Love the Yahoo news headlines… found one today about a 19 year old college freshman who is running his own multimillion dollar business between classes. Unfortunately, the link is now dead… if I find it again I’ll add it.

Another one - Mugglenet.com was started by this kid named Emerson when he was 14 or so. Now the success of the Harry Potter series made a big “difference” in his revenue model, but the kid is now in college, making over 6 figures from the site, and even received a personal invitation from JK Rowling to interview her when the last book came out. [Sorry, there’s no permalinks on the Mugglenet Blog, you’ll have to scroll 2/3 down to “A call from… Jo Rowling (!!!)”]

Another one you may or may not have heard of, the 21 year old college student who wanted to make a million dollars to fund his education. He targeted a million dollars thinking he would hopefully net a small percentage of that - by selling pixels on his “Million Dollar Home Page” until he got so much PR that his page pretty much ’sold out’ and he made his millions (and probably more with the added attention he got)

So these things all beg me to ask the most simple of questions, “If these kids can pull off these huge successes with their level of experience, can someone else do at LEAST this well, if not better, with MORE experience?” Actually, does experience even make a difference, when these kids DIDN’T have it, and they made it anyway? They just had an idea, and a plan - with probably a good amount of determination. I think any eMom at Home can come up with THAT!

Tags: Online Business, Inspiration, Kid Millionaires, Young Millionaires, Success Stories

Some information I just take for granted, until I realize that I’m making assumptions that simply shouldn’t be made. I saw a great article today at SantaCruzSentinel.com on whether or not your business needs a website.

You may think you don’t, especially if you plan on working out of your home. But unless you LOVE sales, or you have found that customers simply call and knock on your door constantly… you might want to rethink that issue. (And if you do have too many customers, can you please let US know how you pulled it off?! )

According to the article, “It is estimated that more than 53 percent of Americans regularly shop online, representing 6 percent of all retail sales”. But then add to that the tremendously higher percentage of individuals who do product and service research online - and then you might realize just how many people are out there to reach.

Think of it this way :: about 8 out of every 10 people you know search online for things they need.

Add to this another great article about Local Search for Smaller Marketers from ClickZ. These days, there are SO many opportunities to market your business online at a local level - for realtors, you can even market yourself within a small neighborhood as part of a zip code.

So for example, if you are considering home day care, think about buying Google Keywords for your zip code. If someone does a search on weather in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, and then does a search for day care centers, your ad will appear and cost pennies for the person who clicks on your ad - and you will only pay for qualified leads.

So, I took it for granted that you already knew to put up a web site for your business - even if it’s just one page. But hopefully, if you didn’t know that, at least now you are seriously considering it!

Tags: Small Business Tips, Business Startup Tips, Web Sites, Websites,

I’m not going to claim to be an expert on coming up with an extensive list of work from home ideas. Though I can tell you some of the things I have considered or done over the years:

• Home Day Care - but a regular day care would have bored me silly. I had planned on calling the business “Inspired Urchins” and made it like an arts and crafts day camp.
• Arts and Crafts (can you tell I’m artistic?). I used to make hand-painted children’s furniture. Not a specific one I recommend - but after doing it for a year, I WOULD recommend small items that you can produce in mass quantities that can sell for between $5 and $25.
• Freelance Graphic Design
• Freelance Telemarketing - not for the faint of heart!
• Life or Business Coaching (eSelfHelp has a whole section on the industry!
• Affiliate Marketing - I’ve written a few posts [ 1 2 3 4 ] about that one
• Blgging (ok, obvious, I know!)

Linda Riley had a brilliant brainstorm at SmallBusinessBrief.com in regards to Summer home-based and small business opportunities too.

If you have your own ideas, or can suggest a blog chock full of ideas, please comment, comment, comment!

Tags:

When I review applicants for the affiliate program run through Commission Junction, I have some easy rules I follow as I determine whether I accept or decline them.

