Home Business Career with Home Decor Products

Home is where the heart is. The memories of our formative years are attached with home. We all have a certain degree of yearning for home. That’s why we love home decors as much as we love home.

Running a home decor online store is one such job where there is no off/on season. If you love home, have some appreciation for decorating, then a home business career with home decor products is the best job for you to express your creative self as well as win sure profits.

If you understand the quality of craftsmanship in home decor, and plan for extraordinary designs, you will in all ways be a successful businessman. Or else you can affiliate yourself with any great home decor business and work from home. Today, the options to run business online from home are easy, effective and highly affordable.

Can you guess from where we get maximum comfort? Hotels? Restaurants? Corporate Offices…? No. It’s home, sweet home. Because home is a comfort zone for us. Not only as a physical surrounding, but in all aspects it touches our lives. By selling home décor products or promoting them, you touch the lives of people of all ages.

Throughout the history, well planned home decor business or for that matter any home product business has never drowned. The reasons are many. First, whether boom or burst, people need homes, if not other gadgets. Secondly, people make smart decision in buying home products, because they know the quality. So, as long as you are confident on your or your affiliate’s product quality then there is nothing to worry. You can make it big in home decor business.

At this time of cost optimization you don’t need inventory of your own, you don’t need logistics support at your home. Still as an entrepreneur you can benefit from virtual home decor business where on you have to help in lead generation and prospect creation.

You are exposed to a web of opportunities; you can make an intelligent choice and sign up with a company who specializes in home décor products. It can be fun and rewarding.

However, if you want to break free from all those affiliations you can start a business all on your own. But this requires a flair for interior decorating and business prudence. Then you can specialize in the home decor product where you can spell your bit of genius. Like costume designing there are infinite home décor ideas. All depends on your entrepreneurship. Again you have develop channel partnership with interior designers, home builders, contractors, decorators and furniture stores in order to make your business visible in the market.

You might ask why these contacts and contracts with so many people. The answer is plain – they can spread the word about your business and place you in front of prospective clients, irrespective of the nature of your business, online affiliation or own showroom.

While turning you hobby/passion into a business, you need to do a lot of research. You might ask why. Because hence forth you have to take care of other people’s passions also. Make a little survey what the people like/dislike. You can get the biz details from many sources. If you have started an online home décor business, then make your virtual showroom neat, convenient and make it to top page ranks. And try to build affiliates down you line.

Apple’s Hostility Toward Adobe Products – The Impact on Websites

As a web designer/developer, a search engine optimization specialist, and website manager and overseer for my clients, I have registered many of the websites I have created with Google Analytics, an enormously helpful tool to monitor visitor sources, interests and preferences. Each day, after checking my email, I spend a generous part of my morning analyzing its reports which include how many visitors viewed each website, how they were referred, what keywords they used, what pages they visited, how long they spent on each page and what service provider they utilize, among other things. I check the last item because it often specifies the name of a company, a university, a government agency or other specific source as opposed to a behemoth IT provider like Verizon or Comcast. Often this is critical information about who is visiting our sites.

Recently, and I admit I am late in addressing this subject, I have been intrigued by what page they “landed on.” The reason for my interest has to do with a concern about their ability to receive Flash, currently a contentious topic due to Apple Computer’s refusal to include this technology on some of its latest, very popular products which include the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad.

As a lifelong Mac user and lover, I usually admire and support anything and everything Apple, based on firsthand positive experience with their fantastic products and stock performance. I have benefited greatly from both. However, after having purchased Adobe’s Creative Suite software several years ago and exerted the arduous effort to teach myself Flash, I have a vested interest in being able to continue to utilize those sophisticated files on many of my major websites, particularly since my clients have paid me for their creation and they add glamour and pizzazz to any page they appear on.

But this recent development sadly appears to be little more than a nasty, competitive rivalry between two outstanding technology companies. Whether prompted by gluttony for market dominance or lack of compromise or cooperation under the guise of a better user experience, it has impacted everyone who has a website that uses Flash in its presentations. In researching what the consensus of opinion is on this topic, I read one account of a professional woman who was entertaining business guests in Great Britain. One of the guests was proudly showing off his new iPad and asked for the hostess’ URL address so they could admire her website together on this new stage. What happened next is what triggered my worry. When he arrived at her website, all they saw were big black holes because her website was primarily dependent on Flash. Her embarrassment was mortifying.

