I wanted to talk with you about the VERY important topic of investing money into your online business.
Right now you may be thinking about investing money in all sorts of different areas. If you are not thinking about investing money, then maybe you should be...
What do online producers mostly spend money on?
1. Software, plugins, sound kits
2. Computers
3. Keyboards, microphones, monitors
4. Domain names, hosting
5. Website designs
6. Online accounts
7. Marketing
Let's face it... at some point you are going to need to invest your hard earned money into one, if not ALL of these areas.
Also, you probably do not have an unlimited supply of money.
There are no set rules to investing, everyone is at a different point in their business, everyone has different goals and are willing to take different types of risks.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Would you be willing to invest $10,000 today if this investment could make you $2,000 in beat sales each month for the rest of the year?
(Let's say the $10,000 was for a new professional website, and also a 12-month banner advertisement campaign on a popular website, paid up-front, that sent steady traffic to your new website.)
OK, you would start off the year negative $10,000, but...
$2,000 in beat sales x 12 months = a total of $24,000... This means you just made $14,000 profit by the end of the year!
Great, right? You should make this investment without hesitation every time.
However, there are two big issues here:
1. Who has an extra $10,000 just laying around in the first place to make this type of investment?
2. Also, there is never a 100% certainty that traffic will convert into customers and that your investment will pay off.
This brings us to...
EXAMPLE 2:
Would you invest $10,000 today if there was 50% chance that you would make $24,000 in beat sales by the end of the year?
This gets a little more tricky...
50% off the time you would start the year off negative $10,000... but make $14,000 profit by the end of the year. Great!
50% off the time, you might lose all your money or possibly break even. Not so great.
What would YOU do in this second example, would you risk 10k if you had it?
It probably depends on your goals, your current position, and also how much risk you are willing to take.
Sometimes breaking even or losing money in the short term is a good investment, because getting returning customers can end up making you long term profits for years to come without spending additional money on marketing. (I will talk a lot more about the power of returning customers in some of my future emails.)
The example #2 is more of a real life example, and my point is that there are always risks involved. No investment is 100% certain.
It is your job as a business owner to be able to determine risks and rewards for every investment.
It is your job to make the SMARTEST investments that have the LOWEST risks and BIGGEST long term rewards.
So, how do you do this?
Here are my 5 big tips for investing:
1. Determine how long you are going to be in this market.
If you are planning on doing this for the rest of your life then every investment has a much bigger potential payoff.
For example, a new $1,500 computer seems like a lot of money right now, but if it helps you create a successful online business that makes you $40,000 profit every year for the next 20 years, then $1,500 is nothing.
If you are just looking to make some quick money and don't care about creating a brand or business, then you are going to look at investing money much differently. (You might not even care about building a returning customer list, you might just want to sell all your beats for a stack of cash and be done with it.)
However, if you are like me, then you want a long term sustainable source of income for the rest of your life...
Be honest with yourself, write down your short term and long term goals before diving headfirst into anything.
2. Learn from successful people.
Good. You are already doing this! Look around and see what the top guys are doing. I have bookmarked countless blogs about making money online over the years. Reach out to people and ask for advice, get courses, and read books. Sign up for as many free newsletters about online business and marketing as you can.
3. Test, Test, Tweak
For example, whenever I invest money in a new paid traffic source I always start small with something like $5-$10 per day if possible, keep an eye on my Google Analytics, and keep testing until I get it right.
You can test different banners, images, fonts on your own website.
You can test different advertisements on other websites.
You can test different ways to format your emails.
You can test different pricing structures for your beats.
Once you have a winning combination then every monetary investment from then on will make you more money.
The last thing you want to do is just blow your money without looking at any of the data. Don't make investment decisions blind.
4. Survey
Thinking about making a big change to your website, prices, licenses or beats?
Try asking your current fans or customers through a survey to help you decide if it's a good investment move. Ask them what they like and don't like about your services.
Make decisions based on as much feedback as you can get, and if you don't have much feedback then try looking at successful people for guidance.
5. Take action
At some point you need to pull the trigger on making investments. You will either succeed or you will learn from your mistakes. Start off small and then grow as you get more experience... This could be like starting a basic Facebook Ad campaign to get more traffic.
or
Buying a new pair of studio monitors to help get better mixes with your beats.
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The more you think about selling beats online as a real business, the more you will see success.
In a business you need to invest your time and money, you need to be patient, and you need to be able to make smart decisions.
I really hope these investment ideas can help you with your beat selling business...