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Make Money Working from the Comfort of Your Own Home!
How many times have you heard that
phrase, pitch, advertisement, or
whatever? Lots, I'm sure. It is used so much because marketers know
that
staying home and making money is the fondest dream of millions of
people.
And why not? Did you know that the majority of fatal heart attacks
happen
at 9 a.m. Monday morning? It's true. It seems a lot of people would
rather die than get back to the old grind after a weekend of
freedom.
So when someone offers an opportunity or plan for you to take your
job and
shove it, yet still make enough money to live and pay all your
bills, it
sounds blissfully irresistible.
Of course, bliss and reality are always two different things. Is it
really possible to run a business from your own home that is more
than a
hobby or source of part-time income? Can you get rich working out of
your
own home? Can you really trade your cubical and necktie for blue
jeans and
the comfort of your own den?
Well, for your information, home-based businesses are one of the
fastest
growing kinds of enterprises in America today. As this is being
written,
some 40 million Americans are doing at least some form of work out
of their
homes, and the numbers are rising rapidly. According to the U.S.
Department of Labor, as many as 70 million people will be working
out of
their homes by the year 2005. Government studies have indicated that
as
much as 75% of all work done in this country could eventually be
moved
home.
The overwhelming majority of home workers, however, are not exactly
getting
rich. The average work-at-home American earns less than $15,000 per
year.
That may not be bad as a supplement to a spouse's full-time income,
but
let's face it, fifteen grand in and of itself is not much better
than
poverty.
As master marketer and author Dr. Jeffrey Lant said: "Frankly, I
never saw
any benefit to staying home and being poor."
Lant, without so much as a business card, became a work-at-home
millionaire, and is a perfect example of what truly can be achieved
if you
are serious about chucking your day job, staying home, and not
settling for
peanuts in exchange for your freedom. You can have it all -- you can
stay
home and make as much -- and more -- money than your current job
provides
you.
In this report, we are going to outline and discuss five key rules
on how
to work at home and make big bucks, no matter where you live. After
these
five rules, we'll talk about the most important aspect of any
business,
whether it be home-based or a giant factory -- cash flow. Starting
your
own business out of your home is all about attitude and inspiration,
but
all the attitude in the world won't help you without money!
1. It Takes Commitment
Is it any secret in America that most people detest their jobs?
Study
after study proves that most people simply dread going to work
Monday
morning, and they live for the freedom of the weekend. But even that
freedom is not pure because we know that it is only temporary. It's
hard
to enjoy a Sunday evening when the Monday morning alarm clock is
just a few
hours away.
It makes sense that people hate their jobs. Everyday, there is a lot
of
butt kissing that needs to be done. There are endless meetings which
usually accomplish nothing. There are pointless interruptions, a lot
of
drifting this way and that, and lot of idiot supervisors who do
nothing but
waste your time and then dog you for not accomplishing your share of
work.
There are co-workers you hate, and who would stab you in the back in
a
minute if it meant a raise for them instead of you.
When you work for someone else, you live a regimented life. Your
body may
not want to get up at 7 a.m., but you have to be at work by 8 a.m.
so you
lurch out of bed with a head full of sleep.
People who choose to work at home are doing more than just escaping
the
yoke of their master; they have made a deep, firm, life-altering
decision
which says that health, happiness and prosperity depend vitally on
the
freedom to work for ourselves, and in doing so in the comfort of the
home.
We want to really emphasize that fact that to be successful in a
work-at-home situation, you have to be nothing less than a fanatic;
a
zealot, who is utterly committed to making work-at-home not only a
successful venture, but a profound commitment for life. You must be
convinced that a return to an outside office job would be the
equivalent of
a spiritual death sentence.
Many people hate their office jobs, but they have made an inner
compromise
with themselves. They have convinced themselves that their job is
"not so
bad," pays the bills, and that they can stick out because they have
to.
If you want to be truly successful at quitting your day job, there
cannot
be any room for such compromises in your soul. You have to take the
attitude that to work any longer at your hateful job is akin to
fouling
your inner being with a spiritual cancer the will sicken and kill
you.
2. Eliminating the Home-Office Mentality
To move our work home, however, does not mean we eliminate every
single
thing about the traditional American office. Rather, we should
select what
is useful and what is not.
It's a mistake to quit your job and go home with a "home-office"
mentality.
By this we mean thinking small, and believing that you will
automatically
sacrifice a decent income in exchange for your freedom. Please! Do
not
think small!
To quote Jeffrey Lant again: "Too many home-based practitioners fail
to
understand the benefits that accrue because of the professional
style they
have selected. They focus on the "home" part of the business rather
than
the "business" portion, and as a result are doomed to small
incomes."
Working at home provides many benefits. We can save a lot of time
because
we don't need to commute and we have more control over our schedule.
We
can save a lot of costs because we don't have the overhead
requirements of
larger businesses. We can cut our stress -- and so have more energy
--
because we avoid many of the characteristic problems of life in the
late
20th-Century office. We must work these advantages to our profit.
3. Your International Headquarters
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant said that if you sit at home
alone at
your empty kitchen table, eventually, the "whole world will come to
you."
Well, today you don't need the great mind of a philosopher to make
the
entire world come into your living room. What you need is a phone
jack.
We live in a unique time in history. Satellites, fiber optics, the
integrated circuit and other communications miracles means that you
can be
just about anywhere in the developed world and establish
communication with
anyone.
