Have you ever walked into a store only to be instantly surrounded by salespeople trying to sell you whatever their corporate office has decided is the most important thing for them to sell this week?
I remember walking into a big blue electronics store to buy a TV. The beautiful corner-unit entertainment center that perfectly matches my living room will fit–at most–a 32″ screen. Unfortunately, any questions I asked were answered with an attempted upsell to a big screen. I don’t want a fancy TV. I don’t have room for it. It doesn’t fit my needs.
Why do the salespeople persist in strong-arming me into something I can’t use?
Later, I’ll be visiting a couple of potential customers. I know from talking to them that they are expecting a hard sell and a push to sign a contract today.
I don’t do that. I can’t do that.
My goal for these meetings is to find out what these people want, and–more important–what they need. How can I know what they need before I have a chance to sit down and ask them? Even bringing a proposal to the meeting would show that I cared less about them than I do about their checkbooks.
Here’s my checklist of items to bring:
Notebook
Pen
Spare pen
Business card
My winning personality
That’s it.
I can accomplish more with “How can I help you succeed?” than I can with “You really need to buy this from me, today.”
If the high-pressure sales-weasels at the big blue electronics store had been taught that lesson, I may have gone home with a high-end (though smaller) TV, rather than going home to buy online.
Have you ever had a sales-weasel try to convince you that you want something you don’t need or need something you don’t want?
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Budgeting In the Fun Stuffguest-posted here a few days ago. The post was about her dog. Nicole asserted that her kittens were cuter than BFS’s pug. There is some personal risk involved for me, but my pets are cuter. The proof:
Revoked Man Card
The Best Posts of the Week:
Frugal Dad discusses What to Do When Your Beneficiaries are Minors. We settled this by not making our minor children the beneficiaries. If we both leap off the mortal coil at once, my Dad gets the money. I trust him to take care of my kids with it. No, Dad, you can not work on my brakes.
Marko found a fascinating photo series of WWII war photos overlaying modern pictures of the same location. It’s kind of creepy in places.
My favorite dinosaur has a child has been reclassified as a child itself, not an actual dinosaur. That makes youthful me very sad.
Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in:
If you want to make money, help someone get healthy, wealthy or laid.
This section was quick.
Seriously, those three topics have been making people rich since the invention of rich. Knowing that isn’t enough. If you want to make some money in the health niche, are you going to help people lose weight, add muscle, relieve stress, or reduce the symptoms of some unpleasant medical condition? Those are called “sub-niches”. (Side question: Viagra is a sub-niche of which topic?)
Still not enough.
If you’re going to offer a product to help lose weight, does it revolve around diet, exercise, or both? For medical conditions, is it a way to soothe eczema, instructions for a diabetic diet, a cure for boils, or help with acne? Those are micro-niches.
That’s where you want to be. The “make money” niche is far too broad for anyone to effectively compete. The “make money online” sub-niche is still crazy. When you get to the “make money buying and selling websites” micro-niche, you’re in a territory that leaves room for competition, without costing thousands of dollars to get involved.
Remember that: The more narrowly you define your niche market, the easier it is to compete. You can take that too far. The “lose weight by eating nothing but onions, alfalfa, and imitation caramel sauce” micro-niche is probably too narrowly defined to have a market worth pursuing. You need a micro-niche with buyers, preferably a lot of them.
Now the hard part.
How do you find a niche with a lot of potential customers? Big companies pay millions of dollars every year to do that kind of market research.
Naturally, I recommend you spend millions of dollars on market research.
No?
Here’s the part where I make this entire series worth every penny you’ve paid. Times 10.
Steal the research.
My favorite source of niche market research to steal is http://www.dummies.com/. Click the link and notice all of the wonderful niches at the top of the page. Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc. spends millions of dollars to know what topics will be good sellers. They’ve been doing this a long time. Trust their work.
Click for full-size image
You don’t have to concentrate on the topics I’ve helpfully highlighted, but they will make it easier for you. Other niches can be profitable, too.
