The Home Business Dilemma
Copyright © Rami Doleh
http://www.BusinessFountains.com

How often do we dream of having our own business? How often do we day dream about doing this and doing that if we had our own business?

We would start imagining how we would treat our employees, our customers, our partners. How we would do it different than what we are seeing at the workplace of our day job.

After all those positive thoughts our minds start drifting to the negative side. Why can't we have our own business? Then the answer would always roam around not having the money for it. We would think about the risks of losing the security provided by of our day job. What if that business ate up all our savings? What will happen to children, the mortgage, the car loan…etc?

Then a light flashes at the end of the tunnel. Our mind becomes creative and thinks about starting something small, something that we can do after work. May be we can start something at home.

Now we get excited. We roll our sleeves and we start to research for ideas. After a couple of months of research we get brain washed about how easy it should be to make a "SIX FIGURE INCOME IN FEW WEEKS." It is funny how our brains forgets that most those ideas that we went through are not true ideas, but we get stuck with the idea that a home business should make us RICH..RICH..RICH in no time.

After finding the idea that seems to suit our needs and looks workable we take out our credit card, pay the fee and start calling our friends and family and tell them the exciting news. We think this might also be a clever and indirect way to encourage them to join the business.

The following day we go to work. Of course there is no way we can be productive during the day as we are waiting impatiently to go home and start selling.
We go home, switch on the PC/Laptop put our credit card on the table and start searching for ways to advertise on the net. Although planning is at the heart of any business but we will not get into it here. You can read more about planning for your business whether it is offline or online business in our article at the following link: http://businessfountains.blogspot.com/2006/03/planning-for-failure-ignore-this.html

We go to sleep happy and proud that night while imagining the flowing money that must be coming in while we are sleeping. We wake up very early to check what happened. We realize that no sales were made. We think its OK, it’s the first day anyway. "We have to be realistic," our mind tells us. "Nothing can happen in one night." We go to work, we make sure nobody is watching and we take out the piece of paper we had the site written on and we keep checking if any sales are happening. Nothing yet.

But the program that we are in is advanced and provides traffic stats, so we click on the stats link and realize that we had three clicks since last night. "That is good. This is not bad at all," we say.

But tonight our friends are coming over, so we cannot work. Tomorrow we promised some other friends that we will go out for dinner. Our partner says that we have to go to the movies. We will realize that each night we have some other priority that we have to attend to and that business can wait for tomorrow night.

At the end of the third week we would realize that the business is not working and this whole idea of home business is not worth it and it does not deliver what it promises, "SIX FIGURE INCOME IN FEW DAYS."

Now look what we have done:

1) Invested a small amount of money to start a home business.
2) Invested some more for advertising.
3) Since it is automated then it should do all the work for us while we go and have fun.

Let us remember what our dream was:

1) Have our own business.
2) Spend time with our customers, employees and partners and treat the best way possible
3) Basically our business will become our first priority as it is after all our dream.

What happened?

We said it before, we got brainwashed by the bad ideas. We remembered that they were bad ideas, but we did not forget their promise. "SIX FIGURE INCOME IN FEW MINUTES."

What should we do? We should remember the following:

1) A business is a business regardless of the amount of money you invest. Therefore, you must feel lucky that you found an idea with a small investment.
2) A small investment opportunity should not give you the excuse to ignore it. Imagine if you have borrowed a large sum of money to run an offline business, would you still go to that dinner, that movie or that game?
3) An Automated system does not mean it will do all the work on its own. You have to spend time working the system. Remember it is part time not FREE TIME.
4) A home business or an online business does not mean "SIX FIRGURE INCOME IN FEW SECONDS." It is a business like any other that needs time to grow.
5) You not an employee anymore, you are the owner, so don't waste time. Remember if the owner caught you wasting time you will be fired. Now you are the owner, you might not get fired, but you WILL lose the business.

Our last word to home business owners, don't underestimate your business because it’s a low investment. Treat it as if all your savings and your family's future are at stake.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.BusinessFountains.com
To find the best Training to grow your business
by design rather than chance visit:
The Leaders Club

Planning for Failure? Ignore this Lesson!
Copyright © Rami Doleh
http://www.BusinessFountains.com

When a light bulb appears over your head with a great idea for a potentially profitable business idea, you feel your body temperature rising. Guess what, it is either you are excited or may be it is the heat of the bulb over your head!!

Now may be this idea is original that has not been marketed before. Maybe you have come up with a new spin on the ordinary. It could be the next revolutionary idea in the world of business. Whatever it is that has influenced you to start a business, be sure that you have a plan before you begin. Although everybody knows that failing to plan is planning to fail, many entrepreneurs tend to think it’s a waste of time.
This is not the time to “pick it up as you go”. These are some basic things that should be included in your business plan.

1) The business summary: This section of the plan should give a brief description of the entire business and is an integral part of the overall business plan.

2) Objectives: After you have completed the business summary you should begin to list the objectives or the goals that you want to accomplish through the business.

3) Marketing Plan: The marketing plan will address all the specifics of the business. When developing the marketing strategy you should consider the following:

a) The target market. The target market is the customers that you expect to be interested in what you are offering. For example will your product be more appealing to college students or those who are in retirement?

b) Consider the competition for your product when determining the marketing strategy. Choose a product that will be seen as unique and useful. Research the offering of the same or similar products. Find out the cost, and how they are marketing their product. Find out the pros and cons of their business
and try to improve your product based on their flaws.

c) Research the various methods for advertising You should become educated about the different advertising tools and vehicles whether offline or online. Learn who they work and which target markets access this or that media. You should be prepared to spend an amount of money on advertising, but the profits that you will gain from the advertisements will prove to be money well spent.

d) Think about pricing. Again, look at the competition and see what similar products are selling for. Pricing can play a big role in the success of your product since selling a product well below the average price may lead customer to think that there is a problem with the product or that it is not of the best quality. However, pricing items too high could also deter customers.

e) Determine the shipping method. Be sure that you know how products will be shipped so that you can have shipping details clearly defined for your customers. If you are shipping things of great value, you should
consider providing shipping insurance. Also think about shipping outside the country that you live in.

f) Think about the different methods of payment that you will accept. If your business does not accept credit cards, you should be ready to give up half if not more of your sales especially when you are selling online. If you decide to accept credit cards will you use a merchant account or will you use a third party credit card processing center? Both will help you get you started and the third party processing center will handle all of the business so you don’t
have to. You should decide which you will use and also if you will accept checks or money orders. It is essential to have a secure server when taking credit cards.

These few things will help your business to become a great success and also provide you with peace of mind knowing that you have thoroughly thought about and planned for the opening of your business.
These rules can be applied for either offline or online business ideas. Actually a business idea can be implemented online and offline. Either way make sure:

1) To prepare your plan before you make any step.
2) Document this plan and save it somewhere safe.
3) Keep going back to your plan to control any deviation.


About the Author:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.BusinessFountains.com
To find the best training to grow your business
by design rather than chance visit:
The Leaders Club