When working from home, people often quit before they start earning any money. This article will discuss how long you should expect to wait before you start making money with your home business.

With the exception of some not for profit organizations most people go into business in order to produce revenue (income) and profit. Unfortunately, when it comes to a home business, and especially network marketing, many people forget this important point.

Your home business must be in profit to survive, and if you are watching your numbers, then if things start turning sour… you may make suitable adjustments to get back on track. That means making a profit and increasing that profit over time.

Most home business fail because the distributors fail to treat them like a real business. It doesn’t matter if you are drop shipping, network marketing, affiliate marketing, etc… you will fail if you don’t treat your business accordingly.

Two common happenings:

1) Many people have the attitude that since they didnt have to invest much to begin with they really dont have to be too concerned about whether they make money or not, or how soon. Of course, that often ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its not just that way with a business, but with many things in life. If you come to own something that cost a great deal or required a lot of effort to acquire you tend to appreciate it more than something of lesser perceived value.

When you consider that network marketing has made some people just as much if not more money than many other traditional kinds of businesses, with incomes of as much as $1 million a month or more being achieved, treating a MLM as if it isnt a serious or real business is a huge mistake!

2) Because the entry cost can be so low people overlook the cost of not making money, and also have a tendency not to pay attention to how much their other expenses associated with their business (such as trips, conventions, and/or buying extra products or services over and above what you really need) add up over time.

For example, lets say that you spend $500 to sign up for a new business. Not a lot of money at all, maybe the price of a cup of coffee a day and some change.

Weeks, months, and years go by… you are still not earning any money. This isn’t probably a big worry because you think to yourself „I spent such a small amount to get started, it really is no bother“.

With some companies though, this investment doesn’t include the products… so you have been paying extra for those too. Nothing wrong with that, unless you are buying more than you need to qualify for the certain commission levels, providing you start earning in the future. Then you might be attending meetings, using the phone and internet to run your business, and even placing a few newspaper ads.

So, even though you really havent paid much attention because you only invested $500 to begin with, if your business hasnt yet started making you money then you are really spending AND LOSING $2,400 a year, in this hypothetical example. And, here again, in reality many people often end up spending much, much more.

Looking back at the traditional bricks-and-mortar business example before, their operating costs are much much higher than you could imagine. If you where to run a McDonalds or a Starbucks… it wouldn’t be uncommon to be in business for a year before you make your money back and then only starting to make a profit.

In contrast — though networking marketing is NOT designed necessarily to make you a very large amount of money overnight — you can and should be able to generate an ever increasing residual income for yourself over time, and starting in relatively short order.

It’s acceptable to take a few weeks or even a month to prepare for your new home business, just as it is acceptable to get started right away and set your goal to be in profit the first month of operation. It’s entirely up to you… just make that commitment to treat your MLM home business as a real business, because it is!

Certainly within 90 days you will want to start seeing some kind of payoff in return for your efforts. And no more than 6 months should go by without positively starting to see income coming in. In fact, ideally, you should try whenever possible to not only earn enough money to cover your original startup costs, but you absolutely should be making a profit (in other words, extra money) within this time.

If you don’t start making money, get some help and evaluate your business so you may fix those leaks and get some positive traction.

In summary:

1) Always remember to track ALL of your directly related business expenses, including how much you spend on leads, products and services, meetings, trips and conventions, training, etc. You must add these expenses to your original startup costs.

2) Subtract how much money youve earned from the number above (your total expenses) and this will tell you how much money youve made (profit), or how much money youve lost and/or are losing.

3) To repeat: If after 30 to 90 days, 6 months maximum, you are not making a profit, you should seriously reevaluate!

Dont continue down the same path if you are only spending more money than you are making, and not making any profit in return.

The purpose of you starting a home business is to be in profit, so that means earning more money than you are spending.

This article describes how long you can expect your business to last depending on your drive and motivation. So what should your expectations be on MLM home business success?

A common question I get asked is if I have heard of company ‚x‘ or company ‚y’… then the next most common question is based around how long I think they will last in this competitive environment.

