where do you turn for
help? Sure, some people turn to the yellow
pages. But most will turn to friends and family
and ask if they know of anyone who can do the
work.

The best place for your business to be positioned
is to be the business on the tips of the tongues
of the people asked to make the referral.

THE 300 RULE

Preachers, funeral directors and people in a few
other professions have learned "the 300 rule"
through their own personal experience.

"The 300 rule" states that the average person
knows 300 people on a friendly level. Wedding
planners tend to make reservations for 300
guests. Funeral directors tend to need to make
room for 300 mourners. You get the idea.

DOODLING WITH CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE

Imagine your circle of friends, family and
acquaintances, a.k.a. your circle of influence.
Now, draw your circle of influence as a circle on
a blank piece of paper.

Next, contemplate the people in your parents'
circle of influence. Some people who know your
parents also know you. Therefore, you will share
some influence with the people your folks know.
Now draw your parents' circle of influence on your
piece of paper.

Your circle and your parents' circle will
intersect in one area, although the larger
majority of the two circles will not intersect.
If you are like most people, the two circles on
your page at this point looks very similar to the
MasterCard logo.

Now imagine drawing a page full of intersecting
circles, each circle representing the circle of
influence of the people who are within your own
circle of influence. Imagine trying to
encapsulate an accurate rendering of where your
circle and the circle of your friends will
actually intersect.

Some circles will share a large area of space,
while others will barely cover one another.

Actually, you can only imagine at this point what
your piece of paper will look like. The actual
layout of the circles imagined in this analogy is
simply too overwhelming for the mind to
comprehend.

THE BIG PICTURE

300 multiplied by 300 equals 90,000. By using the
analogy of doodles in the previous section, the
average person can actually network with up to
90,000 people! Even factoring in the overlap,
one can still probably network with 50,000 people
through their own circle of influence!

Simply amazing, isn't it?

HERE IS THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS

There are 300 people on this planet whom you have
a reasonable amount of influence. Take advantage
of this fact. Make darn sure that every person
within your own circle of influence KNOWS that
you are in business for yourself, and make sure
they understand what your business offers.

When your friend is asked to make a referral,
they will recommend you.

PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE REFERRAL NETWORKING

When people ask your friends for a referral and
your friend mentions your business, that is
passive referral networking.

Active referral networking is when you can get
your friends go directly to their friends and say
"Hey, I have a friend who just started a
business. If you are in need of what he offers or
you know someone who will need his services,
would you please give my friend a call or make
the referral to his business?"

If you can get even a portion of the people in
your own circle of influence to actively refer
your business, then you have built the foundation
to build an advertising campaign even more
effective than the average local television
advertising campaign.

Think about that for a moment.

Most people only dream of reaching 50,000
potential customers with their television
advertising dollars. You now have the knowledge
to reach 50,000 people without spending a single
penny.

2David Hudson, webmaster of webcashlink,
business articles author, and a successful affiliate,
can help you with your online business.
Visit: Setuponce

David Hudson also endorses Super Affiliate Handbook
by Rosalind Gardner Get Yours Today

Promoting Your Business with Circles

So many people launch their first or second
business with the misconception that they can
survive without advertising. It is their fear of
failure that almost single-handedly assures their
failure. They fear spending the money that they
need to get and keep their business running
during those early years of their operation.

Let’s face it, when you start in business, money
is usually pretty darn tight. So, you must figure
out how to get off the ground without throwing
your money down the drain. Every single red cent
is important enough to hang onto with a tight
fist.

NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO REINVENT
COPPER WIRE

I am reminded of an old joke a friend used to
tell about himself.

My friend had always told me that both he and his
brother were the inventers of copper wire. He
insisted that the two of them were fighting over
a penny one day and managed to stretch it out
into the first strand of copper wire known to
mankind.

Indeed, now is not the time to try to reinvent
copper wire.

ADVERTISING IS A NECESSARY COMPONENT
OF A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

The point of advertising is to notify your
customers of the existence of your business. It
is necessary to tell people that you are in
business and to tell them what products and
services you are offering.

