Do your Etsy homework before buying into an online business course!

I have a bone to pick. I've been a part of Etsy forums, Facebook groups for businesses and general online groups for running an online business; especially through Etsy. I can only imagine how many online courses exist and how many internet gurus are available to take your money and tell you how to manage your business. It seems like everywhere I turn, there is another person whose ready to explain the secret for how they made a 6 figure income and support their whole family.

Truly, there is a fool born every minute- because people buy into this shit. Now don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that every person online who says they run a successful business is lying. I know a ton of people who run online businesses and make a living from it. They are everywhere. I do, however, feel that there are more "gurus" who lie, than those who run profitable businesses.

I cannot stand someone who sells a dream or the idea of a dream without evidence to back it up. It drives me nuts. I am not okay with someone taking advantage of people who don't know how to verify if someone is actually legit. 

SO PLEASE DO YOUR HOMEWORK! If someone has a site full of reviews from Etsy shops, you better be looking up their fucking Etsy shop and checking out their sales! I just did it for an online course that swore to give you the no-fail way to run a business. Guess what - the shops that sent in reviews are doing horribly! One had only 24 sales in 15 days, while another shop hasn't had a sale since May! There was another one that had 1020 sales- yet they had been around since 2008 and had only had 20 or so sales for this month. If you average the items they've sold to the number of sales, we are only talking about $450.00 in sales. 

I don't know many people that can live off of $450.00, do you? 

My main point is this; don't trust everything you read online. Don't buy into a bunch of great reviews for an online course without actually doing your homework. If you choose to buy an online course and you end up wasting hundreds of dollars; you can't blame anyone else if you didn't actually investigate the source and reviews. 

At the end of the day, the real secret to running a successful business online is to put in a ton of hard work. Don't settle for things and always learn as much as you can. The customer is also the most powerful tool in everything that you do- center around them and make them your number one priority. By doing so, you'll gain followers and fans that will help spread your business like wildfire.