The Online Business Person, What's Your Line

            Online Business Person, What’s Your Line


-I  believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line. - Andrew Carnegie

    What is your line of work?

    What type of online business person are you?

    Do you know?

    If so do you know it well enough to be considered an expert at that particular line of business?.

    I have run an online retail store for over five years. I would consider myself an expert at running and building this type of business. I find myself unable to shut up when asked questions about selling on Amazon or Ebay. I did it until I decided their fee structure was too much to pay for the cost of doing business and moved on to building my own websites.  That said I understand the rules of those sites so well now that I can teach in less than an hour anyone how to become a powerseller. How to make a few thousand a month on Ebay. How to and when to set the best price to sell items on Amazon.

    In a way that all feels like another life, but it was not so long ago. I became an expert at selling things and the next logical step was to do that for myself. To take all the risk and reap all of the rewards. My question for you is “What are you an expert at?” If you market plumbing supplies, do you know this line inside and out? If you sell office chairs can you answer any and all questions without reaching for a manual?


    The better that you know your line the more money that your online business is likely to generate. If your business is not doing well perhaps it is because you have not mastered your line of work.

    Take some time and consider this. It is not the end of the world if you are not an expert at what you do. You have time. You can learn or you can switch to something that you know better. The first business that you design or build does not have to be the last. The worst thing that can possibly happen is that, due to success, you get stuck in a line of business that you do not enjoy and do not know very well. You will eventually get bored, angry or quit.

    Okay, that is it for this post. I would like to thank you guys for sticking around and coming back again and again. The blog is growing at such a rate that I would like to offer an invitation to those of you who wish to write a guest post. There are some of you who may think that I am wrong about something. There are others who have a topic that they wish to share, but do not have time to run a blog themselves. The guidelines are simple, 200 to 1,000 words on any business related subject. Just leave a comment that you wish to offer a post and I will contact you.

    Okay guys, time to get back to work.

Doing online Business, A People Skill

                Doing Better Business Online, A People Skill

    People do not like to buy from strangers.

    We are all strangers the first time that we do a deal or make a sale, but that does not mean that you should remain so with your customers. We refer to them as our customers for a reason. On some level we hope that they will give us repeat business. If we have provided a quality good and or serves then we should expect them to return to our online store or online business.

    How do we insure that this will happen is an almost impossible question. Even if we have done everything well the majority of customers will be one and done., but we should try to hold on to those that we can.

    What are the best ways to hold on to a new customer?

    Well the first one has been mentioned. Provide a great product and or service. Give them a reason to what to come back. The next way is to identify who they are. I ran a online store for almost four years before someone suggested to me that I should keep track of and in contact with all those whom have purchased from my store. This should have occurred to be sooner. There had been many times when a returning customer had said that my products were the best and arrived quickly. That they loved how I did business and they had decided to do business with me again. I filed that information away in the back of my mind and then forgot about it. I could have been list building. I could have been developing contacts that would be with me for the life of my business.


    I had not notice that the wholesalers that I dealt with had been doing just that. At least twice a week I receive an offer or just a simple message from them. No matter what we say to other we all enjoy the idea that someone is thinking about us. That we have made a mark and are remembered. The thing is that when it came time for me to make more wholesale purchases you know who I went to first? The ones whom had kept in contact. Even if there prices were slightly higher than their competition. They knew me and I had grown to trust them for no other reason than they had provided quality services and they had stayed in contact with me even when I was not buying from them.

    You can and should do the same thing.

    The first way that you do this is to build list and if you can not do this or do not have the time there are services online that can do this for a small cost. I know that you hate to spend money. I hate it even more than you do, but sometimes it is worth it. If that money comes back to you ten times or twenty times over then it is a good investment. You are most likely reading this because you found my site while searching the web. I have invested a great deal in SEO and so far it is paying off very well.  I do not like spending the money, but by having someone else do SEO for me it frees me up to build new websites and to improve my existing sites. It gives me time to spend with my family. No matter how charming and lovable we believe that we are no one likes to spent time with someone who works 14 - 18 hours a day. When they are not working all that they can talk about is work. The work that they just did and the work that they left undone.

