3 Questions to Remember When Examining Make Money Online (MMO) Opportunities
For the past three years, I’ve spent the better part of my digital life wandering the Internet in search of real opportunities to make money online. Who wouldn’t want to make money online? No cubicles, no commute, no meetings, work from anywhere that you want, set your own terms, be your own boss. Oh, and, if you do it all right, make thousands while you watch the sunset on the beach or stand atop a mountain, arms spread wide, in the face of the sun.
The problem is, it’s not easy to distinguish real opportunities from bad ones; there’s so much noise. You can’t go two minutes without seeing ads that foist half or non-truths on you such as:
“Give us 100 dollars, and we’ll show you how to make $100,000 / month.”
“This Guru can show you the secret to ultimate success if you just attend his/her event for $2000.”
“Take our surveys and make hundreds of dollars all while sitting on your couch.”
Embarrassingly, I’ve clicked on a few of those, and through a lot of wasted time and financial pain, it forced me to come up with three questions that I always answer when reviewing a make money online “opportunity.”
Here are the questions.
- What are they selling, who are they, and how did they make their money?
- What are they, and what aren’t they telling me?
- What resources do they provide for their customers?
Before we dive into the questions, I think it is beneficial to stop for a moment and talk about how business works. Don’t worry, you don’t need an MBA in Business, and no, you don’t need to pull out your calculator. This is just going to be a simple conversation to clear up a common misconception about starting a business that is purveyed continuously by the Internet.
Money and time are the two things that you can play the business game with. They are the only two things you can play the business game with. With a lot of money, you can start a profitable business in a minimal amount of time. If you don’t have a lot of money, you can still start a business, but it’s going to take a lot more time before it is profitable. Money and time are in an inverse relationship that cannot be broken, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise… is selling you oceanfront property in Oklahoma.
What are they selling, what are their credentials, and how did they make their money?
This question doesn’t require a degree in rocket surgery to answer. It is a simple matter of paying careful attention to the information provided in the presentation.
One of the most crucial components of this question is, how did they make their money? If they go the entire presentation and never once mention how they made their fortune, it’s game over. I don’t mean I need a detailed balance sheet and five references. I just want to know the person is being honest with me in some small way. For instance, if they tell me this new, super-shiny program they’ve developed is going to make me wealthy, but I hear nothing about the source of their wealth, I’m out. Whereas, if the person says they made their fortune in real estate but came across this great side hustle while they were investing, I’ll keep listening. The best case, though, would be to hear they’ve developed this system over time and after years of mistakes made it a science. At that point, they would have my attention for the whole presentation. The bottom line is, they need to disclose something about their wealth vehicle or, at the very least, give me a sound reason to listen to them.
Not independent of this first component is the individual’s (or group’s) credentials. I’m not looking for a Ph.D. in Finance or Business; there are plenty of “everyday” people who are insanely successful. I’m simply looking for a reason I should listen. Honesty and some disclosure of wealth sources go a long way. Other examples that reassure me of the person’s knowledge and skills include charts, graphs, and live disclosures of the person’s own earnings (with the ideal being a display of their earnings utilizing what they are selling me).
And what they are selling me is of great importance. Key aspects I listen for here include business structure and what the actual product (or service) is.
There’s no more reviled a business structure than MLM (Multi-Level Marketing). MLM, often incorrectly referred to as a “pyramid scam,” is where I sell to five people, who then, in turn, sell to five people apiece, who then, in turn, sell to five more people each, ad-nausea. Of course, before I know it, I’m diving into a swimming pool made of money… or so they say. If they start talking about MLM, I’m out. MLM does work, it’s just that it means 100’s of hours to see a single return on investment of any kind, and then that assumes the people I sell to are real “go-getters.” We all know how the word assumes breaks down…
The actual product or service is also important, though not for reasons which are inherently obvious here. I just note what it is and continue listening through the presentation. Later, when they’re diving into specifics, I can make some assessments about what they are telling me or not telling me, as the case may be.
