Do you research or are you prepared to be taught? This is the question I get asked a lot. Well not exactly in those words but rather “Is it better to research my way to success or should I have a mentor or get help?”

My answer is “The choice is yours. We all have a choice of what we want to do and where we want to be in the future.” I did it the hard way and yeah it did take time but you do learn, and 4 years later things are going well.

If I told you to take on a coaching course would you believe me? Would you think it was the best course of action for you based on my advice? The thing is, many people want to succeed online but most guys won’t spend a penny trying to do it! Not that this is a bad thing by any means but the truth is there are so many guys wanting to start their internet marketing business without wanting to spend a single penny and quite frankly this attitude gets you nowhere.

Believe it or not one of the most common questions I get is “I don’t have any money can I start my business this way. Will you help me?”

Now if you think about this question a little you will find the immediate answer which probably springs to you is ‘NO’ starting your business with Zero Cash is impossible in my opinion. I would say get this no money attitude from your mind and think about spending a little rather than none.

I am going to cover some angles today and show you how you can start your business with very little cash and also start and boost your business with a small cash injection. These methods require small investments so if you want to start a business without spending a single penny then stop now and go rob a bank or dig for gold or something! (I was joking, please keep reading).

Ok here we go with the ‘very little’ cash injection method.

First I am going to present a list to you of the things you need when you want to start an online business:

1, First and foremost you need a hosting account to host your websites and give you an online presence. Now you can use a free hosting service but they are very poor, have very poor uptime and place ads all over your website which is not what you want at all, so hosting is essential. If you scrimp here you are already failing! Here is the hosting account which I use and would not go anywhere else. I have never had any problems with D9 and so I recommend you check them out. The price of hosting is less than $8 per month and a free domain name:

D9 Hosting

2, Once you have your hosting and domain name up and running you need to think about what your business is and what it is going to be about. Incidentally, you need to setup a domain name at registration of your hosting so it is beneficial to you that you have an idea of what your business is going to be called or what it is about. Give it some time to think about a domain name. Personally I can guarantee you will buy more in the future as you get more ideas.~

3, Now you have a domain name it’s time to grab more freebies and get yourself a blog from WordPress. Now if you have taken D9 hosting, there is a simple step through click setup to setup your blog with the ‘Fantastico’ link via your hosting cpanel.

Some hosting accounts do not have this link and your blog must be setup manually so if you choose an alternative hosting account be sure to check it out first before you sign up.

3, Once you have your blog online, it’s time for you to start blogging about your business and telling the world know who you are and what your business is. Being transparent is very advantageous when running your own online business. This shows people who you really are.

Post on other topic related blogs, this gives you an online presence. You will soon see traffic come back to your own websites by interacting with others in this way. When you offer good content to others they will listen to your opinions and in turn vist your blog for information and spread the word about your expertise.

Hold On!

Ok we now have a hosting account and an online blog which is generating you traffic and bringing in some traffic. All for $8 per month! You have an online business for $8 per month! How cool is that but it’s not enough, you now want to start to make money from this business.

Blogging is fair enough, you can make money from blogging and it’s a great source of information for guys to use and interact with you, but you need to make some cash from your blog. How can you do this?

How About Email Subscription and Collection?

4, If you have been around the internet marketing scene for a while you will have heard the saying ‘The Money is in The List’ thousands of times. And guess what? It’s true, your money really is in your list. If you have visitors to your blog and they like what they see they will subscribe to find out more. These days guys subscribe via RSS feed, so get your FeedBurner account setup as well. But most of all get your email collection subscription box setup to collect email addresses, this is essential.

There are a number of email collection and distribution companies out there which allow for email collection and also you as the user have the ability to broadcast email to the guys who are on your mailing lists, this creates more revenue for you in the form of affiliate commissions and promotions of your products. The companies that I can recommend are Aweber (My Personal Favourite) Get response and Wizard Responder (Owned by friend of mine Randy Smith and if you are keeping it cheap then this is best value)

Once you have your signup box on your blog you are ready to start collecting emails, promoting products and bringing in some cash.