Golf is a great example. Golfers spend money to play the game. You don’t become a golfer without having some discretionary money to spend on it. I’d recommend against consumer electronics. There is a lot of competition for anything popular, and most of that is available for free. If you choose to promote some high-end gear using your Amazon affiliate link, you’re still only looking at a 3% commission.
I like to stick to topics that people “need” an answer for, and can find that answer in ebook form, since I will be promoting a specific product.
With that in mind, pick a topic, then click one of the links to the actual titles for sale. The “best selling titles” links are a gold mine. You can jump straight to the dummies store, if you’d like.
Of the topics above, here’s how I would narrow it down:
1. Business and Careers. The bestsellers here are Quickbooks and home buying. I’m not interested in either topic, so I’ll go into “More titles”. Here, the “urgent” niches look like job hunting and dealing with horrible coworkers. I’m also going to throw “writing copy” into the list because it’s something I have a hard time with.
Bestsellers
2. Health and Fitness. My first thought was to do a site on diabetic cooking, but the cooking niche is too competitive. Childhood obesity, detox diets and back pain remedies strike me as worth pursuing. I’m leaning towards back pain, because I have a bad back. When you’ve thrown your back out, you’ve got nothing to do but lie on the couch and look for ways to make the pain stop. That’s urgency.
3. Personal Finance. The topics that look like good bets are foreclosures and bankruptcies. These are topics that can cost thousands of dollars if you get them wrong. I hate to promote a bankruptcy, but some people are out of choices. Foreclosure defense seems like a good choice. Losing your home comes with a sense of urgency, and helping people stay in their home makes me feel good.
4. Relationships and Family. Of these topics, divorce is probably a good seller. Dating advice definitely is. I’m not going to detail either one of those niches here. Divorce is depressing and sex, while fun, isn’t a topic I’m going to get into here. I try to be family friendly, most of the time. Weddings are great topic. Brides are planning to spend money and there’s no shortage of resources to promote.
So, the niches I’ve chosen are:
Back pain
Bankruptcy
Conflict resolution at work
Detox diets
Fat kids
Foreclosure avoidance
Job hunting
Weddings
Writing copy
I won’t be building 9 niche sites in this series. From here, I’m going to explore effective keywords/search terms and good products to support. There’s no guarantee I’ll find a good product with an affiliate program for a niche I’ve chosen that has keywords that are both highly searched and low competition, so I’m giving myself alternatives.
For those of you following along at home, take some time to find 5-10 niches you’d be willing to promote.
The important things to consider are:
1. Does it make me feel dirty to promote it?
2. Will there be customers willing to spend money on it?
3. Will those customers have an urgent need to solve a problem?
I’ve built sites that ignore #3, and they don’t perform nearly as well as those that consider it. When I do niche sites, I promote a specific product. It’s pure affiliate marketing, so customers willing to spend money are necessarily my target audience.
English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”
When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:
Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.
When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.
Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.
Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.
Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?
This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.
When you’re buried in debt, bankruptcy can seem like the only option. When you get make ends meet, no matter how hard you pull on them. When bill collectors interrupt every dinner. When you have to choose between food and rent. When there is always more month than money. Do you have another choice?
Yes, you do.
Before you rush to file bankruptcy, take the time to understand your options.
Debt Settlement
Debt settlement is when you quit paying your bills and start sending the money to settlement company. The settlement company does…nothing. Really. They take your money and drop it into investments or interest-bearing accounts. You don’t get the interest, they do. Eventually, when your creditors are howling, the settlement company offers to make a settlement on the account. If the creditor accepts pennies on the dollar to kill your debt, the settlement company pays them. If not, they get to howl louder and make you more miserable.
While this process is playing itself out over years, your credit is taking a beating. You are doing nothing to dig yourself out of the hole you’ve dug. Finally, when your creditors are so desperate that they accept the settlement offer, you get a huge additional hit to your credit. “SETTLED IN FULL” is not a good status to have on your credit report.
