I have been working online from home seriously for nearly three years now, and I have seen my fair share of internet scams and ripoffs. Intermittently I have taken up jobs, mainly to get out of the house and have some direct human contact! Ultimately I am the kind of person who prefers to work for myself: as my brother famously put it, I do this so that I can choose who to work with. Suppose I have a really awkward customer who I find it impossible to work with. As an employee I just have to put up with it: as my own boss I can tell that client where to go! Of course any sole trader values their customers and generally treats them better than and employee would. But it is nice to know that I have that option! That freedom is worth a lot to me and it is why I continue to write posts to my blogs and do (boring) keyword research. However lonely things can get, I would rather be chained to my laptop for ten years than work another day in the jungle of office politics again.
If you listen to the news broadcasts lately you will probably be feeling pessimistic about the prospects for starting your own online business. Every industry seems to have its own troubles at present. Well, the first advice if you want to reserach teh profitable industries is: stop listening to the news! They have to write attention-grabbing headlines every hour and when theses are dominated by one broad issue (the economy) the writers have to dig deeper into a small niche to think of anything new. So a story that would not make it on a busy day is now centre stage, and then represented in a thousand different ways for the next five bulletins. So take a break and free up YOUR creative powers to think how you can use the economic situation to your best advantage.
If you are trying to make money online, then you need to understand the fast pace of internet trends. A website can do a very nice trade in diamond studded wallets for futures traders, but if those traders suddenly lose their jobs, the market can disappear overnight. So the first and fundamental lesson is – diversify your income streams. Never rely on one income source, and in online business you must always have an eye to the next business trend.
What does Joel Comm mean when he says “We’re living in the good old days”. I thought the “good old days” are what people try to get back to, but can never quite get there. How “good” is it, really, when half the world is in debt up to their eyeballs and just one missed paycheck away from being kicked out into the street. Gas is at prices we never thought we would see, forcing most of us to cut back on driving or use grocery money to fill the gas tank. And every time we hear the news they tell us there is worse to come.
When you think about it, there are always those who seem to do well despite the conditions in the overall economy. No doubt about it, thousands or even millions of people are at the mercy of their employers or the government to keep them out of the poorhouse. On the other hand, there are those who are seemingly able to rake in the cash despite the gloom and doom on the news.
Maybe it is possible to stand apart from the crowd and imitate the “gurus” who have cracked the code and dialed in the system for generating serious money.
Like John Reese – though smart as they come, college couldn’t hold his interest. After flunking out, he labored in a video rental store while building his business. He owed over $100,000 in credit card debt at his lowest point, and his friends and relatives may have thought he would fall through the cracks like so many other dreamers. Once he put all the pieces together… he became the cash generating machine that we know today.
Keith Wellman’s story is familiar. Deep in debt and a family to support with his dead-end job, Keith was desperate. He even blasted Mike Filsaime publicly on Filsaime’s blog for taking advantage of his own desperation and hope. It wasn’t long before Wellman had to eat his words in a big way, as he is now a very successful entrepreneur with a lifestyle that others only dream about. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, why not join ‘em?
In his disarmingly illuminating style, Joel Comm profiles these individuals plus more than 30 others in his book Click Here to Order: Stories of the World’s Most Successful Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs.
With the same intensity that produced his New York Times Best Selling book The Adsense Code, Joel dissects the paths that dozens took to jump on the internet marketer’s bandwagon.
While Joel is no John Grisham (yet), his book reads like one of Grisham’s novels; Joel’s subject matter is just fascinating. You don’t want to miss getting your copy.
P.S. Joel Comm’s new book is the first to put over forty internet marketing entrepreneurs under the microscope. All the cool kids will be getting their own copy.
My posts about XL Results Foundation Life Membership have sparked some debate here recently. Things really hotted up after a recent comment from a woman who was about to join XL after attending Roger Hamilton’s Business Breakfast Presentation in Melbourne. On returning home she decided to do some research on Roger Hamilton and his XL Results Foundation. When the search results served up my blog post, she was alarmed and left a long comment explaining her concerns about the sum – $12,000 – that she had almost paid over. Since that comment there have been contributions from other former XL members and those who had almost joined, expressing scepticism over the value of the offer. Some of these members asked me not to pub lish their comments as they were nervous of going public, and I have used their material as sources for this article. These comments brought several long and involved comments from the XL Results Regional Manager in Melbourne, Jeanette Jifkins, who was clearly very upset that others were not enthralled with her company. There have been other contributions from Paul Dunn, whose Ecademy profile says he ‘runs XL in Australia and he’ll soon be taking XL to America’, in staunch defence of XL’s charitable achievements.
Let me make it quite clear why I have written reports about this business opportunity. The offer to the potential member is membership of a network of entrepreneurs, and extensive training opportunities, whose quality is not independently verified or accredited. New prospects do not get a chance to study the contract terms before signing up, they are swept up in the moment by a persuasive presentation. They are often left to reflect on the implications of this decision only after they have parted with a substantial sum in hard cash. Paul Dunn has asserted in one of his comments that there is a cooling off period for new recruits. I would like to see evidence of that.
I do not view XL as a classic pyramid scheme, but I think others are labelling it that way because they do not see the Life Membership package offering a value to justify its high price – why is there not an annual membership option? This company has been in existence for less than a decade, it is privately owned so what guarantee do members get on the prospects of it existing in another ten years? If I decide to join any Chamber of Commerce or similar organisation in Britain there is a set annual membership fee, and at the end of a year’s membership I decide to renew if the organisation has given me value for money.
When I attended the XL Results presentation the big selling point was the scope for getting freelance work from other life members. Most freelance consultants spend their lives chasing more contracts, and I heard a lot of sad stories at the last Ecademy members’ event. So if a carrot is dangled in front of a hungry consultant, they are very likely to go for it. None of us know if our next contract will be our last and a carefully designed pitch can prey on those anxieties, making us think that life membership of XL Results Foundation is a possible answer to our problems. But of course there is no guarantee of any work and none of the comments in support of XL have given any proof of income generated through membership of the foundation. Charitable work is all well and good but this is meant to be a business networking organisation. The proof of a business organisation should be just that – real, tangible business results for its members.
The XL organisation business model seems weighted towards getting money from new members, instead of improving the value of the membership package. If the company wants transparency (as they have requested from me) then I would like to see them publish full detailed accounts of its revenue sources. They should also be able to show independently verified examples of members who have obtained worthwhile contracts and expanded their business as a direct result of their membership of the foundation.
Posted February 11, 2009 
Comments(2) 
I have been working online from home seriously for nearly three years now, and I have seen my fair share of internet scams and ripoffs. Intermittently I have taken up jobs, mainly to get out of the house and have some direct human contact! Ultimately I am the kind of person who prefers to work for myself: as my brother famously put it, I do this so that I can choose who to work with. Suppose I have a really awkward customer who I find it impossible to work with. As an employee I just have to put up with it: as my own boss I can tell that client where to go! Of course any sole trader values their customers and generally treats them better than and employee would. But it is nice to know that I have that option! That freedom is worth a lot to me and it is why I continue to write posts to my blogs and do (boring) keyword research. However lonely things can get, I would rather be chained to my laptop for ten years than work another day in the jungle of office politics again.
