When looking to build a business online or offline it’s important to determine if there is a market. There are some pundits out there that say “get into markets where there is no competition”. In the offline world…that would be the equivalent of starting a restaurant in a town with no other restaurants…well why why would there be no restaurants…BECAUSE you can’t make any money serving a town with only 1000 residents.

• Rule #1 – look for a big market. An Example of this is weight loss. Take a look at your neighbourhood gym just after New Years…now that’s a big market.
• Rule #2 – look for markets where there’s competition. Some people are afraid of competition…YOU should not be one of them. After all, competition usually means people are making money. Think of it this way. Which would you rather have? A big piece of pie worth nothing or a small piece of a pie that’s worth a lot. I’ll take the sliver each and every time thank you!
• Rule #3 – you’ll know if you have a great niche if people are using long tail keywords in their research to cure what ails them.  Short keywords phrases would be anything less than 2 words.   For example: “golf swing”.  An example of a long tail keyword phrase would be: “cure my golf slice” or “fix my bad golf swing”.
• Rule #4 – look for a niche that offers a lot of affiliate programs.  If you are developing a relationship with readers you want to know that you will have a good diverse product offering to sell or recommend to them.
• Rule #5- Is the niche list worthy? Similar to a offline retail store will the niche that you are looking at have customers that will continue to buy more? For example, in the weight loss category…people that are looking to lose weight…what else would they be likely to buy?  Examples: workout equipment, workout clothing, workout routines, nutritional supplements etc.

If you follow these 5 rules for picking a niche you should be on your way to a successful online career.

For TV and radio it’s the correct demographic and the proper frequency coupled with the right message. 

For newspaper it’s placement and call to action. 

For yellow pages it’s content. 

A proper campaign ususally means BIG BIG BUCKs.  It also means nice fat juicy commissions for the sales rep who sold you the campaign.  In my opinion, the only time one should consider using the above broadbased mediums is when you feel like burning cash!  Think about it for a second…when is the last time you picked up the yellow pages?  I personally picked up the yellow book once this year…looking for a plumber when my waterheater sprung a leak.  How about TV?  I can honestly tell you I have never hurried out the door to McDonald’s when I saw one of their commercials airing…have you?  Same thing for radio and newspaper…quick! what ads come to mind when you think of the last radio commercial or newspaper ad?

Want to save a few bucks?  Figure out how you can help your customer make a decision to buy and make sure that you are closest to him/her at the time the decision is made. 

I recently made the decision to purchase an in-ground pool for my house.  How did I choose my pool builder?  Well, when I tossed the idea of getting a pool I asked friends that had pools who did they use…you see…the name of the game is referrals.  I then proceeded to check out websites for information on pools and found not much to be had.  I met with 3 pool builders and one by one they all came out to give me their pitch.  It was a bit of a hassle because we had to coordinate meeting times etc and each meeting took about an hour.  In my opinion a lot of time wasted as the pool building process is pretty much the same.

So what can a small business owner do to get more business?  Develop a BLOG or website that engages the visitor’s emotions and provides all the information they are searching for. 

Remember this, in general people DO NOT like being sold to but they love to BUY.

A small business blog or site should contain several key elements:

• a sign up box to allow visiors to get free information or stay up to date with your business via email,
• information to overcome any possible obstacle to making a purchase,
• a way for your site or blog to be interactive with your visitor,

You can set up a Blog or Website in as little as 3 EASY Steps.

Blueprint to Success

Back in my days of banking one of the first things I asked for when someone came to me for a business loan was their plan. Or some sort of plan of action if it was an existing client asking for more money. No plan usually meant no money. I read a quote somewhere “failure to plan is planning to fail” and as a banker I saw varying degrees of this day in and day out.  For me, my success has always come from working a plan and making slight adjustments along the way. I would start off with the end goal in mind and work backwards to determine the series of mini-steps that would lead me to my goal. This same process has worked for me every time it did not matter what I was doing from meeting corporate objectives forced upon me to personal goals such as completing a 1/2 marathon.

What is a good plan or Goal? One that is S-M-A-R-T.

S - Specific - you should have a definite end result i.e. I want to weigh 180 pounds by x date and I will accomplish that by doing x activities and will achieve x milestones by such n such a date,

M – Measurable – your plan should have specific things that can be measured to determine progress. If results are not materializing as they should then adjustments must be made,

A- Achievable - your plan must make sense and be achievable…it’s ok to make some stretch goals but equally important is to be realistic. So many good plans come to an end because of unrealistic expectations.

R- Realistic - is that goal or timeline of yours a pipe dream?  Give your head a shake.  And come back to reality.  The millions if not billions of dollars spent on anything from get-rich quick to lose half of your weight in 30 days cater to the entitlement mentality that many suffer from these days.  There are the occasional miracles, grand-slams, hail marys that happen but success is in the percentages.  Work the sure thing every time and success is all but guaranteed. 

T- Timely - Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else. – Peter F. Drucker The difference between success and failure is time.  Take note of unsuccessful people more often than not their excuse is “I don’t have time”.  Ask them to do a time diary and you will see exactly what their source of failure is.  The plain and simple truth is that there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year we are all given these parameters.  So try to manage your time in a fashion that will give you the most productive output.  Find the thing that will ultimately give you the sense of urgency to complete your plan on time.  Do this step and you will manage your time a bit more wisely.

Start a business the same way you train for a marathon

Several years ago, my wife took up running and completed several half-marathons.  I had always teased her saying that completing one would be easy.  She challenged me to complete one and I said that one day I will.  I didn’t particularly enjoy running so there really was no desire to even try.  Until one day she said “I’ve entered you into the half marathon” not one to waste good money already spent I committed myself to running…or did I?.  My idea of training was a weak one at best comprising of a few one maybe two mile jogs and one 6.5 mile run the week before the race.  Being a relatively fit individual I thought I’d be fine.  Boy was I wrong!

Race day.  Gotta admit, really enjoyed the adrenaline rush of lining up at the start with 1000′s of participants.  Crack of the pistol and I was off clipping along at a fairly decent pace and on track to finish within my goal of under 2 hours.  I reach the halfway point and WHAM! it felt like someone took a sledge hammer to the side of my knee…long story short…I hobbled in to finish in 2 hours and 14 minutes.  Not bad I guess for someone who doesn’t run.  The pain lasted a month and was a good reminder of why I don’t like running.

Not reaching my goal of finishing under 2 hours nagged at me to enter the half marathon again.  This time I had a plan.  I researched a bit on how to become a better runner and learned that you need to build up speed and endurance.  So with this basic knowledge in mind I developed a 3 month plan to help me beat my goal of finishing a half marathon in under 2 hours.  The basic formula was to build on the prior week’s foundation.  I started with short 1-2 mile runs every other day and on the weekends I would do a long-run.  My short runs focused on speed and my long-run focused on endurance and pace.  Each successive week my long -run would be lengthened by a mile or two with my last (the weekend before the race) long-run totaling 11 miles.  This plan helped me finish the race in 1 hour and 54 minutes with no after pain.

How does this translate into starting an Online Business?  Step One – you need a plan.  If you don’t you’ll fall into the trap that many newbies suffer…stops and starts leading to frustration and failure.  Step Two – you need to set out goals and milestones to help you get to the finish.  How do you finish the race one stride at a time.  Stay tuned for future posts to help you get started.