Archive for the ‘home based business’ Category:
Christian Work At Home Business Opportunities
One of the major issues for someone looking to begin a Christian work at home business is a fear that so many successful businesses turn out to be unethical in some way. Looking around you, especially at all the opportunities that you see online, it may seem that the only way to make a lot of money is to deceive people, which of course as a Christian you would not want to do. However, if you look more closely, you will find that it is perfectly possible to run a successful business from home without giving up any of your Christian values.
In fact, when you compare it with working for a company, one of the advantages of running your own business is that you have complete freedom to apply your own values to the way that the business is run. If you are an employee, you may sometimes be asked to do things that you are not comfortable with. But when you work for yourself, nobody is going to push you toward any unethical practices. You only have your own desires and your own conscience to deal with.
Working for yourself also means that you can operate flexible hours that allow you to take time off for worship and charitable practice whenever you want. This is particularly true if you operate an internet based business. The flexibility of the online world means that you can set up automatic sales and marketing systems that can bring you profits while you are doing other things.
If your faith requires that you do not work on a Sunday, you can apply this in any way that you want. Many people simply refrain from switching on the computer or checking their email on this day. However, some businesses will actually take their website offline so that they cannot make any sales on the rest day. Whether you want to go that far is a matter for you to decide.
On average, it can take six months or more for your business to be profitable. This is because a company needs to establish itself and its mode of operation before it can really start to realize a profit. Nonetheless, these first six months can be an excellent opportunity to learn and to create a reputation for your business. You need to look at how much you can spend on making your business successful, which may involve paying for materials, postage, bills and other regular costs.
There are jobs where you can make money from home without paying anything out, but these are rarely, if ever, based on sound ethics and even if successful initially tend to go wrong before they become lucrative. So be sure that you can support yourself and your family for at least the first year if you are not working in a day job at the same time.
A Christian work at home business can be one of the most effective ways to live a life of faith. It allows you to promote your message while making an honest living, and it allows you to educate and be educated. It will bring you into contact with a wide range of people. Using your God-given talents in this capacity is something that will help you on a personal and spiritual level, and if you are uncomfortable with making a profit above a certain level you can put this money into your church.
More and more people are finding a way to make their faith and their business acumen work together by founding a Christian work at home business. It is worth finding out how you can, too.
10 Necessities For A Home Based Business
When you make the decision to earn income from the internet you will need to go through a set up process to be ready for business.
Following are the basic steps in setting up for home business success.
1. Attitude
The key to your business success is your attitude.
Treat your business like a business.
This is critical whether you are working part-time or full-time. One of my colleagues is a mother who works from home around her family. She has always put her family first whilst at the same time developing her business. She says, “I work part-time, but I have a full-time attitude.”
Put another way, “If you have a hobby attitude you will have a hobby income, if you have a business attitude you will have a business income.”
You can be successful working part-time and you can be successful working full-time but it is highly unlikely that you will be successful working in your “spare time”.
2. Working Environment
A space that you can call your own, free from distractions for your scheduled time.
A comfortable chair and organized desk.
Stationery supplies as required. For example:
- pens
- highlighters
- stapler
- hole punch
- sticky tape
- note book(s)
- a simple filing system
- ring binders
- manilla folders
Consider the value of a broadband connection. Your time is valuable and a broadband connection can allow you to get more done in a given time frame.
3. Schedule
Develop a schedule that works for you, your family (or “significant others”) and your business. When you allot a block of time for work then use that time for work. Equally important is to schedule time for your other commitments - family time, self education ( reading, listening and viewing), “health time” (exercise, cooking and eating), and leisure time. During these other times don’t work. After all if one of the reasons to work from home is to spend more time with your family then you don’t want your working at home time to consume your family time.
You are working for yourself and your schedule (by your choice) is your “boss”. When you have people calling you or dropping around unexpectedly or maybe out-of-town visitors may want to catch up with you then you need to make a choice. Are you committed to your own business success? What will be your choice in these situations? Only you can decide what is important to you.
In a family environment you may need to negotiate with your partner and children to have your business time agreed upon, during which you will not be interrupted. Put this schedule prominently somewhere so all family members are aware of your work schedule.
4. Describe Your Business
Be able to describe your business concisely; a powerful one or two sentence description that someone can repeat in describing your business to others. A unique and memorable tag line can also be invaluable for promoting your business.
5. Know Your Product or Service
Once you have selected your product or service to sell, it may or may not be something that you use yourself but you need to know your product intimately. If you are selling ebooks then know the content and its value. If you are selling software then use it know it “inside out”. You will develop a reputation of providing quality information and because of your product knowledge you can become the preferred supplier.
It is not practical to use certain products (for example a woman may choose to sell man’s shoes or vice versa) in which case the seller won’t be a product user, however the seller can still know the benefits and features of the product intimately.
6. Administration
Use good record keeping practices.
This may involve a consultation with a tax advisor who can let you know about the optimal way to set up your financial records and what records need to be kept. Your advisor will also recommend record keeping systems and you can find out what software may simplify this aspect of your business. Additionally your obtain advice on the best arrangement for your bank accounts. You will most likely be advised to have a separate bank account.
You will also need to keep track of your various logins, usernames and passwords. A very handy little software tool for this is Treepad available as either the free Lite version (without password protection) or the commercial Plus or Biz versions. http://www.treepad.com
There are other useful tools for this also from a simple paper notebook to free and commercial password keepers. One popular solution is Roboform that will remember your login details and can automatically fill out your login and other registration forms. http://www.roboform.com
7. Computer Protection
Your computer is the lifeline to your business dealings and must be protected including the data that is stored.
You need a virus scanner, personal firewall, anti-spyware and anti-adware and preferably an email scanner with the ability to delete suspect of spam email from the server before it is downloaded to your computer.
Some suggestions are:
AVG Anti-Virus: http://www.grisoft.com
Spybot S&D: http://www.safer-networking.org
Microsoft Anti-Spyware: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
Adaware: http://www.lavasoft.com/
Mailwasher Email Scanner: http://www.mailwasher.net
8. A Domain Name
You will most likely need a domain name for your business and one cost effective registrar is ResellerClub, http://www.resellerclub.com
9. Payment Processing
You will need a way to process credit cards; that may be using services such as:
- PayPal https://www.paypal.com
- Storm Pay http://www.stormpay.com
- 2 Checkout http://www.2checkout.com
- Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com or others.
This is the most economical way to get started. Once your business picks up you may need to look into your own merchant account for credit card transactions.
Consideration may also be given to other forms of online currency such as eGold http://www.egold.com
10. Email accounts
Once you have your own domain you can use an associated email account. This can further assist in the promotion of your business and promotes a more professional business image.
As a final comment on continuing in your internet business, conduct your business ethically, provide extraordinary service and be proud to put your name to the products or services that you are selling and you will be on track to developing a sustainable long term internet business.
