This post is a continuation of our previous article on how to open a PayPal account in the Philippines. If you don’t have a PayPal account yet, you can read that post to learn how to setup your own account. Remember that it is free to create an account. If you have already created your PayPal account, but have not verified it yet, this post shall guide you on the verification process.

According to PayPal, verification is not a requirement. However, getting verified will give you the following benefits:

• Send and receive money as much and as often as you like
• Boost your credibility with buyers and sellers worldwide
• Send payments instantly from your bank account
• Take advantage of exclusive services such as PayPal Seller Protection

When you first open a PayPal account without verifying your account, there is a limit on the amount of money you can send. Once you reach your limit, you’ll need to add a bank account, credit card or debit card to become verified in order to continue making transactions. Please see the image below.

Being a verified PayPal account holder will also boost your reputation and credibility as a seller or as a buyer. When you’re sending and receiving money online, the “Verified” status is your stamp of approval. It lets other members know that you are a confirmed PayPal member with a current bank account associated with your PayPal account.

A Verified PayPal account is also a proof that the holder has provided additional evidence of his or her identity to PayPal by passing key security checks and completing the PayPal Verification process. Verification increases the overall security of the PayPal network because most buyers prefer to do business with Verified PayPal account holders. Verification is also an important step when you have an online business and wants to accept credit card payments online. But take note that a verified status still doesn’t guarantee the member’s business practices. You still need to consider additional security measures to reduce risks, such as evaluating additional information and checking a member’s past reputation.


How to verify your PayPal account

The Verification process varies somewhat from country to country. In the US, a Verified member has either added and confirmed a bank account with PayPal or received approval for a PayPal Plus credit card. In the Philippines, you can verify your account by:

1. Confirming your email address
2. Adding a credit or debit card
3. Linking and confirming that card to your PayPal account

Confirming your email address is done during the setup of your PayPal account. But you can also add or edit your email address, and confirm them. To do that, just log in to your PayPal account, go to “My Account” tab, then to “Profile”, and select “Add/Edit Email”. See image below.


How to add your card to your account

Adding a credit or debit card to your PayPal account will raise your sending limit, give you the ability to withdraw funds from your PayPal account, and use it as a backup for funding. It will also confirm the address you indicated in your PayPal account.

To add a credit or debit card, just do the following (also see the image below):

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click the My Account main tab.
3. Click the Profile sub tab.
4. From the column, choose and click Add/Edit Credit Card
5. Fill out the Add Credit Card form.
6. Click Add Credit Card.

If you don’t have a credit card, you can use a debit card. In my case, I used an EON Visa Debit Card to verify my PayPal account. Here’s how you can apply an EON VISA Debit Card at Unionbank if you are in the Philippines. A VISA debit card works just like a credit card.


How to link and confirm your card

To link your card to your PayPal account and get it verified, you have to complete the Expanded Use Program enrollment. The following are the steps to enroll in the Expanded Use Program.

• Once you are logged in to your PayPal account, click the link Enroll in Expanded Use in the Activate Account column.

• Click the button Get Number to authorize PayPal to charge $1.95 USD to your card. Once you complete enrollment and make the first payment, PayPal will reimburse you $1.95 USD in your PayPal account. If you are using a prepaid or a debit card, make sure that your card has a balance fund to cover the amount that PayPal will charge you. In case you are using EON Visa Debit Card, make sure that it has a balance of at least Php200.

• Find the $1.95 USD charge in your next card statement. On the item description section, you will see the Expanded Use (EXPUSE) Number (a 4-digit number) next to the word PAYPAL.

If you can access your card statement online, you will see the number within 2-4 business days depending on the issuing bank. If you don’t have online access to your statement, you have to wait for your printed statement to arrive by mail. You may also contact your bank to know your PayPal EXPUSE Number.

• Once you have your EXPUSE Number, go back to your PayPal account, click the Finish Expanded Use Enrollment link on your Account Overview, and enter 4-digit numbers.

• After entering your Expanded Use Number correctly, you will complete your enrollment for PayPal’s Expanded Use Program. When you make the first payment with PayPal, it will reimburse you $1.95USD in your PayPal account.

If you are using Unionbank Credit card or EON VISA Debit Card for verifying your account, you can check Unionbank’s instructions on how to enroll in the PayPal’s Expanded Use Program.

If you have questions or experience to share about using PayPal, we can discuss it through our comment section below. Remember to always be a responsible and wise PayPal account holder. Shop from or sell only to trusted merchants.

PayPal is one of the business services that I’ve been using since I started my journey to blogging and making money online. It helps me buy the domain names, monthly web hosting, WordPress themes, and professional services for the development of my websites without giving my financial or credit card information to sellers. PayPal also facilitates some of my online transactions, such as receiving payments from clients online, whom I sell services or advertising space from this blog. PayPal has been my online buddy and payment gateway for a couple of years now. That is why I’m glad to introduce it to my audience for their consideration and give them an idea on how they can also leverage PayPal for their online businesses and other activities. To open a PayPal account is basically free. Here are the steps on how to open a PayPal account in the Philippines.


1. Go to PayPal website

Go to PayPal website PayPal website and click the signup button at the top to signup for a new account.

2. Create your PayPal account

After clicking on the signup button, choose your country or region. After that, choose the type of account that is right for you. There are 3 types of PayPal accounts, namely, Personal, Premier and Business.

The following are their different features:

a. Personal – this type of account is recommended for individuals who shop and pay online, or wish to send or receive personal payments for shared expenses such as splitting of dinner bills or rental charges. As its name suggests, this account is best for personal uses. If you are a regular seller online who wants to receive payments online, this account is not recommended due to higher transaction rates and limited capabilities.

b. Premier – this account is recommended for casual sellers or non-businesses who wish to get paid online, and who also make online purchases. This type of account is usually used by Internet professionals and freelancers, who don’t use a company or registered business name, to accept payments from their clients online.

c. Business – this is recommended for companies or merchants who operate under a company/group name. It offers additional features such as allowing up to 200 employees limited access to your account and customer service email alias for customer issues to be routed for faster follow-ups.

Take note that according to PayPal, they allow members to have one Personal account and one Premier or Business account. However, each PayPal account must contain unique email addresses and financial information. There is also no cost to setup any of the type of account. You may upgrade your account at any time.

If you want to receive credit card or debit card payments online from selling items or services on your own website or from other classifieds or marketplaces on the Internet, a Premier or Business account is recommended, as Personal account has higher transaction fees and has a limited capability of receiving credit or debit card funded payments. You may read our article on how to accept credit card payments online using PayPal.


3. Enter your information and activate your account

After choosing and clicking on the right type of PayPal account for your needs, you will be asked to enter your information, such as your email address (the one you will use to log in to PayPal), password, name, date of birth, nationality, address, phone number, et cetera.

PayPal will also ask you to link your credit card so that you can already verify your account right away. But you can escape this process for the meantime and proceed to the agreement and creation of your account. However, take note that verifying your account with your credit or debit card will give you more spending power since the sending limit on your account is removed. It will also give you the ability to withdraw your fund from your account. Furthermore, having a verified account will give you a “verified status” that increases your reputation as a seller or as a buyer. We will discuss in detail the verification process of your PayPal account in our next post.

