Budget building. (8)
Hi, i'm currently reading the cook book and it recommends starting a thread to ask the good members of STM for idea on how to best accrue a small starting budget, say £1500 to really get my teeth stuck in to mobile marketing and have a fighting chance of finding a decent lead.
I will be in a situation in 3 months when this money is available to me, but i want to start right away to avoid getting my head buried too far in reading to actually take action.
If anyone has any suggestions for short team money making ploys (maybe something that is somewhat of an introduction to AM) that could get me on my way that would be much appreciated, ill be honest it feels like an odd question, but if i cant ask it here', Right?
Many thanks for your suggestions in advance.
Tom
Working a job is usually a good way to accrue extra money.
That would be a way of making your basic income (I'm all over that) I was asking as I dident know to what he was referring to in the cook book. If the answer is to "work a job" I'm doing all I can. (Though I have time within that job and at home to do more).
Thanks for your response.
Originally Posted by thebrent
Well, first question is obviously if you have a day job or not, and if so, if that gives you any discretionary income you could spend on starting AM.
If you don't have a day job - what marketable skills do you have, and what communities do you currently interact with online?
There are lots of ways to make a bit of extra money, but the more lucrative ones depend on a) time and b) your skillset.
Note, also, that you can get started with very little money if you have some more coming in soon. Could you afford to spend ANY money on AM now? Clearly you've got enough to get your STM membership - even a couple of hundred dollars a month would let you do a BIT of testing and get the basics down (although be warned - you almost certainly won't get into profit on that).
Hi, after extensive reading i'm confident that the minimum budget i would be happy to start with (to make a proper go of it) would be $1000, so i made a deal with myself i would get to £1000 to give myself a little extra and also have a round number in my local figures (i'm that sort of person lol).
I currently have a day job that after my family life leaves little no no expendable income, hence my problem, as far as time goes i have it in abundance, my work is solitary and i have a internet connection and a lot of spare time on my hands. Skill set wise i'm still unsure, i suppose it depends in what field.
I have enough money to spend say $100 but i really want o get in to it without getting cut short right before i start to really grasp whats going on.
Any suggestions appreciated.
If anyone else is here looking for similar information i'm currently doing the following:
1. Offering content creation and account creation services on many of the AM/IM forums (couple of small orders but the content creation market is saturated and hard to earn more than pocket change in)
2. I'm handy with a drill so i'm doing some Handyman work in the local area
3. Setup a small t-shirt website offering just one T-shirt and changing the t-shirt for a niche and then posting it up in that particular niche forums (not yet converted but a huge time sink)
4. Hopefully something actually profitable that i can learn about here as i seem to be missing a trick and generally wasting time that i could better spend soaking up the wealth of information STM has too offer.
Cheers again
Tom
Don't knock pocket change - it'll get you started.
Suggestion: get all your ducks in a row right now. Get your affiliate network applications in, familiarise yourself with setup of all the software you need (see the Getting Started Guide), do some spying. Then start with a Mobile Cookbook Appetiser-based campaign with the LOWEST payout you can possibly find. If you watch your budget like a hawk, you can actually get a fair amount of data from $100 spend.
For more suggestions of ways to make a bit of cash - not much, but a bit - read https://www.reddit.com/r/beermoney/ .
To improve your earning potential, given you have a lot of time, I'd recommend spending the rest of the time learning valuable skills. My current pick would be coding - it's easy(ish) to learn via sites like Codeacademy, and it's always in demand. Figure out what coding / tech skills are most in demand - just as a starter, I'd recommend learning Javascript, PHP, and everything to do with Wordpress setup and tuning you can (in that order). Unless you're a truly expert writer, that's probably the fastest way to develop skills that will let you earn a bit more off contract / piecemeal work.
Also, keep an eye on the "help wanted" sections of all the AM / IM forums. Look for any trends in posts that don't get answers, or where people end up re-posting saying "seriously, can anyone do this job?". Find out if you can learn the skill they need. If so, learn it. Half the battle with anything contract-based is being in the right market.
Note: all of this advice is optimised toward getting you going in the fastest possible time. If you were more interested in developing a stable "B" income from something other than AM over, say, a nine-month period, my advice would be very different.
Thanks a lot for your advice, a big help as always! my next post was going to be asking for advice about coding so codeacademy is my next port of call, i have gotten a couple of content jobs from the forums so ill bash on with those and ill be in business before i know it.
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