Living a Wealthy Life

I am taking on the challenge to write 100 articles in 100 days for ezinearticles.com. I will use the articles to market my new 14 week (soon to be 14 day) e-course on making money with Aweber. You can check out the course for free if you want at www.richacademy.com/aweber.

The goal with this e-course is to begin to create a passive income online. I have always been (and I think I always will be) all about generating passive income. That is income you work for once, and then don’t have to work for again. My e-course will do that in a number of ways:

• By teaching people how to make money online I will also be recommending a few different products and services. Such as:
  • Aweber itself
  • Hostgator hosting (I can offer my readers $0.01/month hosting if they use the coupon code “ryanmclean”)
  • ODesk outsourcing
  • Affiliate sites such as Market Leverage and Motive Interactive
  • My own products yet to be created

The goal is to have everything eventually run on autopilot. Once I finish writing the 14 lesson course I will move it from a 14 week course to a 14 day course. I will then create a years worth of weekly emails as well. These will all be sent out automatically once I subscribe.

With my marketing I will be using Ezinearticles.com and other article directories to submit my articles to. This will create a good spurt of traffic when the articles first go live (as they go on the EzineArticle.com homepage) and it will also generate me passive traffic over the long term.

Eventually as income goes up and up I will use some of my passive income to hire full time writers on ODesk. You can get english speakers to work for you for as little as $1/hour. Full time that is $40/week or $2080/year to write articles and market my course full time. That will make everything passive.

• Traffic will be passive as I will have a bunch of articles out there marketing my site.
• Lead generation will be passive as it is simply a squeeze page on www.richacademy.com/aweber
• Sales will be passive as emails are sent out automatically
• When people sign up for services like Aweber I will receive passive income as a commission
• Eventually growth of my traffic and business will be passive as I can pay people to market my website for me.

The goal is not to achieve anything quickly. The goal is to earn enough passive income in the next 4 years to be able to become financially free.

EzineArticles.com are doing a challenge…100 Articlies in 100 Days…if you succeed you get a bunch of free stuff. If you double it and write 200 articles in 100 days then you also get a pretty good leather bound journal. So I am aiming for that. My journal is about to run out and I wouldn’t mind a new one. The 200 articles will do wonders for marketing my new ecourse and it will be good for me to get in the habit of writing again. And the freebies will be a plus too. I love a good challenge. Wish me luck.

In my mind I think goal should be fun. If a goal isn’t fun to go after, then it is going to be a lot harder to achieve. I like to make my goals fun, then going after them makes life a lot more interesting. My latest fun goal that I have created for myself is this

To be able to send out an email broadcast through Aweber and make $1,000 or more within 24 hours.

It would be nice to be able to say “Oh, I just need a lazy thousand for…(insert reason here)…I’ll just send out an email to my readers recommending them this awesome product”.

To be able to do that would certainly make those stressfully money situations a bit less stressful.

I think that is a fun goal to aim for. I don’t really have a time frame for it. I am looking to really give a good crack at monetizing my list this year and growing it even bigger…so I guess I want to achieve it this year.

Do you have any fun goals you want to share?

Sometimes my head gets so full that I just need to get all my thoughts out onto paper. Sometimes my drawers and desks fill up with so many notes that I just need to read them, summarise them and write them down. That is what this is.

Recently I went to a business conference with my friend. I wrote a lot of notes and now they are cluttering up my life, so it is time to go through them, get them onto paper and share them with the world. There was some really great stuff said at this conference, that is why I don’t want to forget it.

Business Formula For Success

The goal in any business is profit. So how can you achieve that? Here is the formula I learned for achieving success

Leads x Conversion Rates = Number of Customers

Number of Customers x Average Dollar Sale x Frequency of Transaction = Turnover

Turnover x Margin = Profit

If you are starting a business from scratch then you want to focus on your conversion rates, average cost of sale and frequency of transaction and improve those things. Many people focus on getting more and more leads/customers, but instead you should focus on taking your current customers and getting the most from them.

