This is a combination article that I will hope spawn some really good ideas.  I will show you a link later on in this article to a great site for some great ideas.  I am not affiliated with the site whatsoever.  I stumbled across it the other day while looking for something for one of our sites.  I found some amazing ideas and wanted to share them with you.  First we will go over some facts and then dive into the site.  After you are done with the site you may need to read the facts again to crystallize your idea.

First a couple of facts:

1. If you create a product, you never create something stand alone, you create a line of products.
2. If you build a product line, you build it around a niche or singular theme.  You want to avoid a “gift site” or something similar.  You want to offer a site that will appeal to a certain demographic.
3. You always want to test the market in small quantities.  It would be ideal to buy items in small quantities at higher prices to test them and see if they sell.  Then if they do, you buy in bigger quantities to get a better cost price.  Then and only then, if your product is a hit, you source it overseas.  This way if your product is a dud, you only have a dozen to dump somewhere like Ebay or Craigslist.

Premise for this example

• We are going to take some artwork and use it to print on shirts, mugs, water bottles and bags.  These products promote your theme which is in the artwork.  For example if you have a car or aviation site, you would be selling something aviation or automobile oriented.  The extra products here support your main product and add a product line to make it complete.  Shirts with a bunch of different cars and phrases are a good example of a shop that sold model cars or airplanes.
• You do not have to be an artist.  You just hire one, why try and do everything.  You can take out an ad on Craigslist and find a million starving artists in an afternoon.  If that does not work, go to www.odesk.com and fill out an ad there.  You will be swamped.

Pick out items that match your desires and products and get to work.  In this example we have an aviation site that caters to pilots and flight attendants.  Our main goal is to add more products and fatten up the offerings on the site.  We also sell at tradeshows.  We offer lots of aviation apparel products but are always looking to test more.  The designs that sell well, we now put on a coffee cup or bag and see how that sells.  Because the design is tested, it’s only a matter of time before it reaches a decent quantity that allows us to lower costs.

This is the site http://www.discountmugs.com

Do not let the name fool you, they have a lot of different items.  Even if you do not find something to your liking, it is a great site for you to stretch your creative muscles and figure out what to sell online.

In order to be truly interactive, we really should have put this post out long ago.  So we are doing it now with a call for comments and questions.  What kind of help do you need?  We are prepared to tailor special sections, articles, video, or what ever it takes to get your questions answered and get you moving on your way.  To help you with this please refer to the following sections and include that in your reply or comment.

E-commerce

• Product Ideas
• Store front platforms
• Building the site
• Hosting the site
• Finding products after I get selling my own
• How to produce my own product locally

Importing

• Where to find product
• More information
• Where to find a sourcing agent
• Importing and selling on Ebay
• How to deal with customs.

Blogging

• What topic to blog about
• Where to set up my site
• Costs
• How can I make money at blogging?
• Differences between services
• How fast can I start

Ebay

• How to get started
• Where to host pictures
• Paypal

Information Products

• Where to get them made
• What topics do I pick
• I can’t write, now what?

So now comes the fun part, if you have signed up for our newsletter, take it a step further and ask us a question.  You can email us directly at our email address.  We are all about helping you get going, especially in today’s economy.  It really helps your state of mind when you know you have something going and can constantly work on it.

If you are thinking about getting started with an online or home based business.  You can easily get overloaded with a ton of responses from all sorts of people in the business.  Most will say that their business is the best or most profitable.  A lot of time that is because they think its the best because it is the field they are in.  This is similar to someone saying the pizza is best from their home town just because its what they know and what they like.

What you need is the basic facts to get started, a place to learn the basics.  When you have those basics, then you can go on and start to sift out the gems from the rocks.  There are a lot of rocks out there.  We have found a site that is a video site and it teaches you how to get started in your home based business.  It gives you the basic dynamics of what to look for and explains some very important facts.

Buy a business on Ebay?

If you think a good idea is to buy a premade or existing business for sale on Ebay, then you really need to look at this site too since they really focus on it.  There is a lot of garbage out there and if you do not know what to look for, you will get separated from your hard earned cash.  The site includes a membership and you can easily get through all the material without having to sign up for another month.  The best part is the checklist that you can take with you (print) and use a valuable reference in whatever site you choose to buy (or create).

You can find all this information plus a bunch of free stuff in their guest section.

http://www.internetbusinessnavigator.com

This one I highly recommend.

Where to go with your Budget

Here is a quick and dirty list of what you should at least consider when building your budget.  If you are in the website/ecommerce/blogging type game already, this is a familiar list.  IF you are not, you need to do your homework and learn how to implement these.  If you don’t, you will waste your money. These are not listed in any particular order.

