5 Ways B2B Companies Can Take Advantage of Facebook http://socialmediab2b.com/2014/01/b2b-facebook-successful-tactics/

How to Spot a Scam

So how do you spot a scam? Well, it’s not always easy. Many scam artists have gotten quite good at what they do (unfortunately) and thus many of their pitches sound very sincere and genuine.

General “Opportunities” to avoid (because they may be scams):
 

Anything that doesn’t specify what you’ll be doing. Think about it: if what you’ll be doing is really fun, exciting, and fulfilling, wouldn’t they want to tell you all about it right upfront? If they’re not saying what it is, it’s probably illegal, unfulfilling, or it just plain doesn’t exist. Many of the sales letters offering these types of scams tell you what the opportunity is 

NOT. For example, it’s NOT MLM, Mail Order, or Real Estate Investing. But they never tell you what it IS. Be careful if you’re asked to put money down for an opportunity that doesn’t tell you exactly how you’ll be making money.

Anything that requires you to pay a good chunk of cash (at least several hundred dollars) up-front with little explanation of why this is necessary other than a vague claim that it’s for some type of supplies or a kit. You always want to know exactly what you’re getting into before investing. If it isn’t clear and the company won’t answer your questions, steer clear. Good, strong companies who want you to succeed will tell you exactly what you’re getting into – and what your money is going for.

Any opportunity where you can’t contact the company, either by phone, fax, or email, is probably not a good opportunity to join. After all, once you invest in their opportunity, how are you supposed to get your questions answered? Stay away from companies that are happy to take your money, but not eager to answer your questions.

Many of these con artists focus on getting you excited through earning potential, success stories and testimonials of other people making money (which could be completely made up), and promises of easy money with little or no work. They hold back on giving you any real information and just flash a bunch of money in front of you, tell you some “success stories” about made-up people who made insane amounts of money, and stress that those people are just like you.

What they’re trying to do is get your greed glands going and whip you into an enthusiastic frenzy so that you’re predisposed to buy whatever it is they’re selling, regardless of how sleazy the company is or what they’re having you do. I know... It’s shameless, but it happens.

Now let’s be really honest here. I have greed glands. I’m guessing you do too. We’re human beings. Without these greed glands, you wouldn’t be motivated to start your own business and reach financial freedom. Wanting money isn’t particularly a bad thing. However, con artists can use that desire for financial freedom against you. And the worse if you want (or even need) additional money, the easier it is for the con artists to prey on you. When your desire is high, you may tend to ignore the warning signs, tell yourself “what if this really works like they say it will”, and... WHAMMO... you’re hooked.

This has happened to me more than once. But I don’t beat myself up about it. I just learn from it and move on. So if you do get hooked and ripped off, don’t let that stop you. Simply pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and learn from the experience. So what do scams look like? It’s difficult to say, since they’re all different. However, there are a few hallmarks they have in common. Think of these as distinguishing characteristics.

Common Characteristics of Scams

• Offering you a work-at-home “job” – where you’re supposedly paid a salary or hourly wage from a company while “working from home”. While some companies do offer “telecommuting”, most of these companies don’t advertise that fact through home-business books or directories. Be very careful when you see a book or directory promising work-at-home “jobs” or “employment”.
• “Home Assembly” offers – where you’ll be paid for assembling crafts or gifts in your spare time with materials supplied for you. Many of these home assembly offers charge you a fee to start and then refuse to pay you for the items you’ve assembled. The company makes money selling you their $30 to $40 start-up kits.
• Envelope stuffing or coupon clipping. These “opportunities” are made to sound like you can pocket huge sums of money doing something incredibly simple. After all, most people can “clip a coupon” or “stuff an envelope”. However, there is always a “catch” that isn’t explained in the ad. You end up paying $30 or so for a “system” that is unworkable or includes a lot more work than just stuffing envelopes or clipping coupons.
• Guaranteed income (“You’ll make $60,000/month—GUARANTEED!”) No company can guarantee how much money you’ll make, because no one can control how much work you’ll do or what actions you’ll take. However, most people are looking for some sort of guarantee, so these types of offers are very appealing.
• Products that “sell themselves” (so why doesn’t the company just put the product out on their front lawn with a salesman to take orders from people who walk by?) No products sell themselves. Other “lures” are products or services that “everyone needs” or “everyone will want.” That’s rare. And even with these types of products, they still have to be marketed. The “everyone will want that” pitch makes it sound like you can make money with virtually no work. It just isn’t the case.

• Pressure to make a decision or commit right now or on the spot. If an opportunity is a good opportunity, it’ll be around tomorrow, next week, and next month. Don’t be pushed into an opportunity because “time is running out.” If it’s a good decision today, it’ll be a good decision next month, too.
• Income earnings that sound too good to be true. Do people make large sums of money? You bet! During one of my best months in business, I generated over $200,000 in gross sales. However, that was after many years of trial and error and lots of effort. So be careful if someone promises you huge sums of money in a very short period of time. And the bigger the amount, the more skeptical you’ll need to be.
• You are discouraged from taking time to read a contract or let an attorney review it (scam artists are like vampires—they function best in the dark). If you have to sign a legal document to join a business opportunity, always – without exception – have an experienced attorney review it for you.
• They give you all sorts of excuses when you ask to speak with other investors or previous investors. A good company that delivers a high-quality opportunity that works will want you to contact their other investors or dealers. Be wary of any company that either won’t let you contact their dealers or can’t give you a good reason why they won’t.
• No one ever answers the phone and the company address is a P.O. Box. Many fly-by-night companies set up shop through a post office box or mail drop service.

• You’re given testimonials with initials only. One problem with spotting scams is that con artists are willing to lie through their teeth to get your money. This means that they might be willing to make up testimonials for their opportunity, which is totally illegal. However, if they don’t have testimonials or the testimonials have only initials, then be cautious. Good testimonials give the customer’s first and last name plus their city and state.
• You get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that something about this whole deal feels wrong somehow. Yes, your intuition is normally right. It’s happened to me a time or two. One part of me wants to jump on the bandwagon but there’s a gnawing feeling inside my gut that tells me to “stay away” from the opportunity. In almost all cases, the gnawing feeling in my gut was right. If you’re not certain about an opportunity, there’s no harm in avoiding it. Again, if it’s a good decision today, it’ll be a good decision tomorrow after you’ve done more research.
• You get the feeling that the company is most interested in selling you the opportunity or franchise and not in adding a quality person to their company. 

