My Rat Race

It has been several years since I first read Rich Dad Poor Dad and the main purpose of this blog initially was to monitor my way out of the rat race. But for some reason I am still in the rat race. Probably what only changed was I am in a better status within the rat race, but I am still in it.

About a month back, I was in a meetup group together with some SEO professionals and after sharing notes with Brian, we talked about why am I still employed, even if I am earning on the side. Until it boiled down to how much I really need monthly, the investments I made, the bills I pay, etc. and the steps needed to make the big leap. Until it went into monetized websites what what is getting done and what is not getting done.

Ends up my main money making websites are not yet done and our topic started to go into how to get things done. Brian shared me a very good book that night. It was Getting Things Done
by David Allen. And after he shared this… I was intrigued and believed it was not the ordinary project management, time management, effective scheduling, or similar type of book. I was a bit skeptical but taking note from this guy telling me about it, we were kind of in the same boat. We know the same things, and he seems to be pretty smart so he must be saying something good.

Probably one of the best things I heard from him was after talking about my old clients that I simply don’t want to let go of because they still help pay the bills but is so time consuming: (more…)

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It was about 3 years ago when I first listen to a vending business seminar by Robert Elia in San Diego under The Learning Annex and it was a very informative seminar. As months passed by and then years, I never really went into the vending business as I was still concentrating on my Internet Marketing business. And I believe it was in 2007 or last year, 2008 when the news started talking about schools having children obese and not eating healthy foods because of the junk food students were buying in vending machines located at schools. Sounds like a low blow to the vending business but healthy vending company YoNaturals had another plan that put them even in a better situation. (more…)

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As much as I am a fan of Robert Kiyosaki, I am still in the rat race. With his popular E-S-B-I graph, I am still in the Employee and Self-Employed/Specialist quadrants but compared from the very first day I read Rich Dad Poor Dad in 2006, I have already doubled my employment salary and my small business has already grown into a freelance gig to a registered corporation. But still small that I can’t really make the jump into real estate yet until just recently. (more…)

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Tax season is coming up again. I have been in the business of selling these services when my business started in 1997: Domain Names, Web Hosting, Web Design, Web Development and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I started with a company outside of the US where tax laws were somewhat easier to get away with. And I had a cheap accounting firm taking all of my tax headaches away. Now I am in the US, accountants here are a bit expensive and paid by the hour so I need to do more research and find out the answers the hard way.

If you have a business similar to mine, you might be asking these questions:

• Are Domain Names taxed?
• Is Web Hosting Taxed?
• Is Web Design or Web Development Taxed?
• Is SEO, SEM, PPC or Email Marketing Taxed?

After doing my research this is what I found out. (more…)

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These ads by Bangkok Insurance caught my attention. I think not only with they be good ads for Television, but they will do good for the Internet as well. The world of rich media, the use of video online and tying it up with social networking using the viral aspect will just help them even further to get more advertising exposure by having it propagate freely at minimal cost.

View video (more…)

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In running a business, there are many ways to do. Some people make a living out of running a business which pays the bills and sets food on the table. And at the end of the day you have zero money. They end up being just like an employee or a company. But the only difference is they become employees of their own company.

But there are also people that run a business and have all the money they need not only for everyday living, but a lot more in excess for monthly travel and all these other wants.

It is true that it does not take money to make money. But it is also true that more money helps make more money. If you really have no money, you have to start somewhere. And a loan might be more of a risk in the early stages of employment or of a business. But once you have a stable income either from business or as an employee. And you want to make more money with money. A loan can always serve you well if used to make more money. This is what Robert Kiyosaki calls a good debt.

Debt that helps you make more money is a good debt and debt that makes you lose more money is a bad debt. So there is nothing really wrong with debt. In fact some of the riches people in the world always have debt, but most of the time there are good debts. Good credit loans are for good debts, and bad credit loans are usually made not really by bad loan companies, but made based on bad credit loan decisions.

Depending on your business situation, you may get unsecured loan that are more conservative in a way where not much collateral is needed although APRs may not be that advantageous. While if you get a secured loan, which may be more aggressive may be more advantageous with a lower APR, longer terms of payment, although more aggressive in a way that you are securing your loan with some property like your home.

Just remember loans are good if they make more money for you, this is the goal. Use money to make more money. And debts can be used in an advantageous way.

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I started a business as a small business. And even up to today, I still consider my business a small business, although it has grown already since the day I started to enter the business world. But I still do not find it quite enough to make me decide to stop working. And as clients increase, as most people usually get happier, for some reason I feel burdened a little bit dealing with so many projects and I know a good project management software is needed to plan everything well with my client, my partners, my employees, my outsource people. And yet, most project management and collaboration softwares do cost some amount of money. The better it is, the higher the price gets. But finally a very good quality project management system that would perfectly for the small business and freelancer has came out. Modeled after the popular Basecamp by 37Signals is activeCollab. So far I have tried it adding in a few projects and it has been working fine. Yourself and people within your team are all in the same company and clients get an overview if added in the clients area. You have unlimited settings for projects and task. A message area for collaboration talks and make targeted milestones for every project. Definitely something you want to check out.

