Friday, November 24, 2006

Are You A Time Waster In Your Home Business?


It's a sad fact that the average home business owner never earns a profit in their business. It has become clear to me as I meet more and more new business owners why it is that the vast majority of them are struggling to earn money with their businesses. They waste their time on the unimportant stuff and neglect the key activities that will begin to make them money in the home based business industry.
Given the lack of training provided by some companies, and given that the blind often end up leading the blind in business, I though it would be helpful to lay down some basic necessities for the new business owner to use as a blueprint to success in their home business:
1. Find a mentor or create what Napoleon Hill calls in "Think and Grow Rich," a mastermind group. A group of people who meet regularly to game plan and work out answers to problems that they or the other members are having. This group can be in person or via an online conference room. These types of people will guide you with their own successes and difficulties the have faced in business and provide you with a reality check about the level of desire, commitment, and dedication you must have to build a successful business from home.
2. Stay away time wasters. I mean ALL time wasters. If you often find yourself searching link exchanges for the newest way to "Get Rich Quick," or "Earn Money in 15 Minutes" you need to reexamine your level of dedication to the business you are trying to build. If I can impart only one pearl of wisdom to you it is this: there is NO "super simple" road to wealth. All wealth creation takes time, but some methods are just simpler or more effective than others. Set up a daily schedule and stick to it, you'll be amazed by how much more productive you will become when you follow a checklist.

3. Make "Work Time" actual Work Time. Just because you are sitting at your desk doesn't mean you are working. Wasting time may be fine when you're someone's employee, but when you are your own boss ask yourself whether you'd be happy with your own level of activity and productivity. Work time is not chat with your significant other time, call your mom time, shop on the Internet time, chat online time, or pay the electricity bill time. Work time should be scheduled in stone and given the respect it deserves. I promise, the amount of work you do in the beginning will make or break your business.

4. Just because you are on the phone with a prospect doesn't mean that they are the type of person you want to do business with. Sometimes it's hard to do it, but there are time when YOU should reject a prospect--they're just too much headache. These prospects are the feet dragging, penny-pinching, malcontents that complain about your program before you explain it to them, seem to get irritated by the minute details of what you are saying, and then ask "How long before I start making $50,000 a month?" These are not the type of people you want to work with, and in the end you will be much happier when you don't have to waste time with someone who wants you to drag them toward success. You'll make more money without them in your organization.

5. If you find something that works, stick with it. Too often I find new business owners that want to "reinvent the wheel," as the old cliché says. They go into business with someone who has achieved a high level of success, but won't follow directions when given advice that will earn them income if carried out. It's ridiculous how many people will not follow simple directions. The people who make it the biggest in the home based business industry are those who follow directions the best. And on the flipside: never take advice from someone who is more screwed up than you. It's amazing how many people will chime in with their two cents on how you should build your business or why it's never going to work, or why it's a scam. Let them have their day jobs and their opinions, I'm just happy not to have to make that commute to work anymore.
Regardless of what opportunity you are in, wasting time is truly the scourge of virtually every new and struggling business owner. The fasted route to success is by following in the footsteps of those who have achieved a level of success that you want to achieve, and are willing to instruct you on their methods for building a home based business. All you must do is clean out your ears, be willing to follow directions, ask someone for the answers to the hard questions. But most of all you must respect your time, and respect your teacher's time as if it were your own. When people begin seeking you out for answers you will begin to truly see why your time is so valuable.

Jesse Boland

Founder:
Octopus Marketing Group--Helping The Average Person Earn True Wealth and Happiness In their Lives

Learn More About An
Automated Home Business

Contact My Office for Free Business Consultation: (208) 267-5127

Thursday, November 09, 2006

What You Need To Know About Work At Home Business Opportunities

What is success? Simple question. Most people want success. However, very few of them can define it in any succinct or tangible way. In most work at home business opportunities, success is a word batted around like a proverbial racquetball. Yet for many newcomers to the work at home arena, "success" has eluded them most of their lives--hence, the reason they are searching for a new, more fulfilling life and mode of making money. Work at home business opportunities and recruiters know the desires of their prospects and they prey upon their desire for success like wolves in a henhouse. Ergo, the 97% failure rate in network marketing/ work at home business opportunities. To illustrate this point I must use myself as an example.



