Last night after I finished playing volleyball, my team and I went inside to have a drink.  And we ended up getting a new waitress.  It took us several minutes before our waitress ever made it over to our table to take our order, which she then managed to mess up.

We added her to our “bad” list.

And this got me thinking about the importance of making a good first impression.  While we’ll certainly drink there again, we’ll go out of our way to avoid sitting in her area even though it very well could have been her first night working there simply because she made a bad first impression.

Think about how your first impression affects how you feel about a person.  If someone comes of as a jerk, they’re going to have to fight an uphill battle to change your mind.

So what does this have to do with running a business you ask?

Everything!

Think about how people first come to learn about your business.  Are you putting your best foot forward?

If you go to a restaurant and you have a great meal and the service is great, you’re likely to go back and tell your friends.  And even if the second time you go back the food isn’t as good and the service could have been better, you’ll probably give them another chance.  Heck, you’re likely to give them multiple opportunities to redeem themselves.

But if go to a restaurant and the service and food are bad, then you’re almost certainly not going back again.

You need to really think about the people who are going to be the first contacts for a new client or customer.  For example, it’s absolutely critical that you have a friendly and knowledgeable person taking calls instead of someone who could really care less.

And while you may not own a restaurant or bar, you had absolutely better be doing everything you can to *wow* the customer the first time they do business with you.

If you get clients through the use of “loss leaders,” then those products need to be the best you offer.

I could go on and on about this topic.  Heck, books have been written on this topic of making a good first impression, but you’ve got the basic idea now.  If you make a great first impression, the customer will cut you a little slack if you slip up in the future, but if you make a bad first impression, you’re sunk.

Have you watched my DVD, How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25 yet?  I’ve worked hard to make a good first impression with that program

One of the biggest draws to having an online business is that promise that you can make money while you sleep.

The beauty of the online world is that it never sleeps.

So today let’s look at how to make that idea a reality for you.

5 Ways To Make Money While You Sleep

1)    eBay
I remember days when I’d wake up and have several hundred dollars sitting in my Paypal account that wasn’t in there when I went to bed.  That sure made getting up in the morning more fun – instead of having to drag my rear end out of bed, I’d happily get up just to check to see how much money I made while I was sleeping.

While eBay isn’t a primary source of income for me anymore, it’s still a great opportunity to earn money, especially for someone just getting started.    In fact, here’s the course I recommend for people looking to make money with eBay – Rapid Auction Profits (available at RapidAuctionProfits.com).

And technology now makes it possible to automate large portions of your eBay business.  You can have auctions launch automatically, and with dropshipping services you never need to package and ship anything.

2)    Adsense / Performance Based Advertising
Here’s another fun, easy to start with method for earning money while you sleep.

Performance Based Advertising.

Instead of negotiating a specific price for advertising space on your website, you get paid based on how well your website performs.
With Google Adsense and other contextual link services, they pay you for every person who clicks on the sponsored links on your website.

There are also CPA networks which will pay you for every person who clicks on a link on your website and fills out a form (also called lead generation).

3)    Affiliate Marketing
While this one could be classified as a type of performance based advertising, I’ve decided to give this one its own category.

I’ve talked about affiliate marketing many different times on this website as my favorite method for getting started online and it’s still one of the primary ways I make money to this very day.

There are a lot of ways to go about making money as an affiliate, but the basic premise is always the same – you get a commission when somebody makes a purchase by using a specially coded link on your website or blog.

4)    eCommerce Websites
An ecommerce website is pretty much the online equivalent of having a store.  You stock merchandise and people buy it.  Okay, that’s and oversimplification of how it works if I ever saw one, but I digress…

Sites like Amazon.com and Overtstock.com are some of the biggest examples of ecommerce websites.

The trick to being successful is not to try to sell everything under the sun, but to pick a specialty and focus on that.

5)    Selling your own products
There is perhaps no more powerful method for making money while you sleep than by developing and selling your own products.

Once you have your own products, you can not only market and sell them yourself on your own websites, but you can form strategic partnerships with others who will also help you sell your products.

Ready to get started making money while you sleep?  Watch my FREE DVD, How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25

I get asked this pretty frequently, “what is the best home based business to start?”

