Does Your Internet Business Need A Boost?More and more people are discovering that it is possible to earn a living right from the comfort of their own home. In these challenging financial times, not having to commute can give your wallet a much needed break too. With increasingly more opportunities available, building a successful home based business is probably easier than you think.Many top home based businesses utilize affiliate marketing or direct mail business to generate sources of income. If you are not sure of the difference or which method is best suited for your business, you are not alone. Read on to find out exactly how you can decide which approach is best.Affiliate Marketing vs. Direct Mail Business: What The Heck Are They?There are several key differences between affiliate marketing and a direct mail business. Affiliate marketing allows you to promote and sell other people’s produces and collect a percentage of the total sales. This approach works with physical good as well as with virtual products like ebooks. Affiliate marketing can be a great way to start bringing in cash without having to develop a brand-new product.Alternatively, direct mail businesses are selling their own product or service. These businesses purchase mailing lists that target customers either by geographic location or more specialized demographic criteria. For example, a direct mail business selling cosmetics may target young women. Postcards, catalogs or other promotional material are then sent out to each address on the list. Historically utilizing only snail mail, direct mail marketing today involves email lists as well.How Can I Choose?Before you reach a final decision on which top based business approach is right for you there are a few points to consider. If you are committed to only working from home and are able to develop a niche following on the web, affiliate marketing may be perfect for you. Selling products on your web site that you are confident your visitors will be interested in purchasing can be an easy and inexpensive way to build passive income.Direct mail is perfect for those home based business owners trying to target a large but specific audience. Direct mail businesses can be costly, so your budget is another consideration here. No matter which approach you decide upon, make sure it is what you want for your business. Basically, if it feels right…go for it!Persistence Pays!Any top home based business owner will tell you that no matter which approach you choose, hard work and perseverance are absolutely required for your success. Affiliate marketing is less expensive but it may take a little more time before it produces an adequate and reliable flow of income. With each method, the more you put into the business the more you will be rewarded. Be persistent and don’t give up! Your success is already here, it’s just waiting for you to catch up.

What is it that really makes up the Number 1 Home Based Business? The truth is there is no magic bullet or system that is perfect for everyone. From years of experience I believe that the true Number 1 Home-Based Business is a unique combination of interests, talents and desires that combine to suit a specific individual. If you come from a background of very little business or marketing experience then a business such as Multi Level Marketing combined with a few key aspects of Internet Marketing is probably ideal in this day and age. In this article we are going to discuss some ideas of lead generation in regards to MLM.Article marketing is the quickest and easiest for someone new to the Internet to get started driving traffic to their offer, personal website, or self-replicated MLM website. (which we do not support as an ideal method, eventually you always want your own website) When it comes to a home business article marketing is beneficial for every single home based business in existence and is something you should master before moving on to more sophisticated options of generating leads and traffic. Article marketing not only helps to send targeted traffic to your offer or website, but also helps you to get better rankings in the search engines. Article marketing is something you should initiate and continue on with as soon as you launch you home-based MLM Business.There is no doubt that the main purpose of any home based business marketing is to get people to your website or offer page in order to sign up a distributor or make a sale. But the reality is that, visitors are not searching to find your website just to buy something from you. They are searching the internet to find information to help them with a problem they have and need a solution to. Article marketing is then, a great way to introduce individuals from your niche market to your business, and provide them with free information from the content of your articles. The more articles you write on a set of topics and subtopics related to your market the better the chances that your content will be read by someone in your niche market.Lead generation is one of the most important building blocks to becoming successful with your MLM company. The other key ingredient is building relationships with your prospects which can be the most important step in your business building. Drive traffic from article writing and distribution, convert leads to prospects, and then build relationships toward being successful in your business.Generating leads for an MLM business is not a quick process contrary to what most “hypsters” will tell you. MLM lead generation using the Internet, in fact, takes time and work. Most successful online MLM lead specialists use a variety of sources and methods to build their initial MLM lead generation list. A key fact that you always must remember when conducting any type of business online is that, “the money is in the list”. This is true if you are affiliate marketing, MLM marketing or promoting a bricks and mortar business on the web. Build a good list from the start, and your business will be successful. Nurture those leads and keep them engaged in the process and your time will be rewarded handsomely in the long run. Lead generation is a given as a necessity for success online, just understand that it is a process that must be learned and the process must be honed to an artform.The basis of MLM lead generation is that the techniques are actually quite simple, but it is the consistency and “stickwithitness” that is not so easy for most. You must have the mindset that you are truly BUILDING a BUSINESS and realize it does not happen overnight but if done consistently using the right methods your success will be assured. These methods include include landing pages, using an e-mail autoresponder, and then providing valuable content to your prospects as they decide what business they want to invest their time and money in. Article marketing is the initial skill you must become proficient in unless you want to waste thousands of dollar on various advertising methods that more often than not, aren’t successful.MLM lead generation will become a duplicable way of building your MLM business that you will naturally pass on to your network. Most network marketing professionals will tell you that one of the main components of success is duplication. The better you become a creating a “system” for lead generation the more you will build a following amonst your downline as you begin to pass on your skills to them.

