Look for a Free Trial
These days, many products offer free versions riddled with annoying commercials and limited services as well as paid premium versions with unlimited access. If you’re using the free version of the product and you’re tempted to click on the upgrade button and pay for the service, you may want to get the most out of your upgrade.
Most services offer some sort of discount or promotion to get you in. Groupon and Living Social have made a living out of offering discounted products or services and the principle that makes those companies a success is used by nearly everyone. Some sites like RetailMeNot.com specialize in coupon codes for potential customers for anything from flowers to pizza. With sales going on all the time and the Groupon model dominating the marketplace, if you’re paying full price for something, you’re being ripped off. The principle applies to free trials. Lure customers in with a discounted or free trial, then crank up the fees. It’s a technique I reviewed in How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You.
But those techniques are only targeted toward NEW customers. If you’re already using the product or service, the company figures you don’t need any more incentive to upgrade. I have been using Spotify recently and thought I might upgrade to the premium service. I clicked on the “Upgrade” button on the Spotify app and it took me to a page where I could insert my credit card information and get paying right away.
But, there’s this thing called “The Google” and it does wondrous things. I typed in “Spotify free trial” and lo and behold, what do I get back? A page advertising a month of free premium Spotify services: http://www.spotify.com/us/freetrial/. It’s not a secret and anyone can access it, but if you’re already sold on Spotify and are ready to buy, why would they offer a free month and lose out on revenue? Only when you’re not really sure will they try to entice you with a free trial.
This technique is so popular, a Google search for free trial will work to gain you free access for nearly all products out there. Here’s a short list to give you an idea:
Spotify: http://www.spotify.com/us/freetrial/
Adobe Photoshop: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop
Netflix: https://signup.netflix.com/home?gclid=CNz9vaCuka8CFWvktgodwVarzg&country=1&rdirfdc=true
Match.com: http://www.match.com/cp.aspx?cpp=/cppp/promo/72hour.html
Sirius/XM: http://www.siriusxm.com/freetrial
This technique is limitless, so get Googling and get saving! Feel free to post any notable free trials in the comments section below.
Vulnero Nemo
The following is taken from a speech by Joseph SB Morse given in Austin, TX.
There are two types of people in the world: people that will sit at a red light at a deserted intersection at 3 am in the morning when there are clearly no cars coming in either direction; and there are the people who will run the red light.
My name is Joseph Morse and I would run that red light. Now before you get the wrong idea about me, I should clarify. I’m not a daredevil or a crazy anarchist. But I do understand the point of laws. We don’t have laws in order to boost the governmental coffers when citizens break them; we don’t have laws in order to create a windfall for the printers that busy themselves with printing the laws and citations; and really, the purpose of laws isn’t even to keep order, though that seems like a noble goal. The purpose of law—rather the only legitimate purpose of law—is to protect the unalienable rights of individual citizens. I understand this and that’s why, when I clearly see that there is no harm being done to anyone by my running a red light at 3 in the morning, I’m going to do it with a free conscience.
Now, in the somewhat civilized society that we have today in America, this concept doesn’t go over too well—especially, as you can imagine, with cops. I was once in the position to defend my stance to an officer of the peace and somehow wasn’t too convincing. I was pulling out of my place of work to drive to donate blood or help starving children or some other noble cause—I can’t quite remember—and the road in front of my work had a double double yellow line, which is supposed to represent a median and is unlawful to cross. Well, there were no cars coming from either direction, so instead of turning right and making a U-turn at the 10-minute light, I just turned left. I crossed the double double yellow and broke the law. Now I didn’t impede the progress of any other driver as there were none in the vicinity and I didn’t even run over any kittens but, of course, a motorcycle cop who was sitting at a red light 500 yards away spotted the infraction and subsequently pulled me over.
The ticket was expensive, so I thought that I’d get my money’s worth and interview the police officer. After the cop went over his routine and gave me the ticket, I was compelled to ask this question, “Did I harm anyone by doing what I did?”
