Multiple Income Streams
Home-Business-Help.com
22 July, 2004

Choosing your second Business Written by Steve: HBH Admin Dont worry, this pic isn't me... I dont wear glasses..? or a funny hat..? Hello once again , yep its time for Part 2 Multiple Income Streams. At this time I would like to point out what is probably obvious to most. These reports are mainly directed at people that are a little less experienced at working from home , with their own businesses. Also I would like to remind you all, that all the comments and the information within these reports is a reflection of my experiences and or involvment with businesses in general and in some cases specifically over a long period of time. If your experiences have been different in any way, you of course, may have developed different opinions to mine. That's ok and to be expected. It does not by the way, mean either of us is wrong. In quite a few cases I tend to sight examples to set bench marks and give a better perspective as to the point I'm trying to make at the time. Ok, so you have decided to take on a second or third passive business. Great stuff, you are on the way to building yourself a multiple income steam. Now though, which one do you pick? .. hmmm? Put on some real comphy walking shoes, this going to be a seriously arduous mission. To start... Well, assuming that the opportunity that you would like to add to your stable, is going to be an online based one, I suppose you will have to check a few until you find one that suits you. Seems on the surface to be an easy enough task ?? ... ok The first step then will be.... 'unless you already have one in mind that you are already aware of of course?' .... is to be off to the search engines to begin with. We type in a suitable search term like "work from home businesses" and geewizz ,what do you know... only 4,875,672 possibilities are found. This is going to be easy then, isnt it? Just three normal lifetimes needed to sift through a fraction of whats available. EASY PEEZY... Right, you've decided that perhaps that number might take a tad too long to go through and I agree, what now..? I think a few decisions are in order here like maybe "what type of business or product range would i be good at selling to other people? " or would like selling to other people? Toys? personal care products? kids clothes? household ware's? health products? gifts? lingerie? jewelery? and the list goes onnnnn and on still. Oopps.. me thinks maybe that you might want to shorten that search more by picking a type of product range or service that you think you would like to promote? one that takes your fancy? Ok, now you've picked the catagory. Very good, we are now getting down to crunch time. You make your choice... (hoping that you remembered the points made in the last report that will perhaps make the job of operating this new business easier and less of a strain on you and your finances.) Let's say for this example that our new business is marketing WIDGETS, not just any widgets, the greatest widgets of course. We type into the search engine "marketing widgets from home" or something like that. Now we getting close, only 2357 listed ... woohoo . We still will need 368 cups of cold coffee to get through anything like that number. Maybe we search for manufacturers in our region . That will thin the buggers out hopefully..? Picking a company that's close by can have a few advantages, as opposed to dealing with one thats 12,000 klm away, for example, you will most likely need delivery of at least your own products to yourself and then theres the rest of your prospective team members in your region of the world that will need at least some deliveries them self. This again assumes that you remembered the last reports main rules of picking a business.?? "It's best if there is a real product to market " " product that you would and will be happy to consume yourself and promote " If you are as impatient as myself, you won't want to wait till your old and grey-er to get your own products and nor will your team. There are exceptions to this rule of region, as with companies that work world wide, as an obvious example. With them, you will more than likely promote online world wide, so in those cases it won't matter as much as to where they are based necessarilly. You will need to make that type of assesment on a case by case basis as you get down to your final list I think. Right... we are now down to hopefully the last contenders. How do we check them...? hmmm? At this stage I am going to give you my few rules in regard to checking them out.!! I mentioned in the last report ... the " can you ring them requirement " I have listed that one again . can you ring them on a land line or mobile directly? have they a real postal address ? ( not a PO BOX ) have they got their products clearly available to see on the website that you are lookinbg at? is their company name prominent and obvious on the site you are looking at? These few simple rules are my first line of elimination . There are some major details missing here I think if the company presents with these points mentioned above missing from their presentation website. You should ask yourself the question " WHY " i wonder ,do they hide these important points about thier opportunity. There are a couple of valid reasons that can explain this approach . Some will tell you that the head office is scared that the new members that they join, will unintentionly represent their opportunity in a poor light , if allowed to advertise in a willy-nilly fasion and go sprattling there .... " good? " name every where unrestricted This theory comes a bit un-stuck when you start to realise that most bigger network companies, supply in one form or another to their