Diversifying your network marketing business is one of the best, yet most overlooked strategies available to the home based business owner. The main reasons for diversifying your business are:

1. The creation of additional income streams

2. Risk management of business cycle downturns

The idea of multiple income streams is not a foreign concept in the business world. A company looks for additional lines of business that will supplement, enhance or support their primary product line. A home network marketing business can be diversified in much the same way. Let's use the example of a primary product that is a berry based health juice. Our primary product is touted for its benefits to maintain a healthy heart. If we were going to build additional streams of income we might look at some of the following ideas:

• Market a line of blood pressure monitors, heart rate monitors or other similar devices.

• Market a health and wellness supplement that is focused on improving heart health.

• Market a heart healthy diet program

Additional revenue streams could be created by incorporating one or more of these ideas into your overall business. The sales from these supporting businesses can be used to fund the building of your primary business. Both MLM companies and affiliate marketing products can be used to create these additional income streams.

The next reason for the diversification of your business is risk management. Most businesses tend to be somewhat cyclical in nature. There are some products and services that are highly sought after for a period of time that then experience a later downturn. If a network marketing distributor has placed all of their eggs into one basket, this downturn could prove devastating. With the addition of other business ventures, these cycles are much easier to manage. When diversifying for risk management, you will generally use unrelated businesses to form the foundation of your business model. For example in my own business, I am building businesses in the household cleaning, health and wellness and automotive care market segments. I use a separate company for each of these sectors. If the business of one of these companies goes bad, it will not negatively affect the other two. By using this combination, I am less likely to see a downturn in my overall business.

Diversification is the key to having an all weather business plan for your network marketing business.