A home based business requires many different keys to success but without the 3 P’s, promotion, patience and persistence, your work from home business will fail. Many entrepreneurs go in to owning their own business with less of a commitment than they realize. Avoid the dangers of frustration by the following suggestions.Promotion is the source of energy that drives your business. It does not matter where you operate your business whether online or in the real world you must promote that business. Your business will hunger every day for more people either walking in your real door or your virtual door at your location. If you talk to everyone about what you work at home doing, you will create and endless stream of traffic.Your goal daily is to have 10 quality conversations with people about your business. This can either be face to face, by phone or online but it must happen every day. Also you need to uses either free or paid source to promote your business to people you would meet no other way.Patience must be administered daily as you will see many opportunities to turn away from a work at home career that you may love. Remember it will take time to build a great business. The goal of every business owner should be to add customers every day to your business. If you will use this as your measure of success in the beginning of your home based business it will grow exponentially. If you use profit as your yard stick you will find yourself not spending needed money to maintain a profit.If you add 5 new customers to your business every day the first 2 years, you will have created 3650 loyal followers of your company. So keep track of who your customer are and find reasons to communicate with them. And if you can average generating $10 in profit off of each customer you nave every month your home based business will not just survive but will thrive.Persistence is important to building a network of customers that will promote you. You must be involved every day in helping build a home based business that your friends and customers want to promote. Your customer base can be the engine that keeps your business growing and not cost you money in advertising. One of my current businesses is a residual based business that works with brick and mortar businesses. I get paid monthly from these merchants for the services that we provide. About 2 years ago I finally could not find the time to go out and recruit customers on my own because of the number of leads that my customer base was giving me. I now have a personal assistant that helps me take care of these leads.Showing up every day and build your business every day no matter where you may be will lead you to success. Never stop never quit growing your work home based business. You will love to work at home.The find out more success secrets check out my resource box below.
How Important Is the Fundraising Auctioneer to the Success of Your Event?
I want you to think about the term “Fundraising Auction”.
A “Fundraising Auction” is an event where items of value are gathered, and then sold in a competitive bidding situation, either in a Silent Auction format, or in a Live Auction format by a Live Auctioneer. And since typically the best items are saved for the Live Auction, arguably it is the Live Auction that should generate a significant portion of the proceeds in any Fundraising Auction.
So why do so many non-profit groups consider the Fundraising Auctioneer to be the least valuable component in a Fundraising Auction?
The Hosting Facility gets paid.
The Printer gets paid.
The Caterer gets paid.
The Liquor Store gets paid.
The DJ gets paid.
The Florist gets paid.
But the Auctioneer … the individual who is expected to raise the lion’s share of the event’s proceeds… is expected to work for Free. And is usually under-appreciated for the professional services he/she provides.
I’m not trying to underscore the value of the invitations & programs, food, booze, music, and decorations. All are important in their own way. But each of these are “Expenses”. It is the Auctioneer who is going to bring “Revenue”… and thus, the “Profits”… into any event. Which is the ultimate objective of any Fundraising Auction.
Here is a real-life example of how under-appreciated the Auctioneer can be. In two comparable events we worked last year, during the dinner portion of the event one non-profit group sat the Auctioneer (me) at a table with the DJ, the Interns, the Volunteer Staff, and other event “Help”. The 2nd non-profit group sat the Auctioneer (me) directly next to the CEO of their organization, where we chatted about how important the pending revenue would be to their organization. Which group do you think valued the services of the Fundraising Auctioneer more?
Don’t ever under-estimate the value that a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can bring to your event. The Auctioneer adds value as a pre-event consultant. And the Auctioneer can change an event from a moderate to a huge success.
A Case Study Once I was scheduled to call an Auction for a major local non-profit group. They represented a very good cause and they had a strong and dedicated following. Their event was sold out, quality Live & Silent Auction items had been solicited, and the Special Pledge Appeal had been choreographed and was ready to go. The facility was first class, the appropriate caterer was booked, and the food was ready to cook.
But quite unexpectedly, some unseasonably inclement weather forced the event’s cancellation. Despite all of the committee’s hard work, cancelling the event was the proper decision considering the circumstances.
So the Event Committee scrambled to re-schedule the event for the following weekend.
