We get tons of the offers in our e-mail everyday, we may even poke around a website or two, with piqued interest. A few of us have even tried a couple. Yes, there are many opportunities to make money online; unfortunately, there are just as many scams waiting to take what little hard-earned money you have.

How do you determine the legitimate opportunities from the “get-rich quick” scams? Through trial and error, I have devised a sort of “litmus test” to hold all opportunities against to see if it’s real or a dream. Just follow this checklist, and you will be better informed of making a decision on whether you should join an opportunity or not.


First Focus: The Product/Service
This is an absolute must have in affiliate marketing. The organization should have product(s) or service(s) to sell, and it should recruit affiliates to help them in running that business. It is best to avoid organizations that have the recruitment of affiliates as their main business. Their affiliate structure is like a house of cards, waiting to crumble at the slightest negative impact, taking your money along with it.

Would you use the product/service yourself? This question is important for a number of reasons. It’s hard to get excited about a product/service if you know nothing about it. People prefer to purchase from knowledgeable sources. Finally, if you don’t see a need fro the product, it will be hard for you to connect with people that could, limiting your personal market.

Is there a market for the product/service? Who exactly would buy it? Is there a demand? Where does the demand fall on the Bell curve? The bell curs, a symmetrical curve for illustrating where a product/service lands in the sales process, slowly rises for new products, reaches a curved plateau, then spirals down, sometimes fast, sometimes at the same grade of its rise, depending on the product/service and economic market conditions. How long has the product/service been in the marketplace? Is it new, old, or overexposed?

The last thing to consider about a product/service is its pricing. Can the buying market afford the price? Where does your price stand with competitors? If your price is higher, is there value there to justify the difference? Value in the eyes of the buyer, not yours/ what is different, unique, and important enough for the buyer to purchase from you that you can’t get somewhere else for less?


Second Focus: Company Stability
Now that you have evaluated the product/service for marketability, its time to take a good look at the company the product represents. The more information you can find on a company from various resources, the more likely you have a legitimate opportunity.

The first bit of information needed is how long has the company been in business. The organization should have a proven track record of operating their programs for several years successfully.

If the company doesn’t have at least a three year track record of success, they should, at least have been started by a person who is well-known in their field with good creditability. Otherwise the company has no foundation to build on. It is still in a learning phase, and you will be a guinea pig in their experimentation.

Another way to check out a company’s stability is what organizations the company is endorsed by. The first place to check is the Better Business Bureau. Although many legitimate opportunities are not listed with the BBB, if the opportunity you are researching is, it a step in the right direction. Other affiliations may be listed on the organization’s website. Click on their links and see what exactly they say about the company they are endorsing.

Most opportunities I’ve seen have testimonials from people who say they’ve tried this opportunity, and it works. The true question here is, are these testimonials verifiable? Are you given contact information (e-mail, phone number, Instant Messenger information, etc.) where you can quickly get in touch with the person who wrote the testimonial?

Don’t hesitate to contact any information source in the organization you are evaluating. It is in the company’s best interest to answer all your questions quickly and thoroughly. Caution though, the original person you contacted should be the one to contact you with an answer to your question, or at least an acknowledgment before sending you to the proper source. If not, that truly gives you your answer. No response whatsoever? Drop the opportunity and move on to another.

Finally, get some feedback from independent resources. Search Engines are one of the sources which can be uses for this purpose. Simply type in the name of the organization + forums. You will be presented with several websites, forums, and blogs dedicated to objectively reviewing network/affiliate marketing opportunities.


Final Focus: Payment & Affiliate Structure
You should have a good feeling about the company, and have all your questions sufficiently answered to this point. If not, find a different opportunity and start over. The one you have probably is a scam, or just isn’t for you. But if you have, now is the time to see if you and the company are a good fit. Do you see yourself doing what it takes to succeed with this opportunity?

First, you should find out what is required of you to succeed in this opportunity. How much are the start-up fees? What tools and services are included with sign-up? What kind, and how much effort is required to perform a commissionable action? These questions give you a clear picture of what you will be required to do in order to succeed with this company. If you can’t picture yourself doing what it takes, move on to another opportunity.

Next, find out how you get paid. How much is each commissionable action worth? How long does it take to process a commissionable action? What forms of payment are available? How often are payments sent out? Is each commissionable action a one-time sale, or are there residual opportunities? Is the effort individual, or leveraged? (Leveraged meaning you get a part of your down line's sales as well) If it’s leveraged, how big a percent are you entitled to?

Once you make sure you understand the payment structure, you should determine if it is feasible to you. The website will always portray the best case scenario when listing potential earnings. Find out what you can expect to earn realistically by using this simple formula:


Make sure this is a reasonable number and time frame for you. You should also calculate how many sales it will take for you to break even on your investment. If any of these numbers look unrealistic, keep moving.

