12 Free Tools For Starting a Home Business With No Moneyby: Bruce Scher
Home business ownership is the best way to start
any business especially with no money. With no
money to put up, and no money to lose, it’s a
risk free proposition. Your expenses are already
fixed. There are no additional costs for rent,
telephone, utilities, or a second computer.
“Starting with a website for only $12 per month is actually how a majority of home businesses do
it,” says Matt Williams. He should know. Williams and his partner recently sold their home business start-up LiveBid.com for millions to Amazon.com.
Regardless of your background, age or present situation, anyone can start a home business. Even if you have no credit, no business background, no experience, or no education, these proven 12 free tools can be used for jump starting your home business idea into reality.
Jay Reiss, mail order consultant, said “I started my home business 20 years ago, because I had no money to spend on office rent. Now, my ads are responsible for millions of dollars in sales. It’s certainly possible if you try, even Apple Computer started as a home business.”
” Building up Your Home Business
Website Traffic ”
One of the fantastic free tools your home business will have at it’s finger tips is email. Allowing you to communicate with new visitors as well as repeat customers, at no cost. Nothing for postage, envelopes, paper or printing, a perfect price for a home business.
To build up your home business, you will need to capture the email addresses of visitors when they come to your home business site. You will need to offer them something in exchange for giving you their email address. Go to your home business competitor’s websites and see what they offer new visitors.
Another important feature of email is using the signature tag line at the bottom of your outgoing emails to communicate your slogan or something unique about your home business. Think of this as another free marketing opportunity to tell potential customers about your home business.
12 Tools for Your Home Business
1. Domain Name Registration
Your home business domain name registration is a
must at: AnestaWeb Domain Registration Center
2. Home Business Fax Number!
Receive incoming fax as email at:
Fax thru eMail
3. 100 Hottest Home Business Ideas
Home business owners survey of best opportunities.
http://www.homebusinessfree.com/home-business.htm
4. Search Engine Submission
Google is a must for your home business and it’s free.
http://www.google.com/addurl/
Making Your Home Business Visitors Customers
As you build up your email addresses, you will want to stay in touch via email with visitors and customers alike, to promote your home business in their mind, and to sell your goods and services. You will need separate lists of visitors and buyers, and tailor each message
accordingly. New customers have a short life span so you have about 5 messages to sell them. Frequent buyers are the life blood of your home business and should be treated as such. Get testimonials from frequent buyers explaining what they love about your home business. Display it on your website and in emails. Thank them for the testimonial and send them a small gift of appreciation. You will be surprised how a free gift excites, and gets them to tell their friends and co-workers about your home business.
5. Free Home Business Autoresponder
Automatically sends personalized follow-up email.
http://www.getresponse.com
6. Free Website Content.
Pick-up articles for your home business website.
http://www.ezinearticles.com
7. Free Home Business Credit Card Acceptance
No monthly fees for merchant or payment gateway.
http://www.paypal.com
8. Free Classified Advertising
Use ads selling the uniqueness of your home business.
http://www.websitings.com
Turning Your Home Business Customers Into Repeats
Another element of free marketing a home business that pays huge dividends is referral incentives. Here you email your friends, vendors, and customers with different messages, and ask them to recommend your home business to their friends, family, vendors and co-workers. Don’t forget to promise them an incentive in product, service, or money for new customers referred.
9. Free Search Engine Marketing Newsletter
Most important topic, best newsletter on subject.
http://www.searchenginewatch.com
10. Free Home Business Press Release Distribution
Tell the press about your home business.
http://www.free-press-release.com
11. Free Home Business Word of Mouth Advertising
Very effective website tool for any home business.
http://www.recommend-it.com
12. Free Home Business Web Ring
Attracts new customers to any type of home business.
http://dir.webring.com/rw
Debbie Fields made a great chocolate chip cookie. Debbie says, “I had no money after buying ingredients, so starting my home business in the kitchen was the only solution. And I gave away free samples to get known. Anything is possible, you too can hit the big time, don’t delay, start your home business today.”
Benefits of Payday Loans
Get Ahead with Cash Advance Loans
Mar 2, 2010 Shreya Deshpande
Many a times an individual finds himself in urgent need of money and the personal financial resources have run dry. That is when cash advance loans step in to help.
All the more people are utilizing payday loans to cover their urgent expenses. In circumstances when you need money and time is a concern, payday loans are the most viable solution. However these quick and easy loans come with their share of pitfalls.
