I’m giving a seminar in Davao City!
July 26, 2008 by Bob
With the growth of the Internet and the tremendous money-making potential of online tools, trends, and technologies, a good income is indeed possible. Your income potential is only limited by how hard you are willing to study and then apply your knowledge.
Is it possible to be a 100% virtual earner, earning your money from the Internet? What are the ways in which you can make money at home, using your own computer? What does it take to become an Internet Entrepreneur? How does one succeed at an online business in the midst of today’s economic crises?
Bob Martin asked those same questions when he moved from the United States to the Philippines. Now living in Davao City and making his name as one of the top Internet Entrepreneurs in the country, “Mindanao Bob” is making more money now than when he lived in the USA. Bob wants to show you how you can do it too!
With Virtual Earner: A Business Forum by Bob Martin, you can uncover many ways to earn a living in the Philippines. Invest in the potential of the Internet and reap the benefits of strategic online, offline and hybrid ideas for business. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover and prove –as Bob did– that making a living in the Philippines is NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
Details
VIRTUAL EARNER: A Business Forum by Bob Martin
Speaker: Bob Martin
Venue: K-1 Coffee Shop, F. Torres Street, Davao City
Date: Saturday August 9, 2008
Time: 3:00 pm (the seminar will start sharply at 3pm)
Seminar Price: P3,000
To register for the seminar, please either e-mail or call (or text) John at (0921) 467-8372.
The forum is created to provide an intimate and informal venue for learning how to make a living in the Philippines. It will also serve as a medium for opportunities to discuss new technologies, products, services, and business ideas with a qualified expert who has explored the possibilities on the Internet to become an 100% Virtual Earner.
Who is Bob Martin?
Bob Martin is an Internet entrepreneur based in Davao City. An American who has lived in Mindanao for the past eight years, Bob has resided in General Santos City, and now in Davao City, while owning and managing dozens of Internet Businesses.
For the past seven years, Bob has made his living exclusively through the Internet. He serves customers all around the world, and has used the Internet to enhance his earning ability to the point that he is making more money now than when he lived in the USA and had a regular job. Bob wants to show you how you can do that too!
“Becoming successful on the Internet is great, but one thing I really enjoy is helping others achieve the same,” says Bob. “It makes me feel good if I can show somebody a few simple methods, or share my thoughts with them, and watch them learn how to make a living themselves. I don’t really like it when others copy what I am doing, but when they look at what I do, and mold it a little bit to fit their interests, they can come up with something that is patterned after me yet totally different from my business. I think that is great, and it gives me a lot of joy to see a friend become successful by doing this.”
Bob has a business background in Retailing and in Manufacturing, having previously managed discount department stores and an electronics store in the USA. He is also a published author of more than a dozen books. His latest book is entitled 49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines.
Early Bird Bonus! - For the first 10 people who sign up and attend the seminar, they will receive a FREE COPY of Bob’s book, 49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines! That’s right, a book that is selling for $49.00 will be yours free when you sign up and pay to participate in the seminar(but, only for the first 10 people)! So, don’t miss out, sign up today!
To register for the seminar, please either e-mail or call (or text) John at (0921) 467-8372. Remember, the first 10 people who register will get a free copy of Bob’s eBook, 49 Ways to earn a living in the Philippines!
Determining Value
July 22, 2008 by Bob
If you’re going to get involved in business, usually that means you’re going to be selling something. Not all businesses mean outright sales to make money, but, it can be argued that every business involves selling something. I’m not going to make that argument right now, that’s a whole different story there. However, for the sake of this article let’s agree that if you want to make money, you have to sell something.
The question is, how do you determine the value of the item you’re going to sell? I mean, it if you have an item that’s really worth $100, and you’re selling it for $10, you’re probably going to sell a lot of them, but it’s a losing proposition. I mean, even if you don’t realize you’re losing money, you’re selling the item for less than it’s worth, and that’s not good for the seller. On the other hand, if you’ve got an item is worth $10, but you think it’s worth $100, and you price it at $100, nobody will buy. In your mind that item is worth every bit of $100. But, if nobody else thinks is worth $100, it’s not.
