Plan of Attack for home business

QUESTION: I recently read that the importance of business plans is overrated. To start a homebased business, do I need to have a business plan?

ANSWER: We salute you for both taking to heart what you read, while at the same time, not taking something in writing at face value. We have long held that the value of a business plan for a start-up homebased business is to provoke the thinking you owe yourself before risking time, money and energy on a new venture. Now the research is in.

Peter Economy, the co-author of Lessons From the Edge (Oxford University Press), interviewed 75 entrepreneurs whose companies were producing more than $1 million a year before the owners reached age 40. "They said [if they had to do it over], they would not have done a business plan," says Economy. "They expressed the belief that it's better to dive in than to plan every move. The only time they needed a formal business plan was when they went to get outside financing or funding."

Similarly, David E. Gumpert, author of How to Really Create a Successful Business Plan (Lauson Publishing), has a written a new book, Burn Your Business Plan! (Lauson Publishing). Gumpert surveyed 42 private investors and found half had invested in companies without seeing a business plan, and nearly two out of three said a business plan is less than critical to their evaluation of a business. Gumpert examined academic research and concluded that a formal business plan can actually hamper an early-stage company's chances of success.

Are business plans just artifacts of the pre-Internet era, entombed in business school curricula? For most of the 50-page plans promoted in these venues, the answer is yes. But learning all you can about your industry and your market remains vital, so before you start any business, you should be able to answer these questions:

• What, specifically and succinctly, is your business? Are you, for instance, renting wedding gowns, selling sporting goods or providing recreational activities for seniors?

• Who is most likely to buy what you will be selling?

• Why would people buy what you offer? What advantages does your product or service offer that people can't already get from the marketplace?

• What are the best ways for you to reach your target customers?

• What tasks do you need to do first to get underway? If it's wise "to do first things first," what is first? And what is next? And after that?

• How will you price what you offer, and what do you expect your costs and revenues to be?

It helps to put your answers in writing, but you can do this on the back of a napkin, in a notebook or on a computer. If you prefer a more structured method, consider the one-page approach, available as software at www.onepagebusinessplan.com or in the book The One Page Business Plan (One Page Business Plan Co.) by Jim Horan.

What's most important once you decide to start a business is to be active. As we say in Why Aren't You Your Own Boss? (Prima Publishing), the key is to always move forward toward your goal, and to refuse to allow obstacles-like feeling blocked by needing to write a business plan-to get in your way. Before you go to bed each night, set at least one goal to accomplish the next day that brings you closer to starting your own business. Write it down in a notebook, and when you accomplish it, cross it off your list.

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Paul and Sarah Edwards are the co-authors of 15 books, including Working From Home.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/64652

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To be a Successful Businessman

To be successful in your business ventures, what is really important is your attitude to your work and everything you do. This is what makes you a successful entrepreneur in the end. How exactly is this? Let's break it down.

Passion For Your Business: You should be passionate about what you do and the business you want. There are others who don't think that it's important to believe in the products or services that they offer. This is actually very crucial, because believing in your business, and in yourself, can be obvious to your customers. What the customers see can affect how your business goes.

Go For the Goal: Like every plan and business, it is important that you have set yourself short-term and long-term goals. This will ensure that there is something that you are working for rather than just get lost on the path. Your goal is also important for you to formulate ways and strategies to use to further improve and expand your business. The short-term goals should lead to your long-term and ultimate objective.

Make Up Your Plan: With the goal in mind, you'll then have to make up strategies to reach your desired results. Marketing and business plans should cover all aspects in your business --- marketing tactics, budget and financial objective, logistics, your target market, etc. Research and adjustments will be needed to know how to effectively execute your plans. Do not be hesitant to employ whatever resources you can get hold of to achieve your goal.

Follow Up: When you are in the execution of your plans, make sure that you've established your priorities straight and clearly. Follow up on daily and weekly reports and keep track of everything. This task will naturally require effort and commitment from you. It may seem tiring at times but learn how to keep a cool head and accomplish what needs to be accomplished. It can help if you keep a time diary or work schedule for your daily activities.

