i) Straight forward strategy
A good business strategy and planning instantly distinguish between your own business with the competitors, and give your potential or existing clients no reason for not to do business with you. A good home based business strategy should have considering the targeted market needs, the competitors and the strength and weakness.

Many home based business owner try to provide all services or all type of products to all peoples during the business start up, which i can say this is having no proper strategy set at all! The business owner must have to concentrate and develop the business start from a small niche market and slowly expand to provide an one stop solution.

ii) Follow the plan and set your budget
Develop a business plan before you start the business, and update it from time to time during the business goes on. A proper planning and proper budgeting would help the business to attain higher goals that if you just plugged always at your business one day at a time. The plan, if properly developed, it can even help the business owner to get back on track if something gone wrong.

iii) Protect your cash!
Running a small home based business, you are going to constantly battle to hold on the cash. Overruns in start up cost, lower anticipated profit margin and sales grow slower than expected are among the most common cash drains in business. As the business owner, you have to learn to guard your cash in the sense of rejecting to many different demands on your business. Learn to project the business cash flow in fair degree accuracy is the most important aspect in a home based business. No discipline in controlling the cash would easily cause the business falls into failure.

iv) Watch the profit margin
Many business focus too much on the sales but overlook the profit margin, even some of them are under pricing the service or product provided. Even increase the selling price might be crucial, but consistently work on lower down the cost may be more effective. A small change in the cost structure would lead to a big change on your profit margin.

v) Have fun with the business
Make sure you are running a business that falls into your own interest otherwise you will feel boring just because you have treat the business as a daily routine job that doesn’t means for anything.

Banks

Bank can be said is the primary funding source for any home based business, small business or even an established business. To apply for any loan from bank, you should prepare a proposal or in other word, a business plan, the bank would want to see your financial statement, cash flow projection, business background, asset for the business and so on. The bank like the ultimate protection of hard asset, they also want to feel that there is little chance that the business will have to call upon these assets to pay off the loan in any case.

Bank also reluctant to loan to a business that couldn’t show at least a 2 years profitable operation, they would want to see also the business owner is heavily invested in the business before they approve the loan. The bank will not also release any loan that the loan amount is more than 50% of the business capitalization.

Personal loan

Personal loan can be a great funding source for your home based business, and one of the most common means of obtaining funds from this type of source is through a home equity loan. If you have an assets (NOT YOUR LIVING HOME!) that you have pay the mortgage for several years, you can consider to refinance the asset. You can then use the fund from your home equity loan to operate your business.

SBA loan

Small Business Administration(SBA) is also one of the great funding source for small business and home based business. SBA do not usually make loan directly to small business but they will guarantee up to 90% of of bank loan to the business. I would say the term and condition provided by the SBA from any country is different, you should contact your local SBA firm for more detail information.

Look for investor

Look for any investors that might have interest on your field of home based business, prepare a business plan for your business featuring every single aspect in running the business, particularly on the financial part and make an achievable commitment to them on the return percentage they can make from their investment.

Scope of product
Creating more product lines is one of the strategy to provide the client an one stop shopping service.

State of art product
Create an technically advance product or service can form a powerful strategy if the business has the capability to offer state of art product, and usually this type of product will cost more than a normal one.

Brand name product
Generally a product established with strong brand name would command at higher price and create a memorable brand would usually cost the business expensive in term of advertising.

Niche market
Offering the product or service to a target niche market is one of the common strategy for small business. Usually smaller volume of product would cost higher operating cost, but the business would face lesser competition in the market.

Service
Offering a world class customer service can be used to differentiate a business from the competitor who offer low class of service quality or totally not at all.

i) Free gifts
Always accompany the product or service with a small gift, people just like free gift and there is no question about it. But make sure the free gift is related to what you are selling and it can be used together with the product or service. For example, a free DVD game is come with a purchase of a PS3 console, a free headphone is come with a mini HiFi.

ii) Distribute coupons
Distribute coupon to the public and encourage them to buy from you, you don’t have to distribute it through an advertising campaign but you can distribute it in the entrance of shopping center, distribute through the local book store, or distribute it through the first purchase from the customer. Design your coupon as attractive as possible, you stand a chance to close a deal.

iii) Organize contest
Organize free entrance contest for the public, develop an interesting contest and attract the public, make sure you make it with fun and you will attract the media coverage to publish the event, yet another free advertising for your business.

iv) Organize and participate in event
Organize and participate in any public event to gain public exposure for your home based business, because you don’t have a sales outlet where you will not gain much public appearance, actively participate is these events and get people to know your business.

