[G66]Gen X Gen Y Baby Boomers

Who are the Baby Boomers? This is a massive group of people born between the years 1946 - 1964. Every year during this period 4 million births were recorded. This generation is the first to have large numbers of women in it who have worked full time their entire lives. Baby boomers tend to enjoy better health, have a longer life expectancy and tend to be more educated than any previous generations.

What are some of the challenges faced by members of the Baby Boomer group? According to J. F. Coughlin, in the article Technology Needs of Aging Boomers, every 7 seconds another baby boomer turns 50.

The Baby Boomers are now facing retirement. Many of them have not adequately prepared for this stage of their lives. What was enough money for retirement in the past is now not going to be enough to allow them to live in the comfortable life styles many of them are accustomed to. Some will suddenly become aware of the fact that they didn't start saving and investing money early enough to produce an adequate residual income to provide for their extended life expectancies.

Many of them will want to retire but they just can't afford to.Many will loose their positions to the younger energetic technologically savvier Generation X group born between 1965-1980.
Many will fear the void of not working full time because a large portion of their individual identity and self esteem has come from being an active contributing member of society. They may wish to work part time but perhaps this doesn't suit their employer.

Where does the idea of creating an Internet home business come into all of this?
The Internet came into existence in the late 1970's. According to Nielsen Net Ratings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, there are now over 1 billion Internet users worldwide. In the US in December 2004 there were 3.3 billion Internet searches conducted daily. The total number of searches conducted grew 55% year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005
It seems to me that the Internet is the obvious place to look for a solution for the crisis about to hit the Baby Boomers

There are many positives to creating an Internet home business.There is the very real possibility of huge financial rewards for very little initial capital investment. Ongoing costs of running the business may also be very small. Depending upon the product or services of the business there may not even be a physical product to deal with.

Business may be conducted anywhere so long as there is access to a computer. Such a business can be managed around current and future schedules.
Commuting costs of time and money are removed from the workday equation. More time is available to spend with family, loved ones and on leisure activities.
There are no qualifying limitations such as age, physical appearance or scholastic achievements. There is no boss to hand out redundancy letters and no staff to consider

Sounds amazing BUT according to the US Small Business Administration greater than 50% of small business fail in the first year and 95% will fail within the first 5 years. These are off line business statistics. Imagine committing to the financial aspects of setting up an off line business knowing these statistics.

It is impossible for me to give the statistics of internet business failures but somehow I imagine the same traits that resulted in off line failures are most likely going to result in online failures. The difference being the amount of money lost in an online attempt being tiny compared to an offline-failed attempt.

One of the biggest contributing factors to online failures is the general notion that success on the Internet is easy and rapid. There are big promises of earning tens of thousands of dollars for almost no effort on your part. The attractiveness of such offers is huge. When combined with ignorance there is no other result available other than failure.

Understand that an Internet business is a business. It will demand your utmost efforts and dedication just as any other business would. You need to start educating yourself on what you will need to run an internet business.

There are two main components to running a successful Internet home business. One is your own domain name and website. The other is promoting your website.

Regardless of what your product or service is you must have your own domain name and website I don't mean a website and domain name given to you by an affiliate group you may have joined. I mean your very own, one of a kind website and domain name. If you are not prepared for this you will be in for a disappointment. It is one of the most important tools you will need to acquire. There is a lot of information available on how to get a website, how to make it the best website to promote your business and how to choose the right domain name. It is essential that you educate yourself in these areas if you wish to succeed.

Once you have your best possible domain name and website the rest of your time will be spent promoting your site.
Throwing money into paid advertising campaigns is a risky business especially when your new to the scene and you don't know what your doing. Remember that paid advertising is an internet business too. They want to succeed just like you do only they are already in the game of advertising and more than likely they are very good at it.It's the product they specialise in and you are their target market.

It may sound obvious but I'll run through this anyway. When someone is looking for something on the Internet they use a search engine. They type in the words they think are most appropriate for what they are looking for. For example if I'm looking to send a friend flowers I might type Internet flower delivery services. On one search engine I got back 2,130,00 results. On another and more commonly used search engine I got back 13,300,000 results. I'm assuming that the search engines have done their very best for me and presented me with the most appropriate sites for my search. I'm a busy person so there is no way I'm going to delve into this huge reservoir of website that might or might not provide me with the service and product I'm seeking. Chances are I'll look at the top 5-10 sites. Pick one I like the look of and place my order. There are two ways to get to the top of these huge piles and get picked by potential buyers. One is to pay for the privilege of being there. The other is to educate your self on organic search engine optimisation techniques.

This article is too brief to go any further into the details of organic search engine optimisation. Suffice it to say you really own it to yourself to become educated on this matter.

The Internet offers an accessible, affordable way for average people to create home-based business ventures and to tap into the global market.It also allows continued contribution to society by allowing global sharing of their knowledge and wisdom without the threat of redundancy.
It has come into existence just at the right time.In many ways the internet is still in its infancy. As we see more and more people from the baby boomer era approaching retirement I am certain we will also see a massive expansion in the numbers of internet home businesses.