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Are You One of the Many Baby Boomers Who Want to Work From Home?

20 Apr

As a Baby Boomer myself, for the last few years I had dreamed of being able to choose when and where I worked.  If I wanted to have a day off, or to go away for a week or a month and still have money coming in,  then it would be nice, especially at ‘my age’ to be able to do so.  No matter how old or young you are, if you have similar hopes and dreams, you’re in the right place to learn just how this is possible.

I started out last year, full of enthusiasm for the online marketing business franchise I had chosen; eight months later I was still very committed to my dream, but had spent almost all my budget with very little to show for it.  However, I was able to look back and see where I went wrong, made the decision to ‘wipe the slate clean’ and start over, this time with a well proven system which showed me how I could still build a successful business, even though my budget had dwindled.

There is no recession on the Internet.  As the owner of an online business, you can tap into the global marketplace that is getting bigger and more accessible by the day. Internet users are growing daily by the thousands — and so is the prospective consumer  base. With the economy still unstable, more and more people are taking the plunge and looking at starting their own online business.  But your first year in network marketing can be frightening if you aren’t one hundred percent prepared for the task of running your own business – the challenges you have to face can overwhelm you if you aren’t careful. Stick with it, though, and you have a chance of attaining all you are dreaming of.

Businesses that fail will usually fail within the first year and many fail for the same reasons. Not being 100% committed, (which can also translate to not being motivated in the right way), lack of training, lack of planning, no system, budget or lack of one – these are all reasons which are common to most failed businesses.  But with a little help, your business doesn’t have to become a statistic. Your first year in network marketing can set the stage for all the years to come if you start out on the right foot.

So Where Do You Start?

First of all, know that you have to be committed and disciplined.  If you are marketing your internet business with success in mind, write down your vision, mission, and goals, plus a plan on how you will achieve these in the short, medium and long term.

One of the main reasons that online businesses fail is due to lack of training. Many people when starting out simply do not understand all the facets of marketing online, and it is paramount that they seek professional training, advice, and mentorship to learn marketing techniques and strategies.  Among other things, you need to learn….

  • How to get people interested in your business and product
  • How to create heaps of traffic
  • How to grow your internet marketing business
  • How to get the systems working for you
  • How to handle objections – and prevent them!
  • How to teach your downline the formula for success
  • How to make your business duplicatable
  • How to actually market your online business

As with anything in life that has great value,  it takes a lot of time and effort – initially:  but if you have the right mental attitude and are prepared to both make the commitment and take action, it can lead to a life you have only previously dreamed of leading.  I am now on the right track, with my business growing everyday;  the  free video series  not only details the system which is guiding me, but gives some very helpful information for those Baby Boomers – and others – who want to work from home,  can be found here.  The system itself teaches  all the above strategies, plus there is  a very helpful  business community, forum and interesting newsletter.

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 

Marketing Ideas for New Entrepreneurs

30 Jun

If you believe everything you read both on and off the internet, new entrepreneurs are starting up online businesses every day, and within a month or so are making 6-figure incomes.  It is certainly true that work-from-home (or the beach or your holiday home, whichever ad you happen to be reading!) businesses have never been more popular – and why not?  Who doesn’t like the idea of working when you want, not having to sit for hours in your car or on public transport everyday and earning $10,000+ a month, all on autopilot!

While becoming self sufficient as an entrepreneur is certainly possible, when we first start out a large majority of people don’t have a lot of ’lazy money’ sitting around to put into their online business, so are on a limited budget.  However, it’s all very well setting up your website, selling the latest and best information/software/widgets etc, but unless people actually come and visit you, your bank account is going to stay empty.  So you have to think up some marketing ideas.

But marketing or advertising can cost a lot of money, and before you know it your limited budget has gone, with nothing to show for it;  you are depressed and disillusioned, and looking for another job.

So I thought I would put together some low cost or free marketing ideas, mainly for the new entrepreneur, but this is also for those of you who have been in the business for a while and are finding you are constantly spending more dollars than you are bringing in, and are running out of marketing  ideas.

