I HATE IT when I suggest a product or service to a friend, and it COMPLETELY bombs for them!  This type of situation just sucks. 

I recently suggest to one of my very best friends that he call Quicken Loans to refinance his Adjustable Rate Mortgage to take advantage of today’s great deals on 30 year fixed rates…they are under 5%.  I had recently done business with Quicken loans, and had enjoyed a smooth and simple refinance. 

My buddys wife calls the company to find out if they will qualify.  The agent tells her that they will, and then in my buddys’ words…”pressures her to place a $750 “refundable” security deposit to cement their business relationship.”  His wife was told that Quicken was confident they could get the loan done for them…but if they couldn’t, their $750 deposit would be refunded in full. 

OF COURSE, Quicken is not able to get the loan done as they had thought…something about the home not appraising at the level they thought it would.  No Big Deal, Right?  Just send us our deposit back and we will try to make other arraignments.  THEY WOULD NOT GIVE THEM THEIR $750 BACK!  My buddy is MAD!  He has made it his personal mission to tell everyone he knows to avoid Quicken Loans like the plague…and I don’t blame him. 

I FEEL BAD about making the suggestion.  My experience was fine.  Maybe I had a better loan officer?  Maybe I met their “perfect customer” profile?  Either way, why are they charging $750 just to get a good faith estimate?  That seems shady, especially if there is ANY chance that you may not get that money back if you get a crappy appraiser for your home. 

Is anyone else out there having trouble with Mortgage Companies?  Let me know your experience, good or bad.  After I suggested QL to my buddy, I found this resource online…sounds like they are upsetting A LOT of customers these days.

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It seems like yesterday that I was reporting March numbers.  I’ve said this to you all before, but SLOW DOWN AND SOAK UP LIFE!  Time just goes by WAY too fast!  I hope all my friends are feeling as good about Spring as I am!  Yesterday I took my two oldest girls fishing.  We caught some bluegills and a perch…cleaned them up and had a mini fish fry.  They loved it!  One of those moments in life you wish didn’t have to end. 

Anyways…April was another decent month for TAM!  Earnings were good, but I also am enjoying some nice, steady traffic (I’m going to share traffic data too!)

Earnings breakdown for April 2009

Adsense: $141.88

CCM Income: $30.00

Hostgator Affiliate Sales: $0.00

Private Sales: $180.00

Kontera Income: $0.00

Total Online Earnings: $351.88

April 2009 Site/Traffic Stats

• 3930 Page Loads
• 1967 Unique Visitors
• 1451 First Time Visitors
• 516 Returning Visitors

Sorry about the bad screen shot, what do ya do! 

Well, traffic was up but income was down a little bit.  I’m still hopeful that blogs can make money, but I’m not convinced that I’m on the right path towards reaching my year end goals of $1000 per month in TAM blog income.  I need to offer some product, service, or information that will truly enhance someones life, in an immediate and measurable way.  That is going to be job #1 going forward.  Easier said than done though, I know!

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-A wise old saying:

“The intelligent man learns from his own experience; the wise man learns from the experience of others.”

I’ve spent the last week rereading this post and rethinking this old adage. It is one that I’ve tried to keep close to my heart as a business guy and entrepreneur. I think that the marginal success that I have enjoyed has been because I have always assumed that I possess intelligence (though my wife may often beg to differ). As I reflect on the good choices that I’ve made, they were most often not attempts to “re-invent” anything. Good stuff for me has happened when I tried hard to follow the wisdom and experience of others. (I don’t seem to be able to do this enough though, God gave me a sense of “do-it-yourselfism” that runs deep and needs to be constantly kept in check).

I guess I continue to look for balance in my life. It seems appropriate for an entrepreneur to have the guts to make things happen, but it also seems important to be able to step back and evaluate opportunities through the lens of wisdom.

The BEST TIME to work hard and lay the foundations for future success is when times are tough.  While everyone else is crying and complaining, I hope we can take the lead from others who have gone before us and seize the opportunity to do great things in life.  Now is the time to charge forward with your passions and take a risk.  DO YOUR HOMEWORK…THEN TRY SOMETHING NEW, DO SOMETHING BIG! 

YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT!

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So I turn on the local news station tonight, and the first this I hear is something like this…”Jackson, MI makes it to #1 on Forbes list…but it is not for something they want to be recognized for.”

Jackson, MI is the hometown that I LOVE!  It was a hit to hear that Forbes.com has ranked my town as the #1 worst small city in the U.S. for Job Opportunities.  The following is from the wilx.com Fox News web site…

“It’s all subjective information,” says Jackson city councilman Dan Greer of the Forbes.com report.Yes, unemployment in Jackson is at 13.4 percent, but Greer says Jackson is adding jobs, from Brownfield projects to Smartzone facilities.

