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Success, like happiness, is an individual pursuit.

Many people are taught that success equals making a lot of money. For example, you may never have heard your parents speak about “success”, but it is possible that you were encouraged to think about becoming a lawyer or a doctor (or a professional athlete or actor) long before you were old enough to know what you were really even good at?

Why do you think that is? The prominence associated with these career paths may only be part of the reasons that children are subtly pushed in their direction.

But in many cases, it’s money that the world’s children are being taught to gain before anything else. Even when a young person demonstrates pleasure or promise in an area of pursuit which may be art, self-employment and other “unproven” paths to financial well-being, parents often lead their children away from happiness — and toward income.

The result of this kind of money-first thinking is societies of people who are unhappy, depressed or underachieving because they are stuck in a career or lifestyle they hate because they are pursuing a line of work which is likely not what they were born to do.

While being stable or even very well off financially is often the result of great determination and hard work, it is not the only true measure of success. There is likely to be little satisfaction from being wealthy if you do not also enjoy what you do to create your riches.

Of course, if you are struggling to make ends meet, it is only natural to want a better life for yourself and your family. But when your happiness and even the approval you feel toward your children is motivated largely by their wealth or material possessions, it may be worth re-assessing your definition of success to make room for other possibilities.

That said, it is impossible to become successful by just doing enough to get by. Anyone can be average. If your aim is to be successful, you must cultivate a burning desire to achieve larger than self goals which compel you to wake up early and stay up late pursuing your highest vision until you have achieved it. No matter what obstacles present themselves along the way to your success (and they will), you must always keep pushing yourself forward and denying the apathy virus to make it’s claim on your mind and heart.

A burning desire for success combined with relentless action toward your goals is ultimately all the motivation you need to unlock the full potential of who you are. As you act in this very special and certain way, new resources and inspiration will awaken from within you that can only be unlocked by the passionate pursuit of excellence in your chosen field. It is impossible to have this kind of drive and motivation if you do not truly love what you do and if you are not confident enough to think you are able to do it well.

This is why it is necessary for you to define success on your own terms. Which achievements do you truly believe are worth pursuing? Which accomplishments do you yearn to share with your children and grandchildren?

When you tap into the emotional drivers of your soul and pursue your dreams with fervor, success will no longer be something that you are searching for. Rather, success will be a lifelong friend who greets you with a smile in the morning light, walks beside you hand-in-hand throughout every waking day, and whispers her stories of glory, pride and achievement into your ears at night as you drift into the world of dreams. Remember…

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make in your life is what kind of career you are going to have. Many people out there plan their career from the time they are in high school and work diligently to make sure they have the education that they need to make their dreams come true. There are also people out there that haven’t had the opportunity, for whatever reason, to get the education they need to work in the field they have always dreamt of working in. These people will often take whatever jobs they can find in order to make ends meet and survive.

Once one starts in a job, even one that may not pay sufficiently or be very satisfying, many people end up staying there while. In order to make a change, one must make a decision to break the cycle and do something that is different from what they know or are comfortable doing. Some people will take on extra jobs in order to get the money they need to go back to school and find a better career while others will adjust their lifestyle to fit the amount of money they have coming in.

There are still others out there that decide to take things into their own hands and start a home based business. These people tend to believe in themselves and are motivated enough to make sure their dream of working from home can be turned into a reality. Frankly, these are the kind of people that will do whatever it takes to make sure they are successful in the line of work or home based business they choose.

You see, building a successful home business doesn’t really require more work than building a successful career in the workforce. The difference between those who work for themselves at home and people who work for a boss in the “real world” usually comes down to a self-motivated mindset and unwavering commitment to work until you are successful. An employee might be motivated to work until their shift is over, while an entrepreneur is compelled to work until they have achieved their goals.

Working from home can be highly rewarding if you are willing to put the effort into making it work for you. You are going to find times when you are pulling long hours and not getting many days off when you start out, but that is part of the appeal of working from home. You don’t have to worry about doing those long hours and then commuting home only to go back to the office in a few hours. You can also take breaks or days off when you want once you are successful because the only boss of you, will be yourself.

