Making Money from Home
How to Run a Successful Home-Based Business
By donna partow
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2010
Donna Partow
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-58997-608-5
Contents
Introduction..................................................................1
Part I Foundations for a Home-Based Business.................................5
1 Discover the Advantages of Working from Home................................9
2 Pillars for Long-Term Success...............................................21
3 Your Home Office............................................................35
4 Your Business Plan..........................................................47
Part II Exploring Your Options...............................................59
5 What Home-Based Business Is Right for You?..................................63
6 Global Electronic Flea Markets..............................................75
7 Direct Sales and Network Marketing..........................................97
8 Information Products........................................................109
9 Affiliate Marketing.........................................................125
Part III Business Basics.....................................................135
10 Legal and Financial Issues.................................................139
11 Mastering Self-Management..................................................153
Part IV Marketing Your Business..............................................169
12 Everyone Needs a Blog......................................................173
13 Social Networking..........................................................189
14 Article Marketing..........................................................197
15 Strategies to Keep Your Business Growing...................................209
Part V Family First..........................................................225
16 Balancing the Needs of Your Children and Your Business.....................229
17 Your Spouse and Your Business..............................................243
Postscript: Godspeed on Your Journey..........................................253
Notes.........................................................................255
Chapter One
Discover the
Advantages of
Working from Home
Let me begin with a brief look at the "why" of running a home-based
business to show you the benefits, because your motivation and belief
in the benefits are what keep you going when the going gets tough. But
then we'll quickly shift gears to the more essential and practical how-to
suggestions on the following pages.
Like any job, working at home offers both advantages and disadvantages.
In the days and months ahead, times of discouragement
will come. You may struggle with prioritization and time management.
In addition to those burdens, the physical and emotional
demands of promoting your business can drain you. You may begin
to wonder if all your hard work is worthwhile, and you may even be
tempted to give up your plans. In those moments, turn back to this
chapter, reexamine the many benefits of working at home, and redouble
your efforts to succeed. Remember, anything worth having is worth
fighting for.
Your Home Can Be the Center of Your Life
There's no place like home. I believe that with all my heart. Home can
be the center of our lives, not just the place we come to recover from our
lives. We can create an environment that fosters creativity and launch not
just one narrow home business but a broad range of income-generating
activities.
My first home-based business was in marketing communications:
writing press releases, brochures, and ad campaigns. It was hard to get
people to take me seriously as I tried to compete with the big-city advertising
agencies. But I had a talent for writing and was absolutely determined
to be a stay-at-home mother. I landed my largest client when I
walked into his office wearing a dark pinstriped business suit and pushing my
newborn in her stroller. This man said he was impressed with my
motivation and touched by my priorities.
Over the past twenty years, I've launched countless different moneymaking
enterprises. Some were dismal failures; others were wildly successful.
Most were somewhere in between. As of this writing, I have a
dozen income sources. Granted, some provide only $20 here and there.
But hey, $20 is $20!
Let me illustrate. While away on a recent missions trip to Mozambique,
I received checks from three businesses, totaling $800. The amazing
part is that it was all passive income from businesses I had set up on
autopilot on the Internet.
How would you like to earn $800 a week? Would you be thrilled
with $800 a month? Maybe you plan to become a business tycoon and
earn $800 a day. It's up to you! But whatever your financial goals, I'm
here to tell you that anyone can make extra money or have a full-time
career from home if he or she is willing to work smart.
For almost twenty years, I've been a leader in promoting home-based
businesses for women. I have spoken around the country on the
topic of women's entrepreneurship, including two events at the CIA
Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and three conferences hosted by Senator
John McCain. I have loudly proclaimed my firm conviction that
everyman and woman in America should develop some creative way to
make extra money from home. And, under appropriate learning conditions,
children, too, should develop those skills.
You Can Be Available for Your Children
and Others
By working from home, you can avoid the hassles and costs of day care
(which are far more substantial than most people realize) and enjoy
spending time with your children. Even if you have to hire a babysitter
to watch your kids in your home while you work, you'll be available at
a moment's notice if needed. And you can keep a watchful eye on all that
goes on throughout the day rather than sitting at a desk wondering if
your children are okay.
My older daughter, Leah, is now in college. She was homeschooled
much of her life, and I was a stay-at-home mom throughout her entire
childhood. Although I was often extremely busy working forty hours a
week, and even more on my businesses, I was always available when she
truly needed me. Won't it be nice, when your children reach adulthood,
to look back and say the same?
