Check it out. 

Meanwhile… some updates on all the projects I’m working on:

MegaSticky.com - This is my over sized sticky note business, that sells 1 foot by 1 foot sticky notes. It’s coming along nicely. We just recently got some mention somewhere since business has picked up dramatically. Right now, it’s doing about $100 to $500 a day in business.

LetsFax.net - Prepaid faxing service. This was just launched a couple weeks ago. Very slow since no one knows about it yet. I need to do some press releases…etc. Income is negligible.

BiggestOnEarth.com - We’re in the middle of revamping this site to offer the awards free of charge, with an upgrade option of buying a hard copy certificate. So, the site is non functional right now. Once we get it back up and running, I suspect it’ll start slow and build. Maybe $20 to $100 a day in revenue.

Great American Collectibles - This is one of my businesses that has languished, when it comes to my efforts to grow the company. But I will be putting more effort into it in the coming months. We’re going to be coming out with a new line of miniature carved collectibles. The characters will only be 1.5" tall and will be just about as cute as you can get.

Right now we have the following lines of collectibles… Uncle Sams, Old World Witches, Old World Santas and a line called "Flatys".

EbookPrintouts.com - Without even trying hard, this company is doing about $40K in annual revenue. I need to flesh out the infrastructure more to facilitate more clients and this could easily grow to well over $250K a year within a 12 month period.

Sticky123.com - This is one of my businesses that is too labor intensive to grow. So I’ve allowed it to stop growing. We still get an order every once in a while, but my plan to automate it has fallen through. I was going to get some help from a Chinese outfit, to perfect my methods of getting stickys printed through a more efficient method, but I can’t find a company that can do it to my specifications.

Twitmoney.com - This is an exciting project that is not completed yet. So, there’s nothing at the site. But it’s one of my most promising ideas (in my humble opinion) and I can’t wait to launch it. Can’t wait. Stay tuned.

I have other business ventures that I don’t mention, only because of business confidentiality. But they are all going along smoothly.

You just gotta start small and work each and every idea that comes to you, to at least some degree or another. But be discerning. If an idea is not fleshing out to be potentially profitable, drop it like a hot potato and move on.

Watch your back today. Don’t go to a major city and if you live in one… get up early and take a drive into the country. Never hurts to be too careful. 

I have just finished the development of a new, very unique, online faxing service. It allows you to pre pay for incoming faxes, without having to pay a monthly fee for your own fax number. It’s really cool. Here’s how it works.

Everyone uses the same toll free number to receive faxes. It’s 877-LETS-FAX. The only thing you have to do is make sure the person faxing you puts your email address somewhere on the fax cover sheet. It can be hand written or typed…whatever.

When the document(s) is faxed to 877-LETS-FAX, the system will sort and forward the fax via email to whoever’s email address is noted on the cover sheet. It arrives as a PDF attachment.

The system keeps track of your prepaid balance and the cost is a flat 25 cents per fax AND 20 cents per page received (remember, this is a toll free call to the sender, too!) Compare this to Kinkos or any other publicly accessible fax machine and you can see how inexpensive and convenient this service is.

If you get a fax and you haven’t deposited any money into your prepaid account or you don’t have enough to cover the incoming fax, you’ll get an email from the service telling you that you need to add money to your account in order to receive the incoming fax. You can also check your balance anytime you want by clicking on the "Balance" link on the front page of the site. 

This system isn’t for everyone, of course. You can get a toll free number that can be used to call you AND act as a 24 hour fax line as well, for as little as $2 a month plus per minute usage charges. Many people would do that before using LetsFax.net. But for those that don’t want any monthly financial commitment and only receive 3 or 4 faxes a year, or less, LetsFax.net is a great deal.

It’s also a great way for businesses to be able to fax something to a customer without the customer having to figure out how to gain access to a fax, since they can use one prepaid account to fax something to a multitude of customers over time. The customer just receives the fax as an attachment to their email. Nice and simple. Customer doesn’t have to do anything.

It also allows you to use your fax machine as a scanner to scan documents into a PDF format. Just fax it to 877-LETS-FAX and have your own email address on the cover sheet and it’ll show up in your email as a PDF attachment.

Again, this isn’t for everyone. But it’s a good little niche’ product for those that need it.

I just recently came across a very cool calling card that entrepreneurs like me could definitely use. In my example, I have several businesses, all of which have their own toll free numbers so I can know what business is being called before answering the phone. Each has their own voicemail…etc. I use this toll free phone service. You can choose your own vanity toll free number and each can have their own voicemail. Among so many other options. I even have all my calls recorded so I can take an order while I’m on the golf course and then when I get back to the office, listen to the call again and transcribe the call.