Well, the cop was confused by the question (I’m sure he doesn’t get too much of that) but I was earnestly wondering if he thought the illegal act I had just committed had actually done harm to anyone. He said, “No, if you had done harm, you would have received a ticket for reckless driving also.” I had to scratch my head. Why was the cop wasting my time and citing me for something that caused absolutely no harm to anyone?
Needless to say, the irony was lost on that particular public servant, but not on me. For what is the point of law if it doesn’t protect from harm? I say there is none. This is the crux of my political philosophy, which took me 35 years of life experience and countless hours of philosophical discussion and writing to develop and which can be summarized in the concise Latin phrase “Vulnero Nemo”. It means “harm no one” and in my writing, I’ve laid out a vision of an entire society based on that single law, which I truly believe would work. We already see that places with fewer laws and regulations (Hong Kong and Singapore are examples) fare much better economically than do countries with over-regulation. After all, in order for society to be successful, we citizens need not agree on everything, we just need to agree on one thing and that is that everyone should be able to do whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights of others. In essence, Vulnero Nemo.
It can be said that I like to question authority. I think there should be more questioning of authority. Not just with traffic laws, but with more meaningful laws like the unconscionable health care mandates being forced on us by our president and Congress and I think it’s great that various factions are standing up against it. Because I for one would rather be a prisoner in jail for breaking a law than a prisoner of guilt by obeying an unjust law.
Thank you and I look forward to not harming anyone of you in the future.
Didn’t we just do this? Yes, of course, our country just went through this debt ceiling debacle and nothing has changed. We’re not in a better position to take on debt, our economy is still on the brink of collapse and no one seems to be interested in doing anything about it (perhaps except Ron Paul). We’re not proud collective owners of a debt obligation bigger than annual GDP.
The latest outcry and talking point is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raise (AGAIN), everyone’s going to lose their jobs. As is reported:
Democrats cry that some 825,000 non-essential government employees will not get paid if the debt ceiling is not raised.
But of course, that’s the problem: the government is taking money from entrepreneurs and hard working Americans and giving it to non-essential employees.
What we need in Washington isn’t status quo. We need a Constitutional Amendment requiring Congress to balance the budget. Nothing else will work to keep these absolutely reckless politicians from ruining the economy of the country. Of course, when the partisan Republicans passed a balanced budget amendment in the House, the partisan Democrats rejected it out of hand.
Compromise is a four letter word in Washington and this debt deal is no exception. Look for a continued decline in the economy and possibly economic Armageddon when the world economic community drops the dollar as the reserve currency.
Here’s a great interview from a great talk show host with a great congressman summarizing this issue:
In 2005, the US Supreme Court decided in Roper v. Simmons that the execution of a defendant who committed a murder at age 17 or younger was cruel and unusual punishment and thus unconstitutional. This decision was based on three differences between juveniles and adults: juveniles suffer from an impetuous lack of maturity and responsibility they are more susceptible to negative influences; and lack the independence to remove themselves from bad situations and a juvenile’s character is less formed than an adult’s.
But surely, when the Supreme Court made that decision, they didn’t assume that all juveniles shared those immature qualities. All the justices would need to do is visit a home school home and speak with the children to understand that age is not strictly the cause of impetuous, negative mentalities. And in fact, the court admitted that their designation of the age of 18 as being an adult was arbitrary. A 17 can be more mature than an 18-year-old in all respects, making the designation frivolous.
This ignores another question, however: aside from strict sociopaths, aren’t all murderers committed by people with impetuous, negative mentalities? In a sense, maturity, by definition is the ability to overcome impetuous, negative mentalities in order to make the morally, socially-acceptable decisions. All murderers (save the Hannible Lecter types) are immature.
Really, this argument begs another question: is the death penalty ever an appropriate solution? If youths are immune from capital punishment for their heinous acts of violence because they lack a mature mind, shouldn’t that apply to everyone who commits a crime? All violent criminals demonstrate the lack of mental stability in a typical adult, so why should it matter that the criminal is over a certain age? His brain isn’t.
