Because it takes longer for unemployed baby boomers to find work, the percentage of boomers starting their own business is 16% higher than in previous years. In fact, many are seeking an easy home based business opportunity.For those losing a job who are over the age of 55, it takes longer to find a job than any other age group. For those in the age bracket 45-54, they find themselves in the worst situation overall.For those who have lost a job, they are experiencing major salary reductions in new positions. Because many of these baby boomers were more aggressive in their investments, their retirement savings have taken a considerable hit.Employment professionals have advised this group to take a job, no matter how large the salary reduction. The financial crisis has reduced the employer stigma that it is bad to be making less than before or less than what they hope to make. They are advised to take any job no matter what it pays.But this doesn’t help those in this age group who are seeing both their salaries and retirement savings greatly reduced. In addition, many of their children (who can’t find a job) are moving back in with them. This is also the time when their parents may be looking for financial support from them.It is taking baby boomers over the age of 55 more than 36 weeks on the average to find a job. For those looking for higher salaries, it is taking much longer.For those in the 45-54 age bracket, it’s taking over 30 weeks on average. Not only have retirement savings been reduced by the stock market crash, some of their savings must be used to cover monthly expenses.The long wait to find a new job is a major reason why many members of the baby boomer generation are joining a home based business opportunity that is easy.They can continue to look for a job and can run a home business on a part time basis as long as it is an easy business. Finding a lucrative, but easy business is the key since a job search is very time consuming.If you find the right business (one that is lucrative and easy), it can start providing you income fairly early. If a new job does not meet the preferred salary requirements, the home business can fill in the gap until a higher paying job is found.Many members of the baby boomer generation are finding that the income potential of a lucrative home business eliminates the need of continuing to search for a new job.Even if you find the perfect new job, the lucrative, easy home based business opportunity has served its purpose. It has provided the needed income during the difficult times.As long as the home business is easy, you may decide to continue working the business in addition to the new job. This helps rebuild the retirement savings lost during this process.You must find a lucrative home based business opportunity that is also easy.If you try using traditional MLM marketing methods in your business, you will probably fail.If you try setting up your own internet marketing system to market your business, you will not have enough time to search for a job. Setting up your own internet marketing system is very involved and time-consuming. It could take you months.Either way, you are putting all your eggs in one basket – search for a job or build an internet marketing system.Here is the best way. Join an easy home based business opportunity. But make sure it is lucrative.By doing that, you will not need to market your business using old, antiquated methods that don’t work for most people. In addition, you will not need to go to the time and expense of setting up your own internet marketing system.Instead, find a business that uses a team marketing approach. By using this approach, you will have time to run your home business and also search for a job.

Are you looking to start a home based business? If so, you will have no doubt seen the 1000′s advertised online promising to generate enough money to live your life beyond your wildest dreams! But are they all just home based business scams?We all want to have wealth and to live our lives the way we want to live it, but can these home based businesses really deliver their promises? Probably not!£256,356 in just 7 days! 18 year old earns 6 figure income in just 1 month! These types of outlandish statements are not uncommon on the internet, but are in general complete and utter rubbish. Show me one person who has bought one of these types of products and made it happen.Don’t be fooled into parting with your hard earned cash for home based business scams that cannot possibly deliver.Starting a home based business takes time and a lot of effort. If you want success be prepared to work for it.Always do due diligence on any business you are thinking of investing into and ensure you are thorough with your research. Try to contact the business owners to ask for more details, check testimonials not just on the sales page, but on other websites and forums too.A good home based business to invest into should already be successful, have excellent support and be totally transparent. Do they have a community or forum of other business owners sharing experiences and successes? If you are joining the business as an affiliate, is the owner of the business easy to contact? Do they have a facebook account or twitter account? Do they hold weekly conference calls?With home based business scams the developers or owners will be difficult to contact, the details of the business will be confusing or not very clear and they will have outrageous claims of “Getting Rich Quick”. Don’t be fooled into these businesses.

