It’s not often that someone releases a product that makes the marketing world stand up and take note. Too often these days the products released by marketing gurus are just the same rehashed product the last “guru” released.
No one could say that about Ed Walters’ Virtual Property Tycoon.
Virtual Property Tycoon, or VPT for short, is a recently released product that sheds new light on the boom in online real estate.
For many years it has been obvious to even the wet behind the ears newbie that selling web sites, or virtual real estate, has been big business. The problem is it takes a lot of marketing know how, or cash, to get into this business.
Or should I say it did before Ed Walters blew the lid off his secret strategy for turning information he gets online, which he doesn’t pay a penny for, into pay days of thirty grand to sixty grand within a couple of months.
I’ll say that again. Ed doesn’t spend a penny and still manages to “flip” this information anyone can get online into huge bumper pay days.
So how does he do it? Well I don’t want to give all of Ed’s secrets away here. It wouldn’t be fair on the guy as there is clearly a lot of work put into this course (which you can’t say about most products these days. Sadly). But I will say it involves the public domain.
The public domain is the secret of many, many millionaire business owners.
Ed does a great job of describing it in his report found at www.virtualpropertytycoon.com I suggest if you’re the type of person who looks for an easy way to make some quick and pretty huge pay cheques you check this out.
There’s a great report you can read there and it won’t cost you a dime, click here

The Definite Income Plan is a solid guide to making money online by generating a passive income stream that you can repeat as often as you wish. I was given a free copy of the plan to review, and immediately I was impressed with the thoroughness of the system. It’s similar to one that I’ve used before in the past to generate a significant amount of income, so I already knew the methods would be effective.
The guide itself is laid out logically, with everything you need to do to prepare for a passive income stream laid out step-by-step. Even if you’ve never done any internet marketing or affiliate sales before, it’s very easy to put this system to work. The research techniques show you how to choose the right keywords, so you aren’t drowning in competition, and the methods used to generate the traffic are proven to work for just about any topic you can think of.
The best part of this system is that it can be started with absolutely no money at all. You don’t have to spend any money up front to be successful at this, so it’s literally 100% profit. It does take some work though – getting the system set up can take some time the first few times you do it, but overall it’s a simple process that anyone can master. Once you’ve gotten the basics down and have money coming in, you can even outsource parts of the system, which makes it almost turn-key in terms of the time and effort you spend.
There is just one area where I think this guide can be improved and that is having a total search engine ranking strategy. The Definite Income Plan is powerful, make no mistake about that, but it could be 1000 times more effective with a solid search engine strategy that doesn’t rely on just a few techniques. Overall, I found that the Definite Income Plan to be hugely informative, and a great way for anyone to get started with making money online.
I would highly recommend this plan to anyone who is looking into breaking into internet marketing and affiliate marketing. I would also recommend this to anyone who’s tried affiliate marketing in the past but found it too complicated, too expensive or just “too hard” to figure out. And to make it even better, I’m including my own 14-page, FREE report on how to get real search engine rankings – whether it’s for a website, a web page, a blog, you name it. It’s yours for free when you order the Definite Income Plan through This Link!
This report covers all the bases, so you’ll be able to make even more money with the Definite Income Plan and realize its full potential for making you money online. All you have to do is fill out the quick form here with your name, email, and your transaction number after you’ve made the purchase and you’ll have instant access to my report. So if you’re looking for a way to make money without having to spend a lot of money up front, this is an excellent opportunity that you won’t want to miss.

E-books are big business online – especially if they teach other people how to do things. How to earn more money, how to sell on e-Bay, how to write a bestseller… the possibilities are endless if you have the knowledge and the perseverance to actually write a book and then get out there and sell it.
What’s more, you can apply exactly the same principle to creating a course too. By splitting it up into sections you are creating more value – and you can charge more as a result.
If it’s done properly it can be a real money spinner.
You don’t need to be an expert on e-books to know they sell extremely well if you pick the right subject. “How to…” e-books and courses are particularly good at shifting lots of virtual copies, since they reveal the answers to things that people want to know.
The first thing to remember is that you need to pick a topic that isn’t going to suddenly become unpopular. The topics are obvious here – money, sex or health. Those are the three biggest selling topics around. If you look at all the e-books and courses online, you’ll see that they all revolve around one of those topics in some way. The successful ones do, anyway.
But it’s not just a case of picking a good topic. You need to pick a great title and get the best information to go in it as well. If you want to write a whole course then you need to ensure you’ve got plenty of material and you can divide it naturally into separate sections.
It helps if you already have some knowledge of the subject you are writing about. One of the keys to success is to find your own unique angle, as this is what will sell copies. Don’t try and tread over the same old material that is already out there. It will only be a waste of time. If you have tried something yourself or come up with your own foolproof method of doing something, and other people you know have tried it and got the same results… now that is something worth writing about.
Along with writing the product itself, you’ll also need to write the sales page to go with it. If you’re no good at writing you can always hire a ghostwriter to do it for you; this will cost money but if it’s ghostwritten you can still put your name to it at the end.
Now you need to decide how much to charge for it. The more value it has the more you can charge, and it’s important not to price it too low otherwise it won’t be taken seriously. When it comes to pricing the course you can charge more; it’s up to you whether you supply the whole thing for a flat fee, or set up a payment model where you dispatch one part every month (perhaps via email) in exchange for a monthly payment. This can sometimes result in more people taking you up on the offer, since a smaller monthly amount is easier to pay than one large fee up front.
While you can and should do plenty of research and plan your book or course carefully before you even start to write it, there is still a degree of risk involved. Even ideas that you think will be guaranteed winners might flop, whereas other ones you’re not so sure about could sell massive amounts.
But you will learn plenty from your first effort, and you can use that knowledge to launch your second e-book. And your third, and your fourth…
Fancy giving it a go? Like the idea of being a published author? Why not check out the possibilities now? But leave us a comment first! Good luck.

