In today’s current economic environment, more and more people are struggling to find a solution to settle their finances. The home based business MLM industry is one that is steadily gaining popularity and is in fact moving to become a mainstream income solution for the average family in North America. This article will explore the key points to help you identify some of the main features and benefits of this income vehicle, to help you determine which home based business MLM would be right for you.Home Based Business MLM – Evaluation stepsThere are a few critical elements to consider when evaluating a home based business MLM style company. First, you have to consider your own goals. What is it that you’re trying to create? Is it a supplementary income? Is it a residual income to replace your current income so that you can quit or leave your current job? Is it a retirement vehicle for you? Or is it an opportunity for you to take on a challenge, and realize your potential? You may be looking at these for any number of these reason, or any combination of them.Secondly, you should understand the home based business MLM vehicle itself. This type of business is ideal for the person who is driven, passionate, loves people, and loves being rewarded for their efforts. It is arguably the fairest business model on the planet, contrary to the popular stigma that only the people at the top get paid. You literally have the opportunity to create whatever level of income and success you choose. The home based business MLM model is also a great opportunity for people who love time freedom, the opportunity to travel, and all the benefits of residual (recurring) monthly income.Finally, you need to be sure you align yourself with the best possible company. To do this, you’ll need to consider:The Corporate Infrastructure – Is the company stand-alone? Is it vertically integrated with other privately held companies to ensure top quality? Does the company carry any debt? How long have they been in business? Where are their resources? Etc.The Leadership – Who is leading the company? Who are the owners? Who are the major corporate team players and what is their background?The Products – Are the products unique and consumable? Do they stand alone apart from the business opportunity?The People – Consider whether or not you resonate with the people that are involved. Do you share their priorities? Do you share their vision? Do you have common goals or dreams?Considering these critical elements when evaluating a home based business MLM will ensure that you set yourself up for success. It is the people who fail to follow these steps that get “scammed” or left out on their own, because they didn’t do their due diligence. Continue to do yours, and you will win.
Are Free Home Based Businesses Really Free?
Free home based businesses is a highly searched term on search engines every day. One problem you will encounter is determining whether the business is really free or not.What I have found is that there are business opportunities that do not cost anything to join. SFI is an example of this.I have also found there are business models that you can develop a home business from the do not cost anything either. Affiliate marketing is probably the most popular one of these.In my opinion this is the best way for you to get started making money with your own home business if you do not have any money to start with.As an affiliate marketer you get websites and products to promote. They also give you marketing materials such as banner ads and text ads you can promote with.Blogging is another example of a free home based business you can start. You can set up a free blog at Blogger.com or WordPress.To make money you just add Google AdSense ads to your blog and you are ready to get started. You can also add affiliate banners to your blog and make money when people click on those.There are also many trial offer businesses you can join. Some of these will let you try the business out for $1 for one week.They are counting on the fact that you will be impressed with what they had to offer and you will be willing to upgrade to a paid membership.It all comes down to what appeals to you and exactly what your budget is. However, there are definitely free home based businesses on the Internet today.
Home Based Business Surprise! Making Money From Home is Not Being Hurt by the Recession
Home Based Business Trends Defy the Overall EconomyThe news over the course of the last year has been grim. Every day we hear more bad economic news. Industries once believed to be rock solid are begging for bailouts. Unemployment numbers are through the roof. Growth is nonexistent. It’s a sad situation for so many people.However, some home business people have been able to escape the economic downturn. The limiting rules that seem to govern others’ economic situations don’t seem to apply to this particular portion of the population. Who are we talking about? Who’s positioned outside of the economic crisis?”The fortunate group consists of those who are building Internet-based home businesses”.Home based business is escaping many of the ugly economic challenges dominating the headlines. That’s happening for a few reasons.First, unlike other sectors of the marketplace, the Internet is consistently growing by leaps and bounds. The user base continues to grow with each passing day. The technology improves significantly every few months.Connection speeds are accelerating. While other markets shrink, the Internet continues to explode. This gives home based business operators a great deal of reach and a series of opportunities others don’t have.Second, even though overall consumer spending may be down, the amount of online spending is up. It’s bucking the trend.That’s because resistant to the once exotic idea of buying online is disappearing and because so many people are realizing that they can secure better prices by buying from online vendors who have a much lower overhead than their brick and mortar counterparts.When you take a broad look at what’s happening with Internet business and contrast it with what’s been happening to the economy at large, it’s really quite startling.While so many people continue to struggle in the traditional workplace and with jobs in sectors that are feeling a severe pinch, home based businesses are taking advantage of new opportunities and are providing many of their owners with their best years on record.Just “hopping online” isn’t a guarantor of success, however. It’s just a crucial first step. In order to succeed with online business, you will need to develop the right skills and a certain base of knowledge. While no experience or special training is necessary to get started, you will want to secure and follow a proven blueprint for web-based business success.Starting with a detailed, expert plan will enable you to get the ball rolling right from the beginning, saving you a great deal of time and allowing you to avoid many common setbacks. If you’ve been looking for a way out of the economic downturn, look online. It’s the one part of the economy that’s consistently outperforming expectations.The forces making online home businesses so successful are powerful and they won’t be going into decline any time soon.This could be the perfect time to stop fighting with a weak economy and to move on to something bigger and better.