The answer is that it really depends.  I’ll give you a three of my favorite business models that are conducive to working from home (or anywhere that strikes your fancy for that matter) and can not only help you replace your full time earnings from a job but can actually lead to financial freedom.

Affiliate Marketing Home Based Business Model

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’re probably well aware of my fondness for affiliate marketing, and for good reason – it’s not only an easy way to earn money online, it’s highly profitable.

While you can sell anything from swords to suits, one of the best ways to start earning an income is from selling information products and an affiliate.  The reason is quite simply that the commissions tend to be higher.  For my physical products, if you’re getting a 10% commission, you’re doing great.  More often you’re getting from 4-6%.

However, in the information product marketplace, it’s common to get a 50%+ commission just for making a sale.

To learn this model, watch my FREE DVD – How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25.

Blogging / Website Publishing Business Model

This model is quite similar to that of affiliate marketing.  However, the focus on this model is producing free content to attract traffic which you will then turn into money.

My first six figure year online was actually based on this type of model.  Here is the simple equation…

More content = More traffic = More money

Now I’ll tell you that entire seminars have been held to understand how to optimize that equation, but that really covers the basics.

If you learn how to generate a lot of traffic to a website, the money will follow.

Information Marketing Business Model

It took me a while to create my first information product.  Most people start by writing an ebook, but my first information product was actually a video series.  At the time, I wasn’t terribly fond of writing, but I enjoyed making videos so that’s what I did.

Each day I would plan and record video and I kept going until I finished.  I didn’t try to create the entire product at once – I broke it into chunks and kept going until there were no more chunks left to create.

That’s really the key to creating an information product.

Pick Your Path

The biggest thing to remember here is that it’s not about getting everything perfect, but it’s really about picking one and getting started.
When you come to a fork in the road, it doesn’t matter if you take the well beaten path or the one less traveled by – the only thing that matters is that you pick one and don’t spend the rest of your days pondering which path is best.

So you want to start a prosperous home based business?

You’ll be happy to know that there are plenty of ways you can have a prosperous home based business.

Let’s look at three the most popular ways for you to get started.  As always, we’ll be focused on real home based business, not jobs masquerading as “business opportunities” or the more notorious scams.

Affiliate Marketer
The illustrious life of the noble affiliate marketer.  One who simply sells products for other people and collects a commission for their efforts.

These days an affiliate marketer can specialize in just about any area and earn a good income.  The skills you need to learn if you decide to get into this business are traffic generation and pre-selling.

A lot of top search engine optimization and pay per click specialists make very nice incomes in the affiliate marketing arena since it allows them to focus on the getting traffic and allows other people to worry about writing salesletters that convert, customer service, product development, and product fulfillment.

This is where I recommend anyone just getting started with a home based business to begin.

Network Marketer
One of the most popular ways people start working from home.  However, it also has, by far, the lowest success rate and highest drop-out rate.   It’s not that the business model is flawed, but that the recruiting methods used are out of date and quite honestly… stupid.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend who was pretty serious about making a success out of his network marketing opportunity.   He was willing to work the phone and talk to all his friends and then some.   Since I was a fellow business owner and had even dabbled a little in network marketing, we were discussing recruitment ideas, and he started telling me of shirts he was going to wear when he was out shopping that would get people to talk to him.  He would then turn the conversation to getting them to join his business opportunity.

It’s a good example of the dumb things people who are in network marketing businesses are taught.  So let me set the record straight for those who’d like to be prosperous in their business.  If you’re going to join a network marketing company, you need to remember that your business opportunity is only a good fit for a small number of people.  In other words, if you’re being told that it’s a business for everybody, you’re being lied to.  It takes a special kind of person to be successful in network marketing.

Focus on finding those people for whom the business is a good fit, and you’ll experience less rejection and more success.

Info Marketer
This is where all affiliate marketers go when they “grow up.”  However, many people actually start out here as well, and for good reason.  An information marketing business can be extremely profitable… six figure a year incomes in this niche are common and there are many making seven and even eight figure a year incomes from this business model.

Heck, publishing company Agora Inc is essentially an information marketing company and they make $100 million a year!

So what does one do in an information marketing business?  You sell information of course.