How To Get The Most From Your Customers

1. Keep Regular Contact – 7 touches leads to a sale, so keep the contact going
2. Have Some Sort of Loyalty Program – You want customers to stay for the long term, so give them long term incentives
3. Create and Keep A Database – I do this by building up email subscribers through Aweber
4. Inform Your Customers of Your Entire Range – If they trust you enough to buy one thing off you, they might buy another thing off you. I have just started doing this and I had 5.5% of customers from my property newsletter covert to a free course on how to generate a passive income online

How To Improve Your Average Dollar Sale

• First learn what your average dollar sale is
• Cross sell, but make sure you have the big sale first
• Scarcity sells! It always has and always will. Make your product scarce. I have done this with CashFlow Investor by limiting the service to 100 members
• Have the courage and guts to increase your prices. Create value so people won’t be focused on price.

The market is never hard to get into. It is only hard if your products don’t meet the market

- Murray Priestly

Old Media and New Media

People these days are getting ad resistant. The average consumer is exposed to over 3,000 ads per day…no wonder they are numb to advertising. The world is changing, and the old media form of advertising (bombarding people with one way ads) doesn’t work as well anymore.

Did you know that 96% of Gen Y’s have joined a social network? That tells you something about the way things are changing.

Many people treat new media like old media by bombarding people with advertising. Instead of putting an ad on facebook how can you make people fell connected? You need to create ideas that people can gather around.

Weaknesses and Strenths

Did you know your weaknesses can be your strengths? Your weaknesses can be what set you apart from your competitors. Your weakness could be your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Leading In Business

1. Take A Leadership on Price – Sometimes cheap is good, sometime you need to be expensive to stand out. Take leadership and make the right decision on price. Don’t be swayed by your competitors pricing.
2. Offer Quality, and An Image of Quality – People want to buy quality and they want to think they are buying quality. They get enjoyment out of buying quality. So make sure you present an image of quality.
3. Create Mass Appeal – Make your product fun and accessible to everyone
4. Focus – Focus on what makes you stand out from the crowd and do that well.

Income Producing Activities

There are only some things you do each day that actually produce income. I need to focus my time on the income producing activities that PUT MONEY IN THE BANK.

Until you are making $1,000,000 with your business then 80% of your time needs to be focused on sales and marketing.

Focus

In order to break through the wall of success it is important to focus your efforts. There are 3 ways to successful focus

1. Message/Product – Focus your product for a niche
2. Market – Focus into a niche market
3. Method – Focus on the method you use to market and get your product to your people

There you have it. A bit jumbled up, but as I said I just needed to get it written down so it can stop clogging up my life.

I have been learning, yesterday and today, how important it is to have multiple streams of marketing to your business. This bascally is a fancy way of saying that you need to have multiple ways that people can find your site.

Sharon Tieman (MadameMarketing.com.au) relates each business to a chair. Imagine if the chair you were sitting on right now had only one leg (not like a computer chair that splays out at the end but just one thin leg all the way down), how stable would that chair be?not very stable. If your business has only one method of getting customers then it is like a one legged chair…it is unstable. If that form of getting customers was to dry up then your business would collapse.

In order to market my new business I have been using one major forum to get traffic to my site. I was the one legged chair, my traffic was based on one source of income. Yesterday and today that traffic has been almost completely dried up and I have been flagged as a spammer. I’m not deleted from the forum but I have to really take a step back and remove all links to my website. Thus my regular stream of customers has almost dried up.

Luckily I have been building a list of leads by using Aweber. This has been a lifesaver for me, instead of having to go out and get traffic, I now have ways I can reach people. I would recommend Aweber (which is a service that collects and manages email databases) to every online business offer. It is a great idea to use Aweber to collect names and emails of potential customers so if your marketing does dry up, then you have a list of customers that you can approach directly to sell your services.

