As may or may not know, I’ve spoken with about 6,000 business opportunity seekers over the last 16 years. There’s a separate business I’ve done with a business partner for many years and I thought I’d take the chance to give you the heads up on how things have changed if you plan on offering business opportunities to make a living today. It’s not good news.Three years ago, all was well. We had a (we thought at the time) strong economy, and only about that time you heard talk of the housing bubble on CNN. I was offering an ethical and useful product and there is a business opportunity available. Lots of people signed up, it was really easy. Most of the people were normal people with some money to invest and a desire to have their own business to offset retirement, or give them something extra over their day job. It wasn’t the crazy spending that happened during the dot com boom, but I did really well and the people were nice.

Then the economy tanked, and every business opportunity seeker went batshit crazy.

Jeff Paul,  John Beck, and John Alexander and the likes started heavy infomercial campaigns about a year before the markets took a plunge. I just use them as an example because they’re currently under a multiple count indictment with the FTC. I also heard personally from a very famous infomercial marketer that the FTC allegedly is going after these places as a money grab.

He said they weren’t going to reimburse victims from the asset seizures and fines. It’s just what I heard, but he said they are saying they are doing it to protect consumers, but he thinks it’s just to fill their coffers. I’d take this with a grain of salt until the case is closed and we find out what the FTC does with the recovered funds. Also take into account it was said by one of the biggest names in infomercial production. I won’t disclose their identity though. We’ll have to see how it all plays out.

Well, this brings us back to the last two years. When the Jeff Paul stuff was running in heavy infomercial rotation, the quality of callers went into a nose dive. The problem with using infomercial keywords on pay per clicks (the ones not trademarked) is that the people have been preheated with promises like “Fast, easy money” and “We do all the work” told to them repeatedly over half an hour by attractive women in low cut cocktail dresses.

They would then Google the name of the program, and call me after seeing a review or pay per click ad. Oh, you don’t want to talk to people this naive’ for a living! As the economy got worse so did the callers. Each of them desperate, usually looking for someone to tell their troubles to. There’s so many people who lost jobs now looking for an Internet business the same way they shop for lottery tickets.

The majority now are out for a quick fix to save them from a dire situation. They’ve never run a business and have no concept of the time and risk involved, that there’s no guarantees. Unfortunately there’s so much predatory sales copy for many opportunities that they expect answers to the dread questions. How much will I make, how fast will I make money, and what’s the average chance of success. Oh, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of those questions!

I explain to them that there’s no guarantees, and no average chance to succeed is possible to know, because so much of it is up to the person starting a business. There’s no guarantee they’ll make anything, let alone a time frame. A lot of people have hung up on me when I said that nobody could answer those questions, and if anyone ever does guarantee it, they’re lying to get you to sign up. Unfortunately, to someone who’s worked for others all their life and used to knowing those things about their job, they just hang up and call someone who will promise them those things. I don’t get mad, I feel bad because those people are a sitting duck for the scams out there.

We sold many things using the infomercial keywords that weren’t trademarked, but the people who called were complete basket cases. The business opportunity market has polarized to two ends now. At one there’s the scammers who make their money off opportunity seekers, hosing them for every penny whether they succeed or not. At the other is the seeker who calls and wants mentoring, hand holding, complete coaching to teach and guide them through every moment and a life coach, mentor, and everything else you could ask for, even when buying a $20 book they want 24/7 coaching and support. I kid you not.

The real challenge when offering a business opportunity today is money. Even if you offer a great product like I do, the few hundred dollars it takes to start a solid online based business just isn’t there for most people. They also don’t have the couple of months it takes to get traction and make a few bucks. I hate to sound doom and gloom, but it’s reality, and nobody is talking about it.

For marketers, success breeds success. So they swallow the kool aid and only talk or write their sales copy how great they’re doing, so you’ll buy in thinking you’ll do great too. The truth is there are business you can potentially do very well at, where you have people on your side instead of trying to squeeze every dime from you. The downside is it’s a lot harder than before the economy tanked. Not impossible, just a lot harder.

I do just one business opportunity, but I can’t mention it because of an SEC rule which the parent company follows when most others don’t, they’re really ethical. The other business I do is merchant account underwriting. It’s an easy business to do, even with a lot of competitors.

The reason it’s easy is because so many people in this industry are greedy. I love greedy competitors, because we can beat the rate of anyone out there. The price though, is significantly lower residual commissions, but our customers never leave since we get them a rate nobody else is willing to give them. It’s a long term strategy, but it’s the only way to go in this business.

Ten years ago, I did Internet marketing for a friend who was out to get people signed up for merchant accounts at the highest rates he could stick them for. I saw the aftermath as a year or two after he signed them into a lease they didn’t need and rates that were way over industry average, they shopped around and he lost them. He used to complain each time a residual check came in, that he had lost someone else and it was shrinking. I learned a lot about the business, and search engine promotions at the same time.

Anyway if you do offer a business opportunity, expect it to be difficult until the economy shows signs of a pulse and every opportunity seeker stops taking a trip to crazytown. If you have a merchant account and want to do better, give us a call at 800-715-8053 or send an email from our web site. We shop around 50 different banks, compared with agents who are locked into one take-it-or-leave it rate schedule. We also do overseas and high risk merchants, actually it’s what we specialize in, but we can underwrite any legal business domestic or International.

To be honest, I like the merchant account business best. One of our first customers was real high volume, and we saved him millions per year in fees over the PayPal Pro account he was using. It felt great to help someone that much. I’m still waiting for a PayPal SWAT team to pay a visit, but so far it’s been quiet

Nick