Nick Grimshawe   Personal Development Coach
There are two things every online market need to do: build a list and advertise a product or service.

The list you need to send your product and service too, and the
advertising you need to do to show off your product or service so people
will buy from you. Now there are kinds of equations in building a business that I am not including in this post. Here I just want to talk about two basic equations.

1. Time or Money?

The main concern in this equation is around your budget. How much do
you have to spend on your online business? The more money you have the
less you need to invest in time. The less money you have the more you
will have to commit to the grunt work
of list building. For most people they way somewhere in the middle with
some money to spend, but not enough to do all the things they need to
do to build their list.

When you invest your time it means that you are doing things like
manually surfing on a traffic exchange, or clicking for credits at a
safe-list. To get results from doing these things take a considerable investment in time and requires a commitment to  consistent performance to achieve results.

For those of us scrapping at the bottom of the money barrel you have no choice but to do those things.

Before you jump into all the grunt work it would be worth taking a
look at the value of your time. At first it would appear to be free,
after all you are not putting money out to pay for labor or to buy
credits, however you need to consider what your time is worth.

Do you spend the time and save the money or do you spend the more and
do something more valuable with your time. Only you can determine that.
I would suggest however you seriously question your motives if you are
putting in the time because you are too cheap to spend the money then
you are probably robbing yourself in the process.

Credits or Memberships

This equation assumes you have some money to spend the question is
what is the best way to use that money. Here I am referring mostly to Traffic Exchanges and Safe-lists.

The best question to ask yourself here is: what am I attempting to accomplish with this investment.

When you buy memberships, depending on the level you buy into you are
committing to a monthly payment, usually. In return for that investment
you receive a certain number of credits each month, plus text and banner ad
credits. You usually receive a higher commission payment when someone 
in your downline upgrades their membership. This can create a
significant side business in the long run. Many programs also include
random referrals that help build your list. Over the long time again,
this can amount to a significant number of new members that you have the
opportunity to offer your main business too as well as encourage them
to take upgrades.

When you buy credits you are saving time. With the credits you can
set up your advertising and let it run without worrying about having to
surf or click on that site. You want to buy credits when your primary
motivation is to promote your business, rather than grow a list.

Now what  I hear a lot of is: ?I shouldn?t have to spend money to make money online, ? or why should I have to invest in programs when they say they are free,? and many more such statements.

Remember the Golden Rule

If you want to earn money on line you have to invest in someone
product or service. When you do, they make money. Similarly you want
people to spend money and buy your product and service. If you don?t
invest in someone else, no one will invest in you.


From my blog : List Grow and Prosper
Feb 21st 2011 22:51