Are YOU Trying to BUY Success? 10 Fatal Internet Business Mistakes!
By: Profitstation News and Offers
You may be trying to buy success on the Internet for your business and you may not even realize it. From my experience there are two kinds of people that fall into this category.
Success Buyer Type One. This type of buyer looks for the least expensive business opportunity that they can find in the hope of a huge return in exchange for a small expense. Many of them settle on business opportunities that cost as low as $19.95 or $29.95 a month. They also jump on programs that require a one-time payment of $99 for membership kit, dealership, affiliate fee or something similar. I have even seen programs for ten bucks and one for a five dollar one time payment. Some of these are legitimate programs and many are scams. What attracts this type of success buyers is the affordability.
Success Buyer Type Two. This type of buyer believes that the MORE that they spend to launch their business, then the higher their income potential will be. After all, there is that expression that "you get what you pay for." This type of buyer ignores many low to medium cost programs out there but really gets excited when he/she stumbles across a program that costs thousands to join. THAT suddenly keeps their attention. What attracts this type of person is the misconception that the best programs cost the most.
I know these two types of buyers intimately because I have been both at different points in my Internet and business opportunity education. I started as a Success Buyer Type One. I looked for cheap programs. I jumped from program to program figuring that I would stumble across a winning program eventually. After spending thousands of dollars in both scams and legitimate programs where I never made enough money to even cover my expenses, I backed out of the business opportunity world all together. The bogus lesson that I learned? Inexpensive programs do not work.
In a few years I came back to the business opportunity world. This time I was determined to be successful and I was equally determined to avoid that cheap program mentality. You get what you pay for, right? That is exactly what I did. I joined programs that required upwards from $1,000 to get involved. I remember one program in particular that I joined that cost me $1,200 in money orders to join (first mistake!). I received the products, which were phone cards. Falling for the hype, I had purchased three business centers, which is why it was so expensive. At the time I lived in Hawaii. Guess what? The phone cards were only valid for calls originating in the 48 main states. I returned them by certified mail but the company response was that I was not eligible for a refund because I had opened the box! By the time the dust had settled on this emotional issue, the company was bankrupt and I never recovered a dime. Of course they kept the phone cards. That is typical of how I worked for the next year or so--dumbly dreaming and spending a fortune foolishly.
That kind of foolishness also extended to my decisions on the Internet. I purchased a web-hosting product that was grossly over-priced at $5,995 per year! At the time, of course, I only saw GOLD and did not care how much money I had to plunk down to become RICH. Back then, the price of this hosting package did not concern me at all. I only saw dollar signs as I looked to take advantage of people rushing to the Internet. Now I know better and understand that a legitimate business presence can be hosted on the Internet for less than six dollars a month! After learning the hard way I was determined to help other people avoid the mistakes that I made. So, I launched my own web hosting company and offer superb value at a competitive price. I may not get rich like some of my competitors, but I can live with myself.
So what about you? What is YOUR story? Most of us have at least ONE similar story to tell. I bet that you have joined a business opportunity in the past. You were full of hope and desire to be independently wealthy. You plunk down your money on your business opportunity and purchase some products; check out your self-replicating web site to make sure it works, and then just sit back and wait for the commission checks to pour in.
Some of you have matured a bit beyond this stage. You do everything above but you also understand that you must study, learn and work your business. You spend hours learning about the company, product line, and marketing methods, but your results are the same.
Still others do just about everything right. They work their buns off, spend a ton of money in advertising, leads, and other marketing tools and make a few sales. BUT (and this is a big one) they earn only a couple of hundred bucks a month in commissions after working the business three hours each day part time during the week and nearly all weekend. Their income may be higher than their expenses, but when they consider the TIME that they had to invest in the business, it most certainly is NOT very profitable. You need to figure that TIME is worth at least $25 an hour to you. That does not include the penalty you will pay for ignoring your family and other more important concerns when you are chasing those commission checks.
So, how do you tell if you are trying to BUY success? Here is a short quiz. If you answer YES to even ONE of the following questions, you had better do what I failed to do years ago: slow down and reevaluate everything.
