Many people seek to earn money all in the comforts of their home. Most of the time, it is generally a good idea for people who usually stay at home to engage in some sort of home based business opportunity network in order to earn extra money to help foot the bills. While there are a lot of home based business opportunity network available in the internet with the advent of online marketing, one should always study each and every details of the business before engaging in one.Before choosing to join a certain home based business opportunity network, it is very important that you choose what you are interested in and one that you will be comfortable to promote. It’s not just about how much potential income a certain business has to offer, the success of the business also depends on your interest and enthusiasm for it. The more you are interested in something, the more inclined you will be to seek ways to promote and market it.After deciding on what kind of business you are interested in, find a reputable home based business opportunity network that you can join. Remember, there are always ways to check whether a certain home based business network is legitimate or not. Try and ask around for opinions of its members and feed backs from their customers. You should also find out how the business is doing and what is missing in which you can capitalize on.Also take in consideration the fee required for joining. Will you be able to afford it with your capital? Are you comfortable with the price? In return, also weigh the potential income you will be getting with the capital needed. In addition, make sure that the home based business opportunity network you will be joining in has a well laid continuity plan for its members. Remember that the most important thing is to make sure that the home based business you choose can provide a steady flow of income for a long time.

Once you have made the important decision of what a realistic rental price is for your property to let investment, you now have to present the property to potential tenants. It is vital when presenting a rental property that not only is the property pitched at the right price, but offered in good order too. This doesn’t just mean the property itself but the advertisement of the property needs to be offered in good order as the advertisement will be the tool that generates the initially interest of potential tenants.When offering a property to let too potential tenants the property particulars do not need to be offered with the same in depth detail as you would when presenting a property for sale. A good rental property description would be ideally three paragraphs long covering a range of property information from internal order, external order, and local facilities. Tenants looking for property to let will be firstly attracted to a rental property by the asking price, and secondly by the images that are presented for the property. When offering property photos it is not the usual sales type exterior shots that attract the tenant’s eye. A good quality kitchen or lounge shot will generate more interest in a rental property than an external shot. External shots are important and should be offered amongst the property images, but they should not be offered as the main image if you wish to generate as much interest as possible.When taking a property photo to include within your property to let advertisement it is well worth taking sometime to make sure that you do not end up taking a picture of the current tenants clutter and mess. As a quality kitchen shot or lounge shot is the very best photo to offer as a main image it is worth tidying up these areas before taking the picture. When taking the photo you want to create a vision for the new tenant. Offer the potential tenant a vision of how nice it would be to live in your property to let. This means taking a nice photo of a nice kitchen, it doesn’t mean quickly taking a photo of a sink full of washing up with cups and plates everywhere. Neither does it mean taking a quick photo of the lounge area with magazines, rubbish and clutter scattered everywhere. A clean and presentable kitchen or lounge shot will do any property advertisement the world of good and will generate significantly more enquiries than a poorly presented property.When presenting the particulars of a property to let there are some guidelines which need to be followed when looking to attract as much interest from potential tenants as possible. It is important that the property to let particulars offer the potential tenant all the information that the tenant needs to make a decision before enquiring about the property to let. This doesn’t mean that all rental property particulars should be 10 pages long, but it does mean that the property to let should be described in good detail spread over approximately 3 paragraphs.An example of what prospective tenants are looking for in the detail of a property to let would be;
Number of bedrooms.
Number of bathrooms.
Furnishing
Decor style and quality throughout the property.
Flooring e.g. carpets, wood flooring etc.
Kitchen facilities.
Bonus features e.g. built in wardrobes, wireless Internet etc.
Glazing type.
Heating type.
External features e.g. front and/or rear garden, off street parking etc.
Views if applicable.
Council tax band.
Utility bills included if applicable.

A property to let that offers property particulars that include the above detail and which is presented in approximately 3 flowing paragraphs will offer the potential tenant the very best information the tenant needs to make a decision on whether or not they wish to inquire about that particular property to let. If a good property description is offered it will not only gain more interest from potential tenants, but it will eliminate time wasting calls from tenants asking for further information on the property to let.

Once you purchase investment real estate, you virtually become the CEO and managing partner of your own small real estate investment business.

