Success in network marketing need not come to only a select few. It is all about you in the long run, and it doesn’t happen by accident. Success in any network marketing business is based on your productivity and taking action mentally, physically, and sometimes even more importantly, emotionally.

In most online network marketing businesses today, you will hear more about their failures than successes, but truly, the only real determining factor in successful network marketing is who you look at in the mirror every morning.

No marketing plan will ever determine your network marketing success. Nor will the product line or company. No matter how often you see it screamed from the scam forums, even your upline is not responsible for creating your network marketing success. Your uplines’ responsibility to you is simply to help create and facilitate the *opportunity* for your success, i.e. to increase your odds of success with the support of guidance and training. It’s up to you to decide how to use and implement that guidance.

The journey to all personal network marketing success is paved with seeking education, learning, doing and growing. It is a must to learn some new skills and change some of your thinking, actions and reactions pertaining to online business.

Most people don’t understand this fact, but your success will be in direct proportion to your personal growth and development! Successful network marketing has many aspects and includes persistence, consistent promotion, and patience, but a positive attitude is equally critical to achieving successful results. Marketers with doubtful minds who lack self-confidence and determination to follow through on those key elements, even when given the best proven tools and systems for success … will … still … fail.

For network marketing success attainment, attitude is as important as ability. Attitude can seem like such a little thing, but it makes a huge difference in your personal and professional success. It is more important than skills, talent, experience, education or intelligence.

To different people, the same world is a hell… or a heaven. A success-oriented attitude creates the positive difference. Nothing can stop the person with a positive mental attitude from achieving his goal. And on the other hand, nothing on earth can help the person with a negative mental attitude.

A successful attitude is not something you are born with. Rather, it’s something you have a choice about. Accepting the fact that there will always be some situations that are difficult and that there will always be problems to solve is essential. Having a successful attitude cannot alter what exists, but it can influence your future by helping you choose how to deal positively with the things you encounter every day. Your perspective on challenging situations, not the problem itself, will determine your success or failure.

Regardless of the vehicle, upline, product, service or opportunity you choose, the choice to take massive, positive, and focused action to attain success, or to use massive lame excuses to produce mediocrity is totally up to you. At the end of every day, you and only you will ever determine your success … or failure.

Take responsibility for it, get out there, and shine!

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No matter where you live, each state offers a selection of grants to people living in the state. At the state level is where you will likely find grants for attending school. This might be a pre-start-up cost for you if you require some training before you begin your new business, so this is an indirect advantage of grant money available at the state level. Although many of these programs are focused on providing state grants for low and middle-income students to attend college, there are some grants available for businesses.

For example, did you know that on the Governor of Texas’s website they list procurement opportunities? If your business sells furniture, or if your business provides services such as computer programming and service, maintenance and repair, moving services, or temporary personnel, then your business might be eligible to “procure” the contracts and you would make the money for them. This is not a grant per se, but it does offer the opportunity for a business to get money that does not have to be paid back.

If you are in New York, the state’s Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform site offers tax credits for businesses that operate and are certified in the Empire Zone. This will save your business money, and make it easier for you to stay in business and put your money toward expanding the business rather than paying taxes. New York also offers low-rate loans for existing small business expansion.

If you want to relocate a business to New Jersey, the state offers a grant in the form of tax credits to offset your business taxes. The grant can be as high as eighty percent of your taxes, so it definitely pays to look into these types of opportunities at the state level. There are also grants available for employee training in job safety and health and basic literacy skills.

If you live in Connecticut, according to the state’s office of Policy and Management you may be eligible for a grant for $10,000 if you are an individual or company with less than 30 employees that has created a renewable energy technology that has not yet been sold. You can use the money for such purposes as product development and testing, developing your business plan or meeting your payroll, among others.

This is just a small selection of what type of business assistance is available at the state level, but it gives you a jumping off point of some of the places in your state where grant money might be available. It also is wise to remember that, in terms of state grants, many foundations and non-profit organizations give grants to people living in a particular state, but mostly those people have to be a non-profit organization or affiliated with one and not an individual in order to qualify.

State grants are a great source of getting funding from your business but they only account for some of the available sources of grants.

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That is what I thought when I was asked to edit a newsletter for the very first time. My group consisted of consumer psychology researchers and marketing managers.

