HomeNetPro.Com's Work From Home Blog

Saturday, November 7th 2009

Where To Find The Best Telecommuting Jobs

Have you dreamt of the day you could wake up, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and go to work without having to leave the comfort of your home? With the increase in gas prices and added burden of child care, many people would love nothing more than to be able to work from the comfort of home.

Thanks in part to computers and the Internet, telecommuting has become a viable solution for a lot of workers…

• Telemarketing companies are finding that their call centers are at capacity and require people who can accept calls from home.

• Computer technicians for larger corporations don’t need to travel from coast to coast to diagnose computer problems. They can simply connect to a remote machine from their local office, or from the convenience of home.

• Freelance writers can correspond with potential clients via instant messaging, and forward pieces of their work via email.

While there are numerous positions available to workers who would love to avoid rush hour traffic, where can someone find out more about the various telecommuting jobs available?

1. Check Your Local Newspaper

While competition has hurt the newspaper industry, many potential employers still rely on the printed word in order to get their message out. Keep your eyes open in the General or Technical Trade areas of the want ads for potential telecommuting jobs.

Try to avoid looking at the Business Opportunities section which may redirect you to a toll-free number or website that requires your credit card number in order to obtain the required information.

2. The Old Bulletin Board

Ever walk into a laundromat and see a bulletin board nailed to the wall? Besides the normal business cards and lost dog posters, you might uncover one of the many telecommuting jobs available. While some smaller telemarketing firms may find the ad space in your local newspaper expensive, they can save money by printing tear-off forms and posting them anywhere and everywhere people will see them.

3. The New Bulletin Board

Electronic bulletin boards (or forums) often provide job listings that can be from any part of the globe. A small American firm needs a website built. Their request might be answered by an Indian graphic designer, a British marketing company, or a Canadian programmer. An Australian company might need to hire someone to respond to customer emails about their new product. An Irish housewife, an Italian student, and a single father from Dubai all respond to the request.

By visiting and leaving comments at the right forum, you may just land yourself a job or two.

4. Craigslist and Kijiji

While free online ad sites have been around since the dawn of the Web, the two leaders in free online classifieds provide a great resource for a potential jobseeker. Craigslist even allows you to search in your chosen field and specify that you are looking for telecommuting jobs. It won’t get much easier than that.

There are several ways to find telecommuting work at home jobs. Just keep your eyes and ears open to possible opportunities and before you know it, you’ll be sitting in your own home office, working in your PJs and slippers.

posted by Chris Simpson No Comments »

Thursday, November 5th 2009

Three Ways To Identify A Profitable Niche

If you’re looking to start a home based business, you probably understand the need to find a niche market to work with. A niche is a targeted audience of prospective customers who are searching for information on what you have to offer. It’s a narrow topic of interest that allows you to fill a specific need.

Niche marketing provides a variety of products and services geared to that one desirable target audience. But the key is in finding a niche that is narrowly focused enough to be profitable and broad enough to attract a large number of customers. Here are three keys to finding such a market to build your home business around.

• Look first at your own interests. Anything that interests you, personally, will probably be something you’re passionate about. And having a passion for your business is one of the most important aspects of finding success–whatever business you’re in.

Consider your hobbies. Do you crochet? Knit? Sew? Maybe you like sports such as skiing, baseball, or hockey. Each of those specific activities are potentially profitable niches you could focus on. The things that drive you and in which you find enjoyment are probably things that others like to do as well. And you’ve got the advantage of knowing about the topic before you begin, if it’s something you already like to do.

• Narrow your niche. While the temptation may be to focus on “sports” or “hobbies,” to choose a truly profitable niche, you’ll do better to select a narrower topic such as knitting or baseball. You don’t want to narrow your topic too much, of course, but a good narrow topic is key to successful niche marketing.

• Look at marketing trends. Use a keyword research tool to locate trends in search words to get an idea of what people are looking for. Typically, those hot search topics make an excellent choice for a profitable niche. Be careful that you don’t choose anything so trendy it will be gone next week, however. Choose a topic that’s hot enough to be popular with lasting appeal.

