Unfortunately, many of the “irresistable” home based business opportunities we see advertised on the Internet are scams, so how do we find the REAL opportunities? Here are 4 tips I call the Fours Es to help you get started :

Estimate

You need to estimate the amount of time, financial resources (money) and work you will be able to invest into starting your own online home business.

Evaluate

The best way to ensure the long-term survival of any home based business (online or offline) is to work at something that you’re passionate about. You need to find a niche that is just right for your personal makeup. If you’re not sure where your interests lie, then make a list of all the things you always find yourself doing in your spare time. Chances are, you will find something that can be turned into a viable business in that list. It’s easier to succeed if you love what you’re doing.

Educate

Not everybody is an expert when they start a home based business. Even trained professionals find that they need to learn many other skills for their new business, so theres no shame in admitting that you need to learn or to find the right type of training. Fortunately for all of us in the modern IT age, a wealth of information is available online and they’re usually FREE!

Embark

The most exciting phase of any home based business is starting out. However, this is just the beginning in what will hopefully be a long and enriching journey. If you have put in the necessary time and effor preparing yourself before you embark on your home based business journey, then you will be well on your way to owning a legitimate and profitable home business. It’s always good to remember that Rome was not built in a day.

It takes time and and a whole lot of conscious effort to turn your home based business into a success story you can be proud of. Perservere and you will get there.

1. Keep expanding your network.

You family and friends may be a great way to find support of your business, but you need to expand your network to keep the referrals coming. A simple way is to imagine who would need your product or service and then look for ways to get in touch with these people. Chamber of commerce meetings, PTA meetings, local residents association, trade shows, professional conferences and cold calls are all effective ways of making contact with potential customers. Networking through online message boards and mailing lists can also be very effective. Be a valuable contributor to these forums and you’ll find that people will be open when you make contact with them.

2. Find needs you can fill and ask if you can fill them

The first step to this is to keep an open mind. When you’re talking with your neighbour or friend or you see something happen in your local supermarket…and you think to yourself – what they need is…. If you can provide a service that they need, approach them and ask if you can help them out with your product or service. In other words, don’t be shy to ask for business.

3. Talk to people.

This is an extension to the first suggetion. It’s important to talk with all sorts of people – your supermarket cashier, friends at a wedding, the man sitting next to you in the subway. Ask what they do for a living and chances are they will ask you in return. You never know when these conversations can turn out to be the start of new business relationships.

4. Advertise.

It helps to know about your target market. If they’re likely to be professionals, then pay per click advertising can be an effective and affordable way to find targetted customers for your home based business. Small classified ads in your local paper can also be effective if your market is not so internet savvy and more likely to look for information through conventional means.

5. Be careful when you say you run a “home business”

Although more than 50 percent of small businesses are “home based”, many people still perceive home businesses to be “lower class” or unprofessional. That’s not to say that you have to lie. You are running a legitimate business that offers an important product or service – that’s what matters. Home is just the location of the office.

6. Give a free demonstation of your product.

There are lots of ways to do this. Ask your local community center if they’d mind allowing you to demonstrate your product where you will also give free samples. If you offer services like programming or web development, build a website for a friend or your local charity. Offer your artwork to local restaurants and diners. You could place little notes at the bottom corner of your artwork informing them that those pieces are for sale and to contact ask the restaurant management about them. Give the restaurant a commision for every sale.

7. Lean from others.

Attend forums, meeting, seminars and workshops. They don’t necessarily have to be about your industry. Just learning in general helps you become a better entrepreneur. Of course it helps if you participate in talks that are industry related. That’s where you learn specifics about your industry from others who have more experience or have succeeded. Make learning a life-long process and your business can only benefit from it.

8. Build rapport.

It’s imperative that you get your prospects contact details – email, phone number, address. That way you can build an email or mailing database where you send periodic news about your industry. Just because a prospect doesn’t buy today doesn’t mean that they will never buy from you ever. But if you don’t remind them about your business and they DO forget you, then your chances of making that sale one day goes from slim to zero. Remember too that just because a prospect doesn’t need your product or services, they may give your contact number to someone else who does. Just remember, don’t spam them with unnecessary emails and junk mail.

Remember that there are more ways to market your product or service than can ever be listed in an article or book. All it takes is a little bit of creativity and lots of perseverance.

