Simon’s Notes

The two most common ways of investing ones savings are paper investments, and real estate. Ok, real estate makes sense, but what are paper investments? Well, these days pretty much anything that isn’t property is a paper investment, that includes the stock market, mutual funds, forex, and you get the picture. So what should you invest in? Let me try and do a little comparison.

The biggest difference between real estate and paper assets is leverage. Lets say that you and your friend each have $20,000 to invest. Your friend wants to put it in the stock market, he’s read a few books and thinks that he’s got it figured out. You, on the other hand, want to start building up a property portfolio. Your friend, Bill, scouts around, talks to a few brokers and does a little online research and thinks that he’s found a few winners so he goes ahead. But of course with $20,000 dollars he can only buy $20,000 worth of shares. In 6 months time his portfolio grows by 10 percent (not bad) so now its up to $22,000. I’d be pretty chuffed, but now lets see what happens with you.

You decide not to look too far away, so you stat doing some property research in your local area, and, of course, you don’t mind starting small. You start off with 2 options, you can find a house for $20,000 (highly unlikely), or you can use the $20,000 as a down payment on a larger piece of property. I’ve spoken about the beauty of compound interest, but now I want to talk about the beauty of leverage. By using leverage and the banks money you can easily acquire a $100,000 property asset for only $20,000. In fact, you can easily do better than that cause if you shop a around, you can find a motivated seller who is willing to sell you a $150,000 property for a mere $100,000.

So in 6 months Bill’s portfolio grew by 10 percent, which translates to $2,000, but if your portfolio grows by the same percentage (which is more likely), you could pocket $10,000. Hows that for a bit of leverage.

If you want to look into investing in property I seriously recommend ‘Real Estate Riches’ by Dolf de Roos.

Simon

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I was browsing around some business forums today and I found a very interesting thread on YoungEntrepreneur.com that asked the question “what would you do with 100 dollars and 30 days?” I love questions like this, it really gets your mind rolling. It reminds me of the 30 day challenge that recently ended, and it would be a fun personal challenge to try out for yourself.

There are quite a few replies to the thread and some of the ideas are very interesting.
Its really fun going through all these money making ideas, so for your benefit, I’ll list some of them here:

• Buy some bread and sausages and sell hot dogs.
• Buy some lawn mowers and mow some lawns.
• Washing cars.
• Do computer repairs.
• Private tutoring.
• Buy a product in bulk and sell it individually for more money.
• Design websites.
• Network marketing (I’m writing a post about this in the near future).
• Gamble (not wise).
• Buy at auctions and sell on ebay.
• Sell fruit, ice water, or juice outside of an office building.
• Startup a popular forum.
• Start selling affiliate deals on a site.
• Buy reservations at a restaurant and flip them.
• Car maintenance service.

I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for you, so I suggest you go and read the rest of the thread and maybe come up with some ideas of your own, and don’t forget to leave a comment cause I’d love to hear what you’d do.

You might be wondering what I would do with 100 dollars and 30 days. Well, one of my very first posts is about a job that I have quite a lot of experience in, and that job is being a clown. If I had 100 dollars and 30 days to make the most of it, I’d probably do what I know best, I’d invest in a costume and some modeling balloons then I’d go door to door in some fancy neighborhoods offering my services for their kids birthday parties. I know I can make a lot of money in a short period of time doing this, a few thousand bucks in 30 days is very doable.

What would you do?

Simon

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What is a pyramid scheme? I find a lot of people that are willing to throw this term around without actually understanding what it is they’re talking about. For a while, I found it quite confusing myself so I can understand if maybe you don’t really know what a pyramid scheme is. If you want all the jargon, you can check out wikipedia’s definition here. But if you find that a little confusing, stick around and I’ll try to explain it as best I can.

Why is it so important to understand what is a pyramid scheme? Because I don’t want you to miss out on the many available legitimate opportunities out there that you would normally brush off as scams. There is a wealth of opportunities that could earn some good legitimate income, but many people are simply turning the other way with the excuse that ‘it’s a pyramid scheme’. Of course I’m talking about things like MLM’s, affiliate programs, and network marketing. If done correctly, these can all be very good sources of passive income, and I don’t want you to be passing them up as options.

