UFO Sightings

Finding a way to create extra income from home can be confusing and overwhelming. There are dozens of work-at-home web sites with thousands of different money making ideas. Sorting through them all, you may soon decide that many work-at-home schemes are just that — a scheme. Most of the truly legitimate home based business ideas will fall into one of three categories: Direct Sales, Network Marketing/MLM and Service businesses.

Capitalizing on your own talents, skills or ideas, you can create just about any type of service business. Charge clients by the hour or by the job for things like dog walking, personal shopping, house cleaning, bookkeeping, closet organization, in-home child care, music lessons, math tutoring, landscaping and more. You may be able to start up a personal services business strictly by word of mouth. Start-up expenses may be no more than the cost of of your first batch of business cards.

Direct sales opportunities are typically those that encourage hosting home parties. You may know a friend who does Pampered Chef or Tupperware. These would be examples of direct sales companies. Another type of direct sales business, called ‘top tier direct sales’, would be high ticket cost items, such as Wealthmasters International, Liberty League and Global Resorts. These types of direct sales products tend to work well with online internet sales systems. Direct sales will usually pay quite well on the front end of the sale and offer some type of residual income on those in your organization. Start up costs for the home party companies varies from less than $100 up to about $300. The top-tier direct sales companies have higher points of entry, usually in excess of one thousand dollars.

Network Marketing and multi-level marketing opportunities enroll independent distributors, sometimes called consultants, to sell products on which they earn a commission. Additionally, they receive commissions based on the sales efforts of people enrolled in their organization (down line). If you are successful in creating a large downline, the monthly residual income can grow into a full-time income. Additional compensation plan details vary with each company. As with direct sales, you need to have some comfort level with personal selling and networking. The internet provides a great way to locate other like-minded business builders. Contrary to what your upline might be teaching, ‘warm market’ is not the only way to grow your business rapidly. I personally recommend two different online systems to my new reps who express any interest in ‘internet network marketing’.

Network marketing business opportunities are available in many different flavors: nutrition/supplements, beauty/skin care, electricity providers, travel, pet food and related products, financial services and debt reduction plans, health insurance discounts — there is even a healthy chocolate MLM company! The majority of the businesses do not require that you maintain an inventory; remember, though, that the income is based on sales and sales volume. Most will require that you maintain a monthly purchase amount of your own, in order to remain qualified for commissions. This monthly amount varies by company, but usually ranges between $50 and $150. Start up costs for most MLMs are less than $100.

Filed under: Business