6 Tips on Running a Home Based Business
A lovely rose garden leads to the entrance of Creative Juices.
Running your business at home sounds great. I started my business in 1981 out of my parents home. From there I moved my office several times. From store fronts to industrial parks, then to an office building and now my own home.
Too Many Distractions
I love working at home. The commute is very easy. I work off my living room in what once was a one car garage. Two glass French Doors lead off the driveway into the office. A blanket of rose bushes guide the way. In Spring and Summer it’s quite beautiful.
It also means lots of distractions. It’s easy to take a few minutes to prune the roses and pull a few weeds. My Chihuahua loves to sleep on my lap, preventing me from moving.
Occasionally my two foster boys, ages 5 and 7, are home from school with lots of needs.
Then there’s laundry, cleaning, mail, dog walks etc. It’s not easy to keep your mind focused on actual work.
How to Get Work Done
So here’s my suggestions for working at home and staying on track.
- Set aside a dedicated workspace. Having your own room would be ideal. If not, create a little nook somewhere.
- Start and stop work at specific times. Give yourself a schedule and stick to it.
- Turn off the TV and iPad. You’re there to work, not play.
- Take a break (after several hours of working, of course). Walk around the block and clear your head.
- Tell the neighbors, children, dog, cat that you are not to be disturbed when you’re “on the clock”.
- Only answer your business phone. Forget the telemarketers on your home phone (if you still have one).
Easy peasy. Feel free to share your tips too.
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What You Should Know Before Starting Your Own Business
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Are you an entrepreneur?
Starting a business is not easy. It can be fun, exciting and scary.
I started Creative Juices in 1981. I was a mere child. There was no internet. There was no Mac. There was little competition.
Today life is much more complicated for small business owners. There are lots of things to be aware of. I’m going to list a few of the ones directly related your business image.
First Impressions are Very Important
- Get a logo design. It must be clean, professional, and timeless. It should represent you and your company.
- Start a website. This is the hub of your business. Everything flows from and to your site. This includes all social media.
- Create an email list. You must encourage visitors to give their email addresses on your site in order to stay in touch with current and potential clients. Perhaps offer a free ebook or newsletter.
- Set up a newsletter. Regular newsletters are a great way to get people to remember you.
This is only a tiny bit of information to help get you started, graphically speaking. There’s a whole lot of other stuff you should know. My goal is to help you get your business going in the right direction.
You can never have too much information (or can you?!) Check out the following business related articles:
8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business
Four Questions to Ask Before Setting a Price
10 Essential Features of Every Good Business Website
Here’s the latest digital media and social marketing news from Mashable:
42 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
Mashable Weekend Recap: 30 Stories You Might Have Missed
37 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
Find Creative Juices on Facebook and Twitter. See sidebar for links.
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How to Take Charge of your Business Success
It’s not easy running your own business. Especially if you’re doing it by yourself, like me. Don’t let your business run itself into the ground. Take Charge.
One way to do that is by checking out what other people are saying about your business. Whether good or bad, it’s important to know where you stand. Then you can act upon that information.
Check out the following link for online reputation management tips.
4 Online Reputation Management Tips for 2012
Also catch up on the latest articles from Mashable.
Mashable Weekend Recap: 36 Stories You May Have Missed
Business Success is Inevitable if You Know How to Market Yourself
Owning your own business can be fun and exciting. Often it’s a challenge, especially if you do it all yourself. You have to offer the best products or services at a price people want to pay. You also have to differentiate yourself from the herd of other similar businesses. Promoting or marketing your business is a daily job you can’t ignore.
It’s hard to keep up with the latest news on marketing. This is my attempt to help you by listing the latest articles I’ve found on Tech, Business, Social Media and Marketing. Enjoy.
Check these articles out:
Mashable Weekend Recap: 38 Stories You May Have Missed
The Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes
How to Streamline Site Navigation to Attract and Retain Customers
46 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
How to Sell Anything Using Social Media
33 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
If you have any questions on social media marketing or promoting your business, feel free to give me a call at 310-791-5803 or send me an email.
How to Grow Your Business in 2012
The new year is almost here. It’s never too late to grow your business. Why not make 2012 the year you reach your goals of success.
3 Ways to Grow Your Business
1. Did you know writing your goals down is a great way to reach them? Post them someplace you can see on a regular basis and you will consciously and unconsciously be moving in the right direction toward your goals.
2. Social media marketing is a great way to help your business grow. I constantly scan online media to find the latest and greatest ways to help spread the word that you have the best product or service.
3. Read up on the latest social marketing news. Mashable is a great source of social media, tech and business news, and marketing and entertainment related information.
Here is a summary of the last few weeks of interesting articles. I continue to keep up with Mashable daily. I hate falling behind on my social media news.
45 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
80+ New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
6 Helpful Business Tips for Success
This is part of my new series of article collections. I regularly read the latest RSS feeds from blogs related to business marketing, such as Entrepreneur, Blogging Tips, Anthony Morrison and ProBlogger. In today’s busy world it’s often difficult to find time to read.
But modern technology came to the rescue. I have my iPhone, iPad and Kindle to help me catch up with my daily search for news. My favorite place to read is while exercising on the StairMaster at the gym. Every day I climb and read for an hour. Not only do I stay healthy but I get to read uninterrupted.
