Work at Home Moms Articles – WAHM Articles

Regardless of what products you sell, the home party business is a year-round enterprise. Consultants that rely on their sales revenue for regular income do not want to see the flow of money stop because sales are seasonal. There are just as many good reasons to host an event in the summer as there are in the winter. When you know the ways to keep your home party business going all year long, you will start to realize the benefits of ongoing income.

- Shatter the Misconception

As a consultant, you come into contact with a lot of people that carry the misconception that your business only operates on a seasonal basis. Business success is often based on perception, and you can change that perception by letting people know that you work all year long.

When you talk to people about scheduling events, remind them that you run a year-round business. Find ways of scheduling events during months that many people think you are not operating. Include small phrases such as “offering year-round service” on all of your literature; that helps to corect the misconception that your business is seasonal.

- Keep Good Data

Momentum is a big part of maintaining a year-round business. Keep comprehensive sales data at all of your events that indicate what your best selling items are and how many of those items you commonly sell. When you find yourself ready to schedule an event at a time that is not traditionally busy, use these hot-selling products in your advertising to gain interest in the event. Attendees who see strong attendance at events scheduled during off-peak months will start to lose the part-time notion of your business.

- Keep Your Marketing Habits

As soon as you stop marketing your business, consumers will begin to think that you are done for the year. When the traditional slow months start to come up in the calendar, you should maintain your marketing efforts. Stay in front of people by hosting as many events as possible and continue to get marketing materials out to prospective customers.

One of your strongest sources of income and new clients is your referral network. Keep working your referral network on a full-time basis all year round. Do not let people tell you that an event will not work because of the time of year. You need to stay focused and keep your business in front of people to keep it going.

Being a year round home party plan consultant means never letting up on your marketing efforts and having an open calendar all year long. When people realize that you work the entire year, you will start to see your business prosper.

Deb Bixler is a home party plan business coach who teaches systems that create success in any party plan business. Incorporating her direct sales business tips into your business you will create a consistent income year round. Learn more about home party plan success systems that work for all companies here.

Look around you…what do you see around your work at home office? What is around your desk? Is there a window in your office? Is your office tidy and organized? What inspires you?

The following are some inspirational ideas you may or may not have thought of…

My work at home office is where I spend approximately forty five or more hours every week. That is a lot of hours to be confined to just one room. So…what inspires me that I am surrounded with in my home office?

Well, I have a lot of photos of my son that sit on top of my desk. Those are a real inspiration to me. Throughout my day, I take little breaks and look up at them. A flood of memories go through my mind…good ones. These are good thoughts and they help keep me motivated.

I also have a framed poem sitting on my desk. It is titled; “To Those I love.” This framed jewel was given to me by my Sister. It was from my Mother, whom has passed on. My Mother always gave me a lot of support with my online business. And all I have to do is look up at that frame and read it, and it gives me all the inspiration I need to get me through my day.

A couple of scented candles also sit on my desk. I light these regularly. My favorite scents…Cherry Plums and Lavender.

To continue reading this article, click here.

It’s okay to take a sick day even when you work from home was one of my work at home tips I offered on Twitter. As a small business owner who works at home, this question is often asked as to what you do when you’re sick.

My answer is depending on how sick I am and I do take sick days which I have taken recently. Some people may think, well, that’s easier said than done. For me, I’m like, how so?

Can you answer these two questions?

1. Is your business more important than your health?
2. How well is your business doing if you’re working on limited capacity?

Granted, some people may be able to work at full capacity when they’re ill, but I have to wonder what kind of quality a person is producing in their work.

It’s great if you have a Virtual Assistant (VA) or business partner to hold down the fort for you when you’re sick, but if you’re a one woman show like me here are two tips to keep your business running smoothly when you aren’t.

1. Set up an auto-responder for your email accounts. It could be a generic out of office/away from the desk and I’ll reply to you as soon as possible type message. You could easily have this already set up in your email settings and all you have to do is enable it.

There are two reasons this is a good idea.

I don’t know about you, but I get a “sick” brain. I’m also impatient and I can be very forward. I can be irritable. It’s hard to interpret tone in email communication and the last thing I want to do is sound condescending, snarky or rude to new clients, current clients or customers.

Secondly, you could be making bad business decisions. Correspondences are best left when you can fully wrap your brain around the subject.

2. You can still market your business on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook by automating your tweets. There are different third party apps you can use to schedule your tweets, but the common ones are TweetDeck and Hootsuite. It’s important to remember to answer your direct messages and replies when you’re feeling better.