“Just one thing,” I said to the group’s president. “Can I have a humor column?”

“You can have anything. We’ve had 3 editors in one year. We are desperate.”

“Okay, but just for a year or so.”

Six years later, I looked back on this experience as one of the most fun and most rewarding of my career.

Running a newsletter offers unique opportunities for self-promotion, networking and contributing uniquely to your organization. You create a vehicle for members to brag about themselves and each other. Along the way, you gain valuable exposure as a professional and as a writer.

Since then I’ve written newsletters and newsletter columns for others, including a neighborhood association and a fitness center.

Solo-preneur professionals often are surprised to discover the power of newsletters to help their organizations attract and retain members, as well as explode networking potential for themselves and their members. Here are 7 tips I like to share with my own clients.

(1) For the best newsletter content, spotlight your members.

Call them and ask, “May I interview you for a story?” People enjoy reading about the superstars, but they relate closely to stories of members like themselves.

Don’t be surprised if “ordinary” members resist being interviewed, especially if they’re also clients. They’ll say, “I’m too shy,” or, “Nobody wants to hear my story.”

But once they’re featured, they are loyal for life. While living in New Mexico, I wrote a newsletter for the fitness center where I worked out. They always asked for extra copies to take home. “Your name in print” still carries power even in a jaded society.

When your members are self-employed professionals, you don’t even have to write the story. Just invite randomly chosen members to be “spotlight of the month.” They’ll come up with a promotional message that everyone will enjoy reading. I was on the fence about renewing a membership myself — until I was invited to be in the spotlight one month. That group gets my dues next year.

(2) Double your coverage by assigning volunteers to interview each other.

Now you get 2 people to feel involved — the interviewer and the interviewee. New members welcome the opportunity to make connections and maybe find a future mentor. You’ll get senior members who normally would be too busy, because they realize they’re making a direct contribution.

(3) Stir up as much controversy as possible.

No need to be dull.

My professional newsletter featured a humor column. Many readers were college professors (and I was too, at the time)so we created a satiric view of academic life, featuring heroine Maybelle Marketing, her cat Fluffy whose claws were registered as lethal weapons, and hints of midnight meetings with the mob. My column may not have done much for my academic career, but I honed my writing skills and got a lot of attention for the group and the paper.

This format may not be appropriate to your own organization. But maybe you can ask some senior members to write editorials. Some newsletters feature debates with pro vs. con statements on controversial issues.

(4)Celebrate every member’s achievement you can find.

You don’t have to wait for someone to win a national award. Your members will win marathon runs and coach winning soccer teams. They’ll acquire promotions, houses, children and dogs….readers love this stuff.

You get the winners involved — and you remind everyone that they’re participating with a smart group of achievers.

(5) Recognize the power of networking with newsletters.

Everybody knows the newsletter editor and (if you do a good job) everybody wants to talk to you. After a surprisingly short time, you realize your newsletter practically writes itself. You are getting known faster than if you attended 22 networking luncheons.

It’s the ultimate win-win: you get to brag about others and you display your own skills in a low-key, creative way.

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Franchise companies tend to be very discriminating about which locations they sell their master licences to, because failure of the franchise in some significant location can bring them bad publicity negatively affecting their ability to sell franchises elsewhere. There have been a number of high profile cases of failure of master franchises in countries or regions without adequate demand or infrastructure for the franchise to succeed.

Master franchises give people with significant funds to start a business a degree of power, as they will be in charge of the other franchises that are established in a specified country or region. Sometimes, they are established in groups of countries or regions.

This middle stage can be an excellent grounding into business management and can be very successful if the processes are done in the right way, but there is more to lose if things go wrong.

Master franchisees will not only be given the company’s structure and access to its training and support system, they will have the authority to appoint, train and receive a proportion of fees from regular franchisees.

The responsibility for a large area offers a great earning potential, as a model is already in place for marketing the business and distributing the product and so if there is enough interest from franchisees, company outlets can quickly spread and provides the franchise with a better chance of making a strong impression in the market sector.

However, to purchase a master franchise requires a significant investment and so it is essential to ensure that everything is in place before commencing in the role.

Substantial market research needs to be carried out across the whole country or region, as the product or service on offer needs to appeal to consumers in a number of places.

