Since childhood I’ve had an interest in unusual businesses. I grew up with four brothers, and when it was time to vote for which television show we would watch, I sold my vote to the highest bidder. You could call that the business of politics. I collected the paper-wads that fell all over when my brothers had their wars, and then sold them back to them for a couple cents each. I was a war profiteer in the paper-wad wars. I also sold candy out of a hollow book in school.

My business activities were more conventional as an adult, but I still loved to hear about and read about the more unusual businesses. Sitting around a fire in an Arizona desert, I once talked to a man who sold used stuffed animals on the side of the highway. He claimed he sold $3000 worth his first month.

The Most Unusual Businesses

Then there was the guy I talked to in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who collected the bodies of dead deer. The county needed the deer carcasses off the roadsides for health reasons. They contracted with this guy for $25 per body. I’m not sure how he disposed of them, but maybe his other business was providing meat to dog food companies.

When I was living in Traverse City, Michigan, someone started a dog poop cleaning business. Want the dog without the responsibility of cleaning the yard? Call A-1 Pooper Scooper. I’m not sure if this would be better or worse than the dead deer collecting business.

Right here in Tucson, Arizona, there is a man who takes leaves from palm trees and twists and turns them into amazing animal sculptures. He sells these for anywhere from $2 to $12 in the street. The palm-leaf scorpions are the best. He just grabs leaves from the nearest palm tree and he can sell dozens of these in a day.

Unusual Online Businesses

Maybe you remember a few weird businesses from back before Ebay got all their rules. One woman made thousands per month selling used panties to fetishists. She bought new panties for her friends, who got them for free as long as they returned them to her unwashed, trading them in for the next new pair. The used and unwashed panties sold for $10 or more on Ebay auctions and they sold fast.

Perhaps you have heard about the online fantasy role-playing game called “Run escape.” It has four million players now. What you might not know is that in addition to buying “virtual real estate” in the game, and earning online gold pieces, you can buy these game things for real cash. There are Run escape entrepreneurs who sell their online houses in the game for hundreds of real U.S. dollars. I think it would start to get confusing – what is real here and what isn’t?

Then there was the guy in who decided last year to finance college by selling one million pixels of advertising space on his web page for a dollar per pixel. You had to buy a minimum of 100 pixels and you could have any image you wanted linking to anywhere you wanted. He succeeded in selling all one million within a few months. Maybe it’s time for me to get back into unusual businesses.

Success in business has nothing whatsoever to do with salesmanship, little to do with a knowledge of your company’s products or services.

It is owing to some far more basic fundamental principles which will determine your success or failure at anything you do in life.

They are your A,B,C’s, Attitude, Belief and Consistency. Taking them in reverse order.

Consistency
We get up every morning, we brush our teeth wash, get dressed have breakfast. We are consistent in our actions. We do it every day. We need to do the same in being consistent with our tasks associated with our business for the days that we have chosen we are going to work, be it 1 or 7 days a week. We need the 6 marbles in our left pocket or left side of our bag and transfer 1 marble to the other side every time we have carried out a positive action i.e. seeing a customer, talking to someone about the business, etc. etc. We need to do it consistently. We need to have transferred all 6 marbles (better still 10) by the end of the day. We need to concentrate on the actions not on the result. I’ll repeat that, we need to concentrate on the actions not on the results.

When we go mountain climbing, if we would continually look at the summit we would soon trip up and fall. We need to concentrate on every step at a time, one after the other and as surely as the sun goes down we will reach our summit.

Belief
An absolute and genuine belief in our business, it’s products and services and what it can give it’s customers.

Attitude
Possibly the most important of these three but useless on its own. It’s no good having the best attitude in the world if one’s sitting on one’s own in a closed room not talking to anyone. So what is attitude apart from how one feels about oneself and others. I describe it like this.

Your face is transparent, totally transparent and your attitude shines through whether it’s positive or negative. The first second that a prospective customer sees you maybe even before you see him, your attitude comes through. The customer sees it, maybe only subconsciously and will react accordingly. We all know that the first thing any salesperson has to sell is themselves even before they open their mouth. If they can’t sell themselves they might as well turn round and go home and go back to bed. If they can’t sell themselves they wouldn’t be able to sell packet of peanuts or a Mars bar.

