LocalHoma

LocalHoma.com is Upgrading, Expanding and Moving!

Hey fans! Come and migrate over to www.localhoma.com! We are moving up and have a lot of great things to share with you! Come check us out and tell your friends!

Thanks for being part of www.localhoma.com

Have you ever had a dream so real you're certain it happened? What was it?

Hey everybody! LocalHoma is migrating to our new site with a new blog! :) Come check us out here! http://www.localhoma.com/

TypePad Conversations » Answer this question!

Integrity Painting & Remodeling

Our newest LocalHoman is Joe Ward who owns Integrity Painting & Remodeling in Oklahoma City, OK. Joe pastors First Free Will Baptist of Oklahoma City.  He also runs a non-profit ministry called "Hand of God Outreach" where he provides home repair and maintenance assistance to seniors, widows, disabled persons and single moms.  Joe needed more funding for Hand of God Outreach so he decided to start a for-profit company to help fund his non-profit.  

Joe offers services to residential and commercial clients.  If you can dream up a business or home improvement project, Joe can deliver the services to accomplish it.  Services offered by Pastor Joe's company include, but are not limited to, kitchen updates, bathroom remodels, decks, porches, masonry, tiling, concrete, roofing, flooring, painting, siding, windows and more.  

Joe started working with his dad as a carpenter when he was about 8 years old.  He has done everything from flip houses, remodel homes and be a licensed home inspector to installing fire sprinklers and build new homes. He can provide references and is fully insured.

Our First Foray into Local Marketing

Wow! Starting your own business can be really exciting, but when you're actually in the middle of the beginning (yeah, I said that) you learn a lot about yourself. First, always expect the unexpected. When you are unsure of the unknown and then the unknown becomes known, it's quite an experience.

LocalHoma started off with a great idea conceived by my wife, Joan. The name and the idea of our business are both the result of her brainstorm. The word out on the internet street is that "Local" is the future of marketing, especially on the internet. The other idea my wife conceived is to create individual "localized" web pages for businesses in the state of Oklahoma. Well, our first move was to get a directory script to start off our business. It just so happened that this directory script had a feature called "pages" in the admin panel. From there another idea was born and now we get at least 2 clients a week! My wife is doing all the fancy footwork with the customers while I do the graphics and other things to keep it all up behind the scenes.

You might wonder what motivated me to start a business? It's simple, really. Say you work an hourly job, and those jobs might pay from $9.00 an hour to $24.00 to a base salary of 36,000 an hour, etc? Of course you're gonna get paid according to your skill and ability when you're working for the man, but as many of you know, sometimes it's gonna take a little bit more than hard work to get to the top. Getting ahead requires more than just skill and ability, politics play a huge role as well, but that's another story for another time.

My motivation was that no matter how much more you work or how little you work, you pretty much get paid the same, of course there are jobs that have incentives, but for me working for oneself provides a lot more freedom and independence! Of course, there also comes a lot more responsibility.

Ask yourself this, as much as you may work hard for the man, what if you work just as hard for yourself, especially if you have a great idea? Being employed provides ease of mind knowing the money is going to be there every week; barring you make a huge mistake and get fired or laid off. If you're bold, motivated, excited and driven, then these attributes can help propel you to self employment and eventually... financial freedom. Granted it takes hard work and a lot of it, but I love working for myself and knowing I'm going to get out of it what I put into it, and I want to put in a lot! I currently am employed along with working for myself and my wife. *wink* I'm motivated enough to see this through. Envisioning the benefits, time and eventually the money I can invest into my wife and kids later is well worth this venture.

This country thrives off good local businesses. I encourage you to shop local, small independent businesses. They are unique and have something to offer that large businesses don't.

Welcome to LocalHoma

LocalHoma Prices Going Up on 11/1

I want to thank the LocalHomans who signed on right before or since our launch! Your feedback has been invaluable. As of November 1, our introductory price of $35 per month with a $15 set up fee will be raised to $50 per month with a $70 set up fee. For those of you who have not yet become LocalHomans.... you have 2 more days to be locked in forever at our introductory prices. Thanks guys!

Reason # 1: Your Biz Needs a Web Presence

Yesterday we discussed what it means to have a web presence.  Today we will discuss the first reason for why your business MUST have a web presence.  Your business needs a web presence because the printed Yellow Pages are pretty much DEAD.  Ok, ok.. if your primary demographic is people over about age 70, then it may still be effective for you.  

