A Publication of Web Resources Group
<<<NOTE: The following are the disclaimers. You will probably want your legal counsel to check them out and see if more is necessary.>>>
The purpose of this publication is to provide information and ideas in regard to the subject matter covered. It is offered with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, business, or other professional services or advice. If such services or advice are required, competent professionals should be sought. All suggestions and ideas regarding the business opportunities addressed in this publication are merely the opinions of the publisher, based on our understanding of these particular opportunities and the market at the time of writing. No claims or warrants are made as to the feasibility, profitability, or risks inherent in these opportunities. We strongly urge readers to carefully research any businesses they consider engaging in before becoming involved.
The information presented in this publication was accurate at the time of writing. However, due to the dynamic nature of the business world and the Internet, we cannot warrant that it will be accurate or functional at any given time in the future. The inclusion of any reference to a specific business, product, or service does not imply an endorsement by the publisher of these companies, products, or services.
Chapter 1:
Imagine The Perfect Business …
If you started your day like most people, you dragged yourself out of bed wishing you didn’t have to get up and go to work. Chances are, your feelings for your job fall somewhere on the scale between mild dislike and outright hatred.
You have your reasons, of course. You wish you didn’t have to spend your day in stiff business clothes. You hate the hectic commute to and from work. You dislike having to take orders from your boss. You detest the office "politics" that go on. The inflexibility of having to be at work during the same hours day after day feels like a vice-grip around you. You wish you could rise up through the company’s ranks as fast and as far as you know you’re capable of doing, rather than having to wait your turn. You long to make more money – the kind of compensation you know you’re worth – but raises are small and infrequent. And you never know when your job will fall prey to downsizing a corporate merger, or buy-out.
For a few minutes you might have stayed in bed vacillating, wishing things were different, wondering what would happen if you didn’t go to work … if you simply stayed home in your bathrobe and did something you enjoyed doing.
Nice thought. But impractical. After all, you have to make money to survive. Right?
Right.
And to make money, you have to go to work and earn a paycheck from a company. Right?
Wrong!
The fact is, you don’t have to go to work at all anymore. Thanks largely to the Internet, it’s easier than ever to stay at home and work – just as millions of other successful business people now do. And as far as depending on a paycheck from someone else, you can put yourself in a position where you won’t have to worry about that anymore, either. Once you get your home-based, Internet-driven business up and running profitably, you can create your own prosperity and your own job security.
The Possible Dream
Now imagine, if you will, a radically different reality than the one you faced this morning when you woke up – a reality you can create by starting your own successful Internet-based business.
We will jump a year into the future. Your business, which you operate in a small but comfortable office in your home, has been so successful that you were able to quit your regular job three months ago. You are now making significantly more money that you did as an employee, and your income is rising steadily from month to month as your business grows.
The alarm clock does not wake you up. You threw it away the day you quit your regular job. You wake up when you choose to – no arbitrary schedule to pound your life into. As long as you get your work done, it really doesn’t matter what hours of the day you work. You decide.
Once awake, you ease yourself out of bed, brush your teeth, throw a little water on your face, and put on your bathrobe. The dread that you used to feel when you got yourself ready for work has been replace by a positive excitement about the opportunities that await you today. In fact, you go right to your office – even before your morning cup of coffee – to check your e-mails.
Yes! Twelve new orders for your products were placed and payments were made just since you left your office yesterday! You quickly check the total dollar amount of those orders and realize that the profits from them equal more than you used to make in an eight-hour work day. And you still have almost the entire day to go!
With a feeling of accomplishment, you brew up your coffee and make yourself a hearty breakfast. You eat it leisurely as you read the morning paper and browse through an article in your favorite industry-related trade magazine. It gives you some ideas that you think will improve your business. You highlight them for later reference.
Back in your office, you begin your work in earnest. You use your automated order/fulfillment system to get your products out to your customers (which they already paid for with their credit cards when they placed their orders). For the first few months after starting your new business, you boxed up the orders and shipped them yourself. But then you found a fulfillment service that did all that for you for a reasonable fee, leaving you to focus on the more profitable activities of marketing and product line development.
As you shoot e-mails back and forth to associates, negotiate with suppliers, and make sales calls to large group customers, you chuckle to think that in their minds they see you sitting in a well-appointed office in a business high-rise dressed in a suit. Little do they know you’re lounging around your home office in your bathrobe – just a half-minute "commute" from your own kitchen and bedroom!
Does all this sound unrealistic? Too good to be true? If it does, be assured that surprising numbers of men and women from all walks of life have already made this type of lifestyle their reality. A few statistics reveal why such a lifestyle has become possible:
As you can see, making money on the Internet not only can happen, it is happening right now all over the world. Individual and business consumers alike are logging onto the Internet in droves to buy the products and services they want and need. This phenomenal trend will only gain steam in coming years.
Do you want to make a prosperous, home-based Internet business your reality? Do you want to tap into the freedom, the independence, the open-ended income potential, and the many other advantages that this type of business provides? If so, this book will tell you how. But first, let’s take a closer look at the good things that await you….
Chapter 2:
The Advantages and Benefits
of a Home-Based Internet Business
There are many advantages to doing business from your home.
There are many advantages to doing business on the Internet.
Put them together – that is, do business from a home office using the Internet – and you combine two very powerful sets of advantages to create fantastic opportunities. Let’s look at each set of benefits separately.
Home-Based Benefits
Higher Average Income – Unlimited Potential
If you’re working for someone else, don’t count on making as much money as the guy who has five years more seniority. And don’t even think about doubling your salary in one year ... let alone earning twice as much as your boss! Are you sick of hitting your head on the "income ceiling?" Then break through it! When you work for yourself, your earning potential is virtually limitless.
Job Security
You’ll never be fired, laid off, or demoted. Face it – job security in corporate America is gone forever. No matter where you are on the corporate ladder – chances are you won’t survive the downsizing and cutbacks long enough to get your gold watch. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: it’s easier than ever to take your job security into your own hands by starting your own home business.
Freedom and Independence
Be your own boss. Create your own job description. Set your own schedule. As the owner of your home-based business, you call the shots; you decide when you’ll work and when you won’t. You set the schedule. Want to go to your child’s performance at the school assembly? Go! Want to play a little tennis in the middle of the day or take a long vacation? It’s your call!
