business opportunities

Recession hit most small businesses. But of course, there are certain survivors that ace recession, even flourished!

The following is my shortlist of recession-resistant champs:

1. Scooter and bicycle
   The rising oil and gas prices do good to this business. Scooters are energy-saving vehicles, and bicycle, well, human-powered.
2. Direct service to homes
   Gas prices cause more and more people decide to less commuting. As a supply and demand thing, businesses saw the opportunities, and then offering services directly to the comfort of your home. Such business includes home shopping, hair stylist on-call, and many other business opportunities.
3. Discount Store
   A pressure on family budgeting causes people to shop for less. Even I heard about bartering!
4. Online business
   The make money online buzz is not a buzz anymore - it’s a reality that I predict will let people to ‘abandon’ their expensive-energy-consuming business toward work at home and location independence working lifestyle.
5. Job Agency
   Recession causes more and more people losing their job and business owners to close their businesses - all of them have an urgent need for steady income in today tough times. A job agency answers such high demand.
6. Buy and rent back
   Many people face foreclosures, and running a buy and rent back business will actually help them get out of debt faster, and allow you to own real estates at a lower price tag.
7. Energy conservation and alternative energy
   Small business that offer a smart way to conserve energy will see its sales rise in today’s recession. The recent energy conservation buzz, a device that allow to turn water into gas, will shoot the business owners’ sales to the roof.
8. Outsourcing
   Rising business overheads cause many businesses to downsize and turn to outsourcing - hiring virtual assistants, renting a virtual office, etc.
9. Add your list here by commenting on this post :)

Ivan Widjaya
Short listing business opportunities

Great business doesn’t have to be cutting-edge.

Many small businesses survive recession and stand the test of time. The businesses are typified as having long business life cycle, non-seasonal trend, and fulfill a need in the marketplace.

One of those strong survivors is ID card printing business.

ID Card printing business 101

In essence, ID card printing business involves card printing and the provision of complementary products and services.

The complementary products and services ranges widely, and are the main reason ID card printing business remains a lucrative one for a long time.

Some of the products and services include custom lanyards and badge reels, ID printer accessories and supplies, and ID card printing equipment, such as card printers and slot punches.

ID Card printing business prospects

Like I mentioned above, ID card printing business does survive recession. I know this because I have a small ID card printing shop :)

ID card printing shops definitely fill a need for ID in many organisations in wide array of industries - Employee IDs, member IDs, student IDs and event IDs (e.g. expos, conventions, seminars, etc.) to name a few.

Regarding the prospects, the potential of this business is actually limitless. For example, the recent issue of child safety creates a niche in ID card printing business - Child safety ID business.

Moreover, the characteristics of ID card printing business itself enable this business to be a work at home business, and even an online business!

Tips on starting an ID card printing business

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The real estate market crash today does left almost everybody in panic state.

Repossessions are lurking, while refinancing is more and more difficult due to the more cautious lenders.

Coupled with the real estate properties crash in value, with a predicted trend that will last over the next few years, home owners start seeking alternatives to avoid losing their home, or at least the value of their home.

What is sell and rent back?

Definitely in trend in United Kingdom, and a common practice for real estate investors throughout the world, sell and rent back - or buy and rent out on business owner side, is a solution for home owners and a lucrative business venture for real estate investors and business owners alike.

Sell and rent back - a niche market in real estate marketplace - means selling your home and rent it back at an affordable rate.

The reasons home owners sell and rent back, aside of today’s credit crunch and repossession possibilities, can be anything: simply to raise cash, illness, divorce, retirement, clear debts, and other personal reasons.

How sell and rent back works

For the home owners selling and renting their property back, the main idea is to cash out immediately and, in turn, rent their own home to avoid moving out, and in hope of a share in rising real estate value when the time comes.

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I’ve involved in franchising fore some years, and I vision franchises to be the driving entities of regional economy.

Franchises also have the great potential to make a difference, thanks to the inherited perk - replicative in nature.

If you own a franchised company, investors will spread your vision in exponential fashion. If you are a potential franchisee, investing in one that has the vision to make a difference will result in both financial and social reward.

Hot franchises - Any franchises that are built based on go green movement

In today’s worldwide movement to save the earth - to the extent of environmental issues, at least - go green movement is definitely a well-respected and well-buzzed movement.

In term of business, applied the go green concepts within the core business will boost the business in term of financial and social credentials. Franchising your go-green business is a smart and strong move.

The go green franchises are definitely on the rise.

Go green franchise - Moving franchise

One of the most potential go green franchise type is moving franchise.

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If you interested in online business like me, you might already noticed that one of the best things offered on the Net is free stuffs.

Many, if not most, online businesses today offer free products and services - either meant to attract customers, membership sign ups, or simply just that - free service for everyone.