Another description of attitude, when I took my 14 year old daughter recently to Disneyland Paris we went one evening to an aquatic circus. Very unusual, people diving, dancing and somersaulting on water. It was a spectacular show. What made it even more enjoyable (we were sitting on the front row) was the fact that all the performers without exception were obviously really enjoying themselves. They were loving every minute of it and gave it their all. Their attitude really shone through like a beacon and this made our enjoyment total.

So when we get up in the morning and do our consistency things let’s get a really big warm smile from within feeling good about ourselves and keep that all day. When we go about our business we need to keep out good attitude with us. If we can’t also be in the place where we are physically there’s no point being there in the first place. It’s easier to ride a horse in the direction that it’s going.

So those are my 3 all important ingredients that determine one’s success or failure at anything in life.

How many times have you as a customer felt as though you were putting a salesperson out by asking for assistance or interrupting them as they were engaged in a personal conversation with a co-worker or friend?

I can recall times I’ve actually said to different store clerks, who were either fully engaged in telling their co-workers about the wild party they attended over the weekend or the big fight they had with their husband, “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have this in my size?” and have them look at me as if I had just shattered the most important moment in their life.

Have you ever had an experience like this?

Many years ago when competition was almost non-existent for many businesses, consumers accepted this type of behavior because they didn’t have many options to choose from.

Business owners had the upper hand and could charge the prices they wanted without having any real concern for whether or not the customer was truly satisfied or had their need fully met.

Today, competition is fierce, particularly with the power of the Internet and expanding global markets.

If a consumer doesn’t like the product or service, or has a bad experience, all she has to do is tuck her credit card back into her purse and take her pick of any number of other businesses who will gladly give her what she’s looking for.

She doesn’t even have to leave her home if she doesn’t want to! She can shop online from thousands of vendors who will gladly deliver the goods right to her doorstep.

What does this new reality of conducting business mean to you as a small business owner or home-based entrepreneur?

It means you have to provide exceptional customer service and top quality products if you want to build long-term relationships with your clients and customers.

If you have employees, it is also critical that they understand the importance of making each customer feel like a million dollar customer. It’s all about the experience you provide – the feeling your customer has when doing business with you.

Get to know your customers. Find out what they’re looking for and why by asking questions, then really listen to what they say. Make it a point to truly understand what it is they want to create or solve, then if you can provide a solution, offer it to them.

Building a successful, profitable business is dependent on establishing long-term, loyal customers. Having to pursue new customers to replace those who are not returning can become tiring and expensive.

As you serve new and existing customers and clients, make them feel heard, seen and valued. No one likes to be invisible, especially those who are about to hand over their hard earned money.

Treat every customer like a million dollar customer because when you build a long-term relationship with them, they just might very well become one.

Emails are replacing regular mails from the post office. Not only because it is cheaper, since you do not need to buy a stamp, it’s also definitely faster. Emails can be sent in as fast as five seconds, depending on the server, anywhere in the world. No doubt emails are being used to distribute news letters, promotional mails, and other stuff. How then would you be able to round up email addresses to send those marketing mails you have? Here is where an opt-in list comes in. An opt-in list is a directory of email address you can send to those mails to.

Though it seems to be easy to find email addresses, if you are talking thousands in numbers, it is going to be hard. Besides, you have to determine the recipient of the email. You wouldn’t want your readers mostly male if you are selling lipsticks, right? A good opt-in list should include the profile of the email address owner. Here are tips on how to create a comprehensive opt-in list for target market.

Create your website.

Creating a website is made simple nowadays. A lot of programs are milling about assisting regular computer users in making and maintaining websites in a real simple way. Some website creator just needs you to cut and paste, like that of a regular paint program. Several web hosting sites are available too. Some are even free. If you have a site of your own, you can ask visitors to register with you or sign your guest book as they leave.

Set up a promotion or a freebie.

