Making Money - Online Business Opportunity

While site-hopping, I came across rateGenius - a Texas-based car loan refinancing website and I was impressed by it so I thought I should make a short review about them here in my Business and Money blog.

First, their website is simple and easy to navigate but what amazed me most is their F.A.Q. section which contains tons of answers to Car Refinance questions. From General questions such as “How does refinancing work?” to the more detailed Credit questions, their F.A.Q. is a very helpful resource to the information seeker.

Also, the 1800 number on the top-right of the screen makes it even simpler for any person to get information from them. I give this website a rating of 4 out of 5 for being informational, simple and easy to use.

Find more Online Money Making Opportunities

I recently sent out a text message to my friends as well as uploaded a simple website about a food business franchising opportunity here in the Philippines and I was surprised to get a handful of interested individuals who inquired regarding the how’s and the what’s of the business franchising opportunity I was telling them. For starters, it’s all about food…

Why a food business? Personally, I’m more of a tech guy and though I know how to cook, I’m not really that good at it. Furthermore, having a food business is not really into my system. So why am I into it? Well, because I don’t really have to worry much about the difficult stuff - thanks to franchising. With a franchise, I can actually setup my business within 2 weeks time (or less) and start making Philippine money out of it. But why food? Simple, people love food - everybody does. Even a person who is very very strict with his diet would indulge in some high-cholesterol yummy food once in a while. Food is basically hardwired into the human being’s system and that’s what makes it a good business.

Definition: If you’re not sure what a franchising means, it is a method of doing business wherein a franchisor licenses trademarks and tried and proven methods of doing business to a franchisee.

How much does it cost? Cheap. For as little as Php50,000 you can already start your own money making food business and you don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty details because that’s what franchising is all about - all the little details are handled by the franchisor. All you need to do as a franchisee is to operate the system when the franchise was handed over to you.

What kind of food business franchises are available? There’s a lot of them but the most popular ones are waffle, burger, pizza, and shawarma. As I said, there are more of them and it’s just a matter of choosing which of them would fit your wants.

All you need is at least Php50,000 and you’re all set. Is 50,000 pesos too much? I don’t think so. If you think of all the money you’ve been spending, you will quickly realize that you’ve been throwing Php50,000 at least every 6 months on nothing. Think of electricity, hobbies, entertainment, e-load, vices if you have any, etc. I think it’s about time that we as citizens of the Philippines should start doing ‘good’ business instead of wasting our time on nonsense. If you’re wise, then you know what to do.

So, what’s in this for you? Answer: Financial freedom. Ask any businessman for advise on how to attain financial freedom and they will tell you to start a business and start investing. My dear friend, the whole idea is to make more money than you are spending. If you’re only earning as much as you spend, then you’re not financially free. Worst is you might actually be spending more than you earn and find yourself in debt all the time. If that’s your case, then I want you to rethink your life and start making wise decisions.

Now, before you tell me that you’re busy and that you don’t have time for this, I want you to first be honest to yourself. Are you really busy? If so, what makes you busy? Is that thing you’re doing that keeps you busy helps you attain financial freedom? Also, do you want to busy all your life? Personally, I don’t. If you’re tired of being busy, then here’s the chance for you to actually stop becoming busy and spend more time for the important things in life such as your family and yourself.

Ok, if you’re interested and I know you are because if you’re not then you wouldn’t have read this far, you can ask me for more information by sending an email to e@mikelopez.info or texting me at 09205063248. You can also reach me by phone at (044) 6914895. If you contact me by phone and I’m not home, then just look for Evelyn. She’s my wife and she’ll be happy to answer any inquiries you may have regarding the business.

Again, here’s my contact info:

• Email : e@mikelopez.info
• Cellphone: 09205063248
• Landline: (044) 6914895 and look for Mike or Evelyn

Email, text or call me for inquiries.

My dear reader, I’m offering you here the opportunity to take that first step into becoming financially free. Don’t waste this opportunity. I say grab it, or at least contact me for more info.

Be wise!

While breast augmentation naturally takes money out of the pocket, I’m actually thinking of a way to bring in some extra money with breast augmentation and it appears to be a good niche to try.  As usual, the whole idea is based around a website that tackles breast augmentation, optimizing it for the search engines, send in targeted traffic from different sources, then make money through advertising.

