Simon’s Notes

For the longest time, when I heard the word ‘inventor,’ it reminded me of the black and white movie ‘Thomas Edison’ that I used to watch as a kid. Until the day my parents became close friends with an inventor, that whole scene seemed like a thing of the past, or something to complicated to even dream about (since all the easy stuff has already been done). But all of a sudden, I began to find inventors everywhere, and they weren’t particularly sophisticated or complicated either, a few aren’t even qualified to do what they are doing, they just have a dream, a lot of drive, and they’re a little nuts.

If you have a little creativity in you, then I’d say that inventing is definitely a money maker. Of course, like most other things, it comes with a lot of failure and hard work. Thomas Edison tried thousands of materials before he found one that worked, when asked why he continued despite his failures, he replied ‘I haven’t failed, I simply found 10,000 things that didn’t work’.

For me, the thing that simplified the whole ‘invention’ mystery was when I realised that inventing something is just like painting a picture, doing some graphic design, programing, designing a website, or writing a book. Sure its difficult, but it can be done.

One thing I always wanted to invent was a new board game (maybe I still will). I love playing board games myself, my favorites being monopoly and risk. A board game wouldn’t be too hard I think. Maybe something similar to monopoly but with less chance. Once you design it, you could make one yourself and try it out with your friends. The next step would obviously be getting it printed and marketing it, but I think that’s the easy part. I would take it to my local printers and find out from them where I could get it done. Get a few hundred, or thousand, copies made and then offer it to stores. Don’t forget to talk to a lawyer about any legal matters such as copyrights and all that, you don’t want someone else reaping the benefits of your hard work.

Other than board games, there is tons of stuff, just play around at home. You could do some fun toys for kids, but be creative. You might even come up with something useful like a light switch that reads your mind or something. I like the toys and games though.

Here’s some cool ones:

Have fun.

Simon

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There’s one business that has made more millionaires than any other in the whole world, selling. All the greats in the business world started out by selling anything they could get their hands on, it didn’t matter what it was as long as they could sell it. And anyone that thinks they can get anywhere in life without the people skills that salesmen have to master, you are wrong. Selling is more than just a way to make money, it’s a life skill. Every man goes through times in his life where he has to convince someone else of the quality in his product, whether it is a marriage proposal or convincing his child that sleep is good for the body.

I guess I have so much respect for this sometimes forgotten art for a few reasons, on the one hand it’s an exciting challenge, and on the other hand its one I haven’t yet been able to master.

Selling is so much more than simply being big, laud, and obnoxious, it’s more about being quiet, perceptive, and gentle. In my humble opinion, it’s about the following ten qualities.

1. Listen.
2. Ask questions.
3. Remember the two best questions, why and what else.
4. Find out what they want, and then help them get there.
5. Talk about everyone but yourself.
6. Help your prospects do the convincing themselves.
7. There are two reasons why your prospects say no, the real one and the one that sounds good, find out which is the real one.
8. Make appointments, don’t barge in on others time.
9. Be confident, but not cocky.
10. Smile.

If I’ve left anything out, please let me know.

Simon

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ReviewBack.com - Blog Review

Rachael has a blog that is jam packed with information. I haven’t had the chance to fully explore it yet. ‘Turn one pound into one million‘ is a journal of Rachael’s efforts to turn 1 pound into a million. I don’t know if she’s there yet, but with her apperant zeal, its just a matter of time.

What I like best about her blog is the warmth that radiates. Its easy to make a money making blog seem formal and business like, but Rachael doesn’t fall into this trap. She talks about her personal experiances with such sincerity. Rachael’s blog would definately add value to anyone’s life.

It has my vote.

Simon

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One of the first ways that you will want to monetise your blog is by putting a few pay-per-click advertisements in strategic places around your blog. Below I’ve listed some of the programs that I use personally.

Google Adsense. This is one of the first programs you will want to sign up for. Adsense allows you to display targeted ads that are relevant to your content. They will pay you per click on those ads. Adsense pays out when your account reaches 100 dollars.

Bidvertiser. Bidvertiser is very similar to adsense, they will allow you to display targeted ads on your blog that are relevant to your blog content. The main advantage of Bivertiser over Google Adsense is that they payout at 10 dollars.

