Having being frustrated at failed attempts in the retail and direct-selling business, the 17 year old turns to a different type of business venture, the service business.
As a young, inexperienced 17 year old, there obviuosly isn't much he can do in terms of providing excellent services. So, after a few moments of thinking and deliberation, he decides to become a private tutor.
The first target, his younger cousin.
He calls up his aunt and negotiates a deal to provide science tuition to his cousin at 20 bucks an hour. The negotiations were succesful. Hooray!! However, the transportation fees to his aunt's place are quite pricey, which results in an extra 5 bucks being thrown in for transportation purposes.
The 17 year old is quite pleased now that he is earning a good 35 bucks once a week. Everything seems to be working out perfectly....until the tuition classes start....
His younger cousin, being his younger cousin has always considered the 17 year old to be the fun older cousin.. so when the 17 year old comes along touting himself as a tutor, things get a bit difficult....
tutoring his young cousin, who is 13 this year, is tough mainly due to his short attention span and the fact that his mind is constantly floating off to his Xbox.. which sits only a few feet away.
But through pure grit and perseverance, The 17 year old manages to get his lesson across and.. hopefully, taught his cousin something. The class ends with a relieved look on his cousin's face who then practically jumps right in front of the Xbox and starts playing all in one single fluid motion.
The job may be unsatisfying and stressful, but at least it pays well....
And the 17 year old has to now worry about next week's class......
to be continued...
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Tough 30 bucks
The 17 year old, try as he may.. could not find any college student who was willing to buy his marked-up notebooks....
Then comes along this oppotunity to make money... yeah, cold hard cash, on the spot payment.
Its not a business opportunity, more of a one-off employment opportunity. It involves manning a UNICEF booth and passing out brochures.
Unglamourous.....yes... but at least he gets paid 30 bucks to sit there from 3 to 7.
So, being a 17 year old who is desperate for his own money, he gladly signs up for the job....
Sure it sounds simple.... but our 17 year old has yet to face the challenges which the day has to offer.
The day starts out simple enough, with a family brunch. He later gets sent off to the convention centre to meet up with his cousin for the PC fair. Upon arrival he finds that her cellphone is off, which sends him on a wild goose chase desperately searching the masses for his cousin. He does not find her until 2.30 which is when she called him. Not wanting to rush his cousin, the 17 year old casually reassures himself that he will make it for the job at 3 at the booth.
Bad call
Due to some relatives which happened upon them by coincidence, the 17 year old is held up for a good 30 minutes.... leaving less and less time to make it to the exhibition booth (which is in another part of town)
Finally they leave at 3. So after suffocating in the crammed train station, almost missing queue for his ticket and after changing trains, they finally arrive at the exhibition, after which he had to ditch his cousin with a quick goodbye and rushed off to the booth. It was 4 by this time.
After the proper formalities (and apologies) the 17 year old was manning the booth. The job was simple enough, hand out brochures... and... well.. thats about it. So within the next 2 hours, brochures were passed out, some were turned down but in the end, all the booklets and brochures were gone (the objective was to merely finish off the booklets).. via rather under handed tactics... heeheheh.
And finally he got his pay...30 lovely bucks...
but wait, our story does not end yet, there is the ride home....
Back at the train station, the 17 year old waits patiently for the train to come.l.. after 20 minutes of waiting, he gets fed up and hails a cab, once he steps into the cab, only then does the train arrive. 'Lousy luck' he mutters to himself....
After paying the cab driver 3.70, he changes boards the light rail transit home. Upon arrival at nearest station to his house, he rushes after the bus which was embarking, using whatever tiny ounce of energy left in his body.... fortunately its a nice bus driver, who insists he not pay for the fare.
So altogether, about 12 bucks was spent on public transport just to earn a meagre 30 bucks... but hey, at least its still a decent profit....
Then comes along this oppotunity to make money... yeah, cold hard cash, on the spot payment.
Its not a business opportunity, more of a one-off employment opportunity. It involves manning a UNICEF booth and passing out brochures.
Unglamourous.....yes... but at least he gets paid 30 bucks to sit there from 3 to 7.
So, being a 17 year old who is desperate for his own money, he gladly signs up for the job....
Sure it sounds simple.... but our 17 year old has yet to face the challenges which the day has to offer.
