Develop Your Skills

Hi NilbogKing

Some very good advice you have given here and also great value you have added.

Learning new skills will help one cut your costs tremendously.

One should not expect to do this overnight though but learning a new skill every month can help a lot in building your business which in turn will not cost you an arm and a leg.

This is great advice for the aspiring freelancers among us and anyone who has a strong interest in becoming a master of every facet of online marketing and sales.

But you should also keep in mind that $2,000 is pocket change for many while others, for a variety of reasons, have no great interest in tackling some of the more advanced aspects of online product or website development.

You might be aware that one of the best selling points for many marketers is the "done for you" model where the only time you have to lift a finger is to email your favorite solo ad seller.

There are 2 models here: For some, it's work, work, work. For others, it's spend, spend, spend. I would suspect that, at the end of the day, success requires some combination of both.

"By teaching yourself how to do all of those skills on your own website, you can now offer those skills to others at a premium."

So this means that you will be doing graphics design and website design all day long, basically exchanging time for money. And then you won't be able to automate or to scale your business.

All big leaders and entrepreneurs suggest to delegate and to hire people that are smarter and more experienced than you. So instead of spending 2 years to become really good at graphic design, you would just hire a designer that is already very good at this...and have the work done in a few days (instead of years).

This is a very good point. This is definitely a beginner tip. However, for those successful marketers to whom $2,000 is chump change, I would suggest most of them started small and this tip could have helped them in the beginning as well. At some point, a successful person's time is more valuable than the cost of business. Then outsourcing is by far a better method. But it takes a lot of steps to work to that level.

Developing your skills is key NK; agreed on that.

I'd add; to become a real expert in your niche, who gives all of their attention and energy to one thing, ya gotta pay skilled people to handle stuff that you don't have the time or energy to engage in.

Example; I have zero design chops and even worse skills. Developing my bespoke theme from scratch would have taken me 6 months, and it would have been a crap job. But my web developer handled it, freeing my energies and sked to write 1000 plus guest posts.

Lesson: develop skills in areas you are passionate about, then pay people to handle jobs you have no interest in, or that they trump ya in, skills-wise. This is the secret to scale, and even more important, the secret to the non fail, as far as struggling internet marketers are concerned.

Ryan

This is an ideal and great information for freelancer's...
me myself highly recommended you..
Great your work and great your info.
God bless you

Complete bullshit.

I've built a lot of sites over 10 years and I'm faster than most, so I know you are lying.

You are not helping anyone by doling out false information.

Brent

I agree with the OPs premise but I don't necessarily agree with the way he's presented it.

Yes, doing it all yourself IS absolutely a good idea for beginners/early intermediate marketers. Why?

For one thing, the more you learn how to do, the more opportunity you have in the future. If the product you're working on now turns out to be a flop, even if a single dollar of revenue isn't brought in, you still come away with something. The skills you learn might lead you to make different choices or pursue a different business model next time. More knowledge is never a bad thing. As you build and succeed, you can then make educated decisions on where to step back and start outsourcing, having seen the work firsthand while you did it yourself.

Secondly, if you're starting out, bootstrapping is absolutely key. When money is scarce at the beginning, it doesn't make sense to spend money on things you can do yourself with a little bit of time, effort, and practice. Put that money somewhere it can be of better use, like an emergency fund so you don't starve in case the whole thing bombs.

All that being said, the OP does himself and his point no favours by throwing out claims like he can easily build a website in 2 hours and sell it for $1500 dollars. Can you sell a website it took you two hours to make for $1500? Of course. But it isn't some easy task. How much time did it take you to find that client? Did you sell them prior to doing the work or after? How long did it take to negotiate that sweet deal?

There is a massive amount of work that's being left out in the equation being presented of 2 hours = $1500. Again, it isn't impossible to sell a website that took two hours to make for $1500. You just have to consider everything else that goes into such a deal that does not only take two hours. Presenting it in the way it has been lacks credibility.

Likewise, the claim someone can be taught to be a great graphic designer in 2 hours doesn't pass the smell test. Impossible. You can't even teach someone to be a semi-competent graphic designer in two hours. There is too much involved.