5 Steps to Making Money in your Home Based Business

Fact: People start a home business to make money. If your business is consistently costing you money and not making you money you should evaluate every aspect of the business.

Evaluate the Product Line

Any business evaluation should start with the product line. Are you marketing a product that is affordable to the majority of your target market? If the product is only affordable to a few then you have a problem. In order for you to make a sale or secure a reliable customer base of repeat buyers you will have to reach more people to find the few who can actually afford your product. This is no easy task and could cost you more money in advertising than you have to spend.

Is the product line a one time shot or will it be repurchased once used? This is key to repeat sales which can be the lifeline of any business. Repeat sales will also keep your business on the plus side of profit with little effort on your part.

Evaluate your Product Knowledge

How much do you really know about your product as well as your competitions products. This is another key factor in your own success. Have you done your research or are you relying on what you were told by your sponsor, upline or company? Your ability to portray yourself as an expert in your business will give you an advantage over other marketers not only when it comes to marketing your product, but also if you are working on building a team to earn residual income.

Take the time to learn as much as you can about your own products as well as those product lines and companies that are your competitors.

Evaluate the Tools of your Trade

Look at the marketing material that you were provided. If you fall prey to the old school marketing techniques filled with hype and buzz words you may need to develop your own tools to market your product and build your business.

Another aspect of evaluating your tools is to look at the actual tools provided by your sponsor or company. Are you looking at paying additional monies each month for websites, autoresponders or landing pages? This will be additional money spent each month and possibly will keep your business in the red.

Evaluate the Focus of your Sponsor

This is another important key to your success. Is your sponsor only looking to pad their own pocket each month by encouraging you to buy additional product or sign up for their affiliate programs? Is your sponsor available to you when you need them to answer your questions or are they hard to reach or keeping business hours that don’t fit into your schedule? Do they provide additional support systems that provide you with answers to the common questions for the times that they are not available?

The most important factor for any business should be getting that business into profit as quickly as possible. This can’t be done if your sponsor’s only focus in on their own business.

Evaluate Yourself

We all need to evaluate ourselves from time to time and doing so when it comes to our home business is what allows us to grow not only our business but also to expand our own knowledge.
Look at yourself honestly and determine if you truly stand behind your products, tools and marketing methods. Do you believe that you can sell the products? Do you believe that you can learn what you need to know in order to portray yourself as an expert? Do you offer your business partners up to date tools and training or are you relying on old school marketing techniques that have been handed down for generations?

My own Road to Success

One of the biggest problems in todays MLM and Direct Marketing industry is the lack of common sense and integrity when applied to your business. It’s up to each and every marketer to apply the same common sense and integrity to our business as we would in our own personal lives.

When I started my home business in January of 2005, I made a commitment to myself and my sponsor to work my business for 2 years. I fulfilled that commitment and then evaluated my accomplishments over that 2 year period.

I did have a small level of success however I also believed that I could have achieved much more had I been provided with the proper training and tools.

I had very few months where my business was in profit, and also had to deal with my husband who financed my business each month. It’s hard to justify continuing anything that consistently sucks money and doesn’t make money.

Late in 2006 I evaluated what I had done as well as the tools I used and changed my business plan to incorporate two key factors. The first was listening to my own common sense and the second was to educate myself in my industry as well as marketing.

These two very simple factors are what brought my own home business from sucking money from our family budget into a business that has made money every single month of 2007.

I am thrilled to say that now my expenses are not paid for through the earnings generated from my home business and I am also able to contribute to our family finances as well.

I am also better able to help my growing team to get their business into profit quickly and provide them with the up to date tools they need to grow their business without draining their budgets. This is key because a business that is in profit rarely closes its doors and by supporting my team I am supporting my own business.

If you are interested in how to get your own business into profit using common sense marketing, visit my Website and request information.

MLM Soldiers and Sharks

Just looking at that title, which would you prefer to be known as? My guess is that the majority of those who read this will identify with the soldier mostly because of the bad conation associated with sharks.

Soldiers have their marching orders and rarely go against their Generals. Sharks are efficient and exert as little as possible to achieve maximum outcome.

I closely associated with the soldiers the first 18 months of my home business and in the process I learned some valuable lessons which have led me to do things that most in the MLM industry would not dream of doing.

