Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

I want to personally thank Giles the Crew Chief over at the Warrior Forum for the inspiration for writing this article. He brought up an interesting topic about how some people who are invested in a particular business model think THEIRS is the best. It turned into an interesting discussion. So let me put this question out to you today. What IS the best business model? Do you know? Not sure? Well, maybe you’ll want to keep reading this article to find out the answer.

Okay, I won’t keep you in suspense. The best business model is the one that makes YOU the most money. No, that is not a cop out answer. Truth is, and so many people don’t get this, especially the ones who want to impose THEIR business model on you, there IS no best business model. Let me tell you what I shared with the members of the forum.

Let’s say John Doe is into membership sites and he insists that his model is the best. Jack
Smith could EASILY come up with reasons why membership sites are not the best model, if any good at all. For one thing, most people who join membership sites are gone within 90 days. In fact, the turnover is about 70% every 90 days. So you’re constantly recycling your members. How is that a great model? Jack would probably recommend selling ebooks.

But then Sally Strand comes along and says that ebooks aren’t all that great because of all the piracy going on all over the Internet. Once you release your ebook, thousands of people are going to be looking for ways to download it illegally and pass it on to their friends, thus resulting in thousands of dollars in lost sales. No, ebooks are NOT the best business model, claims Sally. She believes that you should go into some kind of service based business like copywriting or ghost writing.

Ah, but then Pete Know-It-All comes along and says that copywriting and ghost writing are garbage too because if you don’t write, you don’t get paid. You have to constantly work to make money. He believes that the best model is one that gives you a residual income every month.

And the arguments go on and on. Every person who is emotionally invested in THEIR model will tell you that IT is the best. Truth is, no matter how good selling ebooks is, if you can’t create a decent product and don’t have any interest in selling them as an affiliate, selling ebooks isn’t going to work for YOU.

Ultimately, you have to find a business model that fits your skills and interests and one that you’re comfortable with.

For YOU…THAT is the best business model.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Okay, so you’ve got your own home business and you’re ready to make a killing online. The problem is, your site stinks. You heard me. It stinks. It isn’t worth the time it took to put together and most likely, when people go there, they’re not going to purchase whatever it is you’re selling. But why? Why does your site stink? Well, this article is going to give you a few reasons why your site stinks. I hope you will take this criticism to heart and to something about the problem.

One reason why your site stinks is that it was designed by a five year old. Well, actually, there are some five year olds who can probably design better sites. Most likely, you either did the design yourself or got one of those free templates that somebody whipped together in about five minutes. I hate to tell you this, but these cookie cutter sites do NOT look professional. They certainly don’t stand out from the other sites that are actually making good money. Take a look at the top sites for any niche. They weren’t designed by a five year old and they aren’t templates.

Another reason why your site stinks is because there is no way for people to contact you or see that you are a real person. That’s right. There is no photo of you or your organization. There is no email address or contact form anywhere. There is nothing that somebody can look at and say, “I trust this person.” You hide behind the Internet iron curtain and expect people to give you their hard earned money. Get real! It’s NOT going to happen. Oh sure, you might make a sale here and there, but long term…forget it. You have no credibility and nobody knows who you are.

Finally, the site layout (where things are) is a nightmare. There is no easy navigation so that people can find JUST what they’re looking for. You have a products section? Where is it? Is there a menu option CLEARLY displayed so that people can find it or is it hidden amongst a ton of links to other sites because essentially what you have going on there is a link farm. The page is a navigational nightmare. I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve gone to where I would have GLADLY given them money for a product or service but couldn’t find my way around the joint.

These are just a few of the MANY things that could be wrong with your site and the reason why it stinks. Clean up some of these problems and MAYBE you’ll be on your way to making some money with your home business.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

One thing that puzzles me is why so many home business owners insist on looking for a needle in a haystack when there are so many spears laying around for them to get things done with. If you’re not exactly sure what I’m talking about…keep reading. Things will become much clearer by the time you’re done reading this article.

At the heart of this matter is the initial process of deciding just what kind of home business you’re going to start and who you’re going to sell to. Many beginning home business owners think that they have to find some obscure niche that nobody has heard of in order to have any real chance of cornering the market. This, in my opinion, is looking for a needle in a haystack and has several problems associated with it. I’m going to go over each one.

Probably at the top of the list is the simple fact that finding these niches is extremely difficult. Why? Well, to be honest, there are a lot of people out there looking to earn a living from home and most of the really productive niches have already been uncovered and monetized to death. The competition is there and it’s not going to go away. That doesn’t mean you can’t compete. It just means that what you’re looking for is going to take a lot of time…maybe more time than it’s worth. At what point do you say, “I’m spending all my time looking for that needle and in the meantime I’m not making any money and not paying my bills” and realize that you have to do SOMETHING?