v) New customer offers
Attracting new customer to purchase something from you is the most difficult challenge for your home based business, try to give offer for new customer during their first purchase, if no offer in price is possible, at least give out some freebies or second purchase offer, this will build the customer stronger first impression to your business.

i) Product – There are several aspect that the business owner should take into consideration for the product or service provided in relation to the marketing strategy. The business owner have to consider the benefit for the consumer or customer if they purchase the product or service and detail research in this area is a must. The business owner have to think of creating a outstanding packaging that it could be separated from the competitors’ packaging. The business owner also have to consider the warranty use of the product and how to make the customer feel that they are staying in the comfortable zone after they buy your product.

ii) Price – The next important P is the pricing strategy, if you set the price for a product high you will be facing a great resistance in pursuing people to purchase your product, if you set the price for a product low you will generate a perception of low quality for the product. The business owner have to do some home works to find out what is the best price to charge in order to convince the customer that they have a perception that they are not buying an expensive product with the same product quality which the competitors are able to provide.

iii) Promotion – The business owner have to think on how to promote the product or service provided in order to generate great sales projection. The activities that the business owner would go through includes identify the type of advertising medium that is to be used, the marketing effort that is to be carried out, discuss about public relation, describe the promotional and the plan for using advertising specialties or premium items such as pencil, flower and so on.

iv) Place – The word place means by itself indicate that where your product should be sell at and where your customer can purchase your products. Most of the home based business or small business are selling their product through website, auction or direct mail order. For example, if you own a SEO company and where you sell your SEO product should be through online marketplace like forum, online classifieds, webcart and so on. Place is not determined as where the product originated but is best determined as where you should sell your product.

i) The customer – You must understand the market needs, be focus on a niche market as well as how often the prospect will buy your product or services. You must also know exactly what those customers are doing even you have to know in which sector they are belong to. Understand the customer well is important to your home based business, because they play an important role in rating your products or services and how well you have done on the customer service and follow up. As a business owner, it is also important to know what question would your prospect ask before they raise it to you.

ii) The products – Before you launch the product into the market, you as the business owner (sometimes the product designer as well) have to know in detail what your product is. You have to do your homework on research, training and as well as feedback from customer to get the full knowledge about the product. The better you know about the product, you will be able to identify the potential problem or question that your customer would face, thus you are able to provide a prompt solution to the customer in case they raise. With this, the image for your business in terms of customer service also increase.

iii) The tool – The tool that i mentioned it here is not the tool that you use to create the product or the tool you use to repair the product. The tool that i am talking about here is strategy that you use to sale your product, this includes product sample, customer testimonial and etc. I would say every type of home based business would have a different set of sales tools.

iv) The competitors – Know your competitors well is very important in fighting for the sales in a niche market, you have to know what your competitors doing, how long they have been in the market, the price they charge, their key person in business operation, the customer service level and whatever thing that they are doing in they sales strategy. By knowing your competitors well, you are basically able to plan the sales for now, tomorrow and the far futures.

A good marketing plan should include the analysis of the potential targeted market include the customer’s behavior, the competitors and the strength and weakness of the business compare to the competitors. A marketing plan is not as simple as just a list of advertising or promotional activities. The conclusion to a marketing plan is to predict competitive reaction and a brief consideration of possible longer product term options.

Creating a serious and well planned marketing study take into consideration of each individual product or service group will definately create analysis overlaps between other product or company-wide strategies. It is strongly advised that each product line or service are look into detail separately. Doing a research for each product may reveal the individual product characteristic that may not be considered by other businesses.

1. Setup joint promotions
Identify the characteristics and activities of your most profitable customers. Look for other non-competing businesses already reaching them. Then devise a way to set up some joint promotions. This proven strategy produces dramatic results — for very little expense.

For example, I once saw a clever joint promotion by a health club and a gourmet restaurant. Both catered to young professionals and business executives in the same town.

The restaurant’s menu included several special dishes recommended by the health club’s nutritionist. It also distributed discount membership coupons for the club. Even their advertising mentioned the affiliation — to attract health conscious customers who often avoid food prepared in gourmet restaurants.

The health club’s monthly newsletters included a reprint of the restaurant’s healthy new menu items recommended by the club’s nutritionist. They also distributed the restaurant’s discount coupons to their members.

2. Uncover new niche markets
Continually look for new niche markets you can serve, then develop customized versions of your advertising appealing to the special concerns of prospects in each niche. Offer specific solutions to their unique needs and you’ll uncover new groups of customers eager to buy from you.

For example, I recently bought a new computer system for my business from a company because they catered to my specific needs. An ad in a business publication listed their special web site for small businesses customers. There I was able to order the exact configuration of hardware and software I wanted at the price I was ready to pay. They won the sale by catering to my niche.

