Well, fellow home business developers, did you get another few ‘How Much Is Your Time Worth’ spiels - sorry launches - in your inbox this week?

This is quite a seductive little advertising ploy - good to take notes of for your own promotions (if you want to use it), but think carefully before you jump in.

This time is money spiel is interesting in the way it takes the focus away from the product, onto you. And depending on where you’re at in your business development and how much income you already get (if you are making money and not a beginner), there are a few ways to look at it.

Let’s take the scenario that you make some money, but not as much as you’d like. So, essentially, in the terminology of ‘how much is your time worth’, you may not actually be getting paid (yet) what your time is REALLY worth.

You may still be laying the groundwork of whatever line of online business you have. Or you may be in that interim stage before the critical mass growth is reached. Perhaps your links to your sites need to mature, you’re still developing products etc.

So, whilst you know your time is worth more, we may actually be talking about a ‘future’ time. Yet the sales letters and emails all reach into that future and essentially want you to spend that way now. Or create a sense of a ‘problem’ that is not really there - until you start to think about what the letter implies your current time ’should’ be worth. It’s the internet marketing equivalent of keeping up with the Jones’, and it’s very effective.

Even if you know when you read it that you aren’t being paid the dollar figure specified, you know you could, and you want it. Perhaps you even buy it on impulse.

But why? You know there’s a discrepancy between the stated amount and the current reality, you probably didn’t even want what was being offered before, yet you bought it. Perhaps by buying it you were actually buying the ‘dream’ offered, or that glimpse of your future reality. Perhaps you were subconsciously trying to bring it closer. But in actuality you were spending on credit.

And where’s the difference between that and someone who buys something in another niche they don’t actually need.

We don’t often stop to think about what else we could be spending that money on - something that will actually grow our business right now. What about some paid directory listings? What about outsourcing a smaller amount of content- smaller perhaps in quantity, but how much better in quality - 100% original content, targeted to your specific niche and on keywords you choose. And supporting a business model and niche you currently have!

Get content you can use right now. Not content that you may be able to use at some point in the future. Let’s look at the average cost of PLR, instead of worrying about how much your time may or may not be worth now or in the immediate future. Look at what that money can buy now.

Say you’re looking at $40 to $50, per month for PLR memberships. That will buy you a very decent article (superior to what is in most PLR) from writers on elance assuming you pick your writers well. Now, of course, that can go wrong. But the worst that can happen in that case is that you might have to do a bit of rewriting. Duh - you’d have to do that anyway. And by staying safe in the PLR harbor you’d miss out on learning from what led you to that poor choice of writer in the first place.

I had an experience recently where I wasn’t so happy with the results, but really, the articles weren’t that bad. And now I know with absolute clarity how to avoid that mistake in the future. (By being very specific in communicating what I want and trusting my own instincts). That kind of experience is priceless. And either way, you get articles.

So, $40 or $50 per month - imagine putting that aside for your ongoing directory listings, or getting 4 or 5 good pieces of usable content that will grow your business. Don’t you think you’ll reach your ‘future dollar’ figure much sooner than if you were just pouring money into someone else’s current dollar amount?

How many picks and shovels do you need - and how many can you physically use right now? What may be good for the future may not be very helpful now.

And for those who can afford it, whose dollar figures are worth that and more - all I’ll say is, why aren’t you getting your own unique, outsourced content! Content you have full control over. Intelligent content.

Actually, come to think of it - you probably are …