Sales.

For many, it is a scary word. Most people hate to be cornered by a pushy salesperson. Nobody wants to be convinced to buy something. Why the fear? Most likely, you are afraid of rejection. Afraid that someone will say no. A good business is built around a product or service that people want or need. When you truly believe in your product, the fear lessens. With each sale, you will become more and more confident and selling becomes easier.

What are you going to sell? If you don’t want to sell anything, then you need to find a job where someone will pay you to work for them. You can then do your work and not be bothered with sales.

If you want your own business, you are going to have to sell something. It might be a product that you’ve created. It might be someone else’s product that you buy and mark up. You could also sell someone else’s product and be paid a commission (a percentage) for bringing in the sale. Another option – sell your services.

Selling can be really fun, especially if you are a kid or teen. Honestly, kids like to buy things from other kids! The truth is, adults also like to buy from kids. Grown-ups love to see kids that have energy and enthusiasm enough to try to earn money. They respect a good work ethic. Try offering your services to an adult and watch what happens.  Think of those times when you have purchased something.  I’m sure you’ve seen a friend selling candy for a team fundraiser – how hard is it to make a sale?  What can you sell and where?

• Are you going to sell your own product?

• Are you going to sell someone else’s product?

• Are you going to sell your services?

Once you’ve chosen a business, you can then work on how you can sell…and have fun doing it. What do you have to lose?

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If your child has or is considering an online business, understanding internet safety should be at the top of your to-do list. Kids are savvy, but often naive. ConnectSafely.org is an excellent resource to learn and remind you how to keep your child safe. The site is easy-to-use and navigate and gives some great tips on talking to your kids about online behavior. See their Teen’s Guide to Safe Blogging.

Other Tips and Advice include:

• Social-Web Tips for Teens
• Social Web Tips for Parents
• Cell-phone Safety Tips
• Top 10 Safety Tips for Video-Sharing
• Chat Room Safety Tips
• What Parents Can Do About Online Safety

Please do your homework and stay safe!

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Stock Photos

Looking for the perfect photo for your webpage? Listed below is a great collection of stock photo resources. ALWAYS read terms and conditions! Remember that royalty-free doesn’t mean copyright-free. While there are plenty of free or cheap stock photos, there is nothing like hiring a photographer to get your own unique image.

Try these photo links.

Pixel Perfect Digital Photography News, Free Stock Photos, and Useful Resources

istockphoto Royalty free images where there are no subscription fees or extra costs.

http://www.bciusa.com 1.5 million traditional and digital color stock photographs of the Natural World and its inhabitants – and Man’s impact upon it.

http://www.visipix.com Visipix is the biggest art museum in the world. All pictures manually enhanced and indexed. Unconditional free copyrights.
* World art museum, all cultures 33.600 exhibits
* Photo gallery, all themes except news 66.300 exhibits

Stock.XHCNG huge free gallery containing over 200.000 quality stock photos by more than 15.000 photographers!

http://www.corbis.com
http://www.indexstock.com
http://www.photo.net

http://www.webshots.com

http://www.gograph.com

http://www.freestockphotos.com

http://www.states-of-art.com/
http://www.freefoto.com is the largest collection of free photographs for private non-commercial use on the Internet.

http://www.imagebank.com

http://www.bigstockphoto.com

http://www.imageafter.com

http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com

http://www.texturewarehouse.com

http://www.freephotosbank.com

http://www.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us

Access over a million royalty free clip art pictures via Frontpage/ INSERT TAB/ PICTURE and then click on CLIP ART. Perform a search for whatever keyword you need and enjoy!

Icons

http://www.glyfz.com
http://www.iconkits.com
http://www.iconexperience.com

http://www.iconfish.com

icongalore.com

http://www.iconfactory.com
istockphoto

Need a camera? We highly recommend using B&H Photo. You can find cheaper, but with cameras there are a lot of untrustworthy sites. Be careful!

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For just a few minutes at a time, you can start learning the technical side of building a website. Although there are many WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) type web-builders out there, having the ability to use code is going to be a huge asset to anyone involved in an internet business. This site is broken into short lessons that are easy to understand.

Whether you’ve had a site for a while or are brand new to being online, this site full of web-building tutorials is a don’t miss. At W3Schools you’ll find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP. At W3schools you will find thousands of cut-and-paste examples. They even have an on-line HTML editor you can edit the examples and experiment with the code on-line.

If you like to learn something new every day, this would be a perfect place to enhance your technical skills in short time clips. Start with the HTML examples – this is the primary language for building web pages.

Enjoy being a geek! There’s something highly satisfying about doing something technical yourself!

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If you’re looking for a guide that is jam-packed with good, solid information, then this is for you! A whopping 247 pages written by internet marketing experts in their fields, this is a great read for both newbies and experienced marketers. Topics covered that might interest a young entrepreneur include affiliate marketing, ghostwriting, eBay selling, article writing, creating graphics, and more. The authors are all well-respected in the internet marketing community. This is not a get-rich quick scheme and you won’t be lead to believe that you will be a millionaire overnight. Rather than worry about the $100 a day, you can concentrate on making your first hundred bucks. After that, worry about the second $100! Click here for more details!

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It’s an interesting question. Kelly McCausey (Work at Home Mom Talk Radio) brought up this question this week and it think it’s a really interesting topic. Have you always wanted to be in your own business? I certainly didn’t. I actually avoided the small business and entrepreneurial classes when I was getting my business degree! I remember thinking, “I’ll never have my own business? What would be the point of taking these classes!” Wouldn’t I love to go back in time and revisit my course options!

When I was in high school, I had friends that were clearly cut out to be business people. They loved to sell! The minute a fundraiser would come in, they’d hit every house in the neighborhood before we even had a chance to review the materials! They clearly had it in them.

Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit our are you reading this because you are trying to ignite the spirit within?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Hang around with winners, become a winner.” I believe that if you hang around with self-employed people, it rubs off on you. When you see the excitement, it’s contagious. My daughters already know that they do not want a corporate 9:00 to 5:00 job. Did they catch the spirit from their parents? Time will tell.

What do you think?

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