The Home Based BusinessWith the change in the economy and the high unemployment rate, many are faced with having to look at new options for work. We can no longer put our eggs in one basket and think that we can stay with the same company for years. Good bye are the days of employment security. Our security lies in ourselves and the ability to create the financial opportunity for our own financial freedom.The home based business gives us maximum freedom and the ability to be with our families, work the hours we want and to be as creative as our own minds can take us. The home based business can also give the maximum financial freedom, too. Just think, we can spend as much time as we want working from any remote, tropical, luxury or rustic location with internet access. It’s a lifestyle change that most people can only dream of doing because they do not understand how to start a home based business. Taking the first step is always the hardest.There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is that the economy is so bad that thousands of agents are leaving real estate to start their own home based business. Or they are working what little bit of business is there while working on and developing a business online. That is me. I have been an agent for 12 years and know that I need to diversify for my immediate financial and lifestyle need and my financial future.So, one could say that it’s a great time to start in real estate because of the massive exodus of agents we are experiencing. RE agents can make a lot of money while being self-employed, but you need to be diligent in getting started.The other way of looking at this is that many people believe agents make a ton of money and that it’s easy. Well, we can make a great living and hmmm it’s easy when the market is robust. Today, it’s not. If you get your license, choose a broker to work with and follow a plan to get you started like the one I outlined in my article above, then you will have a chance at building your real estate business albeit slowly. Or you can do both the home based business and your real estate at the same time.Either way, do your due diligence, talk with agents and home based business owners and make a well-informed decision. I would be more than happy to give you pointers from my perspective if you would like it. Just email me.Good luck!
Starting a Home Based Business – Things You Should Keep in Mind
You might have thought of starting a home based business for several reasons. These reasons may include – you want to get freedom from your regular 9 to 5 monotonous job, you do not want your boss to breath down your neck, or you dread commuting to your work place during peak traffic hours.The reasons may be many, but one thing you should keep in mind is to acquaint yourself with all the aspects of a home venture.How do you proceed with the business enterprise? Ensure that you do not discontinue halfway through your business journey as many people tend to do.Half-baked knowledge or skills for starting a home business will not get you anywhere. You need to possess a sound understanding of all the facts so that you do not have to face the embarrassment of total defeat in your endeavors.Follow these steps to succeed in a home venture rather than wasting your energy and hard earned money.Evaluate your entrepreneurial flair:You need to assess your business acumen. It is very important to possess basic qualities of a business person. Your insight into business activities, good judgment and intelligence in grasping unique selling techniques will serve you well.If you do not have these qualities or lack them, it is always better to either learn or improve them. The entrepreneurial flair is the foundation for starting a home business.Love what you are doing:You will need to devote a lot of time to your business enterprise, at least in the initial stage, to make it a successful venture. Therefore, it is importance that you love what you are doing. Be sure you know your product or service inside out.It is advised that you go slowly in the beginning stage. Learn to crawl before you walk. This endurance of yours will come to your rescue during hard times for which you should be prepared.Be realistic:Do not be over-excited or over-enthusiastic with your business objectives. Keep your feet firmly on the ground. Set those goals that are realistically possible to attain.Similarly, do not fall prey to any tall claims of making you rich overnight. Analyze your strengths and weakness.Funding:While you are itemizing your financial plan, you should be unambiguous. See if you can start your venture with the money you have. For this, you should survey the market. If required, you may think about asking for a loan from a bank. It is critical to understand about your expenses and income from the very beginning.Propping up your business:One of the most crucial parts of your venture is to promote it. It is important that your business is able to generate interest. You can rely on word-of-mouth advertisement. You can also request your clientele to pass on information about your venture to others.Devise some inexpensive ways of advertising, like creating your own business flyers or cards, promotional drives at local events, newspaper ads and creating your own website. The most significant elements are to be innovative and take initiative when starting a home based business.
The Future of Business Advertising
The global economy is naturally all about buying and selling and as such advertising is the lifeblood of the economy. SME’s still tend to adopt more traditional forms of advertising such as directories, newspapers, radio ads etc as they are (generally) cost effective in comparison to their marketing budgets.
However national and global brands with multi million pound A&P budgets are increasingly looking for more creative and innovative ways to promote themselves and stand out in an increasingly competitive market place.