You know I like getting straight to the nitty gritty, so here it is. A pyramid scheme should contain some or all of the following characteristics:

1. No products. If the ‘business venture’ or ’scheme’ doesn’t have one or more concrete products that you can personally identify with, STAY CLEAR.
2. They have a product but it’s highly overpriced. If they are offering a product, make sure that the price is not over the normal retail price for a similar product.
3. You earn for referrals. A legitimate business should pay you according to the business volume that you are moving yourself or through your network, in other words you should only consider a business if they are paying you commission on the products that you are selling. If you get paid only for referring others, its most likely a scam.
4. You only benefit by signing others onto the scam. In a legitimate business you should benefit by signing up other distributors, but you should also benefit, by using whatever product they’re offering, as a customer.
5. Payment structure is iffy at best. In a pyramid scheme, most of the members will be left out in the cold with nothing but a bad experience. If, technically, the people at the bottom of the pyramid don’t get a chance to make any money then there is some serious problems. This will be the case with most schemes, they don’t offer products, and they pay you for referrals, so you have to go out and try to get other people to waste their money on thin air and if you can’t you’re left with nothing.
6. Huge joining fee. If you’re being asked to pay a large sum up front without seeing any concrete products, then don’t bother.
7. Sneaky products. They tell you that you’re making an investment, or that you’re all helping each other. Don’t be fooled, investments are not that hard to understand, so if you don’t really understand what it is, don’t bother.
8. What really happens in a pyramid scheme is that money is being shifted up the pyramid, so the guys at the top make all the money and the guys on the bottom do nothing but pay for it all.

If you get used to spotting the wrong thing when it comes along, then you’ll be a lot more confident when talking to that over eager dude spouting gibberish, and when something legit is presented you won’t automatically brush it aside in fear of the unknown.

Be safe and prosperous.

Simon

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So you want to start a new business but you don’t want to rip the wallet. That’s ok, there is a multitude of business opportunities and ideas for businesses that require very little initial capital investment. I’ll get right to it, here’s my list of possible businesses that won’t require me to sell the kids for finance.

Buy Something and Rent it Out

1. Buy 1 or 2 jumping castles. People are always having parties and as long as that’s the case there will be a market for jumping castles. You could easily make your money back in 3 to 4 months.
2. Buy some garden tools such as lawn mower, etc, and rent it out. Start with your neighbors, I’m sure you could do this part time on the weekends for some extra money.
3. Buy some tables and chairs and rent them out. This is great for big functions which happen all the time.
4. Buy some playstation consoles and rent them out. I knew a guy that did this, he had a custom trailer made where he mounted all the consoles, then he rented the whole thing out like a mobile network gaming setup.
5. Buy some large tents or gazebos and rent them out. This is another feature that is often used for functions.
6. Buy some trailers and rent them out. People are always moving stuff, and they need your trailers.
7. Buy a bunch of party outfits and rent them out. Masks, hats, clown costumes, Santa costumes, Barney, Winnie, Other animals, pirate costume, space costume, cowboy costume, etc. I’m not just talking about stuff for kids either :)).
8. Buy some complete barbecue sets and rent them out. I’m not sure how well this would work, but its definitely worth thinking about.
9. Buy some golf sets and rent them out. I’m not so sure about this either, but its out there for you to chew on.
10. Buy a beach buggy and rent it out. I’m sure the tourists don’t want to spend all that money on buying a brand new one when they can just rent from you.
11. Buy a container and rent it out. There are a few ways that you can do this, either you convert the container into an office, or room of some sort and rent it out, you can rent it out to people that are moving, or you could buy a few and rent them out as storage.

Offer a Service

1. Can you mow the lawn?
2. Can you paint?
3. Can you build and renovate kitchens?
4. Can you maintain a pool?
5. Can you clean carpets?
6. Can you clean windows?
7. Can you do graphic design?
8. Can you build websites?
9. Can you be an entertainer?
10. Can you bake?
11. Can you cater?
12. Can you house sit?
13. Can you baby sit?
14. Can you stand in a queue?
15. Can you drive?
16. Can you teach?
17. Can you take care of pets?
18. Can you fix computers?
19. Can you fix TVs?
20. Can you fix cars?
21. Can you fix a leaking pipe?
22. Can you fix an electrical problem?
23. Can you pave a pavement?
24. Can you cut trees?
25. Can you deal a poker game?
26. Can you play guitar?
27. Can you play a piano?
28. Can you beat a drum?
29. Can you organize a project?
30. Can you plant a garden?

