Normally, at the beginning of each year everyone sets those unattainable goals that only tend to frustrate. Consequently, why should this year be any different, right? Not so fast!! This year you are going to set that one goal and give it everything that you have to reach it. Rather than trying to lose weight or quit smoking, this year you are going to research and find those legitimate home-based business opportunities that will enable you to quit your nine to five job and do something that you really want to do. Perhaps you just want to stay at home with your kids, or possibly you want to work in your pajama pants. It doesn’t matter what your goal is, what matters is that you start working toward it. During my research, I have found three legitimate home-based business opportunities that might interest you.The first is taking a passion and creating an online business. I am talking about taking the garage sale passion of so many people and turning that into a very lucrative business. This type of business can be online and/or brick and mortar. In the beginning, I would suggest purchasing your treasures and later selling them on eBay. As your business improves then you could start buying products wholesale subsequently selling them at a profit on either an eBay store or on your own site. Some Resellers can make a lot of money and some even a comfortable living off sales such as these. Setting up an e-commerce business like this can be fairly easy. Some of the decisions that you will have to make will be:
whether you want to operate as a used reseller or a bulk reseller
decide if you want your own online website, or if you want to continue with eBay
if you decide to continue your eBay relationship, then an auction account will need to be set up
do you feel that handling a single product will suffice or will you want to offer a combination of products
obtain your products through garage sales or bidding on defaulted storage units, (aka Storage Wars)
Additional investigation into legitimate home-based business opportunities has revealed the field of virtual assistant is growing very quickly. Virtual assistants are like secretaries were in the past. Normally virtual assistants are self-employed and work on a contract basis. They offer professional administrative support and other specialized services to businesses, entrepreneurs and others who do not have enough time to complete their work. Virtual assistants work remotely and receive their assignments by phone, fax, email or by instant message. Normally a virtual assistant will perform secretarial services. Although some specialize in IT support, graphic design, web design and marketing.Setting up your virtual assistant office is going to be similar to many other office arrangements. The list should include:
a room decorated so that you look forward to working in it each day
sizable desk or a regular computer desk and an additional table
comfortable chair
computer with at least a Pentium 4 processor and 2 GB of Ram
writable CD-ROM
17″ monitor
good printer with a scanner
online fax services
high-speed Internet
affordable long distance
a good backup system
consider a headset with microphone
This business is probably going to have several long days so don’t get it in your mind that your eight-hour days will continue after you start this endeavor. You will need to do a ‘bang up’ job for your clients. That way, your client list will grow, and consequently, your income will increase. You are an entrepreneur, and you are working hard to create and maintain a home-based business. So be ready to give it your all!As my research of legitimate home-based business opportunities came to a close the last enterprise, I found to be promising was blogging. This small business has the potential to bring some large profits.Normally, a blog is considered a personal journal and in truth most of them are, but today you can blog about anything. I have a couple of blogs that I maintain. One contains articles about starting your own home-based business. With each of the articles, I try to locate and research as many as three home-based businesses at a time. Then I describe each one and give my preferences. The other blog that I maintain gives tips and articles about customer service. I usually describe what I feel is good customer service and how businesses can offer incentives and train their associates to make their patrons feel at home, glad that they stopped by, and most importantly will return as a repeat purchaser.To help me maintain my blogs I have become affiliated with several companies. My favorite enterprise has several reasons that I promote it. Those include:
Low start-up costs: It is free to join, and you receive a free website.
Training is free: There are weekly webinars that you can replay if you miss. In addition, there is a set of 14 webinars that give you all of the information that you need to become a successful affiliate marketer.
Great Products: There are five different affiliate income streams for you to choose from. You can participate in one or all five.
Community Forum: A forum is available for you to go for answers or just for social fun.
Three tiered support: When there are problems, you have three different levels of support. The levels range in intensity from simple forum questions up to technical questions.
In conclusion finding your perfect fit from all of the legitimate home-based business opportunities will require research and time. However, it can be the best time you ever spent.
Legitimate Home-Based Business Opportunities
Starting a Home Based Business? 5 Steps to Follow
Starting a home based business on the Internet has never been easier. With the current state of our economy it’s one of the best decisions that anyone can do to dramatically change his/her life. It has been statistically proven that for the first time in internet history, millions of people seeking their way out in this industry every day and the numbers are continuously growing.
People come to the internet looking for answers to money problems, home loan problems, real estate problems, and looking for employment. All these searches performed on Google or any other search engine mean potential customers for individuals who already run their online business.
If you have a solution to the searchers problems, there is tremendous potential in creating online wealth.The internet has millions of searchers each day and that information will equate to a six billion dollar e-commerce revenue projected for 2011. Internet revenue is expected to continually grow exponentially every year through 2015. Conservative analysis now estimates global Internet sales at 10 billion dollars in 2016.
Since we are just slowly recovering from the recession that hit millions of people, many entrepreneurial minded people are beginning to consider starting home based business as a good idea. And they are right but only if they will do their research and due diligence.
Many who will just jump blindly on any internet advertisement that says “Best Home Based Business Opportunity” will fail miserably. Unfortunately there is nothing like Get Rich Quick Scheme or a Push of a Button Scheme that would bring money flying out of your computer. You are better off buying a lottery and hoping for a good luck or miracle to happen..
The online success will not happen overnight. It takes commitment and hard work to build a successful home based business. Only with everyday devotion the success will be built gradually. By starting home based business you have to give up two things at the beginning, time and money. The reality is that those who will invest their time and money at the beginning will see the results ten times down the road.
Learning Internet Marketing is the best future investment that you can make right now.
Here are 5 simple steps to follow on how to start home based business that can put you well on your way to building an online business this year.
