Managing Your Life When You Work From Home

At the beginning of this book, I pointed out that not only does my Internet business bring me a decent chunk of money each month, it also brings me time. Now that my system is set up, all I have to do is check that my affiliate partners are sending me cash, suggest the odd joint venture to a partner, and stay in touch with my customers. I rarely spend more than three hours in front of my computer each day.

But it wasn’t always like that. It took a lot of effort and a lot of work to get into the position I’m in now. When I first started, it was a bit of a struggle to organize myself. My first website took ages to launch and while the other ones went up quickly, my family went days without seeing me.

Let’s be frank, if you don’t set up your business properly right at the beginning, you’re going to make your life much harder—and your income much lower.

The problem is that until now, you’ve always thought of your home as a place to relax and the office as a place to focus and work. Now you’re going to have to focus at home—and that’s not an easy shift to make. You need to keep the same rhythm (without stopping to watch your favorite daytime soap!) and the same kind of discipline you had when you had to commute every morning.

The first thing to do is to give yourself an office. I’m not talking about a laptop on the coffee table or a corner in the library; I mean a proper room with a door you can close and a desk full of goodies: from a computer with broadband to a place to put your safety clips. If you don’t have a spare room to start with, then use your bedroom. But if you’re serious, think about finding an office once your business gets running.

The next thing you’re going to need is a schedule—a realistic one. This is one of the greatest challenges when you begin working for yourself. At the end of each day, I’d make a list of all the tasks I was going to do the next day. If I got half of them done, I was lucky. I spent weeks frustrated and grumpy.

Once you get a feel for how long each task takes you, whether it’s approving a new site design, planning a new marketing program or answering customers’ emails, set yourself a timetable and keep to it. Turn off the radio, shut the office door and get to work! And at the same time, don’t get annoyed if the day ends before your work does.

Of course, all work and no play makes Michael a dull boy. And it doesn’t do much for his wife and kids either.

When you have a family as well as a business, time in the office is time away from the family, and it’s hard to know when to stop. You can easily find yourself in front of the computer at midnight and all weekend too. Sometimes working from home seems to be a double-edged sword. If you spend too much time with your business and not enough time with your family, the most important relationships in your life can suffer. But if you spend too much time with your family and not enough with your business, the success of your business can be in jeopardy. And, since your business is likely your main source of income, its success can also determine the wellbeing of your family. Tricky.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take a superhero to make the work/ family division work. All it takes is some patience, a little savvy scheduling and a lot of willpower. In fact, if you have the time to read the following tips, then you have the time to do them!

Know how to say “no”
Not easy to do, especially when you’re just starting. But if something doesn't fit into your schedule and impedes on another activity you've already planned, just say "no." For example, if a client calls at six in the evening and pleads with you to have a teleconference with him at seven, but your son's basketball game starts at the same time, you’re allowed to reschedule. Clients actually like to work with people who sound busy.

Take a day off from work at least once a month
How often have you said: “I wish I had my own business. Then I could take a day off whenever I wanted.” Now you can do it! Chances are, you’ll be working more days with your own business than you would when you were employed by someone else. If you don’t take the weekends off from your business, make sure you take at least one day a week for no work and all play. Then, on top of that, schedule one day per month for a mini vacation.

For one day, do no work whatsoever and spend all day with your family. That means no computer (unless you’re helping your kids with homework or playing games), no business phone, no fax, no meetings, and no paperwork for one entire day. Have fun! I do.

Learn how to compromise
If you learn how to successfully make deals with your family and clients, you'll see how simple it is to balance your time between both. Running a home business and a family can be tricky, and that frustration does no one any good. It’ll cost you clients and create a frosty atmosphere in the house.

If a client, for example, gives you a week to complete a project, and contacts you two days before the deadline saying she needs it right away, don't let your frustration show. Offer her what you’ve got and tell her you’ll send the rest later. She should be able to meet you halfway. The same is true of your family.

And the end result of managing your time properly should be fostering the right attitude for business. Here are six ways to build a positive attitude.

1. Be Committed
It took me a couple of years to reach the point I’m at now. I could have given up any time before I got here and I had a million different reasons for doing so. But I knew what I wanted and stuck it out. That’s the first key to success.