1. Blog
2. Article Marketing
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Social Marketing
5. Forum Postings
6. Web 2.0 sites
7. Wiki’s
8. RSS Feeds
9. Directory Listings
10. Blog commenting

In summary I would like to leave you with some advice that is pretty much straight and to the point.  It is not meant to degrade or discourage anyone.  In fact if you are as bullheaded as I am, it may spur you on to make something happen.  When I was growing up, we had chores to do around the house.  Like any kid I tried to do as little as possible and cut corners where I could so I could go and do what I really wanted to do.  My father would say, “Why do it half as….”  Who wants to be known for that?  Anyone can do a mediocre job, why lump yourself in with that?  Since then I have added to that with these little morsels of learning.

1. Why be “just another _____” (fill in the blank)
2. Most people want to do things the easy way.
3. Being successful online is hard work and not easy.
4. If it was not hard, everyone would do it.
5. Easy, Guaranteed, Simple, Quick, “make big money”, “monster profits” and “fabulous opportunities” are terms for suckers.
6. Never put your success in someone else’s hands.
7. No one is as motivated as you are.
8. There is a time to outsource and time to do it yourself, but most of the time, you need to outsource it.
9. Try very hard not to “work in your business” “working on your business is much smarter.
10. Don’t just sit there, do it.

Looking for part one of The website Misnomer?

Progress Minded People

Someone asked me the other day why I started my own business even though I had a perfectly good career in another field.  I told him that my business allows me to make progress and my career does not.  So I thought it might be a good idea to explain how this concept works. (in my mind anyway)

There are two different types of people out there when it comes to employment, there are people who work for themselves (entrepreneurs) and there are people who work for someone else. (Employees)

Employees

So let’s start with the Employee minded person and you will see what I mean.  An employee works for someone and is quite happy doing so.  Whether the position is white collar or blue collar they start at some entry level position and begin to work their way up the corporate ladder.  At some point, if they can keep the same job, they will eventually go as far as they can go.  This could even be as radical as the president of the company, but it is still the top of the chain. (See graphic)  What happens is, that particular peak never again progresses any further.  This generally is fine for most people since they made their goal and now they can enjoy the benefits of enjoying their life and their accomplishments.  If you are in this category, I applaud you and congratulate you wholeheartedly, well done.

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur’s brains are wired a bit different than employees.  It is not necessarily better, just different.  If you look at the graph you can see that the progress goes up, levels off for a bit and then goes up again.  Entrepreneurs need to be fed and are never really satisfied with their current status.  In this particular example there is no peak; the sky is the limit for someone in this position.  One of the reasons is that entrepreneurs are not content with making a goal and then staying there.  They simply set another goal and strive to achieve that goal again.  It can be bigger or more challenging, but it keeps their brains engaged and active.  There is always a better mousetrap.  These types of people like to control their own progress.  They like to push to make things happen and are generally unhappy when they are not making much progress.  Working for yourself is more personal since you own it.

So which are you?

I have heard some people say they are a mixture of both.  This could be partly true if you have a career and then start out to build your own business while enjoying the stability of a steady paycheck.  These people eventually quit their jobs and cross the line into a full line business man or woman.

Progressing

So how do you keep moving up the highway of learning?  I have found several useful tools that I use every week.

1. Add new products. If you are in the ecommerce field, you will find that you will always want to be adding more products.  This not only fattens up your website, but it keeps your creative juices flowing to give something to your customers that your competitors do not.
2. Brainstorm Coming up with new ideas, researching new marketing techniques or learning new skills always challenges your creativity and keeps you moving forward.  The thing I love about brainstorming with what I call the “morph” principle.  That is when you are working on an idea; it generally turns into something else that you were not thinking about.  This is where the really good money making ideas come from.
3. Outsource Outsourcing frees you up to do stuff that helps you make progress.  Making progress makes you more successful.  You would be amazed at what things you do that sap your time and keep you from being progressing.
4. Network This is very similar to outsourcing because it can give you ideas and help you become affiliated with people you might not have come into contact with.  I have met more people that I would never thought about talking to through networking.  There is always someone out there that knows more than you.
5. Plan Planning forces progress.  I do weekly planning as well as monthly planning.
6. Learn Learning a new technique or staying on top of the latest trends keeps you moving forward.  Social media is a great example of this since it really is the hottest trend on the Internet today.  There is not just one site that defines social media but hundreds of new sites.  They all have advantages and disadvantages and can all help your business.  This in itself keeps your brain engaged and working on a high level.