Another big problem with the needle in the haystack niche is that, once you find it, you really don’t have any clue if it’s going to be profitable. Remember, we’re talking about a niche that hasn’t been tapped yet. So there aren’t any sellers in the market. At least none with any noticeable signs of success. So you’re taking a very big risk here. You may end up putting all your time into something that may end up providing you with absolutely no profit whatsoever when you could have been working in a niche with proven customers and possibly making a living.

Finally, these untapped niches probably have very little info about them. That essentially means that whatever information you provide to your customers is going to have to be thought of entirely on your own. You’re not going to get any help from authority sites as there are probably none out there. So unless you are an expert in this area, getting info that will help your customers is going to be difficult at best and darn near close to impossible at worst.

So before you go off looking for that needle in a haystack, please keep the above in the back of your mind.

The effort, when all is said and done, may not be worth a hill of beans.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

As a home business owner and marketer, this is probably the LAST article that I should be writing. But since I’ve never been afraid to speak the truth, even if it hurts my own bottom line, I’m not going to start now. So what’s this article about? It’s about getting sucked into sales pitches…especially around the holidays. Don’t do it. This article explains why, how to avoid them and how to make the most out of them. I think you are going to want to read this.

Okay, why do you want to avoid sales pitches around this time? Well, let’s take a recent example. Hostgator just ran a sale for 80% off. Problem is, the sale was for a limited number of people. Naturally, it had to be or they’d lose a ton of money. If you got there too late, the offer was gone. However, you still had a chance to make your purchase at 50% off. Point is, the 80% off ad was to get people into the door knowing full well that most would NOT make it in time but STILL make it in time to get 50% off and ultimately make a purchase. Point is, when you see a sales pitch like this, one with a limited time offer, unless you are literally sleeping at your PC, it is unlikely that you’re going to be one of the lucky few. That’s why you want to avoid these like the plague. They’re a trap…plain and simple.

So how do you avoid them? Well, for starters, don’t go looking for them. Too many people buy things JUST because they are on sale. Tell me the truth. How much junk do you have in your home that you ONLY bought because it was on sale and you never even used it? If you’re honest with me and yourself, you know that there is quite a lot of stuff laying around that you have no use for. But it was on sale. The key is to ONLY look for items that you REALLY need. That way, even if you don’t make it in time for the sale, you’re still getting something that you can put to use.

Finally, how do you make the most of these sales? The answer to that is simple. Run them yourself. Yes, this is marketer part of me talking. If you have a product or service that you KNOW is going to sell, run a special for it. Your sales will go through the roof. Hey, I’m being honest here. That’s the way the world is. You don’t want to get sucked into the game but don’t stop playing it at the other end because you can make a lot of money doing it. Honest enough?

Me? I never look for sales. I only buy things that I need. But I do run sales whenever I can.

It’s called smart business.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

It’s not something we want to think about if we’re running a home business. But we must keep up with our anti virus software if we’re on the Internet constantly or we’re looking for trouble with a capital T. This article explains why and what you need to do to keep up with yours. But first, a little story about my anti virus nightmares.

I’ve been using Kaspersky for about a year now. I had no problems with it. I just bought it last November. So imagine my surprise when my renewal came up and they told me that the software I bought, just last year, was no longer being supported and that I had to upgrade to a new version. It seemed odd to me since I was still getting database updates for my version. After trying to logically argue my case for simply buying a new license, I gave up and went to another anti virus application…PC Tools. The point? If you’re going to sell a product, don’t stop supporting it after just one year. You’ll lose customers that way.

Anyway, I am now protected again. The PC Tools software seems to be catching things that Kaspersky missed, so I am pleased, though I must say there is more of a processing lag with this than Kaspersky. It’s okay, I can live with it as the lag isn’t all the time.

Okay, why the big alarm over anti virus software? Because whether you know it or not, the Internet is one big virus. Sad to say it but there are a ton of people out there who have made it their mission in life to try to destroy your computer. They live for it. I’d like to put every single last one of them into a torture chamber but unfortunately, my finding them is about as remote as avoiding their attacks without protection.

As to what software you should use, I’m not going to make recommendations. There are pros and cons to just about every software out there. If you are looking for perfection, it doesn’t exist. So do some research on each of them. Specifically look to see what people say about each one…good and bad. You will probably find good and bad with all of them. No, your decision won’t be an easy one. I chose PC Tools because a friend of mine who I trust recommended it.

Please take this article seriously. You can have all your hard work wiped out in an instant, or your banking info stolen and your bank account cleaned out. There is some nasty stuff out there.

So protect yourself.

Nobody else is going to do it for you.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

You hear it all the time. “I want to start a home business but…” and then all the excuses come.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m afraid I’ll fail.”