Free Classifieds
There are many, many sites to choose from:  some of the more popular are Craigslist, USfreeads, Adland & WorldFreeAds, but run a search and you will find a whole heap more  You need to check out the sites and choose 3 or 4 which you like the look of, sign up and away you go.  They all give very clear instructions, so even if you are new to this you should have no problem.  You will have to do LOTS of ads to get results, say 10 a day, and it is a good idea to keep a spreadsheet so as to know when the ad runs out.  Most of them give you the opportunity to upgrade the ads to give you more traffic, which normally costs between  $8 – $20, and depending on your budget I would suggest you pick 2 or 3 as a test run.  Choose the ad title carefully, as this is what will make your prospective customer check it out or not.

Social Networking Sites
The most popular are Twitter, Squidoo, Facebook, My Space and You Tube  but there are a lot more you will come across.  They all differ in the way the networking actually works, but the general idea is to build contacts,  initially on a social basis, with the idea in time of turning some of the ‘friends’ into prospects and team members.  To start with just choose one or two of the sites, say Twitter and Facebook which can be nicely linked up (in addition to your website) as you need to be fairly diligent in adding new content regularly, and while you are learning it can get a bit overwhelming and take a lot of time. Do try and keep the time factor to around an hour maximum, otherwise it just eats into your daily routine too much.

Articles
Depending on what you are like at writing, articles are a great way to maximise your presence on the web, and start building your personal brand.  There are some great free article sites, such as the one you are on right now, and most have plenty of article writing lessons to help put you on the right track.  You need to be writing 5-10 articles a week to make an impression and start seeing traffic being funnelled to your website.  They all have a resource box where you can give some information about yourself, with links to your website, blog or affiliate site.

Press Releases
Press Releases need to be written in the third person, and also need to be topical, but the search engines love them, so its worth doing one or two every week.  There are one or two which are free, but normally there is a small charge for putting these on the sites, and this can vary, so be sure to check before you spend your time and energy on a particular site.

Video Sites
Very popular with both searchers of information and search engines.  It can take a few practice runs to get it right and for you to feel comfortable making them, but there are some very simple video cameras around, which are built for the job, and come with the software to upload the video to various sites such as You Tube, which is free.

Website or Blog
WordPress or Blogger are the easiest to get up and running by yourself if you don’t have the budget to get one professionally built for you, and they both have detailed training webinars etc. It is important to update and add to your blog regularly, and also you need to learn about optimising it for the search engines.  But take it step by step and you can get a great deal of enjoyment from it.

Depending on your budget, there are some excellent e-books and programs  which go into more detail than I have, and which will give you a lot more marketing ideas.  The particular one I started out with, and which I can definitely recommend,  is “Building on a Budget”  by Mike Dillard, who is one of the online marketing gurus.  This was written with struggling and new entrepreneurs in mind, and among other things shows you free and low cost ways to generate traffic and get leads.  To check it out for yourself, and to get an instant download of 7 free videos to your email inbox click on this link  http://trim.li/nk/2Cyg

 
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Downloading Movies Online

15 Jun

Downloading movies online is not a new concept. However, with a large majority of households now choosing to connect to the internet via broadband, cable or wireless, downloading movies has become as simple as downloading music files.

The advantages are many and varied.  With some sites you pay one membership fee which allows you to download as many movies as you want, other have a monthly subscription  Choose the right site, and you can burn your downloaded movies to DVDs, and  build up your movie library at a very minimal cost.

Another great advantage is that you may decide you want to watch a movie but you watched all your DVDs a couple of times, it’s cold and miserable outside, or perhaps you’ve been having a few drinks!  Either way you don’t want to drive.  So what better way than you download the latest flick off the internet.

A search on Google will produce thousands of movie download sites for you to choose from. But how do you know which one is best? There are so many options available that choosing can often be a daunting task.

These are a few things you should be considering

Is it Legal?

There are plenty of sites which will sell you some kind of P2P client with access to pirated movies.  However, this is ILLEGAL and you can get busted.  You may also find the quality is not as good as those obtained through legal channels.

A great advantage of having legal copies is that these movies are likely to be free of viruses or malicious malware. Moreover, you get high quality movies and even uncut versions in the movie library.

How Do I Know If It Is a Legal Site?

Generally speaking, you have to become a member of the legal movie sites, which means there is a cost involved, whereas illegal sites are often free.  Also be cautious of file sharing sites.

My Choice

Having done my own research, I believe that Movies Capital is one of the best sites around.

Some of the advantages are:

Their support works 24/7 using email support, and phone support is on its way. Their support team is very experienced and has great response time.

