Golden Nuggets- Tips, processes, & How To's

[DeletedUser2]

someone asked me recently on how I learned to manage people.
Here is an excellent podcast that I used to listen to when I was growing a larger business.

its a good way to learn some corporate training, that you may not have if your a young entrepreneur. and if you grow a business. at somepoint you will need to have these skills.

knowing about them, ahead of time, helps.

to the up and coming CEO's here

http://www.manager-tools.com/podcast/manager-tools

 

[500million]

How to make $4500/month - with NO capital.

Put your house/apartment on AirBnB. If you have a studio/1bdrm - post and see if you get reservations. IF you do - crash at the friends place or your parents place for those days.

Use the money you make to fund your new business OR as a deposit for another apartment - that you can also post on AirbNb. Just underprice your place to get the first few reservations - and after you have a few positive reviews you should have no problem with bookings. You can furnish your new apartment with cheap/free furniture from Craigslist.

This will give you extra cash with and asset you already have.

I've had a lot of success with this - full occupancy for my apartments. And am looking to purchase a multi-family unit of 1 bedrooms or bachelors for short term rentals only - you make 2X to 3X more per unit/month this way than you would with long term rentals. Given that the location is desirable for tourists or students.

Make something out of nothing .

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

she ended up focusing on something that would and that's why you test. To kill bad ideas fast.
so you can really work on ones that are truly great.

The Test...
2011-05-19_2157 - xendolphin's library

Now wait a second, as a part of this test, you solicited for people's email addresses and promised them a PDF in return, then delivered absolutely nothing?

While I totally love the concept of "testing" (and the goal of this experiment) the fact that you have to lie about giving something away, then don't, is unethical. When people "give" their email address, it is a form of psychological payment and when you fail to deliver, you essentially rip someone off. IMO, you need to deliver what you promise. Or, did you in fact deliver a PDF?

 

[DeletedUser2]

a great copy writing tool

for headlines and blog posts etc

Tweak Your Biz Title Generator by Liam Delahunty & Anita Campbell

 

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[T14]

if real estate, I would get a night job, as a janitor, to pay my own food etc.

Then I would hustle during the day for a big real estate guy, for FREE. for about 2-3 months. then I would go to him and say, Have I proved enough value that I can be included in your next couple of deals as a partner or small owner?
I would spend the next year working my a$$ off for him, and get in on 6-10 deals, with an nice little cash flow, and now have all his contacts. I would then launch my own deals, using his money sources, and donate back to him a 10-15% per deal equity piece for the next 2 deals.

then I would be on more or less equal footing as him in about 1.5 yrs. and have a couple million in real estate. and enough cash flow to not work a job (janitor job would have only lasted 3 months)

Then, I would grow a real estate empire to about 20-50M over the next 5 yrs. as a general partner/manager.

This is great! I did JUST this and it has worked wonders!

I may be just one guy but i can attest to the power of 1.) offering to work for free for someone who you're looking to learn from and 2.) networking to expand your social circle. Both of these provided me with direct contact with a successful rehabber in my local area who took me under his wing and gave me equity in his deals in exchange for working for him. After completing 3 houses with him, I decided I knew enough to take the leap. I finish RE classes next week, will hang my license, have spoken with several private lenders who will lend on my deals and have several fantastic subs to use thanks to another business I recently started.

Just a year ago I was working as a bootcamp instructor, wondering how the hell I was going to make the change towards living the life I wanted. Hah! Amazing what a little action can do.

Zen- 20-50M is a huge number in the residential world. Either my big goals aren't so big or I've just again been reminded that I don't know what I don't know. Would you mind sharing how you would go about accomplishing this?

 

[DeletedUser2]

Zen- 20-50M is a huge number in the residential world. Either my big goals aren't so big or I've just again been reminded that I don't know what I don't know. Would you mind sharing how you would go about accomplishing this?

do just enough residential to get some cash in your pocket.

then go the multifamily route, or commercial


there are deals are all over.

