Making Millions Selling Diamonds For 99 Cents

David Wirtenberg Story

www.outrageousdiamonds.com

David Wirtenberg, 28
Outrageous Auctions (eBay User ID: outrageousauctions)
New York City
Projected 2006 Sales: $8 million to $10 million
Description: Engagement rings, wedding bands and other jewelry

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Turning Talk Into Sales: David Wirtenberg loves to talk. "I could talk your ear off," he says. "I love what I do. I'm a very passionate person." His ability to make sales, and his prior experience in sales for Bear Stearns and Auto Data Processing, helped him build his business from scratch in 2003. His father-in-law became his inspiration and behind-the-scenes mentor. "He said, 'Let's see if we can sell jewelry on the internet,'" Wirtenberg recalls. "I went to 47th Street in Manhattan. I knocked on every door. I didn't know anything about diamonds at the time. I was looking for suppliers, for an education, anything." He ended up buying a couple of diamond rings, and he immediately sold them for a profit on eBay. "I thought, 'This could be something.'"

Many Facets to His Business: Today, Wirtenberg sells through his websites (www.outrageousauctions.com and www.outrageousdiamonds.com) and through eBay. "I use eBay to get new customers and new traffic," he says. "Most of my diamond auctions start at 99 cents. Sometimes I lose money; sometimes I make money. Whatever makes the customer happy, I do. Our packaging is second to none. Sometimes we pack our diamonds in Faberge eggs [for free]. Once you have customers, you have those customers for good."

Personal Touch: Wirtenberg speaks fondly of the personal connections he has made and recalls the time he and his wife, Danielle, personally delivered a $14,000 ring to a customer in California. "The fringe benefits touch you deep inside," he says. "You play a huge role in people's lives. I have provided advice on people's engagements. I feel I am blessed every single day with the direction this business has taken."

How To Start Successful Online Translation Business

Jurga Zilinskiene Story

http://www.todaytranslations.com/

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Seven Million Dollar Business

Jurga Zilinskiene can genuinely claim to being nothing else but an entrepreneur. Jurga has her first business brainwave at the age of six, after finding some old packets of seeds in the loft of the family house.



The fact that she went from living in a Lithuanian town to own Today Translations, managing over 1,500 linguists across the globe, in just five years, makes her story even more remarkable.

“There were beetroot seeds, onion seeds and 10 or 15 other types,” she explains. “They were very old. I took them down to the market and sold them. I had quite a queue. I think that I was selling them very cheaply.”

The young Jurga wasn’t happy building up a seed-based empire, however, and at the ripe old age of 10 went into the pet breeding business with a little help from the family pets. She would also buy sweets and sell them onto her schoolmates.

By the age of 16, she started making serious money by importing cloth from the United Arab Emirates and selling it on. A year later, she was running her own small supermarket. She somehow found time to get married, but the relationship turned sour and she moved to the UK aged 19 to study law.

“I eventually completed part two of the law degree, before I decided that I didn’t want to become a lawyer, but I liked the idea of understanding the law,” she says. “My legal knowledge has come in very useful in my current business, since about 80 per cent of our business currently comes from law firms.”

The current business in question is Today Translations, which Jurga set up in August 2001. In a short period of time, Today has gained a portfolio of over 200 clients, with Jurga in charge of a huge team of linguists who translate, interpret and proof-read documents in over 160 languages, from Arabic to Yoruba.

Jurga is setting her sights high for Today – she plans to double the company’s turnover every year, not a mean achievement when the business is set to make $900,000 this year.

The twists don’t end there though – Jurga has managed this success despite the fact she has not borrowed a penny in startup funding.

“The investment I made in the business was gradual,” she explains. “The final figure was about $20,000. It was my own money – money I had made and saved from previous ventures.

“I never borrowed from the bank. I don’t like borrowing from the bank, some people might say that I am old-fashioned in that way, or maybe un-British, but I believe in natural business growth.”

Using a business sense honed since her seed-selling days back in Lithuania, Jurga realised that there was an opportunity to set up a translation business in the UK that offered a truly personal service to clients.

Jurga, seemingly in a bid to work in every profession that exists, was working as an interpreter at the time.

“I had been working as an interpreter myself, mainly interpreting in Russian, but when I was working as an interpreter, I found it hard to plan my time.

“I also saw that there was a real opportunity to start a business that would offer a better, more personal service than other agencies seemed to be providing.

“There has never been a better time to consider a career as a professional linguist, whether as a translator or interpreter. The British armed forces in Iraq and elsewhere are also crying out for more Brits able to speak Arabic. There is such a shortage that they are turning to students taking Arabic degrees,” she says.

In another example of her determination to succeed, Jurga learnt how to design her own software, after not finding a developer who could meet her needs.