Not all the best things in life are free, as they say. But you can definitely try to give something out for sure. You can see this done all over the web. Free screen savers, free games, free download of programs. And what do they need from you? They just ask for an email address, your name and a little something more about you. Then you can place a check box on the registration form for sending of email. For sure, you can think of something to give out as well.

Write and write some more.

There are some web magazines where in readers can submit their writings for a particular topic. If you had a chance to do so, add a link to your article providing information about what you are trying to promote. Some readers of your article may enjoy your work so much they’d like to contact you, so don’t forget to leave your email address too.

Pose an easy opt-out option.

People who like to join your opt-in list would, along the way may want to opt out of it somehow. People who are wary of joining may not join at all if they see that it would be near impossible to remove their email address from the listing. Show them that it is as easy to opt-out as it is opting in.

Check other’s strategy too.

It would be better if you can find a partner in generating an opt-in list.

This way, you can split the expenses and both of you can share the list generated. It will be best to partner with a company that has a business similar to your own line. Both of you can profit more should that be the case.

Use offline ways too.

You can put up a small raffle preferably in a supermarket for a certain item they buy. You can place an email address opt-in part in the raffle entry to add to your list. This way, you’d also know the buying preferences of the participants if you mark the entries systemically.

Creating an opt-in list entails a lot of work and funds. You should outline how much you will spend in creating an opt-in list. People appearing at opt-in lists are sales prospects. They are those interested in a certain product that you may be selling. Obtaining an optimal opt-in list would boost your sales up so these tools are undoubtedly essential. Acquire an opt-in list now or generate one. Either way, you are reaching to people that can be your one of your treasured customers for a long period time.

Start converting your visitors into customers today! Get results, increase sales. Exactly how to increase repeat business and build your reputation – without wasting time and money on less effective mediums like radio, billboards and newspapers. http://www.RBar67.com/EmailMarketingSoftware.html

I was asked the other day what personality traits I thought were important to entrepreneurial success. I immediately gave my preprogrammed reply about passion and dedication and hard work. After taking some time later to ponder the question a little deeper (I normally operate in shallow waters), I came up with a more detailed checklist for entrepreneurial success. This is by no means a definitive list, but I’d be willing to bet that if you don’t have at least a majority of these traits, your chances of business success will be greatly diminished.

You must be self motivated.

If you don’t have the wherewithal to bounce out of bed each day without your spouse drenching you with cold water, chances are you don’t have the self motivation or discipline required to be an entrepreneur. Business demands that you take action based solely on your own volition. You have to do a hundred things every day that will not get done unless you make yourself do them.

You can’t be afraid of hard work.

If you think working for someone else is hard work, try starting your own business. You will be required to give every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears you can muster and then some. You will have to work long hours and be on call 24/7, at least in the beginning. If the mere thought of hard work makes you tired, maybe you should just keep your cushy day job.

You should have experience in the type of business you plan to start.

If you can’t locate your car’s engine you have no business buying an oil change franchise. The most successful business owners have prior experience in the industry in which they have set up shop. Consider working in an industry at least part time for a year before jumping in with both feet.

You must be able to climb back on the horse.

I always say: “If business was easy, everybody would do it.” Starting a business is hard work and the odds for failure are against you in the first few years. If you want to ride herd on your own business, you must be willing to fall off your horse and get back on a few times without giving up.

You need the support of your family.

When you start a business you may have to spend more time away from the family than you like. The business may also put a strain on you financially. You will have enough obstacles in your way without having to worry if you have the support of your family and those closest to you

You must have a thick skin.

If your feelings are easily hurt, keep your non-threatening day job because business is not for you. Many days in business, rejection waits around every corner and you must be able to handle rejection without taking it personally.

You must interact well with others.

Being an entrepreneur requires interacting with a variety of people, from your own employees to vendors to customers to investors. You must have the ability to effectively manage people without offending them; the ability to accept good advice from mentors and politely discount the bad; the ability to overlook mistakes or quietly rectify them; and the one I have trouble with: the ability to tolerate incompetence without losing your cool (at least not on the outside).

The deeper your pockets the better.

The number one cause of business failure is a lack of money. Before you start your business you should have access to enough capital to see you through until the business can sustain itself.

You must be able to delegate.

