"Thing That Don't Work" - Part IV - "Delusions of Wealth"

“Things that don’t work” part IV: “Delusions of Instant Wealth”

From the Bible we are taught that “love of money is the root of all evil”. It extends to internet marketing. It does so in that if a person is seduced by the claims of instant income (and there are hundreds of thousands of sites that can seduce in this way) and expects to begin brining in thousands of dollars a week – starting this week … then that person is going to be sadly mistaken.

Despite the noblest of causes, it’s the love of money that brings people into the fray of internet marketing. People all over the world are trying to better their own lives. Their motivation varies. They may be only interested in bringing in enough money to speed up the payoff of a car loan, or to help pay off credit cards, or even to start a college fund for their children. A lot of people come into the arena looking for ways to achieve financial freedom. To me this means that they want to be out of debt and will be financially secure no matter what curveball gets thrown their way. (ie – the car breaks down, the dishwasher goes out and needs replacing, etc.) Then you have your final group who are motivated by ultimate wealth. They want the Ferrari, the ocean front home, etc.

All of these motivations are noble (save maybe the last one) and none of them at face value are unethical. But unfortunately, all of these motivations are subject to the seduction of “making the quick buck”. That seduction runs rampant across the internet. Nearly every internet advertisement for an MLM, Affiliate Program, Google Advertising opportunity, selling on EBAY, (etc.), has a claim of the opportunity to make hundreds and thousands of dollars in only days weeks or months.

Soren Jordansen, the owner of DragonSurf Traffic Exchange recently published an ebook titled, Internet Marketing Success Formula. In this ebook Soren tells of the results of a survey that he took of his subscribers, readers and members. Some of these results are very telling – and, I think, very realistic. Take note of these samplings of internet marketers:

• 54% want to make enough money to quit their job
• 27% want to become filthy rich
• 67% are new to internet marketing within the past 24 months
• 12% have been involved with internet marketing for over 5 yrs.

Now for the telling stats:

• 89% are making less than $500 per month
• Over 50% are making nothing
• Less than 5% are making more than $1000 monthly.

Pretty scary, eh? Well, I think I can explain some of this.

Two of the statistics, 1) 7% of marketers make a full time income and 2) less than 5% make over $1000 per month, are both in line with the accepted fact that only 3-5% of all Network Marketers (MLMers) are successful. Given that, its easy to see why. Look at the first bullet: 67% have only been involved in internet marketing in the past 24 months and only 12% have stayed with it for 5 yrs. I draw two conclusions from this:

1. Internet marketing is still a new phenomenon
2. Most people are not seeing the results that they initially imagined and are bailing out.

Is it any wonder why people give up within the first two years (personally – I think the lion’s share quits within their first year) when they are constantly bombarded by enticing ads that give them the false hope of thousands of dollars of income in only a short period (days, weeks, months)? We have all seen these ads. Here is a sampling of them.

• Be ready to explode your income. Prepare to be extremely wealthy
• How you can easily build a massive list and earn more cash than you ever thought possible
• Team members earn $1000’s every week for free
• Financial freedom is just one click away

It is no wonder at all why people quit. They get seduced to often by ads like this and don’t realize that success does not happen overnight in internet marketing. The “delusion of instant riches” is just another item on the list of “Internet Marketing - things that don’t work”