Payday loans are offered through two mediums:
· Retail Payday Loans
· Online Payday Loans
Retail Payday Loans
Payday loans are generally associated with payday loan lenders who have a retail location. To secure a payday loan, a customer has to visit these lending locations along with their identity and salary proof. The concerned loan amount is approved on the basis of the borrower’s next paycheck. The borrower then writes a post dated check to the lender in the full loan amount plus the fees. The loan charges range from 15 to 30% for a 14 day period.
The loan repayment is mad either by cash payment from the borrower or by electronic withdrawal from the bank account of the borrower. The lender can also process the post dated check to recover his money.
Online Payday Loans
Online payday loans are payday loans which are processed online. However, online payday loans have several advantages. In an online payday loan, a borrower needs to fill an application form provided at the lender’s website. This application generally requests information concerning the borrower’s details and account information.
As is the case with retail payday loans, it is essential to have a regular salary and a checking account to qualify for an online payday loan. After the loan approval, the funds are electronically transferred into the borrower’s bank account for immediate use. This online process is much faster than the one at a retail lending location.
Listing the Benefits
Online payday loans have the following advantages over retail payday loans:
· The whole loan process can be completed in the comfort of your home.
· Online payday loans websites offer a 24 hour service.
· The amount is transferred within a few hours time.
· The entire process is quick and easy.
· You can access the loan services throughout the country.
· There is no paperwork involved.
· The loan amount is transferred electronically, making it completely safe and secure.
Although online loans have a definite advantage of retail payday loans, they share the same drawbacks. Online pay day loans generally have very high interest rates and fees. People tend to get caught in a loan cycle in case they fail to repay the loan.It is always advisable to consider payday loans as the last option for covering expenses.
Growing Concerns It’s hard to complain when your company grows by more than 1,300 percent. But for Clear Align, a maker of surveillance equipment for the military, success is proving to be difficult to manage. By Carlye Adler | Newsweek Web ExclusiveDec 29, 2009 | Updated: 10:48 a.m. ET Dec 29, 2009
Angelique Irvin isn’t your typical defense contractor: she’s a suburban mom who swears by organic products, and the daughter of the founder of the literary journal Calyx (which was started in her childhood bedroom). But these are not the only reasons Irvin, 43, stands out among executives in the defense industry. In the past five years, she’s grown Clear Align–a maker of custom surveillance equipment for national-security and military customers–by an impressive 1,305 percent. The Eagleville, Pa. company is involved in an effort as complex as it sounds. Although Irvin isn’t at liberty to disclose nitty-gritty details–”80 percent of what we do is ‘black’,”–think of it as James Bond stuff: cameras mounted on the bottoms of planes and subs, lenses that allow soldiers to see from high altitudes at night, tiny sensors that can detect the presence of an explosive device or biochemical threat.
Last year, Clear Align took in $5.4 million, selling 390 of its surveillance systems at prices from $2,000 to $500,000 to customers that include Honeywell, L3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. The company has seen remarkable growth, especially because Irvin basically started the firm by accident. In 2003, she was taking six months off from her career in the optics industry to travel around the world. Two weeks into her trip, she received a call from a friend in the defense community with a request to build an optical sensor used for national security. She took on the task and built larger and more complex systems from there. “This company was not started intentionally,” says Irvin. “But you end up where you are supposed to be in life–everyone who knows me knows this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Irvin asks NEWSWEEK’s Small Business Panel: “Clear Align has experienced dramatic growth, but it’s not consistent. Revenue was up 420 percent last year, was flat this year, and we anticipate we’ll grow 300 percent to $12 million to $16 million in 2010. How do you manage cash flow with this choppiness?
“Sales do fluctuate in our industry because the contracts are big and less ongoing. We are transitioning to larger contracts, but have historically not had five- to 10-year contracts, and it’s our objective to get those. We have five major customers; one is 30 percent of our revenue or more. We have a goal to diversify the customer base. It’s the difference between being zoo-fed versus jungle-fed. We go out and get a big lion or hyena and then we have to go back out and hunt for another meal. Eventually, we want to be 50 percent zoo-fed, so we are not always out hunting. For now, we are in a good cash position–we have 24 months of expenses in the bank. We know growth eats up cash since a lot of hiring is required and that requires plenty of liquidity. How do we grow without using up our cash? Do we dip into reserves or take outside funding?”
Roxanne Quimby:
Quimby is the cofounder of Burt’s Bees, one of the most successful natural skin-care lines. She sold 80 percent of the company to AEA Investors, a private-equity firm, for an estimated $175 million in 2003. In 2007 Clorox Company bought the company for nearly $1 billion. She is currently working on an organic children’s clothing line called Happy Green Bee.
