Going Back to School - Vital Steps to Being Successful

Going Back to School after 20 years

How to Get your Work From Home job on the fast track

Working from home is a real challenge.  I have been working at home for a number of years now and I look at my experience as if I was Thomas Edison.  I haven't failed, I just know several things that don't work.  I also know things that sort of work, and things that absolutely work.  Armed with this knowledge, one can't help but ask more questions.  I wonder if my marketing strategy is correct, and what other options there may be.  I ask myself if I my accounting is correct and how accurate my books are.  I wonder if I will grow to a point where I need to start hiring employees and I need Human Resource skills.

Going Back to School after 20 years

Whether you work from, or you have your own business, or you are an independent contractor, you will reach a point where you either realize that you need more information and education, or you can choose to ignore this and most likely fail.

After 20 years I have decided to return to college.  I am currently attending Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL.  I am majoring in Business Administration, and I have a minor in Marketing Management - Electronic Commerce.  I am just about to start my second semester and I am very excited about the opportunities that are starting to present themselves.

Education is vital to achieving your goals.  If you are thinking about starting your own business, or you already have one, you need to consider your educational level.  If you only have a High School diploma, with no college under your belt, I would HIGHLY advise that you start going to College immediately.  Don't procrastinate, get in there and register and start talking with advisers.  The school is there to help and there are financial aid programs and other sources of funding that are available.  I am currently on a scholarship and I have some loans out, which have to paid back, but as it stands right now, I am getting "paid" to go to school.  What kind of idiot would pass up that opportunity? 

There is the argument that certain highly successful people dropped out of college and ran with this idea and now they are millionaires.  There are several examples of these people, Mark Zuckerman from Facebook is one, and it is true, he did drop out of college.  But the point that I want to make to you is that those people were IN college and stopped.  They used the resources the college had available, and networked with like minds and then launched a business model that worked.  They saw the amount of income they started receiving and made a decision to stop going to school based on that information.  It is very rare to find someone that had no education whatsoever that succeeded in business.

Success in College as an Adult

The reality is that most of the people that HAVE degrees are not successful in business.  Business is hard, it is a lot more than being in the right place at the right time.  You have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right contacts, and the right product or service and the proper education or equivalent for it all to work.  

If you are considering going back to school, I strongly urge you to do so.  If you have no college education whatsoever or perhaps even worse, no GED, I beg you to return to school.  This journey that you are taking with me requires education.  It is imperative that you obtain an education and use the College or University for the resources it has to offer you.  Even liberal arts classes that are not related to your major can be very enlightening, and it can really change your perspective on the world.

eBay store about to bust at the seams! Consignment offers opportunities...

by Robert Leavitt

Greetings fellow workaholics!  I am back in full swing on eBay and my store is about to burst at the seams!  I am very close to reaching my max list limit (which is around 600 items) for the month.  I have never actually reached it so I'm not sure what happens then. I know just as I get close to maxing it out, eBay raises my limit, so from experience I can deduce that will happen once again.

I opened a "consignment" shop of sorts.  It's just a few friends and family that have me listing stuff for them under my account.  There are advantages to doing this as I have established a history of sales within the eBay community and I have managed to maintain my 100% feedback rating. (Knock on wood!)

The feedback rating is huge, not only does it drive people to your listing, it also will allow you to charge a premium for your items.  You can compete on price on certain things, especially used items, however if you are listing new in box items for sale, you are going to find that competing with "top-rated-plus" sellers is a very difficult task.  They pay the monthly fees to have an eBay store and they also receive discounts on the final listings and are able to undercut you.  Even if you have the same supplier and shipping costs.

eBay is addictive, it really is, both as a buyer and a seller.  If you plan to sell on eBay, start as a buyer (buy things you need for your business, like tape, bubble wrap, tape guns, boxes, etc...) and learn how the process works first.  The best thing is that you get ratings for being a buyer.  If you have 10 buying transactions and 3 selling transactions you will have a rating of 13 total transactions.  The buyers can see this in the "detailed seller ratings" but many don't know that they are combined, and what they don't know can benefit YOU!

I did say earlier in this post that I have a store, which is a stretch of the truth.  I haven't not actually upgraded to a real "Store" yet because of the fees.  I will shortly if things maintain this pace, but for now I will keep it the same.  I have read that it is a mistake to upgrade to early, and I can see that for certain.  If you are only selling a few hundred dollars per month on eBay, a store is not necessary and is in fact a waste of your hard earned money!

The consignment process is easy in principle.  It is however a challenge to maintain your inventory (keep it separate, ideally with a catalog system of some sort allowing you to put item numbers on everything so you can remember who things belong to!).  But at the very minimum at least keep your groups of boxes separate from each other.  I have yet to find an "vendor Item number" in eBay but I'm sure that one exists. I plan to find an inventory solution, perhaps built into a management platform.  I will keep you posted on this and let you know should I decide to use one.  I'm looking for something that has inventory features and will allow me to "dump" the product to amazon, eBay and a shopping cart all at once.  Maybe that's too much to ask!

I will keep you updated on my eBay progress.  I really want to write an eBay eBook but I have yet to find the time.  It really is a big project that requires a lot of thought and preparation.  There are 1000's out there, but the demand is high.  Everyone wants to do this, but not everyone can.  It is intimidating and unlike other mistakes on a computer that can often be fixed, mistakes on eBay can often mean "losing money" which is a burden few people can bear.


You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.