Real estate has always been the de-facto inclusion in the  portfolio of the rich and wealthy. Wealth apparently doesn’t seem to be complete without the acquisition of illiquid assets like home, property, estates and mansions.

All kinds of property — residential, property to exotic ones like mansions, estates, ranches and even islands falls into the broad umbrella term used loosely as “real-estate”.

For true wealth creation, acquisition of real estate has always been deemed as critical and hence this manual on creating multiple streams of income starts on the same premise. However, our approach is rather long term and is designed to fetch you positive cash flow at later periods of time.

One pain point for most people when it comes to real estate is that that it has a high barrier to entry. I mean to say that it isn’t as affordable as a stock or something easy to handle. Real estate can be a life long commitment and you do have people like Donald Trump who has carved a special name for himself in this sphere.

Real estate has a variety of options for building a system to ensure a residual income which is in line with our goal of creating various sources of income for your self.

Build and it will come

One of the simplest ways to leverage real estate is to purchase property to lease it out or rent it out to tenants in exchange for a monthly or yearly income. This is also one of the easiest ways for a rookie real estate dealer to get acquainted with the rather mysterious world of real estate.

The underlying theory is that you would somehow find a mortgage or home loan to finance one house to start with and move on to more, depending on your financial status to build as many homes or even commercial property with the sole intention of giving it away on lease to secure a recurring income for as long as the contract is on — truly a simple but very effective way of building wealth through a sustainable, hassle free income stream.

Build and Sell

Some of the advanced real estate developers go one step ahead and build all sorts of property after going through the necessary steps of having spotted the requisite land, legalizing that piece of land, finding the builders / contractors and such like to formulate, plan and construct property.

These pieces of real estate will be developed according to the presiding societal norms, federal norms etc and then be sold to anyone willing to purchase. Real estate is always in demand and hence there is never a dearth of buyers.

Next post, we shall explore many ideas on how to make money with real estate. What do you think about real estate as a money making option?

Millions of people all over the world throng to eBay not only for the bidding and winning rush but also for the fact that you would get almost anything at an eBay store. No matter where you are in the world, you are sure to land some great bargains while you shop out there and it is turned out to be the de facto online retailing giant in the virtual world.

Thousands of home based business entrepreneurs have taken to eBay to sell their merchandise. Most people start on an experimental basis and morph into full-time merchants busy selling thousands of dollars worth of merchandise each month.

So here are a few ways on how to get started on eBay:

Step 1: Open a free account on eBay and study the dynamics of the site diligently. Check for what the other sellers’ businesses and see what’s happening there. There is a lot of information out there for new sellers and you make to lap it all up.

Step 2: Look around your home for things that you don’t need — old CD, DVD, cassettes, MP3 players, computer peripherals, thumb drives, whatever. List them on eBay and price them low to see what happens. You won’t believe the ecstatic feelings you’d get when you make a sale.

Step 3: It is time to move on and do actual selling, there must be something available at the place you stay — the city or country you stay in — that is made for much cheaper prices than elsewhere. Do a research and hunt these products down and try to sell them for a profit on eBay. As a guide, you can follow the points listed :

• Do it for others: Lots of small business owners are not online yet. They don’t even have an email id — depending on where you are at the moment. If you just search for some merchants who have products to be sold but are depending on their location specific retail store alone, you could offer to sell their products on eBay for a profit and take a cut out of it.
• Junk sales: When you frequent a yard sale or a junk sale next time, make sure you pick some stuff up which you know might get sold on eBay and sell those items for a profit.
• Sell your own stuff: Nothing can be more profitable than this — selling your own stuff. But it does involve hard work and background preparations. Assuming you already have a brick-and-mortar facility that produces certain goods and you have been doing off line sales so long, eBay can virtually make your business go global in an instant. If you are a small business owner and have no factories and the like, then you could still look at other merchants who produce items worth selling and hook them all up on eBay.

It will take some time for you to learn the trade, to make contacts and source adequately priced merchandise and to learn and compete in a global marketplace like eBay. But it is worth it all.

I hope you took some action after reading last week’s post on How to Start earning Money Online by Providing Services- Part 1. If you haven’t, I highly recommend you stop right here, go back to one of those job bidding sites we discussed about and sign-up.  This week, I would like to focus on some basic elements that make for a part of your marketing campaign as far as providing services online is concerned. This post will have 2 aspects of freelancing that I think you should know before you get started. No one ever tells you these things so I suggest you bookmark this post.

The Law of Numbers and Why You Can Bet Your Life on It

When I frequent job bidding sites and eavesdrop into the conversation most freelancers seem to be having. I started to notice certain common remarks being made. Here are a few of them:

“I hate job bidding sites. These guys from India, China and Philippines low-ball and take jobs away from right under my nose”

“I didn’t get a single project until now; I don’t think this will work”

There are even more cribs and complaints that you are likely to come across – all of them can be classified as excuses. Period.

