WORK
FROM HOME
Choose Smart & Live the Dream
By Christine Sutherland
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Christine Sutherland on Smashwords
How to Make More Money:
The Simple Strategy that Outperforms Stocks and Shares, Real Estate, and Superannuation
Copyright © 2011 by Christine Sutherland
PUBLISHED BY:
The
Lifeworks Group Pty Ltd
Work From Home!
Choose Smart and
Live the Dream
Copyright © 2011 by Christine Sutherland
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold, and no part of this book may be used or included in other products. You may freely distribute the PDF of this book in its original form, but may not brand, alter, or mark it any way.
Please be discerning regarding whom you forward a copy to. Share freely with professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are ethical, pleasant people.
If you use this book as a tool to grow your business, remember to follow up promptly. You may like to photocopy this book and “lend” copies which you then collect, allowing you opportunity to present your business at the same time.
Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Work From Home Facts
Fact:
Right
now almost everyone is desperate to secure their financial survival,
and they know that a home business, in a proven and widely-respected
industry which is immune to economic ups and downs, is their only
chance. If only they can find such a thing.
Fact: People already know that internet marketing is a lottery, not a business, and are intensely wary of these and other scams.
Fact:
Women, and parenting men, are still discriminated against in the
workplace.
Fact:
Men and women are deserting the traditional workplace in droves in an
effort to get quality and sanity into their and their families’
lives.
Fact:
A job done at home is still a job, and has no more security than any
other job.
Fact:
In order to protect your and your family’s financial future, you
need a high-grade business (over 74% of wealthy people accumulated
their wealth in a successful business.
Fact:
Without
doing the heaviest-duty due diligence, your chances of picking the
right business are tiny (less than 3%).
FACT:
This book is your secret weapon in choosing the right business with
the best possible chance of success.
WORK
FROM HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
CONTENTS
FORWARD - Living the Dream
Chapter 1 - Home
Business, the Good News and the Bad News
Chapter 2 - Income
Acumen - What You Were NEVER Taught at School or University
Chapter
3 - Your Financial Options
Chapter 4 - The Process of Due
Diligence
Chapter 5 - What Will You Need to Do to Be
Successful?
Chapter 6 - What Personal and Professional
Qualities Are Required?
Chapter 7 - How Much Money Can You
Make?
Chapter 8 - What Next?
ADDENDUM - Fears, Doubts,
Junk in the Trunk
Contacts and Support Site
WORK
FROM HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
FORWARD
– Living the Dream
The
2 big issues of our time for people with families are:
1.
No time
2. No money
Mothers and fathers spend their weeks on an endless treadmill of working for a boss, battling traffic, juggling kids and kids’ activities, cooking, cleaning and general home and yard care, and even struggling to get enough peaceful sleep to support their own physical and psychological health. Very few adults actually even get time for their own leisure activities.
When a child or a spouse is sick, the remaining partner feels torn and guilty regardless of whether they decide to go to work or to stay home.
When the job requires overtime, likewise – mothers and fathers desperately want to be with their children, but are forced to abandon them for an even greater part of the day because of the need to do whatever it takes to earn a living so they can keep up with the bills and make enough to provide food and shelter.
For women the situation is often particularly grim. Women’s working hours typically provide a worse payoff for the time they’re sacrificing because they’re paid at a lower rate. Women are often forced to tolerate wide-ranging discrimination and insult in the workplace merely because they are women. From the subtle put-down, to blatant mistreatment, the working environment is often an even more stressful environment for women than it is for men.
As large numbers of people leave home to go to work, whole communities are being laid waste because instead of being thriving hubs, they are mausoleums during the day, and merely a place where people go home to catch an inadequate sleep overnight.
When we add to this the fact that missed working hours mean missed pay, and that so few people have job security especially in our deteriorating global economy, the stress becomes intolerable. No wonder disorders like anxiety, depression, anti-social behaviour, sleep disorders, overweight/obesity, and sexual dysfunction are at epidemic levels. Families are living in a poisonous environment that is absolutely not conducive to physical or psychological wellbeing.
No
wonder people are voting with their feet and moving their working
life back home, with a projected 65% increase in people working from
home in the next 12 months!
There
Are Sound Economic Reasons for Working from Home
Whether
it’s a job or a business, working from home instead of from
commercial premises makes sound economic sense. Analysts estimate
that:
- A single home-based worker can save the company
approximately $20,000 per year.
- By working at home and
cutting out work travel, the employee can save $4,000-$21,000 each
year for traveling costs.
- It’s estimated that at least 50%
of current employees could successfully work from home. Even if just
40% of the workforce actually
worked from home it would save the economy a massive $650 billion a
year! AND we could cut oil imports by 37%, a great help to the
environment!
But
a Job at Home is No More Secure than a Job Elsewhere
With even major firms going bust, and more trouble on the way, it’s not surprising that analysts predict 2011 will see a 17-year high in unemployment. Almost every major industry is in deep trouble: retail, hospitality, manufacturing, tourism, real estate, the finance industry, housing and construction, and even food production and distribution. I know, I see the closures daily.
Almost
no-one has job security.
A
Job at Home Can’t Provide Total Flexibility and Can’t Provide for
Your Future
A job at home has the same disadvantages of a job anywhere. You still have to operate under the instructions of an employer, and that will determine what work you do, and when.
