PLEASE don't take what I'm about to ask you the wrong way, I mean NO offense, but I'd like you to be honest with yourself about something...

Do you REALLY want to succeed in your work-at-home business? REALLY??

The reason I ask is that so many of the "WAHMs" I come in contact with on a daily basis don't act as if they want to *work* at home. It's more as if they want to *stay* at home - and to justify that to themselves and their husbands, they call themselves a WAHM!

Now, before you hit delete, and never speak to me again, let me say that I understand the mindset!

I HATED working outside the home and if I still had little ones running around, I'd hate it even more. But if you're TRULY trying to build a home-based business, you may need to change the way you think about some things.

==> Act Like a Professional

Do you treat your business day like an ongoing party? Do you spend hours entering contests, playing games in the WAHM forums, searching for good deals at ebay? Then wonder why you're not making any money?

We all want to have fun at what we're doing - Fun is my middle name! - but when you're trying to build an online business, and especially if you're trying to start from scratch with little or no cash, it takes work! HARD work! A LOT of work! You have to sacrifice to build a business, and doing it online is no different.

When you decide that you are a professional - a business owner - and that you simply choose to base your business in your home, you've made the first HUGE step in creating your work-at-home success.

==> Communicate Like a Professional

Email is the form of communication for online business. True, we may get an occasional phone call, but we know that 99 percent of our business communications will be via email. As such, treat your email like you would if you were answering a business phone in a brick and mortar business.

* Answer promptly. Within 24 hours maximum. And if you HAVE to be later than that - and we all do at times - apologize! Let the correspondent know WHY you're late in replying.

* Answer politely. Don't jump to negative conclusions about what's being said until you know all the facts.

* Use proper grammar. Mixed case letters, not all lower or uppercase. Periods and commas. Limited exclamation points. Question marks. You don't have to be an English teacher to use a semblance of appropriate grammar. No one expects it to be perfect! But they do expect you to do the best you can.

==> Don't Hide Behind Your Website

Let people know who they're doing business with. I wouldn't offer my credit card to a sales rep who hid her face behind a screen. Nor will others offer theirs to you if you don't include your name, address (PO box is okay), city, state, zip and at least the option to email and ask for a telephone number.

Remember... this is a BUSINESS. Treat it as such. If you are truly frightened of someone discovering who you are, maybe you should be selling only through ebay and online auctions.

==> Create a Professional Website

If your Website plays music the minute a visitor clicks to it, if it's loaded with so many banners it takes three minutes to load, if it's so full of grammatical errors that it's hard to understand what you're trying to say, do you honestly think someone is going to give you their money?

I wouldn't! And I shop online weekly.

If you're unable to create a professional Website, hire someone to do it for you. WAHM Team can create a simple three-page Website for you for only $75 and others can do the same. The point is, DO IT! Stop making excuses.

==> Realize There are Costs Involved

When I first came online in 1998, I started with a free site. After three months of barely making a sale, I listened to an early mentor and registered my domain name ($29 back then!) and got my first site ($8.95 a month). In two weeks, I was making more money than I had made all three of those previous months combined!

I learned that it takes money to build a business... ANY business. And while working online - and working at home - gives you the ability to build a business on a shoestring, there are still costs involved. You need your own domain name ($4 for the first year from http://www.myvaluehost.com). And you need to trash the free site hosting (WAHM Team offers sub-domain hosting - that looks like your own full-fledged domain - for only $5 per month). Working at home is worth $5 a month!

Don't have the money? Earn it! Have a yard sale. Sell a few loaves of your special cranberry bread. Mend a few dresses. Clean a few houses. Leave off a couple of 12-packs of soda at the grocery store every month and you've paid for it. These are minimal costs for the privilege of raising your own kids.

These are some beginning strategies for building a BUSINESS online. Use them. Find others. WORK at building your home business so you can be a work-at-home-mom. Don't let your chances for working at home fall by the wayside. Do everything you can do to make it your work-at-home business a success. You know that's what you REALLY want to do... :o)

Darlene Deere Bishop is a Christian minister, writer, editor and creative designer who has succesfully worked online since 1998. She is the publisher of TeamEzine, a no cost weekly resource to help work-at-home moms (WAHMs), and those who want to work at home, start, grow and build a business on a shoestring and have a blast doing it! Visit her online at http://wahmteam.com today.