Your business should be able to run on its own steam for a while. It’s important to take the time to recover from your illness because your business is as good as the person running it.

Sophia McIntyre is an Internet Marketer, Article Marketer, Ghostwriter and founder of WorkAtHomeSpace.com, a free resource focusing on work at home companies and jobs, home businesses and other money making opportunities.

It’s so easy to get side-tracked when we fail to sit down and write out a specific to-do list. We end up wasting hours away during our business work hours. And consider this…if you were to get paid for all those lost hours, you might be a millionaire!

There seems to be two main extremities among business managers…

Those that suffer in utter chaos (you know, constantly looking for that lost file on the computer, a forgotten password, or notes scribbled on some little piece of paper somewhere — “It was right there yesterday! Really it was!”

On the other side of the coin, there are those that seem to fly through their day. They accomplish so much (it makes your head swirl), and stunningly enough…they even manage to have spare time to get a manicure and read their favorite book. They thrive abundantly in an organized, stress-free manner. Best of all, they don’t have to rush and burn the midnight hours away trying to get caught up.

The choice between the two options is really up to us. We all have the same 24 hours every day to get things done, and how we manage to use those 24 hours each day makes a real difference in our business and our home life. As you work from home, it’s more important than ever to organize your business tasks or you may find yourself working endless hours (and addicted to coffee).

Here’s 3 Easy Tips to Help You Manage Your To-Do List:

1. Make a master list. Create a master list of everything you need to accomplish for the entire week. Next, begin to break down your list into a daily “to-do” schedule. When you plan early the tasks that need to be done, you allow yourself more time to accomplish them without being bogged down or overwhelmed.

To continue reading this article, click here.

The winter months can be hard on your home and your home office. Clutter tends to build and piles become more the norm than the exception. If winter has wrecked havoc on your home office, be thankful that Spring will soon be making an appearance. Try the five tips for spring cleaning your home office below to get your space back on the road to clutter-free existence.

1. Plan
The first thing to do is come up with a plan of attack. This may seem like a waste of time, but by creating a timeline for getting things done, you eliminate the odds of feeling overwhelmed. Using either a simple piece of blank paper or a spreadsheet, designate five days for working through the clutter and cleaning your office from top to bottom. Divide the office space into four zones and work through one zone each day, with the last day being used for overall dusting, polishing, and freshening up.

2. Purge Piles
Purging the piles of paper and clutter around your office is a big step toward getting organized. Keep a trashcan handy and sort through piles. Throw away or shred the things you do not need and immediately file the things that you do. You will find that you can quickly get through this part if you stay focused.

To continue reading this article, click here.

Spring is here! However, depending on where you live it may not look very much like spring outdoors. In our Canadian prairies spring comes late. Winnipeg still has lots of snow and here in Calgary it is still too cold to plant gardens outdoors. We are fortunate there are many ways to enjoy gardening indoors.

In this experiment we will learn what plants need to grow and be healthy.

You will need a collection of new plants and seeds, several small containers appropriate to be used as plant pots, and some soil, some sand, and some clay. You will also need some water and just a little bit of plant food.

Have fun planting some seed in soil, some in sand, and some in clay in the containers. Do the same with the plants. Give some seeds and some plants water while giving other seed and plants none or just a little. Put some containers in plenty of sunshine but others in little or none. Give some plant food and others not. If you are brave, damage one plant by mishandling it. I can never do this because plants are so special to me. Make a note of which seeds and plants you have watered and those you have not. Do the same with the containers you have put in the sun and those you have not and mark the plant you have been a little rough with.

Each day observe the containers and watch the seeds sprout and the plants grow. Compare the growth of the plants in different mediums and areas. What happened to the plant you damaged?

Did you discover:

To continue reading this article, click here.

As we all know customers are the core of any business in one way or the other. Without our customers, we would be nothing. So, it would be a wise decision to make sure all of our customers are properly taken care of and satisfied when they do business with us.

Listed below are ten ways we can begin to secure our customers happiness and satisfaction.

1. Always be attentive towards the customer. Be sure to listen to them when they tell you what they want or of any problems they are having with your products and/or services. Never dismiss their opinions or questions.

2. Reward regular customers and new potential customers. I like to treat my regular customers but be sure not to neglect potential and new customers. They deserve special treatment as well. Offer special discounts, free gifts, points towards more free gifts, coupons, money-saving bundles or packages, etc. The more options you provide, the more sales you will probably get.

3. Respect your customers! I cannot stress this one enough. Treat your customers, one and all, like they were your family. Give them all the respect and care they need from you and then some.

