Good Business Idea - Property Tax Consulting

By Scot Simanski

Aiding taxpayers|Helping homeowners lower their property tax assessments as a part-time business idea can be a good if not the best home based business opportunity for many. A lot of people are struggling to keep up with property tax increases. Bankruptcies are being filed and people are losing their houses. People shouldn't be paying taxes higher than what their properties are really valued for.

High property assessments usually go unchallenged because most people lack the time, energy or know how to tackle the job. Many a homeowner would love to have someone that this work from home business offers to look over their property tax assessments. Glaring errors exist especially with the decrease in comparable home prices. A property tax consultant helps people contest these inaccuracies.

A property tax consultant works on a contingency. This means that the service does not cost the customer homeowner any money (other than a small process fee) unless you achieve a property tax reduction for them.

When a case is won for a client the client rewards the property tax consultant by sharing the winnings. After all, it does not cost the customer anything unless the property taxes are reduced. It's a win, win situation for you and the homeowner.

Where the reward money lies is in the contingency fee. When you win your case for the homeowner you receive 100% of the tax savings. For example, your client's property tax is $10,000 and you saved them a typical 20% on their assessment, your fee would be $2,000. The payment is spread out over 2 or 3 years so the client is rewarded by seeing an overall tax saving.

In this climate of falling home prices, finding comparable sold homes that sold for less value than the assessment price placed on your clients home are simple to find. The time is opportune for this home business. Upon finding good comparable sold home and with using a good property tax appeal manual, you should be able to get a reduced assessment and pay less property tax on your client's home.

Charge a small one-time fee to help offset your overhead costs. When you are starting out, this is helpful. You'll want to cherry pick the more expensive homes and those cases you feel you have the best chances to win.

A lot of people are disturbed over their high property tax bill and finding customers is quite easy. This little known business idea is a blessing for the homeowner. Local government is generally constantly raising their tax amounts instead of cutting back. - 15246

About the Author:

Before you ponder the run of the mill business idea, consider Property Tax Consulting. Times could not be better for this type of business which many might consider the best home business. Check it out here: http://www.propertytaxconsult.com/

Exploring The Immense Field Of Article-marketing

By Rob Metras

A new acceptable way to secure a stable income can be found through writing articles for web sites. Scores of people find they can earn a good income by contributing valuable articles to sites in need of content. With the rise of electronic commerce, writing articles and publishing them on the web became a lucrative business.

How Do I Get Involved In This Business? Writing involves a lot of imagination and creativity. It requires one to be fluent in the language of the audience. If you are a writer and have a need to play around with words and phrases to get a feel for how your writing can create and convey an idea, then this might be for you.

People who lack the skills required to pursue the craft of writing will seldom succeed in the domain of article marketing. What is required to succeed? You must have a strong command of the English language. This includes the ability to use proper grammar. You need to have the ability to express your feelings in words.

Plagiarism has become common in the world of article-marketing. Many people copy the works of others thinking that they would not be caught. However, the bad news for such thieves is that several software applications are available on the Internet which can check an article for plagiarism within seconds.

How to Write 5 or 7 Tips Articles? There are four basic parts of an article. In general, your article must abide by the following pattern: introduction, body, your views and conclusion. A catchy heading is also important to make your article popular.

How can one write expert articles? The art of article-writing cannot be acquired in a day or two; it takes a lot of patience and hard-work to become a pro in the field of article-marketing. There are several web portals which contain millions of article on myriad topics.

By visiting article sites, you can learn how articles are patterned. Read an article and try to write one your own way. Use the type of language and style that is most comfortable with you, something one can identify as your unique style. Be sure that however you approach it, your audience will understand it. Write it so even a third grader will understand it. Make it interesting by presenting metaphors and familiar sayings, but avoid using too many clichAs. Keep it brief and simple.

The best thing you can do to get started on this lucrative career is to enroll in a writing course. Spend time every day to hone your writing skills. When you are confident enough, donat stop the learning process. Join online writing communities. It gives you audiences of writers who can help you keep your goals realistic and aware of what is going on in this business. They can also point out legitimate opportunities to get paid for your work. - 15246

About the Author:

I would like to know what questions you have about article marketing. I invite you to visit Article Marketing Drives Results . Ask me your question and I'll answer by email. You will also get a link for a free audio interview on Article Secrets.

Using Web Conferencing as a Marketing Tool

By Chris Blanchet

Whether your goal is to build a house or a reputation, you can own all of the tools in the world necessary to accomplish these, but it would still not guarantee success. The difference between success and failure is how you use the tools. Therefore, a blueprint of sorts is required.