members, a sponsored website, to market themselves from. Alot of the time these supplied websites aren't marked with the full company name or exact products either? If this is the case, one must beg the question, why still are these sites not clearly marked either ? hmmm? and why arent the products they have on offer displayed?? You might remember to keep your eyes wide open when checking this out. If they seem like the ones described above... Me starts to smell a rat? at that point. SPECIAL NOTE: Some very reputable companies I might add, don't supply websites with their opportunities and this does not make them any lesser or of any less value or importance . But it might make them a little more difficult to promote as a second passive business, is my only point. A good rule of thumb people... If it dosn't tell all, upfront, at first sight, clearly and honestly.... JUST CLOSE THE BROWSER and move along little doggie,to the next on your list to check out. DO NOT GET SUCKED IN BY LIFESTYLE PRESENTATIONS they are manufactured to get you signed up for all the wrong reasons... ok not quite all the wrong reasons . I admit openly like most people, that we all would like to improve our lifestyle, I think thats bloody obvious without going through 15 minutes of gung-ho bull dust telling you that you can buy boats , cars , houses, holidays, in only 6 mths So if thats basically all the website has to tell you ...." RUN AWAY " Find a company that has it all stated upfront, then start to look at them a bit closer. unless you do believe that .. A few major points to look for and check out : how long they have been in operation? how good are their products? how they distribute their products? how good is the renumeration package they offer? what do they supply to help the new member to promote? have they a support team to assist members as you grow? how much will it REALLY COST to build up your new team? These are just a few points to check as I said, but going through these one by one you will get a better idea of what you are going to be able to do or more to the point how easy this is going to be to opperate ... " in regard to the main point made in the last report " Your second business should not consume more time than is absolutley necessary and should be able to be promoted in a simillar fashion to your main business so as to not have it run you ragged, nor should it cost you a ton of cash to opperate. How long have they been in business? An easy formular, if they are new, beware ... and check them out real good. If they have a long track record, well thats great ... only the better ones seem to survive the long haul. How good are their products? The easiest ways to check this out is to just whack a search into Google or alike and see what comes up Bad news travels real fast online an you can bet that if they have been around for a while ANY bad news will be recorded somewhere online already. (delve two or three pages deep into the search engine listings on this search subject) You will notice that alot of the time the good news about them is listed in the first couple of pages... WHY ? because they are probably big companies and they PAY for those listings!!! How do they distibute their products? Simple rules with this one again... remembering that this is going to be your secondary business and you dont want to be mucking around with handling products at all if you can avoid it. If they expect you to deliver the stuff yourself " runaway " If they use camels to transport products? forget it !! ... ok ... not much chance of that happening i know. If they expect you to pay for the deliveries, make sure the charges are fixed and reasonable. ( you dont need delivery charges that look like your tax file number to arrive every month do you.) Make sure that they deliver directly to all members. If you are expected to forward products to all your members " run away " How good is the renumeration package they offer? This is a complicated one ... You really have to read in detail how they structure payments. The basic theroy being that the higher the percentages, obviously the better . Retail margins are not so important because you more than likely aren't going to wander the streets peddling your new products so to speak, at least I hope you won't.? That would definately take a huge amount of your valuable time away from your main business. ( and thats not the plan, is it ) The Residual income structure should be made very clear to you from word one by the company. Thats the income paid directly from the company that keeps rolling in based on volume developed from within your team or group as you grow If you are realIy new to this type of payment structure I sugest that you go and read a little on the subject I will be going into this subject in future reports but for the moment ... Just type in the term "residual income" into our friend GOOGLE and check a few pages out to get a better grip on the concept yourself. What do they supply to help the new member to promote? To make your new business easier to promote you should look for at least the minimal tools available provided by the company to help you along the way to get started. The first that comes to mind is a nice Website with your own unique URL... a clearly defined company produced website that tells all that you show it to, who you are and what you are about. Considering that you are going to market your new business online mostly, the pre defined company website is a great advantage from the begining . Secondly... Support directly from the company and exsisting members via a forum or support section is definatley an advantage as far as getting a quick handle on the best methods to build with. Anything else that they provide is