The Special Report Club is a private label rights (PLR) membership site offering access to one special report each month. It’s an affordable alternative to hiring a writer or writing the reports yourself.

Special reports contain more information than a simple article, but are not as big and detailed as an ebook. They are great to give away as bonuses to get people to sign up for your list or as add-ons to products and services you offer.

What I like about the Special Report Club:

1. While these special reports are written to cover many areas of Internet business content, they can be easily edited to suit my market and to express my own style and viewpoint.
2. They can be broken up into articles, blog posts, or emails. Or I can add to a report or combine two or more to make a bigger report or ebook.
3. I can add my own web site links, affiliate links, or even paid advertising to the reports.
4. While I prefer editing or adding to the reports, they are very well written and can be used as is for quick incentive when needed.
5. The reports save me time and money. I don’t have to look for, hire, and pay content writers to produce reports for me or take the time to research and write all of my own reports.
6. I can sell the reports.

What I’m not sure I like about the Special Report Club:

1. I can add my own name as author and claim the reports as my own. I almost added this feature to the “what I like” section above as well. I have other private label rights memberships that don’t permit me to put claim the content as my own, making it a bit awkward to figure out how to add a byline that doesn’t make it sound like I wrote it. The thing that worries me about claiming the reports as my own is the potential for confusion if readers see the same report with different marketers names on it. It’s probably not worth worrying about though; what are the chances that one person will see a report multiple times?
2. While much less saturated than free content, PLR content is not unique content. I have to be sure and continue to provide a good deal of original content and not be tempted to rely to heavily on PLR.

Overall the Special Report Club gets an unconditional, 5-star rating and recommendation. It’s a very high quality, affordable content source.

There are also a limited number of reports available separately, without having to sign up for the monthly membership.

Grab a single special report or claim your membership today.

News of direct sales companies closing or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy understandably causes worry for direct sales consultants, including those that aren’t directly associated with the companies.

One of the risks of doing business as a consultant for a direct sales company is that many major business decisions are completely out of your control. Company leadership, finances, product choices, policy changes, daily operations, and many other decisions that impact your business are made without your input. At the same time, having that established, knowledgeable infrastructure is one of the attractions of going into direct sales, and it frees up consultants to concentrate their efforts on earning commissions. The benefits usually outweigh the risk.

To reduce the risks associated with the lack of control over many major business decisions, be a truly independent direct sales consultant and build your business so it doesn’t completely rely on the company for long-term success.
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Many people think that if a company files bankruptcy it means they are going out of business. Often that is not the case. If fact, certain types of bankruptcy filings serve the opposite purpose - to keep a company in business.

On April 29, 2008, Home Interiors voluntarily filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States bankruptcy code. The Texas based direct sales party plan company has been selling home decor products for more than 50 years. They currently operate in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and the bankruptcy filing involves only their US operations.

This type of filing allows the company to continue to operate the business in much the same way as they did before the filing. In public information on their website, Home Interiors states that their intention is to “use the protections afforded by Chapter 11 to restructure our debt and restore our financial health and profitability.” In their FAQ for consultants they ask their representatives to continue to sell product and recruit new consultants.

The company clearly has a plan to come out financially secure and with a successful future. In my opinion, their willingness to publicly address some of the many questions consultants have is an indication of their confidence in the restructuring plan. And most important for consultants who may be making decisions about their future with the company, it provides accurate information on which to base decisions rather than forcing them to try and determine whether outside sources have all the facts.

For more information about the Home Interiors consultant opportunity, visit HomeDecorBusiness.com’s Home Interiors information page.

Over the past couple of days several popular bloggers are discussing the value of social media services like Twitter. They are asking themselves and others to evaluate their goals for the service and decide if it’s a marketing tool or a just social interaction. Or can it really be both?

The beauty of a service like Twitter is that it becomes what the community wants it to be. And like any community, as it grows, smaller groups and sub-communities separate themselves, mix, overlap, and continue to evolve. I think we’ll all be able to find the balance that works for us.

In her post, Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck, Lynn Terry’s definition of “social” explains exactly how I’ve tried to conduct myself in business all along; by being personable and not so personal. Lynn wrote,

“…But when it comes to marketing or networking, the word ’social’ pertains to being personable (vs personal), which - in my opinion - should be accomplished while still retaining an appearance of professionalism.”

It’s how I’d like to continue to conduct myself in the social media services.

But for others, online social media holds a much different appeal. In part, I think it’s just another aspect of a whole new communication era. Personal communication is becoming less and less private. The cell phone often makes at least one half of what used to be totally private conversations, public. Video cameras are everywhere and events that once might have been a temporary embarrassment witnessed by a few, can become a worldwide humiliation replayed over and over again. It’s a chicken and an egg question. Are our expectations of privacy so diminished that we’re willing to share more? Or has our willingness to share more led to the proliferation of opportunities to do so?