And you are still in the trap of being paid only for the hours that you work, not for what you create. You’re bearing the costs of running the business (your home office, your extra electricity and gas, and a myriad of other costs) and yet you’re not getting a return on this investment.
You’re
certainly not establishing an income that will continue to properly
support you in your retirement, or which can deliver a better
lifestyle for your family right now.
The
Great “Work at Home” Scam
It’s a sad fact that the Federal Trade Commission has found that an estimated 90% of “work at home” advertisements are scams or linked to scams. Every year the Commission takes hundreds of legal actions against these but more pop up all the time. The commission estimates that from just 4 successfully-prosecuted cases, consumers lost around $30 million!
The
Commission also estimates that every year the perpetrators of these
scams earn around $750 million.
Obviously
People Need Sound Advice as Protection Against Rip-offs
The reasons that practically everyone wants to work from home are obvious, logical, and healthy every which way you look at them. But people need to realise that if they really want flexibility, and they really want at least a degree of wealth, then a home business is the best choice.
However unless they plan on being amongst the losers (ie, the poor consumers coughing up $750 million a year thanks to scams) they need sound advice. The good news is that this sound advice is right here, in this simple little book, backed up by online support at no cost.
Enjoy reading this book and making the most of it! Any questions about the book, or even if you just want to chat about a business you’re considering, feel free to write to me at info@lifeworks-group.com.au.
WORK
FROM
HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
Chapter
1: Home Businesses, the Good News and the Bad News
The good news is that you hold this book in your hands, and that it is indeed possible to build a successful home business, even one that is a million dollar earner, without burning yourself out, without ignoring your children and family, without risking the very home you’re based in, and without spending a lifetime to achieve that.
The bad news is that there will be people who read this book in the hope of turning their current home business into a million dollar home business, who will discover that they have chosen the wrong business, or will discover that regardless of which business they may choose, they are not personally or professionally equipped to succeed.
I would like to re-assure you that even if you are the latter, it is not too late to change horses, or to learn how to become successful, provided you have the right attitudes and are open to learning. There’s an old saying “don’t throw good money after bad”, and that has never been more true when it comes to business. You can save yourself an awful lot of pain, loss and suffering by recognizing sooner rather than later that it’s time to “bite the bullet” and hook your wagon to a better opportunity, or to step up and develop yourself personally and/or professionally.
There’s another old saying “you can’t make a silk purse from a pig’s ear” and although that may sound derogatory, if people are negative in their attitude, if they don’t actually like other people, if they have no interest in growing personally or professionally, then the best advice I can give is to get the best job they can, and give up on the idea of building a business, because business success is always about the quality of relationships you create and maintain - relationships with customers, colleagues, and your whole wider network.
So to sum up, this is a book which shows you exactly why you have so far not been able to make the money you want, so that you can, in a fully-informed manner, decide what’s going to be easier for you: keep doing what you’re doing, or make an intelligent choice to go in a different direction.
This is also a book which specifically describes the personal and professional journey required to become the creator of a million dollar home business. That’s fun for me to share because I get to spill the beans on one of the most remarkable set of self growth tools the world has ever seen. Be prepared, and enjoy!
WORK FROM HOME
Choose Smart & Live the Dream
Chapter
2: Income Acumen – What You Were NEVER Taught at School or
University
He sat at the table, head in hands, anguished at his struggle to provide for his family. Finally he blurted out “Will somebody just tell me how to earn real money and I’ll do it!” This book is for all those people who simply don’t have enough: enough to live on, enough to escape debt, enough to fulfill dreams, enough to retire in real comfort. This is how to never have too little ever again.
Some people end up with a lot of money in spite of having no income acumen. For instance a person may marry a very wealthy partner, be given money by their parents, win the lottery, or be paid millions for a talent. You could pin your hopes on that, but that would be pretty much leaving things to fate rather than taking control. That kind of “roll of the dice” way of becoming wealthy is not what this book is about.
You might be relieved to hear that this book is also NOT about internet marketing and I hope by now you realise that this is for obvious reasons – except for a lucky few, that’s a pretty dumb way to go about achieving and maintaining wealth because no matter how you automate it, it’s still a job. And it’s notoriously fickle, with great ideas going from “flavour of the month” to “yesterday’s garbage” in a blink.
You can spend months or years getting to the top of Google, only for the search algorithms to change and to find yourself invisible all over again, and your traffic (and business) down the drain. So I would NEVER advise anyone to consider internet marketing as a business – the only people who make money out of it are the gurus who sell off their unwanted secrets because they’re now out of date!
Do you think if someone really does have a strategy to make money from the net, they’re going to accept even $1000 from you, when they could be enjoying a monopoly all to themselves? Not likely! By the time you see those strategies on sale, they are dead in the water!
So with that in mind, this book is designed to deliver the crucial knowledge of wealth creation and maintenance that hardly anyone is ever taught, and which was certainly not part of any diploma or degree program you may have studied.
The simple reason that I can share this information is that the businesses I’m going to be talking about cannot become over-saturated, and are so open to competition that practically anyone can make excellent money, and people who’re prepared to commit can make incredible money. And none of that will detract in any way, shape or form, on what I do in my own home business. It’s win/win!
In a nutshell, this book outlines the 4 options for making money, and demonstrates that 3 of them are either a poverty trap or leave you exposed to risk, and only 1 of them (the home business model) is simple, rapid, and risk-free, as well as holding the single biggest potential for you to quite literally choose your income, and choose whether that is hands on, or totally passive income.
