I just had to read it again! The newspaper was a day old, and it was only a digest from the New York Times but it was no less mind-boggling. Greedy executives at the former Merrill Lynch Brokerage firm in New York state, paid themselves 3.6 Billion dollars as early bonus in December, 2008, in spite of the fact that their firm lost 27 billion dollars for the same financial year. Additionally, this money was paid only to about 700 of the firms 38,000 employees. So each person got an average of $5.1 Million on top of the money lost, not the profit! Can you see a case here for the expansion of small home based businesses among the working class?This piece of news had my head spinning in amazement! I have been writing online for years, and have taken some steps to create and nurture my own small home based business for this very reason and more. It is quite clear, that many of us cannot depend on the goodwill of corporations today to protect our financial interest when the chips are down. This is especially true if you are not a high-powered executive. I have only one more thing to say about the Merrill Lynch debacle. These executives should be forced to pay back the money, and be sent to jail for fraud. Enough said.The fact that corporations are run by people will always be a blessing and a curse. Top executives are subjected to all the less-than-desirable human vices that we see on display in the nightly news, except it is on a grander scale. Many executives are greedy, selfish, dishonest, and loyal only to themselves. The more power they have, the more evident and far-reaching their vices become. If you are an employee who has never considered starting your own small home based business, you are truly burying your head in the sand. Your denial will not change the world around you so it is time to wake up.Starting a home based business is not like taking a trip to the moon, so it is not rocket science. Some folks react to this suggestion as if it is a major hurdle they could never accomplish in this lifetime. In fact, it usually takes redundancy or a sudden dismissal to even get some people to consider the possibility of their own businesses It is really not that difficult. The availability of the Internet means that you can in fact use this tool as your foundation in any type of business you may consider starting. Just about anything you want to buy, is accessible through the Internet even if the physical product must be delivered by hand. The popularity of websites like Craig’s list and Angie’s list for example, means that you can sell products right out of your home, or hire people to work in your home without ever leaving your pad. he reach of major online advertising firms like Google, Yahoo Search Marketing, Face Book, and MSN have made it much easier to the find products or services you may need. Additionally, they also make it easier to find huge markets for anything you want to sell. You can literally set up a campaign on some of these networks and start selling real products or services online in only a matter of hours. These could products you never made, have never seen, will never have to deliver yourself, and yet your commission can be upwards of 50%. Customer feedback is almost always instant, so you can adjust, bolster, or terminate a marketing campaign in just hours after launch. But marketing online is not the only type of small home based business you can start to protect your income, and give yourself some peace of mind.You can also start off-line businesses that are still home based, but never require use of the Internet. People do that all the time. The fact is we all must share the 24 hours in any given day with many competing obligations, such as your job, family, social and community responsibilities, and still find time to start or run a small business. One of the advantages of an Internet-based business is that you can do your work late at night when everybody else is sleeping. Some of my best articles are written in the wee hours of the morning. Finding a way to make your new business work is going to be your challenge, but why not accept this challenge? The alternative may be to leave your financial future to the Enron’s and the Merrill Lynches of this world.At the end of the day, you may not just be losing your job, but you could be saying goodbye to your pension and other investments as well. If you have been naive enough to leave all of your financial assets in the hands of a single entity or even one greedy executive, you could be in big trouble. You, however, have the power to change that now and I humbly suggest that you use it. I would like to suggest also, that you take some time to begin researching different types of small home based businesses that may be fairly easy to start. Many of these types of business require less than US$100.00 to start, so no bank loan is necessary. Ongoing expenses for many small home based businesses are less than US$200.00 a month, but can potentially earn you up to US$5,000 a month and even more.Let me be very clear about this one thing though. Your new business does not have to be a networking type of business. This business model can put a major strain on your relationships with family and friends if you start hounding them to join your business. Many of us have been there, done that, and hated it. There are so many other options available.

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.

Are You Covering Your Home Based Business With Homeowners Insurance? Many home based business owners rely upon their normal home insurance policy to cover their business assets. Sometimes, this will be ok, but very often, this is a big mistake. To understand why it could be a mistake, please take a moment to learn about typical homeowners policies.Personal Property vs. Business PropertyThe first problem that usually crops up is that the typical home policy does not have enough personal property coverage. A home based business may add supplies, equipment, computers, inventory, and records to the normal personal property in the home. Combine this with the furniture, TV sets, and appliances in that same home. Whatever coverage you and your agent thought was enough before you ran you home based business may be woefully inadequate now!Also be sure that your personal property is covered at the replacement costs, and not the real value. If your property is covered at real value, you will have to accept garage sale prices if your precious items are damaged. You laptop may cost $1,200 to replace, but would be unlikely to fetch more than a couple of hundred dollars if you sold it on eBay. You do not want to have to replace your business items that way.Do you even know how much personal property coverage you have in your own policy? Lots of homeowners have no idea. It is time to dig out your policy or call your agent or insurance company to find out.Home vs. Business Liability Insurance Typically, a home policy covers the home owner in case a visitor makes a claim for damages while they are visiting. This may not cover damages that happen in the course of business. Your normal policy will not contain professional or business liability coverage at all.Personal vs. Commercial Car InsuranceAnother coverage issue that many small business owners forget about is coverage for their cars. Personal auto insurance policies may not be adequate if you use your own car for business quite a bit. This can be especially true if you let employees drive it, carry inventory, or drive a lot more than you originally stated when you bought your policy.How Can You Find Adequate Home Based Business Insurance? It is no time to fret but just to take some action! It may be very simple to fix the problem with your homeowners and home based business insurance. Here are some of the solutions you may find.
If your business if fairly small, your insurer may be able to adjust your policy to cover business items by adding a rider. This is probably a simple and fairly affordable solution.
Business Owners Policies (BOP) are insurance packages that many small businesses purchase. They contain a package of coverage that are typically adequate. If your business is a bit larger, this may be the solution you need.
You may also be able to adjust your car insurance policy to cover some business use. If not, you may need to purchase a commercial vehicle policy.
Your auto and home insurance policies may be very simple and affordable to adjust. But if you ignore the issue you run the risk of having big financial problems if some essential business supplies are damaged or a customer claims damages.