Ideas Archives - Page 4 of 11

3 Simple Steps For Coming Up With 100 Unique Business Ideas

In my last article I talked about how an idea is not going to make a business. I said what’s important is who is behind it, but you still need a business idea to start a business and the better product or idea you have the easier the process will be. Here are 3 steps you can take to easily come up with 100 business ideas in less than a year.

Step One:

Keep a file on your mobile phone named “business ideas.” If your phone does not have this capacity or you do not own a cell phone carry a small piece of paper and a pen around will you instead. What you must to is every single time any sort of business idea or product idea comes to your mind you instantly write it down in your phone with a simple sentence or two. Don’t worry about how wired of an idea it is or how stupid it may sound to you now just jot down the idea. The key to this step is that the best ideas usually arise when you are going through your daily lives. Ideas will strike you at the most interesting times when you are encountering daily problems and engaging in daily conversation. The one thing you cannot do is thinking the idea is undoable or unprofitable you must write it down anyway. As long as starting a new business is a focus for you ideas will keep coming to you during your daily life.

Step Two:

Next to your desk you must keep a notepad and it is best if the note pad can stay in view at all times (it might be best to put it on a wall you always see or next to your computer.) The reason for this is to keep you focused on your goal of coming up with new business possibilities. Label the top of these notepad business ideas. Once a week write the list you have created on your phone and list these down on your business idea note pad. It is very beneficial to keep this note pad in view and on your mind to remind you of your goal of coming up with quality business ideas.

Step Three:

This step takes the most commitment. Dedicate one hour of every week (you should usually do this after you transfer ideas from your phone to your note pad.) During this hour you must look at the ideas on your note pad and analyze them. See what the good aspects of them are and the bad ones. See if any of them can fit together in anyway or if the spark any new ideas and write any new ideas down. That should take no longer than 10 minutes.

After that, any idea on your note pad that seems reasonable in anyway should be put into a spiral notebook. Title this notebook “Business Ideas” and number the pages 1-100 or 1 to whatever number your trying to reach. For each business idea that isn’t completely ridiculous you need to write three short paragraphs. The first paragraph should be titled “Product” the second, “Market” and the third “Value.”

For the product paragraph simply give a brief explanation of the business model or product.
In the market paragraph describe whom you will be selling this product to. You must be more specific than 18-24 year old males. It should be something similar to 18-24 year old male college students who go to the University of Oregon and golf recreationally. The more specific the better.
In the value paragraph you need to explain the value your customer will obtain by buying this product. If this is hard to come up with it probably isn’t a very good business idea because it has no real value for your customers.

Filling out the spiral notebook will take different amounts of time depending on how many entries you have that week, but each entry should not take more than 8-12 minutes to make. If it does you are spending too much time on it.

You should have some extra time after this (if not that’s OK and you have already added a lot of products to your notebook.) Spend the rest of the time analyzing the ideas on your notepad, revisit some old ones and come up with new ideas to add to the spiral notebook. You can also read some of your old product ideas to see if you can come up with some variations for new product ideas. Basically spend any extra time focused on thinking about new product ideas.

Once you have filled your notebook with business ideas you can look over all of them and pick the most promising and write full business plans for them. Not all of them will look very attractive, but you are bound to have a few that catch your eye as having some good potential or maybe even a few that you really have you motivated to get started.

The “100 Business Idea Journal” is a great way of coming up with some quality business ideas to get started with, but for it to work you must be serious about coming up with some quality product ideas. After a while you should start getting a few solid business ideas outlined every week and be getting closer to starting a business that you find really has some potential.

Massive Productivity Savers: Online Fax Service and Other Fantastic Ideas

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, then here’s a quick riddle for you: What does an online fax service, a notepad, and a mind map have in common?

Simple: they’re all key techniques that can save you a great deal of productivity and effort in running your small business!

In today’s stagnant economy, it’s more important than ever for businesses of all sizes to get as much value for as little money as possible. That’s why productivity – both in terms of your own and your employees – has become such a hot-button issue as of late. More business owners are determined to find the small fixes that can have a massive impact on the company’s bottom line.

With regards to an online fax service, mind mapping and a simple notepad, they might not seem like much at first; but if you put each of these items together, you’ll discover a veritable symphony of time-saving, energy-preserving, productivity-boosting tools that will transform every hour into an oasis of creativity and brainstorming.