I used to make a living selling stuff on eBay. I guess I have about five years experience of selling on eBay, and three to four of those years eBay was my primary moneymaker. In those years without eBay I wouldn’t have really had an income. It is my opinion that eBay is the perfect marketplace. If you put an item up for sale on eBay, you get what the item is worth. Now there are things that you can do to influence the worth, but in general, the final price of the auction is what the item is worth. When I say that you can influence the value, what are you talking about? Well, a lot of things enter there. The quality of your description of the item is a big factor. You should have a lot of good pictures. You should play the item and make it look really good. These things, and others influence how much you’ll get for the item. If, for example, you list an item with like a one sentence description, no photos, and little information, you probably won’t even sell the item. If you do though, you’ll get very little for it. How can that be? How can an item be worth the final price, yet you that hardly anything for it? The value of the item described is worth the price you got. You gave it a poor description? Well you did let people know what it was, and the price they gave you was based on what you told them it was.
in the end, it is my believe that the value of an item is based on this statement:
An item is worth precisely what a willing buyer will pay for it, and a willing seller will sell it for.
This simple sentence, precisely defines what an item is worth in my opinion.
No matter what kind of business you’re in, make sure that you are not underpricing the item that you’re selling.
Making money from things you like and enjoy
July 9, 2008 by Bob
Over at 45n5 Mark has been talking about making money off things that you enjoy, or like doing. As a matter of fact, he has an interesting video about this concept, let’s have a look:
I have used a lot of methods to monetize websites, I’ve done it through advertising like AdSense, affiliate ads, and other methods. Over the last six months, though, as I have alluded to before, I have taken a special interest in monetizing one of my sites. This particular site did not monetize well with any kind of advertising that I tried. However, it was the site most precious to me, one that I love a lot, and really a daily part of my life. Because of that, I wanted to find a way to make money from it. So I introduced several new moneymaking possibilities on the site. These included things like advertising services, much like what Mark is talking about in his video. Recently, I started offering a few e-books that were really targeted to that site as well. You know what? That is my number one earning site now! And, I’m doing things that I enjoy, things that I love, and in a lot of ways things that I would be doing every day anyway, even without the site.
You know, I have come to the conclusion that offering my own services and selling my own products is the way that I like to go. Firstly, I find it is more profitable. Secondly, I have control over what’s on the website. I am not at the mercy of Google or somebody else putting ads on my site that I can’t approve. Thirdly, the premium products that I’m selling offer additional value to my readers. These products are specifically about the topic that I write about, thus it is certain that these are things my readers are interested in. A year ago I was strongly into the AdSense thing, but mostly, I kind of abandoned that. At least I’ve decreased it. Most of my sites are highly specialized, very niche oriented, and my niche is very narrow. In terms of how many people it attracts. Because of this, it can be difficult to get ads that are targeted properly. However, when I create my own products and advertising things that I do myself, I get to choose how targeted those things are. And believe me, they are targeted to my customer.
Yes, I still make money off of AdSense, but not nearly what I used to make. And now my earnings from Google are about one third of what they were last year. However, my total earnings are higher than they were last year, and these self-made products and services are what accounts for that. Whenever you’re selling advertising, unless you’re talking about direct ad sales, you only get a portion of what the advertiser pays. People like Google or others get a cut as well. When you make and sell your own products, or selling your own services on your site, you get the whole thing. You can actually sell it to the customer for less than what Google would and still get more money from the sale, because you’re cutting out the middleman.
The other thing that I find is it is easier to make that money. Why? Well, if you build up a good side and you have a good following the people, those people trust you. They know you. Many of them visit you everyday online and read what you have to say. You have established a relationship with those people. Thus, if you come out with an e-book or some other product that you did yourself, they know what to expect. If they thought that your writing wasn’t very good, they wouldn’t be visiting your site anyway. Since they obviously feel that your site has value, by extension they would also feel that your products have value. If the product that you offer is something that they are interested in, it’s likely that they’ll buy. So it’s good for you, and it’s also good for them because they get information that they want and need.
Thanks to Mark for bringing up this topic on his site, 45n5 is a site that I like to visit every day.