PhilFAQS

So how many people took a look at the sample chapters I pointed to yesterday?  How many guessed or determined from those samples what I was going to propose?

My special purpose idea here is this:

• One of Frank’s proven ‘anti-cold calling methods is to furnish the prospect with something … a flyer, an informational letter, a note with your business card, etc.
• Then, using a third-party contact the target individual and request an appointment to follow up.  Again, frank offers a lot of alternatives to this technique as one of his methods … he has many others, I’m certainly not giving the book away here.

The opportunity I had in mind is … you (or an employee of yours … be that third party.  Appointment setting to follow-up on request for information is a tried and true legitimate business technique.  You must structure it properly and you must follow appropriate laws, but that is technique and detail … I’m presenting the concept.

When the prospect is contacted, reminded of the information and asked to grant an appointment the success rate versus actual ‘cold calling’ is fantastically better.  The salesperson him or herself, of course, could do this, but there are some real business advantage in using a third party:

• A good appointment setter is rarely a good salesman… and vice versa.
• Talking to an office staffer is far less intimidating to the prospect than talking directly to the sales staff.
• A good salesman should be making much more during the time it takes setting up appointments than paying a third-party to set those appointments.
• No matter how a sale is approached, some appreciable percentage are still going to say ‘no’.  The beauty of this idea is that the sales staff is only working with those who have already expressed an interest … the ‘no’s are being dealt with and eliminated while real sales get made.

So, why am I talking abut this with respect to making a living in the Philippines?  here’s just one way you can profit from what the rest of the world doesn’t even want to know about

• Buy Frank’s book or some other reference that uses this sort of idea.  (hint:  Purchasers of books like this are excellent prospects for this kind of service)
• Find a sales organization who needs appointments set.  decide with them how they will furnish you the lad information, how to coordinate the appointments and, most importantly, how you will be remunerated. 
• Set up an outbound VOIP line … Skype for example … about $30 to $50 for a whole year of essentially unlimited calling.
• Follow the outline of successful sales/appointment setters.
• Start making appointments and collect for each one made.

You are now in business "in the Philippines" but not "of the Philippines". Like the instructions on the shampoo bottle say, lather well, rinse, repeat

Downsides:

• It will start slow … unless you find a starving market (when I was selling ‘brick and mortar’ style a few years ago in the US I spent many an hour with the sales manager of the company I was selling for scheming as to how much business we both could do if we could find someone to do exactly what we had outlined.  I would have paid 415 or $20 cash for a set appointment any time … and just one segment of the overall market I was aiming for had more than 3,000 entities in the US (country governments) … a much larger segment who really needed the product was independent school districts, there’s over 20,000 of them and the addresses, phone numbers and such of all these guys are required to be matters of public record… many of the prospects I did finally get in front of would look at our product and say, "Wow, wish I had known about this before".
• Small investment in money (very small, you already have a computer and ‘Net access or you wouldn’t be reading this) is required.  A more significant investment in time is required … but I never said this was a get rich quick scheme, merely that it was a viable business model.
• The big one for some .. hours.  The US business day starts, on the east coast, at 9 PM here in the Philippines and ends 11 hours later at 8 AM the next morning, but many people like shift work. 

At any rate, enough.  I’ve waxed over-long as usual.  This is just one of a thousand viable methods where you can leverage the Internet, the telephone and a business skill that others don’t want to do in order to make a living here in the Philippines … or anywhere else you chose to.

A couple days ago I posted about a site I found of value, Lea Walker’s Davao City real estate site.  I have no connection with this site and I have never met Lea.  I do, though, like to keep up with the real estate market here and it makes me sad to see the lack of any sort of reliable information here in the Philippines on real estate.  It isn’t really all that much better in the US, but the problem there is perhaps too many sites, all seeming to work at cross-purposes … instead of showcasing properties and features they are mainly fighting the ‘buy from me’, ‘don’t talk yo my competitors’ battle.

Either way, the consumer … and the property owner, don’t forget about him,, he’s the real client here … suffers.

