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A Home-Based Business Online
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Practical home business ideas, opportunities
and solutions for the work-from-home
entrepreneur
Issue 145 : August 12, 2002
Sent to 12,920 Opt-In Subscribers
Editor: Elena Fawkner
Publisher: Fawkner Publishing
http://www.ahbbo.com
Contact By Email
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. Welcome and Update from Elena
2. Home Business Idea of the Week
3. Feature Article - Choosing the Right Home Business
For You
4. Surveys and Trends
5. Success Quote of the Week
6. Advertise with AHBBO
7. Subscription Management
8. Caveat Emptor
9. Contact Information
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1. Welcome and Update from Elena
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Hello again and a warm welcome to all the new subscribers
who have joined us since the last issue.
Last week's solo mailing contained an error in the URL.
To learn more about Selina Humnycki's home business
opportunity, please visit http://www.selinah.123ts.com/.
This week's article takes a look at how to choose the right
home business for you. Not everyone wants to start a business
on the Internet. "Choosing the Right Home Business For You"
guides you through the process of taking what you're good at
and what you enjoy and turning that into a profitable business.
It's 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 .
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2. Home Business Idea of the Week - "How-To" Videos
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A Florida videographer produced a how-to wedding planner
tape and sold over $250,000 worth of videos in just 12 months.
Think about it: If you sell your video for $25, all you need to
do is sell around 80 videos a week, or 325 videos a month to
gross $100,000 a year.
A typical "small" production can sell as much as 1,500 videos
a month, or 18,000 units a year, at $25 each.
It's the Topic
If there is one single factor that makes or breaks a how-to
video, it's the choice of topic. Another factor to consider is the
length of the material. To remain interesting the average how-to
video must be fast paced and relatively short, not exceeding 45
minutes. More successful videos are no more than 30 minutes
long as this is a tolerable length by which a video can effectively
cover a topic and remain interesting.
The Shoot
Who's going to do the shooting? If you decide to do it yourself,
where will you get the camera? What format are you going to
shoot it in? The average cost of renting a 3/4 inch U-Matic
camera, with wireless microphones, and standard lighting equipment
is around $495 a day. A camera person with an assistant will cost
an extra $250.
The Editing
Once you've shot all the footage you need, you edit the work,
assembling the footage in an orderly and coherent fashion that
will effectively deliver the thought. Depending on how you shot
your footage, editing can take 20 to 50 times the estimated
finished length of your video. this means a 10 minute video may
take 4 to 5 hours to edit, and so on.
Studio time ranges from $40 to as much as $100 an hour,
depending on the special effects you want to have available for
your editing project.
Packaging
Full color printed sleeves start at around 40 cents a piece if you
order 1,000 or more. You also need face labels on your tapes,
as well as shrink wrapping for protection.
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This is just one of over 130 ideas from the new "Practical
Home Business Ideas From AHBBO" e-book. Find out more at
http://www.ahbbo.com/ideasbook.html .
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Discover some of the most successful Internet Businesses
on the Internet today that you can copy for your own. Here's
where you can really stand on the shoulders of giants. This is
good, original stuff!
http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?R5469_senze
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3. Feature Article: Choosing the Right Home Business For
You
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© 2002 Elena Fawkner
Pay any attention at all to your email inbox and you'd be
forgiven for thinking that the only way to run a business
from home is on the Internet. Sure, many people are
running spectacularly successful Internet-based home
businesses. Many, many more are doing so even more
spectacularly unsuccessfully.
But what if you're not interested in running an Internet
business? What if you want to start and run a home
business the old-fashioned way? Where do you start?
Actually starting any home business is the easy part.
The hard part's deciding what that business should be.
So how do you even start the process of deciding on the
right home business for you? The key is to be methodical,
realistic, objective and patient.
Step 1 : Personal Inventory
The first place to start is to inventory your skills,
experience, interests, and personality characteristics.
These are what you have to work with - your raw
ingredients, so to speak.
Make a list of personal qualities and factors that you can
throw into the mix. Include things like:
=> your personal background;
=> training and education;
=> work and volunteer experience;
=> special interests and hobbies;
=> leisure activities;
=> your personality and temperament.
All of these qualities and factors make up what you know
and what you're good at.
Step 2 : Identify What You Like
It's one thing to know a lot about something or be good at
it. It's quite another to enjoy it enough to want to make it
your life's work. So, remove from the list you created in
Step 1 anything that you don't really, really like doing or
which plain doesn't interest you. No matter how good you
are at it. If you're lucky enough to like what you're good at,
as a general rule, stick with what you know.
