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There's no such thing as FREE.

by Andyhenry
9 replies
I know, I know - you want to know all the 'free' ways of:

Making money.

Getting traffic.

Building your list.

etc. etc.

But the truth is - nothing is free.

Sure I might spend months creating some information that I give you for no cost, but you'll have to invest time to read it, absorb it, and act upon it in order to stand a chance of it making any difference to you.

You can decide to write articles about your niche in order to promote your business, and while you don't have to pay anyone else to make it happen, it still costs you your time and your attention.

Cost is not just about the money it takes to get something, it's also about the "lost opportunity" price.

The same reason why a well qualified doctor doesn't work in a supermarket - sure they could make money doing that, but it's actually costing them the money they could have been making by doing a higher value thing.

So when you say you want FREE methods, don't kid yourself that you're not paying a price for them.

As soon as you tell yourself that because you don't have much/any money and therefore you have to do low value tasks yourself you could be making a shackle for your business that will hold you down much more than you realise.

Here's an example to illustrate the point:

Scenario 1:

New person realises that IM is a vehicle for making money on top of their usual career.

They think "I don't have any money so I'll have to do everything myself for free", so they come to the forum and just ask "what free ways of making money are there?" and get the usual bunch of responses.

They decide to setup an affiliate blog and write articles to get traffic.

6 months later they've made $200 in affiliate commissions and are still struggling to work out how to make more.

Scenario 2:

New person realises IM can make them money on top of their usual career.

They think "I don't have any money so I will need raise some in order to pay for the things I'll need for my business.".

So they come to the forum and ask "I'm starting a new online business. I'm not completely decided on the best way yet but need to raise some startup money to pay for the tools and systems I know I'll need. Can anyone suggest some things I could do?".

The answers range from "offer writing services to warriors" to "look what is selling and create something valuable for people already buying" and "pick a niche, create a useful tool or product and give it away to build a list" and many more.

Person offers some writing services for money while they pick a niche they're passionate about and get a script/template/tool created that they then sell and create their operating revenue ready for their target business.

They come to the forum 6 months later to tell us how they're amazed that with most of their business on auto-pilot and systemised, just how quickly it's grown and made them more money than they expected.


The main difference - The mindset and the questions.

When you say yes to "I need to do it for free" you're saying no to "how do I make the money to pay for what I need?".

Andy
#free #thing
  • Profile picture of the author Kauzmo
    It always amazes me that the majority of people ignore the time investment. The average person always equates the word "free" with currency. They almost never want to acknowledge time.

    Strangely enough I learned this lesson in an MMO game. People will spend hours and hours gathering (farming) "free" materials to sell on the auction house. After all of that time and work they would still consider those items as "free" and because of that they were willing to sell them to me for next to nothing.

    I would take those same items, but because I learned the market and the economy of the game, I could sell their items for 3-10 times more than I paid for them on the very same auction house.

    Yes it was easier and more cost effective to buy their "free" items and I always made more from those than they did.

    Opportunity cost is very real.
    Effort versus reward is also very real.
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    • Profile picture of the author heevyhivy
      I'm from England. I'm one of the many many MANY people who classify 'free' as a monetary term.

      If you're living on less income and have an absent social life, living a slow life, you might fit in this category. Because you have the time to try it out long term right?

      However, I remember that in USA so many people work long hours with longer commutes to work/shop or do activities. I can now see why U.S citizens are more willing to pay than UK citizens, for information freely available on google.

      In UK however, buildings and essential destinations are generally closer, it's okay to work lesser hours, and there are more vacation days. So people can find the time to 'do it for free'.
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      • Profile picture of the author fin
        I don't really understand the "time is money" argument. To me, it just seems like a thing to make people look cool.

        People should be more concerned with stuff like hapiness and exitement, than chasing every penny, which sounds like a dreadful way to live your life.
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        • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
          Originally Posted by fin View Post

          I don't really understand the "time is money" argument. To me, it just seems like a thing to make people look cool.

          People should be more concerned with stuff like hapiness and exitement, than chasing every penny, which sounds like a dreadful way to live your life.
          It's not a case of "time is money".

          It's a case of "time has value".

          Whatever you're spending your time on you're not spending on something else.

          So - it's nothing to do with looking 'cool' (but I am happy to know it makes me look cool - thanks )

          It's about exactly what you said - happiness and excitement.

