Tag Archives: free

When times are hard, barter works well.

Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, ,

As my regular readers know well, I like to do computer things for people.  I have made my living from this for over a decade now.  In this tough time many people don’t have the money for my services, I am good at what I do so I charge for it.  So I decided last week to barter my services for those of other small businesses.  I can make great websites for business, and I can fix computers so that they are like new.

So I looked around for what I needed, I saw right away that I needed some yard work done (I am highly alergic to grass.)  I posted a small ad and the next day I had a landscaper call me, he needed his wifes computer to be fixed and the best quote he received was $150.  So he is going to come here in the morning and do 2-3 hours of yard work for me to remove some adware and install a few programs on his wife’s computer.  Good deal for me.  Trade 2 hours of my time doing something I like to do for 3 hours of something I hate to do, it is also a winning situation for Chris, the landscape guy, he just does 3 hours of work and saves himself $150.

I decided to take it to the next level, I found a company that will go in your attic and put this foil stuff down so on the hot Arizona days 95% of the heat is kept out of your house.  The materials and labor for a house my size is about $2,000.  I talked to them today and I am going to build a 10 page website for the materials guy and a 3 page site for the installer and I will get what I need for FREE.  They say this should save me at least $100 a month during the summer.

I am also working on my wife’s OB/GYN so that all of our prenatal care for my second child will be free, at least the part that insurance does not cover.  She is in need of a website.

I need some work done on my roof, I need new paint for my house.  I would like some rooms painted.  I am in talks for all of these things.

Once you start looking around and asking for such things you really start to find some great places.  Also what is nice is that I don’t barter with hardware so when they buy hardware I still get paid.  Also, when I have done this in the past they usually buy much more from me than I buy from them so I get a new customer and I get something done that I needed and I still make a profit.  It works well, and I suggest that every small business owner try it out.

(On a side note, I have seen many formal barter systems, and they don’t work, I would avoid them.)

Trade shows, a great source of leads, without even paying.

Bootstrap, Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, , ,

Trade shows, Fairs, Home Shows and such are common all over the nation.  For a small amount of money you can have your small business seen by the masses that come by your little booth.  They can talk to you, and hopefully buy your stuff.

But what if the product you sell is something that mostly businesses buy?  This makes a problem for you, if you get a booth at the show almost everyone who comes by will not own a business that you can sell to, you will spend a lot of time and money with little return.

I looked at this as a bootstrapping entrepreneur and thought this way.  There are 100’s of businesses at this show, most of them have the owner or decistion maker stuck in their booth and on a slow day they have very little to do.  So I figure out which day will likely be the slowest then I go there, I take my business cards and some flyers and start talking to business owners.

Today I went to a home show, I saw a few existing customer but I spent most of my time looking for companies that I could talk to about my products and services.  Of course I sell computers and web design.  Over 20% of the companies I talked to had an imediate need for one of my products or services.  I got their cards, wrote notes on the back and left the event a few hours later with 15 companies that I can call and do business with.  Where else can you make so many quality leads in such a short time, for free while having fun?

I have been doing this with great success for a few years.  A few times I have even had people write me checks on the spot.

So if you are lacking for leads for your business consider this as a great bootstap way to make some instant customers.

Awesome Free Swag on the Internet

blogs, Business, Internet, Marketing, , , , , , , , ,

Swag is the cool stuff you get for free when you go to conventions.  (Stuff We All Get) You also see it for many different businesses.  This article says that Swag is there to promote their products, and reward loyal customer, not to make a profit.  This is something that most businesses simply DON’T UNDERSTAND.   In the world of the internet it is rare, most companies simply can not afford to send out free stuff to the world with no return.

And some that do only send free e-swag, the digital stuff cause it costs them almost nothing.  By far the BEST e-swag I ever seen is called America’s Army.  It is a top quality video game, but instead of being sold it is given away for free to promote the US Army.  For the rest of this entry I will only focus on REAL stuff that gets sent to you.

