One of my dirty little secrets of success

Posted by admin in Uncategorized on Oct 28th, 2008 | 5 comments

Here’s a sure fire success tip based on nearly a decade of seeing some ideas flourish and other fail (mine and others):

Success nearly ALWAYS happens when you drill an inch wide and a mile deep in a mega trend.

I’ll explain…

Several years ago I came to a very critical decision point in my online career.

At that time I was an average eBay seller with a few creative ideas, but nothing earth shattering. My feedback score was low and the income from my efforts was barely more than a nice supplement to my full time job.

I wasn’t doing anything on eBay that wasn’t being done by others. After all, eBay is a place where your entire business is on display for all to see and copycats are EVERYWHERE.

Here’s the critical decision I made:

I decided to write down what I was doing in a 20 page report and start passing it around. The topic choice was narrow and specific. I actually thought it was sort of lame and “narrow”.

Here are the odds that were stacked against me:

 o  There were MANY other books (in print and ebooks) on the topic of eBay flooding the market
 o  I was giving away my secrets to any competitor that wanted to copy me
 o  I had no mailing list, no connections, no website and no ideas on marketing the book I’d written

My simple action taken in ignorance lead to great things for me though.

I now have what many would consider to be a virtual empire online and have taught thousands of others how to build their own success stories. My book, now revised and expanded still serves a niche of the most “creative eBay sellers” and yet has outsold nearly all books on the topic!

There are MANY lessons in that short story, but I want to get back to the point of this article.

There was a TON of competition in the “how to do eBay” book market, but I did well anyway.  Why is this?

Was my book the best? I don’t think so.
Way my marketing the best? I’m sure it wasn’t.
Was my customer follow up better than most? Yes, but that’s not why my book did so well.

The lesson?

I’m convinced now that one of the biggest reasons for my success was the simple and obvious fact that there were a lot of people interested in the topic of eBay (mega trend) and I chose to focus in on a slightly off-beat (inch wide) topic within the mega trend and pursue it with excellence as a foremost expert (a mile deep).

Within every mega trend there will be a lot of scam artists. Be one of the good guys and the world will beat a path to your door because you’ll stand out.

To find ideas on what mega trends are happening now do a google search for “business trends” or “2008 trends”. You can also pay attention to what magazine topics are selling well. Hot keywords and websites give you clues as well. Check alexa.com for ideas.

What other ideas do you have?

Leave a comment…or ask a question. Use the comment button below.



5 Responses to “ “One of my dirty little secrets of success”

  1. Brittany says:
    October 28, 2008 at 11:37 am

    Insightful message.

  2. Stuart Turnbull says:
    October 28, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    Hi Jim
    Did as you suggested, Googled ‘business trends’, number 3 on the list is ‘About.com, small business information’ where I found the following; ‘With billions of dollars of goods sold online, many businesses will need assistance in website rebuilds and search engine optimization. Look for growing markets in e-learning’
    It gives me this great idea; we could build a membership website full of advice and information to help members provide internet marketing advice to offline businesses, maybe include a forum, get everyone swapping ideas. Look, I think this could be really big, but we need to move fast before somebody else does it first. Let me know what you think.
    Stuart
    http://www.stuart-turnbull.com

    [[reply from Jim]]: Sounds fantastic…we could call it OfflineBiz.com. Great idea! ;0)
    It’s all about learning to THINK like a marketer. The rest is easy.

  3. Debbie says:
    October 28, 2008 at 9:27 pm

    Here’s an article with marketing trend info with some insights Stuart’s ideas…

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingcolumnistkimtgordon/article188282.html

  4. Joseph Ratliff says:
    November 5, 2008 at 2:00 pm

    Jim,

    It’s been awhile since I have commented…and quite frankly, you almost have me hooked on that SilentTeam.com stuff…but anyhow…

    I totally agree with the “laser focus” technique you describe here. When I started in copywriting, I was a generalist…

    But when I decided to “go deep” within a more narrow focus…and specialize…

    My revenue skyrocketed.

    Great article my friend. :)

    [[reply from Jim]]: for the record its http://www.MySilentTeam.com. Thanks for the kind feedback!

  5. Ronald says:
    November 10, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    Jim I would like to ask for your assistance with this problem that I have. I’m on your mailing list, i have the latest version of your book, I have hundreds of ebooks with resell rights, have ‘get response’ as my auto responder, couple of free websites up and running, etc etc etc. I problem that I have is that I get to a certain point with my Internet projects and always seem to hit a wall or road block to where I can’t seem to get to that next step or level. Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

    Thank You,
    Ronald

    [[reply from Jim]]: Trouble getting to the “finish line” on projects could be more a reflection of your personality than a character flaw (in my opinion). Don’t try to “fix” this “feature” of your personality. Instead find people that can get you over the hump. Pay them the few dollars it takes to cross the line for you. People with skills trade dollars for hours while working for those of us with with big ideas (while we get rich dreaming for a living). Don’t be ashamed of being a dreamer – just hire good help. Your other option? Bite the bullet and focus!

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