Want to start your own business? - Decisions, decisions….
When starting an online business, work from home business or any business for that matter, there are some decsions you have to make at the beginning that will decide a lot about your business. It basically starts with 2 choices.
#1 Sell your own product or service
#2 Sell someone else’s product or service
From there, the choices branch out greatly.
If you choose #1 and you want to sell a product you make - you should ask yourself these questions among others about your business:
How long does my product take to manufacture? How many would I need to get started selling them? If I had to order in bulk, where will I store them? Would I be able to start selling them by just showing the prototype and taking enough orders to get going? How much would that initial prototype or production batch cost? How can I raise the money to do that? How much will it cost to ship each one locally? Can I market it nationally? Can it be marketed internationally? Is the shipping cost still feasible to market overseas? If I look in the marketplace, what kind of pricing is there now? How much markup - or profit margin does that leave me?
If you choose #1 and you want to sell a service you provide - you should ask yourself these questions among others about your business:
What is the maximum number of people I could provide my service to a week myself? What is the minimum number of people I could provide my service to a week and profit? Is there a lot of competition in this service? How will I stand out? How long have I been providing this service? Do I have references? Have I decided my pricing structure and profit margins?
As I hope you can see so far - you will see why I tend to prefer building a business that provides #2 Sell someone else’s product or service as it cuts down a lot of extra work and money expenses - that usually do not lead to a lot of extra profit. Don’t get me wrong, I think people make money in manufacturing and providing services - I just don’t think a small business is the best situation to be a manufacturer or service center. To do it well and efficiently, usually takes a larger number of people.
If you choose #2 and decide to sell someone elses product or service it really simplifies the process as you only need to focus on sales. There are basically 4 ways to sell these goods or services for someone else:
#1 As a regional representative (set commissions - must stock inventory - or buy franchise for service)
#2 As an affiliate or referrer (set commissions - many times free to join)
#3 As a distributor/retailer (set commissions = buy at wholesale, sell at retail price, may need to order in bulk, larger minimum order to qualify to buy at wholesale, offering a service -scalability issues, if you want to grow your business beyond you - how long does it take to train new emloyees, employee turnover, etc.)
#4 As a MLM/Network Marketing distributor (set commissions & potential residual commissions - qualifications too varied in industry to summarize)
Maybe you have never looked at it this way, but now that you are, can you see why I find option #4 the most attractive? I have tried almost ALL the choices outlined above = I have sold my own product (for example - my info-book), I have sold my own service (ie: tile installation), I have sold products and services as an affilliate (ie: e-books, referred people to my link to buy something and received commissions, a type of direct marketing), I have bought products at wholesale and resold them at retail for a profit (too many to list - this is also considered a kind of direct marketing)
The residual aspect of MLM / Network Marketing, is exactly one of the things that kept me coming back to try it again over the years. Boy, am I glad I did! In any other business, if I stopped working or selling - my business stopped and I stopped getting paid. With a successful MLM / Network Marketing business, I have stopped working as hard for periods, even taken a few weeks off and hardly worked, and I kept getting a check, my business even gave me a raise during that period! I know this has been the dream and attraction for many people - but the reality for most people is that if you tried to start a work from home business, or online business - most people failed.
Next I will cover some of the problems that prevent people from succeeding in a work from home online MLM / Network Marketing business and what you can do to avoid them. I will see you then!
Matthew Yonan