Balancing Your Professional Life With Your Personal Life: As your work will be taking up a lot of your time, you should learn how to balance it with your personal activities. It's nice and refreshing to take a break at times, and you'll need your mind to be fresh and alert when you encounter problems with your business. Don't forget to mind your health. A healthy body contributes to a healthy mind. Take exercises if you need to and power up.

Continuous Research and Study: As business patterns and the economy evolve, it is wise to always keep up with the news and evolve with it. There may be opportunities hidden in the oncoming business trends. Continuously studying and improving your business is beneficial and may even be crucial for it to grow and expand.

In every step of the business process, you need to have commitment and passion to keep on the business. This is the right attitude for businessmen. Without the right attitude, your business may become sour and would result in a loss.

http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles

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General Engineering Introduction/Attitude

Engineering education changes people. It gives them an attitude much like the police view everyone as perpetrators, the military view everyone as civilians, lawyers view everyone as clients, physicians view everyone as patients. Engineers view everyone else as customers. Fortunately, most engineering customers and clients are other engineers.

Engineers themselves are viewed as being different. Interpersonal skills such as reading body language, eye contact, and conversation are sacrificed for an ability to concentrate. Many students drop out of engineering courses because they “don't want to be like them” and “don't like them”. Most engineers know their faults, work on them and ask forgiveness. Please don't give up.

The engineering attitudes experienced and rewarded in college don't dominate the profession. People with good interpersonal skills have an advantage in the engineering market place. STEM is tolerant of the negative side of concentration gifts, but ultimately the world rewards those in balance. Talk to working engineers. Most will describe themselves in terms of their role in projects rather than the science and technology they studied in school. For example they might say I am a “test, prototype, sales, support, manufacturing, quality, operation, project management” engineer.

It is the World's Problem

Engineers never personally have a problem. If they can not learn something by reading a manual or finding a readable tutorial on line, then they have a job. They have found the leading edge of technology. Their goal is to explore it's possibilities, document the process so that others can repeat it, learn about it and improve it.

This is how engineers create standards and a better lives for all of us.

Don't ever think, "I am not smart enough." Engineering is not a matter of being smart. It is a matter of having the courage to stand in front of people and say the world has this problem and I am going to solve it. Problems are never inside of an engineer. Problems are always outside of an engineers body, mind and life. Problems are in the world and are to be served. Differentiate, separate yourself from the world.

Future engineering courses are a boot camp where you are going to be stressed and feel unprepared, unfair expectations, cold shoulders giving you no help, mentally challenged, and failure. The best students don't blame themselves. They blame the world outside of themselves. Students cope in a variety of ways:

• give up
• feel discriminated against
• cheating
• stop sleeping
• blame the teacher, then college, then the profession
• eventually they blame the world and begin to see opportunities

This is especially true in colleges where engineers are living with other majors that don't experience this stress or community colleges where students go home to non-engineering families. It is really hard to understand what engineering classes are trying to teach you. As long as you hold onto the concept of "being an expert"; as long as you feel your brain should remember all the content that is being flashed in front of you; as long as you try to climb into other people's brilliant brains rather than choose to develop your own, you will suffer. Don't give up and choose an "easier" profession.

Education Entitlement

Students feel perfectly at home stressing their bodies to become athletes. They feel perfectly at home stressing their muscle memory in music classes. They feel perfectly at home stressing their emotional memory in drama. Yet when it comes to STEM, students have been taught that mental stress should be avoided and the people that should help you avoid this stress are teachers.

Most of the world feels entitled to education. This results in excuses like this:

I am not trained

I am not an expert

We have no money for training

Teach me how and I will do it

Let’s all get educated together

I learned nothing, the course was bad

Most teachers and professionals will talk about the adult learner, the self motivated learner, critical thinking/learning, comprehension and synthesis objectives. And they will state that their goal is people that learn on their own. But every educational institution has a vested interest in making sure that you view the human species as needing education. This has created an attitude of education entitlement coupled with an education addiction.