• Claims you’ll make a lot for doing very little, or that you won’t have to sell anything. I’m guessing that most people would like “money for nothing,” like winning the lottery. Well, the con artists know this so they make their opportunity sound as “hands-off” as possible. You do little or no work. You don’t do any selling. You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t lift a finger. You do nothing and the money comes rolling in. My friend, if there was such a business, I guarantee the millionaire entrepreneurs would know about it first and they’d all be doing it instead of doing what they’re doing now (building strong businesses with long-term income).
• You have to buy a lot of costly inventory. I personally believe that you don’t want to get into any opportunity that demands that you buy a bunch of inventory before you’ve had a chance to promote the product. Normally, in these situations, you end up with a garage full of lotions, potions, or other such stuff you can’t sell and the company that sold it to you is getting rich. NOT through the sales of the products, but by forcing their dealers to buy inventory up-front.
• There’s no agreement to buy back any of your unsold inventory (if it’s such hot stuff and it will sell so easily, why won’t they buy it back?) Again, I wouldn’t get involved with a company that requires that you purchase a lot of inventory right off the bat. But if you do, they should have some sort of “buy back” agreement. If not, that’s a warning sign.
• Fake or Misleading Guarantees. For example, if the guarantee says, “Give our system a try... and if, after trying it, it doesn’t make you $100,000 in cash, simply send it back and we’ll refund every penny you paid, no questions asked”. Sounds okay, right? Actually, the guarantee states that you have to try their system before you can get a refund. And, if they haven’t told you what the system is before you purchase it, you might find that trying their system is more costly than the price of the system you’re buying. For example, one time I bought a system that taught me how to make money running full-page ads in magazines to generate sales. The only way I could get a refund on the $40 system was if I sent them a copy of the magazine with the full-page ad in it. That ad would have cost me $4,000. So to get back my $40, I would have had to spend $4,000! Plus, by the time my ad would have run, the company was already out of business and had moved onto some otherpost office box to start this scam all over again.

Secrets of the Opportunity Market

The business opportunity market is huge. It includes all of the companies selling moneymaking booklets in the business opportunity magazines (like Money-Making Opportunities, Get Rich at Home, and Entrepreneur), the thousands of money-making websites online, late-night infomercials that promise you “instant real estate riches” and “money in your mailbox”, and even the traveling “workshops” that visit large cities, hawking various wealth-building systems.

The demand for information on how to make more money is so large that thousands of companies are making millions of dollars a year just trying to keep up with the demand. In fact, some people are making up to (and over) $1 million dollars a month selling this wealth-building information.

Because of this huge demand, there are some schemers and con artists who take advantage of people who are looking for wealth. Because they’re more interested in getting rich than helping others, they have no problem fabricating lies and telling people what they want to hear. These companies often rake in a large amount of money selling worthless information and then disappear into thin air before customers can get their money back. Then, a few weeks or months later, they start over again with a different name and a different product. Fortunately, the FTC keeps an eye open for these types of scam artists, but even their diligent efforts can’t rid the business opportunity marketplace of everyone who wants to make a fast buck taking advantage of people’s dreams.

On the other hand, there are also very good, honest, hard-working people in the opportunity market who really are trying to help their clients and customers make money. I’m proud to say I’m one of those people. Because of my background, living hand-to-mouth in a beat-up mobile home (with a family of mice) in a dirty, run-down trailer park in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, my mission in life is to make sure the people who want out of their present circumstances have the information and help necessary to achieve their dreams. I understand what it’s like to feel like you have untapped potential. I understand what it feels like to believe that if you only had the right system, the right information, you could become a millionaire. So I’ve dedicated my life to providing the best financial freedom information to those who want it.

Fortunately, there are a lot of people just like me. And they deliver great, high-quality information on how to truly make a lot of money. Whether it’s in real estate, mail order, the Internet, or starting your own home-based business, they’re “good guys and gals” focus on helping their clients break free of their money worries and move toward true financial freedom. In this section, I’m going to reveal some of the techniques used by the shadier side of the opportunity market. I want to help you avoid being taken advantage of. I’ve talked to too many people who have gone into serious debt, up to $90,000.00 and more, buying worthless “get-rich quick” junk from con artists. Please read this section carefully. It has the potential to save you thousands of dollars a year in money wasted on money-making systems that don’t work.

The Blind Ad
 

A “Blind Ad” is any advertisement (magazine ad, sales letter, website) that doesn’t tell you what the system is behind the money-making program. An opportunity publisher leaves out the actual “secret”, because-- in most cases-- the method for making money takes work and effort, which often turns off the business opportunity buyer.

Instead, the ad tells a story of how the opportunity marketer was down on his luck, broke, and struggling to get by. Then, often through a lucky twist of fate, the marketer found a get-rich method. Maybe he stumbled onto a dusty book in a used bookstore. Or maybe he sat next to an elderly gentleman on a park bench that turned out to be a millionaire. Once the get-rich method was discovered, the marketer had an almost miraculous turnaround, going from broke to superwealthy, with a mansion, exotic cars, and taking luxury vacations.

The story of this amazing reversal is enough to capture the imagination (and wallet) of the reader. If the story captures the attention and imagination of the reader, he or she rarely needs additional facts or figures to decide to purchase.

If any details are given about the actual money-making method, they’re normally vague and often very simple. Some phrases used in blind ads include...
• Do everything while you sit in front of your TV.
• Do it from your favorite easy chair in your spare time.
• Make money in as little as 15 to 30 minutes a day or less.
• All you do is fill out one simple form. That’s it!
• Just do ONE SIMPLE STEP and you can get paid for life!
• Just go to your mailbox and pull out checks!
Often, the reader is told what the opportunity IS NOT, instead of what it is. For example, many money-making ads and sales letters try to keep you from guessing what the opportunity is (without actually telling you what it is) by saying... 

This isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s...
NOT MLM
NOT Mail Order
NOT Real Estate
NOT Internet Marketing
NOT Import/Export
NOT Online Auctions
NOT Personal Selling
It’s 100% completely different!

Often, you’re fed excuses as to why they can’t reveal the actual method in the marketing piece. They only want to let a few people know about it. They only have time to work with a small number of people. They don’t want to let the cat out of the bag. They want to help only those people willing to take action. Whatever the reason, it always sounds believable. But normally, the reason is that if they did tell you what it took to really make money with their getrich method, you wouldn’t be interested. At least, that’s what they believe. So they promote it by using their own success story (if it’s actually real), photocopied bank statements, and a statement from their accountant. That’s enough to hopefully get people to buy. And often, people do buy.
In droves.

Fake Testimonials
 

It’s illegal to make up testimonials for a product-- very illegal. However, that doesn’t stop opportunity marketers from doing it. I’m certainly NOT suggesting that many opportunity marketers do it. In fact, only those who are on the fringes of the business opportunity market take the risk of going to prison by creating testimonials and success stories out of thin air.