Realizing that my own company website home page is composed of three rather large Flash files along with some requisite HTML text, not to mention that some of my clients’ newly showcased home pages also flaunt large Flash movies to inspire, bedazzle and impress, I focused on my recent curiosity about some of the Google Analytics’ reports I had seen which showed 0:00 time spent on the landing page. In the case of my own website, the landing page is almost always the home page. It occurred to me that if visitors arrived there to view nothing but black, who could blame them for defecting immediately? Could such visitors be using the latest Apple products? Although Google Analytics does not specify the brand or type of computer or device used, it does pinpoint the operating system and browser which in this case would be OS X and Safari.

Changing what happened in the past is a fruitless pursuit so my goal now centered on controlling website visitations in the future. Having used Adobe’s Dreamweaver software to create my Flash files, I was aware and had already utilized a behavioral control which places a sensor on the page to identify whether a visitor has the Flash software necessary to view a Flash movie. If not, the visitor is automatically rerouted to an alternate page made specifically without Flash to accommodate this somewhat rare situation. But as with everything we encounter these days, the sensor does not work with all browsers (in this case, the old standby culprit: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which historically, in my experience, has always included ubiquitous roadblocks to user-friendliness) so the web designer is left with a dilemma. What to do? While the intuitive sensor gives you the option to choose to reroute the visitor to a new page or just allow him to stay on the original Flash page if no detection is possible, this does not solve the problem. Everyone knows that Windows and Internet Explorer has been the predominant platform for most Internet use, despite Apple’s surge in popularity in recent years. But it seems that Google’s new Chrome browser has just overtaken that honor. That means that it probably makes sense to allow such visitors to stay on the original Flash page since they in all likelihood would have the Flash reader. After all, it was the Mac user which prompted this quandary, and only certain Macs at that. And supposedly the sensor would be able to detect Flash presence on a Mac operating system. To confirm this assumption, I researched further and found that Adobe’s Flash 10.1 is officially WP7 bound. This new update will be launched for all WP7 devices; this means that the entirety of the internet will be available on the browser for Microsoft’s latest mobile platform. The Google Android OS was the first to receive support for Flash 10.1 on the 2.2 Froyo version of the open source mobile platform. According to Adobe, the Flash player will also be adapted to other operating systems – except for Apple.”

Next hurdle, how to replicate the sophistication of Flash on an alternate page without Flash? After some investigation via a variety of Google searches, I learned that Apple is promoting an open source coding language called html5 for just such a problem. For me, that was not an option since I have not recently upgraded my operating system beyond Mac OS X 10.4.11 to the required level of advancement, 10.5.8. The other possible solution was to utilize javascript in some kind of slide show. There is one other solution as well but it is not terribly effective if you have large original Flash files. Should you have a small subtle effect created in Flash, you can choose to convert that file to an animated gif file which may be larger than the original Flash file but can still suffice as a replacement in this instance.

While these suggestions may be an acceptable interim strategy, I believe this conflict of interests is the beginning of a changing of the guard on the Internet as I notice that more and more websites are eliminating Flash from their files and are converting to use of html5 or javascript instead. By the same token, RedmondPie.com reports that a new entrepreneurial company is seizing this situation as a business opportunity with the release of a new product to receive Flash on iPhone: “… you can now get a very alpha version of Flash (aka Frash) to run right on your iPhone 4.” How many more innovators will soon follow this trend? I have already seen that the mobile phone market has been quick to jump into the fray with blatant marketing messages about their products’ warmhearted reception of Flash! Apple in the meantime has clarified its “hostile” stance by saying that its decision to restrict inclusion of the Adobe Flash Readers on its newest machines that still can receive Flash was made with concern that users receive the latest version of that software which they can get for free directly from Adobe. OK, that makes sense. But where is Apple going to draw the line? What is the plan for Adobe PDF technology? Will they be banning that too?