How many times do you watch and listen to top bands and think you could do better? If you often do that maybe you should have a go at it yourself?
It’s an unlikely way to make some money but that’s no reason not to consider it if you have musical talents yourself. And in reality you don’t need to be able to sing or play a musical instrument yourself nowadays either – if you know how to do it you could still be able to sell your own rap beats and music to young artists with virtually no musical knowledge at all!
Fancy learning more? If you do, you’ve come to the right place.
If you have the right software and you do have something of an ear for music, then you can start selling your rap beats online in a very short time indeed.
The key to getting started is to do a search for some software and buy something that will enable you to create a selection of rap beats from scratch. The more practice you get at this the more you will start to develop a sound that is uniquely yours – and that is what will ultimately sell your rap beats to the people who are looking for them.
It will also help to set up your own website so that you can sell your offerings directly off there. You can sell them via other sites as well, but there is nothing like having your own dedicated site to promote your wares. Make sure you have a good domain name and you put related keywords in the writing on your website to attract those people who will be looking for your kind of music.
You could also have a crack at writing your own song lyrics. It helps to have some knowledge of music here though, as you will need to be able to write the music to go with it – even if it is just the basic notes and chords to show other people how it would sound in a very rough way.
You then have the choice of whether you want to sell them directly to aspiring young artists or to studios, but whichever way you do it you need to make sure you know what you are selling them for. It’s worth delving into the subject of rights and payments in far more depth than we can do here, since you want to make sure you price them fairly but also don’t do yourself out of a nice profit at the same time.
There is always the chance that you could end up writing a number one song! If you did that and you had sold the lyrics or rap beat for a small one of payment, you could literally have to sit back and watch as the artist who recorded it made a fortune and you didn’t. So be wary of how to go about this aspect of the business, and get professional advice on the best way to do things in this respect.
So do you feel as if you have some music inside you? If you do, start looking into the idea of getting that software and creating your own website to get started right now. So long as you start out in the right way you could be selling your own music to all kinds of bands and names both now and in the future.
But leave us a comment first before you start creating those raps!

Even though there are hundreds of thousands of newsletters you can elect to receive via email thanks to the power of the internet, a lot of people still like to receive a paper copy that they can keep. At a time when everything is so easily disposed of, it’s arguable that a paper newsletter actually has a longer shelf life, since it’s much harder to throw away something tangible than it is to hit a button and delete it out of your inbox.
But how easy is it to set up your own snail mail newsletter service? Surprisingly, it might just be easier than you think…
So what makes a successful snail mail newsletter? They are easy enough to create these days thanks to desktop publishing, and if you hit on a popular subject and end up with hundreds of subscribers you can get the newsletter printed up properly.
But the key factor is the subject you pick. What are you going to write about? You need to be able to charge enough for the newsletter to cover your costs and make some profit, but you need to provide information that can’t easily be found elsewhere.
The great thing about a newsletter sent in this manner is that it can literally be almost one hundred per cent information and nothing else. So for example you can have something like an eight page newsletter (or maybe even less) that is packed with information and no fluff, and charge a reasonable amount for the info you provide. And with a newsletter that size you can put it into a normal envelope and post it at the cheapest rate possible because it will be so light.
You can get some use out of the internet when you are thinking about creating your own snail mail newsletter, because you can use it for research. What subjects could you use for a newsletter? Is there anything you already know a lot about that enough people would be interested in? You also need a unique angle so find out what else is being offered on that topic and position your own offering differently if you can.
The next step is where to find customers – and this is where you can use the internet to help you even more. Ideally you should set up a website that promotes the newsletter which will draw people in from the search engines and hopefully encourage people to sign up to pay you for the newsletter. A blog on the same subject can also be a good idea, as it gives you a chance to demonstrate to prospective customers that you know what you are talking about and can be a good source of information.
But how often should this newsletter be produced for the maximum effect?
Monthly is generally the best idea for a snail mail version, since it will give you plenty of time to gather new material together, write the newsletter and get it printed and mailed out each time. It’s a good idea to get off to a good start by making sure you have enough material for two or three newsletters so you don’t have to panic about doing the next one as soon as the first one is mailed out. This will also give you additional time to make sure you can attract plenty more subscribers.
I can’t stress enough the importance of doing your homework before you get started though. Making sure you choose a good subject, you have enough material and you can provide something that no one else can is guaranteed to give you the best shot at creating something that is likely to stick around for some time.
Think about having regular columns as well, as this helps to create a familiarity with the newsletter that you wouldn’t have otherwise. And offer people a free sample issue to get started – it will bring in a lot more subscribers as a result.
So – are you ready to start your own snail mail newsletter? If you are, leave a comment below to let us know how this blog entry helped you! And good luck.

