The Lure of Easy Money

The Lure of Easy Money

© 2002 Elena Fawkner

You might be forgiven for thinking that competition is
fierce if you run an online business. After all, every
day - day in, day out - you, me and everyone else is
constantly bombarded by offers from every man and
his dog for various programs that promise us the means
to earn an income from home.

After a while, of course, you begin to recognize that
these programs are not worth the paper they're written
on and the people pushing them are little more than con
artists (or worse).

A common theme in all of these offers is the lack of effort
required to begin making a significant income. Witness all
the "Make money while you sleep!", "We do all the work!",
"$3,000 per week for two hours work!", "Big money, no
experience required!" subject lines in your inbox this
morning.

The reason these types of offers are so prevalent, of
course, is that the notion of something for nothing is
seductive. Who on earth in their right mind would actually
choose to spend 40 hours per week working for $80,000 per
year when they can earn the same amount working only 2
hours each week? No one. The only problem is, working 2
hours a week and making $80K isn't going to happen unless
that two hours is spent managing your multi-million dollar
portfolio. And even then you'd most likely be spending
more than a lousy couple of hours a week.

Common sense tells us that this must be so. But common
sense is a rare commodity in the real world and even rarer
when it comes to anything to do with the Internet, an
unreal world if ever there was one.

There are a LOT of people running so-called "Internet
businesses". A goodly proportion of these people are the
ones touting the aforementioned "bizopp" pipedreams. This
is good news for you, believe it or not. Why? Because,
despite how it may sometimes seem, your REAL competition
is relatively small in number. After all, if 98% of those doing
business online are unsuccessful (and promoting get rich quick
schemes is the best way I know to make it into that elite
group of 98 percenters), that leaves the field wide open for
the 2% who are actually prepared to do some real work.

So don't for a minute think that the Internet playing
field is all sown up. It isn't. All that buzzing in the
background is the little kids down the other end of the
field playing make-believe. There's still plenty of room
to run on the field with the real players.

So, accept the fact that there's no such thing as something
for nothing and you really are going to have to work for a
living after all. Then create something original which meets
the needs of one or more target markets and get to work.

There's plenty of room for you on the field and plenty of
trophies to go around. You just have to keep your eye on
the ball.

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Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ...
practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the
work-from-home entrepreneur.
http://www.ahbbo.com