But what if you could give yourself a pay check but earning something during the hours you aren’t at work?

If this sounds like a riddle, we promise it isn’t. A growing number of work at home moms are finding they have additional streams of income beyond their productive working hours. By creating products to sell online, delegating tasks to others, and even reselling their work to new buyers, many have found that they were sitting on a previously undiscovered gold mine. And in most cases, finding and creating these revenue streams was a lot easier than they had imagined.

We’ll look at some of these opportunities individually in future articles, but for now, recognize that there may be opportunities in your business to earn money even when you aren’t actively working. Finding them, and leveraging them to your advantage, is one of the easiest ways to move yourself into a higher tax bracket.

We have all heard the old adage, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”. For some reason, many of us don’t ask for things because we fear imposing on someone or seeming to be rude. In business and in our personal lives this is farthest from the truth. Remember, the worst answer somebody can give you is “no”.  Ohhhh, did you just feel a chill go through you? No, I’m sure not.  We have all heard the word “no”, especially from the loving mouths of our parents. But, God knows, we tried to get what we wanted back then without hesitation! So, why is it so hard to ask now that we are independent adults?

We need to learn to ask. And, by asking, more often then not, we will get what we want.  Try it a few times and in your practice you will find that you will feel more comfortable. And, in that comfort, you will find success in either your home business or life in general.

I have been a big fan of a selling technique called “Consultative Selling”. By definition, consultative selling is finding out why this person could use your product and showing them how your product can fulfill their needs.

Allow me you give you an example. I sell workout clothing. As a consultative salesperson, my first question is going to be, “Are you looking for something specific”.  Yes, she is looking for a workout pant.  “Are you looking for a running pant or yoga pant?” She’s a runner.“What do you like about your favorite workout pant right now?” Now, I have some more information.  She trusts that I understand what she is looking for. If your customer trusts you, and likes your product, she will not only buy from you, she will come back.

Now, it doesn’t stop there! You have her trust and now you can show her the matching top to those running pants with all the great reasons why this top will help increase her running performance.  This type of selling is genuine and you don’t feel like you are pushing your product. Moreover,  your customer will be happy with her purchase and want to come and shop with you again.

However, before you walk away hanging your head and dragging your feet, let me lift your spirits a little by also saying that there ARE free ways to get money for your business.  When seeking small business grants for women, you need to look for private organizations that offer this kind of funding.  Several good sources to pursue include the Amber Grant and Women’s Financial Fund, and Count Me In among others.  A simple internet search will yield other results as well.  So before I go in on how to apply for this free money, you need to have a realistic approach.  Realistically, it takes a lot of time and effort to get free money, so be sure to know that going in.

Now, while each organization can operate a little differently, generally there a few standard procedures you will have to abide by.  For starters, you will absolutely have to clearly explain why you need the money.  In addition to that, you will probably be required to fill out one of two forms: a grant proposal or a letter of appeal.  A grant proposal is a formal document expressing what you need the money for and is usually required for money requests above $2500.  If you are requesting more than $2500, then you may be asked to fill out a letter of appeal.  In either case, the process takes time and will require your follow-up and persistence to keep the ball rolling.  The good news is there are small business grants for women; you just need to invest the time and patience to get them.

——————

Brandon Jones is a Google Adwords Certified Partner and internet entrepreneur.  His blog www.MyGoogleMarketing.net offers free tips on how to succeed online.

I have had a business partner for last 7 years and with good communication and clear boundaries, a partnership can work well with a multitude of benefits. There are a few key ingredients to a successful partnership:

#1 DEFINE your jobs. This may seems like a no brainer, but the problem in many partnerships is that both partners are good at the same thing. You don’t need a partner if you can do it all! In my company, I headed up the sales division and my partner headed up the operations division.  There was a clear division of responsibilities.  If there was a problem in either of our divisions we could consult the other, which we did many times. But, we didn’t step on each other’s toes because we both knew that we couldn’t do the other’s job as well as she could.

#2 remember that there is more then your business that you have to nuture. Having a business partner is like another marriage.  It’s important that you do fun things together, too. It’s good for the two of you to remember that you are individuals that have a life outside of your business. My partner and I would make an effort to take a day and go shopping and have lunch every month. This was good for us and good for our business.  You want to like who you work with everyday!

#3  Make certain that your stake in the company is proportionate to your investment. That  means that if you each own 50% of your business, you each put in an equal amount of working capital to get the business started. This is important because if one partner has less money invested and less equity in the company, he/she will most likely not be working as hard as you are. This work inequity is often times where the resentment rears it’s ugly head.

Partnerships have received a bad rap. But, if you know who you’re going into business with, and follow these 3 rules, chances are you will have a successful partnership.

Well, depending on the age of your kids and type of work you do, one way to tame them – and your project list at the same time – is to simply get them involved. In other words, make them a part of your “office team.”

By having your kids help you file documents, shred papers, organize folders, or do other small kinds of routine tasks, you accomplish a few things at once: first, you keep them busy. Secondly, you let them see what your work-at-home job is all about, and make them feel like they are involved in the process. And finally, you can even help to set good example of being working and productive – something that can help them in school, and in life.

If you constantly feel like you are being torn between keeping an eye on your kids and getting something done, why not try to combine the efforts?

