FamilyEbiz

Our CD, Teaching Your Children To Start Their Own Business, has been a big hit at home school book fairs around the country. We cover the biblical reasons for owning your own business, the pros and cons of having your own business, the types of businesses, marketing, knowing your numbers, calculating price, employees vs. subcontractors, simple businesses to start…plus a whole lot more!

We have another CD, Teaching Your Children about Finances and Debt that is a part of an entire course. It includes a CD, student workbook and teacher workbook. This would be a great study to take your teenage children through or even as a study guide for an adult Sunday school.

Biblia:

Eccl 7:11-12
Wisdom is good with an inheritance,
And profitable to those who see the sun.
For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense,
But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.

Solomon tells us that it is good to have a little wisdom when giving or being given an inheritance. We live in a culture that despises inheritance. Think about that. We are a nation that worships money and yet, we despise those who receive an inheritance. We have a bureaucratic government that seeks to confiscate as much inheritance as a weakened people will allow. Our movies and novels invariably portray those who receive an inheritance as wicked or fools or both. Even those who receive an inheritance play down the fact so they will not be ridiculed and considered lazy or “born with a silver spoon in their mouths.” Even in the Christian community, it is considered spiritual to give it all away while you are still on this earth. Yet the Bible disputes all of this nonsense.

Prov 13:22
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children

The Bible teaches us that a good man leaves an inheritance not only to his children, but his grandchildren as well! Whoa! That would take a lot of dough! I might have to modify my standard of living to accomplish this. Do you see the irony here. We, as Christians, want to taste all of the good things this world has to offer (nice vacations, nice homes, eating out, boats, nice cars, ski trips, etc), but we are unwilling to save so that our children’s children can taste those things as well! And we definitely are too lazy to spend the time and effort required to impart the wisdom required to enjoy those things in a godly manner! We are very selfish people…we want the fat of the land now, and we are willing to mortgage our grandchildren’s future to get it. Who cares what happens to my grandchildren, I want my social security, my medicare, my unemployment benefits, my managed health care, my federally mandated guaranteed returns on my investments.

Please hear me well. I am not opposed to having nice things. But make sure you throttle back enough to leave something behind for your descendents. Do not leave the cupboard bare for them. And do not vote in such a way that our leaders pilfer the cupboard either. Imagine expressing concern for the “common man” while taking million dollar pension checks…this is the sin of the Republicans and Democrats legislators alike (I don‘t see any “fiscally-conservative” Republicans voting against their own pay increases!). In all things we are to use wisdom, but this is especially true for an inheritance. In the passage above, Solomon tells us that wisdom is a defense and that money is a defense. Money can be a great defense against hunger, the cold and lack of education. But it can also be a defense against undue pressure from the world to conform to their standards. Money can give us the power to say no…to opt out of compromising educational systems and work situations. Yet, money without wisdom is like freedom without guns. You will not long enjoy the one without the ability to skillfully use the other.

Practica:

So far, we have talked about finding a market on the internet, choosing a hosting company to “rent space” for our website and designing a website. We have even discussed finding “affiliate” programs…stuff that other people have written or services that other people provide…in order to have something to sell on our website until we write our own ebook. (Which I will do in an upcoming newsletter!)

And yet, all of that takes some effort. Most of us need cash flow to make ends meet until our other ideas take off. What can we do in the meantime to generate a little cash flow to pay down our credit card debt or make an extra payment per year on our mortgage? How about selling the stuff you no longer want at the world’s largest auction? No, I am not talking about the flea market in Canton, Texas. I am talking about Ebay! Now, before you roll your eyes and say, “been there, done that!”, please hear me out. We went to an entrepreneur conference in Dallas and heard a man talk about Ebay. He said that the first goal for everyone in the room was to get out of debt. That got my attention. Then he laid out a plan with Ebay that almost anyone could follow and over time, make a significant income. It sounded like just what the doctor ordered for homeschool families starting a business with their kids, so I bought the program. The only problem was that it took a few weeks for the program to arrive, so we started doing Ebay on our own. We listed about 20 items, sold 4 and made a whopping $6 after fees! Well, you know what I was thinking…Ebay stinks!

Then the program arrived. Actually, I was so disgusted with Ebay that I didn’t bother to look at it, but my wife did and “encouraged” me to do the same. The first week, we listed about 10 items, sold 6 and made $175 after fees. Not bad for selling junk that we no longer wanted anyway. And it was not one big item that contributed to the large increase, the most expensive item of the 6 went for about $30. Ebay has great instructions, so I will not go into the details of setting up an Ebay account, listing fees, uploading pictures, and what to do when you have sold an item. But I will list a few tips on using Ebay:

Get an overview of how eBay works from Kerry's Is eBay Right for You Audio CD. It is only $9.97 and could save you a lot of time and hassle.

1. Set up an Ebay account and a Pay-Pal account.

Pay-pal is the preferred method of payment on Ebay because you do not have to wait for checks, cash or even accept credit cards. I would advise being able to accept credit cards, because not everyone has a Pay-Pal account, but it is not necessary.

2. Use Turbo-lister

Turbo-lister is a free program developed by Ebay to help you quickly upload items to Ebay. It saves information that you would have to type over and over such as payment methods, shipping policies, etc. It makes it easy to upload items that are similar as well. Turbo-lister also stores items that you want to upload on certain days (more on this in a minute). We have an audio CD that shows you step by step how to use turbo-lister to its maximum potential. It is called Listing on eBay® - Free, Quick & Easy!

3. Use keywords in your title.

Let’s say you wanted to sell an album on Ebay. You would not want the title to read, “This is the best album of the Beatles and my family’s favorite!” Not many people search keywords such as “best”, “family”, “favorite”, etc. You want to use keywords such as “Beatles”, “album”, “Yellow Submarine”…you get the picture.

4. Upload your items on Sunday

Sunday is the top day for Ebay. If you upload the items you have been typing in all week in Turbo-lister on Sunday and set the auction to run for 7 days, your auction will end when the most people are looking for it.

5. Let the market decide

Be careful about using reserves and starting the bid too high. It may be better to start the bid at a penny, generating more bids and interest and let the market bid your item up.

6. Buy Sydney Johnston’s Auction Genius Course

Seriously, why stumble through the forest alone? Hire a guide to help you navigate through the confusing parts and start making some money. My eBay earnings paid for the course in a couple of weeks! For more information, click on this link: Auction Genius Course

Actually, selling your unwanted items on Ebay is just the beginning. The next time you see an estate sale in the paper, check out what will be sold and then research it on Ebay. If you can purchase that item for half of what you could sell it on Ebay, then you can double your money! Garage sales, liquidations, storage rental sales (when people do not pay their storage rental fees, the owner will sell the stuff to recoup the rent) are just the tip of the iceberg. We are even selling our books and tapes on Ebay…auction style!

Sydney has the big picture. She will be your coach and take you as far into this as you want to go…either a little cash flow on the side…or a full-time business for you and your family. So, at least sign up for his free telephone seminar, it could be the start of a great family business!

Warmly in Christ,

Stephen Beck
www.familyebiz.com
www.curriculumconnection.net
email: steve@familyebiz.com

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