Step 3 : Match Your Likes With Marketable Activities
If Steps 1 and 2 still haven't suggested feasible home
business ideas, review the following activities that have
proven marketable for others and weigh them against
your "likes" from Step 2:
Crafts - pottery, ceramics, leadlighting
Health and Fitness - aerobics instructor, network marketing
for a health products company, home health care
Household Services - cleaning, gardening, shopping
Professional Services - attorney, architect, interior
designer
Personal Services - make-up artist, hairdresser
Business Services - business plan writer, meeting planner
Wholesale Sales - antique dealer, dropshipper
Retail Sales - children's clothing, widgets
Computers - web design, internet training.
Step 4 : Make a List of Business Ideas That Fit With Your
Likes From Step 2
By the time you're done, you'll have a hitlist of possible
matches between your skills and interests on the one
hand and home business ideas utilizing those skills and
interests on the other.
Step 5 : Research
Armed with your list from Step 4, identify those ideas that
you think have marketable potential and then research
whether that belief is accurate. In order to have
marketable potential, the idea must satisfy the following
criteria:
=> It must satisfy or create a need in the market. The
golden rule for any business is to either find or create a
need and then fill it.
=> It must have longevity. If your idea is trendy or faddish,
it doesn't have longevity. Go for substance over form in
all things.
=> It must be unique. This doesn't mean you have to invent
something completely new but it does mean that there has
to be some *aspect* of your product or service that sets it
apart from the competition. This is easy if you go for the
niche, rather than mass, market. Don't try to be all things
to all people. You'll only end up being too little to too many.
=> It must not be an oversaturated market. The more
competition you have, the harder it will be to make your mark.
It's unrealistic to expect no competition, of course. In fact,
too little competition is a warning sign either that your business
idea has no market or that the market is controlled by a few
big players. What you want is healthy competition where
it's possible to differentiate yourself from competing
businesses.
This all gets back to uniqueness. If you can't compete on
uniqueness, you must compete on price (or convenience).
If you're forced to compete on price alone, that just drives
down your profit margin. Not smart business.
=> You must be able to price competitively yet profitably.
The price you set for your product or service must allow
you to compete effectively with other businesses in your
market, it must be acceptable to consumers and it must
return you a fair profit. If any one of these three is off,
move on.
=> Your business must fit with your lifestyle. If you're
a parent of young children and you primarily want to start
a business from home so you can stay home with them,
a real estate brokerage business that requires you to be
out and about meeting with prospective clients is obviously
not going to work.
You'll instead need to choose a business that can be
conducted entirely (or near enough entirely) from within the
four walls of your home office. Similarly, if your business idea
would involve having clients come to your home, you're not
going to want an unruly 3 year old underfoot as you're trying
to conduct business.
=> Your financial resources must be sufficient to launch and
carry the business until it becomes profitable. No business is
profitable from day one, of course. But some are quicker to
break even than others. If your business requires a
considerable initial capital outlay to start - computer, printer
and software for a web design business, for example - it will
take you longer to break even than if the only prerequisite
was the knowledge inside your own head, such as working
from home as an attorney.
If your financial situation is such that you can't afford to quit
your day job until your business is paying its way, this, too,
will mean it will take longer to break even than if you're able
to devote every waking hour to your business. Just do what
you have to do. That's all any of us can do.
Step 6 : Business Plan
Once you've gone through the above process and identified
what appears to be the right business for you, the final "gut
check" is to write a business plan for your business, much as
you would for a presentation to a bank for financing. Include
sections for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats,
and set goals for what your business needs to achieve for
you, by when, and how you are going to get there.
There are plenty of good resources online about how to
prepare a thorough business plan. A great place to start is
at About.com (http://www.about.com). Just type "business
plans" into the search box.
Although it may seem like a waste of time and effort to
complete a business plan if you don't intend to seek outside
financing, taking the time and exercising the discipline needed
to really focus your mind on the important issues facing your
business, you will be forced to take a long hard look at your
idea through very objective and realistic eyes.
If your idea passes the business plan test, then you can be
reasonably confident that this is the right business for you.
If you come away from this exercise feeling hesitant,
uncertain and unsure, either do more research (if the reason
for your hesitancy and uncertainty is lack of information) or
discard the idea (if it's because you don't think your idea is
going to fly). If this happens, just keep repeating Steps 5
and 6 until you end up with an idea and a business plan that
you're confident is going to work!
Although it's frustrating to wait once you've made up your
mind to start a business from home, this really is one situation
where the tortoise wins the race. By taking a methodical,
systematic and disciplined approach to identifying the right
home business for you, you give your business the best
possible chance for long-term survival, hopefully avoiding
some very expensive mistakes along the way.
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** 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:
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Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ...
practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the
work-from-home entrepreneur.
http://www.ahbbo.com
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4. Surveys and Trends
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© 2002 Ryanna's Hope
THIS WEEK! SPAM, EMAIL MARKETING AND 9/11!
