Time vs money; what is the primary component for development? (15)
Time vs money; what is the primary component for development?
Hey my friends. I'm really glad to join this forum, and start a new chapter in my life. 
I recently moved 1000 miles away from home to take advantage of the oil boom in North Dakota, with the dream of moving to California or Colorado in the next 12-18 months. I work 7 days a week with two jobs, and I'm making pretty good money. My original plan was to save $30-40k and purchase a small business and eventually flip it, then repeating (If you've heard of someone by the name of Void from another community, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about). I've read a bit of Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Chet Holmes, Brian Tracy and others, so I'm not exactly clueless with marketing. After doing a bit more research into AM, I think its a wiser choice to invest my time and resources into this instead; I can get started now and I don't have to wait and twiddle my thumbs for at least a year.
This is where I'd like some advice on what I should do next; I currently work 9 hours a day each day, giving me a good amount of time for other activities during the day. While that's a benefit with my current situation, I can be making 70% more money if I instead choose to work 12-14 hour days doing local truck driving around here. I'll obviously have far less time during the day, however I'll have a substantially larger amount of money to use to play with. Might I add it will be another 3 months before I can do option #2, as I'm saving for trucking school since its moderately expensive, and I'll obviously need to complete the training before I can get the job.... point being, thats a few months I can learn/read books/read websites, getting a better understanding of what it takes to be a good affiliate marketer. Is that enough time? I don't know.
I am renting the cheapest place I can find out here currently, a small 9' x 13' room. I'm living as simply as possible, so I can aggressively pursue my goal of getting out of here and start a new life somewhere nice. Assuming I don't change what I'm doing now, I could put roughly $1800-2000/month into AM, with 3-4 hrs/day of realistic time I can put into it. If I choose truck driving, after the several months of time of waiting (which I can use for learning as said above), I'll be able to invest $3000-3400/month into AM, but then only have perhaps an hour or two a day to invest in this.
I want to dive headfirst into this, and make as much progress as possible understanding and harnessing the power of affiliate marketing. I'm fully aware I'll make mistakes and lose money from the beginning; the way I see it is if I can fail twice as fast, I can learn twice as fast. What I'm asking you guys is what the optimal balance would be with time available and money available so I can get the most out of this year.
Best wishes,
Mark
Hey buddy, firstly welcome to STM!
From my own past experience, juggling studying two degrees, a busy personal life and affiliate marketing… I think I'd opt to choose for more time.
Especially when I was learning, I could spend hours tweaking/learning/playing with landing pages and end up not setting up any campaigns that day. It would lead to many unfinished and un-pursued projects.
Perhaps it depends on your drive and your ability to get things done. But personally I think I’d go for time.
Given the numbers you mention above, I'd agree with Ruby Tunes and say go for additional time.
An hour a day max would make your life in AM pretty tough. $2k a month, meanwhile, is a perfectly reasonable budget. More money would make a difference but not a big one, whilst more time will make a huge difference in terms of how fast you learn.
Thank you both for your responses, what was said makes perfect sense.
Time to kick some butt.
I thought the oil boom was over, no?
Originally Posted by cmdeal
Hey my friends. I took Caurmen's advice and am continuing to work 7 days a week with my two jobs.
Being new to this industry and currently lacking a feel on the time commitments it requires, I have the choice of quitting my lesser paying job on the weekends, having $800 fewer to test a month, however having two full days off dedicated to time on this. I'm in the middle of incorporating ($1000) and getting a logo created ($500 via 99designs), so at least some 'major' expenses are getting out of the way. What would you do you were in my shoes?
Thanks again for everyone contributing to this thread. Everything being said is having a factor in the direction of my life.
Cordially,
Mark
Additional note- If I quit, I can easily get my weekend job back down the road. I'm a good employee and management likes that. Quitting a job in a place like here has little long-term impact.
I have an alternative suggestion.
Negotiate with management to reduce your secondary weekend job to one day instead, ideally the day where you can make most impact there. This may or may not be practical, but indulge me.
Then you get one free day to hustle, have more testing budget, and have more long-term security since you haven't actually quit that job (yet).
You could bring this up as if you are changing the direction in your life and you want to phase out of your weekend job but not just drop it immediately - perphaps management will find this to be quite generous and respectful of you.
The thing is, AM is quite volatile and unpredictable - though potentially lucrative. Thus, freeing up only one day would allow you to learn, grow and test while reducing risk. If after 3-4 weeks you find you are loving it and need more time then you can tender resignation - and at this point the management will have been expecting it so there is unlikely to be any drama.
Maybe you're making enough with the primary job to just drop it safely, but personally, I like employing a bit of strategy with these kinds of things. In the long run it's something you'll need to learn in business and carefully managing relationships is a useful skill.
Sounds like you have the budget sorted out, that's a good start anyway as some don't even have that, me included. You're half way there already so just now try and dedicate as much time as possible. Back in 2012'ish I was in the same position (although I was not focused on AM), my goal was to start my own business online whilst working a job.
Nothing ever comes easy, period, the way I managed to achieve my goal was to work hard on the weekends and shut myself in doors and live like a hermit for 6 months. Sacrifice and commitment creates results, wasting time working out answers restricts them. You sound like a pretty clever guy, you have good jobs and drive, I had no education and a lack of concentration but still managed to swim up a river of shit and make out the side.
Just knuckle down now and work hard!
Good luck.
Thanks for your replies guys.
A week from today I'm flying back home for a few days to visit family/friends. After this trip, I promised myself I'm not leaving this state until I'm successful. A little bit more than a year ago, I let go of 95% of my 'friends,' people doing nothing with their life and would nearly always give passive aggressive responses when I spoke about my dreams of the future. I abruptly stopped talking to them, unfriended them from Facebook, didn't reply to any communications towards me. I did things in this way so its impossible to go back, and the only direction is forward. That along with moving far away from everyone/everything I know, my life story for the past year has truly been building up for this point. I want to meet and be friends with a lot of intelligent, creative people. I'd love the money to help out my family, especially my parents. I have a burning desire to do something big that makes a great positive impact in people's lives. Despite my external circumstances, I am happy to be where I am, because I know where it goes.
Wow. Some extreme steps you've taken. I really like your drive to succeed - and I'm sure this will take you to where you are aiming to be.
Yes you really have to commit and make sacrifices to succeed - but I just want to say make sure you don't sacrifice your happiness and all social contact.
Make sure you still keep/make some friends and activities that are beneficial for you. For me, my good friends and activities like regular exercise are essential to my happiness.
Looking forward to watching your story though! The next step? Join a mastermind? Create a follow along?
Yes do a follow along ... it is a great way to make progress, get amazing feedback, and also help keep you accountable to yourself.
I'll definitely do a follow-along.
While at this point in time I have far fewer friends than I'd like, I have enough to keep me happy for the time being. They're all very supportive of what I'm doing, and more or less see me in uncharted territory (in a good way). As for happiness, I'm perfectly content right now. I've asked myself in the past what the most direct route towards what I want is, and where I'm at seems to be it. I have no worries making some temporary sacrifices for long-term benefits. But talk is cheap...
I'll be making a thread soon to get this show on the road. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this thread.
Good to hear! Sounds like you're a man on a mission. Will be watching the follow along!
Originally Posted by pointa2b
Seriously, the friends you keep close have a huge influence on your life. Ditching friends with no aspirations or who are unsupportive - or even negative about ambitions - was a good move.
Hopefully you'll find the community here also helps you with your ambitions by providing constructive/critical feedback and support where needed.
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