Extra Money Making Opportunities

About a year ago, our company bought an excavator. We were renting one every couple months for different renovations that we were doing. We came across a good deal on a machine and decided to go ahead and just buy it.

We use it primarily for our own jobs. But being in the business that we are, we come across people that need demolition services from time to time. A couple weeks ago, we were contacted by someone that wanted some demo work done. We gave them a bid for $2,600 and they accepted. After all expenses paid, we will make around $1K. Not bad for a side job!

What do you have access to that could make you some extra money on the side? What assets or abilities could you leverage to make more money?

Martha Stewart, the Deal Maker?

Check out this article on Martha Stewart's newest acquisition....the Emeril Lagasse franchise.

Aligning Yourself for Success

I went down to Edisto this past weekend with a friend of mine, Adam Witty. We go once a year to talk about our goals and do some business planning. He is a fellow entrepreneur who has started several different companies.

Adam joined one of Dan Kennedy's programs recently and has positioned himself to be one of the speakers at Dan's next event. If you don't know the name Dan Kennedy, learn it quick. He is the king of direct response advertising.

Anyway, Adam is going to be doing a pitch on his "talk a book" program. Adam is a publisher and is going to be selling a publishing package for $20K. Dan's partner, Bill Glazer, thinks that Adam could sell 20 or more packages at the seminar. How about that for a weekend, $400,000!

That's power in numbers. There will be a ton of people at that event because Dan Kennedy draws a large crowd of devoted followers. By Adam aligning himself with Dan's network, he is going to be in for a nice payday.

P.S. If you have a book in you, check out Adam's company Advantage Media Group. They did my last book.

Yahoo!

Most of you have probably heard by now that Microsoft made Yahoo! an offer. Well, Yahoo! rejected the offer and is having talks with New Corp.

Check out RealTechNews. They have written a couple posts on their blog lately about it. It's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out. Talk about a big deal. This is about as big as they get.

Have You Read The E-Myth Yet?

If you are planning on starting a business or already have, I would say that "The E-Myth Revisited," by Michael Gerber, is essential reading. The book is about how most small businesses don't work and what to do about it. The fatal assumption, Gerber says, is that a man who understands a certain kind of technical work can successfully run a business that does that technical work. He also explains why the only reason to start a business is to sell it.

Go get the book and read it. Before, as Gerber would say, you have an entrepreneurial seizure and end up creating a job for yourself.

Form a Mastermind Group

Four and a half years ago, my friends and I decided to start a book club focusing on personal and professional development. We knew that reading was vital to our success. We made a rule that you could only attend the meeting if you read the assignment for that week. We got together for a couple hours each Tuesday night and discussed what we had learned.

We had formed a group of like-minded, goal oriented people otherwise known as a Mastermind Group. The group served as a place to share ideas, brainstorm, and help each other reach our goals.

These meetings have meant so much to me over the years. Not only have I learned an incredible amount from the 70+ books we’ve read, I have forged lasting relationships both personally and professionally.

You may be saying to yourself, “I don’t know anyone that would want to do that.” If that’s the case, you may need to find some new friends. I have met tons of people at Barnes & Noble and Starbucks by just striking up a conversation with them. If someone is reading a book or magazine that is business related, I’ll just say, “What are you reading there?” It’s that easy. Most people read stuff that they are interested in and are happy to talk about it.

When forming your Mastermind group, I recommend meeting at least once a month for a minimum of 2 hours. Plan out an agenda so that the meeting itself is goal oriented. And it doesn’t have to be a book club. That is just how ours is set up. Be creative.

If you are the kind of person that is determined to be, do, and have what you want in life, start a Mastermind Group this month. You’ll be glad you did!

Keyword Suggestion Tool

Whether you use it for search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click, this keyword suggestion tool can help you with your online marketing. By figuring out what words and phrases are searched for most often, a true entrepreneur can find a niche and exploit it.

