Work Smart: Sharpen Your Business!

Have you ever cut down a tree? Did you use an axe or a chainsaw? Was the blade dull or sharp?

If the blade was dull, you undoubtedly found the project to be a lot of HARD WORK!
In contrast, if the blade was sharp, you accomplished your goal a lot faster and with much less effort.

No matter what the project, we use tools to help us get the job done faster and easier. A well designed and maintained tool will be much more efficient and will save us a great deal of effort and frustration. The tool will actually do most of the work for us. In other words, working smart is better than working too hard.

So it is with running a home business. Our work at home business is a tool to help us make money. How well it does that will depend on whether we are diligent at keeping it "sharp" and efficient.

Take a look at each component of your home business. Typically you have:

• Product or Service--this is what you are promoting, possibly an affiliate program


• Webhost--don't underestimate the value of a quality host for your site


• Website--what everyone looks at, it represents your business


• Advertising/promotional plan--may include email, autoresponders, classified ads, ezine advertising, traffic exchanges etc.


• System for monitoring/tracking your website and promotional efforts--don't neglect this

All these components together constitute your home business. Why examine each part? Well, they say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

You can have a great product or service to sell, but if your advertising is "dull", not doing the job, your great product probably won't make you any money.

Now look at it from the other side. If you have a "dull" product, something that nobody wants or needs, you had better have a fantastic promotional campaign. Even then, you're going to work much harder to make money than you would if you had both a "sharp" product and a "sharp" promotional campaign.

How can you make sure your business is "sharp"? Fortunately, there's a lot of information available on all these subjects. I have a number of articles and ebooks by a variety of skilled marketers available on my website. Take time to learn from these sources.

One thing I strongly suggest as Step One in starting a work at home business is to carefully choose an affiliate program that not only gives you a great product or service to promote, but also provides an excellent program of training, support and marketing, thus helping you keep your business "sharp" and profitable.

Let me illustrate what I'm talking about with one of the 2 programs I feature on my home website--the Plug-In Profit Site™. Look carefully at everything you get with this program and you'll see what I mean.

This is a "sharp" home business program and well demonstrates the point that some affiliate programs will do much more for your business than others will. The quality of a program like this one will make it the strongest link in your business. Indeed, the Plug-in Profit system examines every aspect of operating a work at home business and will help to keep your entire business "sharp", making you money.

Working hard is truly essential to any business, but don't frustrate and exhaust yourself by working with a "dull" tool. Your home business will be more profitable and enjoyable if you put forth a little effort to learn how to "sharpen" it.

So if you want your work at home business to succeed, continue to work hard while striving real hard to WORK SMART!


Article written by Scott McGraw
Scott McGraw has 15 years experience operating a home business and currently owns http://www.work-at-home-a-better-life.com promoting a "Work Smart" approach to success.

Creating a Business Plan

Getting Started: Creating a Business Plan

You're excited. You have a great idea for a profitable online business. Maybe it is an original idea that has not been marketed online before. Maybe you have come up with a new spin on the ordinary. Whatever it is that has influenced you to start your online business, be sure that you have a plan before you begin. This is not the time to “pick it up as you go”. These are some basic things that should be included in your business plan.

• The business summary should give a brief description of the entire business and is an integral part of the overall business plan.


• After you have completed the business summary you should begin to list the objectives or the goals that you want to accomplish through the business.


• Next and perhaps most importantly, you should develop your marketing plan. The marketing plan will address all the specifics of the business. When developing the marketing strategy you should consider the following:

The target market. The target market is the customers that you expect to see visiting your site. For example will your product be more appealing to college students or those who are in retirement?

Consider the competition for your product when determining the marketing strategy. Choose a product that will be seen as unique and useful. Visit sites that are offering the same or similar products. Find out the cost, and how they are marketing their product. Finds out the pros and cons of their business and try to improve your product based on their flaws.

Research the various methods for advertising online. You should become educated about search engines and how they work since each one is different. Also be sure that you know how to submit your site to search engines. You should be prepared to spend a small amount of money on advertising, but the profits that you will gain from the advertisements will prove to be money well spent.

Think about pricing. Again, look at the competition and see what similar products are selling for. Pricing can play a big role in the success of your product since selling a product well below the average price may lead customer to think that there is a problem with the product or that it is not of the best quality. However, pricing items too high could also detour customers.

Determine the shipping method. Be sure that you know how products will be shipped so that you can have shipping details clearly posted on your site. If you are shipping things of great value, you should consider providing shipping insurance. Also think about shipping outside the country that you live in.

Think about the different methods of payment that you will accept. If your business does not accept credit cards, you should be ready to give up half if not more of your sales. If you decide to accept credit cards will you use a merchant account or will you use a third party credit card processing center? Both will help you get started and the third party processing center will handle all of the business so you don't have to. You should decide which you will use and also if you will accept checks or money orders. It is essential to have a secure server when taking credit cards.

These few things will help your online business to become a great success and also provide you with peace of mind knowing that you have thoroughly thought about and planned for the opening of your online business.

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