I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to buy my latest laptop. It runs Vista which I hate, but that wasn’t the reason why. The reason was that it cost me around $1,000 – £499 in the UK.

Now it’s a necessary tool of my trade I know but it still bugged me because somewhere deep in my heart I know that one of the main reasons that I’m now able to do this full time is because I’m a tight-ass.

Or to put nicely – I can’t see the value in spending money on my business unless it provides a skill that will increase my income.

Bum Marketing is the term people use, but the truth is that if you can keep your overheads – your expenses down – then you’re much more likely to succeed.

In the early days I had some launches that would have crashed and bombed if I’d followed the advice laid down my several gurus, but by following my own ‘tight-ass ethic’ I managed to turn a small proft that got me through the month and enabled me to fight another day as an Internet Marketer. I didn’t pay anyone to do my graphics for me, I didn’t hire any ghostwriting or copy-checking people, my hosting was less than bog standard and I stayed up for 48 hours delivering the download links and collecting email addresses manually because I couldn’t afford to pay for autoresponders or mailing list admin services.

And I made a profit!

Now you coudl argue that streamlining the whole process would have increased by products, as would paying for a pro graphics service. But let me ask you this –

What if it hadn’t???

I can answer that easily by saying that I probably wouldn’t be typing this now – I’d be working for an employer or at the very best struggling in an offline business. I couldn’t take the risk. It was a calculated bet that I would at least make some profit by keeping my launch expenses to almost zero.

If I’d spent $500 on the above then the profit I made wouldn’t have been enough to enable me to live for the month while I planned my next venture. i would have been forced to take a job. I didn’t have children at this point so I was able to live on pretty rough food but I loved it because it meant I was a full-time marketer.

The internet is unique in several ways but in my opinion the best thing about it from a marketers point of view is that it costs very little to create and launch a product except in terms of hard work.

And that’s why I love it. It levels the playing field. Anyone who can afford a PC and internet connection can make a million.

And it doesn’t matter if your PC is an old, cranky thing as long as it does the job. Nor do you need the latest software when free versions are available. You need to keep your overheads low so thath most of the profits that come in remain with you – they’re not passed on to other people.

The one exception to Tony’s Tight-Ass Rule is education. I will happily pay for any piece of knowledge that will increase my income -period. It’s a no-brainer. If I buy an ebook for $27 that increases my income by $2700 then I don’t need a week’s meditation to make my mind up.

Which is why at Laycock Publishing we only write about methods that work for us, are proven to work for us, and that we use in our day to day business. One example of this is http://www.viralsneakiness.com

 I realise you must ‘speculate to accumulate’, but I’d rather listen to what my Gran used to say – ‘In business any expense that guarantees a fiscal return must be, by definition flawed, because the only true guarantee that captial remains in situ is a determined policy of non-expense related marketing’.

Actually she didn’t but ‘where there’s muck there’s brass’ doesn’t have the same ring to it 🙂

Cheers!

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