A 30-Second Commute
One of the great things about having a home-based business is being able to roll out of bed in the morning and know that you can be in your office in about a half-minute. The 30-second commute will give you a rush – not a rush-hour headache.
Greater Family Cohesiveness
A home business lets you enjoy a more integrated career/family lifestyle and avoid the latchkey syndrome. If emergencies arise, you’re home to handle them. Just having a parent in the house – even when you’re "off limits" to typical interruptions when you’re working – is real security for the kids ... and for the parent, too. Millions of parents who might not otherwise have careers or businesses because of their responsibilities with children have discovered that they can "have it all" by creating a home-based business.
Tax Advantages
Experts agree: a home-based business is one of the last bastions of tax relief available to the American taxpayer. If you meet the tax code requirements, you can take money-saving deductions for a bona-fide home office, business expenses, and more. Put the money you’d otherwise spend on office rent into a house payment. You’ll be able to afford a better home and build up your equity faster. (These deductions are for home offices that meet the IRS requirements. Consult a tax expert for details.)
Loose Dress Code
When you work at home the dress code is whatever you want it to be. Sweats? Pajamas? Those baggy old painter’s jeans? Go ahead – even a bathrobe is okay! Get comfortable. Plus, you’ll save wardrobe and cleaning expenses.
No Large Office Stress and Politics.
Working in groups has its drawback. The fact is, people can be petty and jealous, and it’s easy to get hurt in the cross-fire of the politics and maneuverings that pollute the typical work place. Think of the energy that’s wasted and the stress that’s created because of these intra-office intrigues. You escape all this by working on your own in your own home.
Benefits Once Reserved for Company Employees
The fear of losing the benefits that are available to employees in most companies – health insurance, pension plans, and so on – is one of the primary reasons why people don’t quit their regular jobs and dive into their home businesses when the time is right. But is it a valid fear? Definitely not – at least not anymore.
Huge numbers of independent, home-based business people are coming together to form associations to provide their members with affordably priced benefits by turning their large numbers into tremendous group buying power. The mission of these associations is to give their home-based entrepreneur members the support and resources they need to succeed.
Some of these resources are benefits to replace those that are lost when leaving the corporate arena. They may include affordable health, disability, and term life insurance plans, retirement income programs, and a wide spectrum of support services, such as low-rate long distance service, 800 number service, communications including newsletters and magazines, on-line computer services, check payment by telephone programs, check verification and recovery services, revolving credit lines, prepaid legal services, and discount buying opportunities.
Internet Advantages
A World-Wide Market
The Internet is international in scope. In fact, it delivers its full power and diversity everywhere anyone with a computer and a modem taps into it, whether that be in a business high-rise in Los Angeles or in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas.
Those who speak English are especially lucky, because English is the standard language of the Internet, and because so much of the world’s population is acquainted with English. But language need not be a barrier. If it makes sense, you can offer your Internet pages in more than one language.
With hundreds of million of people already online and more hooking up every day, the Internet has become an expansive marketing tool that is unrivalled in the history of the world.
Your "Store" Never Closes
The Internet never closes. If your business is on it, you are "open for business" 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This unique marketing and communications medium is unsurpassed in terms of its ability to be there whenever someone wants to tap into it.
According to one Internet entrepreneur, "I have hits on it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I get on the Internet at my leisure each day, pull up my orders, and process them. Plus, customers can place orders right there on my Web site, or they can order via e-mail. I’ve set it up so that I don’t have to be here all the time."
A Fortune 500 Image for a One-Person Shop
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is that it lets little businesses look as big and as capable as the "big boys." As long as small business people are willing to put in the effort and relatively small expense to create and maintain top-notch Web sites, they can have equal footing in terms of image with corporations that are hundreds or thousands of times larger.
Immediate Response
With a strong Web presence, you don’t have to force customers to send their orders via "snail mail" or even place a phone call. Both methods require more time and effort than it takes to place an order over the Web. These orders, like any communications via the Internet, are instantaneous. Plus, you can update your Web site at any time and publish the update to the Web instantly. For example, you could list a certain product you are selling on your Web page, and immediately unlist that product when you’ve sold out of it. That sort of immediacy is impossible with direct mail pieces or newspaper ads!
More Bang for the Buck
Advertising people often measure the relative value of a marketing medium by calculating the cost per thousand of potential buyers reached. On this basis, having a site on the Internet qualifies as the best marketing value around because the cost is low and the exposure is world-wide to hundreds of millions of people.
This ability to market your products or services at a relatively low cost on the Internet lets you do business with a national or even an international clientele from a small office in your home. Let’s say you have a home-based business that requires getting catalogs out to potential and existing customers. The cost of producing a traditional printed catalog and mailing it is high and perhaps prohibitively expensive. An electronic catalog on the Internet offers a less expensive solution, and may bring great returns if done right. In short, the cost of on online catalog is so low for the amount of exposure you get, many experts believe that the Internet is the best form of advertising you can get for the price.
Chapter 3:
Set Up Your Business For Optimal Internet Success
Let’s get one thing straight right up front: the Internet is not a business in and of itself – it is a business tool. It can help you market your products or services. It can automate the order/payment/fulfillment process. It can give you credibility. But unless you have a viable business with good products or services set up and ready to go, the Internet isn’t going to help you make a living.
In this chapter we will discuss how to go about creating a solid business, or how to enhance an existing business. Your business will be the reason for having an Internet presence. Always think of your Web site as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. If you get confused on this issue, you could waste and lot of time and money playing around in cyberspace with no financial results.
The following are important steps to take to make sure that your business will be a solid foundation and raison d’être for your Internet endeavors.
Select a business you feel passionate about.
This is the most important of all the steps to creating a successful business. Why? Because if you feel passionate about what you do – that is, if you get up every morning and want to go to work, life will be far more enjoyable than if you feel compelled to go by necessity. Not only that, you will also have more energy and creativity for your work, and those two ingredients will make a significant difference in your level of success.
You may already know what you want to do. You may already be doing it. Or you may not be so sure of your future direction – knowing that you enjoy doing certain things, but not knowing how those interests could be converted into a steady income.
If you fall into the latter category, take a clean sheet of paper, get away where you won’t be distracted, and ask yourself, "What do I feel passionate about?" Jot down whatever comes to your mind. At this point in the process, don’t limit yourself to only those passions that seem "businesslike." If you do, you might pass over the perfect business for you. The fact is, the seeds of a profitable business can be found in almost anything you really love to do.
