A little over a decade ago, Roger bought a business from a friend and started making products from what he calls one of Alaska’s most under appreciated natural resources: moose droppings.

The businessman says that with the tourism in Alaska there is gold to be made.  Since most souvenirs are made in China, tourists want something that is authentically Alaskan.

And when it comes to business ideas, Roger is in no shortage.

Roger is working on a line of clothing products called Alaska Gear.  The slogan is “Hot stuff for cool people.”  Another one of his ideas is a Mason jar cocktail glass set with moose nugget swizzle sticks.

He says that neighbors and friends help him make all of his products.

In 1994, he put an ad out looking for people to harvest the nuggets for $10 a grocery bag.  He says one girl purchased a prom dress with the money. At that time, over 600,000 moose nuggets were collected.  But his supply is about gone.

On first thought, moose droppings may seem like a weird product to make a business from. But Roger is smart to use a natural resource that is abundant and inexpensive in Alaska. Sometimes there are business opportunities in our very own “backyard” that we overlook . . .

For more details on this story and other business ideas go to:
http://businessfastlane.com

Jon has not spent a dime on marketing or advertisements. Who needs to when the name of your restaurant is turning heads and getting people talking.

The menu is definitely something to talk about. How about ordering a hamburger that has the term “Quadruple Bypass” in it (2 lbs of beef, four layers of cheese and 12 slices of bacon). If you are looking for diet soda on the menu you won’t find it. There are no shortcuts around calories here, but don’t worry, they say the taste is “worth dying for.”

The irony is that Jon used to operate fitness training studios. That all changed after enough clients confessed what they had eaten on their “cheat days.”  The wheels started turning. What began as a marketing thesis has turned into a successful business.

Jon agrees with his critics that his restaurant isn’t a place that you should eat frequently.

The menu is only one part of this marketing masterpiece. “Dr. Jon, ” cooks his burgers in doctors’ clothes. His waitresses are dressed like scantily clad nurses. The customer who finishes a quadruple by-pass burger can get a ride in a wheel chair to their car.

This story is a great example of how being smart can win big in the marketing department. Not only has Jon not spent a dime on marketing, he has also received a ton of free publicity!

For more details on this story and other business ideas go to:
http://businessfastlane.com

I’ve found good free tool I thought you might like.

It will help you choose a domain name. You probably know how hard it is to get a good domain these days. All the good ones seem to be taken so you end up with a really funky, long or obscure domain.

Here’s one that I use to find decent URLs that are still available.

It’s called http://www.bustaname.com

To use it, you list several keywords you want in your domain and it creates various combinations of those words to come up with domains that are available for you to
register. You also have the option of having it add things like “I” or “E’ or plural combinations or having certain words for be used as the first word.

Here is a quick example:

Say you wanted a site about training dogs. Of course a popular domain like dogtraining.com isn’t available. If it was available I would have bought myself, sold the name and retired

But bustaname.com found that these combinations were available:

mytrainingdog.com
thetraningdog.com
idog-training.com

plus about 30 more combinations. Admittedly many are kind of strange, but each time I’ve used this tool I’ve come up with 1-2 pretty good domains.

You can do an number of more sophisticated searches to help you get even more combinations. The was an example that took less than 30 seconds to do.

Another thing I like about it is that the combinations it shows are available for registration right now. So you don’t need to go through another step to see if they are available.

You can register them right there on the site through a half dozen or so popular domain registrars or just take the domains you like to your favorite registrar. I guess the site owner makes money if you registrar the domain from his site.

I hope you can use this tool. Remember it’s free to use.

If you have any great tools that you like, let me know and I’ll share them with others in this group.

Ron

Farms Open Doors to Tourists
Ron Ruiz

There used to be a time when people wanted to get away from the farm. But now, many people want to go back . . . at least for a visit.

Jane says that farmers and departments of tourism were slow to recognize that people will travel many miles to spend time on a farm or ranch–and pay for the privilege. This concept is known as Agritourism. Agritourism not only provides a way to earn extra income but also a way for families to work on the farm and gain additional income.

Jane’s family’s 1910 fruit stand has become one of the largest U-pick operations in the U.S. Visitors ride tractor-pulled wagons to the fields and orchards, where there are strawberries in the spring, pumpkins during the fall and Christmas trees in winter. They’ve also developed a $2 million barn-style country store and garden center, plus a bakery, frozen custard shop, restaurant, children?s play area and seasonal festivals.

Thanks largely to agritourism, Jane’s yearly farm income totals $10 million.
Farm and ranch families who are interested in agritourism should begin by looking at their passions, talents and resources.

This agritourism story is a great example of how a business can bring in extra income by being creative and looking at unique avenues. Jane has taken the family business and developed into a hugely profitable industry, without ever leaving the farm. A great marketing example of thinking outside-of-the-box.

For more details on this story and other business ideas go to:
http://businessfastlane.com

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Cards for EVERY Occasion
Ron Ruiz

What do you say when your friend isn’t accepted into law school? Or her boyfriend dumps her? You give your her a very special greeting card, from Amber’s very special company.

Until now, there weren?t cards for all of the little heartaches in life: failing a test, breakups, an embarrassing surgery, divorce, coming out, etc. Amber, who is a card designer, thinks it’s important to acknowledge when someone is going through a challenge or difficulty.

It all started one day last summer, when Amber and her sisters Jen and Mindy sat around Mindy’s house enjoying each other’s company. Instead of lamenting their problems, the sisters laughed about them.Somehow, the sarcasm they threw at each other helped them feel better.

That’s when the idea for a new line of cards hit. However, the sisters were too busy to pursue their creation until life threw Amber another lemon: She lost her job. Then she had plenty of time to devote to the idea.So she filed for a trademark and set up a home business office.

Here?s a great example of turning life?s unpleasant situations into a creative business. It?s also a good example of taking a familiar product and tweaking it a bit to make it more unique and personal.

For more details on this story and other business ideas go to:
http://businessfastlane.com

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