Starting An Internet Business? Avoid These 5 Killer Mistakes

If you are thinking of or already starting an internet business, knowing what
mistakes to avoid is as important as what to do in the first place. It is true
that we learn from mistakes, and the best way to learn is from mistakes of
others!

1. High Expectations

When you look around to start a business online, all you hear is how easy it is.
Here a drop out college student makes $42,653 in a month, there a young kid
makes $22,000 in two weeks. Another guy cleans out $5,000 a month. They make it
look so easy. And you want to believe in this dream. You go from site to site
and start thinking: “Gosh, it must be easy. If they can do it – I can do it too.
How much do I want? $5,000 a month? OK.”

You want to believe that you can get $5,000 a month starting next month. It’s so
appealing.

The Ugly Truth: Yes, it is quite possible to get to this level, but… not
right now. You simply have to work your way up. I know, it’s not what you want
to hear, but it’s the way it is. You can make money online and start your
business very soon, but it will take some time to get to a level where you can
quit your day job. Don’t expect to hit it in a week or two. Be realistic, adjust
your expectations and this way you’ll have far better chances to make it on the
Internet. Don’t aim at $1,000 a week when you are starting, then get just $50,
get discouraged and quit. Set your starting figure low: $100 a week. Hit it,
exceed it, feel happy and grow.

2. Millionaire In Six Months

If you’ve read the first mistake, it takes time to work your way around Internet
business. You hear “gurus” telling stories of hitting jackpots and making
hundreds of thousands in a month. You want the same. Not so fast. In most cases
it took them years of preparation to get to this level.

The Ugly Truth: Yes, you can become the next Internet millionaire, but
chances are it won’t happen just this year. You have to figure out this
business, learn a lot and do even more. It all takes time. Be realistic and
prepare: it’s a long road, not a lotto strike. Allow yourself more time to get
started and run and you won’t be discouraged if you don’t get your million in a
year.

3. You Don’t Need Money

You hear it all the time: all you need to start a business online is $20 for a
new domain name. You can even start for free. By promoting affiliate offers.

The Ugly Truth: Firstly, you need to learn and learning costs. As the
saying goes: “If you think learning is expensive, try ignorance”. Realistically
you need to know what to do and how to do it right. And this knowledge will cost
you. If you are lucky enough to find from the first time a course that suits
you, you’ll spend $37 to $97 to start. If you keep looking, the numbers will add
up.

Secondly, the most effective ways of setting up and running your business are
usually not free. Things like advertising, hosting, auto-responder and the like
all cost you money. Just like with any “normal” business, you have to have
financial reserves to start your own Internet enterprise.

4. Push-A-Button Systems

There are so many “just push this button” systems on the Internet and they are
all so appealing:
• You don’t need to know HTML
• You don’t need a website
• You don’t need money
• You don’t need any knowledge

You get the picture. You buy the system and…

The Ugly Truth: How often have you bought a “You don’t need a website to
start making money right now” system just to find out that you need: a) to
register your own domain, b) set up your WordPress blog and c) start promoting
it?

Sales letters are just what they are: they sell. Don’t really trust all that
they say, be sceptical and try to find out what a system actually does. If you
don’t understand how it works – don’t buy it, you won’t be able to make it work.

5. I’ll just read this…

Two words: information overload. When you start your Internet business you want
to get as much information as you can to get it right. It is essential, of
course. So you buy a course, you read some forum postings, subscribe to
newsletters and… get addicted. You like to read, you like to learn simply
because that’s what we are all used to. That’s what we’ve been taught half of
our lives: to read and learn. And once you’ve finished a course, you find
another, you read e-mail, they recommend you something new. It always looks like
you are missing something, one more bit and you’ll get the whole picture. Then
you’ll start…

The Ugly Truth: To start your business on the Internet, you need to know
basics. And they are simple: get your domain, set up a site and start promoting.
You already know how to do it. You’ve read it all over the net. Now do it! The
simple truth is that you need to start doing things as soon as you can. When you
do something two things happen: you get results (and negative results are
valuable results too) and you learn. That’s why it’s so important to start doing
things as soon as you learn something.
You’ve read an article on Facebook advertising? Go and try it! If it works for
you, it works. You get results. If it doesn’t – find out why and try to fix it,
you’ll learn so much by doing this.

Now that you know, look at your own plans to start an internet business, do some
adjustments, be realistic, don’t blindly trust “gurus” and make your own action
plan.