One of my favourite pastimes has always been 'people watching', and I cannot think of a better place to be doing this than from the Starbucks found in the foyer of a local hotel.

Hmmm, I can hear you thinking – what is really so fascinating about Starbucks on a Wednesday morning?

Well, you see the place right now is heaving with reps/business people who are wearing suits and busy on their lap tops or with their mobile glued to their ears. Their entire world at this moment being their 'job'.

As I glance around me right now I can see 'important' meetings, management appraisals, business phone calls, frantic emailing…

No one is sitting back enjoying the coffee or reading the paper or taking 5 to relax – except me, yet I am still 'working'.

I am struggling to find more than 1 smiling face – everyone else being earnestly serious (yet probably thinking what a crock this all really is)

Everyone is busy and engrossed dancing to the tune of someone else.  That someone else probably being their employer who is buying their invaluable time.

I took a decision 3 years ago to start dancing to my own tune because I was sick of being at the beck and call of someone else.  I no longer wanted someone else having a call on my time and my life.  I wanted to be my own boss and work from my home or Starbucks.

I wanted to do something that I really enjoyed and that gave me the opportunity to work when I wanted, where I wanted and with whom I wanted AND earning more money than I ever did before

So, I did something about it, I got up off my butt and took action because no one else was going to do this for me.  I made it happen.

So, here I am in Starbucks on a Wednesday morning just relaxing and watching the world go by thinking – I am so glad I am here by choice  

What do you choose?

Work from home opportunities – this very phrase will either create fear or anticipation.  It rarely creates no reaction at all.  We have all heard the stories of people working from home and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams and these are the people we desperately want to become like. We have also heard the horror stories of people being ‘scammed’ and robbed of their money and dreams. 

In the home business industry thousands of people spend hours stuffing envelopes, filling out surveys or doing typing jobs.  And yes, these are legitimate work from home ‘jobs’ that thousands of people do very well  & they often earn more money than they would at a traditional 9 to 5 job. However, they usually require a good deal of hard work and do not use the internet to its true potential as they only use the effort of 1 person to generate the income. They do not use the concept of leverage.

However, the work from home industry is now truly coming into its own and is gaining recognition as a serious way to quit the rat race and take back control of your life.  In the current economic climate today there are millions who are looking for a way to change the way they live or looking for a way to come back from redundancy or looking for a less stressful and more fulfilling way of earning a living.  People are conciously looking for a way to enhance the quality of their lives yet in doing this they are also looking to increase their income.  In short the legitimate work from home industry is booming as never before – even in the middle of a so called recession.  So, how do you decide from the thousands on online business opportunities which one to choose?

First and foremost you need to determine your goals.  Whatever these goals are set to will determine which type of business model will suit you best. So, what are your income goals, what are your lifestyle goals? If you are looking to generate just a couple of hundred dollars per month to cover some of the bills then take your pick of the vitamins, ebooks and potions available – there are hundreds to choose from. The start up costs are low but the work required to maintain a decent level of business can be high as can the drop off rates. Keeping a consistent level of sales can be very hard work.

However, if you looking to generate $10K+ per month (which equates to a six figure income) then you need to start looking for a top tier business model. This is generally in direct sales and will usually attract the serious entrepreneurs as the start up costs will scare away those who do not have the necessary commitment both in terms of financr and effort.  Consider buying a bricks and mortar franchise where you would not only have the franchise start up costs but also inventory,rent, rates, staff, overheads etc.  With an online business you probably only have the initial start up cost and then monthly renewals. You are already more profitable by what overheads you are saving on. Any serious online business will require investment in time and money and any serious prospect will understand this and will be preapred for this.

With this top level of investment and commitment you need to be certain that you get the level of education, training and support required.  Earning a 6 or even 7 figure income takes hard work and a certain degree of skill and you will need help with this.  You need to be mentored and trained by someone who is already successful and be shown by them exactly how they have created their success.  You need to be sure that systems are in place that make it easy for you to carbon copy their success.  You need to know that even if you begin as a total newbie that there is a marketing training program in place that caters for your level of experience and that constantly develops you.  The majority of home business opportunities will not take advantage of one very important factor – leverage.  With the age of the internet we now have the opportunity as never before to use the phenomenal power of leverage.  Today we have web sites, autoresponders, video marketing, social networking and all these serve to save human time and hours. Technology advances faster than we can even keep up with and the systems are constantly evolving into better and more sophisticated applications. We can now use leverage to the extent that human intervention and involvement can be to an absolute minimum.  We can set up web pages and sites that give the prospect information and it qualifies them.  They then get led to information which will give them more details and not only that but given information which is useful and valuable. The age of having to spend hours on the phone talking to prospects is long gone – old school MLM methods were never using leverage and they have no place in the new models used today.  By the time a prospect talks on the phone to a consultant they have been qualified several times over and will be ready to buy – there is no time for timewasters and tyre kickers. Using leverage is what allows us to create our dream life as it frees up our time.