Their service is worldwide  - all of the movies have international distribution license, meaning anyone from anywhere can download and watch them using the service, legally..

Movies Capital has the license to distribute movie titles online, both for direct downloading and online streaming methods.

They have a choice of membership plans at very reasonable costs, to suit all pockets.

They make downloading movies online a simple and pleasurable experience.

To get started, go to http://trim.li/nk/2mLJ

 
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Posted in Personal Stuff

 

“Don’t Worry, Be Happy!”

13 Jun

I get out and about quite a bit, and it struck me how many people go about looking worried, or grumpy, or as if the cares of the world are on their shoulders.  I know in some cases they have good cause, but it’s amazing how a simple smile can change how you look AND how you feel.  And of course smiling at other people can completely change their attitude to you.  So I decided – on the spur of the moment I might tell you! -  to add a new category to my blog, where I will be posting all things positive; articles, positive thoughts, jokes etc.

Almost everyone have heard the hit single ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin. The song has a very catchy way of conveying its message of being happy to everyone. Bobby Mcferin’s simple message surely made a lot of people by telling them not to worry.

Living a happy, resilient and optimistic life is wonderful, and is also good for your health. Being happy actually helps protect you from the stresses of life as stress is linked to top causes of death such as heart disease, cancer and stroke.

One of the better things ever said is – ‘The only thing in life that will always remain the same is change’, and in our life we have the power to make the necessary changes if we want to. Even if we find ourselves in an unbearable situation we can always find solace in the knowledge that it too will change, given time.

Social networks or relationships are essential to happiness.   If arguments seem unavoidable, try and see the other person’s point of view.  However, everyone is different, so you have to accept people for who or what they are; you won’t always agree with your friends or family’s points of view, but it is important to try and avoid constant arguments, and to let go of  resentments.

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong – the amount of work is the same!    Abraham Lincoln observed that most people for most of the time can choose how happy or stressed, how relaxed or troubled, how bright or dull their outlook to be. To be happy is relatively easy, you just have to decide to be a happy person.

There are several ways by which you can do this.

Just look around you -  we have so much to be thankful for compared to some people.  The quote “there is always someone worse off than you” is very true.

News can be stressful and depressing. Get less of it. Some people just can’t start their day without their daily dose of news. If you think about it, 99% of the news we hear or read is bad news so starting the day with bad news does not seem to be a sensible thing to do.  Turn on your favorite music channel instead.

Manage your time. Time is invaluable and too important to waste. Time management can be viewed  as a list of rules that involves scheduling, setting goals, planning, creating lists of things to do and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

Laugh and laugh heartily everyday.  Heard a good joke? Tell your friends or family about it. As they also say -’Laughter is the best medicine’.

Express your feelings, affections, friendship and passion to people around you. They will most likely reciprocate your actions. Try not to keep pent up anger of frustrations, this is bad for your health. Instead find ways of expressing them in a way that will not cause more injury or hurt to anyone.

Working hard brings tremendous personal satisfaction. It gives a feeling of being competent in finishing our tasks. Accomplishments are necessary for all of us, they give us a sense of value. Work on things that you feel worthy of your time.

Learning is a joyful exercise. Try and learn something new everyday.  Learning also makes us expand and broaden our horizons. And could also give us more opportunities in the future and also helps keep our mind young.

Run, jog, walk and do other things that your body was made for.  Feel alive.

And always remember the quote from Abraham Lincoln, when he says that “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

I would welcome any comments, jokes or personal stories to add to this category


 
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Posted in Self Improvement

 

Earning An Income Online – Where to Start

02 Jun

What a great idea – staying home and earning an income online, and never more so than in our present economic climate.   As the internet has evolved, a whole new way of earning a living has sprung up.  People are searching for information, and it has become more and more apparent that for those who are prepared to put in the time and the hard yards, they can not only match the salary they were making from their job, but given time they can make more money working from home, and working less hours.

There are of course many reasons  working from home is attractive to you  – you could be wanting to spend more time with your family, maybe you’re in financial debt and looking for ways to earn extra cash, or you just feel there’s more to life than the daily grind and like the idea of trying to create an income online.  So you check out Google, and find there are many hundreds of sites, all relating to creating an income online, working from home, internet businesses, etc.  But where to start?

