Tag: making money

How To Spot Opportunity (or Quit Complaining and Make Money)

I make money online when people complain about the high cost of anything. Here’s how…

I get this question a lot: “How do you support yourself?”

My answer of “marketing” I guess is a little vague. :)

Today will be the first in a series of how to make money articles. My goal with this blog isn’t to be a “make money online” blogger, but it’s an integral part of Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom, don’t you think?

That said, I have no intention of doing these types of articles too often, unless it’s what you want. This Web site is about you, after all.

The following info, which I actually sold about a year ago to my very small private e-mail list, I’m going to share with you freely. (I haven’t accepted new subscribers into my private list since 2008.)

I sold about 100 copies (like I said, it’s a very small e-mail list), so understand this information has real value and other people besides me have used it to make money.

What I’m trying to say is, don’t just read it, act on it.

In December of 2008 a friend of mine was telling me how expensive tickets were to an upcoming NHL hockey game called the Winter Classic. I don’t watch hockey and know nothing about it. Yet I still profited from this info.

Let me repeat that.

I knew almost nothing about the market yet I still made money.

Do you see what just happened?

Somebody complained about something costing too much money and Karol profited. wooohooo

The most important lesson in this whole article:

If somebody is complaining about the high cost of something you can make a lot of money online with that information.

Can you guess how I did it in this situation?

Scalping?

No.

But close.

I promoted NHL Winter Classic tickets through the StubHub.com affiliate program using Google Adwords. I sold thousands of dollars worth of tickets in just a few weeks.

StubHub is basically an outlet for scalpers and they pay 4-9% commission through their affiliate program.

For NHL tickets they pay 7%. That means if the people I send to StubHub buy $1,000 worth of hockey tickets I get $70. Pretty sweet deal, huh?

It’s essentially a form of arbitrage. Like trading oil or other commodities, but on a much smaller scale.

I don’t have to fulfill any products and I don’t have to deal with any customers. I just send potential customers to the StubHub Web site through my affiliate link and if they buy I get paid.

That’s all well and good, but you’re probably wondering how I sent those customers to StubHub.

That’s where Google Adwords comes in.

Adwords (and its “sibling” Adsense) is how Google makes their billions.

How it works is you bid on a keyword, for example “Winter Classic hockey tickets,” and if a Google user clicks on your ad you pay for the click.

My cost per click (CPC) for the Winter Classic Tickets campaign was $0.48.

That means for every visitor I sent to StubHub I had to pay 48 cents USD.

There’s a lot of info on Adwords out there, and there isn’t enough room in one article to get into the specifics. If you want to learn more, check out the free Google Adwords Learning Center. Please don’t ask questions about Adwords until you have gone through the whole training. It’s there for a reason. :)

Keywords I bid on:

“nhl winter classic”
“nhl winter classic 09”
“nhl winter classic 2008”
“nhl winter classic 2009”
“nhl winter classic at”
“nhl winter classic chicago”
“nhl winter classic in”
“nhl winter classic ticket”
“nhl winter classic ticket prices”
“nhl winter classic wrigley”
“the 2009 nhl winter classic”
“the nhl winter classic”

Where did I find these keywords? Google’s own Keyword Tool. It’s free.

Google allows you to write a multiple number of ad variations. I only wrote 3 ads for this campaign because I was in a rush to get it up. Here is the ad that made the most money:

Winter Classic Tickets?
BlackHawks vs RedWings
Get Them Here
WinterClassic.StubHub.com

I did something known as direct linking here which I don’t do anymore. Direct linking means I linked directly from my Google Adwords ad to StubHub.

Your best bet is to use a Landing Page (i.e. Web site, which can be a blog) that you control. Again, I don’t have enough room in this article to cover landing pages, but you can find a lot of info about them online.

How you should run this type of offer today:

1) Bid on keywords.

2) Send visitors to a landing page.

3) Offer a free report about getting great deals on tickets if the visitor subscribes to your e-mail list. I use Aweber, the best in the biz as far as ease of use, tutorials, and most importantly e-mail deliverability (yes, it’s an affiliate link).

4) Send the visitor to StubHub to get their tickets immediately after they subscribe. (Also include an affiliate link to StubHub on your landing page for the visitors who will not want to subscribe to your e-mail list, but just want their tickets.)

