Home based business: The future of business across the world!Choosing a home based business is something that leaves many people shaking in fear of being scammed or duped into buying into a business idea that is less than legitimate.While the world is filled with “get rich quick” websites and programs that promise you millions of dollars with just a few hours of work, the reality is that most things that sound too good to be true usually are.That said, there are many legitimate home business programs available, as well. You just need to know what to look for when researching programs to find those that are right for you. No unfounded claims or promises: Legitimate business programs give you straight-up information about what you will need to do to be successful.They will let you know that there is work that needs to be done, and if you follow the system and do things by the book, you will make money and be successful with their program. Scam companies will tell you that you just buy their program and watch the money roll in – nice idea, but not so realistic.Up front about startup fees, investments, and costs: A good program will let you know from the beginning what you will need to spend to get started. Some of the less savory home business opportunities hit you with hidden fees, after you have already invested in their program.While there are often unforeseen expenses in any business venture, these should be minimal when you have found a program that is well organized and successful.Getting started with your home based business: Look for a business model that gives you all of the tools you need to get started on your business right away. You should have access to products, eCommerce tools, and other business resources that will help you to get your website or business set up and rolling, without having to do extra research to find the things you need elsewhere.Offers support, training, and mentoring: Solid home business programs will also give you a support system that you can turn to while growing your business, helping you on the way to finding success.New business owners need the help of someone experienced in business, or educated about their specific program to help them organize themselves and make the right decisions about their new business. Finding a company that offers help like that is the best way to give yourself a solid base when starting your business.Take a long hard look at the business model and resources offered when choosing a home based business plan. Once you find something that has everything that you need to get started, go ahead and make the investment that will get you started on your way to becoming a successful business owner.With a legitimate company behind you, a positive attitude about your new venture, and the right tools in place, you stand a solid chance of becoming a successful business owner.

If you are involved in a home business opportunity I assume you want to make money, to do so you need home-based business leads and the most sought-after leads are free leads. Most people wanting to work at home especially work at home mom’s are doing it part-time to earn extra money so they usually don’t have very much money to spend on getting leads to begin with.Of course if you have a big budget, paying for leads for a legitimate home based business such as MLM is the quickest way to get a work at home Internet business established. But, this article is about getting free leads for your Internet business to earn money online so let’s get on with it.These are the five most popular methods that I know of that are used to get free leads for a home-based business opportunity.* Blogs: Using the keyword(s) that you have chosen in your niche, search for other blogs that allow comments. If you leave comments that are beneficial to the blog post you may be allowed to leave a link to your blog.If you leave a comment like “great blog” or some other irrelevant comment you will most likely be deleted so make the comment good.* Article Marketing: This is a great way to get free leads, and there’s a few ways that you can approach this for maximum benefit. The concept is pretty simple and there are some great advantages in using it, one being that you don’t necessarily need a website to get these leads.Another big advantage is that the articles themselves can rank fast in your keyword niche in the search engines if they are published on authority domains resulting in free leads. The key is using what is called the author box or bio box.Here you can put in a link that will take your reader to your blog or squeeze page hopefully capturing their email address.* Forums: Find a forum in your niche and join it. You can easily find forums in a business opportunity by going to Google or any other search engine and typing in your niche keyword(s), the plus sign (+) and the word “forum”.Now the only reason to join a forum is to post a signature file with your web address so if the forum does not allow you to do so, don’t bother joining it. As I stated before when commenting on blogs, give comments or answers that are beneficial to the question being asked in the forum.* Social Media: Examples are Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. If you have a small business using this method can get you a lot of exposure. Getting involved is easy; here are a few pointers to help.You need to find groups in popular categories on your niche topic and join them, and then start sending out friend requests to group. You should start a fan page on any topic of your choice where you can encourage interaction among the fans.As an entrepreneur you would be remiss in not taking advantage of this method to further your Internet home business.* Warm market: Three words “don’t do it”. I have a friend who is in the home-based travel business and after three months of his calling all his friends and relatives he had what we call “NFL”, No Friends Left.If you try to get your friends or relatives involved in your work at home business you will be making a big mistake. Even if you think you have the best home-based business idea, your friends will treat you as a “direct sales snake oil salesman” and will not be picking up the phone when they know it is you.Final word, if you use even one of the above methods (with the exception of your warm market) you will get the home-based business leads that you need and it won’t cost any more than your time.

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.