Text-Link-Ads. With Text-Link-Ads you can display targeted text ads on your blog. Text-Link-Ads has a minimum link and hit requirement for the blogs they approve, but in the mean time you can make money by referring people. Every time you refer a paying client or publisher they will pay you 25 dollars.

AuctionAds. This one is quite self explanatory. With AuctionAds, your readers can place bids on relevant items that interest them.

There are a few tricks to monetising your blog properly, and I’m certainly not the expert, but here’s a few I can give you.

Don’t crowd your blog with advertisements. For the most part people will come to your blog for the content, not the ads, so they won’t appreciate getting more ads than content, no matter how relevant.

I found I got better results by putting a few ads inside some of my posts. Here you will find a great article explaining how you can edit your blogger template to have your adsense included in your posts automatically.

Affiliate links are a great way to make some money from your blog, but instead of filling up your blog with affiliate banners, you could make some posts explaining the benefits of your program and include your link there. This way your blog won’t look so messy.

And remember that readers read, so ultimately its your content that will make the difference. The more you write, the better you’ll get at it, and the better your posts, the more hits you’ll get, and hits means money.

Simon

Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
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So I was looking around for some blogs to exchange reviews or links with and I came across a very interesting site, its called reviewback.com.

Reviewback is basically an online community where you can search for like minded blogs and sites that are in the market for reviews. All you have to do is regester with them, its the simplest thing in the world, you hand over some details about your blog and thats it, you’re ready to rock and roll.

You can search blogs by name, age, page and alexa rank, and tags. My suggestion for new blogs and bloggers is to stay somewhere near your league. Don’t ask a pagerank 6 for a review if you’re a pagerank 0. Other than that you’re free to let loose.

To get you started, why don’t you…

Filed under: Link Exchange Programs by Simon Rodrigues
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Who is this John Chow anyway? John Chow is an online money making guru. John has been making money online for quite some time now, and he seems to be quite good at it. Everything he touches seems to turn into gold.

John recently had a brilliant idea to get yet more incoming links to his already so popular blog. He is offering a free linkback for simply reviewing his blog. When I heard this I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, I had to do it. I would be a fool to pass up an opportunity to get a link from a blog that has over 4000 incoming links.

John Chow is also offering a free e-book explaining how he became so successful, and its loaded with very helpful information. You can download it here.

John’s blog has everything, from money making musts, to cars and food. You should definitely be there now.

Simon

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What is the secret? How do these online geeks make 1000’s of dollars online every month? Is it with paid-to programs that offer the world and beyond to everyone that stumbles their way? I don’t think so.

I’m not making 1000’s of dollars a month from anything I’m doing (certainly not online) so I cannot speak as an expert, but I’ve decided to make the journey, and by starting out I’ve come across lots of very helpful tips and suggestions from those that have gone on before me, and I’ve come up with some of my own conclusions as well. Following is a piece of the road map that I believe will lead me to online financial success.

1. The first thing to do is start a website or blog. This will be like your online shop, it doesn’t matter what you’re offering, it can be a product or a service but you can’t do anything without an outlet, especially not online. So get yourself a site or blog at least. You can get a free blog at http://www.blogspot.com/ or http://www.wordpress.com/ I suggest you start with blogspot, I find it simpler for newbies, but eventually you might want to switch to wordpress.

2. The second thing you need is a product, aka, something to sell. Now don’t panic, having something to sell doesn’t necessarily mean you need to sell shoes or clothes or food, it just means you need to have a good reason for people to come and visit your online store, or site, or blog. Your product can be as simple as you, if gardening is your hobby and you think you’re pretty good at it, then write about gardening. Your expertise is your product.

3. Hits. This is one of the most important factors to making money online. You can have the best product in the world but if you don’t know how to attract people to your store, your endeavours are wasted, and you might as well be making money by wearing nothing and begging on the side of the street. How do you get hits to your site? There is an endless amount of ways that you can do this. I definitely have not mastered the art, but here are some simple tricks and suggestions that I use:

• Add your site to google. You can do that here www.google.com/intl/en/submit_content.html.
• Sign up with mybloglog, its an online community where you can submit your site or blog and meet like minded people to connect with. You can sign with them here http://www.mybloglog.com/.
• Try looking for other online communities to register with. Another one is http://www.blogcatalog.com/.
• Be active in your communities, visit other members, make comments, join their communities, and invite them to join yours, but be careful not to spam.
• Visit other blogs and sites with similar content and ask for a link exchange.
• Or ask for a review exchange.
• Visit other sites or blogs that interest you and leave comments.
• Submit your blog or site to site directories. You will be able to find quite a few through google where you can do this for free.
• Sign up for traffic exchange programs. Some of the ones I use are TrafficDigger, and TrafficSwarm.