Many of you may be wondering why the heck I’m laying down roots and opening new businesses here in Jackson, MI?  Good question for sure!  I CHOOSE TO SNUB MY NOSE AT REPORTS LIKE THIS!  Jackson is a great city filled with hardworking and dedicated people.  My thought is that if we are laking job opportunities, we need to dig deep into the entrepreneurial spirit that built our country in the first place…and start creating OUR OWN NEW OPPORTUNITIES! 

I’m soon launching a private equity and capital services firm here in Jackson.  I’m bullish on Jackson Michigan!  We have got SO much good going for us.  We have a deep history of superior manufacturing and distribution.  With the right focus and smart local leadership, we will be able to parlay these skills to develop, assemble, and ship the technologies of tomorrow!  People will always have wants and needs!  We need to focus on serving those wants and needs, period!  That is what is going to put Jackson, and Michigan in general, back on the economic map! 

I’m making it my personal mission to bring Forbes.com to Jackson, MI in five years.  I want my town to be #1 on the Forbes list of Small American Towns with the Strongest Entrepreneurial Spirit!  Now that would be news worth reporting!

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Much thanks to you all for the great comments and feedback on my Blog Income Report.

I started blogging in Feb. 2008 on a Free Blogger Site with absolutly NO CLUE what I was doing.  As my friend at MoneyEnergy mentioned in one of her comments…it took like 6 months to get my first Adsense Check. 

While I still know very little about making money online, I am now making enough per month to cover a decent little car payment, and my site statistics are heading in the right direction every month.  That being said, I’ve got a couple of tips here that might save you some time if you are just starting out blogging.  If you post often enough, and follow a few good ideas, you should be able to get an adsense check or affiliate check within 2 months or so.

Tip #1 Forget Blogger, and go straight to a Hosted, Wordpress site with a theme that accents your content and is easy to use.  This was, BY FAR, the best thing that I did.  Hosting through HostGator.com is only $10 per month, and it is well worth the investment.  It gives your blog a much more porfessional feel than the basic blogger or wordpress.com package.

Tip #2  Invest in a good domain name!  Search GoDaddy.com for hours if you have to so you can buy a good online brandname to build your blog around.  I personally made a mistake on this one, as I probably could have done alot better than “The Almost Millionaire” as it is kind of long and most people don’t think or care about Almost Millionaires…but it has worked well, and made sense to me at the time.

Tip #3  Spend some time writing 4-7 of your BEST possible articles focused on what type of blog you are trying to develop, personal finance, SEO, marketing, private equity, investments…whatever.  Just focus your efforts on your best stuff within your chosen topic.

Tip #4  Spend about a two weeks finding blogs like yours.  Make meaningful comments to show your interest and support for those blogs.  Invest your time in developing friendships with those bloggers who are receptive to your comments and seem interested in interacting with you.  There are TONS of great bloggers who like to help newbies, but there are a lot of JERKS out there too, who will never support you or give you the time of day.  Focus on the friendly bloggers, and avoid those who show no interest in you…and don’t take it personally, there are just some guys who are so big they don’t have the time in the day to respond to comments and develop relationships.  FYI, a few guys who are great at developing online conversations are Sire from Wassupblog, Mitch from I’m Just Sharing, and Dave at Do You Dave Ramsey.  There are more, I wish I had time to name them all.

Tip #5  Invest your time and money in learning from others who have been successful at making money online and from blogging.  There is literally millions of pieces of good information out there that can help you learn how to do AdSense, or affiliate programs, or networking marketing.  I try to read something new every week as I try to figure out the endless possibilities that the Internet offers.

Tip #6  REPEAT STEPS #3, #4, AND #5 OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  Stick with it!  Worst case scenario, you will have all your thoughts online and organized, so you can easily write your autobiography when you are old, rich, and famous

I apologize to all of you who already know all this stuff, as I realize that most of you know WAY more than me about making money online.  I post this though, because this stuff would have seriously helped me when I started online, and I may not have wasted 6 months posting on blogger for my 3 visitors a day.  My hope is that all of you who read this blog will leave you #1 Tip for New Bloggers in the comments section.  That would be awesome!

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It has been a LONG time since I reported blog income information.  Many personal finance bloggers don’t report their income, and I think this is a mistake.  It is fun and informative to see how others are doing.  Most of us blog for fun, conversation, and community.  ALL of us blog for the potential revenue, at least thats my opinion.

EARNINGS BREAKDOWN FOR March 2009:

• Adsense Income: $151.40
• CCM Income: $100.00
• Host Gator Income: $50.00
• Link Revenue: $80.00

TOTAL INCOME: $381.40

I’m pretty darn excited about these results!  It was nice to finally get a hostgator.com affiliate sale.  Also, it makes you feel really good when you are being contacted by other companies about advertising opportunities.  CCM income is due to a referral who joined the company.  This is a one time fee, but I will receive trail commissions too (which may or may not be significant).