SEO is great because once you’re ranked on Google’s first page, all the traffic you get is free.  There is no other form of advertising that can even come close to offering a better marketing solution for your home business than that.  With that being said, getting to the top of Google can be a challenge especially because some of the criteria Google uses to rank sites are kept secret by them in order to preserve quality and relevance.

In an attempt to always provide a better search engine experience, Google rolls out updates on occasion which aim to bring the best possible content to its users.  Google Panda is Google’s most recent update.  Google Panda made a huge splash in the internet world when it launched in February 2011, and many big name sites that experienced a long life of high ranking on Google suffered severe consequences.

What made the Google Panda update so dramatic was the criteria for ranking high in the SERP’s was determined by human quality testers who gave their feedback on what they thought made a site valuable, or not valuable, and worthy of search engine ranking.

It used to be if you had a site with relevant content, lots of backlinks, and some domain history, then the answer to “how to advertise your business online?” became very simple because that’s all you had to do to rank your site well on Google.  These criterion, however, gave way to “link farms” aka “content farms” where one could purchase hundreds or thousands of “backlinks” to point to their site, and then reap the benefits of high ranking.  Google caught on, and now it’s a different ball game for the aspiring internet entrepreneur.  If you’re wondering how to do well with the new Google Panda changes, here is what you need to do:

1)    Make Sure Your Entire Site Is Search Engine Friendly

So, I’m not going to go into on-site SEO tips here, but, simply put, every page on your site needs to have good relevant content not just the home page.

2)    Original Content

Make sure every amount of text on your site is your own.  If you copy and paste text from somewhere else online, trust me, Google will find out and penalize you for it.  Make sure your site has a healthy amount of content that is not only original, but also valuable.  Ask yourself, “Would you enjoy visiting your own site?”

3)    Non-Computer Generated Site

If you are forced to have an affiliate site, or some other site that is auto-generated, you’ll be fighting a losing battle with Google Panda.  Your site needs to be developed by a human and have a unique quality to it.

4)    Not Too Much Advertising

This may not apply to you, but if you decide to advertise on your site, just do it in moderation.  If your site appears to focus just on “ad stuffing”, you’ll need to fix that to do well.

5)    Monitor Bounce Rate

If you don’t have a Google Analytics account set up for your site, this is an absolute must.  It’s free to sign up, and you’ll be able to see exactly how people are using your site.  One of the factors Google Panda looks at is “time on site.”  If people tend to click-on and immediately click-off your site, this is not good and is an indication that your site is either not relevant to what they are looking for, or your content is not worthy of their time.

In conclusion, mold every facet of your site around what’s in the best interest of the site visitor.  If your desire is to satisfy your site visitors and less on just self-promotion, you’ll do well.  Keep at it.  You’ll be rewarded soon enough.

_______________________________________________________________

Brandon Jones is a Google Adwords Certified Partner and internet entrepreneur.  His blog www.MyGoogleMarketing.net offers free tips on how to succeed online.

Unfortunately, that’s not a trick we have mastered just yet. But one valuable piece of advice we can give you can make you feel like you’ve doubled the amount of working hours in your day: only work when your energy levels are high.

That sounds obvious, but it’s something that few of us actually pay attention to. Instead of working and we feel most energetic and productive, we tend to chip away at projects when other people are in our offices, or long past the times when we started feeling tired. This is usually an inefficient approach, though; not only does it take us longer to do what we need to, but it leaves us less enthusiastic about the next hour, or the next day.

Rather than working straight through the day, try this: set aside a few hours when you normally feel great to finish a project. Then, once it has been completed, take the rest of the day – or at least a few hours – to relax, go be a mom, etc. If you can keep up this habit for a few days, a funny thing will happen: you’ll start to look forward to your work more.

If you can double your productivity, with only half the stress you’re used to, it’s going to make a big difference in your work at home profitability. Keep that in mind, and try to finish tasks while you’re fresh.

However, you can make things a lot easier by taking the focus away from what you want, and putting it squarely on what you can do. In other words, don’t concentrate your efforts on finding customers; instead, find a problem you can solve for your clients, and then advertise the fact that you can solve it.

Unless it’s a luxury product, like a foreign automobile or the latest electronic gadget, most of us aren’t all that enthused about buying things and spending money. Neither do we look forward to paying vendors. What does get us all jazzed up, though, is having a nagging problem taken off our plates. Once we find a person or product that can do that, we stop thinking about the reasons to do without the expense and get excited about the solution.

To make your work at home business or career flying success, become a master of explaining how you can make other people’s lives easier. It’s a lot easier than marketing yourself… and a lot more profitable.

With that in mind, ask yourself this question: are you self-employed, or the CEO of your own small company?

On the surface, these would seem to be the same thing. Look deeper, though, and you’ll notice that one is focused on someone who does work, while the other is concerned with management, profits, and even strategic vision.

It’s important, if you are going to thrive in your work at home role, that you learn to see your business is a business. You need to learn to spot unprofitable agreements, find opportunities to save time and money, and think about how to raise the prices of your products – even if those are just your billable hours.

Take a little bit of time each week to put on your CEO hat and think about the direction your company is taking. You might not be running an empire yet, but the first step in that direction is to stop thinking like an hourly employee.