45 Home Business Resources: Things and People That Help You Make Money In Your Underwear

Hi. Welcome. What follows is a really long list. Like, really long. You might want to bookmark it and come back later if you’re working or something.

Your Home Business Needs a Website

First, you’ll need a domain. To make sure your domain doesn’t suck, you’ll want to do some keyword research. Wordtracker has some funky tools and they’ve got a buy one month, get one month free thing on right now. If you’ve been thinking about trying it, now’s the time.

Once you have found a non-sucky domain, you’ll have to buy it. You can buy one pretty much anywhere, but I happen to like InMotion. I’m pretty sure if you buy a hosting package with them (see below), the domain is free anyway.

Once you have a domain, you have to get hosting on it. (Buying the name and letting it hang out without hosting or content is a pretty fucking dumb idea. Don’t ask me how I know this. I don’t want to talk about it.)

Here’s the secret about hosting. You know how on everybody’s blog you see little banner ads for DreamHost and BlueHost and WhateverBlahBlahBlahHost? Everyone wants you to click on their little hosting ads because they get a shit ton of money if you sign up through their ad. Unfortunately, generally speaking, the higher the bribe, the crappier the hosting.

After the incident with the hosting company that shall remain nameless, it was recommended to me — by a friend WITHOUT one of these links — that I try InMotion. I’m pretty damn impressed. If you go and you’re confused, you want the button in the middle that says “Business class hosting, $6.95/month”.

Now that you own the newest addition to your take-over-the-world arsenal, you’ll want to optimize it so people actually show up and hang out and maybe even buy shit. Since you probably don’t want to pay a thousand bucks an hour for an SEO consultant (no, this is not a made up number) you can figure it out for yourself. You’ve got two choices. SEOBook — totally not a book, by the way, but cool nonetheless — and SEOmoz. I have the pro membership for the latter because the Juicy Link Finder is pretty fucking cool.

Holy shit, you’ve got a site. Rock on. Now you have to put something there. If you don’t want to pay a designer, get Site Build It. It seems expensive but frankly, it will blow your mind. Your dog could create a reasonable looking website with this. (If you get this, you probably don’t need WordTracker, or InMotion. It’s all in the box. Something for SEO might still come in handy, though.) Oh, and if it’s good enough for Steve Pavlina, it’s good enough for you and me.

If you don’t mind laying out some cash for a design, check out Men With Pens. They know their shit and will not gouge you.

Your Home Business Needs to Get the Word Out

Let’s be honest — you want cool business cards. At this point I would not spend a lot of money on them because you don’t know what the hell you’re going to be doing in six months and if there is anything more depressing on this earth than throwing out business cards, it’s throwing out expensive ones. Lots of people like VistaPrint for this. (The business cards, not the throwing out. I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of throwing them out yourself.) They have some crazy 90% off sale on that might be worth checking out.

Got News? Press releases are cool. (I have to say this because I write a lot of them. In fact, we can probably credit press releases with the new house I’m moving into in July.) When you have one done — and frankly, you CAN do it yourself — you have to do something with it after you show it to your mom. PRWeb is pretty much the only shop in town for this. I think they give pretty damn substantial discounts to new customers, too.

If you can write your way out of a wet paper bag and want to score lots of links fast, Article Marketer is pretty awesome. Courtney Tuttle is a major Article Marketer disciple and generally you should just do whatever he tells you to. It’s pretty expensive but it’s one of a kind.

Every day some marketing genius comes up with an updated statistic on the “how many times does your market need to see your message before they buy?” issue. Conventional wisdom says the riff raff needs to hear from you between 13 and 20 times before they whip out the Visa. The easiest, cheapest and most popular way to do this is by sending out a newsletter. AWeber is the guru newsletter distribution of choice, and they have a pretty rocking “what the hell is newsletter marketing?” tutorial that even the masters can learn from.

Your Home Business Needs to Stay In Touch

If you don’t want to look like the bullshit Mickey Mouse organization from Duluth that you really are, you should probably avoid using your home phone for business. RingCentral has everything you’d ever want for this. Seriously, it’s pretty ridiculous. 800 numbers and hold music and all manner of crazy shit to make you look like you’re actually Apple. Try RingCentral Online free this month and they’ve got some crazy free trial plus discount plus God knows what else.