The telephone, the fax machine, the computer, the modem -- all of
these are
not only affordable by any middle-class citizen; they are the key to
eliminating your need to drive a hectic freeway everyday to get to a
place
of business outside your home.
With these devices at our disposal, we should allow ourselves to
"think
globally." Too often, home-based businesses focus on the narrowest
market,
the neighborhood, the county, the city or state. This is fine if you
are
providing a local service and are content with a certain moderate
level of
income. But if you want the big bucks, you should not think small.
Also,
you should not believe that, just because you are home-based, you
cannot
compete with the big guys.
The purpose of any business is to seek assess and seek out every
possible
market for its products and services, to ascertain whether these
markets
have the ability to buy these products/services, to determine
whether there
is sufficient profit in these markets to warrant approaching them,
and,
once positive assessment has been made, to launch a sustained
marketing
campaign that gets a significant percentage of this market to
purchase the
product or service in question.
Your home telecommunications machines will not only enable you to do
this,
but they can also help you overwhelm larger, more cumbersome
traditional
businesses that are your competition.
As a home-based entrepreneur, you will not have all of the
disadvantages of
your more traditional competitors: no office rent, equipment or
expense;
no employees to pay salaries and fringe benefits for; no time wasted
on
meetings, employee problems, paid sick leave, etc.
All the money your competitors spend on heating the office and
buying
furniture could better be spent on the actual marketing itself.
As a home-based business, you will be already positioned where the
traditional business is currently struggling to move: toward the
lowest
possible overhead and the greatest possible concentration of dollars
on
products/service development and product/service marketing.
So, a home-based business takes full advantage of three major goals
of
modern business success:
(1) Vastly reduced overhead
(2) Easy access to a global market
(3) Full advantage of telecommunications.
To not have the basic telecommunications toys -- computer, modem,
fax, and
telephones is impossibly stupid. Still, even in this day and age,
many of
people strongly resist the one element that is undoubtedly the heart
and
brain of any successful home business -- the computer. The computer
is so
important in fact, we have made it a category all itself.
And remember, learning to use a modern computer is easier than
learning to
drive a car, so you have no excuse not to plunge forward.
4. The Computer
You should pay close attention to what computers can do for you in
your
plans to escape your job and make your work-at-home dreams come
true.
People who want to run a home business usually have a very small
staff -- in
fact, a staff of one -- yourself! The rest of your needs are handled
by
independent contractors, depending on the kind of business you are
in and
the services you need.
To run a serious, truly global home business, a computer is as
necessary as
oxygen is to life on earth. Those who try to fool themselves into
thinking
they will ever make a serious go of their home-based business
without a
computer are sadly mistaken.
Computers give you two primary advantages:
(1) They enable you to store large amounts of data and to sort by
data
field so that you can easily get the information you need.
(2) They enable you to develop a pattern document for every
situation
you'll ever be in in your business. To run a home-based business
successfully, you must anticipate just what situation will emerge
and
prepare accordingly.
A business is based on a characteristic series of situations and a
characteristic set of things that happen -- or that do not happen.
You
must be prepared with the proper document for each situation. Once
you
have established all the protocols, and have experienced all the
situations
associated with your kind of business, the time will come when
running your
business is, in large part, a repetition of certain key tasks.
Computers
are all about handling repetition swiftly and efficiently.
But the computer is much more. Today, by connecting a computer to
the
phone line with a modem, your machine becomes more than a data
storage
system and repetitive task handler. It becomes a multi-task,
multi-level
communications processing center that connects you to the globe.
Such things as e-mail, on-line services, the Internet, the Web and
more
can't help but revolutionize the way business is done. If you do not
become a part of it today, you certainly are going to suffer for it
greatly
in the near future.
If there is an effective way to market products on the Internet or
any
other on-line venue, no one has truly discovered it yet. The only
people
making money on Internet marketing are the people who are selling
the
concept of doing it. If you have a product or a service and expect
to
reach millions of buyers through computer screens, you are sadly
mistaken.
The Internet is definitely where a lot of innovative things are
happening.
It's a great place to exchange ideas, find out what hot, what's not,
and
stay on the cutting edge whatever your particular business is.
5. Your Business Hours
If you've been paying attention to the first four points, you're
well on
your way to becoming a successful home-based business owner. Now we
don't
want you to blow it by thinking you can keep banker's hours.
The global market is a 24-hour per day market, and a 365-day per
year
market. Let the others sleep late on Saturdays and take Sundays off.
Those times could be your day to move and corner loads of customers
that
the others miss.
You should get up earlier and quit work later. You should be open
for
business on holidays and be available 24-hours a day either
personally or
through your answering service.
"But wait a minute!" you might be thinking at this point! "I thought
that
working at home was all about freedom and an end to drudgery. This
sounds
like nothing but endless work!"
Well, here's the thing. For most of you who quit your regular jobs
to go
to work for yourself, you'll discover something magical. You'll
discover
that when you are working for yourself, when you are building your
own
business, a lot of what you does not seem like work at all.
The great writer Jane Roberts said, "Inspiration is its own
motivator."
Running your own business is all about being inspired
24-hours-a-day. When
you stop selling your body and soul to some company or corporation
and
start giving your energy to yourself, work has a way of turning into
inspiration and play.
The perfect work for you is that which you don't think of as work,
yet
doing it makes money and provides you with the bread and shelter of
life.
You'll see what it's like if you make a true commitment to being
self
employed, put all your energy into it, and stick with it for the
long run.
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