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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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