Online Business offering free services - Always here to stay

The typical (and very lucrative!) business model on the Net today is to offer free services with the aim to attract a large number of visitors to your websites. When the time comes, the generated buzz and traffic are utilised to attract advertisers. If you wonder where all the online businesses offering free services get the revenue from, the answer is from the advertisers (some from premium services offered to members). The example of this type of online business is Facebook and AdBrite.

Another typical business model with the similar concept is to offer free services while growing the real assets of the business - subscribers, members, and the community. The end line, eventually, the business is meant to be sold to the blue chip companies - Google, Yahoo!, or the likes. The example of this type of online business is Feedburner and Blogger, both acquired by Google.

Free classified ads business - Lucrative?

The fore-father of all free classified ads online business is, of course, Craiglist.

Offering free listing for all, Craiglist is meant to be buzzed and heavily trafficked website. While no advertisement on sight, Craiglist does offer a listing for a fee for ads in certain region.

Similar to Craiglist of US, there is Gumtree, one of eBay’s classified ads sites.

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There is one kind of web property flipping type that people hardly talk about on the Net.

I call the one who do it a flipper-developer - simple, he/she buy an ailing, undervalued, potential websites, ‘renovate’ them, and sell them on a higher price tag. Just like the ol’ real estate guy that buy ugly houses, renovate them, and sell them to market value.

Consider this: nowadays, what happen in the physical world, can happen online. Even there are people that live in the two worlds. For budding online entrepreneur, this area of website flipping is lucrative and different.

I tell you why. Regular website flippers will buy a website and sell it as the opportunity rises - without doing much of a work in developing and improving the website. There are also web property investors that buy a website, work on it, and keep it if possible - they would sell their portfolio if and only if the right buyer at the right price comes.

Those are not the case of flipper-developers - Their job is buying, RENOVATE, and sell it. Notice the capitals - that’s what flipper-developers do best - they do search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, building rep, building back links (increasing the number of sites linking back to their sites), upgrading and redeveloping, and many other activities that can improve the value of a website.

The selling part itself is not that hard - nowadays, people look for quality and proven web properties - not much buy on potential web properties - typically those that have high price tags with little or no income. Buyers want valuable web properties, and they want them NOW - high demand.

How to buy?

Find a marketplace where people buy and sell websites - try sitepoint.com, digitalpoint.com, or webmaster-talk.com.

Research, research, research - you will soon notice that some site owners are desperate to get their sites sold, for many reasons. Probe for reasons, check the validity of their offers (beware, scammers are everywhere), and value their sites right.

This takes a lot of practice. So again, research, research, research.

How to renovate?

Similar to those of real estate developers, you need a team - unless you are an expert Internet guy yourself, you need to outsource the work to others.

You need a web developer, an internet marketer, and a web designer - don’t worry though. You don’t have to hire them - seek freelancers who, in my opinion, are as good as the company guys. Your biggest part of the job is finding one.

Contract them per project basis - so both of you can have an easy exit if something goes wrong.

The aim of renovating is to make your web properties more valuable and more profitable. Don’t neglect any one of them.

How to sell?

Just like the way you buy sites - go to online marketplace, and make the listing there.

You can actually do the selling offline - do a classified ad or the similar to market your site.

Just make sure you deal for an exit route that is comfortable for you and your web property buyer.

What is next?

Well, the best route for entrepreneur is to learn by doing. Better yet, find a mentor to help you during your learning curve. This flipping-developing thing is lucrative, so take action to capitalise on it.

Ivan Widjaya
Flipper-developer

People tends to forget the essence of franchising - No, it’s not getting a proven system in exchange for a franchise fee and royalty - it is a definition of franchise.

The essence of franchising is networking.

That’s why owning a unit from a franchise that only has 5 units in total is not recommended - it’s even an absurd way to enter franchise industry.

A franchise true power is the ability to network with other franchise unit owners - the more, the better. Not only you can trade best practices on how to run your franchise unit, but also you actually can get some business from them, even do business with them.

Franchise owners are professionals and entrepreneurs - They usually have their own network and team. They have their own inner-circle members. You can enter the inner-circle by build a genuine relationship with them. You may reap what you sow later on.

The key is being nice and genuine - don’t approach them by doing what a sales and marketing person did - It’s useless, and they may avoid you all the way.

You may find that networking and doing business with other franchise owners are actually more lucrative than the franchise itself - so, I conclude that buying a franchise is like buying a membership to enter the network of business owners.

That’s why you have to buy a franchise unit that is NOT your hobbies or interests-based. Buy a franchise unit due to the franchise’s business and network potential. With tens of thousand units worldwide, a McDonald unit would be nice, but it is way, way much expensive for the rest of us.

How to network with other franchise unit owners

Do a basic business relationship building - have a general conversation early on, then move to business conversation later.

Tell them a bit about yourself, out of topic. They might interest in your personal life than the business itself. But, by doing so you will get their respect and trust - important in any business dealings.