Of course, you feel good about becoming a landlord and owner of a real estate investing moneymaker. But unless it’s raw land, your work has just begun. Now you must manage the property. You are a real estate investor who has chosen the renting of space as a business, therefore your goal now is to keep the units full, and at the highest rent per square foot possible. In other words, now it’s time for you to focus on property management and the day-to-day activities of running the property.

In this article, we want to consider the big picture of property management and look at some rental management basics anyone connected with real estate investing should understand and strive to achieve.

1) Property condition – Getting the best tenants and commanding the highest rent is the primary goal of property management. It starts with a sharp-looking building that has good curb appeal; you must keep the structure, landscaping, common areas, and parking in good clean condition. Landlords must present a product that is clean and sanitary to new potential tenants so get prepared to purchase mops and brooms regularly because smart real estate investors make every effort to maintain and improve the property.

2) Tenant applications and screening – Require each potential tenant to complete an application and then follow up to verify their employment, rental history, and credit and criminal history. Remember, it’s always easier to get tenants into your building then it is to get them out. It’s recommended that you avoid department store rental applications and obtain the forms from your local apartment owners association. If you haven’t already done so, check online for the apartment owners association nearest you and contact them. They are one of the best organizations real estate investors can join.

3) Emergency repairs – Always have reputable maintenance personnel on call to service emergency repairs. This may be your job or someone you hire, but your tenants must have access to a repair “help line” they can call 24 hours a day when something must be fixed immediately. Remember, your tenants are your best clients, and you are in a unique business that requires your client to pay you money to use your product. And if you want to build cash flow to maintain the property and put money in your pocket, you need your tenants. Keep your tenants happy by listening and responding.

4) Aggressive marketing of vacancies – Get the word out about an upcoming vacancy instantly. Use signage, advertise in the newspaper, post flyers, offer a modest referral fee to existing tenants, or post it on the web. Nice signs and banners out front are an easy way to find prospective tenants to rent your vacant units. Just avoid cheap-looking, poorly worded signs. Take a few extra minutes to show that you take pride in your building and care how it appeals to others.

5) Move-in/move-out coordination – Always plan to get a unit “rent-ready” within a day or two after it becomes vacated because when you have tenants ready to move in, they usually want to move in as soon as possible. Even when you don’t have a new tenant in the wings, it’s much easier to rent a unit that’s clean and ready to move into. Things such as dirty carpet, scuffed walls, torn screens, broken switch plates or towel bars, and so on should be addressed, corrected, and repaired. You might not want to show the unit until it’s ready. In the meantime, you might want to show a prospective tenant the manager’s unit.

6) Keys and locks – It’s always a good idea to change locks each time you have a turnover in tenants. This added security is good for you and your new tenant. Once the existing tenant vacates the unit, simply call a local locksmith and change the locks. The cost is minimal and the benefit optimal.

7) Learn the laws about eviction – Know what you must do to evict a deadbeat tenant even when you don’t think it’s necessary, because if you do find yourself in court with your tenant, you need to be prepared. Unfortunately, many states have passed laws that don’t favor the landlord. Low-income tenants, for instance, have generated a tremendous amount of sympathy that requires landlords to be extra meticulous in their defense against complaints that wind up in court.

Keep accurate books and records – Maintaining a good income and expense history is vital to your rental property business and the cornerstone to profitable real estate investing.

Okay, now here’s an alternative to self-managing your investment real estate.

Many real estate investors simply turn their properties over to professional management companies. The advantage being that it relieves the real estate investor of the time and stress of having to deal with tenants and repairs, and puts matters like late rents into the hands of experts. A professional management company is not free, and in cases where the property is small enough for owner management, the cost of outside fees for professional property management might not be justifiable. But hiring a professional property management company is a reasonable option for investors who dare not or cannot manage the property themselves.

Should you account for property management during your property analysis?

Yes. If you’re purchasing rental income property, during your cash flow analysis (whether in a spreadsheet or with real estate investment software) be sure to include 5 to 10 percent of the gross operating income to cover potential property management fees, even if you plan to self-manage the property. Here’s to your success.

