Is It Just a BIG Lie?
I regularly get emails that just about break your heart.
People have SPENT years trying to develop an online business…without any success. And they’ve spent thousands of dollars in the process. The highest number quoted to me was someone who told they spent over $30,000 on information products trying to succeed online over the past two years.
I’ve also gotten emails from people who need money quickly (such as to stop a foreclosure or something similar). To all those we’ve responded we can’t help them…because an online business is not a get rich quick cure-all. I remember one in particular who told me they needed $10,000 by the next week. That’s not going to happen.
There are many people who have bought internet business types of products…never to see a return on their investment of money.
The biggest reason for this I feel is wrong expectations. And this most definitely doesn’t just happen with online business!
We live in a microwave society. We want results yesterday. Think about any weight loss product. They’re based off of immediate results. In fact, most customers are looking for the pill which just melts fat away from your body without doing anything. Hey, if you find one that really works…I want it too!
The problem is…that product doesn’t exist (no matter what people may claim).
The “instant success” online doesn’t exist either. So quit looking for it.
In the imaginary world of internet business, everything works perfectly on the first try. Tens of thousands of dollars come pouring in just from putting up a website. And Google is desperately waiting in anticipation of the next website you start to send you a flood of visitors.
Just do _____ and you’ll instantly be in the highest tax bracket.
In the real world of online business:
1. Every product isn’t a winner. Some are duds.
2. Every site doesn’t generate thousands of visitors. Some are on the wrong subject.
3. Every salespiece doesn’t break sales records. Some don’t work.
Some times it takes some trial and error…even when you’re following someone’s complete system. The reason is everyone of us is different.
Plus what works in one market may not work in another. That’s why there are so many variations.
If you’re not willing to take some risks and some losses, you’re not prepared to be an entrepreneur.
Here’s another one I have to bring up. I’ve had a friend who told me he was watching TV and wanted to know if internet business was as easy as they presented it on the infomercial he saw. They told him, “You don’t even have to know a thing about computers.”
How far would you get if you didn’t know a thing about computers? Not very far I expect. Sure, you don’t have to know how to repair them or even what type is the best one. But you had better know something. You had better learn how to do email. You had better be comfortable using your web browser.
Although on this one I do have to mention there is a successful internet marketer who bought their very first ebook from me. After purchasing they called me in terror because they couldn’t figure out what happened to it. I calmly showed them how to use the “search” function on their computer and told them what the file was named so they could find it again. I trust they have gotten better since then. 
Having the right attitude and expectations are vital from the beginning in this. It’s a rare occasion when anyone talks about their failures. That’s why we made sure to talk about some of ours on the Truthprints product (which by the way is the the best course in my opinion to give you a full understanding of what it really takes in this business).
Here are some basic expectations for starting out:
1. You’re not likely to make any money your first couple of months.
There are exceptions to this, but that is a general rule. It’s always the exceptions you hear about…the ones who do get a full-time income within a few weeks. But the majority of people go through at least a couple of false starts and take time to get income coming in.
2. You’re not going to have a 4 hour work week this year.
Yes, some people do get to the point where they have passive income or they have team members who do the majority of the work for them, but first you have to get the business running, profitable, and systematized. That’s not happening this week.
3. Your first few checks won’t be very large.
This is a biggie. As a beginner don’t ask how you can earn your first thousand dollar check. Ask how you can earn your first $1 check. That $1 check can multiply quite quickly. Do it once…and you can do it many more times.
So that’s the bad news. What about the good news.
The good news is that this is the best business in the world. This post is simply a reality check. It is a BUSINESS. Try to start your own restaurant with a $100 bill (the cost of hosting for a full year). Try to buy your own McDonald’s and see how far you get. Even the person who lost $30,000 hasn’t lost NEARLY as much as the average brick and mortar business person loses from a failed business.
You can start this business with no experience…at a low cost…and realistically create a part-time or full-time income over the next few years (sometimes within a few months).
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Excellently put, Terry (as per usual).
Unfortunately there are so many individuals who think the internet is a get rich quick scheme.
I now build blogs and websites for others and one of the first question I ask – “Why do you want your blog / website?”
Their answer tells me every thing. I go on and explain many of the pointers you outline. Sometimes I lose customers because I do explain, you are not going to become rich, you are not going to work a 4 hour day…you ARE going to have to work hard…you ARE going to be frustrated…making money is dependant upon so many factors.
Us, internet marketers (that’s what I suppose I am!) have to manage expectations. It’s paramount.
Andrew
Terrific. Just another reason why folks trust you. And should.
