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By matt On July 16, 2010
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What are some ways that you can make money?
Here are a few ideas to get your brain ticking and let those entrepreneurial thoughts and ideas come out from your hobby.
There are plenty of people who make money from their hobby business. It could be part time or it could be full time. Perhaps you have always loved taking photos of the kids and sharing them with your family and friends. Maybe that hobby as a photographer is just the path that you can take to make some extra bit of money. Why not offer childrens photo shoots at the local school fair or shopping center to start off and see if you can make a hundred or more dollars from parents who want fantastic shots of their kids but don’t know how to do it.
Maybe another example could be that soup that you have always made and that everyone loves. Could you make it and sell to the local community for lunch during winter? I know building sites and industrial areas where people are outside working in the cold would love a warm soup to fill them up, and would be happy to pay for it if its great quality.
Another idea to make money could be something as simple as offering the neighbors in the street to mow their lawns for them. Its good exercise for you, they get their lawns mowed and you can make some extra cash in the process. Of course, if you have a green thumb you may even be able to offer other services such as gardening, tree pruning or clearing out gutters of leaves. Many a business has started like this and grown into a full time home care maintenance business. The best part is you will already have most of the tools required to do the job already in the shed.
Do you play a musical instrument? Why not try your luck at some busking down at the shopping mall? The best time to do this is usually around Christmas, as everyone is in a festive and giving spirit and the song choice is rather easy. Of course there are plenty of alley ways / cafe hangouts in towns and cities that would be happy to pay for some regular relaxing background music to add to the atmosphere for their customers.
As you can see, this is only a handful of ideas that you could use to turn your hobby into something that little bit extra. If you aren’t that interested in making money, but just want to support your hobby, then just a little bit of work could help to pay for your materials, supplies or whatever it is that keeps your hobby going. I know many people who love photography yet its pretty expensive to be constantly investing in expensive lenses and gear. So its pretty easy to justify it when you know you have done a couple of friend’s weddings or special events and can pay for new gear with money the old gear has earnt you.
Basically what I’m saying here is to get another job. It may come across as that, but I’m sure you will enjoy it more if you already have a passion, experience and know how in your hobby. And you dont have to go the full committment of quitting your job, buying into a franchise or putting up a lot of money to start, as you are just expanding on what you are already doing. It may even be something like those jams that you always make at home you can sell once a month at the local farmers market. It might not be a lot of extra work to make some extra money that allows you to afford that little sweet or night out for dinner with the partner.
See what else you can think of. There are plenty of ways to make money, its just knowing how to start and what to do. Use your strengths and it will be a lot easier.
By matt On July 6, 2010
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Its likely that you will have heard of Timothy Ferriss’ book called “The 4-Hour Workweek”. Its a book that has been around for a few years now and last year just before Christmas an updated version was released. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this book and the topics that it deals with.
1. Quitting your job. For most people this is not an option. While there are people who are working in jobs they don’t like, the vast majority of people must have some type of enjoyment in their workplace otherwise they wouldn’t stick around. I can’t see how the majority of the world is wrong for such a crucial issue. Sure we all need to make money to survive but are we all just doing it so that we are stuck in some type of system? We all dream of working from home and making millions of dollars from our couch, but is it all really achievable and likely? Sure it does happen, but usually that scenario is the result of hours, weeks and if not even years, of hard work.
2. Starting your own business. This is the bulk of the book and what I really enjoyed. I don’t believe in just quitting your job and boating it around the world because its cheap in some countries to do so, I want to work in my own business and enjoy the benefits that can bring, as well as the challenges and learning.
I strongly agree with the principals of how Tim explains trialing your niche, area of focus, to see if it could be a business idea that you can develop to produce a sustaining and recurring income. In particular, I was interested in his thoughts on setting up online businesses to make money from. It is true of what I wanted to achieve when I created this website. A site that would be active on the web, for anyone to come by and read, to provide value, and in return it would be a source of income. Like anything, money doesn’t just grow on trees and takes time and hard work. As Tim sets out in his book, you may need to trial a few ideas before they stick. You won’t make money just like that from the get go.
The other important thing to remember is not to over commit yourself. Start small and dream to grow big. Don’t start big and find that the dream doesn’t come true. Its much easier to upscale if you put in the correct plans and processes from the start, rather than the other way around.
If you do wish to quit your job, live the 4 hour workweek then making money online is a great way of achieving this. Just remember that it does take a real lot of hard work. The competition is tough and everyone wants a piece of the billion dollar pie that the internet is. If you want to make money online I would suggest that you think outside of the square and do something that hasn’t been done before.
