What do passive sources of income actually look like?

There's all of these internet gurus that claim you can make a decent mostly passive income on the internet.

All of their claims seem suspect to me. Mainly because they site themselves as evidence of how possible it is.

But since all of their income streams seen to center around internet traffic and niche interests it seems like large part of their success has to be luck, or "going viral" and getting a bunch of free exposure.

kind of like as if OkGo told you could have a successful band of you make a you tube channel.

Am I to cynical Is there truth to what they are suggesting?

Or what do legitimate passive income streams actually look like?

I've got a good amount of passive income, all of it comes from professionally managed real estate.

I'm not going to pretend to know the business of internet marketing, but I'm a programmer so I know something about software and the internet in general.

I think you're right to be sceptical. Internet based things tend to stop working without maintenance because of changes to services, data feeds, and available content. So I can't imagine an internet income stream being reliable year over year without babysitting.

Populist business literature is basically just a fancy version of motivational seminars, lots of fluff and no substance, stay away from it.

>Or what do legitimate passive income streams actually look like?
they don't exist. *someone* has to put in real work.

if you make money on the financial markets you need to keep track of your investments, watch the markets and react quickly.
if you receive royalties or ad revenue it's just the long-tail of your hard work from the past.
if you rent out you need to manage the building and your tenants.
even if you're just an owner of a business you need to care for it, find the right management, check their books, file your taxes, etc.

the closest you can come to truly passive income is if you are so obscenely rich on inherited wealth that the profits pay for private banking or asset management. sure, now you're getting "free" money with zero effort. but this is not viable for most people and you're still leeching off of other peoples' work (whoever built the fortune in the first place and whoever manages it now).

"passive income" is a buzzword. it's bullshit. "passive" incomes still require work, but it's different (and often less) work than classic wageslavery. that's all there is to it.

This makes allot of sense. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

I suppose what I mean by passive income is not directly trading hours for money at some fixed ratio. Or more like what you were saying not traditional wage slavery.

...

/thread

actual /thread

If you have a good sized pile of capital, you could dump it into Spiders or Q's, something that tracks the major indices.
These pay out a dividend quarterly, so you'd just end up raking that off 'passively". As far as risk or "having to react" goes (assuming you don't require the capital), short term fluctuations would be meaningless.

A year ago I was reading a lot about Internet Marketing, then I made a site with 30+ articles (reviews) on a specific type of product to learn affiliate marketing and to make my first real website. I finished the site in a week and later just uploaded a few photos to social media from time to time.

In the last few months it made $50+/months without doing anything on the site and there are more and more orders every day. I guess that's a real passive income, isn't it? I'm planning to make a new site every week from now and even if just a few of them become successful, I will have a good basic income with just maintaining the sites from time to time.

Indexed U.S. treasuries or something like that I would think. Low return but you know they won't fail unless absolute disaster. Anything that you can invest in and ignore and make money is going to give a small return, you're paying for peace of mind. Would be good though if you had millions and wanted live off of middle class salary.

how did you get views? do they jut magically pop in from google?

These kinds of stories always have mystified me. who the heck even knows about a site when it pops up. also who the hell clicks on ads or affiliate links. I only click on affiliate links if it's somebody I like and want to support their content.

Magically, yes! Lol ok, not so magically but I've read a lot about SEO before I made my site and I used wordpress plugins that help analyzing the text for keyword density. In the first week I was obsessed with social media traffic so I was following hundreds of people each day but now organic traffic (google) is around 85-90% of all of my traffic. For a few of my keywords my site is on the first page of google but it's really a specific niche so my main keyword is only around 2000 US search monthly.
I'm doing keyword analysis for my next niches now and I hope I will find some better topics with more searches but without high competition. My goal is to make 300$/month with three sites before April. It's not much but I'm from a smaller country and that's the minimum wage here so if I can reach that with only self-taught internet marketing, I'm pretty good.

so you're saying following + keywords + content = views

>what do legitimate passive income streams actually look like?
they look like a middle-aged contractor that built a business (usually in construction or property maintenance) that operates without him/her.

not coincidentally, this is also what most millionaires look like.

