Trevor Willoughby asked:


A Home Business Opportunity is a great journey to embark on. While it can be a complicated task, having a handy checklist will help keep you on track. If you begin with a good working plan your Home Business Opportunity will get off the ground without a hitch.

The first step in starting a Home Business Opportunity is creating a business plan. It is essential that you have a plan to detail what you want the Home Business Opportunity to be and where you want it to go. Establish goals you intend to reach and when you want when you want to achieve them by. How much money do you have to invest in the Home Business Opportunity? What type of schedule will you be able to work i.e. how much time can you dedicate to your Home Business Opportunity every day? What is your launch date, don’t procrastinate? All of these things should be figured out before you actually put things into motion for your Home Business Opportunity.

What type of Home Business Opportunity are you starting? Will your Home Business Opportunity be based on a current hobby/interest or will you start as most do by being an affiliate marketer? This all depends on the money you have to put up and the type of business you will be starting. Make sure that you are realistic.

The laws regarding your Home Business Opportunity do vary from state to state and country to country. There are many tax benefits associated with operating your Home Business Opportunity that make the venture even more attractive, so make sure you maximize them.

Probably the most important part of starting a Home Business Opportunity is your reason Why I say this because as with any business online or offline you will most likely be spending more than what you earn in the first couple of months. You need to have very strong reasons for why your Home Business Opportunity is going to be successful because you will have times of frustration and doubt but to be successful you need to push past that.

In establishing your reasons why you want a successful Home Business Opportunity they need to be such that if you don’t make a success of it, what is going to be the result of that and are you prepared to accept that because again if the Why is not strong enough it is easy to give up and let someone else decide your fate. Not a good option I would have thought.

When looking through the myriad of Home Business Opportunity that are available today it is easy to become confused so you need to abide by certain criteria when making your selection.

Some of the things that I suggest in making the right choice for a Home Business Opportunity are;

If it sounds too good to be true then it most likely is, a Home Business Opportunity is like any other opportunity and that is the path to riches takes some time, a lot of work, a lot of learning, persistence and dedication.

The Home Business Opportunity has to offer excellent training, multiple streams of income in other words do not just get tied to one product.

You need to have a supportive upline if you are going into affiliate marketing and list building because both of these styles of business allow you to achieve leverage which is the secret of the rich. That famous quote of ” I’d rather have 1% of a 100 peoples efforts than a 100% of mine” is just as relevant today if not more so than when it was uttered some 100 years ago.

With a Home Business Opportunity that allows you to do that puts you on the path not only of wealth but wealth on auto pilot because once you understand that a Home Business Opportunity gives you the power to have that wealth keep increasing year after year. This is what is known as residual income,

Zig Ziglers well known quote of “If you help enough people get what they want you will get everything that you want”

So once again when you are deciding on which Home Business Opportunity you are going to start make sure that you are comfortable that the company or group you are going to be working with share that philosophy. Because if they don’t you are going to finish up like far too many people on what I call the Home Business Opportunity merry go round and just keep moving from one opportunity to the next.

Don’t let that happen to you, there are huge rewards to those who understand this, so approach your Home Business Opportunity with passion and commonsense and communicate.

I wish you every success and sincerely hope our paths cross some day.

Trevor Willoughby

Greg Vintar asked:


Why so many people fail in online business is a most frequent discussion online these days. The fact is that of all newbies online actually 1-5% manage to make some money and run successfull business online later on. We have to look for answers to this ”fenomen” in many ways. But? first you have to accept the fact that online business is the same as any other offline form of selling and marketing. You have to work hard and learn a lot (from others) but most important is, that you actually understand how the system works.

You can spend a lot of your time and money on searching for that magic formula to make you rich over night but gues what. There are many ebooks and scripts that promise you success overnight or something like automatic cash system and etc… But the only automatic part of entire online business is based on autoresponder service (if you use one). And that is a payable option. All the rest (marketing and promotion) depends on you and nobody else. So here are the main reasons why people fail in online business:



Lack of commitment. This is the major reason for failing. Commitment is like having an iron will to do or to achieve your goals.People usually by an ebook, than they set the system up according to instructions and wait for money to come to their account. Well, if you think that making money online is that easy you should quit immediately and start playing lottery. This way you will have more chances to win.





Investments. I have a question for you. How much money are you willing to spend for your online business? None, some or as much as it takes? You have to choose or set a limit for how much money you’ll invest? in order to start and run your online business. Otherwise you’ll waste a lot of money on rewritten ebooks and systems that will never return your investment. You probably wont believe me but setting up a nice professional system with an hour of work per day from your site will cost you no more than $30/month. And you don’t even need a website or any other ”must have” tools to cover the investment and make some decent income.





Stay focused. You have to stay focused and only work on one step at the time. Don’t jump from one offer to another. People usually quit because they become confused and at the end they don’t even know what where they looking for? in the first place. So make your self one goal for each day and try to learn that step. Only then move on to next one.



It’s hard to describe all reasons why people fail in online business with one article. Just remember that only commitment, ability to learn and stay focused and a bit of investment will make your online business successfull and nothing else.

