To Free Or Not To Free - That Is The Question

Good point. The free lunch has yet to be invented. There is always an angle when it comes to 'freebies.'

Yes and no. I agree with Godin on a lot, but he also had to start somewhere. We all do.

And when it comes to IM, the reality of why people start here is cause they need to make more money, not to spend more money (unfortunately, that's often what happens).

I have a balanced approach here. When something that costs truly moves your business forward, consider it investment. If you're not sure about it or it's really just for the perception factor, forget it until you have tons of "discretionary income."

Thinked about it for some time. Definitly gave my brains some candy.

I agree and disagree. On the one hand, for long-term, sustainable business growth, you absolutely should make the investment to avoid sacrificing elements of your business in order to get free stuff. On the other, I've long been an advocate of "start where you are" or "use what you have" business building.

I got started with free tools. In fact, I first published articles on content mills -- not that I'd recommend it today, but it helped me learn how to write a web article. Next, I wasn't sure I could be a service provider and make that work financially, so I used a free Blogspot domain as my first portfolio. Once I'd gotten a few clients, I invested in a domain and a year of hosting for my portfolio. I just kept on building from there.

I followed a policy of not investing anything on IM that I hadn't earned from IM, and it worked because:

1. It motivated me to start earning money fast, rather than getting stuck in the research phase.
2. It prevented me from getting caught up in the "shiny object phase" because I didn't have the money, or I needed to prioritize where I spent it (hosting rather than WSOs, for example).
3. When I did get to a point where I could invest in expensive courses, I thought long and hard over them, researched them, looked at reviews, and so on. I ensured that I'd pay close attention to these training courses rather than buying and forgetting them.

So I see Seth's point, but there's a fair counterargument to be made for using free tools at first.

definitely have to agree with that Zabrina! As I mentioned in the original post, there's always open source which has many good free alternatives, Open Office, Wordpress, the list goes on...

freebies normally comes with hidden price tags that may come in various forms. a free blog theme, for example, are normally laden with outbound links at the footer. some of them might be a small price to pay compared to the advantage and the benefits you get out of using them, but for business, settling for freebies is not really recommended, unless of course, you can find a good alternative like what InternetBusinessKickStart mentioned. the key really is to be thorough and resourceful in looking for these stuff!