Everybody has a different reason for wanting to earn an income from home. For some of us, it’s the freedom of not having to answer to a boss. For others, it’s to make some extra cash. For me it was because I lost my job and didn’t see any other way around the problem. But whatever your reason is, there’s still that one nagging question that a lot of home business owners don’t want to ask themselves because they’re afraid of the answer they’re going to get. Are you prepared to run a business?

I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t have a clue what was involved in running a home based business. I figured you just had to throw up a web site and the customers would come flocking by the thousands. I quickly learned that it’s not quite that easy. There’s a lot of work involved, including advertising, customer service and so on. Some of the days can be very long.

But it’s more than just the actual work involved. There’s the discipline factor that a lot of people don’t even give a second thought. See, when you’re working for a boss, you’re being told what to do every minute of every day. You don’t have to think about what has to be done. Every decision is made for you. But when you’re running your own business, you have to force yourself to get up every morning and make your way to that computer. Nobody is going to make your schedule for you. You’re going to have to do that on your own. You’re going to have to make sure that the advertising gets done; that the product creation gets done; that the customer support emails get answered. In other words, you have to motivate yourself all on your own. Not everybody can do that.

And then there are things like finances and paying taxes. You need to make a budget and stick to it. You need to track what you’re spending and what you’re taking in. You need to keep accurate records for the government. You can’t just claim your business as a hobby unless it actually qualifies as one. And you won’t know that unless you research the laws. Yes, you need to understand some basics business tax law. If you don’t, you’ll need to hire yourself a good accountant…especially if the money starts pouring in.

And the above items only scratch the surface. Point is, running a home based business takes a lot of work and discipline. And not everybody is cut out for it.

So, are you prepared to run a business?

It might help to know the answer to that question BEFORE you start.

Just recently, I wrote a series of books on mindset and what it takes to run a business. I was very honest with everything I shared. I explained how things are not easy and that you need to work hard to have success. Most people read the books and were very thankful for the honesty. There were still those who said that they didn’t agree with my thinking. Interesting. You’re honest and people say you’re wrong. Perhaps they want to believe that get rich quick schemes really DO exist and work.

Okay, you’re probably wondering what my point is and what it has to do with the topic of this article. Well, don’t worry, I’m going to explain that in due course. But before I do, read the above paragraph again and really reflect on it and what I’ve just told you. If you think about it, it’s really pretty mind boggling with so many people complaining about marketers just after your money. Okay, time to get to the point.

No matter how honest you are, no matter how many facts you present, no matter how great your product is,. no matter how fantastic your customer service is, no matter how hard you work to please people…you will NEVER please everybody. If you manage to learn that ONE lesson, your life as an Internet marketer is going to be a whole lot better. Let me explain why.

A day will come where you will get all these sales. You’ll feel really good. The world is wonderful. And then it happens. You get an email from an irate customer who tells you that your product is crap and they ask for a refund. Suddenly, all the good that you experienced that day is out the window. Somebody just called your product…your child…crap. It’s not a good feeling. And I’ll admit, back in the early days, it used to bug me.

Not anymore.

See, there are those out there who, if you point up to the sky and say it’s blue, they will look you straight in the eye and say, “It isn’t.” And you can show them all the proof in the world. You can get the greatest scientists and the greatest minds in the world to testify that the sky is blue and it won’t matter. To this person, the sky will be any color BUT blue.

Once you understand this, and once you understand that no matter how hard you work on your product to make it the best that it can be, there will always be those who will call it crap. The key is to understand this, maybe get some feedback on it (though it’s not likely) and then move on. If you find areas that need to be improved, then improve them. But don’t try to please everybody.

People lie. It’s a fact of life. Deal with it. Marketers lie, gurus lie, many folks who are into making money online lie. They do so for a variety of reasons. Some do it because they want to make you think that it’s easy to make money online so that they can sell you something. Others do it to discourage you so that you don’t end up competing with them. Well, in this article I’m going to reveal the 4 biggest lies about making money online.

The first one is that it’s easy. Making money online is NOT easy. They tell you this lie so that they can sell you their product that they promise you will make you all this money. That’s why they lie. The truth is, making money online is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. The reason is because it’s something you’ve never done before. You’re used to your 9 to 5 job and that’s all you’ve ever known. This is a whole new world and because of that, it’s not easy. There is a big learning curve. Don’t forget that.

The second one is that you can make money fast. If you look at a business in the offline world, you will see businesses that take years to see a profit. So why anybody would think that it’s any different on the Internet is beyond me. It’s not. Yes, it’s a little easier because there isn’t as much overhead, but it’s still something that is going to take a lot of time. The gurus say you can do it quickly because again, they want your money.

