That said, I need to create other income streams to be able to step away from the job. I’m slowly building my vending business to have a reliable passive income. But in the meantime, I’ve grown weary of the job, and I want and need to do something else. So, I’ve decided to go back to my old-school methods like RentACoder! Actually, the name of the site has now changed to vWorker (that should be a clue as to how long it’s been since I checked in). I bid on three jobs so far, and just got one of my bids accepted today! So I’m very excited. I’m  ExpertRating certified in English/Spanish translation, so I expect to have more bids accepted for those job categories. The best thing about doing virtual work is that I can potentially work from anywhere as long as I have a laptop and Internet connection.

So here’s my overview of how my business ventures will make my life nicer: real estate investment for fun and to payoff debt, vending business for passive income, virtual work to pay the bills in the meantime (and be able to travel anywhere while doing so). The pieces are finally fitting together! Now to make it happen

Updates:

Real estate investing – I met with a seller who received one of my letters yesterday. I’d only inquired about one house, but it turns out he has four that he needs to sell to avoid foreclosure. I’m only interested in three of the homes right now. I got one contract signed last night, and the other two he needed to take home to get signed by his wife who is also on title. While were sitting in my car signing docs (the Dunkin’ Donuts closed just as we got there), I casually ask him: so… do you know of anyone else that has a property they need to sell? He says: oh yeah, I’m the pastor at my church, and we need to sell a big, empty commercial building that we’ve owned for years” Yeah baby, I’ll be all over that one as well. I haven’t wholesaled a commercial property yet, but I will certainly learn how to do so now I also have a potential end-buyer for my recently approved shortsale, but he’s kind of dicking around. I’ll put the property on the MLS by this weekend if I don’t have a signed contract and deposit by Saturday.

Vending – I’ve slacked off and forgot to return calls of people who responded to my email. I will put those calls on my to-do list to be completed by Friday. I broke down the double-head I still have at home to a single, and I’ll be ordering an additional stand and gumball wheel set this week. I’m sticking with my gumballs only plan.

Virtual freelancing – Got my first job accepted today, and it’s due in 48 hours. Actually, this isn’t the first job I won at vWorker, but since I closed my old account a long time ago, I had to open a new one and create a new profile. So, this is the first job for the new profile, hehe. Maybe I can use this as an excuse to finally get a Macbook, hmmm…

That’s it for now. Thanks for checking in!

January 2010: I started the year off with three businesses: real estate (agency/investing), mobile notary public services, and a designer fragrance online store. Then I added a fashion accessories biz.

July 2010: I’ve retired the designer fragrance and fashion accessories businesses. Real estate and vending and now my top priorities, with notary services running a close second.

I’ve gotten on the habit of a regular lead-generation plan for both my real estate and vending business. And now I get so many calls and emails, I don’t have time to return them all. The only time I have to return calls is during my lunchbreak (I still have a J-O-B), and when I get home from work after 5pm. I’d like to call people early in the morning, but I think 8:30am phone calls might be a bit too much. Then again, some might see me as a go-getter. I guess I’ll have to test that theory and see

For real estate, I’ve been marketing heavily to people facing foreclosure, and the response rate has been good. My recent batch of 78 letters yielded 10 phone calls. That’s a 12% response rate, much better than the supposed “average” response rate of 2%. I’m attributing that to the fact that I only use hand-addressed envelopes and stamps for postage. I know it takes longer, but I believe people open it because it looks like it’s coming from someone they know. All the other mailings I’ve done using labels or printed envelopes got me ZERO response. So I’m sticking with what works. The next step to this will be hiring an assistant to do it every week.

For the vending business, I’ve decided to focus on non-profit groups instead of for-profit locations. My hunch is that since they always need money anyway, they’ll like getting a monthly payout from the machine. I did a test by sending emails to some senior centers in my area. Out of 11 emails sent, two responded that they wanted a machine (that’s an 18% response rate, in case you’re wondering). I placed my first machine at a bar, which I’m due to service for the first time this coming week. It’s a double-head, which I’m going to break down to a single. After reading all the discussions on the Vendiscuss forum, I’ve decided to sell gumballs only. They’re the most profitable, and the easiest item to obtain. I’ll check my results after a month, and if it’s not where I want to be, then I’ll consider incorporating candy. My goal is build my passive business stream and keep it as simple as possible.