TIP: One way to find a new niche market is to evaluate your existing customers.

Look for groups of customers with similar characteristics you don’t currently cater to in your advertising. Then create new versions of your advertising appealing to their specific needs. You’ll attract a lot more customers just like them.

3. Exploit emerging trends
Pay attention to changes you notice in your business and your markets. Try to spot trends you can turn into new sales opportunities — before your competitors. The first company to identify an emerging trend and take action often becomes the market leader in their industry.

For example, many small businesses took advantage of the Internet early in its development. They used it to attract new customers they weren’t reaching off-line and to capture customers from competitors who didn’t yet recognize the business potential of a web site.

TIP: Don’t make sudden major changes in your business to exploit a new emerging trend. Instead, add something to your business to accommodate it. You don’t want to alienate customers who aren’t ready to adapt to the new trend.

Start using these 3 marketing strategies to create permanent growth for your business. Use them repeatedly to continue adding new layers of permanent income without inviting competition.

To grow your home based business you need to attract the attention of your prospects, advertising can help you to do so if used correctly. Unfortunately, many small businesses owners waste thousands of dollars on advertising efforts that only achieve minimal results.

If you want to get the most from the money you spend to promote your products and services, make sure to avoid these common mistakes.

Focusing on Your Products and services
If you want to get the attention of your business prospects, speak to their needs and wants. Your prospects’ primary concern isn’t that you’ve been in business for 25 years; it is do you know the problem they want to solve. Use your ad to identify at least one common problem of your prospects and the benefit of using your product or service.

Having a Weak Marketing Message
All to often you hear ads and it takes some thought to figure out what they are even promoting. Make sure your advertisement includes a 7-10 word description of whom you serve and the problems you solve so people who read or hear your ad know how you can help them.

Using the Wrong Words
A word here, a phrase there can change your response rate by hundreds of percent. When you spend money on advertising, first test a number of versions of your copy to identify the one that works best. Just by revising the ad copy so it was client and problem centered, I helped one small business owner achieve her best month in sales ever.

Missing Motivation
Most ads miss the mark in moving prospects to action. If you want to prompt prospects to visit your web site or your store or to contact you, include an offer that motivates them to do so.

Lacking in Frequency
Some people make spur of the moment buying decisions, but most need to become familiar with your services and products, and this takes time. If you want your advertising to work, you need to ensure that your prospects see or hear it regularly.

Web Sites that Don’t Move Prospects to Action
Many small business owners direct prospects to a web site where they have more extensive content covering available services and products. I constantly get calls from people who have been successful at attracting prospects to their web site, but generate few sales. Once prospects get to your web site make sure the content and visual organization moves them to take the action you want them to. Whether it is providing them with ample opportunities to fill in your service inquiry form, or including a subset of your product catalog in your web page navigation bars, help prospects move to client and customer status.

Lack of Follow Up
Sometimes making a sale requires sending a note or picking up the phone and calling your prospects. If you have an effective lead generation strategy, prospects will provide you with their contact information and the problem they want solved. Use the web, email, and the phone to follow up and close the sale.

Lack of Tracking
If you are making more from your advertising than you are spending, you’re ahead. Frequently small business owners can’t tell you which of their efforts helped bring in the business. Track each of your ad campaigns and you’ll know where to spend your money in the future, what to modify and what to eliminate.

Put your marketing house in order. Fix your strategy and your materials. If you don’t know what to change or how to change it, use experts to help you with strategy, copyrighting, design, PR, and media placement.

Avoid these common marketing mistakes and you’ll find ore people contacting you about your products and services and that your making more than your spending on your advertising.

There are basically two types of telemarketing, the inbound telemarketing and outbound telemarketing. With telemarketing, the telemarketer(usually will be the business owner) have to send out a flyer or newsletter to a group of targeted potential customer and invite them to make a phone call to your company to ask any information for the product or service your business provide.

When the customer call, the telemarketer will explain in detail about the product or service provided and at the same time pursue the customer to purchase your product or service. Where outbound telemarketing is the other way round, the telemarketer have to take the initiative to call the targeted potential customer and sell them your service or product.

When you are making outbound call, the first 10 to 15 seconds is the most critical time frame, you must try your best to attract your potential customer’s interest for your service or product in this period. You should also approach your customer politely to build trust and establish good first impression for your customer. During the conversation, you should speak slowly and clearly to tell the customer the objective or intention on your call to them, once you have successfully grab their attention, you could start using your selling script to promote your product or service to them.

Telemarketing can be an expensive solution or can be a cheap solution for your home based business, it is merely depends on how many phone lines you need and how many telemarketers you want to hire. If you are going to act as the telemarketer for your own home based business, i would say one phone line is more than enough.