(With apologies to ‘Five Fingers of Death’)

Every time I read a self-professed guru talk about his five or six or seven figures of income, I get suspicious.

Unfortunately, if he’s not outright lying (and that’s a very real possibility), then he could be talking about net instead of gross.

Is this a problem? I once read that grocery stores work on 3% margins. That means for every $100,000 of sales, they make only $3,000.

I could never make $3,000 take-home pay and yet tell people I had a six-figure income – but I think some people might.

So do the math and then ask yourself: when somebody talks about making six figures, do they walk the walk and talk the talk, and LOOK like they’re making a hundred thousand dollars profit in the year?

More than likely not. For instance, I can offer a product for a 50% affiliate payout (as many big names do). If I sell a hundred thousand dollars worth of product, I’ve made a six figure income.

But I might have paid as much as $50,000 out to my affiliates, more to webhosting and employees (and even one full-time employee is about $20,000 or so), office space, and suddenly my ‘six-figure’ income might be making me up a paltry $25,000 a year.

A lot of people out there want you to think they’re doing good, but the fact of matter is, if they’re even telling the truth the numbers could be wide of the mark and meaningless. So pay attention, read between the lines, and be careful.