A successful home based business is just about the money. It’s about the relationship that a home business owner builds with his or her customers. The home business owner is able to fulfill a need that the customer could not find anywhere else or did not want to buy from anyone else. Let’s take a look at the key elements that all successful home based businesses have in place.1. Get OnlineThe internet is the largest marketplace that has ever existed. The most successful home businesses have integrated their business onto the internet. It enables them to easily connect to customers from all over the world and operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.2. Know Your Target AudienceA business cannot sell everything to everybody. A successful home based business knows their target audience. They are aware of the issues and problems that their target market face everyday. They know what makes their customers happy and how they can constantly provide them with value.3. A Growing List Of ProspectsOnce you have determined your target audience, you need to retain and develop customer relationships. By developing an email list of people who have shown an interest in your home based business, you can remain in contact with them for as long as they are willing to receive emails from you. Email marketing is still the most effective marketing tool.4. Only Sell Top Quality Products And ServicesYou can market your own services or products or you can sell other people’s services or products. The key factor is to only sell top quality items. It takes a long time to build your business reputation, but it can be quickly damaged if you sell poor quality products that are overvalued and don’t deliver what you promised.5. Multiple Revenue StreamsDon’t just rely on selling one product at one price. Look to offer other products or services such as upgrades or add-ons that complement your product. There may even be associated products that other businesses have created that you could sell as an affiliate.6. Traffic To Your WebsiteA successful home based business will have an online presence. But you have to get people to your website in the first place. Free website traffic can take time to produce results, but when it starts it can provide a constant traffic flow. Paid website traffic provides immediate results, but when you stop paying, the traffic stops. It is always best to have a good combination of free and paid traffic methods.
What You Need to Know Before Starting a Home Based Business
More and more people are turning to the internet to start their own home based businesses as a result of losing their jobs. Many people see it as a way to ‘recession proof’ their income and gain more control over their finances. It can be an exciting time, but there are definitely a few things to think about before jumping into anything.There are many people and many products online that are offering less-than-genuine offers of starting one’s own home based business. These companies see you as a sitting duck and they are ready to pounce all over you, but if you do your homework and take emotion out of the decision process you won’t be taken advantage of. The Federal Trade Commission just doesn’t have enough manpower to regulate and shut down every illegitimate business, but there are steps you can do to protect yourself while starting your own home based business.To begin, search for businesses that have been in operation for a while, a flash in the pan business offering garbage products won’t last very long. When on the company’s website, look for prominent news sources that you are confident have done the proper research to make sure they were covering a sound home based business. Seek out home businesses where the founders have achieved success outside of their current opportunity, who began their current business to fill a particular niche in the market, and who are genuinely interested in helping others start their own businesses and not just interested in making a quick buck.Of course, once you find a company that you feel you can trust, make sure you are ready to handle the urgency it requires to work for yourself. Being able to put every bit of energy into your work is the only way you will be able to fulfill you end of any bargain you make with an online marketing company.There are many internet ‘business in a box’ solutions out there that can meet your needs and talents. Home based businesses that have an application process end up saving you many hours of working with people that are not very serious because it will weed Read their client testimonies carefully and look between the lines. This should go without saying, but make sure you know what you are getting into when joining a company. Businesses that provide in depth training, workshops, and live support is a big step in the right direction. Businesses with good clear communication can be an indication that they are for real interested in your economic security as well as their own.Marketing online can be tricky and a difficult landscape to navigate, but being able to ask lots of questions and have them answered clearly are the signs you are getting a great return on your investment when starting a home based business.
Why Is It So Difficult To Lend To Small Businesses
Small business have always had a hard time finding and securing financing – regardless of the state of the economy. But, why is this so?
There are several reasons:
There are mainly two types of organizations that provide small business loans.
First – Funds:
1) Your typical bank or traditional financial institution. These organizations normally get the money that they lend out to businesses from depositors – individual and businesses that expect their money to be there when they need it. Thus, these organizations have a further fiduciary duty to protect those funds from any harm.
