Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

One Stop Web Support Newsletter #32 On Its Way
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning, June 18. This newsletter contains:

• Featured article—Improving Bland Copywriting with Dead Characters
• Recommended website tool: Trafficology
• Recommended auction tool: Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay
• Special guest article by Jim Cockrum—How I Grew My Mailing List to 50,000 Readers
• Success quote by Henry Ford

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter, you can do so at www.onestopwebsupport.com/newsletter-signup.htm. And I'll make it worth your while if you do. I'll give you $250 worth of free gifts for signing up!
Jeff

THE END OF FREEDOM ON THE INTERNET!
Please excuse the hypebole, but I hear a lot of this kind of frantic handwringing on the Web in the wake of Congress' recent moves to let the major ISPs offer different levels of connectivity to websites.

Essentially, this move lays the foundation for a future Internet where website owners will face a choice:

• They can pay toll to the major service providers to ensure that their site remains visible and easy to access.
• Or they can choose to exist as second-class citizens of the Web, with lower visibility and slower, less reliable connections.

The result of this action has been predictable. Howls of unfettered anguish have risen from those who fear that this will lead to the consolidation of the entire Internet into the hands of a few evil corporations who will use their power to exploit and subjugate humanity in their greedy pursuit of... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yes, the foundation is now in place for an Internet where site owners will have to pay fees to ensure that they have a fast connection and high visibility. Does that mean, though, that small business owners will be pushed off the Web?

No, it simply means they need to plan those future expenses into their budgets.

Hey, is it unfair that a bricks-and-mortar business that wants to locate in a prime traffic location has to pay more money for that location than someone who chooses to locate off the beaten path? Is it unfair that a business owner who wants to buy an ad in the New York Times has to pay more than someone who decides to advertise in some neighborhood gazette?

The principle of balancing what results we get against what we need to pay to get them is a basic part of running any business. Those of us in Internet business have blissfully enjoyed a temporary glitch in basic business principles that the formation of the Internet has afforded us.

We've enjoyed a free ride on the coattails of the technology companies who have developed this free traffic flow to our businesses. It has always been inevitable that this free ride would come to an end.

So should we wring our hands over the fact that we may someday need to pay for a traffic-generating system that we now exploit for free? Or should we start preparing our businesses so that, when these inevitable costs come, we'll be in position to cover them?

Smart business owners adapt.

Jeff

Finding Your Niche by Looking at Yourself
Most new business owners launch their business in an area they know little or nothing about. They do this because they don't recognize the expertise they already have.

Most of us naturally downplay our own talents, experience, and gifts as unimportant. We see those things that we feel we lack as necessary for success. But it's foolish to overlook the areas where you are especially gifted or knowledgeable. I had a vivid example of this years ago in high school.

I was not the most athletic of my classmates. I was usually one of the last chosen for any pickup games. But one thing I could do was jump.

Each year in gym class, the teachers would run us through a series of tests. One of those tests was a vertical jump test. And each year, I would top not just my gym class, but my entire grade level in jumping. My more athletic friends were baffled at how the last guy picked always stood at the top of the board in that one category year after year.

Many times, one of them would ask me, "How come you can jump so high?"

I was always baffled. "I just jump," I'd reply. I couldn't understand why they couldn't jump just as high or higher. To me, jumping high was as natural as breathing. I simply did it.

The same thing often happens when we look for areas of expertise to turn into a niche business. The things that are so deeply a part of our experience appear so natural to us that we figure that everyone else is as expert at them as we are.

I've heard of a woman who bemoaned the fact that she had no special skills or knowledge to start a business with. She had devoted over 20 years to raising a special needs son. She dismissed that 20 years of experience as something that was of no use to anyone but her. But a friend urged her to use her experience to help those who were just beginning to raise a special needs child. And she turned her knowledge into a very successful business.

Another man was a truck driver. Again, he figured he had no special knowledge to build a business around. But he knew enough about driving safety and about how to travel cheaply on the road to write a book about them. He wrote ebooks on both topics and enjoys a comfortable living from selling them.

So look close at hand to find your niche. Sometimes the best niches for you are in those things that come so naturally to you that you take them for granted.
Jeff

The Value of Finding Your Niche
Most new business owners figure they have to do what everyone else is doing if they want to succeed. They launch businesses in areas that already have big, well-established competitors. They figure that the more crowded a market is, the more buyers they'll find and the better chance they'll have of success. But the reverse is actually true.

If 10,000 people stand on a street corner trying to get the attention of passersby, how much chance do you have of getting noticed? Especially if all the others are experienced at getting attention and you're just learning how?

Zip. Zero. Nada.

Or would you rather have a corner all to yourself, where you have little or no competition in getting attention? Exactly! Your best bet is on that less crowded corner.

And if you already have some experience in that area, you stand out right away. One business owner I know has made a fortune in such obscure areas as info products about guinea pigs, goats and rabbits. He walked into niches that no one was serving and used his knowledge in those areas to completely dominate an untapped market.

By the time others started to noticed that there was money to be made there, he was already the unquestioned high guru that everyone in that niche looked to as THE expert. No one else has been able to make a dent in his business.

So what do you know that can help you to do the same? I'll get into that a little more tomorrow.
Jeff

Finding Your Niche
"I'd love to work with a few resellers who focus on a niche and do a really good job of promoting our products to it," said my client today as we talked about his dropshipping program. "There are just too many who never do anything more than dream."

It seems that almost all of the new business owners who apply to resell his products have one of two plans in mind:

• Either create a gigantic general products site that they dream will one day sell everything that anyone could possibly want
• Or grab some cool products and make a quick buck by throwing them up on eBay

The only ones who succeed at the first are those with deep pockets and prior experience at running a business. The only ones who succeed at the other are those who already understand how to sell on eBay.

It might be a fun daydream to imagine your company being mentioned in the same breath with Amazon and WalMart, but that's the closest you'll ever come to accomplishing that—in your dreams.

But there's money to be made in niches, namely, in serving the needs of small, passionate groups of people. Believe it or not, there are already niches where you already have enough knowledge and experience to help people solve their needs and make good money in the process.

As a matter of fact, unless you already have deep pockets and vast business experience, niches are the ONLY place where you can really make some serious money. Forget about trying to follow in the footsteps of the giants. Blaze your own trail where others don't already dominate the market and you can create a profitable business.

How to find your niche? I'll get into that tomorrow.
Jeff