a bonus, but the above are definately important enough to make them a pre-requisite for you new second business. On the how much does it "OR WILL" it cost? Costs can be broken down into a few areas. Registration, is usually the first area of setup costs that you will be told about. The average registration seems to be set at a common entry level and it is simillar for businesses online and offline. $49.oo is common but it can be as low as $29.oo .These are reasonable charges to get you registered and set up with the basic information required to understand the business further. This is the BIG Question though and where most of the bullsh??? start flying with ALOT!! of businesses offered online. How do most companies advertise their opportunity at first glance? ONLY $ 29.oo or $49.oo & so on... A fair and true statement, but unfortunately some less reputable businesses go straight for the hard sell to get you in before you even know what is involved. You've probably seen these types of promotions before at some time. They start with the usual , standard line that is quite ok. ONLY $ 29.oo or $49.oo & so on... TO GET YOU STARTED !!! but??? And you .... will or can be making $5000 in the first month!!! yer,yer,yer... Look out! There's that damn pig again ! trying to tell you something . The fact is, that if it only cost that much to make money, we would all be wealthy right now !!! I know, most use a line like that to get you to register or sign up ...and thats exactly what you get for your $ 29.oo or $49.oo , you get registration and perhaps the basic paper work, literature required ect , but thats all folks !! Then the real story begins regards the costs to get set up and started in the manner to which each individual company decides in its own way. You get the rego / info sent out ... great you now know a little more about the company .. and that's a good thing But, now usually comes the details that you perhaps were not made clear on at the beginning. BEWARE : Some of the business opportunities online come with little built in requirements like ... Minimum fixed monthly personal ordering by all members .. these usually range from aprox $100.oo to sometimes up around the $200.oo mark. These minimums are put in place for several reasons but mainly one basic reason. To insure that all members including newer ones that have only signed a few members up, recieve a bounus of some sort from fixed monthly volumes generated from the first member that they signed up. This concept is not unusual and has its benefits.. " IF YOU ARE AWARE OF THEM FROM THE BEGINING " and you are financially able to support the costs involved monthly on a permanent basis . So all I can say about this really is, CHECK THE DETAILS before you sign up with anyone. If they won't or can't tell you before you join .." run away " I personally prefer not to be locked into these sorts of systems. The other supposedly optional requirement that is promoted heavily by some companies is .. " LEAD PURCHASING " this usually is mentioned at the last possible moment so as to not scare you away before you join. This is most definately the most financially crippling thing that gets alot of people sucked into spending vast amounts of cash to support monthly. As I said it is an optional thing to get into, but from experience it is promoted very strongly as a way to build your business right from the begining with some companies. These leads can cost you around $5.00 ea and are promoted to members usually at thre rate of 5 or 10 at a time as a bulk value purchase. The math can easilly be calculated .... 10 leads x twice a month = 20 at $5.oo each = a tidy little "investment some companies call them" of $100.oo each month. Please remember that these particular companies do not make much of a mention of this kind of practice , but in reallity it is not only heavilly promoted, but it is practiced and promoted as the standard way of group building. I personally think that if you have to buy your way into building your new add-on business, you are wasting your energy and your money " unless you are wealthy enough already to withstand the costs of course " Again I only say ... BEWARE .. make sure you know all these things before you sign up with any new business.. That's it for now though .. " as a sigh of relief rises from the crowd " To summarise this report... There are many Companies that offer the opportunity to build ,strong reliable incomes working online from home. Again i repeat myself and say that i still have great faith in the opportunities to be had ,building businesses online. Repetion by the way ,you should get used to... its how networks are built in the main, with" DUPLICATION " but more about that another time. There are also alot ,far to many actually, that over the past few yrs have built up very poor reputations with highly exagerated claims in regard to potensial income and time frames that you will take to become independent ,decieptful aproaches as to how they get you to sign up and the percentages of failure that occure within thier organisations. I hope, if you are relatively new to online business and are looking to expand into multiple operations, especially ( MLM ) Multi-level Marketing ones (Which are clearly one of my favorite types of business to operate online without a doubt.) that you remember a few of the points I've tried to make clear here and tread gently as you explore for your new business oportunity. Take care, till next time .. and keep in mind that ... . I'LL BEBARK again ! with more shooting from the hips style comments and advice... Kindest regards Steve your friend and... webmaster@home-business-help.com P/S Dont forget ,feel free to post any thoughts that you may have on this subject .