Seriously… Whom do you trust on the internet? The guy with the toothpaste commercial smile, coiffed hair and slick patter… who puts up a Hollywood production ad promising thousands of dollars a day for just one little payment of $7.. or $4… or $12… and you don’t have to do anything but send him the money? Seriously?

How about the one who gives you a little box for your name and email and promises to make you rich without giving you any details until you have relinquished all your details which are promptly sold to 43 spammers… seriously?

Personally, I prefer the the guy who puts his “real” face in a video, glasses askew, hair in all directions, waving his hands around like a frenetic Italian…. pushing his site with a REAL fervor… HE is believable.. HE is real… seriously!!

As a relative newbie as an owner of a TE, I am in awe of these guys… I mean, if they say something… you can probably take it to the bank. (“God willin’ and the creek don’t rise!” Hush, Mama, you know what I mean.) These guys (and gals) are the real deal. Back in the day before the internet, these would be the guys you would trust with a handshake to seal a deal. No 40-page documents, notarized and filed. A handshake would be enough….

On the internet, our most important asset is our reputation…  If your “rep” goes in the dumpster,  so does your site and your business. The internet is international… members at Mama’s come from every continent, speaking every language imaginable, but basically forced to use English to communicate. They sign up and learn to surf, play the games, watch the ads and, hopefully, advertise their own business… eventually earning enough to cash out.

And there comes the… “Whom do you trust” issue… HOW do you know after all your hard work of collecting pennies that you will actually be able to cash out? Should that be an issue? Not really.. word gets around if an owner is not paying.. but is THAT all you want from a TE? Pennies??

Originally, TEs were used to advertise BUSINESSES, not collect pennies… we have gotten too far from the original plan and that has been the downfall of many TEs, especially when certain payment processors started arbitrarily purging accounts leaving them with no options to pay their members.

On Mama’s alone, one member is advertising herself as a writer, a professional knitter, a seller of essential oils, another sells nutritional drinks and supplements, another sells inexpensive jewelry, another sells beef jerky, another sells spices.. the list is endless. If you can sell it, you can advertise it on the internet. Only sell locally? That’s fine, put it in your ad that sales are limited to certain countries…

We as an industry must make a concerted effort to put business back into TEs… yes, keep the games, they are fun things… keep badges to show what you have achieved.. but start looking to promote yourself and your own business.

So, for now… K.I.S.S… and be good to each other….