By: Tammy Embrich 

Motivation is just about the most important element for success in any work at home business. If you don’t posses this key element with your business or your websites, then it’s very unlikely that you will succeed.

Granted, it is difficult to stay motivated at all times…and we all go through low valleys with our home businesses. But it’s through these valleys that we grow and learn from our mistakes.

How do you stay motivated and focused?

There are a number of things that you can do to accomplish this…

Marketing Ideas:

When promoting your business or website, always try and conjure up fresh marketing techniques/methods. If something hasn’t been working for you, then move onto something new. The ideas are literally endless with marketing. And the most important thing…there are tons of free promotion out there for the taking. Remember, you don’t have to pay for advertising in order for it to be effective. It could be…networking on message forums, exchanging links with other business owners/webmasters, article marketing, getting listed in directories, ezine ads, signature advertising, and others. But, that’s a whole other article topic there. The idea is to always strive for fresh marketing ideas. Now, we can’t neglect the tried and true “word of mouth.” Quite effective, give it a try!

Purchase New Products For Your Business:

Now, we all know that in order for you to be a success with your business, you have to know your products and have a passion for them. You have to love the products you are selling! The better you know your products and love them, the more likely it will be that you will keep getting the sales. What better reason to purchase some of your favorite, featured, new products that are in stock? Show them off! If it’s makeup, jewelry, or what have you…take them with you wherever you go. Show the new products off to your friends and family. Be enthusiastic about your products!

The same goes with a website. If you are not a home business representative for a company, but own a website…tweak your website to your liking. Make it something you love and can be proud of! If you love your website, then you will love showing it off and promoting it. If you find yourself getting bored with it or it has become outdated, change it…update it! Whether it be content, color, theme, whatever. Tweak it until you really love it. It’s also a good idea to make your website as appealing as you can for your target audience.

Change Your Atmosphere:

Now this one may sound silly to some…but this has worked for me. If you have a particular room for an office, move the furniture around if feasible…If it is a very small room, then you won’t have many options as to moving things around. But you can change colors or themes for your office. What colors or themes make you feel most creative? What colors or themes make you feel happy? What colors or themes make you feel most productive? It’s something to think about. Purchase a new day/month/year planner. Perhpas a new calendar or a new writing notebook.

Exercise…Take A Break:

Exercise is great for both the mind and body! It’s also a great way to clear the mind when you feel overworked or stressed out. When you find yourself not in motivation mode and are lacking in that much needed gusto…take a brisk walk to clear the mind. You may be surprised at what happens. Most of the time when I take a break from my time online, whether it be a walk, lunchbreak, or just watching some TV…I come back refreshed, and even sometimes, with some new ideas.

Stay In Contact With Your Customers:

Always stay in touch with your customers. Call them up. Check to see if they are satisfied with the products they purchased. Are they enjoying the products? Offer some friendly advice. This could also lead into an additional sale for you…and that always creates more motivation! Try and get to know your customers and even establish a new friendship.

Network With Other Business Owners Or Webmasters:

If you haven’t already, join some home business or work at home message forums and get to know and network with others. Use your signature on these forums. This will not only get your business out there, but you will also find useful information on most of them. Make sure you always read the rules of the forum first though. Ask questions, offer advice on things you are knowledgeable about. Make friends and have fun.

Music:

If you’re a music lover, have some soft music playing while you are working. This isn’t for everyone though. Some people prefer not to have music playing and want it quiet. It’s all in what you like or prefer. And for some people, music can give that much needed extra push in getting started with the work day. Try it sometime. You might be pleasantly surprised.

The idea here is to do everything you can to remain focused, motivated, and even challenged for being the best you can be at moving forward with your business. Do some research and look up more motivation articles and tips. Motivation is the key to success.

Wishing everyone an abundance of both!

Written By: Tammy Embrich

Tammy is a Internet Marketer and is the owner of: WAH Opportunities. Her websites focus on free telecommute job leads and more.

By: Zachary Skinner

Forum Marketing For Beginners

Forum marketing is one of the most popular and profitable ways to advertise your website. Although it can be very time consuming it can be well worth the effort in the long run. If you believe in the law of give and you shall receive then online forum marketing is for you. The key to successful forum marketing is to emerge yourself in the forum and answer the posts as honestly and as insightfully as possible not referencing your signature link at all unless there is a real reason to, for example, when someone asks for a product recommendation.

Forums were started as a means of organizing a group of like minded individuals into a single location for informed discussions. There are now perhaps thousands of forums available on the internet and they cover every imaginable topic. Some will have only a couple of thousand members while others will have tens of thousands of members. Although not originally intended as a place to market products and services they are in reality great places to do so.

Here are some of the reasons why:

1) The traffic at forums is highly targeted. If you visit a forum for European car owners, for example, you can easily market products and services related to Europeans cars to visitors and members of that forum.