Working from home isn’t usually like what some people fantasize about where you walk around in your pajamas all day looking like you just got out of bed… In fact, if that’s how you are dressed while you are working, then you probably aren’t taking your home-based business career very seriously, and your results will be half asleep as well. Just because no one else is around you doesn’t mean that you have to let yourself go and become unprofessional in your dressing habits. Maintaining your professional attitude is the key to having your home based business become a success and is something that you should strive for on all levels whether you work a job, or your own business at home.

Making the decision to build a successful home business is really the primary key to success. Just remember that the word decision means to “cut off from” all other possibilities. When you truly decide that you are going to build a successful home business, you surely will. And if you fall short of the success you dreamed of, well, you didn’t really make a decision, did you? That’s just a hope and a dream, and that won’t take you very far down the road to home business success. Think about it, and go all in.

If you have been thinking of becoming a green marketer – that is, turning your existing business into a greener one in order to attract customers interested in green issues – it is important to understand whether or not your existing customers are green already. If they aren’t yet, they soon could be if you lead the charge and set a good example of how to become more eco-friendly.

What Is Green Marketing?

Green marketing is all about marketing products and services which can be considered greener than what is readily available on the market at present. For example, if you were going to open a green dry cleaning business, it would use less harsh chemicals, recyclable plastic, reusable hangers and shirt boxes, and so on.

You would also need to educate consumers about why green dry cleaning is as good as, if not better than, existing dry cleaning. By explaining what the difference is, you can justify any price difference related to your new green product line.

Studies have shown that customers have indicated they would be willing to spend 10 to 20% more on a green product versus a traditional product – provided that it gives the same level of performance, if not better, than what they usually use.

A Few Tips on Running a Green Business

Green marketing is also about being conscious of waste in the business and trying to have as small a carbon footprint as possible in the running of the business.

The easiest place to lead the charge here is to stop creating paper catalogs and other paper-based sales materials. Instead, create an online catalog with full details of all of your products, and keep it updated frequently. Drive people to the site with classified ads in your local paper or niche-related or industry-related magazines.

Make the most of your email marketing lists to remind people to come to the site and see what’s new. Have regular product launches and promote them on social media and online press release distribution services. You will be spreading the word about your new green products and services, but without having a significant impact on the environment.

Around the office there are likely many things you can do to make it leaner and greener. And in this way, you can show your target customers that you are not just trying to cash in on the green trend, but are genuinely concerned about the environment. For example, use recycled paper in your printer, along with soy-based inks. Use recycled toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels as needed.

In terms of paper towels, consider buying cotton hand towels and washing them regularly rather than using up a lot of paper towels. Use mugs instead of disposable cups. Use a regular coffee machine instead of those pod thingies to reduce your daily plastic waste.

Use a stainless steel reusable filter in your coffee machine basket so you don’t have to waste paper on coffee filters. Buy water filters and filtered water jugs to cut back on bottled water use. Use BPA-free plastic (or stainless steel) water bottles and travel mugs to cut down on trash and plastic in the environment.

There are many things you can do to educate your customers about green issues. But first you have to learn about them yourself. Once you do, you can take a 360-degree look at your products, services, office, and vendors. In this way, you will be able to clean and green your company, and impress customers who are interested in green issues.

Affiliate marketing is one of the quickest ways to start making money online. However, like all businesses, there are many potential pitfalls in an affiliate marketing business. The most common mistakes can cost an affiliate marketer time and money. Avoid these 3 common affiliate mistakes and you will be a lot more successful in a faster period of time.

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1. Choosing the wrong affiliate program to promote.

Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible as soon as they hear there is money to be made. In their rush to be part of a lucrative affiliate program, they often choose a product that is not in strong demand, doesn’t have a high-paying compensation plan or even a product the affiliate is not really interested in.

To be successful, it’s important to do quality research first and ensure that the products you want to promote as an affiliate have a strong and growing demand in the marketplace, that the affiliate program has a generous compensation plan that will reward you well for your efforts, and that you truly have an interest in the products you will be promoting as an affiliate. When these criteria are met, you will have a much greater probability of success with your affiliate marketing endeavor.

2. Joining too many affiliate programs at the same time.

Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join too many affiliate programs at the same time in an effort to increase your earnings potential. You may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs at the same time.