Engineers are addicted to self education. Some even can not stand entitlement education. Here is the rant of an engineer trying to create a resume:

"Why should I list any experience, when I am trained to learn without resources. I can learn from nature. I can learn from the slightest clue. I don't learn from other people. I create the manuals, the tutorials, the first classes in anything new. I am the source of change. I am not an expert on past technology. Why should I list my areas of expertise? I've never done the same thing twice. I can be more productive quickly than any "experienced person." Why should I get certified? My goal is not to be educated in a homogenized, best practice, predictable, standard way. My goal is to create something new. I bring a "fresh" approach with out crippling expectations. Call this art. Please."

Keep Doors Open

• Easiest major to get into Medical School
• Easiest major to get into Law School
• Can switch to Science or Math
• Can switch to Technology
• Can switch to Religion
• Can not switch to Engineering

You already are an Engineer

• You consider ANY non-engineering course "easy".
• You think that when people around you yawn, it's because they didn't get enough sleep.
• The salesperson at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions.
• You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work.
• Half of your Google searches land in HowStuffWorks and Wikipedia.
• You perform an autopsy on everything before throwing it away.
• You collect random screws, bolts and short pieces of wood.
• You worry about energy resources rather than world peace.
• Modern Marvels Engineering Disasters and Myth Busters are your favorite shows.
• Drive there once, directions memorized.
• Memorize door codes, combination locks.
• Count seconds while doing something else.
• Count steps even though you are not blind.
• I think I could do a better job, how would I do it?
• Where would this break?
• Facts not Feelings.
• Follow the cables.
• Fix or totally destroy.
• Old is good.

Work Hard

Don’t wait to be nice. Don’t wait to be correct. Don’t wait to see if someone else will do the work. Don’t wait because you are not qualified. Take the initiative. Train your brain not another’s. Pull people into your mind, into your context. Don’t climb into someone else’s mind.

Sing Loud

• Guess. If right, become expert. If wrong, let others, let nature correct you.
• Learn from others in their presence.
• Expect to learn from nature. Expect mistakes. Set up the tension so that you will never forget!
• Create context.
• Take the initiative.

The word "Can't" is evil. The words "I am not good at", the phrase "I don't like" are merely disguised versions of Can't.

Technology Waves

Most engineers have periods during the day or year when nothing is going on. Boredom is the Enemy. Use the time to pick up a new paint brush, learn a new simulation tool, and read engineering society news. Pay attention to advertisements in engineering magazines. What are they selling?

Technology is like a beach wave. It is always moving. Engineers surf or ride that wave. Then they get off and find another wave. Behind the wave are people that are using the technology. In front of the wave is the opportunity to do things first. It is possible to get too far out in front of the wave. People will not understand you. Figure out where this boundary is. Expect to grow as an engineer constantly.

Business to Business

B2B is a majority of engineering work. Engineers buy from other engineers, sell to other engineers and compete along business boundaries. Often the "customers" of an engineer are other engineers. Often the "suppliers" are other engineers. Sales engineers are selling technical trust and are closely linked to support engineers. Sometimes engineering firms hire a marketing person to help with getting investors, creating and qualifying sales leads, attending trade shows and closing sales.

Marketing and engineers have different contexts for defining truth. Most engineers believe in objective utility.

Marketing knows that subjective values impact purchase decisions. Engineers are influenced by numbers, measurements and data. Different objectives lead to tension that can be used constructively or destructively. Engineer this tension!

Don't Doubt

Others faults are really your gifts. Forgive them, accept your gifts. Evil fertilizes good. Privilege is often a handicap. Everyone has difficulties and pain in their lives. Often what you don’t want to do is related to your gift.

Opportunity

• Opportunity is a bird that never perches. ~Claude McDonald
• Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the one you miss. ~Author Unknown
• When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. ~John F. Kennedy, address, 12 April 1959
• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ~Thomas Edison
• When one door of happiness closes another one opens; But often we look so long at the closed door that , we do not see the door that has opened for us. ~Helen Keller
• I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity. ~Hazel Lee
• Work is worship. ~India

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Debt Settlement Tips How To Negotiate With Your Creditors

Can you get a loan to payoff negotiated debts? What taxes do you have to pay on settled bills?