It is important that the contract with the franchiser is agreed in a straightforward, uncomplicated way so that the master franchisee knows exactly what is covered and expected of them.

Issues in it include how much power is given, when the renewal process starts and how to go about it and the exact territory area controlled, particularly for regional master franchisees.

It is advisable to consult a lawyer with some experience in licensing agreements to check the contract.

In addition, master franchisees will in effect be running two separate businesses and so they must be prepared to handle the pressures of ensuring that franchised outlets are up-and-running successfully across a country or region.

This position is certainly very demanding, but with an excellent management structure in place and good support from the international franchiser, big returns can be made on investments which are usually above 100,000.

A certain amount of patience is required though and master franchisees must concentrate on the long-term, as there is a fair chance that a few local franchisees will fail to make an impact and have to close.

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Certainly the female population of today is much better off than their mothers or grandmothers, but obtaining financial support, loans is not viewed by bankers any differently than it is for male entrepreneurs. A myth has been circulating for years that has led entrepreneurs to believe that womenowned and minorityowned businesses can obtain loans easier. Unfortunately, that is only a myth.

If your entrepreneurial dream requires a bank loan, the process is not any easier if you are a woman or a minority. The only slight advantage is that there may be additional lending sources available if you are in either of these categories. But you still have to sell the lender on your business and means of repayment.

Both male and female executives in the corporate arena have much in common in terms of professional aspirations. However, the playing field is far from being equal. A survey was done by a non-profit research group called Catalyst recently. Male & female executives at 1,000 of the largest corporations in the U.S. were surveyed and more than half of the women said that they aspire to a CEO position. They were even willing to make sacrifices such as delaying a marriage and or children, and that very willingness shouts to us that the field is not equal.

Other survey results were as follows:

49.5 percent of all employed managers and professionals are women, but they still tend to manage only other women.
The highest-paid female executive still earns only 68% of the salary paid to her male counterpart.
Firms that include women on their senior management teams showed greater improvement in corporate performance.
62 percentof the firms that included women on their senior management team saw their market share grow, compared with only 39% of companies with no female senior management.

Advancements in technology should help ease the movement of more women into leadership. Computers enable women to work more flexible hours and better balance work and family commitments, which is not expected of their male counterparts. (How equal is that?)

So-called feminine leadership traits will grow in importance in the 21st century, according to more than 160 international companies and 75 senior executives a view of their firms progress toward gender equity.

Most respondents, predominantly male, predicted wide-spread abandonment of the command and control managerial style for a more team-oriented approach. That does not seem all that bad to me. I can think of a lot of companies that could use more teamwork and less monarchy leadership.

These business gurus saw this new style as requiring skills that are more feminine than masculine, thus giving an edge to female managers. However, another 15-year study has shown that female managers are no more inclusive or democratic than men when making workplace decisions.

As grim as these facts might be, I do not want to discourage any prospective female entrepreneurs. We female business owners know that we may have to work twice as hard for half the recognition and pay, but ladies statistics show we will outlive our male counterparts.

We know that any woman who is a wife and mother and also in business, could do the job of two air traffic controllers without breaking a sweat even as the airport burns to the ground.

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Steps To A Budget

The first thing that you have to remember when you are creating a home business budget is that there are several steps you need to consider in order to do it well and to give yourself a chance for the best success. The first thing that you have to do in order to create a budget is to set aside some money for start up costs. Remember that no matter how good your budget is, you are going to need extra money to get started and a lot of people who find themselves with home businesses end up spending more money in the first year than they thought they would.

You are going to have to either have some money saved up to start your business or you should take out a small business loan that you can pay back as soon as you have started to make money. Then, the next step in creating a home business budget is to take a look at the things that you have been doing in your home business and set your spending limits for the products, materials and the salaries of any employees, including yourself.

You have to set these at a place where they make sense, for instance you should not give yourself less money than you can live on, because then the business idea just is not going to work. The next thing that you have to do is to decide how much you are going to need to bring in to meet these costs. Then, you can set a reasonable price per unit or service and the amount of products or services you plan on selling each year.

Once you have the monetary figures set up for your yearly budget, the final step is to decide how you are going to do this. Are you going to try to steadily sell your product all year long or are there certain seasons where you expect to make more money and where you feel as if you are going to be making money? If you have a product or service that has off times and on times, you are going to want to adjust your budget so that this reflects this.

