Home Based Business Entrepreneur: The Five Faces of Fear - Your Natural Obstacles to Success.

Home Based Business Entrepreneur: The Five Faces of Fear - Your Natural Obstacles to Success.
For the budding home based business entrepreneur, learning
the ropes of operations, finance and advertising are
certainly essential steps to success, just as critical
however is an understanding of how to stay positive and
bold in a game fraught with risk and competitive pressures.

In 1933, in his inaugural address after defeating Herbert
Hoover for the Presidency of the United States, Franklin D.
Roosevelt told us that "the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself."

His words referred to the Great Depression that shrouded
the nation with hesitancy, but his meaning echoes through
the decades as a call for wisdom in the conquering of the
single most common obstacle to success and happiness,
especially when it comes to launching a home based
business: fear, and it's primary source, ourselves.

That's right, too often we come to the party with a great
product and a killer business plan, but it all goes down in
flames because the person behind the wheel allows the inner
demon of fear to take over.

Fear is part instinct - we are bred to recognize and
respond to perceived danger - and part the product of our
own life experience. When you step off the curb in front
of a bus and a bolt of adrenaline shoots you across the
street faster than an Olympic sprinter, that's instinct.

When you miss a business opportunity because you
procrastinated or were over-protective of your capital,
that's surrendering to the enemy of success - your own
fear. The good news is that you can do something about it,
and it begins by recognizing what forms these home based
business deal killers often assume.

Ask a successful person in any business, and they'll tell
you that fear really is the enemy of success. And because
fear is easily disguised as something more digestible to
our self-image - there are five faces of fear, in fact, all
thinly veiled versions of the same thing - we don't
recognize the enemy for what it is.

The first step toward success resides in the act of
recognition, and the next is the stepping into the fear
itself through the making of an informed decision that is
fueled by awareness and informed courage.

> Indifference: One of the five primary ways in which fear
rears its head is through indifference. This is when you
simply aren't in the game at all; you've resigned yourself
to the avoidance of risk by looking the other way.

> Indecision: Indifference differs from indecision - the
second of the five faces of fear - because with indecision
you are looking into the eyes of opportunity but are frozen
with - you guessed it - fear.

> Doubt, Worry and Over-Caution: The next two faces of fear
are also synonymously linked: doubt and worry.

Doubt is the over-weighting of the possibility of an
undesirable outcome. For some people, a five percent
chance of failure constitutes enough doubt to stay on the
sidelines. They overvalue the likelihood of failure over
the much more likely chance of success.

Worry, on the other hand, is what opens the door to doubt.
Most ventures entail some level of risk, including a home
based business, so by definition there is a "chance" of
failure.

When you worry about that chance to excess, you begin to
doubt the probability that you will succeed, and suddenly
you are frozen with indecision and over-caution (the fifth
mask of fear), which is the tendency to choose from fear
repeatedly through surrender to worry and doubt.

These five faces of fear - indifference, indecision, doubt,
worry and over-caution - are separated only by matters of
degree and nuance. They are at once sequential - one
leading toward the next - and synonymous, and they are
empowered only to the extent they conquer reason and solid
planning.

Once recognized as something that is skewing your judgment,
you take their power away and allow your better business
instincts to prevail.

When you step into your fear, be on the lookout for these
five seductive doors, all of which inevitably lead to
failure, and all of which can be slammed shut before they
turn your dream, as a home based business entrepreneur,
into a nightmare.

----------------------------------------------------
Chris Curwen has recently teamed with the direct marketing
giant, Jay Kubassek, who together are seeking ambitious and
willing entrepreneurs of any age or past experience, to
join them on their mission to create real prosperity and
true financial freedom - AT LEAST 100 millionaires over the
next 3-5 years. What if YOU could be one of them?
Go to: http://www.FreedomThroughAction.com for more details
on this unique online business opportunity.

Customer Retention Can Be Easy!

Customer Retention Can Be Easy!
Long before the winter's holiday sales, retailers across
the country were trying to lure shoppers with unique, new
strategies. This is also your cue to take advantage of the
expensive years of research that's already been done by top
retailers, and apply innovative "packaging" to your
business to drive more results your way.

