Are You Failing At Affiliate Marketing?

Why So Many People Fail In Affiliate Marketing

More and More people are lured into affiliate marketing and you might be one of them. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the most effective means of generating a full-time income through the Internet. It’s a fair deal between the merchandiser and his affiliates as both benefit from each sale materialized. Like in other kinds of business, a great deal of the profits in affiliate marketing depends on the affiliates advertising, promoting and selling strategies. Everyday, as affiliate marketing industry expands, competition heightens as well so an affiliate marketer must be creative enough to employ unique and effective ways to convince potential buyers to purchase or avail of the products and services offered.

Compared to traditional advertising practices, affiliate programs are more effective, risk-free and cost-efficient. But why do many people still fail in affiliate marketing? There are a lot of reasons and a lot of areas in the program to look into. The most critical aspect in the affiliate program is advertising. Many affiliate marketers fail in this aspect because they lack hard work, which is the most important thing in affiliate marketing and in all other kinds of business as well. Although it pays to be lucky, you cannot merely rely on it. Affiliate marketing isn’t as simple as directing customers to the business site. If you want to earn big, of course, you have to invest time and great amount of hard work in promoting the products. As earlier mentioned, the competition is very high and customers nowadays are very wise, too. After all, who doesn’t want to get the best purchase—that is, to pay less and get more in terms of quantity and quality.

Lack of preparation is also a reason why one fails in affiliate marketing, whether he is a merchandiser or an affiliate. Part of the preparation is researching. On the part of the merchant, he has to be highly selective in choosing the right affiliate websites for his affiliate program. In order to be sure he has the best choices, he must have exhausted his means in looking for highly interested affiliates whose sites are sure fit to his products and services. The affiliate site’s visitors must match his targeted customers. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer must likewise research on the good-paying merchandisers before he signs up for an affiliate program. He must ensure that the merchants’ products and services match his interests so he can give his full attention and dedication to the program. He can get valuable information by joining affiliate forums, comparing different affiliate programs and reading articles on affiliate marketing where he can get tips from experienced affiliate marketers on how to choose the best merchants and products with high conversion rate.

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Affiliate Marketing experts is time. If you'll invest a little more time in reading, you'll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to
Affiliate Marketing.

The website is a very important tool in the whole affiliate program. As an affiliate marketer, you should plan how your site is going to be, from domain name to the design, the lay-out, the content, and ads. Some users are particular about what they see at first glance and thus when they find your site ugly, they won’t read through the content even if your site has many things to say and offer. On the other hand, there those who want information more than anything else. Affiliate marketers with “rich-content” web sites are usually the ones who prosper in this business because the content improves traffic to the site. Websites with high quality contents—with relevant keywords and more importantly, right information about the product and not empty hyped-up advertisements—allow you to earn big in affiliate marketing even when you’re asleep. If you won’t be able to sustain the interest of your site visitor, you won’t be able to lead him to the merchants’ site. No click-through means no sale and thus, no income on your part.

Selecting a top level domain name is also crucial to the success of the affiliate program. Lots of affiliate sites don’t appear in the search engine results because they are deemed by affiliate managers as personal sites. Major search engines and directories would think of your site as transient ones and thus, they won’t list it in the directory. Before you decide on the domain name, know first what you are going to promote. Many fail because their sites are not appropriately named, so even when they feature the exact products the customer is looking for, the customer might think the site is not relevant and thus, won’t enter the site.

Above all, an affiliate marketer must be willing to learn more. Certainly, there are still a lot of things to learn and so an affiliate marketer must continue to educate himself so he can improve his marketing strategies. Many fail because they don’t grow in the business and they are merely concerned about earning big quickly. If you want long-term and highly satisfactory results, take time to learn the ins and outs of the business. Continue to improve your knowledge especially with the basics in affiliate marketing ranging from advertising to programming, web page development, and search engine optimization techniques. Likewise, study the needs and wants of your site users and how different merchandisers compete with each other.

