Family Ebiz Blog » Work with Spouse

Blogaversary Award for Us

Steve — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:13:34 +0000

Wow…I just found out our Family Business blog on Homeschool Blogger earned the 5 year HSB Blogaversary Award. What an honor from Kristen. You can see the original Blogaversary Awards here:

Family Business Blog about working at home

Our blog was started in the first month of Homeschool Blogger 5 years ago. We’ve had a fun time here getting to know other families who want a family business. Thanks for a great 5 years and here’s to 5 more!

Back In The Saddle Again!

Steve — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:42:51 +0000

In this Issue

Back In The Saddle Again!
Webinar Today: Home Business Apprentic Program
Student Success Story: “The HomeScholar”
Just Ask! Using Surveys To Improve Your Business
Stephen and Kerry Recommends

Please add “steve@familyebiz.com”
to your whitelist or address book in your e-mail program, so that
you have no trouble receiving future issues!

You’re receiving this newsletter because you signed up on
my website.To change your subscription, see link at end of email.To signup for this newsletter, go here.

Back in the Saddle Again!It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a mission trip.During the years I owned a construction company, I was able to go to Nicaragua, Haiti and many times to Mexico. They were great trips. We did work projects during the day and ministry projectsin the evenings.But in the year prior to seminary and my years during seminary, I wasn’t able to swing a mission trip, time-wise or financially. So, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a mission trip.

But that’s about to change!

Kerry and I are looking at going to either the Dominican Republic or East Asia this year. Or maybe both. This has been a long-time dream for me – to allow my Internet business to fund mission
trips!

I’ve been building this online business and putting people and systems in place that will allow me to “disappear” for weeks at a time, without affecting my income. So, it’s exciting to see the
fruit of all that hard work.

My “why” was big enough to make me take ACTION! How big is your “why”?

Webinars and Live Events

Webinar
TONIGHT at 9pm (eastern):

Home Business Apprentice Program

…You can become one of Kerry’s apprentices for less than $400!

Many of you have written to us saying you’d like to be one of our Apprentice’s, but you don’t have the investment money to get started. Many of you write us saying you are willing to put in the time to get a home business up & running, Since you don’t have a lot of extra cash, you need to start by investing your time.

Well….we have a solution for you!

After thinking about your dilemma this weekend on our drive to Hunter’s football playoff game, we decided to open up a 2nd apprentice that takes less money. Kerry will be explaining this Home Business Apprentice program on Tuesday night. Go register right now!

Home Business Apprentice Program

Tuesday, November 17
9pm EASTERN

That’s 6pm (pacific) | 7pm (mountain) | 8pm (central) | 9pm (eastern)

I can’t wait to share how this will work. If you are chosen as one of my 5 apprentices, you’ll be put on the fast track – 90 days to success. I’ll be in contact with my apprentices on a weekly basis, holding you accountable and motivating you to your own success.

Even with the economy downturn, the holidays is the perfect time to start our Home Business Apprentice Program. We’ll set goals together and plan your week so you start making money over the holidays.

Go register right now!

Our Students Are Successful!

I want to take a moment an share my delight about the results of being an 8 Weeks to Profits customer. We purchased the program about a year ago. At that time we had few sales, a small email list and very little visibility.

Steve and his team opened our eyes to many strategies we could utilize to grow our business, improve our sales and expand our reach. As a result of taking the 8 Weeks class, we learned how to generate leads by adding a free homeschool high school mini-course and free special report on how to save money homeschooling.

We wrote a homeschool transcript e-book and tied it to our homeschool membership site The HomeScholar Gold Care Club to generate a recurring monthly income. We have also redesigned our website with an eye on SEO and started article marketing.

Since we purchased the 8 Weeks class our email list has grown 153%. Our minicourse has 2500 subscribers and our Special Report has added about 700 more. We have gone from an income that was largely dependent on speaking and personal consulting to one that is driven primarily by ebook sales and our membership site. In summary, we are growing faster, reaching more families and making more money as a result of getting Steve’s help.

