Yesterday, I wrote about how the government has some handy resources available for those interested in starting a business. Today, I’d like to offer you some information on another resource available: 30-minute courses from the Small Business Administration.

The SBA offers a number of self-paced courses on starting a business, franchising, using technology, management, finances and more. These course can offer you a great resource if you want to start a home business. Learning about a variety of business related topics can give you just what you need to learn how to start and successfully run a business.

Instead of wondering what you should do, take a few online SBA courses. You’ll be glad you did.

The government has a number of resources available to small businesses, including home business operations. One of the more interesting things on Business.gov is the 10 step business starting article. It’s very simple and straightforward, but it give you a general idea of what you will need if you want to start a home business. Here are the 10 steps to starting a home business, according to the governemnt:

1. Research and Plan Your Business

2. Get Business Assistance and Training

3. Choose a Business Location

4. Finance Your Business

5. Determine the Legal Structure of Your Business

6. Register a Business Name with Your State

7. Get a Tax Identification Number

8. Register for State and Local Taxes

9. Obtain Business Licenses and Permits

10. Learn Employer Responsibilities

Clearly, each step has sub-steps that need to be completed. However, this basic outline can provide you with a starting point and a good checklist of what will be necessary as you set up your home business.

One of the things that can really help your home business is to set up a Facebook page. Indeed, a Facebook page is one of the cardinal necessities of social media promotion of your home business. But you need to do it right. Susan Payton wrote a great post on Mashable about setting up a Facebook page that can help you with your home business. Payton points that some of the items to include on your Facebook page can be:

* Company overview

* Company contact information and web site

* Interesting company-related videos

* Press releases

* RSS feed from your home business blog

* Twitter updates from your business

* Company news

* Interaction with customers

If you are interested in setting up a Facebook page for your home business, I suggest you head over and read the article on Mashable. It will take you through essential elements of a good business Facebook page, and help you set one up.

This video has been getting some play around the InterWebs. It’s about the Debtors Revolt, and one woman’s crusade to try and stick it to the credit card companies. It’s an amusing video, and well worth watching. (But be warned, there are a couple of swears.)

Happy Friday!

By now, we all know that social media is a tool that can be used to help you promote your home business. But there are some definite dos and don’ts when it comes to social networking. Allison Boyer at Bizza offers four social networking mistakes to avoid:

1. Combining your personal profile with your professional profile.

2. Forgetting that you have a profile, and failing to keep it updated.

3. Becoming infamous. Yes, you want to be well-known. But not for being a jerk.

4. Sending visitors to your social networking page to an empty site.

Now, I have to admit that I am a major offender with #1. My Facebook profile is a combination of my professional and personal life. Oddly, I don’t feel too badly about that. Sometimes I feel bad for my actual friends and relatives, but since you can just ignore annoying things on Facebook, I don’t feel that bad.

Are you making any of these social networking mistakes with your home business?

One of the things I realized last week, when I was sick, was that once I was done with everything that had to be done, I didn’t need to go back to work. And it got me to thinking about the way I act when I’m not sick. Sometimes, even when I decide I’m done working for the day, I’m really not. I’ll get an idea, or I’ll decide that I can use just 10 more minutes to do something “real quick.”

This, mind-set, however, doesn’t do much for my peace of mind, or for my overall productivity. When working from home, the hardest part can be actually being done for the day. But it is essential for your sanity — in most cases — to be done when you are finished for the day.

Knowing when to quit

Make a list of priorities, and tasks that have to be done today. Then get to work on them. Either choose a quitting time that makes sense with regard to your home business workload, or be done when you have completed the items on your to-do list. Either way, make it a point to be finished when you reach your prescribed ending point. If something occurs to you later, briefly write it down, and take care of it first thing in the morning. The only exceptions are true emergencies.

For most people, working from home is about flexibility and having more time to enjoy your family. In order to realize this dream, though, you have to stop working sometime.

One of the tools that you can use in your home business marketing efforts is your blog. A blog filled with interesting and useful information can be a great way to draw people to your home business web site, as well as build your online presence. However, it is important to promote your home business blog as well.

Darren Rowse, from Problogger, offers some great tips in this video about how you can promote your home business blog using social media.

Every couple of years, it appears as though the Internet goes through some sort of a complete revolution in how websites look, and in general design. And now, with businesses setting up Facebook pages and getting involved in social media, it seems as though it might be a good time to overhaul everything about your home business web presence.

This can be a good idea in some cases, but you want to be careful. Seth Godin has some advice about some questions you should ask before you spend money to have someone help you overhaul your website. Here are some of the questions Godin believes are most important:

* What is the goal of your website?

* What specific outcomes will occur when the site is working well?

* Who are you trying to please? What kind of person is important?

* Who are you trying to reach?

* What sites have your preferred audience shown that they enjoy?

* Are you trying to close sales?

* Are you telling a story?

* Will you be looking for permission to follow up?

* Do you want people to watch or learn?

* Do you want people to use social media tools?

* Are news updates going to be part of your new set-up?

* Is the site part of a larger suite? Or is this just a single sign post?

* Do you need a great deal of bandwidth?

* How often can you afford to overhaul the website?

* Do you want the site to show up in search engines? And what terms do you want associated with your website?

* Will you need the site to be accessible to disabled groups? (Hearing impaired, sight-impaired, etc.)

* Do you understand that “everything” is not really an option?

This is another great commercial featuring the ETrade Baby. Shankapotomus. It kills me.

Happy Friday!

One of the things you need to watch out for when looking for home business opportunities is the prevalence of scams. Recently I wrote about the Google work from home scam. I received a couple of questions from readers about multi-level marketing (MLM) as a result. MLM isn’t always a scam; in fact, there are plenty of legitimate MLM companies out there. Cash Money Life offers a very in-depth and helpful look at MLM today. But I do have a couple of thoughts on MLM myself.

Selling anything is hard work

Selling something, whether you are selling Classified ads for a newspaper (I did this for a while), furniture or Mary Kay, is hard work. I know. I watched (and helped) my mother sell Avon products while I was growing up. She made a little bit of money, but really did it for the discount on the products.

I decided that MLM wasn’t for me. At least when I worked for the newspaper, I got a salary plus commission. It was a very simple structure, and I always made a certain minimum that I could count on. (Of course, being a freelance writer doesn’t offer me the set minimum, but I have some clients that I can rely on.) With MLM, you never know, and it is difficult to do well.

If you decide to go with MLM, be sure that you understand what you getting into. I have friend who does MLM and is quite successful. He likes to sell, and he works hard, and has defined goals. He’s a top salesman. But it didn’t just happen. And that’s how it is with any sales business, including MLM. You have to work hard, and market your product if you want to succeed.