Will you do this simple strategy? Pretty much 100% of people COULD do this strategy because you don’t need any special skills or knowledge to start out – it’s just that most people don’t, and as you read more you’ll see why, and you’ll also understand why anyone with an ounce of pro-activity does so well.
However I can guarantee that 99% of the people reading this book will either not take action, or will not take correct action, and are not open to even free learning OR ASSISTANCE to take action using this simple strategy. Over the last 37 years I’ve been involved in business, it’s often been tough to watch people who COULD succeed, not even try, or give up at the first hurdle.
I’ve reconciled myself with this somewhat over those years, but I still hate to see people struggle, or short-change themselves, when I know they could be working smarter, and getting a lot more out of life.
Read on and decide for yourself whether you are one of the 1% who will benefit from this simple strategy.
(Co-incidentally,
studies show that by age 65 less than 1% of people will be wealthy.
With pensions and superannuation likely to crumble as governments
seek to support the baby-boomers as they move into retirement, this
is a figure that you need to take very seriously.)
Why
Home Businesses Fail
Home businesses fail significantly less than the failure rate of traditional businesses, and slightly less than franchises fail. Some people try to blame the failure of home businesses on the business model itself but there is really no evidence for that.
The real reasons that home businesses fail are the same reasons that ANY business fails: either the new business owner failed to do adequate due diligence (even though they THOUGHT they did), or the new business owner was simply not personally or professionally equipped to run it successfully.
This
book will comprehensively cover these matters so that you can
literally guarantee your success in your home business, to any level
you desire, whether that is a few hundred dollars per month extra, or
hundreds of thousands of dollars per month extra.
How
Much Money Do You Need or Want?
Some people have small dreams and some people have enormous dreams. If you were to sit down and make a list of every hope, desire or goal that you had, without once thinking in terms of money constraints, what would be on that list?
Are you happy to live with those kinds of constraints, or in your heart of hearts would you prefer to have more choices, and be able to confer the same benefits on your children when they were ready to handle that freedom?
The amount of money that you need or want in order to feel that you have “enough” will be different to what someone else requires. If you feel that you can live on a few hundred dollars a week and you feel confident that your current savings can generate that in your retirement, or if you feel confident that your pension or superannuation fund will pay that out in retirement, then maybe you already have all that you require and this book is a waste of time for you. Pass it on to someone else. Given what’s happening to the economy I’d consider that type of confidence deeply unwise, but it’s not my job to convince people of that.
However if you know that you need or want more than what you already have, if you want to get rid of debt, or if you have hopes and dreams that require more cash, or if you want to be able to help your children more, or help a worthy cause dear to your heart, then this book is perfect for you.
Likewise if you are currently in a situation that is causing pain because you don’t have enough power of choice in how you spend your time, if you’re being torn from the people who need you because of a job that controls you, then this book is perfect for you.
The
big message in this book is that unless you already have an adequate,
secure source of residual or passive income, then you need to find a
way to get that.
Trained
to Be Poor!
Did you ever hear these words as you were growing up?
“Work hard at
school and get good marks so you can get into a good
university
course.”
“Work
hard at university and get good marks so you can get a good job.”
“Work
for 40 or 50 hours a week, for 40 or 50 years, and if you’re lucky
you
might end up owning your own home, and retire on about 1/3 of
your
working income.”
Most of us have been taught that we need to spend the whole of our working lives accumulating a lump sum investment (eg, superannuation) which will continue to deliver an income into your retirement and cover all of your increasing expenses over that time. (We baby boomers are well aware that pensions and other government support are evaporating by the second.)
If we go along with that view, then depending on the risk level of your investment, you’ll receive somewhere between 4 and 10 percent interest, less whatever tax level you’re categorised at. For most people the nest egg which can be accumulated over 40 or 50 years will be somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000 dollars, providing an income between $20,000 and $100,000 per annum. Statisticians tell us that the average is actually around $30,000 per couple - absolutely not enough to live on.
If you were able to save to that extent, how long would it take you to save that amount of money? How old would you be by then? What are your chances of getting hold of that cash if you continue doing what you’re currently doing? Is there really a faster way that can short-cut years of arduous saving?
Let’s take a look ...
WORK
FROM HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
Chapter
3: Your Financial Options
Option
1 – Get Another Job or Win a Raise
If
you want to stay in the job lottery (and maybe you have no choice
while you build up your home business) you can increase your current
income and save more money by:
• Getting a
second job
• Having your spouse get a second
job
• Studying for a better qualification and
getting a better job
• Winning a raise in your
current position
• Getting a promotion to a
higher-paid position
You may be able to increase your income by perhaps $10-20,000 per annum with this strategy, minus tax at a higher rate. You should be able to save maybe an extra $7-15,000 per annum with this strategy, and if you did this for 20 years without ever dipping into it, the accumulated savings and interest would be somewhere between $300,000 and $893,000. At the end of 20 years, that would generate a passive income of between $12,000 and $89,000 per annum, less any taxes payable.
Of
course, in 20 years that money won’t be worth anything like what
those sums represent right now!
For the overwhelming
majority of people, this is nowhere near enough to live on, with any
degree of comfort, let alone freedom. But it’s a choice that
the majority of people make, and for some people it may be all that
they’re capable of.
