When you start your home based business you come in with lofty ideas of what your business will become just by making a website. You will have instant sign-ups and instant wealth. A few weeks go by and nothing has happened , no sign-ups, no $7000 cheques in the mail. In fact, when you do some checking, you realize no one has even visited your web site.

The reality of your situation starts to sink in, you have to work at your business if you wish it to grow. There is no such thing as automatic wealth in any business, let alone a home based business. You now have two choices. You can either make the decision to work your business or you can quit and complain to everyone you know that it was a scam.

A smart entrepreneur is going to make the decision to build the business, and one of the first things you need to do is establish your goals. What do you wish to achieve, short term and long term.

Goal setting can be a difficult task if you have never done it before, there are a few things to consider when you are setting your goals into motion.

1. Be very clear and concise on what you want. If you want your business to have 100 hits in a day, then write it down. If you want to earn extra income, how much do you want. For example: don’t say around $1000, say instead exactly $1255 in extra monthly income. Be as descriptive as possible in your goals.

2. Set deadlines for yourself for each goal, it gives your goal a sense of urgency.Be realistic with yourself. If you want to earn $10 000 a month from your business, you don’t want your deadline to be tomorrow. That would be a difficult if not impossible task and result in you missing the deadline. Consider who you are and how much work you are going to put into your business, then set your goal reasonably. If you miss your time frame don’t feel it is an impossible goal, but re-evaluate your time line and work towards achieving it.

3. Make a to-do list for you to achieve your goals. What specific actions do you need to take for you to reach your goal within the time frames you have set. If you are unsure, put something down, remember, you can and will look at your list and adjust it as you gain knowledge.

4. Once you have your list, organise it. What actions are immediate, what next. Think of your goals list as an outline for a story. Introduction, body, and conclusion (achievement of your goal). Then make the decision to do something every day that will move you closer to having a successful home based business.

Always remember that your actions and goals are not written in stone. Look at your list regularly and adjust it as you need to. The important aspect is to have it written down and to take action each and every day to achieve the goals that you have set out for yourself.

Mark Babcock

http://www.cmbwealth.com/

Joining your first Home-business forum is a fun and exciting time. You have entered a world of like minded people, who are willing to share their ideas and experiences to help you grow your new business.You look around and pick your first discussion to read, open it up, and you have no idea what these people are saying. It’s a world of abbreviations and slang. You go to the next article,and exactly the same thing. How can you have guidance, if you don’t even understand the language?

Being a “newbie”, you have to start to understand the language. I searched and searched for a list and finally found a partial one. It’s nowhere near complete, but it gave me the beginnings of understanding different posts. I’ve listed my original list here:

ppc= pay per click
ppl= pay per lead
ppa= pay per action
ctr= click through rate
seo= search engine optimization
cpc= cost per click
plr= private label rights
pr= page rank
mlm= multilevel marketing
so= special offer
tos= terms of service
RR – resale Rights
MRR – Master Resale Rights
IMO – In My Opinion
CPA – Cost Per Action
SERP – Search Engine Results Page
ROI – Return On Investment
AM – Article Marketing
LSI – Latent Semantic Indexing
MFA – Made For Adsense

I kept this list beside me at first, then as I gained more forum experience, I found I no longer needed it. Each day my knowledge of this new language grew and in fact still does. Just remember to take your time, and the best thing is if you don’t understand, ask the question in the forum, someone will definitely come to your aide.

Mark Babcock

When you first start a home-based business you can feel like your in a lonely world. Stuck in your office trying to learn everything you can about how to run your new venture, you find your self secluded from the rest of the world. It doesn’t have to be this way.

When I first started, I found myself in this situation, I didn’t want any distractions from anything, but I soon realized that without social interaction, I was quickly in a rut.
Then I discovered the forums. Like minded people, who have been where I am or are there themselves. I started reading posts and responding to them. I soon found myself feeling like there were other people with me all the time.

Soon, after, I gained the confidence to talk about my business with others. I had the confidence that although people in my life may not ‘get it’, I was not alone in my business. The response from people was amazing. I was talking with confidence about what I was doing, and they were responding to me. People may not have signed up, but they took my work as a legitimate business that could be successful.

Being in a home business does not have to be a solitary venture. Reach out to the many people who are building their dreams too. Through the forums, you will find like minded people who can help you stay focused, give you ideas, and motivate you when you feel like you are alone.

Mark Babcock

www.cmbwealth.com

The other day I was reading a book with my niece called ‘Cars and Trucks and Things that Go’ which has a find Goldbug game within the story. You know the ones where there are all these scenes on the page and hidden in there somewhere is a gold bug. As we were searching I had a thought about how this was what my life was.

I go onto the Internet and do a search for a home Internet business and I’m bombarded with data. There are so many choices, that you need to look at, through and around that it all becomes a big mess of information. Which ones are scams, which ones are legit. What niche do I want to look at. It is the never ending search for Goldbug. You end up reading a ton of information, and feel more confused than ever.

Then I had that day with my niece. She’s six years old. As I am trying to look at the entire page and soak in all of the content, she is placing her finger on each item and going, ‘No, not there.’, then moving on to the next car. I watched her as she found each Goldbug and realized there was a lesson here.

Instead of trying to get all of the information in a day, or in my case an hour. Look at each home business, evaluate whether it meets your needs, and what type of training it has. If it is a maybe, put it to one side. Then look at another one. When you get to three or four, compare them to each other and pick the one you like the best. Repeat the process and you will get to the point where you not only have a list of potential home business ideas, but you will have a better understanding of your needs and desires.

It takes time to find what you are looking for in a business, but if you go in a methodical way, you can also find the Goldbug.

Mark Babcock

www.cmbwealth.com