I asked myself that two years ago.

When I found the answer, my life changed forever. Let me help you find your own answer.

There are two ways to make money from home. The first is to work from home. The second is to have a home-based business. If it sounds like I'm joking here, I'm not. The two are completely different, I promise you.

When you are working from home, whether it is as a transcriptionist, medical coder or biller, or even a virtual assistant, you are still an employee. You still have to answer to a boss, meet their deadlines, follow their rules, and accept getting paid what they give you.

Owning a home-based business means you are your own boss and can do what you want, when you want to, and you can potentially earn as much as you want to-you just have to put in the effort. The drawback is the business rest solely on your shoulders. That's a lot of responsibility.

I won't be much help if you want to learn about working from home. However, if you want to learn about home-based businesses, I can help you out there.

The electronic revolution has made the Internet the number one way to sell goods and services to the customers who want them, and has allowed sellers to reach an unimaginable amount of potential clients.

And the Internet has given birth to a whole new breed of business men and women: Internet Marketers. It's an impressive title but it just means they are people who promote products and services over the Internet.

So, in many cases, "home based business" means a business that delivers products and services using the power of the Internet.

Like any other business, it must have a product and in order to generate any income you are going to have to market it.

With so many options, you need to narrow down your prospects to something you are comfortable with.

Compared to traditional "Brick-and-Mortar" businesses, Internet, or home-based businesses have much lower overhead, smaller start-up costs, and almost no necessary equipment-other than a computer, of course. There's not store front to up keep or pay rent on, there are few, if any, employees to pay, and very small amounts of on-hand inventory. All of this combined, makes it easier to get an Internet business up and running, and allows you to see the results a lot sooner.

The idea of Internet business is still young, not a lot of people have experience with them. When you're talking about Internet businesses, you're likely to run into a lot of disgusted people saying that they're all "scams" or "definitely too good to be true!" But your uncle Joe who has spent his life tinkering under the hoods of cars is bound to think that anything over the Internet is dangerous.

But a business is a business, whether it's an Internet venture or a corner grocery store. There will always be risks to everything you do and you stand as much chance of getting conned into buying something you don't want or need at your local department store as you do on the Internet-maybe more so. If somebody came up to you on the street and offered you a check for ten grand out of the goodness of his own heart, wouldn't you be a little suspicious?

And like with any other business you need a lot of information to make an educated decision about each particular business opportunity. What if you were interested in opening a laundromat, would you base your decision about getting involved on uncle Bob's "It's a get rich quick scheme" or on the sellers promise of a million dollars in a month? No. You would try to acquire all the information you can get and only based on facts you would make a conclusion about a particular business opportunity.

Here are a few things you should look at when considering any Internet business:

- What is the product it's selling?

- will a potential customer see the value of the product without a two hour presentation

- Is there a marketing plan laid out?

- is there a support or any kind of mentorship available

- How much profit do you stand to make of each individual item, twenty-cents per candy bar or $20,000 per cherry red convertible?

Find those answers and use them to make your decision.

Internet marketing is a great business after all and you would be surprised to know how many people are involved and what kind of money are being made here, but before you get involved, again, do your research.

I'd like to tell you I found the best business ever, but I can't. I can tell you that I've found the one that works the best for me.

And when somebody gives you again one of those "It's a scam"-opinions, ask them if they would be able to provide you with the data that they used in order to make their conclusion, including names of business opportunities that they had joined, what kind of investment they had to make, what kind of steps they took and what kind of marketing strategy they used.

Most of them probably won't even know what you are talking about because they have never had any experience with Internet marketing. They'll just get embarrassed and tell you that your fate is in your hands. And it is. Get smart about it.

If you want to learn more, find an Internet marketer on YouTube-there are lots of us there. We'll tell you what we're all about and it's a good place to get started when you want to know more about the business.

Home-based businesses have changed lives all over the world. Will yours be one of them?

It's up to you!