It is true that developing multiple streams of income is an important key to financial success as an affiliate marketer, but the cost of joining too many programs at the same time will be a loss of focus and concentration on the primary program or programs that are providing your opportunity to earn additional income.

The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as much as you were thinking it would. The best way to maximize your results is to join one core program, or a small handful of related programs within a specific niche market and focus your efforts primarily on learning how the programs work, and then implementing an effective marketing action plan to start promoting your affiliate products effectively.

The idea is to roll out your marketing strategy consistently, day-by-day until you are making the sales and income you aspire toward with the affiliate program or programs that you have joined. Once you have achieved your goals, you can always expand the portfolio of affiliate programs you belong to, and with your well-developed marketing skills, success in new affiliate ventures will always come easier. The key in the beginning of an affiliate marketer’s career is to become an effective online marketer.

3. Not buying the product or using the service you’re promoting as an affiliate.

As an affiliate, your primary purpose is to effectively promote a product or service to potential customers. For you to achieve this aim, you must be able to share the benefits of the product or service convincingly with the correct target market. This is a lot easier to do if you have purchased the product yourself, and have your own experiences with how it has benefited you. It also adds to your personal integrity and credibility as a marketer.

Some of the most effective affiliate promotions of all are personal reviews. Many successful affiliates setup review sites or videos online to promote products and services they believe in by sharing their personal experience (story) that they have had with the product. Most consumer’s buying decisions are either influenced or motivated completely by a personal recommendation they have received from a trusted source. If you can establish yourself as a trusted source by writing or recording honest and insightful reviews for products you are promoting as an affiliate, you will be far more effective than simply trying to advertise the product through other means.

Therefore, buy and try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering on what it promises, and if it’s something you would be proud to promote as an affiliate. Your prospects will then sense the sincerity and truthfulness in your recommendations and this will lead to more product sales.

Many hopeful affiliate marketers fall prey to the 3 affiliate marketing pitfalls above, and don’t succeed in their affiliate marketing business as a result. Now that you are informed, you have the knowledge required to avoid these common mistakes and get your affiliate marketing business off to a profitable start and successful future.

Being in the affiliate marketing business is not that hard now with the internet at your disposal. It is much easier now compared to the days when people had to make use of landline telephones and print media just to get the latest updates on the way their program is coming along. So with technology at hand, and assuming that the affiliate is working from home, a day in the life of a professional affiliate may look something like this…

Upon waking up and after having breakfast, the computer is turned on to check out new developments in the affiliate programs the member is participating in. As far as the professional affiliate marketer is concerned, there may be new promotions to run and company developments to catch up on.

You may need to make some updates to your website. A professional affiliate marketer knows that a well-designed site with good copywriting and product promotions can increase sign ups from visitors. In addition to this, adding interesting content in the form of articles and videos to your website regularly is a great way to attract more visitors from search engines and social media, so daily content development is a must!

That done, it may be time to do some proactive outreach marketing which may include contacting other website owners to form partnerships, proposing to write guest posts for other websites, or possibly expanding your paid advertising campaigns through solo ads, pay-per-click advertising and more.

If your marketing plan is effective, you’ll need to spend some time daily tracking where your visitors, signups and sales are coming from. By knowing these metrics, you’ll be able to expand on your marketing winners, and cut your losers. Many affiliates waste time and money on marketing strategies that don’t work, but you won’t know this unless you are using reliable online tracking tools to see exactly what’s happening in your business.

Of course, another part of your day as a successful affiliate marketer is answering questions and following up with prospects and leads. This has to be done quickly if you want your follow up to be effective in helping you generate more sales. Nothing turns customers away more than an unanswered email or phone calls.

In the process of doing all the necessities, a full-time affiliate marketer may spend some time each day in online forums and discussion communities where he or she interacts with others who share common business interests. Contributing constructively in forum discussions is a great way to grow your reputation as an expert in your field. On top of the inherent marketing benefits of forum contribution, you will always learn new things yourself (as long as you have an open mind and desire to learn) which can help you grow your business in new ways as you engage in different online communities.

Another important daily task is to email your subscribers and prospects. Whether you are sending an update, sharing a valuable resource, or promoting a new product that you think can help your audience, regular communication by email with your prospects is one of the most important and direct ways to grow your online affiliate marketing business.

