Making Your First Million.pdf - Association of Net Entrepreneurs and ...

Making Your First Million
Chapter 8 - Where do I start?
I hadn't seen my old friend Ernie for 8 years. He looked then for all the world like a
confused garden gnome and he hasn't much changed since. Last I'd seen him he was
living in a rented shack on a busy road flogging concrete pots for $12 cash. Whenever he
had a few bucks he'd buy a packet of smokes and a couple of bags of concrete and make
another batch of garden ornaments that he propped against the railings of his front fence,
and retire to the haze of his jumbled sitting room to watch the Bathurst races on his
rented big-screen telly. I met him again a year ago. He came into the office and bought a
couple of grand's worth of computer supplies.
"What happened to you? I haven't seen you for 8 years and now you're spending up like
Imelda Marcos with a month to live."
"George, you won't believe it. I just fell into it. I was doing a WEA course in word
processing to try to get a job and I got the hang of it pretty good so the WEA took me on
as a casual lecturer. Anyway, I'm teaching this group from a government department and
they say 'How about helping us with our software?' So I go over there and throw a few
MS Word keyboard macros into their custom package and they fall all over me telling me
how smart I am and can I go to their other offices and help them. Well pretty soon I'm
getting calls from all over the state and then interstate and then Europe, would you
believe, and I figure I could make a lot of money if I owned the custom package. So I
rang the author in Melbourne and went to see him and he told me he was heading off to
Bahrain for a few years and I could have the package for a couple of grand! So I bought it
and started selling it but the department wanted me to provide telephone support for the
program users and asked my price. I thought $350 sounded like a nice round number and
they said " . . a day?" and quick as a flash I said "Yes." And then I added as an
afterthought: " … per installation."
I'll leave it there. It goes on. And on. And on. Two years on Ernie's income is in the top
thousand Australian money earners. Not bad for a little Aussie battler. What made the
difference? What was the crucial spark that shot him from the very bottom to the absolute
top? Selling his time he was just another wage slave. Seeing an opportunity to buy the
rights to the product and acting upon it made the difference. He took a small risk and
reaped a huge reward. Eight years ago my office manager, who doubled as a part-time
Qantas steward, returned with an illuminated glass blackboard which you could write on
with fluoro crayon. For $3000 he had been offered the distribution rights in Australia.
Should he take it? "Yes" I told him. He didn't, much to his amusement now. He wasn't
ready to take a risk. He had a secure job. But he subsequently did take a risk and now has
a highly successful carpet cleaning franchising business which he has doubled over the
last couple of years.
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