Last week Overstock.com launched a new online marketplace “The Main Street Store” designed to attract small U.S. businesses, including minority and women owned businesses who manufacture or hand-craft their own products.

Upon learning about this marketplace I immediately liked what I saw.

My enthusiasm for this marketplace starts with the the Main Street Store mission statement issued Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne:

The ‘Main Street Revolution’ is a partnership between Overstock.com and small and minority-owned business owners across the United States. This initiative creates a national marketing and distribution channel for producers of consumer products by providing the opportunity to sell their products on Overstock.com and O.biz (our B2B website).

It is designed to increase the visibility of small and minority-owned businesses which currently lack exposure to national markets.

By joining our network these small businesses can reduce their supply chain costs, and open their products to a mass audience. This represents a grand opportunity for producers and consumers nationwide to participate and contribute to the national recovery effort.

There is a huge need for this type of “shopping local” marketplace in the ecommerce landscape.

And the potential for groundswell support is massive.

Much like eBay in the early days, the human factor behind what Overstock calls the “Mainstreet Revolution” has the potential to boost sales for millions of U.S. based businesses.

I once read this quote from CEO Patrick Byrne:

We tried to run it like we were building an old-fashioned billion-dollar business, not a New Economy billion-dollar business. We run the company as if there is no public market, and we are just trying to build real value.

They are providing value with the Main Street Store.  Note: In January 2010, the National Retail Federation ranked the company #2 in the U.S. for best customer service.

How to Get to Main Street

The Main Street Store can be accessed by clicking the See More tab on the main navigation bar. As the site and selection grow, I hope that the Main Street Store will be more prominently featured on the home page.

The Main Street Store can be accessed by clicking the "See More" tab on the main navigation bar.

Because the site has recently been launched, there are currently only a few thousand products listed on the site, and that’s where you come in.

Requirements to  List Products on the Main Street Store

I emailed Overstock to get the details for participation in Main Street Store and immediately heard back from  Overstock’s Aminah West on  the details of the program.

Main Street Store is open to:

• Small, U.S. based businesses with fewer than 25 employees
• Inventory can be resale products or products that you make.
• You must be set up as a legal business entity. If you need help setting your business up as a legal business, you can find out how to do that here.
• Ship via a traceable carrier like UPS, FedEx or USPS
• Provide product images to Overstocks’ specifications
• Use Overstocks inventory management tools
• Products must be made in the USA.  There are some exceptions for specialty and niche items. Resellers or distributors are not allowed on the Main Street Store.

For the full list of requirements, contact  mainstreet@overstock.com

Currently, Main Store Store offers the ability to list in the following categories:

• Jewelry
• Clothing
• Gourmet Food
• Gift Baskets
• Health & Beauty
• Home Improvement

• Pet Supplies
• Bath
• Home Decor
• Baby
• Luggage & Bags

More categories will be opening up soon.

More and more we’re seeing ecommerce marketplaces come together based on values. On the opposite end of the big box retailers, people want to shop with e-tailers who share a common vision, value and goals. As a society, we are voting with our wallet more than ever before. It’s for this reason that I hope to see the Main Street Store become a big success.

For complete details on the program, how to get started, product pay out, sales management tools, marketing tools and more, contact mainstreet@overstock.com

-Lisa

The only thing constant about entrepreneurship is change. If you’re not one for change, prefer the status quo and like to keep things “as is” for was long as possible, then being the CEO of your own business is probably not for you. Nothing will kill your online business faster than stagnation.

Keeping your business current  is the name of the game. Although this doesn’t mean “chasing rabbits” or having ‘bright shiny object syndrome”.  Nor does it mean dumping your core values.

A current  business  means your market + your products + your marketing + YOU = are in tune, fresh and relevant in your niche!

Unfortunately, even the most well-intentioned entrepreneurs can let things get stale. Reinventing doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It means updating, refreshing and sometimes retooling.

So how do you know if your business is ready to be reinvented? Here are 7 business and personal signs that tell you it’s time!

7 Signs It’s Time to Reinvent Your Online Business

1. You’re doing things exactly the same way you did a six-months, a year, two years ago or more. Things happen fast on the Internet. (That’s one of the things I love about it the most.) Everyday brings a new tool, technology, strategy, opportunity. Your customers change. The market changes. If you’re doing business in exactly the same manner you were 6 months ago, your business is losing ground. What’s one new thing you’ve implemented in your business this month?

2. What your customers want to buy from you has changed, but your offerings haven’t. Can you imagine going to your favorite store week-after-week and seeing the