Finally, to be truly successful as an affiliate or home business owner, look for ways every day to give back and give thanks. Nothing expands your circle of friends and partners faster than expressing gratitude, and nothing will improve your reputation faster and more convincingly than finding ways to give back to the community or niche that you work in. Consider finding people who are struggling in areas that you know how to help in, and do your best to help them. This does not require an investment of capital, but a little bit of your time and expertise can really go a long way in making a difference for someone else’s life; and in turn the angels of good fortune will shine their light on you! 🙂

Time flies quickly when you’re building a business online, and you may miss an occasional lunch or dinner as a professional affiliate marketer, but the rewards of your dedication will pay big dividends over time, and ultimately can lead you to the time and income freedom that you started your own affiliate marketing career in the first place.

One of the most effective marketing strategies for a successful home-based business website is producing quality content in the form of articles. You might think of this as blogging… Even though blogging can be a great way to build your online reputation and authority, you may not always have time needed to write the articles your site needs.

Although you can say that no one knows your business’ needs or product line better than you, you might be surprised that some writers are pretty good at producing just the content you need, at an affordable price too. Besides, running a business is always a time-consuming endeavor and the more ways you find to outsource important tasks, the faster and more easily you will be able to grow your business.

So you know you need to outsource… The main question is how you will find great writers in a sea of available ghostwriters online? Yes, there are many of them. Article ghostwriting is a full-time profession for many people, and you can easily find them online once you start doing some research.

When you want specific writing styles and article slants, one way to find articles for your site is to use Google to search for the type of content you are looking for and then find the different authors who are publishing these articles directly. In fact, there are many article directories online that even include rating systems for the quality of articles, along with easy ways to get in touch with the authors of those articles.

If you contact the authors of the articles you like, you can also ask if they are available to take on the article writing jobs for you, or possibly write guest posts for your website. And so the negotiation begins… Truth is, it’s a win-win. After all, their published online articles enhance their own reputation and brand awareness so there are many people out there who will be eager to write articles for your website.

Another very effective way to find writers for your projects is to post your jobs or look up writers directly on freelance sites such as Upwork. If you go there and post a job for the type of writing you want done, you will get many proposals from available ghostwriters, and you may find exactly what you are looking for. Using services like this, you will be able to see the reputation of the writers who are proposing to fulfill your writing needs, and you will have many options for people to start working with.

Finding writers to outsource your article writing needs is not impossible; it just takes setting a clear intention of what you want and then doing the research and due diligence needed to find the best writers for your needs. Once you find qualified writers and start working with them regularly to help you produce quality content for your website and content marketing campaigns, you’ll have more time to devote to other important tasks in growing your online home business, or maybe just for relaxing and enjoying the fruit of your home-based business success! That’s why you got started in the first place, right?!

When you’re a work-at-home mom, you won’t get far unless you keep a firm line between your business and what your family and kids demand from you. Kids tend to take up much of your personal and professional time. You could, of course, wait for them to mature a bit, so they’d need you less, but that could take years. It’s better to apply a few strategies that work for managing your home-run business and your kids.

Use a separate phone for your business. When you already have a phone in the house, why get another line for your business, right? This seemingly cost-saving tactic backfires: sometimes a family member takes a call from a client and discloses a somewhat different arrangement from what was agreed upon earlier. What’s worse is that time when you resent your kids for taking up so much time on the phone when you clearly need it. Unless your kids become aware of your business motives and maturely accept them, you’d do better to get another phone line.

Hire someone to watch your kids. When your income is strong enough to get a babysitter, it’s usually best to do so. With someone else managing the kids, the mental space and emotional energy freed up can be dedicated to growing your business.

Have a ‘semi-isolated’ place at home you can call your office. This could be a corner in your kitchen, or a separate small room you can lock yourself into. Having a place where you can post notes and plan and work keeps you focused; it tells your psyche that when you’re there, the business is all there is. So it’s best to train your kids to handle their chores on their own, so you get more time in your office space. Also, they’ll have to get used to not disturbing you during your office ‘hours’, which are generally more flexible for the home business owner.

