Ethical Internet Marketer – Make More Money Online… Ethically!

Hi there,

I’ve just stumbled across an offer which could be quite interesting for newbies or if you are not yet familiar with the possibilities Google offers you to make money online.

It’s a CD with several video explanations which they are shipping to your home – but only if you live in the US/UK or Canada. This means, I couldn’t test it out myself, first, like I usually do.

It looks like a good and genuine offer, though. They only require you to pay for shipping: $0.99

Here are some of the benefits:

– How to pick the right keywords

– How to promote your business

– How to get listed in Google fast

and more.

I HAVE REMOVED THIS OFFER. AS I SAID IN MY EMAIL, I COULDN’T CHECK OUT THE FULL OFFER BECAUSE I’M NOT LIVING IN ONE OF THE ACCEPTED COUNTRIES.

IT SEEMS THAT THIS OFFER IS NOT AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDED – I WILL BE SENDING MORE DETAILS TOMORROW. I’M REALLY TIRED NOW…

(I’ve been at the CeBit in Hannover all weekend and just returned from there. More about that -incl. some photos- tomorrow, too…!)

Detlev

I often do get asked how illegal “business opportunities” can be recognized. Well, I am now trying to answer this question and make it a bit clearer with the following article…

So called “Pyramid schemes” have been around since about the time the actual pyramids in Egypt were built. You’d think that in the last few thousand years people would have been able to easily recognize a pyramid scheme when they come across one. They don’t…!

The people who dream these things up, however, are pretty slick characters. A pyramid scheme never, ever, comes labeled as a “pyramid scheme”.

It is really easy to get sucked into one of these schemes. You need to understand how they work and be able to spot them for what they are. There are a few “buzz” words that can tip you off:

1. Recruit: “to engage in finding and attracting employees, new members, students, athletes, etc.” That’s one of the definitions of the word according to the dictionary.

The use of the word, ‘recruit’ (or any variation) should be a major tip off that the program that is being promoted to you is most likely a pyramid scheme. Some of these schemes can be easily spotted while others are a little harder to identify. Just beware when you see the word, “recruit”. There was a scheme that went around awhile back that was sent by unsolicited email that offered an “exclusive opportunity” to earn a boat load of money by recruiting people to sell a device that would provide access to the Internet by television. No, I’m not kidding. This happened and people fell for it.

2. Buy the secret and sell… This is a typical pyramid scheme that you will often see. This is another “offer” that arrives in your inbox that you have not solicited. You are offered an “exclusive” opportunity to buy a secret that will allow you to make a hundred thousand dollars a month (no work required) and then you can sell this secret to others for a substantial profit and they will make money for you. These gullible folks will just fill your bank account with beautiful green-backs. Wait! You are the gullible folk they are targeting.

You can believe me when I tell you that there really aren’t a lot of people out there in this world that are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to send you money.

You can also believe that there is no legitimate Internet business that is going to immediately make you hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. You might someday make that kind of money but if you do, it will be after you have put in an incredible amount of time and effort into it and not because you bought a “secret”… – there isn’t one.

Creating an online business still means hard work and if you’re not willing to accept this and are still looking for shortcuts, then an internet business isn’t for you! Better get back to your J.O.B.!

3. Let “others” do the work: This little phrase has pyramid scheme written all over it. The “pitch” is usually for a non-existent product or for a product that is being sold for much more than it is actually worth. You will often be sent information by bulk email that gives you instructions for getting others to promote this “product” (…which product?) and all you will have to do is count your millions.

Right… – Don’t fall for that one!

Disguised MLM

If you are really new to the world of internet business or work-at-home job opportunities, you may not know what MLM means. It means Multi-Level-Marketing. MLM is similar to a pyramid scheme but it isn’t exactly the same.

True pyramid schemes don’t involve the selling of an actual product but real MLM is ALL about selling an actual product.

According to a glossary of Internet terms, “Multilevel Marketing is selling products by using independent distributors and allowing these distributors to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting, motivating, supplying, and training others to sell products. The distributors’ compensation includes their own sales and a percentage of the sales of their sales group (downline).”

“So,” you say, “that just sounds like a good idea for making money.” Well, it IS a good way for making money. The problem is that it is illegal when there is no real product involved, where only the opportunity gets marketed as a way to riches and where they are talking about the money making potential only. This is what I mean by “disguised” MLM. In this case, there would be no product involved – only a business opportunity which promises people to make money without having to do anything apart from promoting the “opportunity”.

Do you see that tip-off word again: “recruiting”? The other tip-off that this is a MLM scheme is the phrase, “percentage of sales”.

There is nothing illegal about setting up an affiliate program and PAYING a percentage of sales to those who sell your products or services to others. There is nothing illegal about COLLECTING the percentages that are offered by the producers of the products or services. That is simply good business and more than just common practice in the Internet business world.

