If you are an opportunity seeker on the web then chances are you will be exposed to online survey scams. It’s like swimming in the sea; the chances, while remote, there will always be sharks swimming in the same vicinity.

The elderly are prone to online scams. It’s only natural. The internet has long been regarded a young person’s domain but in recent years, the aged population have discovered the many benefits it offers as well as opportunities.

Promises of making fast, easy money or qualifying for outrageous gifts and vacations are tempting lures to any unsuspecting surfer. Spotting these online survey scams is tough for an experienced internet surfer so for someone with very little experience online, the pitfalls are multiplied.

How To Avoid Online Survey Scams

Go straight to the source of information. Online forums dedicated to paid surveys are a great source of information not only for picking up tips on how to profit with them but also to find out which ones you should avoid.

Remember that old adage… “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. Most offers of money for nothing and trips for free end up leading to dead ends that either expose your credit information or your personal address or even those ugly yearbook pictures. In the information age, one can never be too careful.

Watch out for testimonials which are designed to convince you that others are experiencing success using a particular service or system. “documented reports” from various “winners” are often displayed just like “satisfied customers” on their websites. These usually mean nothing or close to it as the reports are either entirely fabricated or only partially true. Don’t be fooled by the testimonial.

Also, be wary of those who use “documented proof” such as a winners list or other “proof” that people got payment for filling out the survey. This again can either be completely fabricated or partially true. Simply having a few winners doesn’t mean winning is a regular occurrence, as we all know.

Don’t ignore the task of checking the wording and the fine print on these websites and avoid giving personal information to those you do not trust, regardless of how promising the rewards sound.

The guarantee is a little like a testimonial in many cases and enticing to those unaware of online survey scams. It’s good to see a guarantee on anything but as far as survey participation is concerned, you shouldn’t have to part with your money just to take a survey.

Can network marketing make you rich? Sure it can but on it’s own, it’s not going to make you anything.

In her hard hitting report, The Renegade Network Marketer, Ann Sieg touched on some pertinent points about why most people fail in MLM.

What many failed distributors didn’t understand was that network marketing is just a vehicle to success. The real secret actually lies in how you market your business. The real truth is - the marketing needs to be put back into the network.

The internet has opened up a grand canyon of opportunity for savvy MLMers who have recognized how powerful a tool it is in generating targeted prospects. Forget the 3 foot rule where your upline teaches you to make a list and invite them to a meeting at your home within 24-48 hours.

Yes, this may have worked well in the days when there was no internet but it really is just hit and miss prospecting.

Targeted Prospecting Is The Key

Let’s take a look at some of the methods you can use to improve your chances of attracting targeted leads to your MLM business.

- Article Marketing is a powerful way to get visitors to your blog or website. As a tool for attracting prospects in network marketing it’s very powerful. The key is writing on different topics related to the industry such as prospecting itself and submitting it to various article directories around the web.

- You need to attract prospects with something of value such as a free report. If you haven’t got one either write one yourself or have one ghost written for you.

- Your site should have an opt-in list on it for people to subscribe to. Once they get to your site, your free report is the incentive for them to opt in. You could also invite them to subscribe to your newsletter which they’ll receive on a regular basis and will be full of useful information.

- Once you have them on your mailing list you need to start training your prospects. How? With information they view as valuable. You’ll not only develop a relationship with them but you’re also building your own credibility.

- As a Renegade Network Marketer, you need to lead with good, valuable information first instead of hitting them straight up with a sales pitch. It’s what’s known as pre-selling.

One can say that there have been roughly three generations of on page website advertising technologies used thus far on the Internet. This article will provide a brief overview of the advantages and disadvantages of each, and will provide information on the current technology of on page advertising being used, as well as where to find it for the best value for money.

From the late 1990’s, the most common form of on page advertising were banner ads. Visitors quickly became “ad blind” to these banners, and would usually ignore them knowing that they were ads. Then we saw a proliferation of the first generation of popups appearing. These would work by opening a new browser window either in front of or behind the user’s existing browser session. These were very intrusive and annoying, and the remedy quickly came in the form of popup blockers to automatically block them. Now most browsers come with these popup blockers installed by default on one of more of the browser’s toolbars.