However, it does happen and you should be aware that it does happen. Often, people decide to purchase a money-making opportunity NOT on the basis of the actual opportunity, but based on the success stories and testimonials of people who have used the opportunity to get rich.

There’s one very well known case where an opportunity marketer made up testimonials and went to prison for a very long time. William J. McCorkle sold a real estate course through a late-night TV infomercial. In his
infomercial, he showed his luxurious lifestyle-- complete with stretch limousines, helicopters, and planes. He also trotted out one “Success Story” after another who supposedly got rich using his wealth-building methods.

In reality, these “Success Stories” were friends of Mr. McCorkle, as well as actors and actresses paid to give fake testimonials for his infomercial. These people hadn’t made one dime with his system, yet their stories motivated thousands of people to dig into their pockets and pay for Mr. McCorkle’s system.

Long story short, Mr. McCorkle was charged with numerous crimes (some for the fake testimonials, others for money laundering and conspiracy). On November 4th, 1998 William McCorkle was found guilty of 82 counts of fraud and money laundering. In January 1999, he and his wife were both sentenced to 24 years in prison, where they remain to this day. 

William McCorkle ran a multi-million dollar business opportunity company and most people believed his testimonials were true. They weren’t. Don’t purchase a money-making opportunity based solely on testimonials. Do your research and make sure the opportunity is solid before investing.

Conditional Guarantees

While I don’t see these as often today as I did back in the late 1980’s, conditional guarantees do pop up once in a while.

Basically, a conditional guarantee states that you can get a refund of your investment, IF you meet certain conditions. Opportunity marketers use conditional guarantees to make sure their buyers do NOT get a refund. Or, at the very least, to make sure that their buyers must jump through multiple hoops before they get a refund.

A common conditional guarantee is that you must prove that you used the opportunity before you can get a refund. For example, one money-making system I purchased revealed that you needed to place a full-page ad in a magazine before you could get a $25 refund. Since a fullpage ad cost $2,000 at the time, it made no sense for someone not interested in the moneymaking method to spend $2,000 to get back $25. That’s another reason why some opportunity marketers sell their methods “blind”. A marketer selling a business opportunity blind, with a conditional guarantee, has you trapped if you discover the money-making method isn’t something you want to do. You couldn’t tell that from the original ad and by the time you know the method, the only way to get your money back is to actually try the method. It’s a catch-22 situation.

As I stated before, while many opportunity marketers no longer use these conditional guarantees, keep your eyes peeled for them. They’re usually worded like this: 

“Plus, I fully guarantee your entire purchase-- so there is no risk to you. Simply try my system for 30 days and if you don’t make at least $10,000.00, simply send it back for a full and complete refund, no questions asked.” 

The “catch” here is that the guarantee says you have to “try the system for 30 days,” which may involve spending hundreds or thousands of dollars. And, with these types of conditional guarantees, you never know exactly what the marketer means by “trying the system” until you get the system in the mail and they’ve laid out the 18 things you have to do before you can ask for a refund.

The Magic Pill

Opportunity marketers all know that human beings respond to messages of convenience and ease. We don’t want to exert a lot of hard, back-breaking effort. We don’t want to spend our lives working. We don’t want to go to bed late, dead tired, only to drag ourselves out of bed before the crack of dawn, to toil for another day. We want things quick, easy, and right now. 

Opportunity marketers feed this natural tendency by selling us what I and other marketers call, “The Magic Pill”. For example, if you had to make a choice between losing weight by exercising hard 2 hours a day, 7 days a week, and eating only salads OR by taking a “Magic Pill”, which would you prefer? The pill, right? How about making money? Want to try to start a business, rent an office, hire employees, and deal with the constant headaches and hassles of running your own company? Or would you rather be able to get rich by swallowing a “Magic Pill”?

The magic pill always wins out. Of course, opportunity marketers don’t really sell a magic pill, but they try to sell you the next best thing. Any method they can sell you, that takes little or no work, little or no money, and little or no effort, is like a magic pill. Turnkey websites are like a “magic pill”. The website is ready to go. Professionally designed. Proven products. Website hosting included. The company selling the website will stock, process, and ship all orders. 99% of the “work” is done for you. ALL you have to do is simply advertise it. And that only takes as little as 15 to 30 minutes a day in your spare time. You can even place ads while sitting in front of your TV, watching your favorite shows.

It’s a “Magic Pill”. Get rich by just placing a few ads and we’ll do everything else to make you rich. It’s a big promise in easy-to-swallow “pill” form. 

The “Magic Pill” can come in many different forms:
• Ready-to-go website, sales letter, ads
• Drop shipping of products to your customers. No stocking of inventory.
• Printing and mailing marketing materials for you
• Mailing marketing materials to mailing lists on your behalf
• Closing leads by telephone and giving you commissions
 

Anything that takes what might ordinarily be a more energy-intensive activity and turns it into an “already-done-for-you” system is known as a “Magic Pill”. Honestly, I like the concept of the magic pill. In some instances, it really can work. For example, you can look at affiliate programs as a “Magic Pill” way of making money. 

You simply refer people to companies through your affiliate link and you can get paid for any sales made, even though the companies do all of the work of stocking, processing, and filling orders. However, some companies take the “Magic Pill” idea a bit far or use it simply to capture people who either don’t have any time to start and build their own business or who simply don’t want to start their own business, but still want the financial benefits that come from owning one. 

While some companies do offer some services that fall into this “Magic Pill” category, they also have parts of the business that you must do. Other companies, though, may try to convince you that they do 100% of the work and you do absolutely nothing. Let’s get real. If you do nothing and the company does 100% of the work, why would they pay you a dime? These systems are often illegal and can end up getting the people selling them into trouble. In fact, I know of one guy who ran a very large multi-million dollar corporation that promised his clients that he would “Do Everything For You”. All his clients had to do was write him a check and he’d print the sales letters, mailing them to lists, fulfill orders, and send out commission checks.
 

Well, without going into too much detail, I heard recently that he settled a plea deal with the government – and went to prison for quite a few years. Watch out for these “Magic Pill” deals that seem too good to be true. Too often, they really are.

In Conclusion...
 

The opportunity market, like any market, has its share of companies who try to take advantage of people. Unfortunately, these companies make the high-quality companies look bad. To keep from being ripped off, be cautious when purchasing money-making programs – and do your research first. A little bit of research can save you a lot of money and headaches later on. 

Check out the company online through Google.com or any other major search engine. If you have questions about the opportunity that aren’t answered in the marketing materials, feel free to call or write for more information. If you don’t get an answer you’re satisfied with, it’s a good bet that you won’t be happy once you’ve purchased their opportunity either. And don’t worry about those “Limited Bonuses” or “You Must Order Within 24 Hours” offers. Most companies will accept your money at any time. So take your time to investigate and research. If it’s a good opportunity today, it’ll be a good opportunity next week or next month as well.

