I’m guessing if you had a food franchise business offline, you would treat it as if your life depended on it. You would probably even be willing to work 12-16 hours a day to keep your franchise running smoothly!

What you need to realize when starting an internet marketing business is that it is still a real business. Since you already invested up to a million dollars to start up your franchise, it makes perfect sense that you would do whatever it takes to first break even.

And after breaking even you would then wait a few years before you see a positive return on your million dollar investment. Most of you have a realistic mindset when it comes to a ‘real’ million dollar business like that.

But what happens when most of you start a home based internet business? For most of you, the first thing to come to mind is ‘fast money’ and ‘get rich quick’ and ‘effortless cash’. That’s okay, that’s what I thought when I first started in internet marketing.

However, this kind of mindset leads you into thinking that all you need to do throw up a fancy website, watch TV, hang out with friends, and play in your local sports league and you would be rich!

The reality is, to make decent money over the internet it takes time and effort, just like a real business. The only difference is that you are running a business over the internet and it also requires time and commitment.

You already know that an advantage of an internet marketing business is that it has virtually no overhead compared to a traditional franchise. BUT because it’s so cheap to start up, that is also internet marketing’s disadvantage.

Naturally, you and I tend to treat an internet marketing business more like a hobby than a real cash flow generating business because it’s easy to get in and easy to get out. Your life would not dramatically change if you started and did nothing with it and failed.

But in a traditional fast food franchise, you would starve if you had that kind of mindset. But because you put down everything you possess (home, life savings, etc) into your franchise; your focus, determination, and sacrifice to perform and treat it seriously is an absolute must.

You understand that about a franchise, so let me ask you what would happen if you treated your franchise like a hobby? What if you treated your fast food franchise like you treated your internet marketing ‘hobby’?

If you have a J-O-B, what will happen if you didn’t feel like showing up to work for a week because your friends were coming to visit?

What if you decided to close your franchise a little early because you must watch that new episode of “Sex In The City”? With that kind of attitude and lack of discipline, you would get fired and your franchise will close down.

Before starting an internet business, or if you haven’t given your internet business the attention it deserves, ingrain in your mind right now that you need to treat your internet marketing business as seriously as your job or business.

Like your job and business, expect to put in the time and effort into building your foundation with internet marketing. Only then will you be able to see the rewards and freedom lifestyle that your internet business can give you.