The moment you go online, you are not pitting yourself against people in your geographical confines; you are competing with the world. When you talk about the world, you must include some really competent service providers operating out of countries with a low cost of living and a huge  gap in the currency values (currency arbitrage). You can’t do much about this, can you? So, why waste time lurking in the forums cribbing your life out?

The only way you can make a sustainable income off these bidding sites is to respect and follow the law of numbers – the more proposals you make the more projects you get. Elance and Guru, for instance, show you a set of numbers that you can use for your benefit called conversion ratio – the ratio of how many projects you gain out of the total proposals you make.

Let’s assume a modest conversion ratio of 10%. It means that you are bound to get at least 10 projects if you make 100 proposals in a month (assuming). With an average project monetary value of about $250, you are bound to end up with $2500 a month on an average. Quite impressive, isn’t it? So, now, how do you make more money?

Bid on more projects.

Bid on projects that pay more.

Improve your conversion ratio.

Was it rocket science?

However, putting up proposals blindly bring home the turkey for you. You will have to approach each bid by using expertly written, highly-customized proposals that reek of quality, expertise and your personality and that leads me to my next point.

How to Write a Winning Proposal

Everything else being the same for all providers on all the bidding sites, what do you think is the one thing that still help you to cut through the clutter and stand out?

Your proposal!

Your project proposal is your marketing pitch. It’s your bread-winner. This is the big daddy of all sales pitches since you are not with the buyer in person (so you don’t have an advantage of expert body language, rapport building, pleasant looks and all that could have worked in your favor if you met the buyer in person). This is salesmanship in print.

Coming right to the point, your proposal must reflect the brand “YOU”. Show some personality, write with a style, use your skills to the maximum and create an indelible impact on your buyer. Ordinary is boring and won’t get you results.

Open with style, introduce yourself, show the buyer why you are the best person for the project, state your bid and the delivery time anticipated and finally sign-off with style. Showcase some of your published work or work-in-progress as your portfolio. If you don’t have any yet, create them.

Much later, if possible, I might actually want to share some real, highly-converting proposals. For now, I think this will suffice. Take your word document out and write a great proposal to get started. Keep the following in mind as a take away from the post this week.

• Respect and follow the law of numbers. Bid more and bid consistently, using high quality proposals. More bids, or more bids on higher paying projects or improving your conversion ratio is the key to success on bidding sites.
• If you don’t bid enough, you won’t earn enough.
• Know your conversion ratio to give you an estimate of how much you can earn each month.
• Write a winning proposal – start with a bang and grab attention, introduce yourself, state your experience and prove why you are the best, show samples and sign off with style.

How about getting started on sites like odesk.com, elance.com and guru.com — the best on the Internet so far – and see how you go?You got to get started now. Please post your results here for me to know.

How To Start A Service Business Online

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to start your business while you have your job to provide for you until your business starts making the money? How would it be if you could just work on weekends and perhaps an hour or two each day and be able to make just as much or perhaps more than your salary?

The need to avoid cubicles, disgusting bosses, and depressing colleagues is even more than before and it’s time we get started on your journey towards smart, web working. I intend to introduce many weekend businesses that you could start on your own starting with one of the most popular ways to make money online.

Since acquiring the necessary skills regarding each of the categories I mentioned above vary greatly, I won’t get into those specifics here. Instead, I would like to emphasize on the business side of things since they are largely the same across categories and are even more important than just being good at what you do.

One of the quickest ways to earn money legitimately on the Internet is a rather simple one – provide services to clients looking for the exact same service you claim to provide. Some of the  popular services provided online are writing (which includes blogging, writing e-books and whitepapers, and other web related content); web designing, coding, and programming; providing VA (Virtual assistant Services); translations and transcriptions and many more. The web workers who start their own business by providing such services are called freelancers or service providers.

Depending on your previous experience, skill sets and attributes, you may pick the category of services you are likely to provide. If you think you can handle more than one category, you are most welcome to do so. However, I recommend specializing in just one category and make your brand stand out.

You are your own business for now.

So how do you get started?

I did all the research; I’ve cut through the mess out there on the Internet. I personally made my money off one of these sites and I presently hire many freelance workers to work on many parts of my business. Don’t bother with more research, asking around and analysis – time can be better spent on execution. Head over to one of the following sites first and explore them slowly:

Odesk – This is a freelance market place and it is free to get started with. It is one of the most popular sites known for hourly work. Odesk swears by hourly type work – where you get paid by the hour— and guarantees you payment (in case you have clients running away after getting the work done in one of those famous disappearing acts). Your work is monitored and every hour you work is recorded in logs by using software to take snapshots of what you do on the computer every hour (much like watching you work over your shoulder).

