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Starting a
Home Business? Start with what you know.
Bob Cortez
The most frequently
asked question I receive as an Internet home business
consultant usually goes something like this; "I would really
like to start my own home business on the Internet, but I
don't know what." The short answer is - Start with what you
know and enjoy.
There are a number of good reasons
for this.
By drawing on existing knowledge,
you can concentrate on building a business rather than
learning about a new trade, product, or service.
Starting and running a home business means long hours and
sacrifice. It is easier to do when you are doing something
you enjoy.
Selling what you know and enjoy is less difficult for
non-salespeople. Selling what you know and enjoy is less
difficult for non-salespeople.
The Internet offers unique
opportunities for the home business entrepreneur. It creates
the ability to reach a much larger potential market for your
product, service, or information at a much lower price than
through conventional advertising mediums.
The Internet and World Wide Web are
still in their infancy. Right now, you can get everything
you need to put your business online - free. It is like
someone offering you a store (web hosting), full time staff
(web pages, auto responders) and advertising (lots of
advertising) for free. All you have to do is come up with an
idea for a product or service to put in the store.
One of my favorite examples is my
mother's home business. She builds very creative and unique
birdhouses. She uses scrap lumber from a local sawmill
(free) and driftwood from the local beach (free), to keep
her material costs low. Another local artist provides the
miniature sculptures for a percentage of the sales. She
started by building and selling these for the local tourist
trade in Homer Alaska, and was doing ok. But when we put
them on the Internet (http://www.ptialaska.net/~cortez/)
sales really began to soar. Not everyone that would be
interested in the birdhouses can afford to visit Homer, and
we certainly couldn't afford to advertise to the world in
any other way. We were able to reach this larger market by
using free web hosting, design, and promotion services. Once
we developed a flow of traffic, we were able to create
additional income streams by selling other peoples products
as well. (I'll discuss this further later in this article)
This business model can work for
just about any product that can be shipped. What unique item
can you build using local materials? Do you have a craft or
gift idea that is unique? How about a kit or plans for
something you have built?
Information is another type of
product. What do you know or know how to do that would be of
interest or value to others? You can either sell that
information as a report, or a tip booklet. Or you can give
the information away at your store and sell other peoples
related products for a commission. The advantage here is
that once you put your information in the store it is done.
You don't have to keep building it and shipping it. If your
not comfortable with writing your own material you can use a
ghostwriter (http://www.home-work.net ).
Another home business opportunity
that is unique to the Internet is based on common interests.
What do you have a special interest in that others may
share? Music, books, computers, cars, gardening,
collectibles, etc…? The idea in this business model is to
create a site with information and resources available
online of interest to others. Then you select products to
sell of interest to people that would be visiting your site.
For instance, if you had an avid interest in a particular
type of music. You could develop a site that was a resource
for others with that same interest. The site could include
links to artists sites, reviews of the latest releases,
concert tour information, photos, sound clips, interview
excerpts, a chat room, or discussion board. You become an
"associate" of one of the CD distributors online and receive
a commission on CD's that are sold. The distributor does the
entire order fulfillment. The number and variety of
companies that have an associate program online is growing
daily. They cover all kinds of products and services from
gifts to computers or web hosting to credit cards.
Start with what you know, apply
some imagination, and open your low cost home business
online. The market is growing everyday - world wide.
Bob
Cortez has 20 years of sales and marketing experience.
Through Total Quality Marketing he is providing consulting
services to home based entrepreneurs looking to expand their
business online and take advantage of the tremendous
opportunities available.
Total Quality Marketing
PO Box 338
Homer Alaska 99603
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