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Friday, October 31, 2008

3 Ways to Secure Public Speaking Jobs and Positions

If you are new to public speaking, you may find it hard to find public speaking jobs. Speaking careers are the sought after type of careers people want to get into, because of all the money that can be made. Plus, you get to travel around the world. Public speaking careers cover a wide territory. You may want to focus on one type of public speaking career, instead of spreading yourself too thin.

When you start out looking for public speaking positions, there may be many public speaking opportunities available. You have to decide what direction you want to lean toward. There are three key ways where you can secure public speaking jobs. Are you interested in how to become a motivational speaker and pursue this type of career? If so, you must learn the art of public speaking, but by using motivation as the key attribute.

This is the main way in becoming a motivational speaker. Once you have learned the true way to deliver a motivational speech, you can actively pursue this as your career path. Any speaker, who works to become a motivational speaker, may find many jobs in this area. It seems that a motivational speaking career is where speakers are heading. It is apparently a huge market. One key way to secure public speaking jobs is by developing your public speaking skills and stay with a tightly focused career.

This will be the way you can prepare for a wide variety of public speaking assignments. If you looked at all the different public speaking opportunities and you wonder how to be a motivational speaker, or how to pursue a motivational speaking career, there is a way to break into this field. The second key way to secure a public speaking job is by talking to those who are already motivational speakers.

They can give you first hand knowledge as to what skills you will need, and how to go about applying for the public speaking jobs. And for the third way to secure a public speaking job is to only pick jobs where you will get paid to speak. You don’t care so much for those free ones, unless you are so new to public speaking, and you don’t have any clients yet, that you need to have at least one or two under your belt. If you do not want to go for motivational speaking, you can always look toward inspirational speaking.

This is also a career choice that can bring you many rewards. The key here is to know what speaking career path you want to follow and go after it. Get the training you need to pursue that choice and you’ll be on your way to making a ton of cash. http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.

What Does it Take to Establish a Successful Franchise?

Now that it already becomes prevalent to most countries' commercial affairs the franchising business, how would an ordinary business person do away from unsuccessful attempts to flourish in his own chosen venture?What does it take to establish a successful franchise?

Since franchising is a type of business where an individual uses the methods and practices of another person in his own business, it is inevitable for any potential franchisee to have half-hearted thoughts and worries on the likely outcome of his own enterprise. This comes not very surprising. It is but normal for anyone, especially the neophytes, to feel that way. Nevertheless, the following are certain lucid tips on how to be successful in establishing a franchise.

First, you have to have an assessment of your own capabilities relative to those individuals you know, who, are doing great in their business. Try to compare your business abilities with his/hers and be able to come up with a list of sound attitudes you have found in him/her that you quite don't seem to possess at all. This would help you better assess your potential business outlook before you get yourself into any kind of endeavor.

If in any way, you figure out that you don't like the idea of depending on other franchisees on matters of molding yourself with prospective business stance, just keep yourself reminded that lest you want to be triumphant in your future undertakings, too much of idiosyncratic pride should first be minimized if could not totally be eradicated out of your way.Second, the franchisee should carry out a precautious investigation of the business franchise he/she would want to buy. The main purpose of this second point is obvious.

This inquiry will be of great help to you, as future proprietor of any chosen business. An inclusion list of business internal and external factors, as well as many other aspects of it should be made. Of course you would want to find out the distinctive features of the enterprise you have chosen for yourself. This is a primordial necessity for you to refer to in times when you would need to try to level up to the would-be changing demands and business setbacks in the future.

If these two are accomplished already, the next step would be to set a definite goal. Consequently, a clear-cut objective would serve its very essence when you reach the phase of maintaining the gains you are already making. To give you a better assurance of a stable future business, it would not do you any harm to consider the following positive traits in going about your undertaking. Decisiveness is being able to have the ability to be keen and agile in the process of decision-making. Leadership is important in keeping a favorable relationship between employees and employers while the business progresses.

