You're Looking At The Wrong End!

Understandably many don't have the budget to pay for for quality when they first start. When that's the case they perhaps should look at doing more of the work themselves and start with a project that gets some initial cashflow. Reinvest that money smartly until they reach their end goal.

Ya, I was recently asked how I plan to compete with the people that are charging $3 for a 500 word article.

Honestly, I'm not! I'm not writing for SEO fodder, I'm writing for people.

Rather than spending your time looking for a way to get something for cheaper, look for ways to make more money from your quality product. If you took all of that energy you put into finding a $20 ebook and put it into promoting a higher quality book that cost you, say $150 to write (Yes, I know that is still low for a high quality full length book), I'm sure you could have made that $120 difference back, plus more and had happier customers!

I can understand what youre saying it makes perfect sense, but they way you have to think of it is...
Alot of peaople who first start out in I.M dont have allot of money to invest, many people are also lazy and want others to take all the action for them, however saying that im abit lazy myself and i pay 5 bucks to people on fiverr.com as its quicker and easier for me to get someone else to do allot of the work whilst i concentrate on the more important aspects

IMO if you pay $3 for a 500 word article you get what you pay for. I have bought articles in the past and the quality of the work was poor. And that was in the $5-$10 range. If you can find a good article writer who doesn't need a lot of rewrite requests and who can write high quality articles they should be worth way more than $3.

I appreciate that the folks starting out don't
necessarily have a great deal of money to
invest.

However, if you start out by scrimping on quality,
you'll have a really hard time trying to get and
to keep customers.

What I'm suggesting is that rather than look for
the cheapest... it's often better in the long run
to look for the very best you can afford.

The change in mindset from from "cheapest" to
"best value" will make a huge difference to you
and how your customers see you.

John

My answer to anyone asking how to do something on the cheap is:- learn how to do it yourself!!!!!

you wont get cheaper than that!

Its too often that people forget that you only get out what you put back in. I think its that when looking to hire someone on, they don't consider the income that that investment may bring them. They only see the money that they are losing by making the hire. As your thread stated, it is definitely looking at the wrong end of the funnel. $20 to write an Ebook? People pay $20 just to read a lot of reports/books. Forget that.

It is tough when starting, but I agree to get the best you can afford. It will help take you higher at a faster rate. Do the best you can with what you've got.

The customers' first impression of you is worth a lot.

My take is, if you can't afford to have a product created for more than $20, do something else to make money so that you can reinvest. Provide a service or promote affiliate products that cost nothing for you to earn from. Then you will have the money to get your own quality product created for you.

I feel like I should add that trying to save money in and of itself is not a bad thing, but trying to go super cheap before you have even started has a high likelihood of producing questionable results. Chances are, you don't even understand what you're getting for the money, so how can you make a meaningful evaluation of what "cheap" really means? Smart shoppers don't shop on price; they shop on the relationship between price and value. By asking "where can I get ___ for $___" you have already tossed aside the value part of the equation.

If you really believe in your idea and the product you'll have no problem investing high volumes of money in it.

$20 eBooks come in place when people are trying to earn quickly and small. But those kind of people who search for shortcuts will always earn small.

I agree that you need to start out small. I've bought 300 word articles for $2 before. But the quality was not a concern at that time. I was trying out a new website in a new niche and I wasn't prepared to invest a lot in it. Once the traffic started flowing in I immediately revised all the articles and made them better.

Well done John, this post should be a revelation to these people who want cheap and cheerful, as opposed to ggod quality, long term profitability.

The cheap and cheerful brigade always get found out, whereas those that add value will always earn more in the long term.

The first post of this thread is so true. You can actually get an ebook done for 20$ and even sell the book for someone but I do think that it's kind of scamming people. I honestly do believe that the only way to secure long and successful business is to provide your customers value. After all a satisfied customer will buy again and again. I don't have much experience in online business but in offline business I've seen this happen numerous times.

Also I do realize that some people don't have money to start. In those cases I recommend using the skills that they own to make money to start online business. Most of people tend to have some kind of skills. You don't even have to make money online to make your starting money. Just work for Walmart at night or anything (no offense intended). If you're not enough motivated to collect some starting money for your online business or to develop the skills that are needed for it, how could you ever run a successful business? At least in offline it doesn't work that way.

I think people are looking for a magic bullet solution for everything these days. And one reason might be television reality shows that can make people famous & rich over the night.

Good post OP. It really is true that Value = Profit.

If you are really short on money then one thing you can do is ask for samples of work. Preferably give a small piece of work to someone and ask them to give you a sample, so that you get to know how well they do it. If the guy/girl you're trying to work with is good, they'll be willing to do this, rather than throw a resume at you full of stuff you see on the Internet.

If you find someone good, keep them in touch. The money you give them for their services will be worth every penny. Keeping the best of partners with you helps in the long run.

but what about people who have fitted fitting's capital but want to get maximum results ... to start something on the internet mainly earn money from internet is not easy .. so in my opinion is to learn from something free, quality first and then developed its own .. the point is willing to learn and learn

nicely written and million thanks for that valuable advice, John..cheers !

I agree with those saying if you don't have the money to invest in a quality product, do something else to make enough to afford at least a "half-way decent" quality product that you know will be of genuine benefit to someone.

