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AHBBO Home Based Business Information Return to AHBBO Archives
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_______________________________________________________________ A Home-Based Business Online _______________________________________________________________ Issue 140 : July 8, 2017 Sent to 12,526 Opt-In Subscribers Editor: Elena Fawkner Publisher: AHBBO Publishing http://www.ahbbo.com Contact By Email _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________________________________________ 1. Welcome and Update from Elena 2. Home Business Idea of the Week 3. Feature Article - Beyond Startup - Are You Stunting the Growth of Your Home-Based Business? 4. Surveys and Trends 5. Success Quote of the Week 7. Subscription Management 9. Contact Information _______________________________________________________________ 1. Welcome and Update from Elena _______________________________________________________________ Hello again and a warm welcome to all the new subscribers who have joined us since the last issue. This week's article is for those of you currently running a home-based (online or off) business and going it alone. At some point in the not-too-distant future, the time will come when going it alone means you're stunting the growth of your business. At this point the time has come to employ others to allow the momentum to continue. "Beyond Startup - Are You Stunting the Growth Of Your Home-Based Business?" is at segment 3. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this week's issue. Remember, AHBBO is for YOU! If you have comments or suggestions for topics you would like to see addressed, or would just like to share your experiences with other subscribers, I want to hear from you. Please send comments, questions and stories to Contact By Email . _______________________________________________________________ 2. Home Business Idea of the Week - Cleaning Broker _______________________________________________________________ I'm the first to admit cleaning house is definitely one of my least favorite activities. Couple that with a chronic lack of time and you're describing a huge segment of the population. One that isn't going to be shrinking any time soon. As a cleaning services broker you can tap into this market. A cleaning services broker basically brings together people wanting cleaning services performed and those prepared to perform that service for a fee. Start out by advertising for cleaners. You'll need to check references and test their skills. You may also want to consider bonding them. Once you have several cleaners on your books (as independent contractors, not employees), you can then start advertising your services to prospective clients. A Yellow Pages listing is a good place to start (although this does require quite a bit of forward planning) as well as classified ads in your local newspaper. Professionally produced flyers/ brochures that can be distributed in a letter box drop in the geographic area you are targeting will also generate good enquiry. You should set yourself up so that you bill the client for the cost of the service and you pay your cleaning contractors. The difference between what you pay your contractors and what you receive from clients is your commission. You can gradually expand your business too by adding more services over time. Logical extensions include window washing, garden maintenance, carpet cleaning and pet sitting, to name just a few examples. And don't forget to think outside the box when targeting clients. Consider, for example, real estate agents who need cleaning services for rental properties between tenants. ----- This is just one of over 130 ideas from the new "Practical Home Business Ideas From AHBBO" e-book. Find out more at New Home Business Ideas . _______________________________________________________________ 3. Feature Article: Beyond Startup - Are You Stunting the Growth of Your Home-Based Business? _______________________________________________________________ © 2017 Elena Fawkner If you've left the corporate world to strike out on your own in your own home-based business, you'll be acutely aware that your financial success is up to you and you alone, perhaps for the first time in your life. For obvious reasons, therefore, your home-based business is probably run on a shoestring. This means, of course, that you do everything. Although you are now CEO, you are also secretary, marketing director, receptionist and gopher. But hey, that's the way you like it, right? Just as well too since when you're just starting out you don't have much of a choice anyway. But sooner or later, if you keep doing everything yourself you'll necessarily curtail the growth of your business. It will grow to a certain point but no further because you're only one person and there are, after all, only 24 hours in a day. Now, if you're satisfied with making a little money on the side, that's fine. But if your business is your only source of income, you must move beyond start-up if you are to become financially successful and avoid stunting the growth of your business. This article looks at the growth stages of a typical one-person home-based business and how to gradually grow your business without being run over in the process. INITIAL GROWTH => One-(Wo)Man Band As already stated, when you first start out, you do everything yourself. you're both chief cook and bottle-washer. And you can continue like this for quite some time because, initially, you are unlikely to be fully stretched. This is exactly what you should be doing. This is NOT the time to go out and spend money with advertising agencies and hiring employees. For so long as you CAN do everything yourself and everything that needs to be done is getting done, this is the most efficient use of your