Working online is a dream of many people and in the current poor economic climate, more and more people are turning to this dream as the answer to their problems.

The big problem is that most people are looking for a quick buck and not looking to build a business.

The dream that is being peddled to them is one of making omney online is quick, easy and takes no work.  In fact, you can earn every day whilst lounging around on the beach.

This reality is true, but only after you have done a lot of work and set up all of your business systems on autopilot.  For the new marketer, this dream is night on impossible.

If you are coming to the Internet to earn money then expect to do some work.  If you have money behind you then it will be easier for you as you can outsource a lot of what you need to do.

If you are like the majority of those who come online and are a bit short of cash then your workload will increase.  You have to write the articles, do the marketing, create the products and so on.

When you do this work though, it is very rewarding indeed.  Work to a plan and you will see success, plain and simple.

Over the coming weeks we are going to discuss how to get started online, how to market, how to build relationships, and how to create a business plan.  Let’s face it, would you start an offline business without a plan and an idea of what you are doing?

No.

So why do it online?

I want you to think about that a little and I’d also like it if you can check this book out.  It’s called the 4 Hour Work Week (see below) and will blow your mind when you read it and realise that it is easier than you thought to live the New Rich dream, even if you have a full time day job.

I put off reading this book for ages and finally read it a couple of months ago and it has completely changed how I do business and how much free time I have.  It will show you how to free up your time from your day job and from your business and how to live your dream live.

For those of you who read my last post about customer service, remember I told you about that membership site I was keen to join and had contacted with a question?

Well, I had an answer … I asked about what rights they provided to their products and their support representative asked me what I meant by rights!

Over a week later, still no answer back from my reply.

The morale of the story … if you care about your business and actually want to make money then hire decent support staff and actually make sure you reply to support queries.

Why is it that Internet Marketing really doesn’t seem to care about customer service?

The other thing I’ve noticed is that way too many marketers don’t seem to be that fussed about quality.

Their policy seems to be to sell anything no matter what the quality because if it promises to make money people will lap it up.

I’m not sure if buyers outside of the Internet Marketing niche are more discerning about what they spend their money on, but within Internet Marketer it seems that any rubbish with the promise of riches will be bought.

And if there are refunds … oh well … sel it cheap enough and people won’t bother about asking for a refund!

I buy quite a few products and some of them are really good quality.  I just bought one for just a couple of dollars that promised a step by step method for affiliate marketing.  I was curious to see what value this report could have for such a low price so I bought.

Boy, was that a waste of a few bucks.

The book was badly written, poorly spaced and the so called step by step method consisted of a dozen lines.

There was nothing in the book that a complete newbie couldn’t have got by typing “how to make money affiliate marketing” in to Google.  Maybe that’s what the author did.

The sales letter claimed that the author was making $5,000 a week as an affiliate marketer, but the quality and information in the report said otherwise.

Now I strive to produce the highest quality products possible, which is why it takes me so long to produce products.  You do have to wonder why bother when you see some of the junk being peddled, but then you have to think of your reputation.

I’m in this for the long term with the aim of building a relationship with you, my valued reader, based on trust.  By producing quality products and only ever recommending quality products to you then you know that you are going to get a good product from me.

It frustrates and saddens me to see marketers willing to peddle such rubbish - people should read through what they are selling before they sell it to check the quality.

In Internet Marketing, your reputation is everything.  I knew a marketer that was making thousands a week and he tried to deliver a high profile site, failed miserably and provided terrible quality and his reputation was destroyed by all the people that were paying him every month for this service.  Funnily enough, he’s vanished from the Internet Marketing scene since.

Whatever you are doing online, whether it is writing a blog post or an article or producing or recommending a product it is absolutely vital that you make sure it is high quality.

Your reputation is one of the things that makes you stand out from the crowd, have a good reputation and you will make sales much easier and be considered an expert in your field.

Make sure that whatever you produce is something that you would be proud to be associated with and would sell to your mother!