Michael “Pickle” Mitchell

I was up at the Mohegan Sun Casino a month ago for a dart tournament.  I do participate in several tournaments, but I am no professional.  This was certainly emphasized at an international tournament the likes of the PDC US Open which paid out $250,000 and had the top players in the world present.

What does this have to do with a home business?   Are you a professional or do you just participate occasionally?

I found myself grouped with Phil Taylor.  World Champion 11 times and World Matchplay Champion seven times among many other titles.  He is more dominant than Tiger is on the golf course.  Part of participation is also to help keep score and I had to score his first match.  The first game of his first match he was aiming for the double on his tenth dart.   He won handily and went on to win the whole tournament.

Just a little dart background: We play 501.  Start with 501 points and subtract every dart scored until we reach zero, but we must hit a double (the outer ring) to win.  40 left would require a double 20.  A perfect game consists of nine darts which is tipically done with a triple(t)20, t20, t20, then t20, t20, t20, then typically t20, t19, d12.

To see Phil throw a perfect game:

http://www.philthepower.com/powerbiography.html 

Why is Phil so dominant?  Why are the top darts players a large step above even a league dart player.  The same reason the top home business entrepreneurs and internet marketers are a large step above those who hope to succeed; THEY PRACTICE.

Phil Taylor practices darts daily for the same duration most people spend working their hourly job.  A recent interviewer asked Phil how many perfect games he has thrown.  He responded he had three televised and one in league last season, but the interviewer was looking for more.  He then stated he probably has thrown 100-200+ in practice and indicated he likely hits one every other day.  I can’t imagine being this good!

When running a home business it is too easy to relax the effort when things are slow.  This is the time to turn it up.  When I say practice I do mean just that.

If your business requires speaking with prospects and there is no one fresh to speak with go back and try some of your old leads or try some junk leads.  This is especially important when you are new to the business.  The only way to become comfortable on the phone is to be on the phone.

If your business requires article marketing or blogging.  Set some time aside to write and then rewrite some content.  Practice your writing.  The more writing you do the more fluid it will come.

The top home business entrepreneurs are constantly tweeking, changing, and trying new things.  They will implement what they learn to see if it works and then they will rework it.

The majority of home business tire kickers enter the opportunity and make a little effort.  They may do a PPC campaign and after $500 and a little response they get frustrated.  They may write one or two articles or blogs and after little or no response they stop.  When asked what they do they will say they work from home because this appeals to most anyone they speak with, but do they really WORK from home?

Phil Taylor throws darts for a living and he treats it as a business not a hobby!

If you want to be successful in the home business industry you must work it as if it is a business and not a hobby.  Part time or full time there should be a schedule.  You will determine your own level of success.

Mike Mitchell

http://strategicwealthsystem.com      http://fullvoicemail.com    http://TheSecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

I read “Sam I Am” for the first time in decades.  Those of you who have children have an advantage over those of us who don’t.  You are in a position to revisit all the great lessons we learned when our parents read these books to us.

I remember “The Little Train That Could.”  The story is straight forward even for a young child.  How about that Sam I Am?  The moral is there but it is easy to get caught up in the rhyme.  When was the last time any of us overcame 14 obstacles to achieve an objective?  In sales training years ago we were taught it may take seven noes before getting a yes.  Only half of the 14.

Sales and great sales people have changed for the better.  I still believe “Sam I Am” is a good life lesson.  I just don’t think any of us want to have to say no seven times when considering a purchase.  Today the person should be pre-conditioned to buy.  A great salesperson helps the prospect convince themselves it is necessary to make the purchase.  There may be slight resistance because it is in our nature, but it will be much easier to overcome.

I recommend anyone who has not read “Sam I Am” in the last 10 years go back and do it!  My answer to children’s book or sales training - Life training!

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz 

http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com 

http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

http://www.fullvoicemail.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating. With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity. Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake. How can you find the best home business opportunity? It is imperative that you do the research. Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business.

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question eight: Is there an exit strategy?

This is one question which is rarely asked yet it should be a basic component.  The best home business opportunity will allow you the opportunity to relax or eliminate marketing at some point and still enjoy the benefits.  One of the reasons I started working from home was so I could have more time with my family and friends.  Many of the opportunities I looked at either required monthly sales in order to be considered active or only paid two levels deep.  The concern in both cases is when I stop my marketing (maybe when I turn 50) I would either no longer be considered active and lose residual bonuses or the residual would naturally dissapate as I stop growing width.

How can this be avoided?  Chose an opportunity with unlimited depth and look for an opportunity that has a point at which you can become lifetime qualified.  If I were to build a brick and mortar business I would certainly want for it to survive and continue to be profitable even after I retire or if I choose to take significant time off.  Why shouldn’t my home business be the same?!