Running a business requires the performance of dozens of simultaneous tasks and it’s foolish to try to handle them all yourself. You must learn to put your trust in others. If you can’t dish out responsibility without worrying over the result, your business growth will be limited.

Previous business ownership is a plus.

Prior business ownership is not a prerequisite, but it can’t hurt. Many successful entrepreneurs have the skeletons of past businesses rattling around in their closet.

Another of my sayings:

Business is a lot like marriage: you learn a lot from the first one that may come in handy the second or third time around.

With that kind of advice you can see why I didn’t go into marriage counseling.

Here’s to your success!

Some would say that big business has it made; I on the other hand believe that there will always be a special place for the little business guy. Entrepreneurs have an edge over their bigger competitors. So while the Amazon’s of the world are struggling to break even from their multi billion-dollar overheads, the smaller Dot coms are already realizing profits. What advantages do the “little” guys have in the marketplace? Below is how to “think like a startup” and realize greater success.

HOW TO KEEP THE ENTREPRENEURIAL EDGE

1) STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

Ever heard of the 80/20 rule? The old adage says that 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. In business, the customer is king. It’s far easier to sell to an existing customer than to find a new one. So, once you get a customer, you need to service the heck out of them.

So how do you make your customers feel like they are number one? By letting them know that they are top priority. This means answering your own phone, replying quickly to email requests. It means staying in regular communication with your customers. Keep up a good rapport. Send an occasional email asking them what’s new. Mail birthday cards or a customer anniversary card. Gestures like these can build close, long lasting customer relations and goes a long way to building customer loyalty.

In addition to building stronger customer relationships, keeping in touch with your customer base can enable dot coms to offer one to one marketing. By identifying your customers needs and buying habits, you can personalize product packages and service offerings to meet your customer’s individual needs.

2) LISTEN TO THE BEAT OF THE STREET

If small business owners want to keep their head above water, they need to closely monitor their environments. By “listening” to the pulse, you can think proactively rather than reactively. This means spotting things when they are coming so you can act quickly and take advantage.

Web stats – Do you look at your web stats regularly? Or are you guilty of being too “busy” to make time? Unless you regularly look at your web traffic reports, they probably will read like a foreign language to you. By looking at your web reports regularly, you’ll be able to spot trends. What pages are your visitors going to? What is the hits-to-sales ratio? What can you do to improve that number?

Feedback – Another way to “listen to the beat” is to get feedback from your customers. Try to be on a first name basis with your customers. Ask them how they are doing and if there is anything you could assist them with. The answers you’ll receive will be worth their weight in gold.

Industry news – Keep up with the industry by reading everything you can get your hands on. When you work in “living room central” it’s easy to let yourself be isolated from the world. You can’t rely on your favorite soap operas to keep you informed about the current trends in business. So put down your munchies and flavored coffee and make a concerted effort to stay “in the know” by subscribing to print magazines and online newsletters

3) FLEXIBILITY

When I think about flexibility, the childhood rhyme “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick” comes to mind. In order to keep from being burned, small businesses need to be nimble and quick. This means having the flexibility to act quickly in response to changes in the marketplace. Like a surfer riding a wave, you have to be in just the right place at the right time to ride the crest of the wave and get the best ride. Likewise, if small businesses monitor closely what’s going on in the marketplace, they can act quickly to take advantage of current events and trends in the marketplace.

They say what gets measured, gets managed. Keep a close eye on your monthly financial’s. Listen to your customers. Measure the effectiveness of your advertising. Then when you see a difference ask yourself, “was that good or bad” and ACT!

4) TAP INTO THE FIRE AND LET IT FUEL YOU

Simply said, small business owners want it more. Because of this, they will try harder and go the extra mile. That’s why big companies like Wal-Mart and Saturn have made their employees part owners in the company. They have seen that people will work harder for themselves than for anyone else.

The best secret to success as an entrepreneur is to find something you are passionate about and create a business around that. When you do something you love you’ll never “work” a day in your life. Entrepreneurs have that fire in their belly. Find a way to tap into that internal fire and let it fuel you to success.