5) Send them their free report.

6) Regularly send them e-mails with related offers.

There are a lot of steps involved, but when you break it down it’s easy.

Now take a few minutes and think about where else you can use this information.

Superbowl tickets? Check. March Madness tickets? Check. NBA Finals tickets? Check.

Focus in on any high cost tickets that are either sold out or difficult to obtain.

OK, now fire away with questions below. ;) (If it’s an Adwords question, please go through their free Learning Center first.)

I will answer all questions in a separate article or via video/audio.

7 Tips: How To Declutter Your Life Using Craiglist

What I’ve learned about getting rid of most of my belongings and paring them down to just one 32 Liter backpack…

Getting rid of the extraneous things in your life is such a good feeling it really is hard to put into words.  If you’ve done it, you know how amazing it feels.  If you haven’t purged the clutter in your life, give it a try.

Good reasons for getting rid of clutter are vast and varied.

Maybe you’re moving and don’t want to rent a moving van.  Maybe you’re like me, going nomadic, and just need to get rid of everything.  Maybe you need a little bit of cash.  Or maybe you just need to clear a lot of junk out of your life and start with a clean slate.  Any reason is a good reason.

The question is, how do you go about getting rid of the clutter while minimizing the time involved and maximizing the cash you’ll receive?

Craigslist is your answer.  It’s available worldwide.  It’s free.  It’s fast.

To make purging your unwanted belongings easier I’ve put together these 7 tips I’ve acquired over the past month of clearing out my house.

I’ve sold almost everything except my car and couch at this point.  I’ve sold bedroom furniture, 2 beds, my favorite guitar (Gibson SG), bookshelves, a TV, Nintendo Wii, a Nintendo DS, fake house plants, and the list goes on.  All of the stuff I’ve sold has put about $3,000 in my pocket and I’ve never felt more free.  I’m paring everything down to one 32 Liter backpack so I still have a bit of a ways to go, but I’m almost there.

With all of that out of the way, let’s get to it:

1) Get An Account.

Go to http://www.craigslist.org and sign up for an account.  It’s free, and it makes listing and relisting items for sale quicker.  Saving your time is saving your money.

2) The Pictures.

Take pictures of all your things.  More pictures is better, but be mindful of the return on investment.  If you’re selling a $10 lamp is it worth your time to take multiple pictures? No.  If you’re selling a $500 bedroom set, on the other hand, provide as many details as you can.  Especially if there are any flaws in the furniture.  Be upfront about defects so you don’t waste anybody’s time.

Upload your pictures to Flickr, Photobucket, or your favorite image hosting site.  Name your images by product and number them.  For example, BedroomSet01.jpg, BedroomSet02.jpg, etc.  This way you’ll be more organized, and listing your items on Craigslist it will be quicker and easier.

Note: I use Photobucket and for each picture they give you the HTML code needed to easily insert into your Craiglist ad.

3) How To Write A Craigslist Headline.

Headlines are important, so be clear about what you’re selling.

Bad headline: 5 piece bedroom set.

Good headline: Black 5 Piece Bedroom Set Non-smoking home 70% off list!

It almost seems like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people have horrible headlines.

4) Killer Pricing Strategies.

Craigslist buyers are looking for a deal.  That’s not to say you have to be unreasonably cheap, but be realistic.  If you have a $2000 bedroom set don’t expect to get $1500, or even $1000 for it.

Industry standard, time-tested, pricing strategies work here.  For example, $499 or $497 instead of $500.  I had a bedroom set listed for $500 and didn’t get any e-mails.  I changed the price to $499 and got 2 e-mails within an hour.

Bonus pricing tip: If you have no idea what to price your item you have 2 fast and easy options.  First, check eBay’s completed listings for the same item to check the average selling price.  Or, if your item is a big piece of furniture or something else that is probably not on eBay, price it at about 33% of retail if it’s still in great condition.  The worse the condition the lower you’ll have to go.

5) Best Times To List.

Deleting and immediately relisting your post is not allowed.  Craigslist makes you wait an arbitrary number of minutes, hours, or days.  I haven’t figured out that algorithm, because I’ve listed an item and been able to relist it within 30 minutes, and with another item I had to wait 2 days.

