Power of Positive Thinking

Does positive thinking make a difference in business success?
Rebecca Kochenderfer says it does. Senior Editor and Co-Founder of Homeschool.com, Inc., which receives over 2 million visitors a year, Rebecca has been homeschooling for over 14 years. She lives in Northern California with her husband and three children.
Before she started her company, Rebecca was working as Director of Marketing for a Biotech company. Then her second child was born. "I realized that I had missed the first three years of my first child's life and I didn't want to miss any more. So I quit and gave myself 6 months to think of some way I could earn money from home. I was 33," recalls Rebecca.

During that period, Rebecca developed the concept that became Edusource.com, which she describes as "the Internet's first eNewsletter about education. It was at this same time that I bought the name Homeschool.com. I held on to the name for two years." At that point, she co-founded Homeschool.com with a friend.

"We noticed that there were lots of little homeschooling sites, but no one big site to bring them all together. Homeschool.com has made money from its very first month. We would write a newsletter about
a homeschooling topic (like Math, for example) and then sell ad spots for math products. It was not a lot of money in the beginning, but enough that we were encouraged to continue and keep expanding," says Rebecca.

To keep her success going, she has "a vision for what I want the company to be five years from now. I ask myself, "If I wanted to sell Homeschool.com for 2 million dollars, what would a buyer be wanting?" Then, I break this down into yearly and monthly goals. I've found that setting goals really helps me."

Her goals for the future including expanding the company more internationally, do joint venture projects, and " to help even more homeschoolers that we are currently helping."

Rebecca's advice to other women who want to start their own business: "Think of what you are interested in and what you love doing. And approach it like a business, not like a hobby. Read marketing books and apply what you have learned. Network and joint-venture with others."

Key message from this expert: "I believe in the power of attraction; that you attract what you expect. I
expect to have wonderful customers and wonderful clients and that is what I attract."