Starting
a Home Business? Start with what you know.
Bob Cortez
The
most frequently asked question I receive as an
Internet home business consultant usually goes
something like this; "I would really like to
start my own home business on the Internet, but I
don't know what." The short answer is - Start
with what you know and enjoy.
There
are a number of good reasons for this
By
drawing on existing knowledge, you can concentrate
on building a business rather than learning about
a new trade, product, or service.
Starting and running a home business means long
hours and sacrifice. It is easier to do when you
are doing something you enjoy.
Selling what you know and enjoy is less difficult
for non-salespeople. Selling what you know and
enjoy is less difficult for non-salespeople.
The
Internet offers unique opportunities for the home
business netrepreneur. It creates the ability to
reach a much larger potential market for your
product, service, or information at a much lower
price than through conventional advertising
mediums.
The
Internet and World Wide Web are still in their
infancy. Right now, you can get everything you
need to put your business online - free. It is
like someone offering you a store (web hosting),
full time staff (web pages, auto responders) and
advertising (lots of advertising) for free. All
you have to do is come up with an idea for a
product or service to put in the store.
One
of my favorite examples is my mother's home
business. She builds very creative and unique
birdhouses. She uses scrap lumber from a local
sawmill (free) and driftwood from the local beach
(free), to keep her material costs low. Another
local artist provides the miniature sculptures for
a percentage of the sales. She started by building
and selling these for the local tourist trade in
Homer Alaska, and was doing ok. But when we put
them on the Internet (http://www.ptialaska.net/~cortez/)
sales really began to soar. Not everyone that
would be interested in the birdhouses can afford
to visit Homer, and we certainly couldn't afford
to advertise to the world in any other way. We
were able to reach this larger market by using
free web hosting, design, and promotion services.
Once we developed a flow of traffic, we were able
to create additional income streams by selling
other peoples products as well. (I'll discuss this
further later in this article)
This
business model can work for just about any product
that can be shipped. What unique item can you
build using local materials? Do you have a craft
or gift idea that is unique? How about a kit or
plans for something you have built?
Information
is another type of product. What do you know or
know how to do that would be of interest or value
to others? You can either sell that information as
a report, or a tip booklet. Or you can give the
information away at your store and sell other
peoples related products for a commission. The
advantage here is that once you put your
information in the store it is done. You don't
have to keep building it and shipping it. If your
not comfortable with writing your own material you
can use a ghostwriter (http://www.home-work.net).
Another
home business opportunity that is unique to the
Internet is based on common interests. What do you
have a special interest in that others may share?
Music, books, computers, cars, gardening,
collectibles, etc…? The idea in this business
model is to create a site with information and
resources available online of interest to others.
Then you select products to sell of interest to
people that would be visiting your site. For
instance, if you had an avid interest in a
particular type of music. You could develop a site
that was a resource for others with that same
interest. The site could include links to artists
sites, reviews of the latest releases, concert
tour information, photos, sound clips, interview
excerpts, a chat room, or discussion board. You
become an "associate" of one of the CD
distributors online and receive a commission on
CD's that are sold. The distributor does the
entire order fulfillment. The number and variety
of companies that have an associate program online
is growing daily. They cover all kinds of products
and services from gifts to computers or web
hosting to credit cards.
Start
with what you know, apply some imagination, and
open your low cost home business online. The
market is growing everyday - world wide.
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to you by: World Wide Information Outlet - http://certificate.net/wwio/,
your source of FREEWare Content online. 
Bob
Cortez has 20 years of sales and marketing
experience. Through Total Quality Marketing he is
providing consulting services to home based
entrepreneurs looking to expand their business
online and take advantage of the tremendous
opportunities available.
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FREE
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