I did a quick check on Overture and found out that the keyphrase ‘breast augmentation’ got 51612 searches and ‘breast enlargement’ got  28882 last month and that’s pretty nice.  Of course, I don’t plan to go for just ‘breast augmentation’ or ‘breast enlargement’ as my targeted keyword.  I would most likely go specific by adding locations (i.e. Albany breast enlargement) to the keywords plus checking Overture for some other related searches made for the past month.  Add a few mathematical computations to that and I’ll be on the go.

Now that Christmas is nearing more and more dollars (and euros, yen, etc) are pouring into the Philippines from Overseas Filipino Contract Workers as they send cash gifts to their relatives here in the country. Some of them would also take a vacation leave and come home bringing their hard earn foreign currencies with them.

Among the best dollar earners recently made popular are the caregivers and nurses working in different places from all over the world such as new york city nursing homes and hospitals. Do you know what this means for business-minded people?

Well, buying dollars at this point of the year is a good thing because dollar rates get cheaper and cheaper as more dollars pour in - it’s the law of supply and demand. The more supply, the lower the cost so buying dollars when the country have lots of them is good.

What to do with all these dollars? Sell them afterwards, when the price of the dollar goes up again. Got the point?

Recommended reading:

I honestly don’t know whether I’m going to place this post under Business and Money or under Search Engine Optimization.  But since this is more of a money thing than SEO, I decided to place under this category.

Anyway, one of the most common questions I receive is “I have a website, why am I not making money?”  The answer is actually revealed when I ask them, “What are you doing to bring people to your website?”  Apparently, they just hope and expect people to go to their brand new, shining, perfect, (more adjectives here) website and start making sales.

In this online world, you can’t expect people to see your website without exerting effort to bring in traffic.  So what should you do?  Here’s a short list of questions for you to answer:

1. Who is my target market?
2. Who are my competitors?
3. What’s my target market searching for? (Use Overture to find out)
4. What keywords are my competitors targeting? (Use Google’s Keyword tool)
5. Try to weigh what keywords you should target.  You can do this by checking the ratio between the number of searches of for a keyphrases versus the number of competitors you have targeting for this keyword.  The more searches and lesser competitors, the better.
6. Try to create specific keywords.  Example, use rhinoplasty San Jose instead of just rhinoplasty
7. Build a website created around your chosen keywords
8. Exchange links with other related websites
9. Tell your friends
10. Don’t stop working until you see traffic coming in.

That short list is what I basically follow and you could too.  Of course, you can also follow a different path, but it’s all basically the same.

By the way, I would also recommend you reading this book on how to Cash in with Adsense, Adwords, and other Google tools:

I hope this helped.

First, we Filipinos felt undermined because our country was not included in Paypal’s dropdown list of countries thus not allowing us to join paypal.  Then a few months back, Paypal partially opened its doors to the Philippines by allowing us a ’send only’ account.  Though some didn’t like this idea, I believe that it was a good first step and somehow deep within me, I knew it won’t be the last step.

Now, I got my regular RSS Feed via email from Abe Olandres saying that Full Paypal Support is largely possible by 2007!  Now that’s good news and I hope that it’s real news.  Now we can really start making good business here in the Philippines as we will now be able to transact via Paypal - especially the eBay lovers!

Click here to read Abe’s post about the Full Paypal Support.

Now, we wait…

Hello dear readers!  I’m not going to discuss much on techniques and ideas this time.  Instead, I just wish to right a short post about some billionaire who had his fortune ball rolling with a beauty product!  Yes.  If you’ve been following my blog recently, you might have noticed that I’ve been discussing health and beauty related stuff in connection to making money.  Happy to say, I came across this website which proves that there indeed is money in health and beauty.

This person literally got his fortune because we human beings have eyes!  His name is George Lindemann Sr.  Currently, he’s chairman of the board and president of the second largest natural gas pipeline in the United States but his fortune didn’t start there.  He’s wealth started pouring in after he developed the world’s first permanent-wear soft contact lens or Permalens.  He eventually sold his contact lens business to Cooper labs for 60 Million US Dollars and that was back in 1971!

So now, I have someone in my list of people who actually made it to the top ranks because people want to be beautiful - in this case by getting rid of those ugly reading glasses and replace them with Permalens.