current resources. => don't Overcommit Yourself During this stage, however, it is important to be careful not to overcommit yourself. You are a fledgling. You must learn to fly like a sparrow before you can soar like an eagle. So, when you first start out, underpromise and overdeliver. Also, don't embark on an aggressive marketing campaign until you have the business resources to satisfy the demand you will create. Let your advertising grow in line with the growth of your business, the addition of employees and increased financial capacity. => Pay Yourself Be extremely careful with your pricing during this stage also. Make sure you include a wage for yourself in your overhead costs and add a realistic profit margin (say 15-20%). Remember, price equals costs plus profit margin. Costs include direct, indirect and overhead costs. For a more detailed treatment on pricing, read "Pricing Yourself to Get, and Stay In, Business" at http://www.ahbbo.com/pricing.html . => Profits Belong to Your Business Plough your profit back into your business. This is most important. This is where your funds for expansion during the next growth phase of your business come from. NEVER use your business's profits to pay personal expenses. This is what you pay yourself a wage for. Your business's profit does not belong to you. It belongs to your business. There IS a difference! => Avoid Premature Expenditure During your shoestring days, look for lower-cost substitutes before incurring substantial expenditure. For example, don't go out and buy a new fax machine, a new answering machine, a new photocopier. Get one of those three in one jobs that sits on your desktop and only costs a few hundred dollars. Use a good accounting software program rather than hiring an accountant and hire from your family first if you need temporary help. Another good idea is to negotiate with family members to take over some household chores you would normally do yourself to free your time to work on your business. This works especially well with pocket-money age children and teenagers. During times of temporary overload, hire temporary staff from a staffing agency if no family members or members of your social circle can do the job. => The Glass Ceiling After a while, somewhere between the two year and five year mark, you will notice that your business is beginning to stagnate. At this point, you've stretched yourself and your resources as far as they can go. You've hit the glass ceiling, in other words. At this point, if you want your business to grow further, you'll have to grow it. It won't happen as part of an evolutionary process beyond this point. BEYOND THE GLASS CEILING => Hire Permanent Employees The time to hire permanent employees is when you reach the point that you can't complete all tasks alone (or with the help of family members) and/or your time is worth more than it would cost to hire someone to complete your less complicated tasks. Before adding employees, carry out an inventory of the necessary tasks required to operate your business. Once you've identified all necessary tasks, assign primary responsibility for each task to one person. Although one person will be assigned more than one task, make sure no two people are assigned the same tasks. Also, make sure at least one other person knows how to do each task to cover yourself during times of staff shortages, whether due to temporary absence due to illness, or when an employee resigns and it takes you a while to find a replacement. Finally, and most importantly, when assigning tasks, assign yourself the tasks you do best (NOT just what you like to do). => Capital To grow beyond the start-up and initial growth phases, you will need capital to inject into your business. Now this, unfortunately, is easier said than done. Banks can be leery of entrepreneurial ventures and venture capital is not easy to obtain. But, although obtaining borrowed capital is difficult, it is by no means impossible. Here are the main sources of funds: * Banks Cultivate a good relationship with your banker. The more he or she understands your business and knows you, the more likely it is that your application will be approved. And this means more than just fronting up when you need money. Keep your banker informed of all significant developments in your business and routinely provide copies of your annual business plans. Be prepared to demonstrate that your business is capable of generating cashflow and think about what collateral you have available to put up if necessary. * Venture Capital In addition to a solid business plan and track record, venture capital providers want to see that you understand your customers and how your business is a good fit with their needs. So arm yourself with competitive intelligence and satisified customers as references. Also, be prepared to show you have access to experienced management staff. These individuals need not be on your payroll but you should expect to show that you have a depth of experience and talent available to you at least in an advisory capacity. * Revenue Stream Instead of selling equity to raise capital, consider selling part of the revenue of the business. In other words, investors advance loan capital and get repaid by way of a percentage of the sales of the business. This preserves your equity in the business and is attractive to investors because they receive an immediate cash return. This method has the considerable advantage of avoiding securities laws (it's a loan rather than a sale of securities) but it's only viable for businesses with high margins and strong sales. * Angel Capital Electronic Network ACE-Net brings companies looking for capital together with angel investors. You can find links to ACE-Net at http://www.sba.gov/ADVO . * Direct Public Offering If your business has a strong relationship with its