This reasoning, coupled with the fact that it is impossible to be 100 percent sure of a conviction, the criminal justice system should due away with the death penalty altogether. It is illogical, unjust, immoral, and costly and unfit for a free society.
The Next Day that Will Live in Imfamy
From ZeroHedge: With precisely one year left for the world and all of its inhabitants, at least according to the Mayans, not to mention on the day of the Winter Solstice, it is only fitting that US debt, net of all settlements for all already completed bond auctions, is now at precisely $15,182,756,264,288.80. Why is this relevant? Because the latest annualized US GDP, according to the BEA, was $15,180,900,000.00. Which means that, as of today, total US debt to GDP is 100.012%. Congratulations America: you are now in the triple digit “debt to GDP” club!
(naturally, this is using purely “on the books” data. If one adds the NPV of all US liabilities, and adjusts GDP for such things as today’s housing contraction, then the magical triple digit threshold was breached long, long ago).
And here is the breakdown for the forensically inclined ones:
I. Total debt as of December 20: $15,131,979,264,288,80 (source):
II. Net cash settlement of all completed auctions: $50,777,000,000.00 (source):
III. Total GDP: $15,180,900,000,000.00 (source):
=> Total Debt/GDP= $15,182,756,264,288.80/$15,180,900,000,000.00 = 100.012%
A Tale of Two Economies
Bob needs some stuff, so he goes to his local Wal-Mart and buys what he wants and needs. Much of that money that Bob spends goes to pay for more products that other people want and need, produced by hundreds of thousands of companies with workers all trying to create something of value. Some of Bob’s money goes to the operational costs of the Wal-Mart store like property expenses and energy to keep the big box lighted. A good deal of Bob’s money goes to the employees of Wal-Mart, a few of which (like the President and CEO Michael Duke) make millions of dollars a year, while the majority of compensation goes to the over two million people that Wal-Mart employs, all of which make more than minimum wage, but which range in salary from $8.50 an hour to $125,000 a year. Some of Bob’s money goes to charitable foundations that Wal-Mart has founded or supports, beneficiaries of which include students, female entrepreneurs, and the hungry. The rest of Bob’s money goes to the millions of shareholders who own stock in Wal-Mart through bi-monthly dividends.
But Bob isn’t loaded. He has to work for a living—going into his office from 8-5 every day and receiving a paycheck every other week. But Bob doesn’t receive all that he’s earned. A sizable amount is taken out of his check before Bob can think about spending it and goes to the federal government. The federal government gets revenue from several different forms of taxation, but the two largest come from Bob’s paycheck—the income tax and the Social Security tax. This money is mixed with money from loans that the government gets from investors (Treasury Bonds) and is primarily redistributed to recipients of social welfare programs (what the government calls mandatory spending): Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment. These programs account for over $2 trillion of federal spending, most of which gets to the hands of the intended recipient (upwards of 20 percent is lost in administrative costs, much of which goes toward the salaries and benefits of the nearly two million federal civilian employees). When you add the cost of national debt, mandatory spending nears $2.4 trillion. The rest of Bob’s money goes to what’s termed “Discretionary Spending,” which include defense, housing and education programs, and a litany of some 10,000 federal agencies, departments, or grant recipients.
What you have here is a brief description of the two economies we have today: the free-market economy and the socialist one. Both redistribute wealth from Bob to others (both wealthy and needy). Both employ people and provide products and services that consumers rely on. But there’s one significant difference between the two economies: the former is a completely voluntary system and the latter is based completely coercion. That is, when people send their money to Wal-Mart and, consequently, all the subsidiary economic channels, they are doing so voluntarily. When people send their money to the government, it is because they have been threatened with imprisonment to do so. The result of this difference is clear. While the private sector is efficient and effective, the federal government is bloated and wasteful. Federal employees make on average anywhere from 22-50 percent more than private sector workers in similar fields. And the money spent is ineffective. Federal programs like Medicare, Housing and Urban Development, and to some extent, Defense are designed for failure because there is no incentive if they succeed. If those in charge win the war on poverty or the war on terror, then they lose their funding. Conversely (and perversely), if a given government plan fails, it isn’t discontinued, it is rewarded with more funding. The government can do this because it supposedly has the authority to take as much money as it wants to pay for whatever wars (whether military or otherwise) it deems beneficial to the general welfare.
