Do you want a small lemonade stand or do you want...
With Wealthy Affiliate, you can have both, but one is going to be a fair bit more profitable than the other. I’m talking about the Starter and Premium membership levels.
It can be hard to visualize the differences online. A lot of people assume that just because it’s online it should be: easy, free, and make a ton of money. Let’s take the business offline and compare two concrete business ideas and remove the digital aspect of it all.
First, we have the Starter membership, or the lemonade stand you set up on your front yard. You build the stand with a few materials around your house, you hand draw your sign, you make your lemonade with what you find in your pantry and you tell your friends and family to come by to check out your work and have a drink.
It’s simple, and it’s free.
Yes, you’re going to make “your first dollar” setting up a free lemonade stand, but ultimately, you’re going to have to spend some money and upgrade your shop substantially.
This is how I view the Starter membership here at Wealthy Affiliate. It’s GREAT for getting your feet wet here. You get the opportunity to setup your lemonade stand and make your first dollar online, but at some point, you’re going to need to upgrade to really open your opportunities online.
If the Starter membership is a lemonade stand on your front yard, the Premium membership is your own retail juice shop in the middle of a bustling city. The thing is, setting up shop in the middle of a city isn't free. You have overhead costs (rent, utilities, permits), staff costs (salaries, benefits, health insurance), business costs (a business plan, a lawyer) and advertising costs (tv commercials, ads in the newspaper, etc.)
If you were going to open up an actual juice shop, you’re going to spend tens of THOUSANDS of dollars just to get started. You’ll be putting in long, stressful hours over months or even years before you break even and can begin to pay off the massive bank debts you likely accrued just trying to open the store.
You to spend more money with a “premium” shop, but you have a better opportunity to make a lot more money.
Let’s insert the Internet back into this equation now.
With the Wealthy Affiliate and a Premium membership, you now have the same opportunity to make the same as that retail shop owner (and in many cases, much MUCH more) without having to risk such large sums of money. I’m not going to say it’s easier to reach that level, because it is still WORK, but the work can be much less stressful.
A Premium Membership at Wealthy Affiliate gets you that street-level storefront (unlimited web hosting), the business plans (the certification courses and weekly webinars), the staff (one-on-one support, a dedicated hosting support team), and so much more.
At some point, you’re going to have to invest a little into your business before you can start to see some bigger returns.
I’ve already upgraded my account and invite you to come do the same! Now’s the perfect opportunity to build that global juice empire!
I had been planning on upgrading for this first month with the special offer, then dropping back if my and my families' heath issues persist. Now I think I have to hold off on upgrading entirely until I know I can have the money together for the first few months at least (currently living on a mostly broken shoestring).
So, yes, I completely see what you mean, and I wish I could do it. But, I will keep pushing forward and hopefully will be able to upgrade within the year.