THE ZEN OF NICHE: AND AVOIDING INTERNET GURUS LIKE THE PLAGUE

ONLINE SUCCESS: KEEP IT SIMPLE...TOO EASY? HMMM

When I was in college (the first time around), I was always told to find a niche and keep it simple. Little did I know at the time, I was learning a sound business principle. After all, there is nothing simple about Ebay, Yahoo, or Google.

Or is there?

There was. At least at first. All three built their "foundations" on one particular thing they did well. Ebay for instance was the place to buy and sell Pez dispensers in its early days. Yahoo was only a search directory and Google a search engine. No other real products or services. In other words they kept it very simple and did what they did best.

I'm an entrepreneur. My mind is complex. Chances are, if you are reading this, so is yours. Some days we are ready to conquer the world, some days we are in bed late licking our wounds from trying to conquer it yesterday.

Zen is at work here. There is a yin and a yang pulling us in either direction. The secret is to get centered, focused, and open to learn.

There are many "opportunities" on the Internet. I put opportunities in parenthesis because, as you may know from my previous writings, I do not believe in Internet gurus. The only way they are gurus is that they make money off your hard earned money and time promoting themselves. If that is a guru to you, go get him, tiger. To me, it is another snake-oil cyber-sales con man/woman.

The other day I was looking at some statistics of what were the top sellers (especially at Ebay); and, of course not surprisingly, Ipods, consumer electronics, Armani, Gucci, and the usual suspects. I even did further research to find out the few legitimate wholesaler/drop shippers Could this be my "big break"? When I say big break, I do not mean "finally make money on the Internet". I have been doing that for several years and it is virtually on autopilot now. Am I in the league with Bill Gates? More like a barbarian at the gate. But I do okay.

So I looked over the list of brands and items and common sense (fortunately) took over and replaced my ego. If these, are indeed the biggest sellers, someone out there is selling them, probably a lot of sellers, and I am not the only one reading this and making a big new discovery.

I have a slight advantage over some entrepreneurs (and this is not to discourage you, you can have the same advantages if you work at it); I own a large cartoon site

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