I’ve conducted a poll on my Home Business blog for the past month to help me to get to know my readers better. This also enables me to know better what information might be of interest. Below are the results.

Question: How long have you operated a home business?

Poll Results: 50% more than 5 years

25% less than 5 years

25% just starting their home business

Thank you for participating in this poll. A new poll has been posted. Simply scroll down the right side of this page.

Hope Clark’s article, What is a Platform?, in her newsletter, FFWSmall Markets, gives great information on promotion and branding oneself as a writer. Although Hope’s article is written primarily for the writer, much of her information has wider application for the home business owner.

“A platform is a brand. Your brand. Every entrepreneur seeks branding, including writers. The problem is most writers don’t envision themselves as business people. They consider themselves artists who want to make a dollar. Sorry…but if you make a dollar, you run a business and you need a brand.” (Read more of Hope’s information here…. Scroll down the newsletter until you come to the section called “Article.”)

What Hope mentions is true about many home businesses. The owners artists or craftspeople who want to sell and make money, but aren’t aware of the necessity of promotion. Or how to go about promotion and establishing a “brand” for themselves.

Reports indicate that Internet holiday shopping reached new levels this year. What does this mean for the home business owner?

If your business is one that does or can involve setting up a web site for selling your products and services, it’s a direction you should consider.

*Learn all you can about Internet shopping.

*Set up a web site for promotion and sales.

*If your business isn’t Internet based for shopping, decide whether it can be. Can you combine shopping at your store along with fulfilling orders via Internet?

*Are you selling items in your home based shop that can be sold over the Internet?

*Do you have supplies that Internet shoppers are looking for?

For instance, a relative sells quilt fabrics, books, and embellishments from her home. It’s all through a web site on the Internet. She doesn’t have customers coming to her home, only to her computer via her web site and e-mail. Then she mails out the orders.

As I was organizing several years’ worth of annual Christmas letters, written to family and friends summarizing our family and business activities, I realized they gave a record of what we were doing throughout the years. I’d saved copies (the writer in me). Then I learned from a family history researcher friend that these Christmas letters were good to save since they summarized one’s year and comprised a history.

So I began organizing them in order, year by year, then realized they gave a record, not simply of family activities but Jim’s and my business activities as well. I could expand upon these for business records and for family history information.

You can do the same. Records, not just the facts and figures, but the ups and downs of business, the people you meet, the travels you might take, can be of interest in years to come.

I discovered that my grandfather, a farmer, kept a record of his expenses and income on the farm. He wrote these figures in a notebook. His uncle, a storekeeper, had a record of what people purchased in his store. Some of them traded for their goods while others paid cash. Some customers also charged their purchases, and he recorded when they paid their bills.

When I was growing up on a dairy farm, my parents also raised chickens and sold eggs. I came across a record of the egg business my mother kept for several years. She probably did this for income purposes, but it’s interesting to read these now in her handwriting.

Your annual holiday letters can be year end summaries of your home business as well as a recap of your family activities. When you’re working at or from home, your business and family lives are intertwined.

Martin Neumann, at Kickstart Press Blog, gave his 7 Blogging Predictions for 2007 and mentioned b5media’s Business Channel.

Under his #1 prediction, Blogging Will Peak in 2007, Settle, and Start to Mature, he stated, I expect…..b5media (Business Channel) to really take off. b5 are gathering the cream of the crop of bloggers.

The rest of Martin’s predictions about blogging in 2007 are interesting to check out and think about, too. It makes one realize that blogging is here to stay and has become more than online journals.

Des Walsh also mentioned Martin Neumann’s prediction in his Business and Blogging Blog.

The Carnival of Entrepreneurs is in its third week. Host and creator, Ben Yaskovitz of Startup Spark, has developed a page where you can find information and postings for each week. He also explains what this carnival is all about and who is invited to participate.

HomeBizNotes’ entry about home businesses benefiting from blogging was selected again for inclusion in the third Carnival. Here is Ben’s comment about my entry:

Mary Emma Allen reminds home-based business owners that blogging can work for them, too. I laughed out loud when I read the question someone asked her about blogging. Great stuff!

You’ll also find post from other business related blogs with information you may find helpful.

As you look back over the past year in your business, do you see anything you’d like to change? Now is a good time (as you run final totals on your income and expenses and get figures ready for taxes) to make an assessment of what you’ve accomplished.

*Did you make the income you were expecting?

*Are there ways you can save time producing your items or performing your services without sacrificing quality?

*How can you reach more customers?

*Do you need to organize better so that you don’t waste time looking for “stuff”?

*How can you be more time efficient?

*Did you spend enough time with your family? Can you find a better balance?

*Do you need to take a class in your area of production or service, in office management, in computer technology?

*Do you need new equipment? If so, how will you pay for it?

*Are there some products that aren’t selling well? Why?

*Should you expand into another line?

As you ask yourself these questions, you’ll get an idea if there are strategies and work methods you should change, or at least tweek. These questions may lead to others that will help you in accessing your home business.

“What is a Z-List Meme?” I wondered, when I found Home Biz Notes on the list over at Found in Translation by Ryan Coleman of Toronto, Canada.

Ryan explained that this list is a parade of blogs started by Mack Collier. As people post their favorite blogs and the list moves through the blogsphere, readers will become aware of blogs they hadn’t checked out before.

Another blogger compared this with spreading a wave of friendliness among bloggers.

Shoppers often look for “after Christmas” sales and home business onwers can utilize this as a shopping promotion, too.  The manager of a mall store told me shoppers are always coming into her store looking for special sales after Christmas and for new sales to start out the new year.  So her store regularly plans specials

*Do you have Christmas or seasonal items you don’t want to hold over for another year?  Put these out at reduced prices in your shop and online…while supplies last.

*Plan a New Year’s special or beginning of the year special on specific items or to the first 10 or 20, etc. customers.

*If this is a slower time of year for you, run some specials on services through a specific date or to a specific number of customers.

However, when you plan your specials, make sure you aren’t getting yourself into a bind where you’re going to lose money on the items you sell.  If they are products you don’t want to hold over and store for another year, that’s one thing.  But make sure when you introduce new items at a special price, you state some limits or “while supplies last”.

*Organize an Open House right after the new year starts to introduce new items.  These may not necessarily be items on sale but new ones you’re planning to feature.  You might offer refreshments and door prizes with these.

When I had my quiltmaking business, I developed a small newsletter, somewhat like a periodic flyer, that I either mailed to my customers or sent along with their orders.  This kept them in touch with what I was doing and had to offer.

Nowadays, home business owners, if a great deal of their contact with customers is over the Internet or by e-mail, can send out an electronic or e-newsletter.  Many quilters and quilt shops do this.

No matter what your business, you can use a computer print program to produce a one page flyer, mentioning items that might be on sale and items or services that are seasonal.  You don’t have to put this on cars in parking lots or hand out on the street.  Simply use it as a way to built contact and friendship with customers.

At one time, I also produced a quarterly print newsletter as a writer.  One of the students, taking my writing classes at the continuing education department of the local college, asked if I would consider writing a newsletter to let the students know what classes I was teaching and books I was writing, along with something about my writing life. 

Think about how a simple monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly newsletter or flyer would keep you in touch with your customers with information about what you have to offer, as well as giving them consumer tips.