Once you have a list of the things you feel passionate about, keep that list with you and give it some imagination time for a few days. Jot down every idea that comes to your mind – no matter how wild and crazy – about how to turn the passion into a money-making business. Don’t be judgmental or selective about your ideas. Just let them come and record them.
Finally, go over your list and select the best ideas. Then analyze each of these ideas separately, subjecting them to the following questions:
Select a Business That Makes Sense for the Internet
The last question on the foregoing list is critical. If we haven’t made the central theme of this book clear enough yet, allow us to state it again in slightly different words: The Internet is the business tool of the future. Those businesses that take advantage of it have a better chance to achieve greater success than those that don’t.
So what types of businesses are "right" for the Internet? A few years ago, the answer to that question would have been much more complex than it is today. Then, only certain segments of the population browsed the Internet, and far fewer actually purchased products or services on it. That has changed radically and continues to change. Today, few analysts would dispute the fact that the Internet has become the world’s largest and busiest "shopping center" and that it will only become more popular and pervading as time goes on.
Virtually any business is right for the Internet today. Even those businesses that don’t have anything to sell directly on the Internet can put Web sites to good use as credibility-builders and information-disseminators. In fact, it is difficult to think of any business that couldn’t benefit in some way from having an Internet presence.
Know your business.
Whatever business you choose to be in, become an expert in it! Find out everything you can about it. Stay on top of issues. Keep up with news and events. Stay abreast of the new knowledge that emerges in your field. Develop and refine the skills you need.
In most fields, professions, or types of business, there are magazines, trade journals, newsletters, and other publications that are dedicated to providing information and education within their areas. Subscribe to the best of these. There are also continuing education classes, seminars, and other types of in-person or packaged courses covering a wide variety of professional and business-related topics. These may be made available through local school systems, colleges, or private organizations. Make a habit of signing up for one of these educational experiences every so often to stay abreast. Live classes offer the added benefit of giving you the opportunity to meet and network with peers.
There is one other area of expertise you will need to develop and refine in order to be successful at what you do: small business management. Don’t forget that in addition to what you do specifically in your business, you are also a business manager. That means you need to be knowledgeable in the many skills and disciplines that business management demands – everything from bookkeeping to marketing.
Magazines and other publications are written with the small business/home business person in mind. Subscribe to one or more of these. And don’t forget books. Organizations for small business and home-based business people are also excellent sources of business management training and information.
Affiliate with groups.
In the same way that it is important to become an expert in two basic areas – in your particular field and in business management – it is also helpful to affiliate with at least one group, organization, or association in both of those areas.
There are very few professions or types of businesses that don’t have some sort of trade organization to help the people who work in those fields survive and prosper. Almost all of these groups and associations – even the smaller ones – provide their members with training opportunities, opportunities to network with other members, and publications filled with news, information, tips, and other valuable materials.
Finding these organizations shouldn’t be difficult. Just ask other people with similar types of businesses, or ask your local librarian to help you find a reference book that lists the various professional and business associations.
Round up the money you need.
Thanks to the affordable technology that is available today – especially the Internet – it doesn’t take as much money to get most businesses started as it used to. But you will need some money.
Where do you get it? Fortunately, there are a number of different sources for start-up capital. Some may be available to you; some may not be. Some may be right for you; some may not be. But chances are, you will be able to find the money you need if you look for it.
If you have the personal resources, or can save them, or even sell something you don’t really need to get them, using your own money is generally the best way to go. You may have to do without some luxuries or a vacation or two, but isn’t it worth it? You won’t have to give someone else a part of your business and its potential profits, nor will you have to pay interest on borrowed funds. You will control your business completely.
Borrowing money from friends and family members is another option, though a dangerous one. You could lose friends and alienate family members if things don’t go as planned. If you go with this option, be sure to put everything in writing and make the loan a strict business transaction. Spell out everything, including interest rates, repayment schedules, and collateral if that is part of the deal, as well as what happens if you default.
The U.S. Small Business Administration acts as a guarantor of loans to small businesses, and sometimes as a lender. If you are interest in getting an SBA guaranteed loan, first find out which lending institutions in your area are authorized to make these loans. To get an SBA loan, your business must generally be a for-profit entity, fall within the size limitations the SBA sets, and be independently owned and operated. Also, it can’t be a business that is already dominant in its field. Call the SBA Answer Desk at 800-827-5722 for answers to questions regarding SBA loans.
Bank loans are another option. But be aware that some banks are interested in helping new and growing businesses, while others aren’t. It’s probable that you’ll have to get a consumer loan (as opposed to a business loan) and put up collateral. Many home-based and small businesses get money through personal loans or other types of loans based on personal assets used as collateral. Consumer loans include personal loans, mortgage refinancings, home equity loans, and second mortgages.
Some people take unsecured "loans" from banks for business needs by using their credit cards. This is an easy strategy, but a potentially dangerous one. True, it won’t put your home or car in jeopardy, but it can ruin your credit if you can’t pay off the cards on time. Plus, the interest rates on credit cards are typically high.
Other less desirable sources of capital include finance companies, "angels" (investors who are looking for a higher rate of return on their money than they could get through typical investments by making loans to small, start-up businesses), Offices of Economic Development run by state governments, grants (details on available grants are published weekdays in The Federal Register; check your library), and venture capital firms, although these typically are only interested in making investments over $250,000.
Whatever source of funding you go with, weigh the potential downsides carefully. The road to wealth is littered with companies that have failed because they made the wrong choices in this crucial area.
Make sure you’re legal.
It always pays to be on the right side of the law. When you’re setting up your business, make sure that your location is zoned for the type of business you’re going to be doing. If it’s a home-based business, be certain that it doesn’t break any of the codes and covenants in your neighborhood. Although mistakes or neglect in this area probably won’t put you in jail, they can trigger costly fines and even business interruptions.
Another aspect of making your business legal is creating a legal entity for your company. There are basically three types of legal structures for businesses: (1) sole proprietorships, (2) partnerships, and (3) corporations (S corporations and C corporations).
