One of the biggest selling points of a home based business is the System! S-Y-S-T-E-M, Save Yourself Time, Energy and Money. It’s already in place to ensure your success, or at least make it a bit easier for you to succeed. It brings in the all too familiar term, “turnkey.” It’s all about duplication and making things easier for the newest person in the company to get into profit quickly, or duplicate their Enrollers results.

Parts of the system includes scripts, lead generation and pre-built websites, so that when somebody finds your turnkey website, pre-populated with content and pictures, they can submit their contact information. That information then goes into a lead management system that sends out pre-written auto-responders that drip bits and pieces of motivational information about their decision to start a home business.

MY SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE…..I didn’t build my list and USE it properly.

For the first few years as a network marketer I used their turnkey websites and systems to generate my leads and I allowed those leads to go into their pre-built lead management systems. I took on the belief that once I called that lead and introduced the business to them, whether they got started with me or not, that their information was then useless. The lead was then dropped and I paid it no more attention, at least when it came to continued marketing.

I might as well have been throwing twenty dollar bills down the toilet!!

Although I made my profit from the sale, I missed out on continued, residual profits that can and will come from building your email list. I let tens of thousands of email addresses go to waste….Email addresses for people who were desperate for information on how to make money from home!

A huge part of creating an online presence(Part of my first mistake) is setting yourself up to win regardless. Having a contact form on your site that sends the information captured(email, phone number etc..) into an auto-responder system of YOUR OWN, is where it’s at. You wonder how people can make millions of dollars online with a blog and how network marketers can have continued success regardless of the opportunity they are part of. It’s because the real money, the real income comes from continually marketing to your list of subscribers….people that have opted into YOU and what you have to offer them. And if what you have to offer them is of value…..well….that equals income for you.

Right now, I use AWeber for building my list. In my opinion, it is the best one out there. I did a post a while back on starting an email marketing campaign comparing a few other services. Feel free to check it out.

And feel free to subscribe to my emails to see how I do things. You’ll find the form on the left side of this blog.

So I think my point was made. Do it right the first time. Build the list!

Unfortunately, Network Marketing companies come and go, or, you are someone that comes and goes, bouncing from one company to the next. Although a company seems solid, with a good product and great compensation, there’s no guarantee that it will be around forever.

My BIGGEST mistake as a home business owner, was putting all of my eggs into one basket. I put so much trust in the concept/product/owners of the company I was part of that I didn’t have a back-up plan. Now, if it’s all solid, there are no worries. But, if things go a different direction, if the company crashes, if the products lose their value or if any other variable happens that effects the company, it also directly effects your income. Instead of putting so much into the company, put that focus on the goal.

So imagine that 6 figure income you had managed to create while working your home business, suddenly gone, or significantly reduced. Now, if it was your doing, that’s one thing. But if was a direct correlation to something that happened in the company, that’s an entire different story! Without pointing fingers or taking a victims mentality, how does one recover from something like that?

Here’s how I recovered……I relied on the online presence I had. With the amount of content I have all over the net, the presence in social networking sites and the organic rankings on all major search engines, I had choices. With consistent, FREE traffic coming to my website, this site, a crash of a company wasn’t a complete disaster. All that did was gave me options.

I could…….

1. Join another business opportunity or….
2. Do something else with the traffic I was getting.

I could develop my own products and promote them on my site. I could completely monetize my website with sponsored listing from ad networks such as Adsense. I could continue to capture leads and sell them. I could promote affiliate products on my site. The list could go on and on.

So if you find yourself in a home based business, and you are purchasing leads, spending high dollar on CPC ads or don’t have a web presence, you may want to rethink your strategy. Set yourself up to win regardless of the opportunity.

One thing I teach people about marketing is to use three or four different sources of lead generation. If one or two drop out, you have the other two to rely on until they can be replaced. Without spreading yourself too thin, the same thing applies for your sources of income.

I believe in the Cortez concept of burning your boats, but I also believe in having a back up plan. Expect the best but prepare for the worst and you’ll never find yourself in a hard spot, without options.

Stay tuned for my SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE in the next post!

If you haven’t truly listened, not just heard, but listened to this song from Johnny Cash, do it……and whatever success you strive after in this life…..don’t be that guy! Achieve your dreams without losing yourself.