Keep on trying; don’t get disappointed if your first attempts did not pay off. Thousands are attracted by the possibility of generating skyrocketing incomes through affiliate marketing and so they sign up in any affiliate program without carefully understanding every aspect of the business. When they don’t get instant results, they quit and sign up for another program and repeat the process of just copying links and referring them to others. When you sign up for an affiliate program, don’t expect to get rich in an instant. Work on your advertising strategies and be patient. You’ll never know how much you can get if you don’t persevere.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

Successful Affiliate Marketing

How to Set Yourself Apart From Other Affiliates


Considered today as one of the best and easiest way to earn some money, affiliate marketing is now attracting many people to represent themselves in this type of business. But as competition is getting a bit bigger, you may need some ways to distinguish yourself from the rest of the affiliate marketers. For the major reason that many of your competitors including you are promoting the exact same program, in the exact same zone or on the exact same websites perhaps. Now here are some tips that you may consider in order for you to stay in this business and have the chance to outwit and outplay other competitors of yours.

The first thing is for you to have your own website. It is very essential for you to have your own website in considering affiliate marketing as your professional career. Secondly, potential customers primarily go to websites in order for them to search and sometimes purchase items they were looking for. For the same reason that it is much easier to remember than a certain URL that you may be using and you can just point to your visitors the affiliate page in your website.

Another thing to remember is to have your own ad. A lot of times affiliates marketers have published the same ad two or three times done by advertisers. In this case, you may email the owner of your affiliate program asking that you make your own ads. This way, people may not become immune to ads, because sometimes seeing the same ads over and over again, may just make your potential customers to just skip it all together. Besides, your primarily purpose is to attract or encourage people to click and read your ads and be curios enough to click through your website.

Step three, have some products of your won which are only available through your website. Once you have your website going, it is important to have some products or services that your customers can’t find with other affiliate’s site. You want your customers to keep coming to your site and the best way to do that is to have something on your site that they can’t find on others. Being an affiliate marketer we must then choose a certain market segment where you can have a potential leadership or at least a strong challenger role.

The fourth step is to build a strong relationship with people who already buy your product. Now, in order for you as the marketer to fully answer the query of your potential customers, it is best to try and buy the product by yourself. With this particular notion, you can better sell the product that you are trying to market. You can share to your potential customers what a great experience you had with the product, and this can make them interested enough to buy the product. You may also be able to provide a support if necessary or you may provide a confident tutorial or steps on how to use the product that you are trying to market based on your personal experience. Entailing this idea is to be totally honest about the product that you are trying to market. If you find out that the program you were promoting is a scam, stop promoting it and inform your readers about it. This will help you build credibility with your lists.

If you find yourself confused by what you've read to this point, don't despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

We all make mistakes and admitting your mistake will boost your reader’s confidence in you. Lastly, don’t try to market everything you see. With services such as click bank, it is easy to become overwhelmed and try to market everything in the click bank marketplace. That is not a good idea. It’s better to focus on one market and market products that they would want. This is called niche marketing.

Try also to promote a certain product, which conforms to the specifications measured through indications of customer-satisfaction, rather than indicators of self-gratification. It is the customer who decides what to buy and not the company or the affiliate marketer. The company simply produces products catering to the needs and wants of their chosen market segment.

Today, different types of business are emerging from all over the world in a multinational level to reign supreme on their specific market segment that they are trying to dominate, and affiliate marketing is one of them. Affiliate marketing is definitely here to stay and it can become a great way to earn extra or even part time income. However, it won’t happen overnight. Like everything else in life, you’re going to have to put a lot of hard work into it.

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliates site, is redirected to the merchant's website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

Hopefully the sections above have contributed to your understanding of affiliate. Share your new understanding about affiliate with others. They'll thank you for it.

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5 Things You Need To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing

5 Things You Need To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing

The best course of action to take sometimes isn't clear until you've listed and considered your alternatives. The following paragraphs should help clue you in to what the experts think is significant.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing? What must you have within yourself to be able to do well in this industry? There is a lot of competition involved in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm,you must be equipped with just the right stuff necessary to propel you forward. There are five things you must ultimately possess if you want to achieve the glory you are yearning for in this business, and these five things are a must for you to possess to be able to stand out among the rest.

