Everything to do with your shak.
By now, you probably know about the flap concerning John McCain and his using Paris Hilton in a campaign ad. (He used Britney Spears as well.) And you might have even seen this response.
But I love it. Paris is *totally* protecting her brand.
Happy Friday!
See Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad (censored) and more funny videos on FunnyOrDie.com
Yesterday I got a rather unpleasant surprise. Here in Logan, public school offers kindergarten for only 2 1/2 hours a day. This got me thinking about how much I had been counting on the public school system to help me out with creating work time for my home business. After all, the private preschool my son had been attending was 3 hours long. I expected public kindergarten (when I went to K, it was 4 hours) to be at least that.
Not so.
Now I am considering private kindergarten, pulling my son out of public kindergarten, so that I can get my work from home stuff done. This summer has been murder on my work schedule.
Do you think I want too much from public education?
When it comes to starting a home business, there are some qualities that it is important to have. These are issues that move beyond whether you have a good idea and whether you are good at marketing — and whether you have the space in your home and the time to commit to working at home.
Over at Sparkplug CEO, Wendy Piersall offers 15 abilities you need to run a home business. Instead of listing all 15, though, I’d like to highlight 7 of my favorites, shared with my own thoughts:
1. Delay Gratification. That’s right. You can’t expect overnight success. And you have to be confident enough in yourself to keep going.
2. Discipline. This is about seeing a great idea through, rather than constantly moving on to something "new."
3. Take Risks. I like this idea. In order to be able to make it with a home business, you need to have a measure of risk tolerance.
4. Be Uncomfortable. Sales, leading, and just the difficulties of starting a home business can make you uncomfortable. But you need to be able to view discomfort as an opportunity to stretch yourself.
5. Ask for Help. You can’t do it all on your own. You need to know your support network, and ask for help when you need it. (The flip side is that you should be willing to help others as well.)
6. Know Thyself. You really should know what you are good at and where you need help. This is important. It will help you more effectively structure your home business — and delegate tasks that you are less effective at.
7. Persistence. You have to keep trying. Sometimes you fail. But do you have the courage to get back up again? It’s easy to run a home business when things are going well. But do you have the grit to see your home business through the problems?
One of the more popular ways to make money working from home is through affiliate programs. These can be very rewarding — if you have the time and energy to make them work for you.
There are many affiliate programs that allow you to take advantage of your skills and interests. From scrapbooking supplies to programs set up by other work at home moms, it is possible to find affiliate programs that can help you set your own schedule.
Here are some things to consider before you join affiliate programs:
* Make sure that the program is legitimate.
* Don’t pay money up front for "training" or "administration fees" (although you may need to buy supplies).
* Realize that income from affiliate programs is usually fairly small each month — especially when you first start out.
* Understand that you will need to promote your affiliate business if you want success.
Over at My Organized Biz, Becky is offering a contest in connection with a 7-column BBB fridge grid pad. The idea is that you can plan out the week on this magnetic pad and stick it to your refrigerator.
I love this idea. It offers an at-a-glance look at which days are going to be busiest for the family. That would help me plan my work at home schedule (not to mention our meals) more effectively.
Head on over and take a look at the planning grid, and then leave a comment. That’s all you have to do to enter the drawing.
I really enjoyed this video, especially since I just got back from a rather distressing day of travel (following two weeks of visiting at my in-laws’).
Happy Friday!
You Pay More when You Travel Budget! – video powered by Metacafe
Sometimes it is nice to know where to go to find support and resources when you are a work at home mom (WAHM). One Web site that I find occasionally useful when looking for other WAHMs, or trying to track done leads for gigs, is WAHM.com.
The WAHM.com job listings can help you get started looking around the Web for jobs, and also offers some great advice as far as avoiding work at home scams:
* Don’t pay to "get started" or "get information" or "learn a program" or "buy software" or pay an "application fee." A legit work at home job does not charge you for you to work. Don’t pay other people for the work you do!
Do you have work at home resources that help you on the Web?
One of the items that gets talked about a lot for women with careers in the "real" world is the work life balance. For us work from home moms (WAHMs), however, it isn’t always addressed. It’s just assumed that if we work from home, we must automatically have a work life balance.
Tell that to my husband when I disappear into the home office for days if I have a big project.
In my opinion, it can be harder to find a work life balance when you work from home. At least when you’re "out there" in the workforce, you can most likely leave your work at work. When you work from home, sometimes you are snatching at odd hours, trying to fill in the pieces. And the work is always there, always accessible, beckoning you to just finish the project.
So I’ve tried to make a conscious effort to take a work time out when I feel like there’s too much work going on. Maintaining that balance is an important part of healthy relationships — and a healthy life.
What do you do in order to maintain a work life balance?
One of the ways you can raise the profile of your home business, while making money, is to publish a book. It is possible in this day and age to self-publish a book, or even to sell only in ebook form. But if you want to self-publish a book, you can get insight into the process from Mary Emma Allen over at Home Biz Notes.
Mary Emma has self-published an anthology of children’s stories and poems that she wrote. It is inspiring and informational to read about the process — and it might help you if you are thinking of publishing a book.
I accept PayPal as a form of payment from a great many of my clients. I also use it for other things. And now the government wants to know exactly how much I am getting from PayPal. The housing relief bill that was just passed over the weekend contains requirement for credit card processors and electronic payment processors to report transactions. Ars Technica reports on concerns associated with this quiet addition to the housing relief bill:
Representatives for small business associations opposed to the
requirements observed, for instance, that many businesses took deposits
via credit card that did not constitute true income. Some also worried
that the IRS would use the data to target to audit businesses that
accepted an unusual number of electronic or credit card transfers for
their industry
Another issue is privacy. Such a measure would mean that payment processors would have to maintain business ID numbers. For some people, that number is a Social Security Number. You see how this could be a problem.
But Congress added it with no debate, and passed it as part of the package. The idea is to try and raise more revenue to offset some of the money flowing out due to the housing bailout. But will it really work?
In my case, more revenue is not likely. All the clients that hire me as an independent contractor report what they pay me anyway. But it means more work for my accountant, since he will probably have to reconcile the PayPal transactions with my 1099s and do any number of other things to make sure it all adds up. That, of course, means I will have to pay him more. So I suppose the government will get more in income tax from my accountant…
What do you think of adding this measure into the housing relief bill?