The following was a comment made to a post I made back in June 2010 and rather than having the answers to the commenter's questions buried in the comments I decided to make my answers and reply a new post.
As a reminder - the links to 5 1/2 years of archived posts in this blog are located in the lower right of the sidebar area (you will have to scroll down to see them) - These are IMPORTANT posts with IMPORTANT information you need to know - after reading this post/page, go check them out, bookmark the blog so you may easily return as we update when valuable and important events occur - real world information and REAL experience.
Commenter's Post and Questions:
This is a very informative blog you have written and I do agree that you should motivate yourself and make your own decisions to determine your own success. I am very impressed at your honesty in a business where many will bend the truth to make an easy progress. However, I have two questions:
1. Are you saying that great mentors are hard to find in this business?
2. Why shouldnt you be in this business for the money? Of course i am interested in travel and succesful business building, but are you saying that I should still have a motivation to participate in international trade even if i am without a comfortable profit?
3. Is this a business that can be done part time until you have fulfilled your obligation of your current full time job? (Im on a contract)
Please forgive me if I have taken anything into misconception. I am a hard worker with a mind of an aggresive leader, however I believe that money is the ultimate reward for such an attitude.
Thanks alot sir for an honest blog and great knowledge.
My Reply with Answers to the questions above:
First, I must emphasize that you should read ALL the posts within this blog - the archived posts are available by Month and Year and are listed in the lower right side of each page of the blog (or should be) - many of these types of questions have been answered since I began the blog in February 2006.
OK, in answer to your questions:
1. Are you saying that great mentors are hard to find in this business?
In reality finding "great" or "real" mentors are hard to find in any business based on my definition of a mentor which is where you and I may part ways.
A mentor (in my view) is someone that you actually (physically) work with in an office environment and those types of situations are virtually unheard of today. So onto the online type of mentor.
At the http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mentor website you will find the following as some examples for the use of the word mentor:
After college, her professor became her close friend and mentor.
He needed a mentor to teach him about the world of politics.
We volunteer as mentors to disadvantaged children.
Young boys in need of mentors.
So again, in my interpretation of the above, a mentor is someone who is "physically" present or available to answer your specific questions.
There are some high priced courses offered some I have seen for as high as $8K to $30K which offered to provide you with a 'mentor'....unfortunately, most of these do not live up to what the customer believes they are paying for when commiting this unecessaryily high amount of money to learn this business.
In most instances people get nothing more than someone who has earned a very nice commission off of you who is reading from the same materials that they have already sent you.
I addressed the need for someone to have someone to discuss their options with about a particular deal several times over in the blog, primarily under the subject heading of "making decisions".
A mentor is not there to make your decisions but should have provided you with the knowledge so that you can make an informed decision based on your own research and abilities....it is NOT their business, it is yours after all.
In regards to the course of instruction we offer - I consider it to be your 'mentor'. It is an 18 year work in progress that includes most, if not all, the questions that both we and the publisher have received over those years that may not have been covered at the time....with updates to the 'mentor' course, those questions and answers to them are now included.
The step-by-step instruction of a mentor is provided by the course....the decision making is provided by you!
2. Why shouldnt you be in this business for the money? Of course i am interested in travel and succesful business building, but are you saying that I should still have a motivation to participate in international trade even if i am without a comfortable profit?
I think there may be some misunderstanding of what I was trying to say about "being in the business for the money".
The problem that I see with MOST people who look at the import export business is they are "opportunity" seekers who when faced with having to operate a "real" business will never succeed and ultimately base their failure on the course because "it did not work for me". They are ultimately searching for the magic button (or book or course) that after they read it, everything will go exactly right for them and they will be rich and famous within months.
They jump from one business opportunity to another, usually the more hyped it is, the more people fall for it because they are looking for the easy.
The Import Export business is that - a business! Our course is your mentor, it provides you with the step by step instructions that are needed to succeed in the business.
Back to your question, yes, MONEY is the absolute motivation, otherwise why bother, but again, don't look at this business like a magic carpet or genie in a bottle.
3. Is this a business that can be done part time until you have fulfilled your obligation of your current full time job? (Im on a contract)
Most people start the business on a part time basis and that is what both the publisher and I recommend....whether you can evolve it into a full time income by the time your contract is up? I cannot assure you of that, nor can anyone else and this is something that I also addressed elsewhere in the blog....please read the entire blog, the entire course page and linked to pages in the course page, then make the most informed decision possible, it will be your first major decision in this business.
Putting aside the legal reasons why I cannot answer this question, there IS no guarantee you will earn any money at all in importing or exporting. Just like there's no guarantee a new restaurant will make money, or a guarantee that you'll get a job in your major after graduating from college. There's also no guarantee you won't die 5 minutes after ordering the course.
I hope the above will better clarify what was stated in previous posts within this blog?
Ron Coble
Import Export Business Help Center