Secrets Behind Crazy, Wacky, Wild, Weird, and Odd Get-Rich-Quick Programs

Maybe you’ve seen the ads in the money-making magazines. Pictures of huge mansions, luxury cars, boats, airplanes, and almost unbelievable stories of people going from poverty to wealth overnight. Inside this chapter, I’ll reveal the secrets behind the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly.

How to Make Over $387,000 Doing Absolutely Nothing
It’s funny how the titles of these opportunities never really tell “the whole story” behind them. The author of this opportunity reveals that by selling money-making programs in the business opportunity magazines and through direct mail, he generates a rather large mailing list of buyers. Every quarter he sends his list manager these names, and they’re rented by other companies who want to mail to them. Every time the mailing lists are rented, he gets a commission check. Since he started renting his lists out (through his list manager), he generated the large six-figure income in the title of his book. While you could argue that the title is accurate (once he sends the names to the list manager, the list manager does all of the work of promoting and renting the names, and he gets a commission check on a regular basis for “doing nothing”), it certainly doesn’t tell the
entire story. To get those thousands and thousands of buyer names, the author of this system had to create a hot-selling product and invest money by marketing it through expensive magazine advertising and direct mail. Anyone who has run a mail order company knows that creating products, writing copy, and placing ads is not considered “doing nothing”.

How to Turn Your Junk Mail Into Cold, Hard Cash
There are a few variations on this money-making system. The first (and most popular) concept is to become a distributor for mailing lists and, as “junk mail” (also known as “direct mail”) arrives in your mailbox, you send your flyer selling mailing lists BACK to the marketer who mailed you the junk mail. The thinking here is that since the marketer originally paid for a mailing list to send YOU his information, he’s a BUYER of mailing lists and you’re more likely to get him to buy a mailing list from you. There’s one problem I have with that concept: IF the marketer has been doing direct mail for quite some time and is experienced in this field, he or she will have contacts with a list broker who can get him or her almost any list. It’s rare that they’ll buy and test a mailing list from an unknown source. (Not impossible, just rare). Other systems using this same concept have to do with selling the marketer printing (since he needs to print his direct mail pieces) or selling him other things, like copywriting services or display advertising in opportunity publications.Another variation on this concept shows you “How to Make BIG BUCKS from Full-Page Ads in the Money-Making Magazines”. Again, the idea is to sell these advertisers products and services, from printing and envelopes to advertising in other publications and mailing lists.

How to Get Paid $2 for Each Envelope You Stuff
This is an OLD money-making concept and the very first one I ever fell for 19 years ago. There are a bunch of different version of this, but they all revolve around the same basic concept. Here it is: Company A sells you their “Envelope Stuffing Kit” for approximately $29.95. Sometimes it’s less, sometimes more, but it’s often right around $30 bucks. With that, you get a classified ad to place in your local newspaper (or in magazines) and instructions on what to do with the envelopes. The system tells you to place the classified ads (which say, “Make Big Money From Home! Send $2 and Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope To [Your Address]”) and when people send you $2 and the self-addressed stamped envelope (S.A.S.E.), you keep the $2.00. You put a flyer in the S.A.S.E. that sells Company A’s home-business booklet for about $20 bucks. Sometimes you get to keep a portion of this $20 sale, but often, you don’t. 

This is a GREAT deal for Company A and a horrible deal for the person who purchased the Envelope Stuffing Kit. Here’s why: First, Company A makes a bunch of money selling the envelope stuffing kit. Because the actual system rarely, if ever, works, the company counts on making 99.9% of its money selling the envelope stuffing kit. Second, virtually no one is going to send you $2 AND a self-addressed STAMPED envelope based on a few words in a classified ad. 

You’ll be lucky to get any response from an ad like that. And third, IF you do get a response, you’ve made a whopping $2. However, Company A now has the ability to get their offer to a serious prospect with NO RISK! The prospect sent in an envelope, pre-addressed and stamped, so if the prospect doesn’t buy the home-business booklet, Company A is only out the cost of a single flyer. BUT, if the prospect pays for the home business booklet, Company A pockets some money with no risk. It’s a no-lose situation for Company A and an almost no-win situation for the person who purchases the envelope stuffing kit.

Other companies have changed the basic concept to allow the “envelope stuffer” to become a distributor of the home business book and put their own name and address on the flyer, print up copies, and insert it into each S.A.S.E. Then when orders come in, the envelope stuffer keeps about 50% of each sale and sends the rest to Company A for drop shipping. Again, Company A still makes 99.9% of its money selling the envelope stuffing kit. Giving the envelope stuffer a portion of each booklet sale made it simply an enticement to get them to buy the envelope stuffing kit. Since the ad continues to ask for $2 and a self-addressed stamped envelope, your responses will always be very low.

By the way, if you’ve seen any of these offers, they make it seem as though they’ll be sending you the envelopes, stamps, and names to mail the offers to. However, if you read them carefully, you’ll see that most of them say, “All envelopes, stamps, and addresses WILL BE PROVIDED TO YOU.” Yes, they’ll be provided to you BY THE PROSPECT who responds to your ad. Wording that suggests that the company will be sending you these items makes your “small” investment of $29.95 seem like nothing.

How to Make Money Assembling Products From Home
Ugh! I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about these “work-at-home assembling products” offers. The basic pitch is simple: A company that sells craft items is looking for people to assemble these items from home and get paid for each piece assembled and returned to headquarters. You can do as much “work” as you want, but the more you do, the more you get paid. Easy, right?

Wrong. Many of these companies (As far as I know, all of them) charge you a fee, from $15 to $30 or more, to qualify to assemble products. Then, the company sends you a starter kit of crafts to assemble and usually a completed sample so you can see how your craft is to look once finished. So you start assembling, finish one, and mail it back to the company for payment. 

Surprise, surprise. Your item wasn’t assembled “up to the standards set by headquarters”. It’s sent back, and you’re asked to try again. You try again and send it back. Once again, it’s rejected – with a note to keep trying. Often, you’ll never be paid for assembling these items. If you are, it’s next to nothing. And you’d have to assemble hundreds, even thousands of products to make any decent amount of money.

It’s a pitch that has worked very, very well over the years for the companies willing to sell it, because the work sounds so easy-- it can be done from home, you’re your own boss working on your own schedule, and it appears to be the perfect way to make a little extra cash. Unfortunately, the only person that profits from this opportunity is the company that sells the kits to the people who wish to assemble them.

