You think you’re ready to jump into the latest Home Based Business or network marketing opportunity that just popped up on your radar? Obviously, you first have to decide and commit to the notion you are ready to dive into the wide, wild world of network marketing. Why do people choose a home-based business over a conventional job? The reasons are many:• set your own hours,
• earn extra income,
• replace an income,
• meet new people,
• leave the rat race,
• secure a retirement,
• get out of debt, and
• self-development.Whatever your reasons for seeking to work from home, choosing to work a home-based business is a decision that should be weighed carefully. Essentially, you are hanging shingle for a new company (new to you, anyway) and this is a commitment to a whole cadre of people:• your network marketing business sponsor,
• the team you will be building,
• the clients you will take on,
• your family, and
• yourself.The investment for fulltime network marketers who are serious about building a home-based business is no less serious than a bootstrapping entrepreneur (they’re the same thing, actually) who wants to build a better mousetrap or market their stellar service to an anxiously-awaiting world. The only difference: the bootstrapper who diligently creates their company from scratch often has to single-handedly fulfill the laborious demands of: production, marketing, sales, order fulfillment, customer service, human resources, accounting, legal, et cetera.They get to do it all, especially at first, until they can generate enough revenue to begin hiring or outsourcing these jobs out. In contrast, the network marketing model (if it’s a good one, and they vary widely) should have much of this is taken care of for you. The best work-from-home scenarios will have:• NO large investment,
• NO carrying inventory,
• NO taking orders or making deliveries*,
• NO billing or collections,
• NO pressuring customers to purchase,
• NO repeat sales presentations,
• NO RISK* Prior to discovering our current network marketing business, my wife had joined a well-known beauty and cosmetics catalog company. They, of course, had a network marketing MLM compensation plan. My wife initially signed up to be a representative for this company because another, established rep wanted to retire from working the business (first flag!) This outgoing MLMer had built a book of clients where my wife worked, so it appeared my wife could not only get a discount on products she was already ordering, but she could even earn some extra income. Sounds great, right?Well, not really. As the months progressed, I watched as my wife handed out catalogs, collected orders, placed orders, received shipments, sorted orders, delivered orders, ordered more catalogs, handed out catalogs.. rinse, repeat. You get the idea. One evening, I asked her how much she had earned with a particularly large shipment that was being sorted on our livingroom floor. She laughed. “After all my time? Probably about five dollars,” she said. “Is the discount worth it?” I asked. “I’m starting to think it’s not,” she said. A few months later, she officially quit that MLM and passed her book of business onto another rep (lucky them!)The moral of this story: Make sure your road to wealth and freedom doesn’t involve trading time for placing orders, stuffing envelopes, or packing boxes. As with any business, you want to place your energies into building relationships, implementing strategies and conducting activities that will grow your business and support others as they do the same for themselves.By having much of the manual labor handled for you, you are free to focus on the fun part of operating any business-talking with others.
(Note: If you don’t like talking to people, network marketing is not for you. “Network” refers to a network of people you build around you.)Any successful network marketing or MLM model involves lots of communication with others, including your QUALIFIED prospects, your team (hopefully upline, but definitely downline)Hint: Once you’ve successfully enrolled another believer, you’ll be responsible for helping guide the development of their own network marketing business. Insert lots of talking, answering questions, coaching and encouragement here.In conclusion, if you’re considering joining a network marketing MLM “opportunity” or beginning a home-based business, make sure you can invest your time on activities where you’ll see a clear return; not on the menial labor the offering company isn’t willing to do themselves. If you’re already in an MLM and you find yourself doing this, I’ll simply ask you to take an inventory of where you’re investing your time, energy and out-of-pocket dollars, then calculate what your return on that investment has been. If things appear to be working for you (or if you enjoy the meditative work involved in stuffing envelopes, bags and boxes, etc.,) galvanize your resolve with the knowledge you’re where you need to be. Resolve is the first thing you’ll need to meet success in any business endeavor, including owning and operating the home-based business variety. Keeping fighting the good network marketing fight and ensure-whatever you do-you are doing your part to elevate the lives of all those you touch.

