Work at Home Men - Health Tip #1

Use Sunscreen Whenever You are Exposed to the Sun

Even if it is Cloudy!

by Robert Leavitt

Skin Cancer can be dangerous

Here at Work at Home Men we are going to bring you some health tips that I have researched specifically for dealing with  various health conditions that affect men.  It is important that you realize I am not a doctor, and I am not qualified to give you medical advice.  This is for informational purposes only and any changes to your diet/lifestyle should be discussed with your physician or health care provider.

Melanoma is also very dangerous.

Skin protection for men is often overlooked because it's time consuming and generally annoying to have to stop every two hours to put on more sunscreen.  It's very important that you understand why you should do this, because it can benefit you dramatically.  If you get skin cancer, or any type of skin damage you will feel awful knowing that it could have easily been prevented.

If you are anything like me, you probably hate putting on sunscreen.  I grew up in Miami, FL and if it was one thing we were used to, it was the sun, but in retrospect I really should have taken more preventative action earlier in my life.  I felt somewhat self-conscious applying sunscreen.   It wasn't the “cool” thing to do and I desperately wanted to fit in.  I actually thought other people would make fun of me for applying sunscreen.

How naive and foolish I was.  The sun can really cause you serious damage.  There is the risk of cancer, melanoma, age spots, moles, solar elastosis, Basal Cell Carcinoma and more!  Here are a few tips to help you take better care of your skin:

• Use a (UVA/UVB) sunscreen of at least 15SPF

Do it religiously every time you are exposed to the sun, even if it is cloudy.  The sun casts harmful ultraviolet rays on us every day.  It can be extremely damaging to your skin and can cause a variety of different diseases.  The National Skin Cancer Foundations estimates that 90% of melanoma skin cancer is a result of exposure to the sun with no sunscreen.

• Apply an adequate amount

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You are going to want to use about 1 1/2 ounces of sunscreen every application.  It's important to generously cover all of your exposed skin.  This includes your hands, chest, arms, legs, ears, face, head (if you don't have hair).  It's also important to note that most clothing doesn't provide adequate sun protection.  A regular T-Shirt has an average SPF of about 5.   Keep this in mind when you apply your sunscreen.  We recommend taking off your clothes and applying the sunscreen to your entire body at least every other application, I realize that this isn't always possible, but it's important that you understand that your clothing will not protect your skin from ultraviolet rays.

• Apply multiple times per day, once every two hours

Unless the brand of sunscreen you are using instructs you to do otherwise, you should reapply your sunscreen every two hours for optimal results.  This can be a little bit tedious, but it is completely worth it.  If it starts raining, you go swimming, or you otherwise get wet, reapply your sunscreen.  Even "waterproof" sunscreens often wash off when you get wet, so it's better to be safe than sorry.

• Monitor your skin

You should regularly check your skin each month on your entire body.  You’re going to be looking for any brown spots, and any new changes (like moles, freckles, etc…) that you may see.  If you notice anything that looks out of the ordinary you should immediately see your dermatologist.

When it comes to your skin, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  It really pays off to stay on top of this area, because it is so easy to overlook.  Once you get skin cancer, you will find yourself in a very bad situation almost immediately.  It really does pay to take care of your skin.

The Path to Success: Setting and Achieving SMART Goals (2/3)

The Path to Success: Setting and Achieving Goals.

Part (2/3)

This is part two of the series, "The Path to Success: Setting and Achieving Goals" by Robert Leavitt.

Setting Goals

You may be asking yourself, "OK that sounds great, but how do I even get started with something like this?". Luckily for you, you're very smart and you are reading this blog, so that's the first step.

The second comes from my experience in college and we are going to learn about SMART Goals.