After filling up your information, read PayPal’s user Agreement. It’s always important to read agreements and policies before agreeing on them. After reading and agreeing to them, you can now click “create your account” to almost complete the creation of your account. I said almost because you still need to do the following step.


4. Confirm your email address

After creating your account, you still need to confirm the email address you use to create your account. You can do this by going to your email’s inbox, opening the email that PayPal send you to confirm your account, and by clicking on the activation link found on the email. Once you click the activation link, you will be redirected to PayPal’s confirmation page and will ask your password to confirm your account. From there, enter the password you’ve just created and click confirm.

After confirming and activating your account, you can now sign in to you account and start using PayPal. To learn more about verifying your PayPal account to maximize your spending power, have higher withdrawal limits, increase security, and boost your credibility, please stay tuned for our next post.

To learn the different fees that PayPal charges for different transactions, please visit PayPal Fees page.

Do you have any question or experience to share about PayPal? Let’s discuss them in the comment section below.

Disclaimer: Although, I’ve been using PayPal for a number of years now and have not encountered any problem so far, I don’t guarantee that using it will not give anyone a problem. PayPal is a convenient and safe way to pay and receive money online. However, PayPal account holders must still take strict measures to prevent fraudulent transactions that may cause them financial damages or losses. It is advisable to transact or deal only with trusted sellers or buyers. It is also wise to always read PayPal terms and know your rights as a seller or as a buyer. Please check also the different fees charged by PayPal before using its service to know the cost of your transaction. This article includes our PayPal affiliate link. This means that every time we refer a new and qualified member, we may have a chance to earn a referral income in the future.

If you sell items on eBay, Etsy, on your own website, on online forums or other marketplaces on the Internet, your customers may choose to pay you using their credit cards. This may also be the same case if you’re a skilled worker who provides professional services online, your clients may also prefer to be charged through their credit cards.

PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay, Inc., is a global ecommerce business that allows anyone to pay and get paid online. It is one of the most widely used online payment gateway worldwide. PayPal is available in 190 markets and 24 currencies around the world. It enables global ecommerce by making payments possible across different locations, currencies, and languages.

If you want to receive credit card payments from your customers online, PayPal may be just the easiest and most convenient way to use. If you will browse classifieds online or check items to buy at various online stores, you will most probably see a PayPal button option for payment. Online stores, Internet professionals, and even charitable websites use PayPal to accept payments or donations online.

Here are some tips and guidelines on how you may start to accept credit card payments online using PayPal:


Signup for a PayPal premier or business account

Go to PayPal website and create a Premier or a Business PayPal account. There are three types of PayPal account, namely, personal, premier and business.

Personal account is recommended for individuals who shop and pay online, or wish to send or receive personal payments for shared expenses such as splitting of dinner bills or rental charges. If you are a regular seller online who wants to receive payments online, this account is not recommended due to higher transaction rates and unlimited capabilities.

Premier account is recommended for casual sellers or non-businesses who wish to get paid online, and who also make online purchases.

Business account is recommended for merchants who operate under a company/group name. It offers additional features such as allowing up to 200 employees limited access to your account and customer service email alias for customer issues to be routed for faster follow-ups.

All these PayPal accounts actually allow you to send and receive payments. However, it is not recommended that regular sellers open a Personal account to receive online payments, as the transaction fees are higher and only premier and business accounts can accept unlimited credit card or debit card payments.


Verify your PayPal account

Get your account verified to improve your PayPal reputation and free yourself from limitations. Once you’re verified, you can:

• Send and receive money as much and as often as you like
• Boost your credibility with buyers and sellers worldwide
• Send payments instantly from your bank account
• Take advantage of exclusive services such as PayPal Seller Protection
• Getting Verified Means More Security for You

You can verify your account by adding your bank account or by adding a credit card.

For the first method, just add and confirm a bank account. PayPal will send your account two small deposits. Enter these deposits on the PayPal website. Answer a quick confirmation phone call from their third-party authentication service to validate your information, and you’re all set.

To get verified using your credit card, provide them with your info. They’ll make two small charges to your card. Return to PayPal and enter those charges along with the adjacent code as they appear on your credit card statement. PayPal reimburse you for the charges and you’ll be verified.

In the Philippines, if you don’t have a credit card, you can use Unionbank’s EON Debit Card to verify your account. The EON VISA Debit Card works just like a credit card.

Remember that the verification process may be different from countries to countries. In the US, a Verified member has either added and confirmed a bank account with PayPal or received approval for a PayPal Plus credit card. To learn more about PayPal’s verification process, please read PayPal’s verification FAQ.


Use PayPal’s merchant services

After verifying your premier or business account, go to PayPal’s Merchant Services/Tools to accept credit cards, bank transfers, debit cards, PayPal funds and more. PayPal has the following 3 solutions to meet your online business needs.

1. PayPal Website Payments Standard – This is an easy, quick way to start accepting credit cards online. A simple integration into your shopping cart allows your customers to pay securely and easily.

2. PayPal Email Payments – This is an easy, quick way to start accepting credit cards online. A simple integration into your shopping cart allows your customers to pay securely and easily.

3. PayPal as an Additional Payment Option – Give your customers another way to pay by adding PayPal.

With PayPal Website Payments Standard, you can create the following payment buttons on your website:

• Add to Cart button – Sell multiple items at a time (free PayPal shopping cart available).

• Buy Now button – Sell one item at a time.

• Subscribe button – Collect recurring or subscription fees.

• Donate button – Accept credit card and bank account donations on your website or via email.

• Buy Gift Certificate – Sell your own, personalized gift certificates on your website.

To create a PayPal payment button, just choose a button type and enter your payment details. You may also optionally track inventory, profit and loss, and customize advanced features.

PayPal Payments Standard has no setup or monthly pay. However, PayPal will charge you per transaction. To see the updated merchant fees, please visit this page.


Personal Note

I’ve been using PayPal for a couple of years now to send and receive money online. I’m using a premier account, which is verified through a Unionbank EON Debit card. With this, I can accept payments from clients for my professional services online. This is also what I am using to receive payments from direct advertisers on this blog. For me, PayPal is a very convenient way to shop on the Internet, do business with online clients, and perform other transactions online.

Disclaimer: This article includes links to affiliate programs, which may give us commission for referrals.

To start a business is challenging. Attaining business success is even more challenging. But making that success long-lasting is perhaps the most challenging of all. Business success is not easy to achieve. That is why when it lands on our hand, we should do our best to maintain and enhance it.

Success in business may come in many forms. It can be business stability or an outstanding financial performance. An enterprise can also be considered successful if it receives praises from the community or it makes its employees and customers’ lives better. Here are some tips on how to make your business success long-lasting.


Plan your success

Establish the success you want to achieve on your heart and mind before it comes to reality. In other words, plan your success clearly. If you want to achieve long-lasting success in business, you’ve got to really intend to attain a lasting success. With that long-term success in mind, you must also be determined to execute the difficult steps and procedures to reach that long-term goal. Remember that the more permanent success you want to achieve, the tougher actions you need to accomplish.

