Different Ways to Make Money

I recently suggested that the secret to making money is to turn your hobby into your profession. Do what you love and you will find it's much easier to earn cash. Besides, you already spend time on your hobby. Without doing anything more, you can start down the path to true wealth. Just think how you could earn money by spending more time on the activities you love to do.

Well, I got many letters of gratitude and this somehow interesting inquiry. In part it read:

"I don't really have any hobbies. I like to spend my time sitting in my recliner and watching TV. I drink beer and eat pizza on a daily basis. Since I am currently unemployed, I watch TV all day (and most of the night too!) Can I earn money doing what I do?"

Well, my answer is.... of course. First, you are wrong. You do have a valuable hobby, several in fact. You probably have a really good sense of what is being broadcast on television. Television networks are always looking for people to review new programs. They want to know what is going to be a hit and what will be a dud. By all means, contact all the major networks and offer your services. There are not many people who can watch television for eighteen hours every day. I am sure you could make a small fortune as a "broadcast quality consultation."

But don't stop there. While you are at it, let the furniture, beer, and pizza companies know that your services are available for hire. Every major company spends millions on focus groups and customer feedback. With your testing services, you could actually save them lots of money. They would reward you handsomely and you might even get a whole bunch of free stuff after you have reviewed it.

The key to wealth is thinking outside the box.

Many people collect things for a hobby. Some people collect stamps, others collect rare coins. I even know a guy who collects beer bottles. He has over 10,000 bottles from all over the world. Many people think that these collections are an expensive hobby and are basically worthless. However, if you are smart, you can turn your hobby into your profession and make money by doing what you enjoy.

The key is to go from being a "collector" to being a "dealer." A collector just gathers things and stores them. A dealer both gathers items and sells them for a profit. Every time the dealer sells an item, he makes more than he has paid for it. He can then repurchase something similar or just keep the profit. The point is, instead of the stamps or coins sitting in an album, they are out there earning money for the dealer.

Take my friend with the beer bottles. His house is filled with them. Every square inch has a bottle. His wife can't stand it. He told me that he loves finding new bottles, but he really doesn't know what to do with them once he has them. So they sit around the house. Now if he went online and advertised even a fraction of his collection on E-bay or a similar site, he could make so much money he could purchase hundreds of new bottles. Not only would he have rebuilt his collection, but the new bottles would be filled with beer. Full beer bottles in my mind are much more useful than empty ones, don't you agree?

Whatever you collect, there is a market for it. All you have to do is find that market. That is what you should use the Internet to find.

I have a friend who created quite an extraordinary business. He sells rocks. Yes, that's right. He sells bits of stuff that he picks up for free. Why would anyone purchase a rock from him, you ask? Simple, the rocks are from exotic locations. Some people cannot afford to travel, so they buy one of his rocks and feel that they now own a little piece of the exotic.

For example, he once traveled to Israel and brought back a sack of stones from the Judean Desert. The people at Customs looked at him as if he was crazy, but they didn't charge him because they said the stones had no value. He marketed them as "Stones of the Holy Land." I kid you not, he sold everything he had collected at $40 per pebble.

He went to Nepal on vacation and brought back rocks from the Himalayas. "Own a piece of Mount Everest" he said in his brochures. People from all over wanted one. These are people that could never have climbed Everest, but they still wanted a reminder of the highest mountains in the world.

He even brought back rocks from the Galapagos Islands. Once again, he charged $40 for each rock and sold them as "Elemental Reminders of Darwin." He is now a very wealthy person. Each year he picks an exotic location and goes on vacation. What he brings back not only pays for the vacation, it provides him with enough money to live comfortably the rest of the year. Some people love his rocks so much that they are on his mailing list. Wherever he goes, they will buy a stone! If you ever visit someone and they show you their "exotic stone collection" chances are they bought them from my friend. Making money just depends on your imagination

The title of this entry is how to make money by selling things that don't cost you anything. Most people will by now ask, "What exactly do you mean? Anything that you can get for free, has no value. You just can't sell it. It's just not possible." That, my friends, in an example of thinking inside the box. A person who thinks like that will never become wealthy. They are far too conventional in their thinking.

Think about it, you have many things that don't cost you anything. Pop singers make millions of dollars each year selling nothing but the voice they were born with. Think singing lessons for kids are a waste of time? Just think how many people in the world make money using their voice. And it doesn't have to be singing. Let's say you can't carry a tune. So what? There are many people who make six and even seven figure incomes who work in radio or even as public address system announcers. Remember, whatever they earn is pure profit. Unlike the guy selling socks who has to lay out all that cash for inventory, the one who sells his voice doesn't need to put any money down. When the sock guy has sold all his socks, he needs to buy more. When the guy who sells his voice is finished, he still has as much "inventory" as when he started.

When you start thinking this way, you will see there are lots of things you can do where you don't have to lay out a lot of money. But just remember, the most important and valuable part of the human body is the brain. That is where your best ideas for making money will come from. Take care of your brain, and it will always take care of you.

Do you know how they tell young drivers to slow down in driver's ed school? I still remember the teacher asking this question and everyone answering, "Duh, you put on the brakes." The instructor answered, "Fine, but what about on the highway? How should you slow down?" He then told us that people don't realize, the best way to slow down is actually so simple: take your foot of the accelerator.

Many people have followed my advice on the numerous ways to acquire wealth. Yet, I often get e-mails from people asking where is all the money they were supposed to make. When we discuss it, it turns out that they did make lots of money with my proven strategy for getting rich. They doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled their income with my tips. Yet at the end of the day, they had no money left in the bank. How could this have happened?

Simple. Being wealthy also means knowing how to hold on to your money. All the people who have written me may have boosted their incomes, but they also let their expenses skyrocket. One guy made $400,000 last year and was left with almost no money in the bank. I asked how many cars he owned. The guy had bought four expensive sports cars! Four cars. How many cars can anyone drive?

I am not trying to say that you have to live like a pauper. After all, that would defeat the purpose of getting rich. The key is that whatever your income, you must make a budget and live within it. It doesn't matter whether you earn minimum wage or are a billionaire. Being wealthy is like being fit. If you spend more than you make, you will go broke. If you eat more calories than you work off, you will get fat. You can run a marathon every week, but if your diet is pure marshmallow fluff, you will still have a belly.