And on, and on, and on. I can wallpaper my whole house with all the excuses there are for NOT getting started with your home business. So I have to ask…what are you waiting for, an invitation? You’re not going to get one. If you think the people out there who are already running a successful home business want YOUR competition, you’re CRAZY. They would just assume you sat on your hands for the rest of your life and did NOTHING.

Okay, so what I’m going to attempt to do in this article (don’t know if I’ll succeed) is get you off your rear end and make you realize that nobody is going to hand you an invitation and that you have NOTHING to lose by giving it your best shot.

Let me start by asking you a few questions. For starters, do you have something better to do with your time? If so, then do it and forget about this home business nonsense. But if you’re coming home from a hard day of work, or worse, you’re laid off and are bored stiff with nothing to do, what’s the worst that could happen if you start up your business and it falls flat on its face?

You’ve spent some time trying to make money and it didn’t work. So what? Is it the end of the world? It’s not like you had anything better to do, unless you just want to sit around all day playing video games like I do. Don’t worry, I earned that right. At this stage of the game, it’s a no lose proposition. You learn something new and you JUST might make some money at it.

Next question. What exactly IS it that you’re afraid of? Failure? You mean to tell me that everything you’ve ever done in your life you got right the VERY first time? When you learned how to walk, didn’t you fall a lot at the beginning? When you learned how to ride your first two-wheeler without training wheels, didn’t you fall down…a lot? I know I did. So what is it about failing, temporarily, that scares you now? It’s not like you have to invest a lot of money into your business to start. Heck, you can start a home business at NO COST.

Finally, don’t you want to do something that you can REALLY be proud of IF it succeeds? My business is my proudest accomplishment in a life that, quite honestly, has been riddled with failure. If anyone had a reason to be afraid to do this, I did. Everything I touched turned to mud.

So get out of your head and start to work on your home business. If you need a plan, you’ll find an excellent one at NO COST in my signature. It WILL get you started and it WILL help make you a success.

Don’t let your fears stand in the way, because NOBODY is going to give you an invitation.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

I think this article has been long overdue. I strongly believe that there are some people out there who are in desperate need of a home business intervention. Are you one of them? Not sure? Well, you might want to read this article to find out. I promise you that after you are done reading this, you’ll know exactly where you stand and what you’ll need to do in order to get yourself on the right track.

Okay, who exactly needs a home business intervention? Well, there are several categories actually. I’m going to hit on the main ones. The first one is the home business owner who is being hounded by the family and by his friends. You know what I’m talking about. Everybody is telling you that you’re wasting your time, that you’ll never have any success with your home business and that you’re a failure and always will be a failure. Sound familiar? It should. We’ve all gone through it. Even me.

Then there is the guy who is just too lazy to get anything done. He comes home, has dinner, reads the paper, goes to the computer to do some work and just can’t get into it. He probably ends up going to YouTube or Twitter or some other social site and spends the rest of the night BSing. It’s a wonder this guy gets anything done at all. In most cases, he doesn’t.

Finally, we have the guy who is so scatter brained that he doesn’t know where to start. He sits at the computer, with every good intention of doing some work, but just can’t think straight. He has a task list a mile long but doesn’t know which task to tackle first. His head is spinning out of control and out of frustration, he turns off the PC and goes to do something else. Maybe this is you.

Okay, all of these people DESPERATELY need an intervention. But what kind? All three have different problems and therefore need different interventions. The guy with the family ragging on him…he needs to have somebody sit him down with the family and make it clear to them that he IS going to make a success of this business regardless of what they think. The guy who’s too lazy to work…he needs to have some urgency instilled in him, like maybe the fact that if he DOESN’T work, he’s going to lose his home. And the guy who is scattered all over the place, he needs to have somebody sit him down and map out a schedule for each day.

There is no problem that a good intervention can’t solve. The key is first identifying what the problem is.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Believe it or not, not everybody is cut out to run a home business by themselves. Maybe they already have a full time job and have limited hours to put into the business. Maybe they aren’t good at certain things and would prefer somebody else to handle them. Maybe they simply realized that they can only grow so much doing it alone. Whatever the reason, if you’re looking for a partner, this article is going to offer some advice on how to go about the process.

The first thing you want to do is identify WHY you want a partner. This is not so much for you as it is for the person who you are looking to bring into the business. They’re going to want to know why you’ve decided to take this route. You need to be honest with them. If it’s because you don’t have enough time, say so. If it’s because you don’t have certain skills, let the person know what they are. If you’re looking to grow a really huge business, let that be known. Some people aren’t going to want that kind of responsibility.

And that brings us to finding your perfect match. That’s why the reasons for looking for a partner are so important. If it’s because of limited hours, you’re going to need to find somebody who HAS the time and won’t mind working the extra hours. If it’s because of limited skills, you’re going to have to make sure that the person you’re bringing into the business has those skills. That means, when you put out your ad, stating specifically what skills are needed. If it’s to grow a large business, the person is going to need to know what kind of commitment in both time and money will be involved.

