January 7th, 2017 | By Tom Woods
Going to Harvard sure sounds glamorous.
But someone has to clean the toilets.
That someone is the author of this very blog post.
Harvard dorm rooms are nicer than at most colleges. Nearly all of them have fireplaces, and they also have private bathrooms. None of this gang-shower-down-the-hall-like-you’re-living-at-the-YMCA horror. You had your own bathroom.
Some sucker had to clean them. That was my job. I cleaned bathrooms at Dunster House, the building where Will’s girlfriend lived in the movie Good Will Hunting. (That’s not the real interior of Dunster, though.)
It was about as unpleasant as you’re thinking it must have been.
I don’t care how “privileged” their background — college men are not known for keeping a clean bathroom.
In those days the Internet was still in its infancy. Had it been around then, I hope I would have been entrepreneurial enough to figure out that it was a ludicrous waste of my time to spend eight to 15 hours per week cleaning bathrooms.
I could have been earning probably ten times as much creating websites for local businesses.
We held a workshop yesterday on how to do that. I found you guys a platform filled with templates for all kinds of businesses. It’s truly idiot-proof.
And the beauty is: no one else is going to approach businesses in your area with a website creation offer. Everyone else is doing the equivalent of cleaning Harvard bathrooms.
Watch this, and then try to tell me you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Or your teenagers can — instead of wasting summers doing menial jobs, they can be building portfolios (not to mention their self-confidence).
Check it out — but do it quickly, because it’s being taken down soon:
https://www.happyearner.com/localreplay
January 4th, 2017 | By Tom Woods
Best clueless line of all time:
“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
That was Paul Krugman in 1998.
Ouch.
Actually, the Internet has changed everything.
And it has made possible the kind of lifestyle I myself enjoy: wherever there’s WiFi, I can work. No boss, no fixed schedule, no workplace politics, no physical inventory. Just doing what I love to do.
One of my favorite early Internet stories:
Steve Hogarth, of the band Marillion (which has sold in excess of 15 million albums), tried explaining to American audiences that he couldn’t afford to tour in the U.S. The books just didn’t balance. Their fan base was in Europe.
But on the fledgling Internet of the 1990s, Marillion fans banded together and raised $60,000 — and then pledged to buy tickets on top of that if Marillion came. Which they did.
Hogarth (whom I have interviewed on the Tom Woods Show) later noted that here he was the lead singer, and he had no idea this was even going on. Suddenly, they had this pile of money.
But he was a quick learner. “Whatever this Internet thing is, we’d better get on it,” he said.
He then crowdsourced their next album, long before Kickstarter. He told fans: we’d like you to buy our next album before we even record it.
OK, sure, they said.
Every fan who pre-ordered the nonexistent album was thanked inside the album sleeve when it came out.
Other struggling bands, not wise to the benefits of the Internet, missed out on these advantages and opportunities.
Even now, in 2017, small businesses are being left out of the raging cash machine that is the Internet. They have no website, or a ridiculous one.
Meanwhile, the Steve Hogarths of the world are cleaning up.
That’s where you come in. I have a tremendous platform you can use that has pre-built templates for scores of business niches. Play around with the template to make it unique, insert the info for a local business, and voila: you have a great website nobody else is going to approach that business to offer.
It’s an excellent side (or main) business opportunity, even for young people.
Don’t even think about missing the workshop we’re holding this Thursday to show you how to do it, even if you’re a design-impaired, low-tech doofus like me.
Reserve your spot:
https://www.happyearner.com/local
January 2nd, 2017 | By Tom Woods
Look, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself. Any person worthy of the name does so until the day he’s six feet under.
But there’s no reason to wait for some magical day to launch the new you. Just start already.
I wonder if that’s why so few New Year’s resolutions survive past January — they derive from an inauspicious “Honest, I’ll really get started on this magical day” mentality.
Now: it’s not a resolution, but a lesson I’m going to start teaching more consistently to my kids: serving others is how you get ahead.
They’re growing up in a society in which “capitalism” is a smear word. But who gets rich under pure laissez-faire? Someone who offers people what they need, at a quality and price level that pleases them.
