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To pay or not to pay that is the question.  The thing that we have to face in the world of business is that we will find more free advice then we could ever want.  However, how good is that free advice?  Who are you getting that free advice from?  Is the free advice leading you in the right direction or stealing your dream?

When you choose to set up shop on the internet, you are entering a territory that is still fairly new to a lot of people.  Either that or people might have set out wanting to make some extra money from the internet but have no clue as to what it took to get something going.

When I started on the internet it was with a Geocities free website and I had no idea what web hosting was or FTP (don’t they send flowers?), or that people actually sold stuff from their website.  Most of the websites around had guest books that I would sign and start a relationship with the web owner that way.  I would leave comments on their sites and tell them that I wanted to make a site, too, but my attempts were not going well.

I met two helpful people that way.  Two out of several replied.  They both helped me.  They showed me what tables were and taught me a little about using search engines to find more resources, such as free graphics.  I had so much to learn and found that working on my websites was a lot more fun than watching television, or sleeping.

Although I got the free help I needed then, I did not know how people could make any money from their sites.  I thought you had to be someone special to do that.  I found commission junction and I am not even sure how I found them.  I could not even understand them, or how to use them.

I read help menus and learned about source codes.  I still did not know a thing about keywords.  I started buying what few ebooks there were out there at the time.  It seemed that everyone who was writing them then was making 40K a month or something like that and they would show me how when I bought their book.  WRONG!

I found Joe Vitale and a group of people he seemed fond of at the time.  It also seemed that Joe was endorsing everything around back then.  I later found out that sometimes he got paid or a cut of the sales for doing those endorsements.  I was trying to get mentored from them, but every letter seemed like a sales letter.  Just one more course.  EEKS.

Having an internet coach should not be like going to a Chiropractor.  It should not be something you have to continue for the rest of your life.  I believe in having coaching though, so I will probably always continue my education, but it will have to be on my terms.

My advice is to get to know who you are being coached from.  It seems that lately the major players have set up farmed out coaching from one program or another.  While you will learn something from this coaching, it is usually very very expensive and they want you to pay it all up front using a credit card.

When you hear that, it is best to decline that offer.  Most of the time they want to set up an interview with you to find out if you are right for their program.  You have to really want to do this to pay thousands of dollars for this.  The courses are tax deductable and most guarantee that you will be making money in the first month.  Well it is not a written guarantee.  However their sales teams are really good at making you feel like you are one of the chosen, select few who your interviewer feels is worthy enough to take their course from an internet coach.

It is still cheaper than a college education that does not guarantee you a job, or to keep training you until you get one.  Most coaching programs will guarantee to keep your access to the phone help line and to the libraries until you make your investment back.

It is my opinion that you can join a few good groups and get mentored along the way without a huge outlay of cash up front.  It has taken me years to find some of these groups.  They do have monthly fees, but there is nothing to hold you there longer than you want to stay.

Read their websites and write to them.  When you are looking for internet coaches make sure that they are active in their program, not just the name that is used to draw you into the program.

• Do they personally hold coaching sessions?
• Do they answer your emails?
• How easy are they to contact?

Those are important questions that  you want to know the answers to before you get started.  Always check the support for programs before you join them.  If someone wants you to make an on the spot decision to join their program, ask for a test drive first.  Would you spend $5000 on a used car without taking it for a test drive or to your mechanic to check out?

In my next post in this series I will give you my recommendations for programs where you can start your road to internet success with some great help.  Some of you reading this blog already use the same systems that I do.

However I have one or two that maybe you do not use, so be sure to look for my next post on this topic.  It will probably be next week since I might be visiting parents over the weekend.

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