The process?

Find relevant jobs –> Read Descriptions –>Decide if you can do it –> Apply with an astounding proposal and relevant samples –> Rinse and Repeat

Elance: This site has been around for ages and I personally love this site. Most of my freelance team came off this site. You could join it for free and get a feel of the site, but you get better results when you become a paid member. However, after the latest developments this year, even free members have a fair chance provided you do everything right. You will have to select a category to operate in. You will have to pay each month for any extra categories. Elance charges you each month (if and when you become a paid member) and also takes away about 8.75% off your earnings each time. Membership levels begin at about $10 a month. Think of all this as an expense to do your business. Could you imagine starting a business for $10? So, what do you do to get your first project on elance?

Set-up profile and portfolio –>Check out projects and apply –> Bid on projects using an attention grabbing proposal along with relevant samples –>repeat.

Notice that no matter which site you choose to work in, applying to pertinent projects keeping your skills in mind and writing a great proposal attached with relevant samples is the common activity that you have to do.

Now, here’s the rub : many budding freelance workers fail at this juncture. This is the purely business part of the deal and hence I will focus on how to get projects off elance or odesk easily, successfully such that you can get started with your weekend businesses immediately.

If you are reading this with the primary intent of making some money online, I want you to treat this blog as a dynamic e-course. I will give you activities after each post so that you can complete them and report. As a key takeaway activity for now, head over to either odesk or elance and create your profile with samples in your portfolio.( If you have no samples, work on a few random ones as if you were working for someone and put them up. For instance, if you are a writer, produce a few articles. If you are a designer, show off your best work or create something new. You get the drift, don’t you?)

Here’s what you must do as a summary:

• Go to odesk or elance.com
• Sign up as a service provider by choosing a relevant category.
• Explore the site(s), get used to the feel of it all. Read project descriptions.

You don’t have to apply or bid for projects yet. We will cover that in great detail next week. For now, have you signed up yet? Do let me know. I can use my experience and check out each one of your profiles to let you know  how you did  so far. What do you say? Go get started!

There are thousands of people who would love to seek and wealth and some of them actually step on the pedal and set off to join the race. Money, creating wealth and getting rich has tremendous global appeal and there is no question about it; but it isn’t as nice and glamorous as it is made out to be. Look at some aspects you might never have thought about:

It is tougher than you thought it was: Money is neutral and anyone who works hard enough can get rich. The trouble is that not many people can stomach the “hard work” part. It is really the toughest when you first start out. In all probability, this difficulty level should taper off as years go by and as your wealth starts building up. That said, very few people last on this journey. Will you?

It takes more sacrifice than you thought you could handle: Those who got rich worked harder, longer, smarter and more consistently than all others. They spend a lot of time working towards their goals and the sacrifices they make are truly stupendous — they get up early and get to work and only finish in the wee hours of the night; they ignore their personal relationships and they face a lot of hardships.

It takes a long time to create wealth which you might never get to enjoy: On an average, it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 years to make enough wealth for yourself such that you don’t ever have to work again. Trouble with this is that you end up spending a good part of your active working life trying to get there and even if you are successful, you would be in no condition to enjoy all that wealth you created.

It is a chore to protect all that wealth you would create: Once you get there and truly create wealth, you will have all sorts of ravens, eagles and hawks swooping down on you. They attack you with wits, vile and a scheming mind. Almost everyone seems to go after your money. You will have a hard time protecting it all. Can you handle it?

Pursuing wealth is indeed an intriguing journey — something worth doing in a lifetime. The decision, however, is personal. What do you really want? Are you prepared to go through the journey regardless of the points above? Take that call. What do you think?

Weekend Business Myths

The lure of making money shoots a rush of adrenaline in many people around the world. Many people take to weekend businesses or part-time businesses in pursuit of finding the Holy Grail to create wealth – the reward for such a pursuit. However, not everyone gets around to anywhere near even a moderate amount of success. Why is that? That’s because too many people are either too lazy to work towards their rather lofty ambitions or because they give in myths like those below:

Myth #1: It’s easy to run a part-time business

Each time I hear this, I laugh until I shed tears. No business success ever comes with ease. There is no such thing as an easy business. Businesses are the result of serious entrepreneurs shedding their ego, sweating themselves to death and toiling against the worst possible odds this world has to throw their way. Businesses are an answer to the abuses, insults and the worst kind of politics most people have to endure in their corporate lives. It’s certainly difficult to run a business – whether part-time or full-time. However, it is incredibly satisfying and undeniably fun.