I'd disagree with this. It takes a special kind of person to keep taking the hits and standing up to take more. And when you have bills, it's risky.

At first I encouraged my wife to do businesses while I worked. But all it amounted to was thousands in credit card debt. We would have been much further ahead if she literally just stayed at home and watched Netflix.

And if she would have worked for min wage at McDicks full time, wow, we'd be ballin' right now.

I've told her this too with the hope that she would get a mcdicks job and help me out for once in our miserable lives. No dice because 'muh biznuss, you'll see!'

I'm all like 'whatever'.

Am i wrong to doubt?

Yes, but it needs to be unique, quality content. Google loves that. Long live our new overlords, the AI search engine algorithms!

If you're that frequent Veeky Forums poster with his janitorial biz, do you ever feel like sharing the cash?

Like, with Veeky Forums people that would plaster your image on the wall for a hundred bucks?

I wonder what I'd do with such money.

Not really. I mean my advertising budget is less than $1k/month and most of it goes to local schools and charities. I can't imagine it would help user out much and I don't believe Veeky Forums users are more deserving of help than anyone else.

That's because you know how to use a computer.

You realize most people don't know much more about navigating the internet than using facebook, right? Play into their ignorance.

I'd rather be poor

DONE!
kek

its all bullshit

there are defiantly ways to make online, and those people that lecture about doing it surely aren't smart enough to pull it off.

to make money online you need programming skills or have a really good understanding of social media and what type of things sell.

think about things that always sell no matter what and work from there.

>What do passive sources of income actually look like?

Like this

that's pretty shitty of you to upload and sell other peoples' work...

>4 hour workweek
i stopped listening to this after a few hours, here the summary:
>be mildy sociapathic
>lie and manipulate people
>do actuall work and dont just be busy
>outsource all your work to india and china, then send them emails telling them to do the shit and not bother you with the details

good thing he talks for 20 minutes about how many books he sold, it sure makes you makes you subconsciously attribute some deeper meanings to his bullshit.

How much do you earn per book?

Passive income is something that takes tremendous amount of time and discipline to achieve.
Work 40h a week to pay your bills, then invest your free time into your business that will set you free.
I know quite a few people that are rather successful in network marketing and it's definitely possible to get a decent passive income after a few years of hard work.
It's not easy, it's not a get rich quick scheme, it takes dedication and daily practice.

Most realistic example I can give you is mentor of mine who has build up his network marketing business to around 100-200 people and is earning let's say 1600NZD / week passively. Last 8 weeks he got minimum of 1600 NZD every week and now he can step back and coach the people in his organization to expand the business for him.

However, the catch is that it's hard to retire from it and take a step back. You need to find the right people to distribute the product for you and to coach them in the right way that it expands without more of your effort. After few more years you should be able to retire more and let the business flow without you. This is real passive income.

Ask me for more questions

>I don't believe Veeky Forums users are more deserving of help than anyone else.
I thought we were friends janitorbro.

>contractor
Didn't he just start a business and then hire some people? Why is that called contract work.

I give way more money to strangers than I do to friends.

I'm not made of money though. My cash is tied up in my business and my house. I make enough to live on and not a lot more.

>Why is that called contract work.
basically we charge by the job, not the hour.

Mate. Ain't that still what every single cleaning company does? Negotiate on the money and the amount of work to be done= charging by the job= charging by the hour. Just different amounts for different jobs.

I hate books like this

They're great for getting the average wagie to wake up from their meaningless existence, but they pretty much exist of

>just invest $1 mil in to a business and live off the profit bro!

Pretty much this. I find it hilarious that Tim Ferris puts out a book called the four hour work week...that he admits he spent 80 hours a week writing with the help of modafinil, and he works full time shooting TV shows and doing seminars.