Although I was hoping to try to get another year out of my present operating system and dependent software, I think I have confronted a major reason why I need to upgrade soon, probably before the end of the tax year to get the benefit of these necessary business expenses. Unfortunately for me that will mean a possible expensive or cumbersome conversion to OS X 10.6.5, along with a need to also reinstall Parallels to simultaneously run Windows, which allows me to check how each browser and operating system is displaying my website creations. And as if that isn’t enough, doing such an upgrade will truly be the proverbial “opening a can of worms” because now I will need to upgrade all my other creative software, the least of which will include Quark 8.0 (which, by the way, now currently offers Flash creativity, a function I have until now been snubbing), Adobe CS5 Photoshop, Adobe CS5 Acrobat Professional, Adobe CS5 Illustrator, and Adobe CS5 Fireworks. Sorely missing from that list is my beloved Adobe CS5 Dreamweaver. Without being able to predict the future, who will prevail in the technology wars over open source vs. proprietary coding, or whether we all will eventually switch to smaller devices for Internet access, the question remains: To Flash or not to Flash?

Tips How To Make Money With Google AdSense, Facebook, A Writer And Selling Offline Products Online

One of the best known ways to make money from a website is through Google AdSense. However, only few know exactly how to use it, how to maximize it properly, and eventually make a decent income out of it. Because Google AdSense will literally make money for you without you doing anything with it, it is one of the few programs online you can set and forget. You know Google AdSense; the question is do you know how to earn from it?

To make money from website, you can sign up your site or blog for a free account at Google AdSense. Once you did, Google will start putting contextual ads to it – ads that are relevant to your site. For example, your site or blog talks about weight loss, posted contextual ads are also related to weight loss. Ads that appear in your site are relevant to your area; so if you’re based in US, the ads are based in the US.

These are carefully worked out for you so that you can make money from website. Every time someone clicks to the ads that appear to your site, you get earn credit into your AdSense account. It may be just a few cents per click, but if your site holds high traffic, you are likely to get more than a few clicks to the ads. It would help if the ads are attractive to your visitors.

Since the appearance of the ads affect how visitors respond to the ads, it would be helpful if you change the color or text of the ads. Experiment on it and choose which one you think would fit best. If what you have is blog, there is a limit to which you can employ changes. Regardless, Google AdSense is one of the passive ways to make money from website.

There are several ways to make money online, but did you know that you can make real money using Facebook? Facebook has more than 800 million users and still growing, making it the most popular website in the internet. Since the basic element to make money online is traffic, Facebook becomes the most convenient way to do business online for its “built-in” traffic. Even you can make money on Facebook with just about anything.

So how to make real money on Facebook? You can consider two things: bring your existing business on Facebook or open a new one. Whatever your business outside, you can it bring on Facebook. Just look at the different companies that have transferred their marketing money from SEO to Facebook marketing.

Giant companies like Nike and Pepsi all have Facebook fan pages which you can do for your business as well. Your page may not get 11 million likes, but it can definitely receive instant traffic and exposure to whatever brand you are promoting. And because you can tap the social network’s young, active and viral crowd, a good Facebook marketing campaign can be picked up by anyone and spread like wildfire and can lead your business to make real money. This situation is always favorable to you.

There are a few things you can do to make real money on Facebook: sell items, develops apps, advertise, and offer services. Pull out from your strengths and get ideas from what you do best. Then develop it as an online business. You’ll be surprised how people within your existing network will respond and help you promote your business.

Writing is probably the easiest way to make real money online. Freelance writing, article writing, e-book writing, blogging and technical writing are just a few things you can do. Freelance writing usually involves creating articles out of a certain topic that will be used to promote a certain website or to generate more traffic to the site. Depending on where the job order is coming from, you can get from $3 to as much as $150 per article.

Most websites need high quality articles and are willing to pay serious bucks out of it-this is where you can make real money online. Some may sacrifice quality and pay less. Some require short and simple write-ups. Others demand academic discourses.

Because websites need to feed search engines with fresh and new articles that are related to their websites, the demand for article writers and bloggers is endless. More and more websites being launched everyday that need articles. As a writer, this is nothing but a great opportunity. Should you wish to take writing as a career or as a serious way to make real money online, there are qualities you should possess.

To become successful as a freelance writer and make real money online, there are certain criteria that must be met. First, you should be able to write unique, quality, and original articles. Second, you should deliver articles on time, have a basic understand of keyword density, and perfect grasp of the English language. Finally, you should have a natural talent in writing and writing should be your passion to make the job easier.

There are countless ways to make money on the internet. All you need to do is to become more creative and unique. But how can you be unique if everyone else is doing the same thing? The article is focused on making money online by selling an offline product and taking it online.