Hi everybody,
I’m a coaching client of Terry, and have been for over a year now. All I can say is that if you’re new to Internet marketing, listen to what Terry has to say!
Everything he just wrote in the article is true. If you want to succeed online, you need to have the right attitude and expectation.
My business makes about 30K a month consistently, and thanks to Terry’s help I’ve increased my profitability and work fewer hours too.
I’ve worked at it for several years too. It wasn’t always easy but I never gave up.
If you feel you can handle that, the rewards are amazing.
But it’s like everything… you acquire skills overtime and get good at it, but not overnight.
Other marketers just want to sell you the dream of the Internet Lifestyle with gimmicks that don’t work. Terry is the real deal… so pay attention
Very Good & Timely post Terry,
I too struggled for years before I found success online.
I found that there are few core items that must be in place (from my experience).
1. You have to find a business model and stick to it. Ecommerce, consulting, sell ebooks, software, etc).
2. You have to sell something that people are already “willingly” spending money on. (do your research here and stop trying to come up with the next best product that is going to take the world by storm). This is probably the most important element. It is much easier to make money when you know people are already spending money on what you’re selling. “do your research first and don’t get emotionally attached to some idea”
3. You need to have a good offer (why should someone buy what you’re selling?)
4. You need to get your offer in front of your potential customers and test if they will buy from you. (many ways to do this, email promotion, ppc, seo, videos, affiliates, etc) Pick one and start with it and test it.
5. You must track and measure what is working for you and what is not. Focus on what works and cut out what does not.
6. Don’t get weighed down with every home biz opp that comes to your inbox or on your TV. Just focus on the core principles of business and don’t get off track.
I probably left a good bit out here, but I just wanted to focus on the core of what I found to work based on my experience.
Thanks again for the great post!
Jeremiah
Great headline Terry.
It’s complicated, isn’t it?
Some people really have used the Net to change their lives dramatically in a relatively short period of time. It can happen. So like all great lies, the Big Lie is rooted in some measure of truth.
Another factor is that the sales copy used to sell Internet business products and services has a long established record of not being business-like.
It’s a matter of pride for the much of the net biz copy writing community to base their appeals on emotion.
This of course attracts prospects who are making business decisions based on emotion. Should we be surprised when this group we have created then asks us how many hours it will take to get rich?
Good one Terry, just like everyone keeps asking me how they could make money online today; I told them I didn’t do anything a day.
I wish I could explain better.
Your post is now outdated. I have spent over $35000.00 on educational materials alone. Over $45,000.00 when you figure in computers, hosting, domains, file cabinets, the cost of incorporating and credit building, organizational materials (before finding Google Docs which work better and are sharable between accounts set up for clients). This doesn’t count any living expenses such as car payments, house payment, insurance for car, life, home, business), utilities such as heat and water and cell phone, (Land-line phone is only needed for business and business credit.) which if I take in all that, I am a good 129.000.00 less a small amount of rental income and a small amount from 2 clients I do on-line marketing for (in spite of having little education in on line marketing, looking around, it would appear more than 75% in the biz actually know less than I (or are lazy, in spite of much nicer sites than I do…no time) and 15% use black hat methods for quick short lasting spurts to the top of the heap. Then there are the 3% that only Coke-a-cola and the like can afford.
In any case, This probably is the best biz in the world. And because so many think they only need to work 4 hours a week or do anything at all, it is simple (not easy) with dedication it is possible to be the top 2% of the top2%! (2% of the websites get 98% of the traffic. The top of that 2% has a Google page rank over 1. (Which means 99.8% of the web, Google considers a 1 or 0 in importance!)
Well I am rambling now…
Mark
Andrew: I agree with you on managing client expectations from the beginning. You may lose a few clients that way, but you have more satisfied clients overall. You don’t have them coming back to you saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Frederic: THANK YOU so much for posting on here. As you know I don’t reveal my clients so I always give a big thank you when one of them posts some of their results on their own. In case anyone wonders why I sometimes say things such as “my client” or “we did this” and I’m not being specific, it’s because you always want to protect your clients and their info.
Jeremiah: Great six principles for anyone to follow. People just starting out should copy down the 6 items you listed.
Phil: Definitely true. People have used the Internet to change their dramatically very quickly. I changed mine pretty quickly from the standpoint of getting a decent full-time income quickly, but not to the tune of some of the big promises you hear out there.
On the emotional selling, you have to remember ALL SELLING is rooted in emotion. There are very few items you buy in your life that the decision wasn’t based on emotion (some would say all purchases are driven by emotion). The only way you could remove emotion is to remove humans from the decision making (and there aren’t many buying computers out there). So ANY copywriter will write emotional selling appeals. If their copy isn’t emotional they might as well not show up. BUT for internet business, that emotion doesn’t always have to be greed.