If Tim Ferris can't work 4 hours a week, who can? He's selling a fantasy to wage cucks, that's the real baller move.

why does the wife's son look more like dad's son?

>Ain't that still what every single cleaning company does?
most do.

where the passive income comes from is in charging by the job and paying by the hour.
Janitors make an average of about $30k per year, janitorial contractors make an average of about $100k. The difference is important if a person wants passive income. Don't become a janitor, you'll probably never get there.

not that most people with passive income are janitorial contractors, just contractors in general. People that retire early on passive income are usually contractors. At least in the US.

What about that Mr Money Moustache guy? Is his shit legit?

So simply put. If you're going to do a job don't work for someone else?

exactly.

and some shit jobs make surprising money when you cut out the middlemen. Also your work is probably making someone else rich. Obvious stuff like that.

we may never know

well 2bad no skills, only potato farming. I really like logistics, but that would need a hueg investment.

that's me. I worked in restaurant management most of my life. It pays ok, but you never get much past $50k/year where I live. I have essentially no marketable skills. I'll be really fucked if I ever have to go get a real job, I have a 15 year gap in my resume where I've done pretty much nothing.

I became a realtor, bought little condominiums to rent out.
I've been 'working retired' for 4 years, now.

Find something you LIKE to do, and make it pay. Then, grow that biz and have others do it.

OR

Invest your profits into real estate, stocks, etc.

Almost every passive income has a past investment (hard work). What is your argument, buddy?

You make an investment and earn money with it without any further major investment.
You write a good book and sell it. Let others do the marketing and distribution.
You buy houses and rent it out. Let others do the landlord stuff.
Your own company? Just hire a good CEO.
How is that not passive? The only further investment you make is check if everything goes well, if not you hire somebody else.

Of course you need to put in real work to receive a passive income. Is that really suprising?

exactly. how is it passive if it requires work? you do know the dictionary definition of "passive", right?

the same principle would apply to wage slavery. you work for a month and receive no pay. then payday rolls around and you get money for past work without doing any additional new work or any additional investments. so by your logic your salary is passive income? that's weird...

a simple delay between work performed and payments received does not constitute passive income.

if you do contracting and they pay you 6 months later that's still direct compensation, not passive income. why should the same not apply to royalties for books you've written or any other sources of income i've mentioned?

and even if you outsource anything and everything (which will absolutely gimp your profits) you're still left with the active tasks of selecting, supervising and auditing.

>and even if you outsource anything and everything (which will absolutely gimp your profits)
yeah, if you're concerned with profits that much you're thinking of it the wrong way.

take my biz as an example: I currently employ 4 people aside from my wife and myself, they make on average $20k per year working about 30 hours per week. I make about $100k working an average 3 hours a week. Now obviously if I want to I could maximize my profits by doing one person's job. Maybe even 1-1/2 of my employee's work. But why would I do that? I make a hundred thousand doing almost nothing, why would I choose to work full time just to make another 20 or 30 grand? That would be silly. It'd be far more cost effective to use my time to grow my business and raise my profits that way.

so when you say outsourcing cuts your profits you're thinking like a wageslave. You're sorta right, but you'll never achieve a passive income thinking that way. People that can't stand to spend money don't get rich. Rich people almost always pay employees and don't resent that or wish they could do their employees' jobs.

>you're still left with the active tasks of selecting, supervising and auditing
most people hire people to do that too.

>work 3 hours a week
>"""passive""" income

sure, buddy. you work for your money, but that's somehow passive. words do have meaning, you know?
my original argument was, that there is no truly passive income, only work that is different from (and often less than) wageslavery. and you're basically confirming that argument. so what exactly is your criticism?

and what do you do in those 3 hours a week? it's obviously something that could be replaced by a CEO who would make 80k a year. is it really thinking like a wageslave that you don't want to gimp your profits that much for an even more passive income? then you're the prime candidate of wageslave mentality. (for the record - i think you're wrong, i'm just subscribing to your position for the sake of argument).

i own a bunch of residential properties. i could hire a building management company, an accountant, a tax lawyer, a contract lawyer, a real estate agent, etc. but then 9 out of 12 months rent would go to someone other than me. and since i have to supervise all those leeches i still wouldn't call this a fully passive income. so i put in a few hours a week to find my own tenants, write my own contracts, do my own invoicing, book keeping and file my own taxes - but i just quadrupled my profits. it's active income for sure, but somehow i don't really feel i'm thinking much like a wageslave. maybe that's just me though...

