Tag Archives: Racing

The Definitive Guide to Choosing the Right Home Based Business – Part 1 of 6

Posted on by

Around the world, tens of millions of people each year search for a home based business opportunity that will either free them from a job they hate, allow them to retire early, give them more time to spend with their family, divert their poorly performing investment portfolio into a profit generating magnet, or all of the above. Just as there are vast differences of opinion, even amongst friends, there are vast differences in business opportunities. Before you start on your due diligence when hunting for that one home based business opportunity that is right for you, take a moment to understand some differences in business models, their expectations, their commission structure, your current resources, and your personality.

The definite guide to choosing the right home based business opportunity simply boils down to the questions you ask yourself before you start your search. Understanding your goals for success, and how your perceive a home based business to get you there, will have a profound impact on your decision making process. In fact, knowing what you need ahead of time will make the process go much more smoothly, allowing you to weed out unsatisfactory business opportunities rapidly.

Note: There are no specific businesses listed in this article so your use of this guide is not hindered by a constant sales pitch. If you would like to discuss specific ideas, please contact the author within the profile area where you read this article.

The following lists distinctive aspects of a home based business that you should consider:

1. Primary Prospecting Source: Internet, Phone, or Direct Mail

  • Sales of specific products, such as books, vitamins, software, fitness programs, educational materials, etc.
  • Services, including lead list generation, search engine optimization, web site design, mentoring, success coaching, etc.
  • Business opportunity or affiliate program, such as multi-level marketing (MLM), tiered matrices, direct sales, network marketing, social media marketing, etc.

    • If you have a product you created or a service you perform very well, the internet is the best place to market it to prospects. You can even use the internet as your foundation (or hub) and incorporate aspects of phone and direct mail to round out your reach if you have a system in place to do so (or family/friends willing to help).

    If you do not have your own product or service, you can choose to sell someone else’s material (ClickBank, Ebay, Amazon, etc.) or get involved in an online business opportunity that matches your personality from introvert (MLM, matrix, etc.) to social butterfly (direct sales, success coaching, social marketing, etc.). The internet is uniquely positioned to reach over 1.5 billion people in over 150 different countries. You can choose to go after the impulse shopper by saturating the free classifieds areas, or you can choose to slowly win the trust of your big spenders through social media, personal branding, lead filters, and auto-responders. If you have a lot of money to start and can spend $300 per day, then you can jump right in with your own Google AdWords campaign, where the vast majority of successful internet entrepreneurs advertise. But if you are operating on a very limited budget, you may want to start on the free and very effective social marketing path until you can slowly transition from free to paid advertising.

    There are positives and negatives to all the business models that support any particular internet marketing path, so be sure to follow this simple rule: The positives should match closest to your personality while the negatives should be the opposite of your personality.

    Are You Practicing Meaningful Marketing Or Mindless Marketing?

    Posted on by

    “Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

    In their book “Meaningful Marketing”, Doug Hall and Jeffrey Stamp lay out the differences between what they call ‘meaningful marketing’ and mindless marketing.

    Meaningful marketing is a data-driven, analytical and methodical approach to getting the most from your marketing efforts while minimizing cost, effort and waste and maximizing sales, efficiency and long-term repeatable effectiveness.

    Mindless marketing is that which causes you drop your prices at the whim of your customer, spend countless and unaccounted for dollars on promotions while hoping that customers respond differently to the same tired, repetitious messaging scheme.

    How do determine if you’re doing “Meaningful Marketing”

    • Your marketing is actually useful in helping your customers make the best decision for their particular set of needs
    • Your marketing materials are 100% honest with no puffery
    • Your marketing is transparent and authentic and speaks with earned authority
    • Your marketing has FOCUS (target markets, message, what you sell and what you don’t sell)
    • All marketing is focused on customer acquisition and business growth (retention is a great goal too, but I simply call that ‘re-acquisition’)
    • Your marketing actually seeks to engage in a dialogue with customers rather than just ‘talk at them’ (think: blogging)
    • Your marketing seeks to fill a valid and well defined need rather than simply persuade a gullible customer into a one-time purchase

    Watch out for these signs of “Mindless Marketing

    • You use sales & marketing gimmicks or tricks to capture interest
    • You don’t rely on the actual merits of your product/service to sell themselves and stand on their own
    • Your marketing is faddish or trendy and not part of an overall strategic plan
    • You have succumbed to ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ and are using the latest social media vehicles or other marketing tools without an understanding of how/why/what to expect them to do for you
    • Your marketing is focused on the transaction and not the relationship

    At the end of the day, there’s no sense in marketing for the sake of marketing. It’s common sense really. As I was looking for some resources for a project recently, I found this quote from the government in one of the SBA marketing guides.

    ALL company policies and activities should be aimed at satisfying customer needs, and PROFITABLE sales volume is a better company goal than maximum sales volume.

    I would add that “ALL MARKETING activity should be focused on delivering a meaningful message and adding value during the prospect’s decision making process”.