STOP THINKING SO SMALL. it benefits no one.

Z

 

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[Michael W.]

been a serial entrepreneur since 1991 (when I was 21)
Started and run 14 diff businesses, online and off line. (not all successful)
Bought over 250 apartments in 2.5 yrs starting with no money
Started a company, took it public, built it for 5 yrs. Raised 90M in money for it and other businesses of mine,
Was up to buying over 300 houses a week in 2007,
sold out 2007, Started online business in 2008,
buying up businesses, mostly websites now
hard money lender,
Angel Investor,
Coach for executives,
Do consulting for companies that want to raise money or go public,
Sit on a few boards of directors in a strategic capacity.
Deal Maker, and Strategic Connector.

so.... been around a bit. that's all.

BRB. Reading every post of yours.

 

[DeletedUser2]

Here is some tidbits for offshore stuff.
Been a while since I looked but most should still be good.


recommendations on off-shore web hosting and domain registration,
1) https://www.zone.ee/ in Estonia
2) https://www.switchplus.ch/ in Switzerland
3) Runbox.com is in Norway
4) Cirrushosting.com is in Toronto (easy switch for Americans)
5) CCihosting.com in Panama
6) https://www.netpoint.ee/eng in Estonia

 

[DeletedUser2]

Can you share what sort of metrics you look at to determine quickly if you have a good idea

http://foreverjobless.com/ev-millionaires-math/

He did a great job coming up with a metric.

you will develop your own over time. THATS THE POINT. You developing your own metrics will allow you to choose better, (for you) to make better better faster decisions (for you) and end up making fewer mistakes,
FOR YOU...

good luck
Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

ok, Another quick process.

Got Dropbox?

Got 10 Gigs on dropbox Free?

Dont have that many friends who signed up for you yet?

here is a quick process someone shared with me after we discussed it. Since I already had drobox maxed, I haven't used it but he did and went from 2Gigs of free space to 4.5 in less than an hr after posting this, I thought I would share it.

I posted the whole "mini process" here on my google docs where I keep these things.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q7rNWqA7iQ5FS2mzCgHxdtJzAJAXQfnkKl1s_ves5iM/edit

you can go there and read the process.
basically he went and posted on odesk this process, and got to his full10Gig in less than a day.

it was cool enough to watch, that I wanted to share.

Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

Go in, review their old projects, talk to the lecturers...dig in some....offer the school a good % for the IP. And start working.

we have some local labs here, Sandia, Kirkland, and los alamos. that have a whole department that tries to get IP out of the lab into the hands of entrepreneurs. all you have to do is show up, ask, and be willing to go raise money for projects. but there is HUGE opportunities, with cutting edge stuff here.

they have a system called TRL or Technology readiness level. that categorizes the level of the tech to take to market. some needs lots more money to make it work, some are ready and off the shelf ready to turn into a product.

but ya, there is never a day where the world has no opportunity to make money.
its all there for the taking.

Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

How can you be 100% sure that its a bad idea though?

You spent 20 min. on a lander, looks like you used a pre-made theme, did not split testing, not sure if you used a professional copywriter, did not split test your demographic targeting and ads images and copy.

There are so many variables that gotta be considers.

I doubt there are many things you can throw up in 20 min. and see 10% Conversion Rate, 1% CTR on FB ads...etc.
But with some testing, those ideas you would throw out as bad could be real winners.
Not saying that was the case with your friend's idea, but I just think you would need more data and testing before ruling out something with so little effort put into the idea.

so bad ideas come to light, when the internal expectation of the entrepreneur comes into contact with market reality.

the thing is, this person had a belief. her belief would not change just because someone said differently.
her belief, had to come in contact with that market reality.

yes it was not optimized, yes it there were a ton of variables.