Some great questions no doubt… but it is almost impossible for anyone to know how long a company will last, we can only assume these things.

Just in the weeks prior to this article being written two of the Worlds largest corporations, General Motors Corporation, and Ford Motor Company, had their credit ratings downgraded to junk bond status by the industrys credit and investment rating services such as Standard & Poors and Fitch Ratings. And of course many people will remember Chrysler Corporations brush with near bankruptcy in the 1980s.

With major airlines, Sears, Kmart… and many more companies in many other industries experience tough times, it could be said that times are grim at best.

If you need an example closer related to the home business industry, how about Excel Communications, who became one of the most successful home business companies in American history, only to end in bankruptcy because of corporate greed and mismanagement.

It’s certainly not all doom and gloom, with 99% of the above companies mentioned still in business. So don’t fret, there are still positives to be discussed.

The purpose so far has been to show that no company is immune from ups and downs, regardless of size and time in business. This doesn’t mean that you can’t stack the odds in your favor, because a well managed home business can do exactly that!

Not only can it be difficult to judge such things as company products, services, and management… but even these factors aren’t as important as the test of time.

Choosing a company that has been in business for at least 2 to 3 years immediately stacks the odds in your favor. Sometimes in can benefit not to chase those risky startups and pre-launches that everyone is so fond off.

The statistic that most new businesses fail applies to businesses of almost every type, in absolutely EVERY industry. However, once a business is no longer, ’new‘, after it has proven that it can survive beyond those first critical years, your chances for continued success increase exponentially over time.

Bumps in the road are natural, and should be expected, the good news is that history shows plain as day that the longer you are in business, the longer you are likely to survive and be successful in doing so.

And then also many people become so wrapped up in the hype, emotion, and sometimes even greed (of promised skyrocketing profits due to being in on ‚the ground floor‘) often associated with new companies that they throw all caution aside and jump in anyway. If you choose this path, be sure to weigh up the potential rewards, versus the higher risks involved.

Picking a company that has passed the test of time will stack the odds in your favor to succeed with your home business venture. That is the best analysis you could ever do before committing to any opportunity or business.

Is there a guarantee that any company will be around for the next 50 years or so… absolutely NOT! Can you stack the odds in your favor that this will be the case with your chosen home business opportunity… absolutely YES!

It’s up to you now.

Your bed’s warm and comfy and you no longer have a clock to punch or boss to answer to, so why not sleep just a few more minutes… but wait, you ARE the boss and have a business to run! If you don’t get out of bed and make things happen, who will? How would this behavior translate if you lived in the jungle? Read on and find out:

It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion, when the sun comes up… you better be running. Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion… or… it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle… or… it will starve to death.

With no boss breathing down your neck or clock to punch, It can be so tempting to stay in bed one hour longer, to postpone picking up the phone and contacting that prospect, or to focus your time and energy on the easy and fun stuff and put the unpleasant stuff off until later.

Being disciplined is a major trait that you need when working from home, it’s simple as that! You have to take full responsibility for your success or your failure, so the obvious thing to do is wake up early and get to work. If you don’t earn money, how will you eat?

To truly succeed as a serious home-based business owner, you need to be strong-willed and self-disciplined. You also need a solid, thorough, written plan to keep you on track and in constant motion.

If you are not moving forwards, you are moving backwards. So start planning where you want your business to go… and then follow up with inspired action! You might like to plan different tasks for different days as such:

Monday – Adding A New Blog Post

Tuesday – Article Marketing

Wednesday – Follow Up With Prospects

… and the list goes on.

Others prefer to perform a variety of tasks on any given day, for example:

Monday – Email Marketing in the morning, Blogging in the afternoon

Tuesday – Customer service (morning), Webinars (afternoon)

Without planning you will fail… so whatever you do, make sure you have a plan!

A structured plan is critically important for creating the freedom that you want and deserve. Disregard that and you will fail dismally.

Without planning, you don’t have a business, and this no freedom!

Just remember, be disciplined enough to get to work (even if it’s at home) every morning, then reap the rewards. Are you the lion or gazelle? Doesn’t matter as long as you’re moving forward!