The problem arises when you start COLLECTING percentages of sales from people whom you have recruited to sell the product. Then another level is added and it becomes multi-level marketing.

Even with just one additional level, it could be identified as MLM even though completely legitimate affiliate programs often have 2 levels as well (that’s why you can’t use Paypal to pay for products which involve more than 1 affiliate level – they see almost everything as MLM even though in many cases it’s not! They probably want to be on the safe side and not get associated with ANY MLMs.) but there are MLM schemes that will have many, MANY layers.

The main Internet banking and money exchange on the Internet is Paypal. Paypal employs full-time personnel to search for and identify MLM schemes. When these schemes are uncovered, the accounts (and all attached accounts and credit cards) are frozen.

Yes, it is true that sometimes Paypal does misidentify a perfectly legitimate business as a MLM scheme but it doesn’t happen very often and the problem can usually be resolved in just two or three business days. This very thing happened to a friend of mine not long ago. It was resolved but not without him being able to prove that his business was not a MLM scheme.

This does point out the fact, however, that there are those who are looking for illegal MLM schemes. You may think that you are very anonymous on the Internet but when you do business on the Internet, you are no longer anonymous.

Beware of Lions

There are a lot of big hungry lions in the Internet jungle. They are looking for easy marks… they love “newbies” best of all… You have been warned!

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Let me know what you think about these illegal opportunities and what your personal experiences are by making a comment on this post – I’d love to hear from you!

Are you decisive? If you’re not, it’s going to be a long, disappointing road.

I have been in this online business for a long time now. You know what? I’ve made a lot of decisions along the way. Some of those were the right ones, but many were the wrong ones. The decisions we make define us.

There are a lot of opportunities out there that will promise you riches beyond your wildest imaginations.

That’s great! Except it’s not that simple. I don’t care what it is, it will take hard work, commitment and decisions… there you have it again.

As an example, let’s say you decide your opportunity is to set up a website to sell tennis rackets for lefties. How would you approach this? Would you just set up a site and boom the checks will start rolling in…?

No! First, you have to decide how the website is going to be set up. Are you going to build it yourself? If so, what’s best for your website? Do you want it set it up in PHP or do you want to use HTML/CSS? What editor will you use? Front Page (please don’t…)? Will everything be based on a WordPress platform?

Or are you going to decide to hire someone to build it for you?

How will you lay it out? Do you have a logo? Do you need one? What color scheme are you going to use? Do you know the effect of color on your visitors? How do you decide?

What e-Commerce solution is best for you? Consider your monthly volume. If it is going to be over $1,000, a merchant account is usually a good choice. You may consider Paypal in conjunction with a merchant account. If you do consider a merchant account, you also need to look into electronic payment gateways.

Then you have to market the products… Are you going to use pop-ups? Are you going to advertise with Adwords, Banners, E-zines, Article Marketing – and what about Joint Ventures…?

What’s my point…? You are going to have to make the right decisions for YOUR business. There are a lot of steps from getting an idea to building the proper platform for the idea and executing it.

Your decisions will ultimately lead to an end result… Did it work? Are you making money?… or is it a do over?

When you decide to pursue an opportunity, it’s your decisions that will make your site a success or not.

You must learn to decide. Indecision paired with inaction will find you broke and discouraged…

As a newbie online marketer, there are really only two things standing between you and your website making massive amounts of profits – or going bankrupt right before your eyes.

The first of these two things is how much drive and effort you have to sell your products and work for yourself. You will never get anywhere if you do not have the motivation or the ‘know-how-to-run-your-own Internet-marketing-business’. Without either of those two characteristics, your business is doomed to failure.

The second thing that all fledgling Internet marketers must learn if they are to compete with the big boys for potential profits is to write excellent web copy. Your sales copy needs to be fluid, compelling, and totally logical to everyone who reads it. It should sound conversational – but not to the point where a client would rather want to be your friend than buy your product.

It should tell everything there is to know about what you are selling without making false claims or hyping your goods to the point where people do not really believe in your product. And your copy shuld not contain errors of any kind, whatsoever.

But why is web copy so important to an Internet marketer? Because it is the only thing that can really make or break a sale. Your Internet business is not like a brick and mortar store. Your customers cannot eyeball the digital items you are offering. They cannot touch them and feel them or examine the product’s box.

A customer who is visiting your website will not be able to call over a store manager to talk about whether or not the product is right for them. Anyone who visits your website has to continue reading in order to get to know more about the product and the willingness to do so depends on how well your web copy is written.

If the copy is good – you will get the sale. If the copy is poorly drafted – chances are you could have month upon month go by without even the slightest tug at your line.