5) VALUE

While big companies will often be able to offer the lower prices, small businesses will always be able to pile on the value. By offering better service, adding bonuses, giving and discounts on related products, the entrepreneurs can add more bang for the buck.

6) CREATIVE SPARK

What’s great about the entrepreneurs is that they aren’t afraid to try something new. When I think of “creative spark”, I think of my son, when he was three years old, eyeing a package of cookies up on top of the refrigerator. He doesn’t know that it is up really high and that climbing up there is dangerous. He only sees the cookies and starts stacking chairs and climbing until I find him sitting on top of the fridge with a big smile and a mushy cookie face. Similarly, entrepreneurs don’t “know” if something will work or not and fearlessly forge forward with their eyes on the prize. This innovation helps them to tap into new products, techniques, and processes.

SUMMARY

They say, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. When the market starts putting the heat on your business, ask yourself, are you staying “sharp”? Do you still have the entrepreneurial edge? By thinking like a start up, you will find that you will have the staying power to compete with the big boys on the block. And you’ll find that kind of hard-earned success is “oh” so sweet!

Hello,

Need to find a way to earn some income from the web?

If so, you probably don’t need the latest product or service
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To your success,

Roy Bartell
Building A Profitable Business

Jack Lundee, Supporter of all things green and progressive.

Its common knowledge that the general population is attracted to stories of hope and success, but like most things that are obvious, they tend go to overlook in the business world.

For anybody looking to pursue a successful online marketing campaign, they may want to look to stories of hope, faith and success. You’ll find that most Facebook or Twitter pages are based purely on campaigns that influence commitments to action, specific to a cause. Now I’m not saying you should go out and tell people to join your blog or page simply because you support cancer, but a well thought out plan concerning awareness may prove useful.

For example, let’s take an organization like McDonalds for instance. As a fortune 500, they do pretty well for themselves, but their also sending the message of “We wish to give back to the community” through their McDonalds House Charities. McDonalds House Charities is designed to provide families “stability and resources so they can keep their child healthy and happy.”

As we all know, McDonald’s is the last place you’d take your child if you want to keep him or her healthy. But, through their traditional advertising they’re able to convey the message of “visit our website.” And through their website, they’re able to attract more visitors and garner further donations.

In turn, this ultimately provides better publicity and PR for the company that’s commonly known for it’s unhealthy foods. In fact, they already have a FB page, which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/rmhcglobal, so they’re definitely on the right track to success.

The same can be applied to a simple Joe Schmoe, or perhaps a hedge fund manager like Daniel Zwirn. Although he’s a multi-billionaire, he’s capable of giving back as exemplified in the press multiple times. The point is quite simple – The science behind how people think and what there interested in generally points back to stories of inspiration. It helps people overlook some of the things that they may not necessarily encourage.

Sure, stories of sadness, greed and violence attract visitors as well, but not nearly as many as would an inspiring story like that of a story of survival or emergency aid during a time of disaster.

People want to be inspired, and through that inspiration they wish to help in any way they can. So before you sign up at Facebook.com or Twitter.com, you should prepare a formal outline on how you plan to garner thousands of followers sustainably. Like a website, social media campaigns can fail quickly if they aren’t set up properly. The main objective is to get people to visit and return. Through awareness and hope, you’ll be able to get that return rate you should so desire.

Do you have the google adsense code on some of your websites? Do you wonder why some months seem to make you a lot more money than others? Are you looking into ways of increasing your adsense earnings? In this article, I write about the type of events which can have a negative affect on your ability to earn money on adsense and what type of month for example you are likely to do better in.

I was advised about the potential benefits of google adsense by a friend of mine, around a year ago. He suggested it could be an easy way to earn a little bit of extra cash each month without doing a great deal of work for it. I already had a couple of websites and decided to take him up on his advice. I was more than impressed with the results, the two domains in question were well established however and were quite well placed in the search engines. My friend warned me that it is not so easy to make as much money with a new site as it takes quite a long time for the search engines to trust each new site, this is where the sandbox comes in of course. I understood what he was saying but I still wanted many more sites, they would not be new forever was my attitude.