constituents (employees, customers, vendors and community), consider selling stock via a direct public offering. The securities laws involved in such an offering are complex though so be prepared for some pretty hefty legal fees if going down this road. * Miscellaneous Other miscellaneous sources of funding include 401(k) plans and provision of loan guarantees by the Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov), family members or friends. => Work On the Business, Not In the Business The third and final point to note about breaking through the glass ceiling is that you must make the mental transition from working IN the business, to working ON the business. Until your business hit the glass ceiling, you were effectively working in the business, much as an employee would. In this sense, the business was your job, a place to go to work. But beyond the glass ceiling, your business becomes an entity unto itself. It is no longer your "job" to work at the tasks that make up the business's operation. Instead, your role is to work "on" the business as a separate entity, leaving the tasks to your paid employees. Hopefully you can see that shifting your perspective in this way is the key to the long-term growth of your business and the difference between true autonomy and indentured servitude. ------ include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a ------ practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 4. Surveys and Trends _______________________________________________________________ © 2017 Ryanna's Hope AN OPEN SEASON ON WEIGHT REDUCTION! Among people over 25 (the population for which the Metropolitan Life tables were developed) 80% of the public are overweight, up from 58% in 1983, 64% in 1990 and 71% in 1995. Fully 33% are now twenty percent overweight, a reasonable measure of obesity, compared to 15% in 1983, 16% in 1990, and 22% in 1995. In other words, obesity has more than doubled from less than one-sixth of the population eighteen years ago to one-third today. (harris poll, 2017) WHAT WOMEN WANT IN HEALTHCARE PLANS The two major predictors of women's satisfaction with their healthcare plans are preventive care and prescription benefits. Thirty-one percent of women choose a plan on the basis of preventive care services compared to only 25% of men. The more preventive care services women are encouraged to utilize, the more likely they are to choose that healthcare plan. For example, 85% of women who are encouraged to use five or more preventive care services are likely to re-enroll in the plan. Women (52%) are more concerned than men (44%) about a healthcare plan's prescription coverage. Lower copayments are a major draw for 34% of women and 28% of men. Other key issues to women are the ability to obtain the medication that the doctor believes is best and the cost to enroll in the prescription plan. Among women who are very satisfied with their prescription coverage, over 80% are likely to re-enroll in their healthcare plans. (source: Keymarketing) INTERNET'S TEEN ROLE WITH FINANCES Today's teens are swarming to the Internet for video games, music and other entertainment. Researchers expect that, once they have outgrown their teen preferences, the web will be an integral part of their lives. It will be natural for them to use the Internet to handle their financial matters. Already, one-third of teens with bank accounts transfer money over the Internet and 25% pay bills online. Of those with brokerage accounts, 55% trade stocks online. (Keymarketing) ARE YOU OFFENDING YOUR CUSTOMERS? Nearly everyone (93% of all adults) believes that there are some words or expressions that should not be used in front of young children. More than two out of every three adults (69%) say there are some words or expressions that they would prefer not to hear people use around them. People over 65 (85%), people ages 50-64 (78%), women (78%), and African-Americans (78%) are the groups most likely to say they would prefer not to hear words and expressions which offend them. Young people ages 18-24 (58%) are the least likely to be offended by bad language. SO WHY DO YOU CONTINUE DOING IT? While most people (62%) who receive telephone calls from telemarketers or customer service people don't care whether they are called by their first or their last names, over a quarter (28%) say they would prefer to be called by their last names and that it bothers them (29%) to be called by their first names. Hardly anyone (5%) prefers being called by his or her first name a common practice among some telemarketers. A marked preference for the use of the last name is reported by college graduates (35%) and those with post-graduate education (39%) and those with higher incomes, who are presumably more important targets of telemarketers. Women (34%) compared to men (23%) are also more likely to prefer the use of their last names, as are African-Americans (43%). LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO SELL? Garlic consumption per capita grew to 3.1 pounds in 2017 — triple the 1989 consumption level. No other vegetable has undergone such phenomenal demand growth in the last 10 years. _______________________________________________________________ 5. Success Quote of the Week _______________________________________________________________ To dream anything that you want to dream. That is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed. -- Bernard Edmonds _______________________________________________________________ Retire Quickly or Enhance your current financial situation. For information and a valuable FREE report Go to _______________________________________________________________ 7. Subscription Management _______________________________________________________________ To SUBSCRIBE to this Newsletter:
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