1. Starting Home Based Business – Think about a type of product or service that you would like to promote and sell. Make sure to do extensive research if that particular product is what others are searching for. Find a way to promote and sell it to them.
2. Creating a Home Office – Create a place where you can close the door and fully concentrate without any interruptions. Make sure you talk to other family members not to interrupt once the door is closed. Allocate specific time blocks when you going to work on your business. Time management is the biggest downfall of many home based business entrepreneurs.
3. Invest in training and education – Spend at least 60 minutes a day learning new internet marketing skills for the next 6 months and your business results will be ten times bigger than without the proper training. You can set up your own schedule and save tons of money if you study at home instead of spending 4 years in college.
4. Leading Home Based Business Corporations – Many of the leading home based business companies promote multi level marketing programs where you tell one friend and that friend tells another friend and so on earning small commissions that build from one friend to another. Or you can tap into Network Marketing companies that offer higher end education products or lifestyle related conferences. These are great long term residual income producers that can create huge incomes for those savvy enough to market their product.
5. Top Legitimate Home Based Business – Once you have found the top legitimate home based business for you, you’ll need to start marketing that business online. By becoming a member of a legitimate MLM or Network Marketing company, you will be provided with all the necessary tools and resources, you need to be successful online. There is usually a “Back Office” with these programs that will guide you through the sales procedures. Many of these companies will even supply you with your own website. Your job is to market their products online. You simply drive traffic to it through different social websites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google Groups, and hundreds of other sites that you join to discuss your products and services. I will also recommend to market with Google AdWords, Video Marketing and Blogging.
Starting home based business can be very easy if you have the right mindset, tools, resources, training, and system that you can follow and carbon copy.
How to Find Great Live Auctions for Resale Items
Hi, my name is Walt. I’m an auctioneer with 25 years of experience in the auction business and licensed in the state of MA. I own Quick Auction Service, a company that specializes in building and running custom auctions, I’m also the webmaster of my own site and have been on eBay for 8 years. Besides eBay, the types of auctions I run most frequently are antiques and on-site estate auctions, although I’ve run everything from business overstock auctions to charity & special event auctions.
I enjoy sharing my knowledge and stories of the auction business. My goal for article is to help folks get the absolute most out of their auction experience.
Whether your fresh out of the package or a seasoned dealer I think I can offer something in this article to help you with your auciton adventures.
There may be as many reasons to attend auctions as there are types of auctions to attend. Maybe you want to attend an auction to buy items for re-sale on eBay, or some other market. Maybe you want to furnish your home with wonderful antiques, or you want to furnish your home as inexpensively without sacrificing quality.Some folks are just looking for a fun night out. With a little perseverance all these things are possible.
There are antiques and estate auctions, auto auctions, overstock auctions, absolute and no reserve auctions, real estate auctions, specialty auctions where only one genre of items are sold, tailgate auctions, live auctions, online auctions, sealed bid auctions, silent auctions, charity and fund raising auctions and many more.
Can you really buy for pennies on the dollar at an auction? You bet! Many times I’ve seen folks buy and re-sell at the same auction on the same night for a good profit, although be advised, this should only be done after the auction is over.
There are a lot of ways to find an auction, but here are some tips on how to find and attend the best ones.
Visit the genre of shops in the area that apply to the type of auction you want to attend. IE: If your looking for a good antique auction to attend, stop in the local antiques shops and ask for what there are for good auctions in the area. Sounds obvious right? But listen to what they don’t say as well as what they do say. Oftentimes when a dealer speaks poorly about an auction he or she attends, it may be likely that they are trying to keep a good thing secret. Think for a moment, why would a dealer keep attending a lousy auction?
Newspaper ads: I personally like to find ads in the classified ad section rather than flashy display ads. Flashy ads are usually indicative of an auction that will be high priced, may have reserves, (a set price on an item), and usually an enormous crowd. While any auction can be profitable to attend, it is usually best to steer clear of the glitzy ones, at least for the beginner.
Here’s the minimum you want to find out before you go. If there is a phone number in the ad, call and ask for the terms of the sale. What forms of payment do they accept? Is it an absolute auction? An absolute auction is one that has no minimum or reserve bids on items. These are the best auctions to attend! Is there a buyers premium? A buyers premium is like a tax that everyone who makes purchases at that auction must pay above the winning bid price. Most auctions these days do charge a buyers premium, 10% is not unreasonable but I feel much more than that is greedy, and the auctioneer that charges over 10% is counting on most bidders not doing the extra math as the bids quicken in pace.
A fair auction will have ample time to inspect the merchandise, usually at least 2 or 3 hours. Find out when inspection starts and make sure to attend! Never attend an auction if you can’t make the inspection, not unless your prepared to gamble. Most auctioneers sell at a rate of about 100 items per hour, which is why they sell “as is”. They simply don’t have the time to give a detailed description of all the items. Since almost all items at auction are sold AS IS, there are sure to be some damaged, refinished, fake and incomplete items at any given auction. Beware of any auctions that offer very little or no inspection time.
Good auctions will usually have 150 to 400 lots. A lot may be one item or a group of items. The exception to this are specialty auctions, auto auctions, real estate auctions etc.
When you attend your first sale, take note of the 1/2 dozen or so dealers that buy the most often. See if you can find out about other area auctions they attend.
When you do find an excellent auction, attend it as often as possible. By frequenting good sales, you help increase the bottom line of that business. It’s difficult for many auctioneers to keep the quality of merchandise consistent, so good attendance certainly helps. And when an auctioneer gets to know you as a buyer, he/she will go out of the way to accommodate you, to keep you coming back.