Home Based Business – A Formula For Success
When you start a home based Internet business it’s extremely easy to get caught up with every new fad and innovation that comes to the online marketplace. It is imperative to quickly learn how to filter the information, to find what really works for you and your business. If you don’t do this properly you will end up spending and wasting a lot of money!But first things first; you need to decide what type of home based business you want to develop, while all the time being very careful to avoid the minefield of home based business opportunity ideas that are no good to either man nor beast!By far, the most important thing you should look for is a home based business that you can set up on a tiny budget, after all, why risk your money on something that may not even work?These are some of the things you should avoid:1 Multi Level Marketing (MLM)Countless millions of people have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars chasing the impossible dream – avoid it like the plague!2 Clone or Duplicate WebsitesCompanies that offer businesses based on clone websites know very well that they are next to impossible to market, unless of course you are willing to spend a ton of money on Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. All you can achieve here is lining the pockets of the website owner at your expense – avoid it at all costs!3 Paid OpportunitiesAnything that requires you to spend upwards of $50 just to get a look at a potential business is a big no no – 99% of these types of business are scams looking to relieve you of your $50 entrance fee – avoid them like the plague!If you are serious about working from home, these are the things you need to look for before committing your time or any money to an untried business:1 Before making any commitment, you want to see how the business works2 You need to find out how long the business is likely to take before it starts generating a profit.3 You need to make sure you will be provided with guidance on how to build your business – don’t just take someone’s word for it – you need to see it in print.4 Most importantly of all you need to find out how you are expected to market your new business – this is an area where most home based businesses fall down because the marketing costs far exceed the potential rewards!As most people already know, you can have the sharpest looking website on the planet, stuffed full of high demand products at rock bottom prices, but unless the rest of the world knows it’s there you will sell nothing!I could go on for hours, but this is not the time or the place.ConclusionBefore committing to a home based business do your research thoroughly otherwise you will end up lining somebody else’s pockets by buying a bunch of things you don’t really need!Look for a business that is willing to hold your hand and walk you through a blueprint for success, BEFORE you commit any money to their cause.
What You Might Be Lacking in a Home Based Business
While listening to the radio today, I heard this one bit on a morning talk show, one of the DJs was talking about the concept of humility. What he was saying was that leaders take full responsibility for everything that goes wrong in a business, but does not hesitate to give credit away when things go right. It got me thinking about home based businesses and how that relates. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest struggles in a home based business is…CONSISTENT ACCOUNTABILITY IN YOUR HOME BASED BUSINESS!Clearly, these two ladies are working the opposite angle of what we’re talking about! However, all fun aside, it is a very important component that I believe most home based business owners are missing in their repertoire of skills. Why do I say that? Because most home based business owners are formerly employees and are used to being HELD ACCOUNTABLE but not necessarily involved with BEING ACCOUNTABLE.There’s a big difference between these two simple differences in wording. Being held accountable means someone else is always following up with you to make sure you are getting your task items, goals, or action lists completed. It means someone else is taking the initiative to make sure you are taking the steps necessary to succeed in your home based business.However, being accountable means that you are taking the initiative to make sure you are getting your own action items completed, AS WELL AS making sure your organization is doing the same. We are our own worst enemies when it comes to a home based business, because we are tasked with the journey of seeking to become an entrepreneur. That means that we need to take success on by ourselves, on our own (making our own schedule, organizing our days, being diligent in self-motivation and self-learning).Again, the employee bit is to blame. When you work for someone else, little things are “out of sight, out of mind” because someone else is responsible for handling it. However, in your own home business, you need to be aware and knowledgeable of all the “ins and outs” of your craft, whether you are ready or not. As one of the great entrepreneurs of home based businesses put it, “you don’t know what you don’t know because you never knew that you needed to know it!”So how do you implement an efficient system of accountability?The first step is to have a list of daily goals that you need to accomplish. If you don’t have goals, then you should find out why they are so integral to success. You can visit my blog to find entries on that if you wish. The next step is easy: complete your list every day! Make it a habit to accomplish those goals every day and you will witness firsthand your business EXPLODE! However, what business owners struggle with is consistency.I find it so funny that people say that they are their own worst critics and their own worst enemy, but when it comes to doing things that will set them up for the future, they go easy on themselves. WHY GIVE YOURSELF AN EASY EXIT BY SUCCUMBING TO EXCUSES? The best of the best make it happen, regardless of what stands in their way. That is why they are where they are. They don’t allow themselves to have excuses because they know that every day they fail to accomplish their daily action plan is another day further that they have pushed away their dreams and aspirations. How does that make you feel? Hopefully, that makes you feel sad… be driven!What are some methods to stay accountable?