Perhaps you have a disabled family member or are caring for elderly
parents. Maybe someone in your home has a chronic illness, and you
need to be available for doctor and other appointments. Working from
home allows you to be there to care for them and gives you the flexibility
to take time off during the day, setting your own schedule.
You Can Be a Positive Role Model for Your Children
Some would argue, "I'm too busy raising my children to run a home
business."
I counter, "Don't you think it just makes sense to include your
children in your business so they learn to be entrepreneurial and self-sufficient
under God's sufficiency? Don't you think that training them
to run their own businesses might prove to be more significant than
running them around to various afterschool activities?"
Fortunately neither of my daughters has the mind-set that some
corporation is going to give her a paycheck and job security for the rest
of her life. That is an absolute delusion. We need to train our children
for the real world, where wise people use the gifts God has given them
to mind their own businesses-even if they also have careers. Both of my
daughters, who are now nineteen and thirteen, have already had many
moneymaking businesses. They've done everything from making bookmarks
and jewelry to running my book table and processing credit-card
orders from my Web site.
When my oldest daughter was fifteen, she organized a teen missions
conference that attracted seven hundred people. I had very little
involvement. How did she know how to do that? She's been working at
Christian conferences since she was two years old! Leah has also raised
thousands of dollars for her various missions trips by making and selling
crystal bracelets.
In addition to being able to watch my children grow while I worked
from home, they also watched me grow as a businesswoman. By observing me model
entrepreneurship, both of my daughters learned valuable
business skills.
You Can Help Shoulder the Financial Load
Not only can you work from home; you should. With few exceptions,
it's unwise to rely solely on one income source in today's unstable economy.
Now more than ever, I thank God that I have multiple streams of
income from my various home-based enterprises. All over the world,
mothers not only nurture their families, but they also play a vital role in
ensuring the economic survival of their families. I've seen this with my
own eyes as I've traveled worldwide-from the subsistence farmer in
Africa bent over her crops with a baby slung on her back to the Asian
mother selling items in the local market while children sit nearby, often
working as well.
Women throughout history have contributed to the economic survival
of their families. We can do the same, and if we exercise wisdom,
we can do so in a way that won't detract from our role as nurturers. In
fact, working from home will enhance all of the roles we play and
increase our stature in the eyes of our family members. My children not
only love me, but they also openly admire me. How can you put a price
tag on that?
You Can Enjoy a Sense of Accomplishment
One of the most important things I hope my children have learned from
observing me making money from home is that productive work is not
a punishment; in fact, it's inherently rewarding. Many of us have experienced
that exhilarating feeling of working hard to complete a project
or the joy of beholding something we've made with our own hands. A
home business will provide abundant opportunities for you to enjoy
that exhilaration.
As the old saying goes, "If Mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
It's equally true that when Mamma is happily enjoying a sense of accomplishment,
everyone around her benefits. I think I've modeled a wonderful
lifestyle for my daughters. It's a lifestyle I'm quite certain they'll
choose to replicate.
You Can Be Your Own Boss
Many people fear dependence on a corporation because they have had
the rug pulled out from under them or have seen it happen to so many
of their colleagues. The days when you could rely on a company to look
out for your best interests are long gone. While you're working diligently
for XYZ Corporation, it's entirely possible they're filling out your pink
slip. Once you establish your own home-based business, you'll have the
pleasure of signing your own paycheck. And when you think you deserve
a raise, you can give yourself one.
When you work for an employer, you're required to work when,
where, and how
they choose. When you have your own home business,
you have more control over when, where, and how you work. Of course,
you're still responsible to your customers, and there will be crunch times
when you don't have a choice about how many hours you put in. But
there is usually much more time flexibility when you are your own boss.
Once in a while when I'm struggling with some aspect of my home
business, one of my relatives will joke, "Donna, you should go back to
banking." But we all know I'm completely unemployable! I've been my
own boss for too long, and I don't think I could ever go back to having
someone else tell me what to do with my time.
You Can Continue Your Career
Many women spend years training for a career before their children
arrive on the scene. Teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and many other
professionals can quite easily transfer their hard-earned skills to a home-based
business. Knowing that your career isn't on hold will give you
satisfaction, even though the majority of your time may be spent with
family. This is especially important if you want to resume your before-children
career after the children have grown.
The amazing thing about the Internet is how easy it now is for a
woman to stay current and relevant in her field while mothering and
earning money from home. These types of opportunities were hard to
come by when I wrote my first home-based business book. Now they
abound. Let's hear it for technology!
