Ethics of home-based business

[Kylark]

I admit, I have been seduced by the ads on how to make money online.

I have given away my name and email address for "free reports" with "exclusive information" only to see my inbox flooded with solicitations for classes, seminars, affiliate programs, and ebooks.

Now here's the rub:

I believe the people advertising these products actually do make a good living from their online businesses. After all, I have hit the "purchase" button for 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4) of these products, so I know they must be selling. I'm not the only one interested in "quitting my job" "making money online," or earning a 6-figure income in my underwear.

What I have gleaned from these reports, and from the numerous solicitations in my inbox, is that the best way to make money online is... sell people products that tell them how to make money online.

My question is:

What would happen if I made the leap from reading about (and occasionally buying) these products to actually selling these products? I have no doubt that I could make a living from it.

HOWEVER

The whole thing just seems a bit skeezy to me. Am I creating any value in people's lives or in the world by selling them a product that tells them how to sell a product?

There will always be desperate people looking for an easy buck, but am I helping them by taking their money?

And perhaps most importantly,

How long until people wise up to the fact that most of these internet marketers are really selling the same thing?

And, finally,

What will my friends and family think if I become a skeezy Internet Marketer?

I would love feedback from anybody who has had success OR failure selling information products online.

[silicon toad2000]

I feel that you are putting the cart before the horse. Internet marketing is just a marketing channel, like tv adds, radio adds.
A lot of these things are just phishing exercises to get confirmed email addresses. There is money in harvesting valid email addresses.
I would suggest that you figure out what you want to sell first, something that ties in with your interests and skills. Like what Steve has done, his skills and interests are include personal development and he has chosen the internet as a channel through which to market this product.

[PMcDonald]

When I first started looking at businesses to work from home, I fell into that same trap as well, buying products that tell you how to buy products and I figured that if I really wanted to, I could make a decent living off of that. However, as you mentioned - I just didn't see that I was providing a real value for people.

That is the most important thing - find something that you can do that absolutely provides value and really does have a positive effect on people's lives. Another thing I preferred when I was searching was something where I could connect with people, and talk to a real person on the other end of the phone and who would be a mentor to me and so I kept searching until I found my fit.

My advice to you is to do the same which is first get a good clear picture of what you would like in a company/product/opportunity if you haven't already and keep searching until you find it. With the right attitude, you absolutely will find your fit.

As far as internet marketing, there are plenty of legitimate companies and the like out there i.e Amazon, Commission Junction, Clickbank, etc. where you are simply the middleman and are helping people find whatever it is they are looking for through your advertisements of the products.

[1000feet]

In my mind, people selling "systems" for making money will always be a little shady. At best they seem to provide a way to place product orders, and let you spend all your time trying to convince everyone you know to buy the product. They're definitely geared to people who want an easy way to get rich, so while they make a lot of money by providing training they don't really care that most people won't put in the effort to really make it successful; those who will probably don't need to buy their system.

If you're concerned about what other people will think the best thing would be to study what the bad ones say and avoid sounding like that; you can also tell people about why you're different (but keep in mind that everyone wants to sound different from the scams).

To create something that's really helping people you need to think about what they need to learn and how to teach it to them and get them set up. It would probably help to work closely with a few people who would be interested to see how they take the material and use it. That way you can refine it and make sure it's at least making a different to some people before selling it to everyone. Or you can just make a site with big promises and little real content and try to get as many links as possible.

[Elenny]

Kylark,

It seems like you already know the answer to your question.

People will not wise up. These scams have been around for decades. They were here way before the internet, and they will be around as long as there are people interested in making a quick buck.

Create something of value and you will see real results, instead of keeping the marketing chain of scams going.