Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2010, during the financial crisis. The survey payouts (0.20, 0.50 and 0.30, with no currency given in the original) and the online-business landscape it describes are of that time.
Deceptive businesses, shady businesses, businesses built to scam: I don’t know what they call them in your country, but these kinds of business that offer you quick, easy money are spreading around the world like a flu outbreak, helped along by the crisis and by people’s desperation to make money urgently.
Some of the most common internet searches are easy money, extra money and how to make money fast. Well, today we’re taking a completely objective look at these kinds of businesses.
If there’s a way to make money fast, it certainly won’t be easy, and if there’s a way to make easy money, it certainly can’t be done quickly.
Even so, it is possible to make easy, fast money with a business. Surprised? Don’t be: the people who offer you the chance to make money that way do it every day, by luring you into investing in it.
But so that there are no misunderstandings, and so the “Quick and Easy Earnings” association doesn’t come calling, we’ll explain what’s true in all this and when it’s time to run.
In a previous post we talked about multi-level businesses and network marketing. If the question is whether you can make money with multi-level businesses, the answer is yes, even a lot of money. If the question is whether it’s quick, easy money, the answer is that making money with that business is neither easy nor quick. Some people may find the idea attractive, while others won’t think it’s a good idea.
There are multi-level businesses that are scams, and others that have been running for decades and have made many people rich.
Online businesses. You can make money, but it won’t be easy or quick either, since anyone with a website can tell you how much work it takes to get it ranked in search engines. You’ll be offered ways to make money fast without having to rank your site, by taking part in pay-per-click programmes, which can leave you with some losses if lots of people click on your ads and only one decides to join your business.
For the most part, this business is a good business for the company you work with: thousands or millions of people have signed up just like you, and with one person in a hundred taking the bait, thousands of people like you may lose money, but the company has gained thousands of affiliates.
Even so, some people do make considerable profits with this business.
So it’s not that you can’t make money with online affiliate systems; it simply won’t be easy, fast money.
Programmes that pay you to make money reading emails. You should know from the outset (and with this type of business I don’t mind saying it) that these businesses make their profits by deceiving the companies that advertise, since those companies are looking for genuine interest from a potential buyer, not someone who clicks on their emails to make money. So these are what you’d call fraudulent businesses in every sense.
Filling in online surveys. At 0.20, 0.50, 0.30 a time. You’ll earn some money for time you could be spending on making real money. A survey is something that should be done freely and objectively; if you do them for money, you won’t even look at the questions, since what you care about is filling in as many as you can.
Writing posts for a blog. This is a very honest way to earn some extra money. The pay is usually low, but if you enjoy writing, go for it. Still, consider starting your own blog or website, so the same work would earn profits for you.
I don’t want to shatter your dreams of making money. We’re simply being realistic about how it’s done.
As an entrepreneur myself, and wanting to help instil the idea of entrepreneurship, which for me is essential, we can see how the eagerness to make money fast stops many people from making a lot of money in the long term.
To help, we’ve prepared another article so you know when to run from a business proposal.
Further reading
Featured image: R. Henrik Nilsson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
