"Baby Brain" in Pregnant Women.

"Baby Brain" in Pregnant Women. seems to be in the news of late.The Australian National University has released its' third set of results (published in the British Journal of Psychiatry last week), from a sizable and long running study into memory which began in 1999. A great many people have been subjected to memory tests since then. Some were pregnant at the outset, and others have been pregnant at various points during the study. The fact that test have been undertaken on the same women when not pregnant, pregnant and during motherhood, allows for an excellent comparison of their cognitive state.

Their aim to discover if  memory loss in pregnant women can be blamed on "baby brain".

For further Baby Brain articles and to have your say click "Baby Brain" in Pregnant Women.

My Six Best Household Budgeting Tips – How to Budget Your Money Wisely.

Ever felt like your money was just slipping through your fingers? Without a household budget, that is likely to continue. Does it seem like you work hard all week and the money is gone before you get to enjoy it.

You need to learn to budget your money wisely. Get your income to stretch beyond the bare necessities and onto the luxuries of life.

Where to start? Well how much is that income? Included benefits, child support, pensions etc. in that figure? Next the obvious part, we need to try and spend less than that! So here are my best household budgeting tips.

How to Budget Your Money Wisely.

The First and Most Important of my Best Household Budgeting Tips.

You must understand your spending habits, you cannot possibly organise a household budget without knowing what you spend your money on currently. So get out a pen and paper (or use a spreadsheet, there are plenty of free programs available, just do a search), get out your bank statements and make a list.

Begin with all those regular things, mortgage (or rent), council tax, utilities, T.V. licence, loans, pension contributions, life insurances the sort of thing you are likely to have on direct debit (if not look into it, it is often cheaper to pay that way), these are the easy things to record on your household budget.

Others may take a little more time. What do you actually spend on food, clothes, car repairs, going out, and all those other little sundry items that soon add up? That’s the next job; record all those things over the course of a month. I bet it’s more than you thought!

The Second of my Best Household Budgeting Tips.

Get organised, consider all those things you pay for every year, road tax, boiler service, car service, M.O.T., car insurance, house insurance, holidays, etc. Can you include these into your household budget by saving on a regular basis or paying on direct debit (if there is no credit charge for doing so)? Make sure you add in a provision to clear any debts.

The Third of my Best Household Budgeting Tips.

Eliminate the obvious. Obvious really! It’s amazing the things people still have on direct debit that they no longer use or need. Magazine subscriptions you no longer read, maybe a gym membership.

Another major strain on the household budget is food, more specifically wastage. It is estimated that 8.3 million tonnes of food waste is thrown away every year in the U.K. alone. That is £680 per year for the average family. In addition eliminating this waste would also reduce the country’s carbon footprint by the same amount as removing 1 in every 4 cars from the road.

So Fourth on my List of Best Household Budgeting Tips.

Plan out your meals in advance, only buying what you need for them. Also make sure you use up the leftovers or even have some left on purpose for other meals. It’s possible you will find that grocery shopping on line helps to control the household budget. Even taking into account the delivery charge, it eliminates impulse buying.

If you need some help in the thrifty cooking department and specifically how to budget your money wisely on food, try reading “Economy Gastronomy” by Paul Merrett and Allegra McEvety, if your plan is to reduce your working hours you will have more time to cook from scratch and save yourself more money.

The Fifth of my Best Household Budgeting Tips.

Consider alternatives to your current suppliers, we all know that you can find a better deal and reduce that household budget if you shop around, so take the time to. Some utility companies even pay happy customers to introduce new customers to them.

Does your mobile phone tariff suit your usage? Call and ask your network if you are not sure. Does your life insurance still fit your needs, or can you find it cheaper elsewhere.

If you have a credit card debt, can you transfer to a lower (or zero rated) card? If not do you get cashback, or bonus points? It’s relatively easy to save enough to pay for breakdown cover and days out to the tune of about £600 per year at no cost.

Does your bank account pay a good level of interest? Perhaps an account with perks would save you more than it costs.

Do you just buy petrol from the first place you find, or do you watch the prices? As we discussed above could cooking more food from scratch reduce your household budget.

