My colleagues and I in our Home-Based Business Owners Consortium, known as KOG Unity PLUS Group, ponder this conundrum almost daily. Consider our points of agreement. Opportunities to succeed abound today like never before in history. Immutable and powerful principles govern success and bring prosperity to all who conform to it. The internet provides us with one of the most powerful tools of opportunity for success ever in human history. Now consider our point of contention. About 90 percent of my more than 1,000 colleagues across the country believe that if you create a great opportunity and put the investment at a price that almost everyone can afford, thousands of people will come to the offer. On the other hand, I believe that most people’s minds are so adapted to failure and so accepting of the supposed inevitability of dire circumstances that skepticism and fear hinder their progress.
Consider examples of my evidence
Thousands of nonprofits across the country are struggling to make ends meet, vying for grants, donations and other traditional fundraising efforts that have long since proved insufficient to meet the needs of these organizations, many of which remain committed to excellent community work . Meanwhile, the opportunity to join a few online stores and teach their supporters how to shop online safely and easily never seems to have occurred to most nonprofit leaders. These leaders, both policy makers and administrators, seem to be mired in the quicksand of inadequate fundraising, while overlooking the potential ‘gold mine’ of social entrepreneurship opportunities. This example also applies to churches and other faith-based groups that recognize that they cannot get enough money from the collection boxes to adequately fund long-term ministry. Yet they continue to pass the plate, ignoring the many “promised lands” of Internet-based economic opportunity.
Despite the fact that home businesses are one of the fastest growing segments of our economy, with thousands of intrepid individuals reaping bountiful monetary benefits, most of the people who are in desperate need of setting up multiple leveraged income streams shudder in fear on the sidelines of life. Meanwhile, they continue to struggle every day to make the country’s 40-40-40 plan work. This plan requires you to work 40 hours a week for 40 years, so you can be forced to retire to try to support yourself on 40% less than you need for living.
According to Henry BR Beale in his report for the SBA (Small Business Administration) Office of Advocacy, in a report published in February 2004: “Home-based businesses, which make up about half of all U.S. businesses… are defined as those that be conducted from a home with no other headquarters location.” Joanne Pratt, who tracks these businesses for the SBA, found in her most recent research that “…approximately two-thirds (68%) of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations are home.” These companies include: 34% of the country’s construction companies, 33% of the country’s service industries, 19% of the country’s transportation companies, 12% of the country’s retail companies, 11% of the financial, insurance and real estate companies in the country.
Michael Gerber, an internationally renowned small business consultant, says, “There are an estimated 20.3 million small businesses in America alone. Small businesses contribute 47 percent of all sales in this country and account for 53 percent of private non- employs an agricultural workforce. Small businesses are responsible for 51 percent of private gross domestic product (GDP). Their health is critical to the economy as a whole. Within a given year, nearly 1 million people start a small business in the US. Unfortunately, at least 40 percent of those businesses fail within the first year. The number of failures over time is staggering. Of the 1 million U.S. small businesses started this year, more than 800,000 (80%) of them to go bankrupt within five years and 96% will have closed their doors before their 10th birthday.”
The majority of small businesses are therefore based at home. In retail, the Direct Selling Association (DSA) reports that 13.3 million home business owners operate as independent representatives of national direct selling companies that are members of the DSA. These home business owners account for $29.55 billion in annual retail sales. Nearly 80 percent of these home business owners are women.
Why are so many people reluctant to take advantage of excellent opportunities? Why would they rather struggle in the rat race, complain every step of the way, but do absolutely nothing to overcome their dire circumstances?
I believe most people doubt, even fear, anything that seems to contradict what they feel is true
The vaunted scientific method says you observe a phenomenon and arrive at a hypothesis; develop an experiment to test your hypothesis and respond to what the experiment reveals. We recently developed such an experiment. Click here for details and then go back to AC and share your comments with me. I will greatly appreciate your help.
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