For many people, working from home is an ideal solution to their problems. With jobs seeming harder to come by all the time, taking control of your work and finances seems more and more appealing. Starting a home based business is also ideal for parents with young children, who can thus earn money whilst avoiding high child-care costs. It can also work very well for the disabled. But, you must avoid frauds and deceptions, which are so prevalent on the internet.The problem is that, as with so many other things, con artists are just waiting to prey on those who just want an independent income. Illegitimate home based businesses are out there in large and growing numbers.How do you spot these deceptions? Often, the giveaway is unrealistic income figures. Are there people out there who earn thousands of dollars a day? Yes, but those people have worked very hard for it and built up their business over many years. Working from home does not mean you get to work for an hour or two a day and then play the rest of the time. If you want a full time income, you need to put in full time hours, or even more than that. The most common form of deception is to offer to sell you an eBook or a paid newsletter subscription. The scammer says that all of the secrets of his or her success and thousand dollar a day income are in the book. Needless to say, the book likely contains a few feel good comments and nothing useful. Others are trying to sell you a ‘starter kit’ for a ‘lucrative online business’. In most cases you can find all of the information these guys are selling for free.Affiliate marketing frauds are also common. With these home based business frauds, the victim is conned out of hundreds of dollars in product that they then have to try and sell with no support or assistance. In some cases, the con artist is able to show a few genuine success stories – people who are very good at selling things can genuinely make a good living off the scheme. If you are interested in affiliate marketing, look for a reputable, established company and be aware that it requires a lot of skill and the right personality to be good at sales.Avoid the classic envelope stuffing fraud. There’s no real job (companies have machines to do this these days), only an illegal pyramid scheme. Also, don’t accept advances on your pay. A lot of the time, they will then demand part of the money back…right before the check bounces.Follow your instincts. A lot of the time, fraudulent home based businesses are obvious after the fact and the savvy person can learn to detect them easily. If your gut says something is not right, then it is not right. Networking with other people who work at home can help you determine which opportunities are real and which will only end in tears.

 One of the biggest traits of the top income earners in the MLM Home Based Business industry is that they attract leaders and people who will go on to become top producers as well. This ability to attract leaders is very lucrative because as we know, the more money your team makes, the more money you make. Many people look to join MLM home based business opportunities but are not serious about building a business and treat it like a hobby.These aren’t the type of people you want to give your 100% focus to because the return on your investment of time training them will not be worth it. You want to find true entrepreneurs who don’t need to be hand held but are fast learners and will apply what you teach them, along with their own style, and go out and recruit on their own.I’d rather have 10 serious, focused and independent people on my team than 100 people who treat their MLM home based business as a hobby and always need you to hold their hands and blame you when they don’t get the results they want. This doesn’t mean to turn down people because they don’t look like they won’t produce results because many times the ones who are all excited and promising you all types of results in the beginning will be the ones who quit within their first three months. Treat everyone equal, but once you find out the leaders in your team, give them the extra training and “push” needed to take them to the next level.One of the best ways to filter out those who are looking to make $500 a month & add another hobby to their list by joining a MLM home based business opportunity against those serious entrepreneurs looking to build a business and make $5,000 – $10,000 a month is by creating a survey for your prospects to fill out before they join you on your team.You can create a survey using Survey Monkey.Some questions that you can ask to determine who you want to work with are:What type of income are they looking to generate per month by next year with their MLM / home based business?
How much are they willing to invest on advertising/their marketing education?
From 1-10 how coachable are they?
How many hours per day are they willing to dedicate towards their business?
What is the reason for them wanting to join a MLM / home based business opportunity?
Are they willing to learn internet marketing to promote their MLM / home based business?These are just a few questions that you can ask. Your questions may vary depending on your opportunity but you want to ask questions that will give you a good idea of how serious the prospect is about building a business when they join your team. Once you find the people who match what you are looking for, you then call them and further get a feeling if you can help them and if your business opportunity will be a good fit for them.By making your prospects fill out a survey it also decreases the chances of resistance and rejection when you follow up with them on the phone because by them completing the survey it shows that they are already interested in working with you and you already have some responses from the survey that you can bring up in the conversation.Having a survey for your prospects to fill out before they can work with you shows that you won’t just work with any and everyone and positions you as a leader, which is vital for success in the mlm home based business arena.

With almost one half of small businesses are being operated from home, the number of home based business opportunities are exploding. There are a thousands of options, and it is easy to be misled. If you are thinking about how to start your legitimate home based business, be sure you do your research and ground work well.

Legitimate home based business opportunity

Many legitimate home based business opportunities will let you make a lot of money, be your own boss, even choose to work from home. But make your decision wisely and well about which home based business you will build.

Last year, the home business industry expanded by over 15% and this growth looks to be sustained and even speed up. This increase is because of many legitimate home based business opportunities becoming available.

Home based businesses do not have to mean ‘get rich quick’ schemes. The best opportunities provide information, support and assistance to prospects, giving them business lead generation systems, proven marketing tools and even interactive guidance through online discussion forums and even personal contact in group mentoring sessions.

All of this guidance and help can boost the chances of making your home based business successful and people wanting to work with you.

Researching the Opportunity

Its always smart to do your research. The range of legitimate home based business opportunities includes Internet home based businesses, direct selling, telemarketing, lead generation, and drop shipping business systems. But there are also many scams.