Are you ready to learn about these massive productivity savers? Then sit back, relax and enjoy learning about how a fax by Internet system and other resources can help turn your business – and your employees – into a profit-boosting machine:

An Internet Fax Service: If you’ve never heard of an Internet fax service before, then you’ll love what you’re about to read: it’s a great way to save a bundle of time that would be otherwise spent sending faxes to your clients, employees and prospects. Think of it this way: an online fax service is to faxing as emailing is to sending letters. The overall outcome is the same (the receiving party gets their information), but the process of sending that information is infinitely sped up.

Using an Internet fax service is essentially the same as email with fax. Rather than wasting time waiting at the fax machine for confirmation that your documents went through, you simply upload the fax onto your computer via a scanner, send the documents via a special online fax service, and the receiving party will receive it from their own fax machine. This means that you’ll cut down on those wasted minutes at the fax machine which could be better spent on something more important…

… Like brainstorming that next great business idea or working with your employees on increasing your company’s bottom line.

A Notepad: I know this seems like an antiquated tool to use, especially in today’s high-tech world. But there’s just something about jotting down your thoughts and ideas on a pad of paper – and if you use the following technique, you can turn that notepad into an oasis of fantastic business ideas:

· As soon as you get into work, pull out your notepad and a pencil. Don’t bother checking your phone or your email – these are only time-wasters that will eat up valuable minutes that could be spent furthering the success of your business.

· Start writing down everything about your business without stopping. Think of this as your diary for your business – and just like a diary entry, you shouldn’t hold anything back.

· Write for at least twenty minutes. If you want to organize the writing in an easy-to-read, manageable entry, then write in bullet points. Once you’ve finished the twenty minutes of writing, review your list and select the top five tasks, ideas or thoughts that will have the biggest impact on your business success. For example, an idea for increasing customer retention rates will have a bigger impact on your business than an idea for organizing your office files.

These five tasks, ideas or thoughts should take up priority during your day; everything else should be delegated or only take up ten minutes of your time. This way, your time won’t be wasted on activities that have little to do with the success of your company.

Mind Mapping: If you’ve ever seen a bubble diagram, then you already have a pretty good idea of what a mind map is. A mind map is a type of bubble diagram that can help visual learners focus on the tasks that will be the most productive in terms of furthering your business goals.

To make a mind map, write down a major goal you have (one from the top five listed above would work nicely here). Now draw a line from the center bubble and write down specific steps that can help you accomplish those goals. Keep this diagram by your computer to remind yourself of the goals you should be focusing on, not tasks that are productivity-wasters.

Thanks to an online fax service, a notepad and mind mapping, you can preserve your business productivity without taking a chunk out of your company budget!

New Small Business Ideas – 5 Methods For Guaranteed Explosive Growth

Today, we are going to discuss a few new business concepts that will grow your business massively. We will uncover why marketing, especially internet marketing, is the marketing method of choice for home based businesses. We will also unearth why off-line marketing alone takes too much effort, time and money. No doubt about it, off line marketing is expensive, E.g. leads, printed brochures, and telemarketing to name a few. All of that, only to have your customers end up down the street at Jo’s or even worst Wally-World.

However, There IS a better way. There is a new business system designed for the small business owner. The new system consist of incorporating an Email Marketing campaign to your advertising arsenal.

Did you know that email-marketing is one of the most cost effective and powerful tools at your disposal when it comes to profiting and promoting your new business? Its easier to start than you think, and will allow you to place the majority of your sales efforts on autopilot.

Success in any business, and especially a home business depends on a reliable marketing system. The old school way of running a business, using high- end advertising mediums, is a broken, incomplete system.

Just remember, everything you do off-line can be done on-line with email marketing. Not only that, but everything you do off-line over and over again can be automated .

Here is why we call email-marketing the most revolutionary small business marketing system of the 21st century: Email-marketing allows a business owner to:

Automatically educate potential customers about upgrades, commission structure and sales promotions
Easily educate potential customers about their order deliveries Build trust and credibility, with improved conversions over time.
Eliminates the sales pitch.
Effortlessly expands your business world wide.
Introduce new products and services to your existing list.

Bonus: Place your business on automatic via… an auto responder. What is an Auto Responder? It’s a service that automatically sends messages out to your email list. It is a software made for busy people, you can pre- schedule written messages to send to your data base years in advance. An auto responder is a critical component for those looking for new small business ideas to help advance their businesses.

Want Fast Access To Great Ideas On Making Money Online? Check This Out!

Let’s face it. Most people could use more money, whether it is simply to help make ends meet, put money away for a rainy day or meet retirement goals. But so many of us grow frustrated when we are not sure how to get more. Making money online can help with that. This article is here to help.

Sign up for a site that will pay you to read emails during the course of the day. You will simply get links to scan over different websites and read through miscellaneous text. This will not take you a lot of time and can pay great benefits in the long run.

