MOVING ON

More books ready for listing in my online storefronts anytime from now A photo posted by Jerome Espinosa Baladad (@dyerohmeb) on Jul 14, 2014 at 8:28am PDT Something good must have been happening because I have come to realize I've been growing several online bookstore storefronts these past 5 years or so. It mainly started from having to schlep all my books every time I move to new dwellings. The collection of books has been brought about by my main occupation as a writer, a job that so many other New York City (NYC) dwellers share with me. I have to make a living out of my writings, so I would figure out ways to make money from all these activities I do that are related to my main job as a writer.  I know that a bookstore will have better chances of growing and making money if it has items that are ready for the selection and buying of the shopper who happened to looking for particular printed materials at such unpredictable times. I don't worry much about

Read the article on TNYT here. Even businesses, which are owned and managed by people, have moving on experiences. Certain changes can't be helped, if you get to see how changes have continuously enveloped this 'much expensive' section of Manhattan. In this particular case, I see it's technology that has brought about the actual moving on event to unfold and take place. And so many people's lives would be affected as this moving on process continues to take place. Somewhat dreaded (it seems to me) by some, we can all learn to be prepared to face our respective moving on experiences. The process is not exclusive to human beings, as we all get to become more familiar with 'Moving On' while we go about doing and pursuing our respective lives. It's not something I invented - I just happened to experience it so strongly many years ago and have decided to face it and highlight it in my writing works. Don't take it against yourself if you're very

If you've been engaged in any form of network marketing these days, you'll be helped a lot by reading this book by Mark Yarnell and Rene Reid Yarnell: Your First Year In Network Marketing . I've been doing and working on my franchise business with Market America / shop.com for nearly a year then when I got the chance to hear about this book from one of the leading partners who came to town in Flushing, Queens to share his experience. And so I was prevailed to order my copy and begun reading it as soon as my second hand copy arrived. It's an easy read but I didn't finish reading it right away because I got myself caught up in activities I've been doing for my online businesses as I continue doing my part-time jobs mainly for cash flow reasons, in addition to a long list of books I've been reading as well because I'm a writer and a bookseller.  As expected, the book didn't really cover much about Market America and its difficult-to-copy compensatio

I've been having brief discussions with some people I've met who behave toward me as if I'm a leper or that I'm just taking them for a ride. This situation is particularly true especially when they realize I'm working hard and focused in building my business (so my goals would be accomplished now or sooner), and that I'd like them to consider exploring this opportunity, specifically with Market America ( www.shop.com/jeromebaladad ) to become entrepreneurs themselves (or share the idea to their followers). Most of these people are religious or those who belong to some types of  organizations that they think and feel are much bigger than themselves. Along the way, they express, although not necessarily in the most verbal way, how much they despise everything about being in business, as if  it's the business person's fault that supply and demand of materials we love and look for these days behave most strangely (hello? such situations have been around

Oh, well, the title is long; it carries the entire message of this posting. I was inspired to share here about some persons I've met, known and invited to explore opportunities I see with my franchise business with Market America ( shop.com/jeromebaladad ). Probably, they don't see yet in me the benefits of having explored those opportunities that I've been telling them these past few months. Or they're just not interested for now. I've learned not to take things, including rejections, personally.  But still, I wonder why some of them have refused to explore. One of them includes a roommate. He's an American, born and raised in Brooklyn. Good looking, still healthy, relatively young, not really busy as it seems to me, does part time jobs to meet and pay his bills, he could be a very good prospect who could build his business for starters as he's not even employed full time. But I got the chance to clarify a lot of confounding observations on him when he k

Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer "Rich people don't create jobs" - YouTube : Gratefully, I am inspired by what I heard from this guy. Yes, what he's been expounding on is truthful and factual. However, those statements are very political as well, and so I can understand why this talk has been banned (if it's true that it was indeed banned). But no matter what your political leanings are and your attitude toward his ideas, they are not really relevant here. Just consider more seriously that he's actually talking from experience. As an entrepreneur myself (I have online businesses--- my online bookstore , my eBay.com store , my writings works , my shop.com business with Market America , among other online storefronts that I grow and maintain), I can only rightfully claim that I'm mostly a capitalist myself, i.e. I make use of the small amounts of money I make from my part-time jobs to finance and grow my businesses. To-date, I've not gone out of my way t

