Seth Godin writes one of the top ten business blogs in the world, and a business and marketing guru. If you haven’t heard of him, you should read some of his 10 best-selling books on business. He blogged today about a subject near and dear to my heart - investing in your business. He brings up a great point - pay for good people. People and their unique skills, like art, writing and photography, can’t be judged based on price. When you buy a $2.99 widget from Home Depot, you can get the same widget or close to it from Lowes, or Wal-Mart, or Target. The price will vary of course, but it’s the same widget.

Copywriters, photographers, ghostwriters and artists are not widgets. They bring more to the table than just a tangible object. They bring experience, expertise, insight, listening skills, execution, and a lot of other things that make their end product - your ebook or ad campaign or whatever, MORE than JUST an ad. Good writers bring you more money than you spend on them. You can find writers who will write for $2 an article, or $5 an hour, but you get what you pay for. The time you spend fixing, correcting and revising will cost you more in time, aggravation and effort than what you paid.

Read my testimonials on Elance.com (RSBPublishing) or here. You’ll see that I overdeliver. I make sure I “get it right” and make my client happy. Happy, successful clients mean more business for them and hopefully more business for me. So it’s in my best interest as well as yours to do the best job I can for you. But like any professional, the best costs more than a $2.99 widget. The question is NOT, am I worth it…but are YOU worth it? Do you deserve the best writer you can afford? Or would you feel better about paying less, but generating fewer customers (or no customers) to save a few dollars? I’m a bootstrapper too - but I agree with Seth’s post today. “PAY FOR STUFF.”

Pay for stuff

As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, my instinct has always been to work before spend. If there was a way to spread the word virally instead of buying ads, I would. If there was a way to change the project so I could do it myself, I would. If I could trade or whittle my way into getting an asset on the come, I would. That’s the mantra of the bootstrapper.

It turns out that paying for stuff works too.

Ads that pay for themselves are worth buying. Employees and freelancers that produce more than they cost are worth hiring. Office rents that generate productivity, foot traffic or revenue are probably worth paying.

In the free media world in which we’re living now, it’s so easy to get stuck on not investing, on avoiding outlays at all cost. Frugal is an admirable trait, but being a miser is dumb.