1. The very first quality you must possess if you want to try your hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff if you are not properly equipped, and you might get lost amidst a jungle of the unknown. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important aspect of the game, and one’s willingness to know it all will give him far better advantages in the business than he could ever imagine.

2. The second quality you must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort even if direct results do not seem at all apparent. Although several months may pass without good news, it is important for you to not give up. It is this quality which would save you from giving up after investing a lot of yourself in the business.

3. The third quality you must possess is self-determination. If you want to conquer the affiliate marketing world,you must have the ability to push yourself ahead. Never having to say die is a quality each and every affiliate marketer should possess, and the ability to motivate yourself into scaling greater heights is an ability which would actually take an affiliate marketer there.

4. The fourth quality you must possess is discipline. If you know how to teach yourself to work everyday with all the energy you can muster, then you are close to achieving what you have set your heart to having in the first place. Staying on track is a must if you want to succeed. Do not get discouraged if your sales are not what you expected.

5. The fifth and last quality you must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes and hearsays should not discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing what he has to in order to make life better for himself and for everyone concerned.

The ingredients to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing you need to be able to make it big lies in yourself.

Knowing enough about affiliate to make solid, informed choices cuts down on the fear factor. If you apply what you've just learned about affiliate marketing, you should have nothing to worry about.

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Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate's site, is redirected to the merchant's website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

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5 Steps to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing

5 Steps to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing


The idea of being mere passengers on a ship meant to sail to the farthest points does not appeal to people who like to put their destiny into their own hands. They have the desire of maneuvering the ships themselves, of being able to be the ones to take it anywhere they want to. Being aboard a ship on its way to a particularly great destination is something each and every one of them dreams of, and the knowledge that they have the capacity to steer it themselves is what makes them actually want to.

Perhaps this is the reason why more and more people are succumbing to one of the most popular businesses around – affiliate marketing. It is because in this business, there are no bosses to order the employees around. There are no deadlines to meet and no clutter of work do to. One only needs to be equipped with the tools needed to succeed in a business such as this, and he is bound to get what his heart ultimately desires.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing? What must one have within himself to be able to do well in this industry? There is a lot of competition involved in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm, one must be equipped with just the right stuff necessary to propel him forward. There are five things one must ultimately possess if he wants to achieve the glory he is yearning for in this business, and these five things are a must for him to possess to be able to stand out among the rest.


1.The very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff if one is not properly equipped, and he might get lost amidst a jungle of the unknown. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important aspect of the game, and one’s willingness to know it all will give him far better advantages in the business than he could ever imagine.

2.The second quality one must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort even if direct results do not seem at all apparent. Although several months may pass without good news, it is important for one who has his foot in the industry to hold on and wait. It is this quality which would save him from giving up after investing a lot of himself in the business.

3.The third quality one must possess is self-determination. If one wants to conquer the affiliate marketing world, he must have the ability to push himself ahead. Never having to say die is a quality each and every affiliate marketer should possess, and the ability to motivate oneself into scaling greater heights is an ability which would actually take an affiliate marketer there.

4.The fourth quality one must possess is discipline. If one knows how to teach himself to work everyday with all the energy he can muster, then he is close to achieving what he has set his heart to having in the first place.

5.The fifth and last quality one must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes and hearsays should not discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing what he has to in order to make life better for himself and for everyone concerned. Neither should anyone influence his attitude toward the business, because once in it, it is a must for him to be the captain of his ship and the master of his soul.

The ingredients to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing one needs to be able to make it big lies in himself alone. It is he who has the capacity to do everything to be able to realize his prospects, and the desire which fuels his heart in doing so is the gasoline which should keep the engine going.

