HOW You Should Work From Home in Australia
Okay. I admit it. I love technology. I'm a geek mum. But as the Joker said to Batman: "Where do you get those wonderful tools!?"
Yes, you can build your home business offline. Actually talking to people (gasp), using leaflets, business cards, traditional networking techniques.
But the internet has enabled some wonderful tools that can be used to build your work from home business with efficiency and speed. Some can be free, some will cost, and some may be provided by support teams related to your home business.
- EMAIL
Obviously, a fantastic way of contacting people, and also a way of protecting your privacy. Definitely have a separate personal and business email address. Don't use it in public, if you can help. I'm currently a fan of fastmail.fm, although I still have hotmail and yahoo accounts, as well as my own domain-based accounts.
- VOicE OVER IP
Save on phone calls with programs like Skype (Free) and other paid services.
- CONFERENCE ROOMS
Most good home businesses will have an Online Internet-based Conference Room, where you can login at a specified time, listen to a live person giving a business presentation or training, and ask questions later, by typing or speaking into a microphone. Excellent for those of us who hate talking, or if you keep on playing phone-tag with your prospects.
- FLASH PRESENTATIONS
An impressive, fancy way of capturing people's attention, and presenting information about your business.
- LEADS
YOu can buy leads - contact details of people who are interested in starting a home business. These can range in price from 5 cents to $5 per person, obviously with different levels of quality. If you buy from a reputable company, they should come with email address, phone number, date, time, and IP address, so that you won't be accused of spamming. This is an excellent way of building your business, but unfortunately, does cost. But all the successful people I know of, do it.
- SEARCH ENGINES
My favourite. Try for a free listing on Google, although it will take time, effort and your own website. Or for immediate results, pay for a listing, paying either a lump sum for submission to smaller engines, or pay-per-click for large search engines.