What is Your Plan B?

On the heels of today's bleak economic forecast, it's more important than ever to have a "Plan B." Job losses are being reported in many industries, including those once thought of as safe. Here in Chicago, one of the cities oldest hospitals is shutting its doors for good at the end of this year after over 125 years serving the community.

No matter what, you've got to position yourself to be self-sufficient. That should be your top priority above all else. Assuming job stability is no longer the norm. There are many opportunities out there. Which will you take advantage of?

Love What You Do At Home

Working from home is fun, when you love what you do. For many, the choice to pursue work-at-home opportunities was made because of less than fulfilling traditional jobs and careers. Just like with a traditional career, if you’re not 100% happy with your work-at-home opportunity, you’ll be less than satisfied.

Picking the right opportunity is about so much more than a great compensation plan. Let’s face it: the best compensation plan in the world does no good if you don’t have a product that you’re in love with. Here are just a few guidelines to follow when deciding which opportunity is best for you:

• Be in love with the products. If you don’t believe with absolute certainty that the products you’re marketing are the best in the world, then how will you convince others? Don’t choose one company over another because their products are more affordable, especially if you know for a fact that the products of a major competitor are better. Keep this in mind: most people believe price is directly related to quality.
  
• Identify unique marketing and/or product lines. With just about every product, there are several companies to choose from. One person can only use so much body lotion and burn so many candles! What does your prospective company do differently than the rest to stand out? If the answer is “nothing,” then you may want to keep looking.
  
• Brand recognition. A positive brand is vitally important to the success of your business. Choosing a company that has not saturated your market is good in that you can be the pioneer of the brand. However, if that brand name is tarnished in other markets, steer clear.
  
• Support and training. The scariest thing for some folks choosing a work-at-home opportunity is feeling like you’re all alone once you’ve signed on the dotted line. Unfortunately, that happens all too often. Having a solid, supportive sponsor is key to your success. Your sponsor shouldn’t be doing your work for you, but they should be able to offer motivation when you need it and answer general questions about team-building and product sales as well. If you don’t get the warm and fuzzies from a potential sponsor right away, chances are you never will. Look for another sponsor in your area if you’re sold on the company and go from there.
  
• Customer service. Try this when you’re “interviewing” work-at-home opportunities: call in to the customer service department playing the role of customer. Create a scenario, such as a defective product, and pay close attention to how your concerns are handled. If you receive poor service as a customer, imagine what things will be like as a distributor or representative. Enough said!

If you’re already in the ranks of the home-based business entrepreneurs of the world, kudos to you! You’ve taken the first step towards owning your financial security. If you’re not totally happy with your progress so far, do a quick self-inventory to find out why. Is it the quality of the products? A non-supportive (even non-existent) sponsor? Have you done your part to get the word out about your business?

If you’re seriously ready to take a leap of faith and launch your own business, remember to take the things in the article seriously. Try to come up with other ways not mentioned here to interview sponsors that have contacted you and companies that you’re interested in. When you’re ready, make a confident decision and go boldly into the world of being a work-at-home entrepreneur. Good luck and many blessings!!!

Learning to Expect Success

Learning to live a life of great expectations is really not that difficult at all: it simply requires a shift in the way that you think. For most of us, our parents began telling us at a young age that we could be anything that we wanted to be. As children with limitless imaginations, we believed them! Somewhere along the way, life and all of it's negative influences happened and those beliefs changed to, "I can't do it because (fill in the blank)." If you truly want to be successful, whatever success means to you, you must get back to that childlike way of thinking.

To put it simply, your life is what you expect it to be: EXACTLY what you expect it to be. For network marketing professionals, if you expect to present your business opportunity to a prospect only to be turned down, chances are that's exactly what will happen. Your expectations come through in your presentation. You could very well have a prospect that is so excited he or she is bursting at the seams, but because of your less than stellar energy, they quickly loose interest. Don't be the water to their flame!

Will everyone see your opportunity as the best in the world and be dying to get signed up? Most likely not. But you won't know the difference until you actually present your plan! Treat everyone with the same intensity and excitement no matter how you're feeling at that particular moment in time. Always try to recall how excited you were when you first joined your company and bring that same energy to the table.

One last thing: anyone who took an introductory psychology course learned that the basic definition of insantity is"performing the same task in the same way and expecting a different outcome every time." That theory simply does not apply in the world of sales and network marketing! No matter how many times your business opportunity is consecutively turned down by prospects, continue to expect the next meeting to end in success. You are what you think you are, so expect nothing but great things!