Debt settlement companies do nothing you can’t do for yourself, and doing it for yourself at least lets you keep the interest your money is earning.
Debt Consolidation
Consolidating your debt comes in two varieties, a debt consolidation loan and a debt management plan.
A debt management plan is when you send one large payment to a debt consolidation company, and they pay your creditors for you each month. The company will usually attempt to contact your creditors and negotiate your interest rate and payments to try to get you into a situation that precludes bankruptcy and will keep your creditors happy. In the simplest terms, this is a debt payment consolidation.
A debt consolidation loan is generally done by taking out a line of credit against your home or other collateral and using that money to pay off all of your bills. Then you make the payments to the bank, to pay off your line of credit. The problem is that, if you can’t make the individual payments, can you make the payment to the line of credit? If you can’t, you risk losing your house.
Repayment
This option is my personal favorite. It involves taking responsibility for your decisions, cutting out the unnecessary expenses in your life, and paying your bills. There are a few popular plans for accomplishing this, including Dave Ramsey‘s debt snowball. The most important thing to remember are 1) debt it bad so stop using it; and 2) pay off as much as you can afford to each month. It isn’t as sexy as making all of your debt disappear, but it’s still a good option.
Bankruptcy
Let’s see. You borrow money on the promise to pay it all back. After you borrow too much, you renege on your agreement. You admit your word means nothing and you get all of your debt cancelled, forcing your creditors to raise the interest rates for all of the responsible debtors out there, as a way to balance the risk of those who will never pay. In exchange you doom yourself to lousy credit for the next 10 years. In extreme circumstances, bankruptcy may be the only option, but, I’m not a fan.
As you can see, there are almost always better options than bankruptcy. Please, before you take that leap, look into the other choices.
This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of bankruptcy and debt consolidation.
Have you ever had to make a difficult decision? Not necessarily a decision that’s difficult because it’s life-changing, but a decision that’s difficult because there are two phenomenally wonderful, yet mutually exclusive options?
For example:
Should you put caramel or strawberry sauce on your ice cream?
Should you go to Disney Land or Disney World?
Should you subscribe to Live Real, Now by email or RSS?
Should you take the job with the stellar benefits package or the higher salary?
These are all real decisions that you may be called on to make.
For most decisions, there are some alternatives that are easy to discard.
MadDog 20/20 isn’t a good alternative to caramel sauce on your ice cream. The local BDSM museum probably isn’t a great choice for a family vacation. Sending me hate mail is obviously worse than subscribing.
Then you’ve got some choices that are both okay, but one is clearly better. You’ve got free airfare and hotel. Do you go to Topeka, or Paris? Neither is horribly, but I think the choice is obvious. You’re going out to dinner. McDonald’s or…nevermind, this fits the first category.
After you’ve discarded the obvious bad choices and the okay-but-not-great choices, how can you decide between what’s left?
This is the point that starts to cause stress. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you regret it forever? What if you’re still not happy? Gridlock.
The reason your stuck is because it’s not apparent which is the better choice. All of your experiences and knowledge are telling you–on some level–that the options are identical in terms of your life, happiness, and goals. It truly does not matter which one you choose. You will probably be equally happy, either way.
Given that it doesn’t matter, you have two choices for making the final decision:
Pick the one you want. The rational decision is a tie, so make it an emotional one. Does one job match your dreams, but with a bit more risk? Has one vacation destination been a goal since you were little? Do it!
Flip a coin. If the decision doesn’t matter, leave it to fate. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you can always blame the quarter.
The one thing you don’t want to do is wait. Failing to decide is still a decision and one that is guaranteed to keep you from being satisfied with your choice. Don’t wait until you have all of the possible information, because that kind of perfect world doesn’t exist. Get to about 85% of fully informed and run with it. You’ll usually be happier making a decision–even the wrong one–than sitting back wondering “What if I had done that?”
