HOME OFFICE SETUP

MLM Needs A Budget – So Does Your Home Office

Internet marketing, just like being in an MLM or network marketing business requires a budget.

One of the myths of MLM, that I certainly believed, was that you only needed a limited amount of money to get started. How wrong was I.

My own experience was that it cost me a considerable amount of money (in the thousands) to get my MLM business up and running. There was:

The required amount of product to be purchased each month to qualify for a bonus.

Buying extra product for samples to potential customers.

Buying “sales aids” such as product or company DVDs, CDs, brochures, business cards, labels, product presentation invitations and receipt books.

Travelling expenses for presentations and attending company meetings and conventions.

Stationery supplies for my home office.

Buying leads when my warm market dried up.

Enormous telephone bills from chasing up uninterested prospects.

And, of course, the recommended personal development books and CDs.

I blissfully went ahead and did all of that without a thought to setting up a budget and a business plan. Did I get caught up in the hype and excitement of it all – yes, yes and yes!

They say we all learn by our mistakes and when I decided to use Ann Sieg’s techniques of multiple streams of income as explained in her ebook The Renegade Network Marketer I was not going to be caught out this time without a budget and some type of business plan.

To be successful at internet marketing you need to spend some money to get set-up so I have put together what I consider to be the basic set-up and some approximate costings. Of course, you will need to check what the current costs of these services are.

Domain Names– for under $10.00 per year you should be able to buy a .com domain name

Web Hosting – you can get free website hosting but be a little cautious if you are considering it. You may find your website looks like one very large advertising bill board and the server reliability may be a problem. Your website reflects who you are, you want it to look professional.

I use two webhosts – SiteBuildIt and Hostgator. Both are high quality webhosts and I would recommend them both.

I especially like SiteBuildIt as their step by step action guide helped me, a complete computer newbie, to produce a website that not only looks good (I’m biased, of course) but ranks on the search engines. I was amazed, delighted and extremely chuffed to watch it develop.

SiteBuildIt costs $299 per year, less than $1 per day but it’s the whole package – a domain name, webhosting, search engine optimisation (which is paramount to getting a ranked website), tracking stats, how to monetize your site and masses of educational tutorials to get you up and running, a member forum that is second to none for help and information and many, many more features.

Hostgator webhosting can be around less than $10 per month, certainly cheaper than SiteBuildIt but I found it a lot more challenging to get my website together. I had to transfer my domain name across to Hostgator and then use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to upload my website theme.

This was a steep learning curve and took me right out of my comfort zone. I could have better spent my time writing good content for my website instead I was getting frustrated and spinning my wheels trying to understand how to use my new website theme. We live and learn!

Out of the two webhosts my preference would be SiteBuildIt. Getting traffic or visitors to your website is paramount for a successful internet business and SiteBuildIt are the experts on teaching you how to do that. You can also “test drive” SiteBuildIt – I love to try before I buy.

Autoresponder – Autoresponders allow you to set up a series of emails that are sent to a group of contacts over a set period of time. You can pre-load your emails and they will go out to your list or lists automatically.

You could use an autoresponder for any type of list or group of contacts that you have, be it a list your are generating from your website or even your MLM downline you are building.

I have used Aweber and found them to be excellent and their deliverability is second to none. Aweber have recently restructured their prices so it’s worth checking out the current price.

More recently I have been using Oprius. Oprius combines email autoresponder, contact management, task setting for follow-up, capture page set-up, calendars and lots more all in the one package.

Oprius was “designed” by a network marketer so it has a lot of wonderful features built into it such as telephone script pages which you can have on your computer screen when talking to a prospect. I’m really quite impressed with Oprius as it solves the problem and extra costs of setting up contact management software – it’s a one-stop shop!

Both Aweber and Oprius have free trial periods so you can “test drive” each one and see what suits your needs.

And that’s about all you really need to get started online – a domain name, a website and an autoresponder system. Your home office may also need some money spent on it – the basics are:

Office space – ideally a spare room that you can convert to an office and when you have finished your marketing for the day you are able to close the door on it.

If you haven’t got the luxury of a spare room, a corner or part of another room can be used. If you intend to use the kitchen or dining room table as your portable office you will need to be very organised but it can be done.

Computer – this might be stating the obvious but you will need your own computer – using a computer at the library or internet café isn’t an efficient method of marketing. Keep and eye out for specials at your computer store. You can get some great deals on superseded models.

Printer – the choices of printers vary greatly. There are multi-featured ones that print, scan and copy or ones that just print or lazer printers that are very fast.

Research the cost of the print cartridges and how many pages a cartridge will print. You may be printing out quite a few ebooks and you don’t want to be chewing up cartridges each week. A mono lazer printer maybe the better option – some of them can print 2000 pages per toner cartridge but their cartridges can be quite expensive. Research and compare.

Paper – copy paper for your printer. It’s amazing how quickly a packet of paper can be used. Buying bulk supplies, such as a box of paper may be cheaper than buying single packets.

Internet – get the fastest internet connection you can afford. Dial-up doesn’t cut it when watching video tutorials or participating in webinars.

Desk – desks come in all shapes and sizes nowadays – there should be one to fit the space you want.

Office Chair – a good ergonomic chair. Nothing worse than sitting on an uncomfortable chair when trying to work – remember those awful chairs at school! Take your time when choosing a chair and try them all out – don’t just go on looks and price.

Telephones – a headset for your walkabout telephone is invaluable. You can be handsfree while talking to your prospects or clients or when participating in webinars – you will never have to try to jam the telephone between your ear and shoulder while trying to take notes or juggle pieces of paper or for that matter make a cup of coffee – a brilliant invention. Headsets can be purchased from your local computer or electronic store.

Skype is a good option to look at if you are doing a lot of long distance and/or international telephone calls.

Being based in Australia I do the majority of my international calls to the US and I use a yearly subscription to Skype Unlimited World which is currently under $150 per year. I find this method very cost effective – much more so than when I was using Super Buzz cards. Again, research and compare prices.

With Skype you can purchase a handsfree headset at your local electronics store or online at Skype that plugs into your computer. You could also use a walkabout Skype compatible handset. Where I live the reception with handsets can sometimes be difficult so I have found the headset connected to my computer perfect for what I want.

Check out Skype Unlimited World

E-mail accounts – my preference would be setting up an email client such as Outlook to manage your emails. Using Hotmail or Yahoo email addresses for your business does not come across looking like a professional email account.

For example – suellen@bestmlmtips OR info@bestmlmtips indicates to me that this is a “real” business address. I would be much more confident of sending a question or query and receiving an answer from one of the above addresses than say, suellen63@hotmail OR suellenfromaustralia@yahoo.

Contact Management Software – When you start dealing with hundreds of prospects and downline members, post-it notes and spreadsheets just doesn’t work efficiently. There are a lot of choices with contact management software such as ACT! My preference, as mentioned before, is an online contact management system, Oprius which allows me to setup appointments, take notes on all my calls, send out individual or group emails and even has an email account. You can get a free one month trial of Oprius, good value for approximately $14.90 per month.

Office Supplies – There are several items you may need for your home office such as, folders, notepads, paper, envelopes, pencils, pens, highlighter, paper clips, post-it notes, filing cabinet and so on. All readily available from your stationery supply store.

So there you have it – the basics for setting up your internet marketing business and home office. Sit down with a piece of paper and work out your budget. What you can afford now and what to start saving for.

A budget and a business plan (no matter how basic) will start you in the right direction with your MLM and internet business.

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