Home Business Ideas and Opportunities

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For Best Results, Don’t Rush Your Home Business Start-Up

A good analogy of how things can’t be rushed in the logical (real) world, is that of a crop which must be nurtured to grow. Nobody puts the seeds in the ground and then turns around and clicks their heels three times to see a brand new baby tree! It takes preparation, maintenance, and patience!

For best results someone would prepare the soil, plant the seeds, fertilize it, and then water it a little at a time every day. Eventually they would see little sprouts and with any luck eventually they would grow into a baby vegetable. You may pick it at that point in some cases or in others you would continue to watch it grow into a mature plant. At that point it would need to be washed and cooked or in some way prepared to eat it in most cases.

With a business it is just plain silly for people to believe that somehow – (magic?) they will join an affiliate program or get a web page online and then expect something to materialize right away. They may make some attempt for a short-time to promote it but for some reason they can’t seem to conceive of the fact that one or two times or even 50 or 100 times will not necessarily produce anything.

You may have read somewhere the very apt description of marketing and advertising requiring TIME to create and sustain momentum. This is in part because not everybody who sees an ad will respond. It is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to eliminate all the people who are not interested in what you have to find the few that will in fact show an interest and respond.

You have to keep whatever you are doing up long enough and let’s even say in perpetuity if you ever want to have a real business that generates income. You can’t stop just because you make one sale because now you must find the second one and so forth. Your business may involve one-time-only sales or if you are an affiliate marketer, residual income. While the latter lets you continue to earn income in the future from the initial sale, there is still the fact that people will quit and you will need to find new sources of income.

There is another belief in the Internet marketing industry that it is not usually the first time someone sees something that they will respond – would you believe most likely the 5th or 6th time? So there you go with another reason why you must build and sustain momentum if your business involves sales and marketing. You need to pump up the volume over the long-run!

The point being that you need to work it over time in the big picture. You need to be methodical, consistent and most of all very aggressive. None of this is possible if you are expecting substantial results within days or weeks of beginning. If you quit too soon because you can’t see any results, you will just be wasting your effort and time and you will never know if you could have succeeded if you had been realistic.

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The Importance of Choosing a Good Affiliate Program

Before spending your money on anything, of course you want to be fully aware of what you are actually buying into. You need to know if you can afford it, and if it meets your requirements. You need to be sure that you will be able to use it effectively (does the program include training, instruction and support). You need to know how it works and what is included (the basics as well as any resources available to members). Very importantly for any affiliate program, you need to be aware of any special circumstances that may be part of the compensation plan.

There is usually a lot more to it than that you pay so much for the membership and you receive a percentage of the cost in commissions when you make a sale. The special circumstances could mean that you are ‘passing up’ a commission to your sponsor or giving them a percentage of each sale. In some really progressive companies, you could even be ‘spilling over’ your sales to your downline (those you sponsor) to help them build their organization ‘under’ you.

The compensation plan has to work in a way that you as a sponsor would get exactly the same compensation as your sponsor does. This of course may be dependent on you being able to reach the same ‘level’ as they have – usually the number of sales someone has made will dictate their level or grade in the program. This is fair and is the same as being promoted or given a raise in any corporation based on your performance.

With affiliate programs it may also be that you have purchased the products or services on the same level as you are able to earn commissions. This is a good idea because you should have a full understanding of what you are selling and to feel enough confidence in it to purchase it yourself. Likely you will be much more believable if you have direct experience.

Affiliate marketing is a very good way to break in to Internet marketing and having your own online business at home. Some people may not understand what they are paying for and feel that the membership fee in itself is a ripoff. When you look at it as a ‘job’, it is true you should never have to pay for a job. However with affiliate marketing you are actually part of the company – and you are working for yourself. The affiliate program is sharing their intellectual property with you and allowing you to legally profit from their business.

It is fair that you are charged for membership because the program has spent and is spending a lot of money to create a product or service, and to maintain the business. They perform customer service not only to you but on your behalf to your customers. They handle all the sales transactions for you as well as the accounting. They provide not only the product or service that you are able to earn commissions for selling, but also pay to maintain the website, member database, and the graphics and other advertising resources that are available to members. So you are saving maybe millions by spending a little each month on your membership fees.

To be especially diligent in researching the programs you should be wary of those that cost a lot of money to join, have contracts, and do not guarantee a refund. You really need to be careful with this and document everything carefully. Remember that using your credit card to purchase something gives you a little bit of a guarantee on your own, in that you can file a dispute if the company does not live up to their promises either to deliver or to refund. Your being able to do this does rely on you keeping solid documentation of everything between you and said company.There are time limits that you can dispute something as well as legitimate parameters for the term they guarantee a refund.

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Home Business Start-Up – Try and Try Again

Sometimes when we attempt to do something it is just not the right time, for whatever reason. These reasons can include lack of time, lack of money, and/or lack of initiative. It may take you several starts to actually get the ball rolling. From there only time will tell if you are able to sustain it. If you pick up the ball but do not run far with it, that’s ok – put it away and come back another day.

There seems to be a common pattern however, that is self-defeating, and that is that people come in like gangbusters, all inspired and determined to succeed. Some would say they are ‘on fire’; but then when they don’t see immediate results, they just back off, which is exactly the opposite of what they should do, which is try harder.

Maybe it would be better to just start off on an even, logical keel and see where that takes you. There is actually a saying somewhere about this and how a fire that starts out white hot is quick to burn out; but a fire that is built slowly will burn much longer.

There is definitely something akin to a ‘high’ that seems to go hand-in-hand with joining programs or purchasing other tools that promise the moon. The person may feel all-powerful as they are identifying themselves with people who have succeeded in their online business. However then when ‘the morning after’ arrives they see that there really is no magic sauce that doesn’t involve work and time to develop.

They may not be mature enough to carry it off. They wanted the magical, not the logical. They may go on and on in a long stream of joining or buying things that all turn out the same – either ‘too good to be true’ fantasies or legitimate programs that require learning, effort and structure and they didn’t want to really exert themselves.

You can be sure it is pretty much the same for everyone – nobody succeeds by magic. While it may be a gamble to start a business, it is not the lottery. You get nothing but an ID and some resources to work with by joining for example an affiliate program. One must make wise use of time and materials in order to turn it into something tangible such as money in the bank. Just belonging or having something doesn’t do anything for you.

When you decide to quit you may be bitter and blame others for your failure. One day though you may realize that you didn’t really try and that is why you did not succeed. If and when you get to a place in your head and in your life that you have some extra time and energy to better your situation, then you will do it. Every year you grow up a little more and eventually you may come to the place where you are ready to actually ‘just do it’.

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Home Business Ideas and Opportunities

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