Have you ever seen a product offline that really caught your attention that you have never seen selling online? If you know where to find it, have you considered selling it online? This is what we mean by being creative and unique. Getting a hold of this product that has not really taken off online is one of the best ways to make money on the internet.

You can do it several ways. Two of them include buying product or a range of products from a company and get discounts or becoming a sales agent and take a percentage from every sale. Ultimately, your option depends on how the company will agree with your plan to take the product online, but surely you can make money on the internet. And if you’re an exclusive online distributor, the entire market is yours.

Whichever way you approach your business, make sure you have a clear agreement with the company. Do ample research on the product. It’s easy to get caught up with the excitement, especially if you can make money on the internet out of it. But make sure to find as much as you can about how you can maximize your profit when you sell the product online.

Dany Cooper

How My Vet Helped Me Find Hot New Products to Sell on eBay

Today my vet mentioned the ‘F’ word ….. he’s foreign, Polish I think, and I’m not sure if the ‘F’ word is acceptable in his country ….. but it certainly is not acceptable in mine!

“Fat”, he said, “Your dog is too FAT. He needs to lose weight or he’ll DIE before his time.”

‘D’ along with the ‘F’ word made me sit up and take notice. “Lose the weight”, he said, “and he’ll be with you much longer.”

Enough said, immediately I got home I searched eBay, and ClickBank, for a report about helping your dog lose weight fast. I searched for ‘dog weight’ and ‘dog fat’ and I found ….. tons of huge bags of low calorie dog food and biscuits which I never give my dogs anyway, and absolutely ZILCH in the way of information to help me downsize my dog.

So I ended up searching Google for information about helping my mutt look more macho when the idea suddenly struck me – why don’t I turn all of this information from Google into a low cost information product to sell on eBay and ClickBank? Why not also promote my new infoproduct through eBay Classified Ads and grow a mailing list for products I can recommend later?

Oops, I forgot to say, I wasn’t the only person in the surgery to get a rollicking today, there were three of us with overweight mutts lined up for the exact same treatment …. which set me thinking ….. if three out of three people sitting in the surgery today need help of the kind proposed for my new product, just how many other people might also need it?

So I reckon I’ve found a fabulous new market, one that will help my dog, help other people’s dogs, and could possibly make a fortune for me!

The idea is to write a report and offer it for just a few dollars, and in the back of the report I’ll include affiliate links for other items to interest dog lovers, such as medicines, food and biscuits, holiday kennels, and so on. Think about it, if I sell just one eBook every day at $2 pure profit, that’s $600 plus per year, and that’s before we even start thinking about affiliate commissions.

What does this have to do with you? Well I just wanted to prove how easy it is to find a niche market with countless eager buyers and not one person providing for their needs, no one that I could find anyway!

The moral is to keep your eyes and ears open no matter where you are because ideas are all around you and just one idea is all it really takes to start a profitable business.

Apart from waiting for my vet to throw ideas at me, these are other methods I often use to locate some new niche market for my eBay business and other online ventures:

* Visit forums related to your chosen marketplace, such as dogs, but also including child care, marital problems, expatriate living, debt, and millions more. Find forums by searching Google for “xxx + forum” where xxx represents your chosen market or subject. So for forums frequented by chess players you might search for “chess + forum”.

Google usually returns the biggest and most active forums first on their listings, so note down the address of the first ten or so. Visit them in Google order and study postings by members and definitely, I don’t say maybe, I said definitely, you will encounter problems shared by many members. Study these problems and then look for free or low cost information products to help solve those problems. Look on eBay, look on ClickBank, other places too but those are enough to start with. If you find few or no suitable information products then you should consider writing your own or cobble one together from PLR and public domain text. If along with no suitable information products, you find physical products aplenty, these are the kind of products to promote as an affiliate inside your low-cost, no-cost reports.

* Study niche market publications on newsagents’ shelves, such as baby magazines and investment newspapers. Study various same subject publications that normally sit side by side on the newsagents’ shelves making studying them very easy indeed. Look at the headlines, notice if two or more publications feature one problem or theme which might be construed as applying to the entire niche marketplace. This indicates a problem or theme that you can profit from. So if, for example, you see two or more collectibles magazines focussing on one specific collectible, this could be the perfect product for you to sell on eBay. If two or more publications aimed at guitar players feature a new and revolutionary kind of guitar accessory, then this could be another perfect product for you.

