Friday, July 30, 2010

Home Based Business – How To Get Started

Posted by admin On March - 7 - 2010 3 COMMENTS

Many women ask me how I got started in business for myself. It was not an easy road in the beginning but I learned so much along the way and after a while, it was easy to repeat it over and over. A bit like lather, rinse, and repeat. But there were many, many bumps and setbacks along the way. If I only knew then what I know now!

I’ve been in the toy industry for 25 years. Still am. I own a wholesale toy business and a complimentary retail toy business focused on outdoor toys. These two businesses are actually very good examples of how I became successful in online businesses. They are both “Niche” businesses so to speak.

The wholesale business is focused on summer gifts and toys such as wholesale pool toys, wholesale beach gifts, and sea shell jewelry for gifts shops. The retail toy site is the right hand consumer division of the wholesale site and focuses only on outdoor toys and activity toys. The retail site also is the consumer sales arm for our very popular beach products.

The wholesale business focuses only on water toys, beach toys, and beach gifts. If you look up the traffic for the term “toys”, you will find that there are 124,000,000 searches monthly for that term. But realistically, how many people are looking to open their wallets when they type in the term toys? Further, how quickly do you think a website can rank for this very competitive term?

Now this is where it gets fun. Looking further down the list you will see baby toys, outdoor toys, toddler toys, and many more. The more specific the term, the less traffic there is HOWEVER there is still very significant traffic actively searching for these items. A person searching for toys isn’t ready to make a purchase but a person searching for toddlers outdoor toys is actively looking for something to buy to fit a need that they currently have.

Does this get your mind thinking? Take a few moments and jot down things and ideas you are interested in then go to Google Keyword Tool (you can do a search on Google for this tool) and just take some time and look at the amount of traffic for that idea or product. Remember, start with the most basic term. In the example above, my basic term was toys. Your idea may be for kitchen cabinets or baby clothes – something that interests you. This is only an exercise to get you actively thinking of a niche that you can begin to build your home based online business around.

Questions? Thoughts? Let me know! When I got started, there really were no mentors out there. My goal is to help you get your successful online venture up and started quickly.

P.S. If you would a program to help you find the perfect niche, I strongly recommend Niche Blueprint I’ve used it over and over and over with tremendous results. To see a demo of this great product,Click Here!

Popularity: 4% [?]

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With the economy so crazy right now and most people struggling to make ends meet, it’s a wonder anyone starts a new business.  But it’s actually a perfect time to start your own online business.  Want to know why?

  1. The internet is worldwide – you literally have millions of people all over the world ready and eager to buy what you’re selling.
  2. The overhead of starting an online business is extremely low.  You don’t need to rent an office or warehouse and many times you don’t even need to carry inventory.
  3. Many people turn right to the internet when they lose their current day to day jobs.
  4. If you’re one that has recently lost your job, do you really want to go back and make someone else rich?
  5. You control your own destiny.

What are you waiting for?

Popularity: 5% [?]

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My Journey Toward The 4 Hour Work Week

Posted by admin On August - 31 - 2009 1 COMMENT

I’ve been reading this book – “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferris over the weekend.   It’s so interesting that I thought I’d journal about my experience as I try very, very hard to cut back my work hours.   One thing that was pointed out immediately by reading the book is that I’m addicted to email.  Yep – you heard it here first – I’m an email addict!

As soon as I wake up in the morning after feeding the dogs and the horses, I’m in my office pulling my emails.  But it doesn’t stop there.  I have 3 different email accounts that I  pull emails from.  I have my wholesale business – www.usapooltoy.com, my retail business www.newcooltoysonline.com and my consulting business from my E-commerce Internet Business Course.

Do you think I can just stop after I pull the emails from all three accounts first thing in the morning?  If you said no, you’re right.  I am constantly checking my emails all day long into the evening when I finally turn my computer off.   I pull my emails from morning until evening, 7 days a week.

Reading this book has got me thinking that if I can follow the author’s recommendation and only pull my emails at 11 a.m and 4 p.m. imagine what I could accomplish in a day.  So starting today, I am doing a modified 3 times per day pulling of emails because I had forgotten my plan and already pulled my emails by 6:00 this morning LOL!

I’ve already found out that by closing my emails I had time to write this blog update.  Imagine what I can get done the rest of the day if I stick to the plan.  I WILL CONQUER THE WORLD!   Or at least finish writing the niche ecommerce business course I’ve been working on.

