We all like free and hey I’m not one to argue with that. In fact, much of what I teach, teaches you to use free stuff. There is a lot of free stuff available and the things that I would recommend that you pay for totally don’t cost much, sometimes pennies, but certainly not a lot.
I personally am both lazy and I like keeping my money for me if I can. So, use the free stuff, use the free tools. However, there are some instances where it’s a bit more important than that.
There are some critical elements of your business where if you get free and you don’t pay anything, you get what you paid for- nothing. Let me give you an example. Most obvious one that comes to mind for me is Facebook.
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We’re all addicted to it. So, let’s get over that. We’re on it all day and we plug our business information in and give great insights and so on and we build up a bit of a following. But no one is seeing your feed.
You’re putting it out there, it looks nice and lovely. No one’s actually seeing it. If you want to use Facebook, you’ve got to pay and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, paid Facebook ads, I’ll tell you now, is one of our major traffic streams.
Facebook ads are fabulous if you know how to use them properly. Always the element there.
But another one is Google. Google search engine optimization. Yes, let’s try and rank our page, get it right up there at the top and then Google comes out with an algorithm change and it doesn’t like our page anymore even if we didn’t do anything wrong.
It drops drown, you’ll have to do it all over again, and so on and so on.
I’ve been around for a while. This happens a lot by the way and we don’t do any black out or any multi-SEO things . It just happens. So, the best way to use Google is to use Google Ad Words and you have to pay.
Yes, something like your email system. You can use, Awebr(which we recommend) but also use MailChimp.
Mail Chimp is free for up to two thousand people in your list. However, at the free end you cannot use auto-responders. You can send out email broadcast and you can send out enough if you’re sending newsletters, which is just fine.
However, to get the most out of an email system like Aweber or Mail Chimp, you need to be setting up autoresponders in response to your lead map where you’ve asked for permission to market to people.
That’s where you get the control and that’s where you get the benefits. So, you pay. It’s not expensive. In fact, if you go to to our Great Tools page, you will find a link to Aweber and there’s a link to Mail Chimp.
I think they’ll be affiliate links which benefits the site but doesn’t make any difference to you. But on Aweber, I think you get a month’s free trial.
So you’ll be able to see how it works. Doesn’t make any difference to you if you don’t like it, just stop using it. But I think if you follow the teachings, you’ll be able to find some things.
Now, I’ll give you a more ordinary example for those of you who are setting up a shop or store. Now, in the downtown or as we call it the high street, if someone came to you and said, “nah don’t bother doing that. Why not just grab a market stall and put it out in the street?”
Which you say, and I say, “it won’t cost anything.” Would you say, “Fantastic! That’s the fellow for me. That’s how I’ll build my business. I’ll setup a market stall. I won’t bother getting proper premises. I’ll pack it up every day, set it up. It’s free!”
No you wouldn’t or I hope you wouldn’t. Of course, if you’re a market trader, you trade for market stall. That’s different. But I’d recommend that you have a store and I’d recommend that you invest and you make it look great like your top competitors would.
This is the same as hosting when you have your website. There’s always going to be someone who says they can find it cheaper. $3 a month, you’re paying, oh that’s ridiculous. I’ve seen it for two or for one.
You’ll get what you pay for. Now in hosting, we use the Rainmaker platform. It’s WordPress membership site, podcast hosting, affiliate program, everything all -in-one. So, we pay extra. I think off top of my head, it’s like $95 a month. It’s about 65 pounds a month.
That really is nothing for what it does. But a lot of people would say, “oh no I’d rather have free.” You can get free hosting, then you can get WordPress for free, then you can get this for free.
All that effort. Pay the money, get it done, get on with running your business. Don’t expect everything for free. If you do by the way, you don’t have to have Rainmaker. You can get the normal Worpress, but we recommend certain types of hosting, C Panel hosting. We do not recommend free and there are ones that we avoid like the plague.
Make a decision. When it’s important, pay the money. Take the hassle, the stress away. Just have quality. Get on with running and building your business, okay?
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Talking of getting on and running your business and removing the stress. Today’s toolbox tip, it’s for a service called Focus@Will.
Now, caught off and you’ll see at Focus with the @ symbol, for those who are listening to the audio.
Focus@Will is run by Will Henshall. think he lives in California now and used to be a pop star and his great song was Thinking About You, I think.
If you look him up anyway I’m sure you’ll be able to find him in iTunes and it’s from the 90s, but if you heard it, you’ll recognize it.
But what he does now is Focus@Will is a system where helps you concentrate on your work by removing the background noises and things. When I use it, I use it every single day by the way and I know a lot of people do.
This is not some little app. They’ve got a few million dollars of investment in this, but they have classical music, they have spa music, they have chill out. Personally, I listen to the classical, seems to work for me.
They have a certain special stuff for ADHD and ADD type people. They have ones for certain type of concentration. It’s quite a lot of science in it.
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You can do a 30-day free trial. After that, you pay monthly or annually. It’s really pennies. But do the 30-day free trial. You can use it on your iPhone, you can use it on the thing that syncs together, but you just simply play.
Put a timer on and then just work for a batch, have a rest and so on. It removes that background. It’s like a lot of people sleep with white noise machines and that does a similar thing.
It’s kind of clever and until you try it, you won’t realize how well it works. But judging by the number of people who use it, it’s working. Works for me. Focus@Will. Go and try it.
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