If you are running a business – even a small one – you are going to need a website (even if it is just one page) and an email address to that website.
People are going to Google you when checking out your products and services, and you need to show up when that happens. You need to look professional, and the web is no exception.
You’d be surprised how often I see small businesses without a website, or without a company email address (they are still using hotmail, yahoo, sympatico, etc.).
Doing this is cheaper than you think. For under $10 bucks a month, you can get all this and more. So why not look professional, and get the most out of your business?
Doug Anderson
[Looking for a cheap and easy webpage and email combo? If you want this basic web combo set up for you, contact me and we'll do it for you for only $9 per month - best deal on the planet!]
Have you ever been in an airport with your laptop, and all the power plugs are taken?
I usually have to scrounge for one too, so here’s a tip. Pack a small power cube with you – then simply ask to share with someone who is already using a jack.
Yesterday we were doing a conference call explaining how to use Your Leverage Rewards to get free stuff from shopping at certain businesses, just like Aeroplan or Air Miles.
My business partner Rivers Corbett said it was like referring someone to the Regency Street Mall and getting paid forever on every purchase they ever made at the mall. That’s pretty cool right there. But it gets better…
Then I piped up and said “Wouldn’t it be great if Air Canada gave you bonus Aeroplan miles every time one of your friends bought a plane ticket from Air Canada?”
Well now you can. Here’s how:
1. Set up Your Leverage Rewards account.
2. Refer your friends to Your Leverage Rewards by sending them your account link.
3. When any of your friends purchase a plane ticket, have them book through any of our agents, such as Charters Travel. Remind them toask to collect points with their purchase. Actually, this works on everything, not just plane tickets.
4. Your friends will collect points on their ticket purchase, and so will you.
5. Lastly, submit a request to convert Your Leverage Rewards into Aeroplan miles, and you’re off. Combine your 24,000 Aeroplan miles with an extra 1,000 top up from Your Leverage account, and now you have the 25,000 you need to fly for free.
That’s how easy it is. Imagine how many free trips you can leverage using this technique!
I made this mapping with a neat little (free) website called www.bubbl.us:
It shows you how to connect multiple websites together, so that they update one another.
They call this “Automatic Cross-Posting”. It basically means you can set up one website to “feed” another the link. These sites aren’t usually all blogs per se, but social networking sites, such as Facebook.
You need an account at each of these sites (at least, the ones you want to chain together), then simply go to the preferences in each website and configure it to automatically update some or all of their options.
Let’s walk through an example. Get an account at Utterli, and you’ll be able to “phone in” audio blogs. Go to “Apps * Widgets >> Cross-Posting” and add other accounts such as Blip.tv, Flickr.com, or Tumblr.com. You have to already have accounts at these websites, but that’s easy to set up.
Then go to your Blip.tv account, and have it feed Del.icio.us and Flickr.com under “Distribute”.
Then go to your Tumblr.com account and have Del.icio.us feed it (sort of a pull instead of a push) under “Feeds”.
Enable your FriendFeed.com account to under “Account” to have everythingexcept Twitter and Facebook update your FriendFeed.
Almost there… Have FriendFeed update Twitter, and Twitter update Facebook.
Hopefully that can get you all connected. Now you’ll only have to update your social media in one place, and have it post to many other sites, such as the ones I’ve mentioned.
A few weeks ago I was looking at switching my mortgage to either ManuLife One or National Bank’s All-In-One mortgage products. I wanted to do this because I want to take advantage of lower rates, as well as access the equity in my house, and these products were more flexible at doing this than my Bank of Nova Scotia mortgage.
I was speaking with a friend of mine this week who wanted to do the same maneuver (not Smith Maneuver), but was faced with the same dilemma I had: a STEEP fee for switching in the middle of the mortgage term. We are talking thousands. Ouch.
Alas, how to avoid the fee of switching mortgages in the middle of a term.
I simply told the people I was dealing with at the new mortgage companies that it wasn’t worth my while to pay nearly $5,000 to switch mortgages. It was just better to wait until the term was up for renewal.
It was only then that they told me that the Home Equity Line of Credit could simply be set up in a “second” position. I didn’t think Manulife One would do that, but they do.� This way, I could take advantage of the flexibility and lower rates, but avoid the cancellation fee for the first mortgage. Brilliant!
It was only when I was speaking with my friend that I realized that I wasn’t the only one with this problem, so I thought I would share this with you.
Next thing you can start doing once the second mortgage is set up, is simply write a check from one to the other. Most first mortgages allow you to prepay a certain amount / percentage each year. In effect, you simply start transferring one mortgage to the other in chunks. Effectively though, this gets around the fee.
The kicker is though that there may be a minimum for setting up the mortgage in the second position. When I finally went with Manulife One, the limit was $50,000. Now I hear that they’ve raised it to $75,000. I’m not sure what National Bank’s minimum is, but it would be worthwhile giving them a call to find out.
Lastly, make sure you collect points (specifically: Your Leverage Rewards) when you decide which company you want to go with. We’ve lined up mortgage brokers that will give you points on National Bank’s product, and I can give you the name of the lady who grants points on the ManuLife One product.
There’s no need to pay a mortgage penalty. Just get creative and you will avoid it.
Doug Anderson
Founder Your Leverage Blog & Your Leverage Rewards
Yesterday I had a dilemma – I had to be on two calls at the same time.
If only I could duplicate myself…
Since my clones were busy doing other things, I decided to record the Skype call (it was a listen-only teleconference). Then I decided to share with you how to do it on my blog.
First, you’ll need to download SoliCall onto your computer from www.solicall.com.
Once you go through the configuration, you simply go to your General Settings >> Audio Settings in Skype and select SoliCall as both the mic (input) and speakers (output). All this does is puts SoliCall “in-line” with Skype, so it taps into the call.
