How to make a million dollars

The Basics
How to make a million dollars

Forget the joke about starting with $2 million. These people had better ideas. Here are nine stories -- and tips -- about making that first million.

By Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine

Being a millionaire isn't what it used to be -- but it sure beats not being one. Just ask the 8.2 million U.S. households -- an all-time record -- that had a net worth of more than $1 million in 2004, excluding the value of their primary residence. That was a 33% increase over the previous year, reports a survey by TNS Financial Services.

The surge was driven mostly by consistent investing in the stock market. But there are other ways to make a million -- start a business, invest in real estate, put yourself in the right place at the right time. Kiplinger's sought out people who did all those things and more. We found that although they had taken different routes, they followed a pattern; you might call that pattern the nine habits of highly successful millionaires. And all of them had a 10th trait in common: They never lost sight of their goal.


Nine first-million stories
Firefighter sees a need and fills it
Singer gets 'run over by a reindeer'
Couple rides the real-estate wave
Student athlete takes a sporting risk
Struggling actor waits 14 years for a hit
Bookkeeper helps build the ground floor at Lowe's
Pair invests through bull and bear markets
Couple wins an 'Amazing Race'
Would-be 'Pampered Chef' finds an idea to love


'Do whatever it takes'
Marco and Sandra Johnson started out saving lives in their community of Lancaster, Calif., and ended up running a multimillion-dollar business whose customers come from across the United Looking for a loan?
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The idea was born on the job. Marco, a full-time firefighter and paramedic, would come home from an incident and complain to Sandra that lives might have been saved if bystanders had been able to administer first aid. At the time, the Johnsons were trying to have a second child, and Marco was particularly upset when "children died unnecessarily because no one at the scene knew CPR," says Sandra.

In 1997, they began offering CPR and first-aid classes to local businesses. Sandra handled scheduling and other arrangements, and Marco taught classes between shifts at the firehouse. At first they borrowed material and equipment and brought it to each site; after a few months they scraped together enough money to rent a 400-square-foot office.

The business started to take off when workers whose jobs require CPR certification, such as schoolteachers and bus drivers, sought them out. Then students asked them to start training emergency medical technicians because local junior colleges had a two-year waiting list for EMT classes. Within a few years, the Johnsons had become accredited for EMT training and moved their Antelope Valley Medical College to bigger quarters. "Everything was happening fast," says Marco.

Riding the momentum took seven-day-a-week stamina. Marco alternated shifts at the firehouse with classroom duty, and Sandra was "always on the phone" setting up appointments. The couple didn't want to take out a business loan, so they plowed their own income into the school and sometimes put off making mortgage payments on their house to pay their employees. Says Marco: "There were times when it was a gut check. We looked at each other and said, 'What did we get ourselves into?'"

Now the Johnsons can breathe easier. In 2004, their school was expected to pull in revenues of $7.5 million, and their corporate clients have included businesses from Boeing to Burger King. That boom in business has given the couple the means to own several houses and to treat their extended family -- a group of 12 -- to vacations in Hawaii.

More million-dollar stories • Start on your first $1 million at age 16
• 8 lottery winners who lost their millions
• Is $1 million enough to retire on?
• Game plans from the NFL's instant millionaires
• Is your degree worth $1 million -- or worthless?
• Kiplinger's "Meet the Millionaires" forum (live through Jan. 31)



Even more rewarding, says Sandra, is the example they can set for their children: To accomplish your dream, "do whatever it takes." As for herself, "We're saving lives. It's awesome to know I was part of that with my husband." And Marco is finally planning to retire his fire helmet.

TIP #1: Go flat out. Between shifts at the firehouse, Marco Johnson, with his wife, Sandra, started a school to teach emergency medical techniques.

'I put my money where my mouth is'
Elmo Shropshire had a day job as a veterinarian in Marin County, Calif., and a side gig as a bluegrass singer when he recorded the holiday song that put him on the map -- and put his vet business out to pasture. The song, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," has sold 10 million copies, inspired a music video and a movie, and made Shropshire a millionaire five times over.

Shropshire first heard the saga of the tipsy grandma and the renegade reindeer after bumping into songwriter Randy Brooks, who wrote the piece, at a bluegrass performance. Convinced that the ballad suited his twangy voice and comic singing style, he shelled out $500 to record it himself and another $700 to make 500 singles. "Grandma" aired on a San Francisco radio station in 1979 and caused an instant ruckus. "Kids were calling in and saying, 'Play it, play it,'" says Shropshire.

