Look- I know the title sounds a little bit loony crazy. Why would anyone want to travel the world with no job, and think (more like hope) that they will be able to command an annual income of $50,000 or more?
Well, if that still sounds crazy, I suggest that you pick up a book at your local bookstore on your way home today. Which book you ask?
Before i come to that, let’s examine the content of the book itself. It contains rich case studies of how over 1,500 people, like the author himself, are achieving all of the above.
They all had a common denominator
1)They started their businesses with less than $100.
2)They all now earn AT LEAST $50,000 annually from their businesses.
There, you have it. Its a slap across the face of anyone who says that businesses “need capital” and are too “risky”
How are 1,500 people worldwide doing all of the above with so little capital?
The complete breakdown of the book
Lesson 1- The Law of Convergence
In this first lesson, you learn that two things need to converge before you have a viable business idea. First, you have to be passionate about whatever you want to sell. Second, passion isn’t enough- You have to make sure that other people care about it too.
For example, if you want to sell books or courses on hamster training, you have got to be passioanate about it. Otherwise, you are just going to fizzle out halfway through, and let down your potential customers. And if you aren’t passionate about it, chances are you aren’t good at it anyway, so why bother?
Similarly, passion isn’t enough. Even if you are passionate about training hamsters, are there enough people in the world who are? And even if there are, would they be willing to PAY you in order to learn?
Law 2: Skill adaptation
You have to realise that direct skills don’t always pay off big time. If you are a teacher, it doesn’t mean that you are only good at teaching. If you are only good at teaching, chances are you will remain a teacher all your life, with a limited income potential.
Often, a teacher is also great at communication, writing, attention to detail, and counselling. Any of these adapted skills above are good enough to be pursued on their own, with a huge income potential.
A teacher could very easily, over her years of experience, master the art of dealing with difficult children. Such knowledge, could easily be spawned into a course, or book, or seminar, to help parents deal with difficult children. Skills are supposed to be adaptable. Do not, for one moment, think that just because you are a cook, that you can and should only cook. If you are a fire fighter, it’s not only fire fighting that you are good at. You could be great at managing a team, and that could be sold in the form of leadership training for executives.
Sit down and think of all the skills that you currently have. Some of them may actually be gold mines.
Lesson 3: The Magic Formula
The magic formula is actually simple
Passion/skill + Usefulness = Success.
An example is Brandon Pearce, a piano teacher who is a programmer hobbyist. In his free time, he created a software which helped to track, among other things, payments, schedules and student sign-ups for music students. He did not intend for this software to be used commercially, but when other teachers from other schools heard about it, they all clamored to have their own copy of the software, because of it’s usefulness in tracking their own music students.
Today, Brandon makes an excess income of $30,000 a month.
Principles of starting a micro-business
1) Product or service – WHAT to sell
2) People willing to pay for what you have to sell
3) A way to get paid (gateways such as PayPal, credit cards, cheques etc)
If you have a group of interested people, but nothing to sell them, then you have no business. If you have a product or service, but no customers willing to buy, again you have no business.
In a similar vein, if you have a product, and customers dying to buy it, but no easy way to get paid, you still won’t have a business. Put all the 3 above together, and voila, it works!
For the rest of the book, ask your local bookstore for “The $100 Startup” by Chris Guillebeau
I don’t want to spoil the rest of the book for you, but rest assured knowing that this is a paradigm shifting book that will change the way you think about business and how to start one.