More Chances To Win Your Custom Marketing Package
Welcome, everybody. It’s great to have you. My name is Naomi Dunford, and my family and I run Itty Bitty Marketing, the marketing firm for really small businesses. Here at IttyBiz, I talk about hints, tips, advice, encouragement, and bad jokes for people who run their own home business or are thinking about doing so.
You might have noticed that Darren over at Problogger is having a giveaway in honor of his blog turning three. (This is the stage when Problogger will start asking “Why?” a lot and demanding to tie its own shoes.) I’ve contributed a complete custom marketing package for your blog or business which would normally run you or your Dad’s Visa a cool $2000. (Edited: Thanks to Aruni at EntrepreMusings for reminding me that it’s likely to be Mom’s Visa too!)
Since that’s kind of a big prize, there might be a bunch of people entering. I figured I’d run an extra little contest here to up your chances of winning, and also to pick your brain for free market research.
In this contest, I’m giving away an extra Jump Start marketing package worth $500. Head on over to our Work With Us page for details on what we offer. All you have to do is answer one of the questions below in a somewhat thoughtful manner, and if you felt like it, you could subscribe to my feed. You could click on the snazzy grey button on the top right.
Here are the complete rules:
1.) Enter your response in the comments section of this post making sure to tell me if you’re already working at home or if you’re just thinking about it.
2.) If your comment is dumb or not in English, you won’t win.
3.) If you think the winning entry was dumb or not in English, feel free to send me angry e-mails.
4.) The contest ends on Friday, October 12th at midnight, EST.
Here are the questions:
If you’re already working from home, what do you need to know to make running your home business easier? What’s the hardest part for you?
If you’re still thinking about starting your home business, what do you need to know to make starting your home business easier? What’s the biggest thing stopping you from taking the leap?
Good luck, people. I look forward to being inundated with replies. And thanks, Darren. You rock.
***
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[...] Original post by IttyBiz [...]
I have started home business in freelance and just now registered my brand devlabs.in . I need some marketing to promote my brand so as to get good clients and get honest workers easier and grow faster. The hardest part of freelance is to get the clients for my services I offer and freelancers to work with me.
I’m not yet working from home simply because I don’t pull in enough revenue to quit my day job. It’s a bit of a catch-22 for me: I might be able to get my revenue high enough if I had all day to work on my home businesses, but I can’t because my day job eats up most of my time. And yet I can’t quit my job because I don’t pull in enough money with my home businesses to pay the bills. What I’m looking for is advice on increasing my revenue and better marketing myself with a limited number of hours every evening.
Hi – I will be entering this one and the one on Problogger soon. I really, really need help in this area!
BTW – You also need to add “Mom’s Visa” to your statment “would normally run you or your Dad’s Visa a cool $2000″ because a lot of women/moms are big earners these days. My mom helped put me through college. :-)
Hi,
I’ve just started blogging very recently in fact my blog barely have any contents on it. I’m currently doing national service(NS) for 2 years as it is compulsory in Singapore. The pay is seriously terrible and you can’t do other jobs throughout the 2 years! Hence I’ve got the idea of a ‘home business’, trying to make extra income from the internet.
Running a home business is not easy especially when you’re serving the nation! Running a home business easier for me would have to be time management and planning. I simply don’t have the luxury of blogging every single day. Another thing that is of utmost essential is patience. I know that money don’t simply grow on trees or fall from the sky. My site will probably not make any money for quite some time.
[...] Also, on their blog, IttyBiz, Naomi is giving away an extra Jump Start marketing package worth $500. All you need to do is answer a few [...]
I’ve just recently started my own online business of sorts. I run a free forum hosting service and also run a blog.
The blog seems to have taken on reasonably well, since the blogging community is really tight-knit and very helpful. My woes though have been marketing my free forum service. I’m facing stiff competition from quite a handful of other websites and attracting members has been a stumbling block. I’m confident that it has the potential to attract quite a few members as the service in itself is rather unique – not many forum hosts offer hosting without ads. But its been marketing this relatively unique feature in a proper scale that I’m unable to do due to the obvious constraints while launching a new business.
I’m sure your package would be the perfect launchpad for me and my maiden business venture to flourish!
Ok, one kid is down for a nap and the other is at soccer with hubby so here goes my try for this $500 Jump Start package. But between you and me I’m really hoping to win the $2,000 package on Problogger. But on the huge chance I don’t win that one, I would be just delighted to win this one. :-)
Thanks for the link mention on the original post! Here it goes:
I am already working from home and I need to find someone who can do some great/effective SEO work for my company, Babble Soft, and my blog for free, or for barter, or for a few free lunches!) to make my home business run easier. So in a nutshell I need to KNOW how to find that someone that is the best fit skill-wise AND personality-wise.