Despite the enthusiastic reception, he couldn't find a record company to take "Grandma" national. Nevertheless, the song was frequently requested over the next several holiday seasons. Says Shropshire, "It was one of the few songs in history where public clamor rather than company hype drove demand."

Shropshire went for broke in 1983, investing $30,000 to produce his own "Grandma" music video and $10,000 to make an album featuring the song. The gamble paid off when MTV picked up the video (it still appears regularly) and Columbia Records offered him a distribution deal. In the three weeks before Christmas, the company sold 500,000 "Grandma" singles and 100,000 albums. Shropshire got a royalty check for $50,000.

The singer retired from his veterinary practice in 1995 and now works full-time on "Grandma"-related enterprises, which include sheet music, a stuffed singing reindeer and a recently released album called "Christmas in the U.S.A." Says Shropshire of his unlikely success, "I had this blind belief in the project. I put my money where my mouth is."

TIP #2: Support your idea. Elmo Shropshire, who recorded a hit holiday tune, invested over $40,000 of his own cash to produce a music video and an album.

'Figure out your strengths'
Soon after Scott and Mandi Leonard were married in 1996, they took a big risk. Scott quit his job as a stockbroker and started his own financial-planning business. He had no clients, no income and a big mortgage -- the Leonards had just put a 10% down payment on a $320,000 house in Redondo Beach, Calif.

For three years, Scott and Mandi lived on the income from Mandi's jobs with technology companies. Employed by Oracle and PeopleSoft, she earned valuable stock options during the go-go years of the late 1990s.

By 2000, Mandi wanted to quit working: Son Griffin was a year old and Jacob was on the way. Her PeopleSoft stock, for which she had paid $6 per share, had risen to $43, and Scott was getting nervous. They decided to sell the stock, trade up to a bigger house and stash some of the money in the bank. Says Scott, "Having a safety net was more important to us than trying to get an extra $10 per share on the stock." And a good thing, too. Within a year, the price had dropped into the teens.

The Leonards also made a smart real-estate investment. They sold their first house for about $500,000 and moved up to an $800,000 house in Hermosa Beach. With an ocean view and a rooftop deck, the house was recently appraised for $1.45 million.

Meanwhile, Scott's business began to take off -- he now manages about $100 million in assets for his clients -- and once again the Leonards decided to invest in real estate. About two years ago they paid $1.25 million for a historic but dilapidated house overlooking the water in Redondo Beach. They spent about $250,000 -- mostly in cash -- to renovate the property for Scott's business. That building was recently appraised for $1.8 million.

Having astutely ridden California's real-estate surge, the Leonards have enough home equity plus savings to put them comfortably in millionaire territory. They also have about $175,000 in 401(k) and IRA retirement funds invested in stocks, which they plan to beef up now that they have renovated their business property. "I'm very much in favor of diversifying investments," says Scott. But if the real estate market turns soft, he'll take the opportunity to "look hard at picking up another property."

The Leonards owe their success to knowing the difference between a calculated risk and a gamble. They felt more confident about starting a business and investing in real estate than about hanging on to their tech stocks. "Stand back and figure out your strengths and weaknesses," says Scott, "and keep your eye on your long-term goal."

TIP #3: Know what you do best. Scott and Mandi Leonard ditched their tech stocks to concentrate on real estate.

'Sometimes a big risk pays off'
When most kids are seniors in college, they're writing résumés and cruising toward graduation. Not Kevin Plank. Nine years ago, when Plank was in his last year at the University of Maryland, he began developing sportswear that now outfits most professional and college sports teams and makes a fashion statement on high-school playing fields. As the founder of Under Armour, Plank, 32, presides over a Baltimore company that employs 450 people and grossed more than $200 million last year.

Plank owes a debt to sweat. As a player on the Maryland Terrapins' football team, he wore a cotton undershirt that turned into a soggy liability during games. Already an entrepreneur (he was running a thriving floral-delivery service out of his dorm), Plank began searching fabric stores for a lightweight material that would fit snugly, wick away moisture and replace the undershirt.

Once he had found the perfect fabric, Plank paid a tailor $400 to come up with several prototypes and asked his teammates to try them out. "They said the shirt was great for football -- and baseball and lacrosse, too," says Plank. "I realized this wasn't just a shirt but a marketing opportunity."

