It’s happened to everyone at some point. You hear about a great new movie coming out, lets call it for arguments sake, Sex and The City. Actually no, we can’t use that, that was beyond terrible. Let me think of another example. Ok so you hear about this new movie called Australia and plenty of hype was behind its release into cinemas. It comes out and surprise surprise, the critics blast it. Rubbish, terrible, boring, awful. In reality, it was probably just an average movie. If you picked it up off the shelf at the DVD store you’d watch it and say, yeh not bad. Not great but not bad, you know.. average.

So why did the movie critics absolutely blast it? Think about it, the movie wasn’t terrible. Wasn’t even bad, it was simply average. You would be right in saying that the hype behind it caused a massive anti-climax when the movie finally came out and because it didn’t live up to the hype and the expectation, people deemed it as a flop. However that’s another story completely.

There is another element here that is taking effect. That is that people no longer tolerate “average”. We live in a world of web 2.0 where everything is intertwined and whatever information we need is literally on our finger tips. We expect everything for free or maybe in return for our (other) email address. Even the Telcos are treating us like people! Can you believe it.. people!!!! That’s just insane!

Only 10-15 yrs ago people expected average. Average customer service. Average airlines. Average electronics. Average cars. Bank West. Virgin. Apple. Tesla. Just think about this paragraph a little bit before going onto the next one.

The key point is that people no longer tolerate average stuff. TV advertising is dying because its pretty average. Mobile media is growing because it’s not average, although in a few years it may be.  Today, if you release a product that is average then it’s not actually average, its boring and awful.

The aim here is to be extraordinary in whatever you deliver and also how you deliver it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the product itself but can be through your execution, your marketing and your communication. I know it can be a bit scary going out on a limb and not following the standard procedure but if you don’t someone else will. That person may not succeed but if they do, not only will the rewards be highly prized but you’ll probably find yourself doing what they do but with less reward.

I am in the process of writing my first ebook. The ebook came out of my frustration with the whole Need Money To Make Money thing. It is yet to have a name so lets call it.. Book 1. How original.

As some of you may know, in one of my earlier business ventures I spent over 50k developing a product which never took off. 2 years of hard work and frustration led to nothing and I was left demoralised. However a little later I spent $45 and $70 respectively on 2 other projects which have since proved extremely profitable. So why was this?

The problem was I was basing my work on theories developed by people who wanted you to spend a whole heap of money. The theory was that you needed money to create a product in order to make you money. Society makes you believe that this is true and this is the way you have to do things.

Worst of all, individuals now use this as an excuse not to try and get out and do something on their own. Eventually it became the excuse for everyone any anyone who wasn’t where they wanted to be financially. Now this theory has become a viral institution and infected the minds of millions world wide.

Well my aim is to get the message out there and prove that this is not true. Financial freedom does not require you to invest thousands and thousands of dollars before you get going. And I will prove it to you. It does not require you to work 18 hour days for the next 20 yrs. And I will prove it to you. It does not require you to do anything unethical and I’ll prove it to you.

So this is my little super soft pre-launch. The book isn’t released but if you want to get a FREE copy of my new ebook when it is released then please put your details below and I’ll keep you updated and make sure you know about it first.

Oh an I’ll also throw in a little present when you sign-up . To find out what it is fill the form and check your email!!

The beauty of doing your own thing ay? At the moment I’m away on holidays in Northern NSW in a place called Byron Bay. I’ve just come back from a jog on the beach and am sitting at the hotel balcony with my laptop checking a few things and updating my blog.

In business there are ups and downs and you should not feel that things might not go the way you planned. The truth is they never do. You WILL hit rock bottom at some poit, both financially and worst of all mentally.

On the flip side the perks are quite remarkable. I’m not really talking about financial perks right now (although these are great) but the perks of freedom. Freedom to get up and go and do whatever you want, whenever you want without requesting permission or feeling guilty about it. If you don’t want to get into business for the money, then the reward of freedom alone, should be enough to convince you to take that step.

After all, when your on your death bed the last thing you will be thinking is, “I wish I worked more”.

Have a great weekend!

(Image www.wtnphotos.com)

What an odd heading. What has your (and my) success got anything to do with women’s Tennis?

I’ll start by listing the top female players in the world using the WTP tour rankings . This was done at the time of writing so if it changes by the time you read it don’t worry… I’m strongly convinced that my point will still stay valid! Well for the next 5-10 yrs anyway.