How to Get Paid Big Money for Taking Simple Photographs
Like most opportunity ads, the promises are great, but the details are sparse. The secret behind this opportunity is the fact that you work (as an independent contractor) for real estate investors in your area. You’re paid (per assignment) to drive around to potential real estate properties, take pictures, and deliver them to the busy real estate investor. The idea is that you can work for many different real estate investors in your area, spend your day driving around, taking simple photographs of potential investment properties, and get paid. I’m not sure that this idea is a winner. The real estate investors I know either check out the properties themselves, first-hand, or have a trained staff member check out each potential investment property. You’d have to do more research to see if this concept is a viable money-making idea.

How to Get FREE CASH GRANTS from Foundations and the Government
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, I did a bunch of research on grants. I wrote a book on getting grants and was the co-author of another book on free money. I’ve done hundreds of hours of exhaustive research on this exciting topic so I can give you the “straight dirt” on grants. 

Here’s the truth (but you may not like it): You’ve seen the ads that seem to claim that you can get $25,000... $100,000... even $250,000 or more for virtually anything. Pay off your bills, buy a new car, pay off your home, go on vacation. The ads make it seem like there’s an endless pile of money that foundations and government agencies are willing to give away to anyone for any reason. I’m here to tell you, that’s NOT true.

First, MOST private foundations DO NOT award grants to individuals. Most foundations award grants to agencies and charities. Those agencies and charities then use that money to fund their good works. Second, the U.S. Government does give financial assistance to individuals, but you often have to qualify, fill out paperwork, and it usually comes with restrictions.

If you’re serious about getting a grant, understand that there’s a process for applying and qualifying for this money. You have to have a good reason for wanting the money. Paying bills or buying a home, while you might think is the perfect reason, will not satisfy most foundations or agencies awarding money. Money that is awarded is usually given for education, the arts, the advancement of science, or any of a number of humanitarian reasons. There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out, you must qualify, and then your application must be reviewed and accepted by a panel before it’ll be funded. Some foundations hold meetings to review grant applications only once or twice a year. So if you miss the deadline, you’ll have to wait a year before your application is even reviewed. And if it is accepted, you’re not cut a check immediately. Often, you’re given payments over time. And the foundation may wish to check on the progress of your project to make sure the funds are being spent accordingly. You may even have to provide an accounting of how the money was used.
 

It’s exciting to think about qualifying for FREE MONEY! After all, without the dream of “something for nothing”, no one would play the lottery or travel to Las Vegas. I’ve known two people who made an absolute fortune selling “Free Money” information. And there’s another person I heard about that’s selling “Free Money” information on the Internet at www.freecollegecash.com – and has made MILLIONS of dollars so far, and the money continues to roll in. It’s a “magic” topic that captures people’s imagination and it lures a lot of people in.

One of the ways people get hooked into buying information on grants and “free money” is that there are a handful of programs that do give money for housing and other types of financial assistance for individuals. However, the number of them are few, you must qualify, and often you’re competing for a limited amount of money with a lot of other highly qualified people. The fact that these programs exist does NOT guarantee that they’re easy to qualify for or that you’ll have any chance of receiving this free money.

When I was doing my research on grants, I stumbled onto some great books by author Laurie Blum. You can still find her books at your local bookstore or through Amazon.com. One of her more popular books is called The Complete Guide to Getting a Grant: How to Turn Your Ideas Into Dollars. Highly recommended if you’re interested in looking into getting grants. 

How to Get Paid $1 For Every Name and Address You Compile
If nothing else, the opportunity marketers are creative writers. The ad for this opportunity explains that you will get paid $1 for every name and address you compile. Send in 1 name, you make $1. Send in 100, you get $100. Send in 1,000 names, you get $1,000. You get the picture. The ad also states that there is NO LIMIT to the number of names and addresses you send in and you’ll get paid $1 for every one!

Here’s the secret: It’s the EXACT SAME secret as the ad that states you’ll make $2 for every envelope you stuff. The only thing that changes is the way the concept is presented. Basically, you again place an ad for a home-business booklet and ask the prospect to send you $1 plus a self-addressed stamped envelope. When you receive a response from someone who saw the ad, you keep the $1 and you send the S.A.S.E. (with the prospect’s name and address) to headquarters. The tone of the ad makes it seem as though you can write down names and addresses out of your local phone book and get paid $1 each. However, the  truth is that you have to place ads (with your own money) and hope that someone will go to the trouble of sending you $1 AND a S.A.S.E. for more information. Again, as I stated before, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to get a response from these types of ads. And, if you do, it’s only $1 for you but a potential $20 sales for the company that sold you this kit. 

How to Turn Your Fax Machine Into an ATM
This is yet another ad that doesn’t tell the entire story. If you run a mail order business selling anything, and you have a merchant account (which gives you the ability to process credit card orders), you can receive orders via your fax machine anytime, 24 hours a day. For example, it’s 10:50PM right now and a few moments ago, I heard my fax machine receive another order for a promotion I recently mailed out. In the past, I’ve had days where my fax machine has cranked out tens of thousands of dollars in orders. In just one day!

However, that’s a far cry from “turning your fax machine into an ATM”. The ad makes it sound instantaneous. The reality is that you must first create a hot-selling offer, market it to the right list, and THEN your fax machine can accept orders. And this process of finding the right market, creating a product, and advertising it can easily take weeks or months to do correctly. 

You can get a lot of money through your fax machine, but only if you have a hot offer that people are willing to buy. And, if you do, you’ll also receive money in your mail AND by phone. 

How to Get Paid to Watch Your Favorite TV Shows
The opportunity marketers understand that the easier they can make their money-making schemes sound, the more likely people are to buy them. And how much easier can you make it than “getting paid to watch your favorite TV shows”. 

The concept here is to become a TV Critic! You critique TV shows for your local newspaper and get paid. Ta Da! Yep, that’s it. Exciting, isn’t it. Of course, that’s much harder than it sounds. First, you’d have to have some writing ability. Second, the position would have to be available. And third, there are very few TV-only critics. I wouldn’t quit what you’re doing now to run off and become a TV critic. (You’d have more success running off and joining the circus!)

There’s another plan called “$1 Million Dollar Cash Vision,” which also shows you how to get rich with TV. However, this book shows you how to create and produce-- Your Own Infomercial. Another dismal idea! While TV infomercials CAN be highly profitable, they’re also incredibly expensive to produce and only a small number of infomercials end up making any money. It takes deep, deep pockets to produce an infomercial and even deeper pockets to keep it running while you tweak it until it finally starts working.

Make $25,000 for Assembling “One” Product
The “one” product here is an information product and by “assembling”, the marketers mean writing. The concept is actually good. You can make $25,000.00 by writing one information product. I know of people who have made millions of dollars writing information products. In fact, in this book I have an entire section dedicated to the business of being an information marketer.