2) You are allowed to have a signature file. You’re signature file tells the world who you are. Most forums will allow you to include a hyperlink to your website.

3) Most forums are free to join.

4) A special offers section. Some forums have a special offers section where members can sell their product or service to other forum members at a discounted rate. Most forums who have a special offers section charge only a nominal fee of ten, twenty, or thirty dollars to list your offer. The offer is then sent out to a large group of targeted prospects.

5) Forums are search engine friendly. Search engines love fresh, unique content and forums are filled with it every single day. This means that a simple one line post that you made to answer a question could lead to a sale by someone searching the search engines for an answer to that same question.

6) You can actually use the threads in these forums to give you ideas for articles and web content. If you’re really saavy you can then sell these articles or content you created out of the forum threads and sell them back to other forum members through a special offer. (Threads are discussions on the forum related to a topic posted by a member)

Forums are great places to both learn new ideas and information and also to market the same time by helping others. The more you start lurking around in forums in attempts to market your products or affiliate programs the more you’ll find that you actually enjoy hanging out at forums. They really are great places to meet interesting people and learn things you may not have had the chance to learn otherwise. Since I joined the Warrior Forum back in 2004 I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the most respected names in the internet marketing industry. Regardless of whether I need to make money I usually visit the forum once a day and see what’s being talked about and ask any questions I might need answered. You should find that emerging yourself in a good forum will have an interesting “zen” effect on your bottom line. That is, once you start visiting a forum regularly to help and to learn you should notice an increase in sales.

If you happen to have the time to spare you should really try to join as many related forums as you can. Not only will this multiply the number of individuals who view your signature file but having posts on different forums pointing back to your website boosts your credibility with the major search engines and will increase your rankings.

Forum marketing is perhaps one of the best free promotion tools available on the internet and the only thing costs is your time. There’s really no reason whatsoever not to join one. As you become more experienced with forum marketing you may even find that beats all of your other forms of marketing.

If you are serious about forum marketing then you may want to consider purchasing Forum Marketing Manager. It will do for your forum marketing what quicken does for your check book. You can check it out here: http://www.forummarketingmanager.com

Zachary R. Skinner,

http://www.resell-profits-up-the-yin-yang.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zachary_Skinner

By: Jill Hart

The trend of telecommuting is on the rise as employers begin to see the savings involved in both gas and office space. With gas prices at an all-time high, many Americans are looking for ways to do less driving and more companies than ever before are offering telecommuting options to their current employees and searching for at-home employees to fill open positions. The question for the job seeker is now how to find these opportunities. Below are five methods you can use to find a telecommuting position.

First, check your local newspaper. When I began my search for an at-home career, I found my first employer through the Classified Ads section of our hometown paper. I was wary at first, but after thoroughly researching the company through means such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB), visiting the corporate office and meeting some of their current employees I found the company to be legitimate.

Second, search online using website such as Monster.com and Dice.com. However, listings found online must be researched carefully to avoid the scams that abound on the Internet. There are also websites that will you allow to do job research in your own community. One such website is Craigslist.com on which you can choose a city and then refine your search with keywords such as “telecommute.”

Posting your resume on websites such as Hotjobs.com is a third way to locate at work-at-home job. Putting your resume online can bring employers to you, depending on your skills and qualifications. Another bonus of an online resume is that you can easily direct prospective employers to view it. It also makes life a bit simpler when applying for jobs, because you can attach your online resume instead of typing out your job history, qualifications, and so on, each time you apply for a job.

When posting your resume on the web, be sure to create an accurate and impressive representation of your abilities. You don’t want to be wordy when describing past job experience, but you do want to be specific about the roles you’ve held as well as your accomplishments.

A fourth option when looking for at-home employment is to open a phone book and call businesses in your area. For example, if you’re interested in doing administrative work, you might contact churches and small businesses in your area to see if they are looking for office help. Even if they are not currently seeking help, they may know of another business owner who is.

Along those same lines, the fifth way to become a telecommuter is to create your own opportunity. For example, instead of finding a company that will hire you as an administrative assistant from home, consider starting your own business as a Virtual Assistant. You can offer your services to many companies, which can both increase your income potential and allow you the flexibility of deciding which jobs you’d like to accept.

You can also create your own telecommuting position by talking with your current employer about work-at-home possibilities. More and more companies are finding that at-home employees are just as productive as those in the office, if not more. Companies also benefit financially by lessening office space and avoiding the costs of many office supplies. Many companies who are not ready to hire at-home workers will allow their current employees to work one or two days from a home office, so be sure to discuss this option.

The telecommuting field has become highly competitive as more and more people find that working from home is a possibility. Searching for a telecommuting position can be daunting, but by looking in strategic places such as online and in your local newspaper, you’ll have a much better chance. No matter, how you find your telecommuting position, make sure it’s something you would enjoy doing and also something you can make money at.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. Jill is a contributing author in The Business Mom Guide Book and I’ll Be Home for Christmas and co-author of the upcoming book, Home Based Blessings. Jill has articles published across the web on sites like DrLaura.com and ClubMom.com. Jill and her husband, Allen of CWAHD.com reside in Nebraska with their two children.