Let's say you google one of the words or phrases that a ton of people are searching for, and you see that there are little to no paid advertisements on the page. There may be an opportunity here. This is the question to ask yourself: Is there a product or service that I could sell to the people searching for those keywords?

Tom Antion, an internet marketing guru, found that a lot of people were searching for wedding toasts, and there weren't any products being pushed at them from paid advertisers. He hired somone off of Elance to write an ebook on wedding toasts, designed a simple brochure website, and makes about $20K a year off of it.

Handling Buyer’s Remorse

One of the most frustrating things in sales is when you sign up a client and get the dreaded “I’ve changed my mind” phone call the next day. After all the time you spent with them and the flawless presentation you gave, to no avail. You blame the prospect and spend the afternoon complaining to other sales reps.

Here’s the solution! It is handling buyer’s remorse before it handles you. If a client has agreed to buy my product or service, I say this, “Before we part today, I want to make sure that you are completely satisfied with our meeting and really want to move forward with this. Sometimes, a couple days go by and people change their minds. I just want to make sure that is not the case here.”

After I say that, I just shut up and listen. This is when the client speaks up and justifies to you how happy they are about the product or service. Get them to assure you that they have made up their mind, and you just got a client.

Power of the V-Card

In our business, we meet with a lot of people in their houses. We just purchased some internet based software to help with property management called PropertyBoss and wanted to be able to access it during these meetings. I made a couple phone calls to some tech friends to see what our options were.

First, we looked into using my business partner's blue tooth capabilities on his phone to connect to the internet. Due to our physical location, Charleston, SC, that was not a viable solution yet. Next, we looked into getting a Verizon Wireless PC Card. It sounded like it made sense so we went with it.

We pay $60/mo now and can log onto the internet anywhere we want. We have not only been using it for our business, I have really enjoyed having it with me and being able to jump on the internet at any time. The only place that it hasn't worked so far was on top of a mountain at Snowshoe, West Virginia. Don't know about you but I can deal with that.

Social Networking Sites Niche It

You have heard of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Heck, you probably have a profile on one of them. These are a couple of the hottest sites on the web.

Entrepreneurs have taken the idea behind social networking sites and have niched it. A perfect example of this is My Custom Car Space. What a great idea! A community that is catered specifically to custom car enthusiasts. Look for this trend to continue as entrepreneurs race to be the premier social networking site for their prospective industry or category.

FYI - News Corp bought Intermix Media, owner of MySpace, in July of 'o5 for $580 million. Now is the time to capitalize on this opportunity while it is still available.

Work Hard Once

Several years ago, I was reading Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad and listening to a 12 disc CD set of his. One of the ideas that stood out was to "work hard once." He gave the example that he worked hard once writing that book. Now, he has the book to sell for the rest of his life.

One of my good friends, Andrew Turner, just exemplified this idea over the past 6 months. He created a custom piece of software for college planners. He picked up some books on programming, put the ideas from his head in motion, and now he has a product to sell. College Planner 2007 is available for $597. Andrew said he loves checking his email because every few days a new order pops in his inbox.

Some people may say to themselves, "Well I could never do that." That's ridiculous! You could just as easy have come up with the idea and hired a virtual assistant in India to do all the programming for you.

The Decision Maker

As a salesman, I only meet with a potential client if I know for a fact that all decision makers will be at the meeting. This allows me a certain level of control. Let's say that you just had a great meeting with Joe Buyer, and he let you know how much he loves your widgets. The only problem...Joe has to go home and run everything by his wife before a decision can be made. When people receive second hand information, it is often times distorted, confusing, and flat out wrong. You have lost control of the sale. You better hope Joe is an excellent salesman with an impeccable memory.

When I am the potential client for a product or service, I am a representative of the decision maker and cannot make a decision without their consent. The control is once again on my side. I cannot be pressured into making a decision on the spot because I must consult with my wife/partner/whatever.