Simple debt settlement tips can help you negotiate with your lenders, get a debt settlement loan, and determine the taxes you will have to pay even if you feel intimidated when dealing with creditors.

Are you drowning in debt and desperate for help, but don't know where to begin? The following information will provide you with some basic guidance and answers to important questions.

 

Debt Settlement Tips: Status of Debt?

First, find out if the creditor has already "charged off" your debt. This basically means that the lender "writes off" your account as bad debt and will consider it a loss of revenue. Many times, creditors will choose to do this because the amount owing is not worth the collection costs involved.

Creditors will typically send a notice informing you of this action, and you will usually have to claim the written off debt as income on your tax return. If this is the case, then the debt is legally dead and you already paid taxes on the income, so you can move on to the next debt that needs to be paid off.

Debt Settlement Tips: Statute of Limitations

Before trying to negotiate a debt, find out what the Statute of Limitations are in your state.

There is a specific time limit during which creditors can file suit to collect a debt, and the laws governing this period vary from state to state.

The original creditor or collection agency cannot collect from you if the Statute of Limitations (SOL) has passed; however, they will still try in the hope that you are unaware of these laws. If the SOL has expired, you must inform bill collectors so they will stop harassing you about uncollectible debt.

Past due debts are usually removed from your credit report after 7 years. If the debt has not been paid on anytime within the last 7 years, then it cannot legally remain on your credit report, so you can challenge the listing to have it removed.

It is important to note that the amount of time a late payment or delinquent account can remain on your credit report is different from the Statute of Limitations. A debt may be canceled from your credit report after 7 years; however, a creditor can still sue you for the amount if the Statute of Limitations has not passed.

Basically, you can consider yourself free of the debt only when the Statute of Limitations has expired. When this time limit has passed, your debt becomes uncollectible and will disappear from your credit report. However, if a creditor/debt collector try to collect, you should then put them on written notice the SOL has expired and the debt is no longer collectible.

If the Statute of Limitations has not passed, then you need to find an alternate way to deal with your debt. Paying off debts can be so time-consuming and intimidating that many people would rather enlist the help of a Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS). However, you can often negotiate a much better deal if you handle the situation yourself or use a reliable debt settlement company.

CCCS vs. Settlement

Although CCCS will devise a repayment plan and deal with creditors on your behalf, they usually do not negotiate how creditors will report your account to major credit bureaus, meaning your credit report could be ruined.

Debt Settlement Tips: With debt settlement, you can often ask creditors to report your debts as "paid in full" or list the account as "current".

With an increasing number of people seeking debt relief programs, you can often work out a debt settlement agreement that will reduce outstanding balances by 25-50%, or more. Once an agreement is reached, your account will be closed and a payment plan will be developed so you can begin your goal of getting out of debt.

Debt Settlement Tips: Depending on your situation, you may qualify for a debt settlement loan so you can payoff creditors.

Lenders are more willing to negotiate a reduced balance payoff if they know they will receive immediate payment, so your ability to secure a debt settlement loan may give you leverage when dealing with creditors. It is also a great way to get out of debt quickly because you make only one monthly payment that will be much lower than your pre-settlement budget.

Facts About Past Due Debt

You need to be aware of the risks connected with overdue debts.

A creditor can take legal action against you, and if they win the lawsuit, the lender may garnish your wages or have your property seized.

Credit card companies do not typically take this action because suing would be too expensive and require too much time. However, the possibility does exist, and the higher your balance on a single account, the greater the chance that legal action will be taken.

Debt Settlement Tips: Many people consider bankruptcy prematurely, before exploring other available options.

Because collection agencies use fear tactics and threaten garnishment or property repossession, people falsely believe that bankruptcy is the only solution for their situation.

