Internet "Holy Grail", eBay & Back to Planet Earth!
After years of struggling to make money online, I never found the 'holy grail', the product that would transport me instantly to the world of tropical beaches, fast cars, fast boats, bikini-clad beauties in hammocks, ocean side mansions and piles of money. This world existed, I know it did because I had seen it on countless sales letters.
Those sales letters! 16, 24, 36 even 48 A4 pages of muticoloured, highlighted and highly persuasive copy that assured me, yes ME, that the golden life was just around the corner. Handing over my money was less a matter of buying a product than purchasing a ticket to a wonderland of untold riches where I could sit on the beach with my laptop which I used only to find out if my bank could cope with the flood of money pouring into my account.
A whole raft of new problems would arise of course. Should I travel first class by air or hire my own jet?, would I be able to distinguish between the gold diggers and the those who wanted me for myself among the army of lovelies vying for my attention and would jealousy drive away my existing friends?
Embarrasment and shame prevents me from confessing how much money and time I spent in this mad alternative universe of smoke and mirrors. The money hurts but ultimately it's knowing that for some considerable time, I was a believer! O.K. there was an element of wanting to believe, after all some had made it big in the far off galaxy of www. A not inconsiderable number of people were able to convince (polite version) me, for some time of the validity of their pitch and in doing so forced me to realise that I am not the logical, level headed individual I smuggly thought I was.
That's it, rant over! It is astonishing, when I look back, that I did however continue to look for a way of working from home and making money online from my own internet based business.The battering that those years inflicted on me did, never the less, result in me acquiring three bits of priceless information - oh no I'm starting to sound like a sales letter. This information was not collected deliberately or in any kind of order it just became apparent to me one day that there was, back here on planet Earth, a sane sequence of actions that I could take that just might lead to, if not an oil well, my own filling station.
What is this amazing secret? - don't worry you don't have to mortgage the farm to find out I will tell you here and now.Sadly it's not very sexy. First thing - eBay, yes good old eBay. In all the madness I had overlooked that fact that an organisation was available to me which I could join for free, would give me use of it's already up and running website, would supply customers, a money collecting service in the form of PayPal and would enable me to get going for the cost of the umbrella in my drink on the tropical beach.
So I started selling on eBay, cleared out the house of all my rubbish ( valuable collectibles) and that of a few friends and relatives. Then I set up a 'me' page ( My eBay) and started to specialise in one area in particular - I know I should say 'niche' - which led to part two.
Part two was my own website, no eBay rules, selling someones else's product. This, in turn, led to part three.
Part three was selling my own product to the customers I had acquired in part two.
The real trick is, of course, in the detail. My time in the wild west of the internet meant that if I had learnt nothing else I had sorted out the good guys and organisations from the black hat cowboys. In other words by using the correct software, guidance and systems (didn't always get it right first time) at every point I reached my present position which is rather pleasant.
No I still don't have my own product to sell to you, in this area, but I do have a website ( and a blog on the way ) where you can sign up to my free weekly newsletter. I frequently send out special messages regarding something I've come across, usually free, that I think might be of interest to you. After my b.e. (before eBay) life I couldn't, with a clear conscience, start encouraging you to part with large lumps of your hard earned money.
Be very careful out there!
Those sales letters! 16, 24, 36 even 48 A4 pages of muticoloured, highlighted and highly persuasive copy that assured me, yes ME, that the golden life was just around the corner. Handing over my money was less a matter of buying a product than purchasing a ticket to a wonderland of untold riches where I could sit on the beach with my laptop which I used only to find out if my bank could cope with the flood of money pouring into my account.
A whole raft of new problems would arise of course. Should I travel first class by air or hire my own jet?, would I be able to distinguish between the gold diggers and the those who wanted me for myself among the army of lovelies vying for my attention and would jealousy drive away my existing friends?
Embarrasment and shame prevents me from confessing how much money and time I spent in this mad alternative universe of smoke and mirrors. The money hurts but ultimately it's knowing that for some considerable time, I was a believer! O.K. there was an element of wanting to believe, after all some had made it big in the far off galaxy of www. A not inconsiderable number of people were able to convince (polite version) me, for some time of the validity of their pitch and in doing so forced me to realise that I am not the logical, level headed individual I smuggly thought I was.
That's it, rant over! It is astonishing, when I look back, that I did however continue to look for a way of working from home and making money online from my own internet based business.The battering that those years inflicted on me did, never the less, result in me acquiring three bits of priceless information - oh no I'm starting to sound like a sales letter. This information was not collected deliberately or in any kind of order it just became apparent to me one day that there was, back here on planet Earth, a sane sequence of actions that I could take that just might lead to, if not an oil well, my own filling station.
What is this amazing secret? - don't worry you don't have to mortgage the farm to find out I will tell you here and now.Sadly it's not very sexy. First thing - eBay, yes good old eBay. In all the madness I had overlooked that fact that an organisation was available to me which I could join for free, would give me use of it's already up and running website, would supply customers, a money collecting service in the form of PayPal and would enable me to get going for the cost of the umbrella in my drink on the tropical beach.
So I started selling on eBay, cleared out the house of all my rubbish ( valuable collectibles) and that of a few friends and relatives. Then I set up a 'me' page ( My eBay) and started to specialise in one area in particular - I know I should say 'niche' - which led to part two.
Part two was my own website, no eBay rules, selling someones else's product. This, in turn, led to part three.
Part three was selling my own product to the customers I had acquired in part two.
The real trick is, of course, in the detail. My time in the wild west of the internet meant that if I had learnt nothing else I had sorted out the good guys and organisations from the black hat cowboys. In other words by using the correct software, guidance and systems (didn't always get it right first time) at every point I reached my present position which is rather pleasant.
No I still don't have my own product to sell to you, in this area, but I do have a website ( and a blog on the way ) where you can sign up to my free weekly newsletter. I frequently send out special messages regarding something I've come across, usually free, that I think might be of interest to you. After my b.e. (before eBay) life I couldn't, with a clear conscience, start encouraging you to part with large lumps of your hard earned money.
Be very careful out there!
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