Give an organization the authority to fund itself regardless of the outcome and you will get corruption at its worst. The problem with the federal government isn’t all the goodies they provide for all the needy people, it’s that they steal to pay for those goodies. If they had to work at it like a company or a private charity, the country would be a infinitely better place.
For more common sense, check out:
How to Write a Bestseller
One of the most straightforward ways to get into a position to live the Good Life is to write a book—but not just any book—a bestselling book. And while that may seem impossible, it’s not. I know because I’ve done it.
There are two components in this process: writing and selling. If you’re not able to do one or the other, there is very little chance of success. I can help you with both, but the passion and the drive has to come from you.
First thing’s first, you have to figure out what people want and coincide that with what you have a passion to write about. If people don’t want it, it won’t sell, and if you don’t have a passion for it, it’s guaranteed to be of poor quality. Before I started writing, I noticed that diet books always occupied a large portion of the Amazon top 100 bestsellers. People obviously were interested in losing weight and getting healthy. Diet and nutrition also was a passion of mine and I did some initial research to find that there was a diet plan out there that no one was talking about: the hunter/gatherer diet. Since the demand and supply converged, I decided to get to researching and putting together what would become the first Evolution Diet book. It was horrible. Typos everywhere, light on the content, and not a very sophisticated plan to say the least. But the concept was original: eat what and how we were designed to eat, so I knew I had a selling point. Some early success and positive reviews (amazingly), encouraged me to write a second edition, which I can honestly saw is a good product. I had strengthened the core principles and had become a much better writer. The first edition was bad, but since I had the passion and the drive I was able to create something I could honestly recommend to someone.
Second, you have to produce the book. With modern technology, it’s easy as pie to publish. Amazon provides services with which you can publish a print on demand paperback or hardcover as well as a service which allows you to publish books to their Kindle electronic book format—all for free! You may need help editing and designing your book, but the publishing part is extremely simple and cheap.
Third, you need to get the word out about your masterpiece. It doesn’t help to have a great book in high demand if no one knows about it. Getting it on Amazon is a great step in that direction, but there are 8 million books on Amazon. You need to stand out somehow. One technique is to put your content online in the form of a blog, complete with social networking tools to help your readers spread the word. For instance, this chapter is going on my blog (http://code-interactive.com/ad-in) before it will go in the book for sale. This technique helps generate interest and traffic for when you’re ready to start selling.
Social networking tools are great also. The Gods of Ruin twitter feed (@GodsOfRuin) has 2500 followers and generates a great deal of interest when I post about that book or others that I’ve published. The Facebook page is not nearly as popular, but generates some interest as well. These tools are free, entertaining, informative, and help complete the marketing package for your book. Just make sure you’re not selling all the time. No one likes to be sold anything. Provide good content in the venues and they will return the goods eventually.
There is one technique, however, that absolutely crushes the others and is the main reason why we’ve had two top-1000 books and one top-2000. Unfortunately, I can’t provide that technique in this venue—you’ll have to buy the forthcoming “The Good Life” book to see what I’m referring to. (what? I have to eat!)
Techniques to Avoid
Don’t publicize yourself. After the release of “Gods of Ruin,” I went on Amazon forums and posted some brilliant questions concerning the ideas in the book. I also put a link to my book in the question. Not only did people illogically disregard the argument because I was using it as a marketing tool, they set out on an ungodly rampage against my book. One of the antagonists posted two negative reviews within an hour under the pseudonymns “Alexandra S.” and “Alexandra P.” then complained when her reviews were taken down. This ridiculous behavior by people with way too much time on their hands is frustrating to say the least and can be avoided for the most part by simply not provoking them. Don’t publicize your own product to the public. Leave that to your friends.
Avoid defending your work. You will get negative reviews and much of it will be completely irrational tripe but you can’t submit to the urge in defending your work against these people. You will end up looking immature and unprofessional.
