4 Fantasies About Online Home Businesses
It amazes me how much people want to believe that it's easy to earn a spectacular living from home
. I know all the big sales pages for internet marketing products make it sound like that, but it's really not that simple.If you want to know just how unlikely it all is, just take a look at the disclaimers. No matter how much they talk up the ease of big earnings, they have to admit that big earnings are the exception, not the rule.
So much of what people think is the rule for any online business is the exception, not the rule.
Fantasy #1
More time for your family
How I'd love for this to be true! I've been working from home since before my oldest daughter was born, and I've run my own websites for 7 years now. Running my business hasn't made it easier to have time with my family. I still have to plan it.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but the simple truth is that any business is hard work, especially in the early days. If you don't work hard, you slow down the growth of your business and it may never take off.
That said, there are some advantages to an online business. You have more freedom to decide when you work, and that's a big help. You can run most online businesses from home, and that means you can at least be physically present, even when you're kind of busy working.
And if you work hard, eventually you get to where you can take time off more easily, as well as learning more about when you work best. It does get better from the early rough days of not having enough hours in the day to handle all that your business needs, never mind everything your family needs. If it doesn't, it's probably time to hire some help once you can afford it.
Fantasy #2
Easy money
I hear this one all the time. "I've been working at this for x months and I still can't quit my job!"
True. You can't.
I worked my online business for three years before I was able to quit my medical transcription job, and it was a risk even then. There are times I wish I still had that assured income.
That's because this doesn't come easy. If getting rich were as easy as all that, inflation would probably make us all poor again. But it would probably be fun while it lasted.
Failure in any business is easier and more common than success. Even the most successful business owners usually have a number of failures not only in their past, but in their future.
Fantasy #3
Lots of tax writeoffs
The trouble here isn't so much that there aren't a lot of tax writeoffs for online businesses. Any legitimate business expense is a writeoff come tax time.
The trouble is that many people think they can write off all sorts of things that they really cannot. And that gets them audited.
You have to think before you write off any expense. Is it really a cost of doing business or are you lying to yourself?
If you buy a new computer, for example, is it really for your business or will the whole family be using it regularly? My computer is just for business; we have a separate family computer that the kids and my husband play their games on. If I were to replace it, that would be a business expense. Replacing the family computer would not be a business expense.
Fantasy #4
Build it and they will come
Long, long ago, in the early days of the internet becoming popular, maybe this was true. Now, with so many other websites to compete with, not a chance.
You have to market your site. Get the word out. Advertise. Whatever you want to call it, you have to do it.
Yes, there's such a thing as viral marketing. Wonderful stuff when it works. Thing is, it has to be discovered first. And for it to be discovered, people have to go there. And for people to go there, you have to market it.
Plus there's no knowing what content will take off virally. You can create something you hope will go viral, but there's never a guarantee. And sometimes you get taken completely by surprise.
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