The Sixth of my Best Household Budgeting Tips.

Be pragmatic. Do you really need Sky T.V. (or all the packages you have)? Does your family need to run two cars? What about spending time in your own allotment growing your own fruit and vegetables?

Could you change the mortgage to interest only for a while?

Perhaps you could start your night out earlier so you can catch the last bus home instead of taking a taxi? Or have a meal out mid week to get a deal rather than paying full price at the weekend?

The answer to some, or maybe all of these questions may be “no”, everyone is different, but I am sure you can come up with a few ideas of your own that are palatable alternatives to help control your household budget.

Maybe this is not enough, perhaps you also need to develop an additional income as well as controlling your expenses with your own household budget. Is that appealing to you? Learn how to create your own part-time business working from home.



What is Network Marketing?

When people talk to me about working from home, the discussion usually turns to Network Marketing. Many people have preconceptions about the industry as a whole, probably due to a friend or relative having been involved with the likes of Amway in the 1970's or 80's. There are many legitimate companies offering very varied products or services. No doubt you have had a Kleeneze, Betterware or Avon catalogue through your door. All use the network marketing model.

By reading this article we will discuss what Network Marketing is. Talk about the history of the industry. Its’ controversies, and the rumours surrounding it. You will understand the pros and cons.

So What is it?

Network Marketing is simply a business model. A company finds or develops a product or products and decides to sell it, not through the normal channels, i.e. shops, internet etc. but through a group of individual salespeople, known as distributors. Each distributor earns a commission based on the volume of products they sell. In addition they can introduce (or recruit) other people into their “team” to distribute products also. These new distributors earn a commission as before, on the products they personally sell. However in addition to his original commission our introducer (or sponsor) then earns a very small commission based on the sales of the team he personally or indirectly introduced. So by introducing people (who introduce people) you can develop an income based not only on your own efforts but also on the efforts of others. As long as you have a team of active distributors selling, you will earn a commission. 

M.L.M. - The History.

Network Marketing or Multi-Level marketing (M.L.M.) began in the U.S. in the 1950’s. The sales and recruitment methods used by the vast majority of companies have not changed much since. Most recommend that you begin my marketing to your close friends and family (your warm market). When you have exhausted that avenue, you move onto a list of friends and acquaintances and begin contacting them. Finally you contact strangers using various veiled excuses to start and steer conversations towards your products or business opportunity.

Network Marketing companies have had their business model sullied by the emergence of the pyramid scam. But are once again beginning to regain their legitimacy, Harvard Business School now teaches modules on Network Marketing, and recommendations of the model come from such prominent business people as Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Fact or Fiction?

A genuine network marketing company in the U.K. cannot charge more than £200 for you to become an authorised distributor of their product. In addition it is illegal for any of that money to be paid to a distributor for any introduction. Bonuses are usually paid for aiding new distributors to reach pre-set targets within a certain timescale. The pyramid scam has long since been outlawed. The next question you need to answer is, are the reasons for the original marketing methods still valid? Ann Seig’s The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing could be a help here.

Should I or Shouldn't I?

As with any work from home opportunity, be thorough in your investigations before parting with any money. Many websites from trusted sources can help you. Which? are amongst them. Even the Government can help, just type “scam” into the search box and view a newswatch list.

Network Marketing is evolving, in its old incarnation the focus seemed to be on your “network”, don’t be mislead by this or any of The 7 Great Lies of Network marketing. More and more networkers are making use of the internet to attract a market to them. Attraction Marketing makes use of the new web 2.0 technologies and social media sites to bring both potential business prospects and potential customers to you. After all have you ever worked for a company whose recruitment policy consisted of the Managing Director handing out flyers on a street corner?

Economic conditions now seem to favour the, low risk strategy of part-time businesses with a low start-up cost. Being able to work around an existing job and expand at your own pace is certainly and advantage. With the flexibility to generate an additional income, or to work to replace your current employment, the choice is entirely yours. Some companies will now send products directly to your customers on your behalf and deal with any monies owed simplifying your role still further and eliminating the need for stock, cash handling, receipts etc..