2) Private Lenders. These organizations typically get the money that they lend out from investors. Now, these investors know (or should know) that there is always risk in any lending or investment activity. And, for that risk, they expect higher than average returns on those investments. Those who manage those funds (the private lenders), in order to stay in business and continue to receive those investment dollars, know that they have to both lower any risk as well as meet return expectations.
Why this matters: Banks have to ensure that they are not taking undue risk with other peoples money. If they fail in this duty, they can be fined, regulated or closed. Thus, they are really tight about risk.
Private lenders are essentially in the same boat. While they want to take more risk (in hopes of getting more reward for it) they just can’t really pull it off out of fear of losing too much on that risk and thus losing their investors – no investors, no business.
As a side note – all these organizations are in business to make money – not lose it.
Second – Regulation:
The financial industry is one of the highest regulated industries in the world. Banks bare the brunt of these regulations (has to do with the other people’s money aspect).
One of the most detrimental regulations to banks, when it comes to lending, is the Allowance for Loan Losses (ALL) Accounts that these organizations have to reserve for.
In a nutshell, a bank has to typically reserve up to 10% of all outstanding loan balances in a separate ALL account. Thus, if a bank puts out a $1 million loan, they also have to reserve in their ALL account 10% or $100,000 – money that they have to hold back and can’t put out in other loans.
Now, history has shown that small businesses tend to be more risky. In fact, according to the SBA, small businesses have averages between 12% to 18% default rates – and, up to 60% for some of the SBA’s more risky loan programs like micro loans.
Further, when the regulators come to visit these banks and see a higher than average level of small business loans, the regulators can require these banks to increase their reserve amounts to 15%, 20% or higher to cover the potential risk.
Banks tend to frown upon these reserve requirements as it takes money out of their lending coffers – money that they can’t put out in any loan type and thus can’t earn any revenue (interest and fee) from. Thus, they tend to do all they can to avoid having their reserve requirements increased and, in some cases like our current economy, tend to pull back all loans as not to have to fund these ALL accounts at all.
Private lenders on the other hand, do not face many of these same government regulations but do face scrutiny from their investors – which can result in the same type of pulling back loans to small firms. Also, these private lenders are regulated in how much they can charge in interest rates which puts a floor on the level of loans they are willing to underwrite and fund.
Example: A bank might be able to charge say on average 8% for a loan. This 8% covers their cost of funds (2%), their overhead (3%) and their profit margins (3%). Private lenders also have the same overhead costs (3%) and profit requirements (3%) but have to return some 10% or more to their investors – their cost of funds.
This means that they have to charge higher rates – which could be capped by regulations. Thus, many of these lenders will try to work around these higher rates by focusing on larger loans from less risky borrowers – not to essential earn more but to reduce their level of defaults.
Why does this matter? It is hard to lend outside the box when the walls of the box keeps getting higher and higher to overcome.
Third – Cost:
Most businesses that bring in more customers can achieve an economies of scale by spreading overhead costs over more customers. But, it’s not so in banking or private lending.
Let say that it takes 10 man hours to underwrite a loan – regardless of size. Man hours used to meet with borrowers, collect documentation, perform analysis, create documentation and manage the loan process. Thus, a lender can underwrite 10 small business loans of $100,000 each and spend some 100 man hours doing it. Or, they can underwrite a $1 million loan and only spend 10 man hours. Both would provide the same return (provided they both had the same rate and term) yet, the 10 loans would cost 10 times as much – eating into the lenders profit or investors returns.
Why does this matter? Because managing costs is a great way to improve a business’s profits (and, that is what they are in business for).
Thus, why it is so difficult to lend to small businesses is due to the trade-off between risk and reward. Small businesses have too much risk for such little reward potential.
Why, you might ask, do I bring this up? Because I am seeking input from others on new, innovative ways in which we can change lending to small businesses – ways that may take away or mitigate the risks involved and to help ensure adequate returns on these loans.