The Lure of Easy Money, It’s Gotta Very Strong Appeal
Written by: Don Miller
Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under Starting your Online Business
Sometimes I wonder why we make things harder than they have to be. Lets be honest. If I’m not mistaken you took some of your time today to read a blog or two or ten. I know I did. I ran across a post from Caroline Middlebrook today about Making Money Blogging by Selling Your Knowledge. At first blush I thought I read the title wrong. After reading it I thought , hallelujah, we agree. That’s not always been the case.
I have written to this topic before so if it feels redundant I apologize in advance. There are a kazillion sites out there that promise you riches beyond what you can spend if you buy this product, promote this service, blah blah blah. So what are you doing when you spend money for these kinds of “can’t miss deals” ? Mostly nothing, but you are paying tuition, and you’re paying it for something that doesn’t give you anything in return, except for an up sell to another class, ( i.e. product) and more tuition. Wake up people! The answer to your home based business is already bought and paid for. It is you!
Caroline wrote, “When starting a blog a popular piece of advice is to “pick a topic that you know about”. After all, how can you expect to write on a regular basis on a topic you know nothing about? Blogging is a time consuming activity. Why do all this work if all you are ever going to do is display ads for other people’s products and be an affiliate for other people’s products?
Well said , well written and mostly ignored . Why? Because people want to have business that is the flavor of the day, that is the make money online niche. Let’s face it many of us have tried that or are contemplating it. It happens in every area of our lives. It isn’t enough for most people to own their own home based business. They want bells and whistles too, they want the high flyer.
It’s the lure of easy money,
It’s gotta very strong appeal. Glen Frey
Don’t Take Chances With Money
Let’s assume you have $10,000.00 to invest in the stock market. Make that the US stock market, but it could apply anywhere. Your best friend tell you about a bio-tech company that is developing a drug that has the cure for cancer. Now you don’t know a damn thing about bio-tech or drug companies or how long it takes to get a drug approved for distribution, but your lured into the story by the potential. Again you know nothing about the subject matter You write a check for $10,000.00 and wait to see if it pans out.
Now lets take the same guy with the same $10,000.00 to invest. He and his buddy just went to the local Home Depot for the third time this week. They love the place. The store is always packed, the checkout lines are always long. They cant seem to leave the store without spending $100.00 on each visit. By the way they always add a Diet Coke to their order.They know this store and they know lots of people love it too. Why doesn’t he just invest his 10K in Home Depot or for that matter Coke? Why? Because it’s not the in thing. It not glitzy,Home Depot and Coke are long past their days of high flyers, but still make money, and because “the lure of easy money has gotta very strong appeal.” The same principle applies in home based business.
Now let me ask you another question. Where do you want to invest your time and resources? Do you want to dream about being a high flyer, or would you rather invest in someone or something you know and trust. That would be you and your knowledge.
Trust in Yourself Before Anyone Else
We are who we are, individually, each with our own unique DNA. Gary Vaynerchuk posted a great vlog on this today. You have knowledge. That knowledge will sell. It won’t be as easy as the scammer’s tell you. I have yet to meet a person who is successful in legitimate home based business that has told me it is easy. Most of the people I know pour lots of energy into their internet business opportunities. They all trust in themselves. There are people virtually all around who are scared to pull the trigger as you will see in a moment.
A Story with a Happy Ending, Hopefully
Yesterday I went to lunch with a good friend of mine. I had just returned from a visit to my accountant and I was feeling the need to gorge on some food that would make my cardiologist a little edgy. We sat down and ordered some hot chicken wings. I watched as our server approached. I suppose there were about 15 servers all mostly standing around doing mostly nothing, except ours. I told my lunch friend, she is the hardest working person in this place, and I could tell by her eyes she was tired. She appeared to me to be in her mid 30’s. I mentioned to my friend by looking at her, I thought she had a hard life. Turns out that was prophetic
I asked how she was doing today. The three of us talked, and each time she returned to the table, we talked more. She told us she works four jobs to make ends meet and has for years. She is the proud mother of two teenage girls whose father has never paid a dime in child support. Her side work was the one that interested me the most. She had moved form New York to care for her mother and apparently has a connection in the garment district. Once a month or so she orders women’s clothes and accessories and sells them to her friends and acquaintances. This gal is a go getter and I was impressed. I asked her had she ever tried to market her products online, and then I got a bit angry. She had recently attended a “internet marketing seminar” at a cost she would not reveal, that tried to sell her a load of crap. So here we go, another internet marketing scam and another victim.