If there is a subject that you love talking about, then you owe it to yourself to find an audience for it through podcasting.
Although this is still a fairly new medium as far as making money is concerned, it is clear already that there is money to be had, as some people have latched on to several ways that they can do just that with it.
The key is to find a subject that people are interested in and reach that audience in as many ways as you can by making your podcast available to them – and then it’s just a case of waiting for the money to start rolling in.
Okay, so you have a subject you love and you could talk about for hours. Does that make a podcast? No – you need to work on it to make sure you can create podcasts that everyone will want to listen to. You need to script each one at least roughly so that you know what to expect. Otherwise there will be a degree of umming and aahing and you don’t want that. Short podcasts – let’s say fifteen to twenty minutes for example – do very well, so you don’t want to be waffling on for hours at a time. Keep the structure tight and well planned.
The next step is to work out how you will make money from them. It is possible to treat podcasts in much the same way as you would treat e-books, CDs or DVDs – release them in a program that you can charge money for. Perhaps one or two a week on a specific subject, revealing information that people would be prepared to pay for.
Be wary of this though – you can’t do this unless you have really good information that people cannot get elsewhere without paying anything.
Another good way to make money from podcasting is to use it as a way to promote an existing business. Let’s say for example that your business sells e-books. You could start a podcast on e-books in general and mention the name of your website, or perhaps some of the books you sell, once or twice during the podcast itself. This can provide very good publicity and your sales should start to go up as a result.
You can even make special offers to those people listening; offer them a bundle of books on a specific subject, or a special package deal that lasts for a limited time. Direct them to your website to buy it and see what revenue you get from that. If it works well you can extend it to take place with each podcast you make. This in turn should get you more listeners as well.
If your podcast becomes very successful you can also sell advertising space on it. Businesses are always looking for new ways to find new customers, and if your podcast can connect them with their ideal target audience then you can make extra money in this way too.
Some people have even started creating special promotional items that feature the podcast itself, and sold them to their listeners. Not only does this fill a need if your podcast is that successful, it also means that you get some additional publicity yourself.
There are plenty of ways to make money from podcasting, but as always you will get the best results from researching your subject and finding out what people want first. Once you can do this you stand a better chance of starting a podcast that will run for a long time, and pick up more and more listeners as you go.
And don’t forget YouTube. If you aren’t charging anything for the podcast itself, you could film yourself doing it and put it on YouTube for some valuable extra publicity.
Got some ideas already? If you have then there is no better time to get started – but leave us a comment first! Good luck.