As Tim says in his book, its best to sell your product to 200 people who really want it, than it be shown to 200,000 people who couldn’t care less and simply clicked on your ad because they thought it was something else!
Overall, I would give it a 4 out of 5 and highly recommend to any budding business person or entrepreneur, even if you don’t find all of it useful, the aspects on internet marketing, making money on the web and outsourcing are well worth your time.
By matt On March 8, 2010
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Who wants to make money? Everyone right? Well if you asked pretty much anyone if they had the option of making money slowly or fast, you could be guaranteed they would say fast. If only it was as simple as setting up a few web pages, having a product and waiting for the orders to come in and start counting all that money! Unfortunately its not really possible for the average or even above average person to make money fast. From all that I know, have read, seen and experienced, to make money requires hard work and persistence and patience.
There are several sayings that go with it, but basically if its easy come, I’m sure that its easy go. If you want to have a source of income that is going to last and provide an ongoing benefit, be prepared to put in the work, investment and the rewards will come in the long run.
So what are a few ways to make money?
Providing Services
Are you good at a particular skill that you can use to make money from. This might be something such as web design, programming, copyrighting or even mowing the grass for your neighbors. Think about the things you are already doing now, maybe not for profit, and how you could use these to make some money from. Chances are there is someone out there that needs your service and is willing to pay for it.
Some other options could be using a particular type of software to achieve an end result. Such as using Photoshop to remove red eye for some family photos, or more advanced requirements. You paid enough for the software in the first place, use it to put some money back into your pocket.
Create a Digital Product
You can’t goto most web pages these days of bloggers etc that don’t sell some type of digital product. Gone are the days of everything being physical and requiring shipping and handling. These days, people who want to buy your products prefer to be able to access them quickly and when they pay for them. No waiting! If you have an area of skill that other people are wanting information on, to learn and develop their own skills, turn this into a profitable product. Maybe its an e-book, or a training video. There are various sites as well where people are wanting to sell your product for them, you pay them a commission for doing all the work.
Saving money off your normal expenses
This is kind of the opposite to the above but every now and then it is a good idea to stop and look at what you are spending your money on. Chances are you are paying bank fees, higher insurance premiums or utility bills than you need to. Call up your bank and see if there is a better product that doesn’t take $10 out of your account every month, or shop around for a better deal on your car or house insurance. A few phone calls and you could be saving several hundreds of dollars each year, which is certainly worth a bit of work now.
By matt On February 5, 2010
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Here is a list of things you can do if you need to make money fast. It is by no means complete and is going to work differently for everyone but it serves as a suggestion. The word ‘fast’ is very subjective and will be different for everyone. Some people will need to spend more time than others in working out how they can make money.
1. Clean out your house for items that you no longer need that you can sell on ebay, at your local trash and treasure or hold a garage sale at your house.
2. Get a job if you don’t have one. If you do and you need more money, then apply for a second job, working a couple of evenings or weekends.
3. Offer your services to neighbors for odd jobs, such as mowing their lawn, doing some gardening or helping with babysitting the kids.
4. Develop a product that you can sell. This may be an ebook or a physical product.
5. Complete that tax return that you have been putting off. Chances are you might get a refund!
6. Call up your insurance providers and increase your excess, therefore lowering your premium and instantly making you money by saving money.
By matt On November 1, 2009
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How to Make Money from your blog
First of all, I’m going to assume that your reason for reading this article is for tips on how to make money from your blog. I’m not saying you should or will, but that the following is a great start / way to turn your blog into something that will one day bring in some income. If you think turning your blog into a site that will produce an income is bad then my solution for you….don’t! If you however are serious about making money online and want to turn your blog from a hobby into a little side business or more, then do it.
Before I really get started however I must confess that most people will not make any money from their blog.
Big statement, I know. But its better to be honest and open with you.
So why do people fail? Well, often its simply because their content isn’t worth reading! There is no way that a site with poorly designed content will make money long term. Then following content other reasons also flow, and are inter-related, such as poor traffic numbers, poorly designed pages that don’t allow for ads to be display properly, not appearing in search engine results and people simply often give up too soon. Just because you registered a domain name and posted some articles on it doesn’t mean that you will start making money straight away. I worked on Make Money Online Guaranteed for over 12 months before I saw any return on my effort. The trick is to keep at it. If you really want it to succeed then you will need to put in some hard work.