>most people hire people to do that too.
they're either stupid or so affluent that it doesn't matter and (per my original post) they have my blessing for calling their profits truly passive income. either way it's not really something relevant to OP.

>that's somehow passive
I don't have to work and most weeks I don't. Pretty passive if you ask me.
>what do you do in those 3 hours a week?
I make one sale a year and handle one or two audits.
>it's obviously something that could be replaced by a CEO who would make 80k a year.
or a salesperson and an auditer, but it's hard to hire a salesperson or and auditor for 40 hours a year.
>it's active income for sure, but somehow i don't really feel i'm thinking much like a wageslave.
because you're doing jobs that pay more than yours does. If you (or I) made more money even those wouldn't be worth doing.

>either way it's not really something relevant to OP.
and this is why Veeky Forums is fucking retarded.

owning a real business is how most people that achieve passive income do it.

you want to pretend that's not passive, be my guest. As usual the rest of the world ignores you and moves on.

>Pretty passive if you ask me.
agreed
>you want to pretend that's not passive
i do. close to passive is still not passive.

a small amount of overpaid work is still work.

but if you want to keep calling your income passive, that's fine by me as well. i don't know what you gain by using a misleading buzz word, but someone has to, i guess.

it's one of those strange situations that arise in online discourse. we both identify your situation as working little and find it benefitial. we just fiercly disagree on what to call that state. i'd say it's an utterly useless discussion (and for the most part it is, if it weren't for all the idiots like OP believing something like truly passive income exists because they get the wrong idea when people like you claim to have a passive income).

I just wanted to post to let you know you're pathetically pedantic

thanks!
In my 40+ years of being autistic nobody has ever mentioned it before. I had no idea.

sure, let's not be pedantic anymore. i have a profitable business i'm willing to sell to you. yes, it does actually make small losses all the time, but you wouldn't want to be pedantic, now would you?

kek I just assumed he meant me since I hear that all the time...

I enjoy reading your posts, they're well thought out and to the point.

same on both accounts.

i don't want to see his books if he considers this mild banter "pathetically pedantic".

Nah, he's right. You're pretty fucking pedantic.
Almost no one would insist on the rigid definition of "passive" you're using.
Let me guess, a new car isn't "new" because someone at the dealership sat in it, right?

Just let the horse die already.

I want people to do better than me. Veeky Forums is mostly younger than me, they have time to do far better than I have.

And I firmly believe (whether my income is passive or not) that most people with passive income do things like you and I do. Owning a business is what passive income looks like. You and I may not be there yet by your definition, but the people that are there are mostly people like you. Or me. Yes, they worked to build that income stream, but at some point it became truly passive to where they don't have to do anything to maintain it.

I get frustrated with Veeky Forums looking for passive income online. I think that's the future of business, but I'm not convinced it's where most people are getting rich right now. A few surely are, but not most.

well, you just bumped the dead horse :-)

the problem is, we have tons of people on here who hear "passive income" and think they don't have to move a finger. it's a helpful realtiy check that you first have to build something, learn something and then still put in a little bit of work to enjoy income with very little effort. the overly broad buzzword helps nobody.

on the car: new yes, since it's never been sold before. but used due to the test drive.

i can live with "pretty fucking pedantic" btw. still not convinced it's a bad thing when it comes to business.

i 100% agree. especially
>Yes, they worked to build that income stream
that's the point i really want to get across. to get where "passive income" even becomes conceivable you have to put in a lot of hard work first. and not wanting to put in any effort from the get-go is the entirely wrong mentality to build something.