- Accountability buddiesFind someone of like mind who is interested in success, and grab on to one another and help each other take your businesses to the top. Driven people should always associate with other driven people, and a great accountability method is to have you and your partner call each other a couple times a week to make sure you are both staying on task.- Failure statementsA self-motivation method to psyche yourself up could be to create a failure statement to read to yourself every day that you don’t accomplish your daily tasks. It can go something like “I did not accomplish what I set out to do. I guess (insert your “why” here) just wasn’t important enough to me today.” For visual and emotional people, this works wonders.- Point systemThis is something to implement in a group setting in your home based business. It’s almost like a game of friendly competition to see who can succeed more and faster. You create a series of result-producing activities and you assign point values to them. Every time you or a teammate completes the task, you get that point value. You add up your points daily and report either your daily or weekly scores on a group conference call. This method is to directly squeeze the inherent pride inside you to motivate you to take action, lest you be embarrassed in front of your group.
Property Managers Can Make or Break Your Real Estate Business!
It is extremely important to find a good property manager. Even then you should keep track of everything that is being done with your property. Remember this is a business…your business. If you aren’t careful, you’ll see your investment become a liability.
Although what a property manager charges is important, even more important is what you get. On average we pay 8% a month on collected rents. You may find someone that will charge you only 5%, saving you money, and in return they may destroy your business. To date, we have not found a good property manager that only charges 5%. Saving money isn’t as important as hiring the right property manager that will properly take care of your investment.
Your goal is to:
• Decrease expenses – utilities, repairs, etc.
• Avoid tenant turnover.
• Raise rents to keep up with current market rent rates.
Property managers are not your business partners. They work for you! They can make recommendations but that’s it. Consult them as a resource but you must make the final decisions.
It’s very important that you explain to them how you want things done. Then you must pay close attention to be sure they are doing what you’ve asked.
Every time a property manager says you need to repair something you should ask why. We were told once that the kitchen light was broken. Before sending the handyman to repair it, I asked them to first ask the tenant to check the light bulb. Believe it or not, simply changing the light bulb fixed the problem. You want your property managers to only send repair personal when absolutely necessary.
Anytime a repair is made on your property, be sure to get a copy of the invoice from the property manager. Look at the invoice to verify that your properties address is on it. If you have any questions about the repair, the contact information will be on the invoice allowing you to call the repairman. Unfortunately there are dishonest property managers. They will charge you for things don’t exist so that they can make some extra money. Keep track of everything and verify it all.
The repair people can be your eyes. Be sure the property manager has them pay attention to how the property looks and report back.
You want tenants, but only good tenants. Be sure the management company is only bringing in qualified tenants that will pay the rent and take care of the property. Always approve the tenant yourself. Don’t trust it to someone else. Have the property manager discuss the potential tenant with you. Talk about their credit score, if employment was verified, how much money the tenant makes, the back ground check, etc.
You will get bad tenants, it’s part of the business, but you will lower the number of bad tenants that you get by doing proper due diligence on them before allowing them in your property.
Be Sure That Your Property Manager Is Strict! No excuses should be accepted as to why the tenant hasn’t paid rent. The bottom line is they should pay rent or move out. Otherwise the property manger must evict them immediately.
We own a 4-plex in Arkansas. One tenant was late one month. Then two tenants were late. I was busy at the time so I let it go. Then three tenants were late. At this point, busy or not, I needed to call my property manager to see what was going on. She said, “well they’re all having trouble paying the rent….but they called me to say they’d be late!” I told her I don’t care if they call to say they’re going to be late. If they are late you must start the eviction process. That sounds harsh but over the years we’ve learned we have to be. Tenants will take advantage of you if you let them. I told the property manager to send all four units a letter stating that if they were ever late they would be evicted. No excuses. The next month every unit paid on time and they have ever since.
