The next best online opportunity

The Next Best Thing

What is the latest business opportunity on the Internet? The best way to make money online? The latest craze?

At the moment new online business opportunities appear on a daily basis. It is crazy to see how many new opportunities become available.Some of them are good but most of them are real hype where people get caught just to loose their last hard earned money.

It amazes me how infatuated people get about being part of “the latest thing”. During the past year that I have been selling my eBook I received some funny comments about it. The one lady told her friend

” seems like he covers adsense, affiliate marketing and online sale in his eBook. That is old news”.

Another wise crack sent me an email in response to my follow up emails saying

“Don’t worry, I think I know what it is about, it is eBooks, contact me again when you found something new”

That might be true, some of the topics in my eBook might be old news but old news are still working for me. Funny enough not one of the people who left above mentioned remarks are financially free yet. They are both still working for a boss and as usual it is these type of people who always knows best.

Old news or old concepts are not bad. We all are still driving our cars. Although a car is OLD news, more than a hundred years old but we still use the concept. It might have been improved by now, but the basic concept remains more than a hundred years old. Perhaps I should tell the car salesman

“Hey, I know what you are trying to do, you are trying to sell me an automobile. That is old news, contact me if you found something new.”

If you look at all the weird and wonderful NEW online opportunities they still boil down to some basic concepts that have been around for the past 8 years; affiliate marketing, referral marketing, network marketing, advertising like Google Adsense and selling electronic products like eBooks and Videos. Then there are the crappy ones like paid to surf, paid to click, paid to read emails, (never get) paid to type or perform other admin tasks, etc.

Because I have been around for the past 8 or 9 years people tend to contact me if the “next best thing” becomes available. All are always chasing the new concept. Some people I know have been chasing the latest craze for the past 5 years and still not make a dime from anything. They are too busy chasing the new ones.

I will always advise you not to have all your eggs in one basket. That is true. You must spread your risk and you must build your passive income from different sources. But you must also not get so busy chasing different opportunities that you loose focus and creditability and in the end make no money.

Some of the “new thing” chasers only call me when they found a “new thing”. Because I know that these guys are jumping from the one opportunity to the other I have no faith in them and will not join anything they present to me. That is what happens if you become a chaser, later on people do not believe you anymore.

Last week an old client of mine said to me “but you say in your eBook that one should not have all your eggs in one basket” after I turned down a opportunity he presented to me. I then said to him that it is true, but I also advice that you must take one concept (like mlm), build a business, build a strong team until that concept becomes self sustainable (which can be after a year or two) and only then you look for something new to get involved in.

Having you eggs in multiple baskets does not necessarily mean joining multiple MLM businesses. It means earning your income from different types of businesses. t can be from one or two (even 3) mlm business, Adsense, affiliate marketing, selling your own product, etc. I found that having too much of only one of these sources takes the fun out of what you do.

Back to the latest thing. It always amazes me how people will just believe somebody who tells them that a new concept that is still in the process of being developed “will be bigger than facebook” or “bigger than Google”, “will be the biggest online business by next year this time”. Really, there are people who fall for this crap. Sometimes I think it is because they do not fully understand the Internet or understand what you can do on the Internet and that is why they fall for all of this.

If you are looking for a way to make money online find yourself one or two proven concepts to start with. Stay away from the big hype. You will NOT instantly earn $6,000 per day no matter what they tell you. Look for more realistic promises and start your journey with a realistic business. Ones you mastered the skill you can go out and look for something bigger.

Coming back to the “$6,000 by next week by doing nothing” promise. It is possible, but do you know how? I will share the secret with you. If you run an online business, should it be affiliate marketing or mlm, you will over the years create a mailing list. The bigger your list the bigger your chance on success. Now if I launch a new product and you happens to have a huge mailing list you can make a pretty penny by promoting my new product. But that only happens a couple of years down the line. So the guy who promotes the “$6,000 by next week by doing nothing” concept is not talking bull. If your mailing list is big enough and you still have creditability with your readers you can make that by sending out one email, but it does not happen over night. So do not fall for that kind of promises.

Talking about creditability, if you jump from one program to the other and you share them with your mailing list promising them the next best thing, you will soon loose your creditability and your chances on online success will grow smaller.

So, I will let others chase “the next best thing” in their spare time after work while I tread along with my “old concepts” enjoying my life at the sea. If somebody tells me “contact me if you found something new” I just laugh silently and think “Ja sure, you come back when you don’t have to work anymore”

What is working for me at the moment?

Well, Google Adsense remained my best earner for the past couple of years now.

Selling my own eBook and web building DVD are catching up on adsense and I am almost making more money from selling my own products than from adsense ads. I can tell you one thing and that is that you get by far the most satisfaction from selling your own product than from promoting somebody else’s product.

The next best earner in my profile is MLM (ICI, BMT and U-Care)

After MLM affiliate marketing and income from selling advertisement space on my web sites are the next best earner.

Although my rental properties do earn me a rather big income it is not a big profit. That is what makes MLM so wonderful. Take BMT for example, a capital outlay of R75 per month makes me a clean profit of about R2,500 per month without having any stock, staff, premises or problems. It runs on its own and this little R75 business earns me more profit at the moment than more than a million rands worth of properties. If we also concider the capital gain of the property they outperform BMT by far but out of a pure short term profit scenario the little MLM business is better. I also tend to loose less sleep about a R75 permium than a R14,000 permium.

In my eBook “Creating a Passive Income” I share all of above plus some more concepts with my readers. Get it now at http://www.passive-income.co.za

A last piece of advice; Sometimes you will also see “The next best opportunity, join now, come in at the top, don’t loose out”. I also fell for that years ago. Later on I learned that there are no rush. Getting in at the top is a small advantage. Too small of weigh against the risk of the “next best thing” not making it and you loosing your good name. There is enought time. Especially for international online opportunities. There are hundreds of millions of potensial clients online. Getting in at the top will not guarentee you any success.

During the last year I made the mistake of joining various new concepts like the Passive Incomes Magazine and BeeaWina. They did not make it and I was one of the fools who believed everything the creators thereof told us. I promoted as being the “next best thing” that will take the world by storm and become bigger than Mxit. In the end they failed and all that we as promoters have left is a damaged creditability. So think twice before joining “the next best thing”.

Internet Marketing, Personal | Pieter | November 27, 2009