In my opinion the business model is sound, it is just a case of finding a company you trust, with products you like at a competitive price and then apply the right marketing method, namely internet Attraction Marketing.

For further information about how to improve your business using Attraction Marketing principles click here to contact me.

Developing The Skills You Need to Thrive.

In beginning my journey into the unknown world of Attraction Marketing the first thing that became apparent to me was my lack of knowledge and skills. I certainly had relevant skills, after six years of bring up children I had developed both patience and perseverence, my communication skills had definately improved. My concentration was not what it used to be and my confidence with regards to work had certainly taken a knock. But what other skills did I need to make a go of the work from home, part-time, internet marketing business I had decided suited my situation?

By reading this article you will begin to make sense of the vast training potential available on the internet. You will start to consider the things about your development that are important to you. You can weigh the skills sets you may have to develop. Lastly formulate a potential study guide.

Internet Training. - Where to Start?

I suppose the first question is what do you know? Are you a computer novice? What do you have experience of? You obviously use the internet and probably have some experience of google (or a similar search engine). Do you use the social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.? All a good start. Personally I had some computer experience, quite limited really. I could use the search engines in a very simplistic way, I had no experience of social media, but was confident I could follow instructions and learn what I needed to know. So this pretty much made my decision for me. I needed some training in a quite simple (preferably click by click) form, something I could stop and rewind if I needed to go back a couple of times to ensure I really had "got it". I needed everything in one place, rather than picking up one thing here and having to find the evolution of it somewhere else. I knew I had that much to learn that I almost needed a lesson in what I needed to know! When I had a some experience I felt I would be in a better position to decide what was missing and in which areas I would like to specialise.

Your Development Considerations.

You will doubtless already have in mind a potential framework for your work. A work, life balance. A consideration as to what you are happy to do, what you are prepared to do and what you would not do. For my part, the decision to work from home had always been to could fit around my childrens' schooling. The current layout of our home really prevents me from working in the evening. So it became obvious I had to fit my education and my work into a 5 hour window each week day.

Your considerations may be different. Perhaps you are preparing to work from home once your child or children start school and can only do an hour during nap time or perhaps an hour or two in the evening. Everyone's circumstances are different. Or maybe you are working full-time and would like to work part-time from home in the future. Perhaps you are happy to progress a couple of hours a night and all day Saturday, only you can answer this, but a timetable is an excellent way to begin. I feel planning your personal development makes you more committed to it, personally I know on a week to week basis when I am working and what I am working on.

Required Skills.

In brief we have a few tasks to complete.

1. Decide on an audience (or market).
2. Produce some form of valuable content, be it in the form of a blog, a video, a podcast etc. Content that enhances our growing reputation as someone with knowledge and integrity.
3. Learn how to get that content found.
4. Follow up in the form of auto e-mails etc.
5. Create your own pages for collecting potential customers information.

Sounds simple really!!

War Room.

Now we know when we are, and are not prepared to work. We know (in very simplistic form) what we need to know, and having evaluated our own skill sets, we also know what we need to learn. We have considered a working timetable. All that remains is to decide where we are going to get the missing information from. There are many people and companies providing training,  from snippets to complete packages and if you are prepared to hunt around on the internet I am certain you could "cobble together" training on all the things we covered earlier, but in the words of Red Adair "If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur". Personally I decide that my lack of confidence in social marketing meant I wanted a simple, but not simplistic, coherent and complete training package. Something I could schedule myself and be certain that I was covering all the major areas. Working at my own pace and having the facility to review anything I was unsure of was inportant also. That way I could be sure that what I was learning covered all the relevant gaps in my internet marketing education, while also being assured by on going use that the training I was recieving was of the highest standard. I needed to gain some confidence and enough knowledge that I could make an informed decision about when and what to secialise in. A working community would certainly be beneficial, a way to get some feedback and learn from others, after all this is social marketing.

So plan, planned (at least in outline). A good start, further than most people get. It needed some consideration of where you are now and where you want to be, and also what and when you are able and prepared to compromise. An assessment of training providers and their adequecy.

