Make Money Blogging

It’s a funny thing really. I write posts telling people not to bribe a dmoz editor, and then I see them finding my blog looking for ways to bribe a dmoz editor. I use various stats tracking programs on this blog. I utilize Google Webmaster Services, Google Analytics, and some built in systems like Webalizer in my C-Panel. This allows me to see what people are search for when they find me.

I guess when you post something telling people it’s a bad idea, you will attract people looking to do what you are telling them not to. Your post can get ranked unintentionally for something. This just goes to show that if you write posts on a regular basis, it will bring in traffic from unlikely sources.

The problem here is that most people need to learn from their mistakes on their own. In this case, it will cost them dearly for not following my advice. Your chances of finding a crooked dmoz editor is equal to winning the power ball jackpot while being struck by lighting and getting some head from Britney Spears at the same time. Good luck. That means that you are guaranteed blacklisted for trying. To quote a famous saying, “just say no”.

I will keep this short, and just give the tip here. I have been watching my cpanel webalizer stats closely, and I occasionally see someone smart enough to track how I do my marketing. They want to see how it is that I do what I do so well.

My tip here is to tell you to watch every stats program you have, and copy what your competitors are doing to you, but you do it to your biggest competition. Do searches for your competitors links, and their web cache. See how they changed from their past marketing efforts by looking at their history. What you end up finding is that they learned through trial and error, and you can avoid that whole process by figuring out how they changed.

The high end customers are basically the customers with the most amount of money. These are the ones that will pay $5,000+ for a simple product or service. Of course, the product or service must match what the average high end customer is looking for.

To find out what a high end customer is looking for, just turn on your television. You can see an example of high end customers by watching the red carpet, or checking out shows that target rich people like The Kardashians, or Million Dollar Listings.

Keep in mind that you are getting yourself into something serious when dealing with rich people. Most rich people have a sense of entitlement, even when they don’t deserve it. They will be a very demanding customer. If your business hours are 9-5 before you get a rich customer, expect to be on-call after you get your first rich customer. If they pay the big bucks for your product or service, they want customer service and support to go with it.

I have had a few high end clients in my life, and to be honest, they were just not worth the hassle. I believe that the homeless man on the street has the same worth at the billionaire on Wallstreet. Therefore, I will not donate my time to a high end client who paid for business hours. I have had some high end clients who were just too demanding.

My services have a worth, and just because it may have cost them many thousands of dollars, does not mean that they become my single client for daily consultations.
With that being said, choose your customers carefully. The type of customer you attract depends on the business you are in. An example would be the web development business. There are many jokers out there that post offensive gigs on Craigslist for web designers, and they offer to give the designer credit on the website because they cannot afford to pay. The fact is that web designers automatically have the legal right to post the “website designed by” credit on the website footer, or another unobtrusive area even if you pay for the website. So for that credit to be payment in itself is a complete joke.

In addition, some low-balling customers demand this and that for below industry standard prices. Those are the types of customers to avoid. The customer essentially gets what they pay for. Do not expect to find a quality designer for less than $50 per hour unless they are hard-up for the money for some reason.

The rule applies to any industry, not just web design. YOU determine your industry worth with the prices you charge and the customers you decide to work with.

It might not be the most noble of reasons for donating your time or money, but it is a marketing technique. When you donate your time for an event, the event planner usually allows you to promote your business is some way. This may be in the form of your name on a program, or your ability to give brochure handouts to the crowd. Whatever it may be, take advantage.

I would start by making phone calls to event planners. If you have a product, find out if you can have a table setup at the event to show your offering in exchange for donating your time or products to the event itself.

If you are a web designer, and you come across a major organization who needs a redesign, donate your time to make it happen and require not only the link credit in the footer, but an honorable mention somewhere on the organization website and literature. Also take advantage of the donation by promoting it on your website, and in a press release.

Your customer will want to be able to reach you when they have a problem, or a question. If they cannot reach you, then you will turn them off. They will find somebody else who can be reached in their time of need.

In order to be accessible, you need to ensure you have clear contact information on your website, and business card. Your website should also include a contact form so that customers may simply type in their question or comment and hit a submit button.
Another great accessibility feature is a toll free number. You will find that you can get a toll free number with Vonage for a few bucks. The toll free number can be forwarded to your regular business number, or an automated answering system.

