Yes, Santa Claus IS really dead. Sorry for the news. And you might want to keep the kids from looking over your shoulder here for the next few minutes. :-)

As an Internet Marketing Coach, I hear all the time from new clients how they've wasted hundreds to thousands on Internet get-rich-quick schemes before coming to me.

Desperation and inexperience are the breading grounds that allow these scammers to prey.

Just this last week, one of my colleagues replied to a guy on a forum who wanted to start earning $5,000 each month -- oh, and within the next 30 days. And he had $80.00 to invest, a whole eighty dollars!

I'm sure the guy is nice, but he also sounds desperate. How is anyone going to start earning literally thousands of dollars a month within 30 days on just an $80.00 investment?

Isn't this scenario as realistic as saying ALL the employees at your local fast food restaurant earn $100,000 per year?

Yes, Saint Nick is gone and did I mention that The Tooth Fairly is on life support?

Let's get real.

Are You Real about Internet Earnings and the Business Costs Required?

Back to my big spender above who has just $80.00 to invest...where did he get the idea he could be a successful Internet marketer on an $80.00 investment?

My guess is he probably got that idea from some forum.

And that may bring up a good point: are you likely to get good advice going to forums?

Me personally, I'm too busy to participate in forums. Although to be fair, I do have successful SEO (search engine optimization) colleagues who do. But while you could encounter a talented person to give you free advice on a forum, my best advice to you is you are more likely to encounter people with free time.

If they have so much free time to participate in forums, how busy are they with paid work?

And about free advice...how many people do you personally know who work for free? How would they pay their bills?

Do YOU work for free now?

Are you going to be working for free with your online enterprise? If you're not, then why should someone else?

If you want to earn $100,000 per year form your Internet business, do you want your advice coming from someone offering free advice OR only charging $20.00 per hour?

OK, You've Got Some Money to Invest in Your Internet Business, What's Your Next Step?

Well, protect it and spend it carefully! Watch out for "blue sky" promises of anything that sounds too good to be true.

Compared to conventional advertising and marketing, you don't need that much money to market online. But you do need some.

You need money for a Web site and you need some for marketing, likely PPC (pay-per-click) and SEO.

The more cash you have to invest, the less time you have to invest. You can hire an Internet Marketing Company to perform much of the work for you.

OR, the less money you have, the more of your time that will be required. This can be a very good time to considering hiring an Internet Marketing Coach, to save you money and speed up the timetable for you to earn income.

The problem is the people with no money to invest OR with unrealistic expectations are the ones who fall prey to the Internet marketing scammers. Often, these are the same people who don't have the skills to do any of the work themselves or the desire to develop the required skills (sigh).

An Example of what to Do...and what NOT to Do

Consider another one of my clients who paid $1,000 for a well-known Internet marketing program. My client was told all sorts of inconsistent things, including that the course was for people new to online marketing, which that wasn't the case.

And he was told to market something online that he didn't know anything about or have any particular interest in.

Huh??

How does THAT make any sense?

But at that moment, that was what he wanted to hear, because it was easy and didn't require much effort or time from him.

Here's the real deal: there are thousands and thousands of people marketing the same or similar product or service to yours. You have to do it BETTER.

That requires time and effort. It requires using one's brain.

And this is where a qualified Marketing Coach or a Search Engine Optimization Firm can help you.

The money you spend you will more than save in increased profits, much faster and avoiding the potholes and pitfalls that come with Internet marketing. Those pitfalls can be very expensive (and time consuming).

And there are actually Internet Marketing Coaches you can begin with for only a few hundred dollars, which could be money very well spent. :-)