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Business strategies should be developed and progress as the project goes along. They should summarize the project as you go through each week. This would also be a good place to include the original idea for the project. Be sure to include the current status of the project. In the financial section of the report, you should include the weekly expenditures and show the progression to the overall project expenditures.

Use Simple charts to show trends but avoid complex spreadsheets. These should be put in an appendix in the back of the plan. Included in this section should be projected income statements, cash flow forecasts, balance sheets and analyses. Remember the simpler, the better.A marketing section should be included in your report. This can show regional competition and how you will differ from them.

A marketing analysis is a good move. Your sales plan should be based on the sales projections with current market values. You should be as explicit as possible. Do not load this section with phrases such as first to market, customer driven etc. Describe your plans or ideas as simply as possible. This section should include your plans about management teams and operational issues. These issues include production and delivery.

Using different font sizes, types, and colors will give your report an eye catching appeal. Be sure to use the spell checker. Nothing takes away from a report more than a misspelled word. Getting a second opinion from a qualified outsider is also a good idea. Now that you have completed your report, you need to include a summary or conclusion section. Its time to wrap up the report with a positive view of your business or project.

Limit your conclusion in a few short paragraphs that are well drafted. This should be written once your report is completed. At this time, you might want to check for a few small details. Is this plan good, presentable and grammatically correct? Is the funding reasonable and the expenses correct? Have all questions been answered? Once you are satisfied with your report, get a second opinion. It is likely you will need to do several revisions. Remember that this is your business, so put your best foot forward.

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It will also need to be an equal partnership to prevent one person from being overly dominating
which may eventually ruin the business as well as the friendship. Although the pair may have known each other for years and believe they understand their habits, there are going to be differences in the approach on the job than in their approach at the ball game or the fishing hole.

A complete, undisputable outline of responsibilities will have to be established so there can be no confusion about which partner is responsible for what function in the business as well as steps needed to reconcile any personality struggles that arise. Although they may known each other well, when it comes to running a business, it is easy to place blame on someone than it is to accept self responsibility.

When disagreements begin and there will be arguments, they should never take place in front of customers or other employees. Disagreements should be handled in the professional manner with workplace protocol and not like a bickering married couple. Some folks who went into business with a friend, in fact, use that thinking to stem arguments when they begin to argue, one will comment that they are acting like an old married couple, which usually sparks laughter and they can then work out their difference to the betterment of the business.

When going into business with a friend both must be willing to accept the faults of the other and understand they are going to have different approaches to the same circumstances. Understanding those differences will lead to the same results which should head off many disagreements with the simple notion that people will do things differently while reaching the same conclusion. They also have to have the same goals in mind before the business gets off the ground and have to agree on time lines with which to achieve those goals.

While this will be part of their basic business plan they will also have to agree on ways to monitor the goals to insure the business is on track to achieving them without laying individual blame if they fall short. Above all, no matter good of friends they are or how long they have known each other everything relating to the business needs to be in contract form. Every aspect of running the business needs to be in writing and not just a handshake. After all, even people in love who get married may need to sign a pre nuptial agreement.

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This was the case in one recent buyer visit with our client. Her Firm is representative of many early baby boomer led firms that “started the business in their garage” (actually it was started in her living room) 25 years ago and built a successful business with an excellent brand and customer loyalty. She is now looking to exit her business and reap the rewards from her hard work in the form of a generous buy out offer.

The potential buyer is a business owner that started a similar firm at about the same time, but has morphed into part business owner and part private equity investor. He brings a unique perspective of analyzing this acquisition wearing two hats – one as a strategic industry buyer and the second as a disciplined financial buyer. It was quite instructive to watch the dual motivations at play during the visit.

While wearing his industry buyer hat, he was quite excited about the synergies of the two companies, the growth potential, and the new vertical market that the combined firm could capture. While wearing his private equity investor hat, however, that excitement was dampened by the risk that our owner had created with her company. The owner and her top producer directly touch 70% of the company’s revenues. They are the face of the company. They are the “brand”. They are also in retirement mind set and have not groomed a capable successor internally.