Get paid to review some of the new products that are out on the market today. This is a great way for companies to determine if their new products are a hit or miss as they will pay good money to get an opinion on them. Get the word out on these products and pull in the cash.

If you have good ears and can type quickly, you might want to look into online transcription jobs. The beginning rates are usually low, but with time and practice, you can build up your skills to tackle some of the better paying jobs. Try looking on oDesk or eLance for some transcription work.

Many people find that they can make extra cash by completing surveys. There are many survey sites online that will pay you for your opinions. All you need is a valid email address. These sites offer checks, gift cards and PayPal payments. Be truthful when you fill out your information so you can qualify for the surveys they send you.

You can make money flipping domain names. There are many who can earn a living by simply flipping domain names. It’s a bit like buying real estate on the Internet and requires some investment on your part. Obtain the latest trends in keywords by utilizing Google AdSense and similar sites. Buy some acronym-based domains. Find domain names that are likely to pay off.

Join a focus group if you want to make some money on the side. These groups gather together from an internet hub at a physical location where they will talk about a new product or service that is out on the market. Generally, these groups will gather in very big cities near you.

Enter contests and sweepstakes. By just entering one contest, your odds aren’t great. Your odds are substantially better, however, when you enter multiple contests regularly. Taking a little time to enter a few free contests daily could really pay off in the future. Make a new e-mail account just for this purpose. You don’t want your inbox overflowing with spam.

Tens of thousands of people have learned to help line their wallets by finding great ways to make money online. You can be part of these really smart people who are doing this and become a financial success, too. You do not want to miss out. It is time to take financial control!

Ideas For Marketing Your Online Income Business

There are many different ways that you can create online business ideas, but remember that marketing them is also very important. You need to know how to let people know about your business ideas and what it is that you have to offer.

In this article we will talk about different methods that can be used to market your product so that it will sell. This is one of the most important lessons to learn if you are to be successful with your internet marketing business.

Once your website is set up and your ideas are ready for sale, the next thing your will need to do is drive constant quality targeted traffic to your site in order to start generating sales, and marketing your website is how you will get this traffic. Without a certain number of hits everyday you will not get many sales.

The first thing that will need to be done to market your site is to make sure that your website is properly indexed by all the major search engines so that you will get the maximum amount of natural search engine traffic. Choose your keywords carefully, ones that will best describe your product but also see that there is not too much competition for those words as it will take you too long to get into a prominent position on the search engines. Go for long tail keywords preferably and optimize your site for the keywords that you choose.

Another way to get traffic coming to your site is by offering a free giveaway when people subscribe to your list. To do this you will need an auto responder where you can offer a free newsletter. There are many free forums where you can post your free giveaways. People are always attracted by something that is free. By building a list you will get subscribers to whom you can market products on a regular basis. Don’t make the mistake though, of only trying to sell things to people. You need to build trust and you can do this by giving them useful information and advice that will help them to achieve their desires.

A second method you can use to build your traffic is by article marketing and the great thing about this is that you can do it for free. Write interesting articles that people will want to read. Post them in article directories and you can build a list of people that is continually growing.

These are only two methods of marketing your online income business. There are many more available but hopefully this will get you going and you will begin to see results if you use these ideas and execute them on a consistent daily basis.

4 Home Business Ideas For Women

Women everywhere want to spend quality time at home with their young children and still feel accomplished in their careers. They want the freedom and luxury of being able to be home and have their own lives, yet still make money. That’s why finding some home business ideas for women can be difficult. Are there specific opportunities for women? Or is it a more even playing field online and from home? We’ll look at these questions as well as finding legitimate ideas for women starting their own home businesses.

Here are 4 home business ideas for women. These are just a few ideas out of many that are out there, so make sure you do your own research as well, so you can find the right opportunities for yourself. But, let me save you some time with 4 solid ideas you can start with right now.

1) Do what you know best with where you are now. Many small home business ideas start with where you are at right now. Look at the careers you have before starting a family, and research what you can do from home in those fields. You might find similar opportunities in related fields as well. It’s important to spend time researching what you are qualified to do, as well as what you can learn to do if you have the time to study on your own.

2) Find your niche and make your presence. Once you have figured out your home business ideas take the next step and make your presence online. If you are working with or for someone else, do your best and make an impression. If you are working for yourself, get your foot in the door. You can build your online presence around a website or blog that caters to your unique strengths. You can generate buzz through local directories, news websites, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and by visiting blogs and forums related to your niche, both professional and social. Get yourself out there.