Most tenants understand that the most important thing is to keep a roof over their heads. However, if you let them make another expense the priority, they will. They’ll pay that expense first and hopefully pay you when they can if there is money left.
The other thing we’ve learned over the years is that by allowing the tenant’s to pay the rent late each month you are actually hurting them. If you let them get behind and pay late one month, then usually it will be harder for them to pay on time the next month. What happens many times is they’ll pay later and later each month and eventually get so far behind that they can’t catch up. At that point you have no choice but to evict them, and in my opinion it’s your fault because you set them up to fail. The rule of thumb is they must pay the rent on time, or at least by the 3-5 day grace period. If not, then your property manager needs to understand that they must start the eviction process. When tenants see that you are serious, they’ll usually pay on time.
Be sure that your property managers understand that they are not ever to give the tenant your name or contact information. Make this very clear!
We like to always add fire extinguishers in each home or unit we own. Just be sure that you know how long the extinguishers should last and replace them as needed. There may be legal ramifications in your state when adding fire extinguishers so be sure to discuss this with an attorney that practices real estate law in the state the property is located. You should also run this buy your insurance carrier.
Most tenants will forget about changing the smoke detector batteries and replacing heating and AC filters so it’s a good idea for you and the property manager to keep track and have them regularly changed. Whoever replaces everything should also inspect the property while they are there to verify that the tenants are taking good care of your property.
It can be very helpful for you to use a property manager to manage your properties, however, you must oversee them. Don’t make the mistake of not paying attention to what is happening to your investment.
Investing Smart
Successful investing is smart investing. Investment is all about making the right choices, so that not only are you able to satisfy your immediate needs and requirements, but are also able to ensure the same for the medium and long term future. Just as no two individuals can be exactly the same, the financial needs and investment patterns vary from person to person. However one can follow certain definite markers to ensure that the path taken is the right one.
Understand Your Needs: Investment goals come with different time frames and different objectives. One may invest for a short term goal like buying a car or even a holiday abroad. On the other hand, one could consider a long term investment plan to cater for the period when one has retired from work. How much one is able to commit to investment is dependent entirely upon one’s risk taking ability.
When it comes to risk taking there is some truth in the adage that greater the risk, more the reward. That does not however mean that one should be reckless. Everyone possesses a risk threshold that they will not consider crossing. Factors like the level of a person’s income, one’s net worth, one’s ability to understand the investment scenario and the objectives behind investing drive how and how much a person invests.
Early Bird Catches The Worm: The younger that one embarks on one’s investment journey, the better are the gains. The compound interest that you will make as a young man would fetch quite impressive gains by the time you started getting along in years. For instance if one started investing $93 every two weeks starting age 25 one would reach an amount of $500,000 when one hits sixty.
This is a painless and easy way of building up a fine retirement fund. At age 25 if you are not married; you would hardly have any major expenses to worry about, and could afford to put away some money. As the years go by your responsibilities and expenses will increase, but so will your income, and you will not feel the pinch of the regular installment you committed to paying when you were so much younger.
Invest Regularly: This definitely makes a lot of sense for most people considering that it is far easier to invest small sums regularly than investing a large sum at one go. Firstly one might not be able to afford the latter and secondly one does need money for things other than investment, which will get tied up in large investments. Also it gets you used to the idea of setting aside a certain sum of money regularly. Monthly and quarterly investment options, where a certain fixed sum gets debited from one’s account regularly is a fine approach to take.
Spread your investment: That you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, applies to investment more than it applies anywhere else. Taking care to spread one’s investments over a diverse range of options will both reduce your exposure to risks and optimize your long term returns. You will be better inured against downturns in any specific sectors. So even if a part of your investments takes a temporary hit, there will be the other part still working well for you.
Track your investments: Your investments come out of your hard earned money, and you should therefore track them with a hawk’s eye. An annual appraisal, either with the help of a finance industry professional or on one’s own is very much in order to see that one’s investment objectives remain on track. There is nothing that stops you from recasting your goals in light of the changes one goes through in life over a period of time. These may be on account of personal milestones like marriage, children’s education, impending retirements or even the prevailing market situation. The idea is to guard one’s money zealously and make every penny count.
Make the right kind of investment: One needs to make different kinds of investments for the short term and the long term. Short term investments need to be less risk averse and easily encashable. The latter type of investment on the other hand need be of the late maturing growth oriented type.
How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way
Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.
Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.
Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.
Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.
Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.
Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.
Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You
Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.
Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.
You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.
Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.
Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.
Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.
You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.
Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up
One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.
However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.
Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.
But why?
In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!
So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)
The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.
Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.
Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.
By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.
You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.