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz           http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com           http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating. With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity. Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake. How can you find the best home business opportunity? It is imperative that you do the research. Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business.

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question seven: Is there a support team?

The best home business opportunity will offer full support.  Every opportunity and sponsor claims support.  The newer sponsors will claim they have a strong up-line and the established successful people will boast about their knowledge.  The difficulty in both cases is time availability.  I would expect a newly sponsored person to have their sponsor available for consultation in the beginning, but what happens when the sponsor is getting ten calls a day?

What I have found in the best home business opportunities is daily live support in both telephone conferencing and webinars.  These should be free of charge because they should want for your success.  Recordings are okay, but live with question/answer sessions is a must.  The format allows for time leverage and benefits everyone in the community.

Know the hours your sponsor will be available in the beginning.  Know who else you can call with questions.  Ask for a schedule of training calls.  Ask what training aids are available free of charge and whether they are viewed online or if they can be downloaded.  It is a good idea to know the content of the training.  Also, if there is live conference up-line training aside from company training it can be beneficial as well.

Next post we will address question #8

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating. With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity. Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake. How can you find the best home business opportunity? It is imperative that you do the research. Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business.

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question six: When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?

The best home business opportunity will give all the details concerning compensation before you join.  There is no question they will let you know what the successful people are doing.  It is good to know what is a realistic expectation based on anticipated efforts.  I understand the typical response is that there is no way of knowing how successful someone will be, but it is not too difficult to tell if someone is being unrealistic and needs to be given advice.

I spoke with a prospect this past week who had no money for advertising, was not using a warm market, and did not anticipate having the time to dedicate to “free” marketing.  He thought he could find one or two hours a week including training time.  Of course he wanted to know what I thought he could make if he joined my opportunity.  I realistically told him it would be a waste of both our time and until his circumstances changed I did not think he stood to make any money with my opportunity.  I did tell him in a diplomatic manner in case his circumstances change.

Things to know:

• Do I make any money on my first sale?  If yes, do I have to share it with anyone?

• Do I need to qualify to make the commission?  If so, what is required?  Do I have to buy something or make a certain number of sales?

• If qualification is required by having a number of sales do I have to pass up the income stream permanently?

• Do I get paid first and forward money to the company or does the company get paid and them send me my cut?

The best home business opportunity will allow new people to position themselves in an income producing position quickly.  Typically they will have some form of instant qualification to sell an upscale, high commission product with no pass-up sales.  This said, many people have been successful with companies requiring pass-up sales and partial commissions.  The likelihood for success increases when pass-up sales are not required.  The trouble happens when the first sales are difficult and the reward for making them is losing the down-line to one’s sponsor.  It can also be troublesome for the newly sponsored person who found trust in their sponsor only to be handed off to someone else.

Next post we will address question #7

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating. With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity. Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake. How can you find the best home business opportunity? It is imperative that you do the research. Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business.

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question five: What opportunity and product guarantees are there?

The best home business opportunity will offer realistic guarantees on both the opportunity and on the product.  The key word here is realistic.  Too many opportunities boast huge income making potential as if it were almost guaranteed.  I do not subscribe to such claims.

The opportunity itself should have a reasonable “trial” period.  It would be acceptable to have a 30 day policy during which one could opt out of the program.  It would not be reasonable to have or expect to have a guarantee on income generation.  If there is an income guarantee which seems too good to be true it probably is.

The products should also certainly have a guarantee.  I have seen some recent programs which claim the product and program have no return policy or trial period.  They claim “the nature of the product does not allow for returns” primarily because it can be downloaded from the internet and then immediately used.  As far as the opportunity is concerned I believe it is against FTC rules.  As far as the product is concerned.  I would look to promote a product which the company has enough faith in to offer a satisfaction guarantee.  How can you have the confidence to promote a product which the company is afraid people will want their money back for?  Downloaded material providing a greater value than it costs is rarely returned.

The best home business opportunity will often minimise the perceived risk while being realistic about the potential.

Next post we will address question #6

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating.  With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity.  Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake.  How can you find the best home business opportunity?  It is imperative that you do the research.  Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business. 

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question four: Will my product benefit the general public?

The best home business opportunity will have a product which is beneficial to people beyond the opportunity.  There are some unfortunate trends in the home business industry.  There are many scams for which the income opportunity was created first and the products (if there are any) were nothing but an afterthought.

One clue is if there are differing tiers at which one can “buy in” and get an increased income without getting any additional product.  The best way I can describe this is to give an example.  If you pay $500 to join you will receive commission on the $500 members who join.  If you pay $1000 to join you will receive commission on the $500 & $1000 members who join.  If you pay $2000 to join you will receive commission on all three levels.  Each level provides the exact same “product”, the only thing which changes is the opportunity to earn commission.