The sole proprietorship is a commonly used structure for the small and home-based business. It’s easy to create – you simply get a business license from your local government and you’re in business. Sole proprietorships are the simplest of all forms of business structures when it comes to taxes. You just fill out a Schedule C income tax form and transfer the amount you come up with onto your 1040 form. As a sole proprietor, you won’t have to share your profits with partners or shareholders, although you may have employees to pay. You can make quick business decisions on your own, and there are far fewer governmental and regulatory restrictions and regulations to entangle you than you’ll find in other forms of business structures. The downside is that you are held legally liable for business indebtedness.
Partners (associations of two or more co-owners of a business) are more complex than sole proprietorships, but less complex than corporations. Partnerships are not taxed on their income. Instead, the income made in a partnership "passes through" to the individual partners and is taxed as income to them. Additional partnership tax forms must be filed with the IRS each year. Partners show their partnership income on their 1040 tax forms. At least one partner in every partnership must be personally liable for the business’s indebtedness.
Corporations are the most complex form of legal business structures. They are normally formed under the authority of a state government. S corporations have become popular because they offer shareholders the limited liability advantages of regular C corporations, and yet allow income and losses to pass through to individual shareholders without being taxed at the corporate level. If you’re interested in forming a corporation, you’ll need to consult with a legal professional who is adept in creating these relatively complex business entities.
One last note regarding legal issues: don’t forget to obtain a business license. Call your local government’s business licensing office or division and ask how to proceed.
Create a place to work effectively.
Making your office comfortable and efficient is critical to your business success. If your work space is so unpleasant and uncomfortable that you hate to go into it, your business will suffer. If your office doesn’t "work" in terms of efficiency, neither will you.
If your business is in your home, make sure it’s in a quiet part of the house, away from the central living areas. Few people can concentrate on business when they are constantly listening to the clamor and activities of a typical household – especially if there are children at home. You can make your office quieter by replacing the common hollow-core door with a solid-core door. And if you’re really serious and it’s feasible, put special sound insulation in any office walls that are contiguous to noisy parts of the home.
Another "sound" solution is to play unobtrusive music or recordings of natural sounds (the ocean, a rainforest, etc.) in your office. Just be sure that what you play doesn’t pull your focus away from your work or break your concentration. These same suggestions apply to offices located in noisy commercial spaces outside the home.
Your office should be large enough to accommodate the tools and technology you have or will eventually get. Make sure you have room to work comfortably and to expand as you grow.
Your desk should be large enough to give you room to spread things out on it without having to stack things on top of your computer and telephone. An L-shape or U-shape desk makes it easier to have what you need at your fingertips. The desk – or at least the part of it where you put your computer keyboard – should be low enough to allow you to spend a lot of time on the Internet without getting overly fatigued. The standard desk height is 29½", while the standard height for a secretarial desk section (where the keyboard goes) is only 26½". If you plan to spend a lot of time on your keyboard, you might want to have the entire desk at the 26½" height.
Get a chair that you can sit in for hours comfortably. Too many business people disregard the importance of this central piece of office furniture, then wonder why they get stiff necks and sore backs after a day in the office.
Get a good mat for your chair to roll around on. While it costs more in the short-term, a ¼" piece of tempered glass makes a wonderful chair mat. It won’t retain the dented memories of your chair’s castors, and your chair will roll around on it quickly and easily. Because the glass is tempered and flat against the floor, it’s almost impossible to break.
Lighting is another crucial consideration, especially if you’re going to spend a lot of time looking into a computer screen. If the lighting in your office is not well designed, you are likely to get headaches and eye strain because there is either not enough light, or the lights reflect off your screen directly into your eyes. You might want to install track lighting and arrange the lights on the track so that they provide adequate illumination without glaring directly into your eyes or causing starbursts on your computer screen.
Get the Right Technology
One of the beauties of setting up shop in an Internet-driven business is that you probably already have the technology you need to run your operations.
These days, most households have an Internet-capable personal computer and a printer. If you don’t have them, get them. We also strongly suggest that you get your own telephone with a separate number to keep your personal and business life separate. A fax machine will be important, too. Even though you may have WinFax or some other computer-based fax software to send and receive faxes through your computer, there will be times when you need to manually fax hard copy.
You won’t have to pay an arm and a leg for an Internet-capable personal computer and printer. Laser printers can be expensive, but less pricey ink jet or bubble jet printers are now good enough to handle almost any business need. Plus, you get color with them, whereas you have to spend a fortune to get good color in the laser printer realm.
You don’t have to mortgage your home to get the latest, sizzling personal computer, either. When you get on the Internet, your modem speed becomes more important than your computer’s built-in power. Even the fastest, most beefy personal computer will run like a pig if your connection to the Internet is slow. At the same time, a fast connection will make an inexpensive, relatively wimpy computer work like a speed demon when it goes online.
The differences between various types of Internet connections are great. Imagine the difference between running digital signals through a small straw, a garden hose, and a flood water culvert. The "bigger" the connection between your computer and the Internet, the faster the data can flow through it.
What types of Internet connections are available? To go online, a computer has traditionally needed to be equipped with a modem. Modems translate digital signals from your computer into analog signals that travel over the phone lines. Modems on the other end of the lines can understand these signals, turning the sounds into digital information again. The speed of a modem is measured in bps or bits per second. A 28.8 Kbps modem sends data at 28,800 bits per second. A 56 Kbps modem (commonly used today) is twice as fast. It sends and receives 56,000 bits of data per second.
That’s why digital technologies such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), and cable modems are becoming so popular. Simply stated, they make Internet surfing and data transfers a speedy proposition. Even at top speeds of 56 Kbps, today’s fastest modems can’t compete with these new digital data carriers – all of which boost speed because they don’t have to rely on the slow, noisy analog phone lines we use for voice communication. Instead, they link your computer directly to a host computer via a dedicated high-speed line, such as a frame relay or T-1.
Let’s take a quick look at these blazing Internet connection options….
ISDN
It has been around for years, and is the most widely available digital Internet service. ISDN uses a digital phone line rather than a standard analog phone line, and because it doesn’t modulate audio signals to send data, it is significantly speedier than analog modems and virtually error-free. (It transmits digital data directly and operates at speeds from 112 Kbps to 128 Kbps, depending on the type of equipment you use.) But in order to use ISDN, you have to be located within ten miles of your telephone company’s nearest central office.
