When you give away free advice they treat it as if it has no value. And I guess, in their eyes, it doesn't.

It's really funny: All my friends know what I do for a living. They know I quit my job last year to work full time for myself. They know I am selling information products on the internet and doing quiet well (no bragging -- just trying to make a point) And one will occassionally ask me to help him get started doing the same thing.

The last time, I spent an evening (note: I gave up my evening because he had to work doing the day) with him. I had identified a market of people just begging for a certain type of product and I had figured out where to get the content for a members only website to sell to this market. I gave him all my research, showed him what the competition was doing, how to dig out a niche that the competition was missing, exactly where to get all the content, how to set everything up on auto-pilot, etc., etc. This would have been about a 2 week project from start to finish.

So what happened? I bumped into him about a month later and he said he was taking a frontpage class at the community college and "looking for office space for a new project."

I went ahead and hired some people off elance to put together the content for the website. I spent about a week polishing the content and getting everthing set up.

The site now earns me an additional $1000.00 net per month.

My friend is probably interviewing secretaries. :)

> A friend of mine is the maintenance man for
> a condominium complex. His pay is average
> (gross around $2400 a month)and he complains
> about not having enough money to do what he
> wants and just lives paycheck to paycheck.

> One of his responsibilites is to pressure
> wash the walkways and parking stalls and
> that gave me an idea that would be of great
> help to him.

> I drove around the surrounding neighborhoods
> and noticed several homes with rather small
> to medium sized driveways. Pressure washing
> those sizes could easily be done in an hour
> or less.

> My idea was to create two versions of a
> simple flier offering driveway pressure
> washing. One would list a price of $85 for
> the larger size (still on the small side)
> and $65 for the smaller driveway that could
> be done in around 30 to 40 minutes.

> I would distribute fliers to only those
> homes with relatively small driveways. Then,
> if the response was low, I would go door to
> door with flier in hand and offer to
> pressure wash driveways for those who would
> schedule a job THAT DAY for the reduced
> price of $59 for the larger size (instead of
> the flier price of $85) and $45 for the
> smaller size (instead of the flier price of
> $65) if they would agree to before and after
> photos for our marketing.

> Based on my past experience, I know this
> will work.

> I told my friend about this and offered the
> following: I create the flier and he
> distributes them. Then, if the response is
> low, I would go door to door while he is
> with me and I would do all the pitches and
> secure all the jobs and then he would do the
> work and keep all the money.

> He gets off work at 3:30 pm and has Friday
> and Saturday off. He also has use of the
> pressure washer.

> Just two pressure washing jobs a day at an
> average of say $60 per job from direct flier
> response and going door to door would give
> him around $600 a week working 5 afternoons.
> That would match what he already makes and
> literally double his income.

> He's still "thinking about it" and
> it was almost a year ago that I proposed
> this to him and he's still complaining about
> lack of money.

> Go figure!!

> Lawrence