The whole idea of working from home online is not only to escape 9 to 5 but also to create time so that we can spend our lives doing the things we truly want to be doing not working for a living at a ‘job’.  By using the internet and using leverage and by having a successful top tier home based business we can achieve this – the new way to live is by your own rules from home and the vehicle to make this happen is the internet. Those who are prepared to step up and take action and make this happen are the entrepreneurs of today and tomorrow and these are the internet businesses that will succeed in the new economy emerging right now. Work from home opportunities are now in the business of lifestyle design.

 I just got back from a fabulous family holiday in Menorca just last night & today have been reflecting just how much my life has changed in less than 2 years. Back then (it sounds like eons ago but it was really only 2 years) I was working pretty much flat out full time both for myself & for a Further Education College near to my home & a private college. Yes, I loved my work BUT it was hard work & long hours & I used to sit & think to myself that there had to be an easier way! To be quite honest I sat & mused over this puzzle for years before I finally found 'my way' out of it. I mean 'my way' as I do understand that what works extremely well for me will not necesarily work for you or for other people. However, I can make an assumption about you right now whilst you are reading this because you would not be here now if you too were not looking very hard for 'another' way of earning a living based from home. You are probably looking for a way that not only allows you to earn far more money than you currently are BUT also allows you to earn it in such a way that it allows you to do this in far less time & in such a way that gives you total flexibility to work wherever you might be (at home or in Timbuktu). I can hear your alarm bells ringing right now as you are thinking "oh no, she is trying to sell me her home business opportunity!", so you can take a deep breath of relief because I am not going to do that because if a home business opportunity is right for you than it needs no selling. It tends to be one of those ahha moments where you just know instinctively that it is right for you & no amount of explaining or cajoling or harrassing can make you feel any differently. I could never decide what is the best thing for you or anyone else. However, having been through a rollercoaster of a ride over the last 20 months I am now in such a place that I can offer a few words of advice based on my own experiences. 1. Make sure that whatever you choose is a simple proven automated system. By this I mean that the business/system is easy to use even for a novice/newbie. Do your due dilligence to ensure that it has produced 6 figure earners & that it continues to do so even for newbies not just those who joined from their old companies bringing an extensive downline with them. Make sure that it leverages the true power of the internet & so is designed to save you time. The whole idea of a home based business is that it allows you to work fewer hours for a whole lot more $$. Once you have found the business for you then do not allow yourself to get distracted & focus totally on it because if it is already proven to work then there is no reason it will not do this for you too. 2. Make sure that you sign up under a mentor/sponsor who is prepared to help you & show you how they work. They should have done all the hard work before you so are they prepared to save you time & effort? Check them out on google to see that they are who they claim to be! 3. Make sure that you set income goals that are very specific then you need to find an opportunity that will comfortably allow & support you whilst you to realise these. In other words there is no point setting an income goal of $250K & selling a product that gives $50 commission per sale. Think about it – how many sales do you need to make to make this income possible, how much hard work is it & how much follow up is needed to keep these amounts coming in month after month? If your goals are high then your commission levels need to be high. Not only your financial goals but also personal/lifestyle ones. I use a 'treasure map', a board with pictures showing my dream life/car/home/holiday. It is above my desk so I see it every day & reinforce to myself what I am working for. 4. Probably the most important piece of the puzzle – YOU! If your head is not in the right place then success will not follow no matter how you work your business. You need to set your mind to success, mix with the people who you aspire to become like, set your financial thermostat to 'hot'. Your determination, belief, faith, persistence & gratitude will carry you all the way to the very top & beyond. Unless you have total belief in yourself then no one can be expected to follow you. My journey over the last 20 months had had ups & downs ( & still does) but I found that the trick is to treat the downs with as much enthusiasm as the ups because these are the times when I get my biggest periods of growth so I no longer feel despondent I get to feel excited. My daughter is now on the 8 week summer holiday from school & I used to dread it worrying about child care & having to take time away from 'work'. Now I can work from wherever we might be in the world & last week was Menorca, next week is probably London & the week after that Barcelona. Taking that initial plunge into to the deep unknown waters of online home businesses can be scarey but at the same time very very exciting. So, always hold onto that tingly feeling of excitement & do not allow fear to take hold because the rewards to be gained are too high to lose!

