No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

There’s no such thing as a free lunch!”  That saying has been traced back to around 1950.  It means that nothing in life is free; you cannot get something for nothing.  Moreover, if it appears to be free, somebody somewhere is paying for it.

That is extremely valuable information to keep in mind when you’re surfing the net looking for a home-based business.  Beware of the “nothing down for something” scams!  They go against all the generally accepted rules of business and commerce.

Business and commerce started eons ago.  At first, it took the form of bartering – exchanging goods for goods.  Then ‘money’ was invented in the form of seashells, beads, or pieces of metal.  It’s still how we do business today, except we now use coins and notes, credit cards, debit cards, money orders, bank drafts, cheques, direct debits, online bank transfers or Pay Pal.  Nevertheless, it’s always in exchange for something, be it goods or services.  If not, the police are called in to investigate – or at least they should be.

I’m a business person.  I have products for sale and I have a business opportunity.  To get either one, you’ll have to pay money.  It’s a value-for-value proposition; your money for my product.  Fair and square and on top of that, if you want to succeed with my business opportunity, you will have to do some work.  Again, value (your sweat & elbow grease) for value (a substantial residual income).

“The concept of value-for-value is the foundation for all sound, harmonious human relationships.  Value-for-value is another way of saying ‘win-win’.  The surest way to succeed in any endeavour is to make certain that all parties to a transaction come out ahead.”

No free lunch.  Everything has a price – as it should be.  Warren Buffet once said, “"Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.”  Alternatively, as I like to say, “You always get what you pay for; you pay nothing, you’ll get nothing”.

You are probably wondering why on earth I’m spending so much time expanding on something so obvious.  Well for some unexplainable reason, many otherwise intelligent people – who would never consider walking out the door of the bottle shop with a slab of beer they didn’t pay for, act like idiots when they’re on the net searching for a home-based business opportunity.

As if all of a sudden, because they are navigating the virtual world, all the laws of commerce, particularly the practice of value-for-value no longer apply and they’ll get sucked into the most ludicrous scams.  Like “free business opportunity”, or “no money down turnkey home based business” or “you do no work, we do it all for you.”  On that last one, if that were true, if they indeed do all the work, why would they not keep all the profits?

Come on people; put your thinking cap back on.  Let’s be real; a business costs money, even in the ‘virtual’ world.  It costs money to start and to grow and it takes some work too.  Those people should stop fooling themselves and waste their time responding to those idiotic ads that pollute the Internet.  If they believe crap like “Turn $35 into $10,000 a month, for life!” the next thing the scammers will sell them is some oceanfront property in Alice Springs.

You know what song is playing in the scammers’ head while he is processing some sucker’s credit card.  The words are from a very popular song of the mid-eighties; “The lights are on, but you’re not home, your mind is not your own…”  They will probably sing that too as they are walking and laughing all the way to the bank!

Enough negative stuff already.  Let’s close this article with valuable words of wisdom from a very successful philosophers-businessperson;

“Creating legitimate value is the straightest line between where you are now and where you want to be.  It is a major component of getting what you want in life.  It does not matter how fast or how hard you work if your efforts do not create value for others.  Creating value stems from passion; passion stems from belief in what you're doing; belief in what you're doing stems from working at something you not only are good at, but enjoy.  When you get all these factors going in the right direction, you have no trouble being motivated to do whatever it takes to succeed.  There is nothing quite so exhilarating as working yourself to the point of exhaustion for months, or even years, then being handsomely rewarded for your efforts in the marketplace.  Every human being should treat himself to this drug-free high at least once in his lifetime.”  Robert J. Ringer

 “Money is a measure of the value that people place on goods and services.  The amount of money you earn in a competitive market is the measure of value that others place on your contribution.  So, to increase the amount of money you are getting out, you must increase the value of the work that you are putting in.”