3) Sideline ideas that could work. It’s also beneficial to look at your hobbies and tasks that you do daily, things not connected to your former work or profession. Are you an amazing cook? A skilled craftswoman? Into photography or web design? Are you known for your charitable works? Market yourself. Get involved in your community. You might just see more and more people requesting your services. You can make income from your hobbies and you may just find a new career path, one you can do from home.

4) The 21st Century. More and more home business ideas go to the internet each and every day. More and more opportunity for women is found online. You can start a blog, make it semi-popular by social networking, and add advertising (i.e. Google AdSense) and make money. You can become a freelance writer about any subject at all at sites like Elance.com. You can affiliate market other people’s products, and even conduct online research for companies. The opportunities for online work is limitless. Take your skills and find something that works for you.

These are just a few tips for you to get started immediately. Whether you renew your former career from home or venture onto something new, there are plenty of home business ideas for women out there, get started now!

MLM Internet Success For The Business: Ideas And Tricks To Use

Today most business credits their success to marketing especially that which is done over the internet. Most business ventures today have made huge profits, thanks to a marketing campaign that has worked. MLM internet success in marketing a business will depend on the approach that will be taken.

The best place for the business to begin will be using the people that have subscribed on the business website. These will be the first and the easiest way to start forming a network that will that the whole project will be based on. It will also be convenient when there will be the need to follow up on all the customers.

There are so many social networks that have been created over the years and this makes MLM to reach so many people from all over the world. The social networks is one of the easiest ways that can be used to tell people about a certain business and also find out what people think about it. The information can also be easily shared with a lot of people.

Starting a blog will also be an excellent way to reach the customers and sponsor the MLM for the business. There is a very high percentage of internet traffic that comes from blogs hence, this will also be a great avenue. Blogging does not need any technical skill to maintain and operate and it will keep all the current information and news about the business.

MLM is an online marketing tool that the business will use to experience more marketing success. How the product or service will be marketed will depend on the search engines that will be used. Some search engines are more popular than others. Placing the marketing advertisement on the path of the popular search engine will be the most sensible thing to do.

Creating a network of the internet users interested in the business will be the best strategy. This will enable the whole plan to be able to get to as many people as possible. The sales and success will be dependent on the number of people that will be able to see the business online. The more the people, the more the business will be known and the more the sales will be.

Different businesses will choose to use the different MLM internet marketing. This is because there are so many different businesses out there that will use different methods to reach their potential clients. The MLM will be placed on the sites that most of the potential clients will be likely to visit.

The MLM business promotions can also use different plans that will be suitable for the different distributors. This will be those that will fit the needs of the different consumers. There is even the option of mixing up the strategies to come up with a hybrid type of commission. No matter what kind of plan will be chosen, MLM internet success will depend on the customer base. Certain types of strategies will be the thing that will make the difference in online marketing. A business that will want to excel on the internet will have to do more than create an MLM but also find useful leads. This allows the business to maximize not only the income but also the number of clients. All the MLM internet strategies are definitely intended for that.

Home Business Ideas – A Free Foolproof System For Success

Once you’ve got a handle on your emotional and mental state of mind (which must be done to achieve success), here is a simple foolproof system for successful home business ideas.

You may already have a home business idea, or you may be looking for some things that will help get your creative juices flowing. Hopefully this system for successful home business ideas will be useful to whomever you are.

The gist of this successful home business idea system is to create a content-rich website, grow it and make it profitable. It will not happen overnight, nor even next month, but it will lay the foundation for achieving a dominant position in your home business idea niche.

Oh yeah, it will be free too!

1. Research your home business idea niche. Look for a problem many people are facing and offer a solution. Follow popular trends try to be ahead of the curve. Focus on eternally popular niches like dating, pregnancy, or travel. Or just simply follow your passion or area of expertise for your home business idea. Use online discussion forums, news websites, online chat groups, and magazines. Then the next step will be to look for the top keywords in your home business idea niche of choice.

2. Setting up your framework. First, set up a blog for content management of your home business idea. Next, integrate your blog with a message forum. Third, set up an autoresponder and integrate it with the forum and blog. What you will essentially have at that point is an automated email newsletter created from your home business idea blog’s content.

3. Create content. Create it yourself, or outsource it and hire someone else. Alternatively you can license someone else’s content, or buy pre-created content packs and customize them. Focus on creating content for your home business idea that is optimized for your niche keywords. Then, put them into their own site and link to them from your blog, forum and newsletter, thus creating several keyword rich areas.

4. Optimize your blog and content. This would require several more articles! But the idea is to optimize it for search engines for higher pagerank status for your home business idea.