2. Accept Challenges
Being your own boss and owner of your own online business can be scary and a bit intimidating. It takes guts to leave a 9 to 5 job and start your own online empire. It takes guts to have a dream and to go for it. You ultimately determine whether your business succeeds or fail.

3. Be In Control.
Keep your mind focused on important things. Set goals and priorities for what you want to do and accomplish. Develop a strategy for dealing with potential problems—and when those problems surface, feel confident in your ability to handle them. The worst you can do is fail.

4. Don’t be too Critical
There is no use criticizing yourself once you’ve made a mistake. Saying “I should have landed that account or handled that situation differently” is not going to make any difference at all. It’s just going to drain you of your energy and discourage you. Simply learn from your mistakes and move on.

5. Practice Makes Perfect
And stop worrying about getting everything right. It’s not going to happen. If Time Warner can buy AOL, you can create a website that bleeds cash. Just keep trying.

6. Ask for Help
You want to work for yourself not by yourself. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. Don’t think you’re incompetent simply because you can’t do it all. Professionals hire other professionals to do the job properly. Don’t be afraid to bring in a specialist when you need it.

If I have to warn you that there’s nothing more important than getting the work/family balance right, then the chances are you’re going to learn the hard way. I went into this for the money. But there’s no question that the greatest benefit my business has given me is the extra free time I have to spend with my family. I’m sure if I put that time into building more websites or creating more products, I’d make more money.

In this e-book, we’ve looked at a whole range of different ways to make money on the Web. We’ve talked about search engine optimization, affiliate programs, joint ventures and even e-books and software programming.

It should be clear that at the center of the book—and at the center of all your online marketing efforts—is traffic: hits to your site by potential customers. That’s what all the marketing chapters in this book are about, bringing people to the site so that as many of them as possible will buy. As you build your online business, concentrate on marketing opportunities that provide targeted traffic.

You should also concentrate on programs that are multi-level in nature such as affiliate programs. If you are doing all of the work yourself, your income will be limited by your time and resources; when you bring others into your program, your income potential becomes unlimited. Affiliate programs increase the ways you can turn your traffic into cash, and that’s what money-making on the Web is all about: buying traffic and earning from it.

It should also be clear that the most lucrative opportunities are those that have a repeat customer component. It costs less to maintain a customer than to find a new one. That means it’s always smart to take opportunities that generate repeat business. It’s also worth creating a newsletter that keeps your customers informed, in touch and in your revenue stream.

And the more revenue streams you have the better. On the Internet, as in the real world, chances come and chances go—online, they just come and go a lot faster. If you are diversified, you are more likely to survive market dips that would otherwise shut you down—and that will certainly already shut down many of your competitors.

It should be clear now that a lot of what people have said about online business is a load of old bunkum. You can see that it’s possible to make money; you can see that you can do it by yourself, right now; and you can see that whether or not you succeed is entirely up to you.

This is a newly emerging but extremely targeted and effective form of promoting your online business. Consumers download specific software from a contextual marketing network organizer (such as Gator Corporation, Hotbar, Save, or WhenU) at no cost and install it on their desktops. When the consumer is about to make a purchase for a specific product or service or is placing a search query for that item, the software will beam advertising messages from suppliers of that product or service, offering some incentive to the consumer such as discounts or promotion offers. Through this facility, the advertiser (supplier) is getting an opportunity to promote his offering to a targeted consumer and that too at the point of sale or when there is an intention to buy. Thus contextual marketing offers a highly targeted marketing tool that connects the supplier with a genuine lead and spurs transaction.

The effectiveness of contextual marketing can be seen from the fact that response rates and conversion rates are from 5 to 20 times higher than the results from conventional online advertising.

There are hundreds of websites emerging online everyday. Some survive, some don't. Of these new businesses, many are one-person bands. Some are partnerships as well as a handful of others have formed a company with the view to operating 100% online.

The part which makes or breaks a business like this is the website management and maintenance. Don't assume that once the site is online, your work is completed. If people are to return to the site, it will need to have fresh content in order to make the site "sticky". Since this is the most important part of your online business it is very important to be able to keep the administrative tasks to a minimum. One of the best ways to achieve these objects is to automate all possible marketing as well as administrative procedures of online selling.