Honesty is conducive to bringing about integrity to the company. Moderate risk taking is fundamental in balancing gains and margins relative to losses and risks. Last, coachability is most imperative in the type of business at hand. Franchisors favor franchisees who would not do a reinvention of their original business ideas, but those who would contribute to upholding whatever humble beginnings they had when they were just starting to grow the business which you are now franchising.

The Tale of a Catchy Resume

The first step in job hunting is to pass a resume. While resume tells something in the past, it does not totally dwell there. It tells something done in the past and creates history in the present. It is an adjective that modifies who you are and a mirror that reflects what you have. While most job hunters disregard the importance of having a catchy resume, employers don't. The moment they can't get their eyes off it, the more chances of being invited for an interview. With a fierce competition, the least one can do is to be unappealing.

Since resumes speaks for the person, a well written resume pictures a person who is serious and a well rounded individual. Lousy resumes get the least attention or worst just thrown in the bin. Simply, resumes are personal advertisement. What is written in the resume are the reasons why an employer would hire the applicant. Same way in selling, the benefits should be well emphasized to close the deal. In resumes, applicants sell qualities, skills, services, and if it is effectively taken, the sale is closed.... good deal.

There is no hard and fast rule in writing resumes. There is even no prescribed form or pattern. A good resume flows naturally, highlighting the advantages of the applicant and the assets she can contribute. A resume differs depending on what type of professional the applicant is. Since every professions demand something, it is best to model the resume to the demand of the industry. Checking out on site online would be great to boost confidence. Sample resumes can give hints and tips on how to make it more catchy.

Catchy does not exaggeration. To be catchy, it must be appealing to the eye, worth reading and with substance. Resumes are not just piece of papers or stationaries, it does not only contain educational backgrounds and references.... most of all it is something that tells who the person is. Since it is a medium to get a call for an interview, it must be something that builds connection.

Tips in Finding Businesses for Sale

Be sure to know exactly why the business is being sold and analyze carefully if the reason would not affect you in any way. You can talk to people related to the business you are interested and ask for some guidance and tips.

You may also want to inform the manager of your bank and ask him if he has any thought or information regarding what you are about to do and if he knows anything about the business you want to buy.

Finding businesses for sale in the internet is easy. All you have to do is google certain keywords like Businesses for sale in Australia and within seconds, a list will be presented containing businesses for sale in your area. Just remember to be very specific to achieve the kind of search result that can benefit you.

You can also find businesses for sale in newspaper. Businesses that closed because of failure to pay taxes can often be found in newspapers. Just remember to verify the information first before buying it.

Aside from the newspapers, you can also find businesses for sale by joining forums and asking and asking people about the kind of business you are interested in. Doing this may help you gain valuable insight as well as some misleading information from pranksters and scammers so be very careful in verifying the information you are receiving.

These tips are just some of the things that can help you in finding good businesses for sale online which you can rebuild to your own advantage.

How You Can Start a Business Article Marketing?

Starting a home business on the internet is a fairly easy undertaking for most people. The most difficult task is getting your name, business and website recognized in the sea of billions of other people with businesses and websites on the internet.

The internet has a huge population so one has to wonder how they can stand out in the crowd. Developing a name for you is very important. You want people to see your name and automatically recognize it as a name they can trust. Of course not everyone will know your name but if you can develop a trustworthy reputation among those in your niche, people interested in that niche will know who you are. Now, getting to the most difficult aspect of developing and running an internet business. Getting your name recognized.

Article marketing may be the best way to accomplish this goal. Writing articles that peeks a reader’s interest and provide quality, helpful information is a great way to build your online business and personal reputation you can visit www.newbies-copywriting.com Submitting these quality articles to reputable article directories creates a back link to your internet business website.