Clear Align has a lot of cash and is a very profitable company, so it can weather this erratic growth pattern. The company can grow without a problem, and it has a high margin to fund the business itself. Having a healthy bit of reserves means that you don’t have to panic when your business dips. We always kept three to six months of operating expenses at all times in our consumer business, but the sales cycle was much shorter than it is in this business. What she has socked away is very impressive.
However, I would find [this roller coaster] hard emotionally. With wild growth, there is a chance you can lose control. It would scare the heck out of me if I had a flat year. Clear Align is going from one extreme to another. I want to see them level out of that because this is very difficult to manage. Sales fluctuate so much that they can’t depend on cash flow and can’t plan on it. When the inflow of cash is unpredictable, you are always running after it and you take your eye off the ball.
They have to try to even out cash flow and get it as balanced as possible so they can go on to focus more on innovation and customer acquisition. It’s time to prepare for the future, and that requires working on a long-term plan. Clear Align needs to make a five-year plan to see clearly where the money is coming in every year. And one customer shouldn’t be more than 10 percent [of the revenue].
Jeffrey Hollender:
Hollender, the cofounder and “chief inspired protagonist” of Seventh Generation, led the company to its current position as the leading and fastest-growing brand of natural home products. After years of being sold exclusively in health-food and specialty stores, Seventh Generation’s products can now be found in chains such as Kroger and Target. Most recently, Hollender with Kaplan EduNeering launched The Sustainability Institute, an educational initiative that helps business adopt a sustainable agenda. His newest book, The Responsibility Revolution, will be out early next year.
I would never want to be dependent on the military. I think they can diversify their client base here, and internationally. I think the mission is to become as relevant to consumers as it is to the military. They can apply their technology to other markets. For example, what about subways and trains? There are not all that many planes, but there are a great number of trains. Issues of safety are always on the agenda, and that is going to become even more important. We’ve always worried about chemicals in the water supply. What about a device that could detect toxic chemicals? They could sell to every reservoir and commercial water-collection facility in the country. They can deal with cities, which will not go up and down with the economy.
I wouldn’t be scared of taking money. But you have to be careful–more careful about whom you take money from than whom you hire. You can let someone go, but once you take money from someone, you are stuck for a much longer time. I would be very, very careful, but I expect she can find someone who is aligned with where she wants to go.
She can also find some strategic investors who could help her immensely with product development, sales, and marketing perspective. The key is not to give up control. We try not to let any one investor own more than 2 percent of the company. And if things go south, it’s possible to buy the company back without having to sell the company. One way of protecting yourself is by not letting anyone have too much.
You feel like a desperate, hungry person when you look for money. You have to not have that attitude! You have to believe that you are giving the investor a unique opportunity to participate in your venture. You need to screen them and evaluate them. Talk to whom else they invested in and find out from that entrepreneur what it was like to work with them.
Choppiness is a huge impediment to growth. I don’t know the defense industry; maybe all companies are volatile and need this kind of cash. They have to study other similar businesses; however, I think it’s very expensive for all this cash to sit on the balance sheet. If I’m an investor and I give you a million dollars, and half that million sits on the balance sheet and you don’t do anything with it, you’ve got to perform and generate a return based on the half a million you are using. That means you have to do twice as well as a company that puts all that money to work.
Jeffrey Swartz:
Swartz is CEO and president of Timberland, which was founded by his grandfather. The footwear and apparel company has an extensive commitment to environmental stewardship, which includes becoming carbon neutral by 2010, designing recyclable products, and inspiring customers and employees to become environmental activists.
You have to match the balance sheet to the business cycle and the tech cycle. You must always be investing to build the next technology. Clear Align is well capitalized on the balance sheet, but if Irvin dips into it, she’s not as well capitalized. What can she structure in the next years?
She wants to become more zoo-fed. Just as there are jungles in this ecosystem and in others, there are marketplaces at the San Diego Zoo and at the Bronx Zoo. There aren’t restrictions. Let me explain what I mean. We do a special forces boot, and as long as we work with allied nations, it’s a very global, very connected, market. The U.S. Navy Seals train with other allied nations’ special forces.
Within elite groups, there’s a lot to compare and contrast. Is it exportable? If Lockheed is a customer, why isn’t BAE Systems a customer? Also, talk with existing customers and find companies in France and Australia. Imagine what could happen. We worked with the Royal Navy in the U.K. and the U.S. Navy Seals. It came through two different sales teams. All companies can do a more global and more holistic scan.