You have to strengthen your business purpose, mission, vision, and core values. To have a long-lasting success, your business purpose should also be long-lasting.

Your vision should be great. It should see a business that helps a lot of people or even help the world. Your mission should be more challenging. It should compose of more challenging actions. Your core values should be righteous. They should be just, honorable and acceptable.

They all should collaborate to help you achieve a long-lasting success in business.


Complete your success

The kind of success that lasts longer is one that is more concentrated. Thus, if you are just starting your business, focus on achieving one kind of success first before you jump into striving to get other successes. Don’t expand your business if you haven’t achieved any kind of success yet. Don’t be easy to be lured by unexpected opportunities which are actually hidden distractions that may only ruin your original goal. In other words, you have to stick to your plan.

Diversifying your business investments may be a good move. However, diversifying is better if you have already succeeded on one investment that will serve as your mother investment. Trying to diversify your business at the early stage may only result to a diluted business. You may gain several successes, but those successes may not be big, concentrated, and long-term.

Hence, focus to achieve one particular success first that will serve as your mother success before you try to achieve more types of success or before you expand and diversify your business. For example, don’t open new stores or branches if you haven’t succeeded yet on your original store or branch.

Be persistent and don’t give up until you achieve your leading success.


Reproduce your success

Once you’ve got your first success, it’s time to multiply it. Use your tried-and-tested formula to success to repeat more successes. For example, if you have proven an effective management system to increase your business productivity, continue utilizing it. You may also further develop that system to use it in your other line of business or in your other business locations.

Your first success signals your succeeding successes. This can be the right time to expand or diversify your business. This may also be the right time to encourage more investors to invest more capital on your company. Hence, leverage your assets and potential resources to develop this success and let it bear new and succeeding successes.


Share your success

Share your blessings. A tree that bears good fruits and enjoyed by many can hardly be cut down. If your business enjoys success and that success also benefits your consumers, employees and the community, the world will always want your success to last long.

Don’t just claim all the credits to yourself, but be grateful to everyone who contributes to your success. Remember that you owe your sales or revenues to your customers and your productivity to your workers.

When you share success (i.e., money, honor, etc.,) to your team or workers, they become happier, more motivated and more productive. They become loyal and more inspired to help you maintain and boost the success you have on your business.

When you share your business success to your customers, they feel more valued and special. They also build trust and confidence in doing more business to you.

When you share success to the society, it inspires a lot of people. It gives your business and brand a good name and reputation.

Hence, don’t forget to stay humble, just and kind-hearted.


Conclusion

Business success starts from the time you thought of it. Thus, if you have established a great kind of success on your mind and made it a plan, there is a better chance that your success will be long-lasting. Remember that success is a result. It is a result of careful planning, execution, completion, and reproduction. So make them all work together.

Whether there is an economic boom or recession, small businesses will always have the opportunity to attain growth. They just need to be resourceful and actually grab those opportunities rather than wait for them. If you’re running a small or a medium enterprise, here are 7 basic steps on how to grow your small business.

1. Establish your foundation

To ensure your business growth, it should be built on a strong foundation. This foundation should be composed of your purpose, vision, mission, core values and principles. They have to be deep and strong enough to warrant the development of business.

Find a deeper purpose. Find something that can make people’s lives better or something that can change the world. Remember that you purpose is what remains in your heart. The size of your business growth will depend on your purpose. If you have a deeper purpose, you will have stronger roots. The stronger roots you have, the taller your business will grow.

Avoid making money your only purpose. That will only make you love money, which can be the root of all wickedness.

Have a clear vision. What do you want your business to become in the future? It should be realistic so that your direction will be straightforward.

Have a great mission. Your mission should be supported with a strategic plan, which consists of the specific actions you need to achieve your goals. Take note that mission is execution. It’s not a dream, but a series of actions. Make your mission collaborative to your purpose and vision.

Your values and principles will form the shape of your business. That is why you have to ensure that they are the right ones that will give the right shape of your business. Take a look at Facebook’s five core values that have shaped up the social network company to become one of the most famous and most inspiring in our era.


2. Develop yourself

You are the captain of your own business. Thus, if you want to grow your business, you have to grow yourself first. Personal development is a continuing process. Hence, you have to continue learning and acquiring more knowledge.

You cannot attain personal growth if you doubt yourself. To overcome your doubts and fears, investigate things. Justify what’s running on your mind. Are they real? Are they right? Gather information and realize what’s right and what’s wrong. Having the ability to discern what’s right from wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

But business wisdom is not enough. You need understanding. To gain understanding, you have to practice what you know and what you choose. Gain experience to gain understanding. If you haven’t tried yet to be diligent and patient on your work, then tried it over and over again. Try to care for your customers. If you have employees, try your best to love them.

Do your best to execute the right decisions you made until you break your bad habits and you develop good habits. Good business habits, such as hardworking, punctuality, patience, honesty and persistence will help you grow your business. Avoid the following 12 bad habits that could ruin your business.


3. Build up your team

Developing yourself is a great start and a great way to grow your business. But if you have a more developed team, it would be better.

Don’t be a one-man company. Consider outsourcing services from third party providers. It will increase your cost, but will also boost your revenue if you will do it the right way. To decide whether outsourcing is the right move or not, compare the cost of outsourcing a task against the revenue you will forgo if you will do the task by yourself. If you have the money and outsourcing is the most favorable choice, then go for it. Remember that by delegating your other tasks, you can have more time to focus on your core activities that generate more income for your business.

There are jobs that you can’t be delegated to service outsourcing companies or professionals. These jobs require in-house employees. If you want to grow your business, consider hiring people to be part of your team. Consider making your business an organization.

Once you organize people to be part of your business. It’s time to be an effective manager or a leader. Grow your business not only by developing yourself, but also by developing your human resources. Train them well, make them feel valued, and keep them motivated.


4. Increase your assets

If you want to expect growth and increase in return, you have to infuse assets on your business. We cannot just wait for our profits to accumulate and grow our equity.

You can make additional investments from your own pocket. If you have personal cash savings or earning income from other sources, you may invest more cash to your business to increase your assets. If you have real or personal properties, like land, building, or equipment that can be utilized on your business, you may consider putting them to become part of your income generating assets.

You may also try to obtain loans from the bank, credit cooperative, financing company or from government institutions, which provide short-term and low interest loans to small and medium enterprises. They may require collateral or a good credit score. They may also require your financial statements or your proof of income. Getting loans will increase your assets by increasing your liabilities. However, you will have to pay for finance charge or interest.

Another way to boost your assets aside from getting liabilities is to boost your capital or equity. This can be done by accepting business partners or investors to your business. All fully grown companies are owned not only by one person but by several persons. Most of them become corporations. If you think it’s the perfect time to incorporate, then don’t run your business alone. Welcome partners and co-owners.


5. Adapt to new environment

Technology is fast changing; consumers are also evolving. Thus, business owners and entrepreneurs should adapt to these changing environments.

Don’t be the last to leverage the power of the Internet. Consider having a website for your business, which will become your online presence that can be accessed by Internet users 24/7 anywhere.