It is YOUR responsibililty to practice due diligence and research the job opportunity that you’re interested in. Failure to do that means only one thing – you lose precious money and time. So here’s five simple tips on how to differentiate genuine opportunities from potential scams :

1. Do you need to pay? One of the most obvious signs that it’s a scam is if you have to pay to sign up for a work at home job. Stay away from these types of opportunities.

2. Research the opportunity. One of the best ways to find out if the opportunity is a scam is to Google it. Type the opportunity name followed by the word “scam”. Chances are, you will get a whole list of results that you need to go through. People who have been scammed usually vent their frustrations and post about their experience with the “company” online. If you find lots of these types of comments about the opportunity you’re interested in, that in itself should throw up lots of red flags. Keep in mind that just because you do not find any bad reports written about this company, it does not mean that it’s a good opportunity.

3. Ask other people. One of the best ways to find out about a work at home opportunity it to participate in online forums. Ask for feedback. You will likely get responses from people who have tried this opportunity. Get their thoughts and feedback about the company, but be careful that they are not trying to scam you! Unfortunately, one of the most common scam methods is the MLM model, where you need to recruit other people to join. There are many people who KNOW that they’ve been scammed and try to get others to join under them so that they can recoup the cost of their “registration”. In other words, their just trying to pass the buck to someone else.

4. Does the company have proper contact info? If a company only uses a PO box or a mobile number for text messaging, then you need to ask yourself why or what they’re trying to hide.

5. Trust your instincts. If something sounds too good to be true, then in all likelihood, it IS. Don’t be tempted by Get-Rich-Quick schemes. The ONLY people who get rich quick this way are the scammers – at your expense.

Always use your common sense. If you have doubts about a work at home opportunity, then stay away, even if it sound so tempting. It’s always better to err on the side of caution than to lose your hard earned money.

1. Take care of numero uno.

In case you didn’t know, that’s you. Always take care of yourself first. Make sure you get enough sleep and rest, eat right, exercise and de-stress regularly.

2. Make time for rest and relaxation.

Remember that saying – “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? Well it’s true. We all need time for rest and relaxation to recharge our batteries. Although it seems that home business owners always have more than their share on their plate, you still need to schedule time offs for rest. You’ll find that these periods of rest and relaxation will keep you feeling fresh with a positive outlook.

3. Don’t lose sight of your principles

Burnout can happen when you lose sight of your priorities in life and start to compromise on your principles and values. When that happens, your inner self will start feeling it first and it will manifest itself as lact of motivation and discouragement. To keep your work fulfilling and meaningful, you need to regularly check in with your values. Are you making compromises that you shouldn’t? What bad habits have you picked up unconsciously? Are you tolerating wrongs that you normally wouldn’t? Re-assess and re-adjust your priorities as and when you need to. Remember, this is YOUR home based business and YOU are the BOSS – the one in control. Base your decisions on your principles and you’ll never have to worry about doubting yourself.

4. Stretch yourself.

After the initial thrill of running your OWN home based business has worn off, there will be a tendency to feel like there’s nothing more to look forward to. When things start to run smoothly, it’s always easy to get in a rut and lose your competitive edge. When work has become a chore, find ways to add excitement to mundane tasks, look for ways to create new and innovative products or think up ways to add value to the services that you are offering your customers. Always seek new ways to do things. You won’t grow if you won’t stretch.

5. Be realistic.

Sure, you want your home based business to be a success. You want the best for your family and you want to be financially independent. You might even want to be a millionaire, but always remember to be realistic. If you don’t want to end up being burnt out chasing after unrealistic dreams, then be honest with yourself and your expectations. Be realistic about what you can or cannot achieve. Give yourself some slack and know when to let up on yourself and your staff when needed.

6. Learn how to communicate effectively.

Most problems happen because somewhere down the line, someone didn’t communicate what was expected or needed clearly. To avoid such problems in the first place, learn to communicate clearly and effectively. And if conflicts DO arise because of a communication breakdown, don’t run from them. Create an open channel of communication between you and your staff or suppliers. Make sure they know what you expect from them and ask them what they expect from you. Being clear and concise when you communicate, listening closely when people are communicating is the key to communicating effectively.

