TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur's JourneyThe journal of a web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

When it rains, it pours

Where to start?

I usually do very minimal actual ‘work’, but today was one of those days where a lot of things just happened to all come at once.

It started with me waking up extremely tired. Why? Oh, a few factors. I was a bit hot after jacking up the thermostat a bit before I went to bed, the damn sun manages to find it’s sneaky way of being sneaky through my blinds and landing on my face. I seem to be very sensitive to light when I’m asleep. I need it to be really dark. Anyhow, that was annoying, because no matter how I turn or try to block the sun, it just doesn’t work. So I’m actually contemplating buying one of those night mask thingies. But it was the damn whistly guy that did it. This guy who lives in the same apartment as me, always walks SLOWLY in the late evening and in the early morning. and he whistles. And he whistles LOUD. And he has leg braces so he walks really slow. Oh, he does other things, too, like try to initiate conversations with you if he sees you, or waves to you if you drive past him, but it’s his whistling that’s perhaps the worst.

So I awake to the stupid sun and the whistly-man’s whistling, and relectantly get up.

Um… yeah.. anyhow, here’s some stuff that’s new:

1. wesley from chatwebdev showed me this link: http://www.marketingsecrets.com/images/vrevideo.html

If you haven’t seen it already, it’s a 25-minute video about some guy showing his AdSense ads. Now, this may inspire you greatly, or the sheer redundancy and vagueness may leave you wanting to rip your eyes out…

I’ve also been trying hard to get my first-ever Escrow transaction done, but the guy is being rather difficult to work with and contact. I’m buying 7 domains from him.

I had a little meeting with Sheldon today regarding my latest forum skin, and before he will start, he said I’d need a custom logo so he could work with something. So he recommended me a guy, and I decided to go with him, and after looking through his portfolio and seeing he was named Sitepoint’s 2005 Designer of the year, I hired him for 5 logos, 3 mockups each, and 3 revisions each. I worked him down to nearly 50% off.

That’s another thing I wanted to bring up, and here’s a major money saving tip for you folk out there: ask for discounts. Sounds simple, right? Well, I never really used to ask for discounts.. I think what got me started was when I started doing repeat business with people. I felt I deserved something of a discount. But now, I ask for discounts straight out. Usually I buy in bulk anyway, making my plea justifiable, but you can really really either (a) lower your costs and save money, or (b) simply order more with what you saved. (And if you do this sneakily like me, you can get an even larger discount because you’re potentially getting more for free what you wouldn’t normally get in terms of quantity..). So I got nearly 50% off for my logos, which saved me like $300, I got 20% off something else from a guy who never in his long freelancing life gave out before (I feel special), and let me tell you, these things do add up. Why not ask? You won’t sound cheap?

Okay, I lie, you will. But, hey, that’s what being an entrepreneur is all about, isn’t it? Hehe.

Okay, then I had a meeting with my flash guy for my movie thing.

Did a bunch of other work stuff…

Oh, I’m so descriptive.

And I Western Unioned for the first time today! Because I hired my second terrorist!

That’s right! My first terrorist is in the United Arab Emirates and PayPal doesn’t accept them, so I had to wire him money from my bank. My newest terrorist is in the Czech Repubic, and PayPal doesn’t support terrorists there either.

Today was Sunday so my bank, being as lame as banks are, was closed (seriously folks, are they EVER open?) and I wanted to get my logos done ASAP, so I tried Western Union online. Which wasn’t the greatest experience. First their site kept giving me errors (javascript mainly) and then after filling out an ever-long registration page, it didn’t send, so I had to open up Firefox (Yes, I use IE, live with it people) and do it all over again.

Then there was a stiff $42 fee to send it, which I agreed to pay (See, this is where asking for discounts comess in handy..), and then I had to phone them up after paying, to confirm it. Which took a long time, and a few tries after their system didn’t recognize my MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) and hung up on me, and then being on hold for what was probably 6 minutes.

But it got there instantly so it’s a great alternative to PayPal and bank wiring after all, if you want to pay a nasty fee.

So then I wrote a 5-page, yes, 5-page ever-so descriptive report on what I wanted my logo identity to be and encorporate, and send it to terrorist #2. You may think I go overboard with these things, but I think being extremely detailed when you outsource work, especially design work, gets you results you wouldn’t normally get from them.

So I have a lot going on. I have 7-domains I’m early trying to buy via Escrow (which I plan on developing myself), 5 upcoming domains with a lot of money invested into them, a domain im brokering, my existing sites, an inspirational flash movie I’m working on with a guy, and trying desperately for months to harass this designer I hired ages ago to stop hiding and do my work. He probably never will, and keep dodging me, at which point I will publicly give him the slandering he deserves, to warn all others.

Anyhow, that was my day. How was yours?