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A Home-Based Business Online
_______________________________________________________________
Practical home business ideas, opportunities
and solutions for the work-from-home
entrepreneur
Issue 146 : August 19, 2002
Sent to 12,985 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 - The 9-to-5 Home Business Tug of War
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.
As one who has recently rejoined the ranks of the full-time
employed (after having worked part-time for 6 months), I
thought it was time for an article for those of us struggling
with full-time work schedules while trying to build a home
business "on the side". "The 9-to-5 Home Business Tug Of
War" 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 .
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2. Home Business Idea of the Week - Pet Products
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What's one of the biggest industries in the United States today?
Anything to do with pets. Step into any major pet supply store
and you'll be dazzled by no end of inventions to make your life
with pets easier and the life of your pet more fun.
This ready-made market represents an online business opportunity
for anyone with a creative streak and who loves animals. The
possibilities are endless. Collars for dogs and cats with unique
designs; name tags; handknitted doggie coats for those cold
climates; ceramic water and food dishes with unique artwork; pet
hampers for the pampered pooch at Christmas time; frisbees
painted in your own unique design. You name it, it will sell!
Your website is crucial. If you do this bit right, you can run this
business right out of your home, mail order. So start out creating
a few dazzling samples of your work, have them professionally
photographed and display them at your site. Don't rush the
website stage. This needs to be really professional and beautiful.
It will be a reflection of the quality of the work you do on your
pet products. If you don't make the right impression here, you
won't make the sale.
Plan on including ready-made products in your catalog but also
offer custom work as well. You can charge much more for custom
work and your profit margin on these items will be much higher.
This is a business where word of mouth advertising will be very
important. So create exceptional pieces and you'll find that the
word will spread, and quickly. Get set up to accept credit cards
at your site as soon as possible.
You'll be able to find good reciprocal linking partners in this business
too. Look for sites that are dedicated to pets such as pet care,
what to look for in a pet, that sort of thing, and negotiate to swap
links with the webmaster.
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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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on the Internet today that you can copy for your own. Here's
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3. Feature Article: The 9-to-5 Home Business Tug of War
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© 2002 Elena Fawkner
Perhaps the scarcest commodity the new home-business
owner just starting out has is time. This is particularly
so if you are also working a traditional, full-time job and
building up your business "on the side" in your spare time.
So how do you go about burning the candle at both ends
without burning yourself out in the process?
First off, let's think about priorities. Working a full-time job
while developing a business requires stamina and endurance
if other areas of your life are not to be neglected. This
means being fit and healthy. Make time to exercise at least
three times a week. Four or five is better. I know how hard
it can be to commit an hour to working out when you've got
an endless (and I mean ENDLESS!) list of things you need to
be doing NOW for your business. But make the time. It pays
BIG dividends in terms of stamina and endurance.
Second, eat right. Don't just grab a McBurger on the way
home from work and scoff it down as you're driving. Take
the time to cook a proper meal and relax for a half hour
or an hour before getting down to business. This gives you
a break and time to unwind from the pressures of the day,
making you much more productive when you do get down to
work. Eating proper meals will keep you in good health and,
coupled with a regular exercise routine, will help keep your
energy levels high.
OK, so you're physically in shape and taking care of
yourself. The next major thing to think about is time
management. Every weekend, before the working week starts,
prepare a business plan for the coming week. This is
nothing more complicated that writing down the various
business-related activities you must do over the course of
the coming week and then scheduling them according to how
much time you know you are going to have on a particular
day.
By planning out your time this way, you can schedule
your business activities alongside your other activities. Take
care of as many of them as you can through the course of the
day. Whether you are able to do this depends on the nature
of your 9 to 5 job but if you have even a little autonomy you
should be able to squeeze out a little time here and there.
Not huge chunks, just 10 minutes here and there.
The nature of your job may mean you don't have the luxury
of that sort of autonomy. If this is you, then there's
nothing for it but to free up time before and after work.
This may mean getting up an hour earlier every day, for example.
Whatever your personal situation, by planning ahead you will
at least have the peace of mind of knowing that time has
been allocated to all important business-related tasks.
By eliminating the "scatter gun" approach you will find that
the limited time you do have will be much more productive.
There are going to be some activities that you have to do
day in, day out. Decide what time of the day is best for
you to attend to these routine tasks. The more you can
integrate business activities into your daily routine the
more efficient will be your use of time. Let's take email,
for example. Anyone running an online business has to deal
with email on a daily basis. I use the time between when I
get up in the morning and when I leave for the gym for this.
It gives me time to wake up before I launch into my day
and is a relatively undemanding task that does not require
precision concentration.
Make use of autoresponders for as much of your email
processing as possible. This will further reduce the amount
of time you have to spend on this aspect of your business.
Other routine activities include things like site promotion
and search engine position monitoring. Now there are a lot
of great tools to help webmasters with this part of their
business. For example, WebPosition Gold will automatically
review your position in all the major search engines and
report back to you with the results. It can also be
programmed to auto-submit at appropriate intervals. Be sure
to use quality automated tools wherever possible. They can
save you literally hours of work every week and as we all
know, time is money in this business.
Keep a journal for a week. Record in it everything you do
during the day from the moment you get up in the morning
to the moment you go to bed. What activities can you
eliminate in favour of freeing up some time for your
business? Maybe it means getting up an hour earlier.
Maybe it's forgoing the sleep-in on the weekend. Maybe it
means giving up those two hours of TV every night. You will
find even 15-20 minutes blocks here and there can add up to a
sizeable chunk of time over a week or a month.
If you travel, keep a copy of your website on your laptop
and work on it while you're in the air or waiting for a
flight. Or answer your email ready to send it when you get
plugged in again.