Article Source: http://www.ladypens.com/

By: Kara Kelso

If you are in Direct Sales, you may not realize how many sales you are missing by not having a website of your own. Rep websites aren’t usually indexed in the search engines, and most can’t be personalized completely.

Let me give you an example of why it’s so important to have your own website. I searched for “Watkins Vanilla” on Yahoo, Google, and MSN.

On Yahoo, Watkin’s company page was #7 in the listings. Ranked before them were reps with their own website.

On Google, the company page was #5. Again, reps with their own websites ranked above them.

MSN was the only place the company website was #1. However, following the company site were several personal websites.

Here’s another term I searched: “Tupperware catalog” (which according to Word Tracker is searched over 300 times a day). On Google and MSN, Tupperware’s company site wasn’t even on the first page of results! On Yahoo it was the first, but of course personal websites followed.

So what does this mean to you? It’s simple - there are millions of people searching for YOUR business or items from your business ever day. By having a personal website, you aren’t lost in a sea of other rep websites in the search engines. Even the simplest of terms can work their way to the top of search engine results, in many cases giving you more free traffic than you can handle!

Of course, once you get those visitors there it’s up to you to turn them into customers. The best way to do this is getting them on your list. More about newsletters next week.

So if you don’t have a website already, start making plans now to build your personal website today!

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

About the Authors:

Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank are two busy wahms, and the owners of Direct Sales Helpers. For more Direct Sales Success Tips, visit: www.directsaleshelpers.com/newsletter.html

By: Lori Redfield

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is much like a traditional Administrative Assistant in many ways. VA’s handle correspondence, scheduling, customer support, website updates, writing and design projects, data entry - pretty much anything you can think of that an online company would require for their day-to-day operations.

Many parents who want to stay home with their children have opened their own VA Service. It is a perfect career choice for mothers of young children, or people who must take care of older relatives. You work out of your home office as an independent contractor. Often times the schedule can be quite flexible.

This is an ideal position for women who plan to return to the workforce when their children are older. It will enhance your resume’ and inevitably you improve your old skills and acquire new ones.

Basic skills and equipment you will likely need include the following:

- Microsoft Office - Excel, Access, Outlook, and Word
- HTML skills with either Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage
- Instant Messaging software - ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger
- Cable Modem or DSL - Dial up is far to slow for the pace most online entrepreneurs are accustomed to working at.

The above aren’t always necessary - but acquiring each and learning to use them will only increase your desirability and worth.

There are many places to start looking for a Virtual Assistant position:

- One of the easiest places to land your first clients is through an ad placed in your own local classifieds. It seems unlikely - but trust me, there is far less competition for local clients then for jobs being bid on through Internet Job sites.
- Freelance Job Sites such as elance, smarterwork.com, findafreelancer etc. There is an extensive list of these types of resources here: www.freelancemom.com/gigs.htm
- Via Freelance, Home Business, or WAHM forums. Virtual Assistants with an established client base often times search for reliable ‘Over-flow Partners’. Forums are an excellent place to network and seek out these types of opportunities.
- Building your own website. Unless you do some very good website promotion, it isn’t likely you will actually gain clients through a website that you build to promote your service. HOWEVER, you really should have a website. Just as business cards are an expected and valuable piece of your traditional business, websites are like an online business card/resume. You should list your rates, your skills, your availability and your portfolio. A well thought out website will give you the edge when bidding on a position.
When you are applying or bidding on a freelance position, you must come across as a professional. There is something about the online medium that invites a casual correspondence style. You will do well to avoid this temptation. Save similes, abbreviated internet slang (LOL, IMO etcetera) for later on in your relationship with your client.

Your client needs to trust that you are going to help him/her run their business with professionalism. Your first impression must come across as professional as a traditional cover letter for employment. Be confident and clear in your interactions with them. Ask intelligent questions and be very honest about the time that you have available in your schedule.

I strongly advise all aspiring Virtual Assistants to do an honest assessment of what their career objectives are before they begin seeking out work. It is easy, and common to over extend yourself. If your main goal is to earn a part-time living specifically so that you can put raising your children ahead of your career. then be very clear about that when you begin to take on new work assignments.

Start off slow and add clients or responsibilities for clients gradually. Being too eager to succeed can quickly be your worst downfall. The quickest way to lose a good client is by under-delivering. Make realistic promises. You will gain their respect and their trust. And you will find that as their business grows, they will be more then willing to work around your schedule and needs in order to keep you as a valued contractor.

WAHM Articles: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Lori Redfield is a Freelancer and Internet Entrepreneur. Visit her website, FreelanceMom.com for more information and work from home jobs.