If you spend any time online surfing Internet or any time reading magazines that deal with business topics, you will more than likely run across countless business opportunity offerings.

Business opportunities are in essence "turn-key" operations where a major company, or even a smaller company, is offering what are basically franchises or memberships in company. Any person who joins becomes entitled to use company name, company marketing materials and, of course, company reputation. It is therefore an easy way for many who have no inclination to start their own business, or who have no ideas of their own, to start a home-based business.

There are, however, as in anything, "pitfalls" and "advantages" to joining any type of business opportunity. Many times, one of "pitfalls" is fact that there is a membership price to pay when joining, which depending upon business opportunity, can be quite a staggering fee. It is wise, then, before paying any fees to join a business opportunity to research and ascertain following aspects of opportunity:

1. What kind of “fees or charges” do you have to pay “up front” in order to get started? 2. How long has business opportunity "been in business"? Longevity is important. You don't want to join a biz op that's "here today, gone tomorrow", taking your fees with it!

3. How do other members feel about business opportunity? If you can speak with other members, this would help immensely in any decisions.

4. How much money overall can you expect to make from business opportunity within first month? You should at least be able to recover any fees you've spent within first few months.

5. How many others belong to business opportunity? Too much competition with other members will make it difficult to make sales, while too few members indicates that it is not a popular business opportunity, so how can it be sold?

6. How often will you be paid? Some only pay when an associate reaches a certain amount of revenue (which if you're a newbie will tie up your money quite conceivably for a while).

7. Are there any "undisclosed" extra fees, such as fees for checks or other payment methods? This will cut into net revenues.

It's great to have a challenging and interesting hobby such as origami, papier-mâché sculpting, fine art – painting and/or sketching, rockhounding, photography, or jewelry making. It's even more exciting to have a specialty in one of these fields that no one else has, and then to turn your special talents into a successful home-based business. It’s gratifying indeed to be able to take two or more of these and combine them into a paying proposition.

That's exactly what Loring Windblad of Sierra Vista, AZ, did.

But these aren't isolated stories. Men and women across country are joining ranks of entrepreneurs converting hobbies into moneymaking propositions. It's important to note that none of these women originally planned to start a business. On contrary, interest by others in their hobbies convinced them to sell their work.

LORING WINDBLAD’S CUSTOM-BUILT COMPUTER BUSINESS

Loring Windblad spent 20 years in US Army in Electronics, and retired from that position on January 1st, 1976. But in course of those 20 years additional skills were picked up including teaching (electronics), typing (over 100 wpm), general writing and technical writing (electronics and communications, lesson plans, etc), photography and even SCUBA diving.

Years and miles later (read on below, also) found Loring in Canada playing in a major bridge tournament but also renewing acquaintance with his first love, whom he met in 1952. Strange things happened and they got married in June of 1990 and began their own business in July of 1990. The business took on a form of its own, evolving from humble beginnings into a Desktop Publishing and Graphic Design endeavor by September, when they purchased their own computer – and landed their first big job starting October 1st.

That same Friday night, September 30th, was portentous in several ways. Loring played his baseball games for his computer baseball league and then shut computer down at midnight and went to bed. When computer was turned on at 8 am to start new job, nothing happened. Dead. No computer working. Obviously a dead power supply? No? Actually yes. The computer was two weeks old, under total warranty, but nothing could be done warranty wise over weekend. So Loring called around to every computer business in area and found one open on a Saturday morning, drove there, found a power supply that looked exactly like one in computer at home, made a deal to “rent it” for a week until a replacement could be gotten on warranty, took it home and put it in computer.

It worked! The job began, a few hours late but on day it was supposed to begin. And a new career was launched, even though we didn’t know it at time.

Calling upon his 20 years of experience plus lots of long talks with Custom Computer Builder who had sold them their first computer, Loring slowly learned about computers and how to build them. Then, in 1992, a friend of a friend wanted a new computer. Loring “custom built” a computer for him, a brand new 486 CPU “screamer” type. The client was well satisfied. Time passed. Friends later in year wanted computers, so Loring built them new computers. By 1994 Loring was building 5-6 custom computers a month, most months, in “high profit” days of computers when they paid $400 or more profit per computer.

One of biggest things was finding wholesale suppliers for a new computer builder to purchase quality components from. With a little help from their original computer salesman, i.e., making careful notes on everything he told them, June and Loring developed a list of possible suppliers, then applied for re-seller status. And sure, there were periods when no computers were sold as well as months when 6-8 were sold. It was obviously a struggle, but a good one.

Networking became a way of life. June joined all women’s networking groups and Loring joined all missed networking groups. Both made presentations and work came in, both desktop publishing and new computers. From 1995 to 1998 Loring sold an average of 25-30 computers a year. However, by 1998 profit margin was falling out of computers, days of $400 were gone. By 1999 margin was down to $100 a computer and when you are servicing a computer for 3 years warranty service on a total of $100 it starts getting pretty old pretty quick.

The sales kept up for a while, but by 2001 new technology, low profits and pending retirement for June and Loring caused a re-think of priorities. By end of 2002 building custom computers was a thing of past and a new era of life – retirement – was upon us. But trip to and through building computers has been a fascinating one.

LORING WINDBLAD’S PHOTOGRAPHY VENTURE