So which comes first: narrowing down the niche idea or finding suppliers? It’s like the chicken or the egg question!

This is a question that is coming to my attention more and more as I teach others how to build their own internet businesses.

Narrowing down the niche:

• You want to have high demand (see www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion) – at least 16 searches per day to make the idea even worth your time
• You want to have minimal competition (use google and type in allintitle:”any keyword phrase” to see what the real competition is for Search Engine Placement – my target numbers are 30,000 competitors or less; this usually means that within 2-4 months I may be close to the front page of Google if I’m aggressive with other marketing strategies
• As your narrowing down the niche, you don’t want to get “over excited” because the other speed bump you may run in to is….Finding Suppliers

Keyword Phrase digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion allintitle:”keyword pharse”
target: 16/day+ target: less than 30,000

clogging 137.0/day ——————————37,100
clogging shoes 68.0/day ——————————-730
clogging cue sheets 23.0/day ——————————-285

Finding Suppliers – Why not look for these first?

• There are many ways to find suppliers: contact them directly, talk to competitors, use tools like TheShipper

As I think about it, why not look for suppliers first and then, when suppliers are found, think about keywords and phrases you can optimize with? To me, this seems much easier and a better way to manage time.

As I direct clients to a supplier I want to make sure they look for things that they already know something about; I let them know that they need to be prepared to write information concerning the product or industry they are leaning towards (or at least be willing to put in the time necessary to become a “guru” in that area). Granted, they don’t have to know everything about the products but they have to be willing to share valuable information related to the products in order to optimize most effectively. I plan to have a part 2 to this blog post: I think it’s very debateable and appreciate feedback.

What are your thoughts?

The title states it clearly: everyone should have at least one sales job in their lifetime. Debatable, isn’t it!?

“Sales guys are scam artists.”
“Salesman are unethical.”
“I hate sales people.”
“I’m definitely not good at sales.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard, or said, something like this. Funny thing is, if you’ve said this, you are basically “selling” the reason why you hate salesmen. Welcome to the “Art of the Sale!” The question is, how can someone say this if they’ve never been in the sales industry before? Do they really feel they have a legitimate argument if they have no experience? It’s like fans that gripe about referees or umpires: if they’ve never been one, how can they logically criticize until they “step up to the plate”?

Sales guys get such a bad rap, possibly because of the “used car salesman” approach or the “door-to-door vacuum sales person”. To understand sales, you have to realize that every sales job is different:

Right after graduation from college I took a job with a copier & printer company doing “cold calling”, door-to-door sales. I was given no leads, no referrals, nothing – just thrown out there cold turkey.

As I look back at that experience I can easily say that I learned so much; it’s not exactly what I’d want to do for a life-long career but was a step in the right direction. I also learned how important creating business relationships can be in generating new business.

Just before I left that job for a better, more life-long option, I made a sale to a client for over $50,000. Why? It wasn’t because I knew all there was to know about the product; it wasn’t because I lied to them about what they were getting; it definitely wasn’t because we had the “best price in town.” It was primarily because of the friendship we had developed. It’s amazing what a few rounds of golf can do for a business relationship – it’s almost like taking surprise flowers to your wife! Clients like to be “wined & dined” and be taken care of. Everyone likes to have friends.

So, the whole point of this article is to prove the aforementioned statement: Everyone should have at least one sales job in their lifetime. If you really want to understand what motivation is, what commitment is, what hard work is, what creating win/win situations is – get a sales job. If you want to learn about the power of confidence and belief, the importance of setting and reviewing goals frequently, the influence being nice to people has on your success, and the psychology of why people do (or don’t do) what they do – get a sales job!

More to come…any thoughts?

As we all know, managing our time is crucial to our success in any endeavor we pursue. Here are a few thoughts to help us sharpen the use of our time:

1) Set Goals

• Write down goals (a goal unwritten is only a wish)
• A goal has to be useful, measurable and attainable
• Prioritize goals – ask yourself “What’s most important right now?”
• Evaluate goals frequently
• Visualize your goals, think about how to accomplish them, then “JUST DO IT!”

2) Avoid Procrastination

Procrastination is a time waster of which you have complete control. Here are some ideas to keep procrastination under control:

• slice up tasks into more manageable pieces and start on the easiest ones
• chart your progress – “Small success leads to big success!” If you write down and track progress, it helps confidence and aids you in seeing progress, even if its only small
• set a deadline for completing projects

These are just a few ideas I’ve had that, if implemented, have helped me manage my time more effectively. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Don’t know why it has taken me so long to do this. I think the inspiration came from a good friend of mine, Mr. Stull, owner and operator of www.exceptionalconsultants.com. He and I were having a talk about the power of blogging the other day and it was probably one of our best discussions about the power of the internet and getting your name and business out there.

I’ve been in marketing, sales, and eCommerce for 6 years – it’s about time I just start recording ideas that come to mind, share them with the internet community, and start implementing all of them. The purpose of this blog will be to do just that: “To share eCommerce SEO information, creative advertising ideas, and unique marketing opportunities with individuals and businesses.

I found this cool article at howstuffworks.com and it really hit me about Branding and Advertising:

A company buys advertising for one of two reasons:

• Branding
• Direct sales

Branding refers to the process of impressing a company name or a product name onto society’s collective brain. Let’s say you have come up with a new brand of soda, or you are opening a new restaurant, or you are selling a new widget. You want to get the product’s name (and sometimes the product’s features and benefits) firmly planted in people’s heads. This is branding.

Branding happens with both new and existing products. When you see a billboard that says nothing but “Coke” on it, or you see a NASCAR car that says “Tide” on the hood, or you see a feel-good ad on TV about a car company or an oil company but there’s no mention of a product, that is branding. The advertiser does not necessarily expect you to do anything today — the advertiser simply wants to impress itself on your consciousness.

On the other hand, a direct sales ad is an ad that is trying to get you to do something today, right now, as you look at the ad. The advertiser wants you to:

• Click on the ad
• Call an 800 number
• Drive immediately to the store

…or do some other active thing so that you buy something, download something or sign up for something today. The advertiser counts the direct responses to the ad and measures the effectiveness of the ad by those responses.

What branding advertisers came to feel about banner ads is that banner ads are not the most effective vehicle for branding. Relative to a magazine ad or a TV ad, banner ads are small and easily ignored.

What direct sales advertisers came to feel about banner ads is that the response rate for banner ads is low. For most banner ads, the industry average seems to hover between two and five clicks per 1,000 impressions of the ad. That is, if a banner ad appears on 1,000 Web pages, between two and five people will click on the ad to learn more.

Those five clicks per thousand impressions don’t have much value to most advertisers. The reason is because those five clicks will not all generate sales. Out of 100 clicks, perhaps one person will actually do the desired thing (buy something, download something, etc.). To read more Click Here.

All I can say to this is AMEN!! These are things I have passion for: advertising, branding, target audiences, marketing, sales, commerce, ecommerce, win/win situations, partnerships, joint ventures. Another friend of mine, Ron Robinson of www.awakeandarise.com told me recently, “Being passionate about what you do is so very important to success in any endeavor. That’s one of the reasons your success is increasing.”

So anyway, this is a start of something new (as if I didn’t have enough to do already!)
Please leave comments.