1. Don't get your own domain

Why would you want to invest a measly $35 (max) in your business
annually on some name? You know who you are, right? You have no
trouble believing that several hundred gazillion Internet
strangers in almost as many countries will trust you - if they
find you - even without a reputable brand and ID.

Fine, go get yourself one of those l-o-n-g URLs at a free website
that takes at least as long to load as it does to remember.
Better still go get one of those self-replicated, absolutely
identical, clone "programs" with a FREE website. Write me when
you get it to the top of the search engine listings. No, I cant
wait that long, write me when you get it listed on the search
engines at all. I expect my mailbox won't be overflowing.

2. Don't have any original products to sell

You're OK with that business-in-a-box (for people in boxes, I
guess?) that only requires you to give things away. It only cost
you $69.95 to get in, so there's no risk. No selling, anyone can
do this ... You'll earn $689,000,075 daily (give or take $689
million). On WHAT exactly, may I ask?

While you're at it, just get a heap of affiliate banners, throw
them on a page, invite two friends to visit and they're gonna buy
stuff. Don't sell anything you know about, don't use the products
and services yourself and above all make sure there is no
information, explanation, testimonials or even text anywhere to
be found on your site.

Don't be fooled by the "experts" who tell you that the only way
to make any real money is to have something that's 100% yours
(your profit), can be delivered online and is not only wanted by
your carefully chosen market, but actually useful.

3. Don't publish a newsletter

See lesson 6 if you MUST do email marketing. Everyone, well both
of them who found you by accident, maybe they were the two
friends? Is gonna buy, buy, buy, the moment they hit your website
and read your carefully written information about your products
and services that tells them what's in it for them. Oh, no I told
you that you don't need it. How silly of me.

Don't think that you have to prove yourself to be an expert in
your field: don't think that the least it does is keep reminding
folks to come back and that you didn't fly-by-night. You'll never
need to ask people to recommend you to their friends or put your
offers in front of them many times before they'll be comfortable
to buy from you. Forget marketing rules.

4. Submit your site to 100,000,000 places daily

You've got masses of time on your hands right? So you can afford
to spend it all, wildly submitting your site everywhere to 9
million search engines and 99 gazillion free links pages.

Throw enough $*** and it will stick, won't it? It'll stink too!
When did you last look for something on the 9 millionth search
engine? When did you trawl around links pages looking for a
good deal? Do you think you're the only one who doesn't?

Don't let anyone tell you that the search engines will penalise
you for over submitting or for linking to pages not designed for
human beings (yes, they can tell the difference). I'm not exactly
sure how the technology works to get you a negative listing.

5. Advertise, don't advertise

Advertise your standard off-the-peg, tried-and-tested advert that
came with the "program", complete with your long URL with your
little number on the end, everywhere, anywhere.

Don't worry about it being ignored because it's the same as
everyone else's that appears right next to it day in, day out.
Don't worry about cheaters knocking your little numbers off and
doing you out of your 75 cent commission and most of all don't
offer your goods in exactly the right market.

Where is that, I wonder? You'll never need to know.

When you do find a good, well-written, original, benefit packed
and correctly formatted ad, only ever use it once. That will be
enough for the whole world to see it and make you rich.

6. Send spam

Lots of it! This is great, and does double-duty instead of
informative newsletters or pesky advertising. Buy specially
cleaned lists of "safe" names and addresses of people who are
just eager to receive "information on great money-making
opportunities". It's a little vague, but these people obviously
know what their avid, carefully harvested readers want and a good
deal when they see it.

You really won't upset your ISP every time you send out those 2
million emails and have 3 million of them bounce back at you
clogging up their mail server. So long as you say this is not
spam, it isn't, right? They'll forgive you and even give you a
fair trial, won't they?

And reputations are dead easy to get, aren't they?

7. Forget people, this is technobabble time

Now pay attention here, this is the most important lesson. This
is the Internet folks. Let's see how it works ...

There's all these computers connected to all these computers all
around the world and all you have to do is send all of these
computers lots of identical messages back and forth - this is
called Internet Marketing - and lots of money will magically
arrive into your bank account.

There are no humans involved. You don't have to talk to them,
inform them, woo them, care about finding solutions to their
problems, know who they are and what they want ... The rules of
human nature, as well as those of business, are totally different
in cyber-paradise than they are in the real world. The Internet
is not the real world.

Congratulations! You've now completed the entire course and
graduated from the Internet's First School of Failure. Read back
between the lines and I'm sure you'll find the path to success.

(This story was entirely fictional, all resemblance to real
people, either living or dead, any offers, services, products or
vague "programs" is entirely coincidental.)