Unless people know that you are offering a
certain product or service at a certain price, no
one will knock upon your door to buy your wares.

If you fail to attract customers and dollars,
your business will die. Therefore, advertising is
a must for the success of your business. Sure,
word of mouth can take you places, but it can
only take you so far. Advertising is designed to
pick up where word of mouth leaves off.

ATTRITION IS A DEFINITE FACTOR TO
CONSIDER

Attrition is a factor in all businesses. A
business is able to pick up so many customers and
dollars on every advertising or promotion
venture. Yet, a certain portion of your old and
new customers and dollars will drop off over time.

You simply cannot rest on your laurels. You must
continue to generate new business and new dollars
or your business will die.




EZINE PUBLISHING DELIVERS A GOOD
EXAMPLE OF COMMERCIAL ATTRITION

If you have ever published an online ezine, then
you will have seen attrition first hand.

You can spend all week advertising your ezine and
note that your efforts have generated for example
500 new subscribers. Yet, by the end of the week,
your subscriber base has only climbed by 250
subscribers. What went wrong?

Well, this is how it works. Keep in mind this is
only an example to make my point, but if you have
ever published an ezine, then you will know I am
right on the money with this observation.

In one week:

· 500 people sign up for the first time.
· 40 of those people unsubscribe after the very
first issue because they do not like the content.
· 30 people quit after the first issue because
their only purpose in subscribing in the first
place was to get the freebie you had offered to
new subscribers.
· 30 of those people unsubscribe because they do
not remember subscribing to the ezine in the
first place.
· 80 email addresses bounce due to ISP email
filters.
· 20 people bounce because they did not pay their
Internet bill.
· 35 people have simply changed their email
addresses without submitting a change of address
to you.
· 15 people have quit the Internet altogether.

In the final analysis, 100 of your new
subscribers, or 20% of your newcomers are gone
after one week. Another 150 subscribers were
long-time subscribers who are gone for other
reasons.

If you make the mistake of stopping your
advertising, your ezine list will eventually wind
down to one subscriber --- you. In our example,
150 long-time subscribers disappear every week,
and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You
must absolutely keep a fresh flow of new
subscribers coming into the ezine in order
to stay ahead of the attrition curve.

STAYING AHEAD OF THE ATTRITION
CURVE

An ezine or a business, what is the difference?
Not much. Your business will suffer the same fate
as the ezine if you do not advertise. I don’t
know how to make it any more clear than this.

Yes, you must be careful not to throw your money
away on advertising that does not generate
results. But you cannot afford to throw the baby
out with the bath water.

Carefully, pick your advertising, study your
results, and put your money back into what is
working for you.

In conclusion, you must decide. Do you want to
advertise your business, or do you want to watch
your business die? The decision is yours and
yours alone. Well, what are you going to do?

David Hudson, webmaster of webcashlink,
business articles author, and a successful affiliate,
can help you with your online business.
Visit: Setuponce

Your Shoestring Budget Home Internet Business

Whether seeking a supplemental income or a full-time
income, many folks have undertaken the task to discover a
viable home based business solution to meet their personal
needs.

For most folks who contemplate a home business, a low-cost
or no-cost solution is not only nice, but also very
necessary. Many also seek to find a home business that will
permit them to maintain their regular day job in order to
protect their base income.

Taking the cautious approach to a home based business and
keeping one's job during the start-up period is often a
very good decision. By maintaining one's job, one can
maintain the health of their personal finances while
permitting their home business grow healthy and strong.

Fortunately, most home based businesses can be started with
little or no cash, can be maintained on a shoestring
budget, and can be operated successfully with only a
part-time investment.

One day, the business will be strong enough to support
itself and its owner. When that time comes, it will make
good sense for the business owner to leave his or her
outside job to dedicate more time to growing and
maintaining their new thriving home based business. You
will know when that time has finally arrived.