* Watch the telly, listen to the radio, keep your eyes and ears open for problems and trends you might capitalise upon. Think about obesity and the belief that soon the majority of children will be morbidly FAT (that word again), then look for products to help parents reverse the trend.

Think about pension funds going belly up in line with firms going out of business and leaving lifelong employees facing a miserable old age. Now go to eBay, go to ClickBank, is there anything suitable for them to read to help grow their pension pot without outside help? No! Then that’s a perfect infoproduct for you to create, one with mountains of affiliate opportunities to promote on the back end. You could write a short report about alternative investments, for instance, or running a small business on eBay, suggesting both as a means of growing retirement income free from banks and employers. Just be sure to pack the product with links to Amazon books about making money on eBay and growing an affiliate investment portfolio and …..

….. oh I could go on for hours dreaming up new products to sell which would leave me with no time at all to actually promote those products. So I’ll leave you now to do your own research and to find products no one else is providing, all it takes is a few minutes but the rewards can last a lifetime!

Affiliate Marketing – Using Pay Per Click to Sell Products

Cost Per Action (CPA) online internet businesses sign up affiliates to promote products for other businesses. Some CPA network businesses are Affiliate.com, RevenueLoop.com, Clickbooth.com, and ClickBank.com. The CPA affiliate networks are paid by a publisher who in return pays the CPA network. Then affiliates are paid by the CPA networks for selling these products to consumers. Affiliates promote business offers by using pay per click (PPC) advertising search engines such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft Adcenter, Miva and etc.

Affiliates join PPC search engines and write ads to promote CPA affiliate network offers. Ad formats vary by PPC businesses but each always contains a headline.

The headline is used to attract the attention of potential customers. It is important for the headline to immediately grab the attention of potential internet customers. The headline needs to be relevant to the product or service you are promoting. Also, it is important that the first letter of each word is capitalized because this makes the headline easier to read.

Keywords are used to attract potential customers. Affiliates bid on keywords to attract potential customers. This is accomplished by affiliates paying PPC businesses to put ads on their networks. Relevant ads are displayed on the computer based on data entered in search engine by internet users. When someone clicks on these ads, the sales page is displayed and the customer has the opportunity to comply with the offer requirements.

Generally, the higher the keyword bid amount, the higher the page rank and page position will be. The page rank is the page number on which the ad appears. Page one is the coveted ad position because this is the first page displayed in a Google search. The page position is the position the ad appears on the page. The affiliate pays the PPC business the bid amount or a lesser amount each time someone clicks on the affiliate’s ad.

The ad also contains a description. The purpose of the description is to show a benefit and have a call to action that results in converting the ad to a sale. The description benefit could be something like Discover Weight Loss Secrets. Get Your Free Weight Loss Sample Here would be an effective call to action for this example.

It is important to capitalize the first letter of each word in the headline and description. Capitalizing the first letter of each word in a sentence helps to grab the attention of the reader.

Attention grabbing headlines are important. Some internet gurus suggest that the headline should contain a relevant keyword to improve the page rank and page position. Others believe that relevant content in the headline is more important.

You can find more relevant keywords by using free tools available on the internet. Perform a Google search on “Free Keyword Tools” and use them to obtain more relevant keywords to promote CPA network offers. Then promote merchant products and services by purchasing keywords on CPA networks.

CAUTION: When bidding on keywords be sure to set a daily or monthly dollar limit. This is important to limit potential losses. Individuals not familiar with how the PPC businesses work risk having substantial PPC costs. This can happen when keywords that are not relevant to the product being promoted have numerous hits but no sales conversions.

Determine which keywords are converting, then write different ad headlines using these keywords. Try limiting headlines and the sales message to contain one keyword.

It is possible to promote CPA network offers by only using search PPC provided by Google AdWords, MSN Adcenter, Miva, etc. However, most internet gurus believe that an individual really needs a web site to effectively promote CPA affiliate network offers. This allows your site to display the offer landing page, provides the opportunity to pre-sell the offer, and this potentially makes the customer more prone to act on the offer.

Landing pages also allow the opportunity to have a squeeze page that provides the customer an opportunity to look at another offer. Squeeze pages are also used to get subscribers to newsletters, other offers, etc. Additional offers can be sent by email to persons who subscribe to your newsletter. However, be sure that you comply with the laws pertaining to unsolicited emails.

