Over-spending, this is possibly the easiest and most damaging trap to fall into when starting out on your Internet Marketing venture. Not having a clear idea of your budget. This is not only the AMOUNT of MONEY that you want to spend (or have available to spend), but just as importantly your TIME allocation and the HOW and WHEN you are going to spend it. It is after all pointless to spend a hundred dollars on a product or service if you realistically are only going to see returns from the investment in a year – be it increased visibility or actual sales. What you want to do is work out where to do your spend to get ‘the most bang for your buck’ – equally for money and time. One of the great things about marketing on the net is that there are still ways to promote and start earning income that will cost either very little or are for free. So, the idea is to get the business to PAY for itself as soon as possible – via sales, commissions, whatever. One part of the problem in going in and denting your credit card is that at the end of the day, you have to fund that spend – you have to first recover the initial outlay BEFORE you can say that you are in profit. Another part is that if you have spent this months grocery money on your start-up, the pressure to perform and get results makes this venture no longer a pleasurable journey, but becomes a slog and very stressful for all. This leads on to the allocation of time. Your body and mind function best if they have diversion, so it is vitally important to balance the time you spend setting up your Internet Marketing business with family time or time with friends or even ‘me’ time – you know, when you go to a movie or out to the wild places to recharge your spirit. This is critical to your success and well-being. As with any business venture, the driving motivation should be to get cash positive as soon as possible. After all, that is why we are doing this – to make money! So the main thing is to ‘box smart’ – know what you want and where to spend to get it. This sounds a bit trite, but in this article and others to follow, I share with you techniques that will enable you to operate on a realistic budget – a budget of MONEY and TIME – and this will go a long way in shaping your success on the internet – but more importantly, will get you into the ‘cash-positive’ scenario easier and most times sooner. Another of the pitfalls of starting out on the Internet Marketing arena (whether it is to promote ‘brain tools’ like books etc, or if you are selling sun-beds for hamsters), is that we all tend to take on too much and become overwhelmed with information and advertising as well as a multitude of marketers wanting you to join/buy/use/sign-up. This can create havoc in your life – all these decisions – “Should I?” “Shouldn’t I?” “But if I did then I could….” Taking on too much can be the downfall of your business right at the outset. Make no mistake; there is a lot of work to be done and knowledge to acquire – THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH! The secret is being able to sift through all of the ‘stuff’ and then making a good decision based on your understanding. What most of us do though is try to ‘do-it-all’ and do it quickly – this is so typical of how our lives are run. My best advice is to identify someone who has done it and is prepared to show you how you can do it – I do not mean Joe Schmooze around the corner – I mean an actual marketer who is making money on the internet. Yes, I know, “How do you identify such a person?” especially as I said earlier, there is so much garbage out there. Unfortunately, that is going to be up to you – advice and recommendation I can offer, but in the long run, it is up to you to see where you feel comfortable and with what vehicle you feel you can earn money. If I can leave you with one thought for today: Have a clear goal of what you want to achieve (financial freedom, family time, giving to others, whatever) and try to build a plan on how to get there – like a road map. This is not as simple as it sounds, but once you build the discipline to plan your future, the rest really does start to just drop into place.