The more quality back links a website has, the better position it gets in the search engines. When people search for certain terms in your niche or expertise, your articles may come up. They will read your article and if they like what they read they may click on the link in your resource box. You may be wondering what a resource box is. A resource box is a small section of text at the end of each of your articles. It is also know as “about the author”. It contains your name and a little blurb about you or your business and includes a link to your internet business website.

This is where the back link comes from, your resource box. Some people may not like to write articles or have a hard time coming up with ideas to write about. You can have people write your articles for you, called ghost writing or go to www.article-submitters.com you give information like the topic, keywords and resource and the ghost writing service will produce a one of a kind article just for you. Using article marketing is an effective way to make your presence known on the internet and build a trusting reputation.

This is great if someone can just type your name in the search box to find information about a certain subject they know you are knowledgeable about. So, get your pens and paper or fingers and keyboards ready and start writing about things you know and love. Your internet business may pick up and the sales may just start rolling. It is up to you whether or not you want it to become successful through article marketing.

The Need for Constant Follow Ups

How often are you following up your sales or your marketing pushes?

The first follow up is a little more obvious. Many companies are going to immediately follow up a sale with another deal or offer to their customers. Or they’ll be sure to have more than one marketing push planned out to follow up on the success of the first one.
But the best marketing is the type that does more than just one follow up. To even call it a follow up is a bit misleading, because this isn’t really just about following up, but keeping constantly in touch.

To do that you should pay attention to postcard printing. This stands as one of the best ways to keep in touch with your customers, and to keep your presence with them strong. The reason is because postcards not only get sent right to their homes, but you can maintain a postcard marketing push with relative ease once you initially set it up.

Here’s what you do. First you get your names all together. You find everyone who has purchased something from you and everyone that you want to turn into customers. You design multiple effective custom postcards, each one meant to target a different group.
You divide these postcards up into the different customers you’re focusing on with them. Maybe one postcard for your current customers and another postcard for the people you’re hoping to turn into customers.

Set up regular intervals to send these http://www.printplace.com/printing/custom-postcard-printing.aspx\">custom postcards out. Maybe it’s once a month or maybe you’re going to be sending them every other week. Whatever it is be sure to keep them coming. Postcard printing is cheap enough to allow you to maintain this easily.

Now, each time you make another sale you take that person and move them into your customer list for postcards. You might even have a special postcard meant specifically to new customer who just bought from you. Send them a welcome to your store postcard giving them a special deal, and then shift them over into the permanent custom list for your postcards.

The great thing about this is once you have it all set up you can easily keep it going with very little active effort from you. All it takes is a few new postcard designs to keep things interesting, and maintaining the different lists you have.

Because you’re sending all of these things directly into a person’s home you know you’re going to get them read, and because you’re targeting each group separately you have a much better chance at success. Nothing is better than focused marketing that can give each different group exactly what they’re looking for.

I would suggest you at least look into it for your company.

How Professional Speakers Can Get Paid to Speak at National Associations

Many speakers use some kind of national association of speakers to hire speakers to appear at different events, even those run by associations. Belonging to a speaker association of some type will help you get the paying gigs you really want. Any national speakers association will help a speaker, who is a member of the association, get speaking assignments, whether the assignments are local or long distance.

They are very powerful in this regard. A national speaker association will provide the method to get speaking engagements for speakers, whether it will be local or international. If the speaker is good or well known, any speakers association will market you in any market. There is an association of speakers, who will help speakers. People who speak for an association will find that many companies will be in attendance. This way you will find many more job leads that will come from that one talking engagement.

After you have finished your speech, you will more than likely find someone who likes what you said, and will come up to you with an offer to speak for his company. In some cases, you may find one individual who may be able to book you for up to 20 or 30 events a year. Any professional speakers association will book speaking events ahead of time. In some circumstances, as much as a year in advance. They really keep speakers busy if the speaker is a member of that association.