BUT she believed EVERYONE would want this. I just put her in a position, where she had SOME data.

and the data spoke volumes more than I could have.
you can argue to be right, here, And I invite you to go ahead and do the idea. have at it. ill celebrate your success!

but my friend had this moment of Epiphany. even if we had improved it a hundred fold. it would not be enough.

and not everyone wanted it, as she came to understand.
we did the work ONLY so she could see that real data trumped her internal framework of how the world worked. bad ideas are ones, that are carried too far into a market place before proof kills. it.

it didn't take very much proof to kill this one.

Z

 

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[DeletedUser2]

a great way to get to retirement income quickly is to use both

exactly,

I was trying to illustrate that WHO you are, and your temperament has more effect on what strategy works for you. (all strategies work at some market point...)

I no longer rehabb properties. because I found out that every time I pick up a hammer or paint brush I'm losing money. its not my core skill set. its no longer in my temperament range. (if i rehabbed now, it would have to be 100% hands off)

since most people have a hard time starting, or being successful in even 1 of the above strategies, I was trying to show that temperament, and who you are, is important on picking a strategy to get started. LATER you can expand into both, core structures.

as you go along, you may even pick up several or a dozen strategies. honing your skill until you can swap out strategies like a tool box, to match any market.

in any case thanks for that, long term cashflow, or cash bundles. both are cool, whats in your wallet?



Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

WHEN TO GET A LOGO!

one of the people I mentor, and who is now part of one of our subsidiaries, came to me with the request if he could spend money to get a logo.


my repsonse.

SURE

as soon as you get your first sale.

He was out the door in 40 seconds.


Lets see when he gets his logo...


Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

one of our websites.

we did this video. I liked it. it was pretty powerful.

5 Powerful Alzheimers Prevention Steps (version1)
5 Powerful Alzheimers Prevention Steps (version 2)
5 Powerful Alzheimers Prevention Steps (version 3)
(these pages are cookied so you may have to clear your cache to see the other ones.)

Thought I would share. the video was short, and powerful.
NOTE: it took 6 rewrites, and 22 shots to get this 1.

Process.
1. lay out the pain points, and the simple call to action.
2. put it in story format.
3. write SHORT sentences
4. edit the crap outta it.
5.shoot, edit, reshoot

6. cut and cut and cut the words out until only the most critical ones for getting your message across are left.
reshoot.

Tip: we ran the music in the back ground so steve could coordinate the cards with the music. then we ripped the audio out of the video edit, and played the real music back as a fresh audio. it allowed us to move the timing around, and allowed for a clean version of the music, with out the back ground noise.


Let me know how It makes you FEEL. because that's the point of this video.


Z

 

[theBiz]

Bought over 250 apartments in 2.5 yrs starting with no money

that's a contradiction hahaha

but seriously tell me how you did that and ill give you $100... ok ok $150. Honestly that's amazing.

Started a company, took it public, built it for 5 yrs. Raised 90M in money for it and other businesses of mine,

i secretly hate you

Was up to buying over 300 houses a week in 2007,

aaand i secretly hate you again lol

These are some unbelievable accomplishments and seems to even dwarf my "unrealistic" dreams of success. Great to have people around like this, thank you for your knowledge and time.

 

[DeletedUser2]

you could turn a book bout Facebook profile picture improvement into good success, but

can it scale?
is there a burning need?
how would you be unique after all the copy cats jumped in? what could you define as your unique angle?

the thing was, in the test we used good copy, for a short add type of copy. we used a decent offer,

yes you could improve.
but going on direct response numbers, you can make a "test" and know what response rate you want to hit within

if its WAY out side the range, you need to rethink the product ect.

if your just spit-balling ideas up, to see if there is any market, then you can use low numbers

if you use a known market, then you can use normal DR response rates.

also, if you don't feel the test brought you enough information, then retest.

the whole point of the test is to kill bad ideas faster, and to spend a little money and effort finding your market and message. often i will see people rush to the market, and are SURE it will be the next big thing. but when faced with a test. (even a small one) it causes them to ditch the internal fantasy world, for the more concrete example staring them in the face.

by doing that one simple thing, I found that most people realize that the "bumper stickers for blind people" idea really isn't so hot.