However, from reading the ad, you’d never know that it had anything to do with writing and selling an info-product. The ad itself makes it seems as though you’ll assemble something, one time, and get a check for $25,000. What it really means is that you write an info-product one time, sell it for at least $25, and sell 1,000 copies. However, the ad does NOT mention the additional time you’ll have to spend “assembling” a sales letter or ad to sell the product. Or the money you’ll have to spend placing ads or mailing out direct mail letters. The opportunity marketer took a proven business idea but added a “twist” in his letter that made it sound different than anything else. And, in the opportunity market, something different creates curiosity and
cash.

How to Make $15,000 a Day Mailing Dirt-Cheap Postcards
There are a lot of variations of the basic concept, which is selling products or services by mailing out postcards. Often the product is a network marketing opportunity. Other times the product might be mailing lists or home-business booklets. The idea is that you can start making money by simply addressing and mailing out inexpensive postcards while you sit at home, watching your favorite TV shows. (Hey, this could be another way to “Get Paid While Watching Your Favorite TV Shows!”)

The problem is that postcards are good for generating leads and getting people to “raise their hand” for more information, but they are rarely a good medium for making direct sales. There just isn’t enough room on a standard-sized postcard to make a sale. I have had some success myself using postcards to generate leads and then mailing those leads a larger direct mail package with an order form. Using that method, you can see some positive results. But again, this is regular ol’ mail order marketing. As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, opportunity marketers are great at taking a tried-and-true concept and putting a new twist on it that makes it
sound completely different and unique.

Make $17,500 a Month – Mailing Two Simple Letters
What are the two simple letters? The ad never tells you but promises to reveal the secret-- INSIDE THE $25 book. Here’s the secret: One letter is really a full-page ad that sells a moneymaking book for $10 to $15. The second letter is an advertising placement form that you use to place the ad in a money-making magazine. You mail the ad with your ad placement form (and payment) to the magazine; it runs the ad and you get orders. “$17,500 a month” as the ad states.

(Actually, that number is VERY optimistic!)
Again, it’s plain ol’ mail order. My only problem with this concept is that it recommends that new entrepreneurs spend $2,500 to $5,000 to run a full-page ad in a money-making magazine selling a $10 to $25 book. At $10, you’d have to sell 250 to 500 of these books just to break even! And while these magazines do have large readerships, unless you have a hot product and a killer ad, I doubt you’ll be able to break even. In fact, most opportunity marketers use these low-cost $10 to $25 products as “loss leaders” that pull in buyers so they can sell them a large $250 to $500 back-end product.

Get Paid for Reading Classified Ads in Your Local Newspaper
There are two main ways that these type of opportunities work. First, you have the real estate investing method. You’re supposed to read the daily newspaper and check the classifieds for motivated sellers of homes in your local area. Then, you offer them creative financing deals (lease options, no money down, owner financing, etc.) to gain control of the property. That’s one method behind the “Get Paid for Reading Classified Ads” opportunity. 

A second version reveals that you should watch the “For sale” section of the classifieds and look for items (like TV’s, cars, exercise equipment, etc.) that are grossly under priced. Often, people just want to get rid of items around their home, so they’re willing to take next to nothing for them. The plan is to keep your eyes peeled for these types of deals. Then, you buy the item and turn it around and sell it for a slightly higher price in the same classified ad section. It follows the basic concept of “Buy Low, Sell High”. Today, with the Internet, this method can be even more effective. You now have the ability to buy under priced items through the classified ad section and sell them on the Internet, through sites like eBay. This can work well, but you need a constant supply of under priced items (that are in demand online) to create a consistent income.

Make Real Money Shopping and Eating at Your Favorite Restaurants
When an opportunity marketer stumbles onto a unique way to make money, watch out! You’ll soon see ads promoting it as a way that almost anyone can make money, when only a handful of people are actually doing it. This particular opportunity has to do with becoming a Mystery Shopper.

A mystery shopper is someone who is hired (normally by a major corporation, or a mystery shopping agency) to shop at a store or eat at a restaurant and secretly review the store or restaurant on their service. Companies use mystery shoppers because when someone from corporate headquarters arrives all employees are on their best behavior. It’s impossible to gauge whether or not the business is being run properly. So a mystery shopper will play the part of a customer, buy something (or eat a meal)and then fill out a review form that gives corporate headquarters an actual idea of how customers are being treated.

Mystery shoppers are reimbursed for any money they spend shopping or eating at a restaurant, and they’re paid an additional fee for each review they submit to headquarters. Currently, in Dallas, there is an organization for agencies that hire and place mystery shoppers called the Mystery Shopping Providers Association.

If you’d like to find a mystery shopping agency in your local area, the best idea is to search the Internet. Within seconds of entering “Mystery Shopping Dallas” into Google’s search engine, I found a company called Feedback Plus, which pays mystery shoppers to review area businesses. 

However, BE CAREFUL! 99% of the mystery shopping websites on the Internet are SELLING INFORMATION about mystery shopping and are NOT actually going to give you mystery shopping assignments. Many of these e-books on Mystery Shopping contain old, wornout information and dead links to websites that no longer exist. Some careful research on the Internet can pull up actual companies that want to work with real mystery shoppers.

NOTE: Do NOT expect to make a full-time living as a mystery shopper. Often, mystery shoppers may do one or two assignments a week, being paid $20 to $50 per assignment. At other times, a shopper may do one assignment a month or not do any assignments for a longer period of time. Since it’s such an appealing way to make money (shopping and eating), the number of people vying for these positions is overwhelming. And with the deluge of e-books and reports on the Internet pointing people to these mystery shopping companies, the competition is fierce. If you’d like to make an extra $25 to $50 bucks a week and being a
mystery shopper sounds fun, do some extra research and see if this sounds right for you. Just don’t go into this field with unrealistic income expectations.

How to Pocket Huge Profits with Ordinary Tap Water
If you’ve seen the Wizard of Oz, you know that the “Great and Mighty Oz” that ruled the Emerald City was merely Professor Marvel behind a curtain. Once Toto pulled back the curtain, the illusion of the “Great and Mighty Oz” was gone and only the reality remained. 

I’ve been buying money-making opportunities for almost 20 years, and I’ve seen just about everything. This opportunity is one that made the light bulb go off over my head. I realized that the opportunity publishers RARELY if ever find a real breakthrough way to make money. 

Instead, they take something that is already working for someone else, whether it’s mail order, real estate, the Internet, tax liens, buying & selling, etc. and they give it a little different spin or twist to make it look different. After seeing this opportunity ad, I was quickly able to see other ads and figure out (without even buying the system), the trick-- the actual money-making system they are talking about. Today, my mind automatically works that way. Even when the actual system isn’t revealed, I can normally think through their wording and decipher the secret behind their system.