I do a lot of reading in forums lately. My favorite (this week) is a small business forum that attracts a lot of people looking for start up information. I notice that many people want to get start up business ideas, but do not really care about what type of business that it is. As long as it makes money seems to be the general thought pattern. That may be a thought pattern that could come back to haunt you later on down the line. For example my good friend Blanche joined an well known MLM program with the lure of making big money. When I asked her how it was going, she told me that it was a lot of work. It seems like you have to work your rear end off and everyone ends up fighting over a quarter. When it is all said and done, you really do not own anything of value.

I myself run several sites, one being a very busy ecommerce site. While I am happy my hard work is paying off, it also is a lot of work. However I am building a real and sellable business in the asset. It is important to know that when you are involved in the customer service part of business, it can be somewhat draining, depending on your product. The reason why is customers. The bottom line is, some customers are painful to deal with. It would seem that there will always be a small amount of people that make the most trouble. This brings me to my mental health outlook. If you are going to start a new business, or look for business ideas, why not choose something that causes the least amount of mental havoc? If you do not have thick skin, you may not want to be involved with the general public on a sales basis. The reason is, no matter how good your product is, there will be that one idiot that you cannot make happy for all the money in the world. If you are not use to that, it can stress you out and cause you to lose sleep.

So what do you choose?

There are several online ventures that can keep your blood pressure down. Blogs are a good example since you are creating most of the content yourself and the interaction with most readers is civil. If you sell products on your site, they would be mostly affiliate products in which the manufacture would have to deal with returns and other issues.

Information sites rely on people clicking ads to generate revenue and can be very profitable and satisfying. Information products are also very good and good for your mental health. If you are good at something, writing a course or Ebook can be profitable as well. Video is all the rage on the Internet today and making them and marketing them can help you stay sane in your quest for alternative income.

So why the sanity buzz?

Chances are that most people that are starting an online business are either unsatisfied with their current job, or they have recently become unemployed. Some want to have a good alternative plan for worst case scenarios. I think that is a good idea since no one should have to rely on someone else to make sure they have enough income for retirement. If you pick something that you may be doing for a while, it might as well be something that does not stress you out. We are finding out how important stress plays a role in our lives every day. Do yourself a favor, look ahead five years when you are thinking about an online business. Knowing what your weaknesses are now will certainly save you some grief and aggravation later.

Forum

http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/index.jspa

I divide my time into what I call “high value” and “low value” activities. High value generate cash and low value does not. Certain things in the day have to be done whether they are low value or not, such as answer or read email. Here is my order, hopefully someone can get some value out of it.

1. Plan my goals for the day
2. Assign the goals in order that will generate cash. For example, on my ecommerce site, I want to add new products or improve my descriptions, so that I can sell more. This leads to more sales.
3. Promote and market said products by my marketing plan. My plan consists of a mix of SEO tactics such as bookmarking, article marketing and video marketing. These three give me the best results and thus land in the    high value category. this also includes managing anyone that I have outsourced to do some of these plans.
4. Ship or prep product, since I sold it, it needs to go out. This is sometimes outsourced by employee or anyone I can pawn it off on.
5. Add a new post to one of my blogs. This keeps things moving and i am big on moving projects forward.
6. Fix Problems, could be a customer service thing or other assorted pains.
7. Answer emails or phone calls.
8. Clean off my desk. ( I hate this)
9. Clean up my office. ( I hate this more, but if I get to absorbed into promotion my workspace gets trashed and then i cant work)
10. Plan for tomorrow. I am a list maker, if I can get something down on paper and hang it on clip boards or on my white board, this helps me tremendeously. I have four clip boards that I label. One is called “problems” the second is ‘warehouse”, third is “projects” and the fourth is “misc” I also have a huge white board in which I track a lot of progress and think outloud on.

I hope this helps someone.  The Plan changes a lot, but I use this basic outline.
Ken

7 Steps On How To Start Your Own Home Based Business
By Pinky Mcbanon

Starting your own home based business is a wonderful idea and is quite simple. There are many opportunities present in the environment you stay in; it is just a matter of looking and choosing the right one. The main benefits of working from home are that you are self employed and the boss of yourself. Here are a few steps that will help you to successfully start your own home based business:

1. Weigh your Aptitude
The first step is to analyse what you are good at. Measure your talents and see what you have. An aptitude is the personal traits that a person possesses and assessing this will help you realize your strengths. For example: you may have the ability to communicate with people or you maybe creative.

2. Assess the skills that you possess
After you have weighed your talents and capabilities, it is time to see if you have the required skills. You must realize that skills are something which you perform and talent is something that you possess or you might be good at. Talent is something that you are born with and have flair with while skill is something that develops with time.