The ultimate in automation is when all automated functions can be pre-programmed to be carried out at regular intervals with an in-built scheduler. You can go on holidays and have everything carried out for you in your absence as if you were sitting at your terminal for the duration. There are many E-Business Automation Systems available that automate the entire web marketing procedure along with many of the redundant administrative tasks. This is like running your business on “Auto Pilot”. One of the most popular tools is discussed below:

QuickPayPro is a remotely-hosted ecommerce automation system that includes a shopping cart system, secure, real-time credit card processing, digital product delivery, affiliate marketing system, ad tracking, mailing list manager and email marketing autoresponders.

This system is available at a reasonable monthly cost and is easy to set up on your website. Some of its other features are:

The fact is, just because you can make money on the Web, it doesn’t mean that the streets of the Internet are paved with gold. Like any opportunity, there are scams and hazards. As you set up your Web business it’s important to stay alert, use common sense, and keep your feet firmly on the ground.

First of all, don’t be tempted by get-rich-quick schemes that promise you instant wealth with no investment of time or effort. There are lots of these on the Internet. One of the most popular are those emails that fly around every now and then from someone claiming to be a wealthy political dissident who’s having trouble getting a huge sum of money out of their (normally African) country. They’ll ask you to open an account put some money in it and they’ll add the rest in return for a fat commission.

As soon as someone tells you they can make you rich—all you have to do is send them some cash—be sure they’re trying to scam you. The Web is just like the real world: if something looks too good to be true the chances are, it is.

And just like the real world, It takes money to make money. The Internet has provided a very economical way to do business and there are some inexpensive Internet marketing options; but marketing is imperative to the success of an online business and productive marketing campaigns do require some cash down. That might be money for search engine campaigns, payment for a programmer or a Web designer, or even just the fee for your hosting company, but you will need some money to get started; you get nothing for nothing.

I’m not going to promise you that there’s no risk involved here. There is. The size of the risk depends on how much you want to invest. You can start small with a cheap hosting company, a site you create yourself and so on. You’ll still make money like that; it will just take you a little longer. Alternatively, you can splurge right from the beginning by getting a pro to create your site and marketing it hard from the get-go. It’s entirely up to you.

Me, I started small and spent more money as it came in. How you do it will depend on how much spare cash you have and how confident you feel.
Checklist for Launching a Successful Internet Business

þ Keywords and phrases
Have you developed the key words and phrases that will ensure good placement in the search engines?

Remember, you can think up keywords yourself, you can see which key words your competitors are using, or you can simply pay a specialist company to find them for you. Once you’ve submitted your site to the search engines in all the keyword categories you want, it’s crucial to monitor your traffic carefully.

þ Optimization
Have you identified what you need to do to ensure that your site is fully optimized? Do you have the means or resources to effectively complete the task?

Once you’ve figured out the keywords, you have to decide where to put them and how. You also have think about link exchanges to improve your ranking even more. Remember, the more sites link to you, the higher your position in the search engines.

þ Content
Have you developed content that is not only attractive to your potential clients, but also search engine friendly? Do you have content and tools other than your main text that will assist with search engine ranking and drive visitors to your site?

Content has to contain persuasive sales text with a fine scattering of crucial keywords. You also have to update it as often as necessary—not so often that it gets in the way of your business, but often enough to keep fresh traffic pouring in and the site interesting and attractive.

þ Traffic and promotion plan
Do you have a plan for promoting your site and driving traffic to it?

There are all sorts of ways you can bring traffic to your site. In this book, I mention just a few of them—the ones that I’ve found the most effective. When you set up your Internet business, you should have your entire promotion campaign planned out in your mind. You should know which methods you want to use, and what to do if they don’t yield the results you want in the time you want.

þ Target Market
Have you identified your target market? Do you know how to reach them? Do you know what they want? Do you know how to attract them?

The more finely you target your marketing, the greater your sales rate will be and the higher your profits. Those high profits begin with a clear understanding of who your ideal audience is. Make sure you know your market before you even build your site, and keep it in mind as you prepare your promotions.

þ Time
Are you prepared to put in the time required to make your site a success? When the site launches, will you be ready to roll?

