Rich Schefren has told me about building a business more than anybody else. Not just online business but also offline. Running a hybrid type of company, his advice is crucial for my business growth.
Most conventional online business wisdoms advise you to do these:
Find a profitable niche – Profitable means there are buyers, community groups or message boards. Sellers are buying pay per click advertising. Next, we go to ebay.com, amazon.com, soyouwanna.com, allexperts.com, ehow.com, etc to have an idea about products that are doing well in that market.
Then, we go to inventory overture, google sandbox, wordtracker, to find list of keywords. Next, we survey the market. Ask what people in that niche really want. Moving forward, we have product creation ahead of us.
And then, we create our sales process. Website, content, autoresponder, merchant account, blog, link building, legal issues, affiliates, banners, viral program, payroll, maintenance, etc. After all this, then, ….we get rich. Wrong!
Internet and websites are not business. They are only tools to promote your business.
All the above are product development process not business building strategy. In order for you to have a sucessful business, you need to know your strength. In business you play to win or don’t play at all because you don’t get an “A” for your effort. It’s either you grow or you don’t.
Most people have been bought into a faulty assumption that anyobody can build any successful business. Like your mom used to say “you can be anything you want when you grow up” but that’s her job to do so. Don’t build a business based on your interest or hobbies. Strength is a business advantage. Hobbies and interests aren’t.
When you enter a market, you need to change the rules of the game in favor to your strengths. Only start a business when you have the core skill to win or when you can disrupt the entire competitive landscape because your strenghts will give your business a powerful advantage. Basically, you need to differentiate your business based on your strengths.
So what is strength? It’s a combination of your talent, experience, education, and skills. Strength is something that you can do incredibly well, easily, and consistently. Here are some elements of strenghts:
- you are better at it and people notice
- you enjoy doing it – it is fun for you
- you continually improve your performance at it
- you experience a flow state when doing it
- you feel alive and energized when doing it
Peter Drucker says most Americans do not know what their strenghts are. When asked, they give you a long blank stare, or they answer in terms of subject knowledge. Which is the wrong answer.
Hopefully this post will somehow direct you to a better path of success in building your business
