The great things about these programs is that they all had their own strategies on how to invest. Some would invest in the forex market, others in highly profitable local businesses. Unfortunately, although some program owners were ethical and caring about the way they invested the funds, others were straight up crooks preying on your money. All they had to do is create a program that was believable enough for people to "invest" in, knowing very well that it was just a matter of time before they disappeared with your money.
It was such a common practice that it became primordial to teach as a golden rule to "never put all their eggs in the same basket". It became a game of probability and at the end the only people really making money were the ones who could afford to diversify and of course the program administrators.
Network Marketing
As a college student, I thought network marketing would be my ticket to success. It was network marketing that influenced my decision to get an associate degree in business marketing. In my mind, I could already picture myself reaching the highest income level in the compensation plan, making 6-figures of monthly residual income, living in my dream house, driving my dream car, traveling the world and making sure that my parents never have to work for a lousy salary again; At least, that's what I wished for. Just the thought of making it a reality gave me chills down my spine. Network marketing was like a perfect dream come true, it was like landing a job in a corporate law firm in New York right out of college, like being the CEO of my own business, with no limit to the amount of income I could generate for me and my family.
On the bright side, network marketing open my eyes to a new world of opportunities. It taught me to be great, strive for more and that everything was possible for those only willing to rise above the crowd, go above and beyond, step up to the plate and become leaders. But it also meant that people would think of me as insane for believing in such "nonsense", and I would have to deal with rejection 99% of the time. Basically, no one believes you or even care until you're finally successful. It also meant that I would have to rid myself of everyone who didn't believe in my dreams....or the means in which I was planning on reaching them. To sum it up, the crazier your dreams, the lonelier you will be. But at the end, it all came down to self-development, entrepreneurship and networking.
E-Commerce
The first time I ever sold anything online, I was testing on how to sell on Ebay without much expectations. I took pictures of a nice track jacket I had in my closet and listed it on Ebay. At first I thought no one would see my listing, but to my surprise someone bid on it and ended up buying it. That's when I realized I didn't really want to sell my jacket, but I was pretty happy about my first sale. That was several years ago, when there wasn't so much competition. Ideally, the plan was to buy low and sell at a markup price for profit, but with today's increased competition, it's easier said than done.
Nowadays, everybody has a space online, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Foot Locker, and everything else.
Internet Marketing
When speaking about internet marketing, the reaction I get is almost always "is this a scam?", or "is it a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme" or "is it one of those pyramid thingy". Never do they question themselves on what internet marketing really is. I used to be this way, until I start asking questions like: How do companies like Google make money? How does Google manage to make billions every year? $50 billion to be exact!What is internet marketing? What is it about Internet marketers that makes them different from the rest? How do they manage to make 5, 6, and in some case even 7-figure income online, on a continuous basis month after month, year after year? What do they know that I don't know? Etc etc...
The truth is the online economy is worth 19 trillion dollars today and more than three quarters of the world population has access to the internet. It is also said that roughly 82% of internet sales initially started with a search query. In other words, someone goes to a search engine like Google.com, enters " Nike basketball shoes", get some search results, clicks on a website link, places an order, and voila, a sale is made. This scenario happened literally billions of times every day, regardless of if a sale is made. Essentially, the reason why Google is able to generate these numbers is because it has mastered the ability to point people to what they are searching for. Now this is not a sales pitch about recruiting people to sell overpriced products. Google makes billions pointing people to what they want.
Now if you could point people to what they need, how much of a difference do you think it would make?
Once your eyes are finally opened on the endless possibilities that the internet has to offer, you begin to understand what it means when people say: "Your network is your net worth". Everything starts to make sense.
Making money online is not so much about what you are selling, but how you sell it. If you want to make money online you have to be able to model after someone who is earning at the level of income you want to earn. In network marketing, it is said that the person making the most money is the one standing in front of the crowd. In internet marketing, you need a system that's reliable, duplicable and that can run automatically. Add that to a few other components, and you're set to make as much money as you want online.