An ISDN line costs approximately between $25 and $50 per month – about twice as much as an ordinary phone line. That doesn’t include your Internet Service Provider (ISP) bill, which will run another $20 or more on top of that. Plus, in most areas, you must also pay a penny or two per minute to the phone company for ISDN usage, plus normal long-distance rates if you’re dialing an ISDN number out of your calling area. ISDN gives you a good deal of freedom, however – specifically in your choice of ISP.
DSL
DSL adds digital data transfer capabilities to ordinary analog telephone lines, giving you both analog voice signals and digital data over your line. A "splitter," installed by your DSL provider where your phone lines enter your house, separates the analog phone line from the DSL line. The analog line then goes to the regular phone jacks in your house, which the DSL line runs from the splitter to a DSL modem. A variation of DSL is "ADSL" (Asymmetrical DSL) – so named because upload and download speeds can differ, unlike with ISDN.
To get DSL, you must be located within about three miles of your telephone company’s central office. The speed of DSL drops as distance from the central office increases. DSL can rev up to a blazing 6 Mbps for downloads and 640 Kbps for uploads–more than forty times faster than ISDN for downloads. But at its slowest, DSL is about as fast as ISDN for downloads and can even be slower than an analog modem for uploads.
The cost of DSL depends on its speed. For low-end service, you’ll pay between $30 and $50 per month. For high-end service, that will rise to about $100 to $200 per month. Yes, you’ll have to have a DSL line installed. And you’ll have to subscribe with an ISP that is supported by your DSL provider. Some single-user connections cost as little as $10 per month for low-end speeds. You will also have to pay for a phone line for the DSL service, but that can be your existing analog phone line. Unlike ISDN, for which you will pay per-minute usage charges (which can get hefty when you’re linked to a far-off ISP) DSL is always online with no per-minute or distance-sensitive costs.
Cable Modems
These high-speed-connections run along coaxial television cable and hit speeds of up to 10 Mbps on downloads and often 5 Mbps or more on uploads. But if lots of people in the area are using the Internet at the same time, the speed can slow down significantly.
Cable modems may offer more value than other digital connection options. Cable Internet services often run $25 to $50 per month in addition to whatever you pay for your cable TV service. The cable modem itself will be supplied by the provider. It can cost in the $300 to $600 neighborhood, but is often rented as part of the service.
One possible drawback is the fact that you will have to stick with your cable company as your ISP.
Establish a strong company image.
Contrary to what some advertisers claim, image is not everything. But it is extremely important. No matter how small or young or financially challenged your business is, you can afford to create a good image for it. And if you want to be successful, you must! Even if you feel that your business is an old Ford Pinto at this point in its evolution, you can make it look like a shiny new Jaguar for a relatively small investment.
How? Start with your Web site and your business stationery: letterhead, envelopes, business cards, and packaging labels or any other type of packaging you might use frequently. These elements of visual image may be all you need for now, depending on your business. If you do print advertising, you’ll want the same "look" to carry over into that area, too.
Create a winning visual image for your business right out of the chute. It will guide the visual development of everything you do in marketing. Use it in everything your customers or associates will see, from your Internet site to advertisements, from large envelope labels to direct mail pieces. The image you create is your "mark" that distinguishes your business from every other business out there. Use it!
Your image should say "This is a quality business!" And it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to develop it. You can create a Jaguar image for a Ford Pinto price – especially using the Internet as a tool! Get referrals to a few graphic artists in your area and ask them how much they would charge you to design your logo and business stationery. Be aware that in most cities of any size, there are young and very talented designers who are just getting started and are trying to establish names for themselves. These rising stars may charge less and give you more than their older peers. Dropping even lower on the experience/cost continuum, consider contacting the graphic arts department at a local university or college and asking for referrals to talented students who are willing and capable to do the job.
Make sure that the image you adopt is the right one for your business. What is the "right" image? To answer this, always think in terms of what your potential customers or clients want to see. If you’re an investment counselor, they’ll want to see a very different visual image than if you were, say, a physical fitness trainer. Also, make sure that your logo and "look" is distinctive enough to set you apart from your competitors.
Chapter 4:
Find a Home for Your Web Site
Your Web site will need a "home" on the Internet – a home with an address that other people can find. On the World Wide Web, an address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Here’s an example of a URL: http://www.mybusiness.com. Anyone anywhere in the world will be able to type in the URL of your Web site on their Web browsers and jump right to it.
URLs and Domain Names
In the previous example of a URL, the "mybusiness.com" portion of the URL is the domain name. You will want to have a domain name that is your very own. You might be able to save money by getting a domain name for your site that is essentially a piggy-back situation. That is, you would use some other domain name and tack your site onto it. Don’t do this! You might save a few bucks, but it locks you in. If you have your own domain name, you can change Web hosts if it makes sense and you won’t have to change your Web site address, which would mean updating everyone and changing all your business cards, stationery, etc.
How do you get your own domain name? If you’re having a Web hosting service help you create your site, you might want to simply let them handle this task for you. They might include the cost in the set-up fee or amortize it into the monthly fees they will charge you to do this. In any event, it’s not that expensive, and they shouldn’t charge much more than it would cost you to do it yourself.
Do it yourself? Sure. It’s easy now to go into the Internet and get your own domain name. Domain names are managed by a company called Network Solutions, whose primary job is to reserve and register domain names and guarantee that all domain names are unique. Network Solutions also maintains contact information for each site.
All you need to do is go to http://www.networksolutions.com. Near the top of the home page you will find "Search for a domain name – no obligation!" Under that is an input box where you can type in the name you would like and choose whether to use ".com" or some other top-level suffix. You then hit "Go!" and a search begins to see if the name you want is available. (If it’s not available with the ".com" suffix, it may be available with a ".org" or ".net" or other suffix.)
You may be surprised how difficult it is to find a good name that hasn’t yet been taken. Let’s say you’re a graphic artist, and you think the name "graphicarts" or "goodart" or "greatdesign" would be nice. Chances are you’ll have to dig deeper than that. Even using your own name for a domain name won’t be easy, since most names that aren’t really strange are already registered. So use your imagination. You’ll come up with something you’ll learn to love!
Once you’ve found an available domain name that you want to call your own, you can follow the easy instructions to either reserve it (so no one else can get it) or register it and make it yours. You will be prompted to pay online with a credit card.