In addition to a real phone and fax service, you’ll want Skype for Business. It’s free and cool and my husband set it up for me in, like, three minutes. My only issue with Skype is that people keep asking me to video call with them and I generally prefer to work topless while smoking. You can imagine how well THAT goes over.

Your Home Business Needs to Get Some Work Done

You can’t get piss all done if you’re not decently rested. If you have not yet heard of Pzizz, you will soon. (Probably very soon since I’m just about to write about it.) It’s a custom sleep download thing and I seriously have no interest in remembering what life was like without it. I sleep, Jamie sleeps, JACK SLEEPS. I cannot recommend this product highly enough. Get the bundle package thing so you get the nap and the sleep modes.

Time management is a bitch. (Well, management in general is a bitch in my experience.) Dave Navarro is the time management guy. If you are not already Dave Navarro, you need Dave Navarro. 30 Hours a Day will blow your mind. James Chartrand, who I know for a fact starts work at 5 AM, tells me that Become an Early Riser is equally amazing. Since the very idea of me getting up at 5 AM is ridiculous, that is heresay at this point.

If you have children, be aware that they will do everything in their (quite considerable) power to sabotage you business and your life in general. If the kids are teeny, Baby Einstein is the shit. (This one in particular is quite popular at IttyBiz HQ. Canadians click here.) If they are slightly larger, try getting them a Leapfrog. (Canadians click here.) If they are old enough to regale you with stories about Pokemon or its latest incarnation, send them to Disney.com and call them when it’s time for dinner.

Everyone and their mama is talking about virtual assistants. For mine, I hired someone I already knew. If you can’t do that, check out Elance. Remember, when it comes to VAs, you get what you pay for.

Since the first thing that’s going to suffer when you launch your home business — other than, perhaps, your relationship with your spouse — is your house, put a plan in place now. FlyLady is about caring for your house for people who aren’t used to caring for your house. She’s a little wacky (OK, she’s a lot wacky) but if you do what she tells you to do, you’ll feel better. Totally free, too, which is cool for a resource so intensive

I can’t think of FlyLady without thinking of one of her partners in crime, Leanne. Leanne has an adorable little home business called Saving Dinner. She sends out these amazing Dinner and snack planners for every dietary need under the sun, including Frugal, Low Carb, Diabetic, and God knows what else. These are AMAZING and something like $10 for three months including recipes, subdivided grocery lists, the whole nine. Leanne is the only reason we eat anything healthier than eight dollar rotisserie chickens from the deli aisle.

Your Home Business Needs to Sell Stuff

If you’re trying to get people to buy actual physical stuff, many people start with opening an Ebay Merchant account. (Click here if you’re Canadian.) This isn’t the way most people end up, but it gets you started and having a rock solid EBay merchant rating is always a good asset to have. In fact, you might want to get a merchant account anyway and sell some of the shit in your house just to get some good feedback. Then if and when you’re ready to rock you’re already starting out with a good rating and not saying “I swear I’m a nice person and I won’t screw you over” to actual customers you want to keep.

If you’re wanting to sell other people’s stuff as an affiliate, you’ll probably want to build a niche store. I’ve had two clients try to do this on their own and it’s a train wreck, let me tell you. If you want to build an online niche store, there’s a funky product called, you guessed it, Build a Niche Store. Much easier. Fewer casualties. Try to ignore the sales page. Site Build It is a good choice for this, too.

If you’ve decided to sell pieces of your brain in handy PDF or MP3 format instead of physical stuff, try E-Junkie. Much less pain in the ass than other sites of its kind and they don’t bend you over on fees.

Before you try to sell anything to anyone, you seriously need to read Desperate Buyers Only. Brian Clark turned me onto this one, and it’s highly cool. Pay no attention to the sales page. Seriously. B-R-U-T-A-L. But at least the author admits it’s brutal. Kind of anti marketing. (On a side note, it is my contention that anti marketing is how George W. Bush remained in office for as long as he did.)

Your Home Business Needs to Get Paid

If you have come to the conclusion that getting paid for your products and services is a better business model than, say, handing your shit out for free, you’ll need to find a way for people to pay you. PayPal is hands down the most popular choice here. If you don’t already have an account, get one now and get it verified so that when people start buying you don’t look like some shyster. (Verification is pretty simple. They send two random payments to your bank account — like two cents and then eight cents or something — and you confirm the amounts. Then they know you’re not making it up. You also get ten free cents.)