4. Monetise your site. But don’t go overboard, there is nothing uglier than a site or blog that is clogged with ads. Some of the best programs for monetising your blogs are:

• Adsense. Adsense is offered by google, it is usually one of the first programs you should sign up for.
• Bidvertiser. Bidvertiser is similar to adsense, the best thing about them is that they payout at 10 dollars instead of 100 like adsense.
• Text-Link-Ads. Text-Link-Ads is another way to make money by displaying relevant ads on your blog.

There are many, many more, so don’t just stick with these, but these will get you started.

5. Don’t stop learning and growing. This is by far the most important. If you stop researching and learning, you will die in the online market.

6. Have fun.

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I thought I’d start out by telling you a little about myself and the way that I make money. I’m in the entertainment business.

I’ve been doing entertainment now for about 10 years and that is one thing that I know works, and it’s not too hard to set it up. Most of the time I’ve done it as an employee for another company, but a few times I’ve done it for myself and now I’ve finally started my own company, so far its going quite well. Our first paying promotion was for a big company in South Africa and they paid us about $400 for a couple of days work, here in SA that’s a lot of money, my brother-in-law does the same thing in the states and he charges a few hundred dollars an hour.

What I do is dress up as a clown and I make balloon sculptures and I do face painting. I started out just making the balloons, I would suggest that anyone interested in doing something like this start like that also. Just pick up a book that teaches some simple shapes, buy some balloons and a pump, and start practicing. Don’t worry if you pop all of them for the first week or so, that’s normal, the secret is not to give up. Some simple shapes to start with are the dog, sword, and the flower. In the beginning you don’t need more then these 3.

The next step is to go out and buy a clown costume (or get a friend to make one). The better the costume, the more professional you look, but start out with something simple.

So now you’re all set up, but still no business. I guess the best place to start is with your family and friends, tell them that you’re offering a service as a clown for their child’s birthday. You should be able to get a few bookings from this alone, and if you’ve printed your business cards (which you should) you will be able to get quite a few referrals from these first few engagements. That should get you going. When I started I asked a few malls if I could walk around the mall offering the balloons to the kids, and they would either pay me, or I’d ask for a tip from the parents, that was a great way to hand out lots of business cards. Sometimes the malls don’t agree to this, but you can also ask the individual shops, the shop will like it because you’re bringing in new costumers, and the mall can’t do anything about it. Restaurants is also a good place to start, a lot of restaurants have kids play areas and you could offer your services to them at a price, or if it’s a very busy restaurant you could just ask the parents for tips. I also got quite good results by printing fliers, and putting them in places where kids are likely to be at, such as schools, restaurants, and kids stores. Agents are a great way to get you started, find out from your local toy store if they know of any entertainment agents, or of any entertainment companies that hire some of their entertainers from outside, then go and offer your services to them.

I’m not happy doing just birthday parties though, and eventually you will want to get hired by company’s to do corporate events, that’s where the money is. There are two ways of doing this, the first way is to just wait till you are a bit well known in your area, and the company’s will start approaching you, the other way is to go and approach them yourself, you can offer your services for company parties, opening’s, special fun days they might have, product promotions, and as a permanent feature during the holidays. You can’t afford to slip up with these guys, if you impress, they will hire you again and again and that will be quite profitable for you.

The best way to start something like this is to start it as a hobby. This job is something you do on the weekends (few people will hire you during the week) so it’s a great job if you’re studying or working during the week and you only have the weekend off. The kind of money you can make varies from place to place, here in SA I charge a little less than 100 dollars an hour, but in the states you could easily charge 100-200 dollars an hour. Lets say you charge 150 dollars an hour, and you do 4 hours a day, two days a week, that would be 1200 dollars a week, or 4800 dollars a month. How’s that for a little pocket money.

Here’s a few simple shapes to wet your appetite:

Just kidding. Maybe I’ll make a simple tutorial for a future post.

Simon

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