Another reason for having your own web site is that you can use landing page ad rotators to promote several offers at one time. Offers are rotated sequentially as customers visit your web site. This is a good way to determine which offers have the best conversion rates and then you can concentrate on promoting offers with the highest conversion rate.

Affiliate marketing can be effectively implemented using PPC search engines to attract internet users to CPA offers. Advertising ads placed on search engines can either be directed to the CPA network offer or directed to your web site and then subsequently being redirected to the CPA network offer.

Should You Let Affiliate Marketers Sell Your Products?

If you have created great products that you are looking to sell online, you may have thought about using affiliate marketers to sell your products. Using this marketing method certainly has its appeal. You don’t have to write tomes of content to market your products. You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on pay per click marketing. You don’t have to figure out how to drive traffic to your sales pages.

Before you commit to making your products available through affiliate marketers, though, there are a few things that you should think about. This article will help you determine if selling your products through affiliate marketers is right for you and your business.

First, you should realize that you will be giving up a significant portion of your profits to the affiliate marketers that are driving traffic to your sales pages. The percentage of revenues that you will need to pay to affiliate marketers differs depending upon the types of products you are selling, and the caliber of affiliate marketers you want to attract.

If you are selling tangible products, such as books, cookware, yoga mats, or ceremonial swords, you will usually need to pay a commission of 10 to 20% of sales to your affiliates. These commissions can represent a significant portion of your total revenues, especially when you consider that you still have to pay for manufacturing, shipping, and product returns.

If you are selling electronic products, such as software, ebooks, or website subscriptions, you won’t have to worry about paying for manufacturing or shipping, because there are virtually no shipping costs, and no production costs beyond the initial development of the products.

However, affiliate marketers are accustomed to receiving commissions of 40%, 50%, or even 75% for promoting and selling these products. So if you are selling a $40 ebook, you may only realize a profit of $10 after your affiliate commissions have been paid, not counting the minimal costs associated with maintaining your sales website.

Second, you should think about how widely you want to spread your advertising. Once you make your product available to affiliate marketers, you have very limited control over where and how your products are marketed. Some larger companies have means of checking up on affiliate marketers to find out how there products are being marketed, but even the most sophisticated methods are only moderately effective.

If you have a high end product that creates a sense of luxury for your buyers, affiliate marketing may not be the best way of promoting your products. You don’t want your product to be advertised on just any website – certainly, there are certain types of websites that would not cast your products in a favorable light. Even on the internet, you have to maintain your business’s image, and this is more easily done if you keep your advertising in house.

On the other hand, if you have inexpensive products that you would like to make readily available to a wide base of internet consumers, affiliate marketing can work quite well for generating a high volume of sales.

Third, you should evaluate how much time and money you want to spend tracking affiliate sales and writing out commission checks. If you only plan on accepting a handful of affiliate marketers to promote your products, this may not be a big deal. A simple software program can help you keep affiliate IDs straight, so you can determine which affiliate marketer should be credited for each sale. If you plan on using hundreds of affiliates to sell your products, though, this can quickly become a very burdensome task.

If you do want to accept a high number of affiliate marketers, you might want to use a site such as Clickbank to handle tracking and payment functions for you. Clickbank charges you a flat free per product, but in the long run, it can be well worth this fee to have someone else handling these tasks.

Finally, you should consider how much time you have to spend evaluating and accepting affiliate marketers to promote your products. Essentially, you have two options when recruiting affiliate marketers. You can either accept every affiliate marketer that applies for your program, or you can conduct a thorough review of every applicant to make sure that they are a good fit for your program.

If you accept every marketer that applies for your program, you won’t have to spend much (if any) time reviewing your affiliate marketers’ websites and selling history. However, you will likely find that only 2 or 3 percent of the people who apply to your program have the motivation and skills necessary to effectively market your products. Most people that apply for your program will never get around to setting up dedicated websites, writing pay per click ads, or crafting the content necessary to generate interest for your products and drive traffic to your sales pages.

If you conduct a thorough review of every applicant, you will spend significantly more time on your affiliate marketing efforts, but you will likely find more qualified marketers to sell your products. This is especially true if you make this known to potential internet marketers up front. If you ask affiliate marketers for website addresses, verifiable sales figures, and professional references on your affiliate application page, you will immediately weed out those people who are not really serious about marketing your products. Of course, you’ll want to make sure you have the time to review websites and verify sales numbers, or you will quickly generate a backlog of work while your own sales figures suffer.