Are you like me?  Too many things going on and not focusing on one thing at a time? If so, join me on this journey toward the 4 Hour Work Week.  Could be fun, right?

Until next time.

Denise

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Why I Love Working From Home

Posted by admin On August - 4 - 2009 1 COMMENT

Often when I begin my day in my home office, I remember rushing around in the morning to get my girls off to daycare then later school then sitting in traffic trying to get to work.  Not a very pleasant memory!  This is one of the main reasons why I love working from home – my commute is now less than 1 minute.

Another reason is flexibility.  My younger daughter is now a senior in high school and of course we had to get her senior pictures.  The company scheduled her appointment at 1:45 p.m.  If I still held a “J-O-B” I would have had to take the afternoon off to make sure we got to her appointment on time.   Over the past several years I have been one of the lucky moms that could go on field trips with my girls and some of these field trips were amazing!  If I were still working in an office, I would have missed the trip with my older daughter where we went snorkling over a reef in the Florida Keys and many other field trips.  Flexibility is truly the answer to having balance in your life.

Now that I’ve realized how lucky I truly am, my goal is to help other stay at home moms be able to have the same experiences that I have.  Bookmark this site for more tips and ideas for starting your home based business and my internet business course.  Sometimes it is just a matter of finding the right niche product to get you started!

Questions?  Please email me – I’m here to help.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Are You A Momtrepreneur?

Posted by admin On July - 21 - 2009 2 COMMENTS

What exactly is a momtrepreneur?  It’s okay if you’ve never heard of this term as it’s relatively new but chances are you already know a momtrepreneur.  A momtrepreneur is a mom who not only has a family, but has a successful business too!

This is the woman that is able to help out at school doings, drive the car pool yet always seems to have it together.  How does she do this?  Momtrepreneurs are especially talented at multitasking.  These are the women that you see checking their emails on their Blackberry while waiting to pick up their kids.  These woman are not only the best multitaskers, they are also very dedicated to balancing family and business and are some of the most successful woman that I have ever met.

How do you become a momtrepreneur?  Do you want to be able to schedule your day around your children?  I wish I could have done that when my children were younger but I have successfully been able to do this for the past 5 years.  Now my oldest daughter is a senior at FSU and my younger daughter is a senior at the local high school.  When my children were younger, it wasn’t so easy to start a business outside of selling makeup or other products people didn’t really want.

What did I do?  I found a niche business that enabled me to quickly build a business in the wedding industry selling wedding favors then later wedding jewelry.  I have since sold both of these businesses and several others for nice chunks of change.  You see, I like to build the business but when the business gets to the point that it’s taking up so much of my time that it’s time to hire employees, I decide that it’s time to sell it and stash some of the money and reinvest some of the money into a new business.  Today, I own a wholesale toy and wholesale gift business along with an online outdoor toy store and we warehouse inventory.    You may want to build a business like mine that you will own the rest of your life, hiring employees, and handling inventory.   It’s really your choice.

BUT, before you go further, decide what it is you really want out of your business.  Do you want to be involved 100% in the day to day operations or will you be okay with hiring a virtual assistant as your front line person?  Do you want to inventory or do you want to drop ship the merchandise from your supplier to your customer?

Stop right now and jot down what it is you realistically want from your business then bookmark this blog and I’ll help you achieve the business of your dreams.

Until next time….

Denise

Popularity: 6% [?]

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Ecommerce Business Course

Posted by admin On June - 24 - 2009 1 COMMENT

As I was raising my children, I always visualized a way for me to be able to run a business from home.  I always loved my career but I wanted to figure out a way to be able to raise my 2 girls while creating a business.   My eldest daughter is now a junior at FSU in Tallahassee and my youngest daughter is a junior at the local high school here in North Florida and yes, I now run my own business from my home.

How did I do it?  By building several niche E-Commerce websites starting by drop shipping product from the manufacturer to the consumer.  These businesses grew so successful that they quickly turned into full time operations and have since sold 3 of the businesses and have a very nice bank account as a result.

Many friends and their friends started asking me to help them build their E-Commerce businesses and I was pleased to help them out.  Over the past year, I have written and videotaped many lessons to help these women get their business up and profitable within 30 days.  Coming soon will be an ECommerce Business Course that I have written that will include one on one time with me on the phone to help you become successful in starting your own ECommerce Business from your home.

Sign up for our newsletter below to make sure you receive the email as soon as this course and mentoring program is available.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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