The secret to gaining business leads is to adopt the enticing strategy that allows an entrepreneur to catch the attention of potential customers.What you should know to generate home based business leads:Potential customers are always on the lookout for products or services that cater to their specific needs. An entrepreneur should know as to what makes a customer go in for specific products, or how a customer is attracted to a product or service in the first place, to generate leads. Potential customers go over a product with a fine-toothed comb to know how a specific product can help them, to know the sort of benefits offered by a product, and to know how a specific product scores over the competitor products belonging to the same niche. This is a point to ponder, when an entrepreneur is eager to generate home based business leads, for this helps the business owner to get closer to the target audience, and to project the uniqueness of his product in a better way.The different ways to generate home based business leads:When an entrepreneur has unlocked the secret to present the unique potential of his product to the target audience, he should adopt effective strategies to find the target audience and to get leads in the process. There’s no shortage of ways to generate home based business leads, where an entrepreneur should make use of effective ways that can prove useful for his business to achieve the desired results.Developing top notch content to attract the attention of the target audience is one of the robust methods to generate online business leads. Making use of SEO-optimized website is an effective way to bring in leads. With the well designed squeeze page or capture page offering a wealth of information about the product, and most importantly arousing interest in potential customers, an entrepreneur can generate home based business leads.The trend that has taken the marketing world by storm, social media, offers splendid opportunities for entrepreneurs to generate home based business leads. An entrepreneur should know how to build a strategy that assures good mileage out of this online marketing tool, which then paves the way for good results in the form of gaining prospective customers. There are other ways, as that of free training, free reports, free e-book, which turn out to be the vehicles that carry powerful messages about products or services to grab the attention of the target audience and to bring business leads in the bargain.Before venturing to adopt best strategies to generate home based business leads, an entrepreneur should find an effective way to convey the uniqueness of his product, which is sure to attract the attention of potential customers.

Ah, the old-fashioned country auction! The idea of a country auction conjures up certain images for people. The image of a fast-talking auctioneer offering up an antique table or chair is a popular example.

People who are buying household goods or collectibles are looking to get their items at the lowest price possible. However, the people who are selling their items at auction are hoping for the highest price!

Unless a person is in the business of buying and selling antiques or other items, not a lot of thought goes into how goods are prepared for sale via the auction process. However, if you are one of the growing number of people using auction venues to sell your collectibles or other inventory, there are a few things to learn first about how to sell at auction before you bring a truckload of stuff over to the next event.

Tip 1: Make sure the things you want to sell are a good “fit” for the auction house you’ll be using.

Never bring a load to an auction house without actually having been to one of the previous auctions. It’s important to get a feel for the type of goods that the house sells. For example, at one very rural country auction it was common for the owners to sell live chickens, pots and pans, car parts, and farm equipment.

After close investigation, this would not be the right venue for selling your daughter’s “Hello Kitty” collection. On the other hand, the spare John Deere parts that you bought at last week’s yard sale might be just the right thing for the buying crowd at this auction.

Tip 2: Be sure you clearly understand the terms and policies of the auction house.

Visit with the auctioneer ahead of time. Call to find out what the best days and times are to visit. One of the worst possible times to drop in for an informational visit with an auctioneer is the day of the auction. Call ahead and ask. While you’re at it, find out what are the best days and times to drop your stuff off.

Once you have a little time with the auctioneer, you’ll be able to find out what type of commission he or she takes from consigners (which is you), and what type of paperwork might be needed. Some auction houses send out Form 1099 tax forms at the end of the year. An auctioneer may need to see your identification and have you fill out a W-9. Be prepared.

Find out what happens to your items if they don’t sell. For example, some auctioneers may have a minimum starting bid. If, for some reason, one of your items does not sell, it may be grouped with another one of your pieces. Know the auctioneer’s strategy beforehand so that you aren’t surprised on pay day.

Tip 3: Make sure the auctioneer knows what you’re selling.

It might be perfectly obvious to you that the signed print you are consigning is a rare and valuable piece of art. However, the auctioneer may not know this particular artist. Make a note of anything particularly special about your items, and leave the note with the piece. Be sure to tell the auctioneer about it as well. He or she might determine that this is something to highlight on the company website or in the newspaper listing.

Tip 4: Present your items neatly.

No one likes to have to dig through a box full of grimy and greasy car parts to see what treasures might be in there. Separate the parts and lay them out on a flat, or use more than one box to de-clutter the lot.

There is no need to buy fancy display boxes. It’s easy enough to go to the local convenience store or supermarket and ask if you can have the emptied boxes or flats that they are discarding.

While it’s good to present clean items, take care not to ruin the value of anything by over cleaning. For example, if you find some old cast iron cookware, clean the obvious dirt and grime, but don’t scrub it to its original finish. For many people, this ruins the value of the item. So, clean and tidy and organized is the key here.

