Are you working from home? Do you think you lack productivity? Do you think your business does not seem to be improving? Are you unsatisfied and feel like it is all a waste of time? Are you tired of it not yielding any profits? Are you fed up and almost ready to give up? Wait! Before you make a hasty decision, take a look at the Home based Business tips that you can try to improve your business at home.When most people start a home business, they think of it more as a hobby than a job. The thought they carry while working at home and not at the office, makes a huge difference in their approach towards the job. This is one of the main reasons when home based business tips or internet business plans do not work.So in order to make sure your home based business works for you, you need to take a more professional step toward it. Work is work! Be it at office or at home. You should to be able to set aside as much time as possible and work on it like you would if you were in an office, and had a grumpy boss.Next make sure you have a schedule. Set a schedule for each day and make sure that come what may, you stick to it. Often we decide to do whatever needs to be done the next day, tomorrow, tomorrow like we say. But it is important to do what needs to be done today! Realize the need, the importance of getting that job done and make sure you do it. And unfortunately for some tomorrow never comes.Since you are working from home, often there are chances that you may not be learning anything new. So make sure you do all the research you can. Try different techniques and see what works for you and what does not. Internet Business Plan are interesting. But if you decide to stick only to what is given in the instructions section, you may never be able to really take off. So make sure you do a lot of research and increase your knowledge in this domain.

There is no place like home. Even when it comes to making money, nothing beats doing it while lounging on your easy chair or sipping orange juice on your porch. If you are one of those people whose interest on regular 9-to-5 jobs is waning, you may find a home-based business a very good and equally feasible alternative. Here are the top 10 home based business that you should check out.Top 10 Home Based Business:Child CareIf you are fond of kids, then a home-based child care service is your cup of tea. Your fondness of children will be the same ticket to earning money while at home. You can start with a very small capital or even without any cash at all. The only asset that you must have is your prowess in child care.Catering ServicesAre you into cooking as much as enjoying fine cuisines? Then you should get into this kind of business. But first, you have to test your cooking ability. Try cooking any dish and let your friends sample it. If they beg you for more, then you are in. If they swear never to see you again after ingesting your dish, then you better consider trying other businesses on this list.Photography ServiceYou can start your own photo studio if you have basic skills in photography and own a good digital camera and a personal computer.Events PlanningSo, your best friend’s stag party was a smash, huh? If you can organize events such as this with a substantial amount of success, then events planning service is your turf.DIY Cleaning ServicesIf making things and places squeaky clean is your passion, then a DIY or do-it-yourself cleaning service is your ticket to success. You only need to purchase the right cleaning equipment and have a tremendous amount of tolerance for obsessive-compulsive clients.Personal Coaching ServicesIf you have some skills in grooming and personal development, you can try your luck on this type of business. Who knows, maybe the next America’s supermodel will be one of your students.Specialized Consulting ServicesIf you have a degree of expertise on a specialized area such as marketing, search engine optimization or any field, then you can kick-start your personal consulting business.Home-Based Desktop PublishingThe rising cost of desktop publishing service is making more individuals and companies resort to DIY desktop publishing services. If you got the skills, then you could start one now.Tutorial ServicesThis home based-business is highly successful especially for non-English speaking clients. A good grasp of grammatical rules and a below par teaching ability are the only requirements for this job.Article WritingIf you can write 10 articles within a span of eight hours or less, then you are in. Many online companies hire home-based freelance writers these days and they even pay a good sum. You only need to be very versatile in writing about everything under the sun, such as vintage cameras, penis enhancement pills, man boobs reduction packages, etc.So, that sums up our top 10 home based business list. Pick one for your upcoming success.

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In my line of work I spend quite a bit of time on the phone speaking with individuals seeking help in building their home based business. The other day I had a conversation with a man who had a wonderful perspective and shared some of his views. The view was basically that he loved the product he was taking; it has changed his life, and wanted to spread his experience of the product to others. He then proceeded to speak of his belief system in life and how most people are lacking in wealth, health and love due to their lack of perspective. We then discussed the fact that I spend a great deal of time talking to people who love the product and have great intentions but just need a little guidance and perspective in building their home based business.

So what is this perspective that so many of us struggle with. Well in my experience it is basically on two levels. The first is that we think of building our home based business as sales and not marketing. The second is our mindset of greed and wanting our home based business built huge yesterday. Let’s look at the first part of the equation, sales or marketing.

In building our home based business we tend to think of selling our product instead of marketing it. What does this mean? Sales persons basically convince people of their product and thus build their market. Marketers on the other hand find their market and fill the need, want or desire of their market. Let’s take a look at how we build our home based business. We get involved to spend more time at home with our families, to supplement our income etc. Then our plan becomes to run around town going to meetings with one or two prospects and selling them on the idea of opportunity. Which in fact is quite time consuming and defeats the purpose of building and working our home based business from home. Now if we gain this perspective we can adjust our thinking and look at a marketing perspective in building our home based business.