Being temporarily marked as a spammer on the forums has actually been really good for my business. It has forced me to look at other methods of marketing and create multiple legs for my chair. I did a brainstorming session and came up with around 20 different ways I could market my business. Some are harder than others, some cost more money than others, some are small scale and some are larger scale but it was a good exercise for me to know that if my traffic from one source suddenly dies I will have 19 or more other ways to get customers.

Here is a list of some of the ideas I had

1. Forum Marketing
This is currently the only leg of my marketing campaign. Well it is not the only leg…but it is the major leg. Basically it involves being active and helpful in forums and leaving a signature with a link back to your website. Unfortunately I have been TOO active, and have written some spammy posts I shouldn’t have, so this is on hold for a little while.

2. Business Cards
I have had 250 made up for a cost of around $40. I got these made up for networking opportunities that might pop up. When you meet someone new and they ask you what you do you can tell them, then if they are interested I can give them a business card so they can remember what my site is and what my business does.

3. Email Signatures
I send quite a few emails each day to a lot of different people. Instead of just having my name and email address at the bottom of each email I could have a signature linking to my site and a quick 1-2 line spiel about about what my site it. Not the best form of marketing, but could definately drive a few customers over the long term. Once the signature is set up you can just forget about it and go on with your normal emailing, so it doesn’t take any extra effort.

4. Networking at Conferences
I have been going to a few investing/business conferences with friends. So far I have only attended free conferences. But these have proven a great place to get out of my comfort zone and network with people and tell people what I do. I had a good response at a conference a couple of weeks ago, and with the use of business cards and other handouts I could possibly convert these networking opportunities into sales. I was debating on going to Steve McKnight’s mega conference in May. But it will cost $500 for the ticket and probably another $500 for flights and accommodation, so I would need to make a few sales to make up for it. At the moment I will keep my eye out for free conferences.

5. Magazine Publications
There are quite a few print magazines in my niche and I could place advertising in these magazines. I don’t know how effective this advertising would be, after all I never look at the ads when I flick through magazines. But if I could get an ad for cheap, then it might be a worthwhile investment…or at least something fun to try.

6. PPC Marketing
This is how I started microtesting my business idea. PPC can drive a lot of traffic fast and give you a lot of sales. My only problem is that my marketing budget is effectively $0, until I start making money, that I can’t afford to blow a lot of money on $1-$2 clicks. Because of this I have set up campaigns with a maximum Pay Per Click of 10 cents. With everyone else paying dollars this makes it hard for me to get much traffic. But the more I learn about PPC and try and test PPC the more effective I will get.

7. Holding a Property Investing Group
As I have been looking through the forums I have seen a lot of people holding investment groups (generally in other states….not NSW) and I had the idea of starting my own investment group. I could have a focus on investing in positive cash flow property and I could have guest speakers come every once and a while. It would be a great place to network and a great place for myself (and other’s) to pitch their businesses. I think I will do this further down the track when my network is bigger than it is now.

8. Email Marketing
Over the years I have built up an email list of over 1,500 people. I could use this list and email the details of my site to this list and the benefits of joining. Also, I send out weekly teaching emails to this list and I could simply include some banner ads/signatures in the emails linking to my site. The only problem is that my business is for Australians only at the moment and my list contains people from all over the world.

9. Article Marketing
I have had some success with article marketing when it came to building my email list. When I was actively writing articles and submitting them to directories such as Ezinearticles.com I was getting 5-10 signup per day (people signing up to join my free newsletter). Now that I have all but forgotten about my article marketing campaign I am still getting around 1-2 signups per day. If I could do this, but specialise for keywords in the field of my business and try to target Australians this could be a great source of new leads.

10. Trade Shows
Ever been to trade shows and seen people with stands advertising their business? Maybe I could set up a stall at conferences or property investing trade shows to market my business.

