Down On My Luck - Challenge

Hi Boyd

I liked your post. I've thought about this for a while - it's an important topic to me... I'd like to be able to approach creating a business "scientifically" too!

Everything I've done so far in business is in reality to some degree towards this aim - UNDERSTANDING entrepreneurship so you can create a profitable business from the beginning. I believe it's an achievable goal...

Anyhow, I think it's complicated because business is not always simple - also there are lots of "little things" which can HELP a business but which are not necessarily ESSENTIAL. I'm interested in the very BASICS - the ESSENCE if you like of what it takes to create and run a profitable business....

The bottom line is that you have to get people to buy your stuff. No matter what it is you do - whether it is a service or if you are selling products - you have to get people to buy your "stuff". If you can get people to do that, as long as your costs are not too high, then you should be making a profit and succeeding.

Anyhow - I think that these steps are essential to running a profitable business:

First you have to have a good OFFER in my opinion. A good offer means something that people will value. They'll see it or hear of it and think - wow that's a great deal! Various aspects of copywriting are actually about improving your offer - things like adding a guarantee or adding bonus products are actually strengthening the offer.

The second thing you have to do is communicate your offer to people. If nobody knows about it then you can't make any sales. This is where advertising comes in.... It's possible to have a successful business without any kind of advertising but it's probably more difficult. You have to "spread the word" somehow - and posting on forums like this one is one way of doing that (by leaving a link at the end of your post).

The third thing I think you have to have is credibilty. You can have a great offer that everyone knows about but if no-one believes your offer is genuine you won't succeed.... So people have to believe what you say. Other aspects of copywriting such as using testimonials helps with credibility. Another way of establishing credibility is to have good relations with your customers. If you've "delivered the goods" to your customers in the past then they'll believe you'll do so again in the future.

Well - that's a quick run-down of what I consider to be three key ESSENTIALS.... I think if you have those three aspects you'll be likely to do well. I know this isn't "revolutionary" - countless people have written about them before. What I've tried to do is cut through the extraneous stuff and get to the real "heart" of what I think lies at business success.

Anyhow those are what I think they are at this point in time. Of course I may add more as time goes by!

- Dien Rice

Hi,

Like you, I'm VERY interested in describing and understanding the ESSENCE of succeeding in business. This essence should include how to enable oneself to take action, in my opinion.

You mentioned getting the word out. EbaY has created an extremely efficient and user-friendly mechanism to match buyers and sellers.

Another part of the essence should relate to figuring out what to sell, which brings up the area of competition or market saturation.

Should business people enjoy what they do in business? That's a good question.

What we need is something like a HAL 9000 that can data mine the internet and build up a relational database 500 terabytes in size (a thousand copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is about 1 terabyte. 500 terabytes would be about the equivalent of a billion books).

Thanks for your reply...

Best,

- Boyd

Hi Boyd,

> You mentioned getting the word out. EbaY has
> created an extremely efficient and
> user-friendly mechanism to match buyers and
> sellers.

Yes, that's true - eBay does help to make things easy, I must agree... I personally think that an "eBay business" is probably the easiest kind of business to start online...

> Another part of the essence should relate to
> figuring out what to sell, which brings up
> the area of competition or market
> saturation.

Yes, that's true... When I said you have to have a "good offer" - I actually (implicitly) mean it has to be good for at least some of your customers, compared to what's already on offer (the competition)....

I think you really do have to consider what's already out there, and how what you're offering will compare for your potential customers....

This is where niches can be profitable. If you can find a "niche market" which nobody is really serving very well, it is definitely an opportunity, if you can make a better offer to that niche market than anyone else can....

I actually plan to do something to probably target the "popular physics" niche market some time in the near future (over the next few months)....

> Should business people enjoy what they do in
> business? That's a good question.

I think you really ought to enjoy what you do. After all, most people spend most of their waking hours working - so it's best to enjoy what you do!

I know some people have alternative views, but this is another reason why I like "multiple streams" of income - it helps you to find out what you like, and what you don't like. If you really don't like something, then you can just drop that stream, and replace it with something else.... "Multiple streams" gives you flexibility which you don't have otherwise....

> What we need is something like a HAL 9000
> that can data mine the internet and build up
> a relational database 500 terabytes in size
> (a thousand copies of the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica is about 1 terabyte. 500
> terabytes would be about the equivalent of a
> billion books).

Boyd, I actually know someone who's working on a project like this.... Though, if I'm not mistaken, it's for US military use.... (He does some work for the US military.)

> Thanks for your reply...

Thanks Boyd for bringing up this interesting topic! :)

- Dien

To: The military's version of HAL 9000

Your Honor:

All that stuff I said online about the gummint in 1994 wasn't really said by me. It was said by another Boyd Stone. Or if I said it I didn't mean it.

Your friend and admirer,

- Boyd "Mr. Binary" Stone