The best advice I could give you, since you have a two-year timeline to raise $10,000, is to do three things.
First, believe that you can do it.
I know a lot of people automatically think that if they need the money, this step pretty much takes care of itself—wrong!
A lot of people who are desperate for money fail precisely because they do not give themselves permission to succeed.
You have to be intentional in the kind of outcome you want for your project.
You have to not only believe that it can be done, but you also have to believe that you will make it happen.
These two things go hand in hand; if you fail in either one, I'm sorry to say, you're going to be disappointed.
The second thing that you're going to focus on is to invest some money in buying and selling.
That's the essence of digital marketing—you’re going to buy low, and you're going to sell high.
In many cases, you are getting something with zero cost and then turning around and promoting it, so people would buy something, and you get a commission.
Either way, it’s all about turning very little money or zero money into something.
Now, for that to happen, you have to have some sort of investment.
I'm sorry to say, you have to have at least a domain and a website.
Now, the good news is thanks to Mobirise (which is free), you can put together a professional-looking service site.
Now, how much will this cost?
Well, there are lots of cheap hosts out there—I would say less than $50 for the host per year.
And then, of course, $8–$10 for the domain name.
So you're out of $60 for a year, so that means your average monthly cost will be $5 per month.
Most people are able to swing that!
What I mean by this step is that you better be prepared to invest in turning zero dollars into a lot of money because if you are unwilling to invest your time and money, you're going to fail.
So this is a test for you: “Am I willing to put my money where my mouth is? I know what my needs are—I need to raise $10,000 in two years—that part is beyond question.”
The only open question is what are you willing to sacrifice to make that happen?
And I would submit that $60 is not that high of a price to pay.
So find the money and commit to putting up that domain and that website to invest.
Now, number three: find the model—I'm going to give this to you.
The model is to look for social media marketing services.
I'm not talking about actual social media marketing services involving Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and management; I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about social proof—these are Instagram likes, Facebook likes, YouTube views.
Now, the next step is to find people who would want to buy such services.
And the good news is you only need to spend some time on Instagram or YouTube and look at up-and-coming brands.
A lot of them have money because they're based on real businesses, but they don’t know the first thing about succeeding on those platforms—those are your target market!
And the good news is YouTube actually enables you to contact a lot of the channels—so step to it!
Your main “capital” here is your time.
Reach out to them and say, “Hey, this is my website. I sell social proof. This is the reason why you need social proof.”
Once you’re able to do this, you then turn around and buy from an SMM.
The good news is you can easily double or triple your money depending on how much of a newbie your customer is!
And as long as you're able to deliver, a significant amount of your customers will keep coming back, and you have yourself a sustainable business.
Keep reinvesting that money instead of spending it on personal needs.
And, before you know it, you’ll have more than $10,000!
I would suggest that anything extra over $10,000 should be reinvested in your business—build other assets and keep building until you have a lot of cash that you can then use to buy real-world passive income.
I'm talking about rental properties.
You have to remember that the only person who can hold you back is yourself; give yourself permission to succeed.
