Making A Home Based Business Work

Rain clouds passing through my world.

I have been busy working this week on adding items for sale to my Bonanza booth. Did you remember I was selling on Bonanzle? Here is the post I wrote about it, Selling On Bonanzle. Well, they have officially changed their name to Bonanza. Things are happening there and I can feel the excitement! The sales have been slow coming, but they are coming. I just had one last night for a book I had just listed. One thing I learned from selling in my eBay store, was that the more you list, the more sales you get. That is what got me motivated to start listing this week. The sky's the limit.........but you limit yourself if you don't do anything.

katlupe's booth

One of the first things you must do if you want to have a home based business is to set up your business right from the start. That means with all the proper business licenses, state and federal tax filings, business bank account, payment module for your website if you are selling online, business plan, marketing plan, business goals, business calendar and a proper place for your inventory. It can be mind boggling, but is all important to the operation, of even the smallest home based business.

Working from home enables me to spend the time through out the day working on the websites while I am also doing chores around our homestead. Today being a rainy day, means I probably won't be outside, so working in my kitchen a bit this morning. I take a break and sit at the computer, and then get back to whatever job I was doing online. It is nice to be able to work on two things at once. I like to have my evenings free to read aloud to my husband, something we do nightly.

Sometimes you need to take a look at how you can improve your financial state. See if there is some way you can add more income to your home. Selling off things you already own is a good way to get rid of your excess of years of accumulating. Or if you are talented in some area, like sewing, knitting, crocheting, wood work, art work, etc. then you can make your own items to sell. The actual web work is fun after you know what you are doing. You can take online courses for computers and web design, or take them at a local community college. Or as my husband did, teach yourself by buying computer books and work as you learn.

You can often work with your spouse as a partner and that makes it even more fun. I like looking for items to sell as that means we usually take a ride to an antique, book or thrift shops and go out to breakfast. That makes a nice day for us as a couple and also gets us away from home and the computer work for a day. I love listing the items on my sites and try to make them user friendly to my customers. It is work, but is working for yourself, not having someone else telling you what to do. And that makes a big difference! Is there something you are thinking of selling? Is there a homebased business inside of your head? It doesn't cost anything to list on Bonanza until you sell. It doesn't cost anything to open your booth there. And it is so easy to do. The sky is the limit! But don't limit yourself by not doing anything. 

Have a great week-end!

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

International Customers Welcome!

My little girls taking it easy

I am presently working on trying to get sales in the international markets. It seems that to cut off your international sales means you are limiting the potential of your website store. So if you work to get those sales that can increase your bottom line. We have always had traffic on our websites from international shoppers. The problem has been that I have always been afraid of those sales. Hearing the stories on eBay and other places of how the foreigners are just spammers and people out to get us makes you fear them on your site. The thing is, if I had a brick and mortar store and a Frenchman came in to look at my merchandise, would I throw him out? Or would I smile and try to welcome him to my store? Would I try to help him if he was looking for something in particular? You bet I would! I would treat him like royalty. If he took the time from his day to visit my store I would make it worth his time to do so.

Just recently I have had a couple of nice size sales that came from Paris, France. At first we were a little nervous about this sale. The buyer sent me a message and asked if he could buy our product from Paris, France. So we did some research to see how we could ship at a low cost and still make money. We ship for free to all U.S. and Canadian addresses. Our product is small and doesn't usually cost that much to ship. We do not add the shipping cost to the price of the strings. Instead we take it out of our profits. But international shipping is costly. That is what stops most sellers from doing it. We found a way to do it so it would be a worthwhile move for us. Our customer seems happy as he placed another order with us.

It seems awesome to me to be working here from my homestead in the middle of the state forest and selling my product to people living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean! It shows you just how far we have come in such a short time. Our world is getting smaller and our world market is getting larger...........much larger. To wake up in the morning and have orders of guitar strings waiting to be packaged up is such a great concept. No driving to a job. Just working on the computer which both of us love to do anyway.

As I told in an earlier post this year, I am working on automating my life and my homestead. Making things much easier for us. Ordering supplies online so I don't have to leave home to do those errands. It is much easier for me as I am very busy here. Saves me a lot of time and time for me is also money. Plus no driving around looking for stuff that I can purchase online. Also I  have the ability to have it automated so my orders can be sent on a certain day that I set up.I am looking forward to completing this process. Then I can move onto other more important ventures.

I have been sick for almost a month now and I am finally starting to feel better. It has been the hardest thing I have had to deal with and this was just the wrong time for me to be sick. Spring is my busy time and it was frustrating. It didn't stop me from working but I wasn't my best. Now I am back to normal speed and have many irons in the fire.

Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole

What Has Been Happening Lately

We have been so busy this year that I have barely had time to think about writing on here. I have been working for weeks on writing a top notch business plan for my business. I am closing my original business, Peaceful Forest in a couple of weeks. Right now I am just waiting for the paper work to come back from NY state for my new one which is KG Lupole LLC. I am very excited about this as it is proof that my guitar strings store is taking off.....finally! I am planning on meeting with a representative from SCORE. That is a national organization that is made up of retired business people in your community or online, who will assist you in any aspect of setting up or working on your business. From planning it, writing your business plan, getting financing to the actual day to day work of running it. All for no cost. They will mentor you and you can ask questions. I have also been building up my inventory of Curt Mangan guitar strings. In the future I hope to add a few more other brands of strings to give my customers a choice of brands. Have to do it like I do everything, little by little.

