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Fun Moneymaker

21-Sep-07

The Building Wealth “About Page” says that this site is about building financial independence and “is dedicated to helping you build and protect wealth through work, intelligence and prudent investment of time, money and energy.” Sometimes financial independence comes a dollar here and a dollar there and sometimes prudent investment of time and energy means letting loose and having a little fun to recharge. In that spirit, I wanted to introduce you to a fun little moneymaker that you can spend a few minutes a day with, relax and pick up a few bucks a month with the possibility of more. This has been around a while, but the glitches are finally getting worked out and while it may be well known around the tech community, I don’t think it’s as well known around the business world. The product is a site called Moola. [Referral link - please click this link to join Moola, to help me make a little Moola, too. :) ]

Moola is a free to play game where you can win real cash, but there is plenty more to it. The top prize, if you can win 30 matches in a row, is over $10,000,000. No one has come close yet. Most of the games are games of chance like “Hi-Lo” with a nominal 50% chance of winning. (There are some strategies that can improve your odds, though, and I’ll get to them in a moment.) According to Moola:

By playing double or nothing, player account balances multiply extremely quickly, producing exponential gains as high as $1000 by level 17, $10,000 by level 20, or $10,000,000 by level 30. However, players may also choose to compete on any lower levels which they can afford, thereby reducing their risk and reward. And, new players or anyone losing their entire balance at any time may start over for free, and get their first penny from Moola and/or its sponsors once again.

This alone would be worth taking the time to register and play a bit - you can play with no investment other than your time. Everyone, even the hardest working entrepreneur, needs some downtime and it’s fun to play a game with even the potential of payouts in the thousands or millions of dollars. This is Vegas without leaving home or losing a penny of your own money.

But there’s more. You can earn money by referring other players and you’ll earn money off the players they refer, too. In fact, you earn referral money 4 levels deep. You get 4% of your first level referrals cash outs and “Booster Zone” payouts (more on this later), 3% for 2nd level, 2% for 3rd level and 1% for 4th level:

Moola referrals imagine this graphic

And you still haven’t spent any money. And we’re still not through.

You can earn bonus money by using the Moola search. You may be thinking “But I love Google.” Well, you’re in luck. The Moola search is actually powered by Google. You’ll get the same results in a slightly different (actually cleaner) format. Do a couple of searches a day on Moola and periodically you’ll get to spin the prize wheel with the possibility of winning up to $36,000/day. My typical win has been 5 to 10 cents, but that’s for a couple of seconds of my time to do a search I was doing anyway and the possibility of more is there.

And you still haven’t spent any money. And there’s still more.

Now comes the part where you could spend a little money. The “Booster Zone” consists of offers from a variety of Moola’s partners, all legitimate businesses offering legitimate products or services. Buy through one of the links and you can get cash back into your Moola account - often more than the purchase amount. Some of these only require you to sign up for a free trial. Others include taking surveys or installing internet monitoriing software on your computer. You can do what your comfortable with and spend money or not. The cashback available now is nearly $300. And if your referrals do any of these, you get credited a percentage of their cashback bonuses when they do. Here’s one example (available 9/20/07):

$51.95 cash back playing poker:
This is poker with a twist to make it legal in most U.S. jurisdictions. Play Texas Hold’em. Play for Free or Play for Cash. Get $25 Free for First Time Users…
Deposit and play a minimum of $20* worth of games within 30 days. You cannot join if you are located in: Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, South Carolina and Illinois. Limit 1 booster/ person.

So now, you may have spent some money or you may not. And if you did, you may have gotten more back than you spent. And we’re still not done.

Because there’s a Booster Mall. Currently there are 108 merchants in the Booster Mall including names you already know and trust like Priceline.com, Skype, Best Western and Payless Shoe Source. You can earn up to 32% cash back from purchases through the Booster Mall. And a percent of your referrals purchases.

Well, now we’re done, but what about those strategies? Simply learning the basic strategy for Hi-Lo, for example, can boost your odds from 50% to about 80% when playing against a seat-of-the-pants type player. And, unlike Vegas, the advantage is actually to the players overall, since ultimately the Moola site is about advertising and the money all comes from the advertisers.

Since the Hi-Lo games is based on a virtual 52-card deck and the cards are discarded once used, card counting can give a slight further advantage over the other players.
One site offers a calculator to help do this, but notes that using outside calculators may violate the Moola terms of use. Another site offers Moola strategy guide e-books. A good blog for more information is Everything Moola and you’ll also want to check out the Club Moola forums.

If you do decide to play, please click here to sign up for Moola.

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Entrepreneurs Vacation Club

03-Sep-07

The Entrepreneurs Vacation Club by Rick Raddatz is a concept based on combining business coaching and a vacation club. Members get the use of the club’s luxury properties (the first one in Breckenridge, Colorado) and the other vacationers there will all be members; coaching and getting together with other entrepreneurs to share ideas, motivate each other, network. Interesting idea and the cost to charter members looks really reasonable.

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The Next Internet Millionaire

24-Aug-07

The Next Internet Millionaire is an online reality show from internet millionaire and bestselling author of The Adsense Code, Joel Comm. Will one of these contestants actually be the next internet millionaire or will you beat them to the punch with Joel’s help? Here’s episode one:

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5 Ways Not to Get Rich

17-Jun-06

There are literally hundreds of books, articles, DVDs, seminars and coaches all promising to teach you how to get rich (and usually promising to show you how to do it “quick”). A lot of these focus on platitudes that aren’t always as easy to put to use as their promoters would have you believe. The 5 Ways Not to Get Rich series will focus on things not to do in business, as a manager or owner, if getting rich is your goal. all of these are stumbling blocks I’ve faced in several years as a business manager and over 10 years as business owner.

To be clear, these are not pointers based on an experience of failure. As a business manager, I increased sales and won national sales awards. As a real estate agent, I was the highest selling listing agent in my market in 2003 and 2004. I’ve counted companies like Citibank, Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America among my clients, to name just a few.

Some of the the things I will be focusing on are factors that block sales success from turning into financial success and factors that can keep you from having the sales success you want. I have chosen to start this with Five Ways Not to Get Rich, but it will likely grow beyond those first five. But for now, this series will start with:

  • Undervaluing Yourself: Good clients and customers will recognize value and pay what you are worth…but only if you set the price.
  • Wasting time: Whether you’re struggling to handle the business you have or need to spend time building more, one of the worst mistakes you can make is to spend time unproductively, whether it’s too much time spent in the office or too much time chasing time wasters as potential clients.
  • All Your Eggs in One Basket: Allowing a single client to become more than a small percentage of your business is never a good idea, barring long term contracts. And when reasonable opportunities arise to broaden your income from related industries, you should consider them.
  • Too Many Irons in the Fire: On the other hand, too many entrepreneurs have a tendency to reach the cusp of true success in one business only to take off chasing the next big thing or dilute their time and money pursuing a half dozen network marketing schemes never devoting enough time to make any of them truly successful.
  • OverZiglarizing: Zig Ziglar is just one of many sales trainers who overemphasizes the idea of service. He is often quoted (from his 1984 book “Secrets Of Closing The Sale) “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” This advice has its place, but far too often neglecting your own needs to serve others leads nowhere but financial failure.

success,entrepreneurship,getting rich