There has never been a better time to earn money by working at home. However, the increased accessibility of home-based businesses does not mean instant success. Individuals who wish to see real results with their home-based business need to be well versed in all aspects of their chosen business. Starting with knowing the product and understanding how to set up a business, entrepreneurs need to go to the next level and realize the value of goal setting.Know Your GoalsThe power of goal setting is tangible in every workplace, from the private sector to the governmental realm. Goals help define purpose and they provide a path to success. For a home-based business, goals should come in many forms, from the number of clients procured in a month to the total amount of money earned. When setting these goals, there are several key factors to remember in order to create goals that engender success.Create Realistic ExpectationsAll businesses should start by being realistic. Home-based business owners should consider the product being offered, the experience needed, and the time being devoted to the business when setting goals. A full-time home-based business should have higher expectations than one only being operated on the side. Individuals need to take into account how much time it will take to get set up and how difficult it will be to build a client base, then scale their expectations appropriately. Some aspiring individuals may set the highest goals possible as a means of incentive. However, unrealistic goals can create a sense of disappointment and futility. If the goals are unreachable, then it is easy to lose motivation to strive for them. Realistic goals can help prevent the feeling of failure that can lead to the demise of even the most innovative home-based businesses.Aim to EmpowerWhile being realistic with goals for a home-based business is important, it is also imperative not to set the goals too low. Goals should be designed for empowerment. This means that the goal must motivate the individual to keep working and pushing to new levels of success. If goals are too easy to reach, it is easy to get lazy and lax in one’s business habits, leading to stagnancy in the business model. It can be difficult to find just the right place to set goals, but it can be helpful to build goals up progressively, with goals that increase somewhat each month. This way, entrepreneurs are continually challenging themselves to reach new heights of success.Build Time for ReflectionOne of the ways to find the right balance with goals is to always allow appropriate time for reflection. Goals should not only be used as a motivation, but also as an indicator of growth and progress. A smart goal will always have a definitive timetable, such as a month or a year. For these goals to be truly worthwhile, individuals must always reflect on the goal at the end of the time period. Things to consider during reflection are whether or not the goal was met, if the goal was too easy or too hard, and what things contributed to or detracted from meeting the goal. By analyzing these factors, it is easy to tailor one’s business model and to make the necessary adjustments to grow in the future.

Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, President Clinton, President Obama and many others understand the dilemma that our country faces. With the way the job market is and people losing their homes and struggling to get by they are all looking for alternative ways to supplement their incomes. What a lot of people are seeking is a legitimate home based business. Many people just want an extra $500-$1000 per month and others want to make big money $10,000 – $20,000 per month. The key question is how do you filter through all the many companies and find what is right for you?When you do find a legitimate home based business, yes you can live a very prosperous life and fulfill all your dreams through network marketing. However, because of the horror stories about people losing their shirts, the industry has been falsely labeled (Scam, Rip-Off, Pyramid). The truth is network marketing does work, however if you are seeking to get involved in one, it is up to you to do your due diligence and research the companies prior to investing your hard earned money. I personally believe that there are far to many companies that are in pre-launch which basically means that the companies are new and they haven’t done anything yet.Being new isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but then again are you playing the stock market or are you trying to build a business that you can call your own and build financial security and freedom for you and your family that will last for years to come. In order to find that legitimate home based business that maybe just right for you: Choose a business that has a product that you believe in, pick something that you would use yourself. Actually most legit companies want you to be a product of the product. After all how can you tell others about something that you have never tried or used yourself.A strong belief in what you do, will carry you a long way in this industry. If you do your homework and choose wisely you will give yourself and opportunity to live the lifestyle that you may have only dreamed of. Imagine being able to travel the world, having a huge beautiful home, nice cars, your children attending the best schools and having your bills paid and money never ever being an issue again.By becoming an entrepreneur and legitimate home based business owner, you give yourself a legit chance for all these things and much more. No-one once to risk their hard earned money on what could possibly be a scam or a rip off. There are however thousands of companies for you to filter through before making your decision. Here are a few signs to look for before you sign up for a new business:1. If the company doesn’t have a physical address, that’s a red flag!2. If the owners of the company have been with 3 different companies in 4 years, that’s a flag too!3. Companies that don’t really offer any product or service, don’t do it!4. Compensation plans that require a Master’s Degree, to understand. Not necessarily a red flag however this can be more trouble than it’s worth when it’s time for you to get paid.5. Companies that offer no training or support, a big no no! Don’t put your money into a new business and then not have a clue how to run it or make money from it.I mean this list can go on and on, I’m not going to tell you that any business will be easy because it’s not. If running a business and making a lot of money was easy everyone would be doing it. You can do it and succeed if you choose carefully and put in the work needed to succeed. You can make your Plan B a reality and have a legitimate home based business of your own, simply put in the work.

