Avoiding cost pitfalls!

This Weeks Audio Blog!

Budgeting for additional costs to avoid failure.

By Gary W. Miller Jr.

Get a life!

Remembering to log off and enjoy life...

By Gary W. Miller Jr.


I'm taking a quick break from my series on Navigating Internet Business Opportunities to write briefly about something that is very important to me; balance. Yes, balance in our lives is essential to any real success. Ok, I can hear it through the screen right now, "Uh, Gary, what does this have to do with making tons of money online?" Stay with me, I think you'll see in just a few lines!

This week has been a really exciting week for me. After much due diligence I partnered up with an absolutely amazing company. I have no doubt this partnership is going to be mutually beneficial in ways that are frankly, HUGE!

All that sounds great and it really is. There I was living in front of my computer working, working, and working some more on the launch of my new venture. As I was doing it though, something dawned on me. Their is a world outside my home office that can easily be ignored because I am completely wrapped up creating a money making machine.

You see, our lives must have balance. If we have too much of one thing and not enough of another, things get out of balance and that lack of balance rears it's ugly head in our relationships, health, and finances causing much more harm than good.

So I decided to shut the computer down totally for the rest of the day and enjoy life! I got outside, I played with my cats, and I read a great book. Whatever the things are that you truly love to do, spend some time today actually doing them! I can tell you without a doubt that thanks to my time away, I woke up the next day and was super productive with my home business because I was appreciating life in general a little more.

I never like to leave a entry without some practical take aways so here goes...

1) Schedule you home business work time. Don't just do it throughout the day. Schedule it, have a plan of what you want to do when you log in, and then go for it.

2) Take time away. I'm all for smarter and harder but you have to appreciate and care for the rest of your life, not just your BIZ!

See ya next time,
Live Radically!
Gary

Navigating the Waters of Internet Business Opportunities Part Two

Making Contact and Reading Between the Lines.

By Gary W. Miller Jr.

Today I'm going to pick right up where we left on last time beginning with making contact with potential businesses. If you followed the outline from the last entry, you should have some websites bookmarked in your browser that got your attention. Also, do you remember that idea I suggested about designing your dream list of things you could do if you had a little or a lot more money? Did you make one? If you didn't I want you to stop reading right now and go make that list. Get the juices going and think big. NEVER NEVER NEVER limit yourself to status quo when visualizing your dreams. Let it rip when you design your future and whatever you do, don't hold back.

Now that we've got that covered, before you start making contact, I highly recommend you go out and create a new Internet mail account on any of the many free email sites available such as Inbox, Google, or Yahoo. The reason I say this is because once you make initial contact with potential businesses you are going to get a ton of email. You may not want that clogging up your regular email address. Plus, let's think about it, you're investigating business opportunities because you want to create new things in your life right? So let's get the new things started off right by having a separate email address for your business endeavors.

Once you've got your email set up, it's time to Opt In with the businesses you find interesting. Opting In simply means you are going to fill out some basic information so that businesses can contact you about their opportunities. Here are a few rules of the road for Opting In.

1) Opting In does not mean you are committing in any way so don't be afraid to click send. You need information and Opting In is the best way to start the ball rolling for deeper investigation into any opportunity.

2) Leave your basic email information and name. Skip the phone number section. Remember, we're investigating at this stage so we're keeping our potential marketers at arms length.

Without a doubt, probably immediately, you'll begin to get responses in your email box. These responses you are getting are generally pre-written pitches designed to get you excited about the opportunity. The key with reading sales letters as a prospective investor in an opportunity is to read them like a true critique. Try to poke holes or identify where their are holes in the story. For instance, maybe the sales letter is full of HUGE numbers and profit possibilities but says very little about the specifics of the compensation plan. (a very common problem by the way) Make note of that. Write a quick list of your potential objections and questions and then make direct contact with the sponsor who emailed you. Do this for all the opportunities that initially peeked your interest.

A sure fire way to see if a sponsor and their opportunity is someone you want to deal with is if they actually respond to you personally and not with another pre-written pitch letter. If you continue to get pre-written letters scratch that opportunity off your list or at least that particular sponsor. Remember, if you can't get them to answer questions directly now, do you really think they will be available to help you when you have problems down the road with the business? Probably not.