1. Are you participating in or running a business where you believe that you will NEVER have to sell anything to anyone either because the system will do the selling for you or because no selling is required? 2. Are you ignoring your business? Are you not working on your business every day? Are you counting on your sponsor, dealer, upline, or the company itself to make sales FOR you and then send you commission checks or at least a share of the commissions for their work? Examples are: spillover, down-line building organizations and clubs, joining a program for next to nothing, Are you doing nothing and then expecting to get paid for it? 3. Did your own personal greed or intense desire for money motivate you to get involved?
If you answered NO to each of those questions above and are still not doing well in your business on the Internet, you may have other problems. I will be happy to consult with you for free if you contact me. Make sure that you give me your name; I do not deal with the anonymous. By the way, helping OTHER people must be YOUR dominant philosophy because that is what providing your clients with a quality product or service at a fair price is all about. Do anything other than that and you will always fail in the long run.
Here are 10 fatal Internet business flaws (there are whole bunches more; I am just listing a few that I see frequently):
1. You only have a self-replicated or free web site. 2. You market a product or service that YOU would NEVER buy, or you market a product or service that almost no one else will either (Amazon toad skin, iguana feces) 3. You use a free email account (Yahoo, Juno, Bigfoot, etc) as your principal business email address. 4. You have almost zero traffic and nearly zero sales prospects. 5. You do not specifically know what to do when you get a sales prospect. You have not set up a process and system to deal with prospects. 6. You check out every bizop URL presented to you by email. You do this not because you are checking out the competition (a good thing) but because you are still hoping to find that one right company. You lose focus easily. 7. You do not use your real name or any name at all in your business email correspondence. 8. You do not want to deal with people. Maybe you joined the Internet to get AWAY from selling to people in public, at meetings, one on one or on the telephone. You figured that selling them on the Internet would make rejection easier to accept. 9. You are depending on a small percentage of the millions of Internet surfers to stumble across your site and instantly buy your products, services, or business opportunity based on the beauty of your self-replicated website and the obvious benefits of the products and services that you advertise. 10. You send unsolicited commercial email (SPAM).
If you read the 10 fatal flaws listed above and recognize some of your practices, you may also need to reevaluate your business practices. Again, I would be glad to assist.
OK, so maybe I am good at telling you what NOT to do or what you are doing WRONG. Can I also tell you what steps that you can take in order to succeed? Yes I can but that would take pages and pages of information to display. In fact, I have conducted courses on that very topic. If you wish to get more info, you will have to contact me personally. Meanwhile here are some important guidelines to follow that will certainly give you a leg up on your path to success.
1. Understand that you must SELL to make money on the Internet. Choose to sell a high quality product or service that is in great demand and reasonably priced. Your FIRST choice should be to sell a product or service that you personally OWN or one that you own the Internet marketing rights to so that your profit margin is high enough. 2. If you do not own your own product and cannot own the rights to one, then the next alternative is to choose the right company in Network Marketing even if the profit margin is low to start. When worked properly, the residual income potential makes it well worthwhile. Focus on retailing the product FIRST, then focus on recruiting for distributors. 3. Create a professional Internet presence. 4. Do everything in your power to help your clients. Provide superb service, customer support, and friendly professional communications all of the time. If working a network marketing business, do everything in your power to help as many people as you can be successful in their business. 5. Give yourself two years of smart work to achieve your goal. Maybe more if you can only work part time. Even a few hundred dollars a month more may take a year to create. Take it one step at a time. Work deliberately and consistently and be smart.
Last Words
If you woke up one morning and decided to build your dream retirement home all by yourself in your spare time…how long would it take you? A few years? Would it take resources like time, money, and plain old gut-wrenching hard work? Yes it certainly would, and lots of it. Most people understand that. So why would some people expect to achieve success in business in only a handful of months with little to no resources and possibly some sporadic work? Is it because they are greedy? Unrealistic? Ignorant? Chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Only you can answer that for yourself. I can tell you that I answered YES to all of those questions in the past. But not any more. Once I dropped that negative philosophy, my success (profits) improved and my position strengthened. My whole point here is to get you to realize the trap that you can fall into. Once you do, you will be a lot better off.
Good luck in 2002!
---------- Mark is webmaster of http://www.profitstation.com http://www.profitstation-isp.com and is the manager and Marketing Director of Your Lotto Site at http://www.yourlottosite.com Mark also assists his wife, Lotte with their free Internet Lottery at http://www.all-prizes.com
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