What usually drives people away from the employment scenario is the pain of not having enough money to live the life of their choice, and also not having control over their time, having to literally ask permission of a boss before making decisions about where to be, and for how long.
This
latter issue was brought home to me very loud and clear when a
colleague described having to take holiday leave in order to visit a
critically ill brother. Unfortunately as it turned out it became
obvious that he was going to pass away in the relatively near future
and of course every shred of her being wanted to be there with him
and the rest of the family at such a tragic time. My colleague was
put in a position where she actually had to call her boss and
literally beg to be allowed to stay, and it was then that she
realised she’d been living the life of a slave, where her time was
not her own. Never again.
Option
2 – Start a Business
Only this morning I was looking at a list of our State’s top 100 wealthy people and what stood out was that invariably they were entrepreneurs, and invariably they had made money in businesses associated with engineering, mining, oil and gas, or large hospitality or education holdings. Nowhere was there anyone who’d made big money in small business.
Nevertheless it’s quite surprising how many people think that starting their own small business is a smart way to accumulate wealth or to build an asset which has real value. The cold hard facts are that something like 90% of small businesses fail, and that most business owners don’t actually own a saleable business, but instead have “bought a job”; one that pays poorly and robs them of personal and family time, as well as providing a whole lot of stress.
If you’re lucky enough to survive the first 3 years, you certainly will not have made a profit in most cases. Most businesses don’t even break even in that time.
Starting
a business, whether buying a business or building a new business, is
an expensive, high-risk strategy that could lose everything you have
worked so hard for.
Option
3 – Learn to Invest in Property or Shares
Really I should put these in 2 different categories because property investment is so much more secure than investing in shares or trading in shares. But one only has to see how property prices have plummeted in the United States virtually overnight, and are still falling month to month in Australia, to realise that even this has its risks.
Lots of people think that things can’t get much worse in Australia, but despite our mineral wealth we are absolutely at the mercy of our international markets. If China crashes, or no longer needs our minerals because it has its own (and it currently owns 100% of a massive mining operation in Western Australia and is about to build another, plus it is working on alternative sources in developing nations where they can secure supplies more cheaply) then our resources sector would crash overnight.
As I write this, share prices worldwide are crashing and many analysts are predicting a worse scenario than the Great Depression.
In relation to share trading there are “outfits” (I won’t dignify them with the word “organisations”) which promise to teach you to make money on the stock market whether it is doing well or poorly. If this were true then don’t you think the most skilful and highly-experienced brokers in the world would be doing it for themselves? Sure there are success stories, but most people waste their multi-thousand-dollar training courses and lose money on the stock exchange as well. Money they didn’t have.
So while investing in blue-chip stocks may be wise, and while prudent property investment may be wise, both of these require substantial cash or assets in order to secure the shares or property, and both take time to return an income. Plus both carry risks, particularly in today’s economic climate.
My
advice is to look at them, but don’t use them as your main source
of income because that would make you 100% exposed to risk. You need
another “iron in the fire” in order to both accumulate wealth,
and assure a continuing, growing income over the years, one that
keeps coming whether you work or not, which you can sell or bequeath
to your children as you see fit in your declining years.
Option
4 – The No-Risk or Almost-No-Risk, Home Business Residual Income
Strategy
Only
about 1% of people do really well with this strategy and that’s
because 99% of the population:
• Make the
wrong choice because they don’t do proper due diligence. I’m
going to be spending a lot of time and space on due diligence in this
book so that you will not be one of those people!
•
Won’t even look at it because they presume they’re all the
same (most times having had only the most appalling experiences of it
and watched loved ones lose money and more because they “bought a
dud”). If you’ve had a closed mind to the potential of this type
of business, be prepared for some very pleasant surprises.
•
Won’t even look at it because they think they have to sell,
and “selling” is a dirty word. In fact if you have to “sell”,
it’s a dud! And anyway, the most high-pressure people in my
business are not those who’ve come from professional sales
backgrounds. The very
worst
are ordinary people with a lot of enthusiasm, who come across way
too enthusiastic and pushy.
My hardest job is teaching people NOT
to sell. NOBODY appreciates being sold at.
•
Are not prepared to stick to a simple plan – these people
keep trying to re-invent the wheel, only they keep re-inventing it
square and wonder why it won’t work. You’re not going to get
anywhere by ignoring a proven plan in favour of seat-of-the-pants
experimentation. Some people are just too “maverick” and thereby
avoid success, rather than enjoying it.
•
Think they have no time, when in fact if it’s the real deal
they can do it on 1 hour a week. Most people I talk to are
high-quality professionals or business owners and almost without
exception they initially believe they don’t have enough time. The
problem is that most people don’t manage their time as efficiently
as they could – when we work together to streamline their day and
make it so much easier, it’s always possible to find at least 1-5
hours that they can conveniently dedicate to building their own
successful home business. If financial security is important to them,
they'll find time. If it's not, they won't.
•
Have an attitude problem and are simply too negative to be
involved in a strategy that relies on authentic relationship
building. You actually have to like yourself, and like other people,
and have a genuine interest in being the best that you can,
personally and professionally, and be willing to commit to lifelong
learning. Anything less will achieve only mediocre results, if
any.