The hardest part for me is finding the time to really learn how to do all of the Internet marketing stuff correctly so that I can get to my target audience of web-savvy, expecting or new parents. Our customers like to use information to gain insight into their baby’s patterns and make better decisions about baby care. Our customers don’t have time to create a beautiful first year baby album and need an application that already comes pre-loaded with first year milestones and a family tree template.
Like many other entreprenuers, I am wearing a thousand hats (product management, web updates, sales, marketing, bookkeeping, blogging, etc., etc.) I don’t have the time to really understand and delve into the best Internet marketing tactics.
So please pick me…if I don’t win the contest on Problogger. :-)
Hi Naomi,
I’ve an aspiring freelance writer who is hoping in the next couple of years to take the leap from part time writer to full time writer… in other words give up my day job and emerse myself in writing. Of course, I need to be able to earn a living from it. This past year I have been developing an online presence, picking up some regular writing gigs and am learning the language of the internet.
As I work on developing my home business, the things that I am having the most difficulty with are finding time, time management and figuring out the balance between writing and sells (marketing myself and my work). Not to mention, learning how to market myself…
As I believe the future for writers is online, I am trying to learn and understand the fundementals such as SEO, html, networking, community, adsense revenues etc.
It’s all a learning curve really – sometimes scary, other times exhillerating. But definately worth it to follow my dream.
cheers from new zealand,
Liz
Hi there
I blogged about your contest on Contest Beat here – http://www.contestbeat.com/2nd-chance-win-a-500-marketing-package/
All we do is write about contests in the blogosphere so hopefully we can send you a few more entries too!
Regards, Matt.
Hi Naomi,
I’ve thought of working at work but I haven’t gotten down to it. I’ve only recently started blogging and am still doing a day job. The major obstacle is that I’m still not fully convinced about the business model. I would love to be my own boss but I can’t take the risk of not having a fixed income. While there are some successful examples of home businesses, there are many others who have fallen through the net (what I would call ‘the hole in the web’). So that’s a hurdle I have to cross if I am to consider doing so.
If you’re already working from home, what do you need to know to make running your home business easier? What’s the hardest part for you?
I have had my own home office business for seven years with two of those full-time. What I need to know to make it easier to run this business (and it’s the hardest part for me) is how to effectively do quotes.
While I do marketing and publicity work, I’m a lucky person in that I’ve been blogging longer than most people heard of it and my site has a nice ranking — I could do more. Since my clients come first — I don’t have the luxury to research what that most effective “more” would be.
I just started working from home and I must say that if I knew a lot more about SEO, it would make the job easier because I can get more people to my site from the search engines.
The hardest part would definitely be the marketing because every site is different and you can’t just copy from the leaders and expect it to work. You have to make adjustments but just what are they leaves to be answered.
Hi,
You need to have somebody (not Caginranet) show you this page
http://ittybiz.com/more-chances-to-win-your-custom-marketing-package/
using Mac 10.4.9 with Safari. It’s not good.
Thanks for the chance to win.
Hey Naomi,
Thanks for the heads up about this contest as well. I am working from home now and it’s been a little over a year since I first started. I run a network of blogs and do my best to try and profit from them. I’ve had a few chances to make a quick buck at another’s expense, but I’ve always taken the high ground and stuck with my beliefs. I won’t become the next internet millionaire in the end, but I will retain my dignity.
What I need to learn is how to delegate power. I run two different blogs that are updated on a daily basis and a I’m partnered with another blogger for a third blog. It’s become too much for me and I need to learn how to trust others to help with my blogs content creation. This would help me cut back on the number of hours dedicated to content and it will allow me to focus on other things like promotion and search rankings.
The hardest part of running my home business is living off of month-to-month checks. Lately, they haven’t been as high as they used to be, which prompted the creation of my new blog StartBlogging.net. Since the drop in profits, money has been tight. It’s never became a serious life-threatening issue, but I started this network of blogs to help relieve some financial worries; not add more. I really feel that once my new blog takes off (a little help from IttyBiz would be amazing, so I’m crossing my fingers with this attempt), I’ll have a resource that will be able to provide for me and at the same time I’ll be able to provide information for others to help them out too.
Thanks again. IttyBiz now has another dedicated reader.