The day starts out simple enough, with a family brunch. He later gets sent off to the convention centre to meet up with his cousin for the PC fair. Upon arrival he finds that her cellphone is off, which sends him on a wild goose chase desperately searching the masses for his cousin. He does not find her until 2.30 which is when she called him. Not wanting to rush his cousin, the 17 year old casually reassures himself that he will make it for the job at 3 at the booth.
Bad call
Due to some relatives which happened upon them by coincidence, the 17 year old is held up for a good 30 minutes.... leaving less and less time to make it to the exhibition booth (which is in another part of town)
Finally they leave at 3. So after suffocating in the crammed train station, almost missing queue for his ticket and after changing trains, they finally arrive at the exhibition, after which he had to ditch his cousin with a quick goodbye and rushed off to the booth. It was 4 by this time.
After the proper formalities (and apologies) the 17 year old was manning the booth. The job was simple enough, hand out brochures... and... well.. thats about it. So within the next 2 hours, brochures were passed out, some were turned down but in the end, all the booklets and brochures were gone (the objective was to merely finish off the booklets).. via rather under handed tactics... heeheheh.
And finally he got his pay...30 lovely bucks...
but wait, our story does not end yet, there is the ride home....
Back at the train station, the 17 year old waits patiently for the train to come.l.. after 20 minutes of waiting, he gets fed up and hails a cab, once he steps into the cab, only then does the train arrive. 'Lousy luck' he mutters to himself....
After paying the cab driver 3.70, he changes boards the light rail transit home. Upon arrival at nearest station to his house, he rushes after the bus which was embarking, using whatever tiny ounce of energy left in his body.... fortunately its a nice bus driver, who insists he not pay for the fare.
So altogether, about 12 bucks was spent on public transport just to earn a meagre 30 bucks... but hey, at least its still a decent profit....
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
What's next?
Having realised that he had wasted his time in multilevel marketing, our 17 year old broadens his horizons and begins to search for opportunity in every nook and cranny.
His search takes him to an IT harsware hub in the capital. There are so many computer shops there that prices are dangerously low, due to all the undercutting going on between businesses.
So then our 17 year - old thinks to himself.... 'what if i sell off these items at a higher price for a good profit to the folks back where i come from...'
So an entire day is spent searching for the best prices and deterimining which is the most profitable product to sell.
The 17 year old then decides that, selling notebooks (computer notebooks mind you) to college students could be a fair deal.
And thus his 17 year old mind starts churning into action....
'Let see... college students want a cheap notebook. Why notebook? Because its portable... If i can find a notebook for under 2000 bucks, i should be able to make a decent profit of maybe 100 to 200 bucks if i can sell it.... not bad..... or maybe.. i should scout around, and i can create like a proce listing... yeha... and maybe make them into packages... like..like... erh.. round-number packages... i've always been irritated by those irregular number prices. So i should be able to sell differing prices of the notebooks depending on their specs... i can range it from 2000 to 2500 to 3000.....'
Obviously his thoughts aren't well organised, but there is however a rather vague structure to them..
Now he has found a different calling, he discards the old broom of Multilevel Marketing and goes nuts over the new broom of mark-up marketing.
to be continued....
His search takes him to an IT harsware hub in the capital. There are so many computer shops there that prices are dangerously low, due to all the undercutting going on between businesses.
So then our 17 year - old thinks to himself.... 'what if i sell off these items at a higher price for a good profit to the folks back where i come from...'
So an entire day is spent searching for the best prices and deterimining which is the most profitable product to sell.
The 17 year old then decides that, selling notebooks (computer notebooks mind you) to college students could be a fair deal.
And thus his 17 year old mind starts churning into action....
'Let see... college students want a cheap notebook. Why notebook? Because its portable... If i can find a notebook for under 2000 bucks, i should be able to make a decent profit of maybe 100 to 200 bucks if i can sell it.... not bad..... or maybe.. i should scout around, and i can create like a proce listing... yeha... and maybe make them into packages... like..like... erh.. round-number packages... i've always been irritated by those irregular number prices. So i should be able to sell differing prices of the notebooks depending on their specs... i can range it from 2000 to 2500 to 3000.....'
Obviously his thoughts aren't well organised, but there is however a rather vague structure to them..
Now he has found a different calling, he discards the old broom of Multilevel Marketing and goes nuts over the new broom of mark-up marketing.
to be continued....
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Multilevel whut?
And thus our 17 year old begins his foray into the world of multilevel marketing (MLM).
He is brought to a few business development meetings, big halls full of people who are willing enough to listen to what, at surface glance seems to be a rather contrived and silly idea.
