Internet Marketing

by Robert E Hunter

So, you have discovered that perfect home-based business that is going to have prospects banging down the door to sign up…but you don’t have the money to invest. The investment requirement may be $1500, it may be $1000, it may be $100.
The point is that you have NO money to spare, if you want to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. This describes most, in today’s economy, but you are special because you are wise enough to realize that if you just keep doing what you are doing now, you are just going to keep getting poorer.
Now mind you, that doesn’t mean you can walk into your boss’s office, drop off your resignation letter, and tell him to pound sand just yet…that comes later. But, you know that while your day job will make you a living, your online business will make you a fortune. Right?
So the challenge is to raise the money to start your business as soon as possible. The methods I am about to teach you will do just that, PLUS generate recurring monthly savings that will become your advertising budget.
Step 1: Where is My Money Going Now?
The simplest and best way of making money is to reduce your costs. But you may already only be buying what you need! So, we are going to reduce our costs WITHOUT sacrificing the goods/services that we need. But first, what ARE our costs?
Exercise: Take out last month’s bank statement and credit card bills. Itemize each of your major costs. Your list may look something like this:
·    Mortgage on house or cost of renting
·    Car payments
·    Health Insurance
·    Car Insurance
·    Homeowners Insurance
·    Groceries
·    Fast food/lunches out at work
·    Telephone/Internet/Cable
·    Gas
These are just a few. It can be frightening to see just how much money you are spending to keep a roof over your head!
So now that we know WHERE our money is going, let’s take action to divert more of it away from other people’s pockets and into our own. We will do that via…
Step 2: Competitive Bidding–Who wants my business?
It is simply astonishing how almost every company utilizes competitive bidding, and yet how few households do! For every item we listed up there, there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of different companies who would love to have you as their customer!
Let’s make them compete against each other, shall we?
Exercise: Find your policies for Health, Auto and Home Insurance. Find exactly what your coverages are, and your premiums. THEN, go online to a competitive bidding website, fill out your information, and request quotes from dozens of bidders! I personally use LowerMyBills and E-Health Insurance (links are provided in the resource box below). Representatives from these companies will be scrambling all over each other to provide you with their most competitive quotes, especially if you…
Tip: TELL THEM that other companies are bidding for your business! No one wants the competition to get a customer, so they will cut their margins as much as they can!
Tip: Create URGENCY by telling them that you are only accepting bids until X date, at which point you will choose the most inexpensive offer that meets your needs!
You will be astonished at how much this will reduce your monthly costs. This is a service that I perform for clients, in exchange for a % of whatever I save them, and believe me that is a pretty penny. But you don’t need me to do it for you, you can do this yourself!
Savings: (will obviously vary from person to person, this is what I tend to see on average)
Savings on health insurance: $200 per month
Savings on car insurance: $100 per month
Savings on home insurance: $75 per month First-month savings on insurance: $375
Ongoing monthly savings: $375/month
Wow! That’s a nice chunk of change right there towards your business. And your actual results may be much higher or much lower, but chances are that right now, unless you bid out your insurance annually, your provider is probably treating you like a 200-pound 4th-grader taking your lunch money.
Step 3: I Can Pay Less, to Save MORE?!?
Have you been reading the news about the economy? In an effort to turn around the recession, the FED has been slashing through interest rates with speed and vigor usually seen only in Japanese Samurai movies.
Take out that mortgage bill, and see what rate you are paying. 7%? 6%?
We’ll use an average mortgage amount of $200,000, and assume your current interest rate is 7% at a 30 year fixed loan. Ergo, your payment is $1,330.60 per month.
Do you have any idea JUST HOW MUCH money you can save by refinancing now at a lower rate?
With the Fed rate cuts, loans at 5% are easily available. Just that 2% drop in interest will lower your payment on the SAME LOAN to $1,073.64…saving you $237 per month!!
Let’s add that in…
1st-Month Savings on Refinancing at lower rate: $237
Ongoing monthly savings: $237/month
And you can roll in your closing costs to the loan, so you don’t pay anything up front, and STILL be saving this much (a few thousand over a 30-year loan just knocks off about $20 per month from your savings, which is already factored in above).
Step 4: Waste Not, Want Not Now we are going to look at such a simple, obvious, and EASY way to save money, that never even occurs to most people.
What are you doing for lunch at work? Are you getting fast food, because it’s easy and convenient? If so, you are spending about $6-$8 per meal!
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