nazrullah's Blog

We live in a time where an increasing number of people are living from paycheck to paycheck with little, if any, money remaining at the end of pay period. Few people have insufficient savings for emergency situations. Unforeseen circumstances often create a crisis where money is needed immediately. For example: During the winter months, it's common for someone to have a fender bender with their car. Insurance covers most of the repair but there is a deductible which can be $500, $1000, or more. So, how does one come up with an extra $1000 quickly? Some people look at the internet as a potential source to earn money quickly. The internet is a good source to make cash fast, however, there are two issues that must be resolved: (a) what to sell? and (b) how to advertise? This article will identify three ideas on what to sell to make cash fast. Additional resources for further information will also be provided.

1. Information Products Write and sell your own e-book:

One of the best ways to get started in online marketing is to sell information product e-books. An e-book is a document that is created as a file on the computer. The e-book communicates information others will want to read. Generally an e-book is 30 or more pages long. An e-book can be delivered via the internet as a Microsoft Word document or a Text document, but the preferred method is as an Adobe PDF-format document.

There are two barriers most people need to overcome.

• The first is that they're not a writer. The second is that they lack information of value that others will want to buy. The chances are that both of these are perceptions but not truth. If one can write an email and send it to a friend or business colleague, they can write an e-book. The document will need to be free of spelling errors and major grammatical errors. This can be overcome either by using the computer's spell-check and grammar-check tools or with the help of a friend that can do the editing.
• The second barrier is that they don't have information of value that others will want to buy. It is necessary to have marketable knowledge, skills, or experience. For example, a person with experience or special knowledge as a gardener, landscaper, fix-it person, sheet-rocker, deck builder, money manager, golf instructor, coach, or electrician likely has information of marketable value. A person with a knack for explaining something, that often confuses other people, can market that ability. Take some time and think through these things. Talk to a friend, relative, or professional colleague and ask their opinion. All of the ideas that surface are source material for e-books.
  

2. Affiliate Marketing Become an Affiliate:

Many businesses have an Affiliate Program that offers others the opportunity to sell their products. The "affiliate" promotes their products online and receives a commission on all sales. It shouldn't cost anything to become an affiliate. However, the affiliate will need a website to market the products.

Entering into an Affiliate Agreement is fast and provides quick access to a broad variety of products and services. The affiliate's challenge is to find ways to effectively market these products and services.

It's easy to find businesses that offer an affiliate program. Let's assume a person wants to sell JEWELRY. Go to Google and enter in the phrase "jewelry +affiliate". Google will list numerous companies that offer affiliate programs associated with the sale of jewelry. Click on the search engine listing, look at the company's Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions, and sign up. It's as simple as that. Get some promotional materials from the company and start the online marketing of their products.

3. Online Auctions Sell items in an online auction:

Many people have a storage space in their basement, attic, or closet where they put things that seldom or never get used. After awhile, they've got so much stuff they start looking for more space. They might think of these items as "junk". In reality, they are sources of cash. Why not sell these items on the internet in an online auction. In many cases these items are worth more than one would anticipate.

Online auctions are a real easy way to earn money quickly. It's probably one of the best ways to make cash fast. Once all the personal items have been sold, offer to sell items for friends and neighbors. Take a percentage of the sale (e.g. 25% - 40% of the sell price). The friends or neighbors benefit from making money on the sale and they benefit by freeing up space taken by their "junk". A person can further expand this into a business by purchasing excess inventory at highly discounted prices and then turning around and selling those items for a profit. In many cases, the excess inventory can be purchased in an online auction. Auctions are a quick way to bring in some money and a website is not needed to make it happen. Furthermore, it is not necessary to be a "business" to sell personal items online.

Ebay makes it very easy to set up an account at no charge. Once an account is set up, a person can sell most anything. There are multiple ways to receive payments with no up-front expense to the seller. Just list the item, download a digital photo of the item to be sold, and enter a description for the item. Another benefit of an online auction is that the search feature in the auction site makes it very easy for products to be found.

Conclusion:

There are multiple alternatives available to anyone that wants to sell products online and earn money quickly. You don't have to be wealthy or a college graduate to come up with a product to sell and to market that product online. It just takes a strong desire to make it happen and the discipline to stick with it once you've started.

The question I am asked most often by our clients is, "how do we get more business value from our investment in our Information Technology department?" In our experience there are four key areas that need to be addressed to maximize the benefit obtained from the investment in IT:

Align business cases with business strategy

In most cases, the business case for IT investments, including the development or purchase of new software, is not linked to a clear business strategy. IT investments are invariably made on the basis of proposed benefits which are rarely recognized and are often short-term in nature, rather than directly addressing capabilities required to support the organization's vision.

By ensuring that every investment is directly supporting your business goals, and by regularly reviewing the actual benefits being delivered by past investments, you can begin to more effectively align your IT delivery to add true business value.

Address project management capability

Most IT departments are so overwhelmed by the rate of technology change and the continual demands from the business for new functionality, that they have neither the time nor expertise to address project delivery issues. This results in projects running over time, exceeding budget and failing to meet significant portions of critical business requirements.