Consider me entered!
Thanks everybody for your thoughtful entries.
@Going Like Sixty – Thanks so much for letting us know. It’s all fixed. If anyone else has issues with seeing the site with their browsers, please let us know.
feel free to send me angry e-mails
Wow you’re brave!
I have worked from home since 1995
uggh just read the rest of the questions LOL
I have worked from home since 1995
The hardest part for me is finding someone to do the scut work. Also prioritising to make sure I don’t take on too much. On the whole I love the lifestyle, but another challenge over summer is getting inside to do work when I’d rather be outside. Even with a laptop it’s not always practical to work outside.
I’d like to set up a mastermind group to have more people to bounce ideas off. I’ve tried in the past to set one up but haven’t found a core group to work with yet. I plan to try again!
I need to know when to talk about work and when not to and where I should be talking to create more work (not just promotion, but effective use of social networking, both online and off). I especially need to know how to do this without sounding gung-ho or losing all my friends.
The hardest thing for me in working from home is keeping the balance right between the work that will bring in immediate money, they work that will bring money in later on, and the background work that’s immense fun and essential to maintenance of my competence but won’t bring me in a red cent (or even a purple cent).
Hi!
I was introduced to you from Problogger, and I’m glad I found you!
All of my problems stem from not having enough time to keep up on changing marketing and SEO. I don’t have time to learn it, and while my business is thriving, I know that I am lacking in certain advertising areas.
I really need someone to look at what I’m doing and tell me how they can fill in the gaps. I love my home business, and I am learning to balance family and work quite well.
I am willing to invest more in it money-wise if I feel that it is worthwhile.
Thanks for the giveaway!
The biggest thing keeping me from taking the leap is my mortgage! I need to know that I’m going to be making enough money to take care of everything my family is going to need (including healthcare).
I am really sick of the corporate world and want to strike out on my own, but need some guidance.
Hi.
I came here really wanting to win because I need help with my SEO and am afraid it’s all a bit beyond my meager male mind.
However, I have read all the comment posts above and feel there are others far more deserving than me. (he says with a very rare degree of self deprecation)
Congratulations on a great site and a unique voice, it’s a fun place to arrive at in a overly serious blogosphere, littered with “Brag and Boast”
But one thing I would like is: How do I create a RSS/email feed just like the one in your top right hand corner? Yours is very tidy and easy to use.
Thanks for the contest – great prize and a great way to introduce us to your site.
Anyway, I am think about starting up a business from home. I have done consulting and contracting working in the past but, of course, that is very time intensive. In line with the ideas in The Four Hour Work Week, I am looking at a product type business that would take some time up front to get it started, but then would take very minimal time to keep running. If it became successful then the order fulfillment could even be outsourced bringing my time involved down to a bare minimum.
So what is the hardest to get all this started? I need to find the time, and perhaps more importantly, the energy to just get the product completed. Once I do that then everything else will be fairly easy. Not saying it will be an overnight success, but I think it will do well if I market to the correct audiences. I just need to get it finished.
I have a plan to eventually work from home. I own my own retail business. With the faltering economy and retail sales going from brick and mortar stores to the internet, I have to transition. I can’t sell my business due to the economy in my area. I’ve spent 30 years doing something I love, but with sales dipping, I need to get out.
I am currently running two blogs and a web site from home and they are in dire need of professional help. Help me Itty Biz, please!
I seem to be working 24/7. I’ve spent hours and hours trying to learn SEO, keywords, etc. I want to work from home so I can enjoy my home, spend time with my husband and walk my dogs. I haven’t had time for lunch out in years. I want to slow down and work smart doing something I really want to do. Believe me, I’ve had my fill of retail! ( I deal with brides!) I’ve beat my head against the wall in retail for a long time. I am trying to take everything I learned and apply it to my online ventures. I have a plan, and I’m stubborn and bullheaded enough to make it work.
I’m glad I found your site. I plan on spending a lot of time here. Thanks, Naomi!
I am a full time working mom who aspires to be able to work from home so that I could take care of my kids full time and not miss out on any of their childhood milestones.
I started blogging 2.5 years back and currently own 4 blogs. I have a network of bloggers which I started out for backlink purposes. It has since expanded to where I try to help my members by getting sponsored posts for them to do. I have many ideas and plans for my network but because of the commitment it requires to manage it, I am unable to do so as yet. I need to be financially independant before I dare take the leap into working from home full time.
