So it seems to me that a lot of folks who are turning to the Internet as a way of supplementing their ever decreasing incomes, have a single goal - to make as much money as possible while spending absolutely zero. And although the trend is much less now than it was when I started, there’s still a whole load of glossy, hype filled websites that will ‘guarantee’ it can be done.
If it can, I’m still waiting for the programme or product that makes it possible. And trust me, it’s not for lack of looking! I searched (and signed up for) more ‘free money-making’ programmes than I care to remember when I first started out. All I ever ended up making was a whole lotta work for myself.
Now I’m the first to admit, I’m not the brightest button in the box, especially when it comes to anything remotely technical. In fact, even if it wasn’t particularly technical - just had to be Internet related and I was lost. But for sheer effort and determination I’m pretty hard to beat.
Without fail, every single programme I joined turned out to require some form of money input before the ‘guaranteed’ results became even a remote possibility. Now of course, the trend is to offer ‘free trials’, except that the trial period isn’t usually long enough for you to see the money come rolling in, so you have to pay up and hang around a while longer.
The simple truth is that without some form of cash investment, you aren’t going to get any real returns. Let’s face it, if your investment is zero and you make 100% return on your investment, that’s still a big, fat zero.
At the very least you’ll want to invest in your own domain and hosting for your website. Autoresponders are a must have as far as I’m concerned, but not everyone agrees. The argument that you can invest your time instead of your money only comes into play once you’ve made the initial investment.
So instead of paying for traffic, you can spend time using free methods such as social networking, SEO, article marketing, etc. Instead of paying for someone to design and create your website, you can take the time to learn how to do it yourself. Believe me, even with some of the really great free templates on offer, there’s still a bit of work in personalising them to suit your particular niche!
Right now, as part of my Masters Degree course, I’m studying the reasons as to why policies fail. And I can tell you the reasons for policy failure are pretty much the same as they are for business failure.
Not enough research, insufficient planning, lack of adequate resources, poor methods of implementation…the list goes on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.
You can put in the time to research and plan all you want. But if you don’t invest adequately in the resources needed, you’re set up for failure.
Which brings me on to another pet peeve. Training and education. Why are so many people reluctant to invest in this? If you can invest $30 or $1000 that will show you how to do something vital to your business, why would you want to spend years learning from your own mistakes? If you learn it up front, think how much quicker you could start earning money!
And hands up, I was one of those who didn’t think I needed to invest in ‘ME‘. After all, how hard can it be to surf a few Traffic Exchanges and copy’n'paste a few ads? But of course, that didn’t get me any money either!
So I’ve come full circle. I don’t believe it’s possible to make money without spending it first. Whether you spend it on paying someone to create a website for you, or you spend it on a training course that teaches you how to do it yourself, (much better imo - then you can always knock out a website when you need to) the fact is that money has to come into the equation somewhere.
And if any (successful)body knows differently, then feel free to let me in on it. 
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