In addition, we continue to depend on Steve as a trusted resource for additional value. As a result of Steve’s webinar we recently purchased Daniel Levis’ 5R system that has dramatically altered how we write our sales copy. Here is an example of our latest 5R inspired creation, The HomeScholar Total Transcript Solution.

I give Steve and the “8 Weeks to Profits” course my strongest recommendation. He can change the way you do business and start you on the path of success!

~Matt & Lee Binz, The HomeScholar

Featured Article

Just Ask! Using Surveys to Improve Your Business

by Herb Leibacher

Just ask!

You can learn useful information about your business,customers, and potential customers by conducting a survey. If you have a list of e-mail addresses of your customersand prospects you can send them an e-mail containing a link which leads to a survey on your site.

What is the benefit to you? You get knowledge, and knowledge is a powerful toolin tailoring your business and services to yourcustomers’ needs. You can ask questions like:

- How could our web site be more informative to you?

- What products or services should we offer in the future?

- Please rate our customer service?

- What is your age?

It is important to ask questions that will get you the answers you want. If you want suggestions from your viewers, asking if they simply like your site doesn’t give you enough information. And providing a list of radio buttons or check boxes streamlines answers even more. Plus research has shown that folks are more likely to answer if all they have to do is click.

What is the benefit to the people taking your survey?

Well, there has to be some benefit. Providing an incentive is a good way to insure responses. That
could be in the form of a freebie, useful information, an entry into a sweepstakes, or anything else you think your customers would like.

How do you do this?

Create a form on your web site to ask questions. Having the responses of that form emailed directly to your email box makes it easiest.

Web Builder Express has a form tool built right in and the system automatically e-mails the results of each submission back to you.

_______________

Herb and Monica Leibacher operate Web Builder Express. Create a professional web site for your business or non-profit organization with Web Builder Express. At http://www.WebBuilderExpress.com, you can request your free Quick Start Guide that tells you how to create a great web site.

Stephen and Kerry Recommends

Feeling stressed about homeschool transcripts?

You’re not alone. Lots of parents worry about preparing transcripts:

“Can I do this?”
“Will the colleges accept my transcript?”
“Will I mess up my kid’s college chances?”

Well, take a deep breath because I’ve got some great news.

Our friends and 8 Weeks to Profits graduates, Lee and Matt Binz have put together the ultimate resource for completing your homeschool transcripts. One that will take you from where you are today, straight to transcript completion. It is quick. It is easy. Best of all, it is affordable!

They even reveal their secret weapon they used to get both their sons, Kevin and Alex into their first choice university with full tuition scholarships!

Get the full story about The HomeScholar Total Transcript Solution here:

http://www.FamilyEbiz.com/binz

About Stephen and Kerry

Steve & Kerry are The Couple Next Door who accidentally stumbled upon
secrets to a successful income on the internet. They teach families how to improve their bottom line with webinars and creating information products.

They have created a loyal following who rave about their direct marketing strategies and their “tell it like it is” approach. If you liked today’s issue, you’ll love Steve & Kerry’s real online business products to help you create a business that suits your lifestyle.

www.FamilyEbiz.com
www.WildlyWealthyWebinars.com
www.8WeeksToProfits.com
www.CoupleNextDoorCards.com

Blessings,

Stephen and Kerry Beck

Working With Your Spouse When You Start Home Business

Steve — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:18:46 +0000

Working with your spouse can be wonderful, but also comes with some unique challenges. Here are some tips that will help you and your spouse run that business successfully together.

1. Have a set time each and every week to discuss the next week.
You can use this time to divide up tasks and responsibilities and go over the important action items that need to be done. For example, you can schedule this during the mornings on Mondays. It should take place the same time all of the time otherwise it is easy to forget.

2. Figure out who is responsible for what in the business and keep track of it.
One way you can do this is to put it in a central location, such as in your home office on a large whiteboard. You can add two separate columns on the board for the each of you and additional columns for any hired help you might have. You can also track appointments, promotions and events on a central calendar.

3. Use a giant calendar to keep tabs on appointments for business and family appointments using colors.
This way if you have events with your kids you can plan your business around them, which is one of the benefits to starting a home business.