“I initially wanted to buy or commission a database,” she explains. “I consulted about 10 companies and individuals, but after failing to find a programmer to meet my needs, I decided to do it myself.

“So, I hired a tutor and had training in visual basic. But when my tutor told me that particular type of programme could not be designed, I bought a book and found a way to design it, until I ended up with precisely the database I wanted.”

Having shown such dedication and versatility in her entrepreneurial career, it’s not surprising that Jurga is slightly disappointed by some of the British press coverage of Eastern European migrants.

As she points out, not only do new arrivals start up new companies, they also provide much-needed labour which would push up prices and staff costs if removed from the UK workforce. However, Jurga hasn’t encountered any prejudice herself.

“I have not found it a problem being an outsider or an immigrant. In fact, it has sometimes seemed almost an advantage. People – both individuals and organisations – have been extremely welcoming and helpful.

“Also, being a foreigner has certain advantages in my line of work,” she says.

Broken Teeth Lead To An Unusual Business

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Simon Purchall Story

http://www.smilesavershungary.co.uk/

For most people, a trip to the dentists is a potentially painful experience to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Simon Purchall’s trip to face the whirring drills and mouthwash was much like any other, except that it gave him the inspiration to set up a groundbreaking business.



Purchall cracked his teeth in a biking accident and was horrified when his dentist told him over £20,000 was required to repair the damage. There seemed little option other than to pay the hefty dental bill until his Hungarian wife, Veronika, suggested that he get the work done in her native Budapest.

“Like most people, I had a few reservations about going to an ex-Communist country for dental work, but it was amazing,” Purchall recalls. “The level of service and expertise was fantastic. I decided to have all the treatment done there and saved about £16,000.”

Back in the UK, Purchall realised that such trips could form the basis of a potentially viable business. An IT freelancer for the previous decade, he admits that becoming an entrepreneur was a long-held ambition.

With Veronika being a qualified dental nurse, and the obvious candidate to provide translation in negotiations with Hungarian dentists, the couple decided that the opportunity should be exploited.

After plumping for a suitable name, SmileSavers, Purchall was confronted with an array of tasks to get the business off the ground. Starting up a UK-focused company presents entrepreneurs plenty to chew over – adding the Hungarian element left the duo with a tangle of extra concerns that needed to be thoroughly ironed out.

Purchall had to undertake research into the legal and insurance ramifications of recommending dentists to UK patients, as well as working out what qualifications the Hungarian dentists had, and what they meant.

Luckily for Purchall, when Hungary joined the European Union in the formative days of SmileSavers, Brussels decided to accept all of the country’s qualifications without demanding further training.

“We looked at prices and what was available on the NHS compared to Hungary,” Purchall explains. “Fortunately, the dental systems in the UK and Hungary and very similar.

“We got legal advice and contracts drawn up with dentists so that we were covered and patients got a decent level of service.”

Several trips to Hungary followed, with Purchall running the rule over various clinics he’d found via the internet.

“We networked with Hungarian dentists and took plenty of expert advice, but we also considered our own experiences as to what a good dentist should be,” he says. “We wanted people whop could fully communicate with clients. The moment we had a hint that someone wasn’t right, we didn’t use them.”


Purchall funded the set-up costs of the business with his own savings and continued working while Veronika dedicated herself full-time to the venture – a move he admits was a mistake: “I probably should’ve stopped working much earlier, but it was a big leap I was taking.”

The couple approached their bank for advice, but were told that would be little financial assistance required as their outlay was comparatively small. The website development costs, potentially the greatest burden, were negated by Purchall’s IT expertise, allowing the job to be done in-house.

SmileSavers was initially publicised by Google ad words, despite the expense of the search terms Purchall needed. However, the website now has a good page ranking and is positioned properly, allowing the business to cut costs on ad words.

Purchall also invested in magazine advertising after the business’ launch in 2003, opting for publications such as Saga in the belief SmileSavers had a greying target market. However, it was only after the hiring of a PR company did he see results – eventually. SmileSavers has recently been covered in several national newspapers.

“We were naïve, because our target market is broad, it isn’t just older people,” Purchall explains. “A friend of ours worked at Westbury Communications – we hired them for six months and we got virtually no coverage out of it. They were tearing their hair out because people weren’t biting.

“It’s only now that contacts they made are coming off, so it was certainly worthwhile.”

Purchall has struck deals with several Budapest hotels and apartments, further cutting down the cost of the trips. Despite originally planning to refer patients to large numbers of practices across Hungary, Purchall now works with just two large Budapest clinics that are able to cope with demand.

Although contractually prevented from talking about how much commission SmileSavers has made from referring clients to Hungarian dentists, overall sales were over £600,000 last year, with expectations of a £1 million turnover in the next 12 months.

Customer numbers have rocketed, prompting plans to expand the business significantly in the forthcoming year.