Well, first of all, you need to ask yourself some questions:

Why do you want to create an online income?

  • You are a house mum or dad who prefers to stay home with kids
  • Perhaps you are coming up to Retirement age, with little or no savings or superannuation, and  want more out of life than the pension will allow
  • You’ve tried, but haven’t been able to get a job – perhaps you’re too young, too old, not enough experience, too much experience
  • Health reasons
  • You’d just like some extra income to pay off your mortgage or get an investment property

How are you actually going to make some money?

What are you good at? Do you have a trade, a hobby, something you are passionate about? Information is always being searched for, and people are prepared to pay for quality information

How much time are you prepared to put into your business?

It is important to decide how many hours per day or week you can allocate as ‘work’ hours, and this will depend on whether you are working full-time or not.  But you and your family both need to know that (for example) weekdays you will be working Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for 3 hours in the evenings, while Saturdays will be an 8-hour workday.  It is really important to make a plan that you can stick to – “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is a very true saying.

Budget

There are many places where you can advertise free of charge, and get good results.  However, to speed things up a bit, and depending on your budget, it is also a good idea to take a look at some of the paid advertising you can do, such as banner ads and Google Adwords.  Classified ads can be free or paid, as can press releases.  There are also many other options you can consider as you become more familiar with the actual marketing of your business, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

How do you know if there is a market for what you want to sell?

A very basic way of checking is by going to one of the keyword tools, such as the free Adwords one, typing in the sort of business or information you are thinking about marketing, and when the search results appear they will give you the number of times the word or phrase has been searched for in the past month.

So you’ve done all the checks,  decided that this is for you and you want to have a shot at making money from home.  Where do you start?  Depending on your computer and marketing knowledge, these are three of the available options:

  1. Become an Affiliate Marketer, and either build your own website, or pay someone else to build it for you
  2. Sell your own product or information, and either build your own website or pay someone else to build it for you.
  3. Pick one of the many ‘Business Opportunities’ or ‘Work from Home’ jobs advertised on the internet.  There are some excellent companies around, with lots of money being made.  However, you must carry out careful due diligence, which means you thoroughly investigate the business you are interested in, as there are also lots of scams out there.  Some of the things you need to check out are:
  • Initial and ongoing costs
  • Do they have any training, and if so does it cover the things YOU need to learn
  • What sort of commissions to they pay
  • What support is there – eg an online forum for members, online support line etc

Once you are clear in your own mind about what you are looking for, how much you can budget and how much time you are prepared to put into your online business, then you can start searching in earnest for the ‘right’ business.  Once you have found it, stick with it.  It will take you a while before you start seeing results, but if you are patient and persistent, within a few months you should be earning that online income.

This really just covers the basics of getting you started, but some of my other posts have more detailed information. If you are on a fairly tight budget, I would suggest you go to this link, http://trim.li/nk/2gmp which has a free series of very good videos showing you how to build an online business for $500 or less

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 

Simple Ways to Help Cope With Information Overload

20 May

If you have recently started an online business, you will know exactly what I am referring to when I talk about information overload.  And unfortunately there is no easy answer, as it doesn’t go away with experience.  You just learn how to cope with it.

The feeling of being completely overwhelmed by the amount of information, some of it conflicting, can at times engulf you to the extent where you may think about giving up.  One of the definitions of information overload is “the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information”

However, the good news is that while it won’t ever go away completely, it can be managed. You may also be happy to learn that it is completely normal, and just means the brain is being ‘rewired’!

When you first start out, particularly in internet marketing (which is my particular niche), you tend to get very sidetracked by this email and that offer, and go off at tangents, completely losing sight of what you started out to do that day.  And I have to admit, I still catch myself doing that occasionally.  But one of the first things you learn is that most of the marketers who are bombarding you with this stuff only want to sell you something.  So you then start getting a bit picky and opt-out of a lot of sites.  However, you will start finding a pattern, a handful of people who aren’t asking for money, and who are sending through helpful information that you can and do use, or you think you may find useful in the future.

One of traps I fell into when I first started out, was trying to learn all the different types of marketing in just a few weeks, including learning how to get a blog up and running, opt-in forms, squeeze pages, ezines and the many social sites that one just ‘has’ to keep up with to make contacts.  I got to the stage where my mind was whirling around in circles and not stopping long enough anywhere to actually learn anything.