An Offer Made, Will She Do It?
I asked would she have any interest in setting up her own site and trepidation quickly appeared on her face. I then went on to tell her I would help her do it and she would not have to pay anything for it. Basically she could try it out for 2 months at my expense and then she could decide to either walk away or pay me what I had invested. I guess you could call it try before you buy.
Now, why would I do that? It provides her a home based business opportunity and a chance at giving up one of her jobs. If it works I have impacted someone, if it doesn’t I have a domain I could convert to a BANS site in 15 minutes. It seems like a win, win situation to me. Her local contacts will provide her built in traffic and her customer base is already in place. Folks I’m telling you people like this are all around us. All we have to do is reach out to help them. That is what I want to accomplish with my site and my home based business. She reached for a pen and scribbled her name phone number and work schedule on a piece of paper. I returned the favor and she told me she wanted to talk further. The offer is out there for her to consider.
My Offer to You
I then began to think, perhaps there is someone out there who has some brains and motivation to try the same thing themselves. So here is an offer. Do you have an idea for a home based business? I would like to hear about it.
Okay, I give in, for those make money online purists I’ll make the offer sound better. Don’t Miss this Golden opportunity, Make money the easy way, Build your wealth starting today, turn your free time onto profits, this is a 3 step formula that guarantees success , and my personal favorite, Earn $15,000.00 a month in your spare time, blah blah blah
Reach for your own pen and paper and scribble down 5 things you know about. Make a comment about those ideas. If you are kind of timid about doing that, click on my contact page and send me an e-mail. I’m willing to bet that within those five subjects there are two businesses waiting to be launched. How much am I willing to bet? I will make the same deal as I did with my server. Now it’s up to you.
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Tags:caroline middlebrook, home based business, internet marketing, legitimate home based business, make money online, scams
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The Lure of Easy Money, It’s Gotta Very Strong Appeal…
Caroline provoked another response from me today, but I actually agreed with her on this one. It served to remind me of what my home based business is really all about. We all want to want a business but usually about something we don’t know anything a…
Perhaps you’d understand it better
Standin’ in my shoes
It’s the ultimate enticement,
It’s the blogger’s blues
Frank that is perfect and you’re dating yourself
Hi Don,
As you know I hope to make my income from my blog. I want to run a course in the self-development field but about living authentically rather than success (which so often seems to mean money).
So far I have invested six months of pretty consistent effort. I think I’m putting in the time. In the next couple of months I should have a free report ready to go to publicise my blog. Then a month or three after that I should have the course ready (the free report to publicise it I’ve already written. It’s on my blog - a link in the sidebar called It’s Not About Success - all comments welcome.).
What do I know about? I tend to think only one thing: health. And within this more the psychological/therapy/relationship side of things. I also think I have a sense of the whole - how health is not just one part (setting goals, expressing feelings, getting fit, doing meditation, whatever) but how the parts relate. So I’m scratching for five.
Actually here’s another. Writing Well For Blogs. Because your blog is worth more just being a sales letter. Because you don’t want to be just advertising other people’s stuff - however much you can make. Because quality matters more than money. Because you don’t want blogging to sink to the level of infomercials. Because you want to work with integrity. It could be taught through exercise from rhetoric and journalism - factual reports, personality pieces, interviews, exposition, description . . . The role of a personal voice etc.
I don’t know if you are interested in me taking up your offer. I’m already aways down the path. I’m not really up to the ‘monetizing’ (that is such an ugly word) part of blogging, but hope to be soon. I’m slowly moving up the Technorati rankings so that eventually I hope my blog can attract some advertising. But my guess is that my income will come from the membership course I want to do.
And I couldn’t agree more strongly with your points about the lure of easy money.
Evan , you are well on your way in my estimation with your business. What I would tell you is that yet you do write well and yes you do have a passion for health. I see your comments in my internet travels. They are always well written, well thought out and thought provoking. As for your passion, health, what we all do with our blogs is to tell our story and be remarkable. Do you believe you are doing that?
I read in one of your comments recently that you are by nature an introvert. Evan I remember a time when I was too. I can also mark a place in time when that changed. It was the singular most liberating thing I ever did, when I chose to be me.