“We need to get the message across that Hungary is the centre of excellence for dentistry,” Purchall says. “Saying that, we don’t want to alienate ourselves from British dentists.

“We’d like to forge better links with dentists here so that they feel completely comfortable referring patients to us.

How Any 13 Year Old Kid Can Become A Millionaire

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Dominic McVey Story

http://www.viza.com

At the age of just 13, Dominic McVey exploded into the public’s consciousness when he started importing collapsible scooters from the USA, making him a reported £5 million. Now 19, McVey has sought to find other lucrative niches in the market, with varying success. Here the outspoken entrepreneur talks about his astonishing rise, his views on UK business and his plans for the future.



How did you first come up with the idea for importing the scooters?

I had been looking round the internet and was looking for the credit card website Visa, but I spelt it wrong – Viza, and I came across this website which was manufacturing scooters and I really wanted one. But I couldn’t afford one, and neither could my parents, so I emailed them and said “I think you should send me a scooter, I would sell loads over here.”

They said no, but if you buy five, we’ll give you one free. So as I really wanted one for free, I saved up to buy five, which I did by organising under-18s discos, buying stocks and shares and selling mini disc players in Japan.

So I got five over, and got one for free, which I was really happy with, but then I thought I should sell the other five, which I did within a week, to family and friends. The next week I sold 10, and it just went on from there.

I never really saw the potential until the product landed on my doorstep, and I guess I had to move on it. A lot of people say it was luck, but if you look at football teams they can score a goal one week, but they are not going to score goals every week if they’re bottom of the Premier League.

I looked at in a very childish and naïve way, which is probably the best way to do so at the time because you weren’t bombarded with stress and issues and problems.

I was very, very competitive. I guess I was very mouthy about other products out there, but all the others out there were crap and expensive. The press really liked me and everyone liked the product, so that really helped.

You’re quoted as saying you weren’t very keen on the scooters, but you saw the business potential in selling them, which must be quite unusual for someone quite young?

After a week, I guess I was bored of the product. What really shone to me was that I could see everyone in London going to work on one, everyone needs one in the boot of the car if they got stuck in traffic, I really drove that message home.

I used to go up to Liverpool Street station and get chased around by the security for handing out flyers, I’d shoot of on my scooter in my lunch break from school. I sold to a lot of city executives as toys, but people began to commute on them, which caused a bit of a fuss with road safety people.

Did you find your age was a problem in terms of being taken seriously?

I blagged it a lot – a lot of the business I did was over the phone or on the internet. I was very good with computers at the time and had friends who were great with IT, so I had great presentations.

Whenever I did meet companies, even if I thought I couldn’t get any business out of them, I asked them a million and one questions about how they did business. They loved telling me because they felt like the other brother telling the kid what to do.
The added advantage is that the money you make is in a sense all yours, because you don’t have a mortgage or bills, all I was paying for was the internet and my mobile phone.

So you overcome the age gap with technology?

Yes, everything was done from my bed!

You didn’t go on to university – do you feel there is too much to pressure for young people to do that rather than start up a business?

It’s all wrong. The only reason that the government are pressuring people to go to university is because of the banks. Banks make more money from student loans and overdraft than anything else.

The banks tell the government they will not employ anyone without a degree, the banks being the biggest employers in the UK, the government reacts to this.
A lot more people should be encouraged to take their own steps in life and encouraged to go into apprenticeships and traded skills. There is a huge skills shortage, especially women.

Do you think there’s enough support for young people who want to start up their own business?

I think there’s a huge lack of support. What I’ve noticed about young people trying to get into business is that they aren’t really my cup of tea.
There are very few young people who are trying to start up a business and there doesn’t seem to be enough of the right sort of people. Back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, they would’ve been working on market stalls, that to me is the tight kind of entrepreneur, ducking and diving, trying to make his money to get into the bigger picture.

But a lot of the new breed of young entrepreneurs they don’t have to seem to have this streak in them, they seem very middle to upper class, parent may have a lot of money and not much to do with it.

What more could the government do to help young entrepreneurs?

There’s far too much red tape, there’s nowhere for people to go. I went down Walthamstow High Road the other day and I went into a local frame store, which is opposite Waltham Forest Town Hall.

I said to him, “you’ve only been here six months, how’s it going? Are the council helping a lot?” He said, “What? I only hear from the council when they want their fees paid.”

I said, “is there no forums, no networking groups, no grants, helping you out?” He said he wouldn’t even know where to call and they probably don’t know he exists. It’s the same for everything in this whole street, which is a nice street and is beginning to buzz a bit.