Finally, and this may be the most important thing, you have to make sure that the person you’re considering is a fit personality wise. You two are going to be spending a lot of time working together. If there are personality conflicts, these can put a real strain on the relationship and the business can crumble because if it.

Naturally, you will have to have all the legal paperwork drawn up. You NEVER want to enter into a business partnership with nothing more than a handshake. In fact, you might want to actually create an LLC so that neither one of you singularly are responsible for any problems resulting from lawsuits or what have you. Find a good home business lawyer and make sure all the T’s are crossed and all the I’s are dotted.

Having a partner can be a great thing. It can also be a royal nightmare if you don’t cover all the bases.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Well, leave it to Michael Oksa over at the Warrior Forum to ask a question to get me thinking about stuff that I don’t normally think about. Essentially, he asked all the marketers at the forum if 2011 was going to be a better or worse year than 2010. Well, here is my answer to the question. You might want to adopt this attitude for your own sanity’s sake.

2011 will be what it will be…period. I don’t concern myself with better or worse. I simply attend to my business and the money part will take care of itself. It always has in the past. Problem with most people is that they spend way too much time worrying if the bottom is going to drop out of their business or not. If it does, it does. As long as you’ve done everything you can possibly do, in order to keep your marketing efforts thriving, that’s ALL you can do. The rest is just useless worry.

Having said that, there is nothing wrong with having a positive attitude. However, that positive attitude has to be grounded in some kind of reality. For example, if you were selling typewriters back in the day when they didn’t have computers and printers and then suddenly technology made typewriters obsolete, you’d be a fool to think that the following year was going to be better than the year before. I know this is an extreme example, but the point is…markets change. And unless you keep up with that change and understand where the demand is for YOUR product or service, not only can’t you possibly know if the next year is going to be better or worse, you can’t even possibly know if the next year will bring any income at all.

There is an old saying that the best defense is a good offense. I hear that in sports an awful lot. Well, the same thing is true about Internet marketing. If you want to prevent your business from going down the tubes, you need to be on the offensive. And that means being proactive with everything you do, including keeping up with the latest trends and changes in the marketplace. You don’t want to continue selling typewriters if nobody wants them anymore.

Personally, I think next year will be better IF I even choose to keep working. I’ve reached the point where the money isn’t enough of a motivator to keep me doing this. I need to really enjoy it or I’d rather be sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons. But like I said, so far…the money has always taken care of itself as long as I kept my pulse on what was going on and did my marketing religiously every single day.

So don’t worry about whether or not 2011 is going to be better than 2010.

Just do something about it and you’ll be fine.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

I know I’ve written some strange articles in the past, but this one might just be the strangest yet. You’re probably wondering what a Rubik’s Cube has to do with running a home business. Well, if you’ll hang in there and read this article, you’ll get where I am coming from. It just might be one of the most important articles you’ve read in a long time.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering what brought this up. Well, it’s kind of a long story but I’ll give you the short version. My daughter came home from some event that she had attended and was telling me that they were selling this one button that said something like, “I’m like a Rubik’s Cube…Don’t try to figure me out.” I thought it was kind of cute. It also reminded me that I had a Rubik’s Cube right behind me on the night table. It also reminded me that I hadn’t put it together in years.

So I grabbed a hold of it and started working on it. I was almost through the whole thing but couldn’t remember how to do the last part. I had been a long time. No problem. I also had the James Nourse little paperback (if you can call it that) “The Simple Solution To Rubik’s Cube” and all I had to do was grab a hold of it and…oh nuts…I couldn’t find it.

I was frantic. I had spent hours learning that solution about 30 years ago and now the book was gone. Well, you can buy one new on Amazon for about $1,000, but I wasn’t going to go there. I then went online to find some free solutions that were posted. I didn’t understand any of them except one was close enough to what I had learned that I finally remembered how to do the last part. Now I can put my Rubik’s Cube together in about 2 to 3 minutes.

Well, after this accomplishment, I was all fired up and ready to work on my home business like never before. I can’t explain it other than the rush I got made me want to succeed with my business the likes of which I hadn’t seen in a long time. Success will sometimes make you lazy. I am just as prone to that as anybody else. My countless hours of video game playing is a testament to that fact.

Okay, so what’s the point? Well, maybe you don’t have a Rubik’s Cube. But there has to be something else BESIDES your home business that you’re good at. It could be playing the guitar, chess, drums, flute or kazoo for all it matters. Walk away from your business, especially if you’re struggling, and do something that you ARE good at. After you’re done, you’ll feel confident enough to tackle your home business head on.

One thing is for sure…I will NEVER forget this solution again.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!