A lot of stay-at-home moms love the idea of starting their own business but it can be difficult to know where to start.

Offering a wonderful work-life balance, being your own boss is an attractive prospect. But what business idea will provide you with the success you need to start generating some cash?

Well, thankfully, all it takes is some hard work, commitment, a good attitude, and the drive to succeed. With all of these key features, most people will be able to turn any idea into a business.

Here are some great ideas to get you started:

Be a Consultant in Your Area of Expertise

Before you had kids, what job did you do? This area of expertise might be something you can help other businesses and/or people with. You’ve already got all of this knowledge (not to mention that great list of contacts), so why not put it to good use?

Take a look at your experience and knowledge. How can this be useful to others? How can you add value? Could you save someone money or make someone’s life/business much better or easier?

Answering these questions will allow you to pinpoint an area of expertise you could turn into a consultancy business.

Sell Your Products Online

Thanks to the Internet, it’s now possible to sell almost anything online – even the kitchen sink! So, why not turn your hobby or idea into a money-spinning business?

This doesn’t have to involve creating the next Amazon or being a savvy digital entrepreneur. Instead, it’s all about putting your skills to good use before selling them on all of the available channels there are online.

For example, have you always enjoyed making your own cards or are you a budding artist? Then get your pen to paper and start creating some key pieces you can sell online (through Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and so on). The best bit? You can buy everything you need to get started online (click here for great stationery ranges), so you don’t even need to leave the house to get your business idea off the ground!

Write Your Own Blog

If you enjoy writing or you feel as though you have a lot of advice/stories to share with people, you might like to create your own blog.

Granted, you will want to earn some money from this blog, which means you will have to write frequently and consistently, but this will mean you’re getting paid for something you love.

You don’t have to look far to find some mommy blogger success stories, providing you with plenty of inspiration for your own blog. Furthermore, as you start to drive traffic to your blog and you start to get noticed, you may even find yourself being snapped up by other companies, magazines, or publishers to write more.

To make it a success you just need to find a topic that’ll work for you and is something people are searching for. Thankfully, there’s plenty of information online about how you can get a blog started, so a quick Google search will provide you with a plethora of handy how-to guides.

Setting up your own business doesn’t have to involve a lot of time or money. Instead, it’s all about finding your own niche that you’ll enjoy working within. Then, making money becomes a welcome bonus for doing something you love!

So you’ve been doing a good job of saving up money and not blowing your entire paycheck on frivolous buys. Great job! But before you decide to treat yourself, make sure you know how to splurge in a way that doesn’t completely demolish all the hard work you’ve put into your financial house. Just like with car insurance, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about spending your hard-earned cash. Make sure you know where a particular path leads before you head down it.

Know Where Your Every Penny Goes

Before you buy something nice for yourself, know how and where you’re spending every penny of your income. By conducting a money audit, you might find you’re spending a bit too much on eating out or ordering delivery. There might also be services such as music and video streaming you can either do without or reduce to a less expensive plan. The money left over can go into savings or be used to pay off other bills.

Lower Your Other Expenses as Much as You Can

Something else to do to feel better about the money you splurge is to reduce necessary expenses as much as possible. For instance, you actually might be better off not making extra principal payments on your mortgage or car payment every month. You should also take excellent care of your car and drive it for as many years and miles as possible to avoid the costs associated with a car payment. There might also be areas in your life where you can save money, such as buying used products rather than new. See if your favorite grocery store has a discount card, if you can bundle your insurance policies to save on the overall cost and cook more at home rather than eating out all the time.

Automate the Savings Process

Rather than manually put money back into a savings account every time you get paid, something you might forget to do, you can automate the process instead. There are special programs and apps that automatically put a specified amount of money into your savings accounts whenever you wish. If you find you aren’t strapped for cash when your savings is automated, it’s a good indication you’re doing a good job of handling your finances, which often makes it easier to splurge whenever you wish.