Editor's note: Months back Ryanna's published an article in
"Opportunity World" indicating that "misleading subject lines"
were going to kill your business efforts. As you can see from
below, now the FTC is in the act with obvious complaints
from consumers.
Revaluate your email campaign ... it just may be turning
customers away from you!
SPAM AND EMAIL MARKETING ...THE FTC
The agency is looking into cracking down on enforcement on
three new groups: senders of e-mail with a misleading subject
line, distributors of mail that lacks a valid unsubscribe option,
and sellers of "millions" of e-mail addresses on CD. A formal
announcement on FTC action on the matter is expected within
coming months.
By doing so, the federal agency will be broadening the scope
of its efforts beyond targeting pushers of fraudulent offers --
an area in which it's had a considerable amount of success,
recently bringing successful, multi-million dollar claims against
a host of e-mail marketers.
One effort is expected to build on a recent survey by the FTC
designed to study the pervasiveness of invalid opt-out
procedures -- that is, e-mail that falsely promises to
unsubscribe consumers, who show their intentions by clicking
on an embedded hyperlink or replying with "remove" in the
subject line. Last year, the FTC and several local law
enforcement agencies attempted to document their success in
unsubscribing from about 200 different unsolicited commercial
e-mailings. Not surprisingly, the majority of the unsubscribe
requests had been directed to a dead address, or otherwise
went ignored.
EMAIL MARKETING AND BACKLASH
A new survey lends further credence to the belief that e-mail
marketing efforts are being blunted by record levels of spam
and inbox oversaturation, according to research from Executive
Summary Consulting, Inc. and Quris.
Based on a survey of more than 1,200 e-mail users, the study
found that spam makes up the largest share of most users'
mailboxes. For those who use e-mail primarily at home,
unwanted e-mail marketing messages comprise about 37 percent
of users' mailboxes -- more than personal correspondence (26
percent) or permission-based mailings (24 percent).
AND HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU SOLICITING CUSTOMERS?
Saturation, too, plays a major role in turning consumers off e-
mail as a communication channel. Seventy percent of
respondents said they felt they received more e-mail this year
than last, with 74 percent of that figure saying that increases
in spam volume are a major factor.
Additionally, two-thirds of the respondents said they feel they
get "too much" e-mail. About 51 percent of those say they are
likely to "occasionally" respond to marketing mailings, or 7
percent less than the sample total. As a result, consumers who
feel inundated by e-mail are less likely to respond to messages -
- even if they've opted-in.
ADVERTISING AND SEPT. 11TH...
Fifty-one percent of U.S. consumers believe marketers should
go dark Sept. 11, according to an exclusive Advertising Age
survey.
The survey, conducted by WPP Group's Lightspeed Research,
found that only 34% of consumers believe it is acceptable to
run any advertising on the one-year anniversary of the terror
attacks; 15% had no opinion.
Sixty-two percent of the 307 respondents to the online survey
said their opinion of a company would not change if it advertised
Sept. 11. But among those who said their opinions would change,
the overwhelming majority said they would view the company
negatively.
Underscoring the complexity of Americans' feelings about the
day, however, survey respondents said they are more likely to
support TV advertising on programs that commemorate Sept. 11,
with 50% saying it was an appropriate advertising venue, and
44% calling it inappropriate. (Six percent had no opinion.)
Advertisers, wary of consumer backlash, are approaching the
day with trepidation, while media sellers anticipate a major
slowdown.
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SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
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5. Success Quote of the Week
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Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just
show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.
You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.
-- Anne Lamott
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Like This Ezine? Click to Recommend-It® to your friends!
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6. Advertise With AHBBO
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the most cost-effective and targeted form of advertising
online today. This is because the ezine's editor has already
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readers highly motivated by the subject-matter of the
ezine itself.
Therefore, assuming you place your ad in an ezine with
a subject matter that fits with what it is you are
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group of highly targeted prospects for your product or
service.
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To learn more about advertising in the AHBBO ezine,
visit http://www.ahbbo.com/advertising.html .
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8. Caveat Emptor
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Although all of the information presented in AHBBO is
published in good faith, I accept no responsibility as to the
accuracy or otherwise of the information presented. By making
use of the information contained in AHBBO the reader assumes
all risk that certain information may prove to be incorrect.
**I do not endorse any advertisements unless stated to the
contrary. Your money, your decision, your responsibility.**
All advertisements are accepted in good faith. However,
advertisers are solely responsible for the content and
accuracy of their classified advertisements and I give no
warranties, nor accept any responsibility, in relation to any
classified advertisement appearing in this publication. ALWAYS
carry out your own due diligence! Remember, if it sounds too
good to be true, it probably is.
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9. Contact Information
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Elena Fawkner, Editor
A Home-Based Business Online
Contact By Email
http://www.ahbbo.com
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All Rights Reserved