Buy Something and Sell It

1. Buy and sell used cars. Don’t do this if you don’t know anything about used cars, take it from me, I tried and failed because I knew nothing about cars.
2. Buy and sell computers and laptops. You could do this as a dealer with new computers or you could try with used stuff.
3. Look in the local classified or junk mail for a bargain and sell it, preferably before you buy it. There was a guy that looked in the wanted section of the classified and found something that someone wanted and that someone else was selling, then he would make the deal without spending any money.
4. Be on the lookout for interesting things that you can flip. Here in South Africa complexes, or townhouses, are springing up all over the place and usually you can secure one for a very small deposit (5,000 rand which is about 720 dollars), so my idea is to make a few deposits on a few good deals then selling those deposits a month or so later. I think that if done properly this can be quite lucrative.
5. If you have a certain amount of money you can buy a share in a farmers crop, before it grows and is harvested, at a huge discount, then once the crop is harvested you sell your share for much more and make a nifty profit. This is quite risky and you need quite a bit of knowledge to do this properly.
6. Go to some auctions and check out the many deals, find something good and sell it.

Animal breeding

1. Buy some dogs, breed and sell them. Here in South Africa, guard dogs are a good option, such as Rottweilers.
2. Buy some cats, breed and sell them.
3. Buy some gold fish for breeding and selling.
4. Buy some Budgerigars, these are often quite popular.
5. Hamsters are another favorite.
6. If you know what you’re doing, Koi can be an excellent investment for breeding and selling.
7. Have you got space? Then breed some horses.
8. Chickens.
9. Cows.
10. Goats.
11. Sheep.
12. How about some snakes?

Make Something and Sell It

1. Build Wendy houses and sheds. This could be quite fun, and quite lucrative also.
2. Start a local magazine. I will definitely do something like this in the future, I imagine its very similar to blogging, you pick a niche, write, find other writers, find advertisers, and distribute.
3. Build a website. Make it a business, and when its generating some good income you can sell it.
4. Write a computer program and sell it.
5. Write a book and sell it.
6. Design and make a board game and sell it.
7. Invent something cool.
8. Sell your special recipe. Don’t actually sell the recipe, sell the finished product.
9. Make something out of wood and sell it.
10. Can you knit?
11. Can you sew? Become a tailor.
12. Can you sew and are you creative? Start your own fashion company.

Other

1. Give some seminars.
2. Offer private tutoring.
3. Hold some Tupperware parties. This is where you get all your lady friends together for a party where you sell them Tupperware.
4. Start a casino in your home. Make sure to get all the proper licenses.
5. Have a garage flea market in your back yard and invite all the neighbors, make sure to charge them a small entrance fee.
6. Ask your friends if they are starting any businesses and offer yourself as a partner.

This list is no where near completion, but hopefully it gets you thinking, and if so you are free to complete it with whatever genius ideas you might have. Don’t forget to share them with us.

If you still want more ideas, check out this list, its massive.

Simon

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There are lots of ways to advertise your new business or venture, but what is still, by far, the best method is plain old word of mouth. Everyone is leery of the big obnoxious billboard, or the constant racket on TV, but no one suspects the friendly neighbor next door, or old aunt Mildred. It is a critical aspect of any business to build up a loyal clientele of people that like what you have to offer and who are willing to pass on the word.

I always heard people saying this and I kept reading about this in books and magazines, but I could never understand how it all worked. How the hell do you ensure that your customers are telling others about you? One day it hit me like a giant beach ball, and the answer is actually very, very simple. But before I tell you what it is, let me just run through some critical aspects that must be in place.

• You must be providing a product or service that represents good value for money. In other words, people have to like what you’re offering, otherwise there is no chance that they will tell others about it.
• You have to do a bit of groundwork in the beginning. If you don’t first get some people to buy your product, you won’t have anybody to talk about it.
• You must put a system in place that will be able to handle the kind of business traffic you’re looking to get. There is no point getting more customers if you’re going to end up turning them down, or sending them away. If you don’t do this you might end up attracting the kind of ‘word of mouth’ that is very bad for business.
• Think about whether you’d like to have some sort of reward for referring new customers. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, a bottle of wine or some chocolates would do nicely sometimes.

The final thing to do is just to ask. There’s nothing else to it, ask and ye shall receive. If you’ve just completed some good business with one of your clients, then simply finish off by saying something like “please take my card, if you know or come across anyone that might need my services, please don’t hesitate to refer me to them and I will do my best to treat them with the same courtesy, and professionalism that I have shown you”.

I think these methods apply more to an offline business, but I’m sure they can be incorporated online as well. If you come up with any variations or suggestions that you think might be good for an online business or blog, please tell us about it.

Simon

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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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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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