Set Up a Reward System

If you truly want to earn the money you splurge, set up a reward system. For instance, if you give your house a thorough scrub-down, you can put back $15 into your mad money account. Manage to eat healthier this week or this month? Kick back another $15. When you reward yourself for being more responsible, it’ll feel that much better to be a bit irresponsible with your splurge. Just make sure you don’t cheat when it comes to this reward system. Otherwise, you likely won’t feel as good about going on a little shopping spree.

Top Off Your Emergency Fund

To better ensure you don’t feel guilty about past surges when financial hardships hit, do everything you can to build up your emergency fund before you do something nice for yourself. Once you put money into your emergency fund, it’s best you do everything in your power to not touch a penny of that money if it’s not for an actual emergency. Such emergencies should be ones that threaten to put you and your family out on the street, empty all your other accounts or endanger either your health or future income. Because it can be hard to gauge just how much such emergencies can cost, you’ll want to save more than you actually think you’ll need.

To get the most out of splurging, you’ve got to take steps to eliminate some of the guilt that can come with splurging. Put these tips to good use, and take care of your financial needs before tending to your financial wants.

Lots of businesses run cold calling schemes and various other outbound sales techniques to build their customer base. This form of marketing is very reliant on the relationship you are able between yourself and the prospect. The more you work on the relationship, the more you should be able to earn from that prospect. There are many different ways that you can work on the relationship and in this article we are going to discuss various different ways that you can build the relationship up to earn the most money you can!

Regular calls that are pleasant and not too frequent

As stated, cold calling is a very popular method of building sales as it is the employees actively calling up prospects to hopefully drive sales. This can be very effective and can really boost business however it needs to be done carefully as to not get annoying. Calling too often would begin to annoy them which will reduce their chance of working with you. Call them once a month, unless they say otherwise just to check in, see how they are doing and ask how they are on stock and if they want more.

Getting special offers that they couldn’t get anywhere else

If you want their business, you could incentivise them to come with you buy offering them special deals and services that aren’t available on your site, in your shop or anywhere else. This will lead them to believe that they are being treated specially and cared for which will make them want to deal with you more due to the special service. Not only that but it can act as an incentive for people to purchase with you when they may be a little sceptical beforehand.

Free promotional gifts

Giving promotional items away is a very popular marketing technique with inbound and outbound sales alike. This involves printing useful items with your company’s logo and artwork and then giving them to your prospects and clients. This is a great way to build your relationship as if they receive a genuinely useful item like a printed tote bags they will instantly look at your brand in a more positive light. The second benefit is that they will now see your logo whenever they use the item, subtly reminding them of your brand and keeping that connection strong in their brain. Find out more about printed tote bags

Not all business

The last thing you want your prospect to do is dread answering the phone to you. This happens when your ring them and only talk about business. It makes them not want to talk with you and thus leaves them with a negative impression of your brand. Don’t be afraid to talk with them about other things like weather, TV, films, their hobbies or what it is like in the office as this will relax them and opens them up to be more talkative with you when you do go on to discuss work. This doesn’t only relate to cold calling. Arrange to meet up with the client out of work for lunch to discuss work but not only work. If they enjoy talking with you they will be more open with you about the work aspects and happier to spend money with you.

Bend to their needs within reason

Another way to make the client feel special is that when they make special requests, go out of your way to ensure that they get what they want. It shows that you are attentive and want to work with them which makes them feel special again and happy to work with you. It is also important that you bend a little to what they want as they may not want to work with you otherwise. They may feel like they can be picky due to the fact that you are contacting them. They may not purchase with you otherwise so it is important to bend if only a little.

Although realty firms have been around for hundreds of years, the notion of taking the actual business of house sales and making it into a more automated process is something that has really only come into its own over the past 15 years.

As most brokers know, the addition of the MLS on the Internet at the end of the 90’s coupled with private online listings helped increase home prices and the number of sales over time.

In the here and now, the emphasis over the past few years has been to find a way to replicate the success of firms like Uber. The idea is that with one simple application and one simple process, it will allow the customer to focus on the aspects of the sale that they really enjoy, like planning ahead for the things that they want to do to their new home.

