The House of Riches

Now that I've made the decision to start a business I must decide what type of business it should be. I developed criteria for a business based on my current life-style and needs. I came up with the following:
1. Operate from home
2. Low start-up costs
3. No inventory
4. Good potential income
5. Start part-time

Based on these criteria I determined an internet-based business would probably be best. Searching for Internet businesses yielded the following suggestions:
1. Surveys
2. Re-selling
3. Affiliate programs
4. Multi-level marketing

I joined several survey groups and began filling out the surveys. After completing the first few, I began to get the feeling that the income potential may not be what had been stated. Most surveys were only giving points for gifts and others offered entries into cash drawings. Sorry, but if my income is going to be based on a drawing, I’ll play the lottery. I also found that I was being turned down for most surveys based on demographics.

I learned how affiliate programs worked. I joined a few affiliate programs and put ads on Google. It’s been about three months now and I’m still waiting for my first purchase. These programs are free and easy to join and the only required effort is publishing the ads. I think with more experience this may provide a few bucks a month. Hopefully enough to fund my car restoration hobby.

Re-selling looks interesting. These programs closely resemble affiliate programs, except that you market a product rather than drive traffic to someone else's marketing page. And if you market services, electronic information (like e-books) or use a drop –shipper, then no inventory is needed. I’ve joined one re-seller program, but as I also joined the program to re-sell the re-sell ad, I lost the guide to re-selling the original product. Looks like I may have fallen prey to a pyramid scheme.

One thing I noticed is that there are an incredible number of offers on the net that appear to be pyramid schemes in that the offers focus more on getting other people to purchase web sites to market a product more than focusing on the actual product for sale. Here is where the lines between pyramid schemes, affiliate/re-seller programs and multilevel marketing becomes awfully blurred. I recommend full investigation into business offers before jumping into it.

Finally comes the dreaded multi-level marketing. As I stated before, I’ve tried this before with no success. However, that was before the Internet. I am trying it again since I’ve come to believe that the saturation argument has no merit. I’ve been around now for 47 years and have only been approached once about 25 years ago. Looks to me like MLM is a viable business. However, one must choose a company that has a niche product and not just selling distributorships or requires a distributor to purchase a certain amount of inventory a month. I found that getting leads over the Internet is far easier than generating leads any other way. I’ve been using a small ad on Google that links to my MLM lead generation webpage and have been getting a lead per day since starting it. Again with more experience, I should be able to increase my conversion rate and start building this business.

Well there you have four income generating activities that you can do from the comfort of your own home. How profitable will they be? I firmly believe they will be as profitable as I make them. I believe that by treating these activities like any other business will generate an income that will allow me to get out of debt and provide enough money to live on full time. I also believe the more time and effort I spend on them, the faster they will begin generating an income. I know I enjoy running these businesses much more than commuting 3 hours a day to my current job which I also pretty much hate. And by using some caution in expenditures, I see very little risk in operating these activities so I won’t loose my shirt! Stayed tuned for the outcome.

Also check out the "What’s at Stake" link to see why I’m doing all of this.

I often wonder why anyone would want to own his or her own business. After all look at all the work involved. You’ve got to manage product, attract customers, fulfill orders, hire employees, manage employees, deal with governmental regulations, manage payroll, and the list goes on and on. Not to mention the fact that you will probably never be satisfied with the effort of your employees as they will never work as hard as you will since it's not their company. So why in the world would anyone want to take on all off this hassle?

There is a strange common trait amongst humans, however, that answers this question; the desire for ownership. We, at least Americans, prefer to be owners. We prefer to own our own homes and cars even though leasing makes much more financial sense. Think about it. Think of all the money you put into your home in maintenance. When something goes wrong YOU must get it fixed. If you leased your home, a call to the landlord gets a what ever is broken fixed. Same with your car, how silly to buy. The depreciation kills you. Get the right lease plan and you can drive the car of your choice for much less money.

In fact why do we own anything? We could ever so easily rent every creature comfort we could ever want. Televisions, furniture etc. We can rent DVD's video games. We can "rent" people to clean our homes and mow our lawns. We can even "rent" people to raise out kids!

But yet we still prefer to own. Why? Because we can do things our way. If we want to paint a bedroom purple, we can without having to ask permission. If we want to rip out the guest bathroom and make it a closet we can. We have control over how we want it and make it into what we want. That is the attraction to ownership. That is the pride in ownership

Even in companies today, corporate leaders stress ownership. They tell their employees to "take ownership" of tasks and processes. Why? Because they know employees will try harder to make something they "own" work better than anything else. They will be more apt to keep it working smoothly, They will work harder at improving it, and they will be quicker to make it more valuable to those who use it. They know it is a personal reflection of them and take pride in it. Hence the desire to own your own business.

What little kid hasn't wanted to set up a lemonade stand. And why? Sure there is a little piece of thought process that says to make money, but also the excitement of having something others might want and controlling how to present it to them. They like the feeling when someone buys a glass and says, "Wow, that's the best lemonade I've ever tasted!" They know deep in their little hearts, their stand is a reflection of themselves, and their abilities. They take pride in that, pride in ownership.

So now which would you prefer? Going to work at someone else's pride and joy or building pride in your own business? Imagine being able to make your own decisions about how to run your own business. how to present it. How to make it a reflection of the best in you. Then you can say with pride, "This is MY business!"

Hello and welcome to my blog, the House of Riches. My name is Jim Jankowski and this is my initial foray into the community of the World Wide Web. My purpose with this blog is to share thoughts and ideas of on-line businesses. I know there are those who are appalled at the commercialization of the Web, but I think everyone agrees that the Web has something for everyone and accomodates all. It's with this in mind that I hope to share the commercial aspect of the Web with like-minded people across the world in hopes of providing inspiration to all those trying to find their financial freedom.

Let me start by sharing my background. I am in my late 40's, married with two young wonderful boys. I purchased a comfortable home 2 years ago when I had a good paying job. Unfortunately that job ended in August of 2004. I managed to quickly find another, but at 20% less than I was making before. Oh I've lost jobs before, but was fortunate enough to find another at the same rate. This time reality hit and I knew I needed to do something else to guarantee my finacial security.

I dabbled in multi-level marketing when I was just out of college. But being an engineer, I was stuck on the mathematics of improbability for the success of MLM and so never really put forth the necessary effort to make it work. Then I tried getting rich quick by trading commodities and I needn't elaborate on what happened to me quickly. Next, I discovered direct mail but found that the 1% of the people ordering my products was not paying for my mailing campaigns. Fianlly I began investigating opportunities on the Internet.

So here I am. A fledgling internet entrepreneur. Facing the daunting vastnes of the World Wide Web. Amazed, if not overwhelmed, by the incredible amount of information available on how to be sueccessful on the 'net. There appears to be more information than in any standard MBA program. So, here goes. I figure I'm a smart person and can surely put into practice what is being taught out there. And I hope you will join me so we can all live in the House of Riches.