Home-based business opportunities these days abound. If you’re looking for a way to supplement your income or start an exciting new career, there’s likely a one that suits your skills and interests. Millions of people around the world are taking advantage of work-from-home opportunities, enabling them to take control of their own work lives, finances, and achieve a work-life balance.Home based businesses offer people the opportunity to set their own hours, control their own income and develop their skills and talents. While many are part-time projects used by their owners to create a supplemental source of income or to create a self-funding hobby, a growing number of people are turning their home businesses into full-time careers.Hot career fieldsIf you want to start a business from home, but aren’t sure what type of business to start, here are a few to consider:* A home based business in entertainment shopping and travel. It’s easy to learn, and the better models will have team-support and the added benefit of reduced price shopping and luxury holidays.* Home computer businesses are an easy way for people to make money from home. If you’re tech savvy you can offer your friends and neighbors support services. Many people prefer to deal with a local support service than having to contact a call center that could be anywhere in the world.* Internet marketing is an exciting and growing business model. With a few easy-to-learn marketing, writing and web design skills, you can quickly learn how to make a substantial income from selling products and services online and helping others market their businesses. Even if you don’t want to do it yourself, there are great outsourcing services who can do the hack work for you, while you focus on business growth.* Virtual assisting is a growth field for those wanting to work from home. A growing number of companies are choosing to outsource clerical duties to outside contractors to reduce benefit costs. A virtual assistant receives work online and performs data entry and other administrative tasks for a company. By snagging several of these jobs, you can create a steady stream of dependable income.* Medical coding is another great home-based business. Many hospitals and doctors’ offices outsource their coding work to outside contractors. A good medical coder can work for several clients and bring home a significant income.The number of home based business opportunities that require little or no training to start up is growing all the time, but require time to master. Finding a mentor to help will short-cut your learning curve.

GOOD stories, good authors, goodbye – victims of the book plague. Book plague? And why should good authors fear?

Because already too many good authors have lost their lustre, overpressed by their publishers and the marketers who control those publishers. There are too many bad books by good authors, a plague caused by global business. The good authors and their good stories are most prone to succumb.

Plague symptoms accelerate as we near the lucrative pre-Christmas buying spree, when brand-names swamp the bookstores.

Brand-names, get it? Many good authors have become just brand-names and nothing else, reclassified by the whizguys who manipulate the industry. A record one-million books got published last year, big-biz grabbing the biggest spoils.

Good stories and good authors still exist. Amazon has them hiding in its vast wilderness, and http://www.booktaste.com links to some goodies. Nevertheless the book plague rages on. Publishers caught in the global haggle cannot wait for their star scribblers to complete a new masterpiece. Hence the prized brand-name can appear on work ill-structured, unfinished, and often unreadable. Production gets sloppy, too. Count the misprints.

Hasty writing and skimped editing meets the deadline, but also destroys creativity. A manuscript that should be returned for a rewrite here and there is gleefully accepted and launched into bookstores incomplete, pimpled with errors, and likely to disappoint its buyers.

After paying to read a favourite brand-name, and regretting it, reader faith disappears and wallets tighten.

Why do publishers slaughter their golden geese? Because global business ranks marketers above editors.

Why don’t major reviewers expose this greed, this mediocrity offered as genius? Because the tsunami of brand-name titles drowns honest assessment.

Many small businesses don’t have an IT department or anyone experienced enough to handle even basic IT tasks like backup, system restoration, patching or updates. In most cases, they rely on a local business partner (typically an IT consultant or local IT support company) to handle these tasks.