Most of these potential problems can be avoided by simply following good project management practices and by ensuring that the structure, processes and underlying practices are proven and consistently applied. This can be effectively achieved by implementing a robust project lifecycle and then hiring experienced project management professionals to assist with the governance an execution of project management.

Accept ownership and responsibility

Similarly, most areas of the business are so busy attending to the rapid changes in their own markets and customer expectations that they have little time to concern themselves with the problems of their IT department.

It is imperative that businesses fully accept responsibility for the delivery of information technology. IT must be considered a critical and core part of your business and the delivery of IT value should be owned directly by the business. Insist on active management engagement and involvement, on focusing on only the most important business problems and on a financial business case for every improvement.

Leverage best practices

Information technology and software development best practices are understood, proven and well documented. Unfortunately, most IT departments are functioning at a process level that is many years behind best practice.

The following three areas are worthy of specific focus in this regard:

Gathering of business requirements:

Ensuring that business requirements are recognized and understood can lead to substantial efficiencies in project delivery and minimize costly rework and slippage in project timescales and costs. Using industry standard tools and notations such as the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) greatly assists in bridging the communication gap that frequently occurs between business process design and implementation.

Estimation and tracking:

Along with project management governance, the implementation and adherence to a robust software development lifecycle will improve the predictability of delivery and early visibility of any variation to plan.

Architecture and software lifecycle:

Effective enterprise and application architecture, coupled with appropriate use of agile development methods, assists in ensuring high quality, maximum flexibility and low levels of support and rework.

The question I am asked most often by our clients is, "how do we get more business value from our investment in our Information Technology department?" In our experience there are four key areas that need to be addressed to maximize the benefit obtained from the investment in IT:

Align business cases with business strategy

In most cases, the business case for IT investments, including the development or purchase of new software, is not linked to a clear business strategy. IT investments are invariably made on the basis of proposed benefits which are rarely recognized and are often short-term in nature, rather than directly addressing capabilities required to support the organization's vision.

By ensuring that every investment is directly supporting your business goals, and by regularly reviewing the actual benefits being delivered by past investments, you can begin to more effectively align your IT delivery to add true business value.

Address project management capability

Most IT departments are so overwhelmed by the rate of technology change and the continual demands from the business for new functionality, that they have neither the time nor expertise to address project delivery issues. This results in projects running over time, exceeding budget and failing to meet significant portions of critical business requirements.

Most of these potential problems can be avoided by simply following good project management practices and by ensuring that the structure, processes and underlying practices are proven and consistently applied. This can be effectively achieved by implementing a robust project lifecycle and then hiring experienced project management professionals to assist with the governance an execution of project management.

Accept ownership and responsibility

Similarly, most areas of the business are so busy attending to the rapid changes in their own markets and customer expectations that they have little time to concern themselves with the problems of their IT department.

It is imperative that businesses fully accept responsibility for the delivery of information technology. IT must be considered a critical and core part of your business and the delivery of IT value should be owned directly by the business. Insist on active management engagement and involvement, on focusing on only the most important business problems and on a financial business case for every improvement.

Leverage best practices

Information technology and software development best practices are understood, proven and well documented. Unfortunately, most IT departments are functioning at a process level that is many years behind best practice.

The following three areas are worthy of specific focus in this regard:

Gathering of business requirements:

Ensuring that business requirements are recognized and understood can lead to substantial efficiencies in project delivery and minimize costly rework and slippage in project timescales and costs. Using industry standard tools and notations such as the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) greatly assists in bridging the communication gap that frequently occurs between business process design and implementation.

Estimation and tracking:

Along with project management governance, the implementation and adherence to a robust software development lifecycle will improve the predictability of delivery and early visibility of any variation to plan.

Architecture and software lifecycle:

Effective enterprise and application architecture, coupled with appropriate use of agile development methods, assists in ensuring high quality, maximum flexibility and low levels of support and rework.

The "theory of the Big Bang" is an interesting a plausible theory. Having few other plausible theories, I welcome the thought to consider it and appreciate those who have brought this theory and concept to the forefront, although I must say personally I do have some issues with it. And since I was not around for the big bang to observe and see it, there to lies another issue with adoption of the theory. Additionally if I were around during the big bang, I would not have lived to tell about it and would not be here today as carbon based bipod cruising around this pale blue dot.

There are no reasonable, believable or plausible religious explanations of the beginning of the universe; that is to say that the biblical explanation in Genesis is completely out of the question and silly to even bother to contemplate. Indeed it is human nature to seek answers to those things we do not know. And it is perhaps in the best interest at the time of the religious leaders of the day to come up with something plausible to their local human groupings to answer such questions for them in order to align them in thought to make it easier to control them; Apparent goal of religion.

Even though humans seek answers to questions that cannot be known now, that does not mean that some day they will not know and thus it makes sense to move on to another subject which could more easily be known now and wait to see if additional information presents itself to consider alternatives of adoption of the Big Bang. Indeed there is much we do not know. Will you consider this in 2006.