The next, or second generation, of popup technology are referred to as dhtml popups. These are less intrusive as they don’t actually open up a new browser session but instead overlay a window or a note popup over and within the existing browser session. These are less irritating to visitors, but can still cause irritation to some as they can obscure what you are trying to read, plus some people are put off by windows swirling and flying in from all directions and distracting them from their original purpose of visiting the webpage.

Advertising consultants for larger corporate clients had a challenge: they needed to ensure that the companies that were their bread and butter were receiving a decent return on investment for their advertising dollars, and that they were receiving a worthwhile return on investment for their dollar spend. It was these consulting companies that rose to the challenge and devised a new technology known as peel away ads. These were extremely effective, and the consultants were charging their clients accordingly for the increased results they were seeing, and as a reward for their innovation.

However, this meant that the technology remained outside the realm of the home based business webmaster, due to the fact that most didn’t know how to replicate these ads and didn’t have the budget to pay to use an advertising firm’s proprietary technology.

All this changed in 2007 however, with the apparition of the Peel Away Ads package. The creators of this package had their own version of these flash based peel animations coded and put into a user friendly package affordable to even the most budget conscious webmaster!

You can see an example of this peel ad technology, as well as pick up the software package itself for only $17 at peel away ads. This includes instruction videos showing you how to implement peel pages on your site, and comes inclusive of five additional software packages including two dhtml popup creators, a desktop screen capture and image editing program, as well as software to enable you to add streaming audio to your website. Full help-desk support is also included should you need it to get the peel ads working on your webpage.

Niche Video Site Builder

Many people are trying to cash in on the phenomenal success of YouTube with ‘me too’ clones. Everyday a new video site is launched and the overwhelming majority of these sites fail quickly. Why? It’s simple. They have no solid marketing plan and YouTube has far too much momentum to ever catch up. When Youtube launched they were the first of their breed which generated its own buzz and users flocked to the service. Now people are used to web-video and YouTube is in the collective consciousness-a household name. Muscling in and getting a piece of the action is going to be difficult.

There are three potential ways to find success with video niche sites.

Plunk down a tidy sum of money and engage in a marketing blitz. This will likely take huge resources and with YouTube dominating the market getting a piece of that pie is going to be next to impossible. But this is a legitimate way to go and other venture capital backed video communities are doing just that. But it will take raising millions of dollars and marketing wisely.

Instead of launching an exact YouTube replica find a way to do it better, do it slightly differently through enhanced or unique features and services or find a niche. A niche could be rap videos, biker videos, sailing videos, you get the idea. Instead of being a generalized video site, drill into a niche and dominate it. You will not get the large traffic numbers YouTube enjoys, but you will likely find a steady stream of targeted traffic and your site will make money. you can see a great way of doing this at Niche Video Site Builder Review

There is a huge network of entertainment websites and these webmasters have essentially banded together to share traffic. What they have on YouTube is they present the viral video cream of the crop. Instead of the user having to sift through the massive library at YouTube to find the best videos, these sites take away that step and present only the best. Filtering has been done for the user which is the attractor to these sites. As a video webmaster you can partner with these sites and start sharing traffic immediately.

The resistance by the MLM community to incorporate internet marketing into their business prospecting arsenal has been a little hard to understand.

Ann Sieg ruffled many feathers with her two reports about the 7 great lies of network marketing and the Renegade Network Marketer. Old school methods still being taught to new distributors today is paramount to lunacy.

One of the secrets to attracting prospects into your business is by using the art of pre-selling. Incorporating the wide reach of the internet, not only can you prospect those within a “stone’s throw” of where you live but also people from all over the world.

How To Warm Up A Prospect

Pre-selling is about warming up your prospect in such a way that by the time they are ready to hear your main sales pitch it doesn’t really matter what you say, they are ready to join your business.