It doesn't matter if your business offers a product or a
service; the goal is to gift-wrap your products or services
in a way that will become a valuable gift to your clients.
And who doesn't like valuable gifts? The goal is to
fine-tune successful strategies to fit your unique business.

5 Fast Ways to Attract More Business And Keeping Customers
Coming Year-Round

1. Think Gift Certificates.

Gift certificates are a fast, low-cost way to translate
your business into a gift, be it a two-week workshop, a
free consultation, a defined discount on your products or
services—you name it! The National Retail
Federation's 2007 Holiday Consumer Survey reported that 54
percent of consumers wanted to receive a gift card as a
holiday gift. Why not offer gift cards for other holidays,
or during your business's anniversary, or once a month?

2. Think Add-Ons.

Offer a valuable add-on to your product or services. Offer
a content-rich CD as a free gift with your consultation,
workshop or product. Add a free subscription to your paid
newsletter. Add on one free week of services for every five
paid weeks of services. Add a complementary product free
with each product sold. For more immediate results, add a
"limited time only" availability of your add-ons. To drive
customers and clients to your business year-round, create a
calendar of "special" offers with add-ons. One twice a
year? One each month? Visit my website at www.ruthklein.com
to learn how I complement the services within my business
with add-ons such as a content-rich CD, a personal
consultation, a mini-course, and other services that are
packaged as a free gift to sponsors or participants in my
workshops, seminars, and other services.

3. Think Partnerships.

To make your product or service unique, consider a
partnership with a complementary (not competing) business
to truly set yourself apart from similar businesses in your
field. Airlines partner with vacation destinations Resort
hotels partner with cooking schools. Banks partner with
community events or popular charities. Partner your product
with a service. Partner your service with a nearby
restaurant, hotel, spa, printing service, local charity or
complementary service.

4. Think Luxury.

If a gift is a luxury, then think "luxury" as your calling
card to drive clients to your business. Mobile spas are
being asked to provide an on-site or off-site extra to
services and product-providers. Incentives such as hotel
stays being offered to employees of companies also can be
offered to clients. Offer a gift of gourmet coffee at your
place of business and add an extra gift of a package of
gourmet coffee clients can take with them.

5. Think Long-Term.

To keep driving customers to your business year-round,
think of marketing strategies that will result in customer
loyalty. Don't just think Christmas. Think seasonal to
market add-ons and partnership packages as a continuing
"gift" strategy that will tie in by the wording of your
campaign and the packaging of what you offer to fall,
winter, spring, and summer.

----------------------------------------------------
Always appreciate fresh new marketing and branding tips to
drive your business several steps forward? Tap Ruth Klein's
expertise at her upcoming Brand and Pitch Boot Camp.

http://www.ruthklein.com/bpbc

Process rebates Online. Can it be done?

Process rebates Online. Can it be done?
Everyday, an ocean of people come in online and search for
legitimate work from home opportunities. They are also
searching for jobs that they can start online and earn more
money. Not everyone wants to leave their current jobs. They
just want to earn some extra income.

The number of people working from home each day keeps
growing because more and more people want to work from home
and to grow their incomes. Sometimes, the money that they
are earning is not nearly enough to pay for their large
bills. Car payment, house mortgage, phone bills,
electricity, water, food, and all of the other bills that
they are getting all the time. A job is not enough for them
when it comes to paying their bills.

So what people do is go online and search for ways to earn
money on the web so that they can improve and grow their
incomes.

There is a new concept in the work at home arena and it is
called "processing online rebates". It is the hottest new
thing around in the online marketing era. Doesn't it sound
fantastic. You can just sit at home, process rebates for
$10 - $15, and make it big online.

Who wouldn't like to work from the comfort of their home,
have this kind of rebate processing opportunity, make and
earn good money, and work when ever they like to. No boss
around to tell them what to do. No office politics, and the
best of all is to have total freedom.

Every day people, who are looking for a work at home
opportunity to stay at home with their family, are going on
a major search engine and do a search for work at home, at
home jobs, making money online, data entry jobs, and much
more. The newest search that people are looking for is
"online rebates processing jobs". It is "almost" very true
that anyone can process rebates from home and earn
$10.00-$15.00 for each rebate that they complete. Let me
show you how this is done.