Web Hosting Services
You will also need to find a good, reasonably priced Web hosting service. A Web host allows you to establish a presence on the Internet. It will put your Web site on powerful Web servers, allowing anyone on the Web to see it and communicate with it.
Web hosting services typically offer a variety of different plans at different prices and with different levels of service. A basic service package that will likely be all you’ll need for a home-based or small business should cost approximately $25 to$35 per month with a $50 (more or less) set-up fee. This would include:
Other more expensive packages are available that offer a higher level of services, but until your business grows considerably (and perhaps not even then), the package we just described should meet your needs.
Considering the fact that you would pay $15 to $20 per month to an ISP just for unlimited Internet access, paying an extra $10 to $20 bucks a month to have your own web site is a true bargain.
?Now that you have your domain name and a Web host, you need to create a Web site. (In reality, it makes sense to develop your site before starting to pay your monthly fees to a Web hosting service. Why pay for it until you need it?) In the following chapter, we’ll talk about the ins and outs of creating a winning, effective Web site.
Chapter 5:
Create Your Web Site
Not all Web sites are created equal. Some are classy and effective – a delight to visit. Others are so poorly done – badly written, terribly designed, and ineffectively constructed – that they destroy credibility in the companies they represent.
Interestingly, whether a site is done well or badly depends very little on the amount of money that is spent on it. It is more a function of care and taste than cost. Here, then, is a perfect way for the "little guys" of business to compete on a level playing field with the IBMs and AT&Ts of the world.
Do It Yourself? Or Call in the Pros?
The first thing you should decide is who will design your Web site. You can do it yourself or have a professional Web site designer do it.
Cost must be considered. A professional might charge about $100 a page, or $45 to $100 per hour, with a multi-page site running from about $500 (for minimal design input) up to many thousands of dollars for a spiffy, complex site that runs with the efficiency of a space shuttle.
It’s cheaper to do it yourself. You can start from scratch or customize a standard site design to your own needs – a design from a selection offered by your Web host or a Web design software package. But you have to be honest with yourself – do you have (or can you develop) the capabilities and resources necessary to do the kind of job you want? Are you willing to spend the time?
Is it really possible to create a Web site yourself – not just a one-pager, but a multi-page site, easily navigable site? The answer is yes … if you’re willing to spend the time to learn how. One of the big benefits of doing this is acquiring the know-how to go in and update or change your site yourself whenever you want or need to. Otherwise, you would have to call your professional site designer, specify what you want, pay him or her to do it, and be subject to his or her schedule.
Thanks to Web page design software programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver (several good ones are available), the layperson can get in and do the job without having to learn the computer language used by the Web: HTML. But you still have to learn the Web page design software, which takes time and effort. It can be argued, however, that a basic working knowledge of such a software package is becoming almost essential for Internet-involved businesses who want to stay on top of things.
The recent experience of a home-based freelance writer is enlightening. He found a local Web hosting service and was impressed with the technical skills of the partners. They assured him they could create a technically sound, beautifully designed site. About $500 into the site’s development, everything was working well from a technical perspective, but the site looked terrible. The writer asked at what point they typically bring in the graphic artists to make the site look as good as it worked, and the response was, "What graphic artists?"
The writer immediately called off the technical wizards, went out and bought Microsoft’s FrontPage for about $150, and started over, building his site from scratch. It took him two weeks of late nights and Saturdays, plus a lot of frustration, but at the end of that time he had a site that worked just as well as the one the tech guys had built for him, but looked light years better.
Not only did the writer save a lot of money, but he got the site he wanted and now feels comfortable updating his site at any time. For example, when a new project he has completed is printed, and he wants to include it to his portfolio page, he simply scans it in and inserts it on the page. That done, it’s just a matter of a few clicks of the mouse to upload the new, updated page to the server, where it immediately replaces the old page and is instantly available for anyone on the Internet to see. He can also change his fees or any other information on his site whenever appropriate in order to stay current and respond to new opportunities.
A word of caution: when you do your own site creation, make sure it not only looks good and works as it should, but that it is well written. Have someone who knows how to write go over your copy, checking for improper grammar, spelling, confusing language, poor organization, etc. Don’t hurt your image with lousy copy!
There are good reasons for you, the home-based entrepreneur, to create your Web site yourself. But face it, you may not have the graphic design sense, the patience, or the time to do it. In that case, hire professionals. Competent Web designers are your surest route to a successful site. But be careful. Make sure you know in advance how they charge. Get an estimate and hold them to it unless the scope of work changes. Supply them with as much information as you can. The more you give them, the less time they’ll have to spend, and hence, the more you will save. Finally, stay close to the project. Make sure it’s going where you want it to go every step of the way.
Tips for Creating Killer Web Sites
If you plan to tackle the development of your Web site yourself, pay attention to the tips that follow. Even if you plan to pay a pro to create your site, make sure you have a working familiarity with the following rules and suggestions. Why? Because your knowledge of what works and what doesn’t will enable you to play a more interactive role with whoever is working on your site.
Look Around – See What Strikes You
Spend some time browsing the Internet and find Web sites that appeal to you. Print them out and make notes about what you like about them. Pay attention to graphic devices, fonts and font sizes, colors, etc. Use these notes to guide the design of your own site. We’re not saying you should copy what you see … emulate might be a better word.
Don’t Slow Your Pages Down With Heavy Graphics
Graphics are wonderful and necessary, but use them wisely. A photo that takes up most of the page will take so long for most computers to load onto the screen that many visitors will get impatient and move on. Your Web page design software should give you an estimate of how long it will take each page to load. Pay attention to this. If necessary, break heavy, slow pages into two or more different pages that won’t make your audience click the "Back" or "Stop" button before they see what you want them to see. Use the common 56 Kbps modem speed as your benchmark. You can also allow visitors to choose a text alternative to graphics if they have slow modems or little patience.
Write Only What’s Necessary … Then Quit
?Don’t use your Web site to show off your latent literary skills. Understand this: no one wants to read your Web site. They might want the information, and if so, they’ll read what they have to to get it. But the less time it takes, the better. Besides, large blocks of text on a Web page are uninviting, even intimidating. They repel the eye. Be concise and crisp. Convey the information in as few words as possible. Break up text blocks with headlines and subheads. Use captions and other quick-read text devices liberally.