Plank hit New York City's garment district and returned with enough fabric to make 500 undershirts, which he promoted to players on major college and NFL teams. "I would ask them to try this product, and if they liked it to give one to the guy in the next locker," says Plank. Eventually, teams on both sides of the field were wearing Plank's "compression apparel" -- and showing it off on TV.

After graduation, Plank raised start-up money by maxing out his credit cards to the tune of $40,000. He tried to patent his idea, but gave up after racking up $7,000 in legal fees. For the next several years he took no salary from the business, and he lived and worked rent-free in a house owned by his grandmother. He later got a $250,000 loan from the Small Business Administration and used almost half of it to repay debts.

Under Armour is now the official supplier of compression apparel to Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, and its garments are worn by about 30 NFL teams and nearly 100 Division I-A college football teams. It was a high-stakes gamble for a kid barely out of college, but Plank thinks youth worked in his favor. "When you're 22 or 23, there's no better time to take a big risk. Sometimes it pays off." In his case, the rewards have included buying a Cadillac at age 26 and gaining VIP access to major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl. "For someone who is passionate about sports, that's a big part of my payoff."

TIP #4: Go for broke. Just out of college, Kevin Plank ran up $40,000 in credit card debt to launch Under Armour, his sports-apparel company.

'I knew I would have to earn this'
Scott Patterson, star of the "Gilmore Girls" TV series, worked for years to get into the big leagues, honing his craft in small towns and throwing a curveball or two to keep things interesting. And that was just his baseball career.

Patterson pitched in the minor leagues during the 1980s, and came tantalizingly close to the majors. He was traded to the Yankees and then cut from the team.

Undaunted, he started a second long-shot career, moving to New York in 1986 to study acting. He worked with members of the Actors Studio and appeared in a couple of commercials a year to earn money to pay the rent. "I knew I would have to really, really earn this," says Patterson. "It turned out to be an endurance game."

He made a short-lived breakthrough in 1991, when ABC flew him to Los Angeles to audition for a TV movie, but that "crumbled very quickly." Back in New York, Patterson landed a few theater credits and then returned to L.A. He crashed on friends' couches and slept in his car -- a 1966 Pontiac Le Mans -- as he made connections that led to small movie roles and TV appearances. Eight years later, he says, he read for the part of Luke Danes, the male lead in "Gilmore Girls," and "I felt like I was home."

He didn't get rich the first year. "The money was good," he says, "though not as good as you'd think." But his salary has risen with the series' popularity, and as his character has grown. With a net worth in the millions, thanks to some astute investing, Patterson says he "can parachute out of this series and be pretty comfortable for the rest of my life."

Now Patterson shares his wealth by helping raise funds for a new pediatrics wing at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and for the National Children's Alliance. His advice: "Even when you've been pounded for 20 years, don't give up. If you stay in the game long enough, you get lucky."

TIP #5: Don't let setbacks get you down. It took actor Scott Patterson of "Gilmore Girls" 14 years and several big disappointments to become a Hollywood star.

'I was trained to work hard'
Petro "Pete" Kulynych made his millions the old-fashioned way: He started at the bottom . . .

Making a million dollar profit is actually incredibly simple

Making a million dollar profit is actually incredibly simple. There are infinite variations on the exact method, but the underlying principle is always the same. Just make a one dollar profit, and then repeat the process one million times.

That is not really a glib answer. It is the basic truth of all business. You are probably saying to yourself that if it were really that easy to make a million then everyone would have done it.

It really is that simple, but never confuse simple with easy. Walking is simple, but walking 5,000 miles is not easy.

Walking is a simple process of taking a step and then repeating the process as much as is required. So is making your million dollar profit a case of repeating the step of making a smaller profit as many times as it takes.

The fact is that anyone can make a million, and indeed many do. If you earn $50,000 per year for 20 years then you have made a million dollars. The trick that you and I want to discuss is how to make that million dollars in a far shorter time-span.

To do it, go back to the basics. To walk (or run) is to repeat the process of a single step. How quickly you repeat that step will determine your speed, and how many steps you take will determine the distance you cover.

So the basic step to making that million dollars is to make a profit. Any level of profit will do, whether it is 10 cents per step, or $10,000 per step. So long as each step carries you a positive distance towards your goal, the rest is simply repetition.

And that, my friend, is where so many big-name dotcoms have failed. All too often, they don't actually make a profit from a single sale. They may often spend over $20 to attract each customer to make a $10 purchase. They hope that somewhere down the line, losing more than $10 per sale will magically reverse itself into being profitable.

The number one reason that so many companies struggle to acheive a profit is that they are spending more to enable each transaction to happen, than the transaction is actually worth in profits.

