Opportunities are something that everyone has at all times in their lives. Unfortunately, most people cannot, or will not see this. Do you think that the world’s richest man is smarter than you, or was born into a rich family, or perhaps that your circumstances preclude any chance of success in any endeavour?
Our expectations are very rarely in-line with reality. If you think about it, this is just as well – if we didn’t imagine that we could do better in our lives than where are now, there would be no progress.
That, said, there needs to be balance. At any one point in time, the Internet is alive with hype, scams, exaggerated claims, pushy sales pitches, obfuscated descriptions, flashy BUY IT NOW buttons, up-sells, OTOs (One-Time-Offers), false scarcity tactics, doctored ‘proof’, multi-twist ploys, glitzy videos, extremely persuasive sales copy, clever stories and… genuine opportunities to make a healthy living online.
But which one to choose? Whose advice can you trust? The guy being perfectly reasonable in the video and telling you how he hates the ‘Big Gurus’ and their tactics and really wants to help ‘The Little Guy’ is probably trying exactly the same scam on you!
O.K. so 95% is pure BS, what’s left?
That depends on you. How much do you already know? How much are you prepared to learn? How hard are you prepared to work? How determined are you to stay focused? How persistent are you? How tough? How much money have you got, to start with? And lastly, but probably the most important factor, how well do you know yourself?
You’ll need all of those admirable qualities to succeed. One of those in the list has a caveat – money. The whole point about working online in this day and age is that while you cannot do anything with exactly $0 (in whatever currency) you can always opt to trade time and effort for money. This is a huge selling point (“No money needed!”) and when you hear it, ignore the pitch. If you were dropped in the middle of a desert with a laptop, you’d still need to pay for Internet access. Making money with NO money is silly – yes you can make money spending very little, but none? No, sorry.
If you have more money, you can do more in less time and with less effort, BUT THAT IS ALL. You’ll still need to work at it – and work hard too.
So back to who to trust? Instead of attempting to point to individuals and say something like “I trust this guy, he’s been really…” and whatever, you need to think about what is actually needed.
Information products are only useful if;
You are prepared to learn.
You have the time to learn.
You have the ability to learn.
You are prepared to actually use the information that you have learnt.
This goes for eBooks, videos, seminars, email bulletins and newsletters – any form of information publishing.
Tools are only useful if;
You are ready to use them.
You know how to use them.
They are suitable for what you are trying to achieve.
They don’t cost so much (time is a cost too) as to cripple your business.
They are reliable.
Services are similar to tools and information. For example, why buy a web hosting package that costs you $500 per month and can support five thousand visitors a day, if you are only starting and don’t even have a web site? Sure, it may be feature-rich and do all sorts of things that might imagine will help in the future, but this isn’t NOW. So many people get sucked-into this.
When looking for people or companies to trust, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Check out forums, boards, etc. What do other people with no agenda think about this particular product, or item? The Internet makes this very easy to do.
Use these criteria that you are reading right now to ‘hold up’ next to ‘The Next Big Thing’ that you are being offered and ask yourself – “Do I need this right now? Will this help me? How will it help me? Can I afford it?” and so on.
The online world is specific in certain requirements. A shop on a street will always get some traffic past it and people will drop in from time to time, just to browse in the hope of discovering a bargain, or a solution to a need.
The Internet DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY. Your ‘beautiful site’ will sit there on the server, not being accessed by anyone from the day you create it. Only when you learn to direct traffic to it, will people actually see what you have made. A site without traffic is not really a web site, it is an exercise in self gratification – nothing more. There are literally MILLIONS of sites like this on the Internet.
The Search Engines – Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc, etc (there are thousands) need to sift through all this ‘clutter’ and come up with a list of sites that are actually relevant to the terms people are searching for. As the Internet now runs to BILLIONS of web pages, with MILLIONS being added daily, it is a huge task. It is also why your site will probably languish unseen forever until you learn how to drive visitors to your site.
But how can I trust someone who says “Click this button five times and you’ll be rich!” – I mean, it sounds fantastic? Fantastic is what it is and there are a ton of these ‘systems’ and ‘software’ that purport to be able to do this. Does it seem like magic? It does? O.K., time to leave then 
You went ahead and bought it, but there were a ton of One-Time-Offers that you absolutely had to add on to save you time and catapult you to marketing stardom. Hopefully, you’ll be buying, using respectable services like ClickBank and PayPal and you can obtain a refund quite easily. Ask yourself this; if the product you just bought for $37 was so fantastic, then why does it need this $67, $97, $197, $297 ‘upgrade’ to do its job? Sometimes it is a genuine option that will help, but the ‘OTO’ is a proven revenue-enhancer, so just about everyone uses them. As a rule, the OTO tells you what they didn’t say in the sales copy, or the video. Caveat Emptor – which is Latin for “Buyer Beware”.
There are several ways to drive traffic;
Put up loads of content that is relevant and informative that people are looking for. The SEs will find it.
Get lots of sites that already have some standing in the SE rankings to link directly back to you (back-links).
Buy traffic from media companies that already have lots of it and who will sell you a quantity at a price – you will need a substantial wallet for this exercise.
Try loads of tricks and ‘black-hat’ tactics to fools the SEs into sending you traffic. This will probably work for a little while but will cost you a ton of time and effort and ultimately your website and reputation.
Make money online? It’s a mountain (a big, ugly one) and you’ll need to be ready to take it on.
But that’s why you are here, right?
After you’ve digested that for a minute, consider; are your personal mountains too high?
You know it might mean not watching that favourite soap, your favourite game, or the beers with the lads sometimes, but hey, how will you feel unless you really gave it your best?
