Advertising - Providing a persuasive selling message to the public concerning the products and services your business has for sale, usually conducted through some type of media campaign.

Affiliates - Business concerns, organizations, or individuals that control each other or that are controlled by a third party. Control may include shared management or ownership; common use of facilities, equipment, and employees; or family interest

Auction - A public sale of goods to the highest bidder.

Barter – The direct exchange of merchandise and/or services between two different businesses. 

Blog -  (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.  

Business Plan - A comprehensive planning document which clearly describes the business developmental objective of an existing or proposed business applying for assistance in SBA's 8(a) or lending Programs. The plan outlines what and how and from where the resources needed.

Business Start - For enumeration purposes, a business with a name or similar designation that did not exist in a prior time period.

Business Taxes - four general kinds of business taxes are income, self-employment, employment, and excise.

Consultant -  The term consultant is often used interchangeably with the terms independent contractor, freelancer, and vendor.

Consumer Direct Marketing - Consumer Direct Marketing is Network Marketing in which the distribution chain is referred to as consumers rather than distributors. In such businesses the distributor must also buy the product for their personal use.

Copyright - A form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Copyright protection is available for all unpublished works, regardless of the nationality or domicile of the author.

Direct Selling, or Direct Marketing - Direct Selling, or Direct Marketing as it is sometimes called, simply means grass roots, face-to-face distribution of products.  It’s used often to refer to door-to-door selling.

Distributor – A Distributor or Independent Distributor is a person who sells products for a multilevel marketing company while acting as an independent contractor.  They are also sometimes called an Independent Representative (IR) or an Independent Sales Representative.

Downline - Downline is a multilevel marketing term that refers to the distributors sponsored directly in your group, as well as those sponsored by other distributors below.

Entrepreneur - An entrepreneur is someone who assumes the financial risk of beginning and managing a new venture. The venture can be based on a totally new idea, a new way of doing something, a new location, or attempting something no one else has done before.

Home Based Business - A home based business is a business whose primary office is in the owner's home. The business can be any size or any type as long as the office itself is located in a home.

Home Party Plan - Home Party Plan is also called Direct Selling.  However, instead of door to door selling the consultant markets the products and recruits in the home of a hostess who in turn receives product bonuses for holding the meeting in her home. 

Marketing - The process of researching, promoting, selling and distributing a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, publicity, promotion, pricing, sales and distribution of the goods or services.

MLM - Multilevel Marketing is selling products by using independent distributors and allowing these distributors to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting, motivating, supplying, and training others to sell products. The distributors' compensation includes their own sales and a percentage of the sales of their sales group (downline).  Another description is any business where payouts occur at two or more levels; i.e., if you make a sale, both you and the person above you will get a portion of the proceeds.enjoy demonstrating your products to a group of people (if required);

Network Marketing - A business in which a distributor network is needed to build the business. Usually such businesses are also MLM in nature in that payouts also occur at more than one level. Network Marketing is sometimes also used incorrectly to indicate that the business uses a network of product suppliers in order to offer a broader selection of products.  It is usually used this way to differentiate themselves as a way to suggest that their program is superior to other such programs.

Ponzi Scheme - Ponzi scheme named after Charles Ponzi who in the 1920's told thousands of people that if they invest in his mail coupons that he could provide a 40% return in only 90 days.  He collected over $1 million in a three hour period and during the investigation it was found that Ponzi had only spent $30 worth of mail coupons.  To make the scheme look legitimate he would pay off early investors. The term Ponzi scheme is often misused as being a pyramid scheme, the essential difference is that Ponzi scheme participants are not offered any direct financial incentive for bringing in other participants. However, they are likely to tell their friends about the investment opportunity.  Ponzi schemes still exist in the way that money is taken from new investors and used to pay off earlier investors.   By the time people realize that they have been scammed, the con artist has fled with millions of dollars.

Pyramid Schemes - A pyramid scheme is an illegal multilevel marketing program in which people pay an entrance fee for the opportunity to recruit others to do the same. Pyramid schemes usually have no products. Chain letters in which you send money to the person who sent you the letter, then you forward the same letter to a number of others is an example of a pyramid scheme.

Small Business - A business that is independently owned and operated that is not dominant in its field of operation, provided it has annual receipts not in excess of $500,000 and has fewer than 500 employees.

SOHO – SOHO is an acronym for Small Office, Home Office.  The term is usually used in referring to small businesses and home based businesses as a market segment.  It is also used to describe a type of working environment.

Telecommuting – Working at home for a business.  Data and documents are usually transmitted to and from a central office via computer, fax, and telephone.

Trademark -  Legal protection for a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product.

Virtual Assistant - ( VAs), are entrepreneurs who provide professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients from a home office.

WAHM - WAHM is an acronym for Work At Home Mom.  The term is used in referring to mothers who are working from home in their own business.