    Purchase a little help when you can. I am not saying to throw money at a problem or a weakness, but even the fortune five hundred companies know when to out source the work.

    My advice today is to out source your email and list building. I will recommend a company. They have a nice trial offer. If you do not like them then I suggest you look around online and try a few different ones. It is okay. You get to try a few different services. Most of them offer free trials or your money back if you cancel after a certain amount of time.


    Okay I think that will be it for today. Remember to stumble us on stumbleupon and add us to your google plus. Now if there is nothing left to say I think that I will close with my catch phrase. Time to get back to work.

    “What?”

    Okay, fine. If you want to watch Shark Tank first then okay go on. Just this once.

Online Business, Forcast

                The Online Business Person, Forecasting

    There will be those who will forever claim to know what the future holds.

They will make projections and forecast of what will happen to your online business next week, next month and next year. There are businesses that pay millions of dollars a year to dozens of people who do nothing but forecast the future. I am not saying that this is a total waste of time, but I do believe that too much time can be spend on worrying about the future.

    There is the old saying that the future will take care of itself. I do not believe that either. If you do not plan for tomorrow it will overtake you. The advice that I am trying to offer to you today is that forecast are just a fancy way of saying this is my prediction. The word prediction conjures up images of an old gypsy sitting in front of a crystal ball. “I predict that you will meet a tall dark stranger who will tell you not to believe in predictions.”

    When I hear about forecast I think of weather men and women who tell us that it might rain tomorrow. It will be partly cloudy or partly sunny. There is a chance of rain. There will be one to twelve inches of snow this weekend.

    In other words we do not know.

    Is it any different in the world of business?

    Your online business and how it will grow and change over the next weeks, months and years is all within your own power. If you want a prediction that will come true I can give you one.

    If you work harder than the competition. If you improve in the areas where you are weak. If you play to the areas where you are strong. If you identify who your customers are and develop a relationship with each of them. If you do all of these things then I promise you that your business will grow and your profits will grow.


    The best forecaster that you will ever meet is the person looking back at you from the mirror. You will know each day if you have trusted yourself, if you have worked hard, if you have done all of the little things to make your online business a success. You do not need complicated formulas and charts to tell you if you are doing what it takes to get ahead or not.

    Okay that is it for today. Remember to stumble us on stumbleupon, to tell a friend about this site and to check out our advertisers. Now if you are ready I would suggest that you get back to work.

The Online Business Person, About Survival

            The Online Business Person, About Survival

-In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.- Charles Darwin.

    What is the business environment that your online business functions within?
    Who else occupies this environment?
    How big are they?
    How many traits do they share with your online business?
    If you do not ask your self these questions often then what type of online business person are your?
    My personal response to this last question is that you are the type of online business person who is in danger of being overtaken and or eliminated by the competition you are unaware of.
    To know who else occupies your market space is to develop an important survival skill. Perhaps the most important survival skill.   



    So do your research carefully and identify whom it is that you are competing with. This may take time, but it takes time to run a successful business.  After all the survival of your business may depend upon this research.
    Once you have found out who your strongest competitors are then the next step is finding ways to outshine them. To reach out to their customer base and use that base to grow your own business. You can do this through marketing or undercutting their prices.
    “That’s not fair.”
    Really? Think that over for a while and tell me that it is not fair again after it has been done to you a few dozen times. All is fair in love, war and business. It is in the end not about being fair or being liked, but about survival. Your business must survive because you depend upon it. Your family depends upon it. It has to be the most important thing to you. Each and everyday do not think only about thriving, but about surviving as well.
    Okay, that is it for today. Remember to stumble us on stumbleupon to tumble us on tumbler and to tell a friend.
    Now how about we all get back to work.