The nature of a home based business makes it easy and very
realistic for most folks to take the plunge into home
business ownership.

Yet, many folks put off starting their own home based
business, because they have the misconception that they
will have to risk thousands of their own hard-earned
dollars at start-up. Then later, if their business fails,
they fear they may be forced to take out a second mortgage
on their house just to stay out of bankruptcy.

Are you one of these folks? Do you let your fears of
failure keep you from reaching for your dreams?

If so, then allow me to introduce you to a few home
business ideas that you can start for less than $100 and
can be started and operated very profitably as a part-time
business.

The Lifeblood Of All Successful Business

First of all, let me advise you to search out a business
model that will deliver steady and repeat business. It is
the one thing --- above all others --- that will assure
that your company can survive the test of time.

Home-Based Mail Order: Home-based mail
order is a good example of how one can quickly grow a home
business income. Mail order is a low cost start-up business
that can be launched for around $100 USD.

With proper planning, your home-based mail order business
will not require up-front inventory purchases. In the mail
order business, it is not uncommon to rely upon
drop-shippers for product fulfillment services.

By utilizing drop-shippers, we can sell the products,
collect the money and then purchase the products from the
wholesale outlet. The wholesale outlet will then put a
return address for your company on the product packaging
and deliver the product directly to your customer.

Your primary expense in the mail-order business is
advertising. Classified advertising tends to be a
relatively inexpensive form of advertising with thousands
of outlets available to the small business owner.

Wholesale Business: Buy low --- sell high.
You can acquire high quality, top-of-the-line merchandise
for a fraction of the retail cost. Starting a wholesale
business would require a Wholesale Dealers Directory as
your source for merchandise. You can find a Wholesale
Deales Directory by using any search engine to look up the
term.

Auctions: Auctions can be an excellent
source for buying cheap and selling high. Both government
auctions and Internet auctions can lead to some excellent
profit opportunities. Auctions are an excellent tool for
both acquiring and selling merchandise.

Make and Sell Crafts: Crafts are a hot
seller at country fairs, swap meets or anyplace where
people gather. Make your own crafts and sell them for a
tidy profit!

Selling Information: Selling information
by mail is another good example of an inexpensive home
based business start-up. One can gain the resale rights to
information for usually about $50 USD. Other costs will
include printer cartridges, paper and postage. There are
plenty of free classifieds sites on the Internet, in which
to successfully advertise your information.

Write Informational Booklets: Write and
publish your own informational booklets; sell them at a
high price! All you need is a little know-how, a printer,
paper and stamps. This is a GREAT home business idea! You
can also sell the resale rights to others, for extra
profits. In this age of the Internet, you may also take
advantage of the fact that selling information is one of
the most profitable endeavors one can pursue online.

Office Services: Offer office services for
hire in your local paper. You'll be surprised at the amount
of regular office business that can be gleaned from one
little classified ad. Word processing, typing, accounting,
data entry, proofreading, transcription, promotional
letters and newsletters. All these tasks can be
accomplished right from your own home office.

Avon Representative: Yes, Avon's been
around for eternity, hasn't it? Then it's not such a bad
prospect as a home based business, is it? I once knew a
woman who did so much business as an Avon rep. that she had
people calling her and knocking at her door wanting to
order products at all hours of the day and night! Once you
are an established Avon representative, you, too, will turn
a good profit.

Conclusion: On your search for the ideal
home based business, try not to get caught up in any scams
that will run off with your money. There are thousands of
scam artists out there just waiting for the next sucker to
come along. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true,
then it probably is. Just use your good judgement and
invest wisely in proven methods of earning extra income.

David Hudson, webmaster of webcashlink,
business articles author, and a successful affiliate, can
help you with your online business. Visit: Setuponce

Are You A Marketer Or A Promoter?

Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply
promote affiliate programs? Marketing is truly
the most misunderstood word in use today on the
Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue
just a bit.

In Marketing 101 at your local university,
marketing is actually the process of Product,
Place, Price and Promotion.

