Will your kids be saying, “Mom! I just made more money!”

Summer is the perfect time to foster your children’s entrepreneurial spirits and help them start their own business. While a lemonade stand can certainly be profitable, many more opportunities are available both online and offline.

Kids’ Business Ideas and How-to Guides:

Kids’ Business Ideas is a 50-page ebook that lists at least seventy-five businesses that can be run by children. Some are generally known teen and pre-teen jobs like babysitting and dog walking, but there are many other unique and potentially lucrative ideas. The online business category contains some how-to information, but for the most part the ebook is a list of ideas, a brief description of what the work entails, the tools needed, suggested minimum age for each, and some notes to parents regarding safety. It’s well worth the $9.99 price.
Claim Your Copy of Kids’ Business Ideas.

Your Guide to Helping Your Child Start an Inexpensive & Fun Business Online, is a free report including tips on affiliate marketing and blogging. Click here for your complimentary copy.

Note: This is an updated version of a post originally made in March, 2007.

Image courtesy of Lori-B.

If you are in the know about jewelry you probably already know about dichroic glass gems. I just learned about them while writing up a directory listing for a new jewelry direct sales party plan, Allura Designs.

Using a process that was developed by NASA to protect satellites, Allura’s artists produce unique, brilliantly colored gems for their jewelry.

Independent consultants sell the dichroic glass jewelry at home parties and through other direct sales methods, earning up to 45% commission on sales. Consultants can earn additional income by building a team and there is a new consultant bonus program.

To learn more about the Allura Designs consultant opportunity, visit the InternetBasedMoms.com direct sales directory.

Home & Garden Party recently acquired Home Interiors to create Celebrating Home, the largest home decor party plan company in the United States. More than 125,000 independent consultants will continue to market home decor and home entertaining products.

Home & Garden Party was founded in 1996 and headquartered in Marshall, Texas, now the home of Celebrating Home. Dallas Based Home Interiors & Gifts began in 1957.

Learn more about Celebrating home at HomeDecorBusiness.com

That’s it… I’m not going to respond to one more offer that comes into my email inbox, gets posted on one of my favorite blogs, or that my Twitter friends recommend. Not even the free ones!

Why?

Because I’m in information and implementation overload. Everyday I get incredible offers for products and projects that are of great interest to me and that I want to participate in. But I have countless numbers of these products and projects that I’ve already downloaded and that are waiting for my attention.

Before I accept another offer I need to digest and implement everything I already have.

Of course I’m already worried that I’m going to miss out on something extremely worthwhile (like this Sweetie Saturday Report Coupon Offer), but in reality, if it is worthwhile it will have staying power, and I can participate after I’ve finished my other projects (not the coupon of course, but the membership will be there when I’m ready). Many things I’ve already downloaded never made it off the back burner anyway, so waiting wouldn’t have made a difference.

Of course learning is always important, but action is critical to success. I need to take action on some of my projects before I plan any more.

I’m taking a six week hiatus from accepting new offers. If I still have too many products and projects waiting for me I’ll extend it. I’m hoping I’m pretty much caught up, so I can start anew!

How about you? Are you on overload and what are you doing about it?

Kelly’s talking about whether a blogger’s physical weight plays a role in her popularity. It got me to thinking, are there other factors that contribute to a blogger’s success, but really shouldn’t?

What about age? Older bloggers could be considered more experienced and “wiser,” but a younger blogger might be more thought of as more savvy and more fun.

How about general attractiveness? Ethnicity? Gender?

There was a time when the Internet was much more anonymous. Many people worked and socialized online under screen names and never posted pictures of themselves. Now, especially with social networking being so popular, people realize that building relationships is a better way to market online and we’re making ourselves know by name and picture.

Does putting a picture out there to be more personable end up backfiring for some?

To Kelly, it appears that it’s the slender, beautiful mom bloggers that are attending live events. Or at least that’s who is in the pictures from the events. Self-confidence is probably a contributing factor and those of us who aren’t so skinny may stay home because of it. Or are we there and just good at avoiding having our picture taken?

As I said in response to Kelly’s blog post. I think it’s no different in the blogging world than it is in society in general. Thin, good looking bloggers are likely to be more popular because for the most part we all many of us still hold on to stereotypes about overweight and unattractive people.

What do you think?

You’ve probably seen many of the same articles and blog posts I’ve seen claiming that there is a 95% failure rate for new direct sales consultants and network marketers. It’s a widely used statistic that seems to be generally accepted as fact.

Fact is, the reported 95% failure rate for direct sales and network marketing businesses is unsubstantiated.

In fact, it’s quite difficult to find information that confirms or refutes the generally accepted statistics on business failure. I almost gave up on writing this article because I had so much trouble finding clear information that could be substantiated by additional sources. I couldn’t find one article that also referenced a source for the information when quoting the statistic.

Some of the difficulties with measuring success and failure include:

1. What defines failure? For the most part, statistics on small business failures are based on how many companies or individuals are still in business after a certain period of time. The reasons for closing the business aren’t considered. While many of the closures may be because of lack of profit, others closed for a variety of other reasons including being sold for a profit. It’s been shown that about a third of new businesses “closed while successful” and “…only one-third of new businesses
   (33 percent) closed under circumstances that owners considered unsuccessful.” (source 1). Many network marketers tend to change companies and they probably don’t consider these changes a failure.
2. Data that’s being analyzed to determine failure rates doesn’t distinguish between different types of small businesses or home businesses. Network marketing is most likely lumped in with all small business or at least all home businesses.
3. Many direct sales and network marketing companies are privately held firms that do not have to disclose financial information, again making it difficult to analyze success and failure.

So where does this 95% failure statistic come from?
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