A year later, I now have quite a large portfolio of websites which are mainly health related and are what are called information portals. Over the next couple of years I am planning to add a lot more sites to this portfolio as I have been very pleased with the results from adsense so far. I am not trying to say that I make enough money to retire on, but I am looking at the whole thing as a long term project, as the domains mature and with a lot more promotion of each site, I am confident that within a few years I will not only be making a lot more money on adsense but that I will have a portfolio worth thousands. It is like real estate in my eyes and there would be many people interested in taking the sites off my hands. It would give them a ready made income without having to start from scratch like I did. I have to say that there is no way that I would sell however, why would I? I suppose every man has his price though.

What my friend has noticed is that in some months you earn a lot more money than in other months. There has just been a big football tournament taking place, the world cup. This is the type of event which has a negative affect on the adsense earnings. Any event or situation which is likely to resort to less people sitting in front of their computer is going to result in a drop in your adsense earnings.

For these reasons August, July, June and December are likely to be the worst performing months. March, April, October and November are likely to be the best performing months.

If you notice a drop in your adsense earnings over the summer months do not panic, keep promoting your site in the usual ways and just sit back and wait for the winter to begin. Enjoy the summer while it lasts of course.

Do your emotions get in the way of sound business decisions?

Women, in particular, let their emotions get in the way of sound business judgment. In business it is very necessary to be analytical and logical. Each decision should boil down to one question:

“Will this be good or bad for my business?”

Society views women as nurturing caretakers and many have been raised to fit that model. The problem stemming from this is that women are always concerned about not hurting the other person’s feelings. They feel obligated to “be nice” by transacting business even though the action does not fit their business model or make good financial sense.

Have you ever been expected to make an expensive purchase for your business, and did you go through with it even though it was too costly, for fear of “not being liked?”

Handle business swiftly and politely with a smile to avoid confrontations. Your first response is to acknowledge the request. Then, within the framework of the conversation, explain why you cannot meet the request. For example, I had an exciting opportunity to combine forces with a local TV news program. Their research was impeccable indicating a very high number of anticipated hits on my website and calls to be received if I were to sign up for the program.

After the presentation, and request for $50,000, I agreed it was of great value. I then said, “If your statistics are true, I would need to build up my infrastructure which will take longer than your short time frame allowed for commitment.”

I agreed with their statements and used their own words to show the flaw in their reasoning for a quick decision. This method enabled me to excuse myself from the project and eliminated hard feelings.

You cannot afford to purchase from everyone. You must learn to remove the emotional side of business and set realistic expectations of others. Too often women will get upset if an acquaintance does not purchase; will not trade links on websites; and will not offer referrals. They feel it’s owed to them.

I suggest you take the “I” and “You” out of the equation and, instead, think in terms of the bottom line for your business.

Relationship selling is based on a win-win strategy. Each business owner must understand the needs and challenges of the other.

When someone tells you ‘No’ at any point in a conversation, the very best thing to do is to stop and ask, “Why?” Getting angry, walking away and stopping all communication is not the least bit helpful.

If you take the time to ask “Why?” and get a history of experiences, there will be three positive outcomes from the question. First, if an error was made, you will know what that error was and will not repeat it elsewhere.

Second, you will become adept at always understanding two viewpoints (yours and your prospect’s) which will work in your favor from that point forward.

The third scenario, and best of all, is by questioning you may easily find a solution that will satisfy both of you.

Once you know who your best prospects are, stay with that market and you will be far happier as more business comes your way. We’ve all heard, “It’s not personal, it’s just business” and now we must heed that expression.

Ask yourself, am I making reasonable requests of others and am I making the best decisions for my business?

Additional Ideas to Build Business you way include, Determine if the goodwill outweighs the cost on smaller decisions; Analyze the pros and cons of larger decisions; Will you still be able to pay your bills after adding the new commitment;
Feminine intuition is an advantage – listen to your initial reaction as it’s usually correct. If you are truly uncomfortable making a quick decision, request a day or two to reflect on the ramifications, good and bad, of the request. No one can be offended by you giving serious consideration to what is being asked of you. This last step will enhance your relationship selling and will present you as highly credible.

Strive to build a sound business environment. Your center of influence will grow And Your Business Will Prosper.