An awful lot of working Americans are wasting an awful lot of money on "business opportunities" that promise huge incomes for very little cost - usually $500 to $2500 to buy in.
So what's the deal with these programs? Generally, they are either MLMs or "informational packets" on how to make money doing nothing on the web.
Neither one is going to make you rich, and in order to even earn your investment back, you would have to go through the same steps - planning, marketing, and financial management - that any legitimate business requires.
Oh, and you will need capital to market the product or website as well, they are actually not going to do it for you.
Of course, that's not what the ads tell you, but over 99% of those who buy in can tell you they never made a dime off the deal.
MLMs are a classic marketing scheme.
Some people have had great success with them, like that one Amway Zombie you met that one time, but most investors don't.
One researcher estimates that only one in a hundred ever earn back their investment, and only a handful of the folks at the very top actually make enough to live on.
Speaking of Amway, statistics show that less than 1% of all representatives gross OVER $1200 per month.
That is, before they pay for the product costs, they are achieving only $14,400 per year in sales.
Subtract the cost of product, marketing costs, and eating once a week, and there is nothing left.
The other 99% never sell at all.
The way MLMs work is this: whatever product the MLM markets is secondary to getting people to buy in to be new sales reps.
So, the first guy has a product, but what he sells is the opportunity for YOU to sell the product.
You buy in for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and you are "given" all the marketing tools you need to recruit other people to "sell the product.
" These days, the marketing tools generally include a website on a subdomain of the company's site, or a ridiculously long and useless URL, like getrichrightnowdontwait.
com.
- unlikely to draw significant traffic on its own.
Your goal is to get more people to buy in to the opportunity to sell the product - you could, technically, sell the product yourself, but you make almost no money that way.
For each recruit that you get to buy in, you keep a substantial portion of the purchase while the rest goes up the chain to the person you bought from.
Many of these programs also require a monthly subscription to host your website, around $50 or more, that goes to the guy at the top.
The reason these business opportunities don't work for most people is simple - they don't market.
Of course, when you buy in they tell you that you won't have to because the overall marketing is strong enough to bring you up as well.
And, they tell you, they provide you an awesome website that will sell itself.
Unfortunately, that is not how online marketing works.
It takes months of effort for a new business to even show up in search engine results, even longer to rank high enough to see traffic.
In reality, the guys at the top want to be the ones making all the sales themselves, so why would they market for you? They make all the money because they do all the work.
Most of the latest MLMs are barely legal, and very sleazy.
The online marketing programs that claim you can make millions doing nothing present a similar problem.
The primary opportunity that these programs offer is making money on per-click ads.
Most often, these programs provide you a subdomain or other ridiculous URL with a template website.
You sign up to host Google ads or other ad feeds and make a few cents (at most) each time a potential customer clicks through those ads.
The problem here is similar - heavy marketing is the only way to make any money.
Your website would need to present some content that will draw people there, and you will have to find ways to let those people know where to find it.
Just getting a new website to show up on the search engine results will take months, and then only if the website has all of the features the search engines look for.
In addition, you will need hundreds to thousands of links back to your site from other sites.
With either type of get rich quick program, you cannot succeed without the basics - planning, marketing, and financial management.
Merely posting a website without marketing is like carving an ad in an ice sculpture...
in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
If nobody sees it, it might as well not exist.
Driving traffic to any website, no matter how great the product, takes time, effort, and cash - less of one requires more of the others.
If you want to improve your financial station in life, entrepreneurship is the best way to do it.
However, expecting wealth to happen by magic, with little money and even less effort, is absurd.
Don't buy in to the hype of these scams.
Instead, look around for a good business idea and put in the time and work to make yourself a success.
So what's the deal with these programs? Generally, they are either MLMs or "informational packets" on how to make money doing nothing on the web.
Neither one is going to make you rich, and in order to even earn your investment back, you would have to go through the same steps - planning, marketing, and financial management - that any legitimate business requires.
Oh, and you will need capital to market the product or website as well, they are actually not going to do it for you.
Of course, that's not what the ads tell you, but over 99% of those who buy in can tell you they never made a dime off the deal.
MLMs are a classic marketing scheme.
Some people have had great success with them, like that one Amway Zombie you met that one time, but most investors don't.
One researcher estimates that only one in a hundred ever earn back their investment, and only a handful of the folks at the very top actually make enough to live on.
Speaking of Amway, statistics show that less than 1% of all representatives gross OVER $1200 per month.
That is, before they pay for the product costs, they are achieving only $14,400 per year in sales.
Subtract the cost of product, marketing costs, and eating once a week, and there is nothing left.
The other 99% never sell at all.
The way MLMs work is this: whatever product the MLM markets is secondary to getting people to buy in to be new sales reps.
So, the first guy has a product, but what he sells is the opportunity for YOU to sell the product.
You buy in for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and you are "given" all the marketing tools you need to recruit other people to "sell the product.
" These days, the marketing tools generally include a website on a subdomain of the company's site, or a ridiculously long and useless URL, like getrichrightnowdontwait.
com.
- unlikely to draw significant traffic on its own.
Your goal is to get more people to buy in to the opportunity to sell the product - you could, technically, sell the product yourself, but you make almost no money that way.
For each recruit that you get to buy in, you keep a substantial portion of the purchase while the rest goes up the chain to the person you bought from.
Many of these programs also require a monthly subscription to host your website, around $50 or more, that goes to the guy at the top.
The reason these business opportunities don't work for most people is simple - they don't market.
Of course, when you buy in they tell you that you won't have to because the overall marketing is strong enough to bring you up as well.
And, they tell you, they provide you an awesome website that will sell itself.
Unfortunately, that is not how online marketing works.
It takes months of effort for a new business to even show up in search engine results, even longer to rank high enough to see traffic.
In reality, the guys at the top want to be the ones making all the sales themselves, so why would they market for you? They make all the money because they do all the work.
Most of the latest MLMs are barely legal, and very sleazy.
The online marketing programs that claim you can make millions doing nothing present a similar problem.
The primary opportunity that these programs offer is making money on per-click ads.
Most often, these programs provide you a subdomain or other ridiculous URL with a template website.
You sign up to host Google ads or other ad feeds and make a few cents (at most) each time a potential customer clicks through those ads.
The problem here is similar - heavy marketing is the only way to make any money.
Your website would need to present some content that will draw people there, and you will have to find ways to let those people know where to find it.
Just getting a new website to show up on the search engine results will take months, and then only if the website has all of the features the search engines look for.
In addition, you will need hundreds to thousands of links back to your site from other sites.
With either type of get rich quick program, you cannot succeed without the basics - planning, marketing, and financial management.
Merely posting a website without marketing is like carving an ad in an ice sculpture...
in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
If nobody sees it, it might as well not exist.
Driving traffic to any website, no matter how great the product, takes time, effort, and cash - less of one requires more of the others.
If you want to improve your financial station in life, entrepreneurship is the best way to do it.
However, expecting wealth to happen by magic, with little money and even less effort, is absurd.
Don't buy in to the hype of these scams.
Instead, look around for a good business idea and put in the time and work to make yourself a success.