So you want to make your money online now huh? Great. There are plenty of ways to do it. AutoSurfs, MLMs, form-filling/surveys, Affiliate Marketing, HYIP’s and the good old fashioned way: Your own product on your own website.

I’ll explore each of these ways in the course of this series. So if they sound like gobledy gook to you now, fear not. Its estimated that every day over 250,000 people make the decision to start earning money at home on the Internet. That’s a lot of people who don’t have a clue what these terms mean either. Everyone’s got to start somewhere.

For most people, a reasonable course of action when choosing an online business, is to bring up their favourite search engine (if they’ve even got one yet) and type the words “work from home”. The number of sites that come up when you enter such a term on Google alone is 1.9 Billion. Compare this with “find a job” (425 million) or “new career” (458 million) and you get an idea of where Internet Marketers are directing their efforts.

OK. So the good news is, if there’s plenty of supply you’ve got plenty of choice. But how do you go about choosing the one thats best for you? How do you know which one of those 1.9 billion work from home ideas gives you the best chance of success? Lets face it, you could live until you’re five hundred and you still wouldn’t have read them all.

And perhaps you’ve got your own idea, perhaps you’ve used The Internet enough to have identified a niche area, a business idea you want to exploit. Either way, you’re entering new waters and its best to be prepared. Even if you’re convinced by your own idea, it is still adviseable to watch, and even join, one or two of the work-from-home offerings so you can learn about the ways in which business can and can’t be done online.

There is a methodology I teach which helps people decide on which way to turn, if indeed they should turn to any of them. It uses a simple set of questions, no more than 5 in each set, and as long as you are honest to your core, your answers will steer you in the right direction.

The first set is 4 quick questions that you should answer without giving too much thought to. Just read them each and give the first answer that comes into your head – give your instinctive answer.

It is important to be instinctive because once you’ve embarked on your online career, it will be your instinct that will direct you. Don’t take time theorising about what you think the right or wrong answer should be, just give the true answer. That’s the only way you’ll get a useful result.

These four questions should be answered in order with a score between 1 (minimum) and 5 (maximum). No zeros. Write your answers down and keep them safe.

Here they are:

1. How computer literate am I? (Not at all – 1. Exceedingly – 5)
2. How is my self-discipline? (Terrible – 1. Excellent – 5)
3. How positive is my outlook on life? (Miserable – 1. Excellent – 5)
4. How much can I afford to fail? (I can’t – 1. It really doesn’t matter – 5)

In part II we’ll analyse your results and move on to the next stage in the process. In the meantime, enjoy researching and see if you can get a good feel of what’s out there.
 

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Too many people venture online without understanding which type of Internet business they are best suited to. They either go for the first one they come across that promises early wealth, or, having viewed a few options (without gaing any real insight on what exactly each one will deliver), they hurl themselves at several simply because they can’t make a choice.

Both of these strategies is dangerous. The first, because any site that promises pots of cash early with very little work is nothing more than a scam (1000′s of people have lost money to these schemes) and the second because if you try running too many ventures too soon you’ll spread yourself thin and be unable to devote necessary time to a single opportunity.

There are many legitimate ways to make money online and discovering which one is best for you is an excercise well worth taking some time over.

In part one of this series you posed 4 questions to yourself:

1. How computer literate am I? (not at all – 1, very – 5)
2. How is my self-discipline? (bad – 1, excellent – 5)
3. How positive is my outlook on life? (terrible – 1, bright – 5)
4. How much can I afford to fail? (Can’t – 1, Doesn’t matter – 5)

And answered each of them with a score of 1 to 5 accordingly.

These four simple questions were carefully worded and directed at understanding not necessarily *which* business you should go for, but whether indeed you should look for an income online at all.
No matter what you’re told by all the get-rich-quick sites about how easy it is to make a residual income on the Internet, or how your life will change as soon as you become a member of their program, there will still be the necessity for some input from you. In fact a lot of input from you – a lot more than they ever let on in their sales copy.

Once you are signed up therefore, and you have experienced your first few sessions working on your new ‘opportunity’, you will then go through a period of disillusionment as it finally dawns on you that alot more work is required than you originally thought, and alot less income is forthcoming than you were promised. Many people give up here, or go and find something else and the whole process starts again.

You can save yourself this heart-break and inconvenience by being honest with yourself at the start. Just take a moment to write down an answer those four questions. (each one should be a number from 1 to 5). Do it now before you read on.

So, lets see whether you should be pursuing an income online after all. If you scored less than 8 then you shouldn’t even think about it. With a score this low, you will definately not have any success online and you’ll be wasting valuable time if you try. With a score of 9-12 you might be OK but there will be something that will have to change – perhaps you need a backup plan so you can afford to fail a little more, or perhaps you should brush up your computer literacy with a software course. Maybe you marked yourself down on your positive outlook because you were in a bad mood at the time. If that is the case on any of the questions, revise the score to reflect your average outlook over a number of months. (remember, there are no zeros scored here).

With a score of 13-16 you should be good to go, and with anything above 16 you’re either lying, or you should be kicking yourself for not starting online sooner!

The Next Step.

Right, so once you know you’re OK to continue, your next step is to research and critically assess the full range of options available to you as a budding Internet Marketer.

In the next part of this series, we’ll examine each of the money-making opportunities that exist online and identify characteristics of each of them so that you can decide which ones you’re best suited to.
 

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