Tip 5: Don’t complain to the auctioneer if your stuff doesn’t sell for as much as you’d like.

The phrase to remember here is, “You win some; you lose some.” That’s just the way it is. There are some days where an auction house is loaded with people who all seem to want what you’re selling. There will be other days where the crowd is sparse, and the bidding is simply not competitive.

Remember that it’s in the auctioneer’s best interest to sell your things for the highest possible hammer price. But sometimes, it’s just not going to be a stellar sale. The auctioneer is only human, and is also disappointed if a sale doesn’t go as well as planned.

If you notice that every time you bring a bunch of goods to sell that you’re not realizing as much as you think you honestly should, try another auction venue and compare apples to apples. That is, bring the same types of items to the new auctioneer and compare the results.

Unless the auctioneer is particularly disagreeable or inconsiderate to you or buyers, there is no reason to confront him or her about a sale. If you find you just don’t care for an auctioneer’s style or methods, find another one. Believe me, there are plenty of them out there!

The primary thing to remember as you learn how to sell at auction is that the business is unpredictable at best. You will have good days, some not-so-good days, some great days. The more you sell, the more experience you will gain, and the more enjoyable the business will be.

In big business it isn’t entirely difficult to create a computer atmosphere that is robust, serves its users well, and is not broken down more often than not. The trick is to hire the right people to build and maintain the network and deal with IT projects as they come up. OK, maybe it’s not quite THAT simple but it doesn’t need to be a nightmare, provided the right resources are in place.In the small business world, things often become entirely different. Many small businesses simply don’t have the resources to build – let alone maintain – a network that will adequately take care of business needs. Many small businesses wind up with a mismatch of different parts put together piece by piece by whichever technician was available at any given time and was offering the right price. Nobody’s really sure how the pieces fit together and why this was done or that was configured differently. Just finding a password for a router can be a gargantuan challenge in its own right.I doubt I’ve ever met a small business owner who wouldn’t do whatever it would take to make their network stable and more importantly, useful and to manageable, were the resources to do so in place. From a software vendor’s point of view, it’s great to charge lots for your product and have a niche base of large businesses who can afford it. We all know that small business is in many ways driving the economy. Is it really wise to target only those large businesses and leave a wealth of opportunity on the table?Sure, there are plenty of free and open source products out there that can take the edge off of ferocious software prices, and in fact I’ve bestowed their virtues here oh so many times. I am indeed a firm believer in the value of open source in business. My view of those benefits begin to fall apart however when we consider running an entire business on open source software when resources are limited.Open source products are typically more difficult to manage than their commercial counterparts and support can at times be hard to find. Even the best technician needs technical support from time to time and when it’s not available – especially when a critical system is down- things can get hairy.To me, it makes more sense for a small business to run critical servers etc. on mainstream software and leave open and source to the likes of non-critical desktop computers, web servers, and even some email servers. A small business can survive a day or two without email but is dead in the water without point of sale or accounting software.Windows servers can form the foundation of a Windows network and let’s face it; Windows is the most dominant operating system out there. Windows servers can also serve Mac, Linux, and UNIX computers as well, so all told they’re not a bad choice for a network foundation. The problem is, they are usually not all that inexpensive.Microsoft saw an opportunity to address the needs of small businesses, provide some higher end products that would help drive those businesses, and of course increase their own ‘[revenues. Small Business Server is a bundle of a number of products and is priced a great deal below what one would pay for the individual packages if they were bought separately. Small Business Server was first released in 1997and frankly the first couple of versions were – well, let’s just say “not so great”.It really wasn’t until Small Business Server 2003, released in (you guessed it!) 2003 that Small Business Server came into its own right. Small Business Server 2003 includes the standard Windows Server plus Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Server, and a plethora of “wizards” that make managing the server relatively easy for a small business owner. The Premium edition also includes Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft ISA Server It doesn’t much matter at this point what these things are except that they are excellent business tools.Taken together, these products provide a solid foundation for a network that includes shared calendar, contacts, and tasks. Also included is a team web site (also known as an Intranet) and with the Premium edition, a database server and a network firewall.If you consider the standard edition weighed against the individual software packages for 5 users, Small Business Server 2003 comes in at about $575 while the individual packages are priced at about $2100. That becomes roughly $1150 compared to about $2700 when you license 10 users. The savings go and on as users are added.So, what’s the catch? Small Business Server 2003 can handle a maximum of 75 users, domain trust relationships are not available, and only the Small Business Server 2003 can be a domain controller. It doesn’t matter a hoot what those things mean except that very few small businesses would ever know the difference.Microsoft is due to release Business Server 2008 in November 2008. If you own a small business and are in the market for a new server, Small Business Server 2008 will be one of those products you’d be remiss to overlook. If you need a server today you can buy the 2003 version with software assurance and get the upgrade for free. Just beware though, Small Business Server 2008 will be 64 bit only so be careful to buy the right hardware!