Unfortunately, many small business IT solutions on the market today exacerbate the situation. Their complexity…

requires the need for ever more powerful hardware
results in frequent system crashes and downtime for upgrades
compounds security problems
necessitates frequent system restorations
increases the investment in resource to upgrade systems and fix problems
Whats needed is a new generation of ‘small business servers’ that deliver all of the essential IT & technology services for smaller businesses but without the usual costs or hassle.

Challenges in supporting micro and small business customers

To stay in business small businesses need help with basic IT chores, which are becoming more mission critical than ever as they grow more time consuming to deliver.

Just look at business continuity and disaster recovery in small businesses. A study by Gartner found that only one third of small businesses surveyed said they were prepared for a disaster within the next 12 months.

In other words two thirds of all small businesses are not prepared for a disaster or protected. The reason, in most cases, is that small businesses don’t have the IT skills of solutions to perform common tasks like backing up critical data or developing a way to restore systems that crash or become damaged when a pipe breaks or there is a fire, flood or other disaster.

Small businesses also need help just backing up and restoring files when someone accidentally deletes them. Such deletions in small businesses are quite common.

Whilst everyone understands the need for data to be backed up, what many don’t realise is how expensive and difficult it actually is with traditional solutions. In fact, the traditional approach to backing up data is a time consuming and resource intensive task. The normal procedure requires tapes to be rotated, in the right order and taken off site for secure storage.

Plug In, Switch on & Start Working

Security within smaller businesses is also an issue. Hackers today are after confidential information about businesses and their clients to commit fraud and identify theft. They employ increasingly sophisticated attacks that may use socially engineered phishing email messages. These spam messages are designed to fool even savvy computer users in to thinking they are from legitimate sources. An unsuspecting user might click on malicious executable file or URL link to a poisoned web site and automatically download malicious software.

In their pursuits hackers increasingly exploit new vulnerabilities in applications and Windows operating systems as a means of infecting computers. To battle this problem, software vendors issue frequent system updates and security patches that must be installed quickly to minimize exposure to each new threat.

In 2008, Microsoft alone issues 43 critical, 24 important and two moderate fixes, according to security experts. The previous year saw a similar amount, including 49 critical, 23 important and five moderate updates. Other application and browser vendors had numerous updates as well.

Again, many small businesses don’t have the IT expertise to track all of these patches or the time to install them. Beyond security patches, there are typically many operating system updates that must also be applied. Such installations are often time consuming.

Unfortunately many of these fixes incur downtime, which no business likes. For example, in many situations, a business must first test a patch or upgrade to be sure it does not cause problems. If the test goes well, planning must take place to be sure the changes are made at a time that least inconveniences its workers. Again, many businesses are looking for help with these matters from their business partners. The challenge for the business partner is that all of these tasks (testing, planning, applying etc.) are all time and labour intensive.

Problems with traditional Small Business Server Solutions

Even the smallest business today requires certain basic capabilities. Workers need to share files and printers. Additionally, their data must be protected and their systems must be secure.

The burden on the business partner to provide these services typically requires the use of multiple solutions from different vendors. The mix often includes a server OS and file system from one vendor, backup software from another, and security products including firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-spam software etc from even more vendors.

Managing such a mix can add to a business partner’s workload. Each product must be managed with its own administrative system, and each must be updated on its own. There might also be conflicts when trying to get different vendors products to work together.

Additionally supporting such a mix of applications might introduce security issues. For example, if a firewall and anti-spam solution are not in sync with regard to the level of protection each affords, one might work in detriment of the other.

The end result when using multiple solutions is that the time investment per client grows as the complexity increases. It also increases the time investment a business partner must make in learning/training. Their staff must be knowledgeable about many discreet products in order to support their small business client’s workers.

Compounding matters, the traditional choices have had their problems. Solutions designed specifically for smaller businesses often could not scale to support a business growth. For this reason, many of the solutions commonly used are not designed specifically for small businesses. But this only adds to the management burden placed on the business partner because they must customize or scale down these solutions to meet the needs of small businesses.

Additionally, such solutions are often bloated with features not needed in smaller businesses. For instance, directory services might be overkill for a company with fewer than twenty people. Yet, its administration is as time consuming for twenty as it is for one hundred or more.