When I got started in business I thought my "success" was a forgone conclusion. Throughout my life most things that I applied myself to came relatively easy to me. I was a miserable failure in high school, but in college I applied myself and achieved excellent success, graduating Summa Cum Laude . I was an excellent employee: I had an voracious work ethic, impeccable attendance, a desire to learn quickly, a knack for picking new tasks up, and a meticulous way of doing things that always helped my company succeed. However, when starting my own work from home business I was the exact opposite of the great employee. My time management skills were terrible, I had a slovenly filing system, and a work ethic that rationalized surfing the web as work. In short I was the poster child for why work at home business opportunities fail at an alarming rate. My turnaround in business came to me when I realized I was not a good supervisor of my one employee, myself.



Many people who get involved in work at home business opportunities don't want a business, they want a job. If you have had a boss throughout your working life you understand that having a job is one of the securest feelings one can have. You have a guaranteed check coming in, you are usually extended a grace period to learn your position's responsibilities, you usually don't have to perform at the top of your game at all times and can still be effective, there is little financial risk involved. You learn a job and you perform it, then you go home, watch T.V. and get ready for the next day. This of course is a simplified version and there are exceptions. In my one business, one of the common threads I find in the people I talk to is most people are searching for a way of making money that makes them excited about what they are doing with their lives, rather than just living their life for a paycheck.



However, the reality is that most employees have not been trained to be their own boss, hence their learning curve in business is much steeper than what it is for those who have owned businesses in the past and can remain disciplined to their marketing strategy and the goals hey have set. For work at home business owners the discipline of running an effective and lucrative business is a learned skill that is developed over time. There are many different factors contributing to the failure rate of many neophyte work at home business owners. The most common I have found follow:



1. Poor marketing strategy provided by their upline and company: Most work from home business opportunities recommend buying leads from business seeker leads brokers. This is the quickest way to go broke quickly in your business. Business seeker leads are expensive and offer a very low return on investment (ROI) for most new business owners that are just learning recruiting techniques . Learning how to produce your own leads is far more effective strategy and has the added benefit of teaching the new business owner how to market effectively and produce a "circle of influence" on the Internet.



2. Your Warm Market: Talking to your family and friends is another way to quickly find disappointment in running your home business. Your friends and family are the last people you want to try and market to when getting your business established. By and large, your warm market knows you better than anyone and they also know you are not a business owner. When you have begun to find success, and money is rolling in, your warm market will seek you out to find out how you are making your money talk to them then. Pessimism is a killer of new businesses.



3. Commitment: New business owners are notorious for using a shotgun approach to finding success. They are constantly searching for a "sure thing" only to be disappointed by the fact they have been duped again by slick sizzle copy and the promise of fast cash. The only people getting rich by writing about guaranteed success in business are the "Internet Marketing Gurus" who promise you to get rich following their "proven system". You must find a marketing strategy that works for your personality and pocketbook and stick with it until you begin to see results.



Success in work from home business opportunities is never a guaranteed thing. The one variable that remains is you. Your commitment to success in business far outweighs your opportunity, talent, intelligence, and financial position. If you are falling prey to the slick marketers out there, throwing money at your problems in an attempt to solve them, you should check the classified ads for a new job because this industry will leave you disillusioned, frustrated, and in a poorer financial position than when you got started. If you are truly committed to success: do your homework, find an upline that understands your personal goals, your financial position, and, most important of all, work from home business opportunities that train you how to be a leader in business. Your upline should be what you aspire to be and then follow their guidance until you find success and teach your people how to do the same. Only then will you taste true success.




