Remember the enthusiasm you first had when starting your work from home business? Maybe you did so much research that you felt you were practically an expert on the topic. But, that was then and this is now; you need a little refresher course. This article is here to help you make sure you are going in the right direction and improve your performance.
Get receipts from lunches with colleagues and prospects, because you can deduct expenses such as these at tax time. Such meetings would be considered legitimate business expenses. Make sure that the people you meet with are either already clients or potential clients, as the IRS doesn’t look too favorably on claiming pleasure as business.
Be sure to keep your residential phone line and business phone line separate. A professional business always has a dedicated line and voicemail system. Not only that, but you don’t want to risk your child or another person answering a business call.
If you need to do any driving to meet the needs of your home based business, keep detailed records of mileage and save all fill-up receipts. Whether your trip is a short 15 minutes or as long as a full day, you can deduct the trip costs fully on your taxes. It is a good idea to keep track of the reason for the trip, in case you ever need to prove it was work related.
If you want to make your customers happy, go the extra mile. Think about adding a little extra to their order, or slip a thank you note into the package. When you show someone that you are grateful for their business, they will come back for more. When you provide free incentives and gifts to your customers, they will love it. You need to show your customers that you value them and their patronage.
When you are in the hiring process, do your research. You need to be certain that all of your employees are skilled and reliable so that they don’t destroy your business.
One marketing possibility is to use affiliates. Swap affiliate links with like-minded business owners. Join other affiliate programs to see if they have products that are similar to yours. This can increase your revenue tenfold.
You should set up a backup plan just in case something goes wrong with your home business. You should have plans ready for any type of web hosting issue or a product isn’t received. You will be able to sustain your income as you recover from these catastrophes.
Do you want to relive the same excitement that you had upon opening your home business enterprise? You want to succeed but have either forgotten some information or need a kick in the pants to motivate your more. The information from this article should be of use to you.