Top 7 Reasons People Fail To Make Money Online

If you can avoid these top 7 mistakes that most people make (probably at least 95% of people make these mistakes and it costs them dear), then you will stand a far higher chance of financial success. To earn like the top 5% of earners, you need to stop doing what 95% of people do!… 

1) Failure to set aside realistic start-up capital

Most people fail to understand that the best method of achieving a healthy and sustained long term profit from a home business opportunity is to set aside a sum of money away from your main finances, solely for the building your business. Whatever business you decide to join (there’s a good selection here) you need to understand that a home business is just like any other business – it NEEDS start up capital.

You should set aside a realistic amount (probably in the region of £300-£1,000) to be able to get it properly established with a good customer base. You need to make sure that you are prepared to spend this money i.e. it needs to be independent from your own personal finances and needs to be protected from factors that can threaten it. This can take a lot of emotion out of the decision making process.

Emotion is a factor that threatens all home business entrepreneurs. It’s all too easy to give up when you’ve spent just £200 of your starting capital (for example) and still not got your first customer. The size of your initial investment capital will of course be dependant upon your own individual circumstances and free capital available.

An analogy to the world of shares perhaps may be that no financial advisor worth his salt would advise you throw all your capital into the stock market alone.

The vast majority of budding entrepreneurs fail to set aside seed capital. They make their decisions based on what money they have in their pocket at the end of the week rather than looking at the business dispassionately and considering what is a genuine fair sum of money to be able to get established in the market they have chosen.

A true entrepreneur with a professional attitude will set aside what he can comfortably afford to invest (and potentially lose) and then determine the best use he can make of that fixed sum of capital. With a fixed sum of capital available you now move on to the next reason for failure.  

 

2) Stop Chasing Shiny Objects

There’s an abundance of “business opportunities” out there and they are all dressed up to look fantastic. Of course they are – would you expect anything different?

So one of the keys to success to be able to sort the genuine opportunities from the scams.

Success or failure has a lot to do with the business you choose based on it’s fundamentals. Take your time in preparation and research BEFORE you decide to join a particular business opportunity. It will save you a lot of wasted time, money and emotional distress. You should be looking for a business that will give you returns for medium to long term so spending a week researching a business and discarding it will be far better than jumping in to the day’s favourite opportunity, wasting your money for 3 months and then having to start all over again.

Here’s a quick test I always apply when looking at a new opportunity.

Forget about the flashy cars, the dream houses and the hype for a moment. Dig deeper and take a look at the product  on offer  and remember a simple business principle. Without a real product with good consumer value, there is no real business.

Most “business opportunities” online do not stand up to this simple test. Be honest with yourself when looking at the business and as I said, don’t get suckered in by the flashy presentations, tempting as they are. It’s your money and time you’ll be investing!

As a side note here, a common misconception is that you need to love and understand the product you’ll be selling. Whilst it’s useful, it’s not essential. It’s easy enough to research if there is a demand for a product at a certain price. Simply look up the competitors. If there are no competitors, then let that be a big red warning sign! Perhaps there isn’t a market for that product.

A good example of a product I’ve made a lot of money with over the years is something called an “autoresponder”. Most people don’t have a clue what an autoresponder is, but you can make a lot of money selling them because millions of people need autoresponders.

There are plenty of other great opportunities with real consumable products out there. Take your time to pick the right business in the first place.

Another one of the hidden dangers of choosing a business that doesn’t have a good value product in the first place is that that business will inevitably fail. To join a business that fails will knock your confidence and may prevent you from actually carrying on and finding the real business that gives you the breakthrough you were looking for in the first place.

I’ve lost count of how many times people have told me “I’ve tried for years to make money online, but everything is a scam”. If you have developed that mental state through having picked scams rather than genuine opportunities, the odds are stacked against you achieving success because you have now programmed your mind for failure rather than success.

The reality is most people get suckered into the latest, greatest, shiniest thing because they didn’t take a good look at the product and then let themselves get led by their dreams, not by their heads.