Affiliate marketing is all about putting one’s fate into his own hands. The right attitude is the key to being able to steer one’s ship into that part of the ocean where a certain kind of serenity can be found, one that permeates the atmosphere as the ship sails calmly on.

How to Stop Existing and Start Living

You’re really getting tired of the 9 to 5 “rat race” and are thinking about chucking it for your own business. All your friends keep telling you that you could do for yourself just what you’re doing now for your boss. Why shouldn’t you profit from your ideas instead of him?

You keep thinking about it because you know that you’ll never be financially where you want to be with a weekly paycheck, but what business would you start?

Before you pack in that weekly paycheck, this is the time to evaluate yourself and your future and it takes some real, down to heart honesty. You want to change your life for the better, so let’s start.

Did you know that you have the potential to do and be anything you want? People have different perceptions of the ideal life, and it ranges from obtaining financial freedom to as simple as owning a new pair of sneakers. Unfortunately, many fail to reach their aspirations because they can’t get a solid, clear picture in their mind of what they want.

Take the next few days and embark on a fact-finding journey that will be a life-changing experience. Get a pad and pencil and start with this first step:

STEP 1 - KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT – Be specific in your passions, then focus all your efforts on that particular desire.

Think about what you've read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about ? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs?

Those who always change their minds and those who give up easily when the going gets tough will never get anywhere. If you’re a bit confused and aren’t sure what you really want in life answer these questions:

1.What makes your heart beat with excitement?

2.What makes you happy?

3.What are you constantly thinking of day and night?

4.What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

5.What do you enjoy doing?

6.What are your obsessions?

7.What things make you jump for joy?

Write down all your possible answers to the above questions. Write down everything, no matter how silly or unimportant it seems. Put all your desires on paper that answers any of the above questions.

When that’s done, go back and circle five to seven items that interest you the most. Then evaluate and choose with your heart, not your mind, the one and only thing worthy to spend all your time and resources on and that brings out the best in you.

Now you may wind up with something like, “I want to play quarterback for the RAMS.” If you’re over 20 I’d say that isn’t too viable a choice, but you could do something related to football or sports. How about starting a sports publication? Or perhaps a sporting goods retail business, sports memorabilia business, or even a gym could be the answer. You can always read books and surf the net to help you in your search.

The most important thing to remember, no matter how “pie in the sky” it seems, is to USE YOUR HEART. Others may disagree with you, but you should be firm with what you really want. Others may offer comments or advice, but the final decision is always yours to make. You should concentrate on what you want, not what others want.

Remember you only get one shot at living your life. There are no replays and you don’t get to do it over. You may not do it right, but at least you’re doing it. Too many lives have been lived in quiet desperation waiting until – until they had saved a nest egg, until the children are out of school, until I retire, and they depart this life before “until” ever arrives.

Don’t go to sleep tonight without making a decision on WHAT YOU REALLY WANT IN LIFE MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

Then spend a few days evaluating how to make it possible and make a living at it. Begin living every day as if it were the last day you had – never leaving anything to be done next week, next month, or next year.

There will always be bills, things will always break down eventually and need replacing, there may be storms and earthquakes and repairs – but there will only be one life for you to live. It can’t be put on “hold”!

The final outcome of your efforts may be in the future, but you’re living each day by taking steps toward that outcome.

How to Stop Existing and Start Living

Five Key Rules on How To Work at Home and Make Big Bucks

Five Key Rules on How To Work at Home and Make Big Bucks

Did you know that the majority of fatal heart attacks happen
at 9 a.m. Monday morning? It's true. It seems a lot of people would
rather die than get back to the old grind after a weekend of freedom.


1. It Takes Commitment

Is it any secret in America that most people detest their jobs? Study
after study proves that most people simply dread going to work Monday
morning, and they live for the freedom of the weekend. But even that
freedom is not pure because we know that it is only temporary. It's hard
to enjoy a Sunday evening when the Monday morning alarm clock is just a

few hours away.

