7 Steps to making more money today…

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After recieving numerous emails about this post, I compiled a quick Clarification posting here. It should answer any questions raisd by the original posting.

Its important to remember making more money comes in two forms:

• Spending less
• Making more

Each of these in turn can be broken down much further:

Spending less

• Buy less
• Eat cheaper
• Walk instead of car/bus
• cheaper accomodation
• and so on….

Making more

• Pay rise
• Second job or working more hours
• Selling items you do not need anymore
• any other activity which brings in more cash then you have now

Although the two seem closely linked, it is important to remember they are DIFFERENT, proving there is more then one way to improve your situation. SO NEVER get stuck doing just one thing to improve your financial situation, there is always something else you can work on doing…

If you have not already read about my challenge, go ahead and read about it by clicking here.

Ok, so my perdicament today is to make more money. I have done the saving costs by moving to a shared appartment and committing to cutting back on outings and any other expenses. BUT that does not make me wealthier, so unless I start to earn money I will be in a little bit of trouble.

So here are my 7 Steps to making more money TODAY:

Background work

Step #1:

Know completely why you have to make more money and set yourself a target. If I find 1 Euro on the street, I am technically richer, but does that actually count as success??  Not unless I’ve defined what success is.

Write down the reason why you need money, make sure you are convinced of the reasons then set both a long term target (where you want to be in one year) and a short term target which should be the next 2 week or even the next month.

A target stating I want to be debt free in one year does not mean much. BE MORE SPECIFIC. State exactly how much money is needed to be debt free, what should your bank balance read in one years time and put an end date so you have a clear target.

For me:

Reasons for needing money:

1) I have no money (due to the challenge but im not giving up)

2) I want somewhere to live and something to eat next month.

3) I must prove it is really possible for me to make 7 figures in one year… I successfully teach students to reach 6 figures all the time, and the added challenge of starting from zero and without existing businesses can only make me grow.

What does Success mean to me:

Long term success – By January 2011 – I must turn 7 figures profit starting from nothing.

Short term success – By March 1st, I must have earnt $1000

Step #2

Educate yourself.

I would not buy a car, rent a house, choose a school for a child or make any other important decision without educating myself about it.

This venture is no different. Its different territory for me. Yes, I have made money before, but doing it from nothing is a pretty big change. I can not afford to take my time, as I need to pay next months rent from my profits.

So I find cheap and easy ways to educate myself.

Today I simply searched for some blogs for people who give good advice on making money fast. Remember my target for next month is not to conduct my master plan (I need some money to get that started), its simply to make enough money to survive through March 2010.

My educational blog of the day is:

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com    – A pretty interesting blog by Ramit Sethi

I saw his face on a book cover when I was flying back from USA, and thus when I searched and found his blog, he already had some social value to me, enought to make me stay and read a few articles.

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/tip-25-earn-more-money-using-your-god-given-skills/

This will help me stay focused on saving money and making money, exaxtly what I need right now.

Step #3

Make a list of all the skills you have that are valuable. Anything you can sell (legally) is acceptable on this list.

My quick list include (in no particular order):

• Indian cooking skills
• Personal training qualification
• Swim teacher certificate
• Business startup consulting experience
• Business Process change experience
• Mentoring experience
• Business startup planning
• Ability to turn unprofitable companies around
• Social media and creative marketing solutions
• My English language (living in Germany this could be useful for tutoring)
• Public speaking (this used to be my best selling point but now a little out of practice)

There are some completely random things on that list that I can use to make money. The idea is to be completely open to any way to create money as that is my aim right now (I obviously exluding cleaning and ironing abilities as they are not as exclusive, however I am 100% open to those job offer too)

The Planning stage

Step #4

Start the plan.

A man without a plan, unless he gets very lucky is doomed for failure.

YOU MUST HAVE A PLAN, or you will not be able to work effectively towards your goal. Its not how much work you do that counts, its how effective the work is that actually counts.

I could work on my resume for 24 hours and spend 3 weeks applying to companies. But, none of that will help me achieve my goal of earning enough money to cover my rent and living costs for March. So my plan must focus on making money quickly as well as more secure longer term income.

