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From Hopeful Work At Home Mom to Entrepreneur

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Article By Rita Taketa – I've been a successful Work At Home Mom for 18 years, beginning when there was little career work available at home besides telemarketing. After working for several different companies being in charge of multiple operations, I now have plans to expand my business-to-business professional services with virtual agents.

work at home mom business and entrepreneur

I've been steadily working from home for 18 amazing years. In the beginning, however, it was not a popular decision. The pay was poor and the quality of work was mainly telemarketing for the consumer-to-business market, or some other type of odd tasks that were not rewarding.

I started on this journey after I had my second child. I had been working for a marketing firm as a supervisor handling inbound and outbound calls for clients in the restaurant industry. I had a great deal of responsibility with data and order entry, managing our team, training, and being responsible for the entire company phone system, which was my first introduction to Telephony Software & B2B Marketing.

As much as I enjoyed my career, I had a nine-year-old son at home to care for as well. I always felt torn between being a mother and a working women. I had already been through the route of daycare and before-and-after-school care and all of the challenges that go along with being a working mom. I felt guilty when I was not with my child, and yet I needed to work to help provide for my family, just like the balancing act that we all face today now that most families need two incomes to stay afloat.

Research on the internet afforded me to learn more about working from home, but there wasn't much of a selection to choose from except telemarketing. I started working with a company that produced customer satisfaction surveys for a national tire company. It involved evening and weekend work, so I was able to work my day job but bring in a little extra money. As I worked on different projects for the company, gaining more experience and confidence, I was asked to do more projects in different markets. Eventually, I started doing surveys for a vast array of markets including insurance.

Networking, researching, and trying different work-at-home tasks allowed me to transition into a full-time career working from home as a business-to-business professional. I serve as an extension of a company's inside sales team as an appointment setter, lead generator, and customer service representative. I've worked as an independent contractor for many years, so I took my experience and branched out with my own company to accommodate the needs of businesses in supporting their sales and marketing efforts. My goal is to expand by hiring virtual agents to help with my growing client base.

I chose a rewarding career path that has allowed me to be home with my family (which was my ultimate goal), raise my children, do meaningful work, and make a good living right from the comfort of my home office. Work At Home Mom = a happy mom!

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they are visible on this page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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How to gain more MarketHive subscribers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

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How do you increase your number of MarketHive subscribers, or "children" if you will?

I think LinkedIn is one of the best ways to accomplish this.  It seems at though, I may have finally cracked the LinkedIn code to do this, well sort of.  Today, I got 12 new invitations to connect with me this morning in my inbox, and I have added 981 connections so far this month.  This is a fairly rapid increase, that I believe few people are currently doing now, on LinkedIn.  

In addition, all of those new connections have been invited to join MarketHive.  (I am currently getting nearly a 1% response rate on invitations to MarketHive). I am actively trying to find a way to increase that percentage, but it is resulting in nearly one new MarketHive sign-up per day.

I don't know how many entrepreneurs realize that their first level connections are already in their sales funnel?  Everyone looking to market on LinkedIn needs to think this way.  Ok, it may not be exactly the same, but it is very close to it.  Everything depends on what you do with those connections.  

Some kind of automation is needed here for sure.  The manual way of messaging in LinkedIn will take you nearly forever to send a message to thousands of first level connections.  Btw, the LinkedIn limit for invitation requests per day is 40 maximum with a free account or a paid account, (Sales Navigator has a limite of 100 per day).  There is a limit of 250 messages per day to your 1st level connections on all LinkedIn accounts.  If you do that every day manually, that is a very time consuming process, for sure!

I am in the process of setting up a step-by-step training program on how to use LinkedIn to promote Markethive.  I may also expand it to a complete LinkedIn training as well, depending on the level of interest.  In any case, this is something anyone can do.  It can be done, even with a free LinkedIn account.  With additional low-cost automation software solutions, the process can be greatly accelerated.  

All for now.  Thanks for your interest.  

Best possible sucess in all your endeavors!

John Lombaerde

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Crock-Pot Chunky Vegetable Chili

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Typically Sundays are the days where I plan out my week. I prefer to make my own lunch instead of going out where I am not always sure what I am getting. There is a certain satisfaction of making something yourself. I should also mention I am saving money by only going out to lunch on Fridays and Saturdays.

My Brother Jack noticed some of the different things I was making and bought me a Crock-Pot. That was the perfect early Christmas present. I like experimenting with Brown Rice, Lentils, Quinoa and Chickpeas as they are all healthy.