Very impressed with this OUTSTANDING seller--& I buy more than 100 used books online each year. I honestly couldn't be happier with this purchase--the quality of the book, price, & super fast shipping. I can confidently state that this is one of the best sellers I've had the pleasure of doing business with on Amazon. Highly recommended, & I will DEFINITELY buy more books from them in the future! (from a customer in Denver, Colorado, and who bought the book "A Dictionary of Modern English Language" from my storefront on Amazon.com) I'm very grateful for customers who would find time to praise and give feedback for their buying experience from one of the online storefronts I grow and maintain. I have several online storefronts where I market and sell a variety of products for over 2 years now. In addition to mostly positive feedback I receive, I get terrible feedback as well. Once in a while I get very difficult-to-please customers who are so petty and

I've been a small scale entrepreneur since at least 15 years ago. Or I should say, I had learned to take the first few critical steps in becoming an entrepreneur as a child when I followed a good friend's suggestion that we earn money by acting as guides and guards for people who would park their cars while hearing the Sunday mass in a nearby church. Boy, we did earn some good money that time, which we would continue to do for the next few weekends. I would eventually study in the school that's affiliated with the church in high school, which experience gave me more valuable lessons in many areas in life that I make good use of up to now. In my career as an entrepreneur, I've been a hog raiser, a beauty salon owner, a retailer of a variety of services and products, a freelance writer and author, a pawnshop owners, a masseur who chooses his clients if they're fun to be with, a lender, an equity investor, a keen saver of pennies that earn compound interest, a busine

Today has been one of those days in my online selling business that I'm giving up the opportunity to earn more. What do I mean by this? I just sold the tiny book ' Collected Writings of William De Kooning' thru my Amazon.com storefront and, gratefully, it was sold at a good price! However, I soon realized that other sellers are selling the item at over 120% higher than the price I set for my item. But I reminded myself that I made more profit because I got the book for free before I listed it online, i.e., a good friend gave away some of his books to me so he could continue making space in his tiny apartment in Manhattan. And I continued to calculate more. I could opt to cancel the sale, actually. I think the buyer would probably sell the item himself and earn profits along the way. But I figured out soon I won't be doing that. I'd never know when items in my online storefronts would get sold, although I know they would be sold eventually. In the meantime, I have

I got a negative feedback as an online seller on Amazon.com ('2 out of 5') recently, and she said I was 'very rude.' I'm copy pasting the exchange of mails we had here, which you have to read from the bottom of the message, for those curious on what went on before the feedback was given. Please feel free to judge for yourself. I guess the damage on both our sides have been done so the next wise move to make is to move on from this horrendous experience. I pray I get more profits from this online business so I can provide support as well to those seeking help from me, one way or another.  In the meanwhile, I have yet to receive the LP with the album cover (after a week as of this writing), which she said was a wrong one from what she ordered. Prior to her sending me her last message shown below, I've already refunded her plus gave her $4 for shipping back costs. You & I may have similar ideas about her (& of course, on me as a seller ha ha ha ha). In t

Diversity will always be an asset to any organization, as long as it's recognized as such. If you're a businessperson willing to take risks, one area where you can focus your efforts on is to hire from a diverse pool of people, as long as you personally like them. It's always a smart move to recruit people who are different from you, and who will complement your own strengths and weaknesses - you simply can't do everything. Of course, this is difficult to do, as your ego will always distract you from what the real and critical issues are when you do recruitment. And it's more of a big challenge is you're a control freak. click on the title for more...

"Recruitment and selection" used to be the biggest part of my workload when I was still leading a full time corporate lifestyle. Well, that's a pretty loaded statement. In short, I was a "Recruiter" which job was the first one I did fresh from college, where I was taught the rudiments by the experts in that field and who were then building and running their own executive search firm. There's a lot of jargon involved, but it helps if you become familiar with recruitment and selection processes, even if you're not into HR. Becoming familiar with them is click on the title for more...

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham My review rating: 5 of 5 stars My friend who's also a book reader was surprised at me reading a book as "boring" as this one. I actually bought it months after the news on the meltdown of banks and financial institutions have settled down. I wanted to review what I learned about Financial Management including "investing" from MBA school (having finished mine in 2001). I took my own sweet time reading and re-reading this, most of which time I spent while traveling to and fro the subway to my daily destinations. The time was well spent, as I got myself reviewed and even have come up with another goal on investing that's included in my annual goals, of which I'm working on now. What's wonderful about this book is that it was written by someone who knew firsthand the ups and downs of the financial market for over 50 years (am not sure now, but you can verify this as you read the book), specifically &quo