I sometimes sit down and think for hours trying to ponder about those people who go to work in the morning and go home tired at night. They do this each working day and by the time that salary arrives, most of them are so happy that for a moment in their life, they feel that they’re the richest person in the world. It’s not how they act that makes me wonder. Rather, it’s where there money goes that makes me think.

So I did some observing on people’s most usual expenditures. Usually, it goes to utility bills, credit card bills, food, and the like. Other than that, I was surprised to discover that people are willing to spend a huge share of their money pie on beauty products and services - especially the women though the men are not that far behind. Apparently, we humans are so obsessed with how we look that we are almost always willing to let go of our hard-earned money in exchange of a little self-beautification or perhaps even some self-glorification.

There is a local Avon outlet about 50 meters away from our house and I see people everyday walking in and out of this local Avon store. Some of them buy for themselves while others buy products to resell. There are a few ladies that I see pass in front of our house almost on a daily basis. Aha, I thought… this is where their money goes, at least a large chunk of it. Lipsticks, makeups, powders, lotions, etc. Name it and you’ll find them all in a ladies handbag. Now think, how many women are there in this world. Apparently, beauty products are now placed close to the basic necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter, etc) when it comes to importance.

Then, there are these beauty services - the most popular being plastic surgery. In fact, I noticed its popularity so much that I’ve been talking about it on this blog for a few days already and might even be talking about it or citing it as examples in my upcoming blog posts. Men and women alike loath to look pleasant. I know, I myself always want to look the best that I can be (now if only I can get rid of this tummy). Consider this Houston rhinoplasty company. Who among us who have a not so desirable looking nose and can afford to have it repaired wouldn’t go for it? It’s certainly tempting - very tempting…

Other beauty services such as dental repair, and the like are also popular - especially among Hollywood stars. Speaking of dental repair, I remember reading a book about some evangelist who performs miracles in many places. According to his story, a woman lined up to be prayed over and when it was turn, the evangelist asked what it is that she wants. You’ll never believe what she asked for. She smiled to the evangelist exposing her crooked teeth and said, “Can God fix my teeth?” The book’s author claims that the good Lord gave the woman a new set of teeth - all sparkling and new. Now, imagine that! She could have asked for wealth or food but instead she asked for her teeth to be fixed! I have nothing against that but I just find it pretty interesting that even in occasions like this, people still worry about their personal appearance. Amazing isn’t it?

So, what do I think about this? I think I should consider putting up another website dedicated to health alone and try squeezing juice from it. It would be an experiment for now but I think it will be a good one. Checking the internet about health niches show that there are thousands of competition and many of them are making good but I think I can do something to outsmart the competition and get my own share of the pie.

Now, to the drawing board…

But before that, I think I will give you a list of things that I usually do when I come up with some new “bright” idea. This is hard for me, I usually don’t tell people of my well-guarded secrets but here they are anyway…

1. Study the market - this includes learning how many competitors there are and how much money people are spending on a particular market.

2. Learn my keywords - I only market online so keywords is very important. What I do is go to Overture’s keyword tool and type in my generic keyword (ex. plastic surgery). Overture will then return a list of keyphrases searched for the previous month and how many searches were made for each keyphrase.

3. Choose my keywords - among the list of keywords that I gathered from Overture, I will choose which among them is easiest to work on. I start with the easiest and work my way up to the hardest.

4. Choose my product - based on my chosen keywords, I will then look for matching products.

5. Create my website - I will now create my website optimized for the keywords I’ve chosen and containing the products that I decided to market.

6. Promote my website - I now promote my new product / website. How? That’s for some other post. I’ve said too much.

One more secret, to do all of my researching above, I use to very powerful tools - SEO Elite and Keyword Elite. Check them out. Then, click here to get your free copy of the SEO Made Easy Ebook. There, I’ve really said too much. My mama will get mad at me.

So what now? Let’s race towards building that perfect beauty related business. Whoossshhhh!

I’ve been doing business for almost 8 years now and I’ve come across and tried many different ways of selling. None of them is perfect nor does any of them work in all scenarios. However, one common crossroad I come into when deciding is whether to sell a new product at a high price or at a low price.

