Marketing MethodsAfter you’ve decided to start a home based business, one of the initial challenges may be getting the word out about your new venture. Obviously, the key to exposure is marketing and advertising. This is true whether you are operating small, one-person operations or a larger scale network marketing business. When you’re looking for the best home based business marketing tip, you may have to start with something simple like making serviceable flyers.FlyersAt one time or another almost every business has made use of the marketing flyer to promote their business and its products. Today, it is very simple to make a decent promotional flyer. You can choose from a variety of templates available with different software and on the internet. In some cases, you may have to pay for a flyer design, but this is by no means necessary.Flyer templates can be found everywhere these days. There are designs available for every occasion and for every possible use. This makes it very easy to find something suitable for your business needs. As a starting point, you might find a flyer template on sites such Microsoft Office’s template site, StockLayouts.com, FlyerTemplates.org, and other specialty sites. These can all be downloaded and customized for your purposes.System CompatibilityIf you’re using one of these templates to create your flyer you must make sure that you have the right software. Most of the templates you find on the web are designed specifically for particular operating system. You need to have the right one – or at least something compatible to even open it. It could be delivered as an MS Word file or an Adobe PDF. Naturally, if you can find a flyer made in Word you’ll have an easier time customizing it. All it will require is filling in blanks, editing other settings, and perhaps adding relevant images. Then you should be ready to print it out. PDF files require some sort of editor program to make changes. This could cost you money unnecessarily.If you want your business flyers to look professional, the choice of printing method will be a big factor. For some small home based businesses, a home printer is the most affordable option. There are a wide selection of high quality printers including those made by Lexmark, Brother, and HP. It may really be a matter of what you already have though. In other instances, you may have the resources to get a larger quantity of flyers printed at a local print shop. You might need to ask around to see who gives the best deals and does quality work. Regardless, this may be the best home based business marketing option for you.Do It YourselfYou don’t need to possess serious computer skills or be a graphic designer in order to create great business flyers. You really don’t have to spend all that much time on them to make something that will do the job you need accomplished. Naturally, the type of flyer you produce will depend on the form of your business. Some flyers have to pack in a lot of information in a concise format to get the word out effectively. It may not be the best home based business marketing option for your situation, but it is a still an effective strategy for most ventures.
6 Tips to Take Your Real Estate Investing to the Next Level
Taking your real estate investment business to the next level means going into territory you haven’t gone before to reap rewards you haven’t yet obtained. I know a lot of people who do the same types of deals they did when they first started in real estate investing. Now there’s nothing wrong with doing that if you’re content with what you’ve got. But if you’re looking for something more, you’ve got to take on greater investment opportunities. Here’s how to do just that.
Tip #1: Go After Bigger Fish
I got into real estate investing because I wanted to make some serious cash. I was sick and tired of struggling financially and I hated coming home tired every night. Well, I found real estate. I started doing some single family deals but after awhile, I found that I was still as broke as I was when I first started. I needed cash flow and I needed it fast. Go after bigger fish. Commercial property investment deals offer some of the greatest cash flow and returns for an investment dollar. The number of units and the size of the properties brought the largest returns for the amount of time and money I had invested in any deal.
Tip #2: Continually Educate Yourself
To get to the next level in your real estate career, you must continually educate yourself. Education enables you to find solutions to any challenges that may come up when you’re doing deals. Education also helps to eliminate unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, many investors believe that their lack of knowledge prevents them from doing the tougher types of deals like commercial properties. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. You must continually educate yourself. Read books. Attend seminars and don’t hesitate to ask questions.
Tip #3: Get a Mentor
A good mentor helps you gain practical experience much quicker and more easily compared to books and courses. Mentors help you navigate deals and overcome any show stopping challenges that may arise. Mentors are your safety net in areas where you don’t know where you’re headed. If you’re serious about taking your real estate investments to the next level, a mentor will help you get there quicker and with much less risk than if you were to do it alone.