Most people are familiar with eBooks, but this business model also includes newsletters, instructional DVDs, interviews, podcasts, home study courses, training manuals, online multimedia programs, and so on.

There are a lot of different ways to package information, and there are a lot of ways to make money with it.  This model also works well offline.  These days most people start online, but the information marketing business really got its start and prospered with direct mail.

So there you have it, three business you can start from the comfort of your own home and with a little elbow grease, you can turn them into successful and prosperous home based businesses.

Now get out there and get started… and I recommend watching my free DVD, How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25.

We live in a fast paced world where time is certainly at a premium.

I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone (well, an adult anyway) say, “I’m bored.  I just wish I had more to do.  I have so much time on my hands that I just don’t know what to do with myself.”

It’s usually quite the opposite.  “There’s just no time.   If there was just more time, I’d be able to get everything done.”

It reminds me of a sign my dad had hanging up when I was growing up.   “All I want is less to do, more time to do it, and more pay for getting it done.”

Well, believe it or not, I’m here to give you the keys to a system that will allow you to build a profitable and successful home based business working on average, just an hour a day.

That means you don’t have to quit your current job – you can fit it in with the rest of your life.  And while it probably won’t make life changing money the first month or two you do it, if you keep at it, it will.

The rule of thumb for taking a website and turning it into a full time income is 500 hours worth of work.  There are ways to accelerate that for sure, but let’s assume it takes you the full 500 hours.  While that would mean over 1.5 years of work if you only put in an hour a day, would that be so bad?

You spend just one hour of each day working on your business.  Just do a little bit each and every day.

It’s still less time than people spend in college to get a degree – even an associate’s degree.  And I seem to remember having to spend a lot more than an hour a day on homework when I was in college.

They key, of course is to make sure you get that hour in every day.  Yes, you can take a day off (and you should take a day off every week), but then you either have to work ahead or catch up to take that day off.

So if you want to succeed, just commit to finding an hour and you’ll be on your way.

I designed my home based business system, How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25 to be just this kind of system – it will help you build a successful website and home based business working just 1-2 hours per day.    Be sure to pick up my FREE DVD on how to put my system to work for you by clicking here.

The hardest part is starting.

While today’s article is going to focus on this from a business aspect, you really can apply this to just about every area of your life.

Today’s topic: starting

For most people (myself included), just getting started on something new is the hardest part.   Have you ever noticed that?  Once you’re started you get in the zone and you’re good to go on the project.
For example, just think about how many people have to practically drag themselves out of bed in the morning.  Just starting the day is tough.
And it applies to your business as well.

For several months, I had been planning on writing a manual on how to start a home based business.  At the beginning of every week I’d plan to start on it yet at the end of the week, nothing would be done.

Then one Saturday, I decided I was going to get started for 30 minutes.  After those 30 minutes were up, I could stop if I wanted to.
Well, I ended up writing for about 2 hrs and deciding I’d had enough for the day.   And you want to know what starting resulted in?  I had the entire rough draft of the entire manual written by Tuesday.
Once I got started, it took me all of four days to write it, yet it was months before I ever got going on it.

Why?

Because getting started is truly the most difficult part of any project for most people.

Just think about if you need to write something.  What’s the toughtest part?  Looking at that blank page.   However, once you get going, it’s generally pretty easy to keep going.

It’s physics really.

According to Sir Isaac Newton and the first law of motion, “An object in motion tends to stay in motion.”

Remember that also means something at risk also tends to stay at rest unless you do something about it.  Once you get momentum started, though, it’s easy to keep going.

So if you’ve ever having a day where you just don’t want to do anything, commit to just starting.  Don’t worry about finishing anything, and you just might find yourself having a productive day.

Ready to take the first step?  Get my FREE DVD -How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25.

Most home based businesses are going to require you at least have a computer if not use it for most of the day.

So let’s talk about what kind of computer you want to have for running a home based business.

For the purposes of this page, I’m going to assume that you have a website and are running an online business from home.

General Specifications
I have great news when it comes to picking out a computer for running a business from home.  If you own a computer, you have enough to get started.

Probably the most important part doesn’t deal with your computer at all, but your internet connection.  While it’s theoretically possible to run a home business on a dialup connection, trust me, you don’t want to.

