Three Choices You Have For Starting An Online Business

In my first two articles, I covered the subject of, You are never too old to start your own business. Then we covered the types of business to choose, and covered offline choices you have.
In this article we will explore your choices of types of online businesses to start.

1. MLM or multi-level marketing onlline.
2. Your own product or service on your own website.
3. Information Marketing.

MLM Online, By now I think everyone on the planet has heard of Amway. They were the first major success in Multilevel Marketing, and fought the government and won the right to use this type of marketing structure. This paved the way for thousands of new MLM companies to start up. They collectively created a major industry.

There were major problems with this business model. It directly conflicted with human nature, not to mention business statistics. We will look at the 3 major problems first.

Problem 1, Human Nature. I have heard many statistics about the percentage of people, who have an entrpreneur's mindset, and it ranges between 1% to 5%.

That means if you recruit 100 people, only one to five will stay with it. So, to build a downline big enough to give you residual income to live on, will require that you recruit thousands of new people.

Problem 2, Business Statistics. In all new start up businesses, whether offline or online, the average success rate is as follows: Out of 100 new businesses, after two years, the majority are already out of business. After five years, only one or two still remain.

How many MLM companies can you name that have been around over five years? Out of the thousands of MLM startups in the last 30 years, I can only think of three, off the top of my head: Amway, Shacklee, and Herballife. I am sure there are a few others, but the percentage of lasting successes are near one percent.

Problem 3, Online scams and hype. MLM has taken its business model online. Distributors can now recruit, and advertise to a worldwide audience of prospects.

The problem is that online MLM advertising appeals to people who are looking for a fast and easy solution, a company that will do the work for them.

Remember, that the majority of people don't have the entrepreneur's mindset, to build their own business. They are looking for a magic system, that will do the work for them, fast and free.

By now, you are probably inundated, daily, with sales letters. These letters are written by skillful copywriters, and they appeal to the, something for nothing crowd.

There are legitimate online marketers, that do offer valuable information products, software, and systems. In a future post, I will cover the best way to find them, and the questions, you will need to ask.

Conclusion: MLM, whether done offline or online, follows the same basic business models. They all have a downline structure that pays the big bucks, in the future, after your downline is filled.

I did offline MLM for 18 years, and I have never seen a downline matrix filled by anyone, including the leaders.

In this third article, we looked at MLM online, as one of three choices you have, to build an online business.

In the next, or fourth, article we will take a look at your second choice of online business. It is called, Affiliate Marketing.

In the fifth article, we will look at your third choice of an online business. That is, creating and selling your own product, or service.

For now, look for Article Four to follow this.