5LBS of FREE CANDY by Southwest Candy – This one is great, I asked for it on monday, got the candy on tuesday via FedEx.  It is really good stuff, I really love the Jelly Belly ones.  They sell candy wholesale, really cheaply.  I will order from them if I ever have a bulk candy need, maybe Oct 31.  Here is a video of a girl getting her free candy.

FREE GREETING CARDS by Send Out Card – This is a great program where you can go online and customize quality greeting cards and then they are sent by postal mail directly to anyone you like.  You get the first three for FREE and after that the prices are cheap.

FREE MAPS – Here is a list of a ton of places where you can get free maps.  Really cool if you plan to travel.  If you would rather have an entire Atlas then click here.

FREE GUY STUFF – Here is a list of 9 things you can send away for.  I sent away for a few of them, the old spice body wash was the only one I received, it was enough for about 2 uses, so I am saving it for my next trip.

FREE LOCAL STUFF – You may or may not know, but Craigslist has a huge section of free stuff.  I have used it a few times when I rather just not pay.  Just look under the for sale section for the word free.  Search in your local area to get your local stuff.

TOTALLY FREE STUFF – This is a huge website with tons of links to free stuff.  Most of these will call you and such, but that is ok.  Go there now to get the full list.

The value of financial education is huge.

Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Investment, Marketing, Money, , , , , , , , , , , ,

It is said you never really know what you don’t know. It is not until you learn something that you really understand the value of the thing you just learned. Some things are very valuable and other have little value. For example if you get a little education on real estate investing and how it REALLY works, (Not always what you see on the TV) it will rock your world.

On the other hand I went to a 4 year university and at the end of it all I felt that I could have learned much more on my own. I am still glad I went for the social side of it all. Too many people spend their whole life in the rat race, it is like a giant treadmill, you only earn enough to get current on your bills, and if you ever make more you tend to spend more.

There are many bloggers, most much more popular than I am, that tell the masses how to save their meager earnings, and how to find deals so that they can spend less. But you really can only save so much. Even if you could save 50% of your earnings you still would take years to really get ahead. What they miss usually is that it is MUCH easier to increase your earnings than reduce spending. It takes a different kind of education, a type that most people do now learn. One nugget of info can change your life. It is much easier to live below your means if you increase you means. You do need to control costs, but spend more time increasing income than controlling costs and you will be ahead in the long run.

There is another blog, by a successful guy who gets this, I highly suggest you read his blog. It is called 7Million7Years. He recently wrote a blog about home equity, and that you should not put all your net worth into it. Read it here

Are you ready to learn how to take your investing, and your thoughts to the next level, well the next step is get educated. Read books by Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Douglas Andrew and Ric Edelman. I have found them to have the best books on real financial advise. Most of the others really give the WRONG advise. I don’t know what they are thinking sometimes.

If you are interested in real estate investing (Which you should be) my company, Capital Active, sponsors events where we teach people, for FREE, how to get started and how to be successful right from the start. If you are interested in an upcoming event sign up here.

Thanks and have a great day, leave a comment please.

Safari on windows!

Business, Computers, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, for once I am shocked and impressed by something in this industry. Mac just released Safari for Windows today. (Click here to get it) I was not keeping track and did not know it was coming, but shortly after midnight it came on saying that I could get it. I quickly installed it, and tested it out on my PC. The graphics look about the same but slightly better. I think they up the color setting on everything, and I like it. It seems to load as fast or faster. I will have to learn how to make some changes to it that I like to have but I will give it a good try.

This is a good idea that was a decade in the making. When you use it you feel like you are using a mac. I am a PC guy but I do see how this will get many new customers for Mac. I already see their market share increasing due to the tragic and predictable failure of Microsoft Vista. (Click here to see a survey of how big a failure vista really is)

I also downloaded FireFox on the day it came out, it was not so great at first but as IE got worse FireFox got better. For most of 2007 I used Ubuntu as my OS but I finally had to break down and go back to Windows on my main computer, but I did not go back to IE. I miss many things about Ubuntu, it is a much better OS but there are a few programs I need that simply don’t exist yet in the Linux world.

Thanks mac for raising the bar. I hope Microsoft either steps up or fades away soon.