One thing I like about this process is that I keep coming to the same “realizations” over and over again. Stay consistent with lead generation, and always keep the goal in mind.

This is the second good lead from my letter campaign. Only 44 cents invested to make a few thousand dollars. I’m very excited.

Update on the other deals:

• I called again today to get status on docs for the sub2 I’m working on. They claim my authorization letter expired 90 days from the date it was signed by the borrower. I’ve been dealing with this servicer (Litton Loan Servicing) since April. I love it how they don’t tell you any of those details when you initally send the authorization letter. Now I have to add this to my checklist of initial contact with lenders: verify whether or not authorization expires, and if so, when. Bastards.
• The lender for the duplex shortsale (American Home Mortgage) claims that they received my authorization letter, but they didn’t “see” the borrower’s signature on it. Bullshit. So I have to fax it again. Bastards.

I also received my charity vending stickers today. Now all I’m waiting for is the locator service and I’ll be good to go. Can’t wait!

As I continue to setup the new vending business, I’m seeing the differences between it and my designer fragrance business. Now if I just promoted affiliate links, then the fragrance business would become passive. I’d only need to monitor my marketing efforts and click-thru rates. But designer fragrances are not a niche enough market. So after almost two years in business, I may have to retire SmellRealGood. Either that or find a niche in the fragrance business that hasn’t been exploited yet.

After speaking to a good friend of mine, I’m going to give this landlording business a chance. It is passive income after all, and I don’t really want to give that up. I feel I have a good tenant, so as long as the property is decent, I should be okay. I think my rant yesterday was a result of momentary insanity caused by frustration. So let’s see.

On the vending business front, I’m in the process of signing up with a charity, and then I’m going to hire a locating service to place the machine so I don’t have to pay a commission every month. The service charges only $31 and they offer a money back guarantee with results within a week of ordering. They’ll even relocate for free if I get kicked out within 90 days for any reason.

On the perfume business front, I’m closing my Paypal account. They have instituted a new “policy” where they can hold your funds for whatever amount of time they please. The letter states that it is not because I did anything wrong, but because they want to implement a new policy to “protect” me. I received this information after receiving a new order for almost $100 from a new client through the iOffer.com store. So guess what? I told them, with a selection of choice words, that I don’t need to use their service anymore. So I instructed them to refund the transaction to the buyer and close my account. In the meantime, the buyer paid me via Google Checkout (with NO problems whatsoever, of course), and I’ll be processing the order today. It’s so nice to have a choice with payment processors.

During my Memphis trip, I got the brilliant idea of starting a newsstand business at Greyhound bus stations. Well, they’ve shut me down. I contacted the person in charge, several times, and Greyhound just isn’t interested in having ANY vendors at their bus stations. So while it seemed promising, I’m not going to press the issue. Maybe they’ll change their minds in the future. In the meantime, I need to get crackin’ on other businesses, which leads me to…

I am finally starting a vending business! About two years ago, I’d read an ebook on how to startup a vending business, it had good information on pitfalls to watch out for, how to shop for machines,  etc. But I never followed up.  Then I started looking at starting an ATM business, but that requires way too much capital (more than what I have anyway), and there’s a safety issue with transporting large sums of cash by myself (a big NO-NO). Now that I’m serious about developing a passive income stream, I decided to get on the ball. I reread the book, and decided to start a bulk candy vending business. I found a NEW double-head candy machine on craigslist for $100, but I was able to talk to the seller down to $70. The machine still had the plastic wraps on it. This machine typically sells for about $200 brand new. He’d purchased it almost seven years ago to start a business himself, but never did. I tested the machine with quarters to make sure it worked, and loaded that baby into my car. Now I just need to buy candy at BJs and place it at a location. I made a post on Facebook asking my friends if they or anyone they knew wanted a machine at their place of business, and one of my real estate clients responded that her dad needs one in his detail shop. So I’ll call her today to make the arrangements. I want to have it placed by this weekend. Here’s the pic of the candy machine taken with my Blackberry:

I have two other shortsale deals that are progressing. The big one looks like it may close in the next month or so. The other one (a duplex), is just starting, and I hope to close on that by August.

I’m also going to change real estate brokerages again. This will (hopefully) be my last switch before I finally get my broker’s license. I’m taking one of my broker licensing courses online right now, with about seven classes to go. I’m sooo ready to be a broker already. There’s nothing like having total control over your money.

That’s all the updates I have for now.