Tag Archive for 'entrepreneur'

16
Jun

18 things a hustler needs to know how to do

By The Hustler 0 Comments
Categories: Being a Hustler, Personal Notes, Planning and Strategies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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’

01
Jun

panning for gold at work - making the most of your day job

By The Hustler 0 Comments
Categories: Financing Your Hustle, Starting a Business and Planning Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Recently a reader asked a question. I was going to respond in thecomments but my last post was so weak that I thought you all deserved something a little better than my late night emotional digital outburst.

So the reader said that he wanted to know, as he develops into his carreer as a teacher, how to keep an eye out for a hustle that he could jump into and take advantage of.

Hustles present themselves to you every day, no matter where you are. They show up, hang around for a minute and pass on to the next guy if you failed to grab onto it.

I dig teachers. I have a bit of an envy for teachers which is probably why I set this blog up in the first place.

I have friend who is a teacher that got into real estate as his sideline hustle. He now owns a few houses hat he rents out. He isnt making a killing on the month to month. Each house only brings in a hundred bucks or so a month - but in 20 to 30 years they will be paid off and worth a few $100k each. I have another friend who is a professor at a pretty large university. He took his expertise to the next level and saw that an educational and theraputic tool used in the field hadn’t been changed in 50 years. He and I modernized it and made it cross cultural. He invested $25,000 and flipped it into $125,000 in a year. Continue reading ‘panning for gold at work - making the most of your day job’

01
May

Times are tough all over

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

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

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.’

11
Feb

Being broke sucks. Wasted potential blows.

By The Hustler 4 Comments
Categories: Being a Hustler, Personal Notes and Author Background Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

For most of you, I don’t need to explain that. But sometimes when I say it to people, they nod and agree and dismiss the statement. These are folks who have never been broke.

To them, being broke means not being able to buy name brand products or not buying new clothes. What I am talking about is broke like you might eat dirt just to fill the hole in your stomach. I mean jumping people’s fences to eat not ripe vegetables out of their gardens. I mean broke to where you lift a garbage lid in hopes of finding something that doesn’t stink so you don’t gag while forcing yourself to choke it down. I have been this broke.

I have also been $1.00 a day on food broke. I have stolen for food. I have cheated for food. I have dated 6 girls at the same time to get free food from them. They didn’t have to be cute, just generous.

I am not proud of the things I have done to fill the hole in my belly and to keep a warm place to sleep. I wasn’t proud while I was doing it and I am not proud while I type this out. Yeah, at the time I was talking shit to my guy friends about being a pimp or being a player. One girl was paying for my pager, another put gas in my car. Each girl knew I was playing around but each thought that they were my “Bottom Bitch”.

And that’s why it was cold. I still talk to some of those girls. They went on to have jobs and families. None of them really knew what I was doing to them – at least there is that. But I lost part of my soul back then. I work daily to get it back. It is a burden that I have to carry.

But for all the things I have done, I have never begged.

I don’t know why I could steal, but I couldn’t beg. Maybe I couldn’t look people in the face and take from them. I had to do it at night, with no one around.

I used to give money to beggars from time to time. I have noticed that I give less and less to beggars when they ask. Last week I saw a young, well, strong black man sitting next to the door of my local grocery store. He hit me up for money. I bit my tongue, squared up and kept walking. Then I sat in my car and watched him. He was able to work, but he wasn’t. He was begging. Maybe this was his hustle.

My time running the street, I have met a lot of homeless people and a lot of professional beggars. These are folks who just don’t want to work. Begging is their job. Sometimes I think that they are doing a service. The people who give them money feel good about themselves and it only cost a buck or so in spare change. There is an exchange of cash for services.

But this kid made me mad. He had potential. He could be doing anything. Why was he begging? Did he think that was the strongest hustle he had? Then I started to think about his strategy. He picked the store in town where a majority of the patrons are wealthy. The ones who aren’t white are immigrants. Now the wealthy Indians and Asians in my neighborhood do not give to beggars. Most of them work very hard. Hell, most of the people in my neighborhood work hard, and they aren’t the types to give up their money to someone because he asks for it or looks sad.

So, this was the best he could do. He put on his sad puppy face and tries to pull in some spare change on a side hustle. It was weak and sad. He had a better chance of pulling off a security con at the local mall. You know the one. “Hey, for $5 I’ll make sure no one messes with your car.”

People are more likely to give you something if you are willing to do something. You show people some motivation or good will; they will meet you half way. Begging is the lowest hustle I can think of. If that is the best you have got, then you might as well punch a time clock. It is the same thing, but at least you have your self-respect.

People may find this a bit harsh from me. This kid affected me emotionally. I see young people in my town begging all the time. Most of them are stoners, burnouts, lazy or generally pieces of human waste. There was something about this kid that made me notice him. There was something that ate away at my gut. Something that made me question who he was and what he was doing.

The point is this. You aren’t as cute as you think you are. No one is going to give you enough money to live on because you look sad. If you are going to try and pull off a con, you better set up shop where you can actually get over on your mark. Otherwise you are wasting time, wasting effort and wasting potential.

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