Moving into the PayPal sphere is the Revolution Money Exchange. I heard from Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing (another awesome resource) that people are starting to dig this because it’s different from PayPal and they don’t charge fees and shit. I don’t know a lot of the details but people I know and like say it’s cool. I don’t think it’s good outside the US, though, so forewarned is forearmed.

Your Home Business Needs Business Advice

If you want business advice, you can call me. I’m pretty good at it.

If you want something like what I offer but only want to spend ten bucks, Crystal Clayton from Big Bright Bulb is offering microconsulting via Twitter. It’s pretty damn cool if you ask me. Even though you didn’t. Men with Pens also offers mini consulting drive-bys for your website. Also cool, but only for websites that already exist.

There’s a new service out called America’s Best Companies. The idea they’re going for is that a whole shitload of home businesses banded together can be a pretty powerful force. The fee is fairly similar to what you’ll pay for an offline networking organization but it’s, like, online. Logic would dictate that when joining this organization, being a resident of the United States would likely help.

Your Home Business Needs a Blog

It’s pretty conventionally held wisdom that if you want to get crawled frequently by search engines (and that’s good, by the way) you should get a blog. If you don’t want to write about Fluffy’s most recent hairball, you’ll probably need help. Michael Martine is the go to guy when it comes to blog consulting. He’s got a blog — duh — and he also has some pretty fantastic blog consulting. Not cheap, but cheaper than failure, bankruptcy and eventual lonely death. If nothing else, subscribe to his blog for the free ebook on business blogging.

If you’re really just getting started and you want your info all in one place and in order, check out Darren Rowse’s Problogger book. Like Problogger, but you can read it in the bath. (Canadians click here.)

If you dig community and a more interactive learning environment, check out Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind. Several of my clients are members and love it. Darren Rowse loves it. It’s a monthly program with forums and all that jazz and it comes pretty highly recommended.

For you high tech folks, the aforementioned Michael Martine strongly recommends the Flip Video. If you’re thinking of making the leap into video blogging, this is a very good and extremely affordable choice. It is an excellent business writeoff that can record your kid’s ballet recital. Not owning this is kind of dumb. It also comes in pink, for those of you who care.

Your Home Business Needs Health Insurance

Luckily, I’m Canadian, which means I can have triplets by C-section tomorrow and nobody can say a damn thing about it. (Well, my husband might have something to say, but that’s another blog post.) One of the biggest deterrents to starting a home business in the States is the loss of health insurance. My clients tell me this sucks big rocks. You might want to check eHealthInsurance out. They seem to be user friendly and you can get a whack of quotes all in one place and apply online with live help. Live help is important to me. In my world, this is good.

Your Home Business Needs Offline Help

Since I’m sure you’re quite capable of Googling “your city + search term”, I’m not going to try and find links for the following. They’re still pretty damn handy nonetheless.

Get a maid. Life is much better since I started paying someone to clean my house.

Get a nanny. It’s all well and good to say you’ll work during their naps. But what’s your big plan for when they don’t nap?

If you insist on going it alone on the kids front, at least find a drop in center or on demand daycare service. There will be times when you absolutely cannot afford to have your kids pull the crap that kids always pull. You need to find a way to either get them out of your house or keep them at your house while you leave. No, you can’t duct tape their mouths shut and leave them in their cribs.

If you’re doing well, you won’t have time to cook. (When you’re doing really well, you’ll have all the time in the world.) You’ll get sick of pizza eventually, and you might want to consider some kind of food delivery company. You know, where you call and they bring, like, a freezer full of food? Expensive as shit, but worth considering.

Laundry is the biggest time suck on earth. If there is more than one person in your house and it is your responsibility to clean their clothes, outsource it.

Bonus: You’re going to need something to wear.

Since you’re not exactly going to be slapping on the power suit to head on down to the office anymore, you’ll want new clothes. These t-shirts are fucking awesome. (Actually, they don’t call themselves t-shirts. They’re pants for your torso. No, I didn’t just make that up.) I may actually let them be the first advertiser on IttyBiz. Yes, they’re that good.

Photo credit: Riot Jane

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 9, 2008 in Home Based Business - 53 Comments