What the affiliate company will teach you, because this is
not your typical work at home rebate processing job, is to
find products that you can promote and sell online. They
then teach you how to write ads to sell these products.
While you are writing and adding your ads, they will offer
a "rebate" when someone purchases the online product.

Usually the rebate is for $8 on a $49 product. When that
product sells you usually receive a $23 commission minus
the $8 rebate you offer making you $15.

There is real money to be made with this type of online
work from home program. It is not exactly as you think it
is but it is a good way to earn extra money from home on
the internet working for yourself.

When you purchase the program, the company does teach you
how to make money online. They have a lot of great
materials there. They basically teach you everything that
you need to know and no stones are un-turned when it comes
to them teaching you to earning money from home on the
internet. So you are getting a return for what you invested
in. No question about that.

----------------------------------------------------
Tal Fighel is inviting you to visit this Legitimate Rebate
processing Job
http://www.work-at-home-income-directory.com/Process-Rebates
.html Or subscribe to his Work At Home "TOP PICKS"
newsletter where is his offering legitimate and honest work
at home opportunities:
http://www.work-at-home-income-directory.com/Newsletter.html

How to Chair the Perfect Meeting

How to Chair the Perfect Meeting
When hosting a meeting at work, there are many ways to
ensure that the meeting is smooth, professional and you
get the required outputs. If you have an administrative
assistant or co-worker who is available to help prepare
materials, reserve meeting space and handle other details,
make sure you use them as much as possible. Having another
person to rely on can make the meeting much more enjoyable
and manageable for you and the other people attending.

Preparing for a Meeting

Know how many people you want to attend the meeting and
make sure everyone you want to attend receives an
invitation. Ensure they respond to the invitation
regardless of whether they can attend or not. This will
make it easier when preparing documentation and other
materials. Once you've determined how many people will be
attending the meeting, preparing all materials including
hand-outs, power point presentations, a meeting itinerary
and other materials at least a week or two in advance will
give you enough time to make changes or corrections. Having
help at this stage can make this process much smoother. If
you need to send materials to those attending, do so as
soon as you have them done. Create extra copies in case
people forget to bring them to the meeting.

Starting the Meeting

Before the meeting starts, make sure you introduce
yourself. This can make people feel more comfortable and
relaxed. In order to chair a successful meeting, make sure
all audio/visual equipment is working before the meeting
starts. This will prevent the meeting from starting and
ending later than it should. Open the meeting by explaining
why it's necessary to meet and what you hope to accomplish
by the end. Ask that everyone introduce each other. If
you're following a specific itinerary, begin talking about
the first topic. After a few minutes, people will begin
asking questions and offering their opinions. While this is
what you want during a meeting, you will need to ensure
that everyone stays on track so all topics are covered in
the time allotted.

Keeping the Meeting on Schedule

If you feel a discussion has gone on long enough, ask that
everyone move on to the next topic. You can always return
to the topic if there's time after the other topics have
been discussed. Most people will agree and will move on. If
someone in the meeting refuses to move on to the next
topic, you may need to let them know that they are free to
discuss it later. Your role as the chair of the meeting is
to make sure that the meeting is productive, enlightening
and informative to all who attend. If there is a need to
return to a topic that was discussed earlier, use your best
judgment and return to an earlier discussion when
necessary. Closing a Meeting Once you've gone over all the
topics on the itinerary, you should close the meeting by
summing up what was learned. Allow those in the meeting to
provide any final remarks and then end the meeting. While
chairing a meeting can be stressful, if you are able to
maintain control over the discussion topics and the length
of time people spend talking about them, you can accomplish
everything on your agenda in one meeting.

----------------------------------------------------
Sharon Alexander is the author of the ebook Claim that
Job.com - The Ultimate Job-Hunting and Career Management
Guide that teaches the skills and techniques to succeed in
a competitive job-market and in the work place. Launches on
5 February 2008. Click here to subscribe to our mailing
list. http://www.claimthatjob.com .

Ways to increase press coverage

Ways to increase press coverage
If I had put a pound in my piggy bank every time an MD or
CEO said to me 'this would make a great story!' I would be
wintering in Barbados instead of sitting at my desk writing
this. And if I had piggy-banked another pound each time I
wrote that 'great story' only to watch it sink into
oblivion, I would have bought a house in Barbados and be
living there six months of the year...