Having a business that I can run from my home is a big part of my homesteading lifestyle. Not having to drive to and from a business in town is perfect for the homesteader. I can work on my websites and then run out and work in my garden, kitchen or wherever. Some days, I just run out to my barn and brush my little girls, who's picture is posted above. Horse need attention and when I worked out in the J.O.B. (just above broke) world I had barely enough time to pet one of them let alone a meaningful brushing session!

I am still following my low carb eating plan. Mainly Dr. Atkins' famous plan. It is famous I guess because it really does work. The best thing about it though is that not only do you lose weight on it but you feel so much better. I think it may be the elimination of white flour products, sugar and anything processed. Once they are out of your system you start to feel so much better.

One of the main things us homesteaders do is to build up a storage of our food and supplies in case of any kind of emergency. Food storage proved to be a blessing to us when my husband was in a bad accident at work and we had no money coming in. We ate from our awesome food storage that I had built up from our garden over a period of a few years. When money is tight you can still eat.

Now though, I have changed the type of foods I store to low carb foods. For me, storing beans, rice, white flour and sugar is not something I will be doing. Granted many of the foods I eat now are organic like almond meal, coconut flour, flax seed meal, etc. Those foods cannot be stored for long periods as far as I know right now. So I have to do a little more research in how to do that. I could store almonds by canning them and then when I need the almond meal, grind them. For now though, I like buying Bob's Almond Meal for the convenience and high quality. I do not plan on relying on a freezer to store any foods for storage. As if for any reason your power does go down or your freezer malfunctions you lose all your food unless you can it. In an emergency though, you would not be canning it.

Have a great homesteading today!

Making A Living From Home - It's Possible!

Working from home enables me to live this homesteading lifestyle. I try to combine both jobs every day. When I get up and have my coffee I check my computer for sales and questions and my emails. Then it's on to some of the basic chores around here. I used to go outside in the morning and help my husband with the morning horse chores which includes bringing in our water for the day. Since my legs have gotten too painful for those chores, he now goes outside and does those chores alone. Some mornings I can hardly walk. Working at home though means that I can still do my job instead of having to go somewhere or call in sick every week.

When I first started my online business it was with every intention of selling my husband's music cd, Classic Fantasy, a soft rock cd. But before we got very far with that project he was injured in a work related accident. His right elbow was crushed and you know that puts a dent in a guitar player's career. So I started selling used items we had around here on eBay and then started buying used things at local thrift shops, garage sales and other places. I sold quite a bit and even opened my own eBay store. Then eBay started not being able to handle the load of so many people selling so many products that everyone started selling for as low as possible. So that makes it not a very productive way to make a living. It has even hurt people who sell antiques and other products off eBay in their own brick and mortar stores. Made everything lose it's value.

I tried selling homemade crafts such as crocheted items. People do not want to pay for those type of items. They would rather buy baby sweaters and doll clothes manufactured in China or India. Then I tried the dropship life. Oh my goodness, what a joke that is. You do not know when you list something for sale if they will still have it in stock when it sells. That is why you see listings with sellers saying "this item was in stock when it was listed and items do go out of stock.................."

Many times I would get questions from potential buyers that I could not answer as I did not have the product here and could not look at it. I would send the dropshipper company the question and they would never answer as most of the time they were getting it dropshipped from someone else too! What a mess that was. Plus there were dropship fees and shipping fees that were usually where the dropshipper made his profit. A few dropshippers would say they were sending it UPS and then send it cheaper through the mail, but charged me for UPS. So what do I tell a customer who paid for UPS shipping?

Since my husband is a musician and a guitar player, it only seemed natural to find a product to sell that would reflect that. I became a distributor for Curt Mangan® FusionMatched® guitar strings. He produces a premium string with sonic clarity with none others even coming close in comparison. They are strings that create a tone that is purely perfect manufactured completely, 100% in the U.S.A. Combined with U.S.A. workermanship to produce strings with exacting core-to-wrap ratios and tolerances. When my husband put them on his guitar for the first time he liked them alot. Then he played at our church and everyone noticed and for other people to notice the difference is unheard of! So we were sold on them. He would never use another kind now.

If anyone would be interested in buying them from me please go to my site at:

http://www.larrylupole.com/catalog

I sell them with FREE SHIPPING to all U.S. buyers. I have all kinds, electric guitar, classical guitar, mandolin, banjo, acoustic, etc. So please keep me in mind if you need guitar strings or are buying some for someone else. Great Christmas stocking stuffers!

So we have settled into a nice quiet life here. Working on the computer listing products or answering questions and shipping our products while we are able to be home all day. Of course, what most people do not realize is that if you are working at home, you probably work longer than eight hour days. I do not keep track of my hours. I do so many household chores while working and then during the summer I was also gardening, harvesting and canning.

Have a good sunday......it's sunny here this morning which means I have power coming into my house......how much is coming into yours?????

katlupe

"Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness shall go before Him and shall make his footsteps a way in which to walk." Psalm 85:12-13