3. Putting your skills and talents together
Using your skills and talents and bringing them together you can choose options for you home based business. It will be simple to pick a field for you to work in. For example if you are creative (talent), you could use this creativity to make custom made jewellery (skill) or paintings and sell them. This could be you business opportunity. Similarly there are many opportunities that exist when you combine your talents and skills.

4. Test you business ideas
Once you have decided on the business you want to perform, you can start performing your business. You have to run a test for your business to analyse whether it is going to do well or not. You have to see if your business is a viable idea. You have to fully analyse a business opportunity from all sides and check its cons and pros. See if it is a business that requires you to move around or if you can simply sit at home and work.

5. Calculate you profits
Once you have your business idea, always come up with an approximate figure of income. See if you will be earning any profit and the margin of profit you will earn. Also make sure that your expenses are not more than your income.

6. Analyse the viability of your business idea
Always make sure you have the resources to implement your business. Create a business plan which will be your guide to actually performing your business. A business plan will contain all details related to your business and will give you an outlook to how viable your business would be.

7. Implement it
Put your business idea into action and make sure you keep your business going. Do not give up.

Pinky is a mom with 3 school children. A Systems Engineer, an Independent Medical Billing and Coding Consultant. Her blog focuses on stay-at-home moms, dads and students who wants to work at home, build home based business or just browsing her blog with a lot of information to gain! Visit her useful website at http://ezonlinebusiness.blogspot.com/

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How to Come Up With Killer Business Ideas

By Peter J Beattie

A lot of people find it it difficult coming up with ideas for the type of business they want to start. They know inside themselves that they want to start a business for the freedom, money and self satisfaction but they don’t have a clue what they want to do. I want to share with you a technique that has worked great for me. So great that I now have “too many” ideas. I just cant act on them all! My life isn’t long enough and there isnt enough hours in a day. But, I know what its like to be lost with nothing but a desire to be your own boss.

Here is what I did to generate ideas and what I recommend you do:

1.) First, think about “why” you want to start a business. Really..why? Think at least 15 mins about this and it will come. It may be just money, it may just be freedom..or both. Whatever it is just figure it out.

2.) Next, figure out what motivates you. There has to be something that you think about to keep you going and determined. For me its cars and motorcycles. I’m really into these things. Whenever I need to get motivated I go to YouTube and do a search for some guy taking delivery of his new Porsche..or something like that. I study people who I want to be like and imagine my life being better than theirs in the future. That keeps me going.

You may be into other things… plants, horses, great outdoors, skydiving, eating potato chips (jk). Whatever it is, use that to keep you motivated and to get your subconscious mind working on “how” you are going to get these things. Your subconscious mind will show you the way.

3.) Now you will want to get yourself a daily planner. One that goes all year long and leaves you enough room to write about 6 lines per day. You will need to take this planner with you wherever you go. If you’re at work on the computer, keep it to your side all day. Take it to Subway with you. You will need to start recording the tiniest ideas that pop into your head that relate to business ideas.

You may get a very small thought that last 1/1000 of a second and you may think its too small to matter, but it’s not. It does matter. That micro thought will lead to bigger and stronger thoughts over time. This may take a few weeks to come to you but IT WILL. And when it does, you better be ready with that planner because you will have so many ideas that you wont know what to do with them.

4.) The next obstacle you’ll run into is deciding on a chosen few ideas and ACTING on them. Its one thing to talk or dream about owning that nice house one day, but successful people DO something about it. Don’t be a talker and don’t be a dreamer. Be a doer. Get things done. Anyone can talk, not everyone can act. Otherwise, the world would be filled with satisfied successful people.

Well there are 4 easy steps you can take to generate some ideas. Its IMPOSSIBLE not to get ideas if you do this.

If you want more tips like this, please check out my blog at: http://gopeterb.com

-Peter

Peter Beattie

Internet Marketer & Entrepreneur

Blog: http://www.gopeterb.com

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How To Come Up With A Business Idea
By Helen Dowling

There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to start your own business, but not having the right idea. Maybe you’ve come up with several ideas, but not hit on the one that’s right for you yet. Maybe you’ve come up with an idea, but been put off it by the poor reaction from people you’ve told or seen someone else start up your idea.

We’ve put together this fact sheet to give you some techniques you can use to find the right idea for you, but when you do come up with the right idea, remember:

• People in general are very negative. You will always find someone who says “What if…” or “That will never work” or something similar and this can be hard when the person who is saying this is those close to you. That’s why you’ve got to believe in your idea enough to say “I can do this.”

• Don’t be put off by competition. Competition is a good thing – it shows there’s a market for a business idea. You can always do it better, quicker, or differently than someone else. All is not lost with your idea just because someone else has decided to do it too.

