Make Money Online & Screw The Middleman
June 30, 2008
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Would you like to make money online and save people from scammers at the same time? When I say scammers, I’m talking about middlemen. More often than not, they’ll charge you an absolute fortune, for doing very little, just because they have a little bit of knowledge that you don’t have. The good news is, not only can you get hold of that information and save a fortune, you can also profit from it.
I recently saved thousands by doing a bit of legwork myself and cutting out the middleman. And this was in a personal matter, not a business one. Of course I was warned that “many things could go wrong”, “it involved a lot of work” and it was “too complicated” for the average person to understand. What a load of tosh - few things are that complicated. I needed to do very little work myself and when the process was over, I discovered that I could have been paying a huge heap of cash to some con artist for simply passing the bulk of the work on to someone else.
Well, I figured that if I could save a fortune doing this, others could benefit too, so I’m putting together a simple information package, which will enable people with the same problems to do it themselves. And instead of paying thousands to some ambulance chasing middleman - it will cost them less than $50.
And you can do this too. Think about the times you’ve spent a lot of money on a service that simply wasn’t worth it. Or maybe you’ve done as I did and saved yourself a fortune by doing your own research instead of paying for costly services.
Doing your own research and putting together an easy to follow package is fairly straightforward. So don’t be put off by the middleman’s claims that it’s too complicated for the average person to do themselves. Or that things could go drastically wrong if you don’t engage their specialist help.
Now, I’m not going to share the info product that I’m bringing out before it’s even completed. And you don’t need me to. There’s plenty of niches you could fill if you brainstorm a little.
Think about the areas the middlemen hang out in. They usually target people who desperately need help and those who really can’t afford to squander a fortune. They’ll also go after people who are in desperate need to do something important and try to convince them that they can’t do it without them.
I bet there’s at least one problem out there that you can provide a solution to and you could save a lot of people from being scammed at the same time.
If you’ve got some great ideas but you’re not sure how to put it all together and reach the right people, check out the following resources:
Write Your Own Ebook In 7 Days
The Dirty Little Secrets of An Informer
Dirty Little Secrets 2 - The Investigation
Dirty Little Secrets 3 - The Rule
27 Ways To Fuel Your Imagination & Come Up With Great Ideas
* This post has caused quite a bit of debate. When I refer to the term middleman - I mean someone who offers a service which involves little skill, or work and charges an astronomical figure for doing so - usually, someone else is doing the bulk of the work at a fraction of the price.
This is not to be confused with a project manager who would charge a mark-up for organising subcontractors, or a business who subcontracts some of the work to other providers and adds a mark up.
The middleman would usually charge thousands for something that would take very little time and they would make sales by taking advantage of customers who are desperate, or vulnerable.
The project manager or subcontractor would be providing a good service to the customer - eg. organising and managing the whole project on their behalf, for maybe 10 - 25%. That could still be a large sum, if it is a big project - but if it is done properly - it is well deserved.
You Can Profit From Something You Suck At
June 26, 2008
If you’ve gone through all your hobbies and interests and you still can’t come up with a business idea - maybe it’s time to look at the things you suck at.
Now, notice I’m saying the things you suck at - not the things you hate. Or maybe things that you don’t necessarily suck at - you just haven’t got really good at them yet.
My first website (in the nineties) was a travel site. I would like to say that the site came about because of my amazing passion and knowledge on all things travel. But that would be a huge lie. The truth was, I was hopeless at planning travel. Whenever I decided to go somewhere, it was completely random. And I never did any research at all.
As you can imagine, I picked some really bad areas to vacation. And the final straw was Crete. As usual, I picked a hotel at random from the brochure. And just before we boarded the plane, I noticed a book about the island, so I decided to buy it for something to read.
So, I’m on the plane, flicking through the book and I find a section on the area of Crete we’ll be staying in. And I’m reading through the description, hoping to find at least one positive thing about the part of Crete we’re staying in. But its all bad - the biggest dump on the island - a place to avoid at all costs.
The travel guide turned out to be accurate. But we made the best of it, as you do in this sort of situation. But that was when the penny finally dropped for me. The truth was, I always picked the least desirable places to travel to because I made more effort deciding what to make for dinner on an evening than I put into researching where we were going to go.
And when I started doing a fair bit of research, not only did we end up visiting nicer places, but I also discovered that I enjoyed research and planning. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to build my own niche travel website and start my first small business.
It could happen to you too. Are there areas of your life that you do badly in? Could they be improved upon, if you increased your knowledge a little? You never know, you may enjoy doing it so much that it helps you come up with a great business idea.
Wonderful Wednesday
June 25, 2008
I love Wednesday’s. They’re close enough to Friday, so the weekend doesn’t feel too far away. But they’re not so far into the week that you worry you won’t get everything done.
But I wasn’t feeling my usual Wednesday happiness until I read Barbara Ling’s hilarious take on The Secret and The Law of attraction. And it reminded me, that no matter how bad you feel, there’s always something out there to cheer you up.
Stories of outrageous self promotion always make me laugh too and they can work wonders for any business. And it seems to have got a lot of attention for Joan Rivers and the obscure lunchtime TV show, “Loose Women”. I hadn’t even heard of Loose Women until they hit the headlines for throwing Joan Rivers off the set for using the “F” word.
