Success Stories From the 10 Best Home Based Businesses
1. Photography
2. Travel
3. Hard Goods
4. E-goods
5. Sales
6. Local Businesses
7. Affiliate Marketing
8. Stay at home Moms
9. Net Auctions
10. Collectibles
1. Case Study: Work At Home Moms (WAHM)
Michelle Schill – style-hair-magazine.com
From Alberta, Canada, Michelle is a wonderful example of how a mother is using Site Build It! to build a life for her family, herself, and their future. What does the “It” in Site Build It! mean to you?
“I no longer work from home in the evenings and my income is constantly growing. Right now, it’s double what I was making when I was standing behind a chair… I do what needs to be done the most at any given time and the nature of website building is such that I can stop or take a break at any point and carry on when time allows. I can work in my pyjamas and fuzzy slippers and switch from work mode to mommy/caretaker to silly dance partner whenever the mood strikes.”
2. Case Studies: E-goods Creators/Sellers
Marney Makridakis – Artella Words And Art
An excellent example of a highly profitable e-good business is Marney’s ArtellaWordsAndArt.com.
This is an original, creative and popular site with a huge following. Marney sells over 250 items through her simple PayPal shopping cart, including some audio-based e-goods!
“In one year’s time, I went from fiddling around with a hobby to manifesting a full-time business doing what I love: celebrating the creative uniqueness in an ever-growing community of thousands of people all over the world, inspiring them to uncover their artistic spirits and dare to let their creative souls shine.”
3. Case Studies: Travel Sites
Luisa Cupeles – viequestravelguide.com
From Puerto Rico, we still remember how anxious Luisa was when she first e-mailed us. Now? She owns a travel business which earns her as much as her old job, working 3 hours per day from home. And this is just the beginning!
Don’t miss her dream equation at the end. And her P.S. says to all of us, “Watch out world. Luisa has merely begun.”
“Having the opportunity to share Vieques and Puerto Rico with so many people around the world is a great satisfaction. As a bonus, I get to go on a tax-deductible vacation every year. I can visit my beautiful island, ride my jeep, take lots of photos, meet great new people, and write travel guides about places I love. I felt that money would just be the icing on the top. Of course, I did not realize how much icing my cake would have.”
4. Case Studies: Hard Goods Creators/Sellers
Jim Nelson – JuggleNow.com, ParrotsNow.com
From the U.S.A., Jim Nelson’s story shows how he uses SBI! to sell hard goods so effectively. Jim started by selling hand-made juggling balls (knitted at home by his 90 year-old mother!). Now he sources products internationally, selling to customers in every state and on every continent. And he has started a second site, also a success.
Must-read material, especially if you are considering selling hard goods.
“I took my time with the brainstorming, eliminating several ideas. After working through the Action Guide, with several ideas, the idea of a juggling site became obvious. My favorite hobby, juggling, was a niche that I knew! And the e-com ideas kept coming, the e-books and other e-commerce ideas. I now sell so many different juggling products, and even have my two e-books ready to go soon…”
5. Case Studies: Sales & Rental Agents/Reps/Distributors
Fiona McCardle/Jim Andrew – Rent a Villa in Tuscany
How do two Scots end up in warm, sun-kissed Tuscany, hobnobbing with Hollywood producers and visiting Salvatore Ferragamo?
Site Build It!. That’s how.
Dreams do come true, if you dare them to be. And if you work to turn that dream into reality.
This story is a powerful demonstration of how themed content drives yet another monetization model… a rental agency.
“If you’d told me 12 months ago that a couple of ex knitwear designers with very little experience of the web would now be running a successful web based villa rental company I’d have found it hard to believe. If you then tried to convince me that their plans are now to run it from a poolside, looking out over the Tuscan hillside, sipping on a cocktail, I’d probably think the Tuscan sun had got to you!”