Everyone thinks that the internet will make them rich. There are many people of course that have been able to capitalize on what the net offers however without really putting in some hard work, none of them were given their results on a silver platter.
So lets get started.
When I first started Make Money Online Guaranteed I decided that I would make this site monetized. What do I mean by this? Well I decided I was going to display ads from the start. I’m up-front and honest about how I make money from my site. I could have built my readership up and added paid ads later on but I didn’t want to cause any problems there as some readers don’t like seeing ads. The fact is, if I wanted the site to continue I needed to display ads otherwise I wasn’t going to be able to fund it long-term development.
Is it possible to make a healthy income online?
It certainly is possible to make a decent income. this could be 4 or 5 figures annually for someone who is working full time from home. It would be less if your working part-time or probably take much longer to achieve the higher level of income. Often people will start out part time on their blog and when they see the potential for income and the dollars starting to roll in they make the switch over to full time to build their blog / website up even more.
Can most people achieve making money from their blog?
Well, as discussed up above, most people will not be able to make money from their blog. If you are serious about doing it the right way, building your site up then your more than likely to fail, but so many people can’t. Maybe its a question of how much time you going to invest, what your background is with regards to business and your area of expertise as well as really….if your a smart person. If your smart then you won’t make the big bad mistakes that 99% of everyone else trying to make money online from their blog makes.
This is relevant to other areas of life though as well. Think about business. The smart people usually succeed. Now that may be harsh and fill my inbox with complaints but its not hard to see the truth. Think about another industry…such as music. How many people can pick up a guitar, learn some chords and sing some songs and think they want to make truckloads of money from their band. But in reality they are just the same as every other college band. The ones that succeed either had a lucky break, or were different to the rest. Maybe not smarter in the sense of the word most people think of, such as brain smarts, but certainly more savvy. Perhaps they got their demo in front of the right people and used tools such as YouTube or Myspace to boost their exposure to the world.
Do I need to be a computer nerd?
Certainly not! But if you have some web savvy ways of thinking then you will certainly have a strong advantage over most of your competitors. I for instance completed a computer science degree so that gave me some exposure to web techniques, programming languages etc. But for most people it might be a case of learning the skills you need to be successful with your blog….Otherwise you will need to invest some money to pay a programmer to get it setup for you.
These are some of the areas that you should have an understanding in so that you can really boost your potential for a decent income from your blog:
* Wordpress (or other software that will allow you to create your blog)
* HTML/CSS
* How to deal with blog comments (and also spam)
* RSS/syndication
* Blog feeds
* linking to other blogs and receiving link backs to yours
* search engines
* search engine optimization (or SEO)
* page ranking
* social networking / bookmarking (ie: facebook, myspace)
* advertising options such as Google Adsense
* How to monitor your traffic on your site and intrepret the results
* email (this one is really a given)
While there are many more that could be covered such as using podcasts, videocasts, webforms, subscription email programs if just looking at the above list seems alien to you, then perhaps making money online isn’t what your cut out to do. And that is fine, because it is much better to realise that now then later on after you have invested money or time into getting something started that simply won’t work out.
Its also about balancing the various aspects of monetizing your blog so that you provide attention to each area and not overload your concern to one area. An example of this would be advertising and placing too many ads on all of your pages. This would have a negative impact on generating income from your site as your visitors would simply move onto the next website where they are not bombarded with ads. At the same time, if you can’t read your traffic stats then you might not realise that your visitors are quickly leaving your site for instance.
Are you an Entrepreneur?
These type of people are the ones who really will succeed with making money from their blog as they are able to think outside the square and adapt quickly to change and opportunity. If you aren’t savvy with thinking of new ways to beat your competition, develop your product or way of marketing then you will get left behind. There are always new ways to make money from business opportunities and such, so keep an eye out for them.
If you don’t know what opportunities there are to be had with the latest technologies, blogging techniques or ways to make money from the internet then stay up to date by reading various sites on the topic to get a full and up to date understanding. This is an area that is constantly changing. People’s wants change quickly, Google changes al l the time, so one day you might be on page 1 and the next page 5. If you aren’t working on your site from a holistic point of view then it will be difficult to survive the test of time and change.
The beauty is also in learning new ways of doing things to improve your site, maybe help your readers come back more often, techniques to provide more value to your readers as well as increasing your profits. Stay on top of whats new and you will do well.
Finally for now…
Produce an income strategy. Define what you want to achieve so you have something to measure against. How else will you know if your actually succeeding and hitting the goals you want for your site and ultimately making money to support yourself.
More to come, stay tuned.