11. Newspapers
I could advertise in the the classifieds in the paper. I could try the local paper, or try a big paper like the Sunday Telegraph. With a strong call to action and reason to act I could get a few responses from this.

12. Yellow Pages
This one I am not sure about. It’s free to list your business with the yellow pages so this could be a good form of passive advertising. If I put a catchy ad in a relevant section I could get a few leads per year. Not the best form of advertising, but this is not about having one method that generates HEAPS of leads, but having lots of different sources of marketing. Each method is like a small stream that flows into one big river that makes your business profitable.

13. Run a Blog
As well as article marketing I could run a blog on my site. I don’t think I could be bothered to run a blog without using the articles for article marketing. It is just too much effort without enough return. The advantage of using the same articles for a blog is that you can engage readers, get some search engine traffic (though most will go to ezinearticles) and hopefully get some social media traffic from places like digg, facebook and twitter. Running a blog is a lot of effort, so whether or not I can be bothered will determine how much traffic I get from this.

14. Comment on Blogs
Instead of trying to create a successful blog of my own, I could just piggyback off other people’s successful blogs. I am sure there are some big blogs out there in my niche market that I can target and comment on. Each comment leaves a link back to my site, and thus traffic is created and leads can be captured. Another method that can create a small amount of traffic.

15. Write Guest Articles for Blogs, Magazines and Newspapers
Again this is another way to piggyback off someone else’s success. As an owner of a blog (this blog) and as a previous owner of a finance/make money online blog (which I updated daily), I know that a blogger is stoked when someone else offers to guest post on their blog. For a blogger this means free content and a day off work. For me as a guest poster it means free traffic for a small amount of effort. If I can not just guest post once, but create a relationship with the bloggers then this could lead to joint ventures down the track. Magazines would be harder to get articles into as they generally pay professionals full time to create their magazines, and newspapers would probably be even harder, but once you get in the door once I am sure the second time would be easier.

16. Letterbox Flyers
There are over 200,000 people in the shire and over 4 million people in Sydney, all of which can be accessed by doing giving out flyers into people’s letterboxes. Now with access to that many people I am sure I can generate a few leads by doing some letterbox drops and it could get me some exercise too. All I need to do is find a cost effective way of creating flyers that convert people into sales, and a way (apart from myself) of getting them delivered to everyone in Sydney for cheap.

17. Private Ads Online
Many websites (such as blog) run private ad space. I could pay to get ads on Australian websites. Usually this is expensive for the leads you can get, but maybe I can strike a deal with some of the blog owners. If I can get a really good deal then I will definately consider this.

18. Write a Book
This sounds like a bit of a random idea but a book can actually be an excellent marketing tool. When I was 18 I went to the library and I read a book called “The One Minute Millionaire” by Robert Allen. It was free to read, because it was from the library, so Robert Allen made no money from me reading that book. But in his book he gave links to his website, links to get free extra bonus material. I went and got the free bonus material and eventually ended up paying $6,000 for his course. Simply reading his book I was drawn to buy what he was offering. A book seems to be moving away from a way to make money, and instead is more a method of marketing a building credibility than anything else.

19. Affiliate Sales
This is probably the option I am considering the most. Getting affiliate to market my service for me. That way I don’t have to focus as much on marketing, and I only have to pay for it when a sale is made. Affiliates only make money once a sale is made. I could either offer a one off payment, or a monthly payment for as long as the customer stays with me. It is heavily on my mind and I think I will need to do this if I eventually want to grow my business exponentially.

20. Other People’s Email Lists
Just as I have an email list of 1,500 people, other people also have email lists. If I could find someone with an email list of people from Australia, and people who are interested in what I am offering then this could be a great way to get new customers. Basically you pay the owner of the list for them to send out an email on your behalf, or write an email recommending you. The bigger and more targeted the list, the more money you have to pay in order to market your product to your list. Just writing this I am now realising there is huge business potential just in creating targeted lists and selling advertising emails to businesses.

