Five things you're unlikely to hear said at successful work from home businesses

...but you will often hear them from those heading for failure.

1. With work from home businesses like mine, having the lowest price is the best way to enter the market and get customers.

I can't think of a idea that is more widespread among the owners of new work from home businesses. Starting out at a lower than market price might get you some early attention, but it does nothing to improve your chances of success in the long term - and you are in this for the long term, right?

The truth is, you get the customers/clients you court. If you focus on people who are looking for bargains, or who are very price sensitive, those are the people you are going to have as your customers. When you try to move to market price at a later date, most of them are not going to move with you. Instead, they'll be looking for the newest low-price kid on the block.

If you want happy, loyal customers at the market price, or even at a premium to the market, have the confidence to price yourself there on the first day you are open for business. If you want some help with pricing, check out Make Your Price Sell!, The Masters Course

2. My product/service will sell itself.

Have you ever heard of Coca Cola? How about McDonald's? Is there likely a person alive in the industrialized world who hasn't been exposed to the product of these two giants?

If any product could sell itself, it should be likely that products with the reputation, recognition, and acceptance of those offered by Coke and McDonald's would fit the bill. Yet, both Coca Cola and McDonald's market extensively.

Coca Cola, alone, spends over $1.5 billion US dollars every year to sell their product, and it's safe to asssume McDononald's has a similar budget.

Now why would the people in charge of these two highly successful businesses waste all that money on marketing? Because no product sells itself. Work from home businesses are no different. You need a marketing plan and a sales effort if you want to succeed.

3. My business is too small to need a business plan.

D-Day was the largest coordinated military action to take place in the history of the world. Within one month of the original landing (in which 4,000 ships participated) 1 million men, over 150,000 vehicles and 1/2 million tons of supplies had entered europe. When they asked General Eisenhower how important the invasion plan had been to his success he said, that the plan was unimportant. No military plan survives the first five seconds of contact with the enemy. But the planning process, was invaluable.

OK, you are a little home business, not the D-Day invasion. Why waste time on a plan? Because the planning process will be invaluable for you as well. You will learn things you didn't know, see things you hadn't seen, and realize things you thought were true for your business are just plain inaccurate.

It's the process of investigating the plan, and setting your goals down in black and white that matters. You can throw the thing away once its done if you have the heart, but don't miss building it from the ground up. Its a foundation stone of your future success.

4. I'm going to use word of mouth to market my business

Sorry... can't be done. Word-of-mouth is the result of excellent marketing, combined with an excellent product, or service, delivered with excellence. It can't be your marketing plan - because it is the result of your marketing plus your service.

It's true that word of mouth advertising is probably the most effective advertising work from home businesses can get. Problem is, the only way you can get it is to; FIRST, market your business well so you have some customers (if you don't have customers who is going to spread the word?), and SECOND, impress those customers with your quality product, or service.

If you market well, and provide excellent customer service you'll build the positive word of mouth you deserve.

5. My friend/girlfriend/son is building my website.

I've heard 100 people say this and 90 of them are still waiting for their - fill in the blank - to finish. Eight of them had to pay a web design professional more to fix the mess they received than it would have cost to hire them in the first place. A couple, of course, did get a good website, but the odds aren't good.

The best way to approach your website, by far, is to put in the time and effort to learn this skill yourself. With software like SiteBuildIt and StoreBuildIt anyone can do it. SiteSell products even include Keyword Analysis and Search Engine Optimization - essentials in driving traffic to your site.

Even if you went the full route, bought Microsoft's FrontPage, and then took a few classes to learn how to use it, you expense would likely be under $1,000 - about the price of a competent web designer's time for a basic site. For the same money you would have your site and both the software, and skill, to modify or expand it anytime you want. Of course, for less than half of that investment you can have a complete Internet business and marketing system with SiteBuildIt.

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