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A Home-Based Business Online July 16 Sent to 10,328 Subscribers Editor: Elena Fawkner Publisher: AHBBO Publishing http://www.ahbbo.com Contact By Email IN THIS ISSUE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 1. 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 all of you who think how wonderful it would be to work from home. Although the benefits of working from home are undeniable, there are also some pretty tough downsides. One of those is the isolation monster. This week's article looks at ways of beating the isolation blues in the early days of your home business. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this week's issue. Remember, this ezine 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. Pick almost any city or town in the country, drive through any middle class neighborhood or residential area on the weekend, and you're sure to spot at least a half dozen garage sales. What's being sold at these garage sales? The accumulated "junk" people no longer use or want taking up space in or around their homes. Are they making any money with these garage sales? You'd better believe they're making money! It's not at all uncommon to make $600 with a weekend garage sale. Is it hard to put on a profitable garage sale? Well, yes and no. It really does take some of your time, and also requires an awareness of a few merchandising tactics. But the problems in running a successful garage sale are small in comparison to the profits. Who are the buyers, and how do you get them to come to your garage sale? Your customers are going to be "everybody," and you get them over to your garage sale with a little bit of advertising and promotion. Let's look at the background: Everybody accumulates the kind of garage sale items that other people are searching for, and are willing to buy. These items range from no longer wanted or outgrown items of clothing, to furniture, tools, knick-knacks, books, pictures and toys. Many garage sale items are objects of merchandise purchased on impulse, and later found to be not what the buyer wanted. Many items found at garage sales are gifts that have been given to the seller, but are the wrong size or incorrect choice for the recipient. The problem with most people is that they haven't the time to gather up all the items "just taking up space" in and around their homes and staging a garage sale to get rid of them. Many people don't know how to stage a garage sale, and many other people feel that putting on a garage sale is just too much bother and work. This is where you enter the picture. Your enterprise will be an ongoing garage sale of items donated and collected from these people who lack the inclination to put on garage sales of their own. For the rest of this report, visit http://www.ahbbo.com/garage.html . ----- There are many more ideas like this at the AHBBO Home Business Ideas page at free home based business ideas with more being added all the time. 3. © 2013 Elena Fawkner Like most people, when you think about what it would be like to work from home, you probably think of the obvious benefits such as working your own hours, not having to face a stressful, tedious commute every day, actually seeing what your garden looks like in daylight hours, not having to answer to a boss, being home when your children are, working in a comfortable environment and so on. These are, of course, some of only many wonderful benefits of working from home. Before long, though, you may begin to think back to your previous life and realize you actually miss those umpteen visitors who were constantly interrupting you when you were trying to work, the walk in the park at lunchtime with your best work-friend, drinks on Friday night after work, and being able to run an idea past a colleague for instant, valuable feedback. Now, everything is just, well, quiet. And there's no-one down the hall to go visit who's over age four. You find yourself checking your email constantly, wanting to connect to someone. You find yourself wishing the phone would ring. You! The person who, when you worked in a job, cursed constant telephone interruptions and thought voice- and e-mail was the greatest invention since sliced bread. Welcome to another reality of home-based business ... home alone. Here are some ways to avoid the isolation trap when running a business out of your home: ESTABLISH A STRUCTURE Nothing is surer to reinforce feelings of isolation as time that stretches as far as the eye can see like a straight, one lane highway through a flat, barren landscape. Don't start each day without a plan of what you intend to do. You need to structure your time so that it is not some endlessly vast terrain you must traverse alone. So write a to-do list, preferably at the end of the day before, so that when your work day starts you get productive straight away, before the isolation blues have a chance to take hold. REACH OUT When writing your to-do list, make sure you include at least two things every day that require you to interact with another person. Networking is a vital skill, whether you work for someone else or for yourself. So make contacts with people who can add value to your business, as well as connecting you with the outside world. Joining a professional group or club, attending seminars and trade shows relevant to your business are all great ways to meet new people who have similar interests and challenges. Participate in the activities organized by these groups and take a good supply of business cards with you. ESTABLISH JOINT VENTURES Another way to keep the isolation blues at bay is to joint venture with other home-based business owners. Team up with other businesses that offer complementary services to your business. Not only will you send additional business each other's way in the form of referrals, you are establishing professional relationships with your joint venture partners. ORGANIZE YOUR OWN FUNCTIONS Once you have joined various associations and formed joint venture partnerships, take the initiative and organize functions that bring you all together. These could be business-oriented networking sessions or purely social get-togethers such as a barbeque in the local park. Either way, you are forging a relationship with people in your new arena, just as you did when you were working in a corporate office. The only difference is that now you must take the initiative to forge these relationships. These are not people you are going to be seeing every day at the office. JOIN A GYM You are, of course, health conscious and physically active, right? Of course you are! So, why not kill two birds with one stone ... stay fit and meet new people. If you establish a routine that allows you to be at the gym at the same time every day, you will run into many of the same people and get to know them. USE THE INTERNET Making online friends is another way of staying connected with the outside world. Be very disciplined here though. It's way too easy to spend a lot of work time on social email exchanges and in chat rooms. Don't fritter away your time, but do seek out and maintain internet friendships. BACKGROUND NOISE Sometimes, it's only silence that reminds you you're alone. If you come from a corporate environment, your workday was punctuated by the constant background noise of telephones ringing, other people's conversations, hysterical laughter from the other end of the office and lunch trolley pages over the intercom system. If you find absolute quiet irksome, turn on the radio and have it playing in the background while you work. Talk stations are good because it's like having other people in the next room, but if you find yourself becoming so engrossed with the talk topics that you stop working and start listening, switch to a music station. There is no avoiding the fact that making the transition from a corporate environment to a home-based business is just that ... a transition. Most people will have to grapple with the isolation monster in the early days of their work-from-home career. But, as you can see, there are many ways of keeping isolation and loneliness at bay just by reaching out and forming new associations. Remember, just because you work alone doesn't mean you have to go it alone. ------ ** Reprinting of this article is welcome! ** This article may be freely reproduced provided that: (1) you include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a 100% opt-in list. (Articles are no longer being made available via autoresponder due to large numbers of bounced mails due to full mailboxes.) Here's the resource box to use if reprinting this article: ------ Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ... practical home business ideas for the work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com 4. Tips for Newbies Use your keyboard to access the start menu without fumbling around for your mouse. What are you, afraid of the keys? See that little window flying between the Ctrl and Alt keys next to the spacebar (that's where the Jetsons hang out)? Press it. And wow! Your start menu opens! ------ Tips by Tom Glander and Joe Robson of The Newbie Club. The best Newbie Site ever to hit the Web. 5. Subscription Management If you find this newsletter valuable, please forward it in its entirety to your friends, family and associates! 7. Contact Information Elena Fawkner, Editor A Home-Based Business Online Contact By Email http://www.ahbbo.com
** Reprinting of this article is welcome! ** This article may be freely reproduced provided that: (1) you include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a 100% opt-in list. Here's the resource box to use if reprinting this article: Elena Fawkner is editor of Home-Based Business Online. Best business ideas and opportunities for your home-based or online business.
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