Manage your brand on social media, where most people are now lurking. Build up your presence on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, and other top social networking sites. Network and socialize with your social media followers and friends to create good and lasting relationship.

With the Internet becoming the prime media for business marketing, don’t leave your business in the dark. Leverage the channels where you can use to promote and optimize your business. Make your company website and pages appear on search engines, like Google, where billions of people are searching online. Make your company website accessible not only on computers, but also on mobile phones, which already become the common and necessary gadget for everyone.

The world is evolving, and your business should adapt to those changes. If you won’t innovate, you might find your business drying and dying. But though, still consider preserving the things that your consumers have loved over the years. Thus, you may innovate your business tools and strategies, but still maintain your original business taste.


6. Grow your customers

The real growth of a business isn’t only measured by the growth of its assets, equity, or market value. We should also see to it that our customers are growing. Are we changing the lives of our consumers? Are we giving them the answers and solutions to their questions and problems?

To effectively serve our clients or customers, we need to analyze our market. You have to be an effective marketer, who doesn’t only prioritize promotion, but also the other Ps of marketing, that is, product, price and place.

Listen to your customers’ feedback. Consider not only what they need today, but also what they will need in the future. Be an advanced marketer.

Wow your customers by giving them extra services. Give them more than they are expecting. If you can do that, you can expect loyal customers.

Maintain good and lasting relationships. Business is not all about making money, but it is also about making relationships, particularly friendships.

If you want to grow your business, grow the people whom you serve.


7. Help the community

Be socially responsible. Your business is part of the society. And if you want to make it grow, you also have to contribute growth to the community. What’s the use of a profitable business, if it doesn’t help people? A business is not considered successful if it destroys the environment, doesn’t promote the economy, and doesn’t fulfill its social responsibility.

Hence, make your business useful to the society. Have a cause. Be green and protect our planet. Be a friend of the public and strive to change the world.

Be an inspiration to everyone.

Lift up your business by uplifting the lives of many people.


Conclusion

Grow your business by building up every part of it. Start by strengthening your foundation, that is, by establishing your purpose, mission, vision, and core values and principles. After strengthening your business foundation, develop the people that compose it: you, your team, your customers, and the society. Make everyone collaborate each other for your business, not only the people, but also our ever evolving technology and economy. When everyone and everything is collaborating for your business, it will grow smoothly.

What you do repeatedly and what becomes your behavioral routine that tends to occur unconsciously is considered a habit. Good habits are helpful to life, while bad habits could be destructive.

When it comes to doing business, whether it is small or big, it is important that we do our best to break our bad habits that could be deadly to our business. However, we cannot overcome something we don’t know. Hence, the first step to breaking those negative habits is to actually realize that we are having them.

So let’s have a personal reality check if we have any of the following 12 bad habits that could kill or ruin our business.


1. Lying

Do you tell the truth to your customers? Do you deliver what you promise to them when you promote or advertise your business? How about your employees? Are you showing honesty and giving them the benefits you’ve promised when you are convincing them to work in your company?

Lying can be a habit. And if you are used to lie, it could be deadly to your business. If you always lie to your customers and employees, you cannot earn their trust, loyalty and confidence, which are very important to make your business healthy. This bad habit can give your business a bad word-of-mouth from disappointed and dissatisfied customers. It can also make your employees unmotivated and unproductive.

To get rid of lying, you have to practice honesty with all sincerity. It must start within you. Don’t lie to yourself. Realize what you’ve promised to yourself. Report yourself faithfully – declare the right taxes. If you can cheat yourself, then how much more other people?


2. Fearfulness

Doubts and worries kill a business because they hinder opportunities that our business needs to grow. They stop us from investing money, time and effort in a fear that they might only go wasted. They prevent us from getting out from our comfort zone and reach our maximum potential.

Being worried can be a habit if you will not do something to overcome it. But how can we get rid of our worries? How can we overcome the habit of fearfulness? The answer is to develop another habit – the habit of boldness and acquiring knowledge. Remember that fear is the result of uncertainty or the lack of knowledge. Hence, to overcome that darkness, you have to light your mind with wisdom and knowledge.


3. Lack of respect

Respect is an important element of a good and lasting relationship. In business where good relationships should be maintained with our customers and employees, the habit of not showing respect will certainly destroy those relationships, and eventually our business.

Everyone deserves his or her due respect: a customer, an employee or even yourself. Hence, respect your consumers’ feedback, your workers’ right to welfare, and give yourself self-respect. Here are two of our articles that will give you ideas on how to show respect to your customers and how to earn your employees’ respect.


4. Not paying attention

You might be paying and investing money on your business and expecting high return. But business is not all about paying cash or its equivalent. Business is also about paying attention – detailed attention.
Being busy is not an excuse to spend your precious time for ensuring that your decision and actions are heading the right way. You have to pay attention to what your customers and workers are telling.

You don’t just start producing a product because you think it will give you more profit. But you have to listen to and analyze your customers to know what kind of product they really need.

You don’t just assign your employees to a certain task because it is what will save you from labor cost. But you have to evaluate them to know how to assign them to tasks that will optimize their talents and skills.

Most business owners also have a bad habit of not paying attention to what their body is telling them. Like for example when needing some rest or sleep to give our body the time to recover from the stressful work and business activities. Here, we also have to pay attention to our health. This is because not paying attention to a good health isn’t only deadly to our business, but also to our precious life.


5. Arrogance

Pride and arrogance could kill your business because they drive away friends and followers. Arrogant business owners irritate customers. Proud and conceited managers demoralize their subordinates. That is why if you don’t what to ruin your business, you have to learn how to humble yourself in front of people. Remember that good leadership and human resource management are vital to business success. And if you wish to be a good leader and a manager, you have to be humble to inspire and motivate people.


6. Laziness

How this bad habit would kill your business seems to be self-explanatory. But to ring a bell, here are some specific inauspicious things you would do that will destroy your business if indolence is one your habits:

• You are lazy to wakeup early in the morning to start your work.
• You are lazy to read business books, magazines, blogs and other resources that will help you improve your knowledge in business.
• You are lazy to read and understand your financial and accounting reports.
• You are lazy to organize your stuff inside and out of your computer to make your daily activities run efficiently.
• You are lazy to make a business and marketing plan.
• You are lazy to check if your plans are running well.
• You are lazy to monitor and evaluate your employees performance
• You are lazy to analyze your customers and market

Those things above are only some of the things that can ruin your business courtesy of laziness. In order to stop this habit, you have to change your lifestyle, which may involve developing your physical, mental, and emotional strength… and endurance. Laziness is a hard habit to break. But if you will start breaking it earlier, the faster you can break it. So just do it!


7. Greediness

The true essence of doing business for me is to serve and help people. If one business person is always greedy, then his greed would destroy the essence and soul of his business. Greed can be one person’s habit, especially if he’s already practicing it regularly. A businessman, entrepreneur or marketer can be greedy if he will always think of his self-interest rather than the interest of others.

Greed has something to do with the love of money, which could really kill a business. When a business person only thinks of the profit he will earn without prioritizing the satisfaction of his customers, his business will not live long because customers will not come back to buy his products again.

