A good reason for Filipinos to get more active in Online Earning

For today, I want to talk to those of you who want to get a job in the Philippines.  That is mostly Filipinos.  Some foreigners are always e-mailing me though, asking the question:

What kind of job can I get in the Philippines?

I have answered that question so many times - if I had a Peso for each time I could probably retire soon!

But, did you know that employment laws here in the Philippines are much different than in the West.  For an example of this, I want to point you over to my friend Cathy’s site, where she is showing some job opportunities in General Santos City.  Here is a look at a sample job opening:

Warehouse Associate (4)

• Male; At least High School Graduate

• Not more than 30 years old

There are two glaring things that will stick out to foreigners.  First, they are advertising for “Male” employees for the opening.  This would be blatantly illegal in the West.  A male or female must be considered for any job available.  The second thing that blares out is “Not more than 30 years old.”  This also would be illegal.  If such an ad showed up in the States, the company would be sued many times over, and would lose, no doubt.

I want to point out, I am not criticizing Cathy, she is a good friend, and I value her greatly.   There is nothing wrong with what she is listing, because it is perfectly legal here.

That being said, though, if you want to get a job in the Philippines (Filipino or Foreigner), are you willing to put up with these kind of restrictions?  I wouldn’t.  But, this is why I am more open to earning my own living, working for myself.  And, I believe that earning that living online is the way to go.

What do you think?  Isn’t it time to start carving out your online niche and earning money through it?

Perceived Value

What would you think if I told you that you might sell less of something if you set the price too low?  I know, a lot of you will think that I am crazy, but honestly, it is true.  I am talking about the concept of perceived value.   What does that mean?  Well, basically it means that if you set the price very low, people will perceive the item as poor, low value, etc.

One of the businesses that I am in is selling and delivering flowers in the Philippines.  I sell a lot of flowers too, you can bet on that!  Now, let’s think about something.  Let’s say that you have a girlfriend here in the Philippines, and you are deeply in love with her.  You plan to propose marriage to her.  First, though, you want to send her some very special flowers to set the scene.  OK, so then you come to my website and you see that I have two different bouquets of roses.  The first bouquet is $2.99.  The second one is $49.99.  Which one are you going to buy?  Well, if you care deeply for this girl, I have no doubt in my mind that you will be buying the $49.99 bouquet, because in my mind you are thinking that anything that is $2.99 can’t be very special.

The same thing holds true for almost any product that you can think of.  How about if I wrote an e-book about how to earn money online?  If I had it for 99 cents, I wouldn’t sell many, because people would perceive that it had little information of much value in it.  If I sold it for $99, a lot more people would be interested.

What does this all come down to?  Well, it comes down to a video that was posted last week by a Video Blogger that I enjoy following.  His name is Jim Kukral, and he is a marketing expert, particularly for online items.  Give his video a look:

Now, what do you think?  Do you price yourself too low?  I think that the tendency for most people is to set their price way too low, practically giving the stuff away.   If you set the price high, you can offer yourself another marketing capability - the ability to give a discount.  If you tell somebody that the book is $99 (true), you could say that you are willing to give them a discount and offer it to them for only $79.  They feel good, you make a nice amount of money - everybody is happy!

Push your price points up, and see if it doesn’t result in higher sales!  I bet it will!

$1 per day: Make a Note!

If you are like me, you have ideas popping into your head all the time. Almost anywhere I am, no matter what I am doing, an idea for some kind of new business, or money-making idea will come to me. Because of this, it is important for me to write down every idea I think of, no matter how large or small, or even no matter how ridiculous the idea may seem at the time.

If I am out, away from the house, I don’t generally write the ideas down, but what I do is that I use the voice recorder on my cellphone to make an audio note to myself of what my idea is. Later, when I am home, I will listen to the recording and write down the idea on one of my notepads.

I don’t use my computer to make these notes. It’s not an MS-Word file, or a text file on my desktop. I do it the old fashioned way, I write it on a piece of paper. What I generally use for writing down ideas is post-it notes. Then I stick the post-it note on my desk. Often, the post-it notes get in my way on my desk. Maybe while I am handling my computer mouse, the post-it notes are in the way. This is good. It forces me to do something with the notes. I will keep looking over the ideas on paper, and decide which ones have merit. After a few days of staring at an idea on a piece of paper on my desk, often I will conclude that the idea doesn’t have merit after all, it was just a wild thought. Some ideas may not make it in the form that I had envisioned, they might be massaged a bit, and end up being something other than I had considered. Sometimes two or three ideas will meld into one better idea.

As these ideas mesh together and get filtered, I start making “To-Do” lists, also on post-it notes and stuck to my desk. Then, every day I check my “To-Do” list. I prioritize the list to decide which of the things I will actually do today. How do I decide? It is a earning/time ratio decision. If I look at an idea, and think to myself that this item could make me $500 per month when it is completed, I then figure how much time it will take to get it done. If I can do it in an hour, and not need to do much follow up work with it, and it will make $500 per month, I might jump on it and get it done, thus removing it from my “To-Do” list. If I see one that will make me $1,000 per month, but it will take me 3 months to get it done, and will require 10 hours of work per week to maintain it, that idea would be a very low priority. Too much time needed to get it done. Also, too much additional time needed to keep it going. So, because of the way that I work things, and the time/earning ratio that I consider before taking on a project, I have some ideas that have been on my To Do list for some time. I might still do the project some day, if the time presents itself to me.

Another thing that I may well do if a project would take too much time is to hire the job out. I find that for just a few hundred dollars, I can hire somebody to get a project going for me, and thus I don’t have to spend my time on them. I only hire it out, though, if I really feel quite sure of the project’s success.

So, at any given time, I will have a bunch of post-it notes stuck to my desk. They bug me. They get in my way. I don’t like them. But, you know what? They force me to get things done, because when the item on the paper is finished, I get to throw the paper away!

Maybe this isn’t a perfect system, but it helps me get things done. If you employee a system like this, I promise you that you will come up with a lot more money making projects!

And, it all starts with one simple act. When you think of a new idea - write it down!