How Much Time Does It Really Take to Make Money From Home?

"How Much Time Does It Really Take to Make Money From Home?" by Katherine M J Mason

Many people haven't a clue where to start when it comes to figuring out just which business opportunity to try out.

Let's face it, it's not as if there are only a handful of money making plans out there competing for your precious time. There are thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - of individual courses, seminars, ebooks, resale rights, software packages, schemes...

Which should you chose? Which one is right for you? Before you even consider the relative merits of the various opportunities you need to ask yourself some key questions.

Let's first think about the most fundamental and limited resource you have - TIME.

How Much Time Does It Really Take to Make Money From Home?

Time is so important because there is little we can do to get more of it. While it is possible to leverage money, learn new skills or get the right mindset, the hours we have free to follow a particular venture are non-negotiable.

Yes, once you have found a solid business model, there are ways to leverage your time so that you can be more productive, but when we are starting out every minute is going to count.

How many hours do you have per week to commit to your money-making ventures?

What are the minimum time requirements for a business or income-generating venture? Of course, the more time you put in to many of these opportunities will multiply your potential income. But what I want to make clear today, is the bare minimum time you would need to make it worthwhile. Now my guess is that most people would like to make an extra couple of hundred quid per month minimum. So I'm using that as my benchmark.

Here's a quick overview of what I believe are the average minimum times you would need to spend on a given opportunity.

Retail (online): 10 - 20hrs per week 

Affiliate marketing (online): 10 hrs 

Ezines/blogs: 5 - 10 hrs 

eBay: 5 - 40hrs + 

Financial trading: 5 - 15hrs 

Betting (online): 5 - 15hrs

Right, let's delve a little deeper and work backwards: say you have 40 hrs + free time per week. You don't have a fulltime job and are prepared to put in full time effort. What are your options?

The good news is you can do just about anything!

Any traditional bricks and mortar business (retail or service based) will require at least 40hrs per week and probably a lot more whilst setting up. Same goes for franchising. I know it might sound obvious, but there is no point in even considering a traditional business model unless you are prepared to put in at least regular 8 hour day.

Another of my favourite ways to leverage time is to act as a broker (essentially bringing buyers and sellers together) - again I have covered these in depth and include broking parking spaces, sales leads, room rental and even setting up JV deals between list and product owners.

But I presume that as you are reading my article you are hoping that you can make a good income without having all the pressures and hassles of starting a full blown enterprise, so how can you run a business with high income potential in a fraction of the time?

Go online of course!

Look, I don't need to bore you with the benefits of having a purely online business. We both know that the Internet gives you the chance to make sales 24hrs a day, without ever having to meet a single customer. You don't have to travel. And you don't have the hassles of looking after premises or managing staff.

Still, if you are developing your own products - whether electronic or physical - and your own website, the set up time is going to be significant. Thankfully these days there are plenty of ways for you to set up all the technical stuff without having to learn complex code or pay thousands for some tech geek to get you started. There are plenty of off the shelf packages that can create websites, broadcast emails, take payments and all the rest.

And then you have to consider marketing. You can't just bung a website up and expect people to find it. If you already have a database of previous customers, then you have a head start. My recommendation would be to make sure you get as many existing names onto some kind of regular email as soon as possible.

Even if you don't have an existing database, then creating a weekly eletter for prospective customers is essential. This will give you a regular contact with your prospects and allow you to alert them to important news as well as present offers.

As you will undoubtedly need to find other ways of generating new prospects online, factor in the time it will take to get your website listed on Google - this could be anything up to 6 months and even then there is no guarantee you can get a high listing. Alternatively you can pay for Google Adwords, but I guarantee you won't get it right first time (or even second or third!) and there will be a period of trial and error before you get your ad right, target the best keywords and make sure that those visitors are converting to paying customers.

A potentially lower risk and lower cost route to market would be via joint venturing with complimentary list owners. Yes, this could speed things up, but still you have to consider the initial period of identifying potential JV partners, writing to them, awaiting a response and agreeing terms. Nevertheless, I know many very successful online businesses owners who make great money purely by working with JV partners.

What if you don't have the time to develop your own products?

Well, you can get the rights to other people's products. There are plenty of opportunities out there offering non-exclusive resale rights. But be warned: chances are you will not have any marketing materials, so you will either have to create those yourself or pay someone else to do it. Also, be aware that there could be hundreds or even thousands of others with the same products.

My advice: don't compete in the most popular areas such as business opportunity. Instead, find a small but proven niche market.

Another alternative to product creation is the public domain: Public domain describes works that have fallen out of copyright or perhaps were never eligible for copyright. It's an area where many knowledgeable marketers are really raking in the cash. It describes books, music, films, art, and other creative works - things that you can copy and start selling right away.

Becoming an online affiliate is a much-hyped way of making money - the product, marketing material, payment and fulfilment of the product is done by someone else, it leaves you to focus on finding a market. Sounds easy (and many affiliate opp promoters would like you to think so), but marketing either offline or online is a serious undertaking and you should expect to spend at least a couple of hours a day on your affiliate efforts.

You need to be realistic with your time. So let's say you only have an hour or so a day - perhaps in the evening or in the morning. What options are open to you?

1. FINANCIAL TRADING: We all know that day trading offers high potential rewards for those who can trade volatility. I am not recommending it for everyone, but I know many people who can regularly take 10 to 20 times their stake in as many minutes. On the flipside, of course, if you get it wrong, you could be losing your stake. My recommendation would be to do a lot of hard research first. There are countless tipsters, courses and trading software packages out there. Make sure you go with the most reputable. Also, make sure that you follow a strict risk and money management strategy that protects your trading bank... otherwise your trading career will be cut brutally short!

If you want to trade the financial markets intraday (opening and closing your positions in a single sessions), then you want to be around when there is most activity. For Forex and the major indices, that's going top really mean from 7 am to 11am and then afternoons from noon until 3pm. There are also plenty of opportunities in the evening when the US markets close and the Asian markets reopen.

2. SPORTS BETTING: If betting is your thing, then the bet exchanges like betair.com offer you an online platform to place bets (both backing an laying) in advance. As with any market, prices can change and you will find that the best returns will come from being able to follow the live markets (whether it be horses or football). It is even possible to crate no- lose bets by trading what's known as in-running, where you are backing and laying horses or football teams during the race or match.

SCAM ALERT! As the less ethical business opportunity publishers understand the desire to make money in our spare time, you will come across plenty of attractive sounding ventures that promise high returns from minimal time and effort including paid to surf, online surreys and all manner of envelope stuffing schemes. I have yet to see a single one that really works so would advise against getting involved. Same goes for any form of pseudo- pyramid scheme such as cash gifting, eGold or HYIPS (High Yield Investment Programs).

3. EBAY & AMAZON: My advice if you are really time-poor, is to consider an opportunity that allows you to dip in and out depending on how much time you have without compromising continuity. I know it might not be oh so familiar, but you can't beat eBay and Amazon for a proven marketplace. As I've said many times, you can start with unwanted items in your own home. This will give you a zero cost way to become familiar with the sites before you branch out and start identifying Also consider arbitrage online where you can buy from one online source and then sell somewhere else online for a higher price and you pocket the difference.

Finally, I can't remember which law it is (Sod's or Murphy's), but it states that the time you think a task should take is but a fraction of how long it will really take. So no matter what someone tells you - I would at least double it!

The good news is, every minute spent is valuable whether you actual make money or not. Every effort you make towards your goal, you are adding experience (positive and negative) that you can draw on at a later date. Discover Great Home Based Business Opportunities