These Six Questions Tell You How to Make the Answer “Yes”

Direct response radio advertising is an amazingly under recognized way to grow a business quickly and profitably. For one thing, it’s fully accountable, so every dollar spent can be tracked to the revenue it generates and unprofitable spending can be eliminated. In addition, it’s extremely scalable. Once you figure out what works, you can increase your revenues and profits simply by increasing your media spend. It’s nearly as easy as stepping on the gas pedal. Direct response radio advertising is truly a powerful engine for profitable growth.

When it is done properly.

Most of the time, radio advertising is not done right. The first step in “doing radio right” is not to do it until you’re ready. The questions in this article will help you determine whether you’re ready to take advantage of direct response radio advertising. If you’re not ready, this article will tell you the steps you need to take to get ready.

Do you know how you will define success?

How much, in profit, is each customer worth to your business over the course of that customer’s relationship with your company? This is the customer lifetime value question and it is vital to know this before you go into direct response advertising. Why? Because the definition of success in direct response radio advertising is acquiring a new customer at a cost that allows for a profitable relationship with that new customer. If you don’t know the lifetime value, you cannot know how much you are able to pay to acquire a customer.

Think about the day when you run your first ad schedule on a station. The results come in. How do you know whether they are good or bad? Are they good because there is revenue? Are they good because the phone is ringing or because visits to the web site went up? These are not sufficient to understand and evaluate the performance of your advertising. You can only evaluate advertising performance within the context of your customer lifetime value.

But knowing your customer lifetime value is not enough. You have to break this down into the metrics that you’ll use to evaluate and manage your campaign. These metrics are part of the formula for lifetime value, metrics like “cost per lead” (CPL), cost per order (CPO, also known as CPA or cost per acquisition), conversion rate, and average revenue per sale. Do not begin a direct response radio advertising campaign (or a business of any sort using any kind of demand generation tactics) until you know your business profitability metrics very well.

Are you prepared to test?

We have often heard people say “We tried radio advertising and it doesn’t work for us”.

Here’s the problem with that statement: Developing a profitable direct response radio advertising campaign isn’t something that is accomplished with a “trial”. It is far too complicated an endeavor, with far too many variables, to assess its effectiveness for your business with a “trial”. There are creative variables and media variables, and together they present a daunting number of possible combinations to achieve success.

To properly assess the potential for direct response radio advertising to generate profitable new customers for your business, you must approach direct response radio advertising with a testing mindset. That calls for a patient, methodical approach.

What does this mean for you? It means that you need around $20,000 to test multiple ads over a 4-8 week period before you’ll know which approaches will (and won’t) yield more profitable results. Don’t go into direct response radio advertising with a “dabble” mindset. Go into it with solid business goals: a) To assess the potential of direct response radio advertising to drive profitable new revenues, and b) to understand which approaches – both creative and media – produce the best results for your company. While you’ll generate revenues and profits during the test, the real benefit of testing is in the learnings that can be applied to a larger campaign over a long period of time to drive significant sales and profits.

Do you have a compelling offer?

The offer in your direct response radio ad is one of the most important elements for success. But why do you need to be thinking about that before you even approach radio advertising? Isn’t that something your radio advertising agency should come up with? Well, yes, but… The “but” here hinges on the fact that any offer must be something that’s possible given the business profitability structure, and possible given the systems and processes that run the business. These are constraints that only you know about. It will take time to alter existing systems or processes should that be necessary to support a compelling offer in your advertising. Your agency might recommend you give away a free DVD player with each order. That would drive a lot of orders, but would they be profitable? You need to define the playing field for the agency and then engage in the dialogue of getting the most out of what’s possible given the constraints.

What is a compelling offer? It’s different, it’s relevant, and it’s meaningful. A free complimentary product or service is a good example. For example, if you’re marketing a skin care product that fights acne, you can give away a skin softener product as a bonus. Others use free trials with conversion mechanisms. These can work well provided the product performs as promised. Still others employ the ‘risk free trial’ approach, which essentially positions the 30 day money back guarantee as an offer – a “risk free trial”. The possibilities are many.

Is your business infrastructure set up to support direct response advertising?

