Home Business - Dont Get One Of The 3 Stooges, Part 3 Turn-Key Computer Business
Making some extra money by working at home sounds great, doesn't it? Choose your own hours, work as much or as little as you want to, fit it all around your other commitments - it sounds wonderful! And it can be, if you give very careful consideration to what I call "The 3 Stooges of Home Business." This article is the third in a series of three articles.
Please be aware that these articles offer you only my own personal experiences and opinions. This particular article focuses on the concept of buying a "turn-key computer business."
If you have been investigating the possibility of starting a home computer business for very long, you have probably seen several websites promoting "business in a box, " "automatic profit system," "turn-key business," "plug-in system," "free website," etc.
Basically, they are all offering you some variation of a "system" that is all set up, ready to go, and you just "turn it on" and start watching money fly into your bank account.
How I wish that were true! I've actually bought three of those "instant profit systems." And I'm writing this article to tell you - I was extremely disappointed in them all. I actually felt intentionally ripped off by one of them. No, I'm not going to name names - I think that's pretty disrespectful. Besides, what felt like a rip-off to me, might work great for someone else.
But here's what I found.
One of the "free websites" was supposed to let me use it as a template in which I could review home business products, and make recommendation to readers about what I thought were the three best products.
It sounded great. I wouldn't have to learn any website design technology - I could just "fill in the blanks" with what I believed to be great home business products. Then all I would have to do (which is actually an enormous task) was get people to look at my website (called "traffic" on the internet).
I would earn money when people followed my recommendations and bought one of the products I had chosen.
Guess what? The website was designed so that the #1 recommendation was always that very same product. So, let's say I bought Joe's Free Website. When I went to "fill in the blanks" with what I thought were great products that I had identified, Joe's Free Website was forced to always be my "top" recommendation. The whole thing was designed so that I couldn't change that.
So, what I would be doing was spending my time and money to send people to a website that strongly recommended that product that I just bought! Guess who was going to be making a lot of money from that devious plan. Not me!
Here's another one. I also bought a "turn-key" website, that I was supposed to just "plug in" and let it start churning out big money for me. Again, my "job" was to get lots of people to visit my website and buy one just like it.
The very next thing that happened was that I started getting almost daily emails telling me that in order to really "max out" the effectiveness of my website, I should buy various up-grades for it (which, by the way, re-billed to my credit card every month for a total of over $100 monthly). Yeah, I did that too. When I finally realized that none of it was working for me, it took most of a year to get all those automatic monthly re-bills canceled.
This particular product has sold literally thousands of these websites that are, of course, all identical. My "new" website was no different from the thousands of other websites that other people had bought. One of the "recommended upgrades" was to change the color scheme on the pre-made website to make it "stand out from all the others." You guessed it! They would change the color for me - and it would only cost me $75!
It was about then that I started to wise up. Should I be embarrassed to tell you about all the promises that I fell for? Probably. But I was really desperate.
So - does this mean that the "turn-key," "automatic profits" products are all rip-offs, and you should avoid them all like the plague?
Probably not. I think it does mean that you should very carefully investigate any such product that you are considering buying. Here are some things I would do, given the benefits of 20/20 hindsight.
There is a phrase that is widely used in the internet business community, which is that you must do your "due diligence." That basically means: Do your homework.
Read the sales website very carefully. Be sure you understand what you will be buying. Look for a link that allows you to cancel your account later if you choose to. Look for "contact us" information. If you have to search the entire website, and finally find it in small print in some unlikely place, you might wonder about that. Look for a "help" link. Actually write to the help desk, and ask any specific questions you have about the product and exactly how it works. If you get no answer, an automated answer, or an evasive answer, consider that to be valuable information to you. Carefully read guarantee and refund information.
Whenever you buy any information product on the internet, be sure to save your receipt and keep track of it. You will almost certainly need the information on your receipt if you ever decide to request a refund for the product. In addition, be careful to keep track of time. Once their stated refund period has expired, any company can quite fairly refuse to return your money.
In summary, I believe that there are no "fool-proof" systems out there. Remember what your mother said: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"
CindyAnn Williams is a self-taught, successful home computer business owner who began her internet business with absolutely no technical knowledge of computers or the internet. She has built her business by trial and error, always trying again after every dead end, and learning from every mistake. CindyAnn's goal is to share what she has learned to help other people who want to become successful home computer business owners avoid the many mistakes she made along the bumpy and often detour-filled road to home computer business success.
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