I guess the majority of people reading this article will be
looking for tips on how to be original with their home business.
I'm so sorry to disappoint the Smart Alec out there because
I'm going to tell you to do the opposite.

Everyone thinks they have to be original to succeed with their
business. Well let me tell you that you don't.

Reinventing the wheel and coming up with something original will
waste a lot of your valuable time. Some may hit the jackpot with
their ideas but the majority fails and start all over again.

What you should learn to do is to think of a profitable business
you like and then find ways to improve it. This is the key to
making a living with a home business.

This applies to everything in business. Whether it is adverts,
products, concepts, tools used etc...

Let's discuss advertisement. How do you write your
advertisements? Think of an idea from scratch? What you should
do is copy other people's work.

We see a lot of adverts in magazines, newspapers and
classifieds. Some adverts appear every week over a long period
of time. These ads are successful and you should take note of
them and use it when appropriate. Use a notepad and continue to
write down all ads which you like. When the situation requires
choose o­ne of the many ads you have written down and improve it.

For example "The leather chair designed for the hardworking Dad"
can be changed to "The classy sunglasses designed for the
fashionable father". Get the idea? The notes you keep for ads
will be valuable to you and can give you inspiration in times
of dumbness. This is called a Swipe File. All good copywriters
have their own Swipe Files.

Other business' tools or systems should also be copied and used
to improve your own business. For example you see online
businesses use Paypal and other Credit Card merchants at the
same time - copy them. Some use certain autoresponders to
automate their businesses - copy them.

The rule is, copy other businesses' way of doing business and
see if their success rubs off on you. This is how I do business.
Copy from the best because what they are doing is working for
them.

Nowadays you see that a lot of web sales pages omit the graphic
header at the top. The reason was because it improves
conversion rates as the headline is what attracts the user to
read on and not the graphic header. Additionally, because there
are no graphics the web page loads more quickly so less chance
of dial up users getting frustrated with waiting.

The person who announced this testing to the public got a lot of
respect for this finding. And guess what? The majority of well
known marketers copied this approach. If well-known marketers
unashamedly copy other people's ideas, shouldn't you start doing
the same and earn more money. Follow the proven way of
success instead of re-inventing the wheel. Modify it slightly to
adjust to your own business model.

This is the same approach I take for my own online business
which you can check out at my resource box at the bottom of
this article. I basically think of other people's businesses,
copy them and modify it so that it becomes my own thing.
You will be amazed at the amount of ideas you'll get during this
copying process.

Let's take an ebook on ezines for example. A lot of people sell
this type of information product because the market is quite
big for it. What you can do is choose 2 or more of these type
of ebooks you like, combine the good stuff and then improve
it by adding your own ideas. You could offer an additional
report on "Effective Ezines To Advertise In" as a bonus for
example. The possibilities are limitless.

Successful people copy of other people and apply it in their
own business - why shouldn't you? You are following a path which
others have proven for you. Why blindly find your own way?

Copyright © 2005 Alan Cheng
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Alan Cheng, is the owner of http://www.onlinemoneymachine.com
the membership site with everything to help beginners setup
a profitable o­nline business website. You can contact Alan at:
mailto:alan@onlinemoneymachine.com