Lots of people would love to make a self sustaining full-time career out of working from home. The idea of skipping that horrible commute to and from work everyday, spending much more time with loved ones, and vacationing at a whim while making boat loads of money all at the same time sounds incredibly wonderful to nearly any imaginative human being. Of course the ultimate thrill would be to walk into the bosses office one day and do a heartfelt rendition of Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It". Oh yeah, the realization of a dream come true. For many, the internet seems to be the natural solution, the vehicle to make all those dreams come true easily. However if you really do want to make a success out you making a decent living on the internet , getting the term "easy" out of your mindset, is the very first thing about yourself that is going to have to change.
Here are five points to ponder
- Even though the dot com-mer boom has gone bust and faded into the annals of business history, a second internet wave of success is now in the process of crashing onto the shores of the world. Today, it is not uncommon for us to hear or read about some new internet millionaire almost on a daily basis. The other day I was reading about an 18 year old, 8th grade dropout who had just joined, gotten a membership into much sought after millionaires club. Now the natural assumption is: if a kid like that can do it, then I, being more mature and worldly, should certainly be able to attain some like level of acceptable success even if I only do a tenth as well. It should be easy. While luck, being in the right place at the right time, will often play a decisive hand, it is the person who stays focused, enjoys a challenge, perseveres and works hard that usually is left standing at the end of the day.
- Did you know, about 98% of the people who start out in the make money online adventure are no longer in it one year later? There are thousands and thousands of people who enter this field on a daily basis and yet there is nearly an equal number falling out or giving up on it at the same time. Why do you think that is? The biggest reason is because the internet business is so very competitive and most of the fastest runners got a head start. It is not easy to become a competitor in a race where you are always play catch up.
- How about this one? I am sure you have heard of the old 80/20 rule, right? But have you ever heard of the 95/5 rule? It is the rule that applies to the billions of dollars being made on the internet every year. It means that 95% of the internet generated income is being collected by 5% of its workers; the gurus; the folklore heroes in today’s internet world. Many of these 5 per-centers are doing everything they can to separate you from your money. They make it all sound so easy but once they have you pulled in, they will leave a small, but very significant piece of the puzzle out of the equation. They do this so they can sell you another one of their products down the road. There is also a much smaller group of these folks who truly do want you to be successful and will do most anything within reason to see it so. The challenge, which is not an easy one, becomes identifying who is who and what is what. Remember, on the internet a person can be almost anyone they want to be.
- Did you know fewer than 50% of the American population has a college education? That number drops to under 10% when we up the ante to a Master’s Degree. While I know this is not an apples to apples comparison, but think about this and use a little syllogistic reasoning if you will. (A.) If only 10% of the population is successful in achieving the Masters level of education and (B.) only 5% of the population is able to maintain a position in the Internet Marketing field; then we can deduce that (C.) in order to achieve success in the Internet Marketing segment, you will need to get an education that meets or exceeds a college granted Masters Degree. That is not an easy accomplishment. I don't care how talented or smart a person is. It is never easy to register in the top ten percent of anything in life, That challenge even becomes more daunting depending on the competitive environment of your chosen field.
- Finally, one more did ya know kind of thing. In general, the very best, most renowned surgeons in the world, make somewhere between $500K and $750K a year. It takes years of experience and 100’s of thousands of dollars spent on education for these specialists to achieve this level of success. There are many more people involved in internet sales world who exceed a surgeons income levels. In fact, it is not uncommon for these street-wise, savvy marketers to do doubly as well in half the time with far less investment. In short, the internet has added credence to the age old factor known by many. Salesmen/women are still the highest paid professionals in the world. While this may be an inspirational reality, it does not make success easier. As a matter of fact it makes it harder because there are so many more people to compete with.
The primary purpose of this writing is to say, if you want to get into this profession, leave the rose-colored glasses at the door. It is a very tough business simply because there is a lot of money to be made. You can be a part of the money making side of equation too but you just have to have the right mindset. This is not a get rich quick industry like so many seem to think it is. Just know that it is going to involve a considerable amount of work before you will begin seeing positive results. Once that bubble is broken however, the sky seems to become the limit.
Next time, we will be discussing the specifics of what makes this business so hard to succeed in. Once we put the specifics up on the table, we can then develop a game plan to avoid that deep quagmire made up of ineffectiveness and self defeat.