SMART Goals is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and anchored to a Time period. When creating a goal, we can use the SMART system to make sure that it is a realistic goal that we can create a realistic plan to acheive. Let's look at each section:

Specific - You want your goal to be specific. Saying something like "I want to own a business" is simply not good enough. You want to narrow down that vague statement, and create something more detailed like: "I want to own a footwear retail store". Now you have a specific goal that you are working towards. If you try and define the goal as something vague, you will not be able to really tell if you have achieved the goal, or if your plan needs to be refined.


Measurable - It is necessary to measure your goals. This gives you the ability to make sure that you are making progress towards completing it. For example, if you decide that you are going to quit smoking in 6 weeks, you may decide that you will smoke 1 pack for the first week, 15 cigarettes for the second week, 10 cigarettes for the third week, etc… Now as the time passes, you have a way to gauge if you are on track to obtain your goal or if you need to step up your effort to meet the time frame you outlined for your goal.

Attainable - This is a very important part of the goal-forming process. You have to make sure that the goal that you are setting for yourself is attainable. It does you no good to say something like "I want to have 500 million dollars and never work again" because the odds of you attaining this goal are very small. You need to set your goals up in a way that you can achieve them, that way you can feel the sense of accomplishment. I tend to set my bar a little bit lower than most, that way if I can achieve the goal, and perhaps even do better than I originally planned, I will get a great feeling of accomplishment, and feel like I am really achieving something.


Relevant - Make sure you goal has some sort of purpose. Is it relevant to your family, career or personal life? It is OK to have goals that are purely for pleasure, but remember that you MUST have goals that are designed to accelerate your career, financial earnings, and family life as well. This personal development is extremely important, because the more you develop yourself, the easier it will be to obtain future goals.

Time- Again, a very important aspect of defining a SMART goal. You must attach a time frame to your goal. This makes you accountable and also keeps you on track towards achieving it. You can't be vague here and say "I will quit smoking next summer", it is critical that you give yourself a specific date. You also should make sure that the time frame is attainable. Some projects require longer periods than others.

The Path to Success: Setting and Achieving SMART Goals (1/3)

The Path to Success: Setting and Achieving Goals.

Part (1/3)

Are you tired of feeling like you don't amount to anything? Are you tired of feeling like you really don't have any purpose and you are worthless? Regardless of whether you have ever felt those negative emotions, learning to set and achieve goals will make a tremendous impact on your life. One of the most important things you can do in this life is to set some goals. Setting goals can seem daunting at first, but once you get used to doing it, and better yet, once you start to achieve some of your goals, your entire life will change for the better.

Here is a brief list of some of the advantages to setting goals:

• They give you purpose.

At some point in your life you have probably given thought to the age old question, "why are we here?" Having goals can provide you with an answer that question. No one person has the answer to that question, but a person who has defined goals can at least answer it for his/herself. For example, if your goal is to be a business owner, with enough capital to send his two children through college, when that question comes up, you can honestly answer, "To provide an education to my children". This is a very specific example, but it can apply to any type of goal you set for yourself.

• They cause you to focus.

When you are working towards a specific goal, and you have a plan (more on that in coming weeks) you can avoid being sidetracked into something else that is not target specific. It's easy to be distracted and wind up doing something that you never had any intention of doing. Sometimes these trips can last years, or decades, and by having your goal outlined, you can correct this behavior quickly and get back on the road to success.

•  They Keep You Producing

When you have a goal, you don't have to wonder what you should be doing at any particular time. This is a great cure for boredom and will help you to lead a more rewarding life-style.

• They Build Confidence

Once you start to achieve the goals you have set for yourself, you will feel a great sense of pride - especially if you are a member of the procrastination group and you have been saying to yourself "oh I'll fix it later". You are not the only person who has taken his or her time to set goals. Everyone develops at a different speed and there is no right or wrong time to start. I will recommend that setting goals sooner than later will probably be more beneficial to you by the time your life ends, but not everyone is ready to do this. The fact that you are reading this post and trying to learn about goal setting by itself, is the first step on the road to success.

Stayed tuned next week for the 2nd installment in this series.

