Tea parties these days are the classic territory of the little girl. She dresses up and serves a beverage to her favorite toys and maybe a friend or two.

Nothing wrong with doing this as a family, though.

Take some time and make it a little fun. Maybe make some cupcakes or another treat. If the kids don’t like tea, serve lemonade. Just relax and have fun.

While I most often write about being a stay at home mom, being one myself, I’m quite aware of the number of stay at home dads out there. I’d better be. Two of my sisters have husbands who are stay at home dads.

Which brings up the question. How do you decide which parent stays home with the kids?

Personal Preference

Often one parent wants to stay home much more so than the other. For one of my sisters, it was a part of the deal that her husband would get to stay home with their kids.

You don’t want a parent who is going to be miserable to stay home. They won’t be happy and probably won’t do as good a job at being a stay at home parent as one who really wants to be there. That’s not to say they’ll do a bad job or anything, but miserable shows even when you do your best to hide it. Kids notice.

Income

Who brings in the most income is a simple way to decide. If one parent is unemployed or earns significantly less than the other, it makes good financial sense to have that parent stay home.

But you also want to consider income potential, especially if the current difference is small. If one career has much greater potential in the long run, that’s probably the one to stick with.

And don’t forget stability. Just think of all the people who have been laid off in recent times. If one job is far less likely to suffer that way than the other, you need to consider that factor.

Ability to Earn Money from Home

That I was training to be a medical transcriptionist at the time I got pregnant was a big factor in the decision that I would be home with the kids. We didn’t have to sacrifice my entire income potential to have me there. Instead we sacrificed and continue to sacrifice quiet evenings together after the kids are in bed, as that’s a big time for me to work. But we make it work.

Ability to Keep Up Skills

Most families don’t have one parent stay home forever. You’re both going to want a retirement income, after all. Staying at home can mean taking a break from a career.

That doesn’t have to be all bad. The at home parent can take the time to take classes to update his or her skills. He or she can freelance to bring in some income and keep up those skills. It’s important to make the most of what you have and what you’re going to need to have for your future.

All these considerations assume that you have the financial ability to have one parent stay at home. If it’s going to ruin your family’s finances, think very carefully about what you’re doing. You may need to take some extra time, pay down some bills and build some savings before you can have either parent stay at home.

I’ve been doing article marketing a long time. It’s a favorite tactic, as it doesn’t have to cost money, just time. But you do have to think about how effective it is.

There are a lot of factors to consider. First is simply how well you’re writing your articles. If you’re just writing and distributing junk, of course you’re going to do poorly. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

Second is the topic. Some topics are more competitive. Some get more searches. You really can’t say that you should expect x amount of traffic by writing an article about topic y, no matter the quality of the article.

Third is where you distribute the article. There are all kinds of sites you can send an article, and many tactics for doing so. Some people like to use article spinners so that their articles aren’t duplicated across hundreds of article sites. Some prefer to only distribute their article to the top few article sites. And others use an article distribution service to send a single version of an article to hundreds of sites with little effort. And of course you can send an article to individual ezine and website owners in the hopes of publication.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each tactic. I tend to use an article distribution service, and it’s done pretty well for me.

I’m not a fan of article spinning because I don’t trust software to do a good job of changing my content and keeping up the quality. I gather it has improved some since the early days, requiring more effort in rewriting rather than pure computer algorithm, but it’s not my style.

Sending an article to individual ezine and site owners can be quite effective, as you can pick where your article will appear. That’s handy for getting onto quality sites. It’s more effort, and you’re best off saving this tactic for your better articles.

I’ve found that results can be quite variable in article marketing, and it pays to know which ones do well so that hopefully you can figure out where some of the good response comes from.

Most articles will get maybe a few dozen hits a month, but others will go into the hundreds when listed on a quality article site such as Ezine Articles. But let’s be honest here. It’s not how many people read the articles. It’s how many go to your site and from there do what you want them to do.

I have one article on Ezine Articles that has been there a few years and has done rather well, I’d say. 4872 views, 3472 clicks on a link in the resource box. That’s a 71.3% click through rate. Too bad it doesn’t lead to a sales page or sign up page, but there’s certainly something to be learned from it.

In this case the article gets into a common work at home problem, and the resource box links to a page with the solution. It’s a great combination, and you can see that in the click through rate.