A couple of years ago, a new insurance firm managed to automate the process of insuring customers online. They also have shown themselves able to process claims without involving staff. Because this type of optimization can save millions of dollars in costs each year, it can be looked upon as somewhat of a ‘grail’ for the real estate industry. If a real estate franchising partner can create a system that allows you to sell without incurring as much overhead, it will make your business a stronger part of the community.

Currently, the company that comes the closest to fulfilling this type of automation dream is actually homesmart.com. The fact that their franchisees consistently see rapid agent growth is testament to the faith that they have in the system.

Here are some other technology areas that quality franchisors should be offering their prospective customers:

Mobility:

Real estate is all about organizing your resources so that you can communicate and sell effectively in many locations. You can accomplish this type of effectiveness without computers, although you will certainly be more efficient when you do leverage technology.

As a potential franchisee, finding a firm that has a stellar CRM or customer relationship management application can actually make a difference in your agents’ performance. One key feature of a good CRM is allowing you to work across form factors and locations with easy-to-use processes. Being able to communicate to your prospects in a way that mirrors the way that you work when you are not online is another feature that is worth trying to get for your employees.

Presentation:

One trick that contractors have in new neighborhoods that have homes that are selling for more than an entry-level price is to add features that are not apartment-grade and then allow realtors to show those features off. When it comes to presentation, a good franchisor will create the same type of capability. To market a high end home, for example, you typically use better designers and software that has more features. If your regular agents have access to the same tools and use them with most their houses, they will automatically be doing more than the rest of the market is with regards to presentation- something that can help them close more sales.

Overall, buying a franchise often comes down to its potential for the market that you serve. When you find one that has learned to leverage technology so that you can increase revenue, it may provide you with a long and fruitful career.

As a young online entrepreneur, choosing the best payment processing system can be a headache. Ask around, and you will hear all sorts of reasons why one solution is better than the other. However, the thoroughly experienced Internet-based retailer will tell you the truth: competition is stiff, and relying on only one means of processing payment is not enough.

How PayPal differs from traditional merchant accounts.

PayPal uses what is called an “aggregator” account, which theoretically accommodates all retailers, as opposed to traditional providers, who offer each client an individual, “dedicated” account. The idea of PayPal’s aggregate method is to balance the risk of all honest retailers against fraudsters.

Consequently, PayPal doesn’t have to vet new retailers to determine if they are potentially fraudulent before signing them up for its service. Instead, it waits to catch a whiff of fraud from a registered user and quickly shut them down.

As a result, setting up an account is quick and easy, and PayPal can start collecting payment fees from clients almost immediately. Moreover, unlike with dedicated merchant accounts, you don’t have to wait hours for an application to be approved, to start accepting credit cards.

Where PayPal falls short.

Having one large account for everyone has the advantage of fast approval processes and quick card transactions, but there is one major problem: PayPal doesn’t know anything about you or your business, and, therefore, doesn’t understand the level of risk. If something unusual happens such as an increase in chargebacks, or suspicion of fraud, PayPal’s only recourse is to freeze the account.

On the other hand, a dedicated merchant accounts provider like eMerchantBroker will conduct a proper vetting process when a merchant applies for an account, and approve applications based on the information presented. These companies, therefore, know your business and understand the risk. If something happens, they have other ways to mitigate the issue, rather than freezing the account.

When to use PayPal.

PayPal accounts have a much higher likelihood of getting shut down than traditional merchant accounts, but they are quick and easy to start and manage.

You should consider a PayPal account if:

• You have a business idea that you are still trying to prove as a viable concept, and are thus not assured of its success. Because an unsubstantiated idea might not be around tomorrow, it wouldn’t be wise to have a contract with a merchant accounts provider.
• Your sales are too low to warrant the need for a traditional merchant account. An account with low sales is also less likely to be flagged down by PayPal.
• You are thinking of an aggregator account as a supplement to your traditional merchant account. Some established businesses can use PayPal to reach customers who won’t buy unless they can use a PayPal account.

PayPal is a great payment option for an entry-level business, but if you want more protection or are in the high-risk business, you will want to have a traditional merchant account set up. Afterwards, you can use PayPal as an added payment option for customers.