As you can see, the trick is to practice the "nibble"
technique. If you wait until you have a great chunk of time
in one block, such as the weekend, you'll only waste all of
those little bits of time you could have put to good use
during the week and fritter away your "quality" time on
routine tasks rather than business development.
One final piece of advice. Take time every week to just
relax and do something you want to do. Although the
pressures of a new business are demanding, failing to take
time out will only lead to burn out.
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** Reprinting of this article is welcome! **
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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
WHAT THE KIDS WANT!
Apparently the breadwinners aren't the ones making the buying
decisions for electronics in American households. Research from
InsightExpress finds that students, including teens and young
adults, have the real power when it comes to which consumer
electronics are purchased when heading back to school.
The survey, conducted online with 300 students in July 2002,
revealed that while almost all (90 percent) of the students
already own a computer, nearly 1 in 4 are looking for
replacements. Furthermore, 35 percent of respondents would like
to purchase cell phones; 18 percent prefer pagers; one-third are
seeking digital cameras; and 30 percent desire MP3 players.
More than ever before, the buying power for electronic devices
belongs to students.
THE CONTINUED RISE OF DIGITAL
MetaFacts reports that 39.2 percent of households with PCs and
kids owned a videogame system in 2002, down slightly from 2001's
figure of 39.7 percent. MetaFacts principal analyst Dan Ness
attributes the decline to the proliferation of home computers:
Kids have discovered they can have fun on PCs, the Internet and
handheld game systems, challenging the traditional videogame
console.
The presence of both kids and PCs in the household is related to
the increased use of other technology products in the home
sector. Digital cameras have increased in penetration of PC
households with kids, rising to 31.3 percent from 22.5 percent
last year. Additionally, cell phone use among households that
have kids and PCs has also increased — 81.9 percent in 2002,
compared to 73.3 percent in 2001.
ONLINE LEARNING TRENDS
More than 50 percent of U.S. high schools are currently offering
online courses or exploring them for the future, according to a
study by Interactive Educational Systems Design, Inc. (IESD). The
study was sponsored by Apex Learning and Blackboard Inc.
The researchers surveyed 447 high school principals and 345
school district administrators, and asked their districts' and
schools' status, opinions and future plans for offering online
courses. The survey revealed that more than 40 percent of all
public high schools are already using online courses or planning
to start using them during this school year. Another 17 percent
are interested in offering online courses in the future. The
study also revealed that 32 percent of public school districts
will adopt and use an e-learning platform for the first time in
2002.
THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION?
More than eight out of ten teachers (84 percent) believe that
computers and access to the Internet improve the quality of
education, according to a survey by education technology
nonprofit NetDay, and 75 percent of teachers said the Internet is
an important tool for finding new resources to meet new
standards.
Two-thirds of teachers, however, agree the Internet is not well
integrated into their classrooms and only 26 percent of them feel
pressure to use it in learning activities.
NetDay also found that nearly every teacher has access to the
Internet at his or her school and 80 percent of classrooms have
computers that are online. Seventy-seven percent of teachers
agree that teachers without Internet access in the classroom are
at a disadvantage.
Teachers cite multiple uses for the Internet, but most primarily
see its potential as a research tool, and say it has not changed
the way they teach. Forty-eight percent of teachers say the
Internet has become an important tool for teaching over the last
two years, yet across every demographic group of teachers, half
or more use the Internet at school for less than 30 minutes a
day.
GETTING INVOLVED WITH YOUR CHILDREN
Parents are looking to the Internet as a tool to become more
involved in their children's education, according to a study by
Learning Pays.com and Yankelovich Partners.
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of parents polled say that
they would become more involved with their children's education
if they had greater access to teachers, curriculum, and event
schedules via the Internet as a tool to become more involved in
their children's education, the study found. More than half (53
percent) of parents feel that their children would benefit from
individualized attention, tailored to their unique learning
styles and capabilities.
The study also revealed that 48 percent of the parents of school-
aged children wish they could play a more active role in class
trips and other educational activities. Forty-seven percent would
like to be more involved in their children's extra-curricular
activities. More than two-fifths (44 percent) of parents would
like to be more involved or aware of their child's homework and
other assignments. More than one-third (34 percent) would like to
be more involved in PTA meetings.
Parents know that they need to be involved in their children's
education and many are looking for Web-based tools to provide
them with access to teachers, administrators, counselors, etc.,
to become involved in a more meaningful way.
OFFER STUDY COURSES AT HOME!
A survey of working adults conducted by Opinion Research Corp.
revealed that 54 percent believe that college courses offered via
the Internet are the future of higher education.
The telephone survey was commissioned by Capella University, an
online institution of higher learning and was conducted among 667
working adults in February of 2000.
The study also found that while people see education as a top
priority, busy schedules (42 percent) and family and travel
commitments (10 percent) may keep people from continuing their
education. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents said
they are interested in continuing their education, but 48 percent
said that a busy schedule is the biggest barrier to hitting the
books, one-third cited high costs as an impediment.
Assuming the quality of education was the same, 32 percent of
respondents said they would rather take courses through the
Internet than go to a classroom. More than half (53 percent) of
respondents said the biggest benefit of taking courses online was
the ability to work from home, while 19 percent cited time saved
from not having time to commute.
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5. Success Quote of the Week
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There is only one road to true human greatness: through the
school of hard knocks.
-- Albert Einstein
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7. Subscription Management
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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
_______________________________________________________________
Elena Fawkner, Editor
A Home-Based Business Online
Contact By Email
http://www.ahbbo.com
_______________________________________________________________
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