Profiting From The Disabled

Stacey Strother Story

http://www.diversity-services.com/

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Nobody wants to hire a guy who has to go to the doctor all the time--or so W. Devin Sartin thought. Honorably discharged from the Army because of his asthma, debilitating migraines, and inflammation of his chest, Sartin, a veteran of the last Gulf war and the Panama conflict, managed to land an accounting job with a firm that graciously accommodated his many medical appointments. But when he was laid off for economic reasons, Sartin worried that his next employer might not be so generous. His expectations were low when he walked into Diversity Services, an employment agency based in New York City.



As it turned out, the agency specialized in providing work for those marginalized by the labor market because of disabilities, age, or sexual preference. Only about 30 for-profit agencies in the U.S. focus on placing workers with disabilities. And Diversity Services practiced what it preached. Sartin, 38, was pleasantly surprised to walk out with a temporary position as a payroll assistant at the agency, rather than at one of the client firms for which it finds employees. He has earned two pay raises in less than a year. "There is no issue with Diversity about my disability," he says.

Sartin is among more than 2,000 workers who have found temporary or permanent jobs in the past year through Diversity Services. Some 40% of those workers had disclosed a disability, ranging from schizophrenia to blindness. Founded in 1996 as part of a small company called Rainbow Staffing, the agency was inspired by the death of the sister of co-founder Jeff Klare. She died earlier than he expected from a serious illness after an employer forced her onto disability and cut her off from the work she loved. Stacey Strother, a former policy analyst for the city government, bought a 51% stake in Diversity Services in 2000 and brought the company under one name.

By expanding from helping client firms fill office support and graphics jobs to making placements in other fields, Strother boosted the agency's annual sales from $2.6 million to $7.8 million by 2004. Like other employment agencies, the company receives a percentage of the salaries of the workers it places in jobs from client firms.

To make sure that her employees' medical issues don't disrupt the work of clients who hire them, Strother quickly provides substitutes for any workers who become sick and have to take time off, giving clients a number where they can reach her around the clock. She pays the workers their full salaries on the days that they must be out, allowing them to use vacation days they have accrued. She understands their situation firsthand. "Because I live with depression, I empathize with candidates with disabilities," she says. "My job is to find the balance between the candidates' being able to demonstrate their professional abilities while giving the clients exactly what they need."

Kelly Thurston, a contracting officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, regularly hires temporary office workers from Diversity Services. "If one temp doesn't work out," she says, "we tell Stacey, and she sends a new one."

Relieved of the stress of hiding their disabilities, workers such as Sartin express strong loyalty to Diversity Services and its clients. When he took a few days off recently because of a migraine, he says, he was paid and didn't worry that he would lose the job to another temp. "I didn't feel any stress at all about it," he says.

Making Great Money Reselling Old Mannequins

Judi Henderson-Townsend Story

http://www.mannequinmadness.com/


Making Millions Cleaning Other People Garages

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Inside a dreary warehouse in an industrial section of San Francisco, the floor was littered with bodies. Some lay in piles while others had been dismembered, their legs, heads, and arms carelessly strewn about. Judi Henderson-Townsend had come to buy a mannequin to use as a backyard sculpture after seeing one advertised online. The seller, it turned out, was a former window designer who collected and rented old mannequins. He was moving East and closing up shop, so Henderson-Townsend impulsively bought all 50 mannequins for $2,500. She stood them in her basement, then named her new business Mannequin Madness. That was four years ago. Today her mannequin inventory fills a basement, a two-car garage, and a separate storage facility.



Henderson-Townsend, 47, builds her stock—generally department store mannequins made of fiberglass—by helping stores dispose of their unwanted models, which go in and out of fashion much like the clothes they showcase. (In the past year, for example, headless has been the rage.) She rents and sells them to a customer base that includes clothing stores, brides, eBay vendors, photographers, and theater groups. Men often want a female torso to pose on a bar or at a fraternity house (the Asian ones sell out first). Lawyers sometimes use mannequins in court in order to demonstrate gun or knife wounds. Artists use them for projects or for sketching. And once a warehouse owner who couldn't afford a breathing overnight security guard bought a mannequin, dressed it in a uniform, and posed it at a desk near a window.

In the past year Henderson-Townsend grossed $150,000, an increase from nearly $100,000 in 2003. At least 70% of her business derives from sales, and the rest from rentals. One-third of customers come via her website (mannequinmadness.com) and another third from eBay, and the rest consist of those who shop by appointment at Henderson-Townsend's home, which is located in an upscale Oakland neighborhood. That is where Swati Kapoor, a clothing designer in Milpitas, Calif., bought her first mannequin. "Judi gave me a lot of information about how mannequins could help my business," says Kapoor, who owns nine.

What surprises Henderson-Townsend most is the high demand for body parts. Jewelry designers often want hands, and leg lamps are strangely popular. "I get an awful lot of people asking about them," says Henderson-Townsend. So many, in fact, that she offers assembly instructions on her website.