7. Manage your time.

Burnout often results from lack of time management. Home business owners often get caught up in tasks that are not critical and can either be put off till a later date or delegated to someone else. Set a regular work schedule. Write down what you need to accomplish daily and know how to prioritize those tasks. Know the difference between important and urgent matters. Learning to work to a schedule teaches you to be more effective and eventually increase your productivity. And all this translates into a fatter bottom line – profits that is.

8. Don’t blame yourself (or others)

When a problem happens, it’s no use wasting time blaming yourself or someone else. Channel your energy into finding a solution to the problem, then learn how your or your team can avoid making the same mistake again.

9. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Everybody needs a little help now and then. There’s nothing to feel ashamed about when you run into a problem that you can’t fix yourself, so don’t be afraid to ask family, friends or colleagues for help. And don’t be afraid to outsource or hire a professional when you need help with something that’s beyong your expertise.

10. Enjoy the ride.

Most people only talk about being their own boss, but YOU ARE your own boss, with your own home business. You’ve worked long and hard to get to where you are and you’re entitled to enjoy life! Don’t be so busy that you forget to stop and smell the roses. Sure, problems will arise, but find a way to deal with any negative emotion. Talk openly. Keeping it all bottled up inside of you only leads to problems. Life is too short fret and worry. Enjoy being your own boss!

Yes, many people who consider starting their own home based business often feel overwhelmed, but putting it off to another day is definitely not the solution. Many people also say they’ll do it when they’ve learnt more or gained more experience. That too will never happen. Nobody is ever 100 percent prepared before they start their home business, but if you follow some simple steps, you can make the starting phase of your home based business so much less complicated.

SET YOUR GOALS.

How can you get anywhere if you don’t set goals. Tell yourself when you will be starting your business, where you want it to be in a year’s time and how successful you intend to be. Write down your goals so they become visually tangible. Now do everything in your power to achieve those goals.

MAKE A COMMITMENT

The best investment you can make for your business is yourself – your time, your talents, your skills and your commitment. Without this, your home based business will never succeed – it just won’t happen miraculously.

SET ASIDE TIME FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Many people don’t have the discipline to follow a schedule. This is a real problem especially when they ARE the boss. You need to make a conscious effort to put in the required hours to work on your home based business. You cannot expect to make a full-time living and reaps the rewards of a full-time home based business when you’re only putting in part-time hours.

BUDGET BUDGET BUDGET

This means knowing how much you intend to invest in your home based business and where that money goes. One of the most common reasons home based businesses fail in the first year is the failure to budget. If you don’t have the means, then start small. Be sure you have the resources to cover your expenses and always stay within your budget.

BE REALISTIC

You’re not going to be a millionaire overnight, but don’t let the wait discourage you. Many successful millionaires met with many failures before they eventually succeeded. It takes time and effort to build a business and you WILL make mistakes along the way, so the sooner you begin the sooner you’ll reach your goal.

ALWAYS LEARN

The quickest way to find out that you don’t know everything is to be a home based business owner. You can never ever know everything there is to know. Running a business requires that you learn ALL the time. There’s always something new to learn everyday – whether it’s how you can do something better or where you can find the resources to do it for you. Be willing to ask questions and you just might be surprised how many people are willing to help you.

KEEP POSITIVE

Running a business is never smooth sailing, especially if it’s a home based business and you are the only person running things. It’s easy to get discourage when things don’t go according to plan. It’s important to always keep your thougths positive. Fill your mind with positive thoughts. Find a mentor you can confide in when troubles are brewing or a confidante to share your feelings with, but make sure they’re not negative folk. The best way to get more discouraged is to get negative vibes from negative folks.

LAUGH AT YOURSELF

I said it before, I’ll say it again – you ARE going to make mistakes. Some will be small, some will be big and take a long time to correct. You will never stop making mistakes, but hopefully if you learn from them, you won’t make the same mistake over and over again. So don’t beat yourself up over mistakes. They’re bound to happen. However, once you’ve build your business into a success story, you would have gained a wealth of knowledge and advice that you can pass on to those who are going through what you went through.

Think about starting your home based business TODAY! Get out there and make it happen TODAY! Get started TODAY! Don’t wait till you FEEL you’re 100 percent ready or learned enough. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Others are doing it and so can you… TODAY!

