Have you ever had someone hound you to just take a look at their company website or some other promotional material to try to get you to sign up? Were they pushy and obnoxious, almost making you feel like something could be wrong with you if you didn’t see the validity of all they were saying and whip out your credit card A.S.A.P.? If you’re new network marketing and online businesses you may even buy into the hype being pushed at you and feel like you must sign up so you will appear to be business minded, knowing you really lack a sense of what network marketing businesses are all about.

Years ago this happened to me. Like an animal being led to the slaughterhouse I followed wide eyed and naive into a bad business venture. I even recruited others into the business thinking I was creating a better future for myself and helping them too. As I started to learn more, because my upline really couldn’t explain things to my satisfaction, I discovered that I was involved in a bad business opportunity with almost no real way to earn. I became fuming mad. How dare someone take advantage of me! Right. No wrong. Some specialize in taking advantage of others just to pad their own wallet.

When I informed my upline who obviously didn’t know that it was a bad opportunity, I thought she would be grateful. What she told me shocked me. She knew that we were in a bad opportunity but she wanted to make the money she could off of the recruiting. What! This was someone I met online, had talked on the phone with as a friend and she led me astray. This taught me something big time. So what did I do. I immediately, after talking to her, notified my downline that it is was a bad opportunity, explained why it was a bad opportunity and advised them to quit immediately. I also apologized for getting them involved in something bad that I felt was good. I decided that I would never let that happen again.

As a marketer you name can be golden or mud, you decide which one. I was uneducated and not equipped to make the decision to join that company. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not an excuse. There is too much information available today. We have to do our homework. No one will do it for us. The information is out there but there is no internet scam cop who will force us to read and learn. We must take that initiative our-self.

We can’t be blinded by the fancy houses, cars and flashy money that we see depicted in advertising. Many times it’s just for show and isn’t true or they have earned it through unscrupulous tactics like scamming people like you and me, literally just snatching our money away. We can’t make it easy for people to trick us and pull the wool over our eyes. We need to educate ourselves against being taken advantage of and pass that information on because you never know who you might help. You build trust in the minds of others when you help them to learn how to protect their assets.

What is a bad business opportunity? A bad business opportunity is any opportunity set up with scamming you in mind. The opportunity might cost a lot of money upfront or it might not but what all bad business opportunities have in common is that it is almost impossible to earn. For example, one type of scam is earning off of the back of recruits, meaning no real volume is being pushed outside of the company and recruits. When you think of bad business opportunities, many times MLM comes to mind like in an article I read “What’s Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?” While it is a highly informative article I am not in complete agreement. I feel that it applies to MLM companies ran by unscrupulous scammers but not all MLM companies deserve the bad rap that they get. Any company could be perceived as an MLM if you look at the fact that the owner or ones who where there first have the potential to earn more.

For example, who will earn more?

• The owner of a large cell phone company or a sales representative.
• The owner of a large chain of supermarkets or a cashier.
• Someone who has held their job with yearly raises for the last 20 years or someone who just got hired last week.

Are those scams too? Of course not so just like all businesses are not scams all multi-level marketing businesses aren’t scams either. The article really did hit the nail on the head to show you what scam MLM’s look like. A scam MLM will be run entirely different from one who cares about the those who are representing them and want them to have a real chance to earn. Click here to read an article sharing tips on how to avoid joining a scam business.

(*This isn’t an endorsement from me for any particular business. I’m sharing this to show you the type of bad business opportunities floating around.)

Who will get you involved in a bad opportunity? There are several types of people that will do this. Those who are uneducated about internet scams and network marketing will try to involve you because they don’t know any better. They haven’t had time to do their homework yet or maybe they don’t even know that they should be investigating before they leap. Those heavy hitters who know and don’t care a bit about anything but the cash lining their pockets will also try their best to weasel their way into your life and get you to join them.

When these bad opportunities come out you see them in droves, swamping you with emails that you probably never opted in to get. They start approaching you on social networks when they never had the time of day for you before. You become their target and they have a laser like focus on your wallet. That is the only thing they care about. Lastly we have the unscrupulous creators of these wacked out programs that you will never earn from. Their sole mission is to stack their bank accounts as high as they can on the inside sales (sales by recruits monthly as a part of their quota or upgrade packages) of those who have joined the company in hopes of creating an income. They have it set up in a way that would involve you walking on glass and  jumping through fiery hoops. Most people wouldn’t do that in real life, so why do it online? You will lose real money.

When should you look out for bad business opportunities?

• Anytime someone invites you join anything that involves you digging in your pockets.
• Anytime you suddenly see the emails coming in droves about the same business opportunity.
• Anytime you are thinking of upgrading from a “free” opportunity to get to the real wealth that can only be achieved if you whip your credit card out now!

All online business are not bad businesses. There are legitimate ways to earn but you will never know if you don’t investigate until it’s too late and your money is already gone.

Where will you find bad business opportunities? Literally everywhere from PPC ads on major search engines to traffic exchanges and marketing forums. You will find them in the best and the worst of places. These people know how to position themselves and weasel their way into your minds making you feel you have got to get in now, if you let them. Don’t ever let the prestige of a site or traffic exchange, social network or forum make you feel that everything on there is A-OK because it isn’t. Just because someone is widely known on the site or the internet, doesn’t mean that they are ethical. Just because you see someone’s ads constantly and their name all over the place, don’t think for a second that they are not out to trick you. Always do your homework!

Why not just join a bad business and earn a little money while it’s still hot and not found out yet? Well if you plan on being a scammer you would be right on track with that line of thinking. However if you want to be an ethical, trustworthy, business marketer and don’t want to have to keep switching identities like you’re under witness protection, then you know that your good name means everything. You want to be the go to person that people trust. Being involved with scam businesses don’t allow you to do that. It just leads you to the next one, over and over again because once people figure it out, they leave and you are left to start all over again with a new group of suckers or old group of scammers that love your scamming style.

How to tell if it’s a bad business opportunity. Is the product ridiculously overpriced? Is all or most of the product volume coming in from representatives who must purchase huge amounts of product monthly in order to earn, meaning is there a lack of real “customers”? Are the policies and procedures set up in such a way that you have no rights and it outright tells you that they are going to cheat you sometime in the future by having “clauses” that allow them to take your income away after you have built it up, even if you have done nothing wrong? Is there a long list of people on reputable complaint sites with a huge list of unsettled gripea against them.

If it seems unbelievably too good to be true then watch out because most likely it is. If someone is urging you to “just sign up now” hold off and take time to think and investigate so you don’t fall victim to a bad business opportunity.