Newcomer guide to sythe! how-to on trading!

Made my guide free, here are the SS of it, un-edited text follows.

Any questions feel free to post or pm me.

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How to Become Successful on Sythe!
Guide brought to you by Delta Squad & Sillymonkey
Introduction

First and foremost, I would like to personally thank you for buying our guide. A lot of thought and revision has went into it.
This tid bit will be a little about myself and how I first came to Sythe, so you can get a view of how an Average Jack has advanced in his Sythe career.

History- Well, I have been a long time RuneScape player (since 2001!). I've been playing games all my life, but before joining Sythe in May 2011, I have NEVER done any sort of gaming RWT/Blackmarket type things. When I first came to Sythe (which I learned about from a friend), I just came wanting to buy gold. I had no goals of becoming a Blackmarket Trader. After a few weeks and just lurking, I started getting more involved in the community, and noticed this place had real potential for me. Time passed and I opened some services, started making some money, friends, and getting some vouches! So far, I have done over $2,000 in trades, and Middlemanned trades valuing at over $1,500. Now, you may think "well there is some other guys who have done tens of THOUSANDS of dollars worth of trades".

Well those guys also have sythe as a main source of income. But I have never been scammed, and along with my vouches and reputation, my Average Jack status is pretty darn good if I say so myself.
So what this Guide is going to bring you is an easy to read way of getting started, setting goals, and just getting your name out there in this great community. I hope you enjoy it and much love.

Contents
-Establish your long term & short term goals
-Learning the market
-Starting your threads
-Get your name out there!

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Chapter One
Establish your long term & short term goals


Alright, you got yourself a fresh Sythe account, or perhaps you're a bit seasoned but never got started in the markets, well hopefully after this we can change that.

Take a few minutes and reflect on what you want to, be it short term or long term on Sythe, and what you have to offer Sythe. Once you get a broad sense of what you want, you can start to adjust what you do next to help advance, and further your goals. Most people just want to be able to buy and sell some items here and there, while others want to make Sythe their main income. Knowing what you want to do here will make a HUGE difference in how you carry yourself, and establish yourself within the community.

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Chapter Two
Learn the market


First you need to establish what market you want to get into: be it leveling, skilling, questing, or gold merchanting. Then you need to dertermine what Genre you want to partake in, I.E World of Warcraft, RuneScape, Star Wars, Steam etc etc..

We will be using RuneScape as an example, it's one of the most popular areas on Sythe.



Rules

Rules are a big part of Sythe, and it's imperative that you know the majority in your section, below will be some links to each market section rules for RuneScape.

Gold Market- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=151801 (This is a good guide on how to avoid getting scammed)

Gold Market- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1132819 ( Here is a good guide for basic training tips)

***Now the Gold Market doesn't have much rules, it's mostly guides on how to avoid getting scammed, I HIGHLY advise reading the above to guides, and credit to both of them for making them, Should you beed anymore information, Read the Stickies, THEY HELP!)
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Item Market- Pretty simple in the item market, post pictures of the items with your sythe name and date in the display box. Here's a guide explaining http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1305106

***Use common sense here, and you can avoid being scammed***
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Account Market- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1250000 (Rules for that particular section on levels)
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Account Market- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1247774 (Remember: if buying or selling, Account are ALWAYS recoverable, if a seller seems sketchy, avoid him)
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Account Market- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1134416 (Account NOT to buy, do a quick CNTRL+F and type the name in the search to see if that name pops on that list, JUST because a account DOESN'T show does not mean you won’t get scammed)
***Basic trading in the account section, if your selling, provide an UP-TO-DATE photo with your Sythe name and date in the chat box, with photos of bank, stats quests etc etc..***
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Name Sales- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1303207 ( General information about name sales)
***This section has a lot of stickies, and to many that I believe will just go un viewed, so here’s a link to that section, if you wish to do name sales do some research in the stickies http://sythe.org/forumdisplay.php?f=553 ***
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Account Upgrades- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1156373 (basic information about forum rules)
What is an account upgrade? http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=914268
How to protect yourself in upgrade sales- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1245220
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Skill Training- There really isn't much on the rules for this section, you can't require a vouch for your services, and you can't ask for free training, you may however offer free training, just be legit, and they shall come.
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Firecape & Defenders- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=743858 (Basically, you must post at least ONE photo of your Sythe name in the chat box on completing a fire cape, failure to do this will have your thread locked)
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Questing & Torsos- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=921696 (Pretty much same thing goes here as the firecapes)
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Other Services- http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=928595 (Pretty much as torso, and firecapes, ONE void completion photo)
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Summary
Find what market section you're wanting to partake in, get updated on that sections rules, and read over some other established users threads, see how they set prices, set up their thread, and how they respond to customers.
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Getting Started!
Alright, you picked a market section to focus on and now you need to get your services started. First things first, you need a thread! Now theres many ways to start a thread off, I personally offer free services until I gained a little bit of reputation, I'm going to go over the Free Service--> Charging service. If you're confident with yourself, you can jump straight to charging, but if you're new to Sythe with no vouches, I advise starting off free.
***For this part, I will be using the Skill Training section. Now you may say "WOAH, I want to do questing, or firecapes, or even gold/account sales". Well, this basic principle applies to all the section, minus gold selling. We don't want to give free gold now do we!***
Alright, so we are making our thread. First you'll want an Eye Catching Title, use some symbols, spice it up grab the browsers
ATTENTION! *** Here’s an example:
GOOD thread title- http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3027/goodtitle.jpg
BAD title- http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8981/badtitle.jpg
Now that you have a nice title, you'll need to do a layout. Now if you want you can fork over some money and have a professional layout, or you can opt for a text only layout while your services are free.
Here are some examples of a Good text layout, and a bad one:
GOOD- http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4130/120223140237.png
BAD- http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/5690/120223135719.png
Can you spot the difference? Just have a nice title block, with the text following. Center the text to give it a nice read down affect, and don't just type out your text. Make it eye popping, but don't make it look like a rainbow exploded in your room.
So let’s recap: a nice eye catching title, well formatted thread layout, and once you progress to start charging, hire one of Sythe's many talented Graphic artist to make you a layout and matching signature! P.S.- Paint does not make a good GFX layout tool, there are many people willing to do you a nice text layout for a fee as well if you absolutely can't do it yourself.
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Getting your name out there!

