This time, the term faux pas should be plural.  But, I don’t know how to do plural in French. It’s just that I can’t figure out why small online business entrepreneurs keep committing these same online business sins.

Of course, the internet offers a great chance for a scam artist to make a quick buck. Because of that alone, there are going to be people out there who are going to give it a shot.  That’s why we keep getting those emails that tell us someone in South Africa died and we stand to inherent their millions if we simply give them all of our information and wire them money so that they can send it to us.

But anyone who wants to actually make millions of dollars would be wise to acknowledge the fact that offering a quality product or an honest service is the best way to build a loyal customer base. The thing that I keep seeing is that these legitimate online entrepreneurs are lowering themselves to the same tactics scam artists use.  That’s because they are buying the same marketing courses the scam artists are buying.

Marketing Marketing to Marketers

The first thing that you need to know is that marketing marketing to other marketers is a meaningless game like trying to sell air.  There are a few legitimate online marketers who are trying to teach people how to market.  So, they are marketing to marketers.  Try to understand the difference.  If you take a legitimate marketing course, apply it to a business. Don’t get into the endless rat race of applying those strategies you learned to market marketing to marketers.

A handful of gurus sit at the top of that vicious game.  Their names are established and they make millions of dollars a year.  That’s true!  But for most of the gaggle in marketing, they lie to you about their earnings.  They show you false documentation of a day of sales.  They show you pictures of houses, cars and money so that you will buy their courses.  Information they gleamed from a course they took or they might have the resale rights of a course they didn’t even create.

So before we move on to another online business faux pas, I want you to deeply comprehend my point.  Use marketing strategies to sell your products and services.  Sell anything from pet supplies to party accessories.  That’s why you took the course, not to get into the vicious cycle most marketers don’t know how to leave.

Emails That Lie to Me

The scam artist sends out emails that are designed to make me open them and click a link.  I might be getting millions of dollars from a guy who is dead.  I might be able to get free software that I can have up and running in five minutes, putting $2,563 in my bank account every hour and I have nothing else to do ever. These kinds of emails are annoying and they lose all credibility with me.

So, think about it!  If you are a legitimate online entrepreneur, don’t use these strategies to get me to open your email.  You will immediately lose credibility and not just with me.  Millions of potential customers are getting wise to scams because of the sheer volume they see every day.

Here’s an example of a legitimate offer I deleted recently because it lost credibility.  The Subject read Payment Complete (2^nd Notice). Hmm, someone made a payment on my behalf!  Where in the world does that ever happen?  Who made me their charity case?

The body of the email read that a payment had been made on my behalf so that I could download an important product.  Really?  It’s a digital product.  No overhead for download.  The owner of the company was claiming that he had paid for my ebook and that I could download it now for free.  Thank you!  Thank you very much!

Obviously, I was on someone’s mailing list when I started taking a look at Solar Panels. A legitimate ebook about building my own Solar Panel was deleted because the entrepreneur used the same tactic that online scammers use.  How can I distinguish between a scammer and a legitimate entrepreneur when you make yourself look just like them?

Websites That Are Too Busy

Scammers will use every tactic in the book to trick you to click a link.  They might get paid for leads, which means all they have to do is get you to click a link.  You don’t even have to buy the product on the other end.

So when you go to their websites, they have little scripts in place that make forms or boxes shoot around their website so that you accidently click links while trying to do something else completely.  They lie about what you’ll get when you click a link. They’ll keep popping windows up at you and they program them so that the top right hand corner of the window is actually a link rather than the legitimate close window tab.

Legitimate online entrepreneurs have used these same tactics to get people to buy their products or services.  I don’t mind having a popup window.  I don’t mind having a peel away that catches your eye and you wonder what it’s about.  My own Small Online Business Consultant website has both of those.  But, don’t get so busy that it comes across like you’re tricking your customers into making a purchase.

Don’t throw offers at them while they are reading your information.  That’s the most annoying and it happens all the time.  If I click on your site because I found something you have to say important, let me read it!  Don’t program a script with a time delay that pops up a window and places it right where I’m reading at the time.  That’s a good way to watch me exit your site in 0.2 seconds.

Notice the difference between the instant popup and the time delay popup.  The instant popup with an offer is a great way to build your mailing list.  The time delay popup that almost causes me to accidentally click a link comes strongly across as a scam!

Websites That Are Difficult to Navigate

Scam artists will set you up with a long sales letter on a simple website page that has several Buy Now buttons and all the sales pitches that could possibly be put in one place.  When you make your purchase, you are sent to a different page where you are given another offer.  There’s a huge Buy Now button and a small indistinguishable No Thanks link.  There’s a series of these landing pages where offers keep getting thrown at you all the while you’re wondering where in the world is your product and why aren’t you using it yet.

A legitimate online entrepreneur might have so many products they want to sell to you that they push those in your face knowing all along that it was one product that caught your attention in the first place.  That product is designed to drive traffic to a site where other products are offered as well.  All I’m saying is that if I come to your site because I want a certain product, make it easy for me to find.  Put it at the top of the page.  Make it first on the sidebar.  I don’t care!  But, make it easy for me to find.  Who knows?  I just might buy other stuff from you too simply because of the fact that I liked your website navigation.

 

The bottom line is Practice Honest Business.  Just because you are online doesn’t mean that you have to result to scam artist tactics and shady business practices.  When you are face to face with someone, you don’t stand a chance of getting their business if you can’t clearly lay out what it is that they can expect from you and what you want from them in return.  Bring that same business principle online and you will make money.