I write sponsored reviews, monetize my blogs and do freelance writing. One of the biggest hurdle as a freelancer is weeding out those clients that are not sincere and runs away from paying after you do a gig for them. Working full time, having a family and blogging for money involves a lot of commitment, sacrifice (especially sleep!) and requires discipline as well as good time management. Having said that, nothing in life comes easy but if you put 100% effort into it, I believe one will eventually reap the rewards we want.
Hey Naomi!
Thanks for dropping by Center of Muse to inform us about your giveaway!
I’m already working from home (or wherever I happen to be traveling.) After taking a look at the services you offer, what would help me most is having more hours in the day. Can’t do that? Hmm…
Well then, what would help me from Ittybiz would likely be someone to take the time to run publicity for me. When I have lots of business coaching clients and freelance articles to write, I seem to run out of time to promote myself.
Thanks for the notice!
Meg Meyer
http://www.centerofmuse.com
http://businesscoach.bellaonline.com
Thanks for giving all us Problogger readers another chance at this awesome prize.
My blog started as an experiment and I’ve sort of branched out as the months have gone by. I would like to eventually work from home. Right now, I have several reasons for not making the leap. The two biggies are:
1. I really like my current 9 to 5. It is great experience, fun work and I am learning a lot about both project management and technology. I am not ready to give up that opportunity yet.
2. I’m not making enough money online to support myself right now.
If somehow I woke up tomorrow making as much online as I do in my current job, then I would go for it. But right now I need to patiently build my online business and continue to receive the experience (and health benefits!) and training I am getting from my 9 to 5.
Sara
Hiya!
I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, but my newest blog is an attempt to fill a niche that I found with a situation with my daughter.
(http://4fitkids.wordpress.com/)
Am I home? Yes, well, sometimes, anyway, when I’m not running
toschoolfromschooltothegrocerystoretothedrycleanerandnutricianistandYMCAnddoctorandallkindsofstupidplaces.
Then, after dealing with kids and hubby and school and PTA and dogs and well, you name it, I get a change to sit and research and blog.(usually around 12 am) I certainly need SEO- I don’t think I am even listed on any search engines. I am LOST, and can’t be found! You can Yahoo at me as much as you want, and I am not found. Why? I don’t know how to get it goin’ on! so, Naomi, HELP ME. (Imagne that crazy ya-Hoooo-ooo yodel, I’m doin’ that, really!)
Hello!
I’m not quite working at home yet, but I’m working on it. My biggest fear is that online advertising is such a fickle business that I could never really count on it to pay the bills. I would definitely balance blogging/advertising with freelance design clients, but I also fear I don’t have quite enough of that to lose the day job. Certainly I could kick thing up several notches if I had all the hours in the day to myself, but can I kick it high enough to make a real living? Is there any way to find out without actually doing it?
I am not working from home yet, but I would love to see a a well designed reference for actually starting a US business from the legal and finance side. Is starting an LLC the right choice, or just using a DBA and your own tax number. Any information about starting a business from the legal standpoint would be amazing.
I have a small web agency which I run from my home (from specifically from my room) and there is good and bad thing both. Good is that I enjoy making websites so I get paid for just doing what I enjoy doing but problem arises when my client ask for something in their website which is totally new to me. I also blog and have two blogs, when there are lots of work here then blogging also becomes a pain.
I have been working from home and in my retreat business for almost five years. I just started blogging to promote my new book being released this week, Love’s Secret Live Your Life In Love. I have worked on my website and have a good ranking with it on google–but blogging is a whole new game. A game that I find hard to learn all of the rules for ie, seo, pinging, blogrolling, wordpress, wordpad, links, trackbacks, and then just getting people to the blog. Authoring a book was tuff and now the marketing is even harder. I could use some help in creating a marketing plan and learning how to get readers for the blog.
Oh, no. I can’t leave a stupid comment. That’s really going to limit me. :-)
I’m in a bit of a different situation than most people (probably). I run Free Money Finance and give away all the blog’s revenue to charity. I’m not looking to turn it into a business in and of itself.
That said, I would like to earn more so I can give more away. Any suggestions to triple my traffic? ;-)
I’m with FMF that really hurts limiting the stupid comments. The over all goal of my site is a secondary income off of Direct Ads, TLA, Affiliate, and PPC. The current goals I’m working on is increasing traffic and increasing my income to $500/month from the site.