But I didn't follow my better judgment, so I am offering
the following tips in the hope that a handful of
open-minded company bosses read this and learn what really
makes a 'great story', thus increasing their chances of
press coverage.

The first question an editor will ask when they receive a
news release is 'why have they sent this to me?' Press
releases have to overcome the 'so what?' barrier. If the
editor reads it and thinks 'so what?' it will be filed in
the wastepaper basket. To increase your chances of getting
press coverage your news release, whether destined for
online or print publication, needs to be newsworthy and
concise.

National papers are notoriously hard to penetrate. They
work to tight deadlines and only want hard news. They are
just not interested in small, soft stories. They want
takeovers and £million deals. The sort of stories that
they might be interested in are:

* A contract with a well-known company to recruit a large
number of employees, and worth a significant amount of
money.
* Consultancy/interim management contract with a blue-chip
company worth a significant amount of money.

The Sunday papers have more space to fill and have the
luxury, if you can call it that, of longer lead-in times.
They might cover a story that the daily papers just don't
have the time nor column inches to explore in depth.
Having said that, the Sundays still adhere to the same
principles as the dailies and only the newsworthy and
concise need apply.

Trade magazines, on the other hand, have a smaller target
audience, so are more likely to cover softer stories. There
are 1000's of trade magazines in the UK. You will know
your own trade press. The sort of stories they might be
interested in include:

* Significantly strengthening your recruitment team
* Tendering for and securing consulting deal with
well-known company
* A deal with company for £200k-£300k
* An award for recruitment/consultancy achievement

You might feel you have something important to say about
your chosen industry, but unless you have an angle and are
willing to research and give examples other than your own
company's, the editor will not publish it. Editors' loathe
blatant propaganda.

Another equally good and much-undervalued publisher of a
newsworthy story is the local press. People often ignore
local press because they view it as parochial and pandering
to a limited target audience. Remember that most national
journalists started out on their local paper: A contact
made now might become extremely valuable in the future.

It is important that you send your story to the right
person within the local paper/s within your area. Remember
that papers outside the area where you operate WILL NOT be
interested in your story. The Leicester press, for
example, will not want to hear about a Nottingham story and
vice-versa.

You will need to establish the name and email address of
the business editor. By calling the switchboard, you can
ask to be put through to the business editor. Some locals
have a daily business page and a weekly business page. If
this is the case decide which is best and speak to that
editor first and ask if they think you should contact the
editor of the weekly/business section? Reporters are
notoriously territorial and it should ensure that you get
coverage on your chosen page.

If the paper doesn't have a dedicated business editor, ask
to be put through to the newsroom and get the name and
email address of a reporter. It's always a good idea to
give them a taster of what you're sending.

Local papers would be interested in national and trade
stories as well as:

* A move to new offices.
* A contract to supply a local company.
* A consultancy contract with a local company.
* Employing local people.

Once you have a valid story and know where you want to send
it, the next step is to write the article in a way that
appeals to the editor. The editor's mental checklist
includes:

Does the news release look professional? If it doesn't, the
editor will assume she/he can't trust the information and
facts within it.

Is it blatant propaganda? Very few publications will allow
you a plug for no reason.

Is it topical? Editors don't want to hear 'recently', 'last
week' or 'last month'

Can I read it easily? A sentence that has to be read twice
to be deciphered will end up in the bin.

Are they talking to me in language my readers will
understand? Has it been written with my readers in mind?

A picture paints a thousand words A high-resolution JPEG
(minimum 300dpi) will significantly increase your chances
of publication.

And most importantly: Once you have sent your news release,
monitor those publications for coverage, if it is
published, keep a copy. It is gratifying to see the fruit
of one's labours and the published article can be used for
other marketing initiatives, such as portfolios, banners,
brochures, posters, as background to photos of new team,
etc.

Remember, even the best story may not get published.
Everything is at the discretion of the editor. But by
following these steps you will increase your chances of
making it into print.

----------------------------------------------------
Clare Jakeman is Internet Director of Alpha Executive Jobs.
Clare has over 10 years as an expert in the field of online
marketing, PR and recruitment.
Visit http://www.alphaexecutivejobs.com