Follow Accepted Graphic Design Rules
?The same basic graphic design rules that apply to creating a brochure, ad, or mailer apply to Web site design. Strive to invite the eye and capture the reader’s attention with interesting graphics, an easy-to-read layout, and exciting interactivity. Your site’s "look" should be clean, simple, and easy to read. In most cases, avoid white text on dark backgrounds. Especially avoid black or dark text on colored or heavily textured backgrounds that make the text hard to read. Black text on white or off-white backgrounds is best.
?Give each page in your site a consistent look using the same basic style and format conventions. This will tie your site together, creating harmony and making it easier to use.
?Keep your pages narrow enough so that they won’t go off the edge of the screen regardless of the type of browser or monitor your visitors will use, even if they pull up a navigation bar on the left margin of the screen, which pushes everything else to the right.
?Make sure that your site looks right and works well on at least the two major Internet browsers: Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
?Your site’s design should faithfully reflect the nature of your home business, its products or services, and its customers or clients. A Web site for a nursing home should look dramatically different than a site for a suntan salon. Never forget who you are, what you offer, and who you’re selling to.
Use Standard Fonts for Body Copy
Make It Easy for Visitors to Navigate
Visitors want to be able to navigate around and through your site intuitively, without having to stop and figure out how to do it, which is a sure way to lose them. Use conventional navigation standards and make sure that the site is organized logically with hyperlinks between pages that are easy to see and use. A good site will make the visitors feel that they are effortlessly flowing through it – not wandering aimlessly or getting trapped in dead-ends.
It’s okay if your pages are long enough to necessitate scrolling. Just try to place the most important elements or messages on each page high enough to be seen without scrolling.
Offer Information to Draw Them In
?Don’t forget that the Internet began as an information medium – not a sales tool. Although e-commerce is coming on strong, people still look to the Web for information. So pull in potential customers or clients by offering the kind of information your target market wants to read. Once at your site, they might be persuaded to buy from you, or contact you for more information.
Get Comments and Feedback
Solicit comments from those who visit your site with an easy fill-in form that generates an immediate e-mail to you. This can give you valuable information that you can use to continually improve your site or offering.
Don’t Forget Your Call to Action
Don’t go to the trouble of creating and maintaining a Web site and then let your visitors get away without telling them what to do. Include some sort of a call to action on every page. Be clear and precise. Make it easy for them to respond, place an order, or whatever you suggest. Make the call to action easy to find by popping it out visually. And keep it simple!
Set Your Site Up to Capture Orders and Payments
If you are selling something on the Internet – especially products, but even certain services – it has become virtually imperative to be able to accept orders and take credit card payments on your Web site. These capabilities are powerful profit-builders because of the convenience they afford and their immediacy, which takes advantage of impulse buying. Your business can accept "real-time" payments – that is, the buyers’ cards are charged or debited at the time of the online sale, and the money is transferred by the credit card company into the Internet entrepreneur’s account usually within a day or two. (Note: If you don’t ship or otherwise deliver the order that same day it is placed, you will need to wait until you do to get money transferred from the customer’s account to your bank.) Another benefits is that the risk and hassle of dealing with bad checks is eliminated. So is invoicing.
Online order-taking is not difficult at all. You simply create an order form on one of your site’s pages that buyers can fill in when placing their orders. Good Web page design software make it easy to create such forms. When customers complete the form, they simply click an icon to send the order to your computer where you can get it and fulfill it.
As far as payments go, there are many options. But for the most part, e-commerce transactions are credit card-based. That means you’ll have to be able to accept credit card payments online.
There was a time (not long ago) when it was difficult – even impossible – for many small business people and home-based entrepreneurs to get "merchant accounts" – which are necessary to be able to accept credit card payments. Things have changed. Today, you shouldn’t have trouble getting a merchant account for a viable business unless your credit is terrible.
A number of options are available from such companies as CyberCash, OpenMarket, Verifone, and CyberSource. (You can look them all up on the Internet and scope out the services they offer.)
One fairly typical company that caters to online businesses in need of merchant accounts charges $950 for its software (or you can opt for a 48-month, non-revocable lease of $35 per month), transaction fees of 20¢ per transaction, and a discount rate of 2.25 percent (that means that if you sell something for $100, they keep $2.25 and put $97.75 in your bank account). The monthly statement fee is $7.50, with a minimum monthly discount of $15. The transaction fees and discounts are deducted automatically, and the remainder is sent to your bank account within 48 to 72 hours. It takes 7-10 business days to initially get processed and running. These costs may vary from vendor to vendor, but are representative of the norm.
As you can see, the ability to accept online payments via credit cards isn’t free. But when you consider the ease and convenience it affords, and the fact that you’ll be left behind if you don’t offer your customers this feature, it’s well worth the cost.
One last note before leaving this subject: other programs and methods exist for capturing online orders and payments, and more are being developed all the time to accommodate the burgeoning demand from online merchants. Be sure to check out the latest options before making a decision. Your Web hosting service will probably offer the latest e-commerce solutions, as well. It maybe a good starting point for your search.
Chapter 6:
Promoting Your Web Site
Congratulations. You just finished developing your Web site and published it to the Web. In your humble opinion it’s the most wonderful site on the Internet. It’s just what you need to make your business a success. Now all you have to do is sit back and watch the orders and responses pour in. Right?
Sorry.
The only people who are going to visit your site as things now stand are your mother, your spouse, and your two good friends to whom you gave your URL. No one else will be able to find it until it gets listed on the Web’s search engines and indexes.
Submitting to Search Engines and Indexes
When you want to get the best price on a new Hewlett Packard printer, you go to Yahoo! or AltaVista or some other index or search engine and type in "Hewlett Packard printer," and pages of search "hits" appear on your screen. These sites are on your screen because one or both of two things have happened: (1) the sites have been submitted to the engines and indexes with the request that they be listed; or (2) they have been located by "spiders" that cruise around the Web looking for new sites and listing them. This latter possibility happens only with the search engines, not indexes.
Until your site is listed, it won’t show up on searches. So how do you go about getting your site listed?
Here again, you have the option of having a professional handle the task, or doing it yourself. A pro might charge a couple of hundred dollars to do it, but then a pro knows what he or she is doing. It’s not a straightforward task, because search engines and indexes have different requirements and look for different things. You’ll save money doing it yourself, but you have to know how to go about it.