Here they are:

• The site MUST look professional. We may not have the biggest brand on the planet, but it’s rather important to us. So we take who we affiliate with seriously. If the site you put up is atrocious, we can only guess how you will treat our brand - and we will NOT guess in your favor if your site looks like $%&*. Harsh, I know, but true.
• The site MUST not be a canned affiliate site. This may work well for some Advertisers, but our products are very, VERY niche - do-it-yourself legal forms. If I was at a general “virtual mall”, the chance that I would buy a kit to create my living will is slim to none. Here is a good example of a canned site: http://www.thezenwarehouse.com/. They may do well with general consumer products - but not very likely with OUR products.
• This leads to the third and probably most important rule. Context. Context! Context!! I immediately turn down any affiliate that is selling collectibles, cell phones, or clothing. If they don’t understand their audience, they certainly won’t be able to sell our products. People come to a site for a reason. It’s up to you to know that audience and give them content and products they will be interested in.
• If anything comes even close to shady on the site, I deny them immediately and in some circumstances, turn them in to CJ as well. This includes covertly trying to switch my home page, random redirects and pages opening without my knowledge.
• Your site must not have any broken links, under construction signs, or worse, not even be live. Now, I cut people slack if they have a good structure/site map going, the site is a good match for our products, and the design is good, but there is still work to be done. At least I know that the site is on the right track and will be a good future partner for our company.

Here are some good matches for Socrates, and can be a good guide for you as you choose what affiliate programs to promote:

Gaebler Ventures :: They sell a lot of our business start-up products

HumanResources.com :: They sell our Payroll and HR forms

ForSaleByOwner.com :: They are a more prominent partner and not a true affiliate, but nevertheless, they sell thousands of dollars of our real estate products monthly

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We all know that there is many a scam out there when it comes to working from home. Before you decide to go with any work at home opportunity, it is of the utmost importance to do your homework.

Paul, “Mr. Work at Home” and a former fraud investigator, has put together a truly excellent and trustworthy review site of work at home opportunities at Work at Home Truth. He also puts out a good newsletter.

Though eMoms at Home focuses more on running your own business out of your house, there are many ways to work at a job and simply be home-based as well. Work at Home Truth reviews work at home jobs, work at home freelance jobs, work at home businesses, and work at home scams.

Dive in and do some homework!
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When I made the decision to work part time from home for my current employer, I was torn between being an independent contractor and simply becoming a part-time employee. Even though it’s likely I won’t work enough hours to qualify for benefits, there are other important considerations:

• By being an independent contractor, I can command a higher hourly rate. This is due to the fact that I will have to pay my own payroll taxes, which eat up about $.37 of each dollar I earn.
• By being an employee, I preserve my ability to obtain credit. This is due to the fact that once an individual is fully self-employed, creditors will want to see two full years of self-employment before they are willing to lend to you. This is especially true when you want to buy a home.
• By being an independent contractor, I can start asap on building up to those two years of self-employment history - and every second counts sometimes.
• By being an employee, I lengthen the time I can participate in COBRA if I so desire.
• By being an independent contractor, I will have to hire a bookeeper sooner than later, eating up precious early capital I would rather spend on copywriters or PPC advertising.

There was a time when I went with the independent contractor status when I launched Aminion Design, and my first client was my former employer. I wanted to establish the company asap. This time around, since there is some uncertainty about my financial future, I want to preserve my ability to get credit - so I chose to be a work at home part time employee. Thankfully, because I have been through this stuff, I could easily make the decision based on the other factors in my life.

I really didn’t realize how time consuming it would be to create so much content for these sites. Since I haven’t written on a regular basis in about 15 years, it’s been downright frustrating for me as a woman who loves instant gratification!

I have done some extensive research on Affiliate Marketing lately as I build the web businesses. One of the best resources I found was Rosalind Gardner’s I Raked In $436,797 Online In One Year. Don’t let the ‘hard sell’ name fool you - I read it cover to cover and refer to the material frequently. I really believe Affiliate Marketing is one of the most perfect stay at home moms businesses, because once these sites are really up and running, they will take much less time to maintain. Key to a good site though is good content - thus the need for lots and lots of writing.

Another book I really want to read is Jeremy Palmer’s Quit Your Day Job. I can’t say that I know how good it is, but THE largest affiliate program management site, Commission Junction, has a case study on his rather impressive results, so I am rather confident I’ll be making the purchase soon.

Since I manage the affiliate program for Socrates Media, I just learned affiliate marketing by doing - but on the Merchant side of things. Now I’m living and breathing the Publisher side to understand what it takes to be successful in this endeavor! I would be curious to hear from any other affiliate marketers out there - what resource did you use to learn the craft?