Even though we have coached our clients with the “We will stay on for a period of time to transition our relationships and transfer the intellectual capital” speech, the buyer perceives huge risk. Quite frankly, I completely agree with his thinking. As this issue was explored, it became evident that this factor would negatively impact both the transaction value and the deal structure. Translation – a discounted purchase price and much of that price deferred in the form of a multi-year earn out payment.

The good news was the buyer’s strategic side recognized the value of the new vertical market our client’s company would allow him to enter in full stride. He also recognized, because our client was represented by an investment banker, that there will be other buyers competing for this prize. The buyer came up with a very creative approach. Because this new vertical market is so strategic to him and recognizing the lack of management depth in the target company, he had initiated discussions with two individuals that were high caliber executives from the new vertical.

The buyer laid out his plan to our clients and asked permission to introduce this potential acquisition to the two candidates as a simultaneous acquisition and hiring scenario. Our client is very concerned about confidentiality and pushed back. The buyer then countered with two purchase platforms – one with the new hire as successor and one without. The one with the new hire was far superior in terms of both total transaction value and in the percentage of that value that would be paid at closing versus paid as and earn out.

After some discussion with our client and a review of the financial implications, we agreed to the buyer’s plan to introduce this opportunity to his two candidates with the execution by them of a confidentiality agreement.

This dramatic contrast in transaction value and terms really helped quantify and crystallize what we have intuitively known for many years. To use the words of Curley from The Three Stooges, “If you want to catch a mouse, you have to think like a mouse.” Our translation is, “If you want to sell your company for maximum value, you have to think like a buyer.”

The lack of an internal successor, the lack of management depth, the concentration of account relationships and intellectual capital into one or two key people that are likely to leave shortly after a transaction will result in at best, huge discounts in your company selling price and at worst, will make your company a non-viable acquisition target.

Contrast this current situation to a client that we represented a few years back and you will understand our advice. The previous owner client recognized that he was going to sell his company two years prior to the event. He started grooming an internal successor, giving up most of his own direct involvement. When he was satisfied that this transition was operating smoothly, he fired himself as president and promoted his protegee into that position. He allowed the company to operate successfully in this mode for one year and then engaged us to sell his company. The results were as planned – no worries about post transaction client or employee defections and no discounts on the business selling price.

Our advice to business sellers is to begin your business exit process well in advance of your exit. Give up your natural tendency to be involved in every aspect of your business. Relinquish control, delegate, develop your staff. Promote your successor into day-to-day responsibility. If you do not have a capable internal candidate, go out and hire one. Your added expense will be more than offset and rewarded with a much higher business selling price.

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There are successful entrepreneurs, who have found an excellent work from home business, made a success of it; and will even share there secret with you.

However, we are all different and what they did to succeed will not necessarily be successful for us.

Here is the real crux. An opportunity is worthless, unless it is turned into a viable business opportunity.

There are unlimited opportunities and many entrepreneurs have become successful beyond their wildest dreams, because they all have three things in common:

They are passionate about what they are doing
They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
They are supported by friends and family.

Passion

To find the right work from home business, start with your passion. List all your passions, the things that you love doing, everything that have a purpose Keep that list in mind when you make a decision about which opportunity to pursue and check that it relates to one of your passions.

Strengths and weaknesses

We are all different and have unique strengths and weaknesses. All these strengths and weaknesses can be further developed. However by further developing these known strengths and weaknesses you are in a better position because you do not have to start from scratch. Make use of what you are good at.

Support

Be grateful for the support that you get from friends and family. Teamwork is always more successful than individuals. These unique strengths and weaknesses not only create a friendly working relationship, but the interaction provides more new ideas and motivation. Be realistic on what is needed to complement your home business and find the best suppliers or subcontractors that are required to succeed.

Conclusion

No one can tell you which the best, work from home business opportunities is. But with the awareness of your own passion, unique strengths and weaknesses and with teamwork, you will be in a position to select the most profitable work from home business.

From the first day that you start your Internet home business all that you will read about is that the money is in the list and that never changed. The way you build your list has changed, but you still need your list, if you want to be successful with your internet home business. The problem is that creating and maintaining that list is not very easy and requires hard work. To find the right products to sell can be time consuming and difficult.

To summarize this article yes, you can become that potential successful entrepreneur, but only if you are prepared to learn and willing to work hard at it. Set some goals and follow them. Goal setting has given thousands of people all over the world a successful way to financial freedom.

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