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Many people make millions of dollars a year with home-based
Internet businesses. Ninety-five percent fail. Given those simple statistics, it seems to me that one of the first things we need to do is understand the nature of Internet business…combined with a frank appraisal of our own nature.
Read the advertising, the hype, and it seems anyone can make money on the Internet while they sleep, or sitting at the keyboard in their pajamas.
It's true. You can make lots of money while you sleep. And, should you choose to do so, you can work in your pajamas.
But what the hype artistes don't tell us is that success takes hard work, discipline and determination. There is no free lunch, not even on the Internet, and if you fall for the hype, it will cost money for zero return (if you are lucky). Why do the hypesters spend their money and effort to deliver their hype? Look down the page. There's an 'Order Now' button. It's the money, your money. The hypester can now earn your money while he sleeps.
Hard work at start
Understand this: any business, on or off the Internet, requires hard work to get it started. It may eventually run on autopilot, but in the beginning, it will take hard work, time, and determination.
Are you ready for that? Because, if not, save time and stop reading this now. You will be one of the 95% who fail.
No one can simply put up a website (or have one provided by a company) and expect others to find it. Early in 2005, there were 56,100,000 commercial websites on the Internet. Even a website in the top 1% was just one out of 561,000. My point is this: what chance does your website have of being found if it languishes there without any promotion?
Suppose your website was even in the top one-tenth of a percent, one of 56,100 websites. How difficult is it to find? Think of it this way: suppose you are at an outdoor event with 56,099 other people and a friend wants to find you without knowing where you are in the milling crowd. Do you think it would be easy, even though your friend knows what you look like?
A waste of space
Now substitute a stranger for your friend, a stranger who has never seen your face. Impossible? Not if the stranger put an announcement over the public address system.
Now you understand why a website that is not promoted is a waste of space. Now, perhaps, you understand that success on the Internet takes work, lots of it, at least until enough people know about you and your business and can find you through he search engines.
Why am I being so negative? Because if you are the sort of person who cannot take the heat in the kitchen, I want you to get out of it before you get burned.
To some extent, the hypesters are right: making money on the Internet is easy. But there are no true get-rich-quick schemes (except for the hypsters if you fall for their talk).
The Internet is a communications medium. It is a way to get messages across to others (once they have found your message). But since they cannot see your eyeballs or read your facial expressions or body language, you have to win their trust in other ways (just as I hope
to win yours).
Internet presence is about trust
The Internet is not like a store in a mall, and if you want to be successful with it, you cannot treat it the same way. Let me make a point: apart from things like e-mails, chats and games, why do you sign onto the Internet? Isn't it mostly for information? Now, assuming price is not a factor, why do you buy from one merchant and not another? Because of the guarantee or because you read the endorsements about their service?
The Internet, more than in a store in the mall where you can see the seller's face, is about trust. And you gain that trust by providing honest, reliable information.
You can have the greatest product since sliced bread, but it will rarely sell itself on the Internet. Your work, should you choose to accept it, will be to get your product noticed and to get yourself trusted. That is the nature of the Internet, whether it is used for a home-based business or by a giant corporation.
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Matthew Eigbe is passionate about encouraging people to educate themselves and create wealth at the same time using the Internet. It’s fun.
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