So you are giving serious consideration to starting a business and running it from home. Thousands of people just like you make that big move from the corporate office to the home office. While this is a great move for quite a number of those who do take that decision, the fact is the majority of small businesses fail in their very first year of operation, as much as 80%.While there are numerous reasons for this, one striking reason is an inadequate skills set of the business owner. In a home business environment this is even more crucial as there is usually only the owner running the business. So a critical question you should be asking yourself if you are thinking of starting a home-based business is, are my job skills transferable in a manner that will benefit my business?Obviously you would have to do a match between what you believe your business would need in terms of a skills set to execute your business plan effectively and your own skills set. So one of the first things you really need to address is your own skills inventory. Basically you will want to answer two questions with your personal skills inventory exercise – what are the work-place skills you now have, and at what level of competence each one is.Your next step is to go through your business plan which should give you a good idea of what skills you will need where and when. Determine those tasks that you will need to perform as the business owner, how often and in what time frame. Your objective here is to come up with a skills requirement chart outlining the requisite skills, how critical each is to achieving your goals, who will be carrying out the tasks, how often the particular task will have to be done, and over what time frame.You now have a fair idea of what your business require in terms of skills and what skills you have to bring to the business. It is now time to find the critical skills gaps that you will need to fill somehow. Once you have identified the skills gaps, you need to give some consideration how these will be addressed.Some steps you can take to fill the skills gaps identified are:* Take additional training to upgrade your skills.* For those tasks where you do not have the necessary skills set to perform, consider contracting these out.* Take on a partner to complement your skills set.Ensuring that you have the requisite skills in place to make your home-based business a success is one of the most important things you can do for your business. It will save you a lot of unnecessary headache and frustration as you are now much better equipped to execute your home business plan.
Things to Consider When Starting a Home Based Business
Up until only recently in modern times, has technology come to the point where independent business ventures are not relegated exclusively to brick-and-mortar establishments. Through the advent of the Internet, and the subsequent connectivity it has given to us and the rest of the world, starting a home based business is actually much easier online than in the real world.
Whether you decide to sell a product that is specific to a certain demographic, or a line of products designed to appeal to a large and vast audience, the start up and maintenance costs of online home based business ventures are minuscule compared to their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
Don’t quit your day job….yet
There are many factors that you should consider and plan for before starting a home based business. First and foremost would have to be whether or not this is going to be your primary source of income. If you already have an established profession and a stable job, quitting that job should be seen as an end goal of the business’s success, and not its first step.
Besides, remaining at your regular job while building your own business at home is an excellent motivator to work as hard as possible on that business venture. But imagine the satisfaction you have counting down those days when you can finally resign your post as an employee of someone else
Other considerations
You should also consider your home office and its functionality before setting forth on your new venture. You will want a reliable computer that is preferably less than a year old and is connected to a dedicated broadband Internet connection. You do not want to begin an online business venture using a dial-up Internet service, this will frustrate your clientele in impede your efforts to stay on top of ever-changing factors inherent in online businesses.
Another thing that will need to be addressed before you begin is the amount of time that you will invest in your newly formed business. Most people fall into the trap of going completely gung ho for the first few weeks, only to meet with the first little bit of success, and then burn out. This is probably why the majority of businesses fail just after their initial launch. So you should pace yourself as far as time and energy, and expect that success will always begin as a slow trickle.
Your business is an expression of you!
When starting a home based business, you want to make sure that you are passionate about the product or service that you wish to provide. It would be best if it was something that you are interested in for a very long time. Because that proud feeling of independence you have when you do meet with some success will be that much sweeter if it was achieved while doing something that you loved.
Starting a home based business is for many, the first step in a long and adventurous road of personal and financial independence. There is nothing better than being your own boss despite the ups and downs that you will experience along the way. Just make sure to pace yourself and your efforts, and your success will be forthcoming.
The Finer Points of Internet Auctions
WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?
Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.
The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.
The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.
The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.
HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!
The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.
There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.
HOW TO WIN!
Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.
The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.
The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.
The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.
HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!
Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.
Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.
Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.
CONCLUSION!
New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.
There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.
It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.