Getting Out of Financial Problems

Everybody has financial problems. If you ask a guy who drives a Mercedes Benz and owns a mansion, he will probably say that he is in deep financial problems. My boss who is rich always say that he doesn’t have money. He insists that we split the bill whenever we go out for lunch. I know we need to be careful with spending cash but come on! When you are the boss, you’re supposed to “belanja” your subordinates. Oh well, I guess we all have our problems.

Financial problems can lead us to do all sorts of stuff. You will know a person is having money problems if he always borrows money. Borrowing money is not bad. Sometimes shit happens and we need to ask others for help. But constantly borrowing money from others is another story. It probably is an indication of a deeper rooted problem.

This year was the year of mixed results for me personally. I resigned from my high paying and stable job as a programmer to work on this Internet business. I had some savings which I then used to fund my business. The first month was great. I felt very happy leaving my old job. Now I can spend time with friends, catch up with those who I haven’t seen for a long time, spend time drinking coffee in Donggongon, while at the same time, working on the business of mine at a very leisurely pace. Unfortunately, the party didn’t last very long.

I learned a very important rule when it comes to money: You Are on Your Own! Deal with it. No one will come to your rescue, no one will care. Everybody has their own problems and you would do them a big favor by not adding your own problems to theirs.

The second month and onwards was hectic as hell. I was racing against time to try to generate cash for my business. I tried facebook ads, yahoo and google pay per click, media buying, all sort of stuff related my business. I explored various niches: farmville, weight loss, satellite tv, panic and anxiety attacks, CPA offers, mobile gadgets, everything. You name it, I probably have tried it before. I was spending cash on advertising hoping that the very elusive traffic will come crashing down on my websites and convert into cash. But the traffic was not converting and I didn’t know why. I made very little money for my business and my savings was drying up. One thing that I got out of this though: I learned a lot and I got smarter. I identified very profitable niches and market segments, I went back to the basic and learned keyword research, I cut cost by not spending on advertising and focus instead on search engine optimization and free traffic strategies. The results began to show. My webpages started to show in google’s first page for the keywords that I target. I started to make some money. But it was too late by then because money in the bank has dried up and the money that I earned online won’t be paid until certain dates.

Then reality hit me: I needed to get a job. That was the death of a vision for me. The vision of being an internet entrepreneur and striking out on my own. After all these months of being a full-time internet marketer, I had to finally put the last nail to the coffin. The business was just unsustainable. It was producing results but not enough to help me live comfortably.

Stay tuned for the second part of this article..