Is
Your Home Business or Freelance Work Bringing in Enough Income?
My mission is to help work at home business owners and
freelancers like yourself find
the work that makes your heart sing – whether you're a home based
business mom with kids, a downsizee wanting more control over your life, a
semi-retired person who wants to earn more money, or an entrepreneur who never
wants to go back to a full-time J.O.B.
When your heart sings, you're in a position to attract all kinds of good things
to yourself, including clients... and wealth.
Home based businesses represent a huge, growing segment of the marketplace. And
a wonderful opportunity for you and me to gain recognition
and a good income through our own creative efforts.
You can make a name for yourself in the freelance arena, too.
After you secure the niche that can make you "slightly famous," contract work
will come to you more easily and consistently. Even though you're a freelancer
and do "jobs" for other companies, you're still the owner of your own freelance
business.
And if you want to truly grow your income, there are a few aspects about your
business we need to look at... especially if the income you were expecting
hasn't materialized yet.
Critical Question #1:
Do you love what you're doing? If not, why are you "beating a dead
horse?" Let's find a business you can put your heart and soul behind, with the
resources you have at hand.
Take a look at the list of possibilities on my
Part-Time Home
Business Ideas page,
the Freelance Work
page, the Network Marketing
page, or the Niche Marketing
page. Explore what line of work suits your soul with a
free sample Career Path Reading.
Better
yet, find out what your soul's purpose is, with my do-it-yourself mission quest:
Living Your
Real Life - Guided By Your Soul's Purpose.
Critical Question #2:
Have you done the homework for marketing your business effectively? As a
business owner, you wear many hats, including "self promotion and marketing
expert." Do you know how to write ads and press releases, conduct a direct mail
campaign, get free publicity, draft an engaging "elevator speech?" Here's a
short list of quality resources for do-it-yourself marketing and publicity.
You gotta know this stuff:
Getting Business to Come to You
by Paul & Sarah
Edwards (the best book there is for marketing your home
business, by the home business experts)
Action
Plan Marketing with Robert Middleton (courses, ebooks, teleclasses, a standout ezine.
Get on his mailing list.)
Joan Stewart, The
Publicity Hound (books, special reports, ezine - all excellent. She's highly
regarded in her field.)
Get
Slightly Famous by Steven Van Yoder (a great book!)
Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples (a classic, should be required
reading for all home based business owners)
This is not something you can leave up to chance. As a home based business owner, you'll
want a clear idea of the marketing methods that work best for you, because
you're the one who'll be passionately promoting your offerings, whether in
person, in writing or on the internet.
Critical Question #3:
Do you have your OWN business website?
This is in addition to any generic website offered through your business
opportunity or network marketing organization.
It's all well and good to point people to your
online ordering site, but how do you get them there in the first place? People
search for specific solutions to problems on the internet. What problem are you
helping them solve? THAT'S what your own business website should be about. It
convinces visitors that you have what they want and need and points them to the
place they can get it.
Even freelancers need their own
website... or a blog at least, to post their resume, publicity kit, examples of
their work, and articles.
Again, it helps if you do your homework. I
recommend that you read (take notes, highlight and underline)
Make Your Site Sell, if
you're serious about building an online business presence. This remarkable ebook
is now FREE and it's the single most useful internet marketing book I've
come across.
For making do-it-yourself websites,
here are the options I'm familiar with:
Site Build It
Site Build It by Ken Evoy is a great
program, if you can swing it... lots
of bells and whistles, plus they're always adding things.
See why work at home moms love SBI!
Website Wizard
Click
here to see my client Carna's website.
Critical Question #4:
What's the plan? You've fashioned a cool
elevator speech, so you can tell prospective clients what you do in a way that
makes them want to know more.
You've learned how to write mouth-watering ads and you've read
Joan Stewart's "Kick Butt" publicity
book. How do you put it all together in a consistent marketing plan that makes
you a "household name" amongst your target audience? You know, the
"Queen of ...."
This is where you clarify your "Extreme Niche."
Are you ready to stand out from the crowd? Do you love it when clients are
referred to you by previous clients because your name comes to their mind first?
Carving out your territory in the marketplace makes marketing MUCH EASIER,
because now you know who your prospective clients are... and, therefore, you
know where to find them.
When your business is clearly defined in your own
mind, it'll be that much easier for prospective clients to understand it, too.
So, the plan is:
-
Determine your niche (love what you do)
-
Identify your audience (know for whom you do
it)
-
Create a mouth-watering message (in a passionate
voice)
-
Make your presence known (online and offline)
-
Market consistently and repeatedly to the right
people (who want, need, and can pay for your products and services)
Like I did, you can learn to do all this yourself,
using the resources I have referenced, for starters.