What are they, and what aren’t they telling me?
Let’s be fair. The person (or group), whose presentation I’m sitting through, wants to make money, and I’m OK with that. I’ll be even more OK if I get through the presentation and learn that the amount I’d be investing is a meager sum compared to what I can get potentially in return (establishing legitimacy to an extent). But I digress.
I don’t expect them to tell me everything. If they did, they’d have no product or service, and I’d be missing out on leveraging their knowledge, infrastructure, mistakes, etc. to my benefit.
The key to determining what is important and what isn’t important, when omitted, can come from either experience, common sense, or both.
Oftentimes in a presentation, things are omitted to prevent the audience from being completely overwhelmed. For example, as a person who is running both a private label and arbitrage business on Amazon, I’m neither confused nor overwhelmed when someone talks about fees or logistics. However, if I were completely new to all this, I would give up before I began if I heard,
“You too can import products for Amazon. During the process, you’ll need to contact suppliers, pay for products, pay freight fees, pay port fees, pay customs fees, pay inward FBA fees, pay referral and closing costs, pay sales tax, build listings, have product photos done, and much more.”
Omissions are not automatically an admission of illegitimacy. The person (or group) may, in fact, have a system in place which helps account for these unseen elements. However, if I sat through a presentation on importing products and kept hearing phrases like:
“There are no other costs.”
or,
“All you need is our training.”
my Spidey-sense would be tingling whether I had business experience or not. Use common sense; it will serve you well. Remember earlier when I mentioned that what they were selling was important, but “the why” was not inherently obvious? No matter what they’re selling me, they’d better be giving me the general steps, the steps need to make sense, and they’d better be prepared to answer my questions with a level of detail indicating they’ve taken me seriously. Anything less, and I’m out.
Another thing to be wary of is skill requirements. We’re all different, and we all have strengths and weaknesses. While becoming an entrepreneur requires you to step outside your comfort zone (more on this another time), my simple advice is to find something for your first endeavor which utilizes your strengths. This determination depends, of course, on whether or not they tell you upfront what skill set is required. If they go the whole presentation and never tell me what skills I need, I am immediately concerned I‘m being shown that aforementioned oceanfront property in Oklahoma. If, on the other hand, they tell me I don’t need any skills other than what I have, or that they’ll teach me everything I need to know (in the case of training), I’m more likely to put them in the trustworthy category than in the used-car salesmen one (no disrespect to used car salesmen who might be reading this).
What resources do they provide for their customers?
This is practically the hands-down, most important question which needs to be answered. If they won’t support me after my purchase, I don’t support them by buying their product, training, or service, period.
Resources take many forms, but I look for three kinds: product (or service) support, community support, and external or archived resources.
The actual support of their product (or service) should be professional, technical support, on-call during normal work hours, and accessible always as long as I have access to their product. Any limitations or other two-stepping will make me immediately suspicious. I don’t care how many millions of dollars you claim this will make me if my ability to ask questions or get help is limited.
Somewhat mitigating the prior, community, also factors into my decision. If support is limited, but there is an incredible community of students (past and present) who are active, I will probably forgive tech support’s limitations. The trouble with this one is that oftentimes you won’t know if there is a community or not. Any serious offering though will disclose the existence of this upfront.
And the final component of resources is archived or external resources (Google docs, YouTube videos, etc.). This may vary depending on the opportunity, but if the MMO opportunity lends itself to this, knowing external resources exist gives the offer much more credibility.
So…
- What are they selling, who are they, and how did they make their money?
- What are they and what aren’t they telling me?
- What resources do they provide for their customers?
Remember, there are always exceptions to what I’ve outlined, and not all presentations are created equal (for instance, some people are bad at public speaking). Use logic and common sense. Think critically. Ask questions if something doesn’t make sense… Presenters who are invested in what they’re selling will give your questions the deference they deserve. Less serious ones… well… won’t.
Be careful out there.
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