• Won’t ask for help. No-one
ever succeeded in business by themselves. In every case of a
successful business person, there was invariably a whole, giant
network of people around him or her. Success is a team effort and we
need to have the strength of character and maturity to recognise when
we’re out of our depth, or when we’ve hit upon a personal or
professional weakness, or lack knowledge. We need to feel perfectly
comfortable about working with more experienced or skilled team
members in order to keep moving ahead.
This strategy that I’m talking about is network marketing. Now put away your garlic and crosses and listen up.
A few years ago I wrote a book called “Why 98% of Downlines Fail” in an attempt to protect people involved in network marketing, simply because the problems in the industry were so appalling and so many people were getting hurt. I set up a web site with free membership to accompany this free book so that people could get the help they needed, regardless of which company they’d joined.
I wrote the “MLM Code of Ethics” because despite the industry peak body having brilliant ethics, these weren’t being translated to the coalface, except within a handful of model companies.
So I am a fan of the industry in general for the reasons you’ll shortly see, but a pretty loud critic of the bad practices I’m sure you’ve come across.
The reason I’m a critic is that I see too many companies that operate more like pyramid schemes than bona fide businesses, and especially too many companies that have products that are over-priced or which people don’t really want. I also see companies that are still stuck in the cowboy days of the industry, or where a lot of distributors engage in unprofessional, bullying behaviour.
The reason I’m a fan is that this is truly the most egalitarian business model in the world, where the guy at the bottom can earn more than the guy at the top, if the compensation plan is fair. And it’s an industry where it really is possible, provided you pick the right company, to build a sustainable residual income that can deliver any level of wealth that you choose. The good companies provide incredible support and resources and literally work alongside you every step of the way to give you the expertise you need, and the information you need to reach that success. There are not-so-nice people in every industry, but generally you’ll find good people in good companies.
It’s also an industry which can deliver wealth where there has been poverty, and can protect troubled economies from the impact of local catastrophe. It’s an industry that can make every business person a global business, competing easily on a world scale. It’s an industry where an ordinary person, with commitment and diligence, can indeed achieve any income he/she dreams of.
The next chapter is about how to avoid even well-meaning duds, and how to pick the strongest, most lucrative and most enduring business you possibly can.
WORK
FROM HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
Chapter
4: The Process of Due Diligence
Crucial to your success is picking the right company, and here’s a simple list of due diligence items that should always be carefully checked but almost never are. You can ignore these and just go by gut feeling, or just believe the sales material or information that the company itself has given you, but do that at your peril. If you want to achieve wealth, you need to have a professional approach to the selection of your company, and to the execution of their proven business building strategy.
You also need to be skeptical, and avoid gullibility at all costs. This means developing a level of sophistication particularly when it comes to checking out scientific claims, because I can tell you that there are the most ridiculous, obscene, claims being made out there by traditional businesses, and by network marketing businesses alike, especially in the area of health and beauty, and even more especially in the area of anti-aging. There are companies that are obsolete, but are desperately hanging onto market share by trying to trick you into thinking they, too, have a genuine anti-aging product, or a genuine weight loss product.
The
following will help to protect you against being taken for a ride, as
a business owner or as a consumer!
The
14 Steps of Due Diligence
1
– You need to have a product or products which many people strongly
desire, which is not available any other way or anywhere else, and
which is affordable and competitively priced.
Wow, that’s a lot packed into one heading, but I urge you to consider each aspect very carefully. If there isn’t a proven, ravenous consumer market for the product then you’ll be pushing the “proverbial” uphill every time you show people. If it’s a common thing they can get anywhere, trust me, they’d rather keep doing that than change their purchasing habits and buy from you. If it’s not affordable, or priced above what people are already buying, then again it’s going to be hard going.
There are a lot of network marketing companies where there isn’t actually any real consumer base, and where the only people buying are the distributors in order to get their point score up. This is not a real business and there is next to no hope that you will make money. There must be a genuine consumer market of people who are crazy for the product.
So if the product is one that people are crazy for, if it’s a complete monopoly and they can’t get it anywhere else, and if the price is terrific, then you know you’re not going to have to struggle to move big volumes. It’ll just be a matter of sharing it and people will be making up their own minds and pulling out their credit cards.
Many companies claim that their products are “the highest quality” or “the most natural”. These days that is nowhere near enough! The world is absolutely awash with completely natural, highest possible quality products and this is no longer a competitive advantage! You need a degree of exclusivity which is way above this in order to really succeed.
Why waste your time on boring or dud products when you can be involved with products that are so exciting and unique that people think of you as their new best friend?
Now here is an incomplete list of the types of products that in my opinion you definitely should avoid:
Coffee – coffee, despite what the MLM company will tell you, is not a differentiated product. They may see it that way, and their distributors may see it that way, but I assure you the general public does not, and that’s what counts. Relatively few people are going to think that it’s sensible or convenient to buy your “special”, expensive coffee by auto-ship from you rather than just pop their favourite brand into their shopping trolley at the supermarket. Sure some people are making big money, but it’s hard, hard going, working with this type of product. My advice: avoid this type of deal like the plague.
Chocolate – exactly as for coffee.
Cleaning products – exactly as for chocolate.
Health drinks – yes, I know there are some good products out there, but the problem is that they are way, way too expensive and people end up dumping them and going back to their old habits. You’re constantly suffering from loss of your customer base, and having to find new customers all over again. You simply cannot build a business that will sustain you after retirement on this basis.
