Internet Home Business & Life

A year ago I started a little home-based business in my spare time. It's a good thing I did -- my regular job was eliminated a few months later. Instead of finding another job, I decided to commit my time and energy to my fledgling business, which was showing great promise. It's the best decision I've ever made.

Now my little website-publishing business makes enough money to cover all my expenses, and revenues are growing quickly. I'll never work for anyone else ever again.

The business began with a travel guide to cruises from Norfolk, offering information about the ships, their sailing schedule, the cruise terminal, and the port city. Now I have several websites about a variety of topics. A work at home Internet business can be about anything! Are you an expert at something? Do you have a hobby? Turn your interest into a website, share your knowledge with the world, and start making money.

I make money from advertisements on the sites, mostly from Google's excellent Adsense program. The low-overhead of an Internet home business means that almost all my revenues are profit (the main expense is website hosting, which is cheap). My business is still in the early stages and growing fast. There's really no limit to how much money I could eventually make, given the Web's ability to reach people around the world and the multitude of possible subjects for sites.

I'm making enough to live on, but I'm truly rich in time. My business has given me the freedom to tackle a project that I've wanted to do for years -- build my own home. That would be nearly impossible to do while holding down a 9-to-5 job, but it's easy to work on the house during the day and tend to my Internet home business at night. Yes, I've created a website about the homebuilding process; I can make some money from what I learn.

I've gained control of my life with an Internet home business, and millions of other people around the world have too. From the Ebay sellers to businesses that are a lot more sophisticated than mine, we're using the web revolution to power our dreams of success.

Franchises

Franchises are a short-cut to small business success. The franchise buyer spends money upfront to buy into a successful business and reduce the risk of failure. The heart of this business model is the franchise system, which spells out every little detail of how to successfully run the business.

A good franchise is based on concepts proven in one or more prototypes. There the system has been tried and refined to a high level. It's the proving ground that demonstrates the value of that particular franchise business. It's a model of a business that works. That's what you're paying for if you buy a franchise.

What a typical franchise won't do is give you the freedom to run the business your way. All the decisions are made for you. These are turn-key business operations that must be run according to all the details spelled out in the franchise manual.

The Great Harvest Bread Company is a "freedom franchise" that allows franchise owners to create their stores as they please. But they aren't on their own. They have the support of the company and all the other franchises. It's an interesting business model that you might want to explore.