This past Sunday I made a recipe that came with the Crock-Pot called “Chunky Vegetable Chili”. The ingredient list and instructions are below.

Chunky Vegetable Chili
2 15 oz. cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup frozen corn
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1 4 oz. can diced green chilies, undrained
1 carrot, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs. chili powder
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. salt
1 cup water

In the Crock-Pot Slow cooker, combine the beans, corn, onion, celery, tomato paste, green chilies, carrot, garlic, chili powder, oregano and salt. Stir in the water. Cover; cook on Low for 5½ to 6 hours, or until the vegetables are tender.

Below is a picture of what it looked like before I turned on the power. I should mention I use Himalayan Pink salt anytime a recipe calls for salt.

The picture below is my “6 hours later” photo. I threw in an avocado in the middle of the cooking time. The recipe didn’t need it but I wanted to use it up and I am a big fan of avocados. I also threw in some shredded cheddar cheese the last ten minutes of it. This made four meals.

As mentioned in this blog post I experiment. During this week I would cut up pieces of eggplant, mushrooms and tomatoes and put them in a saucepan with coconut oil in it. I would cook them on medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes. I wanted them cooked. I then added some of the Chunky Vegetable Chili into it for another 5 to 10 minutes.

My favorite combination was adding Sriracha sauce, olives and blue cheese crumbs to it. I was satisfied on a taste bud level of it. It wasn’t the best tasting chili ever but I thought it was pretty good and as I mentioned earlier, it is satisfying making something yourself. Below is a picture of that combination.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
http://alanzibluk.com
e-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

General

How are Elon Musk and Orbital Velocity like the life of an Entrepreneur?

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Strange title, this one, I know. I remember a famous tweet by Elon Musk saying that getting to space is relatively easy. He explained that you need to achieve Mach 3 to be able to reach space and escape the earth's atmosphere. Then you would come back down to earth again.

In order to stay in orbit, however, you need to be going much, much faster. You need to be traveling at Mach 30 in order to propel yourself fast enough to stay in orbit around the earth.

Here is a link that provides some explanation about this phenomenon.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

I thought, this is similar to many Internet Marketing hype headlines. You know, the ones that say "Newbie Internet marketer makes $20,117.30 in 60 days with no previous Internet experience!" Well, maybe this headline is all hype, but again, maybe this person did achieve this result in 60 days.

Ok, sounds good, but what happened after that? Did that person fall back to earth again, after achieving that success and never managed to make a dime again after that? No one wants that kind of "one-hit wonder" success, right?

The headline would be so much more impressive if it said, "Newbie Internet marketer achieves 6-figure sustainable income, within 60 days, and is still going strong after 3 years". The headlines never say anything like that do they? They are always about the push-button, easy way to success, right?

So don't bother to open that email with a fantastic rags to riches headline. Who cares about flash in the pan success? To be truly successful, any start-up must exceed their intial altitude and achieve a self-sustaining orbit. Isn't that the goal?

In his book Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas into Successful Enterprises – Derek Lidow has studied this phenomenon, and currently teaches Entrepreneurial Leadership at Princeton University. He uncovers the gems of principles that can be applied universally across industries, cultures, and geographies. He separates those that are merely entrepreneurs from those that can be considered entrepreneurial leaders that are able to create self-sustaining businesses.

There are unique skills required to nurture a start-up, and there are additional skills needed to navigate any company beyond the initial phase into continued success. Derek Lidow's book is highly recommended. (Available on Amazon and elsewhere)

Best of success in all your entrepreneurial endeavors!

John Lombaerde

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Using Tumblr, Yelp and Pinterest with MarketHive

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I have wanted to write this blog post for a while showing people how I share pictures from popular sites like Yelp, Pinterest, Tumblr with MarketHive. I assume everyone is using MarketHive for their WordPress websites. If you have not signed up please feel free to visit my site at https://markethive.com/alzibluk or go to my own personal website at the end of this article to click on the widget on the top right.

I like pictures as a picture says a thousand words . I am a better photographer than writer. Pictures tell stories.

I use Instagram for all my pictures (userid alzibluk). The sundial really enhances them. Unfortunately with Instagram it uses embedded scripts in sharing with other sites which will not show up with the MarketHive Plugin. I have a similar problem with Pinterest but there is a way around this. I will show you later.

With Instagram I can immediately post my pictures to Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare,Facebook and Twitter. Later I will go to my gallery on my phone to post to Pinterest and Yelp (only if it is involving dining).

