Don't get sucked in by the fancy cars

Now that I've been trolling the net and looking for business opportunities, I'm sure I'm not alone in discovering that most of it is hyped up garbage trying to suck you into their schemes. Your better judgement tells you that anyone who is living the lavish lifestyle portrayed on some of these websites, really doesn't need your money. But their spin is good and obviously they suck in enough people to make a few bucks. Or at least the ones at the top of the schemes are making some good money.

Here is my list of the techniques used to loop you in to these schemes. Stay away from where ever you see these on websites:

1. Lavish lifestyles and expensive cars
2. Clickbank lists of great sales. These are usually copied from other websites.
3. Scam reports. They present as investigators of scams, but they link to stuff they sell.
4. Money back guarantees. They know no one will claim them and in some cases these people never honour them anyway.
5. The word "guru" or "mentor".

It also depends on your philosophy of life whether or not these schemes are for you. If you don't mind taking advantage of people, then you are different from me and you may be able to live with yourself knowingly ripping people off. They say that over 80% of people fail with all these schemes, but the guru's blame the victims for not working hard enough with these systems and that's why they fail. The trouble is, that all the hype the guru's use in the promotion of their schemes is different than what they eventually deliver to you in their package.

Here's an example. How many times have you seen........Easy home business, 1 hour per day,
system on auto pilot, earning $2,300 per week, no experience needed, simple to learn, etc.
Then when you get whatever it is they sell you, they tell you, nothing in life is easy and the system is only as good as the work you are willing to put into it. In a way that is true, but it is certainly not how it is promoted.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of really good solid business opportunities out there. But keep looking, and hopefully you'll find something that doesn't just leave you out of pocket.

Found a real winner!

Now this is right up my alley.

Through my Twitter followers I came across a very novel and cheap home based business called Send Out Cards. You have to use it to believe it!

It's an online system that has over 7,000 greeting cards to choose from and what is unique is that you can select them online, print a personal message of any length on the card, click on Send and the card is printed, stuffed in an envelope, and posted for you. All this for less than a dollar.
You can even arrange to have your own handwriting used as a font type!!

It comes with it's own contact management software, so it can be used for things like birthday cards. It automatically sends you an email 7 days before the contact birthday so you can send a card to them on time.

It's real grass roots stuff that would be ideal for family and friends, but I like the contact management aspects that can be used in business. I have a long list of brokers, real estate agents and veterinarians I can market to.

Another thing that makes it easy to promote is that a prospect can go directly to my website www.sendoutcards.com/aussiebob and try it out for FREE. They can make up their own card and either have it posted to themselves or to someone they want to impress.

It's cheap enough at a one off $398 for their home based business package, but if you don't want to run it as an income producing business, you can purchase their retail package for just $99. Doesn't have all the features as the other packages, but at least you can use the system.

Easiest Home Business

I've been cruising along learning how to research niche markets listed in google and I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've listed 5 categories that look pretty good to me and I have to wait until I receive Module 2 to learn how to market these ideas. Module 2 is due out tomorrow, so maybe by next week a few dollars will be coming in.

It's all coming together now

Sometime a couple of months ago I thought I was doing the right thing by signing up with Big Ticket To Wealth. It was against my better judgement as most of their advertising was way too glitzy to be believeable. Anyway I thought I'd have a crack at it, but after joining and reflecting on what I was about to do, I decided this wasn't for me. The major problem was that you had to onsell their program to someone for over $1,000 without any guarantee that those people would succeed or not. You are supposed to "mentor" those that come on under you, but I didn't want to take on that responsibility.

It seemed to me that most people in this scheme fail, (even admitted by BTTW) and all they are trying to do is to get you to stay in their study program as long as possible to keep them getting their monthly admin fee.

Also, you can't really be too genuine with the people you may be promoting the business to as these people are looking for a mentor and you are a novice yourself. I've since found there is a term for this situation which they call "fake it until you make it". They tell you to write articles saying that you are an internet guru, and that you are a Foundation Member of the company whcih you are not.

I couldn't see a future in it so I terminated my arrangement with them.

Back from the dead

I haven't posted for awhile as I've been suffering (as most males do) with a bit of a winter cold. Now that I've regained some enthusiasm, I'll get back to the business at hand of developing my web presence.

But first, I have to have my Saturday round of golf.

Now I'm a Twit

Effective from about 9.30pm AEST I officially became part of the Twitter network. Talk about teaching old dogs new tricks! Everyone has been telling me to sign up as it can help with networking a new business so I decided to search for mortgage brokers and follow them and see what happens.

Hello to all of you brokers out there! Let's see what we are up to.

Nice to be back home

Well, it all sounded good a week ago when seven of us decided to head off to Yamba, NSW for a week long cycling adventure. The weather was absolutely perfect autumn weather when we left, but one day after arriving in Yamba, a low pressure system hit the area and stormy weather prevailed.

However we did manage to get in 3 days of small trips that probably totalled about 125kms along the Clarence River.

As with all Aussie adventures, the weather isn't a problem if there are a few pubs along the way. Our favourite turned out to be the Brushgrove Pub which was built in 1862. Lovely staff, great food and really cold beer. And since the pub is on the banks of the Clarence and salty water travels up that far from the ocean, we met a local fisherman who sold us 5 kgs of prawns (shrimp) which were some of the freshest and sweetest I've ever eaten.

Due to the weather turning nasty overnight and one of our fellow cyclists having a medical emergency back home we decided to head north back to Bribie rather than suffer a couple of stormy days where we couldn't cycle. Although Brisbane had the same storm go through yesterday, the sun was out when we got home and anyway it's always good to be home.