The Double Challenge

The Experiment: Find a penny, and find a way to double it. Then keep on doubling until I have enough money to pay off my mortgage.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Products Matter Too

A while ago I posted about how marketing really matters. Well, having a good product matters too. I just sold my house. I have a 3 bedroom townhouse and I didn't have a problem selling it. I ended up selling it privately and sold it for what I wanted for it. My neighbor has the same model from the same builder as me so I told her that she shouldn't have any trouble selling it. In fact, she even has put $11,000 of upgrades into it including a shed, a deck. Also, she has a finished basement, which I do not - which should be another $10,000 or so. She's only ASKING $10,000 more than me, so someone should easily give an offer a few grand below that and she's willing to take it. The problem? She hasn't had a single call. Not one. In two weekends of open houses, she's had one or two visitors. That's it. Two. I had 6 calls in the first day. For the longest time I didn't get it. Her house is clearly worth more than mine. We have the same model from the same builder, but she has tens of thousands of dollars of upgrades. What could possibly be the problem? And then it dawned on me. When we built our houses, we had the choice of a 3 bedroom, or a 2 bedroom and loft. I chose the 3 bedroom partly because I don't really get the point of a loft and partly because of resale. My parents have always told me to think about resale when I buy or build a house and boy were they ever right. One simple choice that perhaps didn't seem to matter much to some people, but fast forward to the day when we're trying to sell our places and I am stress free with a buyer and she's desparate and liklely going to lose her chance to buy her dream home. And when she finally does sell, it very well may be for much less than mine, despite all the upgrades in her home over mine. Choose your product VERY carefully. One tiny difference from a competitor could make ALL the difference.

Flip

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Gambling Pays off Again

I went to a poker game tonight with my friend. As always, 10% of my poker gambling is done with my Double Challenge money. There were 8 people with $5 buy ins. $25 to first place, $10 to second place and $5 to third place. I lost out in 6th place in game #1. I was doing very well when I made a dumb emotional move and moved all-in. The worst part is my opponent miscalculated his odds of calling, so he called and won. If he had done his math right (and realised he had a diamond instead of a heart), he wouldn't have called me. The second game I did a lot better. I was determined to not make any bonehead moves. I think I played this one a lot better and it showed as I was heads up at the end. I was slightly behind in chips and it was getting late, so I was happy to chop (ie. split the winnings.) We also had something called bounties, where if you are knocked out, then you give a dollar to the person who knocked you out. I collected two bounties and held on to my own, so after the two $5 entry fees and the $17.50 of winnings after the chop, and $2 from the bounties, I made $9.50, which means I made 95 cents for the Double Challenge. Now I can buy that boat I always wanted. LOL.

Flip

Friday, October 19, 2007

The Bum Marketing Method Works!

Holy crap. That is all I can say. I can confirm with 100% honesty that the Bum Marketing Method works. I read this free document about 6 months ago and finally got around to trying the technique shown. I just checked Google for the search phrase I was targeting and guess what? Out of 19 million webpages that came up on my search, yours truly was number one. That's right! Number 1 out of 19 MILLION! Holy Crap! I'm so excited I want to climb on my roof and yell, "I'M NUMBER ONE!" Although to be technically correct, I should yell, "I'M NUMBER ONE IN THE SEARCH PHRASE THAT I WAS TARGETING ON GOOGLE!". Although I"m not sure that has the same ring to it.

I highly recommend checking out this free report. Notice that there is no affiliate link there. I'm not making anything off this - in fact, neither is the author. It's just a good way to obtain FREE advertising for your blog or webpage. Happy bum marketing!

Flip

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Cashflow!

I'm so stoked! On October 29th, I am going to play Cashflow for the first time! For those of you that don't know, Cashflow is a boardgame intended to teach people how to get out of the rat race and to get on the fast track of getting rich. It's part of the Rich Dad products by Robert Kiyosaki. I have wanted to play this game for a very long time now, but havn't had the urge to put down the $195USD required to buy it. I found a group of people in my city who play once a month. Now I can try it out and see what it is like and maybe, just maybe fork out the dough. I'll let you know what I think about it after I play. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun and they also apparently talk a lot about local investment opportunities to boot!

Flip