Top 10 – Women

1. Dinara Safina (RUS)
2. Serena Williams (USA)
3. Elena Dementieva (RUS)
4. Jelena Jankovic (SRB)
5. Venus Williams (USA)
6. Vera Zvonareva (RUS)
7. Ana Ivanovic (SRB)
8. Victoria Azarenka (BLR)
9. Svetlana Kuznetsova (RSA)
10. Nadia Petrova (RUS)

I know your thinking, where am I going with this? Your looking at the similarities and considering whether your name should end in an “a” or that you need to be from Russia or the Balkans in order to become successful. You could try that but there’s a little more to it.

Let me give you a brief run down of the dominant nations here, namely those countries that form part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia as well as Russia. I can see you just sitting there thinking I’ve gone mad with nostalgic school history delirium. Maybe I have a bit but bare with me, just give me 3-4 minutes of your time, it will make sense shortly.

I’ll be going through a very brief time-line after WWII. I’m doing this because that will give us a bit of a background of the Baby Boomers, ie the generation that belongs to the parents’ of these top players. Please note I’m using the great resource of Wikipedia and Infoplease.com for the first example. I’m not that gifted to be able to remember these facts my own!! By no means have I covered everything but there is a chance, and probably have, the facts a little bit mixed up but that’s not my point here. I will get to this a bit later.

Courtesy www.yale.edu

Countries that form the former Republic of Yugoslavia:

• On January 31, 1946, the new constitution of Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was formed
  
• The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 and started to build its own way to socialism under the strong political leadership of Josip Broz Tito.
• After Tito’s death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia, especially in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
• 1991 Slovenia and Croatia each declare independence. Because 12% of Croatia’s population is Serbian, Yugoslavia fights hard against its secession for the next four years. As Croatia moves towards independence, it evicts most of its Serbian population.
• 1992 Ethnic tensions strain to the breaking point, and Bosnia erupts into war. Thousands die and more than a million are displaced. By the time a tenuous peace is achieved in 1995, the country has been partitioned into three areas, with each region governed by one of the three ethnic groups.
• 1996 In the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, the militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) begins attacking Serbian policeman.
• 1998 Milosevic sends troops to Kosovo to quash unrest in the province. A guerrilla war breaks out.
• 1999 After peace talks fail, NATO carries through on its threat to launch airstrikes on Serbian targets.
• 2000 A popular uprising begins. A general strike is called and one million people flood Belgrade. Mobs attack Parliament building, security forces join them or retreat. Milosevic support crumbles, he steps down. Kostunica takes office. U.S., European Union begin to lift economic sanctions
• 2001 Milosevic is arrested by Yugoslavian authorities and charged with corruption and abuse of power.

Let me guess I’ve gone mad now haven’t I? Once again just bare with me a little. Now lets briefly (very briefly) go over Russia. Again I’m looking at post WWII Russia for the same reasons mentioned earlier. Sources used here are Wikipedia and a great Yahoo answer I found which summed it up nicely.

Courtesy www.yvonnefoong.com

• Soviet Union emerged from World War II considerably stronger than it had been before the war. Despite huge losses to its Red Army it extended its control over most of Eastern Europe known as the ‘Iron Curtain’ which separated the ‘Free Peoples’ of Western Europe from the Communist East. (The curtain was made tangible by the ‘Berlin Wall’, which bisected that city after 1961.)
• Despite its power, life in the country continued to suffer. Industrial production was once again concentrated on heavy industry, agricultural failures produced widespread famine, political freedoms were restricted even further, and another huge wave of purges was carried out.
• The Russian leaders also killed an unprecedented number of political prisoners, mainly by shipping them to Siberia or the far north (the ‘gulags’), where they either worked themselves to death or froze.
• In 1989, Russian control of Eastern Europe collapsed, and the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Ok so hopefully you have stuck around to read what I have to say and why I bothered to write a brief history of these nations. What in the world its got to do with womens Tennis and business success?

No one can read through these histories lightly. Many of the incidents that occured are shocking and disturbing. Citizens were subject to the most terrifying conditions where their main goal was to survive until the next day. People who have been subjected to these times of war and hardship have witnessed things people like me, living in the comfort of Australia, don’t dare imagine. These are people of a different mindset and a completely different level of drive and determination. Their drive is one motivated by survival.

As we can see, eight out of the top 10 women tennis players in the world are from these regions. That’s 80%. These are people who’s family history is of an extremely overwhelming background. Their parents were most likely subject to unimaginable hardships and the drive to be successful is paramount. For many of these families, the mentality was that being successful, meant survival. Their drive to succeed was fueled by the prospect of a better life.

You often hear stories of these tennis players starting at an extremely young age, being sent off to Florida alone at the age of 12 in order to make it in professional Tennis. These stories are fueled with over zealous and demanding parents expecting nothing less that success from their children. Why? Because to them, after what they have endured, that success is a matter of survival. Sure, currently the situation in the nations at hand are not what they once were, but the survival mentality and the drive to succeed does not subside.

