Over the years I've had the opportunity to work with mothers trying to make money from home in many different ways. Some of them started their own businesses, others joined existing businesses like Avon or MaryKay. Unfortunately when I was working with them it was to help them with internet issues and not their home based business issues that were preventing their success.
I had the opportunity, however, to observe what they were doing and to listen to their strategies, their marketing efforts, their advertising attempts, what their frustrations were and what made them happy about what they were doing. To say the least, it was nothing short of fascinating. After a while I began to see a pattern appear.
There is no doubt that Work at Home Mothers can make money. Now not all mothers are going to agree with my observations because some things work for some people that don't for others. We all have different things that motivate us in our money making ventures.
One scenario that arose repetitively was work at home business women who joined a company and were given a website, marketing materials and provided their initial product by the company they joined for an enrollment fee.
The money making problem arose when the companies went out of business or provided guidelines that prevented the work at home mother from effectively marketing the product. This left the work at home mom with a lack of control as to what she could or could not do. The underlying issue that I identified was this. . . . it was not truly their business. When you have your own business, you can call the shots, you are not restricted by a third party and you are free to market and sell in any manner you desire. When you join a company to make money but they have a proprietary system of their own that they expect you to follow, then you are at their mercy. They can rescind you as a representative if they find that you have not met a quota or they can determine for some other reason that you are not a suitable representative for their products and suddenly your business is over.
Consider this example:
Let's assume a company called "Wristique" has a line of special wrist perfumes that appeal to the teenage girl market. They offer you the chance to be a representative with the ability to sell Wristique products, they provide you with a website, they provide you with a case of Wristique Samples, and they give you order forms together with their rules and guidelines. Wristique allows you to build not only a clientele but also a sales team which affords you management commissions off the sales team you have built.
Now imagine you've been marketing Wristique and promoting it to other work at home mothers as a way to make extra income and you've built a customer base of 120 consistent customers in a two year period. You've also managed to build a sales team of 85 work at home mothers who have wanted to earn money from home with their own business. All of this has taken you about two years of constant effort.
Here's what I have observed that is the greatest impediment to work at home mothers who are looking to make extra money. Now read this closely . . . Wristique goes under! That's right. The company you counted on that has the system, the products, the payment structure, and your whole sales system is gone. This happens in any number of ways. The company could close down, go bankrupt, enter receivership, or merge with another company who restructures the entire company eliminating your client base and sales team.
The risk of building a money making venture for work at home mothers by relying upon a business that provides the product, payment structure, marketing materials . . . essentially the entire infrastructure of the business, depends upon the reliability of the company. This is a significant risk. Imagine losing two years of income building in your work at home business based on a company you rely upon and have no control over.
Does this sound a bit dramatic? C'mon what are the chances that my money making business would fold up in this way? Well, I was a work at home father several years back and this happened to me. Two years of hard work on a work at home business. I had a standard clientele, a sales team of 89 representatives nationwide and then the company was sold. The new owners stripped the clientele and the sales team, reduced the product offering, required a renewed investment in their company and closed down sales for two months while they restructured. The end result. The end of my business.
Over the years I've assisted work at home mothers who had virtually the same experiences. They build a business and it's taken from them overnight.
Are all companies like this? Of course not. But how do you know which ones are stable in the long term and which ones aren't. The company I tried as a work at home father had all the credentials and appeared financially stable. Never would I have thought they would sell the company at a profit just because it was a good business decision for the owners.
The mothers who had good work at home intentions were no luckier. In one instance I recall that the company was very stable but a "higher up" in the company embezzled monies and the company couldn't stay in business.
Another home based business mother invested what little she had in a company only for it to go out of business a year later for poor money management. The mother lost her investment, her monthly income, and all her appointments for future sales were worthless.
So what is the point of this article. Making money is just as much about what NOT to do as it is what you should do in order to guarantee the long term existence of your business and your income.
Hopefully this article has given some mothers who want a good money making business a bit of caution so they can approach the business with a critical eye.
In my next article I will endeavor to address how work at home mothers can build a work at home business without this level of risk.
Your mindset is key. SBA . . . See it! Believe it! Achieve it!
Copyright 2008 Christopher A. Pearsall, Entrepreneur