Going Back to School - Vital Steps to Being Successful

Going Back to School after 20 years

How to Get your Work From Home job on the fast track

Working from home is a real challenge.  I have been working at home for a number of years now and I look at my experience as if I was Thomas Edison.  I haven't failed, I just know several things that don't work.  I also know things that sort of work, and things that absolutely work.  Armed with this knowledge, one can't help but ask more questions.  I wonder if my marketing strategy is correct, and what other options there may be.  I ask myself if I my accounting is correct and how accurate my books are.  I wonder if I will grow to a point where I need to start hiring employees and I need Human Resource skills.

Going Back to School after 20 years

Whether you work from, or you have your own business, or you are an independent contractor, you will reach a point where you either realize that you need more information and education, or you can choose to ignore this and most likely fail.

After 20 years I have decided to return to college.  I am currently attending Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL.  I am majoring in Business Administration, and I have a minor in Marketing Management - Electronic Commerce.  I am just about to start my second semester and I am very excited about the opportunities that are starting to present themselves.

Education is vital to achieving your goals.  If you are thinking about starting your own business, or you already have one, you need to consider your educational level.  If you only have a High School diploma, with no college under your belt, I would HIGHLY advise that you start going to College immediately.  Don't procrastinate, get in there and register and start talking with advisers.  The school is there to help and there are financial aid programs and other sources of funding that are available.  I am currently on a scholarship and I have some loans out, which have to paid back, but as it stands right now, I am getting "paid" to go to school.  What kind of idiot would pass up that opportunity? 

There is the argument that certain highly successful people dropped out of college and ran with this idea and now they are millionaires.  There are several examples of these people, Mark Zuckerman from Facebook is one, and it is true, he did drop out of college.  But the point that I want to make to you is that those people were IN college and stopped.  They used the resources the college had available, and networked with like minds and then launched a business model that worked.  They saw the amount of income they started receiving and made a decision to stop going to school based on that information.  It is very rare to find someone that had no education whatsoever that succeeded in business.

Success in College as an Adult

The reality is that most of the people that HAVE degrees are not successful in business.  Business is hard, it is a lot more than being in the right place at the right time.  You have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right contacts, and the right product or service and the proper education or equivalent for it all to work.  

If you are considering going back to school, I strongly urge you to do so.  If you have no college education whatsoever or perhaps even worse, no GED, I beg you to return to school.  This journey that you are taking with me requires education.  It is imperative that you obtain an education and use the College or University for the resources it has to offer you.  Even liberal arts classes that are not related to your major can be very enlightening, and it can really change your perspective on the world.

eBay store about to bust at the seams! Consignment offers opportunities...

by Robert Leavitt

Greetings fellow workaholics!  I am back in full swing on eBay and my store is about to burst at the seams!  I am very close to reaching my max list limit (which is around 600 items) for the month.  I have never actually reached it so I'm not sure what happens then. I know just as I get close to maxing it out, eBay raises my limit, so from experience I can deduce that will happen once again.

I opened a "consignment" shop of sorts.  It's just a few friends and family that have me listing stuff for them under my account.  There are advantages to doing this as I have established a history of sales within the eBay community and I have managed to maintain my 100% feedback rating. (Knock on wood!)

The feedback rating is huge, not only does it drive people to your listing, it also will allow you to charge a premium for your items.  You can compete on price on certain things, especially used items, however if you are listing new in box items for sale, you are going to find that competing with "top-rated-plus" sellers is a very difficult task.  They pay the monthly fees to have an eBay store and they also receive discounts on the final listings and are able to undercut you.  Even if you have the same supplier and shipping costs.

eBay is addictive, it really is, both as a buyer and a seller.  If you plan to sell on eBay, start as a buyer (buy things you need for your business, like tape, bubble wrap, tape guns, boxes, etc...) and learn how the process works first.  The best thing is that you get ratings for being a buyer.  If you have 10 buying transactions and 3 selling transactions you will have a rating of 13 total transactions.  The buyers can see this in the "detailed seller ratings" but many don't know that they are combined, and what they don't know can benefit YOU!

