If You are Perfectly happy with accepting the way things are in your life, then a Home Based Business Is Not for You! Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself:Q: Do You have all the vacation time you need and deserve?Q: Can You write off a portion of your home and utilities in your present situation? Some of the best tax benefits this country has to offer are available only to business owners!Q: Do you work for a company that has mandatory overtime? with a Home Based Business the only overtime you put in is self-imposed and because you want to do it!Q: Do you work a night shift job? If you do you probably work the night of a Holiday such Memorial Day like I did because the company delivers their products early the next day! With a Home Based Business you can party as long as you want on holidays and get some extra sleep the day after!Q: Do You have an alarm clock? With a Home based business you don’t ever need one!Q: Do You have a long commute to work? Wouldn’t it be cool if your commute consisted of going from your bed to the coffee maker and then to your laptop? In your pajamas!Q: Does your company have a dress code? With your own home based business you can save the dress clothes for parties and entertaining. Work in your PJ’s or Buck Naked if you prefer, as long as you are not video conferencing!Q: Has anyone at your company been laid off in the past 2 years? Does that worry you? You can only lay yourself off if you have a Home Based Business and that’s only if you give up! You are better than that!Q: Are getting the raises you deserve? Or any raise at all? With a home based business you will dictate how much you make by how much effort you put into it.Q: Does your company allow you to be a part owner? If they are a publicly traded company you can buy stock but can you afford to invest your hard-earned money and gamble on their success?Q: Do You like your Boss? With a home based business I’m pretty sure you would!Q: Do your co-workers pull their own weight or do you find yourself working harder to pick up their slack? With a Home Based Business you decide who you will work with!Q: How many years until you can retire and live in the lap of luxury? Only You can answer that!OK, well hopefully this article and these questions served to get you thinking about your present situation and gave you a bit of a hint as to what you can do about it.
You Can Operate a Profitable Home Based Business
When you think of having a profitable home based business, what kinds of images come to your mind? Business sounds important. To think of owning a business implies that we can create a product or deliver a service that others will value enough to spend money acquiring. What is the activity if it’s not a business? A hobby. Even the IRS says if you don’t make a profit in three years it’s not a business for the purposes of business deductions.Those deductions are an essential element of owning a profitable home based business. The ability to take business purchases and equipment off your taxes is a vital part of the strategy of every successful company. Knowing what to do takes knowledge, which at the very least means study, and which may mean seeking professional counsel. A basic knowledge of the principles of accounting, including cost accounting often spells the difference between success and failure in business. A famous line from “The Lucy Show” has Lucille Ball commenting that she loses a quarter a jar on the salad dressing she is making. When asked how she plans to succeed, she says,”I’m going to make it up on volume!”Home based is an important part of having a profitable home based business for many people. Some people romanticize the idea of working from home. While this can be freeing in terms of commuting in heavy traffic and worrying about an appropriate business wardrobe, the pressures of balancing home life and work can be frustrating unless or until a person develops the ability to separate the work from the personal in the home environment. If you can organize and segregate the tasks and distractions, this can be a dream come true with freedom and flexibility beyond anything the traditional work environment can offer.The profitable aspect of owning a profitable home based business carries its own set of challenges as well as tremendous opportunities. Home based businesses are often, but not always, single person enterprises. This means when you are not working you are not earning. Hiring people to work for you means training, supervising, discipline and sometimes firing. A lot of businesses never make it over that threshold, and that is fine if that meets your needs for income and freedom. Profitability and productivity often have a direct correlation, so the challenge of the owner of a home based business is to increase productivity without sacrificing the advantages of freedom and flexibility.A profitable home based business really can be a dream come true. Or it can let you do what you like with a lot of flexibility as to where and when you do it. It can be a great way to blend family life in with a less rigid business schedule and more relaxed environment. A person considering this move should evaluate his or her own style of working, scheduling and relating to others. It is also advisable to seek the advice of those you trust to see how they think you will adjust. It can be the greatest thing you ever do for yourself and your family.
Auction Listings Are Vital to the Success of Fundraising Auctions
Fundraising Auction Tip: You should always provide potential bidders with a printed Auction Listing of both your Live and Silent Auction items at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is vital for several reasons:
An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order of sale, and what is coming up next. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will simply not bid.
