There are plenty of businesses that can be operated from home using little more than a computer and Internet. While craft business used to require "personal" approach, it can now become less so.

Crafters who can no longer afford to travel to sell their products, can sell via a website instead. More people are shopping online than ever before. Now they don't have to wait to attend local craft show to buy their handmade goodies. They can simply visit their favorite website at their convenience.

I used crafts as one example only. There are many other businesses in same boat. But with a little effort and know-how, small business owners can turn their failing businesses into successful Internet businesses.

Business owners who currently rent office space can eliminate that expense by turning a room in their home into an office. Naturally, if clients need to be seen personally for services, that wouldn't work. But if it's possible, changing location of office will put more profits in pockets of business owner.

Small businesses *can* still survive. They just might have to adapt to changing times. So go with flow!

Denise Hall is the owner of Home Business on a Budget which specializes in tools and resources for your home business needs. Visit http://www.home-business-on-a-budget.com today. Get weekly articles, tips, information and resources here: http://tinyurl.com/4f9k8

While conversion rate metric is a necessary piece of potential joint venture package, it can be misleading if not properly qualified.

So, what questions do you ask to properly qualify what 'conversion rate' means and how do you verify it?

Short of looking at other marketer's web log, you really can't verify metric. The best thing to do is to review product yourself if possible and take a look at sales copy of product. Take a look at Alexa ranking to see what type of traffic site is getting, at least from a volume standpoint.

Remember, Alexa rankings measure volume of traffic not quality of traffic. Go to Google or some other search engine and see what types of sites link to site of product.

If there are professional well traveled sites that link to site that fit well within niche that product caters to, and sales copy, price point, and delivery are professional and fitting to product offering, maybe conversion rate is comparable to what you're being told it is.

But, just because conversion rates maybe close to truthful, it doesn't mean that sending a solo ad to your list will work well.

You have to decide for yourself if product could pull in type of conversion rates that are being 'sold' to you by proposer of JV.

Remember that source of traffic is one of main factors that will determine what type of conversion rate any JV will obtain. Ask yourself if your list will respond well to a solo ad JV. Only you as list owner will know whether product will be useful to your list and purchased by your list.

Be humble, work smart, keep it simple.

Karl Augustine "The Regular Guy" (c) Karl Augustine Starting an online business