The Real Cost of an Instant Business

There are many 'ready-made' work at home opportunities available on the internet. They seem to multiply more quickly than rabbits on fertility drugs. Yet how do you keep a level head when presented with so many tantalizing promises? The advertising is persuasive - whether it's a picture of exotic beaches, or a fancy car, or a big home - or simply large dollar figures given apparent credibility by being as specific as possible - in the vein of 'I made $189,567,20 cents in 14.65 days'.

If we understand what we are going to need to do to turn those offers from zipped up files on our hard drives, to cash in the bank, it becomes much easier to evaluate the true cost - and opportunity - of a product.

Lets look at the different types of instant online offers.

Network Marketing

Network marketing is often presented with lucrative figures based on potential earnings with a large downline. The companies offer the products, which usually require an autoship purchase, or monthly membership fee, to qualify to earn income. The products themselves cover all fields, from vitamins, to real estate investing, the stock market, travel, and even New Age material. There are aklso information product MLM offers.

Due to the high individual cost of the products, it is rarely feasible to make retail sales. The substantial commissions that are paid over multi-levels is factored into the price of the products, which thus inflates their retail dollar value.

Network marketing companies have tried to get around this by offering products that are unusual. They may have used research to develop products which don't have any ready comparison in the marketplace. Or they take certain herbs or ingredients and package them in a different formula, and then use clever marketing to convince people that they are worth the higher price. More recently, there seems to have been a trend towards information products that don't have a ready value - or that people will pay a premium for.

Yet there are a few drawbacks to network marketing, aside from the lack of a viable retail product:

* it's very competitive
* to succeed requires quite a learning curve in closing leads, finding prospects, writing good ads - to name a few
* generally, the product range is quite limited. You have the dual task of finding a product you can live with, and finding an opportunity that matches your criteria in terms of the commission structure, the network structure, and other related behind-the-scenes aspects
* the training is not usually that great

Resell Rights

Resell rights usually relate to ebooks, although you can find resell rights for other information products as well. Resell rights involve paying a certain sum to acquire the right to sell that product. Usually, the product itself comes with a sales letter, some come with other sales aids, and a website from which to sell it.

Depending on whether limited resell rights were offered - and whether you are able to sell the resell rights as well (which can quickly devalue a product as every blade of grass seems to suddenly be offering it), this can be a good business starter.

It does however, require a greater degree of knowledge than the other options. You need to know how to upload the ebook, set up the order and digital delivery process, accept payments, and provide customer service. You also really need to be careful about the type of product - and resell rights license - that you purchase, for the reasons I listed above.

Ready-Made Adsense Sites And Other Turnkey Sites

Turnkey sites have been around for awhile, and they generally don't do very well at all. Given the way search engine algorithms work these days, you really need original content on your website to get any significant natural search traffic. So, your only real alternative with turn key sites is to use pay per click advertising to drive traffic to your site. And to do that successfully, you need a site that converts visitors into sales well. If you're experienced enough that you can see whether a site will convert well, and good enough at using pay per click traffic, then you wouldn't need a turn key site to start with. You'd probably be using affiliate marketing and have your own website.

Ready-made adsense sites are a little different in that there is usually a limit to the number sold, and you have the capacity to change the content on them. If you're prepared to put in the work to do that, they can be successful. If you just want to upload it and hope for the best, you'll come up against the same problem that face the other types of turnkey websites - namely, they will be identical to hundreds of other wbsites - or more. You'll have a hard time ranking well in organic search, and it's unlikely to bring that much traffic.

There's a problem that is common to all of these instant solutions, and that is you don't get to choose the topic your business will be about. It is so much easier to put in the work needed in topics you love, and preferably have some knowledge on. Instant solutions are never the whole picture - they all require a lot of marketing to make money. Without traffic, you just have another website sitting in cyberspace, the equivalent of a ghost town. It's very easy to be lulled into the promises made by those advertising these options. But the reality is that buying instant business offers is only the start. If you don't know how to drive traffic to them, you have no business, and no income.

With the website builders around at the moment, it is not that difficult to build your own website. If you do this, and learn how to rank well in the search engines - first,by building sites that the search engines like - you can always add in these options later. By that stage, you will have built your own, 100% original, Adsense site. You will have an income, and these additional products can then be offered to your visitors. Start with traffic, start with your own web presence, and then think about the products you can offer those visitors. You give yourself a much greater chance of success this way.

Article Source:
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About the Author:
Rebecca Prescott: To learn what it takes to work at home on the internet successfully, read this article: http://www.pickthebusiness.com/work_at_home_on_internet.html For more home-based business ideas, check out this site: http://www.pickthebusiness.com