I have a better idea. THe Zero-Hour-Work-Week

>not wanting to put in any effort from the get-go is the entirely wrong mentality to build something
100% agreed. I'd guess you know some shortcuts though. And you definitely know when someone's doing it wrong. You could if you wanted save people a lot of work, and I assume that's one reason you post here.

I see the problem. You're insisting on presenting the "whole package", while most everyone else is acknowledging the initial steps as a given.
It's almost as if someone asking you if there are three steps in getting to a destination (right on this road, left on the next one, then another right) would be told "You're wrong, there's actually seven. First you have to get your car keys. Then you have to open the garage. Then you have to sit in the car. Then back it out on to the street." It's not that you're "technically" incorrect, it's just that no one states things in these terms.
Much like the people asking about ways to achieve passive income are aware an initial investment must be put up to collect interest, or a website must be designed to attract traffic. These things are a given (I suspect you know this), and the only one insisting upon their inclusion is you.

...

well, for my limited field of expertise (real estate) that is true. but not in a general "get rich quick" sense. i definitely couldn't even tell when someone was doing forex trading wrong or save them any work (except maybe when it comes to figuring out your income tax). i chip in when i can help, but i enjoy learning from others on Veeky Forums an equal amount.

and let's be honest, the amount of scams and desperate shilling on here is just plainly entertaining!

i don't think this is what i'm doing, but i also don't think you can assume people who make "passive income" threads on Veeky Forums even have a driver's license (to stick with your metaphor).

in any way, it's not far enough from the truth that it warrants another lengthy discussion.

i'll be checking out here, btw. thanks to everyone for a stimulating discussion that remained surprisingly focussed the whole time. it's been fun.

>let's be honest, the amount of scams and desperate shilling on here is just plainly entertaining!
can't argue that! lol
thank you also

Pretty much this. Some guys will make thousands of articles and just live off of the tens of thousands of long tail keywords. It's a massive amount of work but it is completely within the realm of reason.

...

>if you receive royalties or ad revenue it's just the long-tail of your hard work from the past.
The question here is.. how do you rank enough content so that you recieve enough ad revenue to live from for life? Or at least, being able to hire other people to fill content for you? For example viralnova.com or whatever.

It all seems like being at the right place doing the right thing, in other words luck because people don't know they are at the right place doing the right thing when they end up successful.

So how the fuck did you get in a position to be a contractor and charge people money?

You are obviously a richfag that inherited properties. Anyone that grew up wagecucking values free time too much and wants to cut as much work as possible.

All those kids making money on the internet don't have driving licenses.

The question of course: How to rank said articles/keywords?

Im sure there are a LOT of good websites out there that barely make profit.

Can you provide some good examples of books to check out, or which one's to avoid? I'd like to avoid the fluff, but it seems like even a lot of the books that come highly recommended have pretty cheesy titles.

Reality is most passive income requires huge capital. You could dump all your money into royalty trusts, for example. Major investors consider them boring and gay but tjats because crude oil and nat gas is cheap. When its back to being $110/bbl even the old shitty trusts sitting on old and busted fields will be paying nice dividends.

Otherwise you are getting paid money so other people can use your money to make themselves money which takes work.

Not him. But if you can't tell the difference between actual content and a fluff piece then just stick to your day job.

>we're losing money running this business
Alright, as a small business owner I've never understood this.

How the fuck do you run a business and lose money? Where the fuck is the money going?

If you're offering a service, your only costs are... advertising? If you're selling a product, your costs include inventory. If you aren't selling much, you shouldn't be buying much.

Where the fuck is the money going? How could you be *losing* money unless you did some stupid bullshit like sign yourself up for a 3 year commercial lease or buy 10,000 units when you're only selling 20 a month?