That’s how I want my children to think. How can I best serve my fellow man?
As you know, Regina (my 13-year-old) and I are going to start designing websites for the zillions of businesses in our area who don’t have one, and who are therefore invisible to an entire generation.
I told Regina: you can be a burger flipper and be expendable, and earn $7.25 an hour, or you can show some initiative in the way you serve others. This side business is precisely how I’m going to teach her this lesson.
She’ll be providing local business owners with something they need, and something that will make them better off.
In so doing, she’ll make herself better off.
So elegant and simple, yet it’s a lesson our schools are too busy teaching soft Marxism to impart.
And yes, there’s a very easy way to do this, with customizable templates for businesses across scores of niches.
(That’s all a local business needs, by the way; anyone trying to sell them more doesn’t get it.)
We’ll show you how to create your own side business this way in our workshop this Thursday.
Reserve your spot:
https://www.happyearner.com/local
December 30th, 2016 | By Tom Woods
Warning: I’m going to be blunt.
If you’re a delicate snowflake, stop reading now.
You’ve probably heard of “Fight for $15,” the group trying to organize fast-food workers to get their wages raised to $15 per hour.
One of their promos features a Felipe Mujita of Chicago. He says he has worked for McDonald’s for 32 years, and still earns $8.95 per hour.
This is supposed to make us all tears and pity for poor Felipe.
But think about it for a minute: what kind of no-ambition dolt is still earning $8.95, and has achieved zero upward advancement, after 32 YEARS?
That’s absurd and contemptible, not a cause to rally around.
Spend an hour a day learning a skill you can sell on a freelance site, and you’ll earn much more than $8.95 per hour.
Or spend an hour a day looking around the Internet at the way successful online earners are making their money.
Or read a book about local marketing.
SOMETHING.
But just plodding along, earning your $8.95 per hour for 32 years?
Look, man, not a SINGLE, SOLITARY EMPLOYER ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD thinks you’re worth more than $8.95 per hour. And you think a sensible way out of that situation is to bark demands through a bullhorn at the only employer on earth who can stand the sight of you?
There are plenty of opportunities out there for people willing to break out of their inertia.
Local businesses need websites. No one is approaching them with proposals. You can design simple yet beautiful sites for them that perform the basic functions a local business needs.
My daughter (Regina) and I are starting a new side business where we’ll do just that.
And there’s a tremendous tool you can use to build websites for businesses in scores of niches, in no time at all. That’s how we’re doing it.
Want a nice side hustle, or a new line of work? Check out our workshop on how to do this:
https://www.happyearner.com/local
Be Regina. Not Felipe.
December 29th, 2016 | By Tom Woods
You won’t believe how simple it is.
I put all my ads and links in the left-hand column rather than the right.
Notice that the clickable boxes on this site are all in a column on the left-hand side of the page.
Why do I do it that way? Studies show people expect to see ads in the right-hand column, so they subconsciously tune out that whole part of the screen.
So even if you have things other than ads there, they’re still less likely to be seen, simply because of where they are.
So I put things I want them to click on in the left-hand column instead.
Needless to say, a subtlety like this isn’t exactly the kind of thing local businesses know cold.
Plenty of them have no website at all, and those who do often have clunky or frankly hideous sites.
These are people, by the way, who will pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get their ads in the Yellow Pages, which nobody uses anymore. Without a website, they risk complete invisibility, especially to the rising generation.
This has OPPORTUNITY written all over it.
But Woods, you say, I’m not a web designer.
That makes two of us.
But remember: a local business needs only the most basic kind of site to be leagues ahead of its competitors. And I have a way for you to create sites like that even if (like me) you have no tech background to speak of.
My 13-year-old daughter and I plan to make a side business out of this.
On January 5, a week from today, we’re putting on a workshop to show you exactly the kind of tool we’re using to make it a breeze, as well as our strategy for identifying local businesses to create sites for.
Local businesses need websites, and nobody except you will bother to approach any of these businesses with a website proposal.
This is a winner. Make the time:
https://www.happyearner.com/local
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