Ahmad: As is always true, every overnight success was years in the making.
Mark: OK you just messed up my numbers. I definitely agree this is the best business in the world…and the majority of our competition isn’t doing what they need to succeed. Which makes it better for everyone who has the right expectations…
Count me in Terry! I have lost a bunch of time on this and I have spent more than $ 20.000 in less than one year. I have bought a lot of material over the year, and I must say some is great but what I found with these Gurus it was all about what they could sell you next!
This so called “Gurus” know exactly where they are taking us – but we normally don’t see it. You Know why? Because we’re so busy looking at the beautiful garden in all it’s glory that we don’t smell the dung that it’s growing in.
This so called “Gurus” send you an email every day pretending to care about you and then slip into your wallet. Some of this so called gurus, don’t know how to use a polite word when replying.
They think it gives them the right to knock at our doors day and night. Even when you unsubscribe from them, some of them still keep emailing us. So that I know there are other suckers out there who are just like me. To be fair, I just get sick to death with all the BS crap from these email marketers and Internet Marketing gurus (Give Us Rogues Unlimited Sales) every day.
Terry, I am a fan of your blog, and in my opinion, you’re a great coach.
Finally, I’ll leave you to think about this: If there are more than 6,000 gurus alone on Twitter, how many of them are real and how many are just guru-wannabe’s?
Hi Terry, thanks for your reply.
I’m sorry, respectfully, we don’t have to remember that all buying is rooted on emotion. Because it simply is not.
When Google bought YouTube, did they buy it based on emotion? Did they require an emotion based pitch from YouTube to close the deal?
Like you, the Net changed my life substantially over just a few years.
When the right buyer came along, I was able to close the deal specifically because, unlike some of my competitors, I didn’t feed my customer baloney.
No emotion, no pitch, just the facts they requested, when they requested them, served with a smile. This is called business-like behavior.
I was rewarded for respecting my customer’s intelligence, with a big check.
Business-like behavior is a sustainable model.
If the net biz sales “experts” of the last decade had focused on being business like, they would have built a client base oriented towards business success, that they could sell to again and again for years.
Instead, because of the emotion based selling, the net biz industry is flooded with people who don’t belong here, and who fail and stop buying, requiring ever more baloney to bring in the next wave of dreamers.
This is still a very young industry, and it acts like it most of the time. It’s understandable, but it’s not smart. Imho.
Hi Terry , thanks for your inspiring and motivational advice. I really agree on your statement , especially when you said “The biggest reason for this I feel is wrong expectations” . I am also new to this industry , but I had always bare in mind since the first day I decided to join this industry … this is not to be that easy … If I am willing to take calculative risks , with strong perseverence, determination and willing to learn , i know one day I will be very succesfful with this Internet Business.
But , like what you mentioned in the above post , a lot of people just don’t have patience . Most will choose to blame that this business is a totally scam . But , it is their choices. For me,like you said , this is the best business model in the world . Where to find this kind of business with a low start up capital and low risk! Just what it takes for ones to really success in this business is their patience and willingness to learn .. that’s all. Thanks again man…Peace!
Phil: You asked if I feel Google bought Youtube based on any emotion. My answer is I expect they did (remember Google is ran by people who have emotions). What emotions are involved in the deal, I don’t know because I wasn’t there…and I don’t know all the emotions that were inside of the decision makers at Google. If you don’t feel there was any chance one of those decision makers let emotions (like LIKING the person who presented to them – which would also be an emotional judgment call), I would be surprised.
I can at least tell you that emotions are involved in my own purchase decisions – no matter how small. Except for commodity based purchases (like gas, milk, etc.) every purchase I have ever made in my life has emotions involved in it. Of course logic comes in as well, but emotions were involved. If they weren’t I’d live in the smallest shelter possible…whatever met the basic need of shelter. I’d drive the most basic car that got me to where I needed to be. I wouldn’t have dogs. I wouldn’t be married. I’d cloth myself in whatever I found around me. Etc. I wouldn’t even write this post, because I don’t need to for the basic need of survival.
It is the emotions in our being that give richness to our life.
All active decisions also involve emotions unless we find an audience that is exactly like Spock from Star Trek (even when you sell to programmers they buy based off of emotions – how others perceive them comes into play, the feeling that they’re saving time, etc.).