Adsense is pretty steady, but is not growing.  I have never really worked to understand how to drive adsense revenue, I’m just thankful that it is there.  Most surprising to me is the usage that I get on my google search bar.  That performs pretty well, all things considered.  It doesn’t get used every day, but when it does get used, about 15% of the time is generates revenue…pretty cool!

So anyways, I love this blog!  Sharing my thoughts on investing, entrepreneurship, personal finance, faith, etc.  It really is fun to do.  Income is a great by-product of a small passion.  That being said, I’m firmly committed to generating $1000 per month of passive income from TAM by year end.  Big goal for sure, but I’ve climbed higher mountains. 

This seems like a great time to thank you all again!  I truly appreciate those of you who support this blog with comments and links.   These digital conversations and friendships are daily blessings in my life!  SO THANKS!

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Several months ago I posted about some of the great companies that I was buying as the entire stock market was tanking. 

I purchased 15 companies over at Fristrade.  As of today, nine of them have lost money, five of them have made money…but my account is sitting at almost EXACTLY the $15,000 that I started with…so I’m flat overall.  That is ok, as I am generally investing for the next 4-6 years.  I did this in late 2002, andby 2007 my original $10,000 investment in stocks had quadrupled.  I liquidated around the time when the Dow Hit 13,000.  (I originally had thought I’d made a horrible decision as the Dow continued to climb past 14,000…but I stuck to my guns and did not get hammered in this market.)

So like I said, I tested the waters with $15,000 about 6 months ago.  My best RETURN was a 1 week trade on National City stock.  I bought in at $1.80 per share, and about a week later sold for over $3.00 a share. 

BUT MY BEST INVESTMENT HAS TO BE AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS INC. (AEO)

American Eagle is up 41.14% since I purchased it.  Same store sales are down at AEO, but not terrible.  I was a teenager once, I remember saving all my money to buy clothes.  (We really seem to care about clothing here in America, don’t we)  The company has next to zero debt, and almost $500 Million cash on its balance sheet.  It is also highly profitable.  I think as the economy softens, they do better than companies like Abercrombie & Finch…because the products is similar in style, very similar, but at a considerable value.  That has been a winning combination for my portfolio!

2nd best investment…APPLE COMPUTER STOCK…UP 17.54%

Again, I’m not offering specific investment advice, just letting you know what I’m up to.  Please seek professional advice when making any type of investment.  For informational purposes only!  Amen.

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Photo Credit: http://www.eightsolid.com

In June of 2003 I opened my first franchised pizza store here in Michigan. I went into partnership with my best friend from college. We had worked for 18 months planning our business, finding the perfect location, learning about the pizza business (him a lot more than me, as he went through the training program), etc. Our timing could not have been better! We opened with a bang, were having a lot of fun, and making some pretty good money too.

FAST FORWARD A COUPLE OF YEARS…Me and that same partner have now purchased a 2nd pizza store franchise from a struggling franchisee. We have went into partnership with his father on two sandwich shops and a “Starbucks type” coffee franchise…(but much cooler than Starbucks!) ANYWAYS…My partner lost interest in the pizza business. He was married now and the late hours sucked for him (besides, he was a morning person anyways…he loves to get up at 4:30 AM to go bass fishing, crazy, I know!) This love for the morning made the coffee business a perfect fit for him, but the bottom line is that the pizza stores were going down hill and he wanted out.

In 2005 my younger brother and I bought him out of the two pizza franchises, and my brother took over the day to day operations of the stores. He was just out of college, and had no trouble putting in the long and late hours of the pizza game. In less than a year, sales were up 20% at our original store, and 40% at the second store that we purchased. They were highly profitable again and life was good.

In 2007 we were approached by another franchisee who owned 3 pizza stores in Michigan. He wanted to buy our stores. He paid a lot less than we had originally wanted, but we eventually sold him the stores and walked away with a nice profit. This franchisee now had 5 pizza stores in Michigan. I don’t know the story, or what happened, but that guy who bought our pizza stores closed up all 5 of his stores about a year later. Which leads me back to the title of this “long winded” post…Is a Pizza Franchise a Good Investment? THE ANSWER, IT DEPENDS!

In the town I live in, we have seen about 10 pizza stores close over the past two years.  I believe this is directly related to the $5 Little Caesars “Hot N Ready” Pizza.  It is hard to compete with a OK pizza for $5 in Michigan, even if you are selling a GREAT pizza for only $10.00.  Little Caesars has changed the industry here in Michigan for sure, and probably in other states too.  So in the Mid West today, I would be very cautious about investing in a pizza franchise! 

Depending on where you live though, population density, competition, average age, and number of households…a pizza business can be very fun and profitable.  You REALLY have to do your homework though.  There is TONS of data that needs to be sifted through in determining if any restaurant will be successful in a given town.  I’ve developed a system to try to figure that out.  If you are ever considering a franchised restaurant, zip me an e-mail, and I will try to help if I can!

Happy Easter! -B

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We rolled out of bed this morning to 7 inches of beautiful Michigan Snow!  I’m thinking SNOW FORT!

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