If they do write back, make sure they actually answer your questions and that they don't just re-sell their great ideas or shift the topic to something totally unrelated to your inquiry. If they don't answer questions to your satisfaction, get rid of them. If they answer some but not all, press them on the issues, and if again they fail to answer, get rid of them. This process is a way sorting through the scams and finding legitimate sponsors who are willing to help you succeed.

During all of these exchanges, remember be the professional. Just because you're pressing for detailed answers and being a tough customer doesn't mean you have license to be rude or obnoxious in the process. Sew good seeds in your communication of positive, professional, behavior.

Their has been a lot of information in this post so let's review.

1) Get a separate business opportunities email address.
2) Opt In to all the opportunities that peaked your interest.
3) Be the critique. Find holes in the sales letters you receive.
4) Send direct emails to the sponsors asking very detailed questions.
5) If they answer straight ahead, you've got a real potential sponsor and business. If they don't get rid of them.

When all is said and done you'll have some narrowed down opportunities. Now it's time to assess which is the best one for you. We'll cover the factors that make up that decision next time. In the meantime, live radically!

Gary

Navigating the waters of Internet Home Business Opportunities

Due diligence and thinking big!
By Gary W. Miller Jr.

If you're like me, you've sat down at the computer and began searching online for business opportunities. Not just any kind of opportunity, a home based opportunity. You've probably typed various things into Google. "Earn money from home", "Make money part time", "Internet business" and ultimately you've been inundated with site after site promising everything from millions to mansions and everything in between. I remember scratching my head both excited about the possibilities but also equally cautious. The news media, our parents, and life in general have taught all of us to have a healthy dose of skepticism. So with that in mind, I decided to dig and find out everything I could about these "amazing" opportunities. With that in mind, I've put together a series of steps over a few blog entries to help you navigate the waters of Internet home businesses.

The first thing we all encounter when we begin out Internet business search is that their are a lot of people involved in Internet money making opportunities. That's good news! We now have to filter out what's junk and what isn't. This is commonly referred to in the Internet business community as doing due diligence. In basic terms it means researching information about a person or business.

You may be reading that saying, "Ok that sounds responsible but how the heck do I go about doing it?"

Step One:

Do basic Internet searches on home based businesses on the Internet. Visit a lot of pages. Let me rephrase that, visit a TON of websites. Consider this window shopping. You'll notice immediately that many of the pages look the same. The ones that stick out though, for whatever reason, bookmark them in your browser. You'll be coming back to them to really start investigating. Right now, it's just about seeing what's out there. Spend some time doing this and I highly recommend you do it over multiple sessions. In other words, come back later in the day and do some searching or put it away for a few days and search some more. This will give you fresh perspective each time. Remember, the point of this step is not to sign up, deeply investigate, or even email someone. It's simply to get you exposed to the variety of businesses out there.

Scan the content of each website but don't agonize over every detail. That will come later when you're narrowing down your opportunities to the ones that you seriously want to investigate. Believe me, their will be plenty of time to pick apart the many pitches. I will show you how to do just that in later lessons. For now, bookmark the ones that look promising. The reasons they appeal to you will vary; the money looks great, start up costs are low, the website looks really professional, you really like the audio clips, whatever. Again this isn't about deep investigation, it's about first impressions. As you know, first impressions are everything so go with your first gut reaction. It will certainly pay off later.

Ultimately, have fun with this. You will absolutely, without a doubt, go to many websites that are advertising pure garbage. However you will also land on some that have some great potential. Let your mind get excited about opportunity. Remember you don't need to know exactly how it all will work, but you can already begin to foster positive thoughts that success will happen! I remember sitting down after doing some searching with a pad and paper and I started writing down all the things I wanted to have in my life that a little more or sometimes a lot more money could help with. A simple exercise like this really gets the juices flowing and the effect that such thinking can have on your future business is unparalleled. Your thoughts have power!

So get something to drink, get comfortable, and get to searching. I'll see you back here next time for step two; Making Contact and Reading between the Lines of hype advertising.

Live Radically!
Gary