It makes sense that people hate their jobs. Everyday, there is a lot of
butt kissing that needs to be done. There are endless meetings which
usually accomplish nothing. There are pointless interruptions, a lot of
drifting this way and that, and lot of idiot supervisors who do nothing but
waste your time and then dog you for not accomplishing your share of work.
There are co-workers you hate, and who would stab you in the back in a
minute if it meant a raise for them instead of you.

When you work for someone else, you live a regimented life. Your body may
not want to get up at 7 a.m., but you have to be at work by 8 a.m. so you
lurch out of bed with a head full of sleep.

People who choose to work at home are doing more than just escaping the
yoke of their master; they have made a deep, firm, life-altering decision
which says that health, happiness and prosperity depend vitally on the
freedom to work for ourselves, and in doing so in the comfort of the home.

We want to really emphasize that fact that to be successful in a
work-at-home situation, you have to be nothing less than a fanatic; a
zealot, who is utterly committed to making work-at-home not only a
successful venture, but a profound commitment for life. You must be
convinced that a return to an outside office job would be the equivalent of
a spiritual death sentence.

Many people hate their office jobs, but they have made an inner compromise
with themselves. They have convinced themselves that their job is "not so
bad," pays the bills, and that they can stick out because they have to.

If you want to be truly successful at quitting your day job, there cannot
be any room for such compromises in your soul. You have to take the
attitude that to work any longer at your hateful job is akin to fouling
your inner being with a spiritual cancer the will sicken and kill you.

2. Eliminating the Home-Office Mentality

To move our work home, however, does not mean we eliminate every single
thing about the traditional American office. Rather, we should select what
is useful and what is not.

It's a mistake to quit your job and go home with a "home-office" mentality.
By this we mean thinking small, and believing that you will automatically
sacrifice a decent income in exchange for your freedom. Please! Do not
think small!

To quote Jeffrey Lant again: "Too many home-based practitioners fail to
understand the benefits that accrue because of the professional style they
have selected. They focus on the "home" part of the business rather than
the "business" portion, and as a result are doomed to small incomes."
Working at home provides many benefits. We can save a lot of time because
we don't need to commute and we have more control over our schedule. We
can save a lot of costs because we don't have the overhead requirements of
larger businesses. We can cut our stress -- and so have more energy --
because we avoid many of the characteristic problems of life in the late
20th-Century office. We must work these advantages to our profit.

3. Your International Headquarters

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant said that if you sit at home alone at
your empty kitchen table, eventually, the "whole world will come to you."

Well, today you don't need the great mind of a philosopher to make the
entire world come into your living room. What you need is a phone jack.

We live in a unique time in history. Satellites, fiber optics, the
integrated circuit and other communications miracles means that you can be
just about anywhere in the developed world and establish communication with
anyone.

The telephone, the fax machine, the computer, the modem -- all of these are
not only affordable by any middle-class citizen; they are the key to
eliminating your need to drive a hectic freeway everyday to get to a place
of business outside your home.

With these devices at our disposal, we should allow ourselves to "think
globally." Too often, home-based businesses focus on the narrowest market,
the neighborhood, the county, the city or state. This is fine if you are
providing a local service and are content with a certain moderate level of
income. But if you want the big bucks, you should not think small. Also,
you should not believe that, just because you are home-based, you cannot
compete with the big guys.

The purpose of any business is to seek assess and seek out every possible
market for its products and services, to ascertain whether these markets
have the ability to buy these products/services, to determine whether there
is sufficient profit in these markets to warrant approaching them, and,
once positive assessment has been made, to launch a sustained marketing
campaign that gets a significant percentage of this market to purchase the
product or service in question.

Your home telecommunications machines will not only enable you to do this,
but they can also help you overwhelm larger, more cumbersome traditional
businesses that are your competition.

As a home-based entrepreneur, you will not have all of the disadvantages of
your more traditional competitors: no office rent, equipment or expense;
no employees to pay salaries and fringe benefits for; no time wasted on
meetings, employee problems, paid sick leave, etc.

All the money your competitors spend on heating the office and buying
furniture could better be spent on the actual marketing itself.

