My thoughts regarding charity and poverty are similar to that of Perry Marshall’s.

The latest issue of his Renaissance Club newsletter struck a cord with me, so I thought I’ll come up here to share some of my thoughts.

He recently got an email from a very angry guy who can’t believe he had the audacity to turn down lunch requests and charge hourly rates instead.

Read about more it here.

He talks more about having the guts to charge for your service or product in your business, because it is your moral obligation to do so.

Here’s an excerpt of the newsletter, which will remain part of my business philosophy for life.

“If you’re going to be charitable in the world, there is no possibility of helping the bottom 10% if you also believe you’re obligated to help the middle 50% and not charge them for it. You must pic your battles and I have picked mine. The reason I can build orphanages in India is I’m building businesses in America and Canada and the UK and Australia and New Zealand and getting paid for it.”

I took his advice some time back, and had the “audacity” to charge $200 for Adwords Coaching instead of dispensing free information in forums.

The result of that coaching is that I gained the most respectful and cooperative client EVER, who told me that “it was okay to slow down on the coaching a little bit” when she learnt that I was having exams.

This is in stark contrast with my responses in Private Messages to people who ask me for help; these people whom I help with almost the same amount of heart and time, either reply with increasingly unresonably requests for my time (with no benefit to me at all), or they simply don’t reply at all.

While I’m certainly happy to spare a few minutes to help out fellow entrepreneurs, it seems like when the advice is free, it is never cherished or respected.

So is it better to waste your time dispensing free information that does NOT get properly utilized..

Or does it make more sense to charge a fee so YOU make a little profit for your time, AND

have the recipient acutally USE

the information and thus benefit as well?

You decide.

It’s already 8th January as I’m typing this, but I’ve really been kind of overwhelmed with my FInal Year Project, personal work, company work, and basketball training these days to make a post here.

I did force myself to take time out and write out my personal and income goals for 2009 though.

Did you do that? 

If not..

It’s not too late!

Do it today!

Too many people have emphasized the importance of setting goals already, so I shall not talk too much about that either.

Write down your goals, THINK

about how you wish to achieve them, and make little baby steps EVERYDAY, and work towards your goal!

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished in 2008, but I have this weird, naggy feeling that 2009 is going to surpass everything I’ve ever done in spectacular fashion

Long story short, here are my goals within the first 6 months of 2009.

1) Buy myself a car. (I’m already shopping and will probably accomplish that goal in the coming weeks.)
2) Hit 5 figures with my projects.  (Strictly income from product sales/affiliate marketing.)
3) Put more effort into working on Marketing-Alchemist.com, KaizenDigitalMedia.com, and KangWeiAng.com. (And start going for offline business as well!)

These are my top 3 priorities for the first half of 2009.

Of course, I have more intricate plans on how I wish to accomplish those, but I shall not bore you with the details.

So, what are your goals for 2009? generic viagra for under $50.00

Merry Christmas folks!

This Christmas, I’ve done something different - something I’ve talked about excessively here.

I made loans to four entrepreneurs on Kiva!

Here they are:

Cee, as she is popularly called by her numerous customers, is a 42 year-old local restaurant operator. She is married and blessed with three children. With income from her business, she has provided for one of her children to graduate from senior high school. In her restaurant, she prepares and sells local foods like “banku” - rice with stew. Banku is prepared from milled maize grains and is taken with hot pepper or soup. Apart from this, she also prepares pastries like meat pies and cakes. Cynthia says that the prices of raw materials have gone up significantly and she needs the support of a loan to enable her to meet her production expenditures. She wants to use the loan to buy more raw materials like bags of maize, flour, margarine, sugar, meat, fish, vegetables, and firewood. Cynthia is a member of a group called Success Trust Group. In this group, members guarantee and provide support to one another to repay the loan. Her picture was taking when she was visited at her business site.

Khurshed Rahmatov is 20 years old. He is a young boy with a great desire to get ahead in life. Khurshed has been running a pharmacy business for 4 years together with his loving mother, pictured in the photo. Currently he is working in the city polyclinics in the dispensary.
Khurshed loves his work; he likes to help people and is ready to consult with the patients purchasing medicines in his store and those who could not find the required goods in his store. During all the years of his work, Khurshed was dreaming of opening his own drug store and saving money for this. He hopes that someday he can realize his dream.
Now Khurshed has requested $ 600 US Dollars for a term of 5 months. Khurshed is a client of IMON and has a positive credit history. Now he promises to repay the loan promptly and thanks everyone supporting him.

Mukaramakhon describes herself as a enterprising girl with the goal to achieve successes in the future. She decided to start a sewing business to help her family with household expenses a year ago. She started out helping a woman who ran a tailoring shop. Being very nimble, she learned tailoring and soon began running her own business at the tailoring shop. It has gone very well since then, and she has been able to grow the business.

Mukaramakhon is requesting a loan of $600 USD to purchase materials so she can fulfill her customers’ requests. The end of the year is fast approaching, and that is when demand is at its highest. She plans to repay the loan within 12 months. Mukaramakhon and her family are very grateful for your support in helping grow this business and move ahead.
 

Rawad is a 26-year-old man who lives in Aley, Mount Lebanon. For the past 16 years, he has been working as a barber.
Rawad is now requesting a loan in the amount of $1,000 via Al Majmoua in order to decorate his shop. Notably, this is the third loan that he has sought, and he states that he always repays his loans on schedule. His prior loans have helped to support his business operation, which he started because he wanted to be on his own from a professional standpoint. In the future, he plans to open another shop.
I’m guessing 95% of folks reading this are entrepreneurs as well.
 
Do give’em a hand if you can afford to; you know how hard it is to be an entrepreneur, not to mention being one in a backward country!
 
Again, Kiva’s the place to go to.
 
Merry Christmas folks, have a great one!