They confirmed with the Hosting Facility.
They confirmed with the Caterer.
They confirmed with the Liquor Store.
They confirmed with the DJ.
They confirmed with the Florist.
Since they already had the Mailing List of those scheduled to attend, no new invitations had to be printed as all were contacted by email or telephone. So with everything in place, the group went ahead and re-scheduled the event for the following weekend.
But guess who they failed to confirm? You got it… the Professional Auctioneer. They thought so little of the Auctioneer’s contribution that they “assumed” that the Auctioneer would be available and at their beck and call.
But the Auctioneer already had another Fundraising Auction booked for that date with another non-profit group. It was only hour away from the re-scheduled event, and things could have been easily worked out. All Group #1 had to do was start their event one hour earlier, or one hour later, than the Group #2, and the Auctioneer could have helped both groups on the same day.
But because Group #1 failed to anticipate a possible Auctioneer conflict, because they failed to confirm with the Auctioneer before re-scheduling their event, their preferred Auctioneer had to bow out and they had to scramble to locate substitute “Volunteer” Auctioneer only days before their event.
And it cost them.
Learning Points
The Live Auction is usually where the profits are made at any Fundraising Auction.
A Professional Fundraising Auctioneer can be vital to the success of any Fundraising Auction.
The better Fundraising Auctioneers usually get booked quickly.
You need to recognize the important contributions that a good Auctioneer can make to your event.
Michael Ivankovich is a Bucks County Fundraising Auctioneer based in Doylestown PA, and serves the Great Philadelphia PA area. He has been a professionally licensed and bonded Auctioneer in Pennsylvania for nearly 20 years, has been named Pennsylvania’s Auctioneer of the Year, and has considerable experience in conducting Fundraising Auctions. Michael loves helping groups raise needed funds for good causes and one of his specialties is the “Special Pledge Appeal” or “Fund-A-Cause Appeal” which usually enables clients to double their revenue in a single evening.
How to Start a Small Business Online Today
Although many are drawn to the idea of having their own small internet business, many budding entrepreneurs do not know how to start a small business online.Have a Solid Business ModelThe first rule of how to start a small business online is to have a solid business model. There is no secret ‘push-button’ model to generating income online. There are many hyped-up schemes on the internet that promise that you will make millions of dollars for doing very little work by just pushing a few buttons. But these are just not reality. Having a small online business is just like any other business.However, a small internet business is scalable and enjoys higher margins and lower set up costs than a traditional ‘offline’ business. A solid business model for an online business has the prefect mixture of recurring income, affiliate income and high ticket income.Take ActionYou have to be willing to actually get started. The internet is a great resource and there a many articles, forums and websites that all provide information on how start a small business online. It is important to do research on the best business that suits you, but you have to commit and get started building a list of potential customers. This list of potential customers will become a valuable asset as you start to build a relationship with them. You need to provide valuable and relevant information to them to build their trust so that they will be willing to buy from you.Provide ValueAs mentioned above, one of the keys of how to start a small business online is to provide value. In the business world of the internet, if you give, you will receive. If you provide valuable information to your potential customers for free, they will be grateful for it and want more and will be willing to buy it. If you provide rubbish, they will think that you product is rubbish too.Generate TrafficA business online without traffic is like a shop in the back street of a old run-down town with no passers-by and nobody knows that it is there. If you really want to know how to start a small business online, you need practical skills to generate traffic to your website pages. Website traffic can either be free or paid for and they both have their advantages and disadvantages. But, with a skilled combination of both, you can have a long term stream of potential customers coming to your online business.Invest In EducationAs with any business, if you want to know how to start a small business online the most important skill you can learn, is marketing. There are many online business entrepreneurs who have gone before you. If they have had success with a business model that interests you, you can learn from their efforts. It is vital to have access to a community and mentors because learning from someone who’s already successful online will make a big difference to your results.The internet and the new digital economy has made it possible for many people to discover how to start a small business online. An online business does not require a bricks and mortar premises, staff, stock or large financial investment in inventory to make it a success. If you have a computer and access to the internet you can start straight away. You do not have to buy stock or worry about how to supply it to your customers and your online business can work for you whilst you are sleeping!