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One Minute Odd Job Tip

It has been said that the most potential is on the cutting edge of anything new.

What does this mean? Well, the guy (or gal) who comes up with a new idea, something really new, can capitalize on it in the biggest way. This is actually the logic behind the patent process.

The patent process is designed to reward the person who comes up with a new idea by allowing that innovative person exclusive rights to the idea in the market for a period of time.

This excusive period of time is the opportunity for the inventor to charge whatever the market will bear for his new product, with the added benefit of a limited supply — only the inventor’s supply.

This is why at the end of a patent, products become much less expensive. Now any other capitalist can produce, market and sell the product.

>>> NEXT WEEK: I guess it’ll be a surprise next week. I need to see what intrigues me for next week’s subject :)

Strictly Business: I wish I could come up with a new idea for a business.

Many other people have said this besides me. Of course, it can’t be forced, you need to just observe and wait for the opportunity to present itself. That doesn’t mean to do nothing! You need to be exposing yourself to your surroundings so that you’ll see the opportunity.

I’ve always done a lot of reading, and more than once this has exposed me to an idea.

Often when we go grocery shopping, I occupy myself by stopping by the newsstand in the grocery store and reading the magazines for free while my wife goes shopping. It makes both of us happy to do it this way 😁.

One day, I read a one-page article about a new business in the Sacramento area in California. This man started a bio-hazard remediation service. It was interesting, but that’s all I thought about it at the time. On the way home, I told Laura about the man and the article. After listening to me prattle on about what an interesting idea for a business it was, she said to me, “We could do that.”

That was all it took! We built a similar business and made a great deal of money (there was no one in our area performing this service for crime victims and their families). And then we sold the business.

I am so glad I read that article, told my wife, and she spoke up!

That’s how it happens sometimes, organically. So relax and let your surroundings give you ideas. There are plenty of needs out there that your fellow man would like to be satisfied.

Here are some that come to mind:

Some Odd Jobs You May Never Have Considered:

Number 1 — Ponzi Scheme Victim Tax Amending — (S maybe B Quadrant¹)

This idea just came to me this week.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the gigs that my wife and I have done — and are in the middle of doing right now — is tax preparation.

Near the end of last year’s tax season, I had an appointment on the books that was very unique. When this client came in, she showed me what had happened to her over the last five years.

She was very frustrated!

We’ll call her Julie. Julie had put $25,000 into an investment five years ago, on the advice of a friend. After three years, the FBI busted up the investment — it was a Ponzi Scheme! All of her investment, her original $25,000, as well as all of the (fictitious) gains, were gone.

But Julie also told me that she had heard rumors of the IRS creating a special provision to help folks like her. That’s all she knew.

Of course, over the years that the Ponzi Scheme was supposedly working, Julie had paid income tax on the earnings, so I knew that we could amend the returns for those years and get back any taxes.

She was fine with that, but she kept saying that there’s more that can be done. I took her paperwork and promised I would see what we could do.

That night I woke up at 2 am thinking about Julie and her situation. I picked up my phone and started Googling. After about an hour, I found it! As I remember, the federal government had made a very special provision for people who had been victimized by a Ponzi Scheme, whereby they not only would refund all income taxes paid on “fictitious” earnings, but they would also do a nonrefundable tax credit for all moneys invested (her original $25,000) into the scheme!

When I started reading this, it blew my mind. The IRS document was quite long and reading on my phone is not my favorite task, so, at 3 in the morning, I’m driving to the office and printing off what amounted to a small book.

By the time normal people were waking up, I had a solution for my client.

Long-story-short, Julie will not have to pay any federal income tax for the next seven years or so, and after amending her past returns, she received a refund of all of her federal income taxes paid.

She is happy, happy, happy!

I’m playing around with the idea of pursuing it, but for now, as far as I know, there is no one focusing on this niche.

Ponzi Schemes have victimized thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people. I personally know three people who have been the victims of Ponzi Schemes. In two of these cases, I know it has devastated their life savings and their retirement.

It’s a horrible thing that has caused huge issues in a family’s life, and in some cases, even caused early death due to the stress.

In short, this fits the “find a need and fill it” model. Are there any other companies or tax practitioners focusing on this? Not that I know of.

That’s called OPPORTUNITY!

Number 2 — Time Share Cancelation — (E, S maybe B Quadrant¹)

There are thousands of people who’ve bought timeshare vacation properties and are really sorry that they have them.

They can’t figure out how to get out from under them! I won’t go into the negative or positive aspects of owning a timeshare, that’s a completely different newsletter. We’re just dealing with the fact that some people want out of them, and that it can be really tough to do that.

There are a few companies out there filling this need. So it isn’t brand new, but it was for the companies doing it. One of them was the first one. Is there money to be made in this niche? Definitely! It’s filling a real need.

I don’t know much about the procedure or the ins and outs of what’s needed here, but I’m guessing that with the more than 200,000 time share units in the U.S. and the, on average 52 owners per time share, yes, you do the math.

Number 3 — Sidewalk Advertising — (S maybe B Quadrant¹)

You may have seen stickers applied to a floor, or even a sidewalk, to advertise something.