You have to wonder if one or both parties didn’t set this up deliberately. After all, Rivers is over here to promote a play based on her autobiography and Loose Women isn’t exactly what you could call popular TV, so they could do with a jump in ratings.
Self promotion is one thing. But risking your life for your job is another. And you have to question the sanity of some people when they go as far as Nicole Kidman’s bodyguard. According to SFgate.com, he actually lay down in the middle of a busy road in New York, just to stop the paparazzi from pursuing his boss.
Still there’s a few people out there who seem to be doing well without risking life and limb, or outrageous gimmicks. Kelly of She Power is showing great promise as a travel writer, without sugar coating every single experience. The Spanish tourist board may not be loving her but I’m really enjoying reading about Europe through the eyes of an Australian.
Multi Solutions is also doing well. A little while ago, Ian Denny blogged about some pretty ambitious targets that his business were hoping to achieve. He posts his results daily on his Multi Solutions blog and I have to say, I haven’t seen any other IT company consistently get problems fixed as fast as this one does.
Do you have a blog, or are you thinking about launching a blog for your business? Joanna Young of Confident Writing has just launched Powerful Web Content. So, if you need some help with your blog, or you just don’t know how to get started, pay Joanna a visit and learn how to jump start your blog now.
Another great resource for new bloggers is Blogging Without A Blog. As well as giving great tips to new bloggers, Barbara features a new and promising blogger each Tuesday. You should pop over and check her out to get great advice and also a chance to be featured in her new blogger of the week section.
Other stuff I loved reading this week:
Bloggers Getting Sued: A warning from Monika Mundell.
$1 Bras: Vered takes a look at the effects of inflation.
What’s An Ebook Worth: Hunter Nuttall explains why we should be reading them and supporting our favourite bloggers.
Bloody Bosses: Does your boss take advantage? Louise shares the ridiculous email she received from her employer prompted her to hand in her notice.
Bring Nature Into Your Life Every Day: Nature is a great pick me up and Michelle of Little Pink Flower shares ten ways to bring nature into your life every day.
Vampire Slaying Personal Finance: If you’re interested in Personal Finance - you need to check out Mrs Micah’s Vampire Slaying Personal Finance Blog Carnival.
A Rookie Entrepreneur Looks Back At The Lessons Learned In Year 1:
Mark of My Tropical Escape moved to the island of Culebra with his partner Terrie to start a new business. If you dream of starting a business in another country, this is a must read.
Do You Run Your Business Like A Bank?
June 24, 2008
Don’t you just love banks? At the best of times, they’ll fail to help you out with the most basic of problems. And they’ll put everything right by trying to sell you a heap of crapola that you don’t even need. Brilliant aren’t they? At least they can show you how not to run a business. I had a bit of fun with my bank at the weekend.
My Bank Had Some Great News For Me
I call my telephone banking service because I need to transfer some money from one account to another. It’s a Saturday - I need to book a flight and there’s only a handful of seats left.
This should have been straightforward but the customer services assistant tells me she can only transfer money from the account that I need to put money into. I’m still trying to work out how she can take money out of an account that is virtually empty, but her English isn’t great so I don’t bother to ask. She tells me I should use Internet banking - but I can’t. The PIN machine they sent me doesn’t work.
Then she says, “Mrs Lawson, I’ve got some great news for you.” So I’m thinking great - she’s managed to do it after all. More fool me - it soon becomes apparent that this enthusiastic customer services girl is reading from a script. And she can still do bugger all for me, but she’s hoping to sell me some home insurance anyway. I wonder how many people accidentally hang up on her, as I did?
Banks Can Predict The Future
So, I have 30 minutes to get to the bank before it closes to transfer the cash myself. And they do it, by pressing one button. I am happy - my bank is good after all. They don’t even try to sell me anything - probably because they are about to close.
I get home and the flight is still available. This is great, then the bank declines the transaction.
So I call the customer services department again. I explain the situation and that I’m in a real hurry to book this flight before it sells out. The assistant puts me on hold for a while, then she tells me that the bank didn’t turn down the transaction. It’s probably the seller, she tells me - many merchants don’t accept Visa. Now call me dumb, or at least my bank obviously thinks I am but I don’t recall the last time I bought something from a seller who didn’t accept Visa.
“But,” the customer services assistant says, “I bet that if you try again now, your purchase will go through.” But she didn’t want me to try it quite straight away. First, she would be really grateful if I could complete an automated customer satisfaction survey. I guess she missed the bit about me being in a hurry to book the flight.
But a great miracle happens. As soon as I get off the phone - the transaction goes through. I wonder how she knew that was going to happen, when the bank didn’t even stop the transaction?
This is probably one of the funnier experiences I’ve had with banks. Others have ranged from not so funny to downright appalling.
We Can Learn A Lot From Banks
When you can’t help a customer to get what they want, it’s great if you can provide an alternative solution. But not helping them, then trying to sell them something they don’t even need, can be plain annoying.
If we screw up it’s best to own up and not try to blame another company.
After your company has inconvenienced a customer several times in one day, it’s probably not the best time to ask them to take a customer satisfaction survey - especially when it’s on their phone bill.
Have you got any great bank stories? Do you love or hate your bank? What have you learned from banks, or other similar businesses that has helped you improve your business?