I just spoke to a business owner yesterday who told me that it is very frustrating to have to spend so much on phone book ads because their business sits in the crossroads of about 4 different towns.  

What do you do with your phone book? I stick it in an end table in my livingroom and I "might" get it out once a year...maybe.  

Phone book ads are expensive and back before Al Gore invented the Internet, even had a pretty great ROI. However, I have heard statistics which range anywhere from 60% to 70% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses, services and products now that we are in the information age.

To sum up... consider your demographic and seriously reconsider whether or not customized phone book ads are really still the way for you to go?  

Localized Web Pages on LocalHoma work to reach every location you serve and for such a low price, you really can't go wrong!

 

 

Why Does Your Business Need a Web Presence?

First of all, what is a "web presence?"  There was a time when you absolutely had to have a website in order to have any type of presence online.  A website is nice and LocalHoma will soon be offering optimized sites for a fraction of the cost of our competitors, however, you don't have to own a website to have a web presence.

This is primarily due to social media marketing.  There are places to post one's information all over the Internet.  For instance, you can set up a Facebook page, twitter page, stake the claim to your business on local listing and review sites and more.  We focus a lot on these areas at LocalHoma, but we go one step further when we set up your Localized Web Page and use that page as your "home base" when you don't already have a website and we use that home base to promote the link to your website when you do have one.  Here is a sample of one such Localized Web Page on LocalHoma.com.  

Tomorrow we will take a look at the first reason why it is imperative that your business has an effective web presence.

We launched on 10-10-10!! Watch our Commercial!!!!

We are so excited to announce that our launch went off flawlessly!  It was a lot of hard work, but LocalHoma is officially launched!  Please go watch our awesome commercial!  It is 1 and 1/2 minutes long and we would love any feedback we can get.  

Please go and view it at http://www.localhoma.com  

Working at Home in Oklahoma

Working from home is not a new concept.  People have owned home enterprises for about as long as people have been around.  A hundred years ago, people worked from home as farmers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, physicians, seamstresses, gardeners, bee keepers, cattle ranches, moon shiners, taking in laundry and ironing. Oftentimes merchants would have their home in the back or upstairs of their businesses.  As the industrial age took hold, working from home took a back seat to working outside the home, factory jobs and corporate security. 

Back in the 80's and 90's,  before the dawn of the information age, a lot of people began to leave the rat race in favor of entrepreneurial pursuits.  A wide range of books became available offering ideas for businesses to start from home and extolling the virtues of being one's own boss.  Service businesses were prominent, but a lot of people tried their hand with companies such as Mary Kay, Avon,Tupperware, Rubbermaid, House of Lloyd, Home Interiors, Christmas Around the World and more.

Eventually, the Internet came into existence and the dot com revolution was born.  Information which was only formerly available via books, newspapers, magazines, on videos or at the library was now readily available at the touch of a button.   As technology advanced, so did the possiblities for even more sophisticated online businesses.

Today, legitimate home-based opportunities abound.  When a person first begins their home-based search, they need to know how to separate the legitimate from the snake-oil salesmen.  The best way to find this information is on a site which has nothing to gain by disseminating informative resources about this particular topic.

Working from home in Oklahoma is actually a bit more lucrative than in some other places.  Most work at home jobs pay the same whether you live in New York City, where the cost of living is high or in Anytown, Oklahoma where the cost of living is quite low in comparison.

At this time, the most popular jobs from home are customer support and technology support jobs from home.  There is one company in Oklahoma which only hires Oklahomans to do this job.  MicahTek is located in Broken Arrow and they hire customer service agents to take incoming calls from the comfort of their own home. 

To obtain a list of over 100 companies who hire agents from Oklahoma and other places, please visit this comparison spreadsheet on Rat Race Rebellion.  If you want to talk to "real" people who have worked for the companies you might consider, please read and ask questions at the forums on WAHM.

Although working the phones is a popular option, it is by no means the only one.  LocalHoma will be posting a wide range of articles about working from home in the future.

 

Localized Web Pages

We have been very busy at LocalHoma!  We are currently designing localized web pages for Honey Milk Farms and Jennifer's Hair Outlet in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.  The localized web page for Jennifer's Hair Outlet includes a coupon for a free shampoo with first haircut at her shop.  We will be adding video, testimonials, Facebook and twitter accounts to both of their pages.  These media enhanced pages are a really great value for $34.95 per month!