So if you really want to stay business speaking, go after an association of professional speakers and you may just get put to work right away. You may find that speakers associations will keep you busy the most since they will have direct contact with companies, who are looking for speakers to talk to their employees every month or every year. The key factor to remember is that associations are powerful and can get you a lot of speaking assignments if you take them on. Just get in contact with as many of them as you can find. You will have to become a member of each one, and may have to pay dues.

These dues will be for administrative work, etc. But once you sign up with the association, they will request your bio and ask for your list of topics you may be an expert with. Shortly after this, you will be getting more speaking jobs you may be able to handle.http://www.getspeakingjobs.com%3c/a%3E is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor.

Simply visit http://www.getspeakingjobs.com%3c/a%3E to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.

Google Adsense:two Tips Promote Low Cost Web Site

Anybody could own a website. Anybody could up sell their own products and services to their target audience. Anyone could try to promote their web site with a low cost. But there are not many web sites that have a truly successful web site with traffic all day through. What these individuals or companies lack is the most essential factor of success a low cost web site promotion that really works.

If you have been trying to promote your own website and you have received traffic every hour, my hands are down for you. But for those people who need assistance, who does not have the patience to promote their own product and services, and lacks knowledge to properly advertise themselves, here are some guidelines to help you achieve success with a low cost online promotion. Some search engines rank the order in which your search results appear primarily by how many other websites link to each page. The leading websites on this order would eventually fulfill a low cost web site promotion.

Other types of inexpensive online promotion you could use to boost up traffic on your website are banner advertising, classified ads, text links and section sponsorship. Search Engine Submission and Ranking are the two basic parts to a low cost website Google Adsense, earn money online, work at home, home based business promotion. Both of the parts have the same effect on the market of the website for your products and services presented in your web site catches the people's attention. But there are not many web sites that have a truly successful web site with traffic all day through.

What these individuals or companies lack is the most essential factor of success a low cost web site promotion that really works. The first inexpensive method of web site promotion is the search engine submission. This first part is the act filing information and submitting your website to search engines. There are two types of Search engine submission manual and automatic. For a low cost and effective website promotion, automatic submission is ideal because after filling up the information, a software program would forward this information to other search engines.

The second money-saving website promotion is ranking. This refers to the numerical position in which your web site appears on a search engine, based upon the website's criteria. If you have been trying to promote your own website and you have received traffic every hour, my hands are down for you. But for those people who need assistance, who does not have the patience to promote their own product and services, and lacks knowledge to properly advertise themselves, here are some guidelines to help you achieve success with a low cost online promotion. Some search engines rank the order in which your search results appear primarily by how many other websites link to each page.

The leading websites on this order would eventually fulfill a low cost web site promotion. Other types of inexpensive online promotion you could use to boost up traffic on your website are banner advertising, classified ads, text links and section sponsorship. Banner advertisements pop up above and below web pages, and sometimes in another window.

Text links and section sponsorship may cost more, but these methods helps in promoting to your specified target audience. It wouldn't harm your web site to try these methods. Always remember that the effects of your not so costly online promotion hits are increasing significantly each day. Don't waste time; find an effective and affordable web site promotion of your choice today.

Import-export, International Trade Explained

International trade can be generally termed as trading of supplies and services among two countries. Trade in two neighboring countries was also done in prehistoric era. Today, international trade is the basic barometer that tells the entire story of a country's economy, social and political status. In fact, it can be said that international trade is crucial for overall growth of economy. Good bilateral relations between the nations significantly influence the success of International Trade. In the past few decades, Import Export was severely suppressed and was considered impossible due to high excise duty and texas .

During that period, countries mainly adopted the policy of mercantilism. The inflow of capital is what affects the prosperity of the nation. Nevertheless, with the arrival of globalization and industrialization during 19th century, these policies have been relaxed and the idea of free trade has been accepted. Today, all nations are able to bear witness to the benefits that free trade brings about.Growth wise, the import and export industry is growing at lighting speed. There are 450,000 people involved in the import export business and this generates a massive revenue of almost $656 billion each year.

