I love free and I’m sure you do too. We all love free things.

Sadly though, free (or even “cheap”) is often given too much importance when looking for a solution. In the end, paid solutions are sometimes “cheaper”.

Here are a few examples/considerations:

• How much is “support when you need it” worth to you?
• How much is the extra two weeks you or your team will need to customize the free solution worth?
• How long will it take for you to do it Vs a paid expert?
• How much is not being able to customize the solution exactly the way you want worth to you?
• What’s the price of a single paid solution with all the tools you need Vs 50 different free solutions? Does it matter?
• How much is “not having to worry about it” worth to you?
• How much is reliability worth to you?

You get the idea. Free has a price and it often is your time and/or the limitations you are willing to accept.

The step by step guide to success

Why do you think ebooks are so popular? I’m not talking about the ebook you write and give for free just to get more subscribers to your newsletter (By the way, if you have a newsletter, please make it interesting!), I’m talking about 5, 10, 100$ ebooks sold with the help of ugly (but very effective) landing pages. Also, why step by step articles and step by step guides are so popular? Why the hell do advertisements like “You can become rich in three easy steps! If a 15 years old can do it, you too can!” work so well?

I say it’s because most people want to have success overnight and most people don’t want to work. Trying to sell a “success package” with a sales pitch like “You’ll have to work your ass off and sleep 4 hours per night for the next year to MAYBE get some sort of success” probably won’t work even if that’s the reality. I don’t know a single person who made money online overnight without hard work.

Anyway, you already know you have to work hard so let’s get back on track. So we know people buy these “Make money overnight” packages, but do they really take action?

Risk of failure

I think the main reason some reach success and some don’t is the fear to fail. For example, let’s take a “success package” detailing how you can make a million dollar within three months by investing 25,000$. Let’s say there’s a pretty well detailed way on how you can convert that 25,000$ into a million dollar. Are you going to take action? Are you going to invest 25,000$ to build that million dollar? Would you actually take a 25,000$ loan because you know you can convert it into a million dollar? Most people won’t. Why? Because of the “What if it doesn’t work?”. If it works, you get yourself a million dollar, but if it doesn’t work you just lost 25,000$.

On a smaller scale

This is a pretty extreme example and I personally don’t think I would take the risk of  losing 25,000$ I don’t have, but let’s transpose this to a smaller scale. Are you ready to take some small risks? You know, I think it takes money to make money, but it doesn’t have to be a lot. By small risks, I’m talking about a small 10$ or 20$ here and there that could help you make 20 or 40$ after a couple of months. You’re not experiencing the results right away and it takes some time, but converting 10$ into 20$ is 100% ROI.

As an example, I bought OIO publisher (Shamelessly putting an affiliate link here) this month to manage the ads on frogstr.com and I will also be using it on other websites. OIO publisher (John Chow get out of this body) is 30$ with a promotional code (I used “johnchow”) and that’s what I paid for it. At the beginning of the month, I didn’t have a single clue if I would sell advertisements here, but I decided to take that 30$ and take a small risk. You know what? It’s already paid, a little less than a month later. The next months will be 100% profit and I can only see the amount of money to growing.

You see, when I say taking risks it has nothing to do with investing 25,000$. You’ll make some good investments and some bad investments, but in the end if you invest wisely it usually pay off.

Experiment

Taking risks can also mean just wasting your time. My first ever online revenue was through Google Adsense, but do you think it happened overnight? I actually tried a couple of niches and spent a lot of time building non-profitable websites before getting things right. I didn’t invest money, but I invested a couple of hours of my time every week without having a single clue if I was going to make money out of it!

Then I started making 0.10$ a day, then 0.20$ and eventually over 10$ a day. It’s important to accept that making 0.10$ a day for a month or two is actually OK and that eventually by working the same amount of time it’s going to be possible to double that amount every month.

Moderate risk taker

I’m a  moderate risk taker. I don’t want to ruin my life by investing 10,000$ I don’t have, but I’m ready to invest some money here and there. It’s also important to consider that for some, 10,000$ might be a small investment: it’s relative to the amount of money you make and the amount of money you’re ready to invest usually grow with the revenues you’re making online.

Some have big balls and don’t fear losing it all. Good for them and good for you if you’re one of them! I really admire that because you really maximize you chances of making money, but you’re also maximizing your chances of losing it all unfortunately.

Take the risks

What I wanted to say was that if you don’t take any risks, not much will happen. These risks don’t have to be related to money: it can also be your time or anything you personally consider a risk.

You know, a lot of bloggers want to be at the top, but aren’t ready to take the same risks the big guys took.