4. Use strengths appropriately.
Each of you should focus on what you are strong at and hire or outsource out the rest. If you are going to hire employees or contractors make sure you decide and make clear which of you they will work for and what they are responsible for working on so that there is no confusion.

5. Make sure that before you start home business you know who is going to handle each household related task.
The kids still need to be shuttled around. Someone still needs to cook and clean in your house. You will make things easier for your spouse and your children if you have any if these responsibilities are discussed in advance.

6. Figure out what each of you are working on in the business and come up with a game plan for what will happen should one of you need to step away.
Think about what it will cost to hire someone to do those tasks instead. This is part of contingency planning, which is vital, especially if one of you gets pregnant or has other situations that require your attention other than the business.

Planning and thinking about these things in advance saves time, energy and money. Planning ahead of time makes it easier when you start home business.

_______________________

Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck teaches families how to write pdf ebooks. Get Stephen’s 3 free videos at http://www.8weekstoprofits.comso you can start now.

How To Start A Home Based Business Successfully With Your Spouse

Steve — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:37:04 +0000

To start a home-based business working at home with your spouse, you will need to plan ahead on how you will work together. Here are 5 tips to help you.

1. Be very careful about not being willing to take criticism.
While we tend to resent criticism more from a spouse or loved one it is a necessary element to running a business. However, you should encourage your spouse to reserve any business related criticism for the specific times that you have set to actually work on your business.

2. Learn to separate business issues from family and marriage issues when you start a home based business.
It is never a good idea to merge these two issues together if you want a good business and marriage. You are two separate people with two separate opinions. However, it is not necessary to allow those separate opinions to cause unnecessary conflict with your marriage. It is also not necessary to bring up issues that have nothing to do with the business during times that you are running your business as well.

3. Set aside some time where you can get away from the home to do strategy sessions for your business.
It is a good idea to do this once a quarter and review how you are progressing towards your goals. You can do this over dinner, go to a quiet bar or coffee shop, attend a winery, anyplace where the environment is conducive for this type of meeting.

4. When you have a date night make sure that business is not the topic of discussion.
Even if you both enjoy what you do this can be a very unhealthy habit. You need time to be together as a couple without the business.

5. Look for opportunities to attend business conferences together.
Schedule an additional day after the conference to decide how you are going to apply the lessons learned or incorporate the networking relationships you built. Having your spouse will keep you more focused instead of partying all of the time.

When you start a home based business with your spouse it can be a rewarding and fun event, but it is important that you make sure that you keep your relationship strong both while working and outside of working.

__________

Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck shows families how to start a home internet business. Go get his 3 free videos at http://www.8weekstoprofits.com so you can start today.

Working at Home?? with your Spouse??? How??

Steve — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:13:05 +0000

Looking for practical advice for spouses who are considering becoming co-entrepreneurs or who already are? Look no further! Here are 3 tips to being successful as you work with your spouse.

1. Find a specific time to talk about business and be sure it is not during tv show/football game or when your spouse is working on his/her hobby. It’s imperative to your business success that you & your spouse talk about business and solve your problems. Just be careful when you decide to bring up those problems. If your spouse is settling into a sporting event on TV, that is probably not a good time. Neither is it a good time, if your spouse is working on scrapbooks or stamping.

2. Sending email sounds silly when your spouse is less than 8 feet away from you in the same room, but it does provide a written record to remind both of you. It also helps prevents future arguments. When you email something to your spouse, you usually spend a little more time thinking about what you write.

3. If your business is in your home, use a separate room for the office so you can close the door at dinner time and enjoy your family! Eating dinner together at the table is very important to us because it keeps the communication lines open with our kids. We try to discuss issues our kids are interested in (like Barry Bonds or a local event when we are eating dinner. We try to save business ideas to other times of the day. Have regular office hours, but be flexible during your busy season.

If you haven’t filled out our survey about working with your spouse, please take 3-5 minutes and do this. We will be interviewing spouses who work together and want to cover your concerns and needs.
Here’s the link: http://budurl.com/fesurvey

I’ll keep you posted when I get some interviews with spouses who work together.

Kerry