H How T To B Build ild Y Your H Home Based Business Topics • • • • • Why a home based business? What business? H How tto gett started t t d How to Market Your Business Follow Ups Why Market? • Why I’m I m not married to Tom Berenger! • Who will know where you are or what you have to offer? If you fail to plan You p plan to fail! Why a home based business • 1 1. Freedom to set you own pace • 2. Freedom to use your own ideas • 3. 3 O Opportunity t it to t explore l options ti What business? • • • • • • 1. What are your interests? 1 2. What are your strengths? 3 Wh 3. Whatt opportunities t iti are available? il bl ? 4. What resources are available? 5. Using your own products? 6 Using other’s 6. other s products? How do I create my business? • 1 1. Investigate the best ways to learn your business. • Internet, Internet teacher, teacher group group, personal experience Why a Website? World is changing and expanding Print Ads – – – – – Reach limited people Limited to space Limited to time Filed away Thrown away • Website – – – – – Accessible to millions Always Available Interactive Changeable Unlimited information Cost? • How much will a website cost to build? • Many professional services, price can vary according to expertise expertise. • Learn to do it yourself with programs like F t Frontpage. • Have a site built that you can manage yourself after construction with backup! Cost? • 1 1. Purchase of supplies: paper paper,cards cards etc etc. • 2. Purchase of products: know what you are selling by using what is possible possible, have them available for viewing or for sale. • 3. 3 P Purchase h off office ffi supplies: li computer, t fax machine, answering machine, car, Your Own Products • My program is llamas, llamas fiber products from the llamas, Why Who Why, Who, How • Why do I have llamas? • I enjoy animals, rural life style, pretty, easy to care for for, interesting interesting, enjoyable enjoyable, affordable and profitable • Who Wh will ill I market k t th them tto? ?P People l lik like me. • Cost? Land, animals, feed & care, marketing capital How will I market my llama business? Other’ss Products Other • Drop ship other people’s people s products • My business: Hemp Seed- Nature’s Power Food for people and pets Foodpets. My Hemp Products • My products from Hemp Seed: Why Hemp Seed? • One of the healthiest foods on the planet • Tastes great, like sunflower seeds • Super S source off balanced b l d omega 3&6 3&6, builds brain cells! • Super source of plant based protein, vitamins, enzymes • Great anti inflammatory diet. • Easy to put in daily diet Drop Ship • Advantages: don’t don t have to purchase a large inventory of products • They do the shipping and handling of the products • They Th will ill usually ll provide id a variety i t off support materials • They may help with marketing Multi Level Market Programs • • • • • Advantages: Usually have very good products Th harder The h d you work, k th the more you earn Word of mouth is super marketing Usually provide website, marketing pp , supplies, • Up line person usually mentors Sanoriche • • • • • Why? Are you as healthy as you want to be? They have great products Free to join Th provide They id ffree website b it and d marketing k ti materials at a reasonable price • Are A you as wealthy lth as you wantt to t be? b ? • Very good compensation plan Sanoriche • Who will I market to? • People who care about their health to maintain good health or to improve their health: most everyone! Wh should Why h ld only l stores t make k money on health products? Everyone can benefit: health & wealth! Products • Mega Mangosteen The Dr Dr.’s s Chocolates How to Order • Join! How Do I Market My Business? • • • • Internet Word of Mouth P i t ads Print d iin papers Direct: shows, sales, farmer’s markets Print Ads Making your mark Characteristics of a Marketable W b i Website If you build it, They will come! • Visual • Techincal Visual Characteristics • Your site should be attractive, capture attention and create i t interest t • Create a brand, logo, theme, that represent you and the image you want to project and have attached to you. • a “brand “b d name”” is i major j decision, d i i th thatt name will ill b be you!! • Use specific graphics and photos • Be proactive: use action verbs, motivate visitors to act: • shop, h b buy, visit, i it come b back k • Appeal to emotions: facts tell, stories sell: • where appropriate share personal stories • The site should be user friendly, easy to move between pages • Include useful information where appropriate • Offer credit card services if possible • Have your site interactive: viewers should be able to email you through the site • Blogging is fun, and the search engines look for sites that are updated daily. Post your thoughts and let others post theirs. Many free blog set up services. • Chat rooms enable viewers to carry on email conversations through your site site. • Offer specials from time to time, draws and updates that bring gp people p back often. • Be credible! Don’t embellish the truth, don’t make outlandish claims. Explain how your product/service can solve your customer’s customer s problems and full their need/want • Use testimonials! • Try to think like your target audience • Check out other sites for ideas, know your competition! – Design the Site • Collect all information need to create site site, such as picture texts texts, graphs, movies, sound. • Organize it