Whatever home based business you might be in, it really doesn’t matter. The question that you must ask yourself as you read this, is how seriously are you taking your business? Recently I heard that if you had a 9-5 job, you would do anything it took to go to work. You wouldn’t think twice about going to that JOB, right? Of course. You have to go to work no matter what. Sometimes you even go to work when you are not feeling so well. Yes, when you are self-employed you have the leisure of taking off whenever you want, but for the most part when you are actively building your business, you absolutely do what you have to do, no matter what. Take a moment right now and think about your current situation. It may be like many new entrepreneurs right now around the world. You may be struggling right now to get your business going. That’s ok. Every business builder starts out that way. You most likely have heard this before: your business, must be taken seriously and must not be treated as a hobby. A hobby is something that you enjoy doing, for fun. A business is something that you love to do for the purpose of increasing your knowledge, the knowledge of others and obviously growing your finances. The home based business that you are in right now, must be taken seriously and you must not treat it as a hobby. Did I say that already? It needs to be repeated I believe. You’ve already taken the time to think about your current situation, and now you need to look at the future of your business. If you are indeed a new home based business owner, you need a mentor or a coach or someone that can help you in the things that will help you continue to grow your business.You might be thinking that most of the people that grow to have a successful business, are those who are single and have nothing else to do. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The many business owners that are successful and help others to be successful are those who have one of the busiest lives.There are other people that work around those excuses and prioritize around those”excuses” and make things happen. What should you do to be successful?
Take your business seriously.
Treat your business like a business not like a hobby.
Never stop learning. Education is important.
Taking your business seriously means, to take the time in needs to grow your business, whatever that may mean. Reading books and taking advice from other successful people in the home based business world is an example of taking your business seriously. Never stop learning no matter how far up the business ladder you go. Once you have “arrived” you most likely will start to fail. No one is exempt from “falling”.Treat your business like a business not like a hobby. Many people that enjoy their business, often make the mistake of treating it like a hobby. If you have fallen into this trap, it might look something like this:”You enjoy the home based business that you are in, but you rarely spend time on growing the business. You spend lots of time looking at things that you could do, instead of actually doing what it takes to grow your customer base or business partner base.Never stop learning. Education is important. There are many views on this point, but I will share what has helped me, and hopefully it will help you. You probably agree with me that there are so many “gurus” that offer there knowledge and advice for a hefty price. There are many books and video presentations and e-books that are in fact very beneficial to growing your business. The warning that I would give is, don’t buy everything that you see or here. As a rule of thumb, if there is free advice that you can receive from the “expert”, then do that. Be aware that not all free advice is good, but keep an eye out for things that you can use and be sure to apply them right away.Take your business seriously by putting the effort into it that you would if you were in a 9-5 job. Who knows, you might still be in a 9-5 still and are slowly working your way to the self-employed life. That’s ok, and that is the safest way to go. Work your business diligently and only do what matters.

From the outside, it may look like the perfect ideal that anyone wants. For example, I’ve had people tell me that I’ve got the best of both worlds; that I have a home-based business as a freelance writer and I get to be with my kids all the time. They perceive that my freelance writing career comes with no worries, there’s not much ‘running around’ to do because my home-based business is a pretty ‘straight-forward’ one and that my kids are angelic all the time.

How I wish it was all true.

You see, as a freelance writer with more than ten years of experience in my pocket, I dare say that anyone with a home-based business can tell you that it’s impossible to start a business, yes, even if it’s just a small home-based business, without some planning. Because there’s a certain amount of passion and emotion that you’re going to be pouring into this home-based business of yours, you’ll certainly be yanking all your hair out trying to make sure that there aren’t any loopholes and that it would run as smoothly as a yacht on a hot, sunny, cloudless day.

Never truly prepared for your home-based business
As with becoming a parent, you can never be truly prepared for your home-based business. That’s the sad truth about life, about a freelance writing career and also about your home-based business. What you’ve planned for your home-based business may not roll out the way you have planned it to roll out and along the way, you will discover that you could burn all those strategic marketing and online marketing plans that you’ve painfully drawn up without causing a dent in the way your home-based business works.

But does this mean you ought not plan your business at all? That if you’re a freelance writer like me, you can start pounding on every door that you see, asking to be hired as their writer or blogger?

