mogul’s ten not-so-well-kept secrets to becoming capped

I know – presumptuous hey? But I have the feeling nothing can stop me now and the below is why/how so I thought I’d share:

1) Take risks – and scale your risks as you get bigger. When you’re starting out you might buy abyss crystals whenever they’re under 20g – as you get bigger remember to use your size. Buy out the store – grab every crystal on the AH. You put at risk some known profit as perhaps you paid 28g max on the buy for some items. Your reward though lies in the potential profit of drying up a bunch of enchanters who were going to use those crystals to put competing scrolls up on the AH.
2) Have a system – and work your system with self discipline. You can have every gem in game and a flawless delivery system but if you don’t replace stock when it’s low, or neglect to stay across new cuts when they emerge then your great system doesn’t mean nuts.
3) Always look for new revenue avenues – at a simple level this means opening up new crafter skill sets, at the more complex levels it’s anticipating trends from patches or even more advanced, finding new pathways within the existing framework. Hey! – where do you think the saronite shuffle came from?
4) Marry well – no seriously, those of us who take the golden path towards cap are probably a little “too” goal focussed. After all you can get by perfectly well in this game with 10K, you can have all the latest BOE gear with around 50K – what do you need 214K for!?! A supportive home environment in which to work your magic makes making gold a lot easier.
5) Know your supply chain. Where does infinite dust come from? Who uses it and for what? In what other areas are you competing with them? What changes are upcoming ingame that might effect its value and/or it’s availability. What do you use it for and more importantly what “can” you use it for? What areas of gold making are you neglecting because you don’t understand the products you’re dealing with?
6) Develop relationships – and keep them sweet. If a favourite herb supplier always throws a few items in at the end of the transaction for free are they going to stick in your memory? – you bet. These items (herbs, eternals etc) mean very little in a monetary sense – after all you probably just spent 5K, however “free stuff” still cements him in your memory. In return of course throwing the odd BOE his way that might be useful or interesting is going to work for you. This relationship and the lower-priced goods it garners will “earn” you invisible revenue. Personally I’m working with a couple of herb suppliers now and calculate that these relationships earn me between 500-1500g a week.
7) Addons addons addons – you will never hit the high earning levels without installing and customising time-saving addons. QA3, Auctioneer, Postal, Altoholic, Skillet, these are your bread and butter, unless you learn how to use them you will never hit the high numbers – I guarantee it.
8) Enjoy yourself – reward yourself. You’re making the gold cause it’s fun in its own right. Reward yourself as well to make it even more fun – pets, mounts, the latest BOEs, that chopper you’ve had your eye on… Use your gold every now and then to keep your motivation fresh.
9) Keep your friends close and your enemies… closer. Got a friends list? For goodness sake don’t put your friends on it – to an auctioneer that list is for the opposition. You want to know when they’re on and what they’re doing. I’ve been known to swap to my mage, port to distant AHs and follow the opposition around… who knows what you might learn.
10) Keep it secret, keep it safe. Anonymity is your friend. It’s likely that eventually your guildies will get wind of who your alts are – this is not a great outcome but it’s not the end of the world. Now your opposition working out who your crafters are and being able to tie them in to your posting alts is disasterous. From the safety or your crafters or your main you can see the competition log on, or more importantly off – clearing the way for some retributive posting ; )
11) Read your wow gold blogs – there’s a bunch of talented, scheming, devious gold-making dudes all publishing some pretty interesting stuff on the interwebz – stay across it.

BTW – that 11th one there, that’s for free ; )

M