Business opportunities - Businesses for sale - business ideas - home business opportunity - Franchise opportunities - franchises - Lifestyle business opportunities - What are your business options?

There are a number of different business models or types which are available to budding entrepreneur. Let’s have a look at three most common types for small business operators, Tradition businesses, Franchises and Direct Marketing.
Tradition business is the most common of the three and has a large number of sub-types including; retailers, wholesalers, restaurants, cafes, trades, services, accommodation and the list goes on, as just about every business sectors are represented in this group. Everything from mum & dad business right up to multi employee business are also in this group, it is just that diverse.
Most traditional business are generally skill base, where someone gains a skill as an employee and after a period of time decide that can do this on their own by establishing their own business or by purchasing an existing business.

The major problem with traditional business is repetitiveness and competition for market share, where a single type business, lets say a café for this example, is established in an area and is doing well with 100% of the local market. A second café is established a few door down the road which attracts the same market, it can in some case increase the market slightly, however in most cases it will only take a share of the existing market. Thus the market share is split and the original café loses it dominance of the market and loses income. A third café then sets up in the area and further splits the market and thus making each business less profitable.
This is a general rule in most areas, however in this example, there are exceptions where the number of cafes in an area can actually attract more customers from outside the area by becoming known as a café district.
Competition is good for business and customers however; an over abundance of one type of business in an area can make these businesses un-profitable of which the established traditional business owner has little or no control over.

Now lets take a quick look at franchises. A franchise is a right granted to an individual or group to market a company's goods or services within a certain territory or location. Some examples of today's popular franchises are McDonald's, Subway, and Domino's Pizza. There are many different types of franchises and many people associate only fast food businesses with franchising. In fact, there are over 120 different types of franchise businesses available today, including automotive, cleaning & maintenance, health & fitness, financial services, and pet-related franchises, just to name a few. Franchising is helping thousands of individuals be their own boss and own and operate their own business by allowing entrepreneurs to be in business for themselves, but not by themselves. There is usually a much higher likelihood of success when an individual opens a franchise as opposed to a traditional business, since a proven business formula is in place. The products, services, and business operations have already been established. If you are thinking about buying into a franchise system, it is important that you understand exactly how franchising works, what fees are involved, and what is expected of you from the franchise company.

The last business type we will look at is; Network Marketing (NM), which includes Multi Level Marketing (MLM) and more recently Direct Marketing (DM). This model is where an independent distributor or associate sells products and / or services for a parent company through their own marketing efforts.
Network marketing or MLM is a business models that saw a distributors create a customer base within their own network of friends and family. They further enhanced their business by enrolling others as distributors or associates which in effect increased the network base and earn the original distributor a secondary commissions, thus creating a multi level income.

With the advent of the internet, the door opened more widely for the entrepreneurial MLM -NM to increase their network outside of friends and family. The term “Direct Marketer” is more appropriate to many of today’s MLM – NM distributor, as they rarely approach their friends and family network. They do most of their marketing directly to the world via the internet and regular media channel thus they are now professional in their own right.
The vast majority of Direct Marketers are home based or mobile businesses which operate from a simple low cost office setup. Most modern direct marketing companies have comprehensive marketing and product training; however the amount of detail on the marketing training does vary compare to a franchise. You may in some case require additional marketing training from a third party training company.