As others have suggested, we each need to define our social media goals and find a balance. While I wish I had done more planning before I started, I’m not sure I could have clearly defined what I wanted until I had some experience. I’ll approach the services differently now and hopefully find my balance.

Where do you stand? Are social media services marketing or socializing?

Follow me on Twitter

The Direct Selling Women’s Alliance just released a new audio series called, “Mentored by the Masters: Proven tips and strategies for greater passion, purpose and profits.”

It’s a monthly audio series featuring industry direct sales leaders on topics including selling, sponsoring, coaching, running you business and more. In addition to the monthly CDs there is also a special website resource area for subscribers.

Get more information and subscribe to “Mentored by the Masters: Proven tips and strategies for greater passion, purpose and profits” here.

If you have any kind of an online presence, you most likely get spam email. Spending any more time on it than you have to wastes precious time and money. Spam is frustrating and costly in and of itself, but rather than spend any time chasing down spammers or turning them in, minimize your frustration and wasted time by reducing incoming spam and installing a good spam filter to deal with what does get through.

Here are three tips for efficiently and effectively dealing with spam.

1. Make sure you do not have a “catch-all” email account on your email server. A catch-all address is one that receives all email sent to your domain whether or not it’s addressed to a set mailbox.
2. Don’t publish your email address on your website (or anyone else’s), either in text form or in the HTML. Of course, if you’re in business, you need to make yourself available to you customers, but there are many ways to make your email address available to humans and not spambots. To hide your email address from the spambots you can display it as an image rather than text or disguise it with JavaScript. Alternatively, use a contact form instead of providing an email address. (Be sure the contact form you use doesn’t include your email address in the HTML.) You can use a free form generator like Master Feedback or for more complex needs and more protection, we recommend MasterForm V4.
3. Use a good spam filter for your incoming email. We use and recommend MailWasherPro because it works while still giving me complete control over my email.

As long as it’s inexpensive and effective, spammers will continue to spam. Don’t give them any more time than you have to.

For more tips on preventing spam and to learn more about protecting your website from other vulnerabilities, read my interview Will Bontrager, an expert CGI programmer and author of some of my favorite scripts.


Joel Comm just released a new version of his Adsense Secrets Guide and is selling at the unbelievable price of just $9.95. If you have any interest in using Adsense to monetize your website, grab your copy now!

Previous releases of the Adsense Secrets Guide sold for as much as $97. But Joel is practically giving away this version because he wants to “give back,” and to introduce you to his monthly Internet Marketing newsletter “The Top 1% Report”.

Grab your copy of Adsense Secrets 4.0 now for immediate download.

Note: You’ll be getting one issue of the bonus newsletter for free, but if it’s not for you or not in your budget, cancel your subscription before the next issue to avoid being charged the monthly fee.

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Chris Carroll runs a successful direct sales business and helps others do the same. In this article she explains how her business model has helped her achieve success.

Are you a sales based direct seller or a recruiting based direct seller? Is there a difference, really? Allow me to explain.

I am a sales based direct seller. I am of the belief that sales is the basis of our business in direct sales and by using customer sales and the growth of your business through sales as the main basis of your income, than you will have a stronger business overall. This can be seen in the customer base and the $ in my pocket from sales. I am also of the belief that strong sales will lead to strong recruits who also use sales based business model.

One other reason that I use a sales based model is that you actually make more money in recruiting as you are getting paid on sales not just bringing in the recruit. Sales drive the whole system of getting paid, bringing in recruits, who also sell and make money and start recruiting. And the circle continues.
Recruit based selling is a hard concept for me sometimes. By putting the most eggs in your basket based on recruits and hoping that you will build your team that will support you is tough. How do you make a living in the mean time, while you are building your team?
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From MondayCafe.com
– The Direct Sales Movie — “Today!”

This morning I read a couple of blog posts about time management. TheWahmBlog.com has Tips for the Newbie Entrepreneur about managing time. And at the InternetBasedMoms.com Staff blog Annette mentioned an article about the health hazards of 24/7 online writing and blogging in her post, Too Dependent on Technology and Computers.

One of the challenge of running a home business is that it can be difficult to walk away from the work… it’s always there in the next room. When you work at a job somewhere else, you go home and get away from it every day. Here are a few tips that help me manage my day.

• I use a calendar/daily planner program with pop-up alerts to move me through my daily to-do list.
• I set my email client so it’s not continually checking email and alerting me to new messages, because I can’t resist looking when I hear that notification.
• I try to clear my email inbox first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon.
• Repetitive tasks are automated as much as possible. For example, I use autoresponders to send reminders when memberships and listings expire, I manage spam with a great filter, and I use a program to type repetitive phrases and paragraphs with just a few keystrokes.
• I do the work that requires the most focus in the morning because by the afternoon I’m much less productive.

For more on managing your time, pick up a free iRepNetwork membership and find a time management email series in the members only resources section.

How do you manage your busy schedule?