Essential to write a marketing and business plan even for home-based businesses
Far from it, I’m afraid. As unpredictable as it is, it’s still essential for home-based business owners to write out and plan their home-based business’ marketing strategy. No ship can sail without knowing where they’re heading and if you head in blindfolded, you’d better be ready for a surprise, then. It’s ‘good luck’ to you!

And if you’re thinking, ‘I don’t have anyone to answer to apart from…well, myself, what’s there to worry?’ but that’s what the whole worry is about. This makes your whole home-based business a very direction-less and eventually a very messy one. And the worst thing is that one fine day, you would start comparing your own home-based business with others and realize that they’re doing much better much faster – where did you go wrong and then you remember the marketing plan that you burned.

The way the home-based business works will change all the time
But this is the way business works – you’ll need to change and revise all the time but it DOES NOT mean that you can do away with planning out your home-based business. There are consequences to think about, a back-up plan and a strategy that you can fall back on.

One fine day, you will revise your home-based business, work on it, see that something’s not working, revise it, work on it, do it….well, until you feel that everything’s okie dokie.

And then something goes wrong.

Believe or not, this is the way the world works…this is the way your home-based business will work as well. And you’ve got to learn how to deal with this…but not without a marketing strategy and a home-based business plan.

Virtually every owner or manager will agree that operating a small business requires lots of hard work on the part of both managers and employees. It’s what is commonly known as “sweat equity”. Or in other words, hard work is required to bring the results desired.

Hard work alone is not enough. Additionally, the business owner must be prepared to make a commitment to building and growing the business. That translates to being on the job every day.

Unfortunately, some owners, such as those who purchase a franchise, assume that their on-the-job commitment is not necessary if they hire a manager to run the business. Sometimes that works. More often it doesn’t work so well. Nevertheless, operating a small business requires hard work by the owners and managers.

There are three fundamental steps in the process of the hard work that are not complicated, but necessary for success.

Getting work comes first. Whatever the business does, it must first promote and sell its products and services to the markets served. The business cannot depend on chance. To illustrate, if the business has the cure for the common cold, it must tell the market and provide a way for potential customers to contact the business to purchase the remedy. To get work or sell products and services, the business must make the market it serves aware of its presence and skills as well as how to contact the business. Fortunately, there are many affordable advertising and promotion options for small businesses that will contact potential customers who are likely to buy the products and services available for purchase.

Fulfilling and delivering customer orders is the second step. Whether designing, building, assembling or delivering products or services, small businesses do of good job of getting the work done. What they do not do so well sometimes is fulfilling the order or getting the project done on time.

There may be nothing more irritating or displeasing to a customer than a supplier or vendor who does not fulfill an order or complete a project on time. This happens far too often with small businesses. While it is desirable to get something done the right way even though it may take more time than originally planned, small business owners and managers must strive to meet deadlines or finish projects before the deadline if they want to be successful.

Paying bills and getting paid for the Work performed and delivered is the third step of the process.

Small businesses tend to pay bills to vendors and suppliers before the due date because they think the thought doing so will assure a good credit status with the vendor or supplier if the bill is paid before due. Paying the bill when due is good enough.

On the other hand, they will allow their customers to pay bills beyond the due date.

At the end of the fiscal year, most small businesses will complain that while sales were good, there was little cash in the company checking account. When asked why this is the case, Accountants and Consultants will reply that the cash shortage is in Inventory or Accounts Receivable. Usually the latter is the major contributor to cash shortfalls.

Small businesses do not do a good job of getting paid in a timely manner. It does not have to be that way and it should not be that way. In fact, it is very easy to assure timely payments when a consistent and uniform Accounts Receivable Collection Procedures Program is in place.

Accounts Receivable systems are a valuable asset to small businesses. The consistent application of Accounts Receivable collection activities will reduce costs which in turn improves margins and operation profits.

In closing, a professional Accounts Receivable Collection is not the dreaded last minute phone call to the customer that nobody wants to do. On the contrary, the process begins at the Point of Sale when buyer and seller agree to payment terms required and continues on professional and uniform communication between the buyer and the seller.