5, Monetize your blog is the next step. Add some Google AdSense to your blog, some paid ads to bring in that residual income. Granted it may not be a great deal as AdSense is not the best income but all the same many income streams make a river in the end, so get some ads on your blog.

Add some affiliate program banners. A Good place to find ads and banners related to your business is the Clickbank Marketplace you can use ads and banners from the market place once you sign up for a free account. You can then earn up to 75% commission on all products placed on your website. This is also a free tool and will earn you a commission based income from your blog.

Where Are We Now?

Ok you have spent $8 per month so far, with your auto responder in place you will spend another $9 if you use Wizard Responder. Total spent per month is now $17 per month. This is the base level of your business and you will make money, more than enough to cover your hosting and auto responder fee’s by a long way if you stick to your plan and keep working on your blog, posting to others and generating traffic in this way.

Remember when I mentioned the question:

“I don’t have any money can I start my business this way. Will you help me?”

Ask yourself the question? Would you spend $17 per month to create and manage your own business and have the potential to earn ten times as much in return? Of course you would it’s a no brainer. Granted it will start off a little slow at first, but what businesses don’t. Within a few weeks you will be earning your own income online and only spending $17 per month outgoings. There is not a business in the world which you can start on so little and have full control over.

What Next?

It’s time to create your own product. Once you have your blog online, your auto responder in place and your ads on your blog, it’s time to take your business to the next level. To do this you now need to think about product creation and what you want to achieve in the future.

I don’t know the nature of your business or its niche so here are a few ideas which you may want to take onboard.

• You can create an eBook which provides more information about your business, also add more information which you place in your blog. Adding more information adds value to your eBook and with this value sales will be made.

• How about a video series where you can supply online information to your subscribers and blog visitors. Instead of writing (which some people do have problems with) Try creating a video series as an alternative. I find writing easier but I also feel video can be more informative.

• What about a physical product which you can advertise to your blog subscribers and your mailing list subscribers? Get your business information made into a physical book, videos, workbooks and manuals and DVD’s and post it to buyers all over the world.

The first two examples I mentioned can also be free so there is nothing to add to your monthly cost. To create an eBook all you need to do is write! There are plenty of free tools across the internet for you to use to write eBooks. Take a look at Open Office Suite this has a writer and PDF converter to help you write and create your final downloadable eBook. Obviously you can use Microsoft Word, Mac iWork and more but Open Office is free and does the job no problem.

As for video the main video software I use is Camtasia by Techsmith, but again this is expensive it does have a free trial but in the end you will have to pay for it. How do you get free video? Bring in YouTube! Do you have a mobile smart phone? A video camera? All of these will replace Camtasia and cost nothing. Also a bonus for YouTube videos you will get more exposure and create traffic to your websites from YouTube as it acts rather like a second source to your site.

If you want screen capture software you can also replace Camtasia with CamStudio this will also help you run your business at a lower cost.

Physical products are something I am not really interested in due to the nature of my business. You must pay for something physical to be made so the cost of creating products does increase, however so does the sale price. Physical products can be sold in excess of $197 and anywhere up to 10k depending on what you provide because you must make a return on your investment and therefore profit from your creations. Digital products can be replicated unlimited amounts of times for free, but physical products cost every time you create a new one. Here are some companies that will help you out with distribution and book creation:

Kunaki Cd Creation and Shipping
Lulu Self Publishing Books

Moving On!

If your business is related to digital products then you will need a HTML editor to create sales pages, download pages, affiliates pages and thank you pages. HTML editors are another essential part of your online business and a necessity for products creation. The two main popular editors are Dream Weaver and Microsoft Expression Web both of these editors must be paid for but they are the best of the bunch.

