Beware- The Internet Is Full Of Scams And Scammers
by Joseph Demasi
This is basically a follow up to me previous post. It is true that the internet is full of great information. But did you know that most of the information online is inaccurate. For example, take Wikipedia, for the longest time I actually thought that this was an online encyclopedia, kind of like Britanica or Americana, you know the kind you find in the library. I was actually astounded to find out that ANYONE can make changes to articles and even post articles. Furthermore there is no verification necessary. No-one is going to check the facts. It is really like a huge long running opinion peice where anyone can put their 2 cents in. And to think I was using it to help my daughter with her report!
I point this out for one reason- DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ! Far too often people are caught up in what they 'believe' to be true about the internet and for that matter anything they hear or read at all. The internet is continuosly changing and it is so easy nowadays to put up a website and make outrageous claims that some people will actually believe. Unfortunately people are falling victim to this time and time again. It is affecting everything we do. People are so desperate to believe they can actually make $1000's a month without any real effort that they will fork over $500, $1000, $2000 even $10,000. to someone that they do not know with money that they do not have. They do this on what I call the 2 H's, Hype and Hope.
The latest craze these days seems to be gifting programs These are a form of an illegal pyramid where in order to get paid you must get people to 'buy in' to the program. There is no real product being offered, in fact in a gifting program there is no product at all. You are just going to go ut and find charitable people to gift you money so they can go out and find people to gift them money and so on and so on. People are making $1000's monthly- so they say, with proof- pictures of fed-ex envelopes stuffed with cash. The life of a gifting program is averaging about 6-9 months, when one is closed another pops up with new websites and a slick logo.
My advice- stay away from gifting programs, you may make some money, but someone down the road will get burned.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
How To Avoid Getting Scammed
by Joseph Demasi
I am really getting tired of seeing all the scammers out there ruining it for the rest of us. There are ways to make money online that is moral, ethical and legal. There are also ways to make money that are immoral, unethical and illegal. A question for you to ponder: Which camp would you like to be in?
That may seem like a strange question and of course you would answer that you want to be in the first camp, right? Of course any self respecting person would answer that question that way. If you ask that question of your business partners and they answer this way: "As long as I make money, what difference does it make." If they actually said that to you I hope you would run like h*** away from that person. The problem you run into is that most of the time they want to be in the first camp, but they may actually be in the second camp without even knowing it. Everyone wanting to make money with a home based business needs to do research into the company that they want to be a part of.
Let me give you the definition of a scam: A fraudulent business scheme. Fraudulent comes from the Latin word fraud, which means deceit. Deceiving someone means to trick them.
Some people have also been asking me about pyramids, meaning illegal pyramids:
Illegal Pyramid Scheme
An illegal business that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered.
Sometimes there may appear to be a product - but it’s only there to “look” like a real business. Few people outside of the pyramid desire the product or they can get the same product elsewhere at a less expensive price.
If you enrolled me into your business and I paid $300 to join BUT THERE WAS NO VALUABLE PRODUCT THAT WAS EXCHANGED - that could be an illegal pyramid.
Network Marketing or MLM as an industry is not a Pyramid scheme, although there are companies that pop up that run a pyramid scheme. In 1979 the courts ruled that the Business of Network Marketing/MLM was a legitamate business practice see AMWAY v FTC 1979
If you are looking at a business that is set up in such a way that it rewards you for recruiting and the only people actually buying the products are in it for the business, you need to take another look at it. The FTC ruled that the product must have 'value' and be desired by people outside of the organization. There are many 'business' programs out there that offer products that have no real value or have a 'me too' aspect to it with inflated prices so they pay out huge bonuses for recruiting people. Anybody remember Prosperity Automated System that was shut down by the SEC, over 5000 members lost the $4k it cost to buy the system. The FTC has its sights on BurnLounge that it has determined to be an illegal pyramid, rewarding members for recruiting others heavily. BurnLounge has dismantled the MLM aspect of its business and left thousands of distributors out in the cold.
