It's Your Money Or Your Time

by Pamela Heywood

Published on this site: February 8th, 2004

It constantly amazes me that so many people think they can start or run a business online with no costs whatsoever, but I appreciate that this is usually from a lack of knowledge or experience of how business works in general.

The whole idea of business is to turn a profit, in the fastest time possible. This always requires some investment and this basic principle does not change online.

From my experience as an accountant, I can assure you that ALL businesses, whether online or off, cost something to set up and, all of them will also require ongoing expenditure.

The trick is, simply, to earn more than you spend!

OK, simplistic logic does suggest that reducing costs to zero makes this goal easier to achieve. But it's wrong.

There are things you MUST do to achieve it, so if you choose to save the money and spend the time instead, you could wait a very LONG time indeed before you actually make anything!

Yes, if you have all the time in the world and absolutely no money whatsoever, you can do your own research and you will, eventually, find most (not all) of the answers you need.

But what it will cost you, could be very high indeed.

How much you already know about running a business, may determine areas in which you can make savings. For instance, I wouldn't need to buy "Bookkeeping 101", you, on the other hand, might need to pay for guidance on these basics or risk heavy expenditure (including fines) of you get it wrong.

Perhaps the greatest advantage to setting up a business purely online -- the seriously reduced start-up costs -- is also it's greatest enemy. Because it is so easy, people do not invest either time or money researching viability.

Is there a chance that the business will succeed to begin with? And I don't mean, will one website, one product and one ad earn you a million dollars by next week. You may need to spent $10 to earn $11 ... and keep doing it over time.

Initial costs need to be factored in and recouped gradually, but you are bound to require various items that you will need to finance up-front. It's just a fact of life.

It makes sense to automate processes or hire services to assist you, rather than to spend countless hours doing menial tasks that do nothing to earn you a profit.

So often you are, correctly, advised that using free resources is unwise. Inferior quality or reliability, or distracting ads will cost you reputation and lost sales.
Regaining those will take a heap of time and, will probably cost you more doing "clean up" work.

Another example is that if you don't know how to put up a website, you'll have to pay for something or someone to help you, or you'll have to spend time learning how to do it.

But for every moment your site is not yet online nor ready for customers, there's potential profit you couldn't earn -- that may soon have repaid your initial outlay.

In practice, most of us have both time and money in rationed supply, so balances must be found. Choices must be made.

Your time is often more valuable than cash, because paying for products, services or information will enable you to do something you couldn't do before, that, in turn, allows you to get on with what you do best ... and EARN money faster.

It is up to you to decide if something is relevant to your current needs, is within your present budget and will help you achieve your goals. But make the WISE investment.

The choice is still between your money and time and it can be a very unwise and false economy to resist the costs.

Copyright © 2004 Pamela Heywood Start your own online business the right way with our free home business newsletter and original fast-track online business course ... you can't get this anywhere else! Send a blank email to; mailto:[email protected] Or visit: http://www.pamela-heywood.com.