When you decided to start your own business, whether it’s a brick and mortar shop, a consulting service from your home office, or direct sales using the Internet and a phone, you probably spent some time reading and watching other successful businesses in your chosen area. At least you should have.

The Tools Our Parents Never Had

One of the most important tools in 2008 for the successful work at home entrepreneur is the Internet, both in terms of training and research. You do need to employ a little discretion though. There are literally thousands of sites that are promoting hyped up promises requiring little to no effort on your part. (Yeah right)

There are some gold nuggets out there too.

The skills necessary to succeed in business are definitely available today in a way that wasn’t possible for our parents, thanks to the Internet, teleseminar’s, webinars and global tele-conferencing.

There are a couple of important things you need to do first though. In fact, skip one of them at your own peril.

Did You Miss This Important Step?

What is the one thing that you must do first? Decide. Make a plan. Know what results you are expecting. Build the foundation upon which your successful business will stand. In other words, stop the multi-tasking long enough to take a serious look at what you want to do. Write it down. Define it. Quantify it. See it.

And no, “saying” you want to make a million dollars this year, isn’t a plan. That’s a dream.

It’s a plan when you know exactly how many people you have to “sign up” or “sell” to achieve $1,000,000 in income. It’s a plan if you have benchmarks, milestones and intermediate goals that move you along the path to success. And if you are using some type of leveraged business model like network marketing, what is the average growth rate of those who are on your team. How will you help them succeed? Is there a way to earn commissions or income, even from the one’s that say “no” to your opportunity?

Personal Development

The second important step (a very close second), is to educate yourself. To succeed online, you are going to need skills.

New skills.

Whether it’s “closing” on the phone, “presenting” your message to a larger audience, “training” your business partners to duplicate your success, or “automating” the sales process, you are going to have to learn at least the basics, even if you plan to out-source a lot of the work. How will you know if your “vendor” is doing a good job if you don’t have a clue what results to expect?

Frankly, I haven’t met a single successful entrepreneur yet, that ever feels like they have learned enough.

When you are first starting out, you can take a couple of shortcuts by finding and utilizing a “mentor” and getting yourself the best “training” available today.

A mentor is someone who is already successfully doing what you want to do, and willing to work with you. There are a lot of “guru’s” out there, but few genuine mentors. When you find them, hold on tight and soak up the lessons.

As for training, there are some good programs out there, just spend some time looking them over. They should meet a few simple criteria such as a) Be specific to your business or niche, b) be professionally run, c) be presented in a way that eliminates as many distractions as possible and d) be taught by successful people actually using the techniques they teach.

Seminar’s are a good place to start for this type of training, if they are well done. And the additional benefit of meeting and “networking” with other entrepreneurs and the “teachers” (or faculty) is often worth the price of admission. Remember that for most home based businesses, this type of training can also be tax-deductible.

Armand Morin’s Big Seminar

One of the best of these types of training seminar’s is Armand Morin’s BigSeminar, held twice a year. His seminars always sell out (seats are limited) and produces more success stories than any other training of this type.

The next one is coming up soon.

To get an idea if this type of seminar is specific to your business needs and growth plan, visit the BigSeminar Video Sales Letter and listen as real live people who have attended, discuss doubling and tripling their income in 6 months or less.

Complete the short easy form on that page, and Armand will send you call details for the remaining “live training calls” he is holding between now and the seminar date. Access to the calls is free and immediate if you tell him you want to claim it. He is doing pre-interviews with each of his guest trainers, and allowing them to explain what they are doing successfully, and what they intend to teach.

Remember, personal training is a must. Get the best available.