You should provide a business address, or at least a P.O. Box, and an email address for customers who want to email you directly. If you were slick about it, you would provide email addresses for different departments such as sales, customer service, support, returns, etc.

Your customer wants to remain your customer, so don’t give them reasons to leave you. Make sure you are accessible in every way possible for the comfort of the customer.

Believe it or not, even though you control your domain name, other people can hijack your traffic. How they go about it is not illegal, but it is very unethical. Unfortunately, Google is vulnerable to this tactic, while Yahoo! Is not.

The method people use to hijack a website is called a “302 redirect”. It is a method used in a hosting account to notify search engines that your website has moved to another domain. The problem is, anyone can use a redirect and specify YOUR DOMAIN in their settings. What happens afterward is that Google indexes the new website, but shows YOUR domain as the URL in search results. This essentially steals the traffic that your website would normally be getting.

A bank is in business to lend money. They find people who want to buy a property, or have a property and want to get cash out. They make their money from the interest incurred from the loan.

Sometimes the loan does not go as planned because the buyer gets behind on payments. After A couple payments behind they start what is called foreclosure. It starts by filing a public notice called a “notice of default”. You may have seen such a notice in your local newspaper.

After such a notice the bank will take the case to court and try to get the property back. Once they own the property again they want to sell it and get it off the books. Most banks that lend money will have a foreclosure department. These properties can be sold for 40 to 60 cents on the dollar. Investors go after these types of property so they can buy it and sell it for the huge profit.

Sometimes these properties will have damage. It may be it’s condition or it may be something that happened because the person who was losing the house wanted to retaliate by vandalizing the property before they turned it over to the bank.
Make sure you get a good inspection on the property before you buy it. Try to negotiate down the price and present the bank with a list of reasons why the property is not worth what they are asking for it. People think that banks do not negotiate but that’s a false presumption. Banks do not mind losing some money as long as they can make some of it back and get it quickly. They need that money to lend to someone else. Not only that but sometimes banks are asking for full market value even when the person who previously owned it paid off a large amount of principal. So the banks are not necessarily always losing money on said deals.

I use tools such as www.RealtyTrac.com To locate bank owned properties. It not only provides the starting bid amount but you can also see the estimated fair market value.

Also known as a land contract, a contract for deed is a legally binding agreement that commits the buyer to the upkeep, and taxes just as if they owned the title, but they do not get the deed to the property until the full terms of the contract are satisfied.

Land contracts can be used in the case of when the seller is financing the property for the buyer rather than the buyer going to the bank. The buyer pays principal and interest to the seller in the form of an amortized monthly mortgage payment.

The buyer is normally required to have insurance on the property just as they would if the bank financed it. Taxes in escrow are not a requirement, but it is a good idea for the seller to make it one to ensure that property taxes are paid on time every year.
When a seller owns their property outright and does not have any loans on the property it can truly be a good thing. Add that to the idea that they may be an out of state owner, or they are a retiring landlord and you have gold.

These types of sellers are what we call “motivated”. They do not want to have to take care of that property any longer. Maybe they are tired of cutting grass, or receiving phone calls at midnight from tenants that are bickering with each other. Maybe they inherited the property and they want cash instead.

It is easier to get these types of sellers to hold a note for their equity. A “note” is basically a promise to pay. It is the same thing as the contract you sign when you are getting a loan from the bank. When you sign that contract you are creating “paper”. When you create paper you generally pay toward that note every month just like a standard mortgage. When the full amount is paid along with the interest you completely own the property and have 100% equity.

Sometimes these sellers are not as motivated as you think they should be. They may be hesitant to finance your purchase. When that happens you want to ease their tensions by providing them the “illusion” that you are risking something in return.
For example, let’s say there is a single-family home worth $150,000. The asking price is $145,000 and the listing says “motivated seller”. You want to get the seller to finance $72,500, which amounts to half of the total purchase price. That way you can go to the bank for a 50% LTV loan. Even with bad credit you can get a loan for 50% of the property market value. The seller is nervous about financing that much of their equity on a 2nd mortgage. You offer to setup a new life insurance account in the amount of $72,500 and make the seller the beneficiary for 6 months from the purchase date. That way, if you were to die (as tragic as that may be) before the 6 months are up they would still be paid something and most likely get their property back, unless you had the property assigned to someone in your will and the insurance payoff was a part of the real estate contract.

