Around the world, tens of millions of people each year search for a home based business opportunity that will either free them from a job they hate, allow them to retire early, give them more time to spend with their family, divert their poorly performing investment portfolio into a profit generating magnet, or all of the above.  Just as there are vast differences of opinion, even amongst friends, there are vast differences in business opportunities.  Before you start on your due diligence when hunting for that one home based business opportunity that is right for you, take a moment to understand some differences in business models, their expectations, their commission structure, your current resources, and your personality.

The definite guide to choosing the right home based business opportunity simply boils down to the questions you ask yourself before you start your search.  Understanding your goals for success, and how your perceive a home based business to get you there, will have a profound impact on your decision making process.  In fact, knowing what you need ahead of time will make the process go much more smoothly, allowing you to weed out unsatisfactory business opportunities rapidly.

Note:  There are no specific businesses listed in this article so your use of this guide is not hindered by a constant sales pitch.  If you would like to discuss specific ideas, please contact the author within the profile area where you read this article.

The following lists distinctive aspects of a home based business that you should consider:

1. Primary Prospecting Source:  Internet, Phone, or Direct Mail  <-- This Article
   
2. Prospect Application Process:  Free, Paid, Non-Existent
3. Commission Structure:  Up-Front vs. Residual vs. Both
4. System:  Organization, Support, Accessibility, and Content
   
5. Leveraging Time, Capital, and Experience
6. Marketing Style:  Anonymous Sales vs. Personal Branding

How comfortable are you interacting with your prospects? If you are very comfortable conversing with strangers, then it may be to your best interest to consider a home based business where the phone is the primary prospecting source. Businesses that rely on telephone prospecting have high conversion rates but it takes an iron will and a disregard for criticism (and occasional rudeness) to be successful. If that suits you, then keep those companies on the top of your list.

For those of you who recognize the benefits of telephone marketing but cannot personally make the calls (demanding job, stuttering problem like me, cannot take criticism well, etc.), there are still options available to you. Services exist that send voice blasts to double opt-in telephone leads. These blasts record messages to the voice mail box of the recipient. Of course, you will have to pay not only for the service, but for the leads as well, though both may be reasonably priced depending on the telephone marketing service and lead source (sometimes the same company). Please note that it is critical that you only choose this path of advertising if you are not personally branding your business opportunity or product. You do not want your personal name on someone's answering machine from an automated source. Use this method only if you are marketing someone else's product, service, or affiliate program.

If the concept of making any personal connection with your prospects intimidates you (or even scares you a little), then businesses centered on phone and internet (social marketing) may not be for you. Consider some of the home businesses based on direct mail, including postcards, letters, brochures, booklets, and so on. These types of businesses either provide you with a list of addresses to send your direct mail, or instructions on how to harvest your own list of physical mailing addresses. Such harvesting includes posting flyers at laundromats and supermarkets, leaving business cards at gas station pumps and on car windows in crowded parking lots, and so on. This can be time consuming, but they have been known to pay pretty well. Most people I know who are successful at this type of business and marketing strategy tend to get tired of it after 6 months or so and move on to something else.

Direct mail itself can be expensive and time consuming, especially if you are distinguishing yourself by using different colored greeting card envelopes and handwriting your recipient addresses, but you tend to be targeting a very specific list of prospects pre-qualified as interested in your product or opportunity, so cost per lead may be controlled. Again, this method of marketing may be all you can do if you want absolutely no interaction with your prospects and you do not want to market online. Direct mail is more powerful in some businesses compared to others (like real estate investing where direct mail is still king), so be sure to research your business opportunity or product system carefully to be sure they support direct mail and have a system already in place to support your needs.

Most home business opportunities today are either 100% internet based or at least have an internet presence. These businesses include one or a combination of the following:

• Sales of specific products, such as books, vitamins, software, fitness programs, educational materials, etc.
• Services, including lead list generation, search engine optimization, web site design, mentoring, success coaching, etc.
• Business opportunity or affiliate program, such as multi-level marketing (MLM), tiered matrices, direct sales, network marketing, social media marketing, etc.

If you have a product you created or a service you perform very well, the internet is the best place to market it to prospects. You can even use the internet as your foundation (or hub) and incorporate aspects of phone and direct mail to round out your reach if you have a system in place to do so (or family/friends willing to help).

If you do not have your own product or service, you can choose to sell someone else's material (ClickBank, Ebay, Amazon, etc.) or get involved in an online business opportunity that matches your personality from introvert (MLM, matrix, etc.) to social butterfly (direct sales, success coaching, social marketing, etc.). The internet is uniquely positioned to reach over 1.5 billion people in over 150 different countries. You can choose to go after the impulse shopper by saturating the free classifieds areas, or you can choose to slowly win the trust of your big spenders through social media, personal branding, lead filters, and auto-responders. If you have a lot of money to start and can spend $300 per day, then you can jump right in with your own Google AdWords campaign, where the vast majority of successful internet entrepreneurs advertise. But if you are operating on a very limited budget, you may want to start on the free and very effective social marketing path until you can slowly transition from free to paid advertising.

There are positives and negatives to all the business models that support any particular internet marketing path, so be sure to follow this simple rule: The positives should match closest to your personality while the negatives should be the opposite of your personality.