Small Business
ime at home allowed me to continue developing my small business in between fulfilling my responsibilities as a caregiver. Many caregivers have jobs outside the home. Time at work may be flexible, part time or temporary employment. There are many considerations for maintaining a job such as income and health benefits. Internet has made it possible to conduct business from home. The opportunity to attract a global market and, or even a local one, is dependent on how much effort one wants to invest.
Finding a suitable home-based saleable product, service, or affiliate marketing agreement and providing it a little time each day might yield a way to alleviate some of the pressure in maintaining fiscal responsibility.
Creating your own business can put you in command of your time and earn passive and active income while simultaneously caring for a loved one. A small business is organized per your specifications. The need to only make more money, however, may not be enough to sustain a small business venture .There are many sources that provide guidelines for how to determine what your entrepreneurial characteristics are and if you have the fortitude to create your own small business. The work should be something you are passionate about and want to do consistently.
Marketing tools may change. My businesses are no longer segregated so the information must reflect that. Your business will grow and your material should reflect what your business is.
A Few Small Business Ideas
Many resources say it is a good idea to determine your personal and financial goals, however, I think they can be covered by doing the following. To begin considering creating a product or service, use the Ws + H:
• Why – do you want to create a business?
• What - do you want to do? Create a product? Sell an existing product? Provide a service?
• Where – would you like to do this? In a physical place on consignment or wholesale? From home? On line?
• Who – would you like to sell the product(s)/service(s) to? Traditionally a marketing plan included 4 Ps:
o Product
o Price
o Place
o Promotion
Now there are five Ps and the first P is “People.” People are your market. A small business will not be successful if the product or service does not have a market. Who are your people?
• When – would you like to do it? When will you schedule the hours you operate, the hours you are available either on line, on the phone, or at your home? This could be inserted between your responsibilities. If the block of time does not ”exist”, scope out where it can.
• How – would you do it? On the net with a web site or a money making blog? A local business with creative or word-of-mouth advertising? How much money will this project cost in the short and/or long term before you make a profit?
Resources:
Articles
HP
Affiliates List
Rainbow Bridge by Allison L. Williams Hill
As a caregiver, think about:
• the advice
• the resources, and
• the tips
of your life experience that have developed that not only can be of help to caregivers but to households in general. If writing is not your strong suit, consider:
• Avon and Mary Kay have existed for decades and have allowed women to generate income on their own time.
• Hobby oriented websites like scrap booking create affiliate relationships with website owners
• Several web sites were created to sell all types of products like Ebay and Etsy.
Hybrid sweater by Allison L. Williams Hill
Other alternatives for crafts from the Crafts Newsletter creator James Dillehay are:
o Ecrater.com sellers have the wonderful opportunity to have all of their products posted at Google Search, a free web store builder and a free online marketplace;
o Dawanda.com requires a 5% commission is applied to sold items.
o At Big Cartel you need a PayPal account and the product limit is 100;
o Rubylane focuses on antiques and vintage jewelry. This store has three fees and one is a monthly.
More Small Business Craft Resources
0 ArtFire "ArtFire.com is a marketplace, craft and maker community where people from around the world come together to buy, sell and interact. Located in the heart of the Tucson Arts District, ArtFire partners with Maker House to offer a community creative destination that supports local makers and indie businesses."
o Shop Handmade "At ShopHandmade we're here for two reasons: We enjoy handmade crafts and we want to help people enjoy crafting
and enjoy giving handmade items. Handmade items are personal, special, and unique in this world."
o Bonanza "...the best place to sell online."
o Zazzle "With Zazzle, your imagination is at your fingertips. Our mission is to give people the power to make anything imaginable. Looking through our marketplace, you'll find Designers selling their art, Makers showcasing their customizable products, and create-your-own products just waiting for You."
SV Soul Portrait by Allison L. Williams Hill
o Made it Myself "Welcome to MadeitMyself.com, an online marketplace where users can buy and sell handmade goods. MadeitMyself.com is also a great way for the casual hobbyist to make some extra cash. For those who have always been told, “You should sell these” by friends and relatives, now you can. A digital camera and a few mouse clicks are all that’s needed to turn a hobby into a small business.
For buyers, MadeitMyself.com eliminates the need to spend countless weekends scouring the craft fair circuit to find that special item. Collectors of imported goods no longer need to travel abroad or pay overpriced importer/exporter fees, or bid on items at live auction.
For sellers, MadeitMyself.com is the perfect way to compliment or even replace their current method of doing business. The global visibility your goods receive can’t be matched to what a craft show or store can provide."
