Are you interested in becoming a consultant with a direct sales company but aren’t sure if you will do enough with it to make it worthwhile. Direct sales companies are looking for all sorts of consultants, so don’t feel that you are out of place! There are essentially three levels of consultant, so see where you fit in. Just make sure you let the person you signed up with know so they are not always hounding you to do more than you want.

Hobby – The hobby consultant does one or two parties every few months, just enough to keep her active and maintain her discount. She is mainly in this for the personal discount, and to make a few dollars. She likely isn’t going to work too hard to get bookings or recruits, and may pass this onto her up line to pursue. You may hear from her whenever she has an event going on to find out the current specials and anything else she needs to know. Hobby demonstrators may also be people who have signed up but aren’t sure about the business or just need a chance to get out once in a while.

Part time – This is a demonstrator that does several parties a month. She could be in the business to make a bit of extra income for bills or just for some fun. It is easy for her to make a few hundred dollars a month by having a show once a week, or doing a few a every month. She likely is informed of what is going on with the company, but may need a bit of a refresher to make sure she understands how exactly things work. A part time consultant may easily move up to a full time demonstrator if something occurs in her life where she needs more money. These are people who want to get out of the house on a more regular basis, people who need more money or people who just love the product and want to share with everyone.

Full Time – The full time demonstrator is someone who is hosting as many parties a month as she can to maximize her earnings. She could be someone who is trying not to return to work after maternity leave, or someone who was downsized and is trying to replace her income. This lady has a “can do” attitude! The full time consultant is going to be attending as much training as she can to make sure she is doing everything she can to earn as much as she can. She will be working on getting her team built up, and have them all working to get some good income from them. This person is going to have to be organized or learn some ways to keep everything in place and on schedule.

Do you fit into any of these categories? You do not have to be a full time consultant doing parties every day of the week to be a consultant within direct sales.

There are a lot of businesses that are having a very tough time in the current economic situation. For a lot of businesses, they can’t win against the economy and are forced to make the choice to go out of business. If you have a business that starting to head in the wrong direction you may think it’s jut a matter of time until you are out of business as well. There are some alternative methods you can try.With the assistance of a turnaround consulting expert, you may be surprised at how quickly your business can change direction. Even though the economy is having a tough time, some businesses, if steered correctly can thrive.

An Intervention

The first thing that has to happen for a business to have a chance in turnaround consulting if it’s heading in the wrong direction is intervention. This is vital, as many business owners won’t change their course, even if it’s the wrong one. With the help of a turnaround consulting firm, this can be alleviated.

Once a turnaround consulting firm is on the job they’ll look at the business plan, what’s wrong with it and come up with a solution strategy to fix it. The faster this can happen, and the faster these solutions can be implemented, the better it is for the company.

Recovery Process

Recovery is the next focus of turnaround consulting. Since the businesses has been going the wrong way for a while, there have obviously been negative impacts to the company. So there are losses that must be taken into account. Now it’s time to get the business back where it needs to be, recovering from the losses it suffered going the wrong direction. This is when the company will be picked apart by the turnaround consulting firm that will look at everything from business operations to profit margins and make changes in order to help the company get back on track.

Marketing In This Economy

Many people consider a down economic market one that is a lost cause for businesses. However, the truth is there are plenty of businesses that are thriving in the current economy. How is that happening? By bringing in a turnaround consulting company they have been able to find out where there is room to grow even in this down economy and then create a plan to take advantage of that growth.

One method is developing a marketing plan that shows the public why it is vital that they work with this company in this economy. Another option is to develop an environment that the consumer does not believe they can live without what the business offers. People can be convinced to spend, even in a down economy, with the right marketing. Yet once a company is struggling in the down economy, a turnaround consulting firm will usually have to be called in to get these types of results.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling(NACAC) recommends that high school counselors work with no more than 100 students. Most public high school counselors have a student load of at least 350 students. On average, high school counselors spend 38 minutes helping students with the college search, applications, and admissions process.

Educational consultants are not associated with a high school or college. They have the time, training, and expertise to provide individual attention to students with their college search, applications and essays, financial aid and scholarships, and the college admissions process.

Here are five reasons why hiring an educational consultant to work with your high school student might be the best investment you ever made:

1. Educational consultants understand the college admissions process and visit colleges and universities regularly to discover what makes one school different from another. They meet with college admissions officers at each school so they know about the continuous changes that take place on individual campuses.

2. They help your student find colleges that are a good fit, not just a big name. They want your student to be successful in the college admissions process and to have a variety of schools from which to choose. They help families separate the hype from the facts.

3. Educational consultants are able to work successfully with your student because they do not have the emotional investment that parents do. They provide reliable college information and objective advice. They give your family another opinion and try to make the college admissions process as stress-free as possible.