Best bet listing strategy:  List at 6-7 PM on Thursday.  This is when people are preparing to do their bargain shopping for the weekend and your item will be listed towards the top of your category’s page.

If your item hasn’t sold by Friday, delete the listing Friday evening then relist it Saturday morning if you can.  If you can’t (due to Reposting restrictions), relist the item Sunday morning.  If you have a Craigslist account relisting is really quick.  Login to your account, find your deleted post, click Repost, and follow the steps.

6) Time Saving Strategies.

You’ll receive a lot of time-wasting “is this item still available?” e-mails.  Cut them off at the pass by clearly stating in your listing: “Please do not e-mail to ask if this item is available.  If this listing is up the item is available.  I will delete the listing as soon as the item has sold.”

To make it easier on yourself you might want to list your phone number in the listing so you don’t have to bother responding to multiple e-mails on the same items.  That’s really a personal preference and dependent on how comfortable you are listing your phone number in public.

7) Safety.

Don’t accept any form of payment other than cash.  You may get e-mails about using Western Union, bank transfers, or other scam-prone options.  Don’t even respond to those e-mails.  For small items, meet in a public place like a gas station, preferably during the day.  For larger items you will have to obviously give your address, but be sure to take down the person’s full name, e-mail, and phone number.  Truthfully, that might not help a lot if something bad were to happen.  But at the same time, it is good information to have on hand.

Bonus Tip: Start Early.

Start listing your items 1-2 months BEFORE you really have to sell them if you want to the highest possible price.  You can start your prices high and every week drop them a little lower.  I sold my beds and bedroom furniture for more than I expected because of this strategy.  If you’re in the process of moving, the added benefit of starting early is you won’t be stressed out trying to get rid of your things at the last minute.

Once you’ve de-cluttered your life and put a little bit of cash in your pocket, be mindful about getting back in the habit of filling your life with more unnecessary stuff.

***

Update (August 14):  Sold my car on Craigslist! Also had interest from an eBay ad, but ultimately sold to someone who found it on Craigslist.

***

Some additional links about clearing clutter you might want to check out:

– Why You Need To Clear Your Clutter from TheLifeUncommon.net
– 5 Tips For Taming Clutter, Online and Off from WebWorkerDaily.com
– 4 Effective and Fun Clutter Busting Games from TheHealthyLivingLounge.com

How A 19 Year Old Made $5,000 In 30 days While Simultaneously Breaking Every Copyright Law In The Books, Getting Kicked Off Of eBay, and Going To College Full Time

At 19 years old I was pulling in over $1,000/week on eBay selling bootleg copies of my one of my favorite TV shows. Stupid? Probably. But I rationalized it like this…

I thought long and hard about writing this article. On the one hand, I essentially admit to violating copyright laws. On the other hand, it happened almost 10 years ago, it was a good life lesson, it’s a pretty fascinating story, and I believe in being completely honest about my past. Currently, I’m probably one of very few people who actually pay for music and movies instead of downloading illegally. I’m not a fan of the iTunes store, but love AmieStreet.com and AmazonMP3. Now, with that all said, the original article specified the exact product I was selling. I decided to edit that out because I live in the land of lawsuits. I know it makes for a more difficult read, but that’s the way it has to be. Even though the product I was selling still isn’t available for legal sale, the copyright owner (I’m a big fan, I follow his blog) gets pissed about the consistent rampant sale of his material (and rightfully so). So with all of that out of the way….

At 19 years old I was pulling in over $1,000/week on eBay selling bootleg copies of my one of my favorite TV shows, [Show In Question].

Being that I was on a full academic scholarship and living with my Parents I didn’t exactly need $1k/week. But when your family moves to the US with 2 suitcases, no grasp of the language, and almost no money, you either hustle (as Gary Vaynerchuk says, “CRUSH IT!”) or stay impoverished.

My Parents hustled (learned English, worked their asses off) and reached a nice middle class standard of living.

As a result, I learned to hustle at a very young age.

In 3rd grade, my elementary school had a Readathon for Multiple Sclerosis. Anybody who raised $500 or more got a Nintendo Game Boy (it was 1989). I was the only kid in the school of 400+ to do so.