The speakers are brought out. This time its a couple who have made it, really made it in the business. An engineer and businesswoman were what they did for a living before joining the MLM. So it was basically a lot of talking, personal experience and showing off pictures of the latest countries they have visited. In other words, they were basically trying to say 'we can do it so can you' and 'see how fun it is to be like us'.
The 17 year old wasn't thouroughly impressed... especially when they started showing off their holiday pix
But yet, he wasn't willing to forsake the MLM yet, something kept urging him to go forward into what all his better instincts told him was utter bull.
Which then brought him to the 'weekend leadership seminar'. The so-called rejuvenation function which is held every 3 months. The whole premise of the weekend leadership seminar is to motivate (or brainwash rather) existing members to strive harder and uninitiated members to well.. become... initiated.
But strangely enough our 17 year old came back from that 2-day seminar (which he had to pay 150 bucks for) with a new outlook on life, a changed perspective..(in other words, he was bought/ motivated/ brainwashed). He decided that, 'yeah, i can handle this MLM shit! Bring it on!!'
So he got the starter pack (costing some 85 bucks or so) and he tried pitching the ideas to a few of his friends, mostly other 17 year olds. Though he managed to convince them, but few ever did follow up. Then he tried it on older friends, but to no avail either. So he thought,' well, maybe i'll just sell the products and make a small profit.....
And then it hit him. In order to purchase products, he needed to draw cheques. In order to draw cheques he needed a checking bank account. And in order to have a checking bank account, he needed to be 18.
So our roving 17 year olds dreams have to be put on a hold due to the sad fact that he isn't ....ergh... 'old' enough to run the business...yet. Though he could beg his mum and dad to sponsor himl... which is pretty difficult since mum and dad are not convinced of the business either.
so our 17 year old searches for other opportunities to get rich.
to be continued.....
He is brought to a few business development meetings, big halls full of people who are willing enough to listen to what, at surface glance seems to be a rather contrived and silly idea.
The speakers are brought out. This time its a couple who have made it, really made it in the business. An engineer and businesswoman were what they did for a living before joining the MLM. So it was basically a lot of talking, personal experience and showing off pictures of the latest countries they have visited. In other words, they were basically trying to say 'we can do it so can you' and 'see how fun it is to be like us'.
The 17 year old wasn't thouroughly impressed... especially when they started showing off their holiday pix
But yet, he wasn't willing to forsake the MLM yet, something kept urging him to go forward into what all his better instincts told him was utter bull.
Which then brought him to the 'weekend leadership seminar'. The so-called rejuvenation function which is held every 3 months. The whole premise of the weekend leadership seminar is to motivate (or brainwash rather) existing members to strive harder and uninitiated members to well.. become... initiated.
But strangely enough our 17 year old came back from that 2-day seminar (which he had to pay 150 bucks for) with a new outlook on life, a changed perspective..(in other words, he was bought/ motivated/ brainwashed). He decided that, 'yeah, i can handle this MLM shit! Bring it on!!'
So he got the starter pack (costing some 85 bucks or so) and he tried pitching the ideas to a few of his friends, mostly other 17 year olds. Though he managed to convince them, but few ever did follow up. Then he tried it on older friends, but to no avail either. So he thought,' well, maybe i'll just sell the products and make a small profit.....
And then it hit him. In order to purchase products, he needed to draw cheques. In order to draw cheques he needed a checking bank account. And in order to have a checking bank account, he needed to be 18.
So our roving 17 year olds dreams have to be put on a hold due to the sad fact that he isn't ....ergh... 'old' enough to run the business...yet. Though he could beg his mum and dad to sponsor himl... which is pretty difficult since mum and dad are not convinced of the business either.
so our 17 year old searches for other opportunities to get rich.
to be continued.....
Saturday, July 30, 2005
the first steps
As the 17 year old heads out into the real world, searching for oppurtunities to ....how shall we say this.... get rich, he is approached by a close relative, selling him some hoo-ha 'bout multilevel marketing.
The 17 year old, though not totally believing what he hears, decides to go ahead with it anyway...to humour hi close relative.
Multilevel marketing, or better known as direct selling is the almost cult-like operations of businesses like Amway and such. Their followers number in many and they get plenty of new converts everyday.