The top 1,000 of those importers account for 65% of the total import value-some $450 billion, or an average of $400 million each. That leaves the remaining $256 billion in imports to be divided among 349,000 importers. This averages to about $734,000 in production value for each importer. This means the "average" importer has sales of $1-2 million dollars per year. Currently, international trade is mostly conducted while observing the guidelines set by the World Trade Organization. But, the trade between two countries is also influenced by the economic treaties between the countries.

Some of these agreements include NAFTA between US, Canada and Mexico, European Union between 27 countries in Europe and MERCOSUR in South America. Despite having rules to regulate international trade, trade between countries still involve quite a few potential hazards at the economic and political fronts. Some of these include termination of international export or import licenses, danger of war, risk of striking a ban on imported products after the shipment of the consignment and currency exchange controls, and more.

Therefore, anyone involved in the import export business should be wary about changes to both domestic and international laws and policies.If you want to make it big in the import export Business, it is recommended that self-employment is the best start. Eventually everyone desires to own his business at some stage. Why not make the import export a dream job for yourself. 85% of American millionaires grow to be rich in their own career, and two thirds of them are self-employed. If you have true passion for trading, the Import and Export business can become your dream career.

Want to Increase Sales by Another 100% and Equal 200% Increased Sales?

Do you want to increase your sales by 200%? With the right attitude and discipline you can increase sales by over 200%. Do you have the correct attitude to increase sales? Does your attitude exhibit effective disciplines to increase sales?In the previous article we discussed how a healthier attitude can help you increase sales by 100%. In this article, we are exploring how discipline will increase sales by another 100%.

Refining your attitude and discipline equals 200% increased sales.Discipline is a commitment to the most important person in the world. Discipline signifies doing what you have to do even when you do not want to do it. In sales, that can imply plenty, but let's focus on increasing sales.Primarily, to increase sales we need to establish a benchmark. Do you know your sales process numbers? For example, your sales call to close ratio? Yes ___ No ___If you answered YES, you are utilizing discipline to inflate increased sales. You should be aware of your daily disciplines.

What you have to do on a daily basis to increase sales results and what is the basis of these results. If not, look intently at how you got those results. They will identify the proper disciplines required to increase sales.If your answer is NO, you lack discipline and must begin tracking your daily behaviour. This includes your sales disciplines especially if you yearn to increase sales. Make note or track what you habitually do on a daily basis to increase sales?

You can track your daily disciplines by creating an uncomplicated form. Simply completing this form is a discipline. Across the top of this Discipline form, write your daily sales activity. Place the numbers 1- 31 down the side of the Discipline form representing each day of the month. Indicate your sales disciplines in terms of a number or time in the column, constantly noting what you are doing to increase sales.For example, disciplines to increase sales can be telephone - inbound / outbound, networking, referrals / introductions, etc which lead to sales appointments. Sales appointments lead to building relationships and qualifying for new opportunities.

Qualified relationships lead to sales prescriptions (presentations) which in turn lead to closes. Sales of $X equals increased sales.By tracking your daily sales disciplines (activities), by totaling these disciplines at the end of the month and by averaging all disciplines, you will soon learn what we in the sales profession call, your sales call to close ratio in regards to increasing sales.Before long you will be familiar with how many sales calls are required to make an appointment, i.e.: 12 to 1. How many appointments it takes to locate a qualified relationship, i.e.: 6 to 4? How many qualified relationships lead to a sales presentation, i.e.: 5 to 3?

Finally, how many presentations are necessary to close and the value of that sale?Now that you know your numbers, you can define the daily sales disciplines (activities) essential to increase sales.It is purely a matter of discipline and doing what you say you will do, even if you don't feel like doing it. Discipline is the key to increased sales.Convert each letter of the word Discipline to a numerical value. What is the total number? Imagine having attitude and discipline working for you and earning you a 200% increase in sales.

