Re: Eeee gads!! Longevity means nothing...

My solution was to stop trying to find somebody else's "program" and start doing my own thing.  I can't say, "It works every time!" but it's definitely your best shot.

I too looked for a system/kit/leg up for getting started with some cash flow ideas but I never found any that you could call successful for anyone but the person you paid to learn it from. Then I was introduced to a book (I don't recommend this book, just being honest about what opened my eyes) called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Once I found out that dear Robert never made a penny from the book before the MLMs started distributing his book as "incouragement" I decided to dig into the subject (making money) from a healthy distance with the help of Google. I came across a semi-respectable site called The Paper Source Online, and I learned a good deal from their free lessons as well as purchasing two ebooks (Deals on Wheels and Making Money with Mobile Homes). I was all set to make some mad money with mobiles but I ran into a major hitch... Louisiana State law prohibits residents from selling more than one mobile home per year without a reseller's license and you have to be a mobile home salesman for no less than one year or purchase an existing mobile home dealership to qualify for a reseller license (Texas is extremely similar, different wording but it boils down to the same meaning - I so sorely want to go off on a political rant at this point but I'll leave it with "I hate lobbyists").

So where does that leave me (and my advice)? Find something you love to do and see if there is a market for it. As an example, what if you were really good at making bead bracelets. You could make a few hundred of them and open a booth at a flea market/tradesdays OR you could find someone who runs such a booth who would buy them from you by the hundreds. My most recent idea is not much of a money maker but I need to start somewhere to prove to my wife that I can run a business without us losing the shirts off our backs. So I started playing around with my 5 Megapixel camera and Gimp (the freeware alternative to Photoshop) after a link on this forum lead to a site with business ideas (one of which was photography). I started brainstorming and I realized that I could even find a niche in that field by taking pictures for creating websites. Those websites could be used to share the pictures with family, or to show interested buyers what the inside of your house looked like. I can even create insurance inventories (pictures of items matched up to a spreadsheet with serial numbers) and burn it to two disks. Would any of these services cost much for my customers? Not really, but on the other hand, they would still cost me much less. Even if it is just a portrait set that is wanted, I can upload the pictures to Wal-Mart.com and use their cheap printing service or cafepress.com if the customer wants mugs, calanders, or a whole slew of other items.

So take the time to decide what it is that you would enjoy doing every day. When you are the owner of the business you shouldn't feel like an employee, you should feel like, "I'm making money to do something I love?" If you don't enjoy where you are working then you're much more likely to try to find somewhere else, right? The same applies to running a business.

Good Luck,