You can also offer them your “services” if you offer one as an added incentive. Offer landscaping on their new home for example. These added incentives just might sway their decision in your favor.

On an unrelated note: If you are looking to get into real estate, I am currently looking for cash partners to team up with me on flipping projects in Illinois. Contact me at brandon AT brandonconnell.com

My first purchase was a 5,000 square foot mansion selling for $30,000. I was so eager to purchase it with no money down that I offered $40,000 and 10% interest over 15 years. I figured that the value would go up (which it did) in a year to over what I was paying for it. I also knew that if I held it long enough that I could refinance and get cash out later on. I could also change it to a 30 year fixed rate and lower my monthly payment. The sellers first turned it down. Then I resubmitted the offer a week later and the realtor called me to tell me we got the house. We moved just 2 weeks later!

Sellers are “motivated” for many reasons. Some may use the word and not really be very motivated at all. They simply want to see offers. There are others however that are truly motivated.

The situations of a motivated seller differ but a few of them you can spot are out of town owners; people who inherited a property; a bad partnership from an investment project; in pre-foreclosure; elderly owners; retiring landlords; and owners selling because of divorce.

Keep your eyes peeled for the motivated sellers I mentioned. You may find other situations that would constitute a creative buy.

Legal is a relative term. There are business laws you must follow, but the business entity itself is pretty much fluid. You can legally run a business without getting a business license depending on what type of business it is that you run.

EXAMPLE:

You decided to start a business selling your handcrafted birdhouses. You want to sell as many bird houses as possible, so you realize that in order to do this you will need to sell to customers nationwide. In order to sell nationwide, you will need a website that displays your products, and so that they can be purchased by credit card. In addition, you want to sell locally.

If you do not have a “walk-in” location also known as brick-and-mortar, you do not need a business license. Your business is ran entirely from your home, and customers will not be coming over to purchase your items. Because there is no foot traffic to your home, it will not need to display a license for inspection. Your products can be shipped, or in a local situation you can personally deliver the product to your customer.

EXAMPLE # 2:

Using the same business scenario above, but this time you have a walk-in location where you display your birdhouses, you now have foot traffic. Because customers will be shopping at your location, you will need a business license hanging on your wall for inspection.

The above examples are based on the most likely cases when you are selling items to your customers. But to take it deeper, what if you had employees?

When employees come into play, you must have a FEIN number in order to be open for business. FEIN stands for Federal Employer Identification Number. It looks very similar to your personal social security number, but rather than 3 sections, it has 2. Having a FEIN number allows you to give your employee a check with taxes taken out. If you do not have a FEIN number you can still employ people, but they will have to be independent contractors and work on what’s called a 1099. Such a situation is usually only an option when you have commissioned and temporary employees. Technically they would not even be referenced as employees. Only contractors. You can pay them the full amount due them, and they would be responsible for paying their taxes when filing time comes. You are still responsible for reporting the payee income though.

To get a FEIN number, you can simply call the IRS and ask for one. They will ask your personal information as well as the name of your business, and where it operates. Within 2 weeks you will receive an official letter from the IRS with your number. They may even give it to you over the phone when you initially call.

If you are a small operation, or a 1-man (or woman) show then you will not need a FEIN number. You can run your business as a sole proprietorship and use your social security number when filing taxes. You can use a DBA (doing business as) name but it would be wise to go to your local courthouse county clerk’s office and register the name. This will make it official and your new business name will be announced in the local newspaper. The cost for this official publishing ranges, but is somewhere in the range of $25.

Wow, so my blog authority on Technorati went from 130 to 430 in 24 hours time. Technorati authority goes on a scale from 0 to 1,000 with the 1k being the highest possible. This means that my blog is gaining some serious relevance online.

I have taken a small time out here for the past couple days, but it’s only because I am a bit sick. I will be back on in full force soon.