Hi ittzybiz,
Thanks for the comment you left on my site. I’m living in Germany and still going to school. At the moment I’m trying to get my own blog popular and I’m writing for a local newspaper on request for some nice pocket money. (At least for a student. :P)
My biggest problem is my self critic. Often I finish a draft, but when I read the post or article at the next morning to publish it I always think I could do better and try to rewrite the post. I also waste to much time on my blog template.
Another major problem is internet distraction. I read too much blogs, magazines and ebooks. I get a lot of writing ideas that way, but it distracts me in actually finishing the articles.
I’m not earning any money with my site at the moment, but my goal is to make the first income in the middle of the next year.
Greeting Michael.
Hi, Naomi
Jamin literally took the words from my mouth. I’m also struggling with the dilemma of working 8h a day for someone else, so my home business is not growing as fast as I’d like.
I’m saving money so I could work at home full-time for 6 months. During that time I could see if my business is succesfull enough.
I’m getting a bit pessimistic about making money by blogging. The competition is tough and what I’ve learned is that not many bloggers make enough money to quit their day jobs. But I think a blog is a great addition to my business. Instead of just having a blog I’d rather build a portal or community website. I’m sw engineer, so I’m interested in making web pages and coding. My ultimate dream is to make money with my passion to sports and exercising :) Selling info products and making affiliate sales seems to me like a better way to make money online than blogging (but I still think blogging is fun, my 52lives.com blog is getting further every day :)
I’d be interested in joint ventures and B-to-B services that would create income from the very beginning, so that I could get my bills paid and so on. Naomi, if you have solution to this kind of problem, you got yourself a customer :)
-Harri
We have recently started a blog with humorous anecdotes about our marriage (like when The Donkey rated The Wife’s looks as a 6 out of 10–during our honeymoon!!) We have no problem coming up with great content, and our site has even been named as a finalist in a blogging scholarship contest! We need a jump start on site design and selling advertising on our blog.
To make your home business running,first you need to choose the right type of specific hole business.Maybe you can get into multiple jobs online,like blogging,marketing,freelancing,etc.I am currently on blogging.You first need to know what you actually are into,do you have patience,persevarance and consistency as well as interest in it?Are you ready for great ups and downs and accepting new ways for the work?The toughest part is the question itself>Working from home and earning.Money my experience says never comes any way easy to you except luck or god knows what type of business you do(i am not talking about commerciality).Making your work work is the most toughest part.Waiting is other virtue which you have to develop any how to succeed and earn good money.There is no permanent short cut for establishing your business and earning good bucks.
I work from home reporting about music news and culture. My website has a combination of breaking news stories and feature articles and I am the sole writer, editor and web designer. There are so many difficulties, it’s hard to pick the hardest part! I guess it would be finding a balance between delivering useful ads to my readers that aren’t annoying and offensive. I think I could get quality ads on my site if I had more unique visitors daily, so I suppose the first step would be to increase my marketing and stickiness. The things I wish I knew more about involve stickiness and marketing. There are days when I get thousands of visitors, but only a few if any come back again. I feel that if I could increase my readership, I could attract quality advertisers. I feel like I know SEO pretty well and I’ve been utilizing it, yet my rank in the search engines is not so great.
I was very sad to not win the prize package from Darren’s contest. I would be very excited to win this one. Thanks so much for the second chance, Naomi!
We are working from home because we don’t have a 9to5.
Our concept is cool but need real help in marketing it and getting more people to catchup with us. Your help would come in handy. After all , our business is to brag and let others brag too.
I currently have a web site that started out as a site to help me provide value to my ultra cycling sponsors. I was also writing a blog about my training adventures.
To help me fund my ultra cycling races, I added affiliate links. This turned into adding a cycling and outdoor gear search with over 150,000 product entries from over 50 online merchants. I haven’t had much time to work on it and have a lot of enhancements I’d like to make. I really consider it under development and in beta. I’m now to the point of getting about 1,000 unique visits a day from Google. I’m not making enough to quit my day job but I’m making a nice side income.
I’m a software developer so I can write code and design databases but I’ve never done any marketing. I need someone to either do the marketing for me or at least give me some idea where to start.
I’m even reluctant to try any marketing because of the way my site is layed out. If someone goes to the home page it looks more like a personal web site. I’ve considered moving the cycling and outdoor gear search to another domain but I’m concerned I’d lose my ranking in Google since most of my inbound links are to my blog.
I think all of what I’ve said boils down to knowing what changes to make so the cycling and outdoor gear search part of my web site is marketable without losing the traffic I have. Once that’s done, how do I even start doing marketing?
