Copyright 2005 Elaine Currie
Is it really a free home based business opportunity? Can I make
money without paying anything at all? - Those are about the most
often repeated queries put forward by people who are hoping to
find a way to make money at home online. People who see an
advertisement for a free home based business opportunity want to
be reassured that "free" means it will never cost them a penny
to run their home based business and that they can easily make
money at home online without investing anything. I'm amazed they
could even start to believe such a thing could be possible.
When people ask me the "is it really free?" type of question, I
give them an honest answer. The answer to both question is
usually "yes, but..." and they tend to be disappointed and feel
that they've been tricked and that the advertisers lied when
they offered a free home based business opportunity. It is true
that fortunes can be made from a free home based business on the
Internet and it can be easy to make money at home online but
that is not the whole answer.
I am completely anti-hype but I don't think all Internet
advertising is as misleading as people often claim. If you
consider the average Internet advertisement, its wording is no
worse than the standard "up to 50% off" claims we take for
granted in offline advertising. We know that only a selected few
items will actually be reduced by 50% and we don't feel at all
cheated if we find a bargain with just 20% off its usual price.
The thing is, people see things differently when they are
searching the Internet for ways to make money at home online,
their expectations are far higher, they are more willing to
believe improbable claims and their disappointment is,
therefore, quick and keenly felt..
If you tried to tell the same people that they could make money
at home with an offline business without incurring any costs,
they would laugh you out of the auditorium. However, the
Internet is a strange environment and people need to get
acclimatised before they can recognise a legitimate way to make
money at home online and to understand what is "free" in the
context of a free home based business opportunity. After just a
small amount of experience, people will realise that the free
home based business opportunity is going to cost them money one
way or another if they want to see profits accumulating at any
significant rate. The ones who persevere also eventually realise
that the cost of running a free home based business online is
far less than the cost of running an offline business.
Let's think seriously about starting a business. First, how
about an offline business. Suppose you decide you want to open a
shop and sell dresses. Before you see any profit at all, you
will have to pay out for premises (rent and taxes), services
(fuel, water, phone), stock, insurance and advertising. If you
are going to continue with your current employment while you
build up the new business, you will also need to find staff and
add wages to your list of expenses.
Now let's think about our free home based business opportunity
on the Internet. You need to budget for a product (the
equivalent of the stock of dresses), a website (the equivalent
of the shop premises) and advertising. The list is shorter and
now the Internet home based business opportunity is looking like
a much better deal by comparison. The products can be obtained
either free of charge or for a small price, the cost of a
website is small change compared to the cost of premises, this
will be a home based business, so you won't incur any additional
service charges or insurance. An Internet home based business
can be set up to run 24/7 with just a couple of hours work a
day, so you can continue to earn money at your currently
employment without having to spend anything on staff wages. That
just leaves advertising costs.
Advertising your free home based business is the thing that's
going to take up the biggest part of your budget. If you were
opening your first shop on a limited budget, you would not be
able to afford large premises in the prime part of the busiest
shopping district where you would benefit from passing trade.
You would have to be content with a small side street based shop
and, to make customers aware of your business, you would have to
advertise. In order to get a steady stream of visitors to your
shop, you would need to advertise consistently and continuously.
You would need to place your advertisements where they can reach
your target market and you would need to make sure your
advertisements appeal to your prospective customers so that they
would be prepared to make the detour from the main street to
check out your products.
The Internet works in the same way. Nobody will know about your
new free home based business unless you tell them. You can have
the best website in the whole word but, if you don't advertise
it, it would be like keeping your shop door locked, the blinds
closed and the lights off. No visitors means no potential sales
and that inevitably means no profit. You have no advertise,
simple as that. There are many free advertising resources
available online for your home based business but you need to be
selective as, although there are some very good free advertising
resources, the results to be obtained from the free companies
are not always as good as paid advertising. Another factor to
consider is that using the free advertising resources can take
up a lot of time and you need to place a value on your time and
decide how it can be spent to best effect.
A free home based business opportunity does sound like the ideal
thing for the numerous people who are looking for ways to make
money at home online but are unwilling or unable to spend any
money to do it. Many people leap into the first free home based
business opportunity they see advertised and just as quickly
give up when they find out they need to invest time and money in
order to make money at home online with an Internet based home
business. If these people would think things through, they would
realise that starting an online home based business is far less
costly than starting an offline business and the stage of
getting into profit can come very early. Even if a free home
based business it is not entirely free to run, being your own
boss rather than being someone else's employee is priceless.
About the author:
Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory at her Plug-In Profit
Site to help everyone who wants to work at home:
http://www.huntingvenus.com
