Opportunity Costs and Sunken Costs
There seems to be little tolerance of my trying to identify members who I want to follow as my Mentors here at WA. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Follow what we say and all will be good. However, levels that would qualify as making a living online for a person supporting a family are seen as "reaching for the stars", and those who are doing it would be "bragging" to reveal themselves.
There are two concepts from my Business Administration Minor that I would like to share.
Opportunity Cost is the difference between the ROI (Return on Investment) on a certain opportunity pursued instead of a different opportunity that could have been pursued instead. So, for example, say you pursue opportunity #1 in 2014 and your profit is $100. But, if you had pursued a different opportunity and that promised (or appeared to beforehand) $1000 profit, then the opportunity cost for 2014 would be -$900. Sure, you made $100, but, you could have made $1000 instead.
Sunken Cost is when you have already invested a lot into an opportunity and even though it looks like a Loser and hopeless to recover, you continue to sink more resources into it, not because there is any realistic hope of a turn-around, but, because the idea of losing all of what has already been invested is too painful to consider. In such cases, economic wisdom favors cutting loses and resituate on other opportunities that have a better outlook.
Over the last 12 years, I have fallen into the sunken costs category many times. Each time you follow the latest guru and their system, this easily happens because they are always trying to upsell you and make backend sales. And, you dive in, because you think, maybe I have just not gotten into it deep enough or tried hard enough.
Over the last 12 years, I have suffered incredible opportunity cost, because from 2000 to 2010 were the "Gravy Years" for Affiliate Marketing. It was a New Frontier and there was a kind of Gold Rush going on. I won't get into the details and how alot of the dynamics were driven by Google attaining a Search Engine Monopoly followed by Vigilante attempts to force the World to conform to thier algorithms. But, in hindsight, I can see how, if I had exploited the opportunities available then, I would be wealthier than any of us here (except maybe for Kyle and Carson, no offense intended) currently hope to be.
So those are my current concerns. Sunken costs, but, that is no big deal as I am always trying someone's answer to making a living online, and WA looks to actually be cheaper than my 2013 efforts ;-).
And, opportunity costs, because I am serious about wrapping this up and achieving a sustainable, livable income on the Internet. And, if WA will do it in 2014, great, that is why I am here. If not, then I need to be looking elsewhere. If these concerns rock the boat and upset people, then excuse me. What are YOU doing here then?
FYI, my business has actually been primarily selling online since 1998 on sites such as eBay and Amazon (major share for about half that time). Mostly, used books, but, trying to get my vintage print ads going again. Maybe more on that in future posts, if there is interest.
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Thank you for sharing. I certainly understand where you are coming from and understand and respect your business concepts. Look forward to reading about your vintage print ads and how you proceed here.
Hello earlier this morning (morning to me) there was another blog post inquiring about who made consistent $4000 income. Seems it is gone now. But anyway I found it interesting.
I think a lot of folks who go thru here probably don't make much money but also not the "fault" of WA just it's not really so easy to do with the end result of actually supporting yourself.
So many pieces to need to work in conjunction, and I think sometimes folks head off into a niche that is warm and fuzzy to their emotions but won't produce much in commission.
And some folks don't have the time to learn and then develop their business or the skills and can't afford to hire out what they are not good at.
I really sympathize with those who come here and they "need to make money yesterday" and this is not going to be the holy grail for them.
You could say you are successful because you generate some cash flow but so many generate really low volumes -- not enough to support their cost of living, so that is spinning a really wide definition of success.
Of course there are the odd exceptions, just like every once in a while someone wins a lottery or gets an inheritance. Every once in a while someone gets in front of a hot product at the right time and falls into a windfall, but those are not typical results I don't believe.
There are some really well know folks who make good livings who have graced the halls here at WA, and maintain their memberships (I believe they still don't turn away signing up affiliates and earning the odd buck) -- Jennifer, known as PotPieGirl in the membership here is one, another is Travis, on here known as Travis. So yes there are some gurus but you might have to go find their external websites to get leadership from them these days.
I find this place educational, and I think it has most everything you need to learn -- but the gurus that will take you under your wing, not noticed that so much -- here it is more a community effort.
I hope that if you find insights that work to push the success envelop you'll help the rest of us -- one thing about being in network marketing and experiencing it is you probably know how to sift out the fool's gold from the real gold!
Best in 2014 and forward!