Contact regularly with them - at times, request for a business lunch or dinner - schmooze them. Then, soon it might be the right time to offer some business opportunities or request for contact from their inner-circle.

The basic rule of thumb, profits each other - don’t ask them something and not giving back to them in return. And, oh, don’t forget about timing - it’s very important.

There’s there :)

Ivan Widjaya
Franchisee networker

I just purchased a bidding web directory as one of the early milestone in my journey into web property investment. Please read my previous post about this - I am Buying My Way into Online Money Making.

It’s a Google PageRank 5 bidding web directory - EnglishFair.com.

What is PR or PageRank?

It’s basically how important Google think of your website, rated from 0 to 10 - 0 is less important, 10 is most important. The importance is determined by a complex algorithm - mainly taken into account the following: how many websites link to your website, what is the quality of those websites linking to yours, are they related or on-topic with yours, how is your content quality, how many important terms are there in your site, etc, etc.

Why I interested in bidding web directory?

Simple fact, I involved in IT a lot - I always intrigued by directories and forums for two reasons - In fact, my investment policy evolves on these two reasons:

• They don’t require full-time work in it - a.k.a passive income business model.
• They are user generated - your visitors / members add contents themselves.

I like hanging out in SitePoint.com Marketplace and DigitalPoint.com Forums. There, I bid on some listed directories and forums with little luck. I finally got what I want, EnglishFair.com, a PR5 bidding web directory.

I keep you updated on how it goes.

What about blog?

Blogs have some potential to fit into my criteria - passive income business model. How to be one? By hiring writers, inviting guest bloggers, hiring co-authors, and other similar routes.

Wait, why I talk about blogs being a business?

You know, blogs can be personal and commercial by doing the same thing - post articles that people enjoy reading, and help other people achieve something important. That’s why so many popular blogs about making money online today.

What differ a personal blog to a commercial one is whether you monetize your blog or not. If you monetize your blog, it’s commercial, indeed.

I bid on blogs several times, with one being a close call. Oh well, another time, another opportunities.

What’s next?

I keep looking for another web properties! I plan to hold my portfolio as long as I can - of course, as long as it’s profitable. And when the time to flip them finally come, I’ll flip the to invest in a bigger web properties.

I’ll keep you updated on this.

Ivan Widjaya
Web property investor

I want to sell you something, again :D

If you followed me in my previous posts, you might already know that I only promote products that I use myself. What’s the point to promote something you don’t know the benefits of it?

As you might already know, on the Net, knowledge is power. The most expensive products on the Internet is information products - webinars, ebooks, online mentoring programs, and many more. The reason is obvious - knowledge is important, if not everything, to ace the Net.

I am lucky enough to join The Ultimate SuperTip program by Harvey Segal - Please read my previous post about this, How to Say Goodbye to Google PageRank and Start Making Real Money Online.

The Ultimate SuperTip program is abundant with memberships and information products. One of the great memberships Harvey Segal offering to affiliates is the SureFire Wealth.

I am a SureFire Wealth silver membership holder price tagged at USD 147 per annum - Since I joined The Ultimate SuperTip, the SureFire Wealth silver membership is FREE. Actually, SureFire Wealth offers three types of membership - free, silver, and gold. The difference in each membership lies in the quality and the number of products available to be downloaded. Trust me, the quality IS different!

You are ‘buried’ with a collection of eBooks, audio and video downloads, softwares, and templates design. All come with a review, so that you know what others think about a product.

Why joining SureFire Wealth is a good investment? This is where my sales pitch begin :) Yes, free information is everywhere on the Net. But, like any other things in life, often, quality comes with a price tag. All I can say is that joining SureFire Wealth has bring me insider information that is invaluable. Of course, most of the information from the products is not widely available on the Net! Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense anymore to pay for the membership - so far, it makes sense to me :)

And, oh, I almost forgot - Another benefit of joining SureFire Wealth is that you are enabled to resell and master resell the listed products - for FREE - as long as you still have your membership active. Depends on how much do you want it, you can literally resell infinite number of products for the whole year!

Be sure to look around by visiting my affiliate link to SureFire Wealth, or if you are eager to get your hands down and dirty, please go directly to SureFire Wealth sales page.

Just one word of suggestion - I personally recommend to to join Harvey Segal’s The Ultimate SuperTip, rather than joining the SureFire Wealth directly. Why? Because being The Ultimate SuperTip affiliate is CHEAPER than joining the SureFire Wealth, and the money you pay for The Ultimate SuperTip is valid for a lifetime, compare to the yearly membership of SureFire Wealth. It’s your call.

You can download Harvey Segal’s The Ultimate SuperTip e-book for free. If you having interest in Harvey’s concepts, do join the program to receive the valuable memberships and products.

Or, if you think you can’t wait for the big fish, cast your rod directly to SureFire Wealth sales page.

Ivan Widjaya
Newbie affiliate marketer

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