With technology having evolved to the point where it is at today, web conferences now offer a great alternative to traditional, large- or small-group seminars. With software and hardware costs as low as they are, it barely makes much sense to get into your car and drive to the airport or even the local conference center... nor does it make sense to allow your prospects and employees to do so.

Unsure how popular the webinar has (or will) become? For starters, an Ipsos survey on communication released in May 2008 suggests 5-year growth in the range of 500%. As well, consider a recent article published in Business Week (Sept 2008). Some companies are paying upwards of $300,000 for the hardware needed to host their own webinars (also known as web conferences). With that being said, there are much cheaper quality alternatives that start as low as $25/month.

Now, a web conference by itself will do nothing for you or your business. Rather you should look at it as you would a plant. Seed it, water it, nurture it. Web conferences are no different. First, you plan the seed and entice people to attend. This can be as simple as hosting a training web conference for employees or existing clients, or it can be a direct sale pitch to new clients. Either way, you will have a captive audience since they will choose to attend, so it makes sense to use free trial periods to hone your skills with the software.

Making this technology work for you will happen much easier with some good planning. That means coordinating your marketing and message. For attracting an audience, look at a highly targeted marketing program. In other words, don't invite existing clients to a web conference that aims to sign up only new clients.

With these pointers in mind, you should provide a "value-add" purpose for your webinar. For example, a sales pitch webinar by a plumber might come with an invitation to "Sign up for our webinar to learn about the most-common mistakes amateurs make and how to fix them." When the prospects join your webinar, be sure to illustrate the problems but emphasize that a professional, qualified like you can and will fix such mistakes before they result in costly damages. Again, this is merely an illustration that you can adapt to your specific industry.

Regardless of how you wish to use a web conference, the technology is now cheap enough and good enough that you can achieve greater sales growth and eliminate a lot of expenses by using this method of targeted, mass communication. Not only will you solidify existing relationships with customers and employees, but will dazzle prospects. - 15246

About the Author:

Get your Free Trial and $10 Off your Web Conference through GoToMeeting. Sign up for Free Sales and Marketing Advice from Quote Stork Solutions.

Are You Thinking Of Working From Home?

By Tim PH

Internet based business opportunity has been make possible with today's technology - the Internet.

The cyberspace has made possible the making of several home businesses and private companies.

Imagine all of the online privately owned jewelry stores, flower delivery services, knife outlets, clothing boutiques, lawn care services, gift basket businesses and many many more.

If you also have a good and marketable idea, you can start a personal business of your own. All it really takes to get started in this new-age field is a PC with high-speed Internet access and of course, an idea.

Most of us will like to work from home.

This could be because that many people consider employment a necessity and you're not supposed to enjoy your career in the first place.

This couldn't be further from the truth. While it is commonly known that we all require an income in order to live a healthy lifestyles and pay the monthly bills, there is absolute no reason why anyone should hate the job they choose.

And for those who do hate it, well, consider a personally owned internet based business opportunity of some sort.

What do you have to offer to the massive world out there to begin with? If a product or service immediately pops into your head, then maybe you should toy with the idea a bit more in detail.

You never know, your idea could turn out to be the winner.

Some good money making idea in today's internet based business opportunities is web publishing and paid survey.

Both these businesses offer money making opportunity that can be done solely from the privacy of your own home.

Look at these opportunities today. You may be able to quit your office job soon. - 15246

About the Author:

Read about and I will tell you why having a list of Credible Paid Survey Sites is critical. More about this at Highest Paid Survey Sites Reviews.

Failure to Reserve for Long-Term Cost Wrecks Current Margins

By Thomas Mezger

The expense of supporting a product in the field can easily bankrupt unprepared companies. Every sale carries with it the liabilities of breakdowns, returns, parts inventories, legal action, call centers, training, etc, liabilities which lag - often by more than a financial year - the actual sale. Holding back a percentage of each sale to pay for those past sins is a sensible business practice, otherwise you'll find yourself scrambling to cover old debts with current money, kind of like today's big banks.

Reserves are an accounting trick to take some revenue offline, hold it from taxable income until such time as it's either spent fixing problems, or taken back to the bottom line. What's the right amount? Planning is everything. Too big a reserve, planning too conservatively, robs you of profits you could be taking today. Too little held back and you run the risk of running out early. It's all product based, usually in the range of two to three percent of OEM price. Products with short lifespans are tolerant of reserve mistakes because warranty periods are short and the problem goes away faster. On the contrary, large systems and infrastructure can last for decades. Think about it: Under no circumstances do you want to be funding product support for a ten-year-old system with today's money. Better plan accordingly. . .