Short, cheap ebooks have their place, as long as they provide benefits commensurate with the price. (Although for $20 you'll get more of a long article than an ebook.)

This thread reminded me of a post on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com: Why Being Frugal Can Only Take you So Far on Your Path to Wealth (I have no connection to this blog, I just like the guy's style.)

After you have made this mistake enough times, You are less likely to repeat it. When you have wasted your time putting up cheap content, and you saw the results, you will start to me encouraged more by your quality works.

Value Based Philosophy

I think its extremely important for everyone to have a “value based philosophy” when it comes to providing any product or services. Of course there's the old cliche of you get what you pay for. But some cliches are clichés for a reason.

It really doesn't matter if we're talking about online or offline. You want to offer high value services or products, you should expect the same of others and you should expect to pay those that are offering you high value products and services.

There is no question that 99% in the world have financial concerns and considerations when making purchases. But being cheap will come back and bite you in ass most of the time though.

More often than not, if you go with the rock bottom price, you are dealing with a desperate merchant who doesn't understand true market value, who doesn't have any pride in their work and who definitely doesn't realize that you make exponentially more money with repeat customers.

Most people that offer crappy products and services are constantly scrambling around trying to scrape up new customers then cranking them in and out of their system and moving on to the next person.

I used to see it all the time when I worked in construction and home remodeling. We would quote a price to a potential customer based on our experience and pride in the quality of our work. Then someone would come in with a low ball bid. The customer would take the low ball bid. Then have to call us in a month later to remove what was done and start the project all over.

They would pay the low ballers, then pay us to undo their work, then have to pay us full price for our work.

So being cheap sometimes may cost you more than you realize.

Offering low price, low quality services will keep you constantly scrambling for wages. Repeat customers will earn you profits.

Jim Rohn said:

“Wages will make you a living. Profits will make you rich.”

Quality doesn't always need to cost a fortune. There are highly capable people who are early in their careers (students) or in transition who have tons of expertise and need to earn some money during the interim.

If you go to Elance/Odesk look for people with expertise in your niche/industry. Often they are moonlighting or in transition in careers but have a great deal of real-world experience who can write great content. Search for people by industry.

I've just outsourced a huge writing project to graduate students who are studying to enter a specific industry. They have access to the best resources through their school, are interested in the subject matter, and know a fair amount. Yes, it costs more than $5 per article, but the content is excellent. They are also highly motivated people.

The only downside to my approach is training them on writing for the Web. However, it's easy jazzing up an article for the Web that already is loaded with top notch content than coming up with all the research, citations, and details myself.

If you're just starting out and have no money:

1. Do it yourself
2. Reinvest every nickel earned into outsourcing.

It never hurts to do it yourself and figure out what works. Once you make money, you know what works and can replicate it by hiring talent.

"Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten" - a saying made famous by David Ogilvy in a Rolls Royce press ad but originally stated by Aldo Gucci.

I agree with you... it's actually sad to see questions like that and people who are on that wrong side of thinking and acting... I was off from forum for a long time and now I'm back to Warrior forum only, and what I can see here makes me depressed, really... so many "opportunity seekers" who are "willing" to make money online but they don't want to invest a couple of dollars into their business... they all think how it's easy to make money online and the fact that they are using Internet should be enough to be flooded with cash...

I can't understand how someone can decided to start a business (internet business is serious business just like any offline business) but then they "don't have money" or "don't want to invest money" is something cheap as Fiverr gigs or some extremely cheap WSOs... not to mention that when they see a WSO that costs over $10, they run away like from a plague... not to mention dozens (if not hundreds) of people who cry like a babies when price of WSO goes up by a few cents... how anyone who think and acts like that can even consider himself (or herself) capable of doing any business or eventually making money?

I know we all love to save some money and we don't want to spend more than what we should, but come on guys and girls, this is business and we all should be aware of that... now, you can make money online without any investments, but it will be more harder than what it would be if you invest something... that's the right word, "invest", it's not that you are spending money on something ridiculous - you are actually investing in yourself and your business... when will people start to understand that? even if you made a mistake and bought a wrong product, something that doesn't work, you have actually gained something from that - knowledge!

And after all that there comes a fact that you won't make a lot of money if you follow that free or cheap route... when it comes to online business, especially with competition these days, you have to provide your visitors and clients with quality...

Also, many of those guys and girls who decided to take that free or cheap route will at the end spend more money and make less money than what would they spend and earn in regular, quality way... just they don't understand that... but it's pretty easy to see... $20 here, $5 there, $10 on the other side... after a few months they will spend a fortune on crappy products without any real effects...

But, maybe that's a good thing for us who take this business seriously... we should let them go their "cheap" way because they will give up sooner or later...

People look for cheap either because they don't have the money or don't understand the concept of value. When just getting started, two things are accomplished by getting your hands dirty and doing the job yourself. First, you learn the task and the process. It is much easier to hire a quality specialist with an understanding of what you are buying. Second, you gain an appreciation for the value of your time. Together it will serve you well when you have the funds to outsource.

Thank you so much for bringing this up John, its about time.

Im getting really tired of this "I want to make $10,000 a month, but I'm only willing to invest $5" mentality.

Its ridiculous.

If you're afraid to spend money, dont expect to make any either.