4. Earn their trust and respect! If you promise something, deliver! If you say you will give them a special deal, deliver. Always be true to your word and do not make false claims or promises. People are not stupid and they will see through deceptive marketing practices.

5. The customer is always right. Unfortunately this is not true. The customer is sometimes wrong and in that case, you should handle it properly. Be calm, polite, supportive and helpful. Explain the problem and let the customer know what you will do to rectify the situation. Your calm demeanor can sometimes calm the customer. Never lose control of your emotions.

To continue reading this article, click here.

One of the hardest things about working at home is staying motivated. February has been a non motivating month for me and I’m not even sure how I became this way.

I’m sitting in my kitchen writing this blog post and once in awhile I’ll look up, look through my French doors, and see a snow covered yard. That is NOT motivating at all! I just want to curl up and hibernate until winter is officially over, but of course, that’s not a realistic thing to do.

I’ve been experimenting by making small, but important changes in my routine so I can find motivation and joy from working at home again.

Since being in this funk, I knew I had to switch gears in my daily routine. After my morning walk instead of heading straight to the computer with my mug of hot chocolate, I enjoy my hot chocolate and breakfast in the kitchen. Most times, I will grab my iPad and start going through my emails or search for job leads to post on my forum.

After breakfast, I’ll go to the desktop computer and finish the rest of my work. I’ve always had a bad habit of not breaking completely for lunch. Sometimes I would forget to eat or grab something small and eat it standing in the kitchen or I would eat while working on the computer.

I enjoy having lunch away from my computer, but then I’m in the kitchen using my iPad to catch up on working on smaller gigs that doesn’t require a lot of brain power. Some may think this is still working and I’m not taking a break, but this works for me as I can squeeze in a bit more production time on smaller paying projects.

Around three o’clock, I head back out to pick up my daughter from school. I get a good hour walk (to and from) so this gives me a lot of time to de-clutter my mind.

If you find you’re unmotivated, try switching gears by changing your daily routine. The important thing is to try and find out why you’re not motivated. Is there something you don’t enjoy doing anymore, or you’re feeling overwhelmed in your personal and business life? Talk it over with someone, find your focus and get support. You’re not alone because there’s always someone who can relate.

I’m glad February is over and I’m looking ahead to being more motivated in March and I know I still have some more work to do. What tips do you have to keep yourself motivated? I would love to read your comments below!

Sophia McIntyre is an Internet Marketer, Article Marketer, Ghostwriter and founder of WorkAtHomeSpace.com, a free resource offering work at home companies and jobs, home businesses, ghostwriting services and other work at home related topics.

Taking a break is nice to do when you have the opportunity. I did that yesterday and I’ll tell you it was very nice. I worked a bit here and a bit there, but most of the day was dedicated to my son and my husband.

You see yesterday was my oldest son’s birthday. He turned 16 yesterday and that only happens once in a life time, so you must make the best of it and that’s exactly what we do, so to speak. It was a really hard day for us, but he loved every bit of it. We spent a good portion of the day worried and stressing because he was driving on his own.

While birthdays are a wonderful thing to celebrate personally, you can also do the same thing for your business. A celebration is a great way to introduce new products or services, remind your customers and potential customers of the current products or services, and to introduce your business to others that may not know what you do.

A birthday celebration usually contains gifts or cash and that’s something you can incorporate into your business. Having an open house and sharing your business with others is great, but it’s even better when you give people gifts. The gift give the winners the ability to use your products or to give them the ability to build a trust with you.

So if you’re ready to increase your business, consider some sort of celebration. You’ll find even though you’ll spend money with the give-aways you’ll increase your income and grow your business with new customers or clients.

I have been professionally working from home for the past 21 years and at times I have gotten so bogged down with doing things for my family, friends and my business that I had no time left over for myself. Over the years…I have learned to say no to others so that I had time for myself.

At the beginning of my work at home career I was juggling way too much. I tried to put in 6-8 hours a day working on my business, cleaning my home, taking care of the kids, making dinner, running errands and all of those things that we are responsible for as mothers. At the end of the day I would be stressed out and exhausted and didn’t feel any self-worth or self-importance.

Over the years I have learned to balance both my professional life, family life and personal life into something that works for me. The solution for me was to come up with a daily schedule and routine. To start your own daily schedule and routine you need to sit down and make three lists. Label your three lists: Work, Family and Pleasure. Your next step is to list the tasks you want to accomplish along with the amount of time you think you will need to accomplish those tasks in. You will want to block off 1 blank hour per day onto each of your lists for those things that ‘pop up’ that you didn’t plan on.

To continue reading this article, click here.