A greedy boss would not also make the people in his company united, motivated and productive.

A greedy business partner is not also a reliable person to deal business with.

So make yourself selfless by starting to think what you can do for others.

Isn’t what you do to others is what they will also do to you?


8. Sadness

Always feeling sadness can be a silent killer of your business. It can knock you, the people you managed, and your business down. It can destroy your enthusiasm and will to succeed. Remember that you cannot motivate and uplift other people, especially your team, if you are always feeling down. Therefore, have the habit of being positive and being cheerful. Always find a reason to be happy and thankful. Be grateful that you are alive and you are helping the lives of other people.


9. Gluttony

Everything that is too much can hurt us. Squandering can hurt our finances. Too much eating and drinking can also hurt our health, as well as our cash savings. Gluttony also destroys our self-discipline – an important virtue we need to succeed in our every endeavor. Hence, don’t gorge yourself on meat, wine, and women (for men). Learn how to be frugal and how to have self-control. Overcome gluttony if you don’t want to be shocked how your hard-earned money disappear in an instant.


10. Unpreparedness

If you don’t like terrible accidents or tragedies, then don’t make recklessness your habit. We may need to compete in the business world and even need to win in a race. But it’s not all about racing against time. We race against failure. Thus, we have to be prudent. We need to be calm and always come up with a plan.


11. Procrastination

Who’s not guilty of procrastination? If you’re habitually a procrastinator, you probably have a lot of pending tasks at this moment. Delaying the execution of your to do list will only result to work overload. In that situation, you tend to experience cramming and eventually… total failure.

Procrastination has many causes, which include hesitation, exhaustion, distraction, intimidation, self-defense, too much imagination, and unfavorable emotion. On the other hand, it also has cures, which include education, passion, concentration, companion, obligation, actualization, and motion. To learn more about the causes and cures of procrastination, you may read this interesting short post about the friends and enemies of procrastination.


12. Impatience

Patience is a great virtue. If you’re naturally and habitually a patient person, you are more likely to attain your goals. But if you’re the opposite, you are like a time bomb that is ticking to explode.

Impatience can easily make you give up on your goals, especially your long-term goals where there are more challenges to overcome.

The lack of tolerance can also make you easily angry with your subordinates. It pushes you to being wrathful instead of being gentle and understanding. Hatred corrupts a person, as well as the organization he leads.

Achieving success and lasting growth in business is a journey that needs a lot of patience. Thus, if you are lacking it, your business will only die at the middle of your journey.

Therefore, be patient by making it a habit. Make it a habit by practicing and training patience. Practice it by pushing a little bit harder everyday. Train your body, mind and emotion to be stronger and more enduring. Actually, healthy and cheerful person are a lot more patient than person who are distressed and exhausted.


Final thoughts

Bad habits are ruining our business, career and whole life silently. We may not notice them because they already become a big part of our life because of doing them repeatedly over the years. To overcome these bad habits, we need to change our lifestyle. And when we say changing lifestyle, it doesn’t only means doing your best to change it for a day. To change a lifestyle is to strive everyday until you form a new you.

Finally, forming a new you is forming a complete person… with new eyes, ears, heart, mind and spirit. Therefore, if for example you want to break the habit of procrastination, do your best to break the causes of your procrastination that you see (like watching TV), hear (like listening to gibberish talks), want (like your unachievable dreams), think (like your doubts and worries) and do (like your comfort zone).

In other words, get yourself completely out of that bad habit!

For small and medium business owners, who can’t compete against their bigger competitors when it comes to advertising budget, there are other ways to advertise their products without spending a dime and still emerge victorious in their respective market competition. When we don’t have enough cash in the bank or in our pocket to spend in the promotion of our products, we should use this asset that we always have since we were born – our precious time.

Time is gold. That is why we should use and invest it on our business. We have to spend time for learning and discovering how we can succeed and accomplish our business and marketing goals even if we only have limited bucks.

Be resourceful. Here are 48 ways to advertise your business for free online and offline.


Blogging

1. Set up a blog for your business using free online blogging software, like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, TypePad.com or Tumblr.

2. Update your blog regularly by publishing interesting and useful blog posts that are related to your business or to your audience.

3. Comment on other related blogs to connect with other bloggers and also promote your own blog.

4. Answer comments and queries on your blog.

5. Learn SEO (search engine optimization) and rank your business blog pages on search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

6. Write guest post for blogs that are relevant to your business.

7. Place an email subscription widget on your blog to invite your readers to subscribe to your blog’s updates and newsletter.

8. Submit your blog listing to various blog directories.

9. Submit your blog’s RSS feed to various RSS directories.

10. Bookmark your blogs posts on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking sites.


Social media

11. Create a Facebook business page and share updates about your business.

12. Share your Facebook page updates in your personal profile/timeline so that they can be shared to your personal friends. Make sure to share only what you believe will catch their interest.

13. Indicate on your Facebook personal profile/timeline’s about page that you work at your business.

14. Join Facebook groups that are related to your business. Promote your business on the group in conformity to the group’s rules and policies.

15. Create a Twitter profile for your business and tweet updates about your brand and products.

16. Create a Google+ business page and share your business updates.

17. Create a LinkedIn profile for your business and share your company news and updates.

18. Claim your business listing on Google Places.

19. Claim your business venue on Foursquare.

20. Create Squidoo lens for your business.

21. Post content related to your business at Hubpages.


Document sharing

22. Create an account and share useful presentation at Slideshare.net. Give a credit to your company.

23. Create accounts and upload useful PDF documents at Scribd and Docstoc. Give a credit link to your company.


Image sharing

24. Create a Pinterest account for your business and pin images of your products and other business deals.

25. Create accounts on Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and Instagr.am and publish images about your business, brand and products.

26. Create an interesting photo that will become viral. Put a credit to your brand.


Video Sharing

27. Create a Youtube Channel for your business and publish videos about your products.

28. Create profiles on other video sharing sites, like MetaCafe, Vimeo and DailyMotion.

29. Create a viral video and upload it on the video sites above, including Facebook.


Other Internet marketing techniques

30. Join online forums where potential customers are gathering. Put your business phrase or link on your forum signature. Help people on the online community.

31. Put your business, brand and blog link on your email signature.

32. Post a free ad on Craiglist and other free classified sites on the Internet.

33. Create your personal profile at About.me and include your business in your profile information.

34. Submit your business listing to various free business directories online.

35. Write a useful eBook that targets readers who are potential customers. Give credit to your company or business.


Offline marketing

36. Tell your friends and relatives about your business.

37. Ask your friends to tell their friends about your business.

38. Ask your employees to advertise your business to their friends and relatives. Learn how to make your employees love you.

39. Ask your suppliers to make referrals to you. Create good and lasting relationship with your suppliers.

40. Ask your loyal customers to advertise your business to their friends and relatives.

41. Gather positive testimonials from clients.

42. Nominate your blog or business for an award.

43. Submit proposals or accept invitations for speakership. Put your business or brand on your slide show presentations and other training materials.