The typical businessman would opt for selling his new product at a low price and hope to make enough sales to cover for his expenses. Such a businessman would usually have very little cost margins. Through experience, I’ve learned that selling cheap products is easy as compared to selling expensive ones. The problem however is making enough sales to make it worth your efforts. Say, in order to raise $500 monthly from a product that sells for only $1.00 each, you will need to make 500 sales. Looking for 500 people who will buy your product might not be that difficult since $1.00 is relatively cheap. But is it worth the effort? Note, that oftentimes the time you consume in selling cheap items is just as much as what you spend in selling expensive products.

So by pricing low, you get more sales but need to exert more effort in order to achieve ‘worthiness’. Now, I’m not saying that selling low is not advisable. There are venues where selling at low price is a lot better than selling high.

The case of a school supplies store.

I know a couple who have a school supplies store not far from our house. They now have a workforce of 40+ employees and they’re making good money. The secret? They sell low. Their prices are way lower than any of the school supplies store within the area. What about the effort that they exert? Well, they don’t actually exert too much effort in selling their goods because people naturally come to them because of their low prices. They may have smaller net income per sale than their competitors but they do have lots and lots of sold products per day.

Are they selling it too low? No, they’re just selling their products at a price low enough to attract more customers and therefore defeat the competition.

What about selling prices at a high price? I talked to a few seasoned sales agents about them marketing my web hosting services. At first, I told them that selling my web hosting would be relatively easy for them because my prices are cheap. I was surprised but what they told me…

One of them said, “Why not sell your products at 15 times it’s current price? It would still be sellable and all you need to do is add a bunch of freebies.” What he’s trying to tell me is to improve the “packaging” of my product to make it more attractive and worth its expensive price. My question however was, wouldn’t that make selling it more difficult? His reply was, “Yes, it would but instead of selling 10 accounts / month in order to earn x amount of money, I would only need to sell 1 / month and still earn the same amount of money.”

Now that’s a bright idea! Honestly, it is! That means less effort for me and them selling the web hosting and yet getting the same amount of money. Furthermore, I would have to handle fewer clients and still earn the same. The end result, better technical support and customer relationship.

A quick lesson… selling cars…
If you’ve followed me this far, you may have already noticed that selling high is actually better than selling low. The general idea here is that a good businessman would always opt for making more money for less work and that’s what selling high is all about.

If you were a car salesman, would you sell a Toyota Sussex or would you go for spyker cars? Selling Toyota cars is easy because they’re cheaper I will tell you for sure that a spyker dealer would be making more money for less time. Here’s why:

• Selling spyker cars means you only have to sell to a smaller group of people - those who can afford
• This small group of people usually know each other and this is good for you - more referrals and connections
• Those who can afford can and will buy more expensive cars anyway - they’re already inclined to do it
• Then it’s easier to sell to this group of people because they have the money - more cash sales for you

Though many of you would argue that selling low is still better, I don’t have anything else to argue. In the end, all I can say is sell your products at reasonable prices. Don’t sell it too low or too high. Just sell it at the right price. It all eventually boils down to the product that your selling. Is it worth the price?

Recommended Reading: The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably (4th Edition)

Everybody I’ve talked to about business says that Real Estate is good and though I know deep within my heart that what they’re saying is true, I honestly have no idea where to start. Furthermore, most of these people who say that real estate is good don’t seem to back their words with their lifestyles. Some of them even borrow money for food.

Following my nose… I can’t remember where exactly I’ve read that advise but I decided to follow my nose nonetheless. I searched Google for real estate information. I came across real estate news websites and found articles and stuff that support what many people are saying - there is big money in real estate. Problem is I already know that, I just don’t know where to start.

After scouring the web for almost 7 hours, my eyes were already aching and my brain totally filled with real estate information that I still can’t quite comprehend. Oh well… I guess it just takes time to understand all of these. One thing’s for sure, I won’t stop here. I will read more, learn more, then act and see if I can apply everything that I’ve learned.

I think I will also be asking some of my friends who have had some experience with real estate. My mom will also be a good resource person since she was a real-estate agent before. No, I have no plans of becoming an agent. I plan to invest on real estate and make money directly from my soon to have real estate assets. Good things I’ve learned so far are apartments and warehouses. Condominiums might also be a good idea but it’s a bit more expensive.

Now, tell you what, my mind is running so fast of excitement but I know I have to control myself first and learn this new field that I’m planning to take on. A wise person always sits down and thinks well before acting.

Wish me luck!