Once you have your plan, write it down, just like I am doing on this blog. There is a massive difference in thinking about something and writing it down. If im going to make this a success I must write down my plan.

Snippets of my plan:

• Select the three abilities I feel can make me money fastest

1. English language (low income but quick cash and easy to marker in Munich)
2. Business process consulting (high income but not instant cash – vast experience in this field)
3. Mentoring/Business coaching (Decent money, medium difficulty in finding clients but possible)

So I have a quick cash method, a more difficult but better cash method and a difficult but secure cash option.

I will not rely solely on these three, but this is where 90% of my effort will focus.

It’s strange, but when ever I work hard at something, luck often falls into my lap, so the last 10% of my energy will be saved to ensure I sit back and analyse often to ensure I dont miss these gifts of luck should they pass my way (who knows somebody reading this blog may need my services!)

Step #5

Define what steps you can take today to get you closer to finding your first customer. I do not need 100 customers today. If I got 100 then great but I need to start with ONE, yep just one.

So lets break it down:

English language – where to find customers

• Put a hand written sign up in my block of flats.
• Ask my friends to do the same
• Walk to local schools and ask if they need help or if they can display my sign
• Search the internet for Language forums/websites and see if I can list my services for free
• Find people who are already doing the job (from listings on the net) and ask their advice

Business Process Consulting

• Update my CV (no more then 60 minutes work)
• Find a list of consulting companies from the internet and contact them
• Use Xing, Linkedin and Facebook to find other consulting contacts that I can approach

Mentoring/ Business Coaching

• Using Xing, Linkedin etc find local groups where Freelancers meet and I can introduce myself
• Go through my old contacts to see who might be a potential customer (or at least obtain references)
• Present myself to mentoring agencies

Step #6

Reconnect with old colleagues and find a mentor.

There is nothing like support. None of us can get through life alone, we always need people there to support us, pick us up and push us that little bit further. Colleagues who both you respect and who respect you can be great help at this particular time. I will go through my Xing and Linkedin contacts as well as some other sources to reconnect with old colleagues. (Strangely after doing this, I found a number of them are in my target businesses so I have found both mentors and possible help to securing work)

I’ve decided not to tell all my Facebook friends at this time, as some of themwill not understand why I am doing this and may try to distract me. My job is to surround myself with people who give me energy towards completing my goal and to stay away from those that suck the positive energy away from me.

There is nothing wrong with my friends, they are afterall my friends, but in this situation some of them simply would not understand. So instead of putting my energy into making them understand I simply will not tell them, yet…

Lastly and most importantly is finding a mentor. Mentors cannot be underestimated. As a business coach I offer a sound board to people’s ideas and help them think out the box. The knowledge you can gain from a experienced mentor can save you months of hard work trying to figure it out on your own.

I firmly believe in mentors and thus I had my first call with a friend last night.  He is pretty successful infinding freelance work that pays well and he offered me great advice on where to start and a short action plan of people I should call (he provided personal contacts too).

Notes on how to work with a mentor (will expand on this in a later post)

• You are there to learn, start your case at the start then simply listen – question but dont argue
• Mentors can be short term and long term, but make sure none of you are misunderstanding the commitment (my friend knew clearly that 1 hour would be enough – he does not feel used and I truely value his input)
• Use my favourite line to end a conversation “I think I should let you go now, I’ve already taken up so much of your time which you kindly offered me”

I will try to talk to 2 friends/ previous colleagues each week who can offer me great advice towards completing my challenge. (Note, I have full confidence I can achieve this goal, but it’s with the great advice from people I respect that I will make sure I make the least mistakes and maybe even get there much faster)

and lastly

Step #7

Take action!

Yep, stop reading and do something today, as written in my plan to make sure success happens.

To many people plan and do all the right background steps but forget to take action. NOT ME…

My aim is to get my first customers, and Im pretty confident I can do that within a week…

Im off to put my plan into action… how about you????

Tags: Make more money