Also, I recommend against advertising in traditional avenues. Major campaigns will cost thousands of dollar and the return cannot easily be justified. If you want to be on then Glenn Beck radio show or Anderson Cooper 360, your best bet is to produce something buzzworthy that they will want to talk about on their own. It also helps to know people, but I don’t so I can’t recommend that technique.
With these techniques, you should have a good basis for creating and selling a successful book or books. Now all you need is the drive to make it happen. So, get cracking! And enjoy the Good Life when you get there!
Passive Income
If I were to give you two options as a profession, a steady paycheck with benefits or a ton of work with no immediate income and a high risk of failure, which would you choose? I’m guessing most readers would easily pick the former, especially now in the Great Recession when a steady job is such a hot commodity. But what if I told you that, with the latter, if you created a product with enough value in the market that you wouldn’t have to “work” another day in your life?
What I’m describing here is the difference between active and passive income. The regular clock-in/clock-out job is active income meaning that you are directly trading your time for a paycheck from a company or client. It could be a service in which you wash windows, massage people, or dance in a Broadway show; but it could also be trading your time to build a car or web application for a paycheck from your company. The key ingredient here is that, outside vacation and sick time, you must be actively working in order to make money. That may sound solid and steady, but it may also sound a bit like slavery.
There’s a different type of earnings altogether: passive income. This is income in which after a significant initial investment (of time or wealth), very little is required to maintain income. Sitcom actors earn passive income every time their shows are aired. Insurance salesmen earn passive income every time their clients renew with them. And homeowners receive passive income when they rent their place out.
Some people in the Occupy Wall Street crowd or other irrational types may not consider this a valid form of income. They may see this is not really earning money and might even claim it’s a form of exploitation. No one should be able to get income without working, or as Dire Straits would say, “money for nothing and your chicks for free.” But this argument is pure poppycock. Passive income earners work just as hard (or harder) for their income as active income earners, only they work before their profits, not simultaneously. This means that they oftentimes must work two full-time jobs while making money for just one or be disciplined enough to save up wealth in order to make the initial investment that will eventually bring in the passive income.
If you have the drive and the passion, I highly recommend passive income as the gateway to the Good Life. There are plenty of ways to earn passive income and just about any motivated person can do it. All it takes is a good idea and a lot of determination and you could be living the dream life you’ve always envisioned.
You could act, sell insurance, or rent your home for passive income, as mentioned above, but there are other goals you could pursue, which are more suitable to the general populace: website ad revenue, network marketing, and writing books. Each avenue requires different skills and each is difficult in its own way, but they are all achievable by the majority of people out there and can be accomplished while working a day job to maintain a baseline of income.
Website Ad Revenue
There’s this thing called the Internets. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It dominates most people’s lives. If asked to give up the Internet for the rest of their lives in exchange for a million dollars, most people decline. And it is the single-most opportunity-rich environment in the modern economy. In other words, if you have an idea for a website (or application), opportunities abound to make it happen. The best way to make money on the internet is to create a platform in which users generate content and which is supported by ad revenue. Estimates place the value of Interactive advertising at $300 billion in the United States and active web browsers are just itching to give a slice of that pie to you.
Network Marketing
I haven’t participated in these but the pitch-people are very persuasive and the principle lines up nicely with passive income. If you don’t have a product in mind that you’d like to create and sell but you have a big network of friends and you’re a natural salesperson, you can always sell other people’s brilliant ideas through multi-level marketing (MLM). MLM is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation. In other words, you sell the product to your friends who in turn sell the product to their friends who in turn sell the product to their friends. All along the way, you get a cut of each sale. If the product is good, this could be a great technique. If not, then it’s just a pyramid scheme.
Write a Book
My personal favorite form of passive income is writing. Everyone has an idea of a book that they’d like to write and the actual skill is fairly easy (especially if you team up with a decent editor). And the technology is available to allow everyone to publish for themselves at very low cost. With the advent of print-on-demand technology and e-books, the publishing industry is exploding and there is plenty of opportunity to make a living as a writer/publisher. Of course, as a writer at a conference once derided, soon there will be 300 million published authors in the United States all with about eight customers, but there will be a lot more information out there. Making your book a bestseller is another topic, but you must take the first step in order to get there.
