Learning To Make Money

DropShipping

Isaac — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 01:18:43 +0000

I Started a branded dropshipping business. Here’s what happened:

So a few months back I was tired of hearing all these annoying ads about drop shipping and finally decided to see what it was all about. I started doing a little bit of research and came across a video from Dan Vas; A two-hour-long tutorial about how to start your branded dropshipping business. I watched it and decided to start my Shopify free trial. A quick piece of advice if you want to do this, find a 30-day free trial, Shopify offers a 14 free trial which is fine to get started but you are saving about $15 with the 30-day free trial, I know a yes theory video has one in its description (I will put the link at the bottom of this post). Any back to the story, with my free trial started I could start building my website and more importantly my brand. This is where everything starts. With this one single video, only two hours in length the seed of my business is created.

The video starts with answering some questions people might have and introducing the idea of branded drop shipping versus regular dropshipping, in branding dropshipping you have the company print logos on your product and you focus on building a brand that lasts rather than a product that has to keep changing. After this the video jumps into product sourcing, he first had a list of niches that sell and here comes my first mistake, I select a product, contact the company with the template provided in the video and then move on. I didn’t spend the time researching and choosing a good product that has a market, I am not completely unsatisfied with my product I just think I could have been more successful if I had taken the time to research and select a product with a bigger market. The product I selected is a Bluetooth music plugin for your car. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and it connects to the radio, you set it to a certain station and you pair your phone to the device then you can play music from your phone as if you were aux’d in. I had selected my product and started my trial, next it was time to build my website.

Building my website was a long tedious process of installing, writing, taking pictures, editing, making logos and banners, setting up apps, and making changes until everything was just as I wanted. The video goes across selecting your theme, design and just general templates for your website. I get a few things set up that the video recommends and move on to the next step, apps. Apps are stressed as very important, to make sales on the “back end” most of the apps for this were marketing apps that email, text or Facebook message you with a discount if you abandon your shopping cart. I installed all these apps and did some basic set up and moved on to the next step, which at this point steered away from the video because the next step in the video was a big one, how to run Facebook, Instagram, and google ads.

At this time I still needed to hammer out a deal with the company from Alibaba (where I sourced my product) I needed a sample and I needed to find out how our relationship was gonna go. I ordered the sample which was the first expense, at $31.50 this included 7-day shipping and printing fees. While I waited for the sample to arrive I still needed to figure out what would be the price at which I could order product. The minimum printing order quantity was 2000 pieces which would work out to be just over $6,500 so that was out of the picture. I asked them if I could just order samples until I could afford to do a mass print, this wasn’t a great solution but I wanted to start selling, they said ok, however at that time I did not realize that they were saying ok to something else, there was a bit of a language barrier, their English was not the best. I later figured that out and discussed with them and they offered to do 100 piece print which would cost more of a base price but way less overall, it would still be in the $600 range which I had nowhere near enough money so decided I will not sell with the logo on the product for a little while until I can afford 100 print quantity. Now with that mess figured out I can move on to refining my website.

My website at this point was but a hollow skeleton with only one hand to make sales, but I still needed to fill that skeleton, make it complete, and so I did. I wrote up a decent description for my item on my product page and I took good pictures, I made them look nice using adobe lightroom and now I had a pretty decent product page. My home page was still as empty as my wallet. I got rid of some elements I didn’t want or need. I made some slides and wrote some more and also made a banner for the top of the page. Next, I filled in the FAQ which was thorough one of the apps I used. I made sure everything was in tiptop shape. I double-checked and triple checked that there were no holes, nothing that would make my website look unprofessional. Then I was ready to launch. Click… It was done.

Let me tell you that it was hard, but I did it and I was happy with myself. It was time to move on to advertisements. At this point, my free trial had ended and thus comes my second expense of $30 for my first month. Now before I did advertisements I need two things, a platform and a video so first I started on the platform, Facebook. I set up a basic, bare, boring, brittle Facebook page. Now if I could go back, I would have done Instagram and google too but, advertising scared me and Facebook didn’t seem so hard and scary so that what I went with. After completing my site I moved on to the video, this was a tutorial video and I did three times, each time getting increasingly better but I was never really happy with it. I just wanted to start the campaign, which would be for engagement which is likes and comments or “social proof”. The idea is once you run an engagement post you start another campaign for conversions using the same “ID” all the likes are transferred so you have social proof reassuring people that your brand is trustworthy. I ran this campaign while I was on vacation making this my third expense of $5 over 7 days which totaled to $35. One good thing and one okay thing came out of it. The good thing was that people were going to the website, I got nearly 100 visits which still is not a lot. The okay thing, I got likes but just 3 or 4.

