What I encountered there was a surprisingly hostile crowd. I overheard complaints about repair prices and wait times, witnessed bickering among customers about who should be standing where, and found myself inconveniently placed next to a man who was demanding to see camera footage to prove he hadn't been in the store on an earlier day.
There was nothing particularly bad about my visit to the store. I had to wait longer than was convenient, but the store appeared to be fully staffed and running as efficiently as possible. The sales associate that helped me was knowledgeable and friendly.
Yet, as I continued to witness the discontent around me, and as another customer attempted to engage me in complaining, I found myself getting frustrated and irritable like the other patrons.
I couldn't identify any basis for my change in attitude. Clearly, the hostility of the atmosphere was sucking me in. Because my work on personal values development made me conscious of it, I was able to pull myself up and maintain a pleasant and positive mental attitude. But truly, it was work.
And truly, it will be work for you to maintain a positive attitude when getting your home based business off the ground. That's why you must have a solid start on your personal values development before you worry about how to HTML and FTP, and what your Cpanel is.
It all goes back to the fact that your work at home business success is 90% dependent on your mindset. And the beauty of it is that your mindset, your attitude, is 100% within your control.
At the cell phone store, I could have bought into the negative atmosphere and become completely frustrated with my visit there. But,what purpose would this have served me?
Once you allow something to put you into a bad mood, it has a compounding effect. Think about the times that you've had a bad day. Generally, whether you recognize it or not, you let one thing negatively affect you and after that everything else just seems to go wrong that day. It's not that you're just completely unlucky and the victim of the universe's bad fortunes that day. Rather, it's that everything you encounter is colored by your mindset -- which is, "I'm having a bad day.Others who have the misfortune of talking to you on one of these days may ask if you "woke up on the wrong side of the bed."."
Students of personal values development don't have bad days. It's not part of their mindset. They know that no matter what the challenge, how they react is totally and exclusively within their control. And they chose to react by seeing the positive in things; by turning apparent defeat into new success.
Personal values development is essential to the success of your home based business for many reasons. Most importantly, you must learn how to overcome the "minimum mentality," and adopt the "millionaire mentality" to really get somewhere with your business. I'll go into detail about these mentalities next time.
At least 97% of the people in this country have the minimum mentality. These are the people that warn you against those "work from home scams," or "pyramid schemes."." These are the people who fill you with stories of their uncle Joe who failed at his home based business. They are even those people who, as they encourage you, are giving you that "how naive that you're trying that, you'll quit within six months" smile at the same time. These are the people who -- like most of the people in my previous life -- will share your desire for financial success and time freedom, but will never take any action to make it happen, out of belief that it won't happen.
If you want to begin to succeed in your home based business, you've got to get away from these people. Or, at the very least, limit your time with the minimum mentality folks and form friendships and business relationships with the millionaire mentality crowd. This can be easier said than done, especially considering that -- at most -- that crowd consists of only 3% of the people.
But, if you want to persevere through the initial struggles of getting your home based business off the ground, it's essential. The first step is to embark on a personal values development journey that will give you the millionaire mentality. I'll show you how to start this journey next time.
Why the need to advertise? If you have an excellent product, you may feel that people should seek you out so they can have the benefits of what you offer. This, of course, makes for poor business. No matter what you do or what you offer, you will still have to promote your products. How will people do business with you if they dont even know that you are in business?
Your personal network is an excellent way to jump start your advertising efforts. Your personal network includes, of course, your family, your friends and your acquaintances. Because home based businesses are invariably small at the beginning, you will need all the help that you can get, so you should start soliciting sales from the people who know and love you.
Just because you are selling to your family and friends, it does not mean that you can be lax and complacent. In fact, you should probably do more for them than the average customer. Within reason, do all that you can to satisfy them, then ask them to do you a favor, Ask them to use their personal networks to get the word about your business out.
You can use a variety of gimmicks to get your home based business network marketing campaign to a great start. For instance, you might want to provide your friends and family with stickers that they can slap on their cars or maybe flyers that they can post at work. Or you might give them a healthy stack of business cards that they can give away for you. The key, of course, is to make it easy for them to spread the word.
These days, technology makes it easier to advertise. And if you dont believe it, witness the rise of social networking sites like Friendster or MySpace. If you maintain accounts on these sites, you might want to include a few ads on your profile. Alternatively, you might want to buy some ad space in some of the more popular sites on your local community.
If you went about it right, it should not be too difficult to get more people to notice you. A home based business network marketing campaign will depend a great deal on what people say about your business, so keep fairly close watch over the grapevine. If you hear any criticism, dont get defensive. Use it as an opportunity to improve. As long as you keep improving, you will see results sooner or later.
Both Jennifer Herndon & Obinna Heche are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jennifer Herndon has sinced written about articles on various topics from Work From Home, Personal Desktop and Internet Marketing. Jennifer Herndon is a home based business consultant with a passion for helping you achieve your personal and financial dreams. Visit Jennifer's