One of the reasons people want a home based business is to gain back control of their lives, to not have to answer to a boss and do things they do not enjoy doing. After all, studies have shown that the work most people do are not chosen because it inspired them. They chose their job because that is what was available at the time and once they put in a few years, it became harder and harder to leave.
People want to feel secure even though often it is a feeling of false security. I have been laid off 5 times in my career. Two of those times were with public service jobs which most people feel are very safe. Well, actually, I wasn’t laid off from 5 jobs. I was actually fired from 3 of them. Saying I was laid off lessens the pain I felt at the time.
OK, back to my subject. Once you have determined what you are passionate for and this will often be your hardest part, you need to decide how you can use your passion to make a decent living. There is hardly nothing that one is passionate about that can’t be turned into a profitable living. I would not have said this a few years ago. Thanks to the World Wide Web you can reach enough people in your niche to do very well.
Next you need to write up a business plan. This doesn’t need to be a legal document or some fancy worded plan. The purpose of the business plan is to have a direction to follow and to help establish that you are setting up a business and not a hobby. This will go a long way to meet IRS requirements so that you can take advantage of many tax deductions that will save you thousands of dollars each year.
There are many resources to help you write a business plan. Simply do a Google search. Your business plan should include short term, medium term and long term goals. Hopefully you understand the power of goals and that by writing down your goals, your chances of success has increased many times.
Once your business plan and goals are written down, you need to determine the amount of time you are going to allocate to each aspect of your business. Since I do not know what you are passionate about, what I say from here on may not fit exactly with what you want to do. I will speak in more general terms. I am also going to direct a lot of what I say to you making use of the Internet.
You must have your own website with your own domain name. The best and least expensive resource I have found is with 1&1 Hosting Service. The reason for this is to give you complete control of your business. Whatever you do to give value to others, you need to build a list of customers and potential customers. You can’t do this when you use a website controlled by others.
You will need either an autoresponder or some form of email service so that you can stay in touch with your list. It is now time to position yourself as the expert in your chosen niche. To be an expert in your field you need only know a fraction more than 80% of those you want to reach. Now you need to begin writing articles about what you are passionate about. Now you see why it is important to do what you are passionate about. It is hard to write about something you care little about.
Plan to write several articles as soon as possible. Then set your goal to write at least 5 articles a week. In some cases you might be able to find PLR (Private Label Rights) articles which will make your writing easier. Or you can hire people to write some articles for you. Or you can search some more and get ideas from others to help you with your article writing.
In time your posted articles (there are many free article posting areas on the Internet) will bring you people interested in your product or service. However, to get prospects sooner you can buy traffic or you can use “Traffic Exchanges” or “Safelists”. Yes, you are probably thinking the same thing I first thought. These require a lot of work and give very poor results. And you would be right if you use them the way most people use them. In a later article I will give you some suggestions on how to best use these services.
To recap:
- You have found your passion
- You have determined how you can use your passion to add value to others
- You have written your business plan
- You have your own domain name and website
- You have an autoresponder or emailing program
- You have begun writing articles about your passion
- You have posted them and plan to write at least 5 articles a week
- You have looked into “pay per click” programs or other paid traffic sources
- And/or you have begun using Traffic Exchanges and Safelists
I realize that if you are new to Internet marketing then much of what I have mentioned is new to you and possibly a bit overwhelming. In future articles I will go more in depth on some of these concepts. If this all seems complicated, don’t worry. It’s really not that complicated. It is a “right of passage” you need to go through if you are serious about reclaiming your freedom.
Gary Gile
Gary@YouCanSavePlanetEarth.com