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Brand Piracy

Effective branding, the development of a brand can help in many ways in marketing of products. As I was walking in the mall with a colleague of mine from work and came across a shop of YSL or Yves Saint-Laurent which is one of the very popular brands of designer clothing and other fashion accessories. And he told me, he said he can’t remember where he read it, but he said their prices have dropped since their products are hard to sell due to a lot of sellers of fake YSL products. And I did agree that there are a lot of fakes products of YSL since from the country where I came from and grew up, these fake products were everywhere although they may look like the real thing, there were of cheaper quality, thus sold cheaper as well. And people that bought it was mainly for the brand recognition, the prestige of having a YSL product even if it was fake. The YSL brand is known to be quite expensive and having one seemed to be like a sign of prestige, that some people even go to the extent of buying fake cheap low quality ones just to carry the prestige with them using products like a status symbol. But in some cases, I have seen a different story in playing with brands.

Brand Image Copying

I grew up in the Philippines and for orange juice, I drink Tang. Until out from nowhere, a brand called 8 o’clock comes out. Having a career that started out as a chemist, I still remember some early days of applying for jobs and one of them was at a company called SugarLand who made the product 8 o’clock. During those days the office I went to was in the territory of many Filipino-Chinese businessmen near Binondo, Manila, but where I went was slightly nearby, at Tondo. And the office I went to did not look presentable at all from the outside. Although the inside was nice and clean, it still did not look like a nice office that time.

The original packaging of 8 o’clock, as far as I remember was predominantly in orange packaging. And as I was growing up, I was starting to see it have more green in the packaging similar to Tang’s packaging. Could you say this is copying? Maybe not, maybe it is. Since people do study the effect of color on sales and experiment on it. I still remember a seminar I attended once at an expo on graphics, where one of the presenters told us that Tide the soap once tried using the color blue instead of the bright red-orange. And sales went down and decided to put it back to the original color and sales went back up.

From the last time I remember, my last look at 8 o’clock orange juice’s packaging. The colors look very much like Tang. And I see this all the time in many other products. I have also noticed this with the milk brands Anlene and Anchor. They have similar fonts and sometimes in the grocery store, you see them right beside each other and they look similar, but just differ in color where Anlene is light green and Anchor is blue. Aside from that, the rest looks very similar.

Actual examples with TopCare products

After going to the grocery store, I noticed a brand called TopCare. This is what I have previously used for my anti-dandruff shampoo since it was a bit cheaper than Head and Shoulders. They seemed to have the same active ingredient I believe but their packaging looked very similar. But after trying it out, I went back to Head and Shoulders since I believe I got more itchiness and I feel more stinging sensations when using TopCare. But in my last grocery visit, I started to take more note of each product and their differences. Check the series of photos I took and tell me if this is really some serious brand research or simply brand copying.

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I made this website, this blog as a part of my plight into the Fast Track, getting out of the Rat Race. My first post was March 5, 2006. After reading several books written by Robert Kiyosaki and the whole Rich Dad Corp. published books. I have attended two of his large workshops. And with the education coming in, the next steps are really action. It does not take money to make money, although a lot of money helps make more money. And I am in the stage of generating more money from no money to make more money. And so far it still works with a job, but at the same time, I am growing a small business as well.

1997 – Employee with a small business. Working barely gave me anything and my small business gave me only $10 a month despite the office, employees and amount of customers. It was always break even  closed down in 1998.

1999 – Concentrated on a smaller niche and did business full time. Made a lot of money to say I was buying anything I wanted. But competition got stiffer in 2002, eventually closed the company in 2003.

2003 – Got tired of business and worked as an employee, teaching the skills I know in an educational institution.

2004 – Started doing business once again, and also decided to give being in another country a shot. And went to the United States. And based in San Diego, CA. started working as an employee earning at $12/hour. My small business then had 25 loyal clients paying a monthly retained service.
2005 – Promoted to get $28,000/year in January and while working still selling for my business where I was able to increase my clients to 150 by the end of 2005. Middle of 2005, my salary also increased to $35,000/year after the company increased when they learned I was moving to a new company with that salary offer.

2006 – Middle of  2006, I moved on to a new company to work for at $45,000/year, and by the end of the year, I decided to do a career shift, same industry, just different area of specialization, but earning the same salary. Business in 2006 increased my clients to 380.

2007 – Still in the first quarter, I have been having new job offers for $61,000/year which I am considering. And business has increased to near 500 clients. Although the clients are increasing, I am starting to feel the pain of a growing business where I need better operation systems. So for the rest of 2007 will be mainly fixing the systems. And still looking for better higher paying jobs.

2006 compared to 2007: So far, still in the same situation. Just getting closed to the end of the rat race.

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I have been making websites since 1997 and has ran a web business since 1999.  In the process I had my ups and downs. There were times I had an office with a rented space in a building, a few partners and employees, and also days of working on my own, by myself, no employees, no partners and working from my bedroom. Sales go up and down, sometimes I’m some big-time guy, sometimes I’m super broke.

Sales started picking up again 2004 and so far I see no downtrend yet, but right now, even if I am not selling myself, my customers are selling for me. Most of my business sales for 2006 was all from customer referrals and I am already at a point that I believe handling all the clients is starting to be a problem.

Although many people say this problem is a good problem. And even by the start of January this year, I already told myself I will not focus on sales, and I will focus on systems,  my operations mainly and I want to focus on 2 things:

1. My Billing System
2. My Project Management System

Now how I am going to do that and what softwares will I use, I really do not know yet. But These will be my focus for 2007.

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