Archive for the 'Being a Hustler' Category

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31
Jul

Start that $20 Hustle and make a million dollars

By The Hustler 7 Comments
Categories: Author Background, Being a Hustler, Financing Your Hustle, Money, Money Making Ideas, Personal Notes and Starting a Business

Sorry I have been gone. Those who are regular readers know that I am in the process of opening a bar/restaurant and that has been eating into my time and money. But it is an investment and I know that a little work now will pay dividends later. That reminds me of a post I was working on called Start that $20 hustle and make a million dollars.

Most people don’t know what $20 a week can get them. Hell I was told what it would do for me when I was 16 and I didn’t listen. If I had, I would have an account right now with over $100,000 cash in it grown from $20 a week.

To, for some folks, $20 is a drop in the bucket. It is lunch money. For others it means the difference between hamburger helper for the family and just plain helper.

$20 can be found almost under every rock in your neighborhood, if you know what kind of rocks to look for.

I get emails all the time (so if you sent one and I haven’t responded, hang in there, I am working on it). Most of the time it is stuff like “How do I get my hustle going?” or “Where can I get money to finance my hustle?”

The hardest part to locking down a strong hustle is money and patience. If you have ever done any kind of crime, you know that you spend a lot of time waiting. You are either waiting in the bushes for traffic to clear so you can break a window or you are waiting for the store to clear out a little before you run in there. Maybe you are waiting for a foggy night to do your dirt or you are waiting for a homeboy to call you up with the ok on the spot where he works.

Most of the time it is a gut check. You ask yourself, does it FEEL right. Being kids of the 70’s and 80’s my friends and I used to call this our “Spidey Senses”. Some of my other friends called it being ghetto psychic. It is how you know someone is a cop, even though you don’t really know. It is the gut feeling to know that now is the time to act.

But the waiting to act is hard. That is the hardest part to get over. You can have millions in the bank but unless you check the gut, keep it in your pocket. This is why I think that those who grew up in the game have an advantage over those who didn’t. You can smell danger. The other advantage is that you know when to take the risk of running up and smashing that window.

So now that we know that you have to have patience to know when to act, you have got to find the dough. Money has a funny way of multiplying. Think about it. When I was a kid, I sold candy on the schoolyard. I had a little store in my backpack. Actually I carried a duffel bag that was half candy and half books with zippers on both sides. I stole about $2.00 worth of nickel gum and Jolly Ranchers from the 7-11 near my house. I would go back and pay for them as I have the money now but they closed like 12 years ago.

Anyway, I flipped that $2.00 in candy into $4.00 that afternoon. I went and bought $4.00 in candy and sold it for $8.00 the next day. I did this until I was making between $10 and $20 a day net. That’s a pocket full of cash for a 3rd grader in 1983. I took those profits and rolled them into extending my line and setting up distribution (selling candy is like selling crack or weed or anything else). I was the Nino Brown of the elementary school.

But all I needed was that seed money. So here are some ideas for setting up your empire, starting with your first $20. By the way, I have done each of these things myself so i know they work. Continue reading ‘Start that $20 Hustle and make a million dollars’

16
Jun

18 things a hustler needs to know how to do

By The Hustler 5 Comments
Categories: Being a Hustler, Personal Notes, Planning and Strategies

Ok, for some of you this list is going to be a little basic or cover some ground that you have already covered. But lately I have been getting some emails and messages from folks who really did come up from the street or didnt have someone to teach them this stuff. Everyone has to start somewhere. So here are a few things you need to have a handle on before you can step up your game. 

  1. Give good advice.
    At some point, someone is going to ask your opinion about something personal. Short and sweet is the key. If someone tells you their wife is sleeping around or their kid is an asshole – they don’t want to hear a 2-hour lecture on your childhood (unless you are buying the beers). Give advice that helps in one or two sentences. If you can’t do that, then you haven’t thought about the question hard enough.

    Friend: “My wife is sleeping with my best friend. It is driving me crazy. What do I do?”

    You: “Anyone sleeping with your best friend is not your wife and anyone sleeping with your wife is not your best friend.”It may not be what they want to hear, but it is an irrefutable statement. It also may give them a new perspective to start from.