One final note on the shiny object dangers. It does not matter when you join a business, if it’s a genuine business. An opportunity does not go away unless some major market forces change such as a shift in technology (you wouldn’t want to start a DVD rental business for example). Indeed, I’ve seen many businesses that are 5-10 years old and are still worth joining. 

 

3) Lack of discipline

Lack of Discipline is the big hurdle for those trying to turn a hobby into a life changing income.

You cannot expect to make a fortune, working just 3 hours a week. If you spend hobby money and hobby time in a business, that’s what you’ll get back. If you develop discipline and work professionally, you will get a professional income. Being a long term successful entrepreneur is like swimming against the tide. It takes an effort to stay still, even greater effort to move ahead and as soon as you relax or slack off you start to go backwards.

Enough said on that subject.

 

4) Don’t let your emotions rule your head

Working from home can be a lonely game. Its also a highly skilled game. Emotion undermines success in many ways . There is comfort in knowing that as a sheep, working a 9-5 job, when you are wrong it is not your fault as you were simply doing what everyone else was doing.

However, most people in a 9-5 job are retiring penniless, having to take part time jobs stacking shelves in supermarkets and turn off the heating in the winter to save money where they can. Clearly “the system” most people subscribe too, the 9-5 job for 40 years, is broken. You need to think and act differently from the sheep around you to make you own way in this day and age. It’s not easy on your emotions when everyone around you seems to be telling you you are wrong.

 

5) Stop looking over the fence!

In reality, the grass is rarely greener on the other side of the fence. The truth is that the grass that isn’t working for you has not been grown, cultivated or looked after properly. Many people hop from one opportunity to another so quickly that they don’t give any business a true chance of success.

Even if they find a business that works, they quit after a run of a few bad weeks where the business slows down for a while. They are like children with new toys at Christmas . They never stay with any business long enough to prosper . They always feel the” Grass is Greener” , when in truth the “Grass” they are using has been abused and left to deteriorate.

They want the next Big “new idea ” or “method ” and that doesn’t work either as the fault lies not in the Grass, but the Gardener . They have no long term consistency in their marketing and are constantly tinkering with what wasn’t broke or moving on in search of the holy grail before a full evaluation of what they are currently examining has been completed.

A competition to win best garden will be won by the person who can spend most time in the garden and master its challenges, the gardener who is prepared to care about his garden and invest in the tools that will help his garden grow and keep the weeds at bay.

It’s the same with a home based business. You will do far better long term if you can make a concentrated effort of learning and research in one key area rather than flitting from this opportunity to that.

 

6) Stop being so lazy

Most people are LAZY! They have religiously followed a doctrine of poor planning and lack of research. They refuse to study and spend hours looking at how they can be successful. They don’t even read this far into a quality blog post ;-).

They refuse to invest into a business and invest in their own learning . You cant refuse to spend money, and think you will make money by just looking at a business opportunity for 30 minutes and expect to turn that into untold wealth and riches. It simply doesn’t work like that. If it was that easy , then millions would do it. You must invest in yourself and take the necessary action for results.

Natural human tendency is to try and get away with the least amount of effort. Lazy people are cannon fodder for the scammers. They make little or no effort in their business selection process nor make an effort to extract maximum returns from their investment. Those who put the most work in are the more likely to succeed. It’s as simple as that.

My philosophy is simple. To achieve a freedom enjoyed by the minority, you have to do something only a minority of people are willing to do. Work!

The famous golfer Gary Player once said “The Harder I Work the Luckier I Get”.

 

7) Stupidity!

Amazingly most budding entrepreneurs fail to learn from their mistakes. They continue for years making the same basic errors time and time again. Pure stupidity.

Strive to improve your success by continually learning from the mistakes. Mistakes are great opportunities, if you learn from them.

Your friends and family may have been laughing at you for years. You have it in your power however to change your life for the better.

Now, do it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and that it helps you get the success you are striving for. Please feel free to share and comment.