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.

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.

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.

You can’t put up a beautiful (or any) web site and hope that people will just arrive. You have to let them know in every possible way, that your business web site is there. This has to be part of any internet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Customers are not going to look for you, you have to look for them.

Promoting your web site online and building traffic is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zines, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, assumes that your customers are surfers. But there is a large percentage of our population that is not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be.

So, what about the large percentages of the population who are not? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. This is particularly true if you serve a fairly local market. Fortunately these are the easiest and cheapest prospects for you to reach off-line.

Here are some of the ways to make your web site known:

i) TV, print and other advertising

ii) Stationary and business cards

iii) Catalogs, fliers, billboards, blimps, etc.

iv) Direct mail (prominently on every document)

v) Telemarketing (make it part of the script)

vi) News releases to targeted media.

Unless you have a high budget, the TV, radio, classified ad route is not recommended but if you do run ads, be sure to mention your web site everywhere. Make it part of your Internet Marketing Strategy.

Another guiding principle is that your off-line internet marketing activities should make it easy for your prospect to go straight to your web site. One of the best ways to market your website off-line is direct mail postcards.

If your prospect sees your website on a billboard as she’s driving home, she probably won’t look you up when she gets to the office the next day. This is not the only medium that has problems like this. Newspapers are bulky, radio has to spell it out and like before most people are driving at the time. On the other hand, if your prospect is sitting at her computer and a post card comes in the mail announcing your web site, she can just turn around and type in your URL and she’s at your web site.

Now if someone is in the office reading a trade journal and comes across an article about you in the magazine, it’s not difficult for him to copy your URL into his browser and pay your site a visit.

I don’t mean to say that those other avenues won’t drive traffic to your site, but it will take numerous impressions and repetition to get them to remember your address.

On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the take right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site. Brilliant!

I have seen the greatest success in off-line web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically direct mail postcards.

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.