Travel and Tourism

As a stay-at-home mom, you might be seeking employment or business opportunities that enable you to earn a full-time or part-time income from home. Maybe you’d like to work flexible hours, stay home with your children, or avoid high gasoline and car maintenance costs. Whatever the reason, there are many opportunities online today that can help you achieve your goals and earn some extra cash.

Three Options for a Home-Based Business

There are three ways to approach a home business. You can offer products of your own such as clothing, crafts, hair supplies, books, or herbal supplements, build your own website, and stock your own inventory. Unfortunately, this takes much time to build and requires a start-up investment. If you want to offer your own product line, be prepared to wait a while for profits. But keep in mind that this option can be the most profitable for the future if you stick with it.

Another option is to offer a unique service such as accounting or bookkeeping, answering services, Web development or programming, business consulting, or writing. Offering a service has benefits over selling tangible products because you only charge for your “time and skills” but not to restock inventory.

A third option is to sell products or services for others and earn a commission on your sales. This works great if you have limited time to work on your business and need to spend most of your time promoting. This option can be just as profitable as having your own home business without the many headaches of business management.

Types of Business Opportunities when Selling for Others
Though time and space doesn’t permit discussion of all business opportunities here, let’s take a look at several possibilities. Beauty products are a popular choice for ladies. Most women love to try out new skin creams, lotions, soaps, makeup, and lip glosses. Because you can try out the beauty products yourself, you are more informed on how well they work and how to persuade others to buy them. Some companies offer tremendous compensation when you sell their beauty products for them. They’ll even provide a website for you with all of their products and a shopping cart for your customers to make purchases.

Another type of product that’s popular is clothing. Clothing is very general, so you’ll want to focus in on one particular style or line of clothing. Find a “niche” market within the clothing industry that you can promote to certain types of people. Online, it’s easier to promote to small niche markets instead of trying to promote to a general audience.
Tech support is another much-needed field that’s often ignored by mainstream companies.

There are business opportunities today that enable you to promote tech support services to the public and receive a healthy commission. The tech support services are all provided by the company online, but you reap the benefits. Your audience is broad because so many people own computers today… and need help with them!

Other business opportunity ideas include health supplements, educational training products and online education, kitchenware, furniture, household products, pet products, and home and garden products.

Ladies like to plan vacations for their family and enjoy traveling, you might want to consider being involved in the travel industry. There are some incredible opportunities in the travel industry, you just need to be aware of them. Travel Memberships such as Hotels Etc. can help you really kick start your home based business.

Whether you choose to start your own business or sell products for someone else, you can use the Internet to achieve your goals and still be a content stay-at-home mom!

Round column pergolas are outdoor structures that provide partial or full sun protection while being aesthetically appealing. As the name implies, they are unique because they use round columns instead of rectangular ones, providing a more stylish and elegant look. Round column pergolas can be used to create shade, protect you from the elements, and define an outdoor space. In addition, they provide a visually appealing focal point in your garden or patio. With so many benefits, it is no wonder why round column pergolas are becoming an increasingly popular backyard addition.

History of Round Column Pergolas:
Round column fiberglass pergolas have a rich and long history that dates back hundreds of years. They have been used in many ancient cultures such as Rome, Greece and Persia. These structures were often used to provide shade from the sun and weather, frame views, and to mark important passageways and entrances. In the following centuries, round column pergolas continued to be used for these same purposes, but their design and construction changed.

For example, in England, round column pergolas became popular in the Victorian period for framing gardens, walkways, and as accents to homes. With the advent of modern materials and construction techniques, these structures are even more common today and are used to fulfill both functional and decorative purposes.

Benefits of Round Column Pergolas:
Round column pergolas provide a unique and stylish look that is both classic and timeless. They are a great way to add charm and character to a home or garden. They provide partial or full sun protection and can help to define an outdoor space. Round column pergolas can also be used to create shade and provide protection from the wind and rain. Additionally, round column pergolas are easy to maintain and require very little upkeep.

Types of Round Column Pergolas:
There are a variety of different types of round column pergolas available. The most common type is the freestanding pergola, which is usually made from wood or metal. Freestanding pergolas can be moved from one area to another or even used in multiple locations. Another type of round column pergola is the attached pergola, which is typically attached to a home or building. Attached pergolas can provide much-needed shade and protection from the elements without interfering with the architectural elements of the home.

Decorating Round Column Pergolas:
Round column pergolas can be decorated and accessorized in any way you choose, making them versatile and customizable. For example, you can add fabric or shade cloth, determine the roof height and style, hang potted plants or outdoor lighting, and choose the type of columns. If you want to add extra style and appeal to your pergola, consider adding decorative finials, posts and archways. You can even create an outdoor kitchen and dining area by adding furniture and grills. Round column pergolas provide a wealth of possibilities and can be customized to meet your exact needs and preferences.