Go to "66 Hobby and Craft Niche Ideas" for more information.
o Aftcra "Aftcra is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell American handmade products. Our mission is to support local artists and artisans living in America by connecting them with handmade admirers across the globe. Our partners are our users, so we strive to ensure that aftcra is constantly evolving to fit our buyer’s and seller’s needs.
o Craft Is Art Craft Is Art started in 2009 as an online retail store selling mostly jewelry and fashion accessories from non-handmade manufacturers, it did not take long before we realized that handmade was better.
o Zibbet "get a store within Zibbet’s global marketplace. Join 5 5 , 4 8 9 other artists, crafters and vintage collectors gaining exposure to millions of shoppers from all over the world"
o Big Cartel "For over a decade, creative people from around the world have used Big Cartel’s
simple tools and resources to build a unique online store, manage and
sell their work, delight their fans and customers, and run their
business their own way."
If you are not skilled at using Internet yet, books like Internet for Dummies can be read at home on your own time. If you want to learn more and you do not have a computer, check your local library for access and tutoring.
o Secondhand or gently used products like clothes and magazines can be useful to those who find them valuable. Your job is to express to potential buyers how valuable they are.
o Gently used clothes can be cleaned and repurposed as adaptive clothing. Open seams and re-stitch with Velcro strips or dots to make dressing another easier.
o Many people are selling used magazines especially ones with knitting and crocheting patterns. Hobbyist magazines could be a specialty.
o Old magazines could be repurposed for their images for vision boards or even applying decoupage on useful recycled objects.
Write your thoughts down. A loose leaf binder offers flexibility in that pages can be placed anywhere in your “plan” that you wish. There are laws governing small business development that vary according to your state. Complying with the law provides peace of mind that your endeavor will not be short-lived, will support you in the long-term, and instills confidence in your customers.
There are millions of caregivers across the world. Many have to be available for service at all hours of the day and night. I resigned from a job in 2009 to care for my husband, and was searching to construct revenue-generating packages on the net.
My friend is a caregiver for two people, where she has to be on call at all hours, unlike many caregivers in the U.S. who are employed outside of the home. Employment with flexible hours helps caregivers to maintain their responsibilities and still earn income. Working and caring for another or others is demanding physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I wrote a few articles entitled, “Remember There Are Two to Receive Your Caregiving” based on my experience as a caregiver while we were in the British Virgin Islands that does not have, to date, many of the services that are available in the United States. There are at least two to care for, not just the cared for but the Self and other.
I needed a way to create income. I have products but I had not selected a shopping cart to make it easier for anyone interested in purchasing my products. I used affiliates and wanted to find ways to sell their products with pages that would become viral where I would only have to be concerned about revising the information or links. Since Google AdSense was not available for quite a while in this territory, the affiliate products were given the bulk of my time. I used Site Build It for three of my four websites – L5 Design; In-Vesica, and Thumb Print and Thumb Print Too. The Full Spectrum Living website was a gift from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition for every graduate that completes the program. They improved it so I could have more control and create more pages, though it is not as extensive in execution as SBI.
SBI is fantastic. After going through three website designers here and in the US, time and funds since 2004, I found SBI in 2006, took my time reading about it and looking at websites created by users. I did not purchase it until they ran the buy-one-get-one-free website special a second time in 2007 or 2008. When I did, it was empowering as it is a system that allowed me to realize how I wanted my websites to look. SBI costs $299.00 per year and you can also access it monthly for under $30.00.
A Google Opportunity for
Small Business
The suggestion is: create a quality content website that earns passive revenue.
I was excited that Google created websites for free!! I received an email from…uh, I don’t remember. However, I would like to say thank you to the people who have created services and software that benefited me in my time of need to create revenue from where I am.
You need a gmail account. That’s it!
Go to "66 Hobby and Craft Niche Ideas" for more information.
Restrictions: you are limited in that the content cannot be offensive, pornographic, etc. There is no limit on the number of web sites you can create. This expands Google’s ability to realize advertising revenue via Google AdSense that you can apply to earn money on your site or sites.
However,
that has changed. It occurred to Google that people would create web
sites with Google ads on them. They cut that out and established August
2014 as the cut-off. My Amazon ads rarely worked. It reached a point
where they did not show up at all. When I deleted all of the Google
sites in 2017 none of the Google ads were visible.
I created web sites as extensions of the ones above. “Now Is Time for the Knowledge of the Full Chakra System to Come to the Planet” began as a Facebook page. They recently archived many of the pages, so I moved it to Google as "Chakra System to Earth.” However, all of those websites were deleted and are now in In-Vesica. Everything was created with Spirit in Mind.
Links
The above meditation mandala will be available soon.