4 Free Link Building Techniques for Amateur Web Site Owners

Having made the bold and somewhat reckless decision to try and help get a small website off the ground recently, I was forced to research techniques for promoting a website for free. I'd never done this before but I've since found a few simple ways of building good links across the internet to a website (backlinks) without spending any money.

Search Engine Submissions
It's amazing how many people don't realise that you have to tell the search engines about your site.The major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc) all have a link on their site that will allow you to submit your new site's URL into a queue for their robots to index. This can take anything from a few days to a few weeks. So don't be disheartened if you don't show up in search results right away - it's not that easy!

Free Directory Submissions
There are literally thousands of directory sites on the web, many of them accepting submissions of URLs for free. There is a drawback here though. Most of the directories are not well known, get little traffic themselves and so will not supply you with much, if any, visitors. That's not where the benefit comes from though. The benefit is in the creation of a backlink that can be seen by the major search engine robots. As you will probably have gathered in your linkbuilding efforts so far, the quantity of backlinks, even low quality ones, is important. You should, however, always aim for good quality backlinks wherever possible as links from high Pagerank directories will be 'worth' much more in the eyes of the search engines.

Do a web search for sites publishing lists of free directories - there are plenty. Free submissions to as many directories as you can manage will help establish your site's initial visibility on the web. Look for the 'submit link' button and follow the guidelines particularly around the allocation of a category to your website. Some directories will look for a reciprocal link before publishing your link. Decide whether you want to provide a reciprocal link as one-way links can be seen to be more valuable.

Article MarketingArticle marketing is a much misunderstood strategy. It involves writing articles and submitting them to article directories where other webmasters can go to find free content for their sites. These articles are then picked up by webmasters and reprinted in other websites. The link benefit for you, the author, is in the 'about the author' section - the bio. Here you should include links to your website. The terms under which the article can be reprinted from the article directory generally require that the author bio is reproduced, including all working links. This will provide you with a growing set of links on sites related to your subject matter - something else important to search engine results.Some tips for article marketing though:- stick to subjects you can write authoritatively on.

This helps you build a reputation which your website will become associated with.- make sure your articles are of good quality, informative and well written. This is crucial for you to establish a reputation for quality and for them to be reproduced often.- make sure that the subject matter can be related to your website or niche in some way. The search engines look for relevance in links and place more value on content-relevant links.- keep your articles a consistent length where possible. Shoot for approximately 400 - 800 words. Any shorter and they offer little substance for other webmasters and may not be reproduced very often. Any longer and you should ask yourself whether there can be two articles from it instead, giving you the benefit of two sets of links.Forum, Blog and Comment PostingLook for discussion forums on your subject matter or on related subjects.

Sign yourself up as a user of the forum and start contributing to
the discussions. Make sure the forum is a good quality one, frequented by users who know the subject well. Also, make sure you can have links in your signature. This is generally allowed but only after you have been a user for a set time period and have a minimum number of posts under your belt.Like forum posting, many blogs allow comments at the end of their blog posts. Look for blogs on your subject that encourage comments and allow links. Many of these, however have their scripts modified to deter the search engine robots from following the link. This is to avoid off-topic spamming from commenters just looking for linkbacks.To avoid being seen as a spammer, you MUST ensure that your contributions are good quality. Avoid, where possible, the pointless one-liners like, 'nice post'. These may get your post count up but they offer nothing to the forum or your reputation.

eBay made easy: ready to start an eBay business? These 5 simple steps will get you on your way

Ten years after being formed in 1995, eBay has become the world's leading online marketplace for all sorts of goods. At any given time, 29 million items are available worldwide on eBay, with more than 3.5 million new items added every day and $1,000 worth of merchandise sold every second. The online auction site has 135 million registered users in 32 international markets, and more than 430,000 people in the United States alone make a full- or part-time living on eBay.