Conclusion:
Round column pergolas are an elegant and stylish way to shade and protect an outdoor living space. They provide a classic and timeless look that complements any type of home or garden. Furthermore, these structures can be customized in a variety of ways to meet your exact needs and preferences. With their easy maintenance requirements, strength and versatility, round column pergolas are an excellent choice for creating shade, protecting from the elements, and providing a stylish addition to your home.

A question I hear frequently is, “Should I promote my top sales performer to a sales management role?”To answer this question, I suggest you consider the following three questions:
Does the individual have the TALENTS required to succeed as a sales manager?
WHY are they interested in being promoted?
What sales management TRAINING will they receive?
Let’s examine each of these questions in some detail.1. Does the individual have the TALENTS required to succeed as a sales manager?During the past nine years I have examined sales assessment test results for thousands of salespeople and sales managers. My conclusion? Top sales performers and top-performing sales managers share many of the same talents. However, there are a handful of characteristics where top-performing sales managers differ from top-performing salespeople. For example:
Top-performing sales managers have slightly higher scores for Verbal Skill, Verbal Reasoning and Numeric Reasoning.
Top-performing sales managers are slightly more Assertive, but they are also slightly more Manageable, have a slightly more positive Attitude and are slightly less Independent.
But, probably most significant difference is that Financial/Administrative (which indicates the individual’s interest process, procedure, administration and financial tasks) is one of the top three interests for top-performing sales managers, whereas 80% of top sales performers have very little interest in these activities. I feel this is a key differentiator because the sales management methodology I teach requires a manager to be willing to:
Hold salespeople accountable for following a predictable, repeatable sales process
Frequently and consistently inspect the quantity and quality of their salespeople’s activities (especially for new salespeople and those who are not performing up to standard)
Analyze sales opportunity pipeline reports, profit and loss statements and other data and reports
If managers are willing to do these things, they can create a predictable and repeatable sales culture that can be scaled rapidly. If they are NOT willing to do these things, they are likely to suffer 80/20 sales team performance, where a small fraction of the salespeople produce most of the sales results and successes are hard to replicate.2. WHY are they interested in being promoted?My opinion is that the desire to be promoted is often implanted in us by our parents, other adults and educational institutions. This makes perfect sense, as in many (if not most) career paths the only way to make more money and enjoy more perks is to earn promotions. However, in sales this is usually NOT the case!If you are a top-performing salesperson, often you will take a pay CUT if you accept a promotion to management. That is certainly what happened to me when I was promoted to sales management in 1991. I walked away from a $6 million pipeline that would have paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the next several years. While I still earned a six-figure income as a manager, my income was a fraction of what it would have been had I remained a salesperson.When a salesperson is considering a promotion to management, I advise that they make a very sincere effort to identify the reasons why the idea of being promoted is attractive to them. I also suggest that they give some thought to the following realities:
Money: Unless you eventually make it all the way to executive management, chance are you will earn LESS as a manager than you would earn by remaining a top-performing salesperson
Attention: As a manager you no longer get to be the star. Instead, you need to shift your focus to helping the members of your sales team succeed.
Administration: As we saw in the first section of this article, a key component of being a successful sales manager is frequently and consistently inspecting the quantity and quality of your salespeople’s activities. How do you feel about doing this kind of work…over and over again?
Training/Coaching: How much interest do you have in training, coaching and mentoring others? How do you feel about participating in repetitive role plays, which is a critical component of changing your salespeople’s behaviors?
Sometimes I hear salespeople say they would like to move to management because they are tired of the day-to-day grind of prospecting and managing sales cycles, or they are tired of the ups and downs in income, or they really enjoy coaching and mentoring others, or they would like to eventually have an opportunity to contribute in other areas of the company. These are all perfectly valid reasons, and there are many more.All I ask is that you take the time to verify that you (or your salesperson) are pursuing a promotion to management for the RIGHT reasons and that you (or your salesperson) are ready to deal with the realities of being a sales manager.3. What sales management TRAINING will they receive?Just because someone is an effective salesperson does NOT mean they will automatically be an effective manager. There are specific skills and concepts that a new sales manager needs to learn if they are going to be successful. These include:
Sales Recruiting
Sales Compensation
Sales Training and Coaching
Sales Activity Inspection
What is your plan for teaching your new sales manager how to perform these critical activities?ConclusionSometimes it DOES make sense to promote a top sales performer to a sales management role. However, before you promote, please be sure to give careful thought to the following questions:
Does the individual have the TALENTS required to succeed?
WHY are they interested in being promoted?
What TRAINING will they receive?
If you are not confident in your answers to these three questions, you may be on the verge of making a very expensive mistake. Not only will you lose the promoted salesperson’s individual production; if they fail as a manager they are likely to leave your company and go sell for someone else!On the other hand, if a salesperson has the talents required to succeed, if he or she is pursuing promotion for the right reasons, and if he or she will receive training in critical sales management skills and concepts, the stars are aligned for a successful…and profitable…promotion!©2011 Alan Rigg