44. Write columns for magazines and newspaper.

45. Accept interview invitations on radio stations and TV channels.

46. Join contests and have some fun.

47. Attend free events that are related to your business or profession. Make friends and exchange business cards.

48. Create a quality product that advertises itself.

The list above can be done without spending money, but only with your precious time and attention. However, if we have some money to invest, we can also mix it up with some wise spending to optimize our business. For example, instead of creating a free blog, we can opt to invest on a self-hosted website or blog using WordPress for an affordable cost, which actually have a favorable return of investment. Remember that small businesses should not just rely on free business promotion. Check out our previous post on how to make your small business look big.

There are still other free ways to advertise your business that are not included in the list above. Thus, we need to continue exploring the world to discover new business and marketing opportunities. So don’t stop learning and be a better business person, marketer, and entrepreneur, especially in this times where information can already be accessed in one click anytime and anywhere.

It doesn’t mean you have a small business you will not already think bigger and do better. Having a tiny company with a little invested capital should not be a hindrance to making a big difference in the business world. It should not be an excuse to do your best in providing quality and satisfaction to customers. It should not also be an alibi to lose in a fair business competition.

Small businesses have the power to stand out from the crowd despite of their size. They can even prevail over their bigger competitors if they will be driven to the right path. Small business owners and entrepreneurs just need to be creative, determined, consistent and updated to look bigger and to be actually tougher.

Remember that the true size of a business is not only measured by its financial assets or equity. Hence, you can actually make your small business look bigger and be actually greater than the rest of your competition. Here are 18 tips that will help you do that.


1. Have an updated company website

It will give you an online presence which is accessible online by billions of Internet users anytime and anywhere. Through a website, you can showcase your products and interact with your customers online. Website development can be affordable for small businesses. You can use a free CMS (content management system) script like WordPress. Here are reasons why you should use WordPress for your small business website.

You may also create a blog as an integrated part of your website. You can use it to publish regular and fresh contents that are relevant to your brand and are useful to your audience. You may read our post why you should blog about your business. Blogging isn’t costly when it comes to money spent. However, you should invest more time to update it and maintain connection with your followers or customers.


2. Get a customized email address

If you will build a website and register your own domain name, you may also setup your own customized company email address. Instead of using contactyourcompanyname@gmail.com or contactyourcompanyname@yahoo.com, you may use a more professional email address like contact@yourcompanyname.com.


3. Create a Facebook business page

Creating a Facebook page for your business is free. Hence, there is no reason why you shouldn’t build one on the world’s largest social networking site to promote your brand to hundreds of millions of Facebook users online. You can also target specific audience, based on specific location and demographics for a better marketing campaign. Here are a number of benefits you can gain on creating a Facebook Page for your small business.


4. Create other social media business profile

If you want to make your small business look bigger, don’t just limit your presence on Facebook, but also expand to other top social media sites, like Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Youtube, Linkedin and Foursquare.


5. Optimize the Internet search engines

Small business owners, especially those who are skilled Internet marketers or SEO (search engine optimizers), can dominate the search engines. Google alone have billions of users or people who are using the search engine to search information. If you want to make your small business big, learn how to do SEO or consider hiring a SEO specialist. Here’s a post to give you an idea on how to make your business show up on Google.


6. Professionalize and build a brand

Invest some few bucks and spend some time on designing and creating your business card, letterhead, and other professional business and communication documents. A company logo and slogan are also vital in promoting your brand. If you sell goods, you may consider creating a package with your logo and slogan. Remember, that you don’t need to be a giant corporation to add a brand on every product or service you provide to your customers.


7. Rent an office space if you can

If you regularly meet up with your clients, making coffee shops and restaurants as your meeting place can be a hassle. Consider renting an office space if you have extra fund or extra revenue to cover the corresponding expense. It will save you from transportation and representation expense. Furthermore, having a dedicated office or place of business makes your business look bigger.


8. Invest on dedicated telephone line

If you’re running a home office, having a telephone line and a fax machine exclusively for your business can facilitate your business communications and transactions. Never ever use your home telephone for your business.


9. Don’t be a one-man company

You don’t need to hire hundreds of employees to look bigger. You can hire a few competitive people to be part of your business team. Also consider delegating and outsourcing some of your tasks to third parties or experts so that you can focus on your core business activities, which generate more income. Remember that to make your small business bigger, you need to disclose your team, either on your company profile or company website. Hence, consider assembling fulltime or part-time co-workers whom you will introduce to the public or to specific people.


10. Incorporate

Corporations are more likely to earn bigger impression from potential customers than partnerships or sole proprietorship. Incorporation may require additional costs on formation and complying with reportorial requirements. However, having a corporate business may earn more respect and confidence from the public and other related sectors. Depending on the corporate laws of a country, the minimum paid-up capital may actually be affordable for small business owners. In the Philippines, the minimum paid up capital requirement for starting a corporation is only Php 5,000, which should be not less than 25% of the subscribed capital, and the subscribed capital should not also be less than 25% of the authorized capital stock.


11. Be affiliated

Join business and professional associations or organizations depending on your industry. For example, if you are an advertising agency in the Philippines, you may join for membership in the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies (4AS) in the Philippines. For other industries, you may visit and check the directory of associations in the Philippines. Once you become a member or affiliated on certain associations, you may include them on your business card, website, and letterhead as additional strength that may increase the confidence of your customers.


12. Dress professionally

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s cofounder and CEO, is always seen at his casual dress and even at his sandals while working. But of course, if you are the president and CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, you can freely choose your signature outfit while on the work. Although a formal dress is not required for small business owners, it will add up to your professional look and impression from your clients. It will also make your client feel important. Remember that Zuckerberg chose to wear coat when he had a meeting with a very important person – the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.


13. Have a lot of friends

Don’t just promote and advertise your products offline, online, and particularly, on social media… but create lasting relationships. Good friends are priceless assets of a business. That is why we should strive to look and retain them. Big companies, especially those who become monopolists in the eyes of consumers, may become enemies of the public. Small businesses are closer to the masses. Thus, make it an opportunity to befriend the community.


14. Make yourself bigger and better

Do you want to make your business look bigger? Then make first its owner bigger and better. As the owner of your own business, don’t stop learning. You may continue your professional education by attending seminars, trainings, short courses or post-graduate courses to get certifications and further increase your professional value.


15. Collect a list of good testimonials

Business and professional certifications can help your business increase its value. But actual testimonials from satisfied customers can do better since it shows one of your ultimate business goals – customer loyalty and satisfaction. So if you want your business to look bigger and more trustworthy than the rest of your competition, strive to serve your best and get a long list of positive testimonials from truly satisfied customers.


16. Be a speaker

Consider making proposals for speakerships, or, if you have invitations for speakership, accept them. It will help yourself and your business be promoted to more audience. Educating and inspiring people can also be part of your social responsibility. Remember that the more exposure you have and the more responsibility you fulfill, the bigger your business will be.


17. Be a writer

If you’re good at writing or have great and useful ideas to write, you may intensify your blogging activities and achieve more exposure online. The more unique and useful blog posts you’ll write, the more your business blog will grow. You may also write and submit guest posts to top blogs that are relevant to your business to earn more exposure and authority.