In principle, reserves taken at the time of sale should exactly match the cost a product is likely to incur over its lifetime. How do you know? Mature companies with extensive product history can usually guess right. Start-ups typically don't. If a product is new, but uses established technology, then experienced post-sale managers can make educated guesses based on history in the same sector. If the product is truly ground breaking, with no comparative history, then it falls to managers to meticulously track field failure rates, call-center activity and returns during prototype and roll-out phases, then QUICKLY adjust reserves to compensate. Obviously, extremes in product volume can be problematic on both sides of the equation: Too little volume = not enough history. Too large a volume = too late to fix mistakes.

Shipment volume contributes to problems in other ways, too: For example, rapidly increasing volume makes is easier to cover past reserve mistakes because the impact on current margin is less on a per-unit basis. However, a formula for disaster rears its ugly head when volume declines, particularly near end-of-life. Last year's unforeseen costs wipe out this year's profits when not that many units are now going out the door. What's worse? Managers who try to cover problems on products no longer made by 'borrowing' margin from today. That should never happen. Profit and Loss accounting should always be rigorously applied at the product level.

Basic quality discipline is an easy way for companies to mitigate post-sale risk. Institutionalizing constant feedback and corrective action, as well as keeping the senior leadership involved in post-sale activities, sets the stage for fast and effective response. Being able to correctly identify the root cause of a post-sale problem, and then being able to negatively impact the incentive pay of those responsible, usually gets the product steered back on course. Metrics are important. It's also important that no more than five post-sale issues be aggressively pushed back into the enterprise at any one time. Fatigue and confusion kills corrective action when too many problems crowd everyone's plate.

Here's a real problem: Imagine what happens when fiscal discipline breaks down and unscrupulous managers, especially those looking to distort the P&L in order to misrepresent their performance, are allowed to pluck reserves from the money tree far in advance, in essence to borrow from the bank to paint a rosier picture. This should never be permitted. Good financial control means having post-sale managers, as well as the CFO, approve all changes in reserves.

Strategically, the ideal situation is one in which a post-sale revenue stream is developed to offset trailing liabilities. Opportunities abound to sell extended warranty, upgrades, downloads, special offers, insurance and more. Infrastructure businesses are particularly adept at selling services, usually in the thirty percent range. Also, dollars from sold services are amplified by good product quality, and vice versa. A winning strategy builds even greater value by bundling services into complete care packages for whole businesses, not just one or two boxes.

From an accounting standpoint, treating non-device sales as a separate P&L, fed by both warranty reserves and sold services, sets the stage for running post-sale as a real business. Too often, service activities are treated as an ugly baby cost center, a necessary evil that gets the first ax in tough times. Operating post-sale as a business unit, decoupled from tampering by product managers, lets skilled customer service managers build real value that adds to the total portfolio.

Good post-sale business execution translates directly into new product sales. When customers are happy - doesn't matter why - they come back. Wrapping a suite of non-device values around a commodity product like a cell phone differentiates you in a tough market. These days, with some consumer electronic margins below 10%, OEMs can't afford to make post-sale mistakes. Every penny counts. Brand equity hinges on your product standing out. The post-sale customer experience, in many cases, is what makes the difference. - 15246

About the Author:

Our unique brand of small business consulting connects emerging companies with the right investors, both angel and institutional. Thomas Mezger, CEO, tmezger@thomasfinancialsvcs.com and John Sawinski, SVP, jsawinski@thomasfinancialsvcs.com bring more than six decades of combined expertise tuning companies up for investment. In addition, investors come to TFS for fast, accurate, inexpensive analysis of investment targets. Call TFS today.

Massage Therapist-Become One The Easy Way

By GH Williams

If you love to work with your hands, possibly you should be in a profession that does precisely that, such as massage therapy. In fact, the US Department of Labor has demonstrated in their current report that there is demand for such professional people for the predictable future. If this sounds attractive to you, then you should know how to become a massage therapist.

Anyone who wishes to become a massage therapists needs enter in a training program that is accredited by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork or NCBTMB. To become a accredited professional, you must complete at least five hundred hours of schooling, including subjects such as ethics, anatomy and physiology.

If you happen to study massage therapy in a school that is not authorized by this body, you will not be allowed to take the national certification exam. This may prevent you from practicing in states that call for this prior to employment, which is why you should check first to see if the school you plan to enroll in is in the program.