Your responsibility is to find out everything about the company and people behind it, fellow franchisees and even customers to understand the business model, the risks involved and income potential.

Far too often, people fail at even legitimate home based business because of unreal hopes and dreams. If you expect to bank a fortune very soon after you start in business, the chances are high that you will not reach your expected goals.Its important to be patient.

Legitimate home based business brochures do not promise instant or easy wealth, though they do paint a rosy picture of how business success will be, with steady income that grows over time.

Market Research

Before launching a home based business, you must ensure a big enough market.You want to be everywhere. The Web is can help in this research, as can extensive offline facilities like small business organizations, trade associations, or even public libraries.

Personal Analysis

Not everyone is cut out to be a business owner. And it is important for you to go through a careful self-evaluation to make sure you are in the right business, for the right reasons.

You may want to start a home based business because you are unhappy with your job. Maybe you prefer working from home or have unique circumstances that necessitate it. Or maybe you just like being your own boss. A legitimate home based business is definetely your solution.

Consulting Experts

Before beginning work on your home based business, there are two more things to do: assemble a team and prepare your business plan or goal. A business plan is your road map to achieving your targets or goals and doing it in a timely manner. Your team will avoid mistakes and pitfalls as you build and grow your home based business.

Legitimate home based business opportunities exist and are available in plenty. Many of them have potential to completely turn your life around. Do your research, and then leap in to reap rich rewards.

When you first start out in a business, some people might tell you that you should start advertising in a local daily or a national newspaper. The advertisement need not be a full-page advertisement. The point is to advertise…to get the word out – be it small or big. When I first started out in my business, I advertised small too and it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg. Thinking back, it didn’t even qualify as an advertising campaign because throughout the nine months that I advertised in a national daily, not a single response from the advertisements was seen! Yes, none…as in nil…yes.

Sad but true. You see, the whole thing about ‘just advertise irregardless of whether the advertisement is going to be big or small’ is a whole bunch of hogwash probably spun by the media to encourage people to advertise in their papers or magazines.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying that everyone have to advertise a full-page advertisement in order to effectively get the word out – this is not true either. The truth is that one must never waste financial resources to ‘just advertise’. Small advertisements rarely work because the location is ill-fitted, the size of the advertisement is too small to be read and there’s not enough information in the advertisements to encourage others to ‘act.

The whole point of advertising is to get people to respond. You want ‘WOW’, you want ‘YES’. You don’t want ‘Mmmmmm….”. Many of the important factors of successful marketing and advertising tactics are lost when the advertisement is insignificant.

THE SHOCK, SURPRISE FACTOR

Successful advertisements are usually those that either make you laugh, cry, sad, shocked or surprised. There must be an emotion attached to the advertisement. Don’t be surprised but even small advertisements with enough emotion attached to it can elicit a reaction. I repeat, it doesn’t have to be a full-page color ad. Just something big enough or strategically placed is good enough.

THE INFORMATION FACTOR

Imagine you’re looking at an advertisement of your competitor. It’s a small advertisement beside the ‘classifieds’ section with small print, black and white and literally devoid of information except for a telephone number and website. Would you be curious enough to call the number or log into the website? Would you even remember the phone number or website address from the advertisement? Probably not. You need to arouse curiosity in your target audience and this need is very evident in an advertisement. There are hundreds of advertisements in a newspaper or magazine and you’re all competing for the same attention. To elicit response or reaction, you need to give them just enough information to make them curious and not enough for them to dismiss you. That’s one of the biggest advertising secrets the world over – and this formula works for every industry.

If your advertisement is too small or too plain, it’s not going to be enough to entice your audience.

THE ‘ACT NOW’ FACTOR

You don’t have enough space to even write your web address, explain your business and also print your telephone number in the advertisement space, what more expertly written copy to encourage your audience to ACT NOW! Another industry secret if you want to call it that. an advertisement is successful when it is able to get someone to WANT to act NOW – not later, not tomorrow and definitely not next week. You want to make the target audience act as soon as they get the chance to.

Admittedly, this is one of the hardest things to do because consumers are not stupid – in fact, they are getting smarter and smarter by the day. And that is why we, business owners, have to be just as smart, if not smarter. Find a way to get to their heart and get them to acknowledge that they WANT (note: NOT NEED) to find out more about your products or services.

CONCLUSION

The above is enough to convince you that placing small insignificant advertisements every day in a local daily is not going to be good enough. In fact, most advertising and marketing experts concede that it’s a total waste of time and money. However, here’s the loophole, small advertisements work for some industries like real estate, classifieds, credit facilities and other industries that has been using this method for some time. For us, small business owners, who are new to the market and plan to penetrate it, we’ll be better off promoting ourselves elsewhere.