So, Decide Already
I just finished polishing my latest issue of the Rant - it’s a good ‘un, too. All about making decisions.
However, after sending the issue off to be printed and mailed, I realized I’d forgotten to include one of my notes.
So, here it is:
The ability to make a good decision is a key to becoming a true professional, in any market or business. Very few people understand the mechanics of decision-making… and, in fact, recoil at the idea of going deep with the process.
The result: Most folks do the equivalent of flipping a coin, or making snap judgements based on “intuition”, whatever that is. I’m not gonna get into politics, but right now there is a mob of elected officials who got their job by presenting themselves as being “decisive”. Not making good decisions, mind you, but being decisive.
How To Build A Million Dollar Homebusiness
Tamara Carlisle left her successful career as an independent film and commercial producer to distribute videos for kids. She has found a niche distributing her own videos as well as those of other independent producers all over the United States. Success, however, did not come easy. Customers were slow to discover her wonderful videos. There even came a point that she had to call herself just to hear the phone ring.
Now, she ships a 44-page catalog featuring over 250 videos, software and audio products to a growing number of customers around the world. To complement her print catalog, she opened a web site in 1996. However, it was a dud. She did not know how to tap the Web for her business. Relaunching her site three years later, BigKidsVideo.com has become an important source of educational and fun videos for parents, libraries and schools.
How You Can Ethically Profit From Your Fiercest Competitors
I taught one client, who was generating leads for office equipment, how to make more money off his office equipment competitors than he made off his own business. Every time my client mailed 1,000 pieces of direct mail, it cost him $1,000 and brought a 5 percent response - 50 inquiries for $1,000.
Of those 50 inquiries, he would sell 10 percent of five people - meaning he did not sell 45 of them. Until he met me, he just kept sending out 1,000 letters for $1,000, selling five more people and discarding the non-converted prospects. I told him “Your goal is to ethically exploit every profit opportunity in all these prospects and customers.”
Criminal Record, Criminal Record Search - **** Niche
I have discovered the criminal record search niche by promoting a website called RegistryRecords.Com. This site allows you to search criminal records, as well as other types of records, on practically anyone in US.
Not that I was that much interested in criminal records. Quite the contrary that 75% commission on each sale was the thing that got my attention. To make the long story short - I’m not making much money from the sales, but Google seems to love criminal records. (Not the first time Google saves my butt from financial misery.
How To Make $4 Million A Year From An Ugly Website
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/
Joel Boblit parlayed nostalgia for his childhood toys into big-time business when he discovered how much Transformers - robot action figures whose popularity has continued since the 1980s - were being sold for online. He launched BigBadToyStore.com in 1999 shortly after graduating college, while he was reliving fond memories of trading his favorite childhood toys - GI Joe, Masters of the Universe and Transformers. The biggest challenge in those early days? Boblit admits: "Being teased by my friends."
Distance Learning - **** Niche
Distance learning is a read hot niche. Thank you, Pete, for suggesting this niche (hey, finally I’ve got readers to submit their ideas to me). Distance learning is certainly a winner and I don’t think I’d ever try to play with it, had it not been for Pete’s advice.
Anyhow, getting education, diplomas and degrees online is very popular. So popular, in fact, that it’s estimated that diploma mills alone make over $500 million a year in US alone.
Can you image how big the legitimate marketing for distance learning has to be? Probably in the billions. And certainly you can claim a few grand of that distance learning pie.
A truly nasty and effective way to deal with a client who showed themselves to be a time waster
Hey, it’s getting late here. Finishing up this newsletter is my current task to knock my own Laundry List down to size.
So let’s wind up with a cool little Bidniz Lesson that -- cue up the theme music -- is both astonishingly simple, yet complex.
Here it is: People are wacky.
That’s it. That’s the lesson. People are wacky. You may not have noticed before. This simple realization, however, has profound repercussions for your business life.
You know the old joke about the firefighter jumping into the freezing river to save a kid who fell in? He’s sitting back on the shore afterwards, shivering inside a blanket, when the mother of the child walks up. She asks him, “Are you the fireman who jumped into the icy river, grabbed little Seymour, and brought him back?”
Making $700,000 A Year By Letting Customers Design Their Own Jewelry
Nothing can take away the glow a woman gets when she sees that perfect piece of jewelry-nothing except for an exorbitant price tag, that is. But when customers come to Lindsay Cain's Femmegems store, they're able to bring in pictures of exquisite designer pieces and replicate them at a fraction of the original cost.
Initially, Cain designed and sold jewelry herself, but this 29-year-old found her niche when she realized that other women not only liked to design their own jewelry, but also enjoyed emulating the jeweled adornments they'd see in fancy, high-end department stores. "They'll come from [the department store] across the street and design a piece like the one they just saw," explains Cain, who offers her patrons a wide selection of semiprecious gems. "People feel the value they're getting."
College Textbooks - *** Niche
This is most likely a seasonal fluke, but I see rather strong earnings from the pages that display ads on college textbooks. Textbooks are outrageously expensive so many students don’t shop at their on campus bookstores and look for cheap or used textbooks online.
As far as I could see, all textbook ads were from textbook stores and not MFA sites. My guess is that bids aren’t that high to attract this crowd. So if you are quick, go ahead and try college textbooks and see how it works out for you. I’m pretty sure that once the school starts, the textbook sellers will cut their ad budgets, but that yet remains to be seen.
How To Turn $5000 To $25 Million In 5 Years Selling To … Babies
Most great ideas are born from a need. The Baby Einstein Company LLC based in Littleton, Colorado, came from Julie Aigner-Clark’s need for a learning tool for her infant daughter. In 1995, this former teacher and new mom read the latest research regarding babies’ capacity to learn. Finding nothing in stores that used the research and that was developmentally appropriate, educational and fun, Aigner-Clark (pictured with daughters Sierra, 3, and Aspen, 6) decided to create something herself. Her first video, Baby Einstein, featured intriguing pictures and mothers speaking different languages.
