BAKING

Then there are people who cannot stop baking during holidays. Are you type of person who finds that at close of season, all of your neighbors’ refrigerators and cookie jars are bursting at seams because baking is just your thing? Believe it or not, this is not favorite activity of some people.

Stacy Robinson has found that A Holiday Home Boutique is a fun way to network with others who provide a holiday-related product or service. Each vendor displays her product or information about her service, and friends and neighbors are invited to come to shop and share fellowship.

“As a cake decorator, I sell gingerbread houses, as well as display and serve a holiday-themed decorated cake - which hostesses love because this becomes part of refreshments! Visitors to boutique get a chance to taste and see my cakes, and I take orders for holiday party cakes. I also display a few ‘dummy cakes’ to showcase my designs for birthdays, weddings, etc.” The niche market that has been Stacy’s holiday bread and butter since 1991 is selling gingerbread houses to real estate agents. She leaves a gingerbread house with order information in large real estate offices for a few days. She also offers free delivery to real estate office, or delivery for a fee to their home-buying customers and other colleagues, such as mortgage brokers, closing attorneys, etc.

PLAN IT RIGHT

These are just a few ideas you can use to make a little extra cash this holiday season. Use your imagination. Remember, people are more than willing to spend money for that special gift and holiday service. Why can’t you be one who pockets that money? This is such a great time of year to make your business work. Another great reason to consider this type of seasonal work: If you plan it right, you shouldn’t be working too close to or on actual holiday. Being your own boss has never sounded better, now has it? Start thinking now if you want this to be seasonal work, or if you want to continue your business into new year. All of business ideas I listed above can be run throughout year. This could be start of something very profitable!

Additional Resources:

Ebooks are available on each of subjects listed above, and each ebook contains more information on starting that particular business. They include:

* Bizy’s Guide To: Making Snugglies! A Step-by-Step Guide to Making and Starting Your Own Fleece Blanket Business - By Cinda Louden * Bizy’s Guide To: How to Create a Profitable Cake Decorating Business “From Scratch” - By Stacy Robinson * Bizy’s Guide To: Making Money With Online Auctions - By Colleen Wallace * Bizy’s Guide To: Starting Your Own Personalized Letter Service For Kids - By Tamaira Sandifer * Bizy's Guide on How to Start and Operate A Home-Based T-Shirt Business - By Kimberly Banfield Moya * Bizy’s Guide To: Starting a Rubber Stamping Business - By Melissa Duquette You can purchase any of these ebooks at: http://www.bizymoms.com/main/?10000!1001

Liz Folger is a work-at-home expert and author of "The Stay-at-Home Mom's Guide To Making Money From Home." Her book is available at your favorite bookstore, such as www.amazon.com or by calling 800-632-8676. Liz has also created a resource site for work-at-home parents at http://www.bizymoms.com. When you visit, don't forget to sign-up for the free Bizymoms newsletter.

6) Refer a Friend: People love recommending good things to their friends and family. So why not give them chance to tell someone about your website? This is an easy feature to add to your site. Once you sign up with your chosen service, you paste a few lines of HTML code they give you onto your page and you're done. This is a form of viral marketing, and it works great.

http://www.recommend-it.com

7) Newsletter/Ezine: If you're going to have a website you must publish an ezine. Yep, sorry, hate to break it to you, but if you want to bring people back to your site and remind them of your existence you need to offer an ezine. Luckily, you don't need to set up a tricky list server; use one of free services below.

http://www.egroups.com (my personal favorite) http://www.topcia.com http://www.listbot.com

To learn more about ezine publishing go to

http://www.ezineuniversity.com http://www.absoluteezines.com http://www.ezine-z.com

8) Autoresponders: Remember fax-on-demand? Well, autoresponders work like that but come directly to your email box instead of your fax machine. You'll find many uses for them: from listing your products or services with current pricing, to offering back issues of your ezine. You can even use them to set up a scheduled training course on any topic you choose.

You'll find plenty of free autoresponders if you take a look, like:

http://www.sendfree.com http://www.getresponse.com

9) Promotional Items: Once your website is built you'll need a few items on hand to help promote it.

a) Press Release- Keep it short & newsworthy, 4 paragraphs tops b) Descriptions of your Site- Long and short for search engines and directories c) Banners- animated & static, 468X60 and maybe a button banner d) Classified Ads- Write a few short ads, 4 or 5 lines, 60 to 65 characters wide to use for online advertising in ezines. e) Signature Lines: write a few good signature lines and use them on every piece of email that you send out. Try to include something free in it.

If you'd like all of these things made for you in one neat package see:

http://www.mcpromotions.com/getreadytomarket.htm

Business cards can be made for just cost of shipping at http://www.vistaprint.com

10) Toll Free Number: If you don't want to add another phone line in your house for your new business, don't! There are many companies online who are just waiting to give you your own toll free phone number. Many of them can be configured to ring on your land line, or transferred to your cell phone if you prefer. You can even set hours and times you want calls to transfer to your other phone number, all done seamlessly. Many of these types of services will also notify you by email when you have a message waiting in your box.

http://www.ureach.com The best one online in my opinion

11) Ability to Accept Credit Cards; No merchant account, no problem! Let's face it, if you want people to order from your site you need to make it easy for them to pay you and that means accepting online payments. Merchant accounts can be costly to set up, especially for a new Internet business. Good thing there are plenty of third party processors you can use who will take a small percentage of each sale in exchange for giving you this service:

http://www.ibill.com Takes a higher percentage of sales http://www.ccnow.com Must be a tangible product not a service http://www.propay.com Low rates, and your email address appears on customer's cc statement not processor. http://www.clickbank.com Rates aren't bad and allows you to take out of country payments.

Another easy way to accept online payment is PayPal http://www.paypal.com Free to register and cheap; an easy way to send or receive money.

So there you have it in a nutshell. Don't put off starting your online business one more day because you think you can't afford it. You can. By implementing these 11 suggestions into your new business, you'll have a site that not only makes sale, but doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to own.