21. Joint Ventures
Instead of paying to market to other people’s email lists I can instead do a joint venture. I could let them market to my list if I can market to their, or I can offer them an affiliate commission on all the leads/sales that are made through their email list. Instead of opening up an affiliate program for every man and their dog to join, I could be specific and only offer affiliate commissions to people with a larger reach. People with large lists, or large blogs that can drive a lot of sales. That way I don’t have to manage the small timers and can focus more on the people who will create the most profit for me.

22. Search Engine Optimisation
I guess this really goes hand in hand with a Blog, Article Marking and PPC. In order to drive significant amounts of traffic and sales you need to use SEO. I will focus on specific terms to attract the right sort of people to my site, and hopefully this will create sales.

23. Use RyanMcLean.net To Market My Business
This website is already getting a decent amount of traffic. Not a lot (around 1,500 visitors per month), but I could use this traffic to create some traffic for my product.

24. Set Up a Twitter Account or a Facebook Account
Every man and his dog is using twitter these days. I could set up a twitter account to help build a following and market my product. Like a blog this takes ongoing effort, less so than a blog as it is only 130 characters, but it still takes daily input. You can set up automated accounts with twitter, to trawl the net and find relevant posts and tweet them for you…but twitter is starting to crack down on this, and I just don’t think it is my style. If I set up a blog I will definately set up a twitter account. Research has actually shown that twitter is an incredible way to drive traffic and to create sales.

25. Word of Mouth
Eventually as my company grows then my customer database will grow by word of mouth. If people like my service they will tell their friends who might try my service and tell their friends. This doesn’t happen right off the bat, but with time this is the ultimate form of marketing. Because people trust their friends and they WANT to buy what their friends are buying a recommending. Studies have been done that show a lot of people RELY of their friend recommendations before spending money.

All in all I say this to bring home the idea that I need to have multiple methods of marketing my business. Just relying on one method will not suffice, it is too risky and you can lose your business overnight if your one marketing method falls to the floor. By creating multiple methods of marketing you are ensuring that your business gets a steady flow of new customers and survives the test of time.

I love reading books. Two of the most recent books I have read are Richard Branson’s books “Losing My Virginity” and “Business Stripped Bare”. Richard Branson has recently become one of my heroes (in the last few years) ever since I found out about Virgin Galactic.

It has long been my dream to go into space. So much so that in year 11 in high school I went to not one but TWO space camps…did someone say nerd? Branson is making space travel available to the general public for a few hundred thousand dollars and for that I admire him. Soon I will be able to achieve my dream of space travel…once I am a roaring business success.

REVOLUTIONISING AN INDUSTRY

Branson’s books are basically an autobiography of his life. He tells in great details the things he has done, and how he has achieved them. Branson looks for industries where there is little competition and he feels the customer is getting ripped off. He then launches business to offer and better service for cheaper to his customers.

Virgin Blue in Australia is one of the top low fare airlines, it came into the game when Quantas and Ansett were the only real competitors and it revolutionized cheap airfare in Australia. Virgin mobile was launched by offering prepaid to customers who couldn’t get a plan (this was before prepaid was the norm). He launched Virgin Record stores to offer discounted records and a better buying experience for customers who were getting ripped off. Branson makes billions by finding industries where the customer is being sold a raw deal. He has revolutionized many industries by providing more for less.

HOW I WANT TO DO BUSINESS

My current business idea that I am working on is in an industry where I feel customers are being sold a raw deal. It is my aim to offer customers a great service for a fraction of the cost they would currently have to pay.

I really like Branson’s method of creating a lot of businesses in different sectors. Most people focus on one area of expertise and stop there. I think that I want to be like Branson in the fact that I want to start businesses in lots of different areas. I want to find industries where the customer is getting a raw deal and I want to offer a better service at a better price.