Hope that helps
Z

 

[Bigguns50]

If I talked to some rich CEO/Angel Investor he would ask "What's in it for me? Do you have any education? What is your background? Do you have something to offer, so I can see it already right now, or its just your idea?" etc.

This is pretty much what American investors would ask. It's NOT selfish. You need to THINK like an investor. Imagine someone asking YOU for money. What questions would you ask ?

If you have enough pennies, buy the INSIDERS membership. Answers to many of your questions are there.

If you need money...don't think "How can I make money ?". Ask, "What do people want ?"...This may be a service like work being done or as one member put on here...having their Christmas tree delivered (no one does this..this is creative). It is hard. You have to work hard. That's ok. It is much easier than being poor.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Marked Gold. +Rep Transferred to @zen*******

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Was up to buying over 300 houses a week in 2007

I assume you were buying bulk portfolio properties from distressed lenders/REITS? Otherwise 300 houses a week is 42 houses A DAY, or nearly 2 houses an hour if you are working with no sleep, or 4 houses an hour if you are working 12 hour days.

That means you closed a house every 15 minutes. Care to elaborate?

BTW, thanks for some great info! :urock2:

 

[DeletedUser2]

pick up the phone

Can you suggest a good place to start with this for a complete novice?

Z

 

[DeletedUser2]

Zend i knew about this but stayed away, im surprised you do this

.

This is an old post regarding how easy it is to create something even when your dirt poor and totally broke. while I dont do this kind of stuff, I still posit the question, what if, or HOW can someone, or HERE IS something I thought up. (perhaps I should qualify it as "would I do this?"

What happens if you get caught.. wont google ban you for life if they find out?

probably. with the new rules, when this was originally written (not posted) the rules were different.

Are you advertising the same domain in all of these accounts? Where are you getting 20 ccs from? Are they all in your name?

you can buy them at wall mart.


Also... can you talk more about this? Plus you found them at ad tech?

High Risk Processing.

We found them at Ad-Tech. here is a short list of What High risk processing covers.


1-800 type chat sites
Airlines
Airplane charters
ALL sexual oriented or pornographic merchants: (i.e. companion or escort services, adult telephone conversations, adult book stores, dating services, online adult membership or matchmaker services, adult paraphernalia or toys.)
Amazon, Yahoo or Google Stores
Annual contracts
Antiques
Auctions
Automotive brokers
Bankruptcy attorneys
Brokering
"Business opportunities"
Calling cards
Casino, gambling or gaming
Check cashing services
Cigarette or electronic-cigarette sales or nicotine cartridges
Coins, collectible currency or autographed collectibles
Collection agencies
Coupons or rewards-points program
Credit or debt repair
Credit counseling
Credit protection
Debt collection
Direct selling
Discount health - medical care programs
Debt consolidation
Drug paraphernalia
eBay Store
E-Books (copywrited material)
Electronics
Event ticket brokers (unlicensed - non registered (i.e. Stub Hub type merchants))
Exporting services (non US based)
Fantasy sports websites
Federal Firearms License (FFL) dealers
Finance broker, financial consulting or loan modification services
Indirect financial consulting (i.e. How to Save Money by Lowering Your Electric Bill.)
Financial planning, strategy or advising
"Get rich quick" - books, programs, etc...
High average tickets
"How-To" type websites (i.e. "Learn How-To Make Money on The Internet")
Horoscopes, astrology or psychic services (i.e. fortune tellers)
"Hype" products or services
Hypnotists or self-hypnosis
International merchants (non US based)
International shipping, cargo or import/export
Investment firms
Investment strategy
Investment books
Lawyer referral services
Life coaching
Lingerie sales
Lotteries
Magazine sales and subscriptions
Mail order
Membership organizations (over 12 months)
Merchants on the terminated merchant file (TMF list)
Modeling agencies
Multi-currencies
Multi-level marketing (MLM)
Music, movie, software downloads or uploads (ie. copywrited music, movies or software (i.e. Microsoft office))
Non US citizens
Off-shore corp. establishment services
Pawn shops
Poor credit
Prepaid debit cards
In-bound or outbound telemarketing services
Real estate
Replica handbags, watches, wallets, sunglasses etc... (knock-offs)
Self defense, pepper spray, mace, etc.
Seo services
Social networking sites - Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc...
Sports forecasting or odds making/betting
Talent agencies
Telecommunications
Telephone companies
Telephone order
Third-party processing, factoring merchants (i.e. payment processors, vacation rental brokers)
Time-shares or time-shares advertising
Tour operators
Travel services
Travel agencies
Travel clubs
Vacation planners
Vacation rentals (unless property is owned by merchant)
Vitamin and supplement sales - diet pills, prescription pills, health supplements, pharmacy
Voip services
Extended warranty companies
Weapons of any kind - guns, knives, stun guns, or ammo. Includes any parts of weapons (i.e. butts, triggers, magazines, etc.)




