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In a poll involving 1,000 residents of the U.S., 65% said they think economic conditions in the country are worsening. Nearly half have cut back on their spending and 20% are apprehensive about the stability of their jobs.

Now the recession has finally landed, is there hope for businesses to thrive? If starting a business in these tough times is an option for you, here are the top 5 recession-proof businesses you might want to consider:

Financial Education, Health and Wellness

Regardless of the times, someone somewhere will always be in need of good, professional advice. This is an industry that has experienced some significant growth over the last few years. And it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down any time soon.

If you have the resources becoming involved in a business that offers this type of service will assure you of a comfortable market. Consider businesses that focus on offering affordable preventive solutions to people, via health, home health and financial management alternatives.

Food and beverages

We’re not talking about pooling your money and starting a restaurant – although if that seems a feasible thing  to do,  it just might work. However, going into the restaurant business still has a very high risk. Instead, you could consider going into a food and beverage business focusing on healthier fare. Going into a recession is an even better excuse to eat healthy as it encourages people to cut down on their consumption and avoid unnecessary purchases.

Alternative menus that are tasty and creative or specialized cafes or even vegetarian eateries. Concept plus good taste are the best ingredients to a successful recession-proof business.

Funeral services

Yes, this is a recession-proof business, morbid as it may seem. It deals with an inevitability, and you’ll never run out of customers. You could either get involved in selling services or offering related products. Cremation, which has increased in popularity in the last few years, is a good option.

Repair services

Repair services are a recession-proof businesses. There will always be kitchen sinks thta clog, airconditioning that breaks down, leaking roofs and cars suffering from overheating. What these mean is pure business opportunity. Even if potential clients try to delay repairs, they will still come to you eventually.

A caveat: many of these businesses require specialized training, skills and equipment apart from the first. Once you have these resources, you’ll have access to a recession-proof business that not only offers a potential for high margins, it’s also a venture that won’t mean you have to wait too long for a return on your investment. Providedyour services are tops, it’s likely that you could be in business for a very long time.

Personals

Starting a business involving dating and matchmaking could help you tide the recession over. Recession or no, people will always be looking for someone special either for dating or marriage. Already, this business has hit over $650 million in sales in the USA.

As a recession-proof business, starting a personals venture could mean good profits and steady work. And no one even has to leave home. Some of the most popular companies today are online dating (Internet speed dating included) to their clients. With support, attractive and secure platforms and targeted marketing, this type of business is set to fly.

Andrew Peel

APeel Solutions

http://www.apeelsolutions.com

One of the hardest things is to gain traffic for your niche business. A great tool for this is Twitter. The explosion of Twitter is an a social networking phenomenon. It’s monthly increase in traffic is similar to that of Facebook when it first started. It shows no sign of slowing and has gone mainstream with many large corporations having a presence for each of their brands. Click here for more …..

I am a member of a social networking site called Betternetworker and for the last week there has been a raging debate as to why Mike Dillard the ‘guru’ of attraction marketing stopped following 10,000 people on Twitter.

Let me first explain that Twitter like all social media networks has it’s own form of etiquette the golden rule of which is if someone follows you you follow them back. This creates a two way relationship and you end up with a channel of people to ‘twitter’ to.

The normal thng to do is to join and find some people fo follow with like minded interests and develop a following. Why? Well as a network or direct sales marketer  marketer it really is quite simple. The power of leverage. There is a scientific basis for this and it’s called Reeds Law and all social media networks operate on Reeds Law,

Reeds Law which is also known as the ‘Law of the Pack’ works as follows. Asssume a group of 100 people is in Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Reeds Law which is also known as the ‘Law of the Pack’ works as follows. Asssume a group of 100 people is in Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Linkedin< Twitter and other social networks. These 100 people cannot only talk between themselves, but they talk accross communities this means there are 2 to the power 90 interconnections!. If that is not a reason to get into ‘gateway drug’ for social media the rest of this post is not for you.

The reaons it appears that Mikle Dillard gave for dropping 10,000 people he was following was that he did not have genuine relationship with them, Now I for one find that odd. People were attracted to follow Mike to hear what he had to say and also to be honest use the list of people who were following him as a source of people to follow themselves.

The debate on Betternetworker quickly split into two camps. One side – me in this one. Watch the film The Secret read the list of works reccomended by Chris Widener and Jim Rohn (whom Mike works closely with) in theit book the ’12 Pillars of Wisdom’ and you will see most of the people mentioned in The Secret are in their recommended reading list.

Mike’s Magnetic Sponsoring is a retelling of the Law of Attraction as it relates to online maketing. It’s worth noting the Law of Attraction works both ways and I await to see if there is a negative impact. It’s worth noting none of the other ‘gurus’ have taken such a step. I think the reason for this is obvious they know the power of Twitter.