Take the popular US magazine Entertainment Weekly for example, who debuted video advertising in its September 09 edition by placing wafer-thin screens embedded in its pages that promoted CBS TV shows and Pepsi. Gimmick or not, it demonstrated the corporate desire to innovate and appear current.
The traditional advertising model will be around for a long time yet, however the future of advertising clearly lies in digital mediums. Google executive, Nikesh Arora, recently stated “People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, advertising, or branding and that follows industrial marketing logic, which is that you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are”. That coupled with the fact that for advertisers digital ad platforms allow accurate performance tracking, which is something offline advertising has always struggled with.
DOOH (Digital Out Of Home) advertising is an up and coming area with some really innovative concepts being developed. French marketing technology firm Quividi are developing digital signage displays that have built in cameras that instantly identify a passer by’s age and gender using a facial recognition system and then delivers a product that it feels is appropriate – think Minority Report!
We already know what a valuable commodity ‘Consumer Data’ is and its link to effective contextualisation of ad messages / message customisation and therefore it is a natural progression that DOOH advertising will follow suit and the worth of digital signage will be as much in its ability to gather data as in its ad revenues.
Taking the idea of digital targeted outdoor advertising even further, Holosonics, a US based technology company has developed something called the audio spotlight, aptly named because it can create a tight, narrow beam of sound that can be controlled with the same precision as a torch onto a small area over 60ft away. The DOOH market has naturally taken to this as it enables advertisers to accurately deliver not only their visual, but now also their audio message into a very targeted area.
So what of the online world?
Facebook:
With over 400 million active users on Facebook, this channel is potentially an advertisers wet dream, particularly as Facebook offers advertisers the opportunity to reach targeted and engaged audiences through Facebook ads. These ads are targeted at users based on their likes and interests rather than their searches and although still in its infancy, businesses are now investigating and trialling campaigns to work out how to effectively leverage Facebook ads into their online spend.
In Game Advertising:
Following on from the initial rush with advertising in ‘virtual worlds’ such as ‘SecondLife’. Advertisers are starting to really understand the benefits of advertising within the gaming community and are being very creative. For example, Zygna (the creator of Farmville) with a current valuation of $4 billion are offering an new approach to in game advertising by incentivizing users to ‘interact with adverts’ by completing brand related tasks such as filing in a form or watching a video, in order to be rewarded with ‘virtual currencies’ to use within their game.
With the global gaming industry achieving over $56 billion in revenues it is fast becoming an important focus for media planners, particularly with the growth of social gaming (i.e. on Facebook). As this area matures, advertisers will be able to utilise in game advertising across different platforms.
Twitter:
Twitter has at last announced the first of its money-making ventures through advertising, with its ‘Promoted Tweets’. Twitter has teemed up with a number of commercial partners such as Disney/Pixar and Starbucks enabling them to place a ‘promoted tweet’ at the top of a ‘trending topic’ on the results page, with the aim to roll ‘promoted tweets’ out across live conversations once they have a better understanding of the users experience and advertiser value.
Twitter are measuring this first phase of ‘promoted tweets’ to ensure that they are useful to visitors (resonance). Whether they ‘resonate’ with users will be measured by whether users interact with them, retweet them etc. Twitter has stated that any ‘Promoted Tweets’ that do not resonate with users will not be allowed to continue. With over 4 billion tweets posted in the first quarter of 2010 alone, this is definitely one to keep an eye on and I will be watching this space with interest.
Mobile:
Mobile ad spend rose by a third to 32% between 2008 and 2009, with brands from the entertainment, media and telecoms sectors spending the largest amounts on the medium, according to the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The UK spent 36.7m in the UK in 2009 despite a contraction in the advertising market in general.
So what next for mobile advertising? It seem that it’s all about Location, Location, Location with ‘Location Based Advertising’ (LBA). These are mobile adverts which target users based on their GPS location and have the potential to represent anything from a coupon for a coffee shop around the corner from where you are standing or a car dealer that has the same make and model of car as the one you where searching for on Auto Trader last night. Advertisers could even target a banner advert aimed at a certain demographic that would only appear if you were in the vicinity of their business. Although the market seems relatively small at the moment, the potential for growth is massive.
If all of that seems too ‘out there’ for your business, you could always contact Andrew Fischer at Human Headspace – the first man to officially eBay his forehead as advertising space – genius!