The sure route to home business wealth is to think "multiple," as in multiple streams of income. You can easily develop new income streams if you do two things:

* find new ways to get customers; * add new products or services for sale.

Devising multiple streams of income should be a regular part of your strategic planning. I recommend you think hard about it at least every 90 days.

1) New Ways to Get Customers If your main source of business is Yellow Pages, for example, what happens if your phone goes dead tomorrow? Your business goes dead, too. It's happened to others. It's happened to me. And it WILL happen to you one day.

You can _easily_ avoid this migraine-waiting-to- happen!

How?

Set up at least two other sources of new business to support your main one. Start today. Here are some quick ideas:

* run low-cost classified ads in your local newspaper (or another paper, if you're already doing this); * give a seminar once a month and watch new business roll in -- you can literally "speak and grow rich" this way; * pay for Web site traffic from GoTo.com, Sprinks.com or another pay-per-click search engine; * start REALLY cultivating referrals from existing clients -- tell them how much you enjoy working with them and ask for names of friends who might want free information from you.

For 'newbies' to work-at-home market, here are a few tips to help you avoid scams ...

1. ENVELOPE STUFFING IS A SCAM.

You've probably seen those mouth-watering ads that tempt you with promise of $2 (or $3 or $4) for each and every envelope you stuff.

Does phrase, 'Too good to be true' come to mind?

It should. In this technologically-advanced era, we have envelope stuffing machines that can do work cheaper and faster than hiring a home worker. Even without a machine, why would a company pay someone $2000 to stuff 1000 envelopes, when they can pay any number of willing local workers same MONTHLY salary to stuff unlimited envelopes?

This is how it works: Normally you pay a 'startup' or 'materials' fee - or sometimes scammer states that fee is to 'make sure you're serious'.

You stuff envelopes with a flyer or circular that attempts to scam another poor soul into parting with startup fee.

In all these years online, I have never met anyone who's made even a single dollar with envelope stuffing.

2. STAY AWAY FROM ASSEMBLY WORK

It sounds so reasonable. You pay for materials and instructions. They send you a kit. You assemble item, and company buys it back from you to sell to their own customers.

Reality: you pay startup fee. You get kit and assemble item. The company rejects your assembled product because it 'doesn't meet quality standards'. You can stuck with a ton of junk, which you may or may not be able to resell to customers you find on your own.

Are there legitimate assembly work opportunities? Possibly. A healthy dose of skepticism will help to protect you from potential scams.

3. "NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY" = BE CAREFUL!

"No experience necessary" is most often termed, "Entry level position" in a real job listing. It isn't too likely that a company would hire someone with no experience to work from home because:

= Training them would be difficult. = Companies tend to prefer telecommuters who have *proven* that they are capable, independent workers who don't need supervision.

Sure, there are legitimate companies that will train you. However, companies that are offering telecommuting work are likely looking for qualified prospects with proven track records.

4. DO THE MATH.