I have a guideline that, if something produces one sale per year and costs less than my profit for that sale, then it may well be worth doing. In fact, that’s part of my formula for marketing success: try everything you’ve learned about and that you can make up. I promote in many different ways; there’s no one major method that most of my hits come from. And I’m always experimenting. (Good thing, because things keep changing online.)
But I have another guideline: Of the methods that are worth doing, do those that produce the most amount of net profit using the least amount of my time. (Just too brilliant for words, isn’t it?)
And that’s why you should hire a maid. “What?!!!”
Success And Your Hourly Worth
Two questions:
- What is the least amount of money you *want* to make, or make per week, or make whenever?
-
What is the largest number of hours per week or whenever you are willing to devote to earning that?
Divide your answer to the first question by your answer to the second question.
(Do it. Really. I’m not busy – I’ll wait.)
That gives you what I’ll call “your hourly worth.”
Now, chances are you want to treat that number, instead, as what you wish to make. That is known not as hourly worth but as a “wish.” Here’s how to make that wish into a reality:
Step One
Don’t treat it as a wish.
Treat it as your hourly worth. Say “This is what that hour is worth to me.” Not just once, but always, for everything on which you spend time. It’s should be your answer even –especially!– when someone asks what you charge.
If you do that consistently enough, and refuse any and all alternatives and naysayers, eventually the world will have no choice but to agree with you.
For example, I just bought a new computer. Do I have enough money to pay for it? Perhaps strangely, I think that question is irrelevant!
Instead, I think these are the useful questions:
-
If you include the time it takes to set up and mess with the computer, will it actually speed up your work enough to save you time? If so, how much time per day, per week, per month, or per year? (For this question, you do have to decide what the relevant time period is – “per day,” “per week,” “per month,” or “per year.”)
- Multiply the number of hours you just came up with by your hourly worth. Now you know how much the computer is worth to you. So just compare how much the computer is worth (to you) to the actual selling price of the computer. Please don’t say, “Well, sure, *you* can afford it!” I’m telling you the kind of decision-making that got me to where I can afford it ... more than once.
And I’m not trying to get you to buy a computer. That’s not the point at all.
Apply the same process to online marketing. For example “Is the *net* profit from advertising with XYZ more or less than my hourly worth for the time I spend creating and placing that advertising?” If the answer is “yes,” then do it even if you think you can’t afford it. If the answer is “no,” then don’t do it even if you do make net profit.
One last example: It takes you an hour to clean something. A maid does it in an hour (or less!), and better. Yet the maid only charges [whatever] per hour, while your hourly worth is [such and such]. The maid *will* be less. Now, spend that hour earning more than the maid charges!
Which reminds me ...
Step Two
I suggest you limit the number of categories you personally participate into two:
- Things you do to make money; and
- Sleep, recreation, and things you enjoy, that make your life worth living.
(Ideally, “things you do to make money” should fall under “things you enjoy.”)
Get rid of everything else!
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© Dale Armin Miller is Master-at-arms of the Internet Marketing Success Arsenal!™ “What works online — guaranteed” ... where you can get free, detailed, online-marketing strategies.
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