So to me its not surprising to see a burst of talented Russians, Serbians and Croatians making headlines in the world of professional tennis. The age they enter the sport is rather fitting if you look at what their family and most likely their parents endured.

What I’m trying to get at here is that we can look towards these players for inspiration. Inspiration when it comes to drive and motivation. For us, if we fail we pick ourselves up and try something new. Not all of us have this type of drive and our privileged and cushy lifestyles make it difficult to possess such a level of determination. This is not a bad thing as we take comfort for granted which should not be frowned upon, but understood. If we do fail, its actually not that bad as you can simply pick yourself up and move on or try again.

But I’m going finish this here. I’m not going to conclude my argument or my thoughts, I’ll let you do that. However I will pose this question: how different would your approach to life and success be if failure was truly not an option?

Its quite a broad area but one way you can make money without money online is through selling products online, more specifically in this case, through drop shipping.

I have written a previous post about the pros and cons of drop shipping but in this post I will talk more on how to get started.

A drop shipping business is basically where you sell a product, either online or offline, and after the sale is made you order with the manufacturer (or drop-shipper) and they ship the item directly to your customer. This could be your own private label product or a manufacturers however the principle is the same. You don’t see the product and you don’t hold inventory, all you do is make the sale, process the payment and then place the order with the manufacturer or drop shipper. That’s it. When done correctly its a fantastic way to make money and doesn’t involve a lot of the nuances existent in a ‘normal’ business.

One of the key features of drop shipping is that you need next to nothing to start out, especially in today’s online environment. Sites like eBay and other online marketplaces allow you to sell to thousands on potential buyers and the cost to set up is $0. Here is an example of how to do it using eBay as an example:

1. Sign up with Ebay – FREE
2. Get a Paypal account if you havn’t already got one for processing payments – (also FREE)
3. Check out eBay pulse – this will tell you what the current top searches on eBay are. This information will help you understand what is in high demand on eBay.
4. Once you are aware of what is selling, write a list down of these items and find out what people are willing to pay for them. A good way to do this is to check out other sellers in the category selling similar products and have a look at their feedback. Most of the time you can see what they sold previously and how much the item sold for. Use these sales as a guide to what the items will sell for. Write down a rough price range for each item to refer to in the next step.
5. For each item find the appropriate manufacturers and possible drop shipping companies where you can purchase the product and have it drop shipped. You can find manufacturers and drop shippers at the following places: Alibaba, Craigslist and DHgate.
6. Determine those products that you can make a profit from based on the amount they usually sell for (see step 4).
7. For the profitable products, put an advertisement up on eBay setting the minimum bid at what you need to break even or make a small profit.
8. Sell your products, take the money and then organise the shipment of the item
9. eBay will invoice you once a month (around mid-month) and will include submission fees (fee for placing an auction) and also their commission on the sales you make. Ensure you factor in these fees into your bidding reserve as they will eat into your revenue.

If you take the approach above you actually will never need to spend a cent of your money before you make money. Signing up to eBay is completely free and you will only pay the fees in bulk which most of the time is after you have sold your products so you have the money already. Once you have found the right product it is super easy to develop and automated sales process that can immediately send orders to your drop shipper as soon as your Paypal account has been credited.

You can also set up an online store selling drop shipped items. There are both positives and negatives in starting your own online store. The positives are mainly the fact you don’t need to pay insertion fees to a company like eBay and the commission fees are much much lower. Added to this with less competition (compared to eBay) you can charge a premium for your products. However the other side to this is that you need to find a way to drive traffic to your online store and your main options are paid advertising. These can be offline and online. You can use offline methods like print, flyers etc to drive traffic to your online store and also online traffic methods such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, banners ads or similar. Most of these cost money but probably not enough to turn you away from this path.

If you want to take the online store route then there are plenty of options where you can easily develop a great looking and functional e-commerce ready store. My favorite is Shopify and there is a Free Trial so you can test it out. It’s not expensive at about $24 per month for a normal sized business selling 100 units. This can be much cheaper than eBay if you get it working well. Essentially that means you can set up a free store (using the trial) and all you need to do is drive traffic to it, no inventory, no staff and no bulk orders. It shouldn’t take longer than 30 days to start making money from it so you already have money to pay their monthly fee starting from the second month. So in this example you have again effetively started with virtually no capital.

I have tried both of these and both of them worked well. I was able to charge more with my online store with Shopify however eBay sales came easier but much less profit.