Everything said and done I really wanted to move on to a conversions ad even though my engagement ad had not been very successful, I just wanted to start making money to encourage me to keep going, however, I was dry outta money and so I decided to try and build my Facebook page, something I should have done in the first place. This is where I am. I have hit a slump, I don’t have much desire or faith to push on. That’s why I decided to write this post- to remind me of all the hard work I’ve put in and how I’m so close to getting it to pay off. Success is determined by will, if you give up you’ll have no success, if you push forward, you will find you’re long sought after success. Thanks for reading, there are a few links down below if you wanna check out my website or if you wanna get the 30 days free trial from the Yes theory video.

My Website:

MotorCar Accessories

30-day Shopify free trial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=023NcazhBmI

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/MotorCarAccessories/

Update: Realizing your most ambitious dreams.

Isaac — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 03:59:44 +0000

So, about a month ago I made the realization that to achieve my very ambitious goal of earning $20,000 before I go to college I need to be making $600 a month. This to me, a fifteen-year-old kid who can’t drive himself, can’t get a “real” job and goes to school every weekday seemed insane but I tried and here is what I learned.

The reason I even managed to get any money into my savings account that month was mostly luck and good timing. As I have mentioned this before I sell stuff on Ebay and at this time I happened to be selling four things. The first item I was selling was an in-home portable planetarium, the second being my saxophone I had laying around which I used throughout middle school, third an astronomical picture-taking device my dad asked me to sell and finally 18 pounds of Legos.

I will first start with the thing that was the most money, obviously the saxophone. I bought this saxophone when I was in 6th grade when it had been used for 2 years prior. I then used it throughout my 3 years in band and I took good care of it. I cleaned it after every practice, I didn’t ever drop it, although it did have a dent in it from the person who owned it before me though it was still in good condition. So this saxophone has been used for five years plus and I am now a sophomore in high school which means it is 7 years old so considering I bought it for $950 and looking at other sellers on Ebay and offer up I decided to try and sell it for $500, however, my dad decided he wanted most of the money because he paid for it which was fair enough so it ends up selling for $460 plus $29.99 shipping and I ended up getting $60.

The next thing I sold was my dad’s astronomical picture-taking device. My dad purchased this for $250 and I sold it for $165 and I think I got $25 for it. After that was the planetarium. We had found the planetarium at a 2nd hand store probably a year or two ago for $15. We bought it after we looked on Ebay for how much they were going for. It seemed some were going for $100-$200 but all of them looked like different models so we bought it with the plan that if we didn’t use it we could sell it, which we did use it… once or twice, and then never touched it again. Recently I decided to put it up on Ebay for a bid and surprisingly it sold for just shy of $100. I shipped it off and sent it out and thought that was it, well it was not, apparently I was selling it as the pro model when it was really the classic. The guy wanted a refund, so he sent it back and I paid him the money and it was only after I paid him I realized he swapped one of the discs and there was a new one inside that still had the packaging instead of the old one. I don’t know if I got scammed or what so I just put it again up for a bid on Ebay, I did not try very hard on the listing and just ended up with $66.

The last and final thing I sold was Legos which my mom decided it was finally time to get rid of them. We tried selling them at our garage sale and sold two bags but we still had 18 lbs. I ended up selling the $18 for $80 which my mom let me keep all of it. A few weeks after I sold everything my mom and I noticed that there was an $80 transaction from Ebay in the Paypal account. No one in our family bought anything or even went on Ebay that day. I later discovered that it was sellers fees which I did not know existed. I just assumed Ebay made money by taking a cut our of shipping or listing fees. In the end, I just dissolved the money from the planetarium into the Paypal account as compensation for the fees. In total, I made $175 which I put all into my savings account.