There are few better ways to make money from real estate than establishing a wholesale real estate business. Wholesaling requires no money down, no credit, and no licensing. A real estate wholesaler’s success is predicated almost entirely upon hard work, good judgment, and a reliable network of buyers. But where to begin?
You Need Buyers

Unlike traditional real estate investing, where an individual or a business takes physical ownership of a property, improves it, then sells it for a profit (a practice more commonly referred to as “flipping”), a wholesaler merely enters into a contract to purchase a property that for any number of reasons (foreclosure, in need or repair, motivated seller) is selling below what it is worth.

The wholesaler then finds a buyer who is willing to take over the contract (and pay for the privilege). The real estate wholesaler is paid a small percentage of the spread between the asking price and true value of the property. Thus, the wholesaler makes some cash while the buyer is still able to secure a very good deal on the transaction. The key to real estate wholesaling success is being able to quickly locate and secure those buyers.

How Do You Get Your Buyers?

There are several ways to build your buyer list. Networking with local and national real estate investing organizations is a very good place to start. By joining these organizations, you not only have access to potential buyers, but also can draw upon the expertise of those who have been in the business much longer than you. There’s no sense in trying to reinvent the wheel. Wholesalers should also network with local contractors, real estate developers, and property management companies, all of whom would likely be interested in taking advantage of a good deal.

Another valuable resource is classified advertisements, both print and online. Real estate investors peruse their local newspapers for certain keywords in the ads, such as “motivated seller,” “great deal,” and “fixer-upper.”

If you want to avoid even the small costs associated with placing newspaper classifieds, real estate investors commonly turn to free electronic classified services, such as craigslist.com and backpage.com. These services will also open up your property to a nationwide network of potential buyers. Effective text for an ad could read, “Selling Houses at HUGE discounts – Investors Needed for Amazing Opportunities.” It would be lunacy to neglect such a powerful advertising tool.

If you have a real estate website, you can gather potential buyers via an opt-in newsletter. A newsletter can help you build a relationship with and eventually sell to a group of targeted real estate buyers. You can also try email marketing and PPC campaigns.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the ways one can build a client buyer list – the only limitation is in the imagination of the entrepreneur. And when building your buyer list, be sure to secure the name, email address, fax number, and address of potential investors. Build an email contact list you can use to quickly spread the word once you have a property to sell.

Even in difficult real estate markets, there are fantastic opportunities to make money for those willing to put in the hard work. If wholesale real estate investing seems like your cup of tea, then it all begins with building a reliable buyers list.

Wouldn’t it be great to have great Investing Success without any risk, I certainly think so, although the simple reality with investing is that there is a risk. However with a plan, knowledge and in time experience this risk can be minimised and the overall outcome is a very effective means of achieving your financial goals. The type of plan to adopt is really dependent on what suits you best, you may like to have an aggressive strategy with possible greater returns and more risk, or maybe a less aggressive strategy with lesser returns and lower risk, or even anywhere in between. Also you may like to have investments that mostly look after themselves and only require attention every now and again, or you may prefer to be more involved in your investments and know exactly what your money is doing all the time. There is no real perfect plan or any real secret to investing however these simple tips may assist in your investing success.

Tip 1: Set Motivating Goals

Goal setting is a very effective when investing, it provides the means to set a target for yourself, gives you direction and is helpful in motivating you to do the things to achieve your desired result. Setting motivating goals is completely dependent on personal preference, you may be motivated by the goal of returning enough money from your investments to buy a luxury yacht or you may be motivated by the goal of having 20 investment properties in your portfolio. There is no right or wrong goal as long as it gives you direction, gives you something to aim for and motivates you, then you’re on the right track.

Tip 2: Do your Homework

With the potential risk involved with any type of investment, doing your homework is an essential process. You wouldn’t go to a car yard with no particular car in mind and purchase the first one you see, you would do your homework first wouldn’t you. For example you would have some criteria set out and you may be looking for a car that is reliable, performs well, appeals to you, basically a car that just ticks all the right boxes. The same goes with investing, you would most likely not get the best result by investing in the first shares you come across or the first property that you inspect. For the stock market, doing your homework may involve searching news articles or press releases for a particular company you have an interest in and checking the history of the stock price. While for a property you may do a check on the surrounding suburb, find out the previous sale price, get building and pests inspections done on it. There are countless things you can do to ensure that you are making a wise investment decision, make sure you do your homework and you’ll do better than most.