Knowing what you want.

You need to write down your business goals – the grander the better. Reality is based on perception, so wish away. Writing down your goals makes them visually tangible – not something that you only dream about. It is the first step to making your goal a reality.

Consistently thinking about what you want.

Your thoughts need to be aligned with your goals if you are to ever reach them. For example, if you want a $50,000 monthly salary, you need to consistently think about this, work towards it, plan for it, find ways to get it. Let your goal permeate your thoughts and your subconscious mind will align itself to this goal.

Creating a positive environment

Nothing can survive in a negative environment, especially business. This includes the people that you work with, the words that you and they use and the thoughts that you think. If your work environment is positive, positive things will be generated. There is a saying that goes like this – You can’t fly like an eagle if you keep walking with turkeys. Get away from negative turkeys and you will soon fly like an eagle.

Reach for the stars

A business plan is a crucial element in any business, but when your create a “visual” board, it adds power to your plan. Display your business goals through words AND pictures. Place this board in locations where you and your employees can view daily. Again, this gets your subconscious mind to align itself with your goals.

Check your thoughts often.

This is a crucial habit you need to learn if you are to succeed. Very often, you can get bogged down with the problems that are part and parcel of running a business. Many of these problems can be very discouraging and lead you to despair. When this happens, take notice of your thoughts and consciously redirect your thoughts to positive ones. If you need to, talk to yourself. Give yourself an audible pep-talk. Hearing your own positive words can be the best remedy for any onslaught of negativity and realign your mind to continue your positive thought flow.

The tips above really do work. The millions of dollars spent every year to traing employees to thing positively are testament to that fact. Positive Thinking works! The Positive Thinking thought process is infectious and has been proven to turn businesses around. Put what you’ve read into practice and see for yourself – you just might be surprised to see what happens all around you!

A little bit of digging into small business issues reveal more. Many of these small businesses ARE making a profit – by this we mean that their revenues DO exceed their costs. The businesses are making a profit but this profit is not enough to cover living expenses. So the business owners end up living off their savings, finding another part-time job, seeking financial support from family members or going into debt.

This would seem to mean that small business owners are doing something right. They are reaching new clients, making sales and profit. However, they have failed to include their living expenses into equation – in other words, they need to pay themselves a salary! If they continue to operate this way, their businesses are going to fail – unless the owners are willing to make the most difficult type of changes – in themselves.

If you find yourself in the category of small business professionals, you need to ask yourself what you can and WOULD do to break out of this rut. To make your business a success and get out of this cycle of under-earning, you simply need to DO more, LEARN more or CHARGE more. It may not be easy, but it CAN be done.

DOING more may mean putting in more hours into your business. Statistics reveal that the average small business owner put in more than 40 hours of work a week into their business. While you may feel that you are working hard, you need to ask yourself if that is really the case. If you actually kept track of your hours, you might be surprised to discover that you are in fact putting in fewer hours than you thought. This is a common problem for small business owners who work from home and get distracted by personal and family commitments which eat into actual business hours. It’s unrealistic to expect a full-time income if you are only putting in part-time hours.

If you ARE putting in the hours into your small business, maybe you need to ask yourself if you are using those hours in the best possible way. Are you using your time in the critical areas of your business like marketing, promotions and strategic planning? Are you devoting enough time to actively seek clients and referral sources by networking and cold calls? Or are you “wasting” precious hours in passive tasks like maintaining your small business website, paperwork and placing ads?

Doing more for your small business may mean not just a change of habits but also a change in personal attitude. You may be avoiding making a full-time commitment to your business because you are fearful of failure. You may be holding back from going full-force into marketing your business because you fear rejection. In other words, your fear of failure may be the reason you are faililng!

Entrepreneurs who succeed are those who take risks. Many small business owners fail many times before they eventually succeed. Successful sales persons hear more “NO”s than “YES”s. That doesn’t mean that you must fail before you succeed, but you MUST be willing to risk failure and rejection if you want to reach success.