We’d all love to have a pool in our back yard, but when it comes to maintaining it and keeping it clean, that isn’t something we like to do ourselves. Can you see a business opportunity here?
If you develop your business properly and market it in the right way to the right people, you could very soon have more customers than you know what to do with. Pool cleaning is also something that most people can pick up, and if you like being in the outdoors then you will certainly love this opportunity since you will be able to get out and about and meet new people every day.
Swimming pools are fantastic, but no one likes cleaning them. That’s why pool cleaning businesses tend to do very well if they are run by someone who has a great care for their work and knows exactly what to do to keep a pool in tip top condition.
The first step is obviously gaining that knowledge. You can start finding out what you need to know by visiting local pool suppliers and asking them how you would keep your pool clean if you were to buy one from them. This is a bit cheeky but you’ll get the info you need!
You can also find out a great deal by going online and learning from other people who do the same thing. Jump onto Google and look up pool cleaning trade contacts or something similar, and see how many results and leads you come up with. You’ll soon know where to go for supplies and how to go about the actual cleaning process responsibly and efficiently. Try looking up ‘Pool and Spa News’ to take a look at the website of the trade magazine itself.
But how do you advertise your new business? One of the best ways is to put ads in all the local newspapers, but you could also put ads in shop windows and maybe your local library as well. Leafleting door to door isn’t the best option since not everyone has a pool. The best way to do this is to go onto Google Earth and check out your local neighborhood to see how many people have pools; you will then know which streets are worth leafleting!
Get a simple website up and running as well as soon as you can. It only needs to be a few pages – a home page, a page that describes your services and a contact page will get you started. As long as people can contact you for more information that’s the main thing.
You will also be able to get new clients via word of mouth if you do a good job, since people will naturally want to recommend you to others. You could always get some fridge calendar magnets made up with your business details and contact numbers on and hand them out to new customers when you find them, so that your name will always be close at hand when they need to call you to arrange for a fresh clean of their pool.
You can also diversify into cleaning spas, which gives you another income stream and widens the potential customer base you can market your business to. Spas also tend to be used during the colder months and not just in the summer as well, unlike most swimming pools.
So if you’re ready to dive in so to speak, start planning your pool cleaning business now by taking a look at that website to broaden your knowledge. But leave a comment for us by using the form below first!

You don’t need to live in a world famous city to get into the fashion tours business – many large towns would benefit from such a service, particularly if that town brings in a lot of tourists.
You need to be quite confident to take on this kind of opportunity to earn money, because you will be showing a group of people around your local town and revealing local knowledge about the best places to go for a bargain.
But if you think you’ve got the confidence then it could be a real money spinner for you.
If the idea of becoming a tour guide appeals to you then keep reading. You would basically be booking groups of people onto your pre-arranged tours and showing them all the best places to go to get the latest and best fashions in your area. You could stick to a specific theme for your tour; for example you could do some research and find out where all the cheapest shops are to get bargain outfits, or maybe all the shops that are a bit out of the way and are usually only frequented by the locals.
This takes a little organization as you will obviously need to research a good route to take and show them shops that they might not find otherwise. You would then charge a fee for each person to take the tour, and you could also provide a map of the area with all the shops you show them clearly marked on it.
The best way to make this work is to get the various shop owners to approve of your business idea in advance. If you let them know you will be bringing in new customers for them, they will probably be more than happy to give you a small percentage – say 5% maybe – of any purchases that any of the people on your tour buy.
You could expand the idea to cover a full day if it is successful, and charge more as a result. In this case you could also recommend a particular restaurant or café for lunch, and possibly arrange a deal with the owners of that venue in a similar way to the clothes stores themselves.
If you try this out and you like it and have some success with it, you could even consider buying or hiring a minibus in which you can pick people up from pre-designated stops. There are plenty of ways in which you can vary this service to find what works best for you in your area.
You could even add other days into your schedule as well that aren’t related to fashion. Ghost tours are always popular and anything which shows people a different side to a particular place always goes down well.
So long as you keep the punters happy you shouldn’t have any problems developing this into a full time business. Just remember to serve your customers well and news of your service will soon spread to bring you new customers.
Eager to get started? Use the form below to leave us a message first, and then get to know your local town a little bit better!

One of the keys to being a success in business is definitely to start up in an area you have a natural interest in. You wouldn’t start up a restaurant if you hated food, or start selling flowers if you had no interest in them and they made you allergic.
Everyone has a passion for something and whether it is model trains, photography or cell phones that passion could hold a terrific business idea for you to capitalize on.
A lot of people think that in order to run a local business you need to find an outlet of some kind and rent out expensive premises to stand any chance of making any money.
But you don’t have to start out that way. In fact the best start to any kind of local business can often be through getting a market stall of some kind, if your business is suited to it. There will still be an outlay to rent it but it’s cheaper than a proper shop and it can get you off the ground and into profit a lot quicker on many occasions.
The main point to think about is whether your passion can be converted into a profitable business that will attract enough customers to keep going. You might need to do some research here to make sure your idea will fly, but even if it doesn’t look encouraging you might be able to alter the angle of it to appeal to a wider audience.
For example you might have a passion for making scenery for model train sets by hand, but there might not be enough of an interest in that to build a successful business around it. But if you were to start a model shop and make some of your scenery in front of the customers while the store was open, you would no doubt attract a lot of interest and probably more customers as well. You could use your hand built scenery to enhance all the model trains you put on display.
You will often find that with a bit of lateral thinking and some solid research you can find an angle on most subjects that would work well as a proper business. And it might not be something you make either. If you love computer games and there isn’t a games store in your local town at present, why not think about opening one yourself? Even if the major stores sell computer games, people will get to know you as being someone who loves them yourself and who knows which ones to recommend and which ones will work on what type of computer. Knowledge like this will put you head and shoulders above the competition.
The great thing about starting a business around a topic you love is that news of your passion for your subject will spread among customers by word of mouth. Eventually you will build up a good customer base even without advertising (although you should of course do all you can to draw in new people in as many ways as possible; the more visible you are the better).
In the end the amount of effort you put into your business will be far easier than it would be for a business you didn’t have the same passion for, and that alone will give you the determination and passion you need to succeed.
But before you rush off to start making plans, make sure you leave a comment for us below!

