What makes you think it's possible to make a living on the internet? A basic living is a net profit after all business expenses of at least $5,000 per month. In your pocket. Every month. Year after year. Is it the sheer number of potential customers? Is it that people claim they have "made it"? Or is it because you have invented a new mouse trap that everyone will buy. Perhaps you are attracted to the low entry fee for a web site. For whatever reason, you are most likely reading this because you have been sold on the concept of using the Internet to make money.

As a student of influence I got curious about what makes people ignore facts and passionately set up an Internet business anyway. Spending hard earned money on how-to books and advice chasing cynical web surfers. Many years ago the concept was created that in America it is possible to wake up in the morning and your mail box is full of money. That by placing ads for a mail order products people would simply send in their money. It is a compelling pitch, one that has survived years of miserable failures. Yesterday I was having lunch at a local diner, and the table was covered with a plastic tablecloth depicting advertisements from the late 1800s and early 1900s. And what do I see?

Many ads for get-rich-quick plans. One sold a booklet on how to set up a movie theater in your own town! Sounds familiar? The pitch for the dream still works. Why?

Nothing has changed. The Internet has simply afforded us a cooler way to do the same things. Sell stuff. The gurus tell us what you need to create a "selling" web site. Then they go on telling us how to market that site. Just like they did in the old mail-order days. The care and feeding of your dream is very, very expensive. And you are NOT the one making the money!.

One needs to look at what brings a person to the stage of wanting to spend time and money to chase these elusive dreams. Is it to get something for nothing? Or to avoid "working for the MAN?" Or is it simply that people have been made to believe that others have done it so they can too. This particular factor is of course based on the influence rule of Social Proof combined with Authority.

When we see others being successful, we immediately believe that it is true. Not only others, but people like ex-police officers, priests and lawyers. People in authority. People you can identify with. People who have been just as broke as you are now. Trouble is, out of every budding entrepreneur only a very few actually are making a living. And those few might not have come by their "successes" via honorable ways. It's the dream itself you buy into. The problem is, just because you believe that you can - doesn't always produce results. Especially when the numbers are against you. As they are on the Internet. Let's say you sell a product for $20. You own it, so 100% is profit. (Like a booklet). If you have a compelling site, the most you can expect the closing ratio to be is 1% of qualified visitors. So, of every 100 visitor that might be interested in your product, 1 will buy. That's if you don't get too many non-interested visitors from link-exchanges etc.

To generate $5,000 per month in sales you then need 25,000 visitors per month to sell 250 books. How do you get 25,000 visitors a month to come to your site? It's pretty well impossible for a home based business to do. 25,000 unique visitors is a huge amount. Take banner ads for example. To get 25,000 visitors from banner ads you need to buy about one million banner views. At $35/1000 that's a whopping $35,000. You simply can't make that up in volume my friend. Of course you say - you can sell different and more expensive products. True, and right here I need to say that it is possible to sell on the Internet. But be realistic. Look at the numbers, don't be talked into the "dream". Buy into a realistic marketing plan using real numbers. The "DREAM" is not real.

It's the same in the real world. Richness via MLM is impossible to achieve but for the chosen few with the connections and stamina to "work the system". You sign up for an affiliate program or any MLM chances are you are working your butt of to make the few on top rich. NOT self-employed like they say, you are simply working for them selling low margin, expensive products. But, you say.. I can get there too! I want to be on top! Buy a lottery ticket. It's easier, and your chances are greater. They sell you on the dream - believe and it will happen. It won't. Now, if you DO want to do business on the Internet - there is hope.

To have any chance of success on the web you need to have a product you can make at least 300% profit on. You need to be unique enough so that your prospects can easily be identified and pitched to. And you need to be realistic about results. Create your own product, plan your work and work your plan. Like the ad on the diner tablecloth from 1893 - we are still selling dreams.