Is A Free Home Based Business Opportunity
Really Free?
By Elaine Currie
Is it really a free home based business opportunity? Can I make money
without paying anything at all? - Those are about the most often repeated
queries put forward by people who are hoping to find a way to make money
at home online. People who see an advertisement for a free home based business
opportunity want to be reassured that "free" means it will never cost them
a penny to run their home based business and that they can easily make
money at home online without investing anything. I'm amazed they could
even start to believe such a thing could be possible.
When people ask me the "is it really free?" type of question, I give
them an honest answer. The answer to both question is usually "yes, but…"
and they tend to be disappointed and feel that they've been tricked and
that the advertisers lied when they offered a free home based business
opportunity. It is true that fortunes can be made from a free home based
business on the Internet and it can be easy to make money at home online
but that is not the whole answer.
I am completely anti-hype but I don't think all Internet advertising
is as misleading as people often claim. If you consider the average Internet
advertisement, its wording is no worse than the standard "up to 50% off"
claims we take for granted in offline advertising. We know that only a
selected few items will actually be reduced by 50% and we don't feel at
all cheated if we find a bargain with just 20% off its usual price. The
thing is, people see things differently when they are searching the Internet
for ways to make money at home online, their expectations are far higher,
they are more willing to believe improbable claims and their disappointment
is, therefore, quick and keenly felt..
If you tried to tell the same people that they could make money at home
with an offline business without incurring any costs, they would laugh
you out of the auditorium. However, the Internet is a strange environment
and people need to get acclimatised before they can recognise a legitimate
way to make money at home online and to understand what is "free" in the
context of a free home based business opportunity. After just a small amount
of experience, people will realise that the free home based business opportunity
is going to cost them money one way or another if they want to see profits
accumulating at any significant rate. The ones who persevere also eventually
realise that the cost of running a free home based business online is far
less than the cost of running an offline business.
Let's think seriously about starting a business. First, how about an
offline business. Suppose you decide you want to open a shop and sell dresses.
Before you see any profit at all, you will have to pay out for premises
(rent and taxes), services (fuel, water, phone), stock, insurance and advertising.
If you are going to continue with your current employment while you build
up the new business, you will also need to find staff and add wages to
your list of expenses.
Now let's think about our free home based business opportunity on the
Internet. You need to budget for a product (the equivalent of the stock
of dresses), a website (the equivalent of the shop premises) and advertising.
The list is shorter and now the Internet home based business opportunity
is looking like a much better deal by comparison. The products can be obtained
either free of charge or for a small price, the cost of a website is small
change compared to the cost of premises, this will be a home based business,
so you won't incur any additional service charges or insurance. An Internet
home based business can be set up to run 24/7 with just a couple of hours
work a day, so you can continue to earn money at your currently employment
without having to spend anything on staff wages. That just leaves advertising
costs.
Advertising your free home based business is the thing that's going
to take up the biggest part of your budget. If you were opening your first
shop on a limited budget, you would not be able to afford large premises
in the prime part of the busiest shopping district where you would benefit
from passing trade. You would have to be content with a small side street
based shop and, to make customers aware of your business, you would have
to advertise. In order to get a steady stream of visitors to your shop,
you would need to advertise consistently and continuously. You would need
to place your advertisements where they can reach your target market and
you would need to make sure your advertisements appeal to your prospective
customers so that they would be prepared to make the detour from the main
street to check out your products.
The Internet works in the same way. Nobody will know about your new
free home based business unless you tell them. You can have the best website
in the whole word but, if you don't advertise it, it would be like keeping
your shop door locked, the blinds closed and the lights off. No visitors
means no potential sales and that inevitably means no profit. You have
no advertise, simple as that. There are many free advertising resources
available online for your home based business but you need to be selective
as, although there are some very good free advertising resources, the results
to be obtained from the free companies are not always as good as paid advertising.
Another factor to consider is that using the free advertising resources
can take up a lot of time and you need to place a value on your time and
decide how it can be spent to best effect.
A free home based business opportunity does sound like the ideal thing
for the numerous people who are looking for ways to make money at home
online but are unwilling or unable to spend any money to do it. Many people
leap into the first free home based business opportunity they see advertised
and just as quickly give up when they find out they need to invest time
and money in order to make money at home online with an Internet based
home business. If these people would think things through, they would realise
that starting an online home based business is far less costly than starting
an offline business and the stage of getting into profit can come very
early. Even if a free home based business it is not entirely free to run,
being your own boss rather than being someone else's employee is priceless.
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