The biggest investment of time comes before the site is launched and in the period immediately after it launches. First, you have to do all the research. You have to understand how you’re going to break into your market, and know exactly what you want your online business to do. Once your first sites are built and launched, you have to do all the marketing. Only once it’s up and running will you be able to relax, move into monitor mode and begin thinking about your next opportunity. How long that takes depends on how much time you invest at the beginning and how successful your marketing efforts are. It usually takes a few months.

þ Advertisers and Affiliates
Have you identified advertisers and affiliates who will promote your site, your products and your services?

You can start looking for advertising opportunities and affiliate programs before you even launch your site. The more prepared you are when you launch, the quicker you’ll be able to move from inception to income.

þ Opt-In Email
Have you identified features for your site that will build a marketable opt-in email list? Have you though about what you’re going to put on your pop up and how you’re going to manage the list when you get it.

The people on your opt-in email list are like a little pool of potential customers—and repeat customers. The more people you can bombard with your marketing material, the more money you’re going to make. Ways to trap email addresses should form a part of your site design.

þ Monitoring
Have you identified monitoring features for your site that will provide you with information about your target market? Do you have a way of knowing who has visited your site? Do you have a method of collecting data from your visitors to help you improve your site?

The Internet changes constantly. One week, you can have top rankings and a sales rate to die for; the next week, your site be down on page fifteen with traffic made up of spam from Romania. You have to keep track of your traffic, and be prepared to make changes to your marketing plan.

þ Joint Ventures
Do you have an idea who you could partner with to offer complementary services that bring real benefits to you, your partner and your users?

Joint ventures are your partnerships for success. They allow you to pool resources with other entrepreneurs to bring real benefits for all of you. Start by talking to the people who send the newsletters you like to read each week. Then move out into people who provide complementary services to the ones you offer. As you build up your business, keep your eye open for new opportunities all the time.

þ Vision
Do you know what you want to achieve and what you’ll do when you get there?

If your goal is only to make money, you can achieve that in your first week on the Web. Most of us have bigger goals than that though. Whether you want to be the Bill Gates of online marketing or simply set up an automated revenue stream that will bring in a constant flow of cash with very little maintenance, you can do all that on the Internet—as long as you know what you want.
Costs budget and ROI

We have looked at various strategies and options related to Internet Marketing. One of the key factors while devising your strategies is your cost budget and the ROI you get from it. In this guide, we have studied a number of different techniques for marketing your product or service. The importance of each option is closely linked to your own objective, and consequently your budget in terms of management time and expenditure.

Marketers would be interested in knowing the results of any campaign and most often the result is desired in terms of increase in company revenues. Name recognition, brand image creation and other outcomes are important; however the bottom line is sales. ROI should be able to determine your website’s conversion rate in terms of the ability to persuade your visitors to take the action that you desire them to take. At the same time, the success in terms of increase in sales depends on several other factors such as the competitiveness and value in your product or service offerings and the quality of your website to induce the visitor to take action.

Focusing your marketing campaign is crucial to ensure maximum ROI. Your marketing strategies should be able to target prospective customers that are most likely to buy your products. You have to introduce the right product to the right person.

Perhaps the whole promotion cost for small or midsize companies may come to a minimum of $2500 plus the consulting and the services cost and the production costs. Remember that budgets for marketing will just zoom up as you go along the way. In some cases the final cost could be three times the above number or even more. Whether this budget is right or not, depends on what you perceive as the market potential for your offering. You may choose to pursue only a few of the strategies mentioned in this guide and still get reasonable success.

The key is to make use of some of the tracking tools mentioned for each of the strategies. For instance, tools that measure the traffic coming to your website and identify the source of the traffic. In other words, tools that tell you what search engine did the visitor come from, or which ad/affiliate program directed the visitor to your site. Moreover tracking tools can also tell you what the visitor has done online, including page visits, time spent, actions taken (relevant for e-commerce sites or query/contact forms) and so on.

Proper analysis of the data available is required to relate the traffic history to the revenue results.

Being a successful Web entrepreneur doesn’t require massive amounts of investment or a genius idea. It simply requires some initial time and effort. It requires an understanding of how business works on the Web, and it requires the drive to succeed.

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Managing Your Life When You Work From Home (Step-By-Step Guide To Building A Profitable Niche Marketing Business - Part 27 of 27)