>Is his shit legit?
Read his website and find out. Pro tip: yes it's legit. It's not gimmicky bullshit like OP's book, it's pretty simple math:

1) Reduce living expenses as much as possible. This allows you to
2) Save as much money as possible. With this extra money you then
3) Invest in broad index funds like VOO (S&P500) or VTI (total US market).
4) Once you have 25x your yearly expenses invested like this, the dividends and growth will cover your expenses. At this point, you can stop working.

Are you autistic?

If we go by your extremely literal definition of passive income, which involves no work either in maintaining it or having DEVELOPED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, the only possible way you can have your autistically literal "passive income" is if you received a large inheritance in real estate managed by others or just a huge trust fund, again, managed by others.

Other than that, please, I'd love to hear what you would consider "real" passive income?

You forgot
"Also have a rental property of two"

>So how the fuck did you get in a position to be a contractor and charge people money?
I bought a small contracting company for $75k. I paid for it by working it and handing over all profit for one year to the previous owner.

I realize most people can't actually do that, it was mostly luck that I had the opportunity.

However most of what I gained from the purchase was how to find and finish work. Somebody that learns that on their own wouldn't have to go to the expense and trouble of buying an existing business. If you know what you're doing you can start a business just like mine with a tiny budget and a willingness to work for a while.

True, but those are investments just like anything else. Not that much different from investing in the stock market, except (potentially) higher return on cash and more effort.

Or does that invalidate what I said above?

I still dont understand how does it work. Why would people need you to work? with the internet people can advertise themselves and find work to do, so why pay a % to a middleman?

Ease? Trustworthiness? Time saved?

>could displace minimum wage worker and maximize profits

Those aren't profits. It's amazing how so many successful business owners don't, or don't want to understand the difference between net profits and cash flow.

If you're up for some questions Ive always been interested in that business model and have a few.

So what is the customer acquisition cost like? Are you making your own deals or purchasing contracts? What's kinda multiple are the contracts trading for?

>there's no such thing as passive income


So bonds aren't passive income because I had to click a mouse inside my brokerage account. Yea ok.

Also, IMO/IME property management sucks dick. Are you really that surprised that janitor bro get so much more profit for a given amount of effort?

>Why would people need you to work?
they don't. That's what I come here to tell people. We tell kids that running a business is HARD WORK and most people fail and you risk everything trying it. All of which is true, but it's really not that hard or risky to do my job. People overestimate the amount of work and risk involved until they try it. Once they've done it they find there's nothing to fear and they wonder why they weren't doing it all along.

>don't want to understand the difference between net profits and cash flow.
Feel free to teach me if you like. I'm a sole proprietor though, if I cut one of my crew's hours their paycheck goes straight to my bottom line.

>So what is the customer acquisition cost like?
customers find me so it's just a matter of hanging out my shingle. I pay a couple hundred a year for listings in the yellow pages and a couple trade directories.
>Are you making your own deals or purchasing contracts?
I usually bid my own. If I run into competition I may buy them out. But only if I can't bid them out.
>What's kinda multiple are the contracts trading for?
depends on the situation. If I'm buying out a whole business and getting an NCC it's traditional to pay 100% of gross. Open for negotiation though.

In cases of single contracts I usually sub or lease a contract either to or from others for 90% of gross. Lots of subs work for far less. 40% of gross isn't terribly uncommon for small companies with low overhead.

Selling outright also varies, but for example I can run a 60% profit margin so I'll offer somewhat less than that for a contract. Maybe 50% of gross on a large job, less on smaller contracts. Larger companies run even slimmer margins and would offer less.

I don't want to give the impression that you can just bid work and then sell it to someone else at a profit though. If you got the job you're the low bidder, there's a good chance nobody else wants it at what you charged. Meaning you'll be stuck doing the work.

Usually ownership subsiding the business with labor at below market rate. Been there, done that. It's pretty common.

Thanks for answering! Sounds like a pretty good gig with opportunity to scale.