I have searched for a decent HTML editor which comes close to these two editors and to be honest, I did struggle trying to find one with similar capabilities. The two I can recommend are Page Breeze and NVU. These will do the job but in my opinion nowhere near as much as Dream Weaver and Expression Web. However they are free and are a good start if you don’t want to pay for software.

Where Are We Now?

With your blog in place, mailing list in place and your first product in place or on the way you have achieved all of this by investing only $17 per month and some of your time. Well probably a lot of your time actually because I don’t expect you to be able to use all of the tools that I have mentioned above free or paid for without training or experience.

How can we combat this?

We have options to consider when creating products and managing your business. I have shown you how you can start, maintain and progress your business with minimal investment, but with this investment you must sacrifice time and time is a factor. You must use your time to learn all of the free tools mentioned and gain experience and train yourself to use them. There are three options to consider now.

Option 1,

Go it alone -Take your business into your own hands and manage your own software packages, updates, HTML pages, writing video tutorials and so on. Running your business this way gives you the advantage of learning as you go and have the ability to manage your own business without the help of others. It’s also cheaper as you do not need to pay for help or training.

The big disadvantage to this way of running your business is time and ability. Do you have the knowledge and the skill to manage your business in this way? Some guys are great at writing but very poor at HTML and creating pages. Some guys are the opposite, great with websites but poor content writers.

What about time? Do you have the time to create all of these products and also to teach yourself to learn the software packages? There are only so many tutorials you can watch or read about to help you.

Option 2,

Outsourcing – You can use internet services such as Elance to hire professionals to create products for you. This can be as cheap or expensive as you like depending on the service provider you hire. You can have everything and anything created for you from full saleable products to blogs and eBooks. This is a very quick and easy route to take if you are willing to invest.

The drawbacks to outsourcing are simple. You learn nothing of product creation and the tools you use. You rely on others to create products for you and change aspects of your business. However you minimise time and the stress of learning and get products online quickly.

If you lack skills in places then maybe this is a route you may want to consider.

Option 3,

Training courses – Are a simple and great way to learn and get your products online fast and gain knowledge at the same time. With a mentor you can learn all the aspects of your business and have the ability to manage your businesses to good effect. Time is reduced due to your enhanced knowledge and you are not relying on others to help you when you need an update or change.

The drawback is obviously the initial investment. Training courses can range anywhere from $497 to $10k. The choice is yours which courses to choose and if you want to pay the price.

For me the mentor route has the best advantages of the three options. You have the ability to learn and help yourself and the added advantage of an expert to help you. If you mix this up with Elance and outsourcing you will have your business running smooth and fast which is exactly how you want it.

Where Are We Now?

Don’t forget at this point you are still only investing around $17 per month into your business, but the turning point is here. You are at a crossroads where in one direction you can go to Self Learning, the other to Outsourcing and the third to Student and Teacher. Remember my answer earlier “The choice is yours. We all have a choice of what we want to do and where we want to be in the future.” Well this it. Personally I would take student and teacher as you benefit from training and expert help, time is reduced due to your enhanced knowledge and you are not relying on others to help you when you need an update or change.

You also have the advantages of a Joint Venture promotion with your teacher which can be worth a lot of money and the chance to build your list.

If you are short on funds then there is only one route to take. It is a long and drawn out process, but don’t give up. You will see reward.

If you take the mentor route and/or the outsourcing route then your monthly investment will rise to an average of $64 per month for the length of the course, or until your outsourcing fee’s are paid. Your investment will be recuperated from Joint Venture Partners (JV’s) with other marketers or your mentor so your investment will not actually be a loss rather a gain. It is this step that will make the most difference in your marketing business.

I can recommend three courses to you, each are suitably priced and will boost your business a great deal:

Recommendation 1

Recommendation 2

Recommendation 3

Obviously there is a lot more to learn within your business and I have only covered the basics of getting started. I try to offer the right advice for all scenarios and the best value. I will cover more in the future which will help you so stay tuned

If you did reach the end well done you made it. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for reading and I hope you take something away from this. It would make me very happy.

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