6. Case Study: Affiliates
Allan Gardyne’s Two Affiliate Experiments…
From Australia, Allan Gardyne, the Internet’s #1 affiliate authority, challenged an employee, a “Net marketing novice,” to use SBI! to build an affiliate site. That first success led to “well, can he do it again?” second experiment. Yes, anyone can do this, and they can do it more than once…
“This affiliate marketing case study describes how a novice working part-time used Site Build It! to create an affiliate web site that achieved $49,000 in sales in just over a year. His second site has now achieved more than $308,000 in sales for one merchant. We earn a commission on that. He spends nothing on advertising.”
7. Case Studies: Service Businesses
Nick Stubbs – All-Things-Photography.com
When deciding upon a career, Nick chose a safe office route rather than following his passion for photography. As a result, he kept searching for “THE thing,” a job that would free up his time to do what he does best and loves the most… write, teach, play, and learn.
Two years after building his first SBI! site, Nick’s schedule for the next twelve months is packed with weddings, commercial work, property photography, and fashion shoots. His contracts take him all over the world. In fact, Nick is so booked that he often forwards client inquiries from his site to other photographers.
Nick is even complaining that “work is getting in the way of work.” His photography Web site is producing so much work offline that it is stopping him from building more sites!
“My photography website is producing so much work offline it is stopping me from building more sites (which is what I want to do). I have started another which is also starting to take off, and now “work is really getting in the way of work.” The beauty about everything I am currently doing, and plan to do for the next few years, is that my efforts will create passive and residual income. I am creating a pension that I can actually pass down to my kids. How many people have one of those? ”
8. Case Studies: Net Auction Sellers
Amy Dykens – Beach-Therapy.com
Amy had always wanted to own a gift shop, but it wasn’t feasible due to her husband’s career, which creates frequent relocations. She thought that she had found the answer with eBay, but that all changed… literally overnight. eBay had shut-down her business on a false accusation with no questions asked.
This frustrating “eye-opener” underlined for Amy the importance of self-reliance, owning your own traffic and income diversification. SBI! provides Amy with all three, plus a way to share her passion about beautiful beaches!
“… eBay sends me traffic and when I send them traffic they pay me as an affiliate for doing it. To say the least, my business has grown and prospered since I stopped working for eBay and started using SBI! to grow something that is truly mine.”
9. Case Studies: Local Businesses/Professions
Dr. John Burch DDS – DrBurch.com
Dr. John Burch is a local community dentist in beautiful Mountain View, California. He became frustrated with the low response rate generated by traditional advertising — coupons, local paper ads, and the Yellow Pages.
This changed when he found SBI!. He discovered that for much less than the cost of a single Yellow Page ad, a Web site that works (i.e., SBI!) gets superior results. Dr. Burch is not alone… more and more local business owners are joining the ranks of successful SBI! owners.
Most offline small businesses still don’t “get it.” But more and more of your potential customers are forsaking those heavy Yellow Page paper books for Google and other engines. NOW is the time to use SBI! to leverage your offline business… before your competitors do.
“The distance patients would travel, when they found us online, was MUCH GREATER than normal. I got patients from distances of 30, 40 and even 50 miles away! The second big unexpected benefit was that my online patients often needed and accepted larger amounts of treatment than normal… MyEsite’s content builds trust and credibility before my patients even see or talk to me in person.”
10. Case Study: Referrers/Finders
Nori Evoy – Anguilla Beaches.com
The vast majority of offline small businesses still don’t have a clue, let alone a Web site. If they do have a site, it’s likely the proverbial “far away tree in that faraway forest.” Does it even make a sound when it falls? Well, does a site even exist if it does not get traffic?
Those “no-clue” businesses are opportunities for you. Become their joint venture “content partners.” Refer traffic to them.
Get paid on a pay-per-click or pay-per-lead basis. Or earn referrer or finder’s fee for finding a customer (or a “lead”) for it. Or negotiate per-month advertising arrangements.
“I now have a business that I can grow over the years. A business that is fun. I’ll never do a 9 to 5. I’ll always own my own life. That, more than money, more than learning about the Web, more than anguilla-beaches, more than learning how to write well, that is the most important thing I’ve learned from SBI!. Own your own life. If you don’t, what’s the point?”