Trina Newby asked:


Writing a Working Business Plan

By Trina Newby

Many women are so confused by the words - “Business Plan”. What is it? Who do I show it to? Do I really need it? What is it really going to do for me?

A business plan is a written blueprint for your business. It describes a summary of what your business is about and its’ goals. It also outlines how your business will function. The term “business plan” was first developed by bankers who wanted a detailed report of how a business would result in profits before they would make a decision on lending money. Today, no business banker will even entertain a business loan application without a business plan.

In a nutshell, the answer is yes, you really do need a business plan if you really want to build a solid foundation under your home-based business.

I guess the reason so many women procrastinate in doing a business plan is because they think they have to come up with some imaginary figures and statistics about their business which is of course very scary for anyone. This type of plan is known as an Executive Business Plan. This plan is shown to banks, SBA and other lenders who you may apply to for a substantial loan. Usually, this type of business plan must show a 3-5 year projection of how much money your business would make if they should lend you a specific sum of money. Although you will need this type of business plan should you wish to expand your business, the most important thing for you to know now is where you will be in the next 3,6,9 and 12 months. One of the best form of business plans to start out with is the “Working Business Plan”. This plan answers the 5 “W’s” - Who, What, Where, When and Why.

There is no pre-required length that a Working Business Plan should be. Just remember that you aren’t writing to impress, you are writing to address the important issues of starting your business. This plan is just for your planning purposes and can be expanded later on into a full executive plan. The following outline will help you in processing your thoughts and writing your Working Business Plan.

1. Mission Statement - What is the goal of your business? What purpose does it serve?

2. Objective - What will the outcome be for your business as a result of your mission. (Ex: K.G. enterprises will gross over $50,000 it’s first year with a 5% error margin on its documents).

3. Management - Who will run the business and what qualifications does the person have. What additional skills or resources are needed? What are the names of others that might be able to serve as mentors or help you in grooming your business for success?

4. Service/Product - What products or services are being offered? How will they be produced? If you are selling a product, how much of the product will you need in stock? Do you have the start-up capital needed to purchase the produce? If no, how will you raise the capital needed?

5. Customers - Who are your customers? What area are they in? Is this a service or product they will want to buy? Do a typical profile of a repeat customer. 6. Competition - Who are your competitors? Where are they located? What are their prices? What services or products do they sell? How could you do better?

7. Marketing - How will you market your business? How much money will you need to market your business? How is your competition marketing their business? Do you need business cards, brochure, stationery, fliers etc.?

8. Office Set-up - What are your daily office procedures, what will you do each day that will result in the sale of your service or product? What bookkeeping system will you use and how often will you input your information in the system? Do you need a bookkeeper? What supplies do you need? What type of furniture do you need? What office equipment will you need? Where will your office be?

9. Finances - HOW MUCH MONEY WILL YOU NEED FOR THE FOLLOWING?

$ Your Income

$ Advertising/Promotion

$ Bank Fees

$ Business Insurance

$ Business Lease/Rent

$ Internet (include website, hosting etc.)

$ Supplies

$ Postage

$ Printing

$ Telephone

$ Training

$ Utilities

$ Marketing/Advertising

$ Equipment

$ Furniture

10. Networking - Who needs to know about your new venture and why? What contacts do you need to have? Why do you need to know them? What can they help you with?

Contact Management

Establish a good contact management system for yourself. Today, keeping a list of contacts on paper is not efficient. Good contact management software will be needed. If you currently use MS Office, you should have MS Outlook already installed and it will serve the purpose nicely. Other popular contact management software are ACT and Goldmine. Regardless of what contact system you have you must be willing to update your system at least twice per week.

Evaluate how you will manage you contact system. Make sure to schedule this in your planner or palm.

Establish a good contact management system for yourself. Today, keeping a list of contacts on paper is not efficient. Good contact management software will be needed. If you currently use MS Office, you should have MS Outlook already installed and it will serve the purpose nicely. Other popular contact management software are ACT and Goldmine. Regardless of what contact system you have you must be willing to update your system at least twice per week. Evaluate how you will manage you contact system. Make sure to schedule this in your planner or palm.

11. Sales - The number of clients you service or products you sale will give you a true picture as to whether or not you are having success with your business. But first, you must have a measurable sales goal in achieving this success. Start by evaluating where you want to be in sales for the first 3 months, 6, months, 9 months or one year. By doing this you will be able to re-evaluate your business plan every three months and determine if you need to improve in marketing etc.

12. Starting Date - Set a starting date for when you want to begin your business or put into place this working business plan. Make sure you have printed material available for all services or products offered. Also evaluate and follow-up with yourself daily for the first month to ensure that you are following your own plan. After 30 days, follow-up on a weekly basis and then monthly from that point on.

13. Remember, no plan will work unless you are willing to put it into action!

About the Author:

Trina Newby is President and Founder of Women About Biz, a powerful membership-based network for Businesswomen. Let Women About Biz show you how to develop a working business plan and assist you growing your business.