Are you one of the many who is plumb sick and tired of working for someone whose I.Q. equals the calories in a lettuce leaf? For an organization that mouths promises about Promoting From Within, while having a dozen ads on Monster.com? Whose idea of a Good Company Person is an employee who sits for hours in fruitless company meetings, then spends the rest of their waking hours trying to get the actual work done? And who......well, you can put in your own words from here out.

The point is, you have lots of smarts, plenty of ambition and the energy to go with it. You even have a terrific idea for a business you can do from home, with little more equipment than your recently-upgraded, spiffy, speedy computer, your newish printer, and a few accessories.

What you don't have is the marketing expertise or the technical computer knowledge that is essential to transform your idea into the money to live on.

You've read the hype on those websites that assure you that unless you know all about This & That & The Other essential skill, you'll never make it in the commercial Internet world like Mentor-Coach-Consultant did by expensive Trial and Error. And you read the pages that describe all his mistakes, which culminated in his triumphant success and his $450,000-a-month-no-work-residual income.

Pages and pages of testimonials decorated with Smiling Faces assure you of the Mentor's unparalleled professionalism and honesty and that the aforementioned Smiling Faces would never have succeeded without You Know Who.

And of course, only by getting The Person to impart his voluminous hard-won knowledge to you do you have the chance of a snail in a French restaurant to do anything but lose your shirt in the struggle to survive.

You sign up for the Free Newsletter, the Free Consultation and anything else that gives you hope.

Then start the phone calls. The first is from The Qualifier. That person's task is to make certain that you feel moderately stupid--too stupid to find your way by yourself, but not too stupid to do it with the help of The Mentor-Coach-Consultant.

Also, to find out if you have the money to pay The Mentor-Coach-Consultant and henchpersons.

Then comes the By-appointment call from the Person Himself. From here on be on your guard; This person's goood!

As a great believer in the real value of a good mentor-coach-consultant, I want to give you some thinking material to help you avoid the disastrous experience some of us have had.

If you have money to burn and total faith in everyone, this may not apply to you. If, however, you're short on money or faith, and the project must be completed by a particular time, listen up!

1. Take notes and, if permissible, record every word of both the Qualifying Call and the following Sales Calls. You'll be overwhelmed by the hyperbole and the promises and assurances, and will want to go back and check on what you think you heard, as opposed to what was actually said.

2. Before you pay money, get the specific promises and the specific steps of the project in an e-mail from Mentor-Coach-Consultant. This is imperative!

3. After you know the specific steps, request an e-mail giving a time-line for completion of each step. Most of the work will involve things you yourself have to attend to. Be willing to make a commitment for your part.

4. Find out if various parts of your project will be farmed out.

5. If there's to be coaching about marketing your site, be sure you're going to actually have a site in time to apply the coaching advice! I was promised a completed and SEO'd e-commerce site in three weeks (believable because my webmaster friend did hers in four days.). This took 6 months! By the time my site was actually operational, I