In the uncertain times of todays economic climate there are millions of people looking for a way to make their lives more secure. With the reality of redundancy, bankruptcy, short time hours & total uncertainty more people than ever are looking for ‘another’ way of earning money.

The one place at the moment where there is no recession is on the internet & this is one of the reasons why millions are turning to this as a place to earn money. Not only to earn money but as a way of reclaiming their lives. For far too long we have been slaves to corporate America/UK. Most people spend the majority of their time earning money to buy their home yet they spend so little time in it. We have spent far too long and far too much of our time on the 9 to 5 corporate treadmill, we now see this and have decided that enough is enough!

I came to this conclusion 18 months ago and found my way to the web and have never looked back. I do not miss the daily stress of making profits for someone else whilst they try & succeed to control my life and my time. I now get up, take my daughter to school then come home and start working for ME. The change in attitude this created for me has been revolutionary, I no longer resent working, I am happy, I feel like I am back in the driving seat of my own life, I take total responsibility for my ultimate success or failure – no one else can take the blame. I probably work longer hours but that is my own choice, I have the flexibility to work when it is convenient to me. Working for myself in this way has been totally empowering and do you know what? It feels pretty good!

Making that decision to change is the hardest part – once taken you have got over that biggest first hurdle the rest is purely mechanics of what you are going to do. There are thousands of different home business opportunites out there on the internet and making the choice can be very overwhelming but a decision has to be made for you to move and progress.

I would recommend that you do your due dilligence after you have sat down and written your goals and objectives. How much do you want to be earning in 6 months time? How much time per week do you want to be spending doing this? Do you want the flexibility of hours to suit you? How much do you have to initially invest? How much experience do you have of using the internet? If you have very little you need to find a mentor who can help and support and coach you.

The products you will be selling are secondary to finding the right help and mentor. For you to get to the place you need to be in you need to find someone who is already there who is prepared to share their experience and expertise to help you. I searched until I found a mentor and business that specialises in internet marketing training – I can now sell anything I like with this knowledge, however I wanted to also have products that were real and useful and meaningful. I actually unknowingly at that time hit the jackpot big time as I not only got to be trained and coached but the products are now some of the most sought after as they are financial education! If we had all had this type of education at school then the world might not be in the state it is right now.
I now spend a proportion of my time helping others to achieve the same as me so that they too can do the same for others – the more I can enrich others lives the richer mine becomes.

So, if you are looking to make that life changing decision make sure that you set your goals down clearly in black and white and do your due dilligence. Find a mentor who will help you to get there with training to support you. Find products that are real, meaningful and can genuinely help & where the compensation is realistic in terms of your income goals & the effort required to earn it. Find a system that leverages the true power of the internet thus saving your time and energy you have already wasted enough of your life reinventing the wheel. The whole idea of a home based business is to free you up to be doing more important things so make sure that the system supports this.

Orrest Head At Windermere

I now have my life where I want it to be how many people can admit that?

Last week was half term so instead of stressing out over childcare arrangements whilst I had to be working for someone else we took off as a family to the Lake District over here in the UK. I took my computer and for a few hours did some work and for the rest of the time we had a wonderful time enjoying the beautiful scenery, fantastic weather and just the fact of being together as a family. Children are not small for very long and enjoying that time is why we do what we do. I count my blessings every day that I now do exactly what I want to do & not only help myself but help others to do the same.

Is your time & life that valuable that you need to start claiming it back as yours? Mine was!

We have just a had such a great Easter weekend away. We went to London to stay with family & we played tourist for a couple of days just taking in the sights such as Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square & the weather was ok (for the UK anyway).

But, the best thing of all was that knowing that even as I was wandering round having fun away from home that my business was working for me 24/7. I got 3 text messages whilst taking in the sights telling me that I had made sales. For goodness sake I was out & about having fun & not even thinking of working yet I was still making $$ – how good is that?

This is the true freedom of having an internet based home business. Not only that but by using a system that does all the qualifying, telling, selling & sorting for you therefore leaving you free to get on with the inportant things like going out & enjoying yourself with your loved ones. After all that is the whole reason for doing this in the first place.

I no longer need worry about taking holidays or if it is school holidays because all I do is fit my business around my family & make the time to go out & have fun – & as I already said I still make money even then:)

Are you one of those thousands/millions who are sitting on the fence right now prevaricating about making a start with a home based business? My advice to you would be jump down right now & get on with it as life is far too short to be just sitting around & the rewards are far too great to miss!