Maybe it’s simply that we see selling based on emotion a little differently. I see emotion in selling because everyone has emotions involved in their decision making process. From what you said you may see emotions as “hype” or “excitement” which of course would lead to believing it was baloney in many cases. In many cases, you keep the emotional overtone of selling hidden, but it is still resident in the selling process. For example ALL brand names have attached emotions to their selling process (you feel something in you for any brand you regularly buy).
I’ll bet we can find agreement that the internet business world needs to quit selling with exclamation points and unfulfilled promises (which I see as hype not emotional selling). It’s likely that I simply haven’t defined emotional selling well enough here.
Terry, great post. I first heard Jay Abraham say it, and
it set of a flashbulb in my head. There are THREE kinds of
people in any Internet marketing conference/seminar:
* Those who run a business
* Those who learn how to run a business
* Those who play at learning how to run a business
The 1st group are serious business owners who succeed in time.
The 2nd group often moves into the 1st – or gives up in a while.
The 3rd group is happy just buying more stuff and never using anything.
For a long time, I taught my own prospects and subscribers what I knew
without making this distinction. Once I realized it, I chose to try
and find out what category they fall into.
These days, I ask two questions after anyone opts-in to my list.
The answers are a revelation. Of the lat 71 to respond (the survey
is optional), 44 said they were looking to build a business – but
27 said they were seeking a ‘biz op’ (quick cash generating scheme)
That’s a nearly 4:3 ratio – and explains why my results with various
efforts has been so varied! The group looking for “quick cash” no
doubt doesn’t get much value from me!
All success
Dr.Mani
P.S. – re emotions that likely fuelled Google’s buying YouTube:
* vanity (can’t stand being #2 to anyone)
* laziness (don’t want to work to build the best video site)
* fear (what if someone else bought out YouTube)
* greed (with video being so HOT, surely there’s profit in there)
$30,000?? I only spent about $12k, and that was including an $8500 copywriting coaching program! I’m going to have to talk to the wife about spending some more money in products
Serious, after you get your business doing well, it’s hard to spend money on products because you can’t find anything that’s useful (with the exception of Terry’s coaching!)
Most products are aimed at newbies, so once you’re no longer a newbie, you’ve taken yourself out of the buying frenzy. Which is good, because then you can actually do real things with your money — like buy food and clothe your kids, give nice gifts to your wife…or even get out of debt (something very foreign to most Americans today).
I feel for everyone that is drawn in by the hype that is often found in the IM business. It can be a rude awakening, although logic dictates that in order to do something, you need to learn how first. There isn’t a profession I am aware of that doesn’t require learned skills.
Fortunately, there are some good mentors out there that are not afraid to tell it like it is. Terry Dean is one. Those that are in it for a fast buck will generally find their bucks are gladly accepted. If they are truly in IM to build a sustainable business, they will eventually stop listening to the pie in the sky guy and heed those that tell it like it is.
Should be required reading for everyone thinking of starting an internet based business or any business for that matter.
I think so many people fail because they think success is supposed to be quick and easy. When it does not happen that way, they change their focus or direction. And they keep changing looking for the Holy Grail.
Instead of trying to make a million dollars or even a hundred thousand, find a way to make one dollar … and then do the shampoo mantra … repeat, repeat.
You cannot start at the top. But unfortunately there are too many people selling hope, taking advantage of the hope that there is magic in a six CD set. I advise people if you can get a 10X return on the cost of a program, you have done well.
Terry,
This one’s a classic.
It rarely occurs to anyone that business success is built on sustainable competitive advantage, and that sustainable competitive advantage is rarely ever randomly bumped into or handed over in an easily replicable ‘system’.
I definitely concur that this post should be a must-read not just for beginners to internet marketing, but every business newbie.
Gogo
Hi Terry,
You are indeed a classic by this post. I solely want to agree with John Chancellor. Success is not supposed to be a roller coaster ride(even though you are supposed to enjoy what you are doing all the way).
Most beginners just starting out have this “Instant Gratification” Mindset. And the the so called Gurus doesnt help either.
Thank you for being a great coach,terry. I am writing from Nigeria and am so glad you are a blessing to my generation.
I have just a question for you,though.
Do you consider Self Development Niche a profitable niche?
[...] this article by Terry is a must read for anyone, not just starting out in their on-line business but also for [...]
Great post, such a wonderful source of inspiration, especially for newbie just like me. As we all know, most people want to learn how they could earn money online. However, most of them don’t want to earn in an easy way. They thought that you can earn while doing nothing. I think, this mind set makes most newbie unsuccessful in this career path.
I like the article. Every product we sell online not always get success but the process that we learn is importance for the next project.
Thanks
David