There Are Opportunities for Tremendous Success
When you work nine to five for someone else's company, to a large
extent your boss controls how well you do. But when you work for yourself,
only your ability and determination set the limits, assuming you
start with a great product or service people want. Maybe there's something
you've always dreamed of doing. Now is your chance to do it! You
may aspire only to make a little extra money, but there's always the
chance that your "silly idea" will catch on, and you'll find yourself transformed
into a very successful entrepreneur. Someone has to think up
those great ideas. Why not you?
I know a number of Christian women who earn six-figure incomes
thanks to their home businesses. Yes, you read that right. Six figures! I
even know women who've earned more than a million dollars, and one
woman who has earned several million. With few exceptions, these
women did not set out to achieve such tremendous success. They were
just doing what they loved, and the success followed. Put another way,
they were walking in obedience, and God's blessings chased them down
the street and overtook them. It could happen to you!
The Top Ten Ways to Avoid Scams
1. Surf with caution. Understand that the mainstreaming of the
Internet has created both good news and bad news for aspiring
home-based business entrepreneurs. Good news: Opportunities
abound. Bad news: Scams abound.
2. Beware advertisements. No legitimate company on the planet
will ever advertise to hire an employee to work from home.
Not gonna happen. Never. No, not ever. Why? Very simple: If a
company had a legitimate interest in hiring employees to
work from home, there would be an instantaneous pileup of
current employees and their circles of influence. The very fact
that a company is advertising work from home is your first
clue that it's a scam.
3. Never buy a list or directory of companies that supposedly
hire people to work from home. These are phony! Once and
for all: The answer to the question of who will hire you, keep
you secure, pay you lots of money, and grant you the freedom
to set your own hours from home is no one. You don't need a
list or directory of no one.
4. Choose freedom or security. I constantly hear from people
who want the freedom of working from home as well as the
perceived security of a job. Freedom and security are always
a trade. Will you give up some of your freedom for security?
Or will you give up some of your security in return for freedom?
You'll never have both in full measure. Accept reality:
You cannot ha e your cake and eat it too.
5. Understand the role of oDesk and similar outsourcing Web
sites. In the introduction, I mentioned the emergence of Web
sites like oDesk and, in one sense, this is an example of companies
looking for people to work from home. And yes, many
Americans are trying to capitalize on this new trend. Some
are even succeeding. However, for the most part, companies
who post on oDesk aren't "hiring"; they're simply outsourcing
on a project-by-project basis for the express purpose of not
hiring employees. So although some opportunities exist, I
believe sites like oDesk are actually bad news for any North
American woman who wants to work from home and is hoping
she might find someone to hire her. If you thought the
competition was fierce when millions of Americans were looking
to work from home, now millions more people around the
globe are in the mix. You'll ha e to compete with people who
are willing to work for a few dollars an hour, and it's nearly
impossible to build a successful North American business
like that. Now, if you're willing to mo e overseas, that's a whole
new ball game, and oDesk can become your very best friend.
That's well beyond the scope of this book, but if it's something
you're interested in pursuing, read
The 4-Hour Work
Week by Timothy Ferriss.
6. Know the code. As soon as you hear phrases like "more work
than I can handle" or "looking to train someone" or "just want
to help others duplicate my success," run for the door. Or
click the mouse. It's a scam. If these people really had more
work than they could handle, their relatives and friends would
be beating down the door to get in on it. But since it's a scam
and they've already driven away all their friends and relatives,
they're on the Internet trying to scam you. Don't be fooled.
7. Beware whirlwind friendships. There are some unethical people
whose entire marketing strategy consists of befriending
people just to recruit them for this, that, or the other "business
opportunity." Over the years a number of people have swept
into my life with a friendship that felt more like a whirlwind
romance. In every instance it turned out they were in a network
marketing business. As soon as they discovered I wasn't
interested, the whirlwind friendship ended, and they mo ed on
to the next person.
8. Check it out. Don't rely on information provided by the person
trying to sell you. Turn to Google, the Better Business Bureau,
and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to verify the claims
and promises.
9. Take your time. Don't let anyone pressure you into making a
decision on the spot. If it's a great opportunity today, it will be
a great opportunity a week from today.
10. Big dollars should raise a big red flag. It shouldn't cost more
than $5 to $1, to launch a business from home.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Making Money from Home
by donna partow
Copyright © 2010 by Donna Partow.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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