Next, simply “enable recording” in the SoliCall menu, and you’re “good-to-go” for recording Skype calls.
Also, select MP3 as the format, as it’s much smaller than the alternatives.
A little SoliCall icon shows up in the windows tray at the bottom of the screen. This comes in handy when you want to find where those recordings are stored. Simply open up the recordings library, and there are your recordings!
Now you can record one teleconference while making another phone call. Two places at once? Now that’s leverage!
But, I can count. And I can add and subtract too. I just won’t count for you. Deal? Deal.
Most employed people don’t seem to be aware of all the tax benefits of owning a home based business (the reason I say “owning” instead of “running” will become apparent in later posts – you can hire contractors to do the work for you, but that’s not the point of this article). By the time you add all the expense deductions up from a home-based business, you may be looking at thousands of dollars in saved taxes.
Your magic number depends on what your tax bracket is, and how much in business expenses you deduct from you “job” income.
Let’s say my monthly expense write-off numbers are something like this:
Expense
(Business Portion)
Deductible Amount
Business inventory supply & advertising
(“core costs”)
$100
Car expenses (mileage, maintenance, gas, etc.)
$150
Travel and gifts (monthly average)
$250
Meals and entertainment
$100
Office supplies (paper, pens, stationary)
$50
Furniture (average cost per month)
$50
Other equipment (computers, copiers, fax machines and scanners)
$50
Telephone charges (land line, long distance, cell phone for business)
$50
Insurance premiums (monthly average)
$50
Hiring his children as employees, babysitting
$50
Total Deductible Expenses
=$900
Total income tax refund @ 25% tax rate
x 25% =$225
Less core costs
-$100
Net cash increase
=$125
Return on investment (ROI)
$125 / $100 = 125% ROI
$900 per month in business expenses means $10,800 per year written off against the employee income.
This may sound a little steep, but when you figure in travel and automobile expenses, it does not take long to add up. My wife (who also happens to be involved in my my business) and I went on a cruise-convention for business. Guess what – it was for business. Did I have fun? Sure. Did I do business? Absolutely. Did I write most of it off? Sure did.
In a 25% tax bracket, $10,800 in expenses is $2,700 per year in tax savings. If the business cost me $1,200 per year in basic costs (licensing, inventory, etc.), then I essentially doubled my money in tax alone, before I ever made a sale. 100% return.
Any sales I made are simply added on top of those returns. If I made $1,200 that year it pays for my costs and I still get to apply the $10,800 in expenses against any employment income.
Now: the dilemma. “But I don’t know what to do for a business?” No problem. There are lots of interesting ones out there for you already, no ideas necessary.
Here are some interesting and fun turn-key home-based business ideas that I have run across in the past few weeks:
A) “Lay-away Plan” for a home with a twist. Lay-away means that you buy the house in small payments over time, in advance, which means you have no mortgage. And, NO INTEREST! The twist is there is profit sharing from the company that you purchase the home from, which subsidizes your purchase (wholly or in-part). Refer a friend and you get more profit sharing. Very cool. And what a great way to write off your mortgage. Oops, you won’t have a mortgage, so I guess it’s just a great way to write off your house.
B) Gas Saving Pills. These little beauties not only save you gas, but they also help reduce environmental emissions so they are green. Anybody want to write off their gas bill or car payments? I am sure you could get creative with that one.
C) Online learning. I have seen a couple of these and it’s a neat idea. You get up-to-date learning tools (for example, videos). Learning (and helping people learn) becomes your business. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. What a great way to write off tuition.
Just some ideas, I could go on. Contact me if you need more.
We also offer home-business ideas through Your Leverage Rewards, so you get even more back by collecting points. Imagine that, collecting points on your home-based business.
Anyway, there you have it. How to make money with a home based business before you even make a sale. And, if you need funding for the business I’ve shown you how to do that too (and collect points doing it).
Doug Anderson, Founder of Your Leverage Rewards shows how to get your mortgage to buy you free stuff, over and over again.
With interest rates at record lows, you may be looking at securing a line of credit. Or perhaps you’re looking at getting the best rate by accessing the equity in your home through a mortgage. Saving a mere 1% on a $200,000 mortgage means saving $2,000 per year.
I am always surprised how many people aren’t aware that they can get better mortgage rates using a mortgage broker. Going right to the bank gets you a “retail rate” but going through a mortgage broker gets you a “discount rate”. Ok, so now you’re getting the best rate possible, next step.
If you’re getting a mortgage anyway you might as well collect rewards while doing so.
If you can get a 5% mortgage from CIBC with no points, or a 5% mortgage from CIBC with a truckload of points, which would you choose? Exactly. The choice is clear, collect the points and get free stuff.
Now… once you’ve collected points on getting your mortgage, you can do one of two things with it:
Spend it. (Shame on you! Read my book to learn your options). However, if you do choose this route, you can easily collect more points on your purchase.
Invest it (Then spend the earnings). I am pleased to say… you can also collect points here too.
So, the super-leveraged chain of events becomes… drumroll please…
Collect points getting the mortgage
Collect points investing the capital
Collect points spending the earnings from the investment….
What could be better? You’ll have points coming out of your ears, You’ll likely never have to pay for another flight, TV, or dinner at “The Keg” again.
And that is how you can start to get you mortgage to pay you. Stay tuned for more tips, there is so much more you can do to make your dollar go farther in these tough economic times.
Leverage is all about accelerating your results. Whether it is moving a rock or moving your income, the principle is the same. We help you find levers.
Yesterday we were doing a conference call explaining how to use Your Leverage Rewards to get free stuff from shopping at certain businesses, just like Aeroplan or Air Miles.
