As you begin to venture into home based business it is important to have a mission statement. Businesses at all levels from simple mom and pop stores to large fortune 500 companies all have a mission statement and you should not be any different. A mission statement is defined as a brief one or two sentence statement of the fundamental purpose of your business, or put another way why does your business exist. In the home based business arena people have the tendency to not view their business like a real business and that is a mistake. Having a mission statement can have a dramatic impact not just on the type of business but also in the way you conduct your business as well. Here are 3 other things a mission statement will do for your home business:1. It defines your why – Have you ever asked yourself why do I want a home based business? Identifying this one thing is critical to your motivation to continue. Running a business from home takes time, commitment and effort for it to work. It comes with frustrations and successes. Sometimes when you are first starting out there are more frustrations than successes. Knowing why you are in business can keep you focused on the prize you are trying to grasp while you are learning and growing your home business.2. It defines your values – All businesses have some type of business culture which is driven by the values of the company. Your values in essence tell who you are. They are ultimately the way you will choose to operate your home business. They will dictate how you treat your customers and how you build your team. If you are building a network marketing team your values can become a critical selling point as to why someone should join your team. They will speak volumes to your character and your integrity. Your values should flow directly out of the reason why you are in business. Remember you are not just running a business but you are creating a culture and your values will help shape that culture.3. It keeps you on track – One of the biggest problems especially in this internet age is distractions. If you search online there are thousands of home business opportunities out there. Knowing what your mission statement is will allow you to only consider opportunities that line up with your purpose and what you want to accomplish. In fact before you even consider a business you should write your mission statement and only find businesses that correspond with that. Imagine the power you will now have because now you can’t be sold into just any home business because now you’re not just looking for any opportunity. Opportunities you consider must now meet your criteria and not the other way around. By the way every successful business person looks at opportunities this way.Your mission statement is critical to your why, how and way you will do business. Not knowing these things can damage your home based business before it ever gets off the ground. Take some time and identify these things. It will change the opportunities you consider and it will make a huge difference in your home business.
The Finer Points of Internet Auctions
WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?
Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.
The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.
The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.
The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.
HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!
The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.
There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.
HOW TO WIN!
Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.
The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.
The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.
The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.
HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!
Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.
Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.
Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.
CONCLUSION!
New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.
There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.
It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.
Free Educational Software
Free educational software is everywhere – you just have to look harder to find those that are good quality.
Free educational software on the Internet. If you have kids who are becoming more and more computer literate, its time you helped them download free educational software that they can use without your supervision. Devote an afternoon to downloading, because choosing from among the many freeware can get quite time-consuming. Also, involve your kids in choosing as much as possible. They will only use the educational software if they find it interesting.
Free educational software on the Internet comes in many forms, and the most common ones are games. Be careful to download only those that are nonviolent and constructive. You can also download free educational activities like counting and spelling freeware. Your kids will surely love them and have fun while learning.
Remember that some free educational software is not really free -just free trial versions that are designed to work for a limited time only. This is still a good deal, as you can try out the software and decide if you really like it before spending money.
Free educational software from hardware. The manufacturer of educational computer-based toys you buy will usually throw in free educational software that upgrades ones built-in to the toy. This is a great deal! The toy grows as your child’s mental development grows. Free educational software of this kind is usually age-based – there are special editions for younger kids and more comprehensive versions for older ones.
Remember that as with any purchase, you need to use good judgment before installing free educational software. Be sure to read all the instructions, agreements and other important information before using the software.