Safest investment there is

I’ve been really wary of spending too much money upfront while trying to build a business.

I don’t have a lot of savings and if I make a bad decision I worry that I could lose the lot and well, fail.

First of all, Fail for Free

You don’t need to spend ( much  ) money when starting out with affiliate marketing.  If free methods can only get, say 10 visitors per day to your site you can use those visits over a week to test how good your conversion rate is.

Try something different on the page for the second and third weeks as well and you will find out which one performs best.

Armed with that knowledge you can be confident of sending paid traffic with at least a vague idea of how many will take the action you want.

Spend the money on yourself

I’ve always wanted a [insert precious metal] robotic [insert animal]

but when I say spend the money on yourself I mean something to improve your skills.

You can’t train yourself to be an expert in absolutely everything it takes to be an internet marketer but you can certainly choose to improve in things that will have a big impact on your business.

This month I’ve splashed out on 2 fairly big expenses, a marketing course which is really great showing how to build up interest, create trust between you and your customer and how to make a sale.

I’ve also hired a life coach to help me organise myself a bit better and hopefully find out where my strengths and weaknesses are.

What if I don’t have any money?

Whether you have money or not, one great way to invest inyour business is to network with other people in your industry or people who might face the same problems as you.

One of my best contacts, who has helped me immensely is a shop owner. He knows nothing about the internet but has years of experience in managing his own business, dealing with employees, suppliers and the taxman

I felt that I mightn’t have much to offer more established business owners in terms of advice or help but everyone has their areas of expertise.

When someone came to me to ask about a quotation they were given for a website I was able to tell them, after learning some details, that were about to get fleeced. They were able to go back and renegotiate a much better offer.

Develop a system

Once I can confirm to myself that a system works ( i.e. it helps my business )  I want to check if it can be done by someone other than myself. Most business owners do almost everything themselves at the start but if their business grows and they are still trying to get everything done it’ll turn into a horrible bottleneck.

Delegate early and refine the instructions you give. It may take a while for others to get as good as you were, but they may surpass your original attempts and end up being the most efficient part of your company.

I’ve used outsourced programmers a few times for different projects and wasn’t happy with some of the work I got back. I assumed that they just weren’t very good.

What was a big eye opener was dealing with a more expensive company. Their responses were professional and their programming was great but what really made a difference was what they asked me to do.

My original requests were vague and unclear and they spent the time upfront to clarify things and ask exactly the right questions. It was an education for me in how to be a better client.

There’s always room for improvement.