Here is what I learned. Goals are hard, and one of the hardest things about them for me is starting, because “I don’t have time right now” or “I’ll do it tomorrow” but everyone always has time, every single day of your life, time goes by and you just have to choose what you want to spend it on. In my life, I use my time on things, retrospectively things I wish I didn’t spend my time on. There are so many things I want to do in my life but I will not do any of them if I spend every evening sitting on the couch watching Youtube. My goal of earning 20k before collage is not dying, however at this time I am not determined enough to work hard enough for the money. This summer I will hopefully get a summer job and I will be able to get back on track to earning enough money. I may do summer sales or I heard working on a farm makes good money, but the most important thing to focus on is what you can do now. Goals are hard, life is hard, learn to live with it.

Goal Realization

Isaac — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 05:36:36 +0000

After watching the TEDx Talk how to achieve your most ambitious goals, it inspired me. So I made a list of my goals with this whole plan of watching this video once a day for a week and I do that and achieve one of my goals and that was a good plan but soon I forgot all about. The next day I did not care as much. Eventually, I remembered my goal to watch this video today and in my head, I thought I don’t want to watch this dumb video again. I remember thinking how much I wanted this goal so I watched it, as I watched I got reinvigorated to accomplish some of my goals.

I made another post about this but one of my goals is to make $20,000 for my mission that I want to serve for my church which is around $12,000 and then I want to attend BYU and get a full-ride scholarship and I’ll use the $8,000 for whatever else I need in college. This is my most ambitious goal and I have been working on it. I have been saving since around the beginning of the year maybe earlier. I have around $500. While watching this video it talks about changing a small part of your goal and overtime you will accomplish your goal.

At that moment I realized I have not been working towards my goal in a very efficient way, sure maybe I’ve more money for college than most people my age but I looked into and to achieve my goal I need to earn $130 a week or $520 a month until August 2022. I rounded up to $150 a week and $600 a month (because let’s be honest I am not saving 100% of what I make) That is $20 a day which is about 2 hours of work for minimum wage.

I’ve been thinking about it and I have a few options to do this:

1: People in my church. This would probably be odd jobs such as babysitting, pet sitting, lawn mowing, other yard work and who knows what else. However, I don’t know if this is a viable option because I’ve tried advertising this way before for my lawn mowing and haven’t gotten customers.

2: Continue with the jobs I have and seek out more. Right now I’ve got 2 gigs lawn mowing but the summer is practically over that won’t do me any good. In the past, I’ve helped a friend of my moms by being her “personal organizer” which paid 15 dollars an hour however she doesn’t contact me much and usually I have to ask her if she needs help with anything. This winter I would like to do snow shoveling if we get any snow (probably not) also leaf raking. The problem with all of this is that I have to seek out a lot of the work myself, there is no steady income. There would also be a lot of time unpaid looking for the next job however if I get enough reoccurring jobs it might work.

3: There are a few small business owners in my church who I am going to ask and see if there is any work I can do. Another idea similar to this is to be a “personal organizer” for more people or one steady job. The only problem with this is that I am not sure if I can work for a business at 15 years old or if anyone will want me to work for them. I like this option because it would provide steady work and I feel it would be the easiest way to achieve my goal.

4: I am going for option three if that doesn’t work I can try a combination of one and two however as I said earlier it would most likely take a lot of time asking and searching for jobs to do.
I am writing this all just to get it down and to hold myself accountable so that I can achieve my goal. I am going to earn $600 this month and if it seems like something I can do for a for another 33 months then I will probably pursue it. If not I will probably end up selling pest control one summer or go down to a farm and work there for a summer and hopefully make up the difference working a normal job during the school year.

If you have a big ambitious goal the only way you can possibly achieve it is by starting, check out the TEDx talk I mentioned earlier if you need some inspiration how to achieve your most ambitious goals by Stephen Duneier.

Rich Dad Poor Dad Book Review

Isaac — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 20:55:10 +0000

The book rich dad poor dad is about a boy who has two “Dads”, his biological dad (Poor Dad) and his rich Dad (his friend’s Dad) The story starts with an anecdote about his childhood and what he learned from both of his “Dads”. After the first chapter, the book continues to talk about assets and liabilities and how poor people think that they have assets that are liabilities, it also talks about how you need to make your money work for you.