I did say earlier in this post that I have a store, which is a stretch of the truth.  I haven't not actually upgraded to a real "Store" yet because of the fees.  I will shortly if things maintain this pace, but for now I will keep it the same.  I have read that it is a mistake to upgrade to early, and I can see that for certain.  If you are only selling a few hundred dollars per month on eBay, a store is not necessary and is in fact a waste of your hard earned money!

The consignment process is easy in principle.  It is however a challenge to maintain your inventory (keep it separate, ideally with a catalog system of some sort allowing you to put item numbers on everything so you can remember who things belong to!).  But at the very minimum at least keep your groups of boxes separate from each other.  I have yet to find an "vendor Item number" in eBay but I'm sure that one exists. I plan to find an inventory solution, perhaps built into a management platform.  I will keep you posted on this and let you know should I decide to use one.  I'm looking for something that has inventory features and will allow me to "dump" the product to amazon, eBay and a shopping cart all at once.  Maybe that's too much to ask!

I will keep you updated on my eBay progress.  I really want to write an eBay eBook but I have yet to find the time.  It really is a big project that requires a lot of thought and preparation.  There are 1000's out there, but the demand is high.  Everyone wants to do this, but not everyone can.  It is intimidating and unlike other mistakes on a computer that can often be fixed, mistakes on eBay can often mean "losing money" which is a burden few people can bear.


You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.

Niche Marketing, The Market Samurai and Keyword Research

by Robert Leavitt

Establishing if Niche Marketing is right for you:

So you want to learn about keyword research and niche marketing?  The market samurai provides a powerful too to be able to research keywords easily.  Remember you can do this for free with Google's Keyword Planner, but it's cumbersome to use and in recent years they have made it much more difficult.  This is why programs like Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro are SO useful.  Some argue that keyword research is the most important step when planning a niche site.  Some also fail to tell you that keyword research is important to planning every single post!

Niche Marketing

The first step is to sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil.  It's time to brainstorm.  You want to make 2 columns, the first labeled "strengths" and the second labeled   "flaws".   You should try to come up with 10 things for each side of the list.  It is important to be brutally honest with yourself here.  If you try and "stretch" the truth, you are really only lying to yourself.

Next gather a handful of close friends.  One of them can be your wife or significant other and have them repeat the same exercise, except instead of writing about themselves they are going to do a "strengths" and "weakness" column also evaluating you!

Now you can do this last part one on one, or in a group.  Group takes less time and is usually more productive. Take turns comparing your results with the results of the people who know you well..  Are you lying to yourself?  This exercise will also help you determine how well you can accept constructive criticism.  Are people around you not understanding where your head is?  There are no right answers to this and it's not a test, it's just an exercise to help  you evaluate your current position in life, and whether a "work-at-home-Dad" environment is the right thing for you.  If you find your answers contradict the goals you are hoping for, it may be necessary to work outside of the house.  Not everyone is suited for this, otherwise, everyone would be doing it!

After you have written down your strengths and weaknesses go ahead and make a "passions" column.  You can then write down the things you are passionate about.  Have you ever thought "I really love golf clubs, and I know a lot about them.  I should make a website about golf clubs!"  This is the time to write down these ideas.  Though what I am about to share with you probably will go against everything you have ever learned from a "guru" or "self-help program or speaker".

When it comes to niche marketing, your ideas are not important unless you are planned to shell out a lot of money for aggressive marketing campaigns.  Let's face it, if you had the kind of money to establish a completely new product, you probably wouldn't be reading my "don't punch a clock" blog.  You would be busy running your empire.