Maybe the answer isn’t about doing more. You could be working hard and putting in the right amount of effort in the right places for your small business, but your lack of knowledge is holding you back. Many business owners say they did not do enough research about their chosen business before they started. This means that they faced an uphill task while running their business because they had a lot of catching up to do. Just as many owners of failed small businesses confessed that they went into business with unrealistic expectations – they got caught up in the IDEA of being a business owner and didn’t give much thought to whether they had the necessary experience, skills and knowledge.

You may know everything about delivering the services you offer, but there is a lot to learn about the OTHER things that a small business needs- marketing, sales, pricing, negotiation, contracts, financial management, accounting and the list goes on.

Perhaps one of the factor determining success or failure of a small business lies in the not-so-monor details. You may simply be charging too little. Have you worked out exactly how much you need to charge in order to make a living from your business? We’re not talking about the price you THINK your clients will pay, but what you really NEED to earn.

You need to total up your regular expenses – living, housing, food, clothing, health care, family care, transportation, education and entertainment. Don’t forget to include debt repayments, taxes and vacation, sick time and emergencies. Now include a budget for savings and your eventual retirement. If you find that this inflates the price that you need to charge, you must at least include the critical expenses into your costing.

These numbers should give you a fairly accurate figure about how much you should be charging for every hour, day or week that you put in or program and project that you undertake.

Don’t wait until your small business becomes successful before you raise your rates. Unless you begin earning a living, you may never succeed. If you discover that your target market cannot pay they price you are asking for your services, you should consider focussing on a different market segment.

Here’s where more learning comes in. Learn from other successful small business owners. Find out who their clients are. Learn more about their marketing strategies. Can you emulate their way of doing things? Whatever the challenge you are facing, it’s more than likely that someone has gone through it and can provide you with the answers you need.

You need to be willing to listen and learn from the experience of others and act on it. Your business isn’t going to improve if you don’t help yourself. You need to make changes now in how you are working, marketing, or pricing yourself in order to avoid failure. If your business isn’t making enough to sustain you, then in all likelihood the business itself isn’t sustainable and will eventually be heading for failure.

There are many different ways to make money online consistently and ethically. If you want to sell a product, it’s easy to set up an auction site. Many people make a lucrative full-time living just by running auctions. However, if you do not have a product you can sell, you can still make money on the Internet. Many people got their start by creating a basic website and fill it with affiliate links. Whenever a visitor to the website clicks on that link or buys something from that link, the website owner gets a commisiion. The quantum obviously depends on the product or the program. It would be better to have some original content on the website to attract visitors to make repeat visits and to compel new visitors to visit the site.

If you’re game for something more adventurous, you can also make money online by participating in investment programs. Among the programs are Business Opportunity Clubs and High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP). Private Investors’ Clubs are basically people who have pooled their capital to invest in financial markets. It’s normal for one or more of their members to be a licensed broker or seasoned analyst, making the investments low-risk. One major drawback to private investor’s clubs is that you need to be invited by one of it’s current members in order to join. You also have to provide a substantial investment up front.

HYIPs are yet another vehicle that people use to make money online. HYIPs are High Yield Investment Programs, and is usually based on some of the underlying principles of private investors’ clubs. Unlike Private Investors Clubs, HYIPs funds are invested in risky prospects that can potentially pay off handsomely or go bust. Most HYIPs accept anyone who wants to join so you don’t need an introduction from a current member.

If you want to make money online using your knowledge in investment, you can join a trading firm and trade stocks, bonds and futures. You can do this from the comfort of your own home.

These are just a small sampling fo the many, many ways to make money online. It’s up to you to pursue one of the avenues mentioned above, but you don’t necessarily have to confine yourself to other peoples ideas. You can transform your OWN personal ideas into a gold mine. All it takes is perseverance and the desire to seriously make money to find nichesthat will help you generate multiple streams of income.

More than ten years ago, I had absolutely no knowledge of HTML. When my company’s webmaster decided to leave in a hurry, my boss decided (perhaps it was an act of God) that I was the right person to take over his job! The first thing I did was to sign up for a basic introductory course in HTML!

My first day on the job as Webmaster was memorable. I lost our homepage. I don’t remember how I did it, but I DO remember the cold sweat and my heart stopping for a good ten minutes! Did I give up after that? Heck no! I stuck it out and after lots of hard work, study, persistence and yes, many more cold sweat sessions, I’m glad to be where I am because I didn’t give up. I’m glad I just told myself – Just Do It!