When I first wanted to read this book, I thought that I would not be interested enough to continue reading, however, I was proven wrong. This book was really interesting and the first chapter really pulled me in. It helped me really look at money in a different way which surprised me because a lot of people talk about certain books and how they changed how they look at money, and I think, that wouldn’t happen to me but it did, it really changed how I look at money. I feel like I would have got even more out of this book if I read it rather than listening to the audiobook, but I feel like if I had read it I would have felt like I didn’t have time, but by listening to it I felt I had no excuses.

This book made me think a lot more about investing and what I am spending my money on. My main takeaways are that being rich is not about having the money. If you win the lottery and you win one million dollars, are you rich? Yes, of course, you are rich, rich is defined as “having a great deal of money or assets” (google) but in a year when all of your money is gone are you still rich? No, because they wasted all their money on liabilities they thought were assets. However, if you have just gotten out of university with a degree in business, and you are $5000 in debt are you rich? Most people would say no because they see the debt and that is all they look at, however, going back to the definition of rich “having a great deal of money or assets” (google) there is one word in there that qualifies you as rich and also what I am trying to acquire as well, that word is assets. Knowledge is your greatest asset because you can lose all your money but what do you still have? Knowledge. That is one of the most important things this book has taught me, that is what I am trying to acquire and that is also why I started this blog, to try to give others my knowledge and to try to motivate me to gain more.

My goals

Isaac — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 03:42:30 +0000

My goals: Recently I have been listing to the book think and grow rich and its all about thinking and growing rich (who would have guessed!) and one of the things it talks about its making clear in your mind the amount of money you want to achieve, and to say out loud that goal twice a day and to imagine yourself in possession of the money. Basically, it’s saying that you will drill that goal into your brain and then your brain will embrace it and make it happen so that you literally think and grow rich. So with that knowledge, I am trying to do as the book instructs and be open with my goals and to really embrace my goals and to well, think and grow rich.

Without any further ado, my goal this summer is to make $1000. The way I plan on doing that is to really take what I did well on last year and magnify it, as I mentioned in my yard services article, I made the most money last summer from that, but it stressed me out and I have some new ideas for making money although I will save that for a later post. The reason I chose $1000 is because last summer I made a lot of money from different jobs and helping different people, and last year I really didn’t plan out too much, and I still made around $500. $1000 is an amount I can’t really imagine having but I know I can do it if I put in the effort and plan out my success and how I can make it happen. Anyway I know this is shorter than my usual blog post however I have been looking at this blog in the wrong way. I am looking at it like in school where it is not good if you don’t write that much but, in reality, this is not a school assignment and it’s just a journal, a record of how someone can make money on their own.

Yard Services

Isaac — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:17:08 +0000

Yard Services

How we made it happen: Anyone can have an idea the hard part is making it happen. We wanted to provide a service, we had the skills but we didn’t know how to get people to buy it. What we decided to do was post flyers on mailboxes around the neighborhood. We spent a couple of hours designing and distributing the flyers. We put one on every mailbox in the neighborhood. The flyer is at the bottom(all of our contact info is edited out)

To make sure we had the necessary skills me and my friend Devin practiced pressure washing on my driveway, we decided that we would pressure wash driveways, mow lawns, and wash cars. Everything was ready, now we just had to wait for calls to come in.

Was it successful: We got our first call, about a week later, we came over to talk to the lady and she had a big job for us, we came over and gave her an estimate, she said the price sounded good and a few days later we went to work. It took us a long time to get the job done (4 or 5 hours) and in the end, she was very nice and gave us a bonus. Earlier that day while we were pressure washing someone came up to us and asked if we could pressure wash their yard so that lead into the next job. After that, I did one more job by myself for a friend and that was all the pressure washing jobs I had that summer. We got zero call about car washing and had one recurring job for lawn mowing from the first lady whos driveway we pressure washed and that was about until school started. I think that this went very well and at first, I didn’t expect anyone to call really, and then it just worked out and we made a lot of money

How much money did I make: This was my top earning endeavor this summer earning me about $225. It has been a while and if I had to guess its probably a bit more than that but overall I am happy with the amount I made.

Will I do it again: I do not think I will do it again for a few reasons. The first reason being is that it stressed me out because was unsure if I was doing a good enough job or if I was charging too much money or if I was working hard enough. The second reason being is we got very few calls, there is something we could be doing that would be helping more people and we didnt have to spend so long per job, and we could get more done.

