Yes, I’ve made it. I’ve grabbed that brass ring that says I get to work when I want, make what I want and vacation when I want, all because of my online information business.

I tell you this not to brag, but to offer you a few thoughts on what I’ve learned along the way.

If you’re cheap, you won’t make money.

When I started out online, I wanted to know how to drive free traffic. I took a free course on how to do it, along with a second free course, a free book, another free book and so on.

The sound and video quality of the courses was terrible and the ideas were outdated. The books were likely nothing more than old PLR, although at the time I wasn’t yet savvy enough to know it.

I tried some of the techniques in these free courses, which cost me a lot of time, some frustration and made me think I should go get another 9 to 5 job because they weren’t working.

Then I bought a course on driving traffic. The course cost me a cool $997 which at that time was a fortune for me.

4 weeks later I was driving free and paid traffic. Six months later I was making an income. I wasn’t rich, but I was on my way.

If you’re too cheap to buy what you need for your business, you’re going to struggle and you’re probably going to fail.

Nobody wakes up in the morning dying to be your free mentor.

Okay, maybe if you’ve got an uncle or sister who’s already making a living online, they’ll teach you what to do.

But otherwise, I want to ask all those people on LinkedIn and elsewhere to stop asking if I and everyone else will be your mentor.

Complete strangers send me this message, “Hi, you don’t know me, will you be my mentor?”

No. A mentor is a free coach. Imagine if 20 people a day asked you to spend an hour a week working with them for free. Is there anything else you might like to be doing instead? You know, like working in your own business, spending time with your own family, or taking a vacation away from all these messages?

Here’s a better idea: Find a coach. Someone who has been there and done that and is offering to work with you for pay.

Yes, it might cost you $1000 a month. Or $3000 a month. But in six months you could have that back 10 or even 100 times over.

I guess we’re back to that, “If you’re cheap you won’t make money” idea.

But what if you simply cannot afford a coach?

Then pick out someone who teaches the skill you want. Read everything they write, watch every video of theirs and buy their courses.

You will get the information you need, they will get another customer, and when you’re ready, you can ask them to be your coach. Your PAID coach.

Another thing – when people get stuff for free, they don’t value it. I once tried to mentor someone for free. Turns out they simply wanted me to do the work for them. They didn’t value my advice, nor did they follow it.

But if I’d been smart enough at the time to charge them real money, they either would have said no, or they would have placed a great deal more importance on what they were receiving because they were paying for it.

Don’t make me guess. Or ask. Or ignore you.

I get these messages from strangers that say, “Hi.”

That’s it.

I think the point is I’m supposed to say “Hi” back, and then eventually, when enough time-wasting chit chat has flown back and forth, they’ll finally get to the point.

Here’s an idea: When you want to communicate, whether it’s with someone you know or someone you’re contacting for the first time, get to the point. Immediately. Without fail. Communicate like a real person who values your time and mine.

Am I ranting too much? I hope not, because there’s more…

Don’t assume you know. Because you don’t.

When I take a course, I’m tempted to skip the stuff I think I already know.

How to write a bio? I know that.

How to make a call to action? Yup, I know that too.

But I don’t.

The course creator is covering this stuff for a reason because they know things I don’t know.

Sure, I’ve done it before, but maybe they’ve got a better way to do it. Making money on any platform is all about understanding and testing the nuances. These are the subtle things that everyone wants to skip over because they ‘already know it.’

But when you do this, you’re missing the good stuff.

Let’s say you’re taking a course on how to write sales copy. You already know how to write a guarantee. After all, that’s pretty easy, right? But what if there’s a single word that, when added to the guarantee, will increase your sales by 12%? Because you skipped that section, you will now make 12% fewer sales than you could have made.

That is a major fail, all because you ‘already knew’ how to do it.

Invest in yourself. Invest in your business.

Some people see everything as being expensive. That book is too expensive. That course is too expensive. That paid coach is too expensive.

So, they stick with the free stuff and wonder why they don’t have success.

Every cent you spend on your goal is an investment, not an expense.

If you pay me to coach you for an hour and I charge you $500 and help you earn $20,000, that’s a pretty darn decent return on your investment.

That reminds me – I need to increase my rates.

Someone writes to me and complains that my $197 course is too expensive.

“Did you go to college?”

“Yeah.”

“What did that cost?”

“$50,000.”

“And what are you doing now?”

“Making coffee at Starbucks.”

$50,000 wasted and they don’t want to invest $197 to learn a skill that can eventually earn them six figures.

Cheap people are scared to death to lose a buck.

They live in fear. “What if I spend $10 on this book and I don’t like it?”

Ooh yeah, that’s soooo night-of-the-living-dead scary.

Are you for real?

Some people will ask their friends/coworkers/spouse/neighbors/family if they should invest $200 in a course.

Why do they ask?

Because they want someone to tell them it’s okay to be too scared to do it.

“You’re pulling in a comfy $60K at your job. Sure, you hate your boss and you fantasize about blowing the place up because you can’t sleep at night for thinking about having to go into work tomorrow, but that is so much safer than investing in that $200 course.”

SERIOUSLY??

If this is your thinking, then…

…I’m sorry but I cannot help you.

Life is risk. Life is change. Life is either moving forward or living in regret.

Think of life as making a series of small bets, and then doubling down on the winners.

You purchase 4 courses that teach you four methods for making six figures online.

You realize that 3 of those aren’t for you, but the 4^th one is exciting as heck.

You purchase everything you can find related to that 4^th one, you learn all you can in a short amount of time, and then you get busy building your business.

Forget the pot of gold and look for the nuggets.

I invest money in my own education all the time.

I don’t look for the latest greatest blueprint to make a million dollars in the next month. That’s rubbish.

I look for the nuggets and I save them and polish them and use them.

Maybe the $97 book I just bought is nonsense, but there is a quote on page 42 that changed my entire way of thinking about online marketing.

Was it worth it?

You bet it was.

Accumulate the golden nuggets and you will begin filling many buckets of gold over time.

And if you can’t invest, then do this:

Some of you might be in a tight spot financially.

You have maybe $10 to invest, or maybe $0.

Here’s what you do:

Whatever your source of income is, double down on that. Work more hours. Get a second job. Do more freelancing. Whatever it is, do more of it. Get ahead. Save up your money. Invest in books when you can or get them from the library.

When your head is above water again, start investing in you and your future business.

Here’s what all this boils down to…

I know I’ve ranted and raved here for a while, but I’m frustrated. I see people who should be successful throwing away their potential because they are simply too cheap.

Making money online is simple: You invest your time and money to make money. You need time to learn new skills. You need money to make it happen.

Invest both, and you will be successful.

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