Another Option
One service that offers an alternative to these two options is found at www.selfpromotion.com. This service claims to be the first and only URL registration share service (that is, there is no charge unless you want the service to keep serving you after the first four weeks. Even then, the suggested cost is only $10 per year for a personal site and $25 per year for a commercial site.) By following the service’s easy instructions, you can quickly get your Web site submitted to the major search engines and indexes (at least those that don’t demand individual submissions).
There are a few exceptions to this, Yahoo! being foremost on the list. SelfPromotion.com deems these indexes and search engines so important that instead of automatically submitting your site to them, it leads you through them one-by-one, giving you specific instructions on how to submit to them. SelfPromotion.com also supplies reams of useful information about the ins and outs of getting your site listed. (This is not an endorsement of the SelfPromotion.com service. Please research any options mentioned in this book with appropriate due diligence and use your own good sense before committing to them.)
One last note: many low-cost or even free services claim they will quickly and automatically list your site on hundreds of search engines and indexes, with little input from you beyond accepting their service. The benefits of using these services are questionable. They will probably do you little good.
Meta Tags, Title Tags, and Other Intimidating Necessities
Meta description tags, meta keyword tags, and title tags are just three of several elements that will have an impact on your site’s rankings in search engines and indexes. These particular three elements are segments of html code that must be embedded in your site (they are invisible to the viewer). They are designed to enable search engines and indexes to effectively list your site and suggest it as a response to searches.
The how-to’s surrounding these elements are beyond the scope of this book. But don’t be intimidated. Even if you do this yourself, good Web page design software should help you know what to include in these bits of code and then insert them in the appropriate places in your site with relative ease.
Driving Traffic to Your Site Through Advertising and Other Means
We just discussed how to make sure your Web site can be found via searches conducted through indexes and search engines. But there is another extremely important facet of Web site promotion and advertising. It involves using advertising and other promotional techniques – both on the Internet and via other means – to drive traffic to your site.
Banners and Links on Selected Internet Sites
Let’s say you’re in the business of selling stock photography to graphic artists. You search the Web for businesses that cater to the same market: graphic design software companies, paper companies, printers, etc. You contact some of them and say, "Look, we both cater to the same customers. If you put a banner for my business on your site, I will reciprocate. We’ll send customers to each other, multiplying our exposure." You could also arrange to simply have reciprocal hyperlinks to each other’s sites listed on a "Other Resources" page on your site. Either way, you’re driving more traffic to your site.
Reciprocal links are not always available where you want them. But you can often pay for advertising space on other strategic sites. We’ve all seen the advertising that goes on when you visit a popular search engine’s or index’s site. If you do this type of advertising, make sure you select a site that is visited by your particular target market, and track any business it might bring you. If it doesn’t pull, drop it.
Consider Paying for Traffic
Although getting listed in search engines and indexes costs nothing, it’s difficult to control the outcome and ensure high rankings. It’s easy to get buried on page 27 of the search results.
If you’re willing to pay for hits, there are some services that are ready to take your money. It’s not a lot of money. Typically, you won’t have to pay more than a few pennies for every visitor the service sends your way. Two such services you might want to check out are Goto.com and RealNames.
Become a Popular Source of Information
One of the most venerable Web site marketing strategies is to offer valuable information in an easy-to-understand format on a subject that has interest to the type of people you want to visit your site. If your site becomes known among your customers and potential customers as one of "the" places to go on the Internet for resource materials and information, chances are good that your sales will skyrocket.
Use Other Advertising Media to Drive Traffic to Your Site
You can’t watch the TV, turn on the radio, pick up a sales brochure, or open the newspaper anymore without being told to go to "whatever.com" for more information. The strategy behind this is simple: use other types of advertising to drive traffic to a Web site where the sale can be made with information age speed and convenience.
For the vast majority of businesses, Internet advertising is not enough. Be sure to integrate your site into a complete marketing effort. Announce and advertise the existence of your site every chance you get. Include your Web site’s URL and your e-mail address on your business cards, letterhead, and invoices, and announce them in all forms of advertising you do, from brochures to print ads. Send out press releases to magazines, newspapers, or other publications whose readers would be interested in the information your site offers.
Keep Up the Good Work!
Developing a Web site is in some respects like having a baby: the work is far from over once you have brought it into the world. Like a child, your site will require ongoing care and nurturing.
For starters, you should check in regularly and tour your site to make sure it continues to look and work the way it should. There are ways that sites can be changed or degenerate without your input, and you won’t know this has happened if you don’t check in frequently.
Also, don’t be afraid to add to, change, and update your site whenever appropriate. Keep it fresh. When aspects of your business or product line change, so should your site. Another part of this process involves staying abreast of developing Internet technological and applying new bells and whistles if they made sense.
Finally, schedule regular "check-ups" to make sure your site is listed the way you want it to be in the search engines and indexes. If new engines and indexes have emerged that appear to be worthwhile, submit your site information to them.
Neglecting your Web site is like neglecting your car. Without regular oil changes and maintenance, it won’t be long before its performance deteriorates and it finally breaks down. Don’t allow this to happen to your Internet presence. Keep it well oiled and well maintained and it will keep you traveling straight and fast down the road to success.
Chapter 7:
What Are You Waiting For?
When Barbara Walters interviewed Harrison Ford in the summer of 1997, she asked the Star Wars hero how he felt about the now-famous quote, "May the force be with you." Ford replied that whenever he hears that phrase, he wants to respond by saying, "The force is in you. Force yourself!"
Truly successful business people force themselves to be successful. That force is within you, but it won’t do you any good until you tap into it. As they say, "Nothing works until you do." There is no truer application of that axiom than in the business world.
Planning and preparation are vital to success. But don’t wait until you are completely prepared to start your business. Why? Because you’ll never be completely prepared. Starting and running a business is a constant, ongoing process of discovery and adaptation. It’s like trying to learn how to swim in a classroom: not matter how many hours of class you have, it’s always a surprise when you first dive into the water and experience what you thought you were prepared for. No amount of preparation outside the water could ever fully prepare you for the actual experience.
The same goes for the experience of starting your Internet-driven business. Yes, preparation is essential, but know this: more people are unsuccessful because they never got started than because they started and failed!
Don’t make the same mistake. Prepare yourself, then take the plunge. Never has such a powerful wealth-creating opportunity been so accessible, thanks to the convergence of Internet and home-based business advantages. The force is within you. Force yourself!
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