Myth #2: Because it’s part-time, that’s all the time I have for it

This should be single-most reason why it might be that many weekend businesses fail. Many people start their part-time business having already decided that they are not going to be serious about it; that they will dedicate a “part” of their time. If you are doing this, you aren’t operating under pressure. You don’t have anything to lose so that puts you in a risk-free environment. You don’t bring in your best and that means you don’t run your business with passion. No passion and no risk, nothing ever happens.

Myth#3: Since it is a weekend business, I don’t have to spend money on it

If you don’t put anything in, you don’t get anything out. No matter which business you choose to run, you will have to invest – be it money, time or effort.  Of course, almost every business ever discussed here on Weekend Income shares a common characteristic: none of the businesses will require investments totaling thousands of dollars. Still, money has to be spent.

Myth #4: Success weekend businesses would mean that I need to think of a great idea

You don’t need a great idea to run a successful weekend business; you just need a great attitude and perseverance to run such a business. Most people stop at this bottle-neck; they wait all their lives waiting for that “eureka” moment, the “aha factor” and the ultimate apple-hits-head kind of awareness. It isn’t going to happen. Go pick that next plausible idea that comes to your head and find the best way to execute it.

Don’t let a few people, random unwarranted and unfounded thoughts or myths ruin you and disturb the quest for wealth. Have you been affected by these myths already? What steps have you taken to counter it?

Many people work during the week but still struggle every month to pay their bills. Making an additional income on the weekends can oftentimes make a big difference but it can be challenging to know where to start. We have some great tips to help you get you business started with a bang!

1) Make a Plan
If you want your business to be successful you have to start with a plan. This doesn’t have to be a full-scale business plan but should set a clear path to your goals. Write down a summary of your plan, how much money you would like to make each weekend, and what you will do to grow your revenue.

If you have trouble thinking of a plan start thinking about what skills you have to offer. Maybe you know another language, or perhaps you’re an expert in a particular subject-matter – use these skills to drive your plan.

2) Market your Business
If you want to make money you’ll need to market your business so that everyone else knows what you have to offer. There are some great ways to market your business online for little or no money. Start with Craigslist as this is a great way to get your services out to a large group of people without having to spend a dime. If you want to reach a targeted group of people online without having to spend much money Google AdSense is a great place to look and help launch your business.

3) Focus on Word-Of-Mouth
One of the best ways to grow a weekend business is through word-of-mouth. Every time you have a satisfied customer make sure to tell them to let other people know. This is a easy way to grow your business and happy customers will gladly share your business with others.

4) Set Income Goals
It is absolutely essential that you set clear income goals for your business from the beginning. This will help you determine how well you are doing each step of the way based on your initial expectations. If you miss your goals, try to analyze why you missed them and what you can do to hit your goals in the future.

5) Don’t Overload Yourself
It’s easy to become overloaded – this will actually decrease productivity and hurt your business. Make sure that you scale your weekend business at a pace you feel comfortable with. At the end of the day your happiness and focus will make your business successful!

So you want to make money on the weekends but aren’t sure where to start. Don’t worry – here at WeekendIncome.com we’ve done the research so you can get start making money at home right-away. The great thing about making money on the weekends is that you don’t have to sacrifice all of your downtime. In fact you can still make a consistent income on the weekends and have some much-needed rest and relaxation!

Below are a list of five home businesses with suggestions of how you can get started right-away.

1) Start an eBay Business
eBay businesses are easy to start and grow over time. You can start right-away by clearing out your garage and selling the things you never use. You’ll be surprised how much money you have just sitting around you house in the form of “stuff” and eBay can help you sell it. Once you’ve sold a few things from around the house you can start selling things for others or distributors that allow you to get a percentage of the sale for product you don’t even have to own yourself!

2) Start a Dog-Walking Business
You might laugh at this idea at first but this is an excellent way to make some extra money and it can easily scale over time. For people that take trips on the weekend you can offer to look-after their dog for a few days and make money the whole weekend just for having their dog stay at your house. This is a big word-of-mouth business which means it can really grow exponentially as time goes by.

3) Freelance Writer
If you love writing there is money to be made both online and offline. You can post an ad on Craigslist advertising your services or use one of the many paid article-writing services. Just spending a few hours every weekend writing could make you a nice consistent supplemental income.

4) Tutoring Service
Are you an expert in a particular subject? Why not help others and make money at the same time. Tutoring can be a great way to make some extra money on the weekends while helping someone else master a skill you already have.

5) Tour Guide
Have you lived in the same city for a while? You could become a tour guide easily by posting an ad in the local newspaper or on Craigslist. This is a fun way to make some extra money on the weekends while helping others enjoy the city or town that you call home.