3 Dangerous Online Work-At-Home Myths And How To Avoid Falling For Them

by Bruce Carlson

Copyright © 2006 by Bruce CarlsonStarting up an online work-at-home business is the dreamof many people all over the world. The benefits of workingat home with the Internet are many, and it's no wonderpeople are coming online in droves looking for businessopportunities to fulfill their dreams.But the world of online work-at-home is filled with myths.Dangerous myths.Here are three of the most dangerous online work-at-homemyths. Be aware of these and you'll avoid falling intosome of the common traps that snare new online entrepreneurs.Myth #1: You can make money online without doing very muchworkThere are so many get-rich-quick schemes floating aroundthe Internet that by now you'd think we'd all be wise tothem. My favorite is the one about the teenager who madeover $70,000 on eBay in a couple of months just by sendingout email. Ha! How many of us got hooked into that one? Orsomething similar? Quite a few, I'd dare say...The fact of the matter is you need to be prepared to dosome serious work if you want to make money online. Thatmay not be what you want to hear, especially if you don'thave much extra time because of your day job and takingcare of your family.But there are many ways to streamline a work at homebusiness. Even if you have only a couple of hours a day ora few hours on the weekend you can still get the most outof the time you put in.One of the easiest and cheapest ways to make your onlinework at home efforts more efficient is simply to educateyourself about direct marketing. The Internet is, afterall, direct marketer's paradise. To join in with the othersin paradise, you need to learn what they've learned.There's a ton of good direct marketing advice availablefor f_ree out there, advice which will help you learn howto get the most out of your limited time and budget.And if you have a little money to invest you're in evenbetter shape! Buy one good book on direct marketing atleast once a month.And sign up for every small business marketing ezine youcan get your hands on. Then set aside some time each day toread. You need to get good before you can get rich. Soconcentrate on getting good as quickly as you possibly can.Myth #2: You can make money online without selling anythingJoining programs and then doing nothing will not bring inany money, I'm sorry to say, no matter what some of theMLM'ers may have led you to believe. You need to sell,sell, sell in order to get cash flowing.This holds true even when it's the program itself thatyou're selling in order to recruit people for your MLMdownline. You need to make a heckuva lot of calls and senda heckuva lot of emails and direct mail, because mostpeople in your downline aren't going to take action withoutreally being pushed. The only way you can light a fireunder them is to use proven selling tactics.So learn all you can about selling. Learn all you canabout copywriting. Jump into selling with every fiber ofyour being! Find good products and sell, sell, sell.The greatest advantage of the Internet is its potentialfor reaching out to a huge amount of customers. You **can**sell on the Internet without becoming an annoying andillegal email marketer! The Web offers many low-key, low-cost ways of getting quality customers to your website.Myth #3: You can make money online without having your ownWebsiteHaving only an email account is not enough to make moneyonline, especially with all the new spam filtering softwarethat people or their service providers are loading intotheir email programs -- software that filters out up to 50of legitimate marketing email messages. You need somethingmore.And while many affiliate programs offer you your "own"website (which is just one of their's with your name oraffiliate number somewhere) in exchange for marketing theirproducts for them, let's face it, it's just not the same ashaving your own!Having your own website builds credibility with customers.It says, "Look at me. I'm ON the WEB. I know what I'mdoing!"Having your own website also allows you flexibility, sinceyou can change its look and add or remove things when youneed to. You can even change horses in the middle of thestream and switch to a whole different type of marketingor even to a different product.Most importantly, having your own website keeps yourprofile out in front, rather than the merchant's. Thecenter of your online work-at-home business is YOU and thepurpose of your website is so that people will buy from YOU.Doing affiliate marketing, which is one of the easiestways to get started making money online from home, worksmuch better if you drive prospective customers to alanding page on your own site rather than directly to theparent company's sales page. You keep control this way.After all, you want YOUR name and business to still beremembered after your customers start going directly to themerchant (think of what happened with Amazon.com; how manypeople go to Amazon through affiliate links on Websitesanymore?). Or what if the merchant goes belly-up?You Can Make It Happen!In my 3 years online, I've seen many people fall for someversion of one of these myths. And yes, these myths mayseem obvious, but the fact of the matter is that it's easyto overlook them when all the stories about easy money arestaring you in the face.So don't fall for one of the 3 big myths, or you'll end upas yet another of the many disappointed and embittered ex-online businesspeople out there. Work hard, educateyourself about direct marketing, selling, and copywriting,and get your own working Website up right away. It will payoff big-time. I guarantee it!

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