Starting
a Home Business?
Start With What You Know
By Bob Cortez
The most frequently asked question I receive
as an Internet home business consultant usually goes something
like this; "I would really like to start my own home
business on the Internet, but I don't know what." The
short answer is - Start with what you know and enjoy.
There are a number of good reasons for this:
By drawing on existing knowledge, you can
concentrate on building a business rather than learning
about a new trade, product, or service.
Starting and running a home business means
long hours and sacrifice. It is easier to do when you are
doing something you enjoy.
Selling what you know and enjoy is less difficult
for non-salespeople. Selling what you know and enjoy is
less difficult for non-salespeople.
The Internet offers unique opportunities for
the home business netrepreneur. It creates the ability to
reach a much larger potential market for your product, service,
or information at a much lower price than through conventional
advertising mediums.
The Internet and World Wide Web are still
in their infancy. Right now, you can get everything you
need to put your business online - free. It is like someone
offering you a store (web hosting), full time staff (web
pages, auto responders) and advertising (lots of advertising)
for free. All you have to do is come up with an idea for
a product or service to put in the store.
One of my favorite examples is my mother's
home business. She builds very creative and unique birdhouses.
She uses scrap lumber from a local sawmill (free) and driftwood
from the local beach (free), to keep her material costs
low. Another local artist provides the miniature sculptures
for a percentage of the sales. She started by building and
selling these for the local tourist trade in Homer Alaska,
and was doing ok. But when we put them on the Internet (http://www.ptialaska.net/~cortez/)
sales really began to soar. Not everyone that would be interested
in the birdhouses can afford to visit Homer, and we certainly
couldn't afford to advertise to the world in any other way.
We were able to reach this larger market by using free web
hosting, design, and promotion services. Once we developed
a flow of traffic, we were able to create additional income
streams by selling other peoples products as well. (I'll
discuss this further later in this article)
This business model can work for just about
any product that can be shipped. What unique item can you
build using local materials? Do you have a craft or gift
idea that is unique? How about a kit or plans for something
you have built?
Information is another type of product. What
do you know or know how to do that would be of interest
or value to others? You can either sell that information
as a report, or a tip booklet. Or you can give the information
away at your store and sell other peoples related products
for a commission. The advantage here is that once you put
your information in the store it is done. You don't have
to keep building it and shipping it. If your not comfortable
with writing your own material you can use a ghostwriter
(http://www.home-work.net) or have a tips booklet prepared
with assistance in getting it published (http://www.realvoices.com/booklets).
Another home business opportunity that is
unique to the Internet is based on common interests. What
do you have a special interest in that others may share?
Music, books, computers, cars, gardening, collectibles,
etc…? The idea in this business model is to create
a site with information and resources available online of
interest to others. Then you select products to sell of
interest to people that would be visiting your site. For
instance, if you had an avid interest in a particular type
of music. You could develop a site that was a resource for
others with that same interest. The site could include links
to artists sites, reviews of the latest releases, concert
tour information, photos, sound clips, interview excerpts,
a chat room, or discussion board. You become an "associate"
of one of the CD distributors online and receive a commission
on CD's that are sold. The distributor does the entire order
fulfillment. The number and variety of companies that have
an associate program online is growing daily. They cover
all kinds of products and services from gifts to computers
or web hosting to credit cards. For a partial list of these
types of programs, send any email to start@athome.hypermart.net
Start with what you know, apply some imagination,
and open your low cost home business online. The market
is growing everyday - world wide.
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Copyright 1998 Total Quality Marketing and Bob Cortez
Bob Cortez has 20 years of sales and marketing experience.
Through Total Quality Marketing he is providing consulting
services to home based entrepreneurs looking to expand their
business online and take advantage of the tremendous opportunities
available.