If you’re anything like me, at some point in time you’ve gone to your favorite search engine and typed in “make money online,” “make money fast,” “work from home,” “home business,” “business opportunity” or some similar phrase. Point being–you want to work for yourself. You want to call the shots, as it were.

With the economy what it is right now, many are looking for alternative to the traditional work. What I mean by that is going to a job, punching a time-clock, performing a task or making a product for 8 hours a day, going home each day after this endeavor and getting a paycheck from an employer at the end of the week; what you got paid was based on what someone else felt your time was worth. This has pretty much been life in America, at least, for millions of people for better than a century–until now. A changing society and shifting economy has caused many to look beyond the time-card punching work week. But what else is there?

After you’ve typed in those earlier mentioned phrases on your search engine, your email account got bombarded with all kinds of work-at-home offers and opportunities. And again, if you’re like me, you probably took a look at a few, only to decide later that it would be easier punching a time-card. But there might have been a few you believed had possibilities. How do you pick the right one for you?

Since this article is looking at business opportunities presented to you, it will assume that you’re reviewing some affiliate program. In other words, someone else wants you to market his/her product or service.

There are just a few things that you’ll want to keep in mind as you consider various offers.

The first thing is whether or not the product has the potential to make you money. Is it on the rise or on the way out? One place that you may want to check to get the answer to this question and a place that’s done the scientific research for you is CBEngine. You can get only so much free information from them on a product or service without a membership. But if you want it all (and what I recommend), is to get a membership to this site. With it you can get all kinds of statistics and graphs to see exactly how the product measures up.

If the product looks good to you based on all your research and you can see yourself marketing the product, another question that goes hand-in-hand with the first one, is how do you get paid? Be careful here! Some affiliate offers pay you one time up front for a sale. The amount might even look good to you. But what you want is a product that pays you over and over. You make a sale and get a commission in January, for instance, but you get paid again for that same sale in February, March, April and so on. Your business can then build on itself. As you continue to work, the money continues to build month after month. Get the picture? You want to spend the majority of your time with marketing endeavors, which leads me to the next consideration to keep in mind as you review the offer.

What kind of support does the parent company provide to you? Do they have a help desk and/or tech support? What kinds of marketing materials, if any, do they prove for your use? Or do you have to develop your own?

Now I’m not necessarily suggesting that you disregard an offer that doesn’t provide marketing materials. That’s entirely your decision. The question for you really is just how much work do you want to do? As I said, you want to spend most of your time marketing. That’s how you make money. What that means is getting the word out about your product through the use of various means (marketing techniques). But if they provide the materials, you don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.” If you have the materials, all you have to decide is the marketing strategy you want to use.

The next question that follows from marketing techniques would be your abilities. What do you know about online marketing? What is it? You’ve struck gold if the affiliate program offers you information and training regarding various methods of online marketing you can use. (I’ll cover some of them in future articles, but they’re beyond the scope of this article).

So to recap, if you’ve found a product/service that appeals to you and that pays you month after month in recurring income and if the parent company provides marketing materials and training on how to use them and if they provide support each step of the way, then I think you’ve found a winner!

If you found this article to be of help and if you’d like to learn more, then you’ll want to take a look at some of the free video tutorials at the link below.

This author is an internet marketer and consultant. He promotes various products and services online and offline, using a variety of methods and techniques.

Maverick Money Making Group

This author is an internet marketer and consultant. He promotes various products and services online and offline, using a variety of methods and techniques.
http://www.MaverickMoneyMakingGroup.com

Author Bio: This author is an internet marketer and consultant. He promotes various products and services online and offline, using a variety of methods and techniques.

Maverick Money Making Group

Category: Career
Keywords: Home-based business, Home business, Business opportunity, Make money online, Work from home, Interne