Some of you who may have been reading my past posts from last year may be wondering what has happened to me and my other business.

I have changed the direction of my business. I am still KDB Business Services, but I decided to research and learn about internet marketing and focus mostly on the best start up businesses for people who have not much startup capital but still want to stay home and have a career.

I started to talk to some mothers and hold a weekly meeting to see what interested mothers and how much time they would have to invest. Since most mothers dcn't have much time or money to invest due to having to watch children, and clean home, I decided to dig around and see what I could recommend that would be the most for the least investment but still manage to reap enough rewards and not be a scam.

There are alot of scams out there in the internet world, alot of so called "gurus" prey on the fact they know so many people are out there trying to find work at home solutions.

90% of the programs and ideas marketed out there are scams. And even if they are not necessarily scams, persay, they are misrepresented to the point, that they might as well be.

First off, anything promised to be a complete business in a box, where all you have to do is buy the product and then put it on a web host service, and the money will come rolling in, is all fake.

The majority of all online business work is in the day to day marketing that goes along with it. The internet is so vast, the competition is so intense, that you need to do as much marketing to get yourself out there as is humanly possible.

You can get discouraged, alot of people give up before they start to see anything because it takes a long time. If you do not have at least a year to invest without needing money, then this type of business is not for you.

That is why stay at home moms are perfect for this type of business, they are going to be home with the children not working anyways. With all the options for marketing and advertising that require lots of work, but are free, it is a viable option. There are ways to spend money for different advertising, such as adwords(we will discuss this at another time), but I personally think until some revenue is noticed from all the hard work being done manually, don't invest anything yet.

You need to do the manual advertising in order to learn the ropes. Once you are secure in knowing how things are done, and what makes a difference, then money can be spent more freely on pay per click options, paying for email optin subscribers, paying for targetted traffic or whatever if there is still more traffic needed to your site.

I know you need to spend some money to make some more money, but there is the smart way and the blind way. Learn the ropes first, research options, try all the free sources first, then when you have developed a nice sounding advertisement/sales copy you can promote through all available sources.

I will discuss with you various business opportunities out there that I recommend, I will try to help you with any concerns you may have. If I do not readily know the answer to something, just let me know,and I will go find an answer from some trusted internet professionals that I know do have the answers.

The first thing we will be discussing is affiliate programs. I have researched hundreds and hundreds and have narrowed it down to some I will take the time to discuss with you over the next little while.

if you would like more info, just email me with a comment or concern in the subject line, and I will research anything needed and get back to you. melanie@bestdeals4ushop.com

Anyone interested in building an online retail shop can take a look at the 3 shops that I am presently running, we will discuss how to set one up and all the factors for interested parties.
http://bestdeals4ushop.com, http://bargainbin4kids.com, http://everything4moms.zlio.com,

Tomorrow we will discuss affiliate websites, that are premade for you, these are often what some people like to get into because they have no technological skills. These do require some form of monthly payment, but any business you start will cost for web hosting monthly charges and a domain name.
Until tomorrow.

Having a blog of your own? Why not. But having your own online shop is even better! It takes less than five minutes to sign up, a few more to personalize your shop and finally, a pleasurable stroll through Zlio's directory of over three million items to fill your newly-created virtual e-store. And at the end of the day, you get a commission on every sale generated through your store (2 to 15%, depending on the supplier).

The most important thing, then, is to generate traffic on your shop (mine's here, by the way!) Or in addition, you can rely on your family and friends - indeed, if you refer someone to Zlio, Zlio gives you a free bonus of 10% of that person's commissions, for ever, and 5% of the commissions of anyone they refer in turn! By the way, I thought I might mention that my referral link is http://zlio.com/?page=app:signup&r=116049, in case you'd care to click on it!

Stay At Home Working Moms Have Real Jobs
I have been a stay at home working mom since 2004. I used to work in a call centre doing tech support before I decided to stay home and have a baby. I still wanted to work, so I started my own virtual administrative business.
I graduated from Toronto School of Business in 1998 with a Small Business Management diploma, so I was confident in the knowledge I could succeed. I also had 9 years of administrative assistant experience I could rely on when selling my skills to prospective clients.
I set up a simple site that advertised my services, then I spent hours creating flyers to post in my neighborhood, endless more hours posting my ads on free classified websites I found through Google searches, and set up my complete home office.
I found work doing various customer service jobs like taking orders for restaurants such as Swiss Chalet, a couple telemarketing jobs, typing out manuscripts and school papers for clients, and a few other odd jobs. I soon found I wanted a different kind of online job, so I decided to expand into the ecommerce world.
It is tough to go on your own. There is no one to help you out. You have to take care of every aspect yourself. I taught myself internet marketing. I almost quit in the process. I am not put off by very many things, but taking on the daunting task of learning internet marketing by myself, with no direction; no one to tell me who to trust when looking for proper mentors to guide me through, was downright scary!
I learned how to make professional looking websites, researching templates, learning html and java script, finding clipart, uploading images, setting up an ecommerce shopping cart so I could process orders through Paypal, and so much more.
Hours of researching, calling, faxing, and emailing, to set up wholesale accounts for bulk product orders. Finding dropshippers for products I am not physically able to keep in storage. The list seemed to go on.
Now on a daily basis there is still the updating and maintaining of my website to make sure all products are available with the correct inventory count, processing orders as they come in, responding to any emails from customers, processing returns, getting the advertising out to Yahoo and Google, creating my bi-weekly newsletters for two different websites and then sending them out to everyone who has opted in to my email list, and writing articles to submit to the article directories to further enhance my traffic.
I recall a conversation I had with one of the mothers I meet with on Wednesdays for our “Work At Home Moms” group. We were discussing how people respond to us when they find out we work from home and do most of our business online. There are a vast many people out there who are under the impression that we don’t work as hard as the average Joe who has a job outside of the house. I needed to write this article to inform others that work at home mothers most often tend to work harder than outside jobs. While we maintain our business at home, we still manage to do the laundry, watch the children, clean house, and make dinner. I work so much my husband often wonders when I will ever stop.
We do have real jobs, and we do work real hard. We just happen to be our own boss.

About the Author

Melanie Bremner is a mother of three who has written and published several children’s stories, taught Sunday school, and graduated from business school, with a minor in psychology.
She is presently running and maintaining an online discount retail shop, and produces a bi-weekly newsletter full of stories, facts and fun for the whole family. If you would be interested in receiving tips on various topics of raising children and family matters, you can sign up for her newsletter at http://bestdeals4ushop.com