You must always do your due diligence and research before you join any company. The old saying always works- "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"
Keep in mind, it will always be easy to find people that have "failed" in any particular business. No matter what business you are researching. People get into businesses all the time and either don't do anything or feel they shouldn't have to do anything to succeed. That is a problem that we as business people need to deal with. The internet is full of great things and bad things. One of the bad things is that there are many people online that actually believe you can get rich by doing nothing. This myth is perpetuated by the endless ads and sites touting this very thing as a sales pitch. Let me say this only once IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN MAKE MONEY BY DOING NOTHING THEN YOU DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR MONEY!
There are many great businesses out there and ones that require only part time commitment, but don't think that there is some magic formula to achieve success. If you are willing to work hard and put in a consistent effort with the right company and business model your chances for success are greatly improved. When you do find a business and company you want to partner up with, make a decision to give at least 1 year of constant effort. I feel for the people who do not realize that these are businesses that we are talking about, and like any business it will take time and a focused effort to succeed. If you are looking to get rich quick- you will have better luck with the lottery!
by Joseph Demasi
I am really getting tired of seeing all the scammers out there ruining it for the rest of us. There are ways to make money online that is moral, ethical and legal. There are also ways to make money that are immoral, unethical and illegal. A question for you to ponder: Which camp would you like to be in?
That may seem like a strange question and of course you would answer that you want to be in the first camp, right? Of course any self respecting person would answer that question that way. If you ask that question of your business partners and they answer this way: "As long as I make money, what difference does it make." If they actually said that to you I hope you would run like h*** away from that person. The problem you run into is that most of the time they want to be in the first camp, but they may actually be in the second camp without even knowing it. Everyone wanting to make money with a home based business needs to do research into the company that they want to be a part of.
Let me give you the definition of a scam: A fraudulent business scheme. Fraudulent comes from the Latin word fraud, which means deceit. Deceiving someone means to trick them.
Some people have also been asking me about pyramids, meaning illegal pyramids:
Illegal Pyramid Scheme
An illegal business that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered.
Sometimes there may appear to be a product - but it’s only there to “look” like a real business. Few people outside of the pyramid desire the product or they can get the same product elsewhere at a less expensive price.
If you enrolled me into your business and I paid $300 to join BUT THERE WAS NO VALUABLE PRODUCT THAT WAS EXCHANGED - that could be an illegal pyramid.
Network Marketing or MLM as an industry is not a Pyramid scheme, although there are companies that pop up that run a pyramid scheme. In 1979 the courts ruled that the Business of Network Marketing/MLM was a legitamate business practice see AMWAY v FTC 1979
If you are looking at a business that is set up in such a way that it rewards you for recruiting and the only people actually buying the products are in it for the business, you need to take another look at it. The FTC ruled that the product must have 'value' and be desired by people outside of the organization. There are many 'business' programs out there that offer products that have no real value or have a 'me too' aspect to it with inflated prices so they pay out huge bonuses for recruiting people. Anybody remember Prosperity Automated System that was shut down by the SEC, over 5000 members lost the $4k it cost to buy the system. The FTC has its sights on BurnLounge that it has determined to be an illegal pyramid, rewarding members for recruiting others heavily. BurnLounge has dismantled the MLM aspect of its business and left thousands of distributors out in the cold.
You must always do your due diligence and research before you join any company. The old saying always works- "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"
Keep in mind, it will always be easy to find people that have "failed" in any particular business. No matter what business you are researching. People get into businesses all the time and either don't do anything or feel they shouldn't have to do anything to succeed. That is a problem that we as business people need to deal with. The internet is full of great things and bad things. One of the bad things is that there are many people online that actually believe you can get rich by doing nothing. This myth is perpetuated by the endless ads and sites touting this very thing as a sales pitch. Let me say this only once IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN MAKE MONEY BY DOING NOTHING THEN YOU DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR MONEY!
There are many great businesses out there and ones that require only part time commitment, but don't think that there is some magic formula to achieve success. If you are willing to work hard and put in a consistent effort with the right company and business model your chances for success are greatly improved. When you do find a business and company you want to partner up with, make a decision to give at least 1 year of constant effort. I feel for the people who do not realize that these are businesses that we are talking about, and like any business it will take time and a focused effort to succeed. If you are looking to get rich quick- you will have better luck with the lottery!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Stop Being An Amateur & Start Being A Professional
Poor networkers are amateurs and wealthy networkers are professionals!
Are YOU a professional or an amateur?
Keep reading and find out.....
