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Still searching for a brilliant idea for your home-based business? Are you a little bit creative or able to come up with pithy slogans begging to be plastered on a t-shirt, coffee mug, or poster? If so, you’re in luck. Technology has now caught up with you. Companies like CafePress and Zazzle cater to the design crowd. It works like this.

Come up with a great design or slogan. Log on to one of these websites and upload your idea. It’s now ready to be printed on t-shirt, kids’ accessories, mugs, housewares, stickers – the list is lengthy. Every time one of these items sells from the website with your design, you get a commission.

Jason brought up an interesting point on episode #155 of The Creating Wealth Show. The phrase “location, location, location” has traditionally been the mantra in assessing the value of a property. Perhaps they should say “patience, patience, patience” instead. Eventually, every market will be a good value again. The trick is to realize that all markets are not a good deal all the time. Don’t get hung up on a particular area, thinking factors like proximity to the beach will make it eternally valuable.

Las Vegas? Terrible right now.

It’s true. In yet another permutation of the home gig, you no longer have to leave the house to be a customer service agent for a major company. Want to work for J. Crew, Walgreen’s, 1-800-FLOWERS? You can. There is a growing demand for people who answer inbound customer calls from these companies and others.

It works like this. Major corporations such as the ones just mentioned outsource their customer service calls to third party companies who, in turn, hire U.S. based virtual customer service agents. Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, need extra cash, or have grown weary of the morning commute, this might be an employment option that interests you.

The rumors are true. Some real estate entrepreneurs have trouble turning their new business venture into a positive cash flow endeavor. Why is this? Part of the problem is being “motivated seller” focused rather than “deal” focused. Here’s what we mean by that. You can throw a rock in almost any neighborhood in the United States and hit a half dozen motivated sellers. Does that mean you have half a dozen good deals to choose from?

Heck, no!

It simply means there are six people desperate to unload their property. When you start to analyze each deal you will find them to be good, bad, or indifferent. No matter how motivated the seller is, a bad deal is still a bad deal. If you’ve been following our posts at Empowered Investor Network for any length of time, you know we NEVER pull the trigger on ANY deal unless it makes sense the day we buy it.

Are you interested in a property outside of our network? Need a second opinion?

While we believe that the information provided at our own website www.JasonHartman.com is the finest investment, home-based business, and internet marketing education around, there are other websites on the horizon worth looking at. One of our favorites for internet marketers is the Warrior Forum (www.WarriorForum.com).

The Warrior Forum is the place to go for anything and everything regarding internet marketing. Everybody hangs out there from millionaire gurus to wet-behind-the-ears newbies and anyone is welcome. Treat them right and they’ll treat you better.

Are you stuck with a bad income investment property forever? The short answer is no. There are escape routes, though some are better than others. Your best defense against ending up the owner of a bad property is to follow our advice and not invest in a property unless it makes sense the day you buy it.

But, unfortunately, some people stray outside the Empowered Investor Network advice and find themselves stuck with an “asset” that no longer strictly falls under that definition. Here are some ways you might consider getting out of an upside down mortgage.

Blogs on the internet come and go by the hundreds and thousands a day. If the focus of your home-based business is to create a profitable slice of real estate by blogging, here’s what we’ve noticed makes one stand out from the crowd.

1. Enter a new market early, on the way up into the public consciousness, and create lots of valuable content.

2. You’re not going to create a literary masterpiece every day, but bloggers who post regularly, for years, usually end up ahead of the game.

3. Don’t be afraid to be quirky, loud, obnoxious, controversial, sexy, intelligent, or just plain weird. That’s what draws attention, traffic, and money.

Social media. It’s more than buzzword to the savvy internet marketer. Tapping into this gargantuan market could send your business into the stratosphere in short order. But how do you know which sites to pay attention to? It seems like there’s a new social media outlet popping up like spring flowers in a meadow.

The truth is, for now, you can ignore most of them. There are four serious players in the field and these are the ones where you should focus your marketing efforts. In no particular order, they are:

1. Facebook.com – This behemoth began as a way for classmates at Harvard to interact. Now it’s getting harder to find someone without a page. Even grannies are grooving on Facebook now. The advantage to your business is the personal aspect. It removes some of the “wall” between business and client.

If you’re starting to think there might be something to this video marketing on the internet angle, you’d be right. As high speed bandwidth becomes available on a widespread basis for the consumer market, it looks like there is a seemingly insatiable appetite for watching videos.

Ever heard of a little website called YouTube? Yeah, you could say it’s pretty popular. Hiding among these millions (billions?) of videos are more than just pop culture clips. YouTube and other video sites are becoming the de facto source for any kind of information to many people – instructional videos are a good example. You learn how to do almost anything there. It seems the human animal is visual by nature; it’s how we like to learn.