When the “Internet Snake Oil Salesmen” come to your town….

Recently I had a conversation with a lady who is interested in having her own web presence or entity. She’s in her fifties and was looking into making some extra money online. She explained that she had gone to a seminar put on by some travelling Internet “experts”. The same old pitch by the sounds of it; give them $3000, pay a monthly fee of $29.99, and receive all the help they need to succeed with an online business. The lady I’m mentioning happens to be the mother of a childhood friend, so I was quite happy to hear she had not taken the bait.I’ve seen these travelling road shows come through town more frequently in the last few years. I liken them to the snake oil salesmen of the wild wild west. They ride into town, promise an instant cure to all your problems, collect their money, and head out. Sure the odd person really follows through and succeeds but it’s rare. The hard working netrepreneurs follow through with the services provided by the “Internet gurus”, but they could have succeeded without ever paying for expensive domain and hosting fees, monthly membership fees, bloated pay per click costs, or ridiculous web building services. Since the services provided are all all legit, it’s technically not an illegal scam. The services provided are way overpriced and the quality of the web building tools are so weak that the user (or sucker) is handicapped from the very start. 

I consider most these so-called Internet snake oil salesmen are running a “virtual” scam. The consumer is handicapped to such an extent they are very unlikely to succeed with their online business. I’m sure this article will annoy (and possibly anger) some Internet business people, but since I’m not mentioning any company names or pointing any direct fingers, this article can only compel shady Internet opportunists to take inventory on their products, services, and the true value of what they are selling. For the companies that offer Internet services for a fair price; this article is a non-issue, as they know their product or service value is high.    

I’ve spoken with others that were not as lucky as the lady I mentioned above. I know a pretty smart fellow that spent over $3000 dollars on a company that rolled an Internet business seminar through his town. This company rented a conference room in one the nicest hotels in the city, and had advertised months before their arrival. They had slide shows, videos, bar graphs, a free lunch (a stale danish), a free 2 hour presentation, and of course the 5 hour seminar for the hot prospects (”those who are interested in creating massive wealth, in their pajamas, and from the comfort of their own home”). They had some “guest speakers” that claim to make millions of dollars a year from their web sites. They showed how money has been pouring in via the web sites built with their system, and all the while convincing my friend to “take action”. Well, as I mentioned prior, he took action to the tune of $3000 dollars and never made a cent. He never even found the time to decide on a product or build his first web site.

The plain truth is you don’t need to spend alot of money to launch an online business. If you are just starting out, and want to build a web site or blog that makes money, you don’t have to spend a dime. There is an abundance of free information regarding online business opportunities. You don’t need to buy domains or hosting (although I do recommend when you have decided you are destined to run an Internet business. You don’t need to sell anything, carry inventory, pay for ecommerce services, deal with refunds, or hire a web site designer. You can simply create a free blog or web site and slap on some contextual advertising (such as Google Adsense). One of my partners has a free resource for doing just that. You can surf over to Kenny Allman’s Money Traffic. I’ve mentioned Kenny’s site before and will likely be mentioning it again in the future. His blog contains 100% free information, and his system shows you how to make money without spending a cent.

The next time you are invited to a hotel conference room in your area, and promised to learn how to make millions of dollars from home, remember this article and proceed with a wary eye. These smooth operators are very good at what they do, so don’t be a sucker for their virtual con. Just remember that you can go it alone. If you do decide to buy your own domain name and hosting, you should never pay more than $10 a year for your domain name, and $6 a month for hosting. Your hosting and domain costs can be as low as $2.00 a month if you only need shared hosting. I’d throw some hosting and domain companies here with affiliate links included, but due to the subject of this article…….I’ll point out my favorite domain and hosting companies in a future post. 

Technorati Tags: Home Business, Internet Seminars

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