What I meant by net profit vs gross cash flow is drawing the line between profits and working salary. If the owner is contributing as part of the staff that labor(and its market rate) needs to be aknowledged. This is really important when it comes to business valuations. Typically you'll see listings that clam $XXX,XXX "cash flow" or "sellers discretionary earnings" but you have no idea if the owner is working 100hours a week or shit posting on Veeky Forums all day.

For example in my industry a valuation multiple of 2-3x annual net profit is standard. Many newbies have made the mistake of buying something at a 2-3x multiple of total cash flow(not net profit) and the business ends up owning them.

Think about it, a business could be cash flow positive but net profit negative. Happens all the time especially in food service.

*subsidizing

>This is really important when it comes to business valuations.
Makes sense.
I don't give it a whole lot of thought because I have no intention of borrowing against my business or selling out.

I suspect my case is fairly common- it's probably pretty rare for someone to sell a business that consistently earns them money without them having to manage it. I'm always a bit leery when I see a competing business for sale, I assume something went wrong financially if they want out. Usually I'm the thing that went wrong for them.

I don't mind overpaying if I get a contract or two I really want and get a competitor to close up shop or come work for me at the same time.

I'm in a rural area where one enterprising person can control entire market niches though. And I do, not usually by quashing competitors but by hiring them and paying them more than they would make working for themselves. If someone tried to step into my shoes and change that dynamic they would quickly learn that all of my people are capable of staring competing businesses and ruining this one.

>they don't.
Okay but if they don't, how do you get money? because you have people coming at you. How do you get the clients? its the same for internet people. How does one the traffic? dasjdaskdaskldjask

>How do you get the clients?
I only need to sign one client a year. For the clients I sign, my company is the only company in the area that can serve them. So they find me. Usually via the yellow pages.

i still don't get why pay you when everyone has an internet connection to find jobs nowadays

they make more money working for me than competing with me.

Because the price of jobs is not set, it's decided by competitive auction. Bidding against me pays less than working for me.

>not usually by quashing competitors but by hiring them and paying them more than they would make working for themselves
That's what my dad did for 25 years.
Retired at 53.
And all his clients and staff still love him.
His motto:
>Good pay, good morale [or morals], good works.
I usually give 75% of my contracts away because how much money does one need to enjoy life? End result? Shit loads of happy customers, clients, contractors and 200% bottom line increases for moi.

exactly. You take care of people and the money takes care of itself. Happy people don't sue, they buy from you without hesitation, they don't quit, they work harder, they need less supervision.

being generous doesn't even cut into margins. Probably because of all the savings you get from not pissing people off. And the gains you make in volume from clients wanting to work with you.

is it normal to have more people buying the ebooks vs the paperbacks?

>And the gains you make in volume from clients wanting to work with you.
Feelsgoodman.jpg

I also like how it means I can select candidates based on merit and not HR/PR crap. For example I had a girl who was wheelchair bound simply roll in, hand in her resume (I still don't know how she got up those three steps), but I noticed she had the same air of quiet-desperation and resigned melancholy I had when I was looking for work.
Her skills were a bit rough, but I felt if I gave her a shot for three months casually she could at least refine them for her next job.
Two years later and she's still working for us managing (of all things) HR/PR, front of house, and professional PA-wrangler.
We also work closely with Technical Colleges and Disability Services to provide (and get paid/subsidised for) work experience and training. We've had more autists through our metaphorical door than I can count, and everyone one has been a boon. Just gotta find their niche then start slowly, quietly tacking on extra self-responsibilities that they can take pride in. Sure they're crap at customer service (except the one kid who mimics Alec Baldwin), but I love 'em.
Then there are the foreigners who are fresh off the boat, but dominate their local adoptive communities so we get a lot of clients that way. Also the most racist Namibian ever works for us (actually has a "Such is Life" tattoo in his native dialect and a backwards Southern Cross because, quote, "In the Northern Hemisphere it's reversed" baka).

Okay I'm just ranting now, but I hope some user's realise you don't have to be a cut-throat cunt to make it in this world.
/blog

why

i dont get it

tfw low iq