The Downside to Living the Life
For nearly the entire year of 2011, I had been living the life. I would wake up with the sun, take my 30-stair commute downstairs, have breakfast, and get to work for myself writing and publishing brilliant articles and books and creating excellent web applications. In the down time, I would take a stroll down to my lake and read. And I would always have time for a run, bike, or kayak adventure every day. Friends rightly said that I had the best life ever. I agree, though it was more of a vacation than a normal life.
Of course, there’s a problem with vacations, they always end. After almost a year of living on my schedule, my girlfriend left me because—more or less—I wasn’t in the position to support a family. Ouch! It was true. I had been bringing in a decent salary doing my own thing—enough to support my Spartan lifestyle with two mortgages—but certainly not enough to support a family. For the longest time, I had thought that enjoying the good life was the goal, but that was shortsighted and, I’ll be honest, a little selfish. It’s easy to support yourself and live the life, but unless you’re an outstanding success in the techniques of TAPWATTAY, it’s a very difficult to support anyone else. And contrary to what Timothy Ferris may make it sound like, finding a lucrative “muse” is not as easy as it sounds.
So, I went to look for a job, but compounding the difficult situation was the fact that I hadn’t had a steady source of income in almost a year. In a tough job market, that’s a difficult thing to explain in a job interview. But here’s the point. When you’re living the good life, you’re not just sitting on your tuchus, waiting for the Tooth Fairy to drop money in your bank account, you’re actually producing and creating things by yourself for the good of humanity. In my case, I had been improving the marketable skill of copywriting by working on books and I had my baby, Ranqit.com, the top 400k worldwide ranking website to save me in the web development department. In interviews, I simply explained that I had been working on improving and monetizing my own website for the past year but it hadn’t produced the type of income that I had desired. Some employers love this initiative and entrepreneurial spirit even if it fails. In the modern economy, employers don’t necessarily mind if there’s a gap in your employment, but a gap in your resume is unacceptable. The take-home message here is that you should always be producing something worthwhile for its own sake, of course, but also in case you need to impress someone in the future.
I’m not going to act like the Good Life is all peaches and cream unlike some other authors. When you think big and live bigger, there are risks and downsides. Fortunately, if you play your cards right, the downside isn’t permanent and you can always get back into the real world if so desired, even if you have to do it alone.
Obama Gaffe-a-Day Calendar
“From Bailouts to Beer Summits” skewers the President using his own words
Two longtime friends spent hundreds of hours reading virtually every word that President Barack Obama ever has written, watching scores of his YouTube videos, and fighting over which Joe Biden gaffes transcend mere hilarity and rise to the realm of true legend. Now Mike Paranzino and Mike Dunnigan have just released the product of their research: a 2012 daily desktop calendar called “From Bailouts to Beer Summits: This Day in Obama History.”
The calendar chronicles hundreds of Obama milestones, from his promise to spread Joe the Plumber’s wealth around, to his gift to the Queen of England of an iPod pre-loaded with his own speeches . . . from his signature diplomatic achievement – the Beer Summit – to his dismissal of small-town Americans as bitter gun-toters and religion-clingers.
The authors expect their calendar to appeal especially to conservatives, Tea Party members, and independents. However, they’re not writing off liberals entirely. “If they have a sense of humor,” Paranzino says, “we think that even a few liberals will laugh nervously under their breath.” Dunnigan agrees, “The First Lady famously called America ‘downright mean.’ We don’t think that our calendar is mean, but it’s definitely for people who have a wicked sense of humor.”
The calendar is available exclusively through Amazon.com at this link: www.TheObamaCalendar.com. A Kindle version also is available.
Paranzino and Dunnigan formerly practiced law together in Arizona. Paranzino now lives in Maryland, and Dunnigan lives in San Antonio, Texas.
