How Much Money Is Too Much To Spend?

Every once in a while, I start going all philosophical on the world. Well, just
today, I was asking myself this question and I invite you to answer it as well.
I think it will be an excellent exercise in evaluating where, when and how much
to spend on your business.

The question?

How much money is too much to spend?

Now before I start going all philosophical, there isn't one stock answer to
this, which is why so many people have problems when it comes to evaluating
business expenses.

So let me take this out of the context of business for a moment (don't worry,
we'll be getting back there shortly) so that I can maybe try to get across
where I'm coming from with this.

Just recently, I purchased 4 Magic The Gathering game cards called "Mana
Drain". The cards went for a combined $450, more or less.

Now that's a lot of money for 4 pieces of old cardboard.

But...if you're a Magic player...these are powerful cards and in the right
deck can win you lots of games in Vintage.

So...if you're a touring player...that's a worthwhile investment.

But I'm a casual player who plays with his friends on a Friday night. Should
I be spending $450 on cards and, for that matter, even be taking them out
of the house, risking possible damage?

I'm starting to think about leaving that deck at home, at least until I decide
to get really serious about the game.

Point is, in this case, under these circumstances, $450 is a lot of money.

Now...let's go to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Let's say I have the chance to meet with a big time marketer but in order
to do that, I have to invest about $2,000 in travel expenses because of
where this person is and how much time I'm going to be spending with him.

That would probably be considered a sizable chunk of change by a lot of
people.

But...what if you knew that there was at least a 75% chance that
meeting with this person would result in one of two things?

1. Getting a chance of doing a JV with the person, provided he likes what
you have to offer.

Or...at the very least...

2. A chance to learn enough to possibly put you in another income bracket.

Now all of a sudden, $2,000, at least not to me, is not a heck of a lot of
money, especially if it can bring me 6 or even 7 figures.

Too many marketers either nickel and dime their business OR...throw money
away on useless things or things that just don't bring the kind of return that
the investment SHOULD have brought.

I spend, what comes out to about $20 a month, on an autoresponder
because the return I get from the list I build is many times that.

But spending that same $20 on some guaranteed lead package that's probably
a piece of crap is WAY too much money if the return is ZERO.

If you get too hung up on the dollars and cents without taking a look at
the big picture, you're not managing your business properly.

It's just as stupid to spend $10 on a bogus whatever as it is to NOT spend
$2,000 on something that has TRUE potential.

Yeah...I know...how do you tell the difference?

That comes with experience...There is no other way. Sure, some things are
pretty obviously either a no brainer in terms of value while other things are
so obviously scams that you'd have to be brain dead not to recognize them.

But no...there is no fool proof way to tell which is which without living a bit

But you can't live if you're constantly saying to yourself, "That's too much
money so I'm not doing it" or "Oh, that's just a few bucks so what the
heck?"

Those few bucks add up if you keep throwing them away on crap.

You need to be smart on BOTH ends.

I'm the cheapest marketer on the planet, but I'll easily plunk down 3K on
a sales letter if I know the copywriter will make my product convert like
gangbusters.

But I won't spend $20 on a solo ad to an Ezine that has a shoddy rep, no
matter how many people tell me it's just 20 bucks.

Get out there and live and eventually you'll figure out what's too much money
to spend.

It just may be that $20 you were going to blow on that super hyped up
WSO that just got it's 3,000th view and 500th comment.