The first thing when I am ready to write a blog post is find the pictures I want to use. I currently use Google Chrome as my main browser. Once I find the picture I want to use I will have my mouse on the picture. Then I click right mouse button which opens a new window where I select Open Image in new tab. I then proceed to go to that tab to copy the url address of it which I will copy and paste into my notepad. I did this three times for this post.

The second thing I do is have my text all typed out. I want my hyperlinks all set up. I do know basic html and still use EditPlus. I then go my MarketHive account, click Blogs and Write a new Blog Post. I click the source button and copy/paste my html text. I then hit source button a second time. I move my cursor between the paragraphs where I want to Insert image. Hitting the image button will open up a new dialog box. I will paste the image url where it says url at the top. I don t like going higher than 500 for my Width and Height settings.

My first picture I am taking from my Tumblr account. As I mentioned earlier when I publish in Instagram it publishes in Tumblr. This picture is Ordinary in New Haven, Connecticut. I like to go there on a Friday night after the end of the work week. Ordinary was listed in Conde Nast Traveler – Drink Up: The Greatest Bars in the World. While I am there I like thinking about content for my blogs. It is where I go to think.

My second picture I am taking from my Yelp account. I like to go to the Dew Drop Inn in Derby, Connecticut for Buffalo Wings on Saturday mornings. This picture is the JD BBC Cucumber Wasabi Wings which is probably my third favorite.My favorite so far are the Buttery BBQ Montreal Wings. While I am at the Dew Drop Inn I continue on thinking about what I want to post in my blogs.

My last picture I am taking from my Pinterest account. It is a foliage picture I took on Saturday October 31, 2015 in Bethany, Connecticut. It is part of the West Rock Trail that ends in New Haven. As you can guess while there I think about my blog posts.

I hope this blog post helps. If you believe that my message is worth spreading,please use the share buttons if they are visible on this page. I am borrowing that line from Stephen Hodgkiss, Chief Engineer at MarketHive.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
http://alanzibluk.com
e-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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How To Manage Time Off for the Holidays when you are Self-Employed

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'Tis the season to be jolly…and busy! Here are six tips to help you enjoy the holidays. 

work at home

The holiday season is here – and hopefully, amid the big dinners, shopping, decorating and parties, is, somewhere in there, a break. But taking some time off is a bit different when you are self-employed. For one, there's often no one to pick up the slack when you take a vacation, and you probably have to plan ahead so there's no slack in the budget either.

Keep Family in the Loop

Before you plan your time off for the holidays, chat with your family. What days will your spouse have off from work? Does little Johnny's Christmas play fall during the hours you would normally be working? Will you go on any special family outings, perhaps to pick out the Christmas tree or visit Santa? Knowing all your families activities ahead of time will help you plan how much time you'll need off, and when.

Stay Organized

Organization is an essential quality for a work-at-home-mom, and it certainly comes in handy when you are preparing for time off. Create task lists that outline what you need to accomplish both before and after your break. Block out time on a calendar so you know what you need to be working on and when. Find a system that works best for you – just remember to stay organized.

Notify Consistent Clients

You probably don't need to notify clients when you are taking a national holiday off – but if you plan on taking the whole week off or a few extra days, be sure to let your consistent clients know ahead of time so you can make sure you'll both be prepared.

Set Up an Automated Email and Phone Message Response

Whenever you take a vacation, it's a good idea to set up an away message in your email so no one gets upset when you don't respond right away. And if you use a phone for business calls, change your voicemail as well if you don't plan on picking up for business calls during your time off.

Arrange Extra Work Time Before and After

Depending on the type of work you do, you may need to make up for the time you take off. Plan extra slots of time both before and after the holidays. Schedule when you'll take care of the extra work, so you're not stressing about when everything will be done. Ask for help with the kids and housework if you need.

Embrace Technology

Thanks to technology, there are a few ways to be present without actually being present. Schedule social media posts during your time off – try a social media management system such as Hootsuite if you haven't already. The scheduling feature makes it easy to ensure there isn't a big lapse in posts while you're away. If you use a blog to promote your business, most platforms will allow you to schedule entire posts as well.

Holidays should be spent enjoying time with family – not worrying about work. With some organization and planning ahead, you can take some time off without a drastic impact on your business. Chances are, you started working from home so you could spend more time with your family – don't let your work interfere with enjoying the season with your loved ones.

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they are visible on this page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Using The Markethive Plugin ( version 1.7 Update}

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News:

Hello to all my subscribers.