Throwing our trash away is part of everyday life. But don’t you just hate that smell that wafts up to meet you every time you open the lid to throw in another piece of trash?
Bins that are kept outside get subjected to all kinds of abuse. They have to withstand all weathers and hold all the leftovers, spoiled food and other remnants that we don’t want to keep inside. No wonder they smell less than fragrant from time to time.
But if you can stand the smell you could be making a lot of money from those bins. Grab a peg and come closer to find out more about this lucrative opportunity.
One of the best things about this business is that you will never run short of customers. Everyone has a trash can, and I am willing to bet that very few (if any) of those bins smells anywhere near good.
This makes for a huge business opportunity for you, and it’s easy to advertise since you can simply get a whole batch of leaflets printed up and deliver them door to door to get you started. State your price on the leaflet and offer the customer 20% offer if they produce the leaflet when you arrive to clean their bin.
That is a good discount and you can bet that a lot of people will take you up on the offer. It also guarantees that more people will keep the leaflet for longer instead of throwing it away.
You can start this business with very little cash, since you can manually clean all the bins if you have the right equipment to do so – all you need is long handled brushes and cloths, disinfectant and some elbow grease in the first instance.
When you want to step things up a little (or if you have the money available to begin with) you can buy or lease a van and some more advanced cleaning equipment. There are also a number of franchise opportunities in several countries that provide you with everything you need to get started in your own area. If you are prepared to plough some real cash into this business then it could be the way to go. You can find out more about this opportunity by using a search engine to find the franchises operating in your country.
It all depends on how you want to run the business. If it is a part time, casual concern then you might want to keep things simple and start by offering your services to people you know to begin with. You can then spread the word via word of mouth to include other people locally.
The beauty of this business is that however you approach it you will be visiting clients regularly to keep their bins clean and fresh. You can reasonably expect to be cleaning them every week or two, which means that once you have built up a good customer base, you have a regular ongoing income that you can pretty much rely on.
So if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, write a comment below and then get started by designing a simple leaflet to promote your new business.

We have all got chores that we hate doing, and it’s not nice thinking that we have to do most of them when we could be out enjoying themselves. So if you quite enjoy cleaning the house on a regular basis, then why not offer that same service to someone else?
Most people hate cleaning the house and would be more than happy to pay someone else to do it for them. If you are responsible and trustworthy, then why not set up a business doing just that? You might get more clients than you think…
This is the type of business where you will get a lot of clients via word of mouth. Trust counts for a lot when you start cleaning people’s houses, as you may sometimes do it when they aren’t around. A good way to start is to offer your services to people you know – however remote that connection may be. It gives you the opportunity to build up some experience and you may even be able to obtain references from people to vouch for you when you approach people you don’t know in the future.
The best way to charge for your services is to negotiate a flat fee for a specific time slot. You will have a fair idea of how long certain tasks will take you, and based on that you can come up with a price and a time slot that will suit the client. Make sure you don’t under price your services though – people are prepared to pay to have someone clean their home for them, and you don’t want to be working for a tiny amount of money.
You can also promote your services by distributing leaflets door to door, but it’s well worth making sure that they are good quality ones. You might even be able to get glossy paper and color printing if they aren’t too expensive. Another good idea is to use quotes from satisfied customers to help reassure people that you aren’t just any old person touting for work, and that you can be relied on to do a good job.
You should also remember to get some business cards printed up with your details on them. Encourage people to recommend you to their friends and family too – you could even offer them a discount if they manage to refer someone to you who takes up your service. How about a free house clean the next time you are due to visit them? This is a worthwhile offer to make since you stand to get another long term client from the effort, so you should reward the person who brought you the new business.
While it is a good idea to supply your own cleaning items if required, make sure you talk to each individual client to see whether they would prefer you to use their items or your own. Make sure you know where everything is prior to your first visit, and agree a time and day with each person so you can fit it into your schedule.
After a while you will find that you don’t need to have too many clients to fill up your book with orders, and you can enjoy a regular supply of cash from people that will make a big difference to your earnings each week.
Like this idea? Then why not leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes for you?