Do dropshipping right and you to will realise just how little money you need to establish a great revenue stream.

Many of you may be aware I’m quite into reading other Blogs and quite often I refer to those that I read. You may also have heard me mention Yaro Starak’s blog Entrepreneurs Journey.com.

Well Yaro just released his Membership Site Masterplan and I have got my hands on it. Put simply, its fantastic. Its very thorough and tells you pretty much everything you want to know about starting a membership site. He has been there and done that, which I believe is the key to being able to provide great value, so naturally this ebook is fantastic value.

What I can’t believe is that it’s a whopping 72 pages of Membership Site gold from the brain of one of the best, yet its absolutely FREE.

Here is a link to Membership Site Mastermind.com where you can get a free copy of this masterplan. I strongly recommend you do, if not for information about starting and growing a membership site, but for understanding more about online marketing and how to use the resources around you to promote your offering.

Nothing makes me cringe more than hearing someone say “you need money to make money“. Simply put, this is a load of crap. For many of the people who say this, it’s purely as an excuse which they try to pass off as a reason. However that’s all it is, an excuse. It’s an excuse so they don’t put themselves out there in a world where failure is a definite possibility. Its an excuse to not have to put in any effort. Most notably is an excuse to themselves as to why they are where they are and why they are not happy. People feel validated by this excuse and keep reminding themselves that having no money is the reason they are unable to achieve their goals. It’s the easy way out.

In my experience the amount of money that I have spent on starting and growing a business has had very little effect on its profitability or success. I have spent $50k developing a mobile advertising network which although has proved successful, has not netted me anywhere near what I was expecting. Yet on the other hand, I created several mobile sites, each one under $100 and they have taken off, in fact they have produced more of a profit than my 50k project! I wouldn’t call the 50k project a flop, as it works great, but I would call the smaller projects huge successes and examples of how I didn’t really need money to make money.

The level of success of my businesses have been completely disproportional to the amount of capital invested, however totally proportional to the amount of value they provide. In later posts I will go through the various options but for now I wanted to share a few examples. Firstly, so that you can stop thinking that you need money to make money and secondly to start thinking about how value, hard work and determination creates money.

1. Plenty of Fish: Markus Frind started this dating site with nothing. It started as a hobby when he was trying to learn ASP.net programming and decided to practice on a dating site. He worked on it a few hours a night and did it because it was a challenge to his ASP.net skills. But what he created was immense value. Value in that all other dating sites around the world charged members to talk to other members. Markus didn’t charge a cent for this service and this was value according to site members. The sites popularity spread massively to where it is today, a 1.5billion page behemoth making anywhere between $5-10 million a year in Adsense revenue. All he did was create a simple service that others would charge for, charge nothing for it and make money through advertising. Simple.
2. Shoemoney: Started the now famous Shoemoney blog. Started off struggling to hold a job. Found out how to turn images into wallpapers for a mobile phone.  Told others how to do it and got a great response. Set up next-pimp.com and used Google Adsense for revenue. Then moved into the ringtones industry and made more money with Adsense (leading to his famous $132,994.97 Adsense cheque) until he got into the subscription/membership revenue model. He had 70,000 members paying 19.95 every 6 months and generating over 3 millions dollars for that year as a recurring income. Once again the fact he had no money to start with didn’t mean he couldn’t make money.
3. J.K. Rowling - Do I need to explain? Born in Bristol, England into a middle class family. Hit hard by the death of her mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, and left for Portugal where she married and had a daughter. Returned to Edinburgh a single mom; lived on welfare while finishing her first Harry Potter tale. (Forbes). She went from living on welfare becoming one of the richest woman in Britain in the space of a few years. The 2008 Rowling’s estimated fortune was £560 million ($798 US million).
4. Steve Jobs – Adopted and could not afford to stay in college so co-founded Apple in his parents garage. Has has been monumental in how we use personal computers today and has changed entertainment forever with the introduction of the category and history killing iPod. Once again, starting with nothing but an idea, created a remarkable product and value… now the rest is history.
5. 2/3rds of the worlds billionaires – not a person or a company but more an institution. 2/3rds of the worlds billionaires started out with next to nothing. It was determination and drive that got them to where they are now. These are people who faced adversity many times over and yet still overcame the difficulties to become extremely successful in their field.

This is why whenever I hear that dreaded saying I cringe. People who were in much worse sitatuations than you and I have been able to overcome barriers much worse than simply start up capital problems. We are talking about prosecution, famine, war and other situations which many of us have been fortunate enough not to have been exposed to. It’s not that the doubters don’t have the money, but rather they don’t have the determination, drive and passion when it comes to following their dreams.