A while back, the books and music giant, Amazon.com was spending a little over $30 to aquire each customer. Now, that's all well and good if each customer aquired immediately brought in around $50 of profit.

However, Amazon.com had, and still has, far too many competitors to afford to place a high mark-up on each product, and it also has to pay a percentage to its affiliates very often. What that actually means is that a customer generally has to make several purchases before that aquisition cost is made back, and only after that can Amazon.com actually make a profit on further transactions.

As you see, they are banking on engendering customer loyalty. The problem is that internet customers are not very loyal - many go wherever the best deal is at any time. If they were loyal types, they'd still be using the off-line music store they used before.

Heck, we live in a society where almost 2 out of every three marriages end in divource - and the number one reason for that divorce rate? You guessed: disloyalty.

However, Amazon may misjudge loyalty, but they have two other things that make up for it. They have amazing presence (everyone knows who they are and what they do) and they make it very easy to buy your books from them.

Amazon have spent a lot of time, thought and energy into devising means to engender customer loyalty. In general, they have done a superb job in this regard. Amazon gets to know its customers well, predicts their needs, and so offers a value that few can match in that regard. The value of any offer is never just a matter of the price.

For several years Amazon.com were referred to as "the best known company that has never made a profit". However to make that profit they simply needed to scale down their customer aquisitions. That way they allowed the existing customers to make enough purchases to pay back cost of aquiring them.

The people who for years mocked Amazon.com tended to forget their undoubted position as market leader, but the people at Amazon should likewise not forget that the purpose of being in business is to make money, not just be known.

And that brings us back to looking at how you too can make your millions ..

The most important thing about business, online or off, is to do business. Global domination at losing money is not business.

The best place to start is to know that out of every 100 visitors you will get at least one sale, and that that one sale will generate an overall profit.

The worst place to start is to try to attract millions of customers before you actualy work out what you are going to sell to them, or how you are going to sell it.

Remember the lesson, that your business journey begins with a single step, and that the single step is measured in terms of profit.

To make your million dollars, just focus on making your immediate smaller sales on the smaller level and then scale up. Never start on the macro scale of millions of customers because you'll never see the detail on that scale.

Always focus on ways to maximise your profit on the smaller scale. On how much you make from every ten visitors or every hundred visitors. Always be as keen to explore how to make more from that group as you are to attract larger groups.

The majority of this site will help you to attract more customers, but the best way to attract more profit is to leverage the customer base you have to greater effect and with greater efficiency. And then increase the customer base as well.

Sometimes it is far easier to make each customer generate 50% more revenue for your business, than to increase your number of customers by 50%. Increasing both factors is the best of all.

Ammon Johns

 

How The Easy Chair Millionaire Helped Me Make Money From Home

How The Easy Chair Millionaire Helped Me Make Money From Home

Imagine this…

You awake from bed on a Monday Morning… lazing on your bed. You do not did to work as you have multiple streams of Incomes coming to you even you are sound asleep yesterday.

You have not worry for money. Indeed, you have too much monies that you are considering giving some away to charity.

Now, you have a problem, but a good one. You have too much money and wonder what to do with them. You are your own boss now.. fully controlling your time and decide what you want to do at any moment of your life.

So, put into action right now to achieve your dreams.


How The Easy Chair Millionaire Helped Me Make Money From Home
by: Chris Rohrer



When I first found the easy chair millionaire it kind a reminded me of the rich jerk. Someone lazy, laid back, and loving life. I bought the rich jerk, and loved what he has to say. So I thought to myself this was probably like the rich jerk, and bought it.

I have to say his attitude in like the rich jerk but the information and the how to guides where a ton of help for me. I really liked the fact that I didn’t need to do to much work, as I can be a very lazy person myself sometimes. A lot of it was already done for me. Of course I had to do some work but not nearly as much as I thought.

The easy chair millionaire took me by the hand and showed me exactly what I had to do. Most people claim to have the answer to everything, and claim to help show you the way. Well the easy chair millionaire defiantly lives up to its name.

The steps where easy to follow, and where so simple even a beginner could do this. There is nothing you will not be able to understand. He has put together one of the best dummy proof systems I have seen in a long time. This isn’t the first product I bought like this. But the easy chair millionaire is by far in my top 3 that I have purchased.

If you are searching for a successful program that will show you how to make extra money online. I highly recommend you take a look at what the easy chair millionaire has to say. You will not be disappointed at all.