More and more people are turning to the Internet as an answer to creating additional income. There are many opportunities on the Internet can be operated as a Home-Based Business. Most Home-Based Businesses require an investment and many of these opportunities are Direct sales, (MLM) Multi-Level Marketing and Network Marketing. These are the types of business models that are promoted over the internet as well as word of mouth. Many of these companies are recent start up companies and a lot of hype and promotion goes into their launch or pre-launch. These opportunities should all be thoroughly researched and investigated and you should do your due diligence before investing your money. You should see how long these opportunities or companies have been in business, products or services sold, compensation plan, company owners and management. Another very important variable is the person that is sponsoring you into the business opportunity otherwise know has your up line should be research to determine his or her experience and knowledge. Also check for any hidden costs or additional monthly fees. Most online businesses provide you with a company website, some online training and a business start up manual. The website, training and start up manual will get you started but to be more productive and efficient the following five strategies should be implemented into your business to save you time and money.

The first strategy and most important is to get your own a self hosted website or blog and start promoting your own website and not the companies replicated website. Promoting your own website and not the companies allows you to brand yourself and stand out in a crowd. Promoting the company and/or product is how most inexperienced online business owners fail. Your personalized website helps to educate and qualify your prospects and has them calling and emailing you.

The second strategy is the importance of building a list using an auto responder and build a relationship with your list. Company sites build a list for the company and not for you personally. When you build your own list you can promote other products and services to your list and to generate additional income through affiliate products and services.

The third strategy is to have a sales funnel with additional products and multiple streams of income that can be promoted and create additional income. This sales funnel will also get your down-line and affiliates into positive cash flow quickly, allowing to generate a full time income in weeks instead of months.

The fourth strategy is you need a training platform that can be duplicated, can teach and instruct your distributors and/or affiliates to duplicate your success without you holding their hands and having your distributors and/or affiliates waste your time. This training platform is generic and can train anyone in Direct Sales, (MLM) Multi Level Marketing, Network Marketing and creates an income from the 95 percent of the people that do not get involved with your primary business.

The fifth strategy is having a system or platform that allows you to gradually get your primary business opportunity in front of your prospect. This system allows your to build relationships with hundreds, even thousands of people. This type of Business has always been a relationship business, and by building so many relationships, you will sponsor more distributors in a month than most online business do in a year.

The key to any online business is to find something that works and then focus on what works. If you would like to implement the five strategies and give your business the secret advantage and become part of the 5 percent of successful online businesses instead of the 95 percent that are failing.

Talk to majority of employees and you’ll find some of them would definitely come up with a dream of starting their own business. Since I’m building an online MLM business, I can relate these few points in building the right mindset in any business.

1. Business Is Not Employment

If you are still working with other people, do not treat your business like your job.

In the office, you will most likely be told to do your own tasks or assignments and they’ll be people setting up goals and directions for you. These goals and directions will align with the company growth – not your own personal financial growth. So, what plans do the company have for you? Not much!

However, in building your online business, you have to set your mind about where, when and what you want to achieve in life – meaning that goal setting-and-getting is your job.

You have to set your goals, strategize and work towards getting those goals on your own (with the help of your business team, of course). There will be no one forcing you to do any specific tasks in an online business and you won’t get penalized for not completing your tasks – but you have to remember that your income in any online program will not grow if you don’t grow.

So, treat your online business as your future investment.

2. Doing Half-heartedly Doesn’t Count

What’s the worst that you can get if you work half-heartedly at job? Not much if your boss doesn’t know that you are not giving your 100%. As long as you can deliver what’s expected from you, you are safe. Come back tomorrow and you are still at work.

It can be tough at times when you build an online home based business while still working – not only in terms of consistently getting the income but also in terms of giving attention to your business.

I still remember a quote from Robert Kiyosaki on a website. He suggests to keep your daytime job while starting a business part time mostly because of the experience. He says, “Not only will you learn about business, you will learn a lot about yourself,”

Since you already make certain amount of money every month from your job, a little income from your home based business seems trivial. But, it will grow bigger once your business starts to grow big.

However, this does not mean that you will put only a little effort in growing your business.

You would probably have heard that most wealthy people work harder than those who have jobs, but how do you build a business when you are still at work 9 to 5?

The key is to keep yourself disciplined and do the right things to grow your business consistently. If it takes 2 to 3 hours a day from your spare time to
build your business, then use those hours effectively to build your business.

Doing the right things for your business only for 2 to 3 hours a day does not mean you are doing half-heartedly. It means you’re giving a 100% on a limited half-time you have for your future.

3. Grow yourself more than you grow your business

That is right!

You can grow your business to a million dollar empire but you should know that your first million can go down the drain overnight because of a lot of factors.

What do normally business people do when that happens?

They get back up and build a bigger business because they are equipped with what it takes to be successful.

This includes sharpening your skills in networking, sales, communication and other areas of personal growth.

Most people with employee mentality will probably feel frustrated and unmotivated with failures and give up the first time business turns sour. They do not know what to do next when it happens.

Well-equipped business people know that failures are just temporary. It is like a stepping stone for them to elevate to a higher ground.

The friendship, self-motivation, business networking and sales skills will take them anywhere they want to go and build a new business in a more powerful way. The last temporary hiccup was actually their biggest lesson for them to grow to even smarter entrepreneurs.

Even when they are successful, they will keep on learning to grow themselves for greater challenges in the future.

In short, great business leaders are life-long personal development students.

Now, let’s close it by a quote from Jim Rohn that I love so much.

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”

Interpret it well and it won’t be surprised why the most respected business philosopher, Jim Rohn himself, said like that about personal development.