A Millionaire at 15

You ever wondered why some of us seem to be "born salesmen" with our copy while others struggle to throw a sentence together and ask for the order? When did you start selling stuff? When did your advertising copywriting start? As a child or have you come to Internet Marketing/flogging stuff of late? Moi? I started quite young.

I'm sitting here in my sixth floor Parisian apartment looking out over "la Tour Eiffel" musing on some of the great money-making ideas people have had. Money-making ideas that needed good copy. I'm thinking of this British kid who had a brilliant idea to make a million bucks - a page full of pixels that he sold in advertising blocks - a million dollars worth.

WWW.MILLIONDOLLARHOMEPAGE.COM

(My tiny 100 pixel ad for my blog "Welcome to Wallyworld" is under the "Silly Ant" to the left of the "I.P. Chicken" at top-right. Cost me $100 five years ago and is still bringing me traffic.) Know how he launched it? He put out Press Releases, seeded articles into his local suburban press and blogged about it. In no time flat the world's mainstream media picked up the story and the rest, as they say, is history. One simple idea supported by good marketing and copywriting - Bingo! One Million Bucks in a few months, thanks very much.

Wish I'd thought of that. I've been dreaming up money-making schemes since I was a small kid. I should have been a Millionaire at 15 the way I was going.

First I had the "Funny Smells" business. I thought it brilliant. I must have been about ten, I think. I had the idea of bottling weird and wonderful smells and selling them by the roadside. Not a bad business plan. Except the place I selected to set up my stall was on "The World's Steepest Street" in Sydney, Australia - where I grew up. The Kiwis claim their Baldwin Street, in New Zealand's southern city of Dunedin, is the world's steepest street with a slope of 1:2.86 (19° or 35%) - that is, for every 2.86 metres travelled horizontally, the elevation rises by 1 metre. But I'm sure our street was steeper. BTW the upper section of the Kiwi street is so steep that it's paved in concrete rather than asphalt as bitumen would flow down the slope on a hot day.

So I set up "Funny Smells" on this ridiculously steep hill. Not really thinking it through. As in "where are your customers gonna park, little Dude? Talk about "setting yourself up for failure". There was no way any traffic coming up that hill was going to stop to have a go of my "Funny Smells" - they were flat out making it to the top half the time. Many a day I saw Mums and kids bail out of their cars and walk the steep section leaving the Dads to tackle the hill-climb on their own (saying "I think I can...I think I can" between clenched teeth). And once I even saw one genius reversing up the hill in a clapped-out, smoke-blowing Mini. He made it after three goes (reverse gear has the lowest ratio) and all the kids cheered him.

I'd put a bit of time and effort into this Smelly enterprise. I had the glamor signage - "Funny Smells 6d" written in running house paint on a sheet of old Masonite. I had the Merchandising - the bottles of rotten fish, tar scrapings, paint-thinners, Caustic Soda, farts in a Fanta bottle etc artfully arranged on a blanket. And I had "the Hook" - "Buy One Smell - Get Anothery Free".

I waited all day on the top of that bloody hill. A few cars went by. About one an hour I reckon. Some of the passengers waved. Mostly they just stared in disbelief at this little dickhead manfully holding his sign aloft entreating them to get their Funny Smells before they slipped back down the hill.

The first hour or so was all right. After that I got bored and started sniffing the merchandise. Wasn't it Donnie Brasco who said "Never get high on your own supply"? He must have known something because after a while I started hallucinating and saw thousands of cars streaming up that hill. All heading for the world-famous "Funny Smells" stall. It made me all the more determined. I was sure it was only a matter of time before it caught on and there'd be a run on funny smells.

But at three o'clock I had to concede defeat. The paintbrush came out and it was "All stock must go - Funny Smells - three for threepence". But I still didn't make a sale.

My next enterprise was more successful. They say "That which doesn't destroy you, makes you stronger". This time my younger sister and I went into the toffee-making business. Big time. We cooked up a humungous potful of sugar/vinegar/Cream of Tartar - I think were the ingredients -and poured it into about 6 dozen little pattycake papers.

Seems I was into generic branding before the supermarket chains. This was a strictly No-Frills product. No non-pareils (called "hundreds and thousands" Downunder), no chocolate logs, no shiny baubles on the top. Just your No-Frills Lockjaw. Or Broken-Jaw - depending on the state of your teeth or dentures. Entry-level toffee. I'd already figured there was a better margin in it that way.

This time the product flew off the shelves. Sold like...well...hotcakes. We set up our play-shop (with built-in roller shutter) on the main road on a Sunday afternoon. With plenty of rubberneck weekend traffic. And this time I went for the jugular. I had a dirty big sign - which I mostly made my waifish sister hold aloft - which read "Our Pairents have left us - please help". (See how I cunningly drew attention to the signage with a deliberate spelling mistake?)

We sold those 6 dozen toffees in about an hour flat and skedaddled back up the hill to cook some more. But Mummy put the Kybosh on it when she saw what was written on the sign. And that was the end of the jaw-breaking toffee business.

From what I remember, I think she confiscated the profits as well. Maybe that's why I've spent the last thirty years in therapy. Anyway...

My next biz The Bottle Deposit Racket was a good one. Again, down to Yours Truly. I was a bit older, maybe twelve, and had more street-smarts or rat-cunning by then. In those days (the Early Sixties) you could claim deposit money back on the glass soft drink (soda) bottles. It was a great way for kids to earn some pocket money and help keep parks and public gardens clean. You got threepence for a small bottle and sixpence for the larger ones. We worked this racket for a week until getting busted.

The first time we collected dozens of bottles and lugged them in billy-carts (made from fruit boxes and old pram wheels) to the corner-store to claim the money back. Made a good few bob out of it. We noticed the shopkeeper stacked the bottles in a small yard at the rear of his shop. A small yard with an easy fence for a kid to get over. So yeah...we went over the wall a few times and just kept recycling the same old bottles. "You kids have been busy" says Mr RedNose the alcoholic Shopkeeper. "Yes Sir - we're cleaning up the park".

We were cleaning up alright. We were raking it in. Recycling the same old bottles over and over. Until we got a bit careless and were caught red-handed passing bottles over the fence. RedNose thumped me and threatened to call the cops and that was the end of that.

We took up scrap-metal recycling after that - trawling the waterfront for bits of copper sheet and piping. And sometimes brass and lead. Did quite well out of it but it was a sort of a one-off event. And there were certain occupational hazards associated with rooting around the mangroves, stormdrains and rubbish tips, as well. Four-legged hazards with sharp teeth and long tails - your common or garden variety water-rat.

By thirteen I'd moved into the exotic bird trade. Well I tried to, but once again the old lady put the skids under it. I'd been breeding budgerigars for awhile and there were so many of them they were starting to outgrow the aviary. It was time for the "Liquidation Sale - All Birds Must Fly The Coop".

I labored all morning on the advertising and I'd only had the sign in the front yard for a couple of hours when the old lady came home and reefed it out of the ground and threw it into the woodpile. Broke my heart. It was a nice bit of succinct copy, too - "BUDGIES FOR SALE". I think she thought it was lowering the tone of the neighborhood. But at least it didn't say "Budgies For Sale - our Mother doesn't feed us."

Now...where was I...ah yeah...a homepage of pixels with funny smells and budgies. And maybe your money back if it doesn't work. With some killer bonuses and a OTO on the backend.

How about you? Wanna share your funny smells story?

Update: someone on the main forum has a thread on a guy that started selling stuff at 9 and was cleaning up at 15. Check this out - How a 15 year old kid makes $15k a DAY

Just Googled him:
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/09/tee...11johnson.html