Ferny Ceballos who supports Mike’s actions does so from an interesting position. Basically he fell under Mike’s patronage and because Mike took and interest in what he was working on feels fine that Mike’s still following him. I don’t think Ferny can really be classed as representative of Mike’s ordinary followers or community as you might call them. He’s got where he has by hard work been talent spotted and picked up and more power to him. But if that were the criteria for deciding your Followers list then why does Mike Kiingler have 40,000?

Mike Klingler realises what Ferny doesn’t it takes nothng to follow someone back because the whole process can be automated by a tool like Tweet Later. Some people argue this destroys the point of Twitter, that you should know the people personally. Well for the ordinary person using Twitter this is true. But Twitter is also a marketing tool. It’s like email. You email your friends personally and have a contact list, but are happy to automate the whole process for leads with pre-written emails and auto-responders, Twitter is no different what Mike Kilingler has built up is a list of prospects 40,000 strong he can microblog to about any product releases etc.

But is Twitter for the small home business entrepreneurs alone? Dell did $500,000 worth of business through Twitter (source Dave Evans). IBM, Belkin, MSWindows, MSSharePoint, and apple_news (14,000 followers). all have a presence on Twitter so they can spot trends with comments about their products.

They have realised they need to be in the social media pool listening and conversing with consumers and not talking at them as traditional forms of advertising do. It’s the same reason we trust the left hand side of Google over the Google Ads. Social Media enables you to dominate this side without spending a penny. I currently hold positions 4, 6 and 8 for the term ‘home business opportunity’ in my City.

I did it without paying a penny and simply posted 12 less than 50 second videos on You Tube and did a series of five articles.

So how to apply Twitter to your social media plan? Well this is actually the easy bit and uses a concept Jessica Swanson The Shoestring Marketer calls recycling and makes the most effective use of your time.

You need to expand your network on Twitter, Facebook, MySpcace, Linkedin and another network say Direct Matches or Betternetworker or some other.

Write your Squidoo Lens first, make sure it has pictures and relevant links to Amazon books on your niche and other higher rated Lens and link to 3 off them. Also include some pictures from flickr as people enjoy photos.

Use the Introduction to your Lens as a post in your Blog saying ‘click here for more’ …. That link brings them to your Lens and if you have interested them enough they will visit your business opportunity. Also don’t be afraid to ask people to Digg your lens if they enjoyed it – educate your readers. Then turn your Blog http into a tiny url and tweet the new post on Twitter = the gateway. Get the applications that feed Facebook and MySpace and all your friends will see it as your staus is updated with the Tweet. Don’t forget to put the main bidy of your Lens as a Blog in MySpace and notify your friends. You should also have the Notes Box in your Facebook Fan Page set to RSS your Blog.

Now turn your Lens into an article and submit to as many directories as possible,.

Turn the article into a video transcript and do a 5 minute video on the item. Submit that to TubeMogul and blast the video to several sites.

Finally visit Pingomatic and Ping.fm and Ping your Blog post.

If you enjoyed this Lens please Digg it thanks.

Andrew Peel
APeel Solutions

You are excited in being involved in the new forms of income from the Internet? If so, you must first think straight because you can’t afford to make mistakes, especially if you want to make it big. When you Find a fresh new idea that to create an income opportunity online make sure that you create your own business plan to ensure your success.

Before starting an online business, devise a business plan. This is vital it can lead to your business’ success or failure. Whatever your business you will need a business plan. Start with a mission statement or a description of your business. Make a summary and after that,identify your business objectives and aims. Now it’s time to start making the marketing plan. You will need it to address the business specifics.

When developing the business strategy, consider these followings:

• Target market. You will need to generate traffic to your site. Target markets can be mothers, business,executives, teens, older adults, and even kids.

• Competition. This is one thing that you have to give attention to if you are to succeed.If your product/service
is similar to others,visit their site and analyze their costs as well as their marketing strategy. Identify their weaknesses and improve your products/service based on them.

• Know the various channels to advertise your business. Learn more about the importance of search engines, banner ads, blogs, and articles. You can use these tools to advertise your product/service.

• How are you going to price your product/service? Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and study the existing market prices of related products/services.Do you offer or add value for money?

• Shipping method. Post the shipping details clearly on your website. If your products are valuable, you must include shipping insurance especially if you need to ship outside your country.

• Payment methods. Most online businesses accept credit cards and you must as well or you will loose custom. You will have to choose merchant accounts or third party processing centers. Some online businesses accept money order or checks; will you accept them too?

So a business plan is crucial to any form of income from the Internet. Start developing your business plan now. Take your time when developing the marketing plan because it is the most element of the entire business
plan.

Now have a firm basis with the income opportunity you’ve chosen. To you success.

Andrew Peel
Owner
APeel Solutions
http://www.apeelsolutions.com