The Market Samurai

This is really hard to digest, because it doesn't seem to make sense at first.  Let me try to clarify.  When you have an idea, even if its a unique idea that is 100% original and your are certain that you can get it out in the hands of the public that it will change the world and I tell you "it doesn't matter what your idea is because it's all about the 4 golden rules" you may throw your hands up and walk away from me in disgust.

Market Samurai

I am telling you right now, that I very rarely ever pursue an idea first.  I do it the other way around.  I find the keywords that already meet 3 of the 4 golden rules, then I add content that is relevant to those specific keywords. You will need a tool like Market Samurai to do this, They have a trial period and you will not only have access to the program but you will also gain access to the "dojo" which is the learning center.  The keyword research section of the program will always be free, but if you want access to the other tools the market samurai provides, then you will have to pay for it.

The dojo will teach you the 4 golden rules and the reasons why niche marketers fail.

The four golden rules of keyword research are:

• Relevance
• Traffic
• Competition
• Commerciality

If you have an idea but it doesn't fit these 4 rules, it will fail on the internet.  That "if you build it they will come" attitude is completely wrong on the internet.  In fact seldom do I have ideas that I want to test on the internet.  Instead I use the Market Samurai to identify terms that people are ALREADY searching for. I then make sure it is relevant to what I am trying to promote (or I just gear my content to BE relevant to a specific keyword), it has acceptable levels of competition, and lastly that the keyword is "commercially viable".  If your keyword is "don't buy anything on the internet" and you have 10,000 unique visitors a day. It's going to be hard to make any money with that keyword.  You have to really pay attention to that rule.  They will give you dozens of other examples and what to look for.

The Market Samurai, and the dojo, completely changed the way I approach niche marketing.  The best thing is not only does the tool work, but they offer the dojo and education center 100% free.  If you pay close attention to what these gentlemen are saying and do your research accordingly, success will follow.  I was skeptical at first, but I did my research carefully and gave it a shot.  I also didn't let myself get in the way.  I can be very defeatist and throw in the towel early.  This time I did not do that. I kept pushing and pushing, and trying out things until I found a system that does work!

You will need a Google adWords account to use Market Samurai.  Even if you don't have a website yet, you can make an adWords account.  It is vital to your keyword research and it's also the way you would launch a "paid advertising" campaign on google.

Please comment and let me know how this tool is working for you.  I will respond to questions and comments and help as best I can.  Stay tuned for the next section and what to do after you pick keywords.  Don't be in a hurry though, the keyword selection process is the most important step in this whole process.  Really take your time to understand the keywords, how they relate to the four golden rules and what your target market is.  Think hard and long before you make this decision.  It can make or break you.

You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.

My Plants, eBay and Returns!

by Robert Leavitt

As you probably already know I sell on eBay.  It's my main source of income and I have sold everything from nick-knacks to rare LP albums on vinyl.  I can say for certain that eBay is an ADVENTURE!  Lately I've been following my sisters lead and I got into the wonderful world of plants.  I mostly sell seed online, but I also do ship real live plants.

Shipping plants is difficult at best.  I have had some luck with it, but it's not an easy task.  I usually ship things bare root, but lately I have been nervous about my tender seedlings arriving alive, so I have been wrapping up the entire starter pot with plastic wrap. It costs more to ship this way, however my customers have seemed pleased to have it arrive in soil.  (You can try to explain that bare-root is OK, but it's a HARD sell to someone who is buying plants at a retail level).

If you are planning to sell plants online, I highly suggest that you do some research first.  It's hard to do and it requires a good deal of knowledge.  I never offer refunds, however I have refunded people anyway because of the USPS damaging the plant.

You really have to weigh your cost and look at it carefully.  Most people can come up with plants the "inexpensive" way which is to grow them, but you have to look at containers, potting mixes, water cost, heat if you have to heat the area (like a greenhouse) and packaging and shipping.  This doesn't even count your time.  You have to "run a tight ship" to make money doing this.

Let me know what you think!

You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.