Government Grants 

Is There Such A Thing?

Enough learning about Grants for business on late night TV.  Here is the truth when talking about Government Grants.  Grants for profit business are extremely rare. Ask a local Small Business Office if there are any government grant money for small business and they will probably tell you to stop watching those late night commercials of people selling books about where to find Government Grants .  The only way you are going to get any money out of the Government as a profit business is to contract with them...  to be continued

T Shirts

I had the opportunity to start a successful T-Shirt Business which we have sold at Craft Shows that were held in Malls and Community Events. I will have to say that I was able to pump out a lot of shirts in a short amount of time once I got the hang of it. Sometimes I would stay up all night making last minute shirts in time for the show the next day or two. What kind of T-Shirts did I sell? I sold Screen Printed Transfers that I believe were the best in the Industry. The way I applied them on was with a 16X24 Professional Heat Transfer machine that I had purchased for just over six hundered dollars.

We could make on a Saturday at a Shopping Mall about 1100 dollars retail in one day. On a Sunday it could be about 400 to 600 dollars. I would try and separate my shirts from other business owners by having the best designs and the best brand in my opinion of T-Shirts or Sweatshirts. Most of my other competition did not have as nice designs or shirt quality material. Some competitors would even sell their t-shirts very cheap. Yet I had no problem selling mine which were just selling on the higher end when it comes to T-Shirts and I would have plenty of people especially women who recognized the quality and were willing to pay a little extra for them and many times they would be lined up with T-Shirts or Sweatshirts in hand to purchase. Many people got excited when they saw the designs and when they saw the brand of the T-Shirt many were surprised.

I really had a lot of fun making these shirts and if I were to do this again the one big thing I would do different is to cut down on my design styles. I had too many designs and I would rent two booth spaces to display them all. I think I could of likely sold just as many if not probably more T-Shirts and Sweatshirts if I would of kept enough for one booth space and saved money this way. Although I did sell many types of designs, my best selling designs were Crafty designs. I discovered that Women like to buy and are not afraid to. When a potential customer sees our booth they know we are only there for one or two days in most cases. This creates Impulse buying! People are more quick to buy because they did not want to see us gone and they missed out buying a great gift for themselves or someone else. Sometimes we would receive orders from people to ship to their location.

It is funny that it creates Impulse buying because the designs that we used were from Impulse Designs. They were the best quality Screen Print Transfers that I have seen. I do not know if they are still in business but if anyone was to get into this aspect of the business this would be a great brand to have.

I really enjoyed this business and it was a lot of fun. It was nice to see a quality product displayed in a short amount of time. I had wanted to sell them on the Internet but I did not go that far with them. I ended up selling my inventory and equipment. My advised to anyone is to know your market and start off on the small end. Start off with several (in this case) Country designs and expand slowly from there making each of your buying purchasing a smart one.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions please feel free to reply to this posting or email me and I will tell you everything that I know about this business. It is a lot of fun and wouldn't really mind doing it again.

Owning a hot dog cart is an easy way to earn extra cash or even a full time income if you know how to do it right. In this story and link it mainly talks about selling Hot Dogs, but you can sell a variety of food products. I personally think selling Pretzels along with your Hot Dogs would be a good money making opportunity. Who can remember recently or when you were a kid eating one of those yummy chewy pretzels? It makes me hungry just thinking about that.

An advantage to serving Hot Dogs compared to most other food items is that you do not have as many restrictions serving the food or strict rules with the Health Department since making Hot Dogs is easy and doesn't require much to make. Here is a success story from Steve Schaible who has a website with a lot of great information.

Hot Dog Cart Success Story
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John Rodin retired from his job as an engineer for an Long Island Aerospace company after 30 years of loyal service. John being an active person very quickly got bored with sitting at home. Since his career had always required him to be stuck in an office, he always had an urge to do something that was more people oriented. He decided to purchase a Hot Dog Cart. John was also an avid Softball fan and attended his sons games regularly. He however hated the fact that there was nowhere to get anything to eat while at the game. What could be better, bring the traditional Hot Dog to the traditional Ball Game. John operates his cart for the full softball season (2 1/2 Months) and then spends the rest of his time in South Carolina pursuing his other love, Golf. All this courtesy of the money he makes from operating his cart. Part of the $30,000 he made his first year gave him the down payment for his condo in Myrtle Beach and after 3 years he is now making $45,000/year off of his cart. He has paid off his condo and has enough money to live on so that he can bank his good size retirement check. All this is wonderful, but what John likes best is that he is getting paid to watch the game.

Not bad for working 2 1/2 months a year...Congratulations John!

Your Own Web Site

Anyone can create a website or have someone create one for them, but not everyone can give you the same Support and Internet Marketing to drive people to your site like Site Build It can! Many people on the internet are making a good living having their own website. Going through Site Build It can improve your chances of success greatly. You have to check this out if you haven't already. Start doing your own research and start with SBI!

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E-Books

E-books are electronic versions of books that do not require printed versions.  Many self-published writers are finding e-books to be a simple way to express their ideas without the cost and barriers involved with traditional publishing.  Amazon has been a leader in the industry with its Kindle reader while Apple has challenged the platform with its tablet the i-Pad.  My personal favorite for e-book reading and more is the Google Nexus 7 Tablet.

The popularity of e-books has skyrocketed in the second decade of the 21st century.  In May 2011 Amazon reported that its sales of e-books had surpassed sales of hard copy books.  A Pew Internet Project survey in 2012 showed that 21 percent of American adults had read an e-book within the past year.  It was also found that e-book readership favors people under age 50. A large majority of e-book readers read printed books as well.  Nearly half of the respondents said they preferred e-books over printed books. 

In 2012 Apple launched ibook author, which is a software program that allows authors to create e-books in the PDF format on an I-Pad and directly make products available in the IBooks store and  for sharing.  Amazon has a platform called CreateSpace for authors to create t-books, which must conform to the site's policies.  Lulu also provides the tools for authors to create and market their own self-published e-books.

E-books have proved to be profitable, even for traditional publishers such as Random House.  The company reported that e-book sales made up 27 percent of the total book sales, which was a 7 percent increase from a year earlier

If anyone know of a good way to start in e-books please share it here. 

Can I Make Money with No Money?

Ok, so you want to start a business, but you dont have much money and you do not want to borrow the money.  You want to start with as little start up capital as you can and still make it work.  You want to have very minimal lost if everyting falls through.  Well if these questions fit you then the following information is for you.  Well you may have heard it before, but it never hurts listening to topics more than once.  Chances are you can start making money from the things you already have in your own home and an internet connection by selling some of your things on Ebay.  I have personally heard of people who sell all kinds of products and actually making anywhere from a few hundered dollars a month to ten thousand dollars a month.

Want to know what sells on ebay just start off by using the ebay niche finder tool. It will get your creativity going as you find that niche item that can bring you in big bucks!  If you want to look for a niche item that will make you alot of money for example, you can type that you want your "Average Price" greater than fifty dollars. Now lets say you try searching "Cosmetics" with the average price greater than zero. When you search this you will see a list of items that fall into a niche market with your criteria. It will also give your other information such as Max Price, Average Price Demand Quantity Available, Quanity Sold and the Conversion Rate.  This is very helpful when deciding what you want to sell.  Or just start selling whatever items you have at home and test the water that way!

Go to eBaY Niche Finder