Ways to Identify Whether a Business Opportunity Is a Scam (Part 1)

As a student of this Network Marketing game, I’m always looking at and researching work from home opportunities. Not only in the Network Marketing arena, but also in Internet Marketing and just general home based business opportunities. Unfortunately, even today with the wealth of information that is available on the Internet, I still see people making uneducated, uninformed decisions. However, the thing that is really interesting to me is the fine line between actually being a scam and being perceived as a scam by misinformed people.

Wait, does that make sense? Well, yes, if you’ve seen how many times an opportunity or company has been called a scam when it’s really not.

An example that I’ve seen recently is the Empower Network, network marketing business. Of course, to my knowledge, this has been an ongoing debate for years. But, if you do your research and look at the whole package, meaning product, compensation plan, company support etc, then you will see that it’s actually a legitimate business.

To continue this a bit further I’ve seen the same things said about the Wealthy Affiliate and Site Sell programs. These are legitimate Internet Marketing programs that teach and train people on how to succeed in Internet Marketing.

Since I’ve thought about joining these programs or opportunities in the past, I’ve done extensive research on them. Like the ones that I mentioned above, sometimes I’ve joined and sometimes I don’t. The decision is based on whether or not the program was a good fit for me or not, not because it was a scam.

To often, I see people call something a scam, because they tried it and failed at it so they feel ripped off. I’ve seen many call the entire Network Marketing industry a scam. Of course, there are various reasons why there is a bad reputation in the industry, but the fact remains that it is not a scam.

At the same time, however, when folks have false expectations, and don’t achieve whatever those expectations were, then they should genuinely feel cheated.

The question is why do people have those expectations to begin with? To clarify why people may perceive a legitimate business to be a scam let’s look at some possible reasons (in no particular order):

1) The company exaggerates it’s products’ effectiveness

2) The company over promises your potential earnings

3) The company promises that you won’t have to do something to do well

4) The company lures you in with low start-up costs and then upsells

5) The company uses very effective sales copy and hype to lure you in

Honestly, when I see these claims, if it’s about a company that I’ve never researched, then it sparks my curiosity. Upon reading their reasoning I can usually tell if it really is a scam or if they are just uneducated about the product, service or process. Obviously, if I’ve done business with or have already researched the company, then it’s even easier to tell.

We’ll continue this discussion in a four part series so that I can elaborate on the above points. Here’s the second post of the series…

#BusinessModel #Review #Scam #Tips