So I featured this site, because it works fairly well ( lot of work could be done on search features and better use of screen space, but it’s head and shoulders above most) and unlike the vast majority of real estate sites I have seen here in the Philippines, it actually has inventory .. so many real estate efforts just list a few properties … it’s like a sari-sari store with no canned corn beef on the shelves

Chas, one of my readers hade a comment regarding that post:

Hi Philly,I agree with you,Lea has a very professional site,the best i’ve seen in Phils.I think the fact she is married to an American may have had some influence,regards Chas.

I have to be honest.  When I first read that it definitely struck me the wrong way.  How does it strike you?

Here’s why it gave me pause:

• I have no idea who Lea’s husband is.  Perhaps Chas may know, or perhaps he may be making and assumption.  There’s more than one Filipino with a Western-sounding name … the Gordon’s and the Wilson’s come to mind right off the top of my head.
• Since, as I have noted above, there are plenty of Americans who ought to know how to build a proper real estate site, but most obviously seem to display the fact they haven’t a clue, I’m sort of looking to understand why having an American husband would be assumed to be an asset?

I asked my Filipino wife to read the comment and give me her view about my reaction and she allows as to how I am probably a bit oversensitive … and she’s the smart one of the pair of us, that’s for sure …. so I’ll leave it at that … and not belabor the point … but I wonder, none-the-less.

Please realize I’m not beating up on Chas here, there is certainly rational thought behind his comment and we all have the right to our opinions … comments are open, what’s your opinion?

We’ve talked a number of time here on PhilFAQS about saving energy and living self-efficiently.  It’s no secret I’m a big fan of The Mother Earth News, Home Power magazine and other ‘green’ (both ecologically and economically green in today’s $5 gas days).

Most ‘Green Schemes" though seem to focus on families living out in the countryside on a farm or something along those lines.  I posted once about some friends of mine in Colorado who were living completely off the grid, making a good living, raising their kids … and at the same time making the world a better place.  I had some gratifying interest in that story, but let’s face it … 80 acres (32.37 hectares) is not the size of property most of us are going to wind up on.

  But just because the majority of us are going to be living on a small lot doesn’t mean  self-sufficiency is only for the countryside.  I came across this great book recently.  The folks who authored the book also write a splendid blog that is well worth putting on your blog subscription list, it’s chock full of great information and written in an educated but practical style.

Many of you still believe that alternative energy and living lightly on the environment are "too expensive" or "too impractical" … these are concepts that will come into their own in the future.

Well, it’s fine if you believe that, but I am here to tell you that the future is now ladies and gentlemen.  You can’t say I didn’t warn you.  Enjoy.

Yesterday I did a review and a plug for Bob martin’s ">’>49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines.  In the spirit of over-delivering I thought I’d do more than just a sales pitch sort of entry today.  I wanted to show you how you can take some of those nebulous ideas you hear about out there about people making money online and translate them into something concrete that you can actually make into a system that would be ideal for earning here in the Philippines and could be implemented by anyone with average skills for virtually nothing in the way of an investment.

Disclaimer:  I have not set up a business that follows this model.  Therefore, if it doesn’t work for you as you envisioned, it isn’t my fault.  That being said, I may very well set up a similar business in the future … the potential is there for thousands of ventures like I am going to outline for you here as a gift.

Question One: What drives all business?  Answer: Sales.  Many of us hate sales, or have no experience at it and don’t really want to get into it.  certainly sales is the most troublesome aspect of any business to me … but again, remember, it is the economic engine that drives the world.

Question Two: What is any business person most likely to shell out his/her hard earned money for? Answer:  Avoiding something s/he hates doing.

Question Three: What is the most likely thing any business person back there in your home country hates doing?  Answer:  You shou8ld be able to give me the answer without hesitation, I already mentioned it in Question One … sales.  In particular they hate that aspect of sales known as "Cold Calling" … digging up people’s phone numbers and ringing them up to try to get their "foot in the door".

Not only do salespeople hate cold calling, the people who get "cold called" hate it even more.  Who here among us hasn’t been angered by someone bugging us on the phone at home or office with unsolicited calls.  In fact under US Federal laws and some State laws many such calls are even illegal any more. 

I was in this predicament myself.  I was running a sales-oriented business in the US.  I needed prospects.  I hated cold calling, even the limited types you can do legally.  So, what did I do?