          Why spend a second on anything that doesn't make you happy or excited?

          The answer - because unfortunately we live in a material world, where even if you don't care about money at all - there are enough other people who do that they will stop you going about your business unless you give them money.
          You can't live / survive without it because essential supplies and shelter cost money.

          Therefore you very ability to stop others interfering with the life that makes you happy depends on you having enough money to give them quiet/away.

          We all love the idea of doing what we love and making more than enough money as a side-effect - that's why we're at this forum isn't it?

          So where you see people trying to look cool and talk like money doesn't matter - it's the opposite.

          It's precisely because money does matter that we need to be efficient in how we spend our time so that we're not wasting it on things that don't provide us and others with the best value possible.

          Value is not the same as money.
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          nothing to see here.

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      • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
        Originally Posted by heevyhivy View Post

        I'm from England. I'm one of the many many MANY people who classify 'free' as a monetary term.

        If you're living on less income and have an absent social life, living a slow life, you might fit in this category. Because you have the time to try it out long term right?

        However, I remember that in USA so many people work long hours with longer commutes to work/shop or do activities. I can now see why U.S citizens are more willing to pay than UK citizens, for information freely available on google.

        In UK however, buildings and essential destinations are generally closer, it's okay to work lesser hours, and there are more vacation days. So people can find the time to 'do it for free'.

        I'm in the UK too, and I've been massively in debt and desperate for money so I can understand who you're talking about (it was me once), but that's still not 'free'.

        Especially when you're spending time doing things that you don't actually have any idea if they're actually make you money - or how much.

        That time you spend doing things for 'free' still comes out of the time of your life, and also is time you could have spent doing paid things.

        Not spending money is not the same as it not costing you money.

        Sure you can spend 12 hours weaving a basket 'for free' to sell for £20, but if you could have cleaned 100 windows for your neighbours in the same time for £200, then it's cost you £180 to do that 'free' thing.

        This is the thing with IM - you see it all the time here.

        People spend months (or years) dabbling with IM stuff and if they make $100 a month with the 100 hours they spent doing stuff they still tell themselves that they're successful. In reality they've moving backwards.

        You could do some paid work and use the money to be massively more productive.

        Fundamentally YOU are not the best person to do 'most' activities in a business.

        Therefore if YOU are doing them - your business is fundamentally flawed and limited.

        YOU only have 24 hours in a day and your limited skillset.

        There are thousands of people much more skilled in specific areas just waiting to do a much better job than you on most of the activities your business needs.

        Not having money does NOT mean you need to do everything yourself.

        If you have a skill it's much more effective to barter that skill with someone who has skills you need but don't have.

        If you're a writer and starting with no money - it may be much more effective for you to do some writing for a graphics person in exchange for some graphics, so you can create your own products without spending ANY 'money'. You're not getting them for free, you're just not spending money on them.

        If you think Free exists you are massively limiting yourself and your business.

        Andy
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        nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Abby Gibbs
    You are right! There's no such thing as free.
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  • Profile picture of the author shnmarketing
    So true.

    It often staggers me when I hear and read about people who started out with nothing and they made it.

    Even winning on the lottery requires you to invest time in going to the shop to purchase your ticket or even doing it online.

    Granted, the return on investment for a lottery-winning ticket wouldn't qualify for my point but the point is: there is no such thing as FREE.
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  • Profile picture of the author fin
    Yeah, I know what you're saying. But I think you could use some common sense or take it to the extreme.

    For me personally, I'd charge someone money for work completed, but if I decided to stay home and watch tv, I wouldn't count that as money lost.

    So for me, time = money, but maybe not the the level that you would. I'm sure there is some people out there who would have a stress attack because they got caught in a traffic jam and were away from the office longer than planned.

    TBF, i'm only really bothered about making decent money so I can live comfortably. My passions are free/cheap. If people are trying to become rich, I can see why they'd lean more to the extreme side and there is nothing wrong with that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce NewMedia
    Andy you are so right...

    I started in direct response marketing a long time ago. Everyone just expected to spend money for advertising and for tools and instruction. Without ads, you would have no exposure and get no orders - simple. Now, many new internet marketers are attracted to IM because they think it's a way to do everything for "free".

    ...of course it's a cruel myth, but they want to believe it. ..and that attracts a lot more aspiring marketers than ever, but their unwillingness to invest hinders their career greatly.
    _____
    Bruce
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