into categories such as” females” then this category can be turned into a page. – Building the Site – Elements that optimize Search Engine Optimization • Things your sites should have – Keywords, Keyword phrases, Keywords, Keyword phrases! – Keyword are the words that are most important and germane to your site. it Example: E l llamas ll b tt example better l packk llllama, surii llllama, wcr llllamas. – Shoes ( too much competition) leather shoes etc. – Keywords should be in your title, meta tags (descriptions) and body of text. Use often but must make sense. – Title is the most important element on your site! The title should include your keywords and not be longer than 50-80 characters. Use all capital letters. – Search engines search for keywords! – Have as many links to other specific related sites as possible. – Blogs if kept current help rankings How to Market Your Site • Advertise in Print – – – – – Topic related magazines Newspaper ads Direct mail outs Business cards Car decals • Internet I t t Marketing M k ti – – – – Create email list and mail out the list yourself Optimize your keywords Buy Key words Hire a Search Engine optimizer (SEO) Buying and Hiring • Buying keywords – Go to search engine sites and buy important words that will direct people to your site. Pay per click, the rate you pay for a key word so that your page is ranked higher higher.This This varies depending on the word’s popularity (sex isn’t cheap!) – Buying keywords can place your site on dedicated or preferred space on the search engine main pages – Google ad words – Overture (yahoo) – Type T “pay “ per click” li k” ffor more sites it Directories • There are manyy directories that list websites and the more your website is listed the better your chances at ranking. • Some S are free f and d some charge h to b be lilisted. d Paid will try to get a higher ranking. Make sure they are reputable reputable. • Check out www.dmoz.org to list. Check out other directories as well. • Craigslist .com very popular. Yellowpages.com charges but offers rankings. Submitting Articles • Submitting articles you have written that include your web address and keywords can get you ranked higher higher. Some are free and some will charge a fee. • Some to check out: • Livejournal.com, ezine articles.com • Go articles.com , e-syndicate.com Submission to Search Engines • Submit your site to the search engines google, yahoo, msn • Click on submit express express.com com and the directions will guide you to submission, free service. service • Check out google site guy.com and get more tips ti on ranking. ki Hiring a SEO • What SEO’s do? ((Search Engine g Optimizer) p ) – They attempt to get you a higher ranking with the search engines and try to put you at the top of the website list by submitting you to a larger number of search engines. – They can evaluate and optimize your site for web searches. h – NO! SEO can guaranty you #1 or first page listing. – Shop p around for a reliable SEO! Just type yp in SEO • Cautionary tips – http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?ans wer=35291 The Lucky Seven? • • • IIs there th really ll lluck k tto liliving i a successful f l and d powerful f l lif life? ? IIs it easier i tto market ourselves if we are living a successful life? We often hear the statement: we can’t help and love others until we help and love ourselves. A true fact of marketing is that customers must buy “you” before they will buy what you have for sale. sale How do we present ourselves when we are representing our farms and llamas? What kind of people are you attracted to when you are shopping and meeting new prospects? Are a great card, banner, photo, or display replacements for a great you? These are tough g q questions but they y are the foundation for yyour marketing g program. From some forgotten source I jotted down 7 tips for creating a marketable “you” that I often read them to see how I am doing. There is no luck to these 7. They are all benchmarks to a successful life that require attention to d t il and detail dd dedication di ti tto th these d details. t il W We are allll a work k iin progress b butt these 7 tips can keep the progression going in the right direction to create a marketable and successful “you”. “You” are the final image of the brand you are promoting in your business. • • 1. Develop marketable skills so you can support yourself. Education in whatever form and life long learning is essential to your marketability. We have opportunities daily to learn new things. I have just purchased a new fax copier, fax, copier scanner machine machine---very very intimidating! but if I want to fax, copy or scan, I had better ready the book! What can my digital camera do? A lot more that I have learned it can so I had better get motivated to make the most of it. Every llama publication that comes in the mail is an opportunity to keep up on what’s new in myy business. 