1) A professional is someone who gets paid. An amateur is someone who doesn't.
Many people in this industry are really busy browsing the internet, holding mastermind meetings, training, visiting with the competition, emailing associates, watching American Idol, listening to their ipods, or just sitting around in a daze staring at their call display screen. Unfortunately, that's what the amateurs are doing and that's why they don't get paid.
If you want to start making a pile of money in this industry, just focus on recruiting and retailing (marketing - more on that if future articles) to prospective customers. So, in other words...JUST GO PRO!
2) Professional (wealthy) networkers are proud of the MLM industry. Amateur (poor) networkers are embarrassed to be in MLM.
That's crazy!
The network marketing (MLM) industry is the ONLY ethical, decent industry left for value-based humans who prefer to become wealthy by elevating others to their highest potential!
How would you like to be a lawyer and spend your life engaged in the orderly tranfer of wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't, or helping people literally get away with murder. Or how about a banker who loans money at interest which, in most Christian denominations, is defined as the venial sin "usury" and punishable by eternal damnation.
Folks, network marketing is a win/win, not a win/lose. Be proud of your profession. I'd rather jump of a bridge than do anything less admirable than MLM.
3) Professional networkers know business and marketing is a numbers game. Amatuers think there is some trick or secret they will discover that will make it easy for them to have success, so they don't have to work hard.
Here's my professional formula for working the numbers...
A) Prospect 25 people a day five days a week that you send to your "funded proposal". Never try and present your MLM company first to "opportunity seekers" (leads)!
B) Follow-up with only the prospects that purchase the funded proposal.
C) When the prospects that you followed up become involved with the network marketing opportunity you are marketing, get them plugged into your teams training system (this starts creating the duplication). My teams training system is called Fast Track.
If you follow the above formula for one full year...POOF!!! You're at $20,000 to $30,000 a month in virtually any company out there. Those numbers don't vary and I've seen dozens of people succeed by sheer effort and tenacity once they learned this simple secret. It's all a numbers game.
I'll get much more specific about this in future articles.
repinted with permission -Paul Birdsall
Poor networkers are amateurs and wealthy networkers are professionals!
Are YOU a professional or an amateur?
Keep reading and find out.....
1) A professional is someone who gets paid. An amateur is someone who doesn't.
Many people in this industry are really busy browsing the internet, holding mastermind meetings, training, visiting with the competition, emailing associates, watching American Idol, listening to their ipods, or just sitting around in a daze staring at their call display screen. Unfortunately, that's what the amateurs are doing and that's why they don't get paid.
If you want to start making a pile of money in this industry, just focus on recruiting and retailing (marketing - more on that if future articles) to prospective customers. So, in other words...JUST GO PRO!
2) Professional (wealthy) networkers are proud of the MLM industry. Amateur (poor) networkers are embarrassed to be in MLM.
That's crazy!
The network marketing (MLM) industry is the ONLY ethical, decent industry left for value-based humans who prefer to become wealthy by elevating others to their highest potential!
How would you like to be a lawyer and spend your life engaged in the orderly tranfer of wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't, or helping people literally get away with murder. Or how about a banker who loans money at interest which, in most Christian denominations, is defined as the venial sin "usury" and punishable by eternal damnation.
Folks, network marketing is a win/win, not a win/lose. Be proud of your profession. I'd rather jump of a bridge than do anything less admirable than MLM.
3) Professional networkers know business and marketing is a numbers game. Amatuers think there is some trick or secret they will discover that will make it easy for them to have success, so they don't have to work hard.
Here's my professional formula for working the numbers...
A) Prospect 25 people a day five days a week that you send to your "funded proposal". Never try and present your MLM company first to "opportunity seekers" (leads)!
B) Follow-up with only the prospects that purchase the funded proposal.
C) When the prospects that you followed up become involved with the network marketing opportunity you are marketing, get them plugged into your teams training system (this starts creating the duplication). My teams training system is called Fast Track.
If you follow the above formula for one full year...POOF!!! You're at $20,000 to $30,000 a month in virtually any company out there. Those numbers don't vary and I've seen dozens of people succeed by sheer effort and tenacity once they learned this simple secret. It's all a numbers game.
I'll get much more specific about this in future articles.
repinted with permission -Paul Birdsall
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