Tip 3: Invest Regularly

Investing is not a get rich quick scheme to be truly successful at investing you need to do it regularly. The best chance to acquire measurable wealth lies in developing the habit of adding to your investments regularly and putting the money where it can do the most for you. You can put $10,000 into a share account returning an average of 20% per year, and if you take all of that return out every year in ten years time you may have earned $2,000 every year but you’ll still have only $10,000 in that account minus account keeping fees and the loss in inflation, tax etc., giving a total net worth of $30,000. However if you reinvested that $2,000 every year, in ten years time you’ll have a total net worth of about $62,000. That’s $62,000 in your share account now with the potential to earn you $12,400/year at 20%, as opposed to the $2,000 you would still be earning with the other scenario. Now this may not included potential losses in either case, but the idea is to highlight to you the benefit of regularly fuelling your investments?

Tip 4: Keep an Investment Diary

Keeping a record of your investments can be a great learning tool to determine the strategies which work best for you and can be an insight into why an investment worked so well or why it didn’t work so well. Having the right information which you can always look back on will lead to wiser investments in the future, therefore minimising risks, increasing the potential returns and thus greater investing success. Information that may be helpful to keep a record of includes:

The research done to find the investment
The investments you turned away and why you turned them away
Why you chose the particular investment
The plan you had in place prior to making the investment
In the case of an investment property you may take note of the agents used, renovations done and renovation contractors used.
In the case of a share market investment you may take note of the stop loss margin, profit margin and stop profit loss margin used and whether they can be adjusted to reduce risk and increase potential profit.
Tip 5: Diversify
Diversity is in old old wooden ship, joking (Anchorman reference for those that haven’t seen it), diversifying your investments in an effective means of managing your risk and increasing returns. The type of diversification strategy should be dependent upon your age, income and investment goals. For example, if you were young and just beginning you investments you have the opportunity to have more increased risk and may benefit from putting your assets into stocks that have long-term potential, and stocks with greater risk and potential returns. While if you were approaching retirement you may benefit more from shifting your assets into income producing investments such as bonds or utility stocks. Your diversification strategy could involve setting up a portfolio consisting of equal parts of different investment vehicles such as, bonds, local stocks, foreign stocks, and real estate. Once a year, you could then adjust each vehicle to maintain the same asset distribution by taking the gains in your winning investments and spreading them amongst your losing investments.

Tip 6: Have a Plan and Stick to it

The journey to investing success can have many distractions and obstacles that can lead you off course, the way in which to overcome these and maintain the right path is to have a plan and stick to it. Whether it starts off being extremely basic with just basic goals, milestones, strategies etc. the idea is to know where you’re going and work out what is required to get there, once you get more involved you will be adjust and fine tune your plan to be more effective. For example your goal may be to own 5 investment properties in 5 years time, you may work out that in order to achieve your goal you need to work an extra 5 hrs of overtime a week, cut back on some expenses and get training or obtain the knowledge to learn how to go about it effectively, this would be your plan. Your milestones may be to ensure you have at least one investment property every year. Now if it so happens that you miss one of your milestones it’s not the end. You just simply need to go through your records work out why you didn’t achieve your milestone and re-adjust your plan accordingly. If you do achieve your milestone this doesn’t mean there is no room for improvement, although you should reward yourself, let yourself know that you’re doing well and rewards are a great motivator as well.

Tip 7: Manage your Risk

You can effectively manage your risk by following the above mentioned tips such as doing your homework, having a plan and sticking to it, and diversifying. Additionally risk can be managed by first identifying what your risk are, the most common risk with investing is obviously losing your money. What is it however that causes you to loose your money? Just for example with stock market investing there is a risk of a stock doing the opposite of what you indeed it to do or you selling to early and losing potential profit, with property investing the risk are that the value of the property won’t increase as intended or you may not be able to rent it out. Once you’ve identified what are the potential factors that can cause you to lose money in a given investment you can begin to work out a plan to manage the identified risk. Strategies to manage your risk could be to avoid the risk altogether and look for something else, try and reduce the risk or simply accept the risk. Whatever your plan may be just ensure that the risk is monitored and constantly look for ways in which to minimise the risk.

Conclusion

In summary investing success may be obtained by using a combination of the above mentioned tips, however don’t limit yourself to these, it is a constant learning process, no investor out there knows everything there is to know about investing. Find what best works for you then just get out their have a go and achieve your investing success.