The Home Business Success Academy (HBSA) is an Iowa-based corporation that helps struggling network marketers harness technology, positioning, and targeted marketing to grow their business. Although it has developed a reputation as an outstanding company, not everyone approves of its training methods. Let’s take an unbiased look at HBSA and see what its methods are all about.
History:
HBSA is the brainchild of Martin Lightbowne and Joshua Fusion, two highly successful independent network marketers. As a collaborative effort, Josh and Martin created a “home study” course to teach network marketing on a global scale, as Josh resides in the US and Martin in the UK.
HBSA is accredited with the Better Business Bureau and has received an A rating. The BBB states, on its website, that the reason for the (non-A) rating is “How long the business has been in business.” I hope this will be updated after reaching BBB standard.
The course:
HBSA markets 2 training courses, the Basic and the Elite. The Basic course focuses on positioning the student on the web with their own web page, understanding targeted traffic, and driving targeted traffic to that page through social media, Web 2.0, and writing articles, just to name a few. The student’s goal in the basic course is to create 5-15 leads per day and start adding 1-3 people per week to their business.
The Elite course comes after the student has finished the basics. Now the student jumps into “warp speed” to really start moving the business. This includes understanding and using paid advertising, sales letters, newsletters, funded proposals, advanced prospecting and closing methods, and especially team building. The goal for students in the Elite course is to generate 100+ leads per day and start adding 10-15 people per week to their business.
HBSA – The Good:
HBSA has completely moved away from the “friends and family” approach of years ago and is focused on knowing your product, your potential customer, and leveraging technology to help you succeed. Your curriculum consists of workbooks and DVDs, your classroom is your office, and your class schedule is when you can allocate that time to your business. There are also online sessions, as well as role-playing and question-and-answer sessions in a conference room.
The marketing principles taught here focus on the student knowing their target market and how to “reach” that market. Those skills involve the use of the telephone, the written word, and especially the internet. These are all stable items used by most of the top tier vendors.
HBSA uses state-of-the-art technology to “walk” the student through setting up their personal web page and drive traffic to that page. His emphasis is not only on the mechanics, but also on the psychology of network marketing. Once the student is comfortable, they are again guided (in the Elite program) through more advanced techniques of Internet advertising and autoresponders. If you can write an email, you can master this technology.
One of the most unique features of the HBSA course is that they offer a performance guarantee to all of their students. With the Elite course, the student is given the goal of adding 700 people to the business in one year. If they don’t reach that goal, they will continue as a student until they do. (The Basic course has the same performance guarantee, but only a 100 person level)
It seems that HBSA can stand behind this guarantee, because it provides each student with their own professional marketing mentor to help them every step of the way. Almost every Olympic athlete who has won gold medals has had their own personal trainer, and HBSA subscribes to that same winning philosophy.
HBSA – The Bad:
HBSA expects each student to commit to spending an average of 5-10 hours a week working on their business to achieve these results. HBSA goes so far as to require this commitment with an electronic signature on the guarantee document. For those people who are not ready to make this commitment, and to “put it on the line”, do not put yourself “in the door”.
This course is very detailed, with workbooks, DVDs, online sessions, and a personal mentor for (at least) 1 year. For those hoping for a “cheap fix” to their marketing problems, perhaps they should invest in a $19.95 eBook somewhere on the Internet.
Also, while the HBSA notes that it has students in more than 30 countries, the course is only in English. To someone outside of the English-speaking world, this would not be attractive.
If you have read any of the articles published by Josh or Martin, you know that these gentlemen are very “real” and “straight to the point” when it comes to network marketing, and I hope their training is the same. If you are shy or offended by someone whose methods could be “in your face” when necessary, then this course may be too strong for you.
In conclusion:
This course could almost be called a “no-brainer” for those who are serious about their marking business. The structure of the course, the use of technology and especially the support they provide speak for themselves. HBSA certainly cares about the success of each and every student it works with.