MLM has such potential to be a viable option for so many to stay at home with their family and just be in control of their own financial future. Whether we choose to continue to be a soldier or make the transition to become a shark can have serious implications on the success or failure of our MLM career.

Over the course of 18 months I was a good soldier. Like any soldier I wanted to be recognized as a good soldier and this recognition would come with my success.

Over time I came to realize that my hard work was not benefiting my business but I was building up those who came before me. I was encouraged to purchase leads and buy product or sign up for this magazine and oh you should take my training. The whole time I was never asked if my business had achieved profit.

After hosting two regional events and going in the red for both I came to the realization that I needed to run my business efficiently and get it into profit. I needed to become as efficient as a shark if I was going to survive.

I mustered up the General within myself and laid out my battle plan. I needed to continue to be a good soldier long enough to rebuild my business so I could live the life of a shark.

This meant breaking all the MLM rules. I tossed out my lists, stopped preaching about working your warm market and I set a clear intention to reinvent the wheel. I stepped out of my box and refused to let anyone kick it out from under me.

I came to realization that I could either continue to dream about my life, or I could start living my dreams. My choice was clear.

What I put into place is not duplicatable. I have yet to see a business that you can change the name on the stationary and achieve the same level of success as those who came before you. What I put into place is up to date with the world we live in and it is totally customizable to suit the dreams of each of my team members.

Rome was not built overnight and neither will my business. I am now swimming with the sharks and proud to be there. The payoff of these efforts are I now have a business that is consistently in profit each month and a group of dedicated team members who are beginning to grow their own business’s.

I have also have a firm grasp of my own industry and product line and no longer need to rely on the buzz words or catch phrases (or the 3 way calls) that are common throughout our industry. Instead have learned to use those buzz words to my own advantage and still market my products and opportunity honestly.

Be a soldier long enough to build the foundation for your business. Then make the shift to be more like a shark. It does not mean you have to devour everything in your path, only that you have done your soldier time and now you can work efficiently to accomplish great things.

Stop dreaming about your life and start living your dreams.

Truth in Advertising?

Your ability to portray your products and services in an honest and accurate way quite possibly could be the key to your success or failure.

It is my experience that the majority of distributors within my company rely heavily on their sponsor's and upline's (as they should) for information and guidance when it comes to building their websites and how they promote, however this could be a key mistake for those who are not inclined to do their own research.

Sadly much of this information is not accurate and bends the truth of what we have and what it is made of. Maybe it's my years in human resources that makes me stand out like a sore thumb in this industry but it is what it is and I can't bring myself to call it anything else.

Whenever you have key people in any company who are miss leading in their own representation of their products it creates a downward spiral in the accuracy of the information provided to the distributor base as well as the general population. This is especially true when working on the Internet.

If you truly believe in your product you don't have to depend on buzz words to promote it. I know of no business that has been able to sustain itself based on "wildfire" growth. A wildfire burns quickly and feeds on itself until it eventually snuffs itself out.

This is not what I want to rely on in my retirement. If you can not be honest about your products then maybe you should find a different product that you can promote honestly.

Starting a Home Business...things to consider

More and more people are starting home based businesses. There are many things to consider when starting a home based business and I’ll point out some of the obvious and the not so obvious.

One of the most important things you need to consider when looking for a home based business is your product. You have to choose something that you believe in and can have passion for. Whether its a Health and Wellbeing product, a Consumable product or a Service you must have passion for what you sell and what you do.

Here are 5 key things to consider when looking for your home based business…

Low unit cost: If the product line or service is not affordable to the majority of the population, who will buy it?

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  Is the product “Consumable”: Choosing a product line that is consumable ensures repete business.
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  Mystique or Exclusivity: You should not be able to visit your local discount store and find the same product at a lesser price.
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  Management Team: Newcomers or Experienced? Make sure you check out your sponsor as well!
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  Profit Margin: Has to be Adequate or BETTER than adequate. In order for a company to be financially stable, there needs to be enough funds to compensate the distributors as well as keep the company running.

Choose wisely and do as much research as possible before you put your hard earned money on the table! Whatever product or service you choose make sure that you are a user of that product or service. This will help you to give personal testimony when you are sharing with others.