Hi Ittybiz,
I appreciate you contacting me personally in my contacts page about this contest. I only get so much messages from my blog’s contact page. :)
I am a freelance web designer and flash artist in our province so I make good money. But not sufficient enough to start a family. Haha. Anyway, I’m seeing myself earning from the internet as my main source of income which is why I’m slowly learning to earn from blogging.
Best Regards :)
Thanks Naomi!
Wow, where to start…I’ve been working from home on the Internet for just over a year but haven’t had a lot of success with it. I just started a blog because I love writing and think it would be a great way to help others.
Other than that, I’m not sure what would help me the most. Maybe help optimizing my blog or helping me get more traffic. The blog is currently my only income, so I guess I’d like the most help with finding ways to make more money with it.
Thank you so much!
Kim
Hey Naomi!
I’m currently still a cubicle slave in corporate America, but have been freelancing for years. Recently the freelance nibbles have been turning into huge chomps, and I’m reaching that critical point where I need to decide to make the leap.
The part that’s scary to me is securing a foundation of regular income. I’m a good marketer and I set aside time every day to apply for freelance jobs, so I know the habits are there. I think what would make it easier for me is to start getting referrals from current clients, make sure my site is optimized better (I know it’s not).
What would make the leap easier? This may sound really lame, but some reassurance…that it’s worth the stress, it’s worth the time, and if you stick with it you will ultimately be successful.
I know, no easy way to package that. :)
Hi Naomi,
For me the hardest part of working from home is time management. How do you prioritise certain aspects of the business to spend time on above others? What’s the best way to decide on these?
As I’m sure your aware it’s so much easier to get distracted working at home, than in an office.
Cheers
Mark
I guess I’m in the ‘already working from home’ camp. I’ve been working on my blog for 3 months, give or take. Probably what I need to know is how to focus and then market my blog so I can monetize it. I’m learning that I need to work on headline writing, and make my home page more attractive to visitors. People are spending a good deal of time reading, but the bounce rate is too high.
I have 2 sets of twin boys that I’m homeschooling, so I work on the blog in bits and pieces late at night. :) Which is fine, I’m a big night owl. I also have absolutely no experience with marketing, so I’m learning as I can. Thanks so much for considering me, and thanks for the offer in the first place!
[...] IttyBiz [...]
Well to answer your question straight forward let me tell about what I feel whether I win anything or not
If I were to work from home, the first thing I would need to know is working from home can be very easy and at the same time very disastrous. Well saying that it would be disastrous would be very annoying to most but it is the hard fact that you might realize the hard way if you do not do things the right way. The things you need to know would be
a. Why do you need to choose work from home? If somebody told you that working from home is easy and you could get big bucks then forget it you are going to fail.
b. Suppose that you already decided to work from home and you have a solid reason like you have a baby to take care of or you love doing things on your own (Be true to yourself!!!) let us get to the next point. Prepare an action plan. Decide on what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. Allocate sufficient time for the reason you chose to work from home and dedicate the rest to your work from home job.
c. Decide a niche you can work on. Are you an expert on something? What do you love to do the most? Is those things monetizable? can you make money off your interests? If it does not apply find something which can be monetized and put your maximum effort into learning it. then choose to work from home
d. Start a blog or a website on your own. This is a powerful way to network with people and get your ideas over to others. You can promote yourself and your services and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
e. Join twitter, linkled in, facebook, myspace and start networking. Get more connections and update your profile on those web 2.0 sites with links to your blog.
f. Join freelancing sites like rentacoder, elance, guru etc.
g. Do work very honestly and do not try to scam people. Once your lies are caught it can never be erased and when it comes to the internet your trust meter says it all.
h. Learn to capture clients and sell yourself.
One of the challenges I have faced is that I cannot keep up with the schedule nor I cannot be very focused at times. this has caused a huge leakage in my income but I am slowly coming around that
One thing to note before jumping into work at home jobs is to read a lot. Research properly before doing something. It will save a lot of time and money. This ear is all about results and hence whichever niche you choose to make sure you know SEO or search engine optimization. the best place to learn SEO would be seobook.com who charge 100$ a month for training. Believe me it is the best place you can go for training.
When you pitch to a client make sure you tell the facts. Do not over hype. This will do you more bad than good. Sure you may win one or two projects but the negative reputation you may get when you fail will nullify your chances of getting another 50 projects.
There are lots of work at home scams. Make sure you do not fall for them. Whenever you decide to go with a company make sure you go to Google or bing or whichever search engine you prefer and conduct a deep analysis of the provider. If possible check out reviews.