Starting your own gardening service might not be practical if you can’t tell a weed from a flower. But that doesn’t mean you can’t offer to help people with their gardens.
One of the jobs that a lot of people don’t enjoy is mowing the lawn. It can take some time to do if the garden is a large one, and many people simply don’t have the time to do it themselves. Even if they do, a lot of them would rather be doing something else instead.
So why not solve that problem for them? One of the best ways to make money is by helping other people out, and this particular opportunity has a lot of potential.
Not only does a grass cutting service have the potential to net a lot of clients, it is also one of the easiest businesses to promote. All your customers will be in your local area, so the best thing to do is design a simple flyer on your computer (you can use some clip art to make it look more impressive) and get a lot of them printed up cheaply by a local printer. Make sure you get your cell phone number printed on them too.
All you need to do then is distribute them door to door to get them in front of those people who might take you up on your service. You should start to get a few calls almost immediately.
The best way to offer a competitive price is to phone up other similar services in your neighborhood and ask for a quote from them. You can then position your own service in a similar price range.
Rather than offering a set schedule when you meet a new customer, ask them how often they would like their grass cut and what day and time would be convenient for them. Buy yourself a big diary with time slots and book people in as and when you get appointments. That way you won’t double book anyone and you won’t forget to turn up anywhere either! You should also make sure you get a contact phone number from them, just in case you need to contact them for any reason.
Some people may be happy for you to use their own mower, but it goes without saying that you should always have your own one to use. Make sure you carry spares for any parts which may need replacing, and make sure you clear up after yourself as well. Don’t leave any grass cuttings behind unless the customer wants you to put them in a compost bin.
One of the dangers with this business is that you could become too successful. If you aren’t careful you could end up working seven days a week, so always make sure you book the weekends off, or whatever days are best for you. You should also have a contingency plan in mind in case it rains on a day when you should be visiting clients’ homes, so that you can return when there is better weather.
In short this is a fantastic chance to build a worthwhile business by doing something for people that they don’t want to do themselves. You will also get a lot of exercise and it’s certainly an enjoyable experience to be out cutting grass in all kinds of different gardens, so make the most of it!
If you start this business and achieve some success with it, make sure you come back here and tell us all about it by leaving a comment using the form below.

You’ve probably heard the saying that you shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel, and that applies just as much to a business as anything else in life.
If you are looking for a business which already has a proven template for you to follow – enabling you to set up your own business and taking away a lot of the worry about whether or not it will work in the first place – check out the many different franchises that are available. It could be just what you are looking for.
Franchising is one of the best routes to fast business success if you want the reliability of a name that is already known. You’ll also benefit from not having to worry about creating a business plan, deciding what to stock, and all the other headaches that come from creating your own business from scratch.
You’ll need to part with some cash though if you want to get involved; every franchise incurs a franchise fee to get you started, so be sure you look into all the requirements and the small print before you sign anything. You might also consider how well the franchise model you are thinking of will fit in to your local area. Getting the answers to all these questions and more is essential to make sure you know what to expect right from the start.
The good news is that there are lots of different types of franchise you can get involved with, so regardless of what your best skills and abilities are, you should be able to find something that will suit you.
At the most visible end there are the shop franchises. McDonald’s is one of the most famous examples of this, though you might not be thinking of running a franchise on that scale. Perhaps the better choice for many entrepreneurs is the smaller franchise which allows you to sell products of a certain type. An example of this would be a book publisher or distributor that allows you to sell their books yourself – perhaps door to door, or by organizing parties or get togethers. Some people buy into book franchises that are purely aimed at children, and they visit schools to generate interest and encourage ordering.
The best way to pick a franchise opportunity is to select a product or service area that suits you and who you are. Remember that you will be running this as a business, so you need to make sure you can do that successfully every day. Don’t choose something just because the profits you are promised will be huge – if you have no interest in the products then you won’t be putting in the required effort to get the results anyway.
Finally, do your research before opting for any one franchise in particular. A few extra days or weeks of effort here will pay dividends in the long run.
If the idea of a franchise appeals to you, now is the best time to start looking into it. But why not leave us a comment first in the box below?