Jewelry – way too much competition. And there’s no guaranteed flow of consumables from month to month.
Clothing – exactly as for jewelry.
Communications technology - this includes telephone services, email services, video calling services, etc. (See the section on technological immunity to understand why these are bad news.)
Anything
where you have to convince people
that what you have is better than what they’re already using,
unless it is an absolute world beater that can do phenomenal things
that nothing else can get close to. You must be picky!
2
– Again regarding products, there must be proof of any claims
It’s so difficult for the man in the street, without the benefit of skills in business analysis or critical thinking, and without knowledge of how to assess so-called scientific data, to make an informed decision.
The health and wellness industry is awash with claims that are merely vague inferences, or are backed up by invalid or low-grade scientific references, or aren’t backed by anything at all. One slimming product had a scientific study that was done in a third-world country by fairly unknown academics - this type of "study" is absolutely meaningless. Don't join a business in this industry unless there are rigorous 3rd-party studies by scientists who are regarded as being at the top of their field and are associated with world-respected universities or laboratories.
I often get sent requests by people to check out the science behind their product. They’re invariably as pleased as punch to be able to sock it to a big-mouth like me by showing me that they do too have proper scientific evidence for the claims made for their products. If that’s you please don’t bother – invariably I find these so-called studies full of potholes that a 4th-year science student would spot a mile off, packed with conclusions that are not in any way supported by the very data they quote, run by scientists who are about as far from the head of their field as you could imagine, and certainly not major, randomised, double-blind, controlled, cross-over studies designed, run and analysed by people qualified to do so.
Even worse, they offer bucket loads of testimonials as if this were some kind of proof. This is absolutely not proof because for every person who claims a benefit, there could be thousands of people who've gained nothing. As an example, look at the credence that hypnosis has as a quit smoking strategy. Almost everyone knows someone who knows someone who's quit smoking after hypnosis. However if you keep records of large numbers of people who've tried hypnosis to quit smoking, you'll see that less than 1% succeed. That's a lower rate than people who try to quit simply by going "cold turkey".
So if you see some silly wrist band that claims to increase people’s energy levels, or give them superior sports performance, or some other such claims, run a mile! If you see a weight loss product, run a bigger mile, because one thing we absolutely know is that no product currently on the market achieves permanent weight loss. Even the weight loss shakes that are around now don’t work. Over time people’s tummies adapt to them and they just stop working! If you don’t believe me, check out the forums of users and listen to their stories.
Please, before you sign your name, before you hand over a dollar, just put “product name, scam” into your browser and see what respected scientists have to say. Also Google “has anyone used product X” and you’ll come right up close and personal with the failure of that product to do what has been promised.
There
certainly are some amazing products out there, but they are few and
far between.
3
– Don’t let them “nickel and dime” you
I often see companies with products or services that merely deliver a few cents or a few dollars per transaction, per person. This means that you need to find hundreds or thousands of customers before you break even. If you can’t show your prospective downline how to make money quickly, why would anyone look twice at your company?
Sure they’ll tell you that you need to build a big team in order to get LEVERAGE that will multiply those cents into hundreds or thousands of dollars. Why not combine this principle of leverage with a decent amount of income per transaction? Don’t settle for a few cents or dollars per transaction because you don’t have to!
Make
sure the flow of income is substantial even for beginners.
4
– Don’t stock big inventories or do monthly orders of stuff you
don’t need!
I’m always horrified when people show me companies which require people to carry large stocks, or to purchase advance orders of stock they don’t personally need. Some time ago a dear colleague asked me to review an opportunity he was assessing. There were several things wrong, but a key fault was that they required him to purchase over $300 of stock per month which he was expected to onsell.
In
some businesses that wouldn’t be such a big problem but this one
was in a competitive market where people could already get an
equivalent product cheaper. He had to find 150 new customers (whom he
would personally deliver to) or a regular retailer (whom he would
also personally deliver to) who would put it on the shelf at a
wholesale
price higher than they were already selling other product at retail.
It was total madness.
5
– Don’t get involved in businesses where you’re running around
delivering to customers
This is another of my pet hates and I regard it as completely unprofessional of the company to require its distributors to do this. In fact I get angry when I see competent business builders have their time wasted in this way, let alone being dumped with the delivery costs which the company should be handling!
Make
sure that from day 1 of your business, you are building leverage, NOT
creating a job for yourself. The question you need to ask yourself is
“who’s going to do this after I’m gone?” If the answer is
“no-one” then you don’t have a business.
6
- The product/s should be immune to technological change
We can never be totally sure with technology whether something is going to last, or whether a company is going to stay at the forefront and therefore survive and thrive. If the product/s carry strong patents and it would appear that no-one can duplicate or improve on it, then you’re onto a winner.
If it’s communication technology for instance and you can see that pretty soon it’s probably going to be free or almost free and offered all over the place, then you sure wouldn’t base a business on it!
Example 1 – Video Phones: there is a technology company which has as its showpiece some video phone technology. The fact is that even right now people can do free video calling with their mobile phone, anywhere in the world, including conference video calls. We even have internet-enabled televisions that can replace the home phone altogether. This company is a slow-motion train wreck and yet to this day people are still flocking to it!
