By Arthur Orchid

Every business starts out small. The people who own chains like Wal-Mart or perhaps Sears did not start out with a series of stores. They started out just like every other business owner out there. Though there're a lot of small businesses that fail, there're some that grow and thrive as if they've taken on a life of their own. When you're starting out you need some really good small business advice to get you going in the right direction. There're many places where you can get this type of advice, and it'll be up to you to decide what advice is good, and what you should ignore.

If you want to get small business advice from someone in your own community, you want to look for a successful business in your area that'll not be in competition with you. Though someone who might be direct competition for you, they may be willing to give you advice, but I wouldn't count on it. You want to ask someone for small business advice if the creation or existence of your business will not threaten his or her own success. That may sound like common sense but there're many who don't take that into consideration.

You may also get small business advice by looking online. For example, visit Business forums and post a question. You may have to weed through hundreds of bad web sites to find a good one, but there's a lot of great advice out there. Much of it's common sense, but there're sometimes when even the smartest people need to have things spelled out for them. Small business advice is mostly common sense, but there're trick and tips that can help a struggling business become a very successful business. Sometimes, it's just a matter of making a few small tweaks in your plan.

There're many books out there that offer small business advice as well. Visit Amazon or Barnes & Noble to check if a book is available for your business. These are often great sources of information. These are written by those who have had great success with a small business, and they're now willing to share what they know with everyone else. This small business advice might be catered to one type of business, but you can always take these tips and apply them to your own endeavor. What works for one business might not work for another, but with a little work and creative thinking, you can find the advice you need.

To Your Success!

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By Arthur Orchid

I'm a firm believer everybody can work on something she loves. The only rule is to listen to your inner voice, call it whatever you wish - your conscience - your 6th sense - your intuition... Tempted by those working from home data entry jobs? Look closely before you leap! You're absolutely fed up with your current job. You go into work, day after day, spending your money on gas and office clothing and have nothing to show for the entire effort. You'd much rather be a stay at home Mom and find one of those working from home data entry jobs you've heard about from friends. You've gone so far as to look online for these jobs, feeling certain that there's a plum of a job just waiting for you. If you Google 'work from home data entry', you'll find hundreds of thousands of results. When you click through to some of these sites, you're told that you can make large sums of money, much more than your current job pays. of course, the work is easy and with just a few hours a day devoted to this work, you can pay the bills and have money left over. What's wrong with this picture?

For one thing, 95% of these 'opportunities' require a nominal - let's say $25 - fee, up front, in order to gain access to the full details, or to cover the costs of 'setting you up in business'. Plenty of people fall for this ploy. They figure that it's a small price to pay if, as a result, they gain freedom from the same old 9 to 5 and no longer need to spend big bucks on gas, proper office attire and day care expenses. The outcome is always disappointing. The fact is, those working from home data entry job offers are almost always, without exception, scams. Think about it. If an employer had a legitimate need for people to do data entry work from home, why wouldn't that employer hire from within the company? Why would they put out an ad on the net to an audience of millions of hopefuls? That employer's staff would be drowned in resumes and applicants. If there were such a need, a simple newspaper ad would produce all the applicants he'd ever need in a lifetime.

This is not to say that you'll never find a work from home position. It's far from truth... This is exactly what I do now. I made this choice and took the time to make it real. You will need to look a little harder and focus your attention on skills other than data entry. There're a few legitimate websites which screen employers for you. You should not ever pay a fee, and most particularly not for a working from home data entry job. Here's a suggestion which might produce a real job: Google 'telecommute jobs your-skillset'. If the website or agent wants a fee just to show you what he has, move on. Be diligent and consistent in your search effort and you may just get lucky!

To Your Success!

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By Arthur Orchid

In the last 15 years, the Internet has opened many opportunities for people to earn money at home. It has also opened many opportunities for con-artists to come into our homes. When looking at deals and opportunities on the Internet it's important to make sure that you're dealing with reputable people and companies prior to giving out too much personal information. I remember a friend of mine who tried last year to start a business out of her home.