If was just a little over four years ago when I built my first personal website. PositiveTones.com was a really big project at that time given I had absolutely no PHP programming knowledge and the only language supported by my web host was PHP. I remember learning how to program in PHP one line at a time, one small script at a time. The site was up an running after six solid months of trial and error, loads of PHP cut and paste and while it wasn’t the perfect site I had intended it to be, I was pleased as punch anyway that I told myself to Just Do It!

Two years later, I put my newly acquired PHP skills to work on my next project. This time round, technical skills were not a problem. PositiveMoneyIdeas.com required months of painstaking research and writing. There were times when I doubted whether I would be able to complete the site, but I did. Because I told myself – Just Do It!

A year ago, I decided I wanted a blog of my own. I didn’t have any business or monetary intentions for building a blog. I just wanted one because everyone else had one and I thought it would be cool! Even with all my experience in setting up database driven websites, blogs baffled me at first and I felt intimidated! But I stuck it out and now I’m the owner of a cool blog because I told myself to Just Do It!

Three months ago, itchy fingers got to me again and my brain started to wander off into dreamland. I had an idea lodged in between my left and right brain and the only way to unstick it was – your guessed it – to Just Do It! Despite my really heavy load taking care of my home based catering biz and my other websites, I am now in the midst of building what will hopefully be a really great tutorial website.

And the whole point I’m trying to make? I’m not trying to plug Nike and copy their tagline. I’m encouraging you to Just Do It. When a bright idea flies into your mind, don’t shut it out. If there’s a way, Just Do It… Just Do It!

Today, I can look back at all that I’ve built and be proud that the online empire I am building will benefit millions of people in the years to come. And the icing on the cake is that I’m making money with my sites because I kept telling myself those three words – Just Do It!

There are a couple of simple reasons to try blogging for profits :

Setting up a blog is easy

There are so many online tools that help you build a blog just by clicking a few buttons. Blogger and WordPress are sites that offer free blogs to those interested in having one. You can have a blog up and running in a couple of minutes. The process is painless and best of all, it’s FREE.

Write about whatever you want

You topic can be whatever you’re passionate about! There are no right or wrong topics for a blog. The only exception would be adult oriented content, which many web and blog hosts may not tolerate. Other than that, even blogs about “boring, mundane” stuff like cooking and house work can still attract a fairly large following. Don’t let your lack of writing experience stop you. Just write as if you were talking to your friends. Most bloggers learn as they go along, so don’t shy away from blogging just because you think you’re not an expert on your chosen topic!

Bloggers have lots of opportunities to make money

One of the easiest ways to make money with your blog would be to participate in a pay-per-click (PPC) program. It generally costs nothing to join as a member. You will need to cut and paste a little piece of “code” into your webpages. This code will display advertisements on your blog that are usually relevant to your topic. You make money when someone clicks on these ads. The more competitive or popular your ad category, the higher you will be paid for each click. One of the easiest PPC programs to join that I would recommend would be the Google Adsense program. Thousands of bloggers are making a nice bit of extra cash just by letting Google place contextual (relevant) ads on their websites.

PPC isn’t the only way bloggers can make money. You can sell advertisement space directly to advertisers or through a broker like Text-Link-Ads.com. Another way to make money would be to place banners or links to products/services. You make money when someone clicks on this ad, goes to the site and makes a purchase. This is called affiliate marketing.

Blog at your own pace

The best thing about blogging for profits is that you can do it part-time, freelance or if you’re serious about making money, then full-time. Like I said, there’s no right or wrong way to blog. One thing is certain though – when you get the taste of making money with your blog, you WILL want to get serious about making more! Many stay-at-home moms are content to make a little extra that they can save for that rainy day and there are mom-turned-entrepreneurs who actually turn their blogging activities into a full-fledged business! It’s all up to you.

So, is it that easy?

Like any other business, websites or blogs take time to mature and reach their full potential. The larger your audience (traffic) the better chance you have of making sunstantial money. The secret is to write about stuff that you’re passionate about, yet interests and excites your visitors. If your blogging provides information and solutions to your audience, then you are “filling a need” – one of the most important aspects of online success!

It’s will take patience, but if you love what you write about, then it’s going to be a really lots of fun blogging for profits!