Ways to come up with a business idea

To use these techniques, you’ll need to get your creative hat on. Forget about the little voice in your head that says “that’s a silly idea” and get everything you think of down on paper. You can always dismiss them later. Work with a friend or family member if it helps – sometimes two or more people can be more creative than one.

TECHNIQUE 1: WHAT CAN’T YOU BUY?

Have a think about what you have seen abroad that you can’t buy here or what you have seen here that you can’t buy abroad? What did you used to be able to buy but you can’t buy it now? What have you tried to buy and found that it wasn’t available?

Examples could be:
• Toilet seat covers that they have in the US. I haven’t seen them very often over here.
• Shoes for different sized feet.
• Pet movers to take the stress out of moving a pet to a new house.

TECHNIQUE 2: WHAT OPPORTUNITIES HAVE BEEN CREATED BY CHANGE?

We live in a different world now – we have no time anymore and it feels like a scarier place. What business ideas could you think of to help?

Examples could be:
• How about a device that could fit into a watch so parents could see where their children are on a map?
• PA to pick up your dry cleaner, pay your bills and organise your builder.

TECHNIQUE 3: WHERE CAN YOU MEET CUSTOMERS?

Think about where you can meet customers: at home, mail order, internet, shows and events, workplace, agents, on wheels, phone – what business ideas would help you to reach customers in this way?

Examples could be:
• Language lessons by phone
• Window cleaning that’s guaranteed.
• A café where you can order food on-line and have it delivered to your desk.
• Mobile fancy dress to the customer.

TECHNIQUE 4: WHAT TRADES NEED UPDATING?

What trades can you think of that have been around for a while and are very traditional. Could you update them?

Examples could be:
• Hairdressers with wine bars inside them
• PA specialising in builders that could handle their quotes and paperwork
• Car mechanics that are in the style of a hospital

TECHNIQUE 5: ADAPT A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IDEA

Look at businesses that are successful – how could you adapt them? Could you apply this idea to another business?

Examples could be:
• A fine artist who makes sculptures out of chocolate
• Mobiles are successful, but not many people know how to use the new technology – could you train people how to use them and other technologies?

TECHNIQUE 6: BUSINESSES IN TROUBLE

Just because a business is in trouble, doesn’t mean that it would be if you ran it. What businesses do you like the concept of and can you provide a solution for?

Examples could be:
• Amazon selling books/CDs etc on-line rather than on the high street
• Ebay solving the problem of unwanted goods

TECHNIQUE 7: WHAT IRRITATES OR FRUSTRATES YOU?

What really annoys you? Could you provide a solution?

Examples could be:
• Providing quizzes for people that are on-hold.
• Solving the problem of noisy neighbours

TECHNIQUE 8: COMBINING PRODUCTS OR SERVICES

How could you combine two existing products or services to make something new?

Examples could be:
• Enabling people to order takeaway, a video & popcorn to be delivered to their home at a certain time.
• Bar selling soft drinks and smoothies to kids.

TECHNIQUE 9: IMPROVE A PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Think of an example of a poor service – how could you improve it?

Examples could be:
• A site that will help you come up with a present for the person who has everything.
• A restaurant where you can order meals by typing numbers into a keypad without speaking to anyone.

TECHNIQUE 10: BUY A FRANCHISE

Look at franchises for ideas for a business. Buy one or start your own version.

There are 800 franchises in existence. You can find many of the opportunities on franchise sites such as: http://www.british-franchise.org/

TECHIQUE 11: WHAT DO YOU SEE AROUND YOU?

Look around you. There are ideas for business ideas all around us – what can you see?

Examples could be:
• A restaurant that sells Starters and Desserts.
• A café that caters only for children.

TECHNIQUE 12: YOU!!

This is your secret weapon. Sit down with a group of friends or family and tell them about yourself. Pretend they don’t know you. What things do you like / what don’t you like? What hobbies and interests do you have?

Then get them to come up with some business ideas for you…what can you think of?

Using these 12 techniques should help you to come up with a business idea that you feel is right for you. If not, keep looking or contact me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk for some help. We’ll happily have a free, no obligation chat with you to see if we can help.

If you come up with an idea, the next step is to see whether or not it’s feasible and whether it will work. That’s also where we can help as we specialise in doing market research and writing business plans. Send me an email on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk or give me a call on 0845 644 9371 to see if we can help.

Finally, don’t be too concerned about coming up with the ‘right’ idea that you never actually start a business. Remember you can always change a business if it’s not right for you – it is your business after all.

Good luck and don’t forget to let us know how you’re getting on.

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