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When people ask me the "is it really free?" type
of question, I give them an honest answer. The answer to both question is
usually "yes, but…" and they tend to be disappointed and feel that they've been
tricked and that the advertisers lied when they offered a free home based
business opportunity. It is true that fortunes can be made from a free home
based business on the Internet and it can be easy to make money at home online
but that is not the whole answer. I am
completely anti-hype but I don't think all Internet advertising is as misleading
as people often claim. If you consider the average Internet advertisement, its
wording is no worse than the standard "up to 50% off" claims we take for granted
in offline advertising. We know that only a selected few items will actually be
reduced by 50% and we don't feel at all cheated if we find a bargain with just
20% off its usual price. The thing is, people see things differently when they
are searching the Internet for ways to make money at home online, their
expectations are far higher, they are more willing to believe improbable claims
and their disappointment is, therefore, quick and keenly felt..
If you tried to tell the same people that they
could make money at home with an offline business without incurring any costs,
they would laugh you out of the auditorium. However, the Internet is a strange
environment and people need to get acclimatised before they can recognise a
legitimate way to make money at home online and to understand what is "free" in
the context of a free home based business opportunity. After just a small amount
of experience, people will realise that the free home based business opportunity
is going to cost them money one way or another if they want to see profits
accumulating at any significant rate. The ones who persevere also eventually
realise that the cost of running a free home based business online is far less
than the cost of running an offline business.
Let's think seriously about starting a
business. First, how about an offline business. Suppose you decide you want to
open a shop and sell dresses. Before you see any profit at all, you will have to
pay out for premises (rent and taxes), services (fuel, water, phone), stock,
insurance and advertising. If you are going to continue with your current
employment while you build up the new business, you will also need to find staff
and add wages to your list of expenses.
Now let's think about our free home based
business opportunity on the Internet. You need to budget for a product (the
equivalent of the stock of dresses), a website (the equivalent of the shop
premises) and advertising. The list is shorter and now the Internet home based
business opportunity is looking like a much better deal by comparison. The
products can be obtained either free of charge or for a small price, the cost of
a website is small change compared to the cost of premises, this will be a home
based business, so you won't incur any additional service charges or insurance.
An Internet home based business can be set up to run 24/7 with just a couple of
hours work a day, so you can continue to earn money at your currently employment
without having to spend anything on staff wages. That just leaves advertising
costs.
Advertising your free home based business is
the thing that's going to take up the biggest part of your budget. If you were
opening your first shop on a limited budget, you would not be able to afford
large premises in the prime part of the busiest shopping district where you
would benefit from passing trade. You would have to be content with a small side
street based shop and, to make customers aware of your business, you would have
to advertise. In order to get a steady stream of visitors to your shop, you
would need to advertise consistently and continuously. You would need to place
your advertisements where they can reach your target market and you would need
to make sure your advertisements appeal to your prospective customers so that
they would be prepared to make the detour from the main street to check out your
products.
The Internet works in the same way. Nobody will
know about your new free home based business unless you tell them. You can have
the best website in the whole word but, if you don't advertise it, it would be
like keeping your shop door locked, the blinds closed and the lights off. No
visitors means no potential sales and that inevitably means no profit. You have
no advertise, simple as that. There are many free advertising resources
available online for your home based business but you need to be selective as,
although there are some very good free advertising resources, the results to be
obtained from the free companies are not always as good as paid advertising.
Another factor to consider is that using the free advertising resources can take
up a lot of time and you need to place a value on your time and decide how it
can be spent to best effect.
A free home based business opportunity does
sound like the ideal thing for the numerous people who are looking for ways to
make money at home online but are unwilling or unable to spend any money to do
it. Many people leap into the first free home based business opportunity they
see advertised and just as quickly give up when they find out they need to
invest time and money in order to make money at home online with an Internet
based home business. If these people would think things through, they would
realise that starting an online home based business is far less costly than
starting an offline business and the stage of getting into profit can come very
early. Even if a free home based business it is not entirely free to run, being
your own boss rather than being someone else's employee is priceless.
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