18. Be a big help to your community

The true size of a business isn’t measured through the size of its financial assets or equity. No matter how big your business is… if it’s useless to the community, it still can’t be considered a really big enterprise. Thus, if you want to make your small business look bigger, and actually greater in the minds of many people… be helpful and be a solution. Make your business more socially responsible. Make a difference and do something to change the world into a better place to live. There are many ways to help your community as a business person, such as protecting our environment, promoting health and education, preserving your local culture and heritage, and many others.


Final thoughts

The greatest and most admired businesses in the world are those which have the greatest impact on the lives of many people. They are the ones who give the biggest customers’ satisfaction and the most moving inspiration. These acts aren’t only doable by giant companies, but also by small and medium enterprises. Thus, having a small business is not a valid reason to ignore and escape these feats. Therefore, make a big plan, do your best, and accomplish greatness!

Photo Credit: Woman With Magnifying Glass by Petr Kratochvil

Loyal customers are vital to business success. But loyal employees are also as important as those loyal customers. Without loyal people inside your organization, your business operation might be at risk. The success of your sales or revenue generation also depends on your production. Your production relies on your workers. If you don’t have loyal, motivated, and productive employees, chances are, you might not get the targeted results and performance for your business. That is why every manager and employer should take great consideration on how to encourage loyalty among their workers. The following are simple yet very challenging ways to having loyal employees and members of your organization.


Be loyal to them

Do you want your employees to be loyal to you and to your company? Then let that loyalty start within you. Be a role model of loyalty by doing and showing the following:

• Be loyal to the company’s good policies. Don’t break your organizational rules.
• Devote your time on giving care and helping your employees. Ask them if they are alright. Ask them about their problems and how you may help them.
• Be honest. Don’t fool them. Did you promise or make an oath in front of your employees? Then deliver those promises.
• Be faithful. Be optimistic. To substantiate your optimism, give extra effort to know and discover the good things about your employees.
• Protect them. Invest on their security and welfare. Don’t let them work in a hazardous working environment. Don’t put them on a trap. Protect them from fraud and unlawful activities.


Exceed their expectations

Wow your employees! Provide them with things and benefits that are beyond their expectations. Don’t be contented with giving what they expect to receive. Well, it’s kind of boring and unmoving. And if you’re providing your employees with things below their expectations, don’t expect an army of loyal employees, rather, expect of irritated or unmotivated people. To wow your employees, here are some things you may consider trying:

• Give them a surprise bonus or money incentive
• Invite them for an interesting company outing they never expected. Deliver it.
• Announce a nonworking paid day during regular days to thank them for the hard work they’ve given to your company and to give them some good rest or time for their family.
• Treat them for a fine dinner.
• Thank, recognize, and honor your employees for a job well done.
• Be gentle and merciful during the times that they are expecting you to be mad.


Fulfill their dreams

You don’t need to fulfill their greatest dreams, such as becoming a billionaire or realizing their dream houses. Every person has simple dreams. If you want to encourage loyalty from your employees, then you’ve got to fulfill even their tiny dreams, which may have a big impact on them.

You may try giving them some questionnaire, which may include the questions about their biggest and simplest dreams in life to determine how can you fulfill some or a part of them and make them happy for a time.

In the business and corporate world where work stresses and pressures are regular part of employees’ lives, a few days vacation in a relaxing spot free from office or work atmosphere is perhaps one of the wildest dreams in their life. Thus, consider helping them to realize such simple dream.


Value them

Sometimes, employees may reach out to the management. They may tell the managers about their problems and even ask for their help. If you’re part of the management, remember that people won’t ask help from someone whom they think can’t help them. A person asks somebody because he trusts that this somebody can provide him a solution or an answer.

It requires courage to tell. It requires trust and confidence to seek help from anyone. Thus, if your employees will approach and ask some help from you, don’t ignore them. Listen to what they say. Act with justice and righteousness on what you have heard from them. Value their effort, courage and honesty… especially when these things are uncommon in your organization. If you want to earn loyalty from your employees, make them feel valued.


Love your employees

Loyalty is better built from the heart. Hence, if you want to ensure that your employees will be loyal to you and to your company, be a loving manager and leader. Managers who have genuine love for their people are hard to find these days. Therefore, if you want your employees to be loyal and to stick with you, be one of these hard to find persons.

To love your employees, you should have hope, faith and consistent actions. To be consistent, you have to produce more patience. Love them by starting to love yourself. Loving yourself means having personal development, which involves training yourself to be patient, peaceful, compassionate, honest and diligent. It is also about keeping yourself away from greediness, pride, envy and injustice, which are dangerous to yourself and to the people whom you lead.


Conclusion

If you want to make your employees loyal, aim for making everyone inside your organization loyal to each other. In other words, you should not just wish loyalty to develop from your workers. But as the leader and the one who is in power, you should start that loyalty from you.

Be a role model of loyalty so that your employees will be encouraged to be loyal to you. Be devoted to them if you want them to be devoted to you. You are the leader, hence, be the one to initiate it. You are the manager, hence, be the first to manage loyalty within you.

Finally, remember that loyalty is a long-lasting attachment. Therefore, don’t just attempt to develop it in a short span of time. But strive to build it daily with patience and persistence.

In our previous post, we’ve discussed the pros and cons of running a home-based business. Among its advantages are being your own boss, flexibility in working hours, work-life balance, being closer to your family or kids, low investment capital requirement, unlimited income opportunity, and the fact that it can be started par-time. But these benefits also come with disadvantages, such as the lack of human resources, high discipline requirement, lack of social contact, personal privacy disruption, collision of family and business matters, and unpredictable income.

There may be several cons of starting and managing a home-based business, but inconveniences are inherent in any type of business, whether small or big. And just like any problem, there can always be things that we can do to solve them, or, at least manage them. The following are 15 tips that shall guide aspiring entrepreneurs in starting and operating a home-based business.


1. Be hardworking

Whatever endeavor we have, hard work is always an important element of success. Starting a home-based business will give you the situation where you don’t have enough human resources or employees to help you carryout the different tasks of running a business, such as marketing, accounting, manufacturing, selling, and delivery of your products or services to customers. Thus, you need to invest hard work to accomplish those tasks, especially if you still don’t have the resources to hire employees or outsource other tasks from third parties.

You should understand that startup is one of the hardest stages of doing business. Hence, you should also be hard – be hardworking. Here are some tips on how you can become a hardworking person.


2. Practice discipline

Having your own business and being your own boss will give you more liberty and flexibility in working. You can decide whom to serve and you can also decide when to start working. However, these privileges might be abused, resulting to loss of discipline and eventually business failure. That is why managing a home-based business requires high level of work discipline to carryout successfully.

Your success must begin within yourself. In other words, you business development shall begin from your personal development. You need to establish discipline by overcoming your worst enemy – you. You have to defeat your own indolence, impatience, and other negative qualities. You need to submit yourself to discipline and be a disciple of discipline. Here’s one of our interesting discussion about having a discipline at work.