So if you are ready like I was to take personal responsibility for yourself and your family and are looking for someone to help you make better decisions click here to contact me.

For further information about how to improve your business using Attraction Marketing principles click here to contact me.

What is Attraction Marketing?

Marketing has always seemed very hit and miss to me. It's like blurting out your message to everyone hoping someone is listening. How many people use the adverts on T.V. as an opportunity to go and get a drink or pop to the toilet? Here in England I know countless people who won't listen to commercial radio because of all the advertising. I dread to think how much paper I recycle every year in the form of fliers advertising everything from blinds to garden services.

With the advent of the internet it has now become possible for the little guy to advertise like the corporations. You can now produce effective advertising very cheaply and more importantly can target it right at the markets you choose.

By reading this you will be become informed about Attraction Marketing. Begin to understand the methods and reasons for using Attraction Marketing.  You will be able to recognise the benefits of promoting yourself rather than your business. See how you can begin attracting customers in this way, and take responsibility for yourself.

Attraction Marketing - What You Need to Know.

Attraction Marketing, Internet Attraction Marketing, Article Marketing, they all amount to the same basic thing. Providing valuable content to a group of people of your choice. 

So we need to begin by deciding on the group (or market) we want to attract. Logically it should be a group whose situation we are familiar with. Perhaps as a parent you have experiences or insights you would like to share about creating your own home-made child friendly recipes for example. People would certainly find value in that. Perhaps you enjoy walking or visiting various places in your locale. I'm sure people would be interested to find out about local child friendly activities, that would be valuable to hassled parents. Maybe you have an interesting hobby you could give your perspective on. Bare in mind that the internet provides you with access to millions of people all over the world, so what may seem like a tiny specialised area to you could be attractive to tens or even hundreds of thousands of people globally.

So how do we get in front of these markets? There are various methods, of sharing your content (or value) from blogging to You Tube, book marking to podcasts, all are viable methods of connecting with people and all are now relatively easy skills to develop. Cost unlike traditional marketing (T.V., radio, direct mail, etc.) are not prohibitive, infact most can be done for free. The big advantage is your marketing is available all the time and as you are providing something valuable to people they come looking for you. When was the last time you turned on the T.V. to watch the adverts?

Self-promotion – the way forward?

People like people! Well you're in trouble if not, the world is full of them. We are all interested in what people are doing, what they have been doing, what they think, what they are going to do? The list is endless. So by talking about you and your experiences people get to know you, and if they are still reading (which I hope you are!!) maybe you can make a connection. People begin to trust you. That ,you don't get very often with products.

Over time by being open, honest and consistent you develop a relationship with people. That is why you should be promoting you first before anything else.

How to start attracting potential customers using an Internet Marketing campaign.

As we mentioned earlier the first and perhaps the most important thing to do is to choose and become very familiar with your market.

Having decided what you want to talk (or blog about) you need to produce it and get it out in the public domain, squidoo is a good place to start, have a look at the training webinar (on line seminar) if you need any help. Then keep producing and keep posting, make sure you refer people to other content you have produced and ask for comments, after all interaction is the best way to build a relationship. Good luck and happy sharing.

By applying what you have learned here you are taking responsibility for both your personal development and the development of your business. People will know you better and approach you wanting to buy from you and/or work with you. Your knowledge of Attraction Marketing will clearly show an alternative to traditional advertising methods.

So if you are ready like I was to take personal responsibility for your business and are looking for someone to help you make better decisions contact me lee@theworkfromhomeparent.com.

For further information about how to improve your business using Attraction Marketing principles click here to contact me.

For related articles:

 

Return to Work - Back to the World of Employment?

My youngest son has just started school. In some ways it feels like a blessed relief, in others the start of some new and very different issues. I have been pondering for a while, as a stay at home dad, what I should do next. I feel I need to contribute financially; the last few years have placed many financial restrictions on us, and equally, I would like to stretch myself once again. But the considerations are many, as my partner is the main bread winner in the house the responsibilities of child care still fall mainly to me, so my return to work must allow me to be close to school, work school hours and preferably term time only. Locally this leaves me with two (both equally unappealing) parent friendly employment options, the council and the local supermarket. I have held similar positions before and not found them to be particularly stimulating or well paid. So, on the face of it my options would seem very limited, wouldn’t they?