This one was tricky. After all, HOW can you make HUGE PROFITS with tap water? The ad explains that you go to almost any sink, fill a glass with tap water, and shortly after, you leave with a check for hundreds of dollars. And you can do this over and over again, each time you fill a glass with tap water, you pocket a few hundred dollars in cash. Sounds like magic, right? It’s not. Basically, you go to someone’s house, fill up a glass of water from their faucet, and pitch them on the BENEFITS OF BUYING A WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEM from you. You show them how dirty their water is. You have them do a taste test and compare the taste of two glasses of water-- their unfiltered tap water and filtered water. You explain the dangers of lead in the water. You talk about bacteria and pull out charts with examples of deaths due to bacterial infections. You pitch them on your water purification system, close them hard, and if you did a good job, you sell them an expensive water purification with a high-profit margin (of which, you pocket 50% to 75% or more).

Do you see what I mean? The ad only gives you 10% of the overall story. If it explained that you’d have to go door-to-door, selling high-priced water purification systems, you might not be interested. However, by pitching this as a way to “Make Money from Tap water”, it sounds magical. None of the actual work is explained. You’re led to believe that you simply fill up a glass with water, do something that’ll be explained in the system they’re selling for $25 bucks, and you walk away with cash. But like many get-rich-quick plans, you buy the booklet for $25 bucks, believe the “Wizard of Oz” is real, and when you get it, you realize that the man behind the curtain has duped you.

One lesson to take away from this, especially when you’re presented with a “blind offer” (Meaning: An offer where the actual system that creates the money is NOT revealed), is try to think through what the actual method could be. Training yourself to see past the hype and understand what they’re selling BEFORE you invest your money is a great way to keep your money in your wallet, instead of donating it to a multi-million dollar opportunity marketer.

How to Make Money Helping Others Get a Major Credit Card 

This opportunity gives you the ability to sell people a list of companies that offer secured credit cards. A secured credit card is a card that is normally “secured” by a savings account. This way, even if the person applying for the card has bad credit, the company issuing the card feels secure in issuing it, because their credit limit is backed by actual cash. If the person can’t repay their balance, it’s paid out of the secured account.

Online, you can also promote credit cards (both secured and unsecured) and get a commission each time someone signs up for a credit card through your link. One smart Internet marketer, Joe Lloyd, has created a program that can automatically create a ready-to-go website with multiple credit card offers. You simply promote the site and when people visit, they can browse through your credit card offers and choose the one that’s right for them. When they do, you get paid a commission. Complete details are available at www.creditriches.com

How to Fatten Your Wallet in No Time Flat
One of my favorite money-making books of all time is this book, written by a marketer named Lawrence Tabak. This silver book, roughly 131 pages, reveals how he made a bunch of money selling products by mail. It’s basically a starter course for anyone who wants to make good money in direct response marketing. However, it’s a great read, because Mr. Tabak is a very entertaining writer and really tells you the secrets behind writing sizzling hot copy, finding great markets, locating products, and building a large direct marketing business. The book was very low-cost, and from the pile of testimonials on the marketing piece he mailed out, I’m guessing he sold thousands of copies.

The back of his manual contains a special offer to join his Inner Circle Club and get his personal coaching for $1,950. And I’m sure that a good portion of the people who purchased his booklet invested in his coaching program. I have no doubt that Mr. Tabak used the marketing advice he gave throughout his book and created a million dollar fortune selling the book and his coaching program.

Today, Mr. Tabak runs a vitamin company on the Internet. He’s retired from the opportunity market – and no longer sells his book, How to Fatten Your Wallet in No Time Flat. I contacted him once to try and get the rights to re-publish it, but to no avail. Sometimes used versions are available through Amazon.com for between $9 and $12. I highly recommend checking to see if you can get a copy. Very highly recommended.
 

Make up to $9,600 in 24 Hours or Less

These types of blind ads never tell you what you’ll be doing. The opportunity marketers that write and publish these info-products rely on their stories of “rags to riches”. I’m sure you’ve heard them over and over again. “I was broke, I lost my home, I was eating the last box of Wheat Thins on the corner in the rain when I had an idea! Within days, I made $50,000. Today, I own an island, a jet plane, and a small country in Europe!” And for only $25 bucks, you can discover what my amazing idea is.

This system is no different from any other. You’re supposed to be impressed that you can make a large sum of money very quickly. Other ads claim the same thing, just with different dollar amounts. And honestly, the dollar amounts don’t matter that much. As long as they’re impressive and the statement “in 24 Hours or Less” accompanies them, it captures the reader’s attention.

So how DO you make this type of money in 24 hours or less? Well, let’s remember that the opportunity marketer doesn’t tell you the entire story. So let’s say, for example, that you spend 20 years of your life searching for valuable antiques. You find some good deals, but nothing spectacular. Then, one day, you stumble into an antique store – and discover a painting you know is easily worth $15,000.00 selling for just $15 bucks! You quickly buy it, drive across town to another antique store and sell it to them for $12,500 cash! You just made $12,500 in less than 24 hours! However, the “real story” is that you have 20 years of experience. You’ve been in and out of every antique store from here to Timbuktu. You’ve read books on antiques, you’ve been to hundreds of auctions, and you have a wealth of experience. So you could say, in this one situation, you did make $12,500 in less than 24 hours BUT that ignores what it took for you to
get to this “24-hour window of opportunity”.

It’s the same way with my business. A few years ago, I had an amazing offer that was selling like hotcakes. It had a $997 price tag and on some days, I might sell 20 or 30 of these. I honestly had days where I made $30,000.00 in ONE DAY! So I guess I could write a booklet that told you “How to Make $30,000.00 In 24 Hours or Less” but a good portion of it would have to explain to you that it took me years to get a good feel for my market, start and build my business, develop my copywriting skills, and just keep at it until I found this opportunity. 

So what the actual opportunity is in this particular instance doesn’t matter as much as the lesson I hope you take from it. The secret behind this opportunity is real estate. And mail order marketing. And information marketing. And Internet marketing. Because ALL of these methods can give you BIG PAYDAYS of $10,000 or more in just one 24-hour period. However, there’s a lot of time, effort, and energy that goes into creating those big paydays. It’s not instantaneous, even though the opportunity marketers make it appear that way. 