Take short naps. One good thing about working at home is exactly that. When you get tired or unfocused, you can take a nap to get recharged. When you train your kids to take short naps, you can take a nap with them knowing that there’s little else to worry about but getting a little rest. In fact, many business owners come up with some of their best ideas either during or just after an afternoon nap. Rest well, and get inspired!

Let your kids see you work. One way to teach them to give you ‘room’ for your business is to let them see you work. This could get bothersome at first, especially when your kids are young and want your attention. Over time, they could get used to doing their homework in a corner in your office. The more they hear you talk to clients over the phone, the more clues they get about your having time to work. Soon they’ll learn to keep to themselves when you’re on the phone with clients or busy typing away on an important email or web project.

Meet your clients outside the house. Few things are more common these days than having a meeting at a local coffee shop to discuss business. The advantage of this is two-fold: you won’t get disturbed by domestic worries, and your client sees you as a responsible worker (one who doesn’t insist on juggling his concerns with your family life). Plus, leaving the home for a little while is a great refresher and another way to recharge!

There are many life-liberating advantages to working from home for you and your family, but be sure to follow some of these guidelines if you want to keep your sanity, and have the good fortune of long-term success in your home business.

Many people think that working from home is a stress-less experience. After all, when you’re working from home you don’t have to deal with office politics, annoying bosses and coworkers… Plus, there’s no stressful commute to work or having to adhere to a dictated schedule. It’s no wonder people dream about working from home some day. 🙂

The truth is, it doesn’t matter where you work… You are going to experience stress. Stress is not the lone experience of office professionals. Everyone experiences stress as a result of many factors in their lives and business.

The good news is that stress can be very useful. It can act as a motivator or alert us to something that really does require our attention. But too much stress reduces your body’s ability to fight disease, it wears you out, and it can affect your judgment in a negative way. Therefore, finding reliable ways to reduce your stress are very important to the long-term success of your business.

Get organized. It’s about having a system you can rely on so you won’t have to stress about every problem that comes your way. Develop a decision-making procedure to handle your affairs, whether it be in shipping inquiries, handling dealers, answering customer questions, etc. You can of course improve your systems over time, but what’s important is that you implement a system that gives you some control and order.

Exercise. People who work out often report that they feel happier than those who do not. Increased heart-rate and metabolism, better digestion, and an all around feeling of lightness all work together to keep you in a lighter mood. The more you stay at your desk in front of your computer and see problems, the more you might get depressed. Sweat a little. Run. Go to the gym. Staying away from your work doesn’t mean abandoning it, as people who work out also tend to come up with new solutions to their work problems simply because they had time to think about the problem while being removed from it.

Listen to music. People who listen to music deal with stress by losing themselves in the music or by letting the music influence their moods instead of just thinking and worrying about your business challenges. Some people even have various playlists for different kinds of work they have to do. Think of it as a playlist for doing chores in the home. Create one for doing accounting, responding to customers and so on… Some listen to classical music because it helps them think.

Practice Meditation. While computers have a memory cache, people’s brains have limited capacities to actually remember and worry about every single little thing. While computers can erase their cache and get a fresh start, don’t forget that people can as well. Sleep is one way to refresh the mind, but modern meditation techniques allow a person to get the equivalent rest and recovery of several hours of sleep in 30 minutes or less. Learn to meditate, and practice regularly.

Also remember that the goal of working is to earn money to finance the other half of your life: living. Whether you work inside or outside of the home, developing reliable ways to de-stress your life and business will lead to greater productivity and personal satisfaction.

Learning to master time management can make or break your home business. In the early days of your home business, you will still have a lot to learn and as you fill orders, work with customers and businesses; the hours can fly by very quickly. You will discover that there are not enough hours in a day to complete all of your daily tasks.

Efficiently managing your time will help you to create order out of chaos. If you wake up and simply start moving things around without some sort of plan in place, you can easily forget important jobs that need to be completed, forget orders, neglect to call back clients and lose customer confidence in your fledgling company.

Plan Ahead

Have a plan in place such as a daily schedule. Follow up that schedule with a weekly schedule that fully covers all of your daily tasks. With this plan in place, you can quickly take stock of your time to figure out what needs to be done. This will help you to achieve your goals by completing important tasks first, and getting through simple tasks with time to spare. Get into the habit of checking, editing and updating this schedule as last minute plans may arise.