That’s the kind of combination you want. A well-written article on a good topic with an appropriate link in the resource box. Ideally one that will lead to sales or subscribers for years to come, which is the one failing of this particular example. But it has likely lead to at least some ad clicks, so I doubt it’s a total loss. Hard to say for certain.

That particular example is exceptional in its click through rate. My next highest has a 58.2% click through rate on the resource box, and plenty have yet to get a single click through. Clearly I don’t have it down to a science yet.

Any time you have access to this kind of data from an article website you should take advantage of it. See which articles are really popular. Which resource boxes get the best click through rates. And if you can, which earn you the most money. Combine this information to figure out what kinds of topics you should be writing on. It will be a big help to your business.

You’ve found that perfect network marketing opportunity. You love the products, you love the plan, you love the people above you. Everything’s looking great.

Now you just need to get people buying products from you and signing up under you. So much to do.

Fortunately, many opportunities allow you to promote your business online. Not all of them do, and most have rules about what you may and may not do, so be careful and follow the rules so that you don’t lose your business.

Start a Blog

Well, it doesn’t really have to be a blog, but some sort of website under your own domain name, with your own words talking about your business and your products is really helpful. Blogging is one of the easiest ways to do that, especially if you aren’t into website design.

Get some quality hosting and install WordPress on your site. It’s really easy, and if you don’t want to do it manually, most hosts offer installation through Fantastico on the control panel. It’s not a big deal.

You’ll want to find a good WordPress theme that you can adapt to your own style. You may need to pay for help or buy a theme that is made to be changed around and work through it on your own. But you don’t want to look like hundreds of other sites if you can help it.

Then get started. Write about how to use your products. Be personal. Be honest. Be really honest, as you don’t want to be accused of making false claims. Be ready to back up any claims you do make. Once again, know the rules of your opportunity. And promote the opportunity.

Start an Email List

A blog or website really isn’t enough. You want to sign up with a good email service and have it send updates from your blog to subscribers. Some people may choose to subscribe via the RSS feed that WordPress blogs come up with, but you really need to offer them the email option. Not everyone uses or understands RSS.

The advantage is that you can offer email-only specials to your subscribers, things you don’t want to necessarily post on a blog because you’d have to take them down when they expire.

The other advantage is that it gives you more chances to make the first and future sales to your visitors.

Hold Drawings

Drawings can be a great way to build your email list and to bring people to your site. Offer a free product in your drawing, and include a catalog when you send it to the winner. There are many websites where you can list your free drawing. Try some and see who brings traffic to your site.

Whatever you do, know the rules and don’t be afraid to ask your upline for help when in doubt about something you want to do. It’s better to be sure that you’ll be all right and not hurt your business.

Read the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing to learn more about what you should not be doing to promote your network marketing opportunity.

Please note, this is intended as humor. None of this would be a good idea and could get you into trouble if you tried it.

You’ve been thinking about working at home, haven’t you. You want it all, the money, the house, the car, the free time. All without effort. Well, now is the time!

It’s easy! All you have to do is stuff envelopes. Tell people that you’ll send them information on how to start their own business for just $19.95. Get their money and tell them to put up the same ads you just did. They can then do just the same as you. They’ll love you for it. The Postmaster will love you for it. Everyone will love you for it. Even your future cellmate will love you for it.

Once you’ve started that, it’s time to start some data entry. All you have to do is fill in some forms and off you go. You’ll be making money in no time. Pay no attention to the money flying out of your wallet as you pay for the ads that the forms create.

Now just to be sure some money comes in, let’s apply for a work at home job. The application fee just means you’re interested, right? And the software they want you to buy looks great. Really useful. $5000 per month working part time is just amazing. Life’s going to be so good.

Hey, is that a package in the mail? Now who wanted that shipped to them? Overseas? No problem! Just cash that traveler’s check and send them the extra, keeping your share for pay. This stuff is just so easy.

Wait. Google wants to pay you? Yippee! Such a small cost to get started you know it has to be good. Pay no attention to the fine print hidden in the terms of service. You might even be able to do the same with Twitter! Tweet, tweet!

Now is the time to share the bounty with friends. Join a group and all of you gift $1000 to a randomly chosen person. Keep doing that until you’re all rich from those $1000 cash gifts you’ve given each other and don’t forget to bring in some new recruits! Remember, it’s a gift so of course the IRS will have no problem with it.

Isn’t it wonderful how little effort and money all this cost? Now where’s my mansion and sports car?