Lesson 6: Choosing Opportunities

By now we've talked about the various home-business models that I think represent the primary means of individual success in the coming years. I talked about the fact that first of all, you can NOT just take on jobs -- from home or anywhere else -- that pay you one time for the effort that you put in; an hourly or project wage, for instance. Not if you want to build residual income to either support or BECOME your monthly income.

I also mentioned that, yes, there ARE models besides affiliate and network marketing that can reap huge benefits. I do think these require certain forms of expertise not available to most people, however, such as the ability to write and market e-books, software, etc.

For much of the population, however, I believe that affiliate and network marketing will be the models that allow for residual income to build. Even under these models, however, there will be a good deal of failure because most of the businesses that market through these systems simply don't provide the value or exclusivity to trump the competition. (And of course because many people get involved and fail to take action.)

My goal in this course is to show you what factors make for a good program. And in this lesson, I'd like to talk about choosing the right program(s) for you.

A lot of people in network marketing commit themselves to a single program, and there's a lot of value to focus, as you may know from any course on success. In fact, I do think it's useful to devote most of your time to the program that attracts you the most; that you feel confident with considering your background; and that you have the most marketing potential with.

At the same time, I think it's useful to have more than one opportunity available to introduce others to. Why?

I take an old marketing phrase: "See a need, fill a need." For instance, as passionate as I am about health and wellness, not everyone is. Nor is it useful to bring up health supplements in every conversation. This brings to mind the MLM zealots that have given this industry such a bad name in the past.

Imagine that you overhear someone talking about how their church needs to raise money. Would you approach that person and suggest that the pastor get onto your health beverage for $100 a month in hopes of selling it to all the congregants and in hopes of all of them selling it to their friends so that the congregation as a whole had more money to contribute to the church? That's a round-about method that could take years to succeed, if it did at all. And would certainly make you a "Johnny One Note" who brings up his or her "health beverage" in every conversation.

Even if the beverage were your main business interest, wouldn't it be great if you could approach that person and say, "Hey, I've got an easy way for the church to raise extra money every month. It doesn't cost a dime to anyone, and it doesn't take any extra work." NOW you have seen a need and filled a need.

If you're involved with a few opportunities that have obvious benefits for certain situations, you can make them your "side efforts" if you prefer, but at least you've got them in your toolbox so that you're creating "multiple streams of income," which is another trick to building RELIABLE residual income. If one program goes down for any reason in the future, you have others that continue bringing in funds.

As you can see, this certainly applies whether or not you're interested in any of the programs I may share on this site. But there are times you'll find some programs here that are easy to keep in your arsenal because they're either free or inexpensive -- and their values are so outstanding that when you DO see the opportunity to share them with someone, they're much more likely to take you up on the idea and to start generating an income stream for you.

So remember, for most people, it's best to keep one program central to your efforts. And this program should center on the things that interest YOU the most, possibly because it fits with your background and certainly with your passions. People probably know that you're into gadgets, or that you love good nutrition, or ... you name it. They know you're into certain things. So if they can rely on you to know MORE about that topic than they do, a business opportunity in that area is a natural fit because you're in a position to talk about it more easily and with authority.

Don't get discouraged if you don't have THAT perfect a fit, though. As long as you're passionate about an opportunity and want to learn about it, you'll learn what you need to for sharing with others. You'll learn what it takes to introduce it. And if you hook up with a supportive team or partner, you may find that many of the techniques for succeeding in that business are handed to you to minimize the learning curve and maximize your success.