Email gets into all our lives, and while we may sometimes wish we didn’t have it – as the deluge of junk mail gets ever larger – it is still one of the best ways to get information that we want sent directly to us.
And this is where you come in. There are plenty of possibilities for running an email newsletter service which is either free or fee paying, and you can make a decent profit from either option.
The key to success is to pick a topic that will attract the attention of a lot of people. If you can do that you could be sitting on a goldmine…
Let’s start at the beginning here. A free newsletter? How can you make money with that?
The answer is to provide something that is worthwhile and has plenty of unique content in it. You need to be reliable as well. A weekly or monthly newsletter is the best option, although weekly will certainly keep you in the mind of the subscriber more easily than a monthly one. A month can be a very long time online.
If you already have a website then you could create a newsletter to tie in with that. If you don’t, and you have thought of a good and popular topic to create a newsletter on, then it’s a good idea to create a simple website around it as well, as this can help you net more subscribers. You may even have a product – let’s say an e-book for example – that has its own sales page. If you create a newsletter based on that same subject you can promote it as a bonus to everyone who orders the book. Alternatively it could be a freebie to entice them to order at a later date.
What you don’t want to do is populate every newsletter with lots of affiliate links. It’s okay to include them but you don’t want to overdo it. You need to provide a newsletter that has plenty in it that can’t be found elsewhere. If you don’t do this you’ll get a high drop out rate.
But what about charging for a newsletter?
You can only do this if you provide something truly unique. Some newsletters that charge a fee to receive them are based in the financial and money market arena for example, and you are getting specific financial information on stocks and shares that you can use to help make you some money.
The bottom line is that you need to be able to save or make your subscribers some money in return for asking them for a subscription fee. It is well worth taking the time to think about whether or not you can do this, as well as researching other similar newsletters online before you design your own.
The best shot you have of charging money for your newsletter is if you can create something unique that fills a gap in the market and answers a specific need. You also need to have a real enthusiasm for your subject – otherwise the weekly work of writing the newsletter will soon wear thin.
One final tip – plan a few issues out in advance, long before you send out the first newsletter to your first handful of subscribers. This will give you the time to start promoting the newsletter right from the beginning, as well as doing away with the possibility of panicking when you can’t think of anything to put in the next issue!
Like the idea? Leave a comment using the form below.

If you love pets then this is a great way to meet more of them! There are lots of ways you could reap the rewards by setting up a business to help people with their pets. Depending on what you like doing you could provide one service in particular or a whole range of them.
Your choice of pet business will also depend on what skills you have. After all if you are good at painting pictures of animals then you will no doubt earn more money doing that than you would taking dogs for a walk!
If you are an animal lover then there is no better job than spending all day surrounded by them. The great part about setting up a pet services company is that you can work whatever hours you like, fitting it in around your existing commitments to suit you.
Click Here to learn more about starting your own pet supply business.
Before you start, think about what kind of services you would like to offer. If you like going out for walks then a dog walking service would be a good bet. If you don’t mind having a change of scene from time to time then you might consider offering a pet sitting service for all kinds of animals.
On the other hand you might be good with a camera and enjoy photography as a hobby. A lot of pet owners would pay a considerable amount of money to get a nice picture of their pet or pets taken and framed for them. You could either set up a mini studio in a spare room of your home, getting people to visit you, or you could take everything with you and take the photos at their home. The second option is probably better since the animal will be in its own natural habitat, giving you more opportunities to get good pictures.
If you can paint good pictures then you may want to visit the owner and their pet and perhaps take some photos to give you an idea of how to paint the animal when you return home to do your work.
There are plenty of opportunities online as well; you could set up a website selling pet toys and items such as collars, squeaky toys, name tags and all kinds of other items. If you haven’t got the room to stock these yourself find a company that will dropship them for you.
Promoting your business is important both on and offline. If you have a dog walking or photography business then get some leaflets or postcards printed up and advertise them in local shop windows. If you can persuade the local pet shops to display your cards so much the better, as you will receive a lot of business from this direction.
This is the kind of business that will also develop via word of mouth. Start small and you will soon find new clients as you get more established. Ask your friends and family to spread the word for you as well, and you will soon be making plenty of furry friends!
Click Here to learn more about starting your own pet supply business.

If you like getting out and about, this might be the opportunity you’ve been looking for. You’ll need your own transport and it can take a bit of creativity to set everything up, but in the end you can offer a great service to a lot of local people.
A bit of creative thinking goes a long way here, and it can really set you apart from any competition as well. There are countless ways you can approach this business, but you’ll need to keep on reading to find out what they are.
So you want to deliver food from local restaurants? Here is your first option. Some restaurants already offer takeaway options, but the customer has to come and get their food rather than relying on the restaurant to deliver it for them. If this is the case then you could step in and offer your services to people in your local area. Instead of them having to go out and collect their food, you will do it for them in return for a small payment.
Logistically speaking you could soon become quite busy with this, and you might even find yourself picking up more than one order at a time. You will also need a reliable car to use, since you will need to be quick and efficient at getting the food to the customer as quickly as you can (as far as safety allows of course).
But there are also plenty of restaurants that don’t currently have a takeaway option. Could you persuade one of these to provide that option if you were to provide the delivery service?
There is no doubt that good promotion will get you a long way here. You are offering convenience to the customer, but you can also offer one point of contact. If you can get a phone number that is really memorable and get it printed onto a number of leaflets that you can deliver round your local area, all you need to do is urge people to call that one number whenever they want take out food. They will tell you what they want and where from, and you will get it and deliver it to them for an additional charge. The big advantage of this for the customer is if they want food items from more than one place. All they do is call you and you do the rest.
Good advertising will help here. If you can, get some good quality posters printed with your details and that phone number on and get them displayed in all the outlets you are offering a delivery service for. People will then start to see the number and realize that they don’t need to go out themselves to get what they need.
Does this sound like the kind of thing you’d like to do? One of the biggest advantages is that it’s an evening job, so you can do whatever you like during the day. It could be an ideal time to distribute some promotional leaflets perhaps?
Don’t forget to leave a comment using the form below before you start thinking about this idea in more depth.