By reading this you will come to realize there is a difference between your perception and your reality. You are not alone in feeling trapped between your family and your bank account. You will find alternatives that give you an insight into how to balance work life and home life. Become aware that your working options are broad and stimulating, yet flexible and profitable.

Are Your Perspective and Your Reality in Alignment?

When I first started to give my pending situation some thought I became quite disturbed by my lack of options in the world of work. Restricted by my almost six years without (paid) employment. When looking through the classified job adverts frustrated by the lack of opportunities, was I really unable to get so much as an office juniors job? My lack of recent employment seemed to mean I was restricted to low paid jobs, making out of school and holiday childcare unaffordable. This seemed to leave me only with part-time very local alternatives.

Puzzles and conundrums have always been intriguing to me and previous jobs have required me to think laterally so I thought I would put it to good use. What other options (palatable or otherwise) did I have?

• I could begin studying for a new "traditional" career. Architecture has always been appeallng. Engineering perhaps? I concluded that I would be required to make a significant financial investment in a course lasting upto seven years, I would be starting at the bottom of the ladder in my chosen career, low paid (unable to afford childcare) and additionally having to find the time to study as well as the possibility of day release classes college.
• I could open a traditional business. Rent a shop, or warehouse and begin trading. A significant financial outlay in terms of stock, rent and rates, refurbishment to name but a few. Staff, paperwork, possibly an internet business attached (light bulb!!). Ultimately a very expensive full-time job. What would I sell? Who to? How would I advertise? How would I fund it? Given the current economic climate possibly not such a good idea.

My internet business "light bulb moment" started me on another path. I began to research internet businesses and realized the good ones all had one thing in common. Attraction Marketing. They were using the internet to produce their own no-cost targeted advertising campaigns. Some quite simplistic, others advanced and far reaching, but ultimately something that, the more I researched the more I understood was well within the realms of possibility for anyone. Something that I could create and people could view, which would produce results day and night week after week without any further intervention from me! Now that idea I liked.

Cash vs. Kids – You are not alone.

My next dilemma we have already skirted over really. Should I go for the cash or spend time with the kids. When I was young my father was a manager of a large city centre Woolworths. He was off to work before my brother and I awoke and returned just in time to kiss us goodnight. He always worked Saturdays, after all it was the busiest day of the week, and occasionally had to go in on a Sunday, which was a rare treat for us kids. We would charge around the then empty shop (before Sunday opening) and have a whale of a time. It wasn't until recently that it crossed my mind as anything but normal, that's just the way it was. On a recent visit from my parents we were talking about children and grand-children when my father commented that playing and spending time with my children had made him comprehend what he had missed with his own. That made my mind up. Part-time with the scope to make a full-time income. Easy to say I know, but it brought me back once again to Attraction Marketing.

I want a balanced work life and home life.

Flexibility would seem to be my buzz word. I want to work when the kids are at school, that would appear to give me somewhere in the region of 25-30 hours a week, unless of course it's a school holiday, then I don't want to work more than an hour a day. I want to see my other half, so no evenings or week-ends. I want to be stimulated, challenged, appreciated and well remunerated.

Not asking for much then!!! Once again I came back to that do it once and get continuous results idea.

 

What choice do I have?

Well I came to the conclusion I didn't have a choice, it had to be Attraction Marketing or Internet Marketing as it is sometimes known. Look into it for yourself I would recommend Ann Seig's The Renegade Network Marketer (not just for Network Marketers) as a good starting point.

Job satisfaction can be yours. You don’t have to compromise on your home life or your finances; you can have time with your family and make a good living. Consider the alternatives, escape from your perceived shackles and find a new dawn.

So if you are ready like I was to take personal responsibility for yourself and your family and are looking for someone to help you make better decisions click here to contact me.

For further information about how to improve your business using Attraction Marketing principles click here to contact me.