Another thing to watch out for is if the products benefit only the people in the opportunity.  For example, the product is training material particular to the opportunity or videos to use in advertising the opportunity.  It is perfectly acceptable to have training and videos to aid in the opportunity but it is imperative to have additional products for people outside the opportunity.

The best home business opportunity will offer products which have real value beyond the price paid to people outside the opportunity.

Next post we will address question #5

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating.  With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity.  Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake.  How can you find the best home business opportunity?  It is imperative that you do the research.  Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business. 

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?

8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question three: Is there an actual product?

The best home business opportunity is one that offers a tangible product with real benefits.  There are a number of opportunities where the opportunity is the product.  The only people the product benefits are the people in the opportunity.  Some areas do not consider this a legitimate business.  Be cautious!  It is best to have a tangible, marketable product.

Let’s look at some different categories:

Household goods are a given, but it can be difficult to justify a unique benefit.  The advantage is anything consumable will promote repeat sales.  The disadvantages are that consumables are readily available therefore they tend to be competitively priced.  Using toilet paper as an example; how good can a typical brand be? If I run out of toilet paper am I going to go buy it at the store or order it?  Does anybody research toilet paper?

Vacation selling is popular right now, but again where is the unique benefit?  The market is extremely competitive and aside from promoting quality of service most agents are selling the same locations and the same resorts for similar pricing.

Home study courses are a hot item.  Whether it is wealth creation, personal enlightenment, or business skills someone will need the benefits.  Consider that online study courses provided interaction but not portability.  CDs and DVDs provide portability but not interaction.  Ideally there should be a combination of study elements.  Also, the customer needs to be targeted properly.  Average consumers run from self improvement.  Promote the benefits and not the product to create interest.

Next post we will address question #4

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating.  With so many opportunities available, you want to select the one that best suits you and is a legitimate opportunity.  Diving in to the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake.  How can you find the best home business opportunity?  It is imperative that you do the research.  Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business.

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?
8. Is there an exit strategy?

Today let’s look at question two: What kind of financial investment do I need to make?

Starting a home business naturally requires a financial investment.  The best home business opportunity will lay out what is required to start as well as what the suggested investment will be to be profitable.  Before committing to any home business opportunity, it is paramount to research what you are getting for your money.

Expect there to be a cost associated with joining the opportunity.  These are usually in the form of annual dues.  The amount is typically reasonable to attract people to the opportunity.

Expect there to be products for sale which will require an additional investment.  There typically will not be a requirement to purchase the product.  Typically there will be an incentive to purchase the product.  Furthermore, it is unreasonable to expect someone to sell/promote the products without purchasing them.  I am a believer that it is unreasonable to sell/promote a product without owning the product or minimally having a sample of the product.

Expect there to be marketing costs.  Launching a new business with relative speed will require advertising.  There are free or inexpensive ways to market products but it typically is a long term process.  I use a combination of cost effective marketing and inexpensive or free marketing. I have no difficulty understanding business opportunities require investment.  I do have difficulty with people who promote opportunities without being up front about the costs.  I do not understand when people enter into an opportunity without asking what is realistically expected.

Next post we will address question #3

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com

Starting your own home based business can be an exciting time, but also very intimidating.  With so many opportunities available, you will want to select the one that best suits you and certainly is a legitimate opportunity.  Diving into the first opportunity you come across can be a big mistake.  How can you find the best home business opportunity?  It is imperative that you do the research.  Here are some questions to ask yourself in the pursuit of establishing your financial freedom with your own home based business. 

1. Who is and where is my customer base?
2. What kind of financial investment do I need to make?
3. Is there an actual product?
4. Can I offer my product(s) to the general public without their commitment to start a home business opportunity?
5. Is there a money back guarantee for me and my customers?
6. When do I get paid and how long before I start making money?
7. Is there a support team?
8. Is there an exit strategy? 

Today let’s look at the first question: Who is and where is my customer base?

The best home business opportunity is one that does not rely on friends and family to act as your clientele.  While you may choose to offer your home business opportunity to your family and friends, they should not be your sole target population to establish a commerce base.  Your group of family and friends is called your “warm market.”  Many MLM (mutli-level marketing) opportunities rely on obtaining lots of warm markets.

You will answer a lot of questions as you look at the opportunity and your potential customer.  Keep in mind the first handful of target groups you think of outside your warm market were also thought of by everyone else in the opportunity.  If you can determine a customer base which is not already aggressively pursued then you may have a winner.  Alternatively, if you know a target base is aggressively pursued but have a different approach to the pursuit then you may have a winner.

If you can not determine a customer base outside your warm market or if you can not determine a unique or aggressive way to pursue the competitive target market, then you probably do not have a winner.

Next post we will address question #2

Mike Mitchell

http://www.mikemitchell.biz http://www.strategicwealthsystem.com http://www.thesecret.strategicwealthsystem.com