The art of pre-selling has worked well for those who have tried it in the offline network marketing world. For example, a campaign may start with a free report about wealth building followed up by further tidbits of valuable information in which a prospect can absorb and use.

Your ultimate aim offline was to get them to that initial meeting and pre-selling worked very effectively. But what a difference being able to utilize the vast resources of the online world. Once a prospect opts into your mailing list you can then go to work training them. Some might argue why train them if they’re not in your business? Wrong attitude.

Training Your Prospect

From the moment they make contact with you the training begins. You feed them information they can utilize. Off line prospecting tactics are still useful but if you truly want to ramp up your efforts, then consider using the power of online marketing. Those network marketing meetings where you take your prospects to watch a presentation and hear a pitch from your upline may be a thing of the past.

Becoming a Renegade Network Marketer and dismissing most of the old, archaic methods of prospecting is something one needs to consider if they want to make inroads in the MLM business.

One of the main reasons why people fail in network marketing is because they don’t make money fast enough.

This message will resonate with the majority of MLM’ers yet, this has happened for years and it has taken revolutionists like Ann Sieg to make people aware that they need to change their focus and direction if they are going to become successful in network marketing.

Sieg has recently released an updated version of her hard-hitting report, The Renegade Network Marketer. You can read a review of the original version on this page.

The Renegade Network Marketer hasn’t been available for too long, it was released in June, 2007 yet it’s impact has been profound. Many were critical of her claims that the marketing had gone out of network marketing and she perhaps went a little overboard with her criticism.

Sieg won a lot of respect though because she called it like it was and backed up her criticisms with solutions. In her updated version, she has added some valuable information on marketing which was well covered in the first edition. However, with the support from some of the most respected names in internet marketing such as Ken Evoy of SBI! fame, Sieg seems determined in her mission to snap many MLMers out of the time warp they find themselves in regarding the use of old, outdated prospecting methods.

Pre-selling is an art form not many have mastered yet those who have, literally exploded their conversion rates overnight. Ken Evoy is a master of pre-selling and his association with The The Renegade Network Marketer means one thing for your business;it’s going to get an injection of expert advice and Sieg explains how SBI! will become an asset in building your MLM business.

One of the benefits of having a website in network marketing is to give your prospects a “go to” place to visit so they can either receive valuable information from you or opt into your mailing list to receive a newsletter, free reports or any other useful information you can drip to them over a period of time. And that’s the key.

That’s what pre-selling is all about and it’s covered in the update of The Renegade Network Marketer. The principle of the Renegade System is to show you how to create cash flow from day one in your business.

The reason most people fail in network marketing is because they don’t make money fast enough. The The Renegade Network Marketer will show you how to overcome this problem and put yourself in the black very quickly.

It’s human nature to encounter resistance when you challenge what has been perceived as normal for such a long tine. This is certainly the case with network marketing.

An example is Ann Sieg and her Renegade Network Marketer in which she dared challenge the prospecting principles which have been applied for so long to network marketing that they had almost become set in stone.

Almost is the operative word. The internet has been with us for well over a decade yet it’s only been in the last couple of years that it’s potential as a serious prospecting tool for network marketing has begun to emerge. Why? Well, maybe those old school MLM methods have been a little hard to shift after all.

The Great Lies Of Network Marketing

Why are you struggling with your MLM business? Are you placing way too much emphasis on the things you were told by your upline that count such as having big dreams, being and then doing and developing that super successful mindset which needs to become so strong; that it will become an impenetrable wall of steel against any negative feelings trying to invade it’s space.

Don’t get me wrong; these are all important in the overall scheme of things but placing too much credence in them ahead of more important tasks such as attracting those all important prospects into your funnel is crazy. Too many people spend too much time dream building without applying any action.

Why Dream Building Without Action Is Useless

You cannot build a network marketing business by simply knowing why you want to succeed. When the Renegade Network Marketer dared challenge some of the long held beliefs about how to succeed in this business it certainly created a hornet’s nest. To survive the initial period in network marketing, you need to create a cash flow and a consistent flow of targeted prospects.

You won’t do that by applying the three foot rule or over analyzing your big dreams.