Tip #4: Utilize a Team of Experts
There are many people who shun the idea of new investors taking on the risk of large, complicated projects like commercial real estate investments. They’re right. Commercial property investing is not for inexperienced investors or for do-it-yourselfers, but here’s the idea – let the experts be experts. Your team of experts works to eliminate the risk of your inexperience and lack of knowledge. You can get to the next level in your real estate investment career when you have the expertise of people who already know how to navigate their way through a deal.
Tip #5: Develop Marketing Skills
Any business will fail unless it’s marketed. Taking your real estate business to the next level means you must develop your marketing skills by putting them into action. For example, I started marketing my business using direct mail. At the time, I believed that it was the only thing I could do. As I started to get responses, I started networking myself at places like local real estate investment clubs and with bankers. Basically, I took one marketing strategy, learned it, and honed it until it produced a reward for me. Then I started working other forms of marketing. Your business is going to go to the next level when you start learning about and working more marketing strategies.
Tip #6: Have a Can-Do Attitude
Attitude makes all the difference. A person who thinks that they can’t do a deal that will take their business to the next level has already shot himself in the foot. Without even trying, he’s already doomed to failure. Conversely, a person who is hungry enough for success will attain it simply because he hasn’t given up.
No matter where you are in your real estate career, these tips will help you get to the next level. Commercial real estate is the right vehicle that provides some of the greatest cash flows in the industry. When you combine education, expertise, marketing, and the right attitude, you’ve got the makings for attaining greater investments and receiving better cash flow deals. The next step is to take action.
How to Invest Money and Make It Grow?
Learn how to grow your money through investing. Investing is one of the best ways to achieve financial freedom but there are required skills and knowledge to succeed. Aside from your knowledge and skills, you also have to “take risk”, do not be afraid to risk because you can manage risk, minimize it by equipping yourself a skills and knowledge. As the old saying goes, in investing you should know what you are doing to avoid loss of capital investment.
Before Investing Money
Before you invest money, make sure you have prepared the following important things. Make sure you have paid all your debts or liabilities. Make sure before you invest you have your cash reserve or the emergency funds needed to help you in case there is an emergency so that you will never pull out your investment.
The ideal amount of emergency funds should at least 3 to 6 months of your income. So, if your income is $2,500 per month. You should have $15,000 emergency funds good for 6 months.
You should also have to buy a life insurance. A life insurance is for protection. You need life insurance just in case something bad happened to you. Life insurance can help your family to recover from financial losses in case you died.
The ideal life insurance coverage should at least 3 years of your total annual income. If your annual income is $60,000, you should buy a life insurance that has a face amount of $18,000 good for 3 years to help your family to recover from financial losses.
After you have paid your debts, have emergency funds and bought insurance, it’s time to know your risk appetite.
Know Your Risk Appetite
It always depends on your age, of course if you’re still young, you can take high risk and for mid 40s to 50′s you have to take medium risk and for 50s and above, they should only take low risk investments.
For low risk investments, money market funds, time deposits and bonds are appropriate investments.
For medium risk investments, combination of bonds with equities are appropriate investments.
For high risk, you can choose to invest purely on stock equities.
Make an Investment Goal
After you analyze your risk appetite, you have to make an investment goal. What is an investment goal? It is goal wherein you should know the purpose of your investments, how much should your investment cost your every month or annually. When should you start investing and when is your plan to redeem your investments.
Take Investing Action
A plan is good if you work for it. You can never see a result of your investments if you didn’t work your plan. You have to take action, just do one thing at a time. From opening your investment account, funding your investment account. And if you choose to invest in the stock market, you should buy your first stocks, you don’t need to be afraid. All is easy especially if you really want to grow your money. Just ask the financial advisor or financial experts, there are advisors in the bank or any financial investments firms.
Achieve Financial Freedom
Saving is good because it will teach you the habit of managing your money. If you are disciplined money saver, you will also be a disciplined investor. Ste aside money from your salary or income every month and fund your investments account such as mutual funds, stock broker account or fund your savings account intended to use as a business capital
I hope you do learn many things in this article. To achieve financial freedom, you must “take risk” and reap the rewards someday. Thank you for reading this article, I wish you a prosperity and financial freedom. If you have time, read other financial blogs, business and finance books and magazines or attend financial literacy seminars.