Help Yourself Get Through the Recession

With the economy today and the fears of five dollar gasoline (and up), it's normal to have anxiety over how bills will get paid.  If you have children heading to college, a mortgage, and credit card debt, you can get overwhelmed fast.  Even with getting a second or third job, it can be difficult to make ends meet.  In fact, the uncertain economic future still causes me to rethink my financial decisions.  So back in 2005, I decided to do something about it.  I started my own business.

Starting your own business is not as easy as it sounds.  Just like anything else, to be successful, you must work at it. In my case, I already had a full time job, a wife and two teenaged children.  Time was a scarce commodity.  I wasn't about to risk a good career, marriage and quality time with my family just to earn a few extra dollars a month.  But you have to be realistic if you decide to start your own business because in most cases, small business fail within a few years.

So, I came up with some requirements.  I needed something that met the following: (this is not an all-inclusive list)

1. Low startup cost.  I wasn't in a position to invest a large sum of money and assumed that you get what you pay for, so zero startup costs wasn't likely to get me where I wanted. 
2. Automatic / electronic payments.  I did not want to wait for checks to come in the mail and risk getting them lost or stolen. 
3. Something I could do from nearly anywhere, preferably from home.  I wanted a way to do business from home to avoid lost time with the family.  I also wanted the flexibility to work while traveling.
4. No inventory. I had no interest in stocking piles of products.  
5. Mechnism for generating recurring income. 
6. Support and training.  I knew that if others had gotten into a small business, there should be a way to tap into that support.  
7. Option to get my money back if I did not like what I was doing.
8. Someone to handle customer support.  With limited time, I knew I would not be able to support my customers all by myself.  If there was a 24 hour support number for customers to call, that would make it easier for everyone.
9. Something I enjoyed doing.  I wasn't about to put valuable time and energy into something I hated. 

So I looked online and in my local community for ideas and suggestions.  Ebay was an option but I didn't really want to store things and constantly watch what was selling.  While there are pleny of people that are successful and discovered ways to be profitable, it really didn't meet all of my requirements.  Most of the other items I read about seemed like a scam or required a large investment.  Then about January of 2005, I came across something that seemed to fit perfectly.  A reseller business.

Of course, there are tons of reseller businesses out there and many of them allow you to deal with electronic goods or drop-shipping where you don't have to maintain an inventory.  But what caught my attention was that no matter what I found or where I went looking, they all had one thing in common.  A website.  It seems that for any person or business wanting to communicate with others, a website was the key to making it happen.  And with the rise in popularity of smartphones, it seemed inevitable for sites to move to a mobile format.  It seemed like there was very little reason for any business NOT to have a website.  Just about the entire planet was a potential customer.

So for a small investment, I started this business and like any other, there are issues that have to be addressed.  It's not a "build it and they will come" situation.  It requires hard work.  My first two years were not profitable but as time went on and I learned more about how the business works, I'm able to supplement my income quite nicely.  Am I going to quit my day job?  Not anytime soon.  But now I have options and as a bonus, I can leave this business to my children.

If you are looking for a solid internet business that can generate good revenues and great residual income, then I suggest you take a few minutes to learn more about being an internet reseller.  It's not for everyone but it could be just right for you.