WordPress released ver.4.4 recently and It is mobile friendly. Please updagrade the Markethive Plugin to Version 1.7 when using WordPress 4.4 otherwise the postings will stop both manually and automatically

This pdf can help with using the Markethive plugin with your Domain.

http://brian-walters-online.com/flyers/WP-and-Blogging.pdf

 

Here is a timely post about the importance of creating your own Blog for your Business.

Blogging could be the fastest way to build one way permanent backlinks for better rankings and massive traffic! Listed below are some reasons why your business is important.

Anyway about the business you are in. The very first question that you must ask yourself before anything else. You got to demand yourself to an answer to this. Why the heck on earth would anybody pay for what you're selling?

1. Why should there be anyone would do business with you?
This could be the very first question that you must ask yourself before anything else. You got to demand yourself to an answer to this. Why the heck on earth would anybody pay for this "Junk" you're selling? Yup, "Junk", as I phrased it. It doesn't matter how good your product is to be, to the eye of others, it's just another piece of product in a sea pool of other similar products. So, still be very proud of your product or service? Truly you're 100% proud of it? You truthfully and deeply believe people would be dumb by NOT buying from you?

Well…you passed the first barrier! You're ready to start go to next stage.

2. The basic business needs 3 things:
Lawyer, CPA, and Creative or crazy fellow, which could very well be you.
Almost every business gets themselves for the first two. It's understandably so. Good creative people are really hard to find, hard to manage, and you'll never sure of what you're paying for.

Every established and sizeable business knows the creative side plays a heavier weight than the lawyer and CPA. CPA's and lawyers can help you when you are up there. But at the early stage when your business is still an infant, your business live or die depending on it's business branding activities in areas like business identities, logos, marketing campaign, advertising copy and business slogans.

Have people been calling you NUTS?  Now, are you NUTS enough?
If so, you are ready for the next stage! Do give yourself a "Cheer"!

3. Singing for Your Own? You Got To Promote Yourself In Every Possible Way.
Do all of them. Yes, do whatever possible to get your business name to be up there! Get your Business Brand being noticed by others. There more the merrier!

Businesses can just come and goes so fast before anybody could hears of them. People are busy, what do they care? They don't care about you and your business. Why should they care? Get serious. Do everything you can possibly and reasonably afford to do. But beware; you must not mislead others because it'll backfire quickly enough to wipe your business off.
Do you "Sing for your own self"? Then you've passed! Move on to next stage.

4. Big Decision: Could You Win The Competition.
It's very likely that you're entering a crowded business market when you first started. Take a hard and closer look at what other fellows are doing; what your competitors are doing right now could affect your business greatly.
At this stage, you got to decide: Are you going for "Head to Head" fight? Competing on better quality? Crazier pricing strategy? Extra Mile Service Level? Better Marketing Campaign? or what else? Or you would avoid all that, and create your own niche, where you are the leader?

If you decided to be offering the same or very much similar product at the same price, but your marketing materials doesn't look half as good as your competitors…hey, you're in deep trouble! If you're charging half compare to others, then it's still alright to "Look" cheap, simply because you are the "Cheaper" alternative where people are looking for.

5. Do Love Your Business, just like you love yourself.
Without visitors to your website acquiring Leads is nearly impossible. Here I am talking about Internet Leads and not the people you used to get leads by cold calling on the phone. Increasing traffic brings extra visitors to your website which in turn creates leads.

The Importance Of Visitors
Without visitors to your website acquiring Leads is nearly impossible. Here I am talking about Internet Leads and not the people you used to get leads by cold calling on the phone. Increasing traffic brings extra visitors to your website which in turn creates leads.

So without website traffic the business you do on the Internet will be zero. Sure you may get people buying from your website because you handed out a few hundred business cards at a Home Show or a Convention but huge volumes of traffic; well you need to make other arrangements. Anyone can sell just about anything with enough traffic. Although one thousand hits maybe sound like a good number but in advertising as in life you have to maintain the interest of the visitor. Some campaigns require many thousands of ongoing hits to achieve reasonable results. Remember once the leads have arrived, the information must be captured. This can only happen if the form is filled out and unless there is a benefit in this activity (a tangible gift of some description) why would a person type in personal information on the form to you.

It is essential when creating your Online presence that both the online and offline advertising activities you design are supported when the visitor arrives at your website. The numbers game here also plays a critical part in retaining visitors and getting new ones. The more your different forms of advertising are seen the greater potential for results. And if you are building an Internet business, ongoing daily traffic is essential.