Marketers who are building their home based business find their market from home, talk to the prospect from home and close the transactions from home. Marketers have people calling them for them to fill the need, want or desire of their market. Now how do marketers do that? Well there is a number of ways of lead generation. From targeted leads that are purchased, to blogging, to pay per click advertising and much more. Then marketers have creatively crafted their ads, presentations etc. to attract the right audience for their product and find themselves filling the need as at the close, quite different from the salesman who convinces the close to the prospect.

So how does our mindset come into play? Quite frankly it has everything to do with building our home based business. I will try to cover this in short and suggest looking at other articles I have written to further your knowledge. Mindset starts with an understanding of natural law. These are the laws of abundance, attraction and investment on return to name a few but you get the idea. For purpose of building our home based business we have to understand these laws and how they work in our favor in building our business. In a nutshell and again I will suggest further reading to explain the explanation, these laws are in effect for everyone and can not be changed, they are in fact the “rules of the game” for life.

They insure us that there will always be a market for out product, that we don’t have to worry about yesterday because its gone and to only look to the future for growth. So in building our home based business we can be rest assured there is a huge market for our product, that we can start today or tomorrow or five years from now in looking and the market will be there. So we do not have to panic about building our business today or looking for that perfect prospect today. What we do need to do is participate in the process and build our skills and knowledge base to build our system to find our prospects for us and in fact close business.

So in conclusion all of our best intentions, our growth and building our home based business can be attained. However, in this day and age we must learn to market, not sell our product and building our home based will indeed come true. It does take time, effort and energy and it can be done from home but we must learn the skills and knowledge to be successful in building our home based business.

When you own a small business, there are dozens of people and projects vying for your time and attention. It can get hard to figure out where to focus your resources and easy to become overwhelmed.

Furthermore, in my years of consulting what I have found to be the difference in success or failure of a business was not the amount of money, a business owner had on hand, nor the education level of the management team. It was his or her daily habits and beliefs, that determined success or the lack there of.

What is profit? It is simply, how much money the business makes after transaction and paying taxes is over.

Traditional thinking about profit says, Revenue – Expenses = Profit. However, this method fails to measure lost opportunity.

What is lost opportunity?

First, business has people performing activities each day. The lost opportunity is in not measuring, managing and leveraging those activities on a real-time basis.

Management fact, your company profitability depends on how well your people consistently perform specific activities minimizing errors.

The following are 12 tips to help your business increase operational efficiency, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the competition.

1 – Living a balanced life

A. Work and business are not the be-all and end-all of your life. Learn to have fun! Spend more time with your family. Take a vacation once in a while. Engage in activities that will rejuvenate your spirit and your life. Take care of yourself, and your health, exercise and eat fruits and vegetables. Your productivity and focus will improve if you are stress-free and healthy. Bad health and divorces has destroyed more businesses than I have room to write about in this article.

2 – The Destination: Goals, Themes and Vision

A. Go find your business plans and update it. Since your business’ inception, a number of factors must have changed – from the overall business climate to your product line. Take all those changes into consideration, consider the business and economic climate, factor in your and your family’s goals, and get a clear assessment of the direction of your business. Get in touch with your business coaches, if any. What is your overall vision of your business? What are your goals 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now? What is your business theme and brand to your customers? Is it relevant to your business and memorable and fun for your customers?

B. Setting Team Expectations

1. Small business owners need to insure all managers and employees are on the ‘same page’ daily. Setting proper team expectations and accountability, is the most impactful thing you can do to insure the success of your business. Have weekly meetings with management teams to discuss accomplishments and challenges.

3 – The System: Starting your day off with motivations

A. Take a notebook (or a laptop or tablet) and jot down your thoughts and plans for the day. Whether you prefer doing this in the morning or in the evening, it is always best to take a step back, review what happened during the day (or the day before), and think of ways how you can do better. Take time to review your profit scorecard, in order to find quick hits and losses. Send out an email where you see outstanding work, done the previous day.

B. Figure out the 20% of activities that are producing 80% of desired results. Eliminate activities that are keeping you busy but not producing results, daily.

4 – Understand Customer Needs

A. Write down ideas, whether for your marketing strategies, product lines, or new projects that you want to take on. List your ideas on how to expand and energize your business. Only through innovation and continuing adoption of relevant new products and ideas can your business improve its competitiveness and profitability.

B. Take time to tap into your customer database and get in touch with your existing customers. Whether by phone, email or letter, contact your customers to greet them and remind them that your business is ready to serve them again. Get their opinions about what they think about your business (and make getting customer feedback a part of your business processes). You need to constantly look for ways to encourage repeat business. Although marketing and advertising are important to get more customers, quality, service and customer satisfaction are what keep a business successful in the long run.

5 – Understand the Profit Formula in your day to day operations

A. What are the critical success factors in your business, daily and monthly targets to meet or exceed annual profitability?

B. Develop an executive dashboard for monitoring operational progress on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

C. Compare the employee time documentation with information gathered from your operational monitoring process. If productivity is not meeting or exceeding goals, look at employee time logs where time is not being used as effectively as possible and make adjustments to that employee’s job role. If operations are running on track with goals, consider elevating goals by small increments until you reach a point of break-even.

