Time to make your fortune

The world is going through some really difficult financial times right now.  It’s not a good time for any of us, no doubt about it.  Things are difficult, they require hard work and constant effort in order to keep ourselves and our families financially stable.  With hard work, though, we will all make it through this rough patch, I really believe that.

I have always been a firm believer that hard financial times are times of opportunity.  When times are rough, that is the best time to lay the foundation for success.  During hard times, most people take cover, they shy away from starting any kind of new business.

When the stock market is plunging, as it has been, a lot of people sell everything they have in the stock market.  The problem is that they sell stocks too late.  They sell when the market has already sunk considerably.  As I type this column in, the Dow Jones is around 8,000 or so.  Last week, it sunk as low as the 7,500 range.  The Dow has been in the 14,000 range at times over the past year or so, but it has now lost nearly half of it’s value.  Now is not the time to be selling.  I don’t believe we are at the bottom of the market, but if you’ve stuck it out from 14,000 down to 7,000 or 8,000, you need to stick it out further, in my opinion.

This site is not about the stock market, but I am just using that as an example of how bad the times are right now.  When businesses are hurting as bad as they are now, you can get big discounts from them.  Negotiate hard.  People are scraping up whatever business they can find, and they will be flexible in many aspects, pricing included!

Here is the way that I look at getting into business at this time.  If you can make it through doing a startup during the worst of times, when things improved you will be well positioned to make a huge run at real success.

Hang in there.  Do what you can to keep things afloat.  Keep a keen eye out for new opportunities that may present themselves during a time when most people won’t chase those opportunities.  There is no better time!

Enough. Get over it!

It’s not 1950 anymore.  It’s not even 1985.  Heck, it’s not even the 20th Century.  Pick up, move on, get with the times.  It’s the 21st Century now, and you need to be a 21st Century person if you want to succeed.  If you don’t care about success, no problem, you can live in whatever year you want it to be.  What do I mean by success?  Well, the topic of this site is about work, business, earning money, so primarily I mean success in a business sense.  However, really this success applies to almost any part of life.

We live in an Internet Age.  No matter where in the world we are, we are (or can be) connected with people in other parts of the world easily and quickly.  Because of our ability to easily connect with people the world over, it makes it much easier for us to exploit our talents and knowledge.  If you have knowledge or expertise on subjects, you can take advantage of that knowledge and make money from it no matter where you live - anywhere in the world!

Almost every day, I get e-mails from people who say that they want to live in the Philippines like I do.  They tell me that they want a less stressful life.  They almost all ask me the same thing too - how can I live where you do (or a similar place) and make enough money to live on?  If you are asking this question too, stop reading now.  Go back and read the previous paragraph again, and then think about how you can use the Internet to earn money from your talents.  We all have talents.  We all have knowledge.  You’re not college educated, you say?  Hey, no problem, I’m not either.

When I write back and tell people that they can earn money online and live wherever they choose, a lot of these folks write back and tell me -”I don’t like computers,” or “I don’t know how to use computers.”  If you feel this way, read the title of this column!  Read the first paragraph again.  Not enough to convince you?  Let me be clear.  You don’t like computers?  Enough already! Get over it!  Sit down and learn how to use the PC, it is not hard.  You don’t need to know how to program the computer, or anything very fancy or complicated at all.  If you can use a computer enough to read this article on the Internet, there is no doubt that you can use your PC to make some money!  Those people who write me e-mails obviously know how to send e-mail, and that is no less complicated than learning how to start their own blog.

Learning how to use a computer is not hard to do.  Everything I know about using a computer I taught to myself, or by watching what others do.  You can do it too.

Before you can become proficient at using a computer, though, there is one thing that you must do first:

Get over your fear!

Addendum: After writing this article earlier today, my friend Dave Starr wrote an article on his blog that ties right in with what I am saying.  Dave tells us about a business that just about anybody can start today and earn a very decent living.  You must have the Internet, though to do what Dave is talking about.  What Dave is talking about, though, is no differnet from talking on a telephone, it just goes through the computer instead of a regular telephone.  Now, if you are willing to get over your fear or dislike of computers, there are literally unlimited possibilities to make money!  So, get with the times!

How I started

We all get into different kinds of jobs or businesses, often completely unintentionally.  How many of us actuallly work in the industry that we were actually educated in?  I mean, when we went to college (those of us who did) and studied Engineering, or English, or whatever, very few of us actually work in the field that we were educated for.  That just happens over the years.

I never finished college.  It bored me, so I quit.  Frankly, it is a decision that I have never regretted.  I am kind of a free spirit, I like to do what I want to do, and that varies.  Sometimes I do a certain type of work, then I get bored with it and move on to something else.  It’s just my nature.

Because of my free nature spirit, I have gone through many jobs over the years, and even many niches within the same type of work.  I’ve been earning money online for more than 10 years now.  I have earned my living exclusively online for about 6 years now.  But, how did I get started in earning online?  Let’s have a look.

In 1997, a friend e-mailed me and told me about eBay.  I had never heard of it before, they were still relatively new, so I went and checked it out.  Wow, it intrigued me.  I started buying a few things on eBay.  I learned the ropes of how eBay worked by buying on the site.  I bought quite a few things there, because I found it convenient, and also I was intrigued at being able to actually buy things on the Internet, something that was almost unheard of in those days.

Being the entrepreneur that I am by nature, it didn’t take long and I had the itch to sell on eBay.  I had to learn how to do that, but I didn’t consider that a hurdle.

During this time, I didn’t have too much money, I sort of lived paycheck to paycheck, but I was happy.  It happened to be May of this particular year, and I had just gotten a very nice tax refund, around $5,000.  Feyma and I went to do some shopping at Costco, mostly for groceries.  While there I saw a big pile of REX organizers, from Rolodex.  I had been wanting one of these things, it was a credit card sized PDA, and I wanted one, but they were too expensive for me at that time.  Online, you could buy one for about $150 in those days.  At Costco, they had them for $49!  I couldn’t believe my eyes, but I didn’t buy one.  Too conservative with my money, I guess.

When we got home, Feyma told me that she was surprised that I didn’t buy a REX and try to sell it on eBay, after all it was 1/3 of the normal price!  Oh, wow, this was a business opportunity.  I went back to Costco to get a REX to sell on eBay.  Hmm, I thought… how many should I buy?  Two?  Three?  Well, I remembered that I had that $5,000 tax refund in the bank.  When I got to Costco, I bought 100 units.  That’s right, I blew my entire tax refund on REX units.  What if they didn’t sell?  Well, Costco is very liberal about giving refunds on unused products, so no biggie, I would just return them if they didn’t sell.

I got home, and got busy, started listing my new found product on eBay.  When I woke up the next morning, I already had bids for higher than I had paid for the units.  By the time my auction ended, I had sold the REX for over $100, so I more than doubled my money!  I started listing 3 or 4 REX’s on eBay at the same time, with auctions ending at different times, different starting prices, etc.  I sold out of the 100 units in a week or so, and went back and bought another hundred.  Sold all of them too.  I made between $25 to $80 per unit.  I made less on the units sold at later dates, because others started finding the deals, and were in competition with me, but still, $25 was a nice profit, and I was happy with it.

I made a nice chunk of change from selling those REX units.  It only whetted my appetite too, because from that day forward, I have made money online in one way or another ever since.  It was a great way to start!

Do you have a story on how you started earning money online?

What? You are not yet making money online?

What are you waiting for?