This plan will allow you to get your work done without creating a backlog because you accepted too much work in a short amount of time. When new requests come in, you can look at these schedules to see if you have the time to spare or if you should turn down the job due to lack of time. It can be hard to turn away new business or repeat offers but if you accept more work than you can complete in a comfortable amount of time, you will disappoint clients who will go elsewhere when they have new jobs.

Start Business Early

Some people will create a home business to sleep late and work whenever they want to. However, this is not likely to happen. If you sleep all day, no one is running your business and it will not be successful. If you have family as well, getting up early will allow you to take care of them and send them off in the morning. You can then shower, eat breakfast and head off to your home office awake, refreshed and ready to work.

Separate Family and Business Life

Spending more time with your family may be one reason that you decided to open your own business, but you will have to keep the two separate to be productive and to keep everything organized. If you have young children, keep them away from your home office if possible. If you allow them to play in this room while you are working, they may feel that they can enter it when you are away. This can lead to ruined or lost paperwork that you need for your business, and may be a source of distraction in the future if your children have learned that it’s acceptable to hang out in your office while you work.

Separating business and family is also a good way to help you relax and get away from work. When you have completed your tasks for the day, you can simply close the door and go spend time with your family. This is hard to do if your computer and business is in an area that is accessible to the entire household. You want a personal space that you can shut away from the outside world when you are working and away from your personal life when you want to get away from the home office.

Set Priorities

If you do not have your priorities in order, you can end up doing a lot of work and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Completing a large amount of work one day won’t help you if you have forgotten to complete an important and time sensitive job because you did not schedule your time correctly. Remember, prioritize first, then get to work! Your home business will thank you for your discipline and commitment with greater growth and long-term stability.

While lots of new home businesses launch every day, the truth is that many are failing.

One main reason for home business failure has to do with a lack of discipline. Working for someone else whether inside the home or commuting, allows one to have a set schedule and daily tasks that they need to follow. When you work for yourself, you have to set your own goals and objectives, and have the discipline to follow your plan.

Anyone can start a home business, but that doesn’t mean that everyone should. Some people who started and closed their businesses should never have gone to work for themselves to begin with. Many lack the dedication to follow through and keep up the pace that is necessary to be successful.

Some people are simply seduced by ads and word of mouth when they hear others talk about how great and freeing it is to work for themselves in their own home. A home business is a great opportunity for some but others need to have a boss prodding them to get through the day, or someone else who can tell them what needs to be done.

After the excitement has worn off of starting your own home business, it will quickly become clear that it’s not fun and games. Everything depends on you. From taking orders, handling sales calls, customer service, running a website, collecting money and mailing packages – it all rests on your shoulders. If your business grows, you can hire an extra set of hands to deal with the backlog, but in the beginning to keep costs down, most home businesses are run by the people who created them.

Quitting your regular job to work at home because you expect to have lots of free time and extra money to spend is a huge myth that causes many to quit. A business that is just starting up will take up a lot of your time. To handle all of the work, you can easily find yourself working well into the early morning hours. You can also start to spend less time with your family as you strive to build your business.

Extra money to spend is something that you will often not see for months or years because you will need to pay bills for your business and home costs, and you will need to spend more money in marketing and development to grow your home business.

When people advertise stories about working from home, they will tell you about the glitz and glamour. You will be told that you can roll out of bed at any time and work in your pajamas. This is a bad idea because every business needs to run on a consistent schedule if it is going to be successful long-term.

All of this said, there is a new breed of home business opportunity called affiliate marketing where you can simply join an existing business or business opportunity who will provide all the products and marketing materials for you. They will even handle all of the order processing, payment collections, product shipping and customer service on your behalf. In fact, some of the affiliate programs that I am building my own home business online with are shown here on my website (check them out).

Whether you are building a traditional home business, or an affiliate marketing based home business, nothing will take the place of personal discipline and having a daily action plan that you follow to get the word out and grow your business successfully. If you have the inner-discipline required to make your own daily plan (and follow it), there are few freedoms greater than that of being able to call your own shots and work for yourself from the comfort and convenience of home!