If bidders are not 100% certain of what they are bidding on, they will not bid. A printed Auction Listing should answer any and all questions about what is being sold in order to encourage bidders to bid as much as possible.
Bidders often need time to plan their bidding strategies, especially on multiple and/or larger value items. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.
Couples often need time to consult with each other about what they are willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.
Potential bidders need to know the specifics, the benefits, and the restrictions on any item they are going to bid on, especially on travel and/or other higher value items. A printed Auction Listing should answer all of their questions, in writing.
After bidders see that they have lost an item to another bidder, a printed Auction Listing makes it easier for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings generally come in 3 forms:
Printed in the Event Program or Auction Catalog.
Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-inserted into the Event Program or Auction Catalog.
Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-delivered to all attendees, or left on each dinner table in the room.
Auction Listings cost practically nothing to produce and they can make the difference between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You should never conduct a Fundraising Auction without one.
A Case Study
Let me share a real-life experience with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally renowned organization. The event was held in a major hotel, in one of the country’s largest cities, with several hundred “black tie” participants attending. It was an extremely professional event, with the music, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all perfectly timed and choreographed. Everything was done to perfection… exception the Fundraising Auction.
Although I had signed an agreement to serve as their Auctioneer nearly one year in advance of the event, no one bothered to contact me for any advice or help. Approximately one week prior to the Auction date, I contacted the group to see if they had replaced me with another Auctioneer. But they said that I was still their man.
Upon arriving at the event I asked for a copy of the Auction Listing. I was told that there were none. I’m not sure whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether someone forgot to have them printed. This was never made clear. When I asked what I was to use at the podium, I was told to copy the list of Live Auction items from a committee member’s computer. It took me about 30 minutes to copy three pages of hand-written notes in order to prepare for my role as their Auctioneer.
I knew that they had created a PowerPoint program showing the various Live Auction items. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s computer, I was met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and returned to let me know that the slide order did not correspond my notes, and he provided me with the correct slide order… hand-written on a paper napkin. This forced me to re-arrange my three pages of hand-written notes before taking the podium.
There was a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that were to be sold, but the table was not clearly marked, and it received significantly less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which were clearly identified. Since the Live Auction Table was located adjacent to the “Raffle Table”, it appeared that most people thought it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.
According to the event program (which did not include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I was to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the start of the Live Auction to the several hundred people in attendance, and introduced me as Auctioneer. As I approached the podium I realized that photographs of award winners were still being taken… directly in front of the podium where I was to stand… which required me to stand aside for several minutes until the photographers were done. Can we say “awkward moment”?
As the photographers cleared, I approached the podium and began my Live Auction introduction. Approximately one minute into my introduction, the “Raffle Committee” approached the podium and stopped my Live Auction Introduction in order to pull the 8 or 9 Raffle Winners. These drawings lasted about 5 minutes. Upon it’s conclusion I was allowed to resume the start of the Live Auction.
When standing at the podium two intense and extremely bright spotlights were pointed directly at the podium. The lights were so bright that I literally could not see the center 1/3 of the room. I could see the tables on the right, and on the left, but was totally blinded when looking straight ahead. It took perhaps five minutes before the spotlights were turned off.
While at the podium and describing Lot #1, I had to ask someone to start the Lot #1 PowerPoint Slide… because apparently no one was assigned that job.
So with only the Auctioneer’s verbal description, and a PowerPoint slide, it appeared that few people in the room had any idea about what we were selling… or when we were selling it… until it was announced by the Auctioneer. As a result, bidding was extremely light and the final results fell several thousands of dollars short of where they should have been
The learning experience is this:
The Live Auction is where you place your better items, and where the real money should be made at any Fundraising Auction. Let bidders know as far in advance as possible what you will be selling, and the order of sale, so they can get excited about the Auction, and plan their bidding strategy accordingly.
Auction Listings are absolutely vital to the success of both Live & Silent Auctions. In my opinion, revenues at this Auction fell thousands of dollars short of where they should have been, because no Auction Listing was provided to the guests.
If bidders are not perfectly clear on what is being sold, including both the item’s specifics, benefits, and restrictions, they will not bid.
When you have a committee of volunteers, especially volunteers having full time jobs and/or very busy schedules, the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can help to keep the committee on track.
And once you retain the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer… use the services that you are paying for.