Turn a 30-Minute Sunday Drive into $10,000 or More
The secret behind this opportunity has to do with investing in real estate. Every Sunday, you drive around your local area and look for property in which to invest. Whenever you make an offer and close a deal, you can pocket up to $10,000 or more in profits. Again, it’s simply real estate investing with a twist. Do you notice the trend now? The secret is to tie into something that seems easy-- stuffing envelopes, filling up a glass with tap water, compiling names, assembling products, or taking a lazy Sunday drive-- and making HUGE PROFITS and BIG MONEY! But underneath the hype is a real business that takes an investment of time, energy, and money to start and be successful.

$985 a Day Receiving Phone Calls – and You Never Have to Talk to Anyone
This money-making system was the first opportunity created and sold by opportunity marketing multi-millionaire, T.J. Rohleder. The actual system was entitled “Dialing for Dollars” and it really was an ingenious way to make money.

Here’s how it worked: T.J.’s company, Mid-American Opportunity Research Enterprises (M.O.R.E. Inc., for short), offered you a distributorship for a wide variety of moneymaking booklets. You were to place small classified ads in your local newspaper (or any newspaper around the country) that would generate interest in the book you chose to sell. However, here’s where the telephone call “twist” comes in. In your ad, you include a phone number for people to call for more information. The phone number rings into your answering
machine – which gives full details about your booklet and asks the caller to leave their name, address, and phone number... and the booklet will be shipped to them by C.O.D. (Cash On Delivery).

The method is very creative, because it gives people the opportunity to start small, with inexpensive newspaper ads, and use new technology at the time (answering machines) to do 100% of the selling and capturing the buyer’s information. The ads and the answering machine did 100% of the marketing work and the person running the business simply spent a few hours each day taking names off of the answering machine and shipping out the booklets by C.O.D. Today, people are using voice mail instead of answering machines for selling infoproducts from small classified ads. One of the benefits is that your voicemail system can often
take multiple calls at once, instead of the “one-call-only” answering machine. It’s still a very viable concept and one that really worked for a lot of people.

Starting a Service Business

These types of businesses include carpet cleaning, pest control, blind cleaning, car washing, painting, travel agency, mortgage reduction, engraving, power washing, credit consulting, or any number of similar services.
While I won’t cover each one individually, there are a few things to know before getting involved in starting a service business.

First, you need to have the personality to run a service business. In most cases, you’ll need to have great social skills and a desire to talk to people face-to-face. If you’re outgoing, friendly, and like talking to people, a service business could be a perfect fit. Second, it’s important that you like the service you’ll be performing. Yes, even if you want to hire people to actually perform the service for you, it’s good if you have passion for the business you’re running. After all, before you can afford to hire people, you might just have to
clean some carpets yourself. You’ll find that you’re willing to spend more time building and growing your business IF you like the service that the business will perform. For example, I can’t imagine running a carpet cleaning business. And pest control and power washing would be the last things on my list. But an engraving service is intriguing, because it has a creative element to it, which I like. And I like the idea of being a travel agent (even though I wouldn’t recommend you get involved in this area, because of the drastic changes in the travel industry) because I enjoy traveling. Finding something that fits your personality and passions will increase the likelihood that you’ll be successful with it.

Again, as with ANY OPPORTUNITY you’re thinking about investing in, DO YOUR RESEARCH! I can’t stress this enough. I’m always shocked when I hear stories of people investing $10,000 to $25,000 or more to start a business – and they haven’t read the industry magazines, talked to other business owners in the same industry, or even done a simple search on the search engines. You can’t choose a business based on the “Success Stories” of the people that appear in the ad. Those are what I call the “Best Case Scenarios”. You need to do your own due diligence, check out the market for this type of service business, and make an educated choice on whether this business is right for you and right for the area in which you choose to start it. A little research can save you a ton of money!

Selling Fad & Trend Products

Want to make a quick buck? If you spot a fad or a trend, you may have a few weeks, maybe a few months to cash in. Often, when a new invention or fad is popular, you’ll see dozens of companies selling business opportunities offering YOU the “once-in-a-lifetime” chance to get rich quick with the fad.

For example, for a short while, 900 numbers were huge! Companies were promoting psychic lines, horoscope lines, advice lines, gossip lines and, of course, the sex lines. At the same time, companies were also leasing 900 number lines to entrepreneurs and showing them how to set up their own 900 numbers. Books and courses on 900 numbers were H-O-T! For a short period of time, selling the 900 number opportunity was making some people very wealthy indeed. However, as 900 numbers became more regulated and the technology to block 900 numbers became more prevalent, they died down and most companies got out of the business of re-selling 900 numbers. Today, you can search most business opportunity magazines and not find a single ad offering 900 numbers.

The challenge with selling fad items, or items tied to a trend, is that you can never be too sure how long the selling cycle will last. Fads can die out quickly. Almost overnight. And you can be stuck with inventory that you can’t even give away. Trends can change a little slower but again, if you build your business around a trend that may last only a few years, you still need to keep in mind that the money will stop flowing in sooner or later.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t cash in while you have a very clear opportunity. I’m simply suggesting that you carefully investigate any type of fad or trend before you jump in with both feet. A little research can help you save a lot of money.

 

Selling Weight Loss Products and Services

The weight loss, diet, fitness, and health industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and it continues to grow with each passing year. Because it is such a large industry, it’s easy to understand why so many business opportunities and network marketing opportunities feature products that help people lose weight, have more energy, or get healthier.

One of the challenges with jumping into a large industry like this, with a lot of other smart marketers, is that you’re having to compete with the best-of-the-best. Can you make money selling weight loss products? You bet. Billions of dollars are made each year. However, those billions are made by the likes of Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and 24-Hour Fitness, not to mention the huge nutraceutical companies. These are multi-million dollar corporations with deep, deep pockets. They have the ability to reach the masses with their message of weight loss, fitness, and health.

IF you are thinking about promoting a weight loss product of any kind, first you must have a HOOK! Weight Watchers has POINTS. The Atkins Diet focuses on LOW CARBS! 8- Second Abs could help you get abs in just 8 SECONDS! (Of course, now they have 6-Second, 5- Second, and even 3-Second Abs! Pretty soon they’ll have INSTANT ABS!) You can’t sell another “Me-Too” product. Your product has to be faster, easier, better, more effective, etc. 

Second, I’m guessing that you won’t be able to afford the millions of dollars corporations spend on their television, radio, and magazine advertising campaigns. No problem. You can TARGET your advertising message by mailing direct mail pieces to lists of people who have previously bought weight loss products. Direct mail is expensive, so you’ll need to TEST your offer (to about 5,000 people) to make sure it’ll work. IF it works with the initial 5,000 mailing, you can do another 5,000 test just to make sure your results are consistent. Then, with good sales, you can rollout and start mailing more.

It’s a very competitive market, full of smart marketers who know their stuff. If you’re going to try and be successful selling a weight loss product, you have to know what you’re doing.