The Definitive Guide To Choosing The Right Home Based Business - Part 4 of 6

The definite guide to choosing the right home based business opportunity simply boils down to the questions you ask yourself before you start your search. Understanding your goals for success, and how your perceive a home based business to get you there, will have a profound impact on your decision making process. In fact, knowing what you need ahead of time will make the process go much more smoothly, allowing you to weed out unsatisfactory business opportunities rapidly.

Note: There are no specific businesses listed in this article so your use of this guide is not hindered by a constant sales pitch. If you would like to discuss specific ideas, please contact the author within the profile area where you read this article.

The following lists distinctive aspects of a home based business that you should consider:

1. Primary Prospecting Source: Internet, Phone, or Direct Mail
2. Prospect Application Process: Free, Paid, Non-Existent
3. Commission Structure: Up-Front and Residual
4. System: Organization, Support, Accessibility, and Content  <-- This Article
5. Leveraging Time, Capital, and Experience
6. Marketing Style: Anonymous Sales vs. Personal Branding

4. System: Organization, Support, Accessibility, and Content

Marketing is the lifeblood of every business. And for the home based business entrepreneur, you are personally responsible for your marketing efforts. Depending on your experience level with marketing, the system a business opportunity provides may be the most critical of all the characteristics. Like the commission structure mentioned in the previous article within this guide, picking the business opportunity with then marketing system that best matches your personality will be a tremendous help to your success.

What is a system? What do I mean by that? When it comes to internet based businesses in particular, a system is known as the "back office". A system is a collection of marketing strategies, advertising tools, marketing education (audio, video, and text), forums, recorded calls & webinars, live call & webinar schedules, call scripts, access to branded direct mail media (postcards, business cards, letters, etc.), lead tracking, commission tracking, sales reports, and on and on and on. It is the hub to your business and should be accessed nearly everyday for training or status, especially in your first 6 months in business.

For someone who is completely new to both online and offline marketing, the system that appeals to you should be heavy in training material for marketing on a budget, more affectionately referred to as "guerrilla marketing". There should be archived training calls recorded, a checklist of daily and weekly tasks, motivational calls to action, video training, and access to live support. The system to a new member needs to be presented cleanly and organized with specific action steps for the first week so that something can get marked as accomplished, paving the way to a successful start to the home based business.

The intermediate and expert marketers need a back-office that tracks their advertisements, provides very detailed marketing strategies such as keyword development and relevancy, holds frequent leadership and mastermind calls, contains a ready-to-plug-in set of auto-responders, and provides an extensive member communication tool set including call scripts, email broadcasts, and forums. The expert marketer is spending a lot more money on advertising as compared to the newbie marketer who is focusing on free social marketing and personal branding strategies. Therefore, the expert marketer is more interested in lead and source tracking to manage costs, as well as strategies to reduce costs will increasing both prospects and conversion rates.

Here are some important yet subtle tips you should consider when reviewing the system of a home based business opportunity:

• The organization of the back office should be easily understood with clear separations between education and training, call and webinar recorded archives, lead management and tracking, resource tracking, member communication and scripts, commissions and payout, access to support, and general setup and maintenance of your account and profile. Trust your gut; if you are instantly confused, then the content within may be confusing as well. Look for simple layouts pleasing to the eye with lots of content and tools.

• The system should have a tiered approach to support. There should be an extensive FAQ (frequently asked questions), a group forum or frequent group call schedule, a question submission feature to general support, and contact to either a team of mentors or a specific coach.

• Look for an active community. An active community where leaders welcome and personally train newcomers is an incredible experience. If you prefer to be involved in such a team and a system, be sure to look for frequent (almost daily) team calls and webinars. Some business opportunities actually have daily general team calls, business overview calls, and specific marketing strategy calls. People willing to check their egos at the door and openly share their knowledge with other team members makes for a successful journey for the budding entrepreneur.

• If the business opportunity is self-branding, where the name of the company or branded celebrity personality is the focal point, then access to the back office from a "Member" or "Admin" or "Affiliate" login link is appropriate and actually preferred. However, if you are personally branding your business opportunity, then prospects who view your lead capture page may be turned off by seeing such a link as they will think of your business as "typical" and part of a non-caring conglomerate. What works best for businesses that thrive on their members' individual personal branding is a separate web site domain for the back office system access.

• There was a lot stated regarding content of the back office already, so I just want to stress the importance of utilizing mixed media. Different people have different personalities and prefer different means to educate themselves. Therefore, the training materials should be a combination of text, audio, video, slides, webinars, and so on. Look for variety not only in content but in delivery methods.

Few business opportunities allow you to view the back office system before joining the business. This is where an application process comes in handy, as discussed in the second part of this guide. When a prospect completes and application (free or paid) some businesses provide a "student" or guest account to view the back office in its entirety or at least a smaller version to give the applicant a better idea of what to expect as a member. This is a nice feature and another reason I prefer business opportunities with paid application filters.

The organization, support, accessibility, and content of a back office system can either turn a newbie marketer into an expert success, or it can turn a positive thinking entrepreneur into a desperate unorganized mess. If you are looking for a home based business that has a high up-front and high residual commission structure, then the importance of a fully functioning back office system can not be overstated. If the system cannot hold your hand and guide you to success, how can you expect your members to succeed? A great system does not guarantee a great business opportunity, but a great business opportunity always has a great system.