She had seen so many advertisements on the internet as well as the television about making money from home by being your own boss that she thought that this seemed like an interesting thing to look into. She did a search on general business opportunity seekers to see where she would be lead. Her very first search produced several thousands hits. Of course, she knew that not all of the business opportunity seekers could possibly be legitimate. But the problem she had to face at this moment was: she didn't know how to begin to sort through the vast numbers.

She opened a few sights and read about various opportunities for home base businesses. Some of the sites seemed like they were very well done and professional and others looked like they were put together by a third grader. She could not believe that there were sites that were proclaiming to be looking for serious business opportunity seekers, yet they had many misspelled words as well as wording that did not make sense.

A few clues to detect a serious online company to work for:

  • the website copyright is updated © 2006 or anything else than 2007 won't appear very pro
  • the sales page must provide the major possible payments methods such as major credit cards, PayPal, checks and why not money orders
  • ideally they may pay you once or twice a month after you reached a minimum amount
  • if you pay to join them (in most cases less than $100) they MUST have a refund policy for at least 1 month, more time to test the opportunity is of course always better
  • that company may be able to produce testimonies on demand
She knew that she would not waste her time putting her personal information into these sites. She did find a sight that seemed very legitimate. There was a survey form to fill out regarding what type of home based business the person was looking for. It also asked your permission to turn over your personal information to several companies so that you could be given additional information. The survey asked for the best time to contact and also asked for her telephone number.

Her husband was leery of having their telephone number out on the internet, but she filled out the survey form and hoped for the best. She was contacted by four companies that have legitimate businesses through the internet. One in particular offered a great deal of support from other business owners as well as a product that was on the market for several years and well backed by the company. There were several business opportunity seekers that had already joined the company and she was given there contact information to discuss the business with them. She decided that this would be a good business to become involved with. She hasn't gotten rich, but she's making enough money to stay at home and still help her to pay bills.

You may also join a Business opportunity seekers mailing list. I hope this story may be inspirational for you...

To Your Success!

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By Arthur Orchid

A few years ago before starting my own home based business part time,I worked for an huge American company. One of my best friend colleague was working as a telemarketer, he was fully aware of how much people hated him. You would not believe how many angry responses he get when he called people up around dinnertime. Indeed people hate being disturbed by people they don't know. He knew that he was doing a somewhat inconsiderate job, but the American public has to understand something: if telemarketing didn't work, there wouldn't be anyone doing it. The company used telemarketing lists to target the most likely clients, but ultimately it all comes down to making a lot of cold calls. If you've a thick skin and a charming demeanor, you can sell ice to an Eskimo with or without telemarketing call lists. If not, you'll probably get out of the business pretty quickly. Either way, he didn't felt too bad about what I did most of the time. After all, if you really hated him, you only had to put up with him for long enough to hang up the phone.

It's pretty tough being a telemarketer. The first couple months that I remember he was doing it, he was depressed all the time. At this time, I really wondered how he could do this job any longer. He knew that the people who were shouting at him would never meet him in person, and would probably like him if they did meet him, but he did'nt make things any better. Taking all that abuse takes its toll on you until you learn to distance yourself from it. One of the toughest things about telemarketing is that you don't have control over who you're calling. The company is responsible for the telemarketing lists used in their business to contact the prospects. You don't make the decisions. If they've got bad

telemarketing lists

you might get shouted at all evening. If they've good ones, you might make a killing even if you're new to the business. Either way, it's usually out of your hands.

The invention of the telemarketing no call list under popular pressure from the American public has only made things more difficult. You see, often you are responsible for your own no-call list. Rather than incorporating it with the regular telemarketing list, they leave them as two separate items for some reason. That means that you've to double check your telemarketing lists as you're making your phone calls. Not only does this take longer, but it's a poor system for catching stray calls before they go out. Basically, if you're at it for long enough you're bound to call someone on the telemarketing no call lists.

To Your Success!

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