Find a Few Kindred Spirits

One of the most important lessons I learned in Internet Marketing was that it’s

tough to go it alone. We were made for community. Not only is the community

important for your own morale and positive encouragement as you go through

the tough times in setting up your business, but the community will allow you to be

disciplined about how you spend both your time and your money. It also helps to

spread the load – if you’re in a team, each of you can focus on a different area of

the big picture and share your insights with others. Running a home business is a

vast subject, full of many areas of specialization – especially if you want to tap into

the almost unlimited resources of the Internet. If you hope to master it in any

semblance of reasonable time, you’ll need the help, encouragement, and

giftedness of a team to master the finer points.

As you look for your team, think about several different things:

1. The most obvious place to begin looking, if you’re already in a business, is

your own down-line or upline. Assemble a group of 5 people (in addition to

yourself) who are focused, determined, and able to discipline themselves

for success.

2. If you have no business, or you have a business with no down-line, the best

idea is to find a couple of friends who are interested in pursuing a business

with you, or who are in a business already and are happy to work at

something on the side with you. Make sure they can focus their efforts and

are willing to do the work. You can even recruit your kids if they're over 18!

This could help them pay for school, and they could work a regular job while

they're waiting for this one to be financially viable (it takes about 6 months).

3. These team members should have different strengths than you if at all

possible. If you’re great with numbers, find someone who’s really artistic

and while you crunch numbers, they could design promotional materials,

etc.

4. You will each need a great sense of humour.

5. You need to be able to be completely honest with one another.

Once you have a team together of no fewer than 3 but no more than 5 (at least

to begin with!) you are ready to start. Decide how often you’ll meet together

(minimum once a week at the beginning, moving to once a month once you’re

established), and get those dates in your calendar, making them unbreakable

except in real emergencies. You want to make your meetings enjoyable, fun,

inspiring, motivating. Go to the library and get some good home business books

out to get the juices flowing. Check online for great resources like these to inspire

you:

http://www.SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/recommends/bobproctor.html

http://www.SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/ r ecommends/yeartosuccess.html

h ttp://www.SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/ r ecommends/simpleology.html

It's absolutely best if you can find 5 people in your neighborhood or local area –

that way you can meet together in person, hang out doing other fun things

together, and be more available to inspire and encourage each other.

You may find that you absolutely cannot find anyone in your area to work with.

You can work long distance by phone, or in a pinch, you could even find your

partners online through a forum or newsgroup. If you're a member of some of

these already and have a reputation for being a helpful sort of person, so much

the better. If you aren't a member, take time to join a few groups who's topic

interests you (home reno, mountain biking, scrapbooking, etc.) and then gain a

good reputation first. To find groups go to:

http://SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/recommends/yahoogroups.html

http://SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/recommends/googlegroups.html

http://SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com/recommends/msngroups.html

Once you've become an active useful member, simply write up a little post (no

links or anything) that says you’re looking for 3-5 people that are willing to run a

business experiment for $10. Have them “PM” you, or send you a private

message. Don't make this a big deal on the forum or newsgroup or you could be

banned. Check the rules before you post anything like this. You want to keep

your reputation, not ruin it.

What you are creating here is a “MasterMind Group”. This is a key to your success,

and I would seriously encourage you to go no further until this is in place. It may

take a week, it may take a month, it may take an hour. Get your team together (6

of you in total, including yourself). As you find people, encourage them right

away to do the same thing – create their own “MasterMind” group.

For some good articles on how these groups work you can check out these links:

http://www.SuccessfulHomeBusinessForMoms.com / recommends/mastermindarticle1.html