Similarly, an enterprise solution might be so narrow focused that it lacks key features for small business, thus requiring a patch work of solutions to meet a business’s basic needs. For instance, a firewall might need a third party anti-spam or anti-virus solution to provide more complete protection.

In either case, trying to force fit an enterprise solution into a small business environment can add to the management workload.

What’s needed: Desirable characteristics?

With these concerns in mind, there is obviously a need for an alternative to the enterprise patchwork solutions that are currently being cobbled together and used in small business today.

Any solution that addresses these pain points must be designed specifically for small businesses and the business partners who serve them. It must enable customers do email, create and share documents, centrally manage files, store and secure business data, control access to information, connect offices, employees and partners whilst protecting their network and systems from unwanted disruptions and intrusions.

It should be less complex so that it requires less IT support than traditional solutions. Additionally the solution should be Linux based. The reason: Linux is stable and reliable. This would simplify management and make solution subject to less downtime than some alternative solutions. Additionally being Linux based reduces many security problems, as far fewer attacks, generally speaking, are aimed at Linux than traditional operating systems.

Furthermore, most operating systems are packed with drivers, utilities and services that are seldom used. An ideal solution would only use the parts of the Linux Kernel that are needed to perform the desired functions. This would reduce potential vulnerabilities.

To simplify matters further, the solution should be very easy to deploy. For example, it should be offered as a simple plug and play solution in the form of an appliance. And the solution should support remote management to troubleshoot and correct small problems, as well as recover from a system crash.

A solution with these characteristics will save a business partner valuable time that would otherwise be needed to administer solutions at every client’s site. This saves time and money. It allows a business provider to provide services in a more economically efficient manner to existing customers. And it frees up time to solicit and support new businesses.

Enter: An affordable solution designed specifically for small businesses

Small Business Server Appliances are a new breed of Small Business Server Solution they are delivered delivered as a plug and play hardware appliance, everything is included. Its pricing structure is simple and straight forward. Business partners do not have to deal with multiple and complex licensing agreements as is the case with many alternative offerings where you are required to switch platforms (or upgrade hardware) above 75 and 100 users, or when email and data storage requirements reach a certain limit.

Small Business Server Appliances offers file and print sharing; firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam protection; email, calendaring, contacts, tasks; secure remote access; data backup and disaster recovery features; office productivity tools; and automated system updates.

Everything is included within the appliance as a single solution. And business partners can use the platform to deploy other applications that a client might need.

The high performance appliance hardware allows a powerful solution to be delivered in a small footprint. This also provides the ability to scale solutions as a clients business grows up to 500 users without artificial licensing barriers. Furthermore, the appliance format also makes the solution very easy to deploy, typically it can be up and running in about 20 minutes.

Setting the solution apart: Autonomic features and benefits

Small Business Server Appliances are designed to run on their own at a customer’s site with little intervention from the business partner. To accomplish this we make use of autonomic features that automatically handle many routine tasks and can correct many problems on its own as they arise. These autonomic features ensure that the small business stays up and running and its systems and data are protected, all while off loading time consuming IT tasks from business partners.

For example Small Business Server Appliances comes pre built and pre configured and can usually be implemented in around twenty minutes. There is no monitor or keyboard, the admin interface is accessed via an IP address securely through HTTPS which enables you to manage the appliance remotely. In contrast, alternative solutions often require the business partner to load 5 to 15 CD’s to get a system running initially.

Small Business Server Appliances also has the ability to self manage automated backups to a disc based storage device (on or off site), to a hosted backup service in addition to traditional tape or USB based storage devices. A few Small Business Server Appliances also provide the option for integrated hot swap backup discs to be used which enable data to be backed up continually throughout the day.

Summary

With Small Business Server Appliances, business partners get an easy to implement and easy to manage solution that has specifically been designed for smaller businesses.

Small Business Server Appliances come pre built and ready to be used this solution offers a rapid time to value.

All of the attributes of Small Business Server Appliances pay dividends twice over. First, the small business client is happy, because they can do their jobs without computer related interruptions. And second, a business partner can deliver a high level of service while dedicating minimal IT resources and staff to each client.

The autonomic features of the solution reduce the time and resources a business partner must invest to begin work with a new client and to support existing small business customers. For example very little training is required to become familiar with the solution, so business partners quickly leverage the solution and immediately become more profitable.