Would you consider paying someone to do the jobs you hate doing? You would certainly pay someone to do the jobs you cannot do yourself or find difficult to do, wouldn’t you?
While you may find it easy to get your own groceries there are plenty of people who aren’t so lucky. In these situations they would gladly pay a little extra to have someone do their shopping for them and deliver it all to their home. Essentially you would be providing a smaller, more local and arguably friendlier version of the large scale services offered by some of the bigger stores.
While you can certainly deliver groceries for people who find it hard to get out and about and carry heavy shopping home, you’ll also find a ready market in younger people who are pushed for time.
This can influence how you promote your services as well, since you will want to be visible to the people who are most likely to use your delivery service. For example, younger people are far more likely to be connected to the internet, so it’s worth investing the money to get a website up and running that people can see.
Incidentally there are also a number of organizations in the US that offer to help you in this respect, and for a fee they will provide a fully customized website and lots of help and advice on getting started in this business. The website allows people to actually order their groceries online, and you then deliver them to the customer. This is grocery delivery on a much larger scale though, as it could really take off – so make sure you are prepared to go the whole hog if you go for this particular option.
If running things on a smaller scale appeals to you, you could always start off on by promoting your services via word of mouth and professionally designed business cards stating what you do. For example you could focus just on your elderly neighbors to begin with, speaking to people you know and generally spreading the word to get your first few clients. Once you have got underway you can then start to develop your business gradually.
What are the requirements? Well as we’ve seen you can do without a website if you want to start small, but you may find a car is a virtual necessity if you are doing a lot of shopping for one or more people in a single day. You don’t want to be spending all your profits on taxi cabs!
As for personal traits you’ll need to enjoy getting out and about and meeting people – and you’ll certainly get plenty of exercise. This isn’t for everyone but if you aren’t afraid of a bit of hard work then it could suit you right down to the ground.
If you’re thinking about giving this a try, leave us a comment by using the form below. We are always pleased to hear from you.

A lot of people think that they can’t have their own website selling all manner of things because they don’t have the money to buy the stock, let alone find room to store it all.
But there is a way that you can sell stuff online without needing to touch a single item that you promote – and that is by dropshipping.
Not only is this one of the best ways to make money online, it also gives you the freedom to be able to sell a lot more items than you would otherwise be able to. Interested? I thought you might be…
So what exactly is dropshipping? Put simply, it’s a process whereby you promote a number of products that are sold by a specific company. You don’t stock them yourself though; what happens is that when someone places an order they pay you directly, and then you will generally place an order for that item through the company’s website.
But you don’t pay the full price for the item, you simply pay the net price that the company charges you, plus the postage costs to send it direct to the customer. You also give them your customer’s name and address details so they can send the package directly to them.
So if your customer pays $20 plus $2 postage for an item, they will send you $22. Once you receive that money, you send the net cost – which could be, say, $12 – plus the $2 postage to the company. This small amount of work leaves you with $8 profit. And that’s just on one sale.
A gift ideas dropshipping website would do well because it appeals to all kinds of people at all times of the year. Everyone always has an awkward gift to buy for someone, whether it’s for a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas or any one of a dozen other occasions. So if you populate your website with plenty of different gift ideas for people of all ages, you will have a great chance of starting to make some sales fairly quickly.
But where exactly do you find these dropshippers in the first place?
Well some of them operate a wholesale option as well, and it’s true that if you start looking for wholesalers you will often find dropshippers on your travels as well. You can start by looking on Google and Yahoo for gift dropshippers and other variations on that search term.
Alternatively, if you find a company whose products you really like, visit their website directly and see if they have a dropshipping option. If not, email them and ask! It never does any harm and you can actually make contacts with some good suppliers in this way, especially as most people won’t bother emailing on the off chance.