Example 2 - Video Email Facility: another company offers video email facility, quoting studies that show increased open rates and increased response rates on video emails. Anyone can already send video emails FOR FREE if they know the simple method, and as more people become technologically savvy, this is a service that will soon be NOT ONLY completely free but probably a simple add-on for Outlook or some such. But of course they’re signing up heaps of new people who are completely unaware that their business will soon be obsolete.
I’ve got a lovely old business friend who has basically chucked in her interior design business to devote the last years of her working life to this dud business. I’ve tried to point out that people can already send video emails for free but she’s so financially and emotionally trapped that she can’t listen.
And
by the way, the only studies I’ve seen about video mails were about
how intrusive people found them. If I got 100 video emails in my
inbox I’d be putting the whole box through another layer of
filtering to block them out.
7-
There should be a flow of consumables via automatic monthly delivery
that pretty much every customer WANTS
One of the biggest complaints about network marketing is that there is no genuine consumer market because the only people who buy and use the products are the distributors. In most cases this is absolutely true so I’m the last person who would debate or criticize that complaint.
THERE ABSOLUTELY MUST BE A PROVEN CONSUMER MARKET FOR THE PRODUCT, AND THAT MARKET MUST HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT PEOPLE ARE BUYING AGAIN AND AGAIN BECAUSE THEY RAMPANTLY DESIRE THAT PRODUCT. END ... OF ... STORY.
Also, if you have to constantly find new clients, instead of having clients that buy and buy again automatically, then it will be a struggle. There’s no leverage in that. By having products that people really WANT regularly, and which attract a significant discount and other rewards by being on auto-ship, you’ll ensure continuity of that income stream, as well as eventually a huge raft of customers who rave about your products to others and literally act as your happy sales team!
If you will get this right, you’ll quickly build a global business because as people refer to others, that will include friends and contacts all around the world. Brenda will know someone in Sydney, who will know someone in Jersey, who will know someone in Cape Town, who will know someone in New York, and so on and so on. This kind of news spreads fast, and this is exactly why word of mouth beats anything you can do on the internet, for example.
One very savvy company actually uses auto-ship to build customer loyalty and retention, and increase sales at the same time, by not only discounting auto-ship over standard purchases, but by giving back a massive rebate in free products of the consumer’s choice. This leads to consumer’s trialling products they otherwise would not have experienced, and liking these so much that they add them to their future orders.
Who
gets the benefit? The company, the distributor who found the customer
in the first place, and the customer! Now that’s smart!
8
- The age of the company is a good indication that it’ll be around
for a while yet!
You might be surprised to know that thousands of new network marketing companies start up every year, and thousands die. The younger a company is, the less of a track record it has, and the more risk you are taking on.
This doesn’t mean that all young companies should be avoided, or that all old companies are a good choice, but it’s an indication. If you’re in your 20’s and have got time to get it wrong, you can afford to take more risk. If you’re 30’s or above, you should more likely stick to solid companies that have exceptional track records.
I’ve
known of highly-skilled distributors who’ve spent months or even
years building up a very lucrative home business, only to have the
parent company collapse and the products disappear, along with their
monthly cheque. Don’t invest your time or your energy in something
that is unlikely to go the distance.
9
– The founders and chief executives should be people of excellent
repute
This may surprise you but there is a strong prevalence of business failure, lousy ethics, and even criminality in this industry mainly because it’s seen as a “get rich quick” scenario. It attracts the worst of people as well as the very best of people.
Check carefully that you are joining a company led by the best of people. Find out who are the founders and the key executives, as well as the leading scientists both on staff and on the scientific advisory board. Google their names along with the words: scam, crime, problem, complaint, court case, etc, to dig all the dirt you can.
I did this when a colleague tried to sell me on a company selling a bogus “energy bracelet” and discovered that the founder had lied about his credentials (he didn’t actually have any), that an “award” he’d been given was from a colleague, that a patent he claimed to have in fact had been rejected by the patent office (I saw a signed copy of the rejection letter), that the one and only “scientist” on the team was a discredited doctor currently being investigating for distributing controlled substances, and that the only other “doctor” was a chiropractor whose only association with a university was as a track team coach. Did my friend want to know about this stuff? No way, he flatly refused to believe it!
Please be very skeptical, but at the same time recognise that not all complaints or criticism are valid. All big companies have skeletons in the closet, like past and existing legal cases for instance. You can’t achieve without stepping on toes, and business generally (not just network marketing) was once pretty “wild west”. And remember that human beings work in all companies, and human beings can and do make mistakes, and can and do make poor judgement calls also. Everyone is working toward higher levels of professionalism and ethics.
Also there are a lot of disgruntled people out there who have failed not because of a company or product, but because they took wrong advice or simply didn’t have the personal and professional qualities necessary for success. I’ve seen some pretty hateful stuff written by highly-qualified people whom I otherwise like and admire – even at that level people can seek to place blame elsewhere.
You
may also find some false or mischievous complaints planted in various
forums, such as a completely harmless product somehow doing damage.
One which I saw some months ago discussed a piece of equipment used
in facial treatments and the claim was that it resulted in a burn. I
won’t go into the detail here because I don’t want to identify
the product, but I can tell you it is physically impossible for that
product to create a burn, even if it were held stationary in one spot
for an hour (and that would be stupid).
10
– The team you are joining matters almost as much as the company
you are joining
You can pretty well sum up the team you are joining by the calibre of the person who has presented the opportunity to you. They may be new, and may not have developed much expertise or have a track record, but even if that’s the case they should be able to point out those individuals who form the team, and those who lead the team, so that you can access the solid guidance, training, and personal support to back you every step of the way and assure your success.