The third one is that you can make money with no skills and no knowledge. Did you ever see those web sites that people put up? You know the ones I’m talking about, where they say they’ll do all the work for you and all you have to know how to do is turn on your computer? Yeah, if only it were that simple. You need skills. Plain and simple. And the reason they tell you these things again, is because they want your money.

The fourth big lie is that you can make money online without any kind of a plan. That’s right. All you have to do is put up a web site and the money will come pouring in. This is not true. You need a plan. You need to decide what business you’re going to get into. You need to decide how many hours a day you’ll work at it, how much you plan to spend on advertising, how much you hope to earn yearly, and so on. Everything must be planned out or you’re looking for trouble.

These are the 4 biggest lies that they’ll tell you, all because they want your money.

Don’t forget them.

It’s not fair, and I’ll be the first to admit this, but sometimes the choices that we make can literally derail any chance we might have of running a successful business, no matter how much we spend and no matter how much time and effort we put into our business. In this article, I’m going to cover just a few of the many pitfalls we can run into when making choices that affect our business.

Probably the most critical choice of all is choosing a business to begin with. So many people blindly jump into something without doing the proper research to even determine if this business is going to be profitable or not in theory. For example, let’s say you have an interest in model trains. You decide that you’re going to write a book about all these old Lionel model trains. You put it out and discover that people who are into old model trains don’t want to read books on the subject but actually want to buy old model trains. You’ve created a product for a market that has no demand for that product. Trying to sell it will become an exercise in futility.

Another area where we make choices that can kill our business is in the area of advertising. Not all forms of advertising are effective for all business models. For example, let’s say you are selling a product that is a natural treatment for warts. You decide to send out ads to all these safelists that you’ve joined. Well, if you did your research, you would have discovered that people who join safelists are interested in business opportunities and not in wart removal. Oh sure, you might find a few people who have warts and make a few sales, but it will be purely by accident as your advertising method is not targeted.

Then you have the choices that you make in regard to a domain name and web hosting for that name. There are a number of things that can go wrong in this area. The domain name itself can be one that is just not interesting or doesn’t match the product you’re selling. The web hosting company can be one where they don’t provide enough services for you to properly conduct your business. For example, if you get a lot of traffic, your hosting company may not be giving you enough bandwidth to handle all that traffic and you end up having your business effectively shut down.

These are just a few areas where the wrong choices can break your business. That’s why you need to thoroughly research anything before you make a final decision on it.

In future articles, I’ll show you how to go about researching various things that you’ll run into along the way.

There are more ways to advertise online than you can count. Some of them are excellent. Some, not so much. The problem is, how do you discover which ones are good and which ones are bad without investing a ton of time and/or money into each one? Well, the truth is, you can’t…not unless you have somebody who has already tested the various forms out and can give you a good idea of what you’re getting yourself into. That’s where this article comes in.

Let’s get pay per click advertising out of the way because that is a beast all its own. Marketers have lost their shirts using pay per click, or more specifically, Google Adwords. If you don’t know everything there is to know about this form of promotion (and the books are not easy to understand) then simply stay away from it. In my opinion, pay per click isn’t for anybody who isn’t already having a great deal of success or a bankroll can afford the losses you’re going to have at the start. The best way to use pay per click is to start out with some credits from Google, Yahoo, and MSN so you can make sure that it’s worth it for you

Next we have article marketing. This is free and effective IF you can write well. That’s the catch. If you don’t have a solid handle on writing articles, which is different from writing ads, then you’re not going to have much success with this type of advertising. There are ways to write effective articles that you should probably take the time to learn.

Solo Ezine ads are very effective if you hook up with an ezine that has a responsive membership. The key to being successful with ezine ads is to be able to write effective ads, or sales copy. This is different from writing an article which has to be more informative than sales oriented. As a matter of fact, a good article shouldn’t try to sell at all until the prospect reaches the resource box. Ezine ads are just the opposite. They have to be cleverly constructed sales letters. This is another craft that must be learned.

Then of course you have your various places around the Internet where you can post ads, such as classified sites, messages boards, forums and so on. These take a combination of article writing and selling skills. Many forums don’t even allow ads at all but just a signature line. If you have a lot of time to kill and can contribute a lot to the forum you’re attending, you can do quite well with this form of promotion.

These are pretty much the main forms of promotion online, though there are others. Choosing the one that’s right for you comes down to what you feel most comfortable with. If you can’t write articles, stay away from them. If you’re not a great ad writer but have a way with words, then article writing may be right for you. If you have a large advertising budget then Adwords may be a consideration.

Hopefully, the above guidelines will help you to choose a form of promotion that is just right for you.