  2. Tell if someone is lying to you.
    Everyone has a theory. I like these: Liars change the subject quickly. Liars like to say “Honestly”, “Can you believe it?”, “You know you can trust me.” or swear you to secrecy. Liars will sometimes stare straight at you and employ a dead face. Liars place objects between themselves and you during a conversation. Forbes Magazine published a little on this too.
  3. Shake hands.
    Steady, firm, pump, let go. Use the time to make eye contact, since that’s where the social contract begins.
  4. Read some non-fiction.
    You may enjoy Stephen King or some other horror or romantic novels. But no one gets rich reading this stuff. Also in business company, these authors never come up. However, Larry Winget, Suze Orman, Seth Godin and authors like that – all the time.
  5. Not monopolize the conversation.
    When I was younger, I suffered from this affliction. You want to be heard. You want people to notice you. You take it from the fact that everyone around you is letting you talk because you are saying some smart stuff. The fact is the opposite. There is an old saying – “It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”
  6. Buy a suit.
    Avoid the $99 suit sales if you can. Know your style and what you need it for (work, funerals, court). Squeeze the fabric into a fist — if it bounces back with little or no sign of wrinkling, that means it’s good, sturdy material. And tug the buttons gently. If they feel loose or wobbly, that means they’re probably coming off sooner rather than later. The jacket’s shoulder pads are supposed to square with your shoulders; if they droop off or leave dents in the cloth, the jacket’s too big. The jacket sleeves should never meet the wrist any lower than the base of the thumb — if they do, ask to go down a size. Always get fitted. Labels aren’t that important until you start running with the $2,000 to $5,000 suit crowd – but fabric and patterns matter. Stay with the basic colors and patterns. Get creative with the shirt and tie. That’s where you add flavor. I found this video too.
  7. Talk out a fight or know how to throw a solid punch. Continue reading ‘18 things a hustler needs to know how to do’
29
May

You need to move forward to move up

By The Hustler 3 Comments
Categories: Being a Hustler, Building a Crew, Personal Notes, Planning, Procrastination and Starting a Business

The only person I have ever seen that didn’t have to follow this rule was Michael Jordan and Superman.

I talk to a lot of people about a lot of things. I just got back from an event where I spoke to a large group of people. It was a little intimidating; there were hundreds of people there. Most of them were highly educated professionals. They were the tops in their industry.

I got off stage and was greeted by their positive feedback, requests for personal consultations with their companies and general adoration of my grasp of the subject matter. I was feeling pretty good.

It took me almost two years to get that speaking gig. Since then (about two weeks ago) I have been offered two more bookings to speak – paid, all expenses covered for travel to cool locations. I have been offered a few paid consultation projects and even an offer to be a consulting partner on a new business venture. Continue reading ‘You need to move forward to move up’

01
May

Times are tough all over

By The Hustler 3 Comments
Categories: Being a Hustler, Personal Notes and Procrastination

My dad used to tell me that when I would start bitching about something. He would then prompt me to come up with a solution. That pearl of wisdom was usually followed with a resounding, “Life ain’t fair – get used to it.”

When I was a kid, everything was about being fair. Playing nice and sharing and following the rules were the orders of the day.

Recently I haven’t been posting much. It has caused us to drop from Alltop (which was my last post.) Mostly because I have been too busy to type anything up. Each of these posts take about two hours – in case you were wondering. Time spent here, isn’t time being spent on making money (I do this for free remember?)

As an update, the last 6 months have been spent on the planning on opening a restaurant and lounge. Growing up in and owning other businesses in the food industry gives me a pretty good head for this. We finally found a location I like and construction has begun. Unless the city or the neighbors get in the way, we should be up and bumping in a few months.

However, things aren’t as sunny at one of my other businesses. I have lost two employees. One employee left to work for another unrelated company for more money. Good for her. The other has left to work for one of my vendors. This pretty much means I will no longer be doing business with that vendor.

But that is not a problem, at least not for me. See, I have to hire new people. These new people are willing to work for half as much as I was paying these last two employees. That’s great right? Hell yes it is! That means I can get more done for half as much. The funny thing is, I let the interviewees tell me how much they wanted to make and they volunteered to work for that much. Continue reading ‘Times are tough all over’

08
Mar

Web sites to help you get your hustle going.

By The Hustler 6 Comments
Categories: Author Background, Being a Hustler, Building a Crew, Financing Your Hustle, Money, Planning, Sales Training, Starting a Business, Strategies and Time Management

A Hustler is constantly evaluating their surroundings and the resources available to them. I have said before that if all you have is time, use that time to advance your hustle. I lived in a housing project near some agricultural drainage ditches. People would go down there to catch crawdads to make soup and other foods and then sell what they could make (even just sell the live crawdads at the flea market). I used to collect cans and bottles that people threw away to gather up some money. Whatever it is that surrounds you, take a look at it and figure out who doesn’t have it. Farrah Gray took rocks and sold them as door stops. He took extra lotions from around his house and mixed them together and sold them for extra money. Farrah Gray is a Hustler.

One thing that is pretty much available to anyone in the United States is Internet access. Coffee shops, libraries, Internet cafes, schools are all potential sources of computers with cheap or free internet access.

Now, you might not be able to charge folks to use these free computers (but if you can, I might have a job for you because that would mean you are on top of your sales hustle). Anyway, so you now have this incredible resource. Every day, people like you are making a few dollars to a few thousand dollars using the Internet. I have. I was making a few hundred dollars a month on eBay about 8 years ago spending about 4 hours a month posting items and mailing them out. I didn’t do anything special. I could probably start it up again if I wanted too, but it was boring. I make better money now doing things that are more fun for me – and isn’t that the real hustle? Continue reading ‘Web sites to help you get your hustle going.’

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