My problem is when I call a customer back, their caller ID sees my cell or home phone (whatever phone I’m using to call them back on) instead of my toll free number associated with that particular business. With this very unique calling card, I can choose what number they see on their caller ID. That way, if they use the number on their caller ID to call me back, I will be able to answer the right way, enabling me to answer with the name of the business…etc. If I call back a customer on my home phone, which I do a LOT, they could be calling me back on that phone number and my wife could be answering and just saying "Hello"…etc. This way, I keep all my businesses and customers on the right lines and I don’t have to worry about mixing things up.

It also allows you to choose a female voice for your listener to hear when you talk, disguising your voice. (Or a male voice, if you are a female.) I have no use for that, but it is a COVERT calling card, so I guess that’s one of the covert features. It also will record your call for later playback, if you wish.

Anyway, check it out if you have multiple businesses, or just a need to disguise the number you are calling from. It’s a pretty nifty thing to have around when you need it. (Oh, and they have an affiliate program! This could be a door to door sales item, easily!)

Update June 2007

There’s a better way to mask your outgoing phone number than covert call, mentioned above, now. The best way to make a call to someone now, and have their caller ID show a different number than the phone you’re actually calling from, is to get a toll free number (for your business, of course) from this service and then do the following. When you want to call someone and have your toll free number show up on the caller ID of the party you’re calling, dial the following: 18004889999 then dial your toll free number without the "1". So, if your toll free number is 888-555-5555, then dial that. Then enter your PIN. Then dial 5 and then the number you are calling.

To make it easier, I have the following put into a speed dial on my phone. The "P"s are hardcoded pauses that most address books allow you to use when inputting speed dialed numbers. The "X"s should be your own toll free number and the "pin" is your 4 digit PIN that you have set up in your toll free number service control panel.

18004889999PPXXXXXXXXXXPpinPPP5

After the "5" at the end you enter the number you are calling. One thing nice about this service is you can dial ** at the end of your conversation and then just dial another number without having to hang up and do the whole thing over again. So, you can group your call backs in one session and save some time. 

The site is currently doing a soft launch. There might be a bug here and there so if you catch one, please let me know. Use the contact form on the site to let me know.

Right now, it’s just a fun site but we’re adding features that will allow you to advertise your own business or endeavor (whatever it might be) on the URL that is given to you for your particular award. 

So what number are you and in which category are you the biggest on earth? 

Update: We’ve changed the pricing on each award and you can just buy an electronic version without getting the hard copy sent via snail mail.

Here’s a really cool marketing/office/home product. They’re called Genius Pads and are finally available in the US. Basically, they’re huge sticky notes that measure about 1 foot by 1 foot. I can’t tell you how many uses I can think of for this product. I’ll be writing about some as time goes on.

Oh, and I forgot to mention… I’m the one selling them. Yep, that’s my site at megasticky.com. I saw this product about 6 months ago somewhere on a blog. I went to the site selling them and realized they were ONLY available in the UK. I paid $65 to have a pad of 300 shipped to me here in the US.

Spotting an opportunity, I arranged to be the US distributor for the product with the original manufacturers, and viola! MegaSticky.com was born.

Spot an opportunity, formulate a plan and implement. It’s called Entrepreneurialism.

More about uses for this product as time goes on. Watch this space!!  :-) 

I certainly hope she goes back to saying looney stuff to garner favor with the anti-American, hate filled left, so I can get back to the real world. Appreciating the comments of Hillary Clinton is just not something I’m used to. Between that and her sporadic support of the Iraq war, what’s a die hard Republican to do? 

Find a business kind of book and send it along to:

L.Haddock
Pre Release Program
South Central Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 279
Clifton, TN 38425-0279

Cheers!

Dan 

Update: And now I read the following from the Drudge Report (this link will expire soon, as it normally does, so I’m quoting it below):

WSJ: Scholar Warns Iran’s Ahmadinejad May Have ‘Cataclysmic Events’ In Mind For August 22
Tue Aug 08 2006 10:22:35 ET

In a WALL STREET JOURNAL op-ed Tuesday, Princeton’s Bernard Lewis writes: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran’s present rulers."

"In Islam as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time — Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by Aug. 22," which this year corresponds "to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).

"This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."

Developing…

All I gotta say to this is… Holy Armageddon, Batman!