Hello everybody. My name is Carl and in my younger days, (pre internet), I tried many home based plans with very little success. I was a bit naive and an easy target. For the past couple of years I've been looking at online business ideas and the first thing I noticed, which I sort of expected, is just how much rubbish is out there. So I thought I'd share a few of my ideas. I may be stating the obvious but hopefully they may be of some help. Firstly take time to do your research. Most plans look good at first sight so it is important to delve as deep as you can to fully understand everything about the business to decide whether or not it can actually make you money. If you are a newcomer to online marketing it is vital that you find a business that offers complete support and mentoring. Help should never be more than a phone call or email away. The industry is very competitive. Go in the wrong direction and and all you will succeed in doing is losing money. Get things right and the rewards, without question, can be very high. It is therefore an absolute must that you have somebody proven in the field leading you in the right direction. A lot of plans claim that you will be able to sit back and watch the ??????s fly into your bank account. How nice this would be. But the truth is that in order to succeed you must be prepared to put the time and effort in. This doesn't have to mean high expenses. Most people are looking for instant overnight success. Put the effort in and work at the business and you're already one step ahead of the majority. There are good businesses out there. Do your research and you will find what you're looking for.
Hi Carl, I have the same experience with you during my younger days. Now when come to online business, i will always do my diligent and research before i invest.
morellojoe: A lot of plans claim that you will be able to sit back and watch the ??????s fly into your bank account. How nice this would be. But the truth is that in order to succeed you must be prepared to put the time and effort in. That pretty much says it all. "Quick and easy" sales pitches are a red flag that you will quickly lose your money.
Hi Carl, I went through the same thing pre-internet times. I got scammed with a few offline offers back in the early 90's. You offer level-headed advice. It's wise to trust your gut in regards to potential scams and to do your research before buying into anything. Well said, I'm with you. ~Newbie Shield~
Hi, I'm Jaime. Let me tell you about an experience I had with the home based industry. Its not a good one, mind you. But since we're on the subject, I'll share some things about my perspective. It was a few years back also offline, before the glorious days of internet entrepreneuring. It all begun with an ad I saw in the paper. It promised to give me a job working from home. It was the first time I had heard of such a thing, and I thought it was a pretty good sounding deal. Why not? Why drive or take a bus to a sloppy workplace, when i can just sit in my pajamas (I actually don't have pajamas) and work from my home? So I dialed to call these people that would provide me with this great opportunity. I asked many questions to the phone representative and it all sounded legit. And their business model was completely legal and functional, but now that I look back I see that it was their advertisement that was a little on the misleading side. I was outraged because they didn't mention they planned on just giving me an address book, rather than a job. This was because when i order their package and received it at my doorstep, I proceeded to open it. It wasn't big, but it was somewhat heavy. Inside the package i found a giant manual that was supposed to help me out. This was their entire opportunity; it was a big manual that I had paid dozens of dollars for. I began to read the manual completely after I got it. It was about 300 pages, but mostly it was a big directory of the addresses of companies who may hire people to work from their home assembling parts or doing some type of crafts. The other half of the manual was advice on what to do. They suggested I send letters by mail to these companies who I've never heard of and they have never heard of me, to ask them for a job. Now, I did not spend the hours and the money in stamps to send letters to the hundreds of companies in the manual, but I did send out a few to those that sounded promising. Unfortunately, this form of "cold calling" approach for getting a job did not work, and I never heard from them. Now that I look back, if I was a company I probably wouldn't answer that type of letters either. So I was disappointed with the home based working industry for a while. The money back guarantee was not as popular back then as it is now. And now with the internet and its popularity, there are lots of more programs out there which bring more room for businesses that don't work. But if you are just starting out, I would say to not lose hope, sure many things may not work, but there are also plenty of them that do, and people are making money online every day. If a program is any good they will have a money back guarantee, and you are able to get your money back if you don't believe in a product now.
It is difficult to weed out the "fly by night" offers and truly legitimate opportunities on the Internet. I have found that joining forums just like this one can help provide insight to what works and what doesn't. Along with reading reviews, looking carefully and researching thoroughly each potential business online will be to your best interests in the long run. I believe there is potential to succeed if you invest both your time and money wisely. Just realize that there will be a degree of investment to start a business, and be willing to put in the days and weeks of generating customers before profits take effect. The good news is once you have discovered the right business for you, life can indeed change for the better!
shevyresab: Are they your google ads btw? Hi Shevy, No, the forum has historically been set up to deliver ads on the first post of each thread. ~Newbie Shield~
JaimeCal: Now, I did not spend the hours and the money in stamps to send letters to the hundreds Wish I could say that.
Hello everyone, My name is John Shureb, and I am new to this forum. I am in the process of starting up this business, and I have found these forums to be very helpful indeed. Mr. Morello, your words are very true. It is important to always do the research and homework needed whatever business or project you might want to start. Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself and hopefully obtain some very valuable insight as to conducting an online business from home.
I wanted to say thanks for this post! I just recently got my website up and running. My husband and I are both doing websites each and we are really excited about it all.
A couple of tests for checking if a site is legit. Firstly you can see how long they have been around and how their site has changed in the Internet Archive 'wayback machine'. this site takes periodic snapshots of the net so you can find out what a page looked like in the past: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php Also you can check out who owns and operates the domain name for the site at http://www.whois-search.com/ If the domain in owned by someone in an unusual country or is set to expire very shortly, that signals warning signs!
mountainmom5: JaimeCal: Now, I did not spend the hours and the money in stamps to send letters to the hundreds of companies mountainmom5: Wish I could say that. Ouch!
Great thread and very useful contributions. It is a fact that they are people lurking in the shadows, on the fringes and even in plain sight, who are bent on separating us from our money without providing equal value in return. We should use that as an incentive to protect ourselves by getting educated about whatever it is we are pursuing. It's the best safeguard against being ripped off. Ironically, more often than not, we do get ripped off at least once before we wake up to this fact. In my early online days I got cheated out of hundreds of dollars for an email blast to a 100,000-plus mailing list. I laugh at how gullible and trusting I was back then. What a lesson! But, as the saying goes - better late than never. Today, I'm much wiser for the experience. Hermas
Congrats and hats off for your good post. You really inspired me and the key phrase you uttered was research. This is the point where all of us miss out. The one and the critical factor that can help us groe is research and analysis. Hope everyone got it. Sam