Why Is Tweaking So Important?

Now that you know exactly how important web copy is to the success of your online business, you need to get to work on the basic format that your sales copy needs to take.

As mentioned earlier, your sales copy should sound relatively conversational while still keeping the ability to persuade your customers that your product is the one which can give them the solution to their problems. In order to make your sales copy as good as it can possibly be, you need to start by thinking about what the things are which make your product different from the rest.

Say you are selling an E-Book which you have written about how to get the best and most amazing deals on all kinds of computer programs, just as an example. You want to sell that E-Book for as much as you possibly can – but first you need to convince those who visit your website that they should pay you for your E-Book. This is where your sales copy skills will come into play.

You need to start out your sales copy composition endeavor by making a list of all of the great points about your E-Book (bullet points). Be sure to highlight points that separate your product from the rest of the pack, as there will probably be other people out there who are selling roughly the same product as you.

Once you have compiled a list of the top reasons why a person would want your product, start to write around that list and eventually turn it into a full-fledged sales copy document. If you need inspiration, all you have to do is browse around to other E-Book marketing websites and see how their sales copy looks.

Be sure that your tone is relatively conversational, you are not using any big words or sales jargon, you are using plenty of bulleted lists and colors that will stand out to the customers, and above all else – make sure that your sentences and paragraphs are pretty short for an easy read.

Writing and Tweaking Your Sales Copy

Once you have your sales copy nested comfortably on your website, you may be tempted to think that your work is done and you can move on to a new project.

But, for the Internet marketer, your work is never done – and if you want to be truly successful, you always have to be on top of things on your website.

Therefore, testing and tweaking your sales copy is a tactic that more and more marketers are utilizing so that they can boost sales and maximize their profits.

Just because you may think that your sales copy sounds good to you, does not mean that it sounds equally as good to the rest of the public. Continuously tweaking your copy can make all the difference in the world in terms of getting your message across to the masses.

If you have recently posted your copy to its website, keep it as it is for now and wait until you start getting some traffic flowing to your web servers. After a few weeks, whether or not you are getting any sales, it is a good time to update your copy.

Start by adding any recent testimonials that you may have received from satisfied customers. Testimonials can really help you boost your sales because they give your copy an extra shot of trustworthiness.

Apart from adding testimonials to your copy, you should just tweak a few of the ways that you have worded your sentences and maybe add or remove a few bulleted lists and longer paragraphs.

Post everything back to your website and see if your sales change. If sales change for the better, then keep your copy in its new form.

On the other hand, if sales start to drop, change your copy back and then start from the original again the next time you make some tweaks. By tweaking your copy, you can squeeze more and more cash out of your customers without having to raise or lower your prices.

This weekend, I’ve been taking some time off and went skiing in Austria (Hochzillertal) together with Joerg, a buddy of mine (he has nothing to do with Internet marketing, though). It was a great trip and we had excellent weather over there. I had to take the easier slopes because Joerg isn’t that experienced in skiing and I didn’t want to let him ski all on his own all the time:

But I took one of the more difficult slopes at least twice so I could get a little more speed and have some more fun since I really love skiing.

It had really been time to take another vacation even it was just for a weekend. It’s of no use to keep working and working and sitting in front of your PC all day long. Besides that, I’m really getting overweight because of not being active enough. But I am working on melting some of my pounds again but that’s another story…

The point I’m trying to make is: Don’t lose sight of why you are building your business. You’re certainly not building your business in order to slave away like if you’re an employee again. Have something to look forward to – something that helps you to break away from your business. And I don’t mean watching TV or playing video games. Get active and cultivate some hobbies of yours. Make entries into your calendar for private things you’re looking forward to.

If you have a wife/husband and children, don’t neglect them because you are trying to build your online business. Most of the times, working 18 hours non-stop won’t get you anywhere near success. You need to work smarter, not harder! Only spend most of your time on revenue generating activities instead of reading dozens of salesletters for the latest “must have” products or lurking into forums without posting anything.

You need to know WHY you are building an online business. Is it because you want to be financially independent or because you want to be able to spend more time with your family or on activities you love? Whatever it is, don’t lose sight of it and for every 20 days you work, take at least 1-2 days off without any distractions. Do not get in front of a PC at all during that time. If you have a business which is flourishing and you think you can’t leave your business for even 1 day, then you’re doing something wrong.

Hire someone to take care of your customer support. Don’t be the person who is responsible for everything. Outsource everything that can be done by others so you can be stress free again or at least reduce your stress. One of the great advantages of a web based business is that these kind of online jobs can be done by anyone with a computer so the person you’re hiring doesn’t even have to live in your own city…

Simply have fun again and enjoy life. It is too short to just waste it in front of a computer!

Let me know what your opinion on this issue is…