Online Business Myth 1 "This business is so easy ANYONE can do it…"

And so to “Online Business Myth 1”.

Sorry to burst your bubble so early in the piece, but such a business simply does not exist.

If you have been involved in the home business industry in an MLM or Network Marketing before, no doubt this was almost the first thing your ‘sponsor to be’ said to you. By the way, usually, this person is quite new to the industry themselves (they tend not to hang around too long before they discover that they too have been misled, or they have maxed out their credit card – whichever comes first).

This is how it all begins. You will be shown the product range. You will be told that the products are “revolutionary”, “life-changing” and “so powerful that everyone will be knocking down your door to get their hands on them”. You will be told that even with absolutely no previous experience of any type in business it is possible for virtually anyone to build a residual income by “sharing” these products with anyone and everyone you come into daily contact with. But I’m getting ahead of myself here, more of MLM style “marketing strategies” in Online Business Myth #2. Read more

There are many reasons why people are attracted to this industry. These might be some of the very same reasons that you are looking for:

• The promise of making money from home.
•  Sacking your boss.
• Choosing when, where and how much you work.
• No more office politics.
• No more commuting.
• More time with family.
• More time doing the things you love.
• Achieving financial security.

These are all highly valid reasons for wanting to pursue this as a business. Unfortunately, these benefits are almost always combined with marketing strategies which lead prospects to believe that the business is easy. The marketing tends to focus on the income claims of the top earners (and these people usually represent about the top 1% of the total number of active consultants in the company).

And so now you are to believe that not only is the business easy, you need no previous experience, and only need to do the minimum amount of work to realistically generate a six-figure income at lightning speed.

Now, what this style of marketing does, is attract the wrong type of people to the industry in the first instance. People who are looking to “get rich quick”. People who have a “lottery mentality”. People who expect that the money will come flooding into their bank account by osmosis. People who think that any legitimate business can be built this way should not even be considering self-employment.

The simple fact of the matter is that in many ways, this business is even tougher than a “brick and mortar” business.

Just think about it for a moment. Let’s imagine that you have opened a shop in a busy part of town. You lease a building, put up signs, bring in stock and then advertise your new business.

If you have done your market research well first, you will have positioned your business in a place where your niche market is likely to be walking past your shop every day, and there is a pretty good chance that at some point, they will walk in your front door to see what you have to offer.

Not so in a home-based business. There is just you, your phone, and often a cupboard chock full of your ‘life-changing’ new products.
* No boss to answer to.
* No deadlines (except perhaps those imposed by your bank or lending institution).
* No daily routine to work to.
* No need to even get dressed if you don’t feel like it.
It may all sound idyllic, but it takes a particular type of drive and discipline to build a business out of nothing under these circumstances. My experience has been that people who have had previous business experience in either brick and mortar or MLM have a far greater understanding of the consistent and focused effort that is required to build a business. People who have been career employees tend to find the learning curve far steeper.

So if you are looking at a “business opportunity” and it all sounds too good to be true, keep looking.
Because if it sounds too good to be true… it is.