Next, you should research what types of support are available. It is in the interest of the organization to help their affiliate to succeed. The organization has been in business for a considerably longer time than the affiliate, are more knowledgeable about their market, and about the ways of promoting their product. It is marketing suicide not to have a good support system, because it leads to a high attrition rate if new sign-ups are not guided in the right direction to making money.

See what types of support is given by your opportunity of interest. Many companies offer support in the forms of live trainings, tutorials, articles, books, marketing plans, marketing tools, forums, websites, and personal, one-on-one guidance from your recruiter. The more avenues of training an organization has, the better.


If you find a company that stands up great against this checklist, then you may have a great opportunity in your hands. The only thing left to remember is persistence. Even if you have a great opportunity, you have to give it a chance to grow. You have to give your best effort of marketing the program over a specified period of time. Usually, with Network/Affiliate marketing, 90 days is a reasonable amount of time to give effort to an opportunity. If you don’t see results by then, then the program may be a dud, or not for you. I hope this helps everyone find the right opportunity for them, and create a substantial income!!!



About the Author:
Kenya Stallworth, 27, is a stay-at-home mom dedicated to training others personally how to earn a great income on the internet, with little to no out of pocket cost.

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hi kenya,

nice and thorough post. well done.

i also used to use a good method for knowing if a person or company was a scammer or not. i simply used to put their name into the search engine together with the word "scam" or "scammer" and check the results. if they were a scammer you could bet your bottom dollar someone somewhere knew it and had written about them.

here's to making money on the internet legitimately whilst working from home.

Very true. Their are TONS of opportunities available online. But before you join any opportunity that interests you I would do my research and Google the business or program you are thinking about getting involved with.

Then before you actually choose a sponsor make sure the sponsor is someone you actually like and can relate to. Someone that is willing to take your phone calls and emails with questions. These are the people that will help you get started but your Success is only depending on You and only You can make it happen.

Hope this helps.

That is so true! But what I use instead of Google is Scour to search anything. There are a few reasons that I like Scour better. First, I get results from the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN Search), along with the page ranking for each result. Also, Scour mixes a search engine with the social web 2.0 aspect, so you can vote for each result, and comment on each as well. This makes searching easier as you can check for other members comments and votes.

Since this is a social search engine, you can also bookmark it with several other social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. You can create a profile which is growing every day.

The last, and best things about it is that, one, its free, and two, you get paid to use it!

Having a sponsor you can relate to is also very important. I say it time and again, people don't choose opportunities, people choose people! You need to choose a person who you can relate to, and has a teaching style you can understand.

Thanks both Stephen and Homebus for your thoughtful responses.

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hi kenya,

Good article provided,

As per me, your goal in choosing the right internet income business opportunity will be to make money. So it is really important that you are comfortable with the actual business, the products, the compensation plan, the payment system, the training system, the support structure and that you are able to be in control of your own internet income business.

Well, I've always believed that your goal for choosing the correct internet business has to be stronger than more money. Things like having more free time, helping others, etc. are much stronger goals to have. If your sole goal is to make money, then you are sure to fail. Your goals have to be as strong as possible, in order to carry you through times of temporary failure. Simply wanting more money has never really been a goal strong enough to do so.

But outside of that, you are dead-on in what you said. The business itself, the product/service you will be promoting, the compensation plan and they system they pay it through, and the training they have all must be aligned with your personal needs and feelings. If not, you won't put as much effort into it. Thanks for your reply.

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Really enjoyed your opening post, Kenya.

There is only one thing I tend to do differently, for what it's worth. It's not about right or wrong, because your post has tremendous value. I just find I save a little time doing it this way.

There certainly must be a legitimate product, but once I've simply established there is one, I spend the bulk of my dd time researching the company and its founders and corporate staff. I guess that's because I believe that no matter how great the product, if the company/people do not have high ideals and ethics, a solid foundation of experience, and have sufficient capital backing to hold the company together until its self-sufficient, then they will not succeed.

A company with such criteria would not likely develop a product of little value. Still, it behooves us to examine the product in the manner you suggested. So many things to look at!

For the most part, it only takes a few minutes to toss out the shams that will go nowhere. Those that get past the 'first glance' phase, get a little more time, but it's amazing how many don't get past the second look, either.

Certainly can be a chore to wade through the plethora of opportunities out there. In fact, I spend very little time doing that anymore. Once you're working with companies that have business models that work and products that deliver what they're supposed to... you don't feel a need to rush around looking for more companies. Once you're networking with the right folks (like you find here), the 'good' opportunities come to you.

I have pointed out elsewhere that it is important to identify opportunities by virtue of timing. If you get into a business early you may gain much more than others and I am not talking necessarily of MLM in which it is obvious.
One way is to set up RSS feeds for news sites for products. For individuals who are releasing a new product we need to have out ear to the ground. Google may not be enough.