I decided to become as transparent as possible. Being transparent lets people see who you are and just as important who you are not. Now perhaps this is going to sound a bit preachy but I just read your Easter message. You said, “This is the message of the crucifixion as I understand it; death to self: it all has to go. We need to be different. To not cling to all our beloved experiences, possessions and even relationships. We need to give up our egotistical manner of life. No ifs, no buts, no compromise” That part of your message I agree. I think we would probably disagree on some other points.
You are an extremely intelligent man and you write in an intellectual way. You did not ask for my advice, but I am going to give it anyway. Simplify your message. Make it so easy a child could understand it. Based on your About me page I just read that probably sounds familiar. As always thanks for your contribution via your comment.
Don that is so cool. I hope you help the server change her life forever. Keep us posted.
I suspect she will need further “motivation” but Im good at that, lol
Wow Don, this is amazing article. I am also not so comfortable with affiliate marketing, even more if the stuffs is not something I believe in.
But, selling our knowledge sounds much more attractive. What is your opinion on asking readers for support with donation?
Thanks for your input,
Robert
Great post Don and I also love your idea. I only fear that most people will be intimidated by receiving free help. Since most of us are told NOT to trust a stranger, offers like these will most often garner looks of “what the heck is he trying to scam out of me”.
I hope for that lady’s sake that she will have enough trust in you and herself to give this a go. But most people simply don’t. They always fear an ulterior motive.
Monika, you are right, as you see there are not floods of comments offering up ideas. This young lady was right in front of me and the idea just came to my mind at the time. Face to face encounters present a bit of a different opportunity
@ Robert, real salesman don’t often care what the are selling, there drive comes from the commission rate. With our blogs, more specifically lets take yours, you are trying to create a certain culture.
or foundation for who you are and what purpose your blog serves. That will ultimately be important in whatever monetization model you choose.
On the surface I am generally opposed to asking for donations, although it works for some people. I actually tried it on this site once with an I love Diet Coke Banner, buy me one. The thing hit me in the eye the wrong way every time I came to my own site , I removed it. Some one needs to tell Court, Wendy’s is not good for him!
Thanks Don for the compliments and advice.
One of my writing heroes is Georges Simenon - he wrote crime novels (some featured the detective Maigret). He used an incredibly limited vocabulary and simple declarative sentences. And yet they are some of the best writing I have ever read. My biggest battle in writing, as I see it, is to not jump from one idea to the next but to explain the connections. Otherwise I lose people.
I’m not sure if you think I am naturally an extravert and that introversion has to go. (I’m happy to hear the other stuff you disagree with about Easter if you would like to tell me).
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t know if what I do is remarkable. I certainly try to make it as good as possible. I think it is different to other stuff on health that I see. It is really reassuring to know that you think I am well on my way.
Thanks again for the article and a consistently valuable blog.
On a different topic.
When, in my feed, I clicked on the title for the links for March it sent me to the google page where you get sent to for signing up to the feed.
Something weird is going on (for me anyway).
Evan, making yourself remarkable to others is a challenge for all of us. Suggestion, “walk out to the edge of your comfort zone, look up , look down, look side to side, and step across”.
I hope that makes sense to you, tell your story in a way its never been told.
Hm. I’m interested Don. I have a product and a domain name, but have thus far failed to do anything with them.
Amy, why don’t you use my contact form and lets start talking, I think I’ve been to your blog have I not? Lets kick some ideas around
“Caroline wrote, “When starting a blog a popular piece of advice is to “pick a topic that you know about”. After all, how can you expect to write on a regular basis on a topic you know nothing about? Blogging is a time consuming activity. Why do all this work if all you are ever going to do is display ads for other people’s products and be an affiliate for other people’s products?”
Does that sound a bit off or weird considering the fact that is exactly what she does sells ads to make money and promotes affiliate products to make money. Sometimes Caroline sorta rubs me weird.Seriously look at her blue host revenue, BLUE SUCKS as a provider and is amongst the worst of them out there for what it is we all do. But she promotes it because it pays HUGE. I dunno maybe its just me…
Shane what Caroline does Caroline decides, frankly until recently I was using Blue Host, Ive learned my lesson.
[...] back in late March I wrote an article about the lure of easy money. I ended the post with an offer to help anyone with a dream and desire to establish a home based [...]