5. Begin marketing everything. Have you blog ping major services, promote your autoresponder opt-in everywhere, submit your blog’s RSS feeds, encourage your viewers to spread the word, submit articles linking back to your blog, this too would require several more articles for in-depth explanations!

So, there is just one of many foolproof, and free, systems for successful home business ideas. It may seem complicated and time-consuming, but all of it can be done with less than two hours of work per day. And it really is fun! Your home business idea will be sure to succeed if you stick to the plan.

Sustainable Startup Business Ideas

Starting a business at this time when even the world’s major economies are struggling to keep up with the economic crisis can be a big challenge.

There are people who believe that while this is true, this is actually the best time to start a business provided you have the right startup business ideas in mind. While no one can guarantee the success of any business, you can however choose a business that will stand the test of time.

When you talk of sustainable startup business ideas these days, you no longer just refer to green business ideas. A sustainable business idea means a business that is needed by the society not only for now, but for a much longer period. It is a business that can survive even the toughest economic times because it does not require lots of capital and overhead expenses to keep it operational.

Here are some sustainable startup business ideas you can explore if you have what it takes to go into these types of business:

Consultancy

Professionals who want to spread their wings but do not have much capital to go into business can start their own consultancy companies. Thanks to the internet, you no longer have to rent out an office to start one because you can work from home and promote your consultancy business online. It is important to be some sort of an expert in a certain profession before you can go into consultancy. It can be in accounting, writing, information technology or some other skills you have trained for and earned an expertise in the past years through employment, education or other methods.

But even if you are an expert, you still need to market your consultancy and in effect your brand. The best way to start a consultancy business is to create a website in your own name. The website should include all the services you offer and if possible, referrals from past customers who have benefitted from your services. Take advantage of social media to promote your website and your consultancy business. But do not just stop there. Send proposals to companies or individuals who may need your services.

Online retail

The Internet plays an important role in every aspect of society’s life today including how we do business. Thanks to the increasing accessibility to the internet, the retail industry now provides a level playing field even to small startup business ideas. Thanks to the internet, it is now possible to start your own online retail business without thinking about paying for the rent and other overhead costs that goes with operating a traditional retail business.

In the United States alone, over 24 million now rely on the retail industry for their livelihood. Food, clothing, books, appliances, automotive, name it and you will find an online retail store that sells the said product on retail. The market may be saturated but there is still room for innovative startup business ideas and yours might be another brilliant retail idea.

You only need a small capital to buy the items you need to stock up on your retail store. Then build a website and take advantage of the social networking platforms to promote your brand. This can be done even if you are operating in a home office which lessens the operating cost of your business.

Not all startup business ideas can become a successful venture but if you are passionate about any of these two ideas then you might be the next big thing in the industry. But first, you have to make your idea a reality.

5 Really Good Home Business Ideas Using Internet Marketing

It looks like the unemployment rate will stay high. This continues to lead more people to the Internet in their attempt to find ways to replace their lost job.

I would like to suggest that you try Internet marketing and start a home business of your own. Here are five really good ideas on how you could do that.

1. Direct sales. Companies like Avon, Amway, Tupperware, and Mary Kay continue to offer a great way to get into business for yourself with very little startup capital required.

These companies do billions of dollars a year in business using the direct selling business model. They also include network marketing into their strategies so you can make money recruiting people as well.

2. Affiliate marketing. With this business model you get paid to perform a specific action for an affiliate merchant.

You are probably aware of Amazon.com. They are the largest online retailer in the world. Other good affiliate networks to join include Google Adsense, ClickBank, and Commission Junction.

3. Email marketing. In spite of the power of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter people still check their email on a regular basis.

This is a very good way to make money from the comfort of your own home.The key is to learn how to build email lists in targeted niches. Then sell products such as affiliate products to your subscribers.

4. Consulting. Do you have knowledge on how to do something that you could teach other people to do?

For example, do you know how to finish a basement? You could turn this into a consulting business where people pay you to teach them how to do this.

I recently saw a website where a guy was teaching people how to play the guitar. Virtually anything you how to do, that somebody would want to learn to do, could be turned into your own consulting business.

5. Blog writing. You can quickly create a full time income writing blog articles for other Internet marketers.

Right now there are millions of blogs that need fresh articles posted to them. This is something you can easily get started with.

Google search “Angela Boothe”. She offers excellent training on how to make money writing on the Internet.

One good strategy is to start your own blog and use it as sample content. You will also want to join PayPal for free and use it as your payment processor.

These are just a small sampling of really good home business ideas you could make money with using Internet marketing. Right now there are so many ways to make money online that virtually anyone regardless of their current situation can get started today.