However, creditors and collection agencies fail to mention that they cannot legally take any action without first going to court and being granted permission to carry out their threats. Being well-informed will prevent you from making hasty or unwise decisions.

You need to weigh the risk of garnishment, judgment,or property seizure against the likelihood of these things actually happening. Remember, since your are the one that will ultimately have to deal with the consequences of any risks, the decisions made should be completely in your hands.

Debt Settlement and Taxes

If a creditor forgives more than $600 of the principal, the forgiven amount must be reported to the IRS. You are required to include the "written off" amount as income on your tax return. Each creditor you settled with will send you a U.S. 1099 Tax Form stating how much you have to claim, which essentially, is the difference between the amount you paid and the amount you owed, as well as any applicable interest.

Although the additional income may increase your taxes, it is usually far outweighed by the benefits gained from large debt reductions:

Debt Settlement Tips: If you paid $200 to settle a debt of $1,200; the 1099 will be for $1,000. If your U. S. tax rate is 15%, this means you will only pay $150 in taxes for the write off of $1,000. Well worth doing!

Not sure if you want to handle the contact and negotiations? Go with reliable debt settlement companies to do it for you.
Original source: http://www.debtsteps.com/debt-settlement-tips.html

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You Can Advance Your Work From Home Business With These Tips

Sometimes life can throw you some curve balls. For example, the job you've held for many years can suddenly be dissolved, leaving you unemployed and at a loss for how to survive. Starting a business from home is sometimes a better option than trying to find another job. The tips in this article will give you ideas about the right business to start as well as how to begin.

Good Business Tips...

Your business objective should only be a few sentences long and should be included on your site. You should state exactly what your goals are with your business and what it is about. In these few sentences you should be sure to describe why your business is unique and what your goals are.

Keep track of what you are spending and earning by opening a separate account for your business. All business-related transactions should occur with this account. By doing this, you will keep track of your company's finances easier. It is also a good idea to open a specific credit card for your business.

Your office space should be ergonomic. This includes where you set up your laptop or monitor. Straining your neck to see your computer screen is extremely unhealthy, and it can even lead to permanent neck injury. 

If you have to spend a lot of your time sitting at a desk, buy a good quality chair. Also, don't overlook the importance of a quality mouse and keyboard, as well as proper lighting. $200 is more than enough to cover the cost of the items you will need.

Creating realistic expectations of your home business enterprise will help you stay in check with your opportunities. Do you have an outstanding product with long-term commercial potential? Can you succeed in the business as an honest businessman or businesswoman?

In order to differentiate between work and personal time, set yourself a rigid work schedule and adhere to it. 

Determine an ending time for each workday. Take the time to enjoy yourself with your family and friends.

Borrowing money for your business leads to questions about your business structure and inner workings, and the investors will feel entitled to that information. You should focus on making as much money as you can with the money you have now.

Always be aware of your competition's prices if you want to stay at the top of your game. By doing this, you will stay in competition and likely see better sales figures.

Designate an area in your home that is devoted to work and nothing else. Keep everything organized in your home, and make sure you have plenty of space to do that. This will help you keep the business organized, and organization in a home business enterprise is key to success.

Immediate success is not prevalent in even the companies that guarantee their business program. Your work from home business will take time before you are able to see success. Stay committed and dedicated to making your business a success, and one day, you will realize your dreams.

Take advantage of your tax deductions to optimize the profits for your work from home business. By claiming all the deductions to which you are entitled, you can end up saving a substantial amount of money on your taxes.

While reading this article, hopefully you were inspired to take your life into your own hands. You were given a lot of tips about starting a online business, and now is the time to grab the bull by the horns and go for it! 

You can keep this article for reference to read anytime you are not sure what the next step you should be taking is.

Rena Williams is a dedicated success mentor. She has a passion for assisting others in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Learn more about how she can become the prosperity change agent you deserve at http://www.coachrenawilliams.com

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?You-Can-Advance-Your-Work-From-Home-Business-With-T...] You Can Advance Your Work From Home Business With These Tips

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