Z

 

[Ajay2390]

cash is the lowest common denominator. if you only rely on cash to get things done, your just not creative enough

Z

This is One Lesson I Will Always Practice Consistently. Finding New Angles! Thanks @zen*******

 

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[kirrubi]

zen******* its being a humbling experience reading this forum and actually seeing successfull people sharing and giving back knowleadge makes me go for it and soon i will give it back and help

Thank you

 

[CPisHere]

zen*******, I agree that business plans are helpful for the thought process, cash and cash flow needs, and finding issues with the idea. The reason that I don't like business plans is because once you start the business, they usually go out the window. People try to stick with their business plan, but you have to adjust to the market.

I think business plans are great if you recognize them for what they are - an initial plan, not a definite map.

 

[DeletedUser2]

zen*******, I agree that business plans are helpful for the thought process, cash and cash flow needs, and finding issues with the idea. The reason that I don't like business plans is because once you start the business, they usually go out the window. People try to stick with their business plan, but you have to adjust to the market.

I think business plans are great if you recognize them for what they are - an initial plan, not a definite map.

exactly,
in fact here is another biz plan.

we ran this company for 3 months prior to selling it. I didnt even get the whole business plan finished before we sold it.
another 1 sitting type plan


Business Plan
Adaptix Medical Supply
Medical Supply and Oxygen Company
A development stage company
This is not a prospectus


Executive Summary
Adaptix Medical supply is a DME and other Disposable Medical Supply company. We sell to Medicare, Medicaid, and other insurance backed programs that will pay for patients to receive certain useful toys used in health care of the patient, either at home health care, or as patients of a doctor.

Objectives
To build a multi office service business, with a centralized command and control structure to better implement a company wide efficiency for many of the redundant but mission critical tasks .



Overview Company Strategy
Our company Strategy is to Identify markets that we feel we can bring services to. By setting up a metro based administrative system. We can extend our reach far into the rural areas where there is little or no services. By bringing efficiency and a highly networked system to rural areas, we can bring large volume buying to the little offices. Allowing the sales to focus on sales, the deliveries to focus on deliveries, we can drive sales, and patient retention. by setting up our offices in 1 of 2 ways, we can find and retain key employees. Either by finding the absolute best sales person in the area, or by having a person, buy in thereby reducing our cost of setup and bringing them into the fold as an owner operator.


Keys to success

The top keys to success of this venture are:
 Service
 Sales
 Rural outlets
 Niche Marketing
 Focused accounting and billing to insurance companies. As well as follow up
 Reduced administration for the rural offices
 Finding and Keeping Top notch Sales people
 Finding and retaining Delivery Drivers that double as representatives.