There are many ways to locate a profitable niche that you can market to. These three will get you started and help you find ideas around which you can build a successful home based business. Get started now to finding your own niche. Your success is on its way!

posted by Chris Simpson No Comments »

Wednesday, November 4th 2009

Finding Ways To Earn Residual Income

When it comes to earning money, you can take two paths. Sell a product or service once and make a few dollars, or sell a product or service that will earn you an ongoing residual income. Residual income (otherwise known as passive or recurring income) is any income you receive on a regular basis that requires little to no effort on your behalf to maintain it.

Pensions and rental properties are prime examples of passive income you may receive. But how can you earn a recurring income with little effort on your behalf? Let’s examine three examples of ways you can earn a passive income with no additional effort.

1. Publish and Transfer the Rights

Have you considered writing a book? Are you capable of writing a computer program? Intellectual or informational products only require your attention once. After completion, you can transfer your rights of the product to a company, and they can pay you a percentage from each copy sold.

You don’t have to be the next great American author. You don’t even have to know the difference between C++ and PHP. All types of products can be transferred to someone else to earn you income.

• You could write a song, and earn a residual income every time it gets played on the radio.

• You could shoot a self-help video and transfer the rights to a larger studio.

• You could snap a beautiful picture, and upload it to a stock photo website who would pay you a royalty every time someone downloads your picture.

Transferring the rights of your product to a larger company definitely has its advantages.

2. Create and Sell Your Own Informational Product

While large publishing houses can help boost your income, there are also benefits to self-publishing. A product with a low price point won’t make you rich if you only earn a percentage of every sale. If you decide to self-publish your product, you will earn 100 percent of the profit.

Self-publishing also gives you complete control over how your product gets marketed. With some of the larger publishing houses, new titles are being released on a regular basis, and you may find your product getting buried behind the more recent titles within a few weeks. Self-publishers can earn residual income for a much longer time, as long as people are willing to buy it.

3. Find the Right Affiliate Program

These types of programs go by a variety of names: reseller, associate, referral, bounty or affiliate. Regardless of the name, the game remains the same. Earn a commission every time you sell someone else’s product or service. This is one of the most popular methods of earning residual income online.

The better affiliate programs require only a small amount of effort on your behalf, and provide you with all the promotional material you will need in order to make sales. By providing you with a unique ID number or a branded website, the company can track where sales originate from and pay you every time your referral led to a sale.

Not all affiliate programs offer an ongoing recurring income, however depending on the type of product or service (think about a Web hosting affiliate program for example), you may earn a recurring residual income from one single sale.

There are many other ways you can begin earning a residual income, but these three can get you started on your way to making more money with very little added effort on your part.

posted by Chris Simpson No Comments »

Tuesday, November 3rd 2009

Building A Profitable Home Business Selling Products Online

Sell Products Online Through Doba Dropshipping Service

If you have things you no longer want sitting around your garage, basement or attic, you can begin today earning a good income working at home selling those products online.

With sites such as Craigslist, GoLSN, or Kijiji, you can post free online classified ads and reach millions of potential buyers at absolutely no cost to you.

Begin by gathering the items you want to sell, cleaning them up and pricing them. Set a reasonable price and add a little negotiation room, if you desire, though it’s not necessary.

Next, write up a short description about each item and take a good clear photo of each. You’ll want to include any flaws the item may have, color and details in case prospective customers can’t tell from the photo exactly what you have.

Add your contact information, including a phone number if you plan to deal locally, and anything else you can think of that will help your item sell. Don’t include your family history, why you want to sell, or pleas for someone to help you out by buying from you. Work to sound professional but casual for the best approach.

Create an account on each of the three sites listed above if you don’t already have one. If what you’re selling is heavy or large, it’s best to market locally to avoid shipping. Smaller items such as movies or CDs, however, can be shipped so you can place your ad in larger communities.

Once you place your ad, watch your email-if that’s how you’ve chosen to be contacted-and respond promptly to any questions or requests for more information. If someone wants to see an item, and you feel uncomfortable bringing them to your home, agree to meet them in a neutral location such as a store parking lot. If you do have someone visit your home, be sure you’re not alone and avoid allowing them inside.

At some point, you’ll probably run out of things you own to sell. If you enjoy this business, that’s when you can start asking friends and family for items to sell for a split of the profits. Or place a small ad in your local newspaper. You can even visit yard sales and offer to haul off all their leftover items at no cost. You can always find items to sell to keep this business going.

Selling items online can create a profitable home-based business for you starting immediately. And there is no initial investment other than your time. What could be better than that?

posted by Chris Simpson No Comments »