So how can this internet information overload be managed?

So here are 5 steps to make your life easier

  1. Get yourself a Daily Method of Operation

You can use an Outlook Calendar, or make an Excel Spreadsheet or something similar.  You need seven columns for the days of the week, then divide it up into hourly intervals.  I find this works much better than a diary, as I can then structure the whole week and see it in a glance.  I normally first strike out times which I can’t devote to my business, such as appointments, family time etc, then I try to keep each day to a similar schedule.  I personally prefer studying, listening/watching webinars etc in the  mornings, then have a break for lunch, and do ‘hands on’ stuff such as writing, placing ads etc in the afternoon.  The social sites such as Twitter and Facebook I attend to in the evening.

2.   Make Daily Goals

The first thing I do in the morning is set myself 2 or 3 goals which I want to accomplish that day, and write them down at the top of my DMO.  It might be to get an article written and submitted to some sites, or make a video, or perhaps learn a different  method of marketing. There is a great feeling of satisfaction when you can cross these things off as ‘DONE’!

3.   Learn One Thing at a Time
Especially when you are first starting out in your internet business, concentrate on learning just one thing at a time.  It doesn’t have to be perfect by any means, but at least get a working knowledge of, for example, ezine advertising, before you progress to the next method.

4.   Only Check Your Emails Once, or at the most Twice a Day
I check mine first thing in the morning, answer any important ones, then again late afternoon

5.   Do Not Spend Too Much Time on Twitter, Facebook etc
An hour a day maximum is all I spend on my business social sites.  If necessary, set a timer – it is just too easy to get     sidetracked on these!

Another idea you can try, just for a couple of days, is to keep a check list of what you are doing, and how long it is taking you. Once you figure out how you’re spending your time, you will feel more in control.  Then you can adjust it accordingly where necessary.

With all the information there is available on the internet nowadays, information overload is a very real problem. I hope this article will help you cope with the overwhelming feeling of being out of control and not knowing where to go next.

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 

The A – Z of Motivation

12 May

Generally speaking, we need a reason to get motivated. Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study; debts remind us of our inability to look for a source of income; being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments.
It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.

But with the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we stay motivated? I have written this A –Z of Motivation with the hope that if it inspires even just one person, it is worthwhile

A Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B Believe in yourself, and in what you can do.

C Consider things from every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed a few thousand times before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb.

E Enjoy what you do. Work as if you don’t need money; Dance as if nobody’s watching; Love as if you never cried; Learn as if you’ll live forever.
Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t lose sight of them.

G Give more than what is required.

H Hang on to your dreams. They may dim occasionally, but these dreams can be your driving force.

I Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay away from toxic people – the kind of friends who hates to hear about your success.

J Just be yourself – this is one of the keys to success. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

K Keep trying, no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, this will keep you going, eventually paving the way to self improvement.

L Learn to love yourself. (Now isn’t that easy!)

M Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put to work.

N Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O Open your eyes. People should learn to see things two ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be.

P Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It teaches us ways to recover from our mistakes.

Q Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?

R Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must listen to the little voice within us telling us to get started. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S Stop procrastinating.

T Take control of your life. Discipline or self control lives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement. Work to a schedule.

U Understand others. You know very well how to talk but it is more important that you know how to listen. Learn to understand first, and to be understood the second.

V Visualize it. What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve (Thanks to the Brainy Quote site)

W Want it more than anything. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the blueprints of your ultimate achievements..

X X- Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to add “extras” into your life, like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you only have it once.

Z Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!

 
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Posted in Self Improvement

 

So What’s So Good About Blogging?

06 May

Blogging, or to give it it’s original name, weblogging, started in the late 1990s. I’m not writing a history lesson here, so if you’re interested, just Google it! It’s come a long way since then of course, and nowadays it is used for just about everything, from keeping in touch with the family and friends, to promoting your internet business.

There are lots of very good reasons why so many people are using blogging – it’s free, it’s simple and it’s a great way of getting your name out there and building credibility. To expand on these reasons a little………….

Blogging is Free, which has got to be the best argument for using it as a marketing tool, especially when you are first starting up an internet business. Whether you are in a mainstream business or an affiliate for a dozen different companies, used correctly your blog will help you generate both a list of names and extra income.

