March is starting out to be a profitable month:

• Just when I thought the fragrance business was going kaput, I got a few orders this week.
• I had a real estate settlement yesterday, I have a rental commission check coming in the mail, and I’ll be receiving a referral commission next week. I also got a new buyer approved who appears to be very serious.
• A new notary service customer requested their third appointment in less than two weeks yesterday.

I like having inflows (money coming in).  My challenge for this month is to automate those inflows as much as possible. I’m not sure how automated the real estate and notary businesses can get, but I know I can automate the products I sell. I woke up early today just to start making notes about what I can change.

Since I’m streamlining and committing to keeping better records, I finally downloaded GNUCash to maintain my books. It’s a free accounting program (very similar to Quickbooks), and it’s awesome. Thank God for open source software.

accounting · automation · Notary business · open source software · pefume business · Real estate business

I started my perfume dropshipping business way before I read The 4-Hour Workweek as an additional income stream. I started it just over a year ago, and it’s not a real moneymaker. In fact, I’ve only had 57 transaction over the past year. That averages to just one transaction per week, with an average profit of $8 per transaction. After paying for a domain and webhosting for the year, it has provided a profit of $399 for the year. That’s just under $400 for a year’s work, and that doesn’t include the time spent on the occasional wacky international transaction. Barely enough for a mortgage payment!

This business requires time for marketing and management which I just don’t have. It also seems to be a very difficult industry to find a niche for. So this may be one of the ventures that bites the dust this year. I already retired two other websites earlier this year because they weren’t profitable, and I had no real desire to make them profitable. The perfume business has already started to head down that route. I’ve achieved great feedback on my iOffer.com store, but unless I can develop a way to automate it, it will be retired by the end of this month.

dropshipping · low profits · niches · perfume business · profitability

Even though I’m holding down a 9-5 job and an active real estate agent business, I recognize the importance of having passive income streams. I want to work at stuff I enjoy, and I want to have more time, money and freedom to do what I want (like travel to every possible food festival, but that’s another dream). So I’ve made a list of things that I could create to bring in passive income, and I believe I can make it happen. Here’s the list:

• Creating programs for mobile devices: Since I’m a programmer just three classes shy of a degree, I might as well use the skills I’ve got. I’ve resisted it for a while, but what’s the point of paying all those student loans if I’m not going to use the skills I paid to learn? It’s akin to graduating from law school and never practicing law. I don’t want to be wasteful of my talents. If I can teach myself PHP, I’m sue I can figure out the Blackberry and iPhone. I have two ideas for programs already: one to improve an existing program that’s pretty horrible, and the other is a utility that I believe lots of people will use. I have a Blackberry myself, so I already have a platform to test on. I can’t talk about the ideas until I do some more research.
• Writing articles that bring in money over time: I’m starting to experiment with eHow.com and other sites ever since I found this post at the Smart Passive Income blog. I’ve written two articles so far. I’ll be writing articles for the rest of the month and provide an update during the first week of April.
• ATMs: I connected with another agent who swears by her machines. She’s always looking to place more machines, and I think I can duplicate her success. I’ve already found quite a few places that would benefit from an ATM. I may partner with her on my first machine.  This will require some capital unless I decide to lease, so I have to make a decision quickly and get on it.
• Creating ebooks: this is an idea that I wanted to pursue for a long time. I’d written down in an idea book that I lost, but I never forgot the name I created for it. I’ve already reserved the domain name and will have my first item created by the end of April. This will be connected to the eHow business.
• Real estate rentals: I want to acquire as many condos as possible and rent them out. I don’t want houses because I don’t want to deal with fixing roofs, damp basements, etc. The properties can be acquired with a loan or sub2. This is my least favorite idea however, since it requires the most upfront investment.

This is my short list of passive income ideas to pursue. Time to get crackin’!

ATMs · automation · business ideas · computer programming · ebooks · passive income · real estate rentals · writing good articles

After devouring The 4-Hour Workweek last weekend, I decided to start making changes to my business and personal life. One of those changes was to eliminate redundancy, and only have one real estate website. I previously used this domain for a real estate blog, and another domain to display the agent website provided by my broker. So I tried to get fancy today and thought I could easily port the blog to the other domain. It didn’t work out very well, and I spent almost two hours uploading a fresh install of Wordpress and finding a new real estate theme. I’m happy with the results, but not happy that I completely destroyed the old blog. Luckily, some of the posts were saved as Notes on my Facebook account so I’m able to copy some of them back into the blog if I want to. Thank goodness…

Goodnight for now

P.S. – If you are looking for my real estate agent website, click here to go to the new location.

4HWW · destroying blogs · Facebook · real estate websites · Wordpress