Company Summary
Adaptix was formed for the modeling out and rolling out of a multi office, centralized admin DME and medical supply company. We will have several specific locations that will wholey company owned, and will extend our reach into the rural areas by Joint Ventures (JV’s) with top notch sales people in the area. Focused population demographics will allow us to find and aim our efforts in markets with higher than normal patient types. The goal is to build up at a minimum of 10 offices throughout the state of Texas before expanding to additional States. We have the eventual goal of 50 offices / JV’s. in the next 3 yrs.

Industry
The medical DME and State of Texas CBA programs are backed by either state funded, or federally funded programs. Including Medicare, Medicaid, and Community Based Alternatives (CBA) for the state of Texas.

Markets we will be in .

(need to insert numbers here) the markets we will be focusing on are the following.
1. CBA, for home health care (nutrition and wheelchairs, Bariatric, Beds ect)
2. Medical Oxygen, Medicare, and Respitory Medicine (oxygen, Cpap, Bipap and Nebulizers, and Nebulizer meds)
These are the secondary markets we plan on expanding into latter in 2008 early 2009
1. Medical Drug trials, in house offices for doctors.
2. Infusion Centers, intravenous Drug delivery, in house IV therapy.

(need size of each of these markets, need demographics of each of these markets. Need demographics of rural vs metro distribution of patients.)


Competitive Bidding.
In the last 4 years of Medicare, and Medicaid in an effort to reduce costs, began to implement Competitive Bidding. Focused mainly on Oxygen and Oxygen Therapy. There are to be 10 Cities that start this in the first test phase. Dallas Fort worth is to be one of the cities to begin the Comp bidding process. Additional cities are to be added at a latter date. Eventually it could become nationwide. Any strategy that we move forward with, will have to at some time be compliant with this.

Startup

Patient Sourcing Strategy


Acquisitions
o The fast Eddie scenario
 What we are buying
 How we can buy it
 What we have to change about it
 Speed to market
 Eddies Current model
 Improvements we can make
• Process improvements
• Paperless improvements
• Inventory Improvements
• Marketing improvements
• Training




JV Partnerships
Finding and keeping good Sales people are one of the key components to this business. Many sales people who have achieved a certain level of success are important keys to success of this venture and expensive to hire and keep. One of the methods we have determined to be a way to tie them to the company, is to provide a buy in. we will put an office in a rural area, and offer the sales person, up to 20% buy in through a proformance metric, and time with the company. This buy in can exsist as long as the sales person stays with the company. We may move it from profit sharing to direct ownership of the site over time.

The Rural Route

Outsourcing

Software

Competition

Financials

Exit strategy

The Management Team

 

[DeletedUser2]

When you setup your meetings did you have a product/business in mind for a particular space you were trying to enter, or did you more or less make the discovery through interviews with advertisers in various categories?

we already had 1 product in the space, we were looking to ad more. from the interactions we pivoted from our original plan and went a slightly different direction, all from the data that these people were able to share.


Z

 

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[LightHouse]

Also, find groups of employees that like their manager, and cross them with those managers executives who also like the manager and learn from that person. I've met and learned from several people like this.

The key is to be a leader not a boss

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

 

[DeletedUser2]

jumping into mentee or mentor relationship unless both parties have the time, and are on the same exact page are the biggest time waste ever. a mentee who attempts to be a mentee too early and says they're up for it, actually hurts themselves more than helping themselves unless they actually are ready. they burn connections, and they don't really understand what those are worth at all.

my mentee mentor relationships are a process,
takes time. and I test the shit outta them. they dont always understand the tests. but they are crucial.

just asking, and saying, ill work harder than anyone.... nope.

Z

 

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[jon.a]

This discussion trick does not work in Google any more.

Any alternative?

Thanks a million.

Search term + "forum"