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Quick question for you…..

Have you ever had an idea that you knew would be great, but never really got it off the ground? In your mind, you could see the beginning and the end but everything in between seemed to be missing?

Maybe this idea was an idea for a new business venture. You went as far as choosing the perfect business name, secured the domain name and started investing in a website, but didn’t get much further than that.

In my opinion, the easiest part of starting a successful business, online or offline, is coming up with the idea. Anybody and everybody has ideas. Great ideas! But success is located just on the other side of the “abyss of all that you don’t know.” Standing in your way of the end result that you can envision so clearly is……well….quite frankly, you don’t know!

How do you overcome something that doesn’t even exist yet. How does one go from point “A,” the idea, to point “Z,” the end result, being stuck on point “D” and not knowing the rest of the alphabet. It’s like listening to a two year old sing the ABC’s….”L-M-N-O-P” is more like a severely slurred, non existing word called “elimenope.” (If the kid is good!)

Point “Q” might be the cost of the product or service and point “F” might be all the details of what the product or service is. With “S” being the marketing details, there is a lot of ground to cover before “Y” and “Z” can be realized.

Now, if bringing your idea to fruition was as easy as assigning each step a letter, then there would be a lot more successful people in the world. The great abyss of all that you don’t know wouldn’t set claim on so many aspiring entrepreneurs.

So let’s have this conversation over the next few posts. Let’s see if we can somewhat erase the abyss…or at least build a suspension bridge to make crossing it a bit easier.

For those of you who are into sports, you all know that the NBA playoff’s are currently in progress. Things are heating up and getting intense as this season comes to an end, yet during the playoff’s, it seems things are finally getting started. Hopefully your team is one of the many that are still in the race for the championship. I know the Phoenix Suns made it and are doing well as they lead the series 2 – 1 over the Trail Blazers.

I absolutely love the playoff’s because of the pure intensity if it. Everybody comes to the court with all their hope and preparation, expecting to be the best. After 48 minutes of play, giving it all they have, knowing that they will be able to look up at the score board as the team who is victorious. A lifetime of practice and a season of competition comes to a head during a few series of games battling an opponent that has done the exact same thing.

It’s not so much the trophy at the end of the championship that matters the most or that they’ll remember for years after it’s over, it’s the victory. And the victory is the culmination of all that it took to get there…..composure, fortitude and determination are a few of the characteristics necessary. Every drop of sweat and blood was a test of willpower and strength along with all the drama and politics floating around the NBA. A victory, I could imagine, would be the season full of effort that paid off in the end.

I think at times we look at NBA athletes and think that they have it made. They’re making millions off of pure talent. They are set for life, just for being born. Sure, talent has a lot to do with it, just about as much as willpower and work does. They made it happen for themselves. They wanted it, so they went out and got it, and the team that shows the best composure and the most intensity during the playoff’s, is usually the one who is crowned champion.

So, we’ll see just how far the Suns go this year. Either way, I’m a die hard fan and with them ’til the end.

And you know what? We all deserve to live our lives as though we are in the playoff’s. The ones who show the most composure and intensity will usually be the ones who are victorious. A lifetime of preparation, sweat and vision has prepared us for today, right here, right now. We can chose to be effected and intimidated by the Kobe Bryants and the Lebron James’ of our future victory, or we can chose to be the Steve Nash, who takes control of the game and does it his way, not theirs.

Life is full of opponents and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every time I defeat someone or something, I grow. I progress, just as I do when I lose to someone or something. Either way, I win, if I chose to learn from EVERY experience.

Victory is about being able to adjust on the fly and adapt as you go. It’s about seeing an opening and taking it. An opportunity that is missed will never present itself in that way again. It’s now or never and at times, we only have a split second to decide to be proactive, and to take that opportunity.

It’s playoff time for me! It’s time to get intense. It’s time to make things happen…..so watch closely. Things are coming in the near future that will take my team and I to the top.

I once heard a quote that said, “”The object of life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, ‘Holy #@$*, What a Ride!!!’” — Mavis Leyrer

I intend on being worn the heck out and full of victory as well, and the end isn’t even close. So it’s game time!