The following articles cover ways to be a successful business owner by boosting year end sales, how to utilize Google+ pages for your company, how to store your data in the cloud, how to advance your website’s SEO (search engine optimization) through social marketing, and how to stay out of trouble if you’re a blogger. Let me know what you think.
- A Small Business Owner’s Guide to Year-End Sales Success
- Why Your Small Business’s Google+ Efforts Must Be Unique and Visual
- Google+ – A New Way to Promote Your Business
- 5 Excellent Cloud Tools You Should Be Using
- Social Engagement is the Way Forward for SEO
- How to Avoid Legal Trouble, Income Tax Fines, and Penalties as a Blogger
Find Creative Juices on Facebook and Twitter. See sidebar for links.
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Thanksgiving-Eve Marketing News You Can Use
Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for what you have. It’s also a good time to work on getting more… business that is.
Here are some helpful business marketing articles I’ve found interesting:
Measuring Offline Vs. Online Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Five New Online Tools for Finding Local Customers
Social Media: 4 Simple Principles To Convert the Harshest Critics
The Lede: 7 Writing and Marketing Links You Don’t Want to Miss
If you use WordPress to design your own website, checkout Premise:
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During their Thanksgiving sale, you can get Premise Ultimate for only $95. Yes, really.
Just use the code THANKS when you check out and you’ll save $70 on the best landing page software available for WordPress.
This deal ends promptly at 7:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, November 28, 2011. Hurry up and get Premise Ultimate before they come to their senses!
Helpful Articles with Marketing Tips for the Holidays
The holidays are upon us. It’s never too late to improve your business. Here are a series of articles I found that relate to helping you and your business succeed.
I regularly check out RSS feeds from Entrepreneur Magazine and other business related sites. Topics will range from running your business to marketing, social media, website design and blogging.
Check back often to my blog. You never know what you will find.
Enjoy reading these articles this Thanksgiving week.
Seven Easy Tweaks to Turn Your Site into a Holiday Sales Machine
Brian Solis on Five Common Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
More Small Businesses Extol the Benefits of Social Media
Social Media and Content Marketing
How to Create a Google+ Business Page
I believe blogging is an excellent way to increase traffic to your business website. The following books can help.
5 Good Kindle Books For New Blog Owners
Why not buy yourself or someone you love a Kindle Touch for the holidays.
9 Tips on Promoting Your Business for the Holidays
Halloween is almost here. Do you have your costume yet? How about plans to escape trick or treaters?
Most importantly, what are your plans for promoting your products and services for the all important holiday season?
Here are some tips to get your name out there this holiday season.
- Blog about how your product, service, or industry will help your clients/readers.
- E-mail your newsletter with tips related to your products or services. Try Constant Contact or MailChimp for a simple email solution.
- Update your website with specials. Make sure these specials will really benefit your customers and not just you. Explain how these benefits will help your customers.
- Add testimonials to your product pages. Don’t make them up, though.
- Use Twitter to build buzz.
- Create a contest or auction and promote it regularly.
- Set up a Facebook business page with fun facts and tips.
- Spread the word on LinkedIn to reach more businesses.
- Advertise online using Google’s AdWords or FaceBook Ads. You can set how much you want to spend. Make sure your ads go to optimized landing pages.
Be sure to read the following for more information:
5 Holiday Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales
Top 5 Online Holiday Shopping Tips for Marketers
What are you planning to do to promote your business?
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You Must Promote Your Business Daily
Promoting your business should be your main focus on a daily basis. It’s not easy, especially if you are like me, a small entrepreneur with many hats to wear. (I wear my hats to keep warm, and pay the bills.)
I am constantly reading all the latest news feeds on marketing and sales, content creation and social media. Everything changes daily and it’s often difficult to catch up. I take my iPhone with me to the gym and read my Google RSS news feed while climbing the StairMaster at Ballys. Most evenings I scan the news feeds on my iPad while relaxing to mindless TV shows and playing toss with Lucy, my Chihuahua.
As part of my desire to provide helpful content to small businesses who are reading my exciting and very useful blog, I will be adding links to what I feel are helpful marketing and business advice on a regular basis.
Check these out.
- 3 Ways to Use Twitter to More Deeply Engage Influential Prospects
- 5 Steps to Small Business Public Relations Success
- 61 New Media Resources from Mashable
- How to Thrive, Not Just Survive
- 4 Ways to Protect the Reputation of your Small Business Online
What do you do to promote your business? Spread the word here. Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook. Oh, and sign up for my newsletter. It’s there in the sidebar. Do it now. Please.
Recent Posts
- 6 Tips on Running a Home Based Business
- 5 Simple Ways to Achieve Amazing Small Business Success
- 5 Tips for Marketing Your Small Business
- What You Should Know Before Starting Your Own Business
- How to Take Charge of your Business Success
- Business Success is Inevitable if You Know How to Market Yourself
- 5 Killer Resources for Marketing Your Business
- How to Grow Your Business in 2012
- 6 Helpful Business Tips for Success
- Thanksgiving-Eve Marketing News You Can Use
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