Kids Camp

Isaac — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 17:21:12 +0000

The Idea: One day, I was at the park with my friend Peter and we were bored. We were trying to think of some ways to make some money (we were always thinking of ways to make money). Peter, just having worked at a cub scout camp the previous summer, thought that we should do a camp of our own. At first, this seemed intimidating. I was unsure whether I could take care of a group of 6-10-year-olds. This would be a new challenge.

Making it happen: I decided to meet with Peter to plan it out. We came up with a couple of ideas but we realized we would need another person, mainly because Peter would be at scout camp during part of that time, so we asked our friends. Most of them were out of town except our friend Kate. She said she was down, so we went to work. We started to work on a solid schedule and advertising. We sent out emails to some of the parents in our church with kids in the age range for our camp. Only one parent responded, though they had two kids in the age range and wanted them both to go. That is all we had for about a week. We tried not to get discouraged, though eventually I asked my two neighbors who both had kids in the age range, and one of them said yes. We didn’t hear from the other for a few days, but eventually, they responded and said not only do they want their son to be in the camp but they also want their friend to be in the camp. I was excited, not only had we gotten enough of the kids we had wanted we got extra. Finally, we had one more kid who was on the edge about coming, they decided they wanted to go although could not make the first day. So we ended up with six kids and they happened to be all boys which wasn’t on purpose but worked out well. Finally, it was the Saturday before the camp, which started on Monday and ended on Thursday and was from 9-12 AM. We made a list and went shopping for everything we needed. We started on and everything went great, although we were a bit flexible on the schedule blocking if people wanted to do stuff for longer or shorter. Overall I think it was a success and a lot of the parents said that their kids really enjoyed it.

What I learned: I learned a couple of things, first how to entertain young kids, you cannot do the same thing for a long time and this skill would lead into so more opportunities. Second how to come up with an idea, plan it out and make it happen. Doing this required thinking ahead and really not all the elements were under our control, but it worked out really well.

How much I made: In total, we spent about $50 on materials for the activities. In profit, we made $200, so I gave $20 to Peter because he couldn’t be there all week and I split the rest between me and Kate so we both got $90

Will I do it again?: Yes, I am planning on doing it again over winter break although I am unsure if I can get the same attention because lots of people travel. I think it went really well and I hope the kids enjoyed it.

Ebay

Isaac — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 22:24:07 +0000

The Idea: One day as I was browsing Instagram I came across this guy named David Keen master of Luxury Thrifting (http://masterofluxurythrifting.blogspot.com/), and what he would do was go to A thrift shop and he has a really good eye for rare furniture and antique stuff so he would see things that were “luxury” and would buy them for just a couple of bucks. When I saw this I was blown away. I wanted to know more. I wanted to do this. So I set out on my journey of thrifting.

What I did: I did what I always would when I was interested in something or wanted to do it, I researched. I watched all the YouTube videos I could on it. I saw that there where different types of Thrifting:

Clothing
Gold & silver/ jewelry
Antiques

My first thought was jewelry/gold and silver would be a quick way to make some money but in truth, there is no quick way to make money, there are just some more fun and more accessible ways. What followed was a bunch of research and trips to goodwill that would not end in me finding any silver or rare jewelry or anything. So I gave up. But then one day I was scrolling through YouTube and in my suggested I saw a thrifting video and out of boredom clicked on it, this person was looking through clothing and they ended up with like 5-10 shirts, and they sold these shirts, for like 10-20 bucks each. I had to give it a shot, so I went to goodwill and found a couple but didn’t get anything that day. However a couple of days later I went to Goodwill again and I found a pretty cool shirt and I decided it would be good to get some practice, so I bought it and listed it on Ebay. My Mom and I also had some vintage little luxart library books we bought about a year ago to sell but never ended up doing it so I listed those too.

How much money I made: I sold the shirt for $18.40 and the shipping and original cost was about $13 so I made a profit of $5.40. The books my Mom bought for about $30 and I sold for $63.70 and since we already had a box the shipping was $3.70 also I had to pay my mom back so Iended up with $30.

What I learned: I learned, how to find shirts at goodwill, how to make ebay listings, and most importantly I learned if you try something and it doesn’t work find out if you truly want to do it, and if you don’t then stop your wasting your time, but if you do keep trying or look into other options.

Will I do this again?: Yes! I would love to get better at this skill and it could be a good way to make some money.

Thanks for reading!

Isaac