Product

No business can exist without a product or
service to sell.

In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the people who
believe in a product, service or idea, so much
that they are willing to invest their lives into
the development of their dream.

Historically, every major corporation in the
world was started by an entrepreneur with a dream
and the drive to make it a reality.

However, there comes a time in the life of every
corporation when those who fear the gambling
nature of their founder, squash the
entrepreneurial drive that made the company a
viable concern in the first place. The
entrepreneur will either submit to the careful
nature of the stockholders, or he will be forced
to leave the company he created.

The only entrepreneurs who withstand the pressure
to move more carefully are those who have
maintained majority control over their companies.

Place

In the offline world, place is defined by
location. On the Internet, place is defined by
domain name and the web hosting service chosen.

Both online and offline, place can make or break
a company without respect to the quality and
value of the product, service or idea.

Price

Selecting a price is determined first on a basis
of whether the company wants to be seen as a
discount or a value company.

Take for example Wal-Mart and Staples.

Wal-Mart is the lead discounter in the
marketplace. Staples on the other hand is the
specialist in office supplies.

Both sell a significant number of office supplies
despite the fact that the lowest price can
usually be found at Wal-Mart. As a value dealer,
Staples can afford to charge more for their
products than Wal-Mart.

So the question for you is whether you want to
position your company as a discount or value
company.

Testing has shown that products and services can
be sold at any number of prices and still reach a
significant number of people.

The challenge of selecting the best price for
your product or service will require a certain
amount of testing.

The Pricing Equation

Let's assume we are selling a product. Let us
also assume that we know that the product can be
sold for $10 or $50. Let us also assume that if
the price dips below $10 or rises above $50, then
the product sales fall off significantly.

Our challenge is to determine the best rate at
which to sell our product.

Testing has shown us that we can sell 1000 items
a week at $10. Testing has also shown that we can
sell 500 items per week at $50. And testing has
shown that we can sell 650 items per week at $45.

At $10, our projected weekly earnings are
$10,000. When we sell the product at $50, we know
that we can earn $25,000 per week. Most
importantly, we know that we can earn $29,250
when our product is priced at $45.

With the imaginary testing we have done on our
imaginary product, we can easily see that selling
our product at $45 per item will earn us more
money over the long haul.

Thus, when we make the decision for a national
rollout of our product, then we will price our
product at $45.

Of course, this is a very simplistic analysis of
the point I am trying to make. Though simple, I
believe this analogy will help you understand the
methods of developing a product's prices.

Promotion

Promotion, on the other hand, is the process of
notifying the consumers for your product or
service of your availability to serve them.

Methods of promotion vary distinctly and should
be arranged to meet very specific goals.

As with product, place and price, promotion
should not be left to chance. You should test
every ad, every media, and every price point to
determine the best bang for your promotional
dollars.

Heads Up!

If you are an online promoter or marketer, please
factor in the most important element concerning
the cost of your promotions.

Your Time!

Value your time at a certain dollar amount, and
figure in your time into the cost of your
promotional accounting.

I say this because too many online promoters lose
sight of this concept and spend 20 hours to
generate one sale while using free advertising.
Even if you rate your time at the federal minimum
wage, then you will have invested $105 of your
time for one sale that might only net you a gross
sale of $45!

Marketer or Promoter?

Most people who run a business on the Internet
call themselves marketers. Yet, most of these
same people are really just promoters wrapped in
the label of a marketer.

True marketers do not promote without a lot of
advance work. They spend time planning, testing
and measuring their actions and results to get
the most out of every dollar spent and earned.

Entrepreneurs finesse the art of marketing as
they build their company into a major enterprise.

If you are a promoter who does not keep an eye on
the total marketing equation, then you are bound
to fail.

If you do call yourself a marketer, then do what
a professional marketer does. Make sure that
every dollar spent is spent well. Make sure that
every dollar earned is put to good use. Market
well so that when the people of the next
generation look at your life, they will see a
fine example of a successful entrepreneur that
they will strive to emulate.


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