If you think eBay is just about bobblehead dolls and Pez dispensers, think again. While $2.2 billion worth of goods in collectibles were sold on eBay in 2004, antiques and collectibles ranked only No. 6 among eBay's sales categories. The five highest were: automobiles and auto supplies ($11.1 billion); consumer electronics ($3-5 billion); computers ($3.0 billion); clothes and accessories ($2.9 billion); and books, movies and music ($2.4 billion).

Real people are making big bucks on eBay--and thousands have even reached PowerSeller status by maintaining at least $1,000 per month in sales for three consecutive months. Case in point: Angle Cash, 37, a stay-at-home mom who started selling on eBay nearly six years ago because it was "something I could do and watch the kids at the same time." Today, her Kennesaw, Georgia, company, Cashco1000 Inc. (www. cashco1000.com), sells thousands of home-decoration and other items each month on eBay and expects to break $500,000 in sales on eBay this year.

Even owners of existing businesses have found success on eBay by using it as an adjunct to their brick-and-mortar operations. Dan Morphy, 33, runs the Adamstown Antique Gallery (www. aagal.com), a 10,000-square-foot antiques mall in Denver, Pennsylvania. After a few successful eBay auctions, he started offering the antiques vendors who rent space in his gallery the opportunity to sell five items a month on eBay, at no charge other than out-of-pocket expenses. Within two years, Morphy not only had a full gallery of dealers, but was also listing 700 pieces a month and had exceeded $2.5 million in eBay sales.

If you dream of building your own eBay business, it's easier than you think. We've distilled what you need to know into five basic steps.

Step 1: Register Your Business
Getting set up as an eBay seller is a simple process that takes just a few minutes. You'll be required to provide your name, address, e-mail and phone number, as well as a credit card number and your checking account information. This information is used to confirm your identity--which protects the integrity of eBay's operation--and to collect auction fees.
Since every eBay business is a retail business, you should also register your business with federal, state and local tax authorities and consider forming a corporation or an LLC to protect you against legal liability. (For more legal issues you should know about before you start, go to www. entrepreneur.com/ebay/legaltips.)

Most eBay sellers are also encouraged to open an account with PayPal, an online payment service owned by eBay that enables buyers to pay you by credit card or by debiting their checking accounts, without you having to obtain merchant card accounts.

Step 2: Find Stuff to Sell
This can be the biggest challenge in setting up an eBay business. Keep these points in mind:
* PICK THE RIGHT PRODUCT. Select something you'll enjoy selling and that stands a good chance of making a profit. Avoid merchandise you know absolutely nothing about, that's difficult to describe in a short paragraph, that won't photograph well or that's tricky to ship without damage.

* CONSIDER COST AND SALE PRICE. "Buyers and sellers on eBay set the price--you don't," says Melissa Sands, 35, who started selling on eBay in 1999 to help her husband, a comic-book dealer, get rid of excess inventory. Today, Sands runs Sands-o-Time (www. sands-o-time.com), an eBay store selling pottery, porcelain, glass, silver, costume jewelry and more with sales averaging $8,000 to $12,000 per month. Before you buy anything, find out what other similar items have sold for on eBay and ask yourself if there's a good chance you will make money.

* SELL RELATED MERCHANDISE. "If you make it easy for people to buy something, they will want to buy more from you--and you have to have related merchandise in stock," advises Cash. "So, for example, if you're selling collectibles, you should also carry the display racks, books and other accessories those particular collectors will want to have."

* MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH STORAGE SPACE FOR YOUR MERCHANDISE. Don't start ordering pallets of large items if your basement or garage is small, or if your front door isn't big enough to squeeze the crates through.

* LEARN HOW TO PACK AND SHIP GOODS. Calculating shipping costs properly is also important. To help you with this, eBay, FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service all offer shipping calculators on their websites. Buyers really hate it if they think you're gouging them on the shipping and handling fees.


Referrence": bBNET MAGAZINE