6 – Keep employees involved, motivated and trained

A. Good employees are hard to find; yet they are an important element in your business. It all comes down to choosing the right person and personality type for each role so that no one is doing tasks that they resent. Forget coaching weaknesses (too time consuming), focus on leveraging strengths and passions. Check to see if they are getting what they need and make them part of the team. Help them understand the importance of their role in your business and how their job impacts the business as a whole. Review your relationship with your employees and find ways to keep your relationship happy and avoid costly attrition.

B. Hiring the right leader, someone who owns the operation from start to finish.

1. The small business owner needs to hire a operations leader to own the operation from start to finish. This person should be obsessed with the details, the metrics, and the numbers. They should be elated to hit their goals, inspired by business coaching to do better when they miss it. They love the success of your company; it’s not a job but an adventure to them.

7 – Keep an eye on new opportunities, markets and products

A. Start the year by exploring new markets for your business. Whether you are looking at targeting a new demographic or getting your business up on the web, take time to plan how you can expand your existing market. Look for ways to improve your marketing, whether by winning easy publicity, arranging an open house or preparing direct mails.

8 – Find Ways to Operate efficiently with lower cost

A. Motivate employees with production goals and ask employees and managers what they need to improve workplace operations. If suggestions seem practical and are within budget, consider implementing them. Example, only scheduling 30 minute meetings unless subject requires extra attention.

B. Documenting your Processes

1. Document the workflow of every operation within the business, with policy and procedures and special customer instructions. Yes, this is a time-consuming, tedious, boring exercise, initially. However, if you are able to provide clear and concise documentation to your team, it leaves very little room for things to be miscommunicated. Documentation makes it easier to onboard new employees, saves business from being reliant on any one person and allows the business to continuously improve and innovate operations, without having to waste months and money, researching and gathering workflow procedures from inexperience contract workers. Documenting helps to avoid ‘lost opportunity’ of being slow to change operations in the marketplace.

9 – Use Process Improvement initiatives to your competitive advantage

Six Sigma methodologies is a tool that can be utilized to improve process, people and profits. By establishing performance measures for key processes, asking the following questions.

• What is the purpose of the key process?

• What is the expected deliverable?

• How will the process owner know if there process has succeeded?

Six sigma benefits for small businesses are

1. Provides a road map and tools to determine root causes and solve problems

2. Reliable facts for decision making, improved metrics and measurements

3. Improvement in order accuracies and on time delivery

4. Improvement in labor efficiencies enterprise wide

5. Increased customer confidence and profitability (customer buy more better quality)

As a business owner, it is vital that you understand how ‘technology’ helps me to make more money by eliminating errors, overhead expenses and attracting more customers.

Invest in new technology that will help streamline operations and improve productivity, after processes have been documented. This could include new computers or equipment related to your industry or designing more efficient work stations and telephone systems. Provide training for new hires to ensure they are aware of how to effectively perform the functions of their job. If seasoned employees are underperforming, send them for training refresher courses.

Documenting processes, installing six sigma and implementing technology improves the customer experience with your business, making your profit planning measurements more transparent to employees throughout the enterprise.

Implementing an employee recognition system and recommendation process, continuously improves operations aligning performance with corporate vision, mission, performance measurements and corporate profit scorecard. Quality improves your customer emotional attachment to your business. Loyal customers are repeat customers which will recruit others to your business, increasing profits.

10 – Identify and Resolve Weak Spots in the System

A. Take stock of all aspects of your business operation and list down the areas that you want to improve. If your list of delinquent receivables is longer than Santa’s list, find out how you can improve your billing and collection process. Perhaps you need to improve your record keeping to help flag you on delinquent accounts

11 – Keep an eye on your competition

A way to get the inside edge on your competitors is by asking your customers for help. This need not be especially difficult or complex. Simply ask your customers (in the form of a survey or follow-up call) if there’s anything a competitor does (or sells) that they wish you did. Now, the idea isn’t that you’ll necessarily turn on a dime and honor every request that comes in.

Own a share of stock in their publicly-traded competitors. This alone entitles you to detailed financial information about the company each and every year. But what if you and your competitors aren’t public companies? The basic idea is the same: any financial data you can get your hands on is worth having. You want to know as much as possible about what their costs are, who their suppliers are and how you stack up in comparison.

If there is a trade journal or research study about your industry, now is the time to subscribe – and digest what it contains.

In addition to using your competitor’s products, you should go through and closely study their sales funnel. Every successful business has a system for attracting, educating, selling and following up with customers. Whether it’s via direct mail, Internet marketing or the telephone, this is the infrastructure that actually turns their prospects into buyers. How do you know if your sales funnel is performing at max capacity if you don’t compare it to the competition?

12 – Go Play Golf: Network, Network, Network

Effective business networking is the linking together of individuals who, through trust and relationship building, become walking, talking advertisements for your business.

Join business associations to meet other business owners, you might be surprised at who will assist you towards your success or what ideas you hear that can solve your current dilemma.