The most important aspect of preparing for direct response radio advertising is ensuring you’re ready for the volume of leads and orders that can result. The easiest way to project this is to know your CPL and CPO projections (see above) and then assume a specific weekly media spend. For example, say you’re running $25,000 in media per week in direct response radio. This is considered a relatively small campaign. If your business model shows that you expect a CPL of $15, then you’ll be driving 25,000/15 = 1667 calls per week. Can your sales call center and fulfillment center handle this volume? More importantly, can they handle more, because when you’re profitable while running a $25,000 weekly radio campaign, chances are you’ll soon want to grow to five to ten times that size as soon as you can.

There’s another vital piece of infrastructure you absolutely must have in place before you begin direct response radio advertising. It is a firm requirement because without it you’re wasting your money and ruining your reputation with the vendors you’ve hired to help you build the campaign. That requirement is excellent data collection and transmission to the radio media buying department at your radio agency. By this we mean that you absolutely must have a mechanism for capturing the lead, order, and revenue data by the unique identifier (such as the toll-free phone number) for the media buy that generated the call. If you’re sending calls to a call center, this is no problem. They understand this need and are already set up to accommodate it. If you’re trying to take calls in house, most of the time you’ve got work to do to ensure you can provide your media company with the information they need on a timely basis (usually first thing every morning). If you are sending leads to a web site, which is happening with increasing frequency, you must set up data capture and transmission mechanisms via a web tracking software program like Google Analytics before the campaign begins, preferably before you even contact a direct response radio advertising agency to get started. It’s amazing how many times we’ve been told that this tracking mechanism is in place and that we’ll get daily data exports from the web tracking software, only to begin the test and find out we won’t be receiving data for many days and what we do receive will not be complete.

Are you aware of your biases and assumptions?

This question probably sounds a little different than the rest but it’s well worth spending some time on. What you must understand is that you, the client, lead the show. As the agency, we will tell you want we recommend based on our expertise in the field of direct response radio advertising. It’s up to you to make sure we’re making those recommendations with all of the necessary information. Biases and assumptions can damage this important aspect of the client-agency relationship.

Biases and assumptions underlie beliefs you have about key campaign questions like why your customers buy from you, or what appeals in advertising will resonate with the target audience. If you inject these into the process as facts, your agency will likely take them as such. The agency is unlikely to argue strongly with you – - it’s just the nature of the “the customer is always right” tendency in client-agency relationships (as well as many others).

Let’s say you’ve been advertising online with banners and pay per click (or with TV or with print – the medium doesn’t matter). You want to test radio. One common mistake is to do a survey of your existing customers and ask them why they buy. The results show that the reasons these people buy match up very well with the appeals in the advertisements that you’ve been running. You conclude that the exact same approach will work in radio and you require that approach be followed by the agency. But you’ve overlooked the fact that your survey was very biased. Why? Because the people you surveyed were prompted to become customers by the ads you ran. Of course you’re going to find people who validate the ads you’ve run – they responded to them to become customers! The non-biased way to do a survey is to collect data from a random sample of people (not current customers) matching the target customer profile.

Notice the point is not to eradicate your biases or assumptions, but to become aware of them. It’s nearly impossible to get rid of biases. However, if you’re aware of them you can then test them methodically and you won’t be in danger of leading your agency down the wrong path – one that often leads to the failure of radio campaigns.

Are you different?

Me-too products or services don’t work, period. In direct response you find this out quickly. You must be different. One important twist to this is that you can be different in any one of a number of different ways. As a certain marketing professor liked to say “you can innovate anywhere in the value chain…the more places the better”. Did Dell Computer make innovative new computers? Not at all. Dell found a way to put computers together faster, with higher reliability and at a lower cost than any other PC maker. That, among other things, translated into a super low cost structure which meant Dell could beat competitors on price and still make more money than those competitors. There are other examples. Maybe you’re marketing a product in the diet aid category. There are “support” food programs (Weight Watchers), pills (Trimspa) and informational/diet regimens (the Atkins diet).

Do you have to have the latest breakthrough pill to compete? That would be nice but there are only so many of those to be discovered. So you can be different in another way. Your spokesperson could be a celebrity. Your marketing angle could be radically different. Your offer could be unique. Your cost structure or overall business model might allow for an incredible free gift or a very low price. Your customer retention program might be so strong that you can give away a free trial to acquire large numbers of customers. There are many, many ways to be different. How you’re different – while important – is still second to the fact that if you’re a me-too product you’ll not last long.