After all a potential customer is the person who originally responded to your web site lead generation page, flyer, mailing, newspaper advertisement or some other means you employed to capture this original information. The important thing here is, has enough interest has been sparked in the lead to respond back to you.

In other words, did the information you supplied in your ads bring the appropriate response from the client, was it relevant to your business or are you getting leads from people who misunderstood your message.

The average Internet user that enters your keyword may see your advertisement multiple times in different places before landing on your Website. This branding and consistency in advertising is important as the information being supplied is a consistent message both in the ad and is again supported when they arrive at your Website. Only at this time are they ready to get more info, signup, and/or make a purchase.
 

Enjoy

Article by:
Brian Walters SEO

Skype: tuneup_bj

Brian Walters MarketHive
http://brian-walters-online.com/

http://briansmarketing.net/

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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MarketHive December Special

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MarketHive the social meeting place for entrepreneurs invites you to attend a free webinar this week to discover more about how the system can help you build your business, together with an insight into its affiliate program which launches in January.

The new single level BeTheAlpha affiliate program will enable those who upgrade from the free system to earn money from introducing fellow members and helping them develop as entrepeneurs

, there are seven achievment ranks leading up to Alpha founder.

A special offer has recently been launched and runs to the end of the year allowing members to purchase an existing Alpha Founder Legacy position for a substantial discount which provides both advertising and also a share in revenue from MarketHive prior to the launch of BeTheAlpha.

Thus being the coming Alpha Affiliate Program in 2016

The new Alpha Founder position @ $5000.00 in the new affiliate program will offer the following:

  1. One time deposit of $10,000 in ad credits

  2. $200 per month ad credits for life

  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children

  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s revenue pool shared with unlimited Founder members.

The current 2015 Alpha Founder, now referred as Alpha Legacy @ $1200.00 offers the following:

  1. One time deposit of $3000 in ad credits

  2. $200 per month ad credits for life

  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children

  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s pool (limited to 250 shares; members)

  5. Share of new children (customers) from corporate marketing and advertising campaigns
     

Alpha Legacy Year End 50% off sale. There are a limited number left and we are selling the contracts for $600 each. You can use these contracts to apply the terms to any number of Markethive Accounts, yours or someone you transfer the contract to or sell it to.

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Linux Ubuntu 14 Free Alternative to Windows 10

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Linux Ubuntu Alternative to Windows

You may be forgiven for thinking that Ubuntu is a foreign   language, perhaps African in origin, however the truth is it is a an Open source computer operation system often used to run computer servers.

I was introduced to Ubuntu a month ago when looking to replace my Window XP system which is no longer supported by Microsoft. I have a Windows 8 system running on a laptop and have never really been happy with the way it works. The thought of paying out again for a new system with potential bugs and security issues was daunting, so I looked at Linux Ubuntu.

Open source means free, so can a free system be better than one you pay for, well after one month of use I believe so, It takes up less space and can run on computers with lower specification that those in the shops today. I am considering loading Ubuntu onto an old Dell computer purchased some 10 years ago as a machine for my son.

Software wise, I migrated from Microsoft word and Excel some years ago using open source products from Open Office and Libre Office which are fully compatible, there is a small learning curve. Not many people use the full power of Excel and I believe Librecalc is able to meet most requirements. For a full comparison between Libra Office and Microsoft Office https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office

You need to check the software you use to see that it will operate on Linux systems main browsers have Linux versions. I had to replace my financial system Quicken with Moneydance, this caused a minor headache and would have been best to have done at the end of the financial year, but I am now up and running. I do not play games so cannot speak of support in that area, however Skype, Thunderbird, Gmail, Ivocalise , Kodi media system and Viber all work fine. I have also installed Kazam to replace my Cam video system.

Changing operating systems had one great advantage, giving an opportunity to clean up my disk drives. Over the years I have collected software that I may have only used one or two times, they have now gone. Virtually all my data is held on an external Drive, so in event of computer failure, I can access my data on a laptop. I store backups on hard drives, which is kind of reverse to usual, but works for me as I have moved houses many times, and can work from a laptop until my tower unit catches me up.

Ubuntu is certainly faster than XP, I have not checked out windows 8 but intend to replace the operating system on my laptop with Ubuntu, knowing that Kodi which we use for streaming TV and films works better on Ubuntu.

I have also set up an Ubuntu group on MarketHive to help out fellow members

 

David Ogden
MarketHive
Helping people help themselves

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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