All you need to Know to Start
your Work from Home Businesses

Learn from Your Competitors for your Work from Home Business

The best way to seek out and learn from your competitors for your work from home business is to try and buy whatever product or service it is you’re planning to sell. Enter the market as a customer, and find out what options you would have.

Where to Look.

It might be tempting to just use a search engine and go by the results that turns up, but you have to remember that plenty of business still takes place outside the Internet. You should also make sure that you pay attention to more traditional methods of advertising, such as the yellow pages, or your local newspaper. It’s worth cutting out and keeping any ads you find, as they can be good to refer to when it’s time to start your own marketing for your work from home business.

Do What They Do, But Differently

Notice that I said ‘differently’, not necessarily ‘better’. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to improve on established businesses if you’re doing the exact same thing as they are – they have years of experience, after all. What you’re trying to do is distinguish yourself in the marketplace, so that people who are looking for something specific in your chosen industry will come to you.

There are a number of tried-and-true ways of altering existing products to make them succeed in the market.

The Price-Quality Line.

You may find other businesses that only offer a very high-quality service, and accordingly charge a premium price – or you might find ones that only offer heavily-discounted rubbish. Consider taking their products to the opposite end of the market. If you can offer a product of only slightly worse quality at half the price, then people will jump at it – and, likewise, there are always people willing to pay the most to get the best.

Provide a Service.

It is perfectly possible to sell products of the exact same physical quality while providing a better service – to the customer, quality and service are almost the same thing. There are companies out there who can sell computer software that their customers could get almost for free, simply because the customers like to have the support services that they get with their purchase.

Likewise, if service is all you do, then it should be pretty simple to provide a more attentive and personal service than your competitors. ‘One-on-one business’ gives you a great opportunity to become friendly with your customers, and that’s often worth its weight in gold to them.

Make it Simpler.

Many businesses offer great products, but they’re pitching them to very technical customers. If you’re an expert in your field, you will very often find that you can build a great business simply by selling the same thing as your competitors, but going to some trouble to explain and market it to a wider section of the public. Anytime you start using some new technology, the chances are that someone along the way had to work out how to make it simpler. Few new technologies or inventions come pre-packaged for consumer use.

Change the Design.

Make it smaller, or change the colour, or make it easier to open and fix. There are all sorts of ways to subtly redesign a product and give it all sorts of bells and whistles that customers will really appreciate. You might even be able to buy products, modify them, and then sell them on.

Build Alliances.

Despite what the word might lead you to think, you don’t always have to be competitive with your competitors. You might find that they have extra work sometimes that they wouldn’t mind sending over to you, or you might find that they’re willing to give you advice on starting up (if not for free, then perhaps for nothing more than the cost of a few drinks!). Of course, you shouldn’t go giving away all your secrets or giving them any other advantage, but that doesn’t mean that you should keep away. Pay special attention to any problems that they say they’ve had, or anything they do that seems to sell especially well.

Believe it or not, your competitors can be your best allies in this home business game, especially if they’re home businesses themselves – over time, your competitors might even become your friends.

Index for 'Work from Home Businesses' Articles

Thought for the Day

Do you want Success? by Dave Vallieres

There are some things we can control about our future and there are some things we cannot control.

There are a lot of things out of our control: -

• The weather
• Natural disasters
• Terrorist activities ...

are just a few.

But there are a lot of things totally within our control...

• Our attitude
• Our habits
• Our thoughts and motivation

I want you to imagine yourself making more money in 2006 than you have in any other year of your life.

Can you imagine it? If you can imagine it, you can do it.

The only way to succeed is by changing ourselves.

If your habits, the things you do everyday are not getting the things you want out of life, it's time to CHANGE your habits.

Eliminate BAD attitudes, BAD habits, BAD or DISTRACTING desires by KNOWING what they are and HOW TO overcome them.

Let's talk about how your attitude and habits affect your ability to make money. There are certain rules for succeeding financially ... like 'golf' there are 'rules' ... and there are rules to winning the Internet marketing business too.

If you don't even know what the rules are how can you formulate a strategy to win? You can't formulate a strategy because you don't understand what the GAME is all about! And that's why you aren't successful ... yet.

Learn the 'rules' and win by playing the best you can play ... Now is the time to look forward. Look toward changing those habits that have kept you back... what are they?

IDENTIFY them! Name them and write them down! Then you can SEE them for what they are... BARRIERS to YOUR success! Kill them, stomp on them, HATE them!

• Do you tend to procrastinate?
• Do you ease up after succeeding?
• Do you fail to plan ahead?

All of these are BAD habits that must be broken.

How?

By DESIRING it... by WANTING success so bad you can taste it.

Stop settling for LESS, EXPECT more from yourself and 'feel bad' when you don't make money.

Feel terrible when you failed to DO SOMETHING to bring you closer to your goal.

Use your feelings to propel you forward... feel afraid of being POOR ...WANT MORE, WANT BIGGER dreams to come true, for you.

Then and only then will you have the motivation to succeed.

There's only one rule you need to know to succeed: If you want success you have to STOP doing what you have been doing and do something else instead until you reach your goals.

Your habits will FORCE you to succeed. To be more successful change your habits.

Learn MONEY-MAKING Habits.

That's all the news for now,

-Dave Vallieres
(c) 2006 by David Vallieres.
All rights reserved.
David Vallieres is the Editor and Publisher of "Little Known Ways To Make Money Online"
a resource eLetter.

Find out more at http://www.cherrykay.com/DVwebsite.html