Business Alone

The Internet landscape is saturated with claims of easy, automatic, guaranteed, wealth-building packages and lucrative startup systems that anyone can do with minimal effort and wild success.

These offers often seem so "right" for the novice just starting out in business because of their supposed ease of setup, lack of real work, and mega-profits that are "guaranteed."

But I will tell you: don't waste your money or your time on these products, and above all, don't get discouraged that you're getting left behind if you don't hit the "buy now" button before 12 o'clock midnight when the offer goes away!

The self-proclaimed wealth "gurus" that produce these products can't guarantee you anything.

It's so easy to get hooked on their outrageous claims of mega bucks for little or no effort.

I've always been one to look at new year's resolutions as a two-edged sword.

They're a great way to map out your hopes, dreams, and plans for the coming year.

But they generally cause me some pain as I look back on the year now ending and realize all the things that I could have done better.

The human spirit, much like the business spirit, longs to grow and expand, and somehow stretch out into greater being than what it is.

My friend Jeff had tried three different business creation "systems" or turn-key packages over the past few months that had initially sounded like they were exactly the solution he needed to profit from his own online business idea.

But for various reasons, none of the systems had given him even one dollar of revenue to date.

Jeff just couldn't understand why he had failed, and why his purchases hadn't produced the income he was counting on.

With slight variations, these are the common themes of the systems Jeff had purchased:

I have watched as many heart-broken and disgruntled entrepreneurs have bounced from one business building package to the next, to the next, determined to find a system that produced quick results but that also required little or no effort.

Each new system that fails depletes the owner's bank account, shatters his enthusiasm for business, the drive to succeed online, and his precious time spent trying to find anything that produces substantial income!

Now take a step back for a moment and analyze the situation. What's wrong with this guaranteed and automatic wealth building business model?

Do you know?

There is a real attraction to purchasing a "business in a box" system.

To someone who has never undertaken the journey of business creation before, it seems logical that the steps could be laid out for you and the ground plowed ahead of you to guide you every step of the way, for just a one-time fee of $999.00

Think of all the time you'll save and the headaches you'll avoid if you don't have to research and actually learn what starting a business is all about!

What you may be overlooking, however, are gigantic business creation problems and voids that must be solved for every company.

We've been discussing the futility of buying into many of the so-called "business in a box" solutions that are available to the online entrepreneur.

It seems they are everywhere today and many are being promoted (and even developed) by folks that have never been involved with a successful business.

In the previous post, I gave you four good reasons why you should avoid these one-size-fits-all business packages and why they just don't work.

Here are some additional reasons (continued from yesterday's post) why you should avoid them:

OK. I've given you a bunch of reasons why you should NEVER rely on a business startup package that seems too easy, guarantees your success, is the same for everyone, and prescribes the subject of your business.

They are pretty much doomed to failure even before the owner makes her very first sale!

Nationwide small business start-up statistics show that after one year of existence, only one in five new start-ups (20%) are still actively doing business.

And of the 20% of start-ups that make it after one year, only one in five is still operating after five years.

I've often thought about the myriad of reasons for startup business failure. Because creating and operating a business involves so many details, it's easy to understand why problems galore plague entrepreneurs.

Many mess-ups are not fatal.

The owner can recover from non-crippling problems that result from unexpected circumstances or misjudged steps. Persistence and adaptability are key ingredients in the owner's arsenal of personality traits that are needed to overcome big mistakes.

But there is one very tough problem to correct: a poor choice of the basic business idea.

If the whole subject of your business is wrong - if you have employed an incorrect model - or you have overestimated the "salability" of your product - you could be in for a very rude awakening.