I am working on one at the moment, and when that is successful I already have another business idea that I want to work on. My second idea will be offline and will require some capital first, so it requires the success of at least one business before it.

Gone are the days of trying to make money blogging. I feel I am really developing as an entrepreneur and moving up to bigger and better things. I want to start and run businesses that hire other people, that stimulate the economy more than just my own pocket.

MOVING INTO COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

In the future I want to start businesses and use them to buy property. The cash from my first business I will use to invest in property and achieve financial freedom. I will also use it to fund my next few businesses. Eventually I want to start businesses and use them to buy the real estate they operate on. Then sell the business and keep the real estate. Something like a restaurant. Start a restaurant and use it to buy it’s location, then sell the restaurant and charge rent for the property. This sounds like a good way for me to move into commercial property.

MY JOURNEY FROM WANABE PASTOR TO ENTREPRENEUR

I have had an interesting journey over the last few years. In 2006 I started bible college with the goal to be a youth pastor. In 2008 I quit college and got married and decided that being a pastor was not for me.

Firstly, I don’t have the mercy to be a pastor. I am blunt, which is often interpreted as being rude, and I just don’t have much empathy for people. Being a pastor would drive me crazy…all the hugs and the caring just isn’t my style. I would prefer to live an exceptional life and just show people how to do the same…not cuddle them through their problems.

I did a spiritual gift test and Mercy was my lowest ranking gift, I got HALF the points for mercy as I did for the 2nd lowest gift. I figure I am better off focusing on my strengths (which I am told by the test that they are teaching and preaching) than trying to fix what is obviously a weakness. Just my opinion.

The change from pastor to entrepreneur happened as I began to find myself not achieving much in the church environment. I was leading a small group, but as far as being pastoral went I wasn’t very good at it. I think this is partly caused by me trying to be ‘the perfect christian’ on the outside, but not being real with who I actually was on the inside.

Throughout bible college I explored ways to make money online. I tried designing tshirts, I tried blogging and ran over 50 failed blogs. When I finished college in 2008 I was making money as a freelance writer online, but this was cheap work and I wasn’t making much money.

It wasn’t until last year when I decided to stop my attempts to make money in each and every way online that I started to get focused. I realised that trying to make money 100 different ways meant I made almost nothing. So I decided to take a time out and then focus.

In the last half of 2009 I pretty much gave up blogging and spent my time reading book after book on finance and investing. Robert Kiyosaki changed the way I thought about money and business. Now I am a changed man, and I have a clear vision about what I want to achieve and how I want to achieve it.

Moving from a bible college student to an entrepreneur was a gradual process. I love the challenge of starting and running business and I love the positive change you can create. I now doubt I would ever be a pastor, it seems to limiting for me.

I will definately minister the good news, but it will look different to what I thought it would be like when I started bible college in 2006. I love business and I am definately glad to be making it my life.

I am happier now than I can ever remember being in my entire life, and that joy spreads through my family. It benefits my wife and my daughter. I am exactly the man I want to be right now, and I am so happy to be real with myself and who I am. I hated being a fake Christian…pretending I was holy and ignoring the real me. I am so glad to be me and my relationship with God has only grown because of it.

Microtesting my business idea has to go down as one of the best business decisions I have made to date.

I am an impulsive person! As soon as I get an idea I want to run with it. This often leads to me not being prepared to do business properly and doing a half assed job.

By microtesting my business idea I have been able to develop my business without the expenses of running it, and without having to deal with customers. I have been able to test whether it would be a viable business idea (which it is) and was able to tweak it to maximize profits, conversions and traffic to the site. Microtesting has also allowed me to research the legal side of my business and make sure I protect myself with disclaimers, legal advice and corporate structures.

This will probably be my last post on microtesting for the time being as I have actually finished microtesting and am currently building up my marketing campaign. I just wanted to close off this chapter of my life on the blog so I can move on.