Work From Home Business Opportunities Survey
Great SEO Tool For Work From Home Business Opportunities

Is God Part of Your Marketing Strategy? Part 1

Is this a stupid question? Absolutely not, the reason God MUST become part of your business is widely apparent, but not always practiced by new business owners. The fact that God is key to your success as a business owner can be demonstrated by revealing the fact that the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs' business success is linked to their individual beliefs in God. When I got started marketing on the Internet, God was not part of my business and did not play a large part in my life either. Not surprisingly I struggled and nearly quit my home based business. I was in business to get rich, not to help people. However, since then, as I have pursued and become more successful in various high income business opportunities, God has become more and more prevalent in my work and life. In my relationships with highly successful Internet business owners (my personal mentors) a common thread has become apparent that each of these individuals, without exception, has an unshakable belief in God. Why is this? What is it that makes these highly successful people believe in God and how can your own beliefs help you become successful in business and life too? What role does God play to help you become successful running your own business? I'd like to explore this common thread and give you some easily applicable techniques to integrate faith into your business strategy without being bombastic or fanatical.



Why would you want to integrate God into your business strategy anyway? It's simple. Success only truly comes when you work from your soul. William Blake, the English poet and artist says, "I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me." If you can begin to see your personal creativity as God's voice speaking through you, you will be a giant step closer to seeing your business explode. If you can train yourself to organize your business and spark creative ideas for your business through the conception of God prodding you on and driving you toward loftier goals and accomplishments than you ever dreamed possible. This has been called many things including "divine purpose." The poet Dylan Thomas provides an excellent definition of "divine purpose" that we can use, "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Do you think the flower has any concept of what it's ultimate goal in life is? Do you? Does the flower stop growing just because it doesn‘t have the perfect amount of water or sunlight? Are you going to stop pursuing your purpose just because you are struggling in your business or your life? If you are not pursuing your true aspirations of being a highly successful business owner, or you are a business owner who is constantly searching for a new EASY way to make money on the Internet, you are NOT listening to God or your "ultimate purpose." BUSINESS SUCCESS IS NOT EASY. You must use your common sense here. Why do you think 98% of home businesses never make one red cent? Because they are marketing the wrong product? No! If you are marketing your business the right way you can sell sand to a camel and have hundreds of customers lining up to buy again and again. Home based business owners fail because they don't receive the right training and mentorship to run a highly successful business, they lose their commitment and they quit. The keys to your business success are:



1. Integrate God Into Your Business Strategy.



2. Find a Support System. Seek Out Mentors and Colleagues Who Encourage and Support You to Achieve Your Goals. Find People Who Have Attained a Level of Success that You Hope To Replicate and Model Your Business Strategy After Theirs.



3. Stay Motivated and Committed to Your "Divine Purpose" in Business.



The formula to success is simple and intuitive when you break it down. If you can turn your business over to God‘s proven desire to see you succeed and can trust in a higher power to guide you along your path to business success, you will have hurdled the biggest obstacle that most new business owners face: the temptation to quit their business when confronted by difficulties, setbacks (i.e. lack of results). If you can simply believe in your "divine purpose" your business is no longer yours to quit, it is God's; you have been put in charge of your business not simply by and for your self, but to fulfill the will of God's plan for you and desire to see you succeed. If you can begin to feel God in your everyday business activities, hardships will never cause you to doubt your ultimate goal, setbacks will only strengthen your resolve, and small successes will only prod you to achieve more.



Entrepreneurs are a different sort of folk. Though they tend to be driven and skilled workers, entrepreneurs don't tend to make the best employees because they are constantly looking for better ways to do things and solve the problems presented to them by their jobs. Translate your feelings of dissatisfaction in your job to a mind-set that God is telling you that there are bigger plans for you. More on God's role in your business strategy in next weeks article. Let me leave you with a quote from The Work of The Chariot: "When a Man Takes One Step Toward God. God Takes More Steps Toward That Man Than There Are Sands in the World's of Time." Take that step in your business strategy this week and see how your life changes.




For More Marketing Tips and Low Cost Lead Generation Services Contact: Jesse Boland Octopus Marketing Group CEO (208) 267-5127 Skype: Jesse Boland. Subscribe to Jesse's Newsletter with Business Insights From Him and His Mentors: Marketing Strategy Newsletter