If you do mange to find employment without acquiring a license and are caught, you will be fined and could even be prohibited from practicing again.

The advantage of entering in a program under the NCBTMB is that you can apply for federal financial assistance if you don't have the funds to pay for your schooling.

But the important question is how much do massage therapists earn? One research group has pointed out the median salary is $45,611. The report also says that half of those working earn between $36,930 and $55,920 as this alters with experience. If you are new, you will in all probability just have one or two clients a day while more experienced individuals will have more than 5. This isn't bad because massage therapy program can go as high as $12,000.

If you are serious about engaging this as a career, ask yourself some questions. Are you patient? Are you client oriented? Do you actually want to help the patient? If your answer to all three questions is yes then the next thing you have to do is find what specific interests do you have.

Just like medicine, massage therapy has various specialties and these include sports massage, clinical massage and Swedish massage this is but to name a few. While you will hopefully learn all of these in your schooling, you should try to get a clear idea of which one you desire to specialize in after your graduation.

It is a great idea to visit massage parlors and talk to those who are already working there. You could also do some research online as there are articles that have been published and plenty of websites about the profession.

Once you get your degree and the license, you have the choice of working for someone or starting up your own establishment. This will be easy if you had the capital since you will want to buy your own massage table, chairs, pillows, sheets and lotions. But if you wish to learn first, then go find work, learn the tricks of the trade and then set up shop.

Now that you know how to become a massage therapist, the ball is already in your court. The right attitude will get you through training because with that you will be able to understand the techniques in helping a client. - 15246

About the Author:

This article was written by GH Williams, who maintains Massage Therapy Tips. This popular website that gives Free Massage Therapy information, help and resources to include information on Massage Therapy Jobs.

How Merchant Account Pricing Works

By Brian Armstrong

Getting information on what you'll be charged to process credit cards will help you manage the expenses associated with this important part of your business. Most merchants don't give too much thought to this after they've setup their accounts. Business owners that are overpaying can very easily reduce their fees and those just getting setup for the first time can use the information in this article to make sure they're not overpaying.

The discount rate is probably the one component of the merchant account pricing that represents the largest percentage of the fees you'll pay as a merchant. A competitive discount rate for qualified retail transactions is about 1.29% for check or debit cards and about 1.69% for regular credit cards. Internet discount rates are typically considered competitive at 2.15% to 2.25%.

Your discount rate is also based in part on what category you are placed in as a merchant. Some transaction types are considered lower risk than others. For instance, a McDonald's cheeseburger combo meal where the credit card is swiped is very low risk where a transaction for a future travel reservation done online may be a much higher risk.

If you have a lower average ticket item or average transaction, the per transaction fee represents a higher percentage and can even represent a higher percentage of your overall fees than the actual discount rate or percentage. If you have an average ticket item of $10 and a per transaction of $.20, the effective rate on this transaction is 2%. If you add the discount rate of 1.8%, the effective rate on those $10 transactions is 3.8% which is higher than it could be.

If your per transaction fee is closer to $.18 per transaction, your effective rate is reduced by 1.7% which is significant. So, you should know what your average ticket item is going to be or at least a good estimate in order to most effectively determine whether your power of negotiation would best be used to get your discount rate as low as possible or your per transaction fee. Try to get your overall rate or "effective rate" as low as you possibly can.

You will typically have a monthly fee associated with any merchant account. This is sometimes referred to as a customer service fee, statement fee, or monthly account maintenance fee. You shouldn't be paying too much for this fee. It shouldn't be more than about $10 per month.

Many merchant accounts have a monthly minimum. This is typically priced around $25 per month. What this means is that the minimum amount of discount fees will equal $25. If, for instance, a merchant processes only $1,000 per month with a discount rate of 1.29%, the discount fees would be $12.90. With a monthly minimum of $25, the effective rate would be 2.5% ($25 of $1000). Of course if the merchant processes $10,000 per month at the same discount of 1.29%, the fees would be $129, far in excess of the $25 minimum.

These are the primary fees that accompany each merchant account. There are several other fees that may apply depending on whether your are processing through a wireless terminal, an internet-based account, or mail order / telephone order.

Finding a sales rep that you can trust and work with on your account will save you significant hassles later on and will be a relationship you can leverage to make this important part of your business hassle free. - 15246

About the Author:

Brian has been helping merchants just like you save money on their business merchant accounts. Brian's website is dedicated to providing business owners with the best possible credit card processing and doing so without the high prices. You can contact Brian through his website at MerchantHotline.com.