3. Be fit and healthy

When your business or work is at home, especially when you spend the day sitting at your computer chair, you may end up gaining weight while diminishing body strength and resistance. A good health is a treasure for life. We can use it to perform our business more effectively and efficiently. Since being your own boss can give you the privilege to work with flexible hours, it’s wise to allocate a portion of your daily time to do regular exercise or workout. Further, don’t forget to have a regular and a balanced diet to supplement your goal towards a better and stronger body and brain.


4. Leverage the Internet and social media

A home-based business is considered a small business. But though small, it can still become competitive against its bigger competitors and can even look seemingly big by utilizing the power of the Internet and social media. You can use the following Internet and social media marketing strategies for your home-based business:

a. Creating a website or blog for your business. A website or blog is a good and an affordable investment every small and medium business should consider.

b. Optimizing search engines to target specific audience. Learn how to rank your web pages on Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) to gain optimum and targeted Internet exposure for you business.

c. Utilizing a Facebook page to promote your brand. It’s free to create a Facebook business page on the world’s largest social networking site with over 900 million users, so don’t ignore it.

d. Using Twitter to promote your business. Twitter is a very popular and crowded micro social networking site that can be accessed by users on their computers and mobile phones anytime and anywhere.

e. Leveraging other top social media sites to market your business. Utilize other top social networking sites, like Google+, Youtube, Pinterest, Linkedin and FourSquare.

By leveraging the power of the Internet, you can still connect to the world and to your local community online even without going outside of your house. This also means that although you are spending most of your time at home, you will not loss social contacts online.


5. Maintain professionalism

Working from home doesn’t strictly require you to wear formal attire. You can even work with your pajamas if you want and as long as you don’t have clients visiting you regularly. But the issue on professionalism isn’t only limited to what you wear or only symbolizes a formal coat and tie. Professionalism is what you do and what you give to your clients or customers. Although your business is still small and operating from home, it doesn’t mean you should do it without prioritizing quality products and excellent services. Remember that when you enter in the business arena, you are entering a competitive ground. Hence, be professional. Be on time and do your job as you promised.


6. Build customers’ trust and confidence

Don’t be shy of your small and home-based business. But be honored for taking the challenge. Be honest to your customers. Don’t pretend to have a big business if you are actually running a small business. But impress them with the truth that even your business is starting small, you can provide higher quality products and services than your bigger competitors are providing. Besides, small business owners are more approachable than big businessmen. Thus, create a closer and more lasting relationship with them. You don’t need to be a giant corporation to provide outstanding customer service. All you need to do is to give extra time and care.


7. Separate home and business

Because your place of business and residence is sharing the same location, it is probable that your family and business matters collide. Kids running around your workstation, being distracted by television, and noisy neighbors disrupting your work, these are only some of the inconveniences of having your home the place for your business. To minimize these cons, consider the following ways to separate your home and business physically and beyond:

a. Set up a home office or workstation in a separate area from your personal and living room. If you can have a separate room for your business, then it’s better. Also have a separate telephone line for your business.

b. Use your home office for business work only and do not bring your business activities in your living room. Furthermore, wear working attire during your working hours and wear your house dress after business hours.

c. Educate your family about your business. Let them understand its limitations and how they can help you run it successfully.

d. Give enough quality time and moments for your family to balance your time for your business and for your family.

e. Set up separate bank accounts for your business and for your personal use

f. Keep your business records and account your business expenses separately from your personal expenses. This will also facilitate your computation of business expenses that are allowed to deduct from your taxable income.

g. Make your small business legal.


8. Make a plan

Can we start a home-based business without a business plan? Yes, we can. In fact most of home-based business owners don’t spend enough time in creating a strategic plan. That is why if you want your small business to stand out from the crowd… create a strategic business plan! The patience and diligence of a businessman or entrepreneur are pre-tested during this phase of business – planning. If you will fail to come up with a good plan, then you already initially fail your business. Business planning, including marketing planning, will give your business a clearer direction. It will also help you reduce the variability or the uncertainty of your income. So don’t ignore it. Invest time to create it. Here is a guideline for creating a business plan from Entrepreneur.


9. Choose your passion

Achieving success in business requires a lot of hard work, patience and sacrifices. And if you will do it without a great motivation and purpose, you might only end up in a failure. One of the best ways to start a business with a great amount of personal enthusiasm is to choose a business that is aligned to your passion. Don’t start a business just because it is what’s popular or it is where money goes. But start a business because that is what you love and want to do for life. Choose a business that you believe you have the talents, skills, expertise and potentials to excel.


10. Be a good manager

A good management is vital to every business, whether you’re a solopreneur or you’re handling a team of people. In the case of home-based business where you will probably employ some of your family members, good management and leadership skills are required to handle people who are your employees or business partners and at the same time your family members. It is important to balance your business and family affairs so that they wouldn’t become a conflict. To be a good manager, you have to learn how to be strict yet gentle, humble, and free from the greed of money and self-interest. Here are some ways on how you can be a good manager.


11. Understand accounting

Accounting is the language of business. So whether you are starting a small or big business, you have to understand at least the basics of accounting. You may hire an accountant to prepare your financial statements, but still you need to learn how to read and understand them. Thus, if you don’t have any background in accounting, strive to learn this knowledge. You may attend some trainings and seminars to learn accounting even if you are not an accountant.


12. Familiarize with business law and taxation

Legalize your small business. Understand the business and tax laws that are applicable to your industry. Since you are engaging in a business that will make you earn income, you may be required to file and pay your business and income taxes. Before you start your home-based business, you may consult first with a business or tax consultant to understand your business legality and taxability. You may also inquire with the government agencies that may put your business under their regulation or authority.


13. Consider outsourcing services

If you have the money, outsourcing services from outside sources can be a good step for your home-based business. It will allow you to concentrate on your core business activities by delegating other tedious tasks (i.e., accounting, legal matters and Internet marketing) to professionals or experts. You have to choose between giving up your time and spending your money. You may save some bucks by performing most of your business tasks instead of paying other people to do the job, but the question is… will it save your precious time?

Don’t save too much money if you will only spend too much time. For example, if you can work for a day on something that can generate a thousand dollar, then you better delegate or outsource your other tasks to someone whom you can pay a day for a hundred dollar.


14. Stick to your plan

Planning is wise. But without executing and accomplishing it, you plan will only go wasted. Hence, distract all your distractions and achieve focus. As long as you have a great business plan and have justifiable goals, no matter how difficult the challenges you will face, don’t give-up. The phrase “don’t quit” is perhaps one of the simplest and most effective secrets to success. Therefore, be consistent with your strategic plan.


15. Continue learning

Last but not the least, admit that you still need to learn a lot of things, whether it’s about business or about life in its entirety. Business icons, who may have already attained the pinnacle of success in business and entrepreneurship, still continue to learn new things to further develop their companies and themselves. How much more the home-based business owners, who are still aspiring to be recognized in the business world? Therefore, don’t stop reading or googling business information, learn from your business coach or mentor, and listen to your customers.


Final thoughts

Operating a home-based business has a number of advantages and disadvantages. But a wise business person knows how to deal with those disadvantages. We may not find all the solutions to all our problems, but we can always find a remedy to all our unsolved problems. Therefore, be bold and start your small business sincerely! Make your home the birth of a future great business.