4. They know that applying to college and college admissions can be a time for students to discover themselves. This helps them with the college search and encourages students to make better college decisions.

5. Educational consultants assist students with their applications and essays. They brainstorm topics that will enable your student to write the most compelling essays that will strengthen their applications.

In Part 2, read five more reasons how educational consultants can assist you with the college admission process.

For the small business owner who is new to business in general or new to marketing online, marketing to potential customers on the internet is no easy feat. Because it seems like such a huge place, it can seem to be very confusing to navigate. Small business consultants that are experienced in targeted online marketing can help you navigate the unknown jungle of cyberspace so that you can get found by your target customer and make sales.

Targeting Customers Online

Targeting your potential customers online isn’t easy. Those you want to target may not yet know about your brand so can only find you through an internet search. Because almost no one uses a telephone directory any longer to help them find products and services, buying the biggest ad, using creative ad copy, having a business name that begins with the letter “A”, or using bold colours won’t initially work. Some of those elements could work remarkably well for you once the client gets to your website but the first trick is actually getting them there in the first place.

Small business consultants that are focused on internet-based marketing techniques can help you determine how to go about getting the attention of people surfing the web looking for whatever it is that you sell. Through both paid and organic search engine marketing, you can get the attention of the right people who can be led to your site where you can begin to win them over.

The most common way people can find your business website is by searching for your product or service in search engines. If you sell computers, it isn’t enough to target the word “computers”. There are about a zillion other websites competing for some form of that word already. By narrowing down broad search terms to location specific and specialty specific terms, you can be shown to the right people. If you have a computer repair shoppe or a fine-dining establishment on the outskirts of Peterborough, you aren’t trying to get the attention of someone in New York City. The consultant can help you target the right search terms through tools and through experience.

After you determine which search terms to rank for, you need to start building a campaign for those terms. There are dozens of website attributes that search engines look at when determining how to rank you in their index pages. This indexing happens constantly so various things could impact where your site is placed. Activities you do both on and off your website could make a difference in being listed on page 4 of the results pages for your desired search terms and page 1. Considering how you do your own web surfing, you know that it is very rare for anyone to search past page 2 when searching for something. The idea is to be seen as relevant by search engines for targeted search phrases so that you can get the right traffic to your website.

Not all traffic is equal and a consultant can help you determine the best demographic to target. Then, once they arrive on your landing page, a mixture of traditional and new media marketing methods can be used to convert that visitor into a customer.

Targeted search engine campaigns contain many different elements that can help you succeed. Skilled small business consultants can help you focus on those individual elements in a method and with a timeline that suits your business and your goals. With the right expert advice to guide you through internet marketing, the internet suddenly won’t seem so vast any more.

In a never ending quest to become an MLM superstar, entrepreneurs look to Network Marketing Consultants in order to help kickstart there career. They believe that this is the surest, fastest path to finally becoming successful. But is this a good idea? And why or why not?

First off, let us define what a Network Marketing Consultant is. They are essentially what a regular consultant is in any other industry is, which is a professional that provides advice in a particular expertise, which is in this case Network Marketing. Nothing more, nothing less.

But understand that finding a QUALIFIED Network Marketing Consultant might be hard to find. You see, in other industries there are certifications that are involved that typically let’s you know that you are dealing with an actual professional, but not so in MLM.

There are no qualifications or certifications involved, so you would essentially have to take the word of the person that presents himself as such.

Another problem is that it’s not like you can look up a Network Marketing Professional in the yellow pages or even online, because you will have a problem finding one. That tag has only recently come into existence, and since there is money to be made in that capacity, you are going to have many people anointing themselves as an MLM Consultant. Don’t trust them.

So what is a person to do if they want to use one to kickstart there career? You are going to need to do some research online to find out who are the major players.

If you have been around the internet awhile and this niche specifically, then you will know who are the successful ones and who are the pretenders. The ones that are the true players are the ones that you need to focus on.

From there, you need to find out if they, in fact, do consulting on the side. Some of them do, most do not. But there are some out there, and you need to go to them and find out what the terms are ahead of time, and what the cost will be. Get it in writing, and look it over.

If it’s something you want to do, but more importantly, if you can afford it (as the price tag is usually not cheap), then by all means, go for it, as this will be the best way to get started. you are getting first rate advice from someone that has been there, done that.

On the other hand, if you want to do it, but can’t afford it, then do not do it. As some people have the habit of buying things that they cannot afford, well this is no different. It takes a while before you will see any improvement in your business because it is not a get rich quick plan.

It takes time to make this successful, so patience and work are involved. For the people that can’t afford it, there are strategies that you can follow that will get great results, but those take time and much more effort to producer. That is what those people should focus on.