As a home-based business, you will be already positioned where the
traditional business is currently struggling to move: toward the lowest
possible overhead and the greatest possible concentration of dollars on
products/service development and product/service marketing.

So, a home-based business takes full advantage of three major goals of
modern business success:

(1) Vastly reduced overhead
(2) Easy access to a global market
(3) Full advantage of telecommunications.

To not have the basic telecommunications toys -- computer, modem, fax, and
telephones is impossibly stupid. Still, even in this day and age, many of
people strongly resist the one element that is undoubtedly the heart and
brain of any successful home business -- the computer. The computer is so
important in fact, we have made it a category all itself.

And remember, learning to use a modern computer is easier than learning to
drive a car, so you have no excuse not to plunge forward.

4. The Computer

You should pay close attention to what computers can do for you in your
plans to escape your job and make your work-at-home dreams come true.

People who want to run a home business usually have a very small staff -- in
fact, a staff of one -- yourself! The rest of your needs are handled by
independent contractors, depending on the kind of business you are in and
the services you need.

To run a serious, truly global home business, a computer is as necessary as
oxygen is to life on earth. Those who try to fool themselves into thinking
they will ever make a serious go of their home-based business without a
computer are sadly mistaken.

Computers give you two primary advantages:

(1) They enable you to store large amounts of data and to sort by data
field so that you can easily get the information you need.

(2) They enable you to develop a pattern document for every situation
you'll ever be in in your business. To run a home-based business
successfully, you must anticipate just what situation will emerge and
prepare accordingly.

A business is based on a characteristic series of situations and a
characteristic set of things that happen -- or that do not happen. You
must be prepared with the proper document for each situation. Once you
have established all the protocols, and have experienced all the situations
associated with your kind of business, the time will come when running your
business is, in large part, a repetition of certain key tasks. Computers
are all about handling repetition swiftly and efficiently.

But the computer is much more. Today, by connecting a computer to the
phone line with a modem, your machine becomes more than a data storage
system and repetitive task handler. It becomes a multi-task, multi-level
communications processing center that connects you to the globe.

Such things as e-mail, on-line services, the Internet, the Web and more
can't help but revolutionize the way business is done. If you do not
become a part of it today, you certainly are going to suffer for it greatly
in the near future.

If there is an effective way to market products on the Internet or any
other on-line venue, no one has truly discovered it yet. The only people
making money on Internet marketing are the people who are selling the
concept of doing it. If you have a product or a service and expect to
reach millions of buyers through computer screens, you are sadly mistaken.

The Internet is definitely where a lot of innovative things are happening.
It's a great place to exchange ideas, find out what hot, what's not, and
stay on the cutting edge whatever your particular business is.

5. Your Business Hours

If you've been paying attention to the first four points, you're well on
your way to becoming a successful home-based business owner. Now we don't
want you to blow it by thinking you can keep banker's hours.

The global market is a 24-hour per day market, and a 365-day per year
market. Let the others sleep late on Saturdays and take Sundays off.
Those times could be your day to move and corner loads of customers that
the others miss.

You should get up earlier and quit work later. You should be open for
business on holidays and be available 24-hours a day either personally or
through your answering service.

"But wait a minute!" you might be thinking at this point! "I thought that
working at home was all about freedom and an end to drudgery. This sounds
like nothing but endless work!"

Well, here's the thing. For most of you who quit your regular jobs to go
to work for yourself, you'll discover something magical. You'll discover
that when you are working for yourself, when you are building your own
business, a lot of what you does not seem like work at all.

The great writer Jane Roberts said, "Inspiration is its own motivator."

Running your own business is all about being inspired 24-hours-a-day. When
you stop selling your body and soul to some company or corporation and
start giving your energy to yourself, work has a way of turning into
inspiration and play.

The perfect work for you is that which you don't think of as work, yet
doing it makes money and provides you with the bread and shelter of life.
You'll see what it's like if you make a true commitment to being self
employed, put all your energy into it, and stick with it for the long run.