Sometimes it pays to "join" a direct sales/home based company, or to pay for an affiliate weblink in order to get your items at wholesale (deeper discounts than normal), while other times not. In order to figure out if it will benefit your situation, you need to sit down and calculate how much you spend in a year from that company, and then figure out if the savings from those transactions will pay for your start up cost. For example, if you spend $200 a year on XYZ company, and to buy at wholesale it would save you 40%, although that sould like a great benefit, you would be spending $100 to save $80 ($20 in the red). Of course you could order more to make up that $20, but that would mean that you were likely spending more than your budget allows, and also dealing with activity quotas to boot, so you would still not come out ahead to join this company. All companies will try and "sell" you on the fact that you can profit from the sale of their product, and the great tax benefits. Of course most reps do not dedicate the hours necessary to build and MAINTAIN a customer base. If you decide to regain your start up cost or make a profit by selling, don't forget that you need to add in the expense of any sales tools you may need. These costs may include inventory, pens, paper, printer ink, clothing, gas for deliveries etc. To make a direct sales/home based business work, you typically need to dedicate 20 hours for part-time, and 40 hours for full-time. Fewer hours than that can be done, but will make it even more difficult to succeed. If you've ever called someone in sales and it took them a week to call you back, I bet you found another way to get what you needed before then. Working fewer hours makes it difficult to give your customers the time they need in order to stay loyal to you. This time can include face to face customer sales as well as "parties", follow up phone calls or deliveries. Plan to work a lot of evenings and weekends, because that is typically when your customer base will be available. I don't want to give you the impression that all direct sales/home based businesses are bad, I have personally joined many myself over the years. Just simply want to make sure you choose to join or not based on full disclosure of the facts.
Here are my affiliate links
These are typcially links with coupon codes to give my readers additional discounts, as well as giving me a referral fee credit. These referral fee credits help fund this FREE blog, so using them is a win-win for both of us.
Send A Ball
People go online to order a gift of flowers etc to send out for holidays, birthdays, get well and other occasions, only to find out that you end up speding over $30 for the least expensive items after tacking on shipping charges. Send a ball is a company that offers a unique gift that can typically be sent for under $20 including shipping, which is way more budget friendly! You can pick any message, or even have your own message hand written on a ball in any color, you need to check them out. $2 off coupon code at Sendaball. Use coupon code Shark during checkout.
Vistaprint
Vistaprint is a great online retailer to make custom designed business supplies. They are typically lower cost than stores who offer the same items with a storefront. Downside is that their process is completely automated, so its up to you to make sure you check your spelling, spacing and to be sure you stay inside the print area. They constantly have promotions, so if you don't like the price today and have time to wait, it will likely be on sale later.