I consider a high speed internet connection to be absolutely essential to running an online business (cable, dsl, fios, etc).  You’re going to be looking at a $40-$60 monthly investment in most cases for high speed Internet.  It’s worth every penny – get it.

Let’s get back to your computer.  Up until about a year ago I still used a computer purchased in 2001 and it was obsolete when I bought it.  It slowly became unable to do much besides run my accounting software and email, but it still worked.  I remember using it to do everything for two weeks when my desktop computer died and the new computer I had purchased hadn’t arrived yet.

Even more recently, I used an obsolete and slow laptop for working while my newer laptop was being repaired.

While having a new, fast, computer is certainly nice and will enhance your productivity, it isn’t essential.

If I were going to purchase a new computer right now, the only thing I’d really be concerned about is that it has at least 2GB of RAM and a at least a dual core processor (newer multi-core processors will also do nicely).

But again, let me point out you don’t need to get a new computer as long as your current computer can open up a word processing program (Like Microsoft Word) and a web browsing program (like Internet Explorer or Firefox).

Desktop or Laptop?
The next question that comes up a lot is if you should get a desktop or laptop.   Personally, I like having both, but if it’s a matter of having one or the other, you’re probably going to be better served by getting a laptop.

Here’s why.

The beauty of having a home based business is the ability to work just about anywhere.  The laptop gives you that freedom.   For example, I can take my laptop to the park and work on writing for a project.  A desktop computer would be able to accommodate me for that task.

I also tend to spend a lot of time in a coffee shop working instead of in my actual office so I find that having a laptop is absolutely essential.

The desktop computer in my office is what I use if I’m working on a complex project that needs a lot of screen space.  The computer in my office has 3 monitors and it lets me have a lot of windows open simultaneously which allows me to work faster.

Getting a laptop or desktop really comes down to preference and budget.  Desktop computers give you a lot more bang for the buck, but a laptop allows you portability.

PC or Mac?
This one again is really going to come down to personal preference.  Many internet marketers swear by Macs these days, but I personally prefer my PC.

If you’re on a tight budget, I’d recommend going with a PC.

If you going to be doing a lot of work with graphics or video, a Mac is likely going to be a better choice.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what you pick – either will work for your needs just fine.

Resource Intensive Applications
There are really only a handful of programs that really require massive computing power that aren’t computer games.

Some graphics programs can require a good bit of computing power, but the type of programs that really require significant resources are video editing programs.

For those planning on doing significant amounts of video editing, a powerful computer is going to be absolutely essential.

Most computers can do basic editing without much trouble.  But if you’re working with HD camera feeds from multiple cameras, and you’re trying to put a show together, a basic computer isn’t going to cut it.

So let me give you the basics on what to look for if you’re assembling a video editing station.

While a high end laptop (like a Mac Pro) will do in a pinch, ideally you’re going to want to get a Desktop computer.

RAM
I’d recommend getting a minimum of 4GB of Ram if not 8GB and if you’re going to be doing a lot of professional level editing, 16GB.

Hard Drives
Yes, I said drives, plural.  One of my recent projects for a training DVD ate up over 100gb of space while I was busy editing and putting the whole thing together, and it wasn’t even in HD.

Video editing requires massive amounts of hard drive space.

Get a computer that can take multiple hard drives and get big drives (you want a minimum of 1TB of space if not more).

Processors
More processing power means faster rendering of your projects.  Considering that complex projects can take several hours of not days to render, you’re going to want to load up on as much processing power as possible.  Get a computer with multiple, quad-core processors.

Video Cards
Your video card actually has very little to do with how fast your computer runs video editing programs.  That will likely change in the future, but as it stands, you don’t need a super powerful graphics card for a video editing station.  The biggest thing is to make sure it can support dual monitors.  A 512MB video card will suit your needs nicely – beyond that is overkill unless you want your computer to moonlight as a gaming machine.

Keyboard
This isn’t often talked about, but any professional video editor will tell you the importance of having a jog wheel.  These keyboards typically run from $100-$300, but you’ll find they’re very much worth it.

If you have a computer, you already have everything you need to start a home based business.  If you’re ready to get started, I recommend checking our my FREE DVD – How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25.