Being cocky, self-confident and determined not to be influenced, our 17 year old decides to sit in on one of their 'business previews' as they call it. After sitting through what seemed to be hours of senseless 'how our business works' presentations (better known as 'The Plan') they brought out the heavy guns. Oh yea, they wouldn't go easy on these bunch of doods sitting in what was probably their first 'business preview'. They sent up the success stories. The 'people-next-door-who-have-made-it-in-the-business'. And thus the audience were regaled with their tales of pain and hardship they had to endure to reach the top, how much happier they are now that they are at the top and in general encouraging everyone in the room to join and reach the top. But what struck the 17 year old the most was not the obstacles they had to overcome nor was it the sheer tenacity of these people.. what struck him was how old they were, middle aged men and women, professionals who have decided to forego their day jobs, jobs which they had studied and get degrees for. These people gave all that up and joined multilevel marketing.
Well , to say gave up is a strong word... its more like they made a slow transition from being a professional to being a professional multilevel marketer.
So the 17 year old says to himself, 'why should i wait that long to achieve their level of success'.
I should start now, if i wanna be rich...
to be continued...
The 17 year old, though not totally believing what he hears, decides to go ahead with it anyway...to humour hi close relative.
Multilevel marketing, or better known as direct selling is the almost cult-like operations of businesses like Amway and such. Their followers number in many and they get plenty of new converts everyday.
Being cocky, self-confident and determined not to be influenced, our 17 year old decides to sit in on one of their 'business previews' as they call it. After sitting through what seemed to be hours of senseless 'how our business works' presentations (better known as 'The Plan') they brought out the heavy guns. Oh yea, they wouldn't go easy on these bunch of doods sitting in what was probably their first 'business preview'. They sent up the success stories. The 'people-next-door-who-have-made-it-in-the-business'. And thus the audience were regaled with their tales of pain and hardship they had to endure to reach the top, how much happier they are now that they are at the top and in general encouraging everyone in the room to join and reach the top. But what struck the 17 year old the most was not the obstacles they had to overcome nor was it the sheer tenacity of these people.. what struck him was how old they were, middle aged men and women, professionals who have decided to forego their day jobs, jobs which they had studied and get degrees for. These people gave all that up and joined multilevel marketing.
Well , to say gave up is a strong word... its more like they made a slow transition from being a professional to being a professional multilevel marketer.
So the 17 year old says to himself, 'why should i wait that long to achieve their level of success'.
I should start now, if i wanna be rich...
to be continued...
In the beginning...
In the beginning.. there was a whiny 17 year old who looked back on his 17 years of life....pondering.... what has come of my 17 years of existence?.....
hmmm, letsee.... no patents... well, can't compare myself to Thomas Edison...
hmm, hardly a million in my Bank Account... ain't no Richard Branson either..
discovered new worlds?.... erh... does puberty count?...
so this 17 year old ponders what is to come of his life. Will he be sitting in front of the PC, 20 years form now, typing the very same thing he typed 20 years ago, or will he be writing memoirs of his success story, publish a book, with the words 'HOW I MADE IT' emblazoned on the cover...
ahhh, yes... fantasy... hmhmhmh
unfortunately, life isn't made for those who dream.. bummer.
so, feeling as if he has wasted his life on school work, and dabbling in NGO work, this 17 year old says to himself, 'i wanna be different' but how does one be different? In his 17 year old mind, he processes thoughts based on his 17 years of experience and decides...' hey, if i wanna be different, then i wanna be rich' well, simple ain't it? Sure, i mean if others can do it, why not this 17 year old.
But now that the questions have been answered... one more remains...
'HOW THE HELL DO I GET RICH??'
to be continued....
hmmm, letsee.... no patents... well, can't compare myself to Thomas Edison...
hmm, hardly a million in my Bank Account... ain't no Richard Branson either..
discovered new worlds?.... erh... does puberty count?...
so this 17 year old ponders what is to come of his life. Will he be sitting in front of the PC, 20 years form now, typing the very same thing he typed 20 years ago, or will he be writing memoirs of his success story, publish a book, with the words 'HOW I MADE IT' emblazoned on the cover...
ahhh, yes... fantasy... hmhmhmh
unfortunately, life isn't made for those who dream.. bummer.
so, feeling as if he has wasted his life on school work, and dabbling in NGO work, this 17 year old says to himself, 'i wanna be different' but how does one be different? In his 17 year old mind, he processes thoughts based on his 17 years of experience and decides...' hey, if i wanna be different, then i wanna be rich' well, simple ain't it? Sure, i mean if others can do it, why not this 17 year old.
But now that the questions have been answered... one more remains...
'HOW THE HELL DO I GET RICH??'
to be continued....
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