When we were living in Europe, we ran across this very innovative method of sidewalk advertising: some have called it “reverse graffiti”. I’ve also heard it called “dirty street” advertising.

Imagine a dirty sidewalk, you know, just the day-to-day dirt and grime, nothing gross.

Of course, this can be easily cleaned with a pressure washer, right? Here’s the twist: they make a template advertising something and lay it down on the dirty sidewalk. Then pressure wash the sidewalk! The pressure washer cleans the sidewalk and leaves the dirt where the template has shielded the grime.

The pressure washer leaves an advertisement that will last for whatever time it takes for the dirt to build up again on the sidewalk.

Here’s a video that shows what I’m talking about.

I’m not sure what would be required to do this without repercussions from the city you’re in, or any other concerns, legal or otherwise. But it isn’t like you’re painting the sidewalk or defacing it.

You are actually cleaning the walkway, but you’ll have to do that research locally where you are.

It could be an interesting business, to get local business to pay you to “apply” these reverse graffiti advertisements in their behalf!

Here’s a very bold idea: J&M Donuts could hire you to apply their ad on the side on the sidewalk in front the local Dunkin’ Donuts.

We’ll leave this one at that.

Number 4 — Aquarium Rental — (S maybe B Quadrant¹)

It’s proven that aquariums have a relaxing and calming effect on people.

Can you think of a place where people need to be calmed down? How about a dentist’s office or doctor’s office? Law office, or….? The list could go on and on.

These types of places could really benefit from a having a fish aquarium in the waiting room, both to calm the patients, and also to occupy children.

Growing up, when I was very young, I remember going to the eye doctor. The eye doctor had an aquarium with kissing fish in it. It was great fun for us to watch that aquarium in anticipation for those fish kissing.

Can you imagine how much easier it was for the receptionist to manage waiting patients with this entertainment in the waiting room?

This is a great business for someone who has an interest, even a passion, for fish and aquariums. You would, of course, provide the aquarium and all the peripherals to the business as well as the fish. You’d also provide a service where you do maintenance on each tank, maybe weekly or whatever. If there’s a problem with the setup, you will get calls from the business, for example, if a fish dies, you will have to deal with that.

But you can make the terms anything you want!

I can see this business being very satisfying and a lot of fun to operate.

This Week’s Quotes:

I envy people who drink. At least they know what to blame everything on.

— Oscar Levant

It can be a real struggle to accept that sometimes appearance can be more important than talent or intelligence.

— Jennifer Hudson

I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.

— E. M. Forster

When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.

— Bernard Bailey

We are like oil and water, but all my other relationships are like oil and vinegar! Delicious!

— Takayuki Ikkaku

A Book for Success — This week, I’m not going to mention a book, but a movie. It’s an old movie and great fun to watch, but there’s a powerful lesson in this movie for any business person.

The movie is an Edward G. Robinson film from 1938, called A Slight Case of Murder.

It’s about a mobster who ran an illegal brewery during Prohibition. But then Prohibition ends, and the mobster decides he’s going “legit”. It’s hilarious to see how those old mobster habits die hard.

The lesson comes when he discovers why he can’t sell his beer in the post-Prohibition business climate.

This is the official movie trailer for A Slight Case of Murder. I see you can rent it on Youtube, and you may be able to find it on your particular streaming service.

Humor —

Wisdom of a City Boy  

Here's a cute joke that several people sent me this week, so I suspect it may be floating around the Internet, but in case you haven't seen it, enjoy!

A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died." Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already.”

Kenny said, "OK then, just unload the donkey." The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?" Kenny replied, "I'm going to raffle him off."

Farmer ejected, "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" Kenny said, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he’s dead." A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"

Kenny, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00.

Farmer asked, "Didn't anyone complain?" Kenny replied, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Some Random Final Thoughts—

It’s kind of a funny thought to think that a hundred years ago or so, there was talk about shutting down the U.S. Patent office because “everything has already been invented”. Can you imagine?

Today, as always, there’s plenty of room for a good new idea.

And the person who comes up with that good new idea can benefit from it greatly. It takes looking at your surroundings in a little different way than we may do now.

We need look around. And when we see something that could be better, thinking about what we might be able to do to make it better.

It could be something very simple. Imagine that your shoe laces didn’t have that little hard end on them. What a pain to lace your shoes without the aglet on the end!

Well, one day somebody said just that — and did something about it. Supposedly that man, Harvey Kennedy, made a quarter of a million dollars on that idea. That was back when $250,000 was real money!

Is there another idea out there as simple and as lucrative? Of course there is!

Maybe you’re the one to take advantage of it!

Have a good and creative week.

¹ CashFlow Quadrant references the book, Cashflow Quadrants by Robert Kiyosaki. In a nutshell, there are four sources of income — “E” Employee, “S” Self-Employed, “B” Business and “I” Investor. We reference these quadrants at the beginning of each of the jobs we talk about in Odd Job Tips Newsletter. To see more about this concept, refer to this issue of this newsletter.

Disclaimer: All information in this newsletter is for entertainment purposes and should not be construed as financial, career, or any other kind of advise. Use any information form this newsletter at your own risk. C’mon, put on your big boy pants and take personal responsibility for your own actions.

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