If you’re talking to someone who can’t at least get you on the phone or on Skype with a successful team member who is also keen to work with you, this is probably not an indication that you’re joining a quality team. Successful teams are successful because they’re doing it right and it makes sense to stick with winners.
And
success is not an individual pursuit. Success is a team effort.
11
– Financial strength of the company
Being debt free isn’t everything, but if a company is genuinely debt free and asset rich, and can demonstrate increasing sales, especially if it’s publicly traded (so that its finances are transparent) and if it has an excellent credit ranking, then it’s probably a company that has tremendous financial strength.
Hop onto the stock exchange web site and check out what analysts are saying, as well as checking out the stock charts. You can also use Yahoo! Finance to do comparative stock charts and see how your company stacks up against competitors.
Be aware that technological change can make these charts irrelevant overnight – you still have to know your industry, the direction it’s taking, and what developments are in the wings. For instance in the 500 billion-dollar-a-year weight loss industry there is a company that’s highly successful on the back of its weight loss product (which incidentally, objective 3rd-party studies show is no better than placebo) and its shares are doing very well. However probably less than 3 years away is a product that will work with gene expression to make it generally impossible to gain or retain additional weight. It will be cheaper than what’s currently available, and it will provide real and substantial weight control for the first time in history. That is called a game changer and you need to be looking out for those in order to be sure your company will stay financially strong.
Financial
strength doesn’t just depend on what has happened in the past, or
what’s happening now, but on the future trends of the industry –
you must know your industry well enough to know what’s on the
horizon.
12
– Physical location of the company
It should go without saying that if a company does not have a headquarters at a known physical location, with contact details readily available, then don’t even give it a second glance. That type of business can and has disappeared overnight leaving many thousands of people in the lurch.
Likewise your emails or phone calls should be returned very promptly, including those requesting refunds!
Check the physical location and make sure it’s real and substantial, not just a garage at someone’s house.
There
is a very successful scam
doing the rounds right now that claims to be founded by people who’ve
“made millions” blah blah blah, "gurus" blah blah blah
(you know the drill). Yet their physical address is a motorcycle
shop. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
13
– The money must keep coming even long after you’ve retired
There are only a handful of companies where the business you build is an actual asset which you own, which continues to deliver high residual income even after your death, so that your children and grandchildren can benefit, and which you can sell, put a manager in, or even borrow money on.
Make
sure that when you stop working, the company is still working for
you. Otherwise it’s no different than a job, where the money stops
if you stop.
14
- The compensation plan
I put this one last because it’s possibly the least important, despite what you’ll be told. If everything else is right, the compensation plan barely registers on the scale of significance.
In any case most compensation plans are extremely complex and for good reason, because if there is a strategic error in the compensation plan it will lead to activities that don’t promote sustainability or growth. For instance compensation plans that pay for recruitment tend to lead to failure. Essentially, commissions should be paid only when product is purchased.
If you avoid starting with the company until you understand the compensation plan, you will never join, because you will not “get” it until you experience it. That’s why the top companies often won’t get into any great detail until you join, and include that in the training process of new people.
As you get to know and understand the compensation plan better, you’ll see just how exquisitely intelligent and strategic many of them are when it comes to encouraging the exact activities that lead to the most success for the distributors.
You’ll hear lots of criticisms of particular types of compensations plans: breakaway, matrix, binary, etc, etc, etc. Please don’t buy into that stuff – it’s just people trying to dump on other people’s methodology.
Here’s an example I saw in a forum recently. The failed distributor was railing about breakaway compensation plans. This is where when a distributor underneath you attains a certain status or level, they “break away” from you. They are still in your downline, but their points no longer count to your points. However providing you retain your own status, you now get paid even more on that team than you did prior to their breaking away.
The whole purpose of this is to encourage the formation of strong, independent and sustainable businesses, and the people who are successful in guiding and mentoring others to “break away” will be those that enjoy the highest levels of financial reward, not only now, but long after retirement, because what they’re created is self-sustaining.
If you’re building something where you need to keep “changing nappies” in order to keep things going, that is really not a sustainable business.
WORK
FROM HOME
Choose
Smart & Live the Dream
Chapter
5: What Will You Need to Do to Be Successful with a Network
Distribution Business?
First up, although in time you’ll want to be an expert on your products, your initial attention needs to go into learning exactly what is the duplication model used by the business. You’ve got to understand the business first and get cracking with the close help of your sponsor. Do you think Richard Branson had to learn how to fly a plane, or how to be an air hostess, before he built Virgin? Think like a business owner, not like an employee or sales person.
Your sponsor will help you set your financial goals for the business, and together you'll determine how much time can be devoted and when. Your sponsor will help you make a list of people who may be interested in seeing the products, and others who may, like you, be entrepreneurial and open to evaluating the business options for themselves so they can also work successfully from home.
This will NEVER mean pressuring people or trying to convince them to look at your products or business. Please RUN from any company that teaches pressure tactics because people who join you under pressure WILL NOT STAY. They will not remain customers, and they will not remain as business builders, because they have not joined of their own free will, and do not have any commitment.
Be fussy about whom you accept as a customer, or as a downline business builder, and you will build strongly and sustainably.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-28 show above.)