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Internet Marketing is Great But…

October 20th, 2009 : · 7 Comments ·

Ok, this is going to be a bit of a rant, well maybe it will be, we’ll see..

Having been in this business for over 14 years I have seen pretty much everything from every angle. I have dealt with all kinds of people and about 98% of those experiences have been positive.

I can’t even begin to guess how many emails I have answered in those 14 years but it is a lot.

The one thing that most of the emails I receive have in common is the intense desire the person writing has to succeed in online marketing.

But we all know that there is a ton of garbage online, products where the person doing the selling knows full well the claims made are complete and total B.S.

The bottom line is if someone promises you riches and especially quick riches, run, just get the hell away, and move on. It’s not going to happen unless you win the lottery.

I’ve always had one primary mission with any business I’ve been involved in, and that is to help people succeed.

Now I’m not going to in any way try and make the case that everyone I have tried to help has succeeded, many have not.

And it’s not for lack of me trying and it’s often not from the lack of the other person not trying. Sometimes an individuals skill set is not suited to a specific task or career, as well as another person’s might be. Not everyone is good at everything.

I can ski. I’ve tried to teach a lot of people to ski. Most never achieve anywhere near the degree of skill that I have. Not everyone is born to be a good skier. Bottom line.

But let me get to the point I want to make, and this is where the rant comes in..

We all know that the economies in most of the western countries have not been great this past year or two.

In that time I have received quite a number of emails from customers or potential customers who have told me a very similar story. That they need quick money, they lost their job, they need to make this work or they are going to lose their house, they are looking for some kind of guarantee that I can solve their problems with some product or service that I am offering.

They want a guarantee that such and such a product will get them out of their dilemma.

Let’s look at a couple realities.

If you are in need of quick cash, or on the verge of losing your home, or something that falls into the really awful category, do not, I said DO NOT even think about online marketing as your salvation. It is not. Online marketing is a career, a business, it is not a means of getting quick cash in your pocket.

Do not, I repeat DO NOT spend any money with me or anyone else if you are down to your last dime. It’s not that you can’t make money online, but that is not your immediate problem if you happen to need a quick infusion of cash. You need to resolve the immediate problem before thinking long term.

Once you get things under control, then you can consider other options for building a business but when you are down to your last few pennies and are on the verge of losing your home, please don’t look at the online world as your way of getting out of the hole you are in. Your hole will only get deeper.

But I think it’s so easy to understand why people naturally turn to the Internet as a way out of serious financial problems, and it has to do with all the B.S. hype surrounding far too many products. And let me be specific, I’m not talking about a sales letter that tries to get you to buy a product, that is advertising, what I’m talking about are the hucksters who prey on the newbies or those very people needing quick cash, making claims of fortunes to be made in a very short time, telling you how you can make tens of thousands each month. It’s all B.S. And the sooner most people accept that the better off everyone will be.

My goal is to teach people how to make $500 not $50,000 in a month. Believe me. For most people earning $500 in a month in what could be considered extra income is in fact, life changing money.

But here’s the really sad part of how the promises of get rich quick schemes have hurt people in ways most people never consider.

In the past year alone, I have received a lot of emails stating all the things I mentioned above.

I own several businesses, and in 21 of those cases, I have actually offered people a chance to work for one of my businesses. In other words, I would pay them for work they do. It costs the person nothing. Yes it does involve real work, and while the pay may not earn you 50K per year it certainly can earn you 4 figures per month, plus the offer allowed people to work on their time and work as much or as little as they wanted, but the key word here is work. it required people to work.

Guess how many of those 21 offers I made were accepted?

ZERO.

And you know what? I don’t blame the people who did not take my offer. I don’t think these people are lazy or are people that really don’t want to succeed, quite the contrary. I feel the problem is in most cases, that they have fallen victim to the hype, that they can make a lot more, a lot faster with a lot less work if they just find the right ‘program’ online.

The even more amazing thing is that many of these very same people have probably already been around the block so to speak, with quite a number of over hyped products that promised the very things they are still searching for without success. And they still don’t realize, it doesn’t work that way.

I really hope that none of you falls into this category but if you do, a reality check is in order.

What I do is not a hobby, it’s a business, and most people fail to understand that making money online involves creating and running a real business.

As the title of this post states, internet marketing is great but… it’s a career choice, a real business, not a get rich quick scheme.

There’s a lot of really good people in this business, but also a lot of hucksters. Remember the old adage, if it sounds to good to be true… it probably is.

- Dave -

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7 Comments so far ↓

  • Jeanne

    The best “rant” that I have read in a very GREAT while. I wish everyone considering “taking the plunge” into IM or related online fields would read your post FIRST.

    Good stuff!!

  • Shawn

    If you need to put a number on emails you have answered for me over the past year, it has to be over 100. Thanks again. I will attest to the validity of everything here.
    I barely knew how to cut and paste text a year ago. I am slated to be at full-time income within a year.
    The turning point? When I finally stopped chasing the next new ‘program’.

    Thanks again Dave,
    Shawn

  • Elbert

    Hey Dave,

    Your post really nail it. I would say Chris also posted a similar rant aswell. His was mainly about a person that emailed him several months ago that spent over $60,000 on courses, ebooks, seminars, etc.

    http://www.thelazymarketer.com/blog/2009/04/14/rant-a-simple-formula-for-nearly-instant-results-that-doesnt-cost-60000/

    I think it would fit well with your rant. :)

  • Mikael Rieck

    Even though it might sound harsh I think that the financial crisis have some positive aspect like the fact that it has forced some people to wake up and look at what is happening around them.

    Surely many of them will never wake up (even when loosing their jobs, homes, relationships etc.) but a selected few will and these people will be heading for a totally different future.

    As one of my favorite quotes goes:

    “For things to change, YOU have to change”

    Most people will hope, pray, wish, request…. but never change who they are and what they do and therefore they will get the results that they have always gotten.

    Mikael

  • Walter

    I am trying to earn $100 a month but my Adsense income is only around $31 a month. I have over 50 Wordpress blogs and I would like to auction them off and get some seed capital so I can implement the Profit Loophole but as you say the Wordpress blogs are hard to sell because they are connect to a MySQL db, so is there a way to auction those WP blogs off?

  • Sonia

    Walter, you can try selling them on Flippa.com They seem to sell ok there. I believe you have to pay a small fee to list the sites though. Check it out and good luck!

  • Danny

    “My goal is to teach people how to make $500 not $50,000 in a month. Believe me. For most people earning $500 in a month in what could be considered extra income is in fact, life changing money.”

    You’re one of the few IMs that have the guts to say this.

    People that are committed to making a living online will realize the great truth in this. People interested in getting rich quick without ever lifting a finger won’t even finish readnig that sentence.

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