This is probably one of the, if not the MOST, important section in this guide. There are many methods of getting your name out there, and advertising your services.
You have:
-Signature advertising (Includes your sig, and the renting of others signatures)
-Posting around the forums, especially the sections that your service are on, I.E if your skilling for RuneScape, mostly around in the RuneScape forums.
-Donate to sythe.org, nothing can help make you look more legitimate (besides vouches) then having yourself a Donator Rank.
-Hold monthly contests to help promote your business (Make sure if hosting raffles you get it approved by mods first, will go into more details later)
-Be a positive and polite person, returning customers will make up a good percentage of your clients. TRUST ME!
-Overall, if you're a legitimate Sythe user, people will start to pick up on that.
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Signatures

Signatures are a great way to promote your business. You can even have it setup so that when people click your sig, it takes them to your thread! -- How bloody great is that?
From looking around on Sythe as you post you'll be able to tell what's a good sig and what’s a bad one, someone with 70 lines of text and aligned to the left saying Good trades: XX Bad trades: xx Scammers banned: xx is obviously a BAD signature, if you're good with Photoshop, GREAT! If not, and you're making some income now off your services, fork over a few bucks and get yourself a nice signature. It helps in the long run.


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Posting Around

The best way to advertise your service with your sig? Have posts in the section your thread pertains to! Does this mean spam every single page? NO! You'll get infracted and we don't want that. Just engage in it casually, provide input, help others with questions, heck, even post your own thread about ideas, questions, and the current state of the game.

People will start to know your involved in the game, you know what you're talking about, and one day they may need services and think "Hey, I've seen whatshisname offering X service in his sig" and BAM, you got yourself a client. These things might not seem like much, but they do help, and ultimately will bring you clients.

Post smart, post good, if you enjoy the game, let it be known, heck even advertise in your posts, for example if a guy makes a thread asking what quests or levels should he get on his account, provide input, give him feedback about what you suggest, and at the end of you post go ahead and say "If you need any sort of help or don't have the time, come check me out <thread link here>" Now this may or not work, but hey if the guy sees you enough he may just decide to take you up on that offer.

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Contests

What&#8217;s a better way to advertise a service then to own a Raffle, or some sort of contest? Now before doing any sort of Raffle, get it MOD Approved.

Here's an example of a raffle I held awhile back. http://www.sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1232773

When hosting a Raffle remember Key things:

- People don't want the Raffle holder to keep all the winnings.

- Make the entry price cheap enough so people will enter.

-Make the reward AWESOME!

After I held my raffle, I can honestly say that I had a good 4-10 orders come in just from people who saw the raffle after it closed, and saw that it was legit.
After awhile, host more raffles. Make it a corner stone in that communities area, you may lose some money by giving out your services as an award, but that's the price of advertisement!

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Conclusion

I gave you the foundation. It's up to you to make it work. These methods are proven, I'm an example of that; you get out what you put into it. The harder you work, the better the outcome. Be legit, be involved, and you WILL be successful. Once you start charging for your services, have competitive prices (now, don't just undercut to say you have the cheapest service. Cheaper isn't always better, after all, the better your service, the more you can charge!!!!).

Now go out there and get started and become a productive and positive sythe.org member!!!!



Thanks for buying this guide, I hope it helped. If you need any help, or have any questions or concerns, please PM either Delta Squad or Sillymonkey, or IM me, Delta Squad, on my email: [email protected]





Credit to the sythe.org staff for the current stickies on the rules section, Sythe owners for this great website and community. Also, a special thanks to Lillie, Septicon, Thesolo, and Clearlee for your threads that I used as examples in this guide.

 

Woah... Thanks for this!

 

Just had a quick skim and I must say that its really nice and great!Its pretty much detailed and thanks to you for explaining everything is depth

Nope fully this is gonna help me

 

I have read every single line of this guide and it does provide insights to newcomers.

Thanks for releasing this to the public!

 

bump.

 

bump.

 

Thanks for this gave me some good ideas.

 

Lol this guide got me to where I am now!

 

bump.

 

Thanks for this! Some of its common sense but it's very well written and it definately went into topics that I was a bit confused on!

 

Thanks, I've browsed this site and others for a while this is pretty helpful

 

bump.

 

Cool guide, thanks for sharing

 

It was fine, but you should add in some background information about yourself, when you came to sythe, how you started out and how you got to where you are today.

 

Good guide for newfags.

 

Save the newfags foundation is in full swing

 

Support nice guide man.

 

Damn. Just read this! Great Guide for newcomers like myself. I will try and start up some businesses and whatnot.

Thanks for the great read.

 

Did you actually sell this guide?

 

na lol it never sold a copy so i made it free