How To Select The Best Home Based Business

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have fielded this question. "What is the best home based business?" I participate in a number of online forums, most of which are in the home business and MLM niche and that question comes up quite frequently. It is also a common question in various question and answer forums, like Yahoo Answers and others. It seems more and more people today are looking for a good opportunity and they want to know what the best ones are.

Being as I am involved in my own home business, of course I believe mine to be the best one out there. I recognize, however, that the business that is just right for me is not going to be just right for everyone. Home business opportunities are as different as the people who are in them as well as the personalities of people who are searching for the right one. With this in mind, I thought I would put down a few guidelines to help business opportunity seekers select the best home based business for them. Of course I am assuming that before you go through the steps I will outline below, you will have already done your due diligence and researched the company, the ownership, the products, etc. and will have determined that this is a legitimate business. The intent of this article is to help people decide which legitimate work from home opportunity is the best fit for them.

First and foremost, can you "connect" with the person who is offering you the opportunity? More than likely they are the one you will be working most closely with and they will be the one mentoring you. If your personalities are a match and you can be comfortable with them and like them, that's a pretty good indicator. You don't want to be in business with someone you don't like or can't get along with and be comfortable with. Business is about people. You're not only joining a company, you're joining a person, or persons. If the chemistry is wrong, your business venture will be a struggle and probably you will not be successful.

Do you like the product or service enough and believe in it enough to be passionate about it? You're going to be selling it, so you had better be able to be passionate about it. Would you use that product or service if it were not attached to a business opportunity? These are important questions. You cannot successfully sell a product or service and the business opportunity associated with it if you don't like or believe in that product or service. People will sense it in your voice and they will be hesitant to do business with you. More importantly they will not believe in You! Remember, business is about people and people won't buy from you unless they buy into you. They won't join your business unless they feel comfortable about joining you, even if it's the best home based business the world has ever seen.

Does the business sell products or services that people want or need? Are those products reasonably priced and Are they consumable so that your customers will have to come back for more? Or, will you be selling non-consumable big ticket items that have a large profit margin? You can make money with either, but in my opinion the former is better. I personally would rather sell high volume low priced consumables that generate repeat business.

Does the business have a good compensation plan that will produce an ever increasing residual income? Can you understand the compensation plan? If you can't understand it, you will have a difficult time communicating it to people you will be showing the opportunity to. The big money, the real power in multilevel marketing businesses is in establishing a solid team of people in your downline who can duplicate the process and keep the business growing and expanding underneath you. So, in addition to a good compensation plan, is there a marketing plan and system in place that is simple and easy for the average person to duplicate?

Lastly, is there a good leadership and support structure? This really goes back to the point about connecting with people. Without good leadership and upline support it will be very difficult for your business to be successful. As I stated earlier, the people factor is probably the single most important criteria to consider when looking for the best home based business opportunity, even more important than the product and compensation plan. You can find the absolute best products and the sweetest profit margin and compensation plan, but without good leadership and support, you will probably not succeed.