Wow, people like to take their sweet time. I am currently microtesting a business idea…well it has moved more from microtesting to setting up and building a database for a launch, and I have begun to see why everyone talks so much about having a time sensitive offer.

Whenever I go to conferences they always have an offer for “Today Only”. This is to try and get people to take action.

On my site I start with having a 50% offer and I made it valid only for a couple of days, and I found that I go a few signups by doing this. It was a pain in the ass changing the dates all the time so I created a special offer and made it valid for about 2 weeks. I thought this was still short enough to bring in sales but I was wrong.

Everyone seems to be waiting out. They are not forced to make a decision immediately (Today Only) so they take their time and weigh up the options. I wonder whether when it comes to the end of March (when the offer ends) I will get an influx of people wanting to sign up. Time will tell.

I am currently in the process of formulating and finalising the two different membership types on my website (still can’t reveal the website yet). Basically I will be offering a monthly subscription service, but I don’t want people to sign up for one month and then get all of the data and leave, so I have been trying to work out ways to get people to sign up for a full year at a time.

I am going to employ what I call the three legged walker sales close. Odd name for a sales close but let me explain.

I work at a Chemist, and we also sell aged care products such as incontinence pads, beds, chairs and walkers. When you come in to choose your walker most people don’t want to spend a lot of money so they will look at the base model. The base model is a three legged walker with no seat. It is $189 and you have to buy the basket separately. The next model up from that is the base model four legged walker. This has a seat and a basket included and costs only $169. So why would anyone buy the three legged base model?

The answer is: They wouldn’t!

When someone comes in to buy a walker for their parents, or themselves, they are likely not going to want to spend a lot of money. To come to them and say this 4 legged walker costs $169 they could be shell shocked and refuse to pay $169 for a walker. But instead they come in and are first introduced to the three legged walker, without a seat or basket for $189. This seems expensive but then when you look at the 4 legged walker with a seat and a basket for only $169, all of a sudden this seems like a great deal.

You get all these added extras, that would be extremely helpful to that person’s life, and you are saving $20! So now, instead of simply focusing on the $169 and how much that costs, the customer is thinking about the added extras they will get and the $20 (or more) they will save if they buy the 4 legged walker.

I have not yet seen one 3 legged walker sold, nor have I even seen an elderly person walking around with a 3 legged walker. Elderly people who need a walker to get around want a seat, and they want a basket and they love the discount. I think the walker company would be shell shocked if someone ordered the 3 legged walker. They probably don’t even stock any because they know they will never sell them.

The 3 legged walker is not there to be sold, it is there merely to sell the 4 legged walker. It is to make the 4 legged walker look good in comparison to something else.

I am going to use this technique on my website (I think). Instead of only offering a yearly subscription fee and everything you get with that I will offer two options. I will first introduce them to the more expensive monthly fee, without any extras, and then I will introduce them to the cheaper one year alternative which has a whole bunch of added extras. The monthly subscription is not there to be sold, it is there to sell the yearly subscription.

Some may say that this is a nasty trick, but I don’t think it is. The yearly subscription is already great value, underpriced and will be an incredible asset to the customers’ lives. It is already worth every penny they would spend on it. But people freak out when they see big numbers and avoid making a decision that will benefit their lives. So you put something overpriced in there to ease the customers mind about spending money on the original product. You are, through an interesting method, helping the customer have a satisfying purchasing experience.

Let’s face it, old people need walkers so they would buy them anyway. But what is better for the customer? Them walking out angry and frustrated and depressed that they had to spend $169 on a walker, or walking out happy and overjoyed that they saved $20 AND got a bunch of bonus extras for only $169. One sales method adds to the customers life by giving them a good experience, one takes away from their live by giving them a bad experience. They end up with the same product, but different experiences.

So that is the Three Legged Walked Sales Close. I am almost certainly going to use this in my business.

