Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I've been running a 99.9% virtual business since 1995-6. I'm not sure that I totally agree with Myth #7 -in fact, I mostly disagree with that one. It can be done.
Myth No. 10: The Internet is a magic wand.
I disagree with a lot of what he says. You are right rcj, it CAN be done.
#8 can be seen inaccurate as well for some folks.
#10 The Internet is a Magic Wand - sure it is but like any good magician you need to know the trick :)
Nothing new there. I gave it a one for originality. Equates to "fire fighting is a dangerous job." Yep. Business is business. Online or not.
I do usually talk to clients on the phone though. I also offer a 24/7 phone number. I rarely get a call after 11 but clients seem to like knowing they can call anytime.
DG
Myth No. 9: When I'm working for myself from home in my online business I will be able to spend as much time with my children as I want.
Well, I can dispell this myth as I get up at 3 am and work until they get up. Then I dance around their schedules all day. After they are tucked into bed I get those last few hours uninterupted before I crash only to start all over again the next day.
Yup, but from talking to people at BarConference, I realised that the membership of this board belongs in about the top 2% of talent when it comes to internet marketing, and the REALLY good ones in about the top 1/10th of a percentile
However, check myth 6: I can put the whole thing on autopilot and make money while I sleep
Thats where so many go wrong, they sleep. Just develop a serious caffiene habit, and learn to do that dolphin trick where only half of your brain sleeps at once. So simple once you know...
So many people on other BBS start their posts with "How can I make money off my web site?" and it gets annoying to keep telling them that it really is a business.
Right from the get-go I can start tearing every single assertion apart:
"The reality is that establishing an Internet business is a long, slow, frustrating process."
Good general rule, for newbies. However, I know of at least two people, experienced in working for others, who were able to gain backing, suppliers, outlets and do a full set-up for their own businesses in just days.
A rather large firm that specialises in funding startups once told me "Ideas are cheap. People find, borrow or steal good ideas all the time. What we invest in is people. The right kind of person can make ideas others wrote off work like a charm. When the right person comes to us, we invest." Experience (even working for others) counts.
Myth 3 is simply ignoring the fact that the marketing side is still part of 'building the site'. If done right, you can indeed virtually leave it on autopilot. Thus the latter mention of Myth 6, but they are missing the point...
If you were building a high-street store, you'd build it on a high-street right. In other words, you build with the demand already there. Same thing *should* be true with web sites. It ain't built right if you haven't included the means for gaining customers. Without the SEO or other marketing, you've simply built a shop with no sign, hidden in a back-street.
I could go on, but I'm sure you all know as many exceptions to each rule as I do, and more importantly, not even the same exception... There are many.
Ah well, it got them some page views. :)
Ammon Johns
LOL
It's the type of article that generally appears at women's sites geared to an audience of WAHMs. Network marketing, or MLM, isn't quite the same as other types of ventures.
Calling it "network marketing" gives an air of respectability, but the fact is that nowadays Multi Level Marketers are widely considered the worst type of pond scum around. They're notorious for board and chat room spamming and some are incredibly unscrupulous. I watched a whole community split apart over the issue.
Not all are that way. I have a friend who runs a group and teaches classes in MLM and has a newsletter with a circulation of close to 2K gathered in around a year. It's all more product focused and that group doesn't use some of the tackier recruiting methods. It's a bit unusual with higher standards than what I've personally seen.
From what I've gathered - even years ago when I had off-line friends involved in MLM, a lot depends on who the upline is. If there's no upline support to justify their percentage, I've always heard it's best not to be involved with the people, look further, because others will. I've never done MLM, got a pretty bad view of it over time.
For a while I spent 5 nights a week having to deal with chat room spam and seeing some of the tactics. Unfortunately, it gives a bad name in general that's not always deserved.