2. Be fulfilled and happy without a mate. How fortunate are the people that have a mate or partner but we never know how long p g that p partnership p will last and if it should end we have to be able to carry on as a powerful self. • • 3. You are the key player in your life. How easy is it to let life happen to us and let others decisions shape our lives? Pretty easy easy. But our decisions for us have to be key to creating our own success. Know yourself well enough to chart your course. A neighbor and friend convinced me this year to use large square bales instead of rounds that have worked well for me for the last several years years. Reluctantly I went with the squares. When he came to stack them, the stack was so high that I knew it would be a problem feeding them. Once again I allowed him to convince me that “he knew hay” and that the stack was fine. When unusually high and destructive winds came in December and blew the stack over killing one of my females and badly injuring another, I knew I had not insisted in being the key player in my life with very sad consequences. He came and restacked all the hay but the pain of that event is not easy to live with. 4. Seek people you respect and enjoy. I have found this to be a profound element in enabling me to be th kkey player the l iin my lif life. M Many years ago I made d a conscious i decision to eliminate people from my life that did not enhance my life. This is not an easy one but we need to surround ourselves with others who are positive. If we expect people to be perfect we will ill be alone b butt we e ha have e to be a aware are of who ho is helping us s to be our” best selves.” • 5. Provide for those that depend on you. This may be our children, other family members, pets, animals, i l friends. f i d If we are are trying t i tto be b our b bestt we can then look after those that need us and if our marketable skills are a focus this can enable us to fulfill our obligations. obligations • 6. Make the world a better place. What are you doing to improve your home, your neighborhood your town neighborhood, town, your country country, your world? Do you donate to causes you find worthy of your time and resources? How are you making a difference? I was standing in the return line at Wal Mart and read the billboard about all the donations that had made to our community and suddenly felt a great deal better about Wal Mart! A few issues ago I did an interview with an amazing i women who h h had dd dedicated di t d h her lif life tto iimproving i the lives of Bolivian women through the use of natural fibers. I have now listed Diane’s website on my site and have also noted her work with hearing impaired children that she is helping as well. • • 7. Make peace with your past. This is so important because as humans we are flawed and don’t always make the decisions we wish we would have when we reflect on our lives. It is so easy to hold onto the guilt and the questions, why didn’t I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I let that person down? Why did I get so angry and make such poor choices? These can haunt us and keep us from progressing along the path to being the best we can be and a marketable person: the kind of person we want to be behind the brand we are promoting. Letting go of that less that perfect self is probably one of the biggest challenges we have to becoming the person we can be but once we have accomplished this as best we can the other 6 tips for a marketable self become realities much quicker and easier. So many successful people are considered “lucky” lucky but they always insist that they created their “ luck” through hard work and dedication. We are worth the effort as are our llamas and our llama businesses. Let’s keep up the hard work and best create the “best best of luck luck”!! Marketing with “The The Donald Donald” by Sue Wilde • Today Donald Trump was a guest with Regis and Kelly. To plug his new book he gave a quick lesson on how to be successful in business. • #1: Love what you are doing, be passionate! • Llamas are easy to love and promote. P People l gett very excited it d about b t thi this wonderful d f l animal. • #2: Set the bar high. high • Llamas come in all types and price ranges. Offer the best llamas you can and stand behind them • #3: Be aware of the g global news. Know what is g going g on in the world and know how it can affect you. • We need to know what’s going on in the world because such events as “mad mad cow” cow can seriously affect what’s going on in our industry. • #4: Gain and use information to your advantage. • K Keep currentt by b reading di currentt periodicals i di l and d • books and internet information. Participate in events, g involved with yyour local and regional g llama g groups being keeps you in the loop. Go to seminars and • conferences when you are able to. • #5: Master yyour subject, j be an expert p in yyour area. • This is the result of doing all of the above. If you master, 1-4 you will be the master of your subject and your knowledge and expertise will be marketable. • #6: See the big picture. • A marketing article I wrote awhile ago was titled “ S th See the forest f t AND th the Trees”. T ” Don’t D ’t be b limited li it d b by jjustt focusing on a small aspect of the llama business. Specializing is great but the entire industry is still your i d t industry. • #7: Never, never, give up! • Donald has had his ups and his downs but he works his way back up and stays at the top of his game game. We all have our ups and downs as well. Disappointments and setbacks are a part of life life. Follow Ups • Evaluate your website’s website s marketing effectiveness often. You can check stats. • Make changes when needed to your marketing strategies. • Always Al ffollow ll up allll contacts t t and d lleads d through your site quickly and efficiently. • Keep in touch with your contacts and keep them coming back to your site often!