So before you start signing up affiliate marketers to promote your products, take the time to evaluate whether an affiliate model is truly right for you and your business.

Office Supplies For The Smart Shopper How Small Business Can Save On Office Products

The overall economy is tough these days, and nowhere is the pressure greater than on small businesses. Expenses continue to rise for everything, and many companies have taken to office supplies as an area to cut costs. High dollar purchases like new printers, office desks, conference room chairs or file cabinets can easily be put on hold. However, companies need every day office products to get the job done. An office without hanging folders, copy paper, pens and Post-It notes is an office in disarray. While those costs can never be eliminated, here are some surprising insider tips as to how to reduce your costs on office supplies.

It’s common sense that most people assume searching hard for the lowest invoice price assures you of getting the lowest cost on office supplies. In fact, the actual time (therefore money), spent scouring websites, newspaper ads or retail superstores for the absolute lowest price usually costs your business more than the cost savings you see on that sales receipt. Taking advantage of that “in-store” special at Office Mega-Store so you save $.75 on a box of hanging file folders does not relate to savings to your bottom line.

Shopping tip number 1. Never have an office worker make a trip to the “Office Big Box” superstore to shop around for your business needs. There are significant hidden costs you aren’t accounting for whenever this is done. The employee salary expense for a 1 hour shopping expense is usually $12 minimum, not to mention gas, the possibility of an accident, and we all know shopping trips never take only one hour. Instead, you can easily find a trusted company with office supplies online; one who has free next day delivery and eliminates the need for costly shopping excursions.

Here’s a tangible real life example. John the new office manager makes $17 an hour, and has been given a typical order for office products – some Pilot pens, an HP ink cartridge, Smead classification folders and some Universal binders and report covers. The order total is $82, and he’s been told to find the best deal. He hits the internet and compares 3 different sites for each item taking 30 minutes. He then reviews the Big Boxes Sunday newspaper specials for 10 minutes looking for coupons. On top of that 40 minutes scouring for the best “deal”, John decides to go to “Office Mega-Max” because they had the lowest prices. A trip to the store, shopping, etc. adds another hour, (that’s conservative – driving to and finding what you need at a superstore NEVER takes an hour). So total, John spent an hour and 40 minutes trying to save you money and get the lowest prices — or $28.39! That’s 34% more than your receipt will tell you!

Now comes the biggest secret I’ll tell you. People are shocked to learn the office superstores like OfficeMax and Office Depot no longer have the lowest prices for the office products you need. Today, you can find online office supply stores who are independently owned that guarantee their everyday prices are lower. It’s free next day shipping and lower prices – that saves you money. But how do some of the better run new internet companies have lower prices than these huge corporate chains? The primary way is much lower operating overhead. The successful internet companies that Do Good Work don’t have hundreds of retail stores to maintain, all the inventory to keep, and all the employee costs to run those stores.

Some final helpful hints. You will always save money in the long run if you find a trusted supplier who gives you guaranteed low prices every day and doesn’t use price gimmicks or change their prices every week. Find a company with good customer service, one with people who actually answer the phone not a machine, and trust them to save you money and get you the products you need on time with free shipping. A big thing – never buy office supplies from an internet company that hides or does not prominently display their toll free number on the website. Companies that do good work to save you money will have personal service, easy to use websites, and some even give back to great charities.

In summary, don’t forget these simple tips to save money on the office products you need, and can’t cut out entirely during these tough economic times. The first rule is to remember employee time spent obsessing on finding that lowest price is unproductive time, and costs you money. Second, never send someone to that office superstore unless it’s an emergency. When looking at your total costs, that always costs you money. I know it’s hard to believe, but the superstores do not have the lowest prices anymore. Find and trust the right online office products company to service your needs. Of most importance to me is to find a company that does good work in the community. It helps build trust, and I’ve found a cool company that even donates 50% of their profits to great charities. They practice conscious capitalism, and it makes me feel good to do business with them. And the biggest benefit is I save money!

The reality is it’s not possible for your small business to cut out all office supply spending. Standard every day products like staples, paper clips and view binders are necessary to keep the normal work flow moving. But, if you rely on these simple hints, and search out a trusted internet office supply company that does good work, you’ll not only save time, but save money to your bottom line!

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