It can help you build your credibility. If you are an experienced internet marketer you will already know how much easier it is to sell to readers with whom you have been able to build up a relationship. If you are just starting out, the idea is that your followers start to perceive you as an expert in your field, and the more good information you can give them, the more they will trust you, and be more likely to buy from you.

Blogging helps to build your persona, or personal brand. When you first start out in your internet business, no-one knows your name. Then as you gradually write more articles, participate in social media sites and forums, you link back to your blog, where you will not only have business information, but the inside story on yourself, probably with some photos and maybe a video. This all helps your readers to feel like they actually ‘know’ you.

You can also use your blog to entice readers to subscribe to something, for example, a newsletter you put out monthly, which will give them exclusive information on your particular niche. This is one way to build a list.. Another idea is to conduct a short survey about the people who come to your blog – name, age, sex, etc, and perhaps what other information they would like to get in the newsletter.

Last but not least, don’t forget an RSS feed to your blog, which is used to publish up-to-date information to and from other sites. It means that every time something is updated on one of the other websites, it feeds into your website and your visitors can see that information.

As you can begin to see, blogging can be a fantastic marketing tool, used correctly. There are some good free sites around, which you can literally set up by clicking a few links. WordPress and Blogger are probably the best known and easiest to use, especially for newbies. So don’t feel you have to be an expert, just jump in follow the online instructions and learn as you go.

And best of all………IT’S FUN!!

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 

5 Secrets to Active Retirement

30 Apr
One of my favorite sayings is “If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there”! With retirees seemingly getting younger and younger, in the mind if not in the body, enjoyment is the name of the game! But to get the most out of  it, you need to have a plan to make it an active retirement.

For any would-be retirees who haven’t tried goal-setting yet, having a plan is great. You can make daily goals (“today I am going to sign up for a French course”), 3-monthly goals (“I will be able to converse in French at the ‘hello, how are you’ level”), yearly goals (“I will save enough money to go on that cruise I’ve been talking about for years”.) Also see my article on Setting Your Goals at Ezine Articles

The following are just some suggestions I have come up with while planning my own retirement! Hope they give you some ideas to be going on with. There are of course many, many more things you could do with your time, but the following might help to start the ball rolling.

1. Develop an Exercise Program

It doesn’t need to be at a gym, and can be as strenuous or not as you choose. It could be walking, tai chi, line dancing (boot scooting), taking up a sport…..

2. Learn Something New

It keep helps keep your mind active. There are hundreds of different Home Study courses to choose from, or you could become a mature age student at your local tertiary college, which would have the added bonus of mixing with lots of new people, young and old; you could join that Thai cooking course you were always looking at, or how about extending your present knowledge, and learn more about using your computer, or go to a golf clinic for a holiday, join a choir etc.

3. Work Part-time

Rather than going back into the workforce, which you’ve just escaped from, try turning a hobby into a business. As well as keeping you and your mind young, this has the additional benefit of giving you extra income. For instance if you have always sewed for your family, you could start an online ebay shop where you sell the items you make. Like scrapbooking? Start teaching other people how to do it. Enjoy using the internet? Want to earn cash online? Try some internet marketing, you’ll be amazed at what you can earn, and learn.

4. Become a Volunteer

Place such as Community Organisations, Respite centres, kindergartens, schools, Meals on Wheels, church or the local community radio station are always looking for volunteer workers. As well as keeping yourself occupied, you are also helping others, which always feels good

5. Go Out with a Friend

Plan to spend one day per week/fortnight/month out with your partner or a friend. You could go to the movies one fortnight, to the zoo another time, or perhaps just a day out shopping with a nice lunch. It not only gives you something to look forward to, but keeps you in touch with previous workmates and buddies.

Now go to it and have a ball in your active retirement!


Janet Houghton, EzineArticles.com Basic PLUS Author

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 

Some of the Wildlife That Passes Through Our Property

30 Apr

One of the main things I love about living where we do, is the amount of wildlife we get passing through.

Some of the birds we have visiting on a regular basis include the cheeky and colorful Rainbow Lorikeets.  Generally a whole mob of them come twice a day to be fed, and one or two ‘visit’ our pet Lorikeet, perching on top of his aviary.  What they make of his talking is anyone’s guess, as he never stops!

Rainbow Lorikeets Waiting to be Fed

Just Hangin' Around!