I was reading my bible the other day. Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed or a bit down in the dumps I like to read my bible. Somehow the wisdom from thousands of years of experience and relationship with God soothes my nerves…not to mention that God points things out to me.

As usual I was looking through Proverbs, my favourite book in the bible. In case you don’t know it is mainly written by King Solomon who is considered by many to be the wisest man and the richest man who ever lived. I was reading ‘The Message’ version which is a modern day paraphrase of the bible and I came across one verse that struck me.

“Sell everything and buy Wisdom, forage for understanding”

Ever since I was a kid it was always my prayer to get wisdom. I was inspired by the story of Solomon, who God gave one ‘wish’. God said he could have whatever he wanted, he only had to ask. Instead of asking for riches, or women, or power or glory he asked for wisdom. Because he asked for wisdom and not the other things God gave him wisdom, but he also gave him everything else as well. Ever since reading that I have always asked for wisdom.

Ask my wife, or my friends and they will tell you that I love learning. When it comes to business and investing my main priority is not to make money right off the bat, but to learn and get wisdom. Because the more wisdom you get, the more money you make.

The other day, when I read this verse, I was feeling overwhelmed. I have just become a dad to my baby girl Sasha, and my head has not exactly been in the game. I have been torn between caring for her, trying to get sleep, trying to close on my first investment property and trying to microtest and start a new business. It has been a fairly full on process. Trying to make a decision on what to focus on has been hard.

But this concept of doing everything you can in order to gain wisdom really drummed home for me what I needed to do. Property is great, and I will continue to invest in property, but without income and borrowing power it can be extremely difficult. More importantly it can be difficult to become financially free quickly through property (without any income to support your investments).

My business on the other hand, could gross me over $120k/year with minimal time investment. Costs would probably run at around $40k/year so that is an almost passive income of $80,000/year. Not bad seeing as I am currently earning $15-20k/year at my current job. If I could completely outsource the running of the business then I have effectively created a passive income for myself of $80,000/year an I am effectively financially free.

There is not one way to financial freedom there is many. Sometimes you have to deviate from your original plan in order to pursue something better, or to make your plan work better. This business will make it easier for me to invest in property and make money in property, and become financially free all over again in property.

Wisdom said to me, sell everything you have in order to obtain me. That means, if you have to, sell the idea of investing in property for the time being. That also means, focus some time on learning how to build businesses and growing wisdom in that area. Because of spending some time reading the bible I am now emotionally stable, and I have reestablished my focus and I am moving forward.

Is it possible to shortcut financial freedom?

Will it really take you 5, 10 or 20 years before you can become financially free and live the life of your dreams? I don’t think it has to be like that.

Let’s use me as an example (because let’s face it what other example am I going to use?). I need to earn a minimum of $40k per year in order to become financially free. If I only use the method of buying cheap residential houses in order to achieve that I am going to need to own around 40 houses. It is possible but I don’t think I will achieve that amount of properties in one or two years.

However, I could possibly fast track my road to financial freedom by using subdivisions and developments. One property I am thinking of buying has the potential to subdivide and sell off the land. It is negative cashflow $20, but I could draw $35-$40k out of it by selling the land. That is enough for me and my family to live off for one year.

Technically it is not ‘financial freedom’ as I am still technically working for that money, it isn’t passive. But it allows me to stop working in my job and to spend time with my family and working on building up passive income through other property purchases.

It might take me 10 years to buy 40 properties and achieve my goal of $40,000 per year. But what if each year I could buy 1 property and draw out $40k to live off. Then spend the rest of my time buying properties that deliver positive cashflow. It still might take me 10 years to become ‘financially free’ but I get to do what I want in those 10 years and enjoy the high life.

To me that is certainly a fast track to the type of life I want to live. It might cost you $20/week to get that $40k out, but that leaves you $39k for whatever you want.

This proves to me that there isn’t one specific way to success. I prefer positive cashflow properties over negative cashflow ones, but if it achieves what you want it to achieve either can work just fine.