Well, I used the Internet to search and find a solution.  (you might want to remember this point, we will be returning to it again and again).  I found a fellow name of Frank Rumbauskas who sold a book and some audio CD called "Never Cold Call" and since the sales page looked promising and the package had an unconditional money back guarantee, I clicked on the order button and literally my life changed.  Not only did I turn my flagging sales around in my brick and mortar ‘conventional’ business, I found out about much easier, legitimate ways to make more money on line than I would ever earn selling little black boxes into a price-conscious, sales-resistant business market.

Already, I’m running long on this post.  (I know, I know, what else is new ;-))  I’ll continue this tomorrow. Hers’ what you can do today.  Download the sample chapters from Frank’s book … no sign-up, no money, no ’squeeze page’ or sales page hoopla, I promise, the file is there for the taking … and see if you can see what my 51st idea for making money in the Philippines will be. 

(Hint, it involves what we talked about earlier, helping businesses avoid what they don’t want to do and the easy access to communication and willing, educated folks eager to learn that you have access to here in the Philippines)

I’ve been a little busy in the past few weeks.  Some of the things I have been busy with have nothing to do with blogging or making money online, but one thing that has taken up a lot of more of my time that I thought it would was doing a review of Bob Martin’s book, 49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines.

It isn’t because the book is long or hard to read … in fact one of my honest criticism is, the book is a bit thin in places … but a real rule of writing is any written product should be long enough to do the job it was designed to do, and no longer (I ought, perhaps, to apply that principle to some of my blog posts, perhaps).

Bob is and American who moved to the Philippines about eight years ago and has been making a living here, entirely from his own efforts and business acumen ever since.

This sets him apart from me and many of my expat acquaintances who have an income already from pensions or investments.  The proof is i9n the pudding.  If you can live here for 8 years, live in a nice house, raise a family and live a life that has a balance between work and pleasure, then you may certainly say you have expertise in that niche.  In addition to knowing Bob online for some time, I have visited him at his home, met his family and some of his employees and it is my considered opinion that Bob is doing those things I mentioned, and more. 

So when Bob announced his plan to release this book I waited anxiously.  It does not disappoint.

There are a number of ideas in the book that I already knew about as well as quite a few that I had never heard of.  In all cases the ideas, in my opinion, are all viable and should provide a long-term income for anyone who chooses to actually set out and make a success of any one of them.  In fact I really wonder that Bob didn’t aim it at a broader audience, because a majority of the methods here will work for folks still living in the US, for example.

Most do not even require an investment of any consequence.  A few do, but even those are investments earmarked for buy real property or to invest in a proven business system with guidance and managerial assistance provided.

I was able to detect no scams or questionable ventures here.  For those that do not know,the Philippines is rife with many ‘make money’ scams … many of them revolving around an endless assortment of the "Amway-style" Multilevel-marketing models where you basically begin your business by pissing off all your friends and family members trying to get them switch to your brand of shampoo an soap and eventually end up with a flat bank account and a garage full of patent fertilizer products.

These are real-world products and designed as ideas which an honest man could use to start another business that appealed to other honest men.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the only real criticism I could offer is that some of the ideas are short … but, in fairness, think about this:

In the 8 years or so I have been intimately involved with helping people who want to move to the Philippines as well as making my own, successful plan to do so, a number one issue from people of all ages and al walks of life have been how to make a living … or how to find a viable business idea to help family members make a living.  In most cases, they (we) have no clue.

That’s what this book provides.  Well thought out and intelligently selected ideas for making yourself independent of that monster that people think provides security, a regular J*O*B.  It is not a textbook .. in order to fully develop some of these ideas one would need a sizeable book for each one I think.

It is exactly as required by truth in labeling, 49 ways and I can assure you, it will only take one of these 49 ways to ‘click’ for you to make the book more than worthwhile. 

The book is available in paper or eBook (instant download) format and it comes with a no-hassle, no risk guarantee … I recommend it.

Disclosure:  I am a sales affiliate for this product.  That means I am compensated if you buy it.  I would not advertise it here if I did not honestly feel you would not be receiving true value, but if that fact bothers you, fear not, I understand.