In 8th grade, one of my gifted nerd classes had a fundraiser selling chocolate bars to raise money for a trip to Chicago. The rest of the kids went door to door selling bars one at a time. Or had their Parents sell the bars at work. Me? I called local businesses (salons worked best) and sold them by the box. I bought one of my favorite Nirvana bootlegs on that trip. :)

And maybe the ultimate teenage hustle: While most of my peers relied on Parents or student loans to pay for college I “studied” (high school was such a joke I didn’t really have to) hard enough to get the aforementioned scholarship.

So, you see, the hustle is in every fiber of my being.

The seeds to my foray into the underworld of copyright violation were planted in my Senior year at Adlai Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights, MI. My friend and classmate Samantha (name has been changed) was a big fan of [Show In Question] and turned me on to its hilarity.

This low budget show consisted of [Proper noun1] and [Proper noun2] and their friends being so off-the-wall-weird most people probably had to be drunk or high to enjoy it. It was one of the few highlights of [Cable TV Station] in the late 90s and I was neither drunk nor high.

By the time college rolled around [Show In Question] was off the air and we couldn’t watch it anymore. I’d check the show’s Web site regularly for video release dates, but it didn’t look promising.

So I did what any smart young lad would do. I searched eBay.

And there it was.

Seasons 1 and 2 of [Show In Question] available for sale. Bootleg VHS, of course. I wasn’t above watching shitty versions of the best show ever made.

The price was unreasonably steep. $70 shipped. For 2 VHS tapes that cost $1 each.

No matter. I immediately clicked Buy It Now, for I had a plan.

“Don’t say you can’t afford something, ask yourself how you can afford it.” – paraphrased Robert Allen quote which I probably use way too often and took a little too far in this situation.

A few days later the videos came, I watched them to verify they were decent quality (while laughing my ass off, of course) and put my plan into play.

I logged into my eBay seller account and put up a Buy It Now ad:

“[Show In Question] Seasons 1 and 2 – Great Quality! Free Shipping!”

Within hours I had $70 (less credit card fees) in my Paypal account.

It was too easy.

I put up another ad.

Again, within hours I got that beautiful “You’ve sold item #123814883” e-mail.

One problem. I didn’t have any copies made yet.

The next morning I rushed out to Best Buy, bought the most expensive VCR they had (~$120), took my Parents’ VCR from the living room and hooked them together.

I’d never copied VHS to VHS before but it was surprisingly easy. For the next few weeks these VCRs were my own personal ATM machine, spitting out $70 3 times/day.

If I timed my school/sleep schedule just right I could get 4 copies of [Show In Question] done in 1 day. At my peak I pulled in almost $2,000 in one week.

It all came to a crashing halt when I got a “Your eBay Account Has Been Canceled Due To Multiple Copyright Violations” e-mail.

eBay had sent me warnings on two separate occasions.

But you know how it is, “beg for forgiveness, don’t ask for permission.” I figured I could get away with it as long as other people were also selling the same material.

So I ignored the warnings.

Unfortunately, begging for forgiveness didn’t work. Try as I might they wouldn’t reinstate my account. And if you don’t know anything about eBay, their customer service is customer service-less, so it took days to receive responses to my communications.

I created a new account, but my bank info (used for account verification) was black listed, and the new eBay account was immediately canceled.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d already been out of business for over a week and it was getting to me.

I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. There was gold in them thar VCRs and I was gonna mine it! The tools of the trade at this gold mine were wit, piss, and vinegar. Me vs eBay. Let’s do this!

“Hey Mom, I need your bank account information and a credit card!”

Being the trusting Parent she is, she handed it over like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I was a straight A student, disciplined, a hard worker: my Parents didn’t really have a reason not to trust me. (Yes, I realize how stupid it was to get anybody else involved in this. Sorry Mom, I love you!)

And I was back in business.

For 2 days.

I got another copyright violation warning and this time there was no messing around. eBay must have done a manual review because almost immediately after the warning e-mail I got an account cancellation e-mail.

Unfortunately, to this day [Show In Question] isn’t available for sale legally, although bootleg copies and torrent downloads are easily available.

I did procure another eBay account so I could continue selling strictly legal items, but I was out of the copyright violations business for good. That is, until 4 years later when I became a search engine spammer…