|
Being wary of Net set-ups
|
 |
March 30, 2000: 9:14 a.m. ET
Internet companies have home-based opportunity seekers salivating
By Staff Writer Hope Hamashige
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Pitchmen for home-based business opportunities continually, on late-night infomercials and in the ad pages in business magazines, promise untold wealth for minimal effort. The pitch rarely changes, but the product does.
One product being heavily hawked these days is Internet-related business. Yes, they say, you can earn thousands of dollars a week at home by starting an Internet company. The best part, they say, is it will take little of your time and you can do it in your pajamas.
There is a rule of thumb that applies to just about every home-based business opportunity: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And, though the lure of the Internet is stronger than any business pitch in recent memory, the rule holds true here, too.
"The Internet has opened a lot of doors," said Gene Fairbrother, a spokesman for the National Association of the Self-Employed. "They (the pitches) fall into a gray area between someone who's selling snake oil and a really good business opportunity. You really can make money with a home-based Internet business, but most people won't."
The lure of untold wealth
Who wants to make a million creating Web sites for other people? Or selling products over the Internet? A lot of people, but they probably won't do it by attending a two-day seminar or paying way too much money for a tool kit.
 Lesley Fountain is one person who narrowly escaped spending far too much money to learn to be an Internet consultant. She attended a meeting about starting a home-based Internet business, but left when she was told she would have to attend a two-day seminar and she would have to write out a check for $4,000.
Unfortunately, Fountain knew from experience that she was about to be scammed. She has lost about $30,000 to different people selling home-based business opportunities. The most disturbing part of the meeting, she said, was the fact that scores of opportunity-hungry people who were writing checks -- certain a $4,000 investment would put them on the path to a million-dollar business.
It may sound like something new, but it's not
The Internet tool kits and Internet business start boxes that are being sold, said Fairbrother, are no different from the startup kits that were sold to people years ago who wanted to start other kinds of businesses such as medical billing businesses or even publishing businesses.
The problem, said Fairbrother, is there are a lot of people who have heard about Internet riches, but not enough people really understand how the Internet works.
"Less than 50 percent of people even have access to the Internet so there's an ignorance factor that fuels this," Fairbrother said. "What they have heard is about these billionaires from places like monster.com and they see all this stuff and say the Internet is a goldmine."
Like it or not, though, there is still no substitute for hard work and training. Most people without computer training and knowledge of graphic design are probably not going to make it as Web site designers. Likewise, you can't simply put a product on a Web site, sit back and expect the checks to roll in with no understanding of marketing on the Internet.
What most people who buy into these companies don't realize, said Fairbrother, is that they are customers, not new business owners. "They (the companies) are selling the American dream and people are buying it," he said.
There is a right way to do it
Fountain now tells people there is a way to start a business over the Internet. But it doesn't come without a lot of sweat and it doesn't come from anyone trying to sell you a ticket to a seminar where you learn the tools of the trade or a tidy package of "Internet tools." The best idea is to find your own niche, she said, rather than step in to a packaged deal.
- It starts with your own idea, your own passion. You should create a site centered on something you are interested in and can speak honestly and intelligently about, she said.
- Create a community. People need to know about you and they need to feel they can trust you.
- You have to create some reason for people to keep coming back to your site. Update it with new, useful information or nobody will come back.
- Eventually, once you have a following of people who know you are legitimate, you can start selling products on your site.
Fountain has heeded her own advice. She learned a lot about marketing yourself on the Internet from creating a Web site called Scams101.com. By sharing her own experiences with get-rich-quick schemes and home-based business opportunities she created a community of people who trust her advice.
She is currently putting that expertise to work in creating her second Web site that will be geared to formerly fat people. "The first step is to build a community of people who know me and then, eventually, I plan to sell my book and other products," she said.
The one thing that should be foremost in anyone's mind when considering buying into an affiliate organization is the way the money travels. "When you start a business the money should go in a certain direction," said Fountain. "If you are paying them to sell their products, it's inside out." 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