Our Pet Rainbow Lorikeet 'Lori'

Other birds that visit regularly are the Sulphur Crested White Cockatoos.  I’ve been trying to get a photo of them with their crest up, but they seem to know what I want and are not willing to oblige!  They love seed, which I put in our bird bath for them, and also ‘prune’ tips of branches off the trees, so we always know when they’re around from the amount of tree debris on the ground.

We also get an occasional Laughing Kookaburra come down to see what’s to eat.  They are very family oriented, and we have a family living in our gum trees;  we hear their signature ‘laugh’ every day at around 6.30, both am and pm.

Sulphur Crested White Cockatoo

We also get some very strange looking but rather endearing Tawney Frogmouth owls. They come and go, and are very hard to see, as they blend extremely well with the tree trunk.

A Pair of Tawny Frogmouth Owls

And of course, I have to include a photo of one of the many

A Wallaby Passing Through Our Property

wallabies and kangaroos which pass through, and graze on our turf (we have a small turf farm).  If you are wondering what the difference is between them, I am including a link to a page on the Australia Zoo site which gives a good explanation.

I hope you enjoy looking at these photos – I will add to them occasionally, but if you have any comments or want to ask any questions, I will certainly answer to the best of my ability.  But I am not an animal specialist, just someone who gets great enjoyment from watching them, and who feels privileged that they come to visit.

 
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Where to Find Free or Low Cost Advertising

27 Apr

When you are just starting a new online business, more often than not the amount available for promotions and advertising is in the hundreds rather than thousands of dollars.  So you need to make full use of the free and low cost advertising that is available, know where to find it, and make every dollar spent, pay for itself.

It will take a little time to sort out which ads are working for you, and it is important to make sure that you track your leads so you know which advertisements they actually come from.

These are some ideas that you might like to try.

Free Advertising

  • Free Classifieds. There are literally hundreds of free classified sites around; some of the better known ones are Adland Pro, Craigs List and Sales Spider, but try searching for them in your favorite search engine and you will come up with a whole bunch of them.
  • Articles are a great way to get your name known, and links to your website can always be put in the resource box at the end of the article.  If you haven’t done any article writing and are not sure how to go about it, most of the article sites have “how to” sections, which will start you off.  If you search for article directories in the search engines you will find plenty to submit to, but Ezinearticles.com, Articlesbase.com and Articledashboard are three of the better sites.
  • Set up your blog so you can link any articles or social media sites to your it, which of course will have a squeeze page on it,  giving you a leads list.   You can also set it up so you have a business section and a personal section, which will help your visitors get to know you as a real person.
  • Social Media is BIG and also free.  Join Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, My Space, Hub Pages etc, and start posting and making friends.  However, don’t try the hard sell straight away, give people time to get used to seeing your name and photos, and seeing what you have to say.
  • Ezines are also a good place to look for free or low cost advertising.  Again, you will find heaps of them when you search on Google or Yahoo.  Generally they have a classified section which is free.
  • Video marketing is very big, and the search engines love them.  They are also free.  You can sign up to one of the video distribution sites who will distribute your video to various places such as Facebook and Twitter for you.  There are some free ones around, but also some where you have to pay for a subscription, so if you are going to be doing video marketing make sure you know what services you will get for your money.

Low Cost Advertising

  • Classified ads again.  You can generally upgrade a free ad by paying a small monthly amount, and this will keep your ad at the top of the list, or put it in a larger font or highlight it in some way.
  • Viral emails.  There are numerous viral email sites around where you pay either a monthly subscription, or a yearly fee to send out, for example, 3000 or 5000 emails every so many days to their opted-in members.  This can be quite a good way to get some low cost advertising, though to get results you do need to change your email  regularly.
  • Banner Ads.  There are some sites around where you can place banners for a reasonable amount.  Do some research on what you are getting for your advertising dollars, and make sure you know where the banner is going to be placed.
  • Ezines also have some low cost advertising available, usually as text or banner ads.

By using a combination of free and low cost advertising such as the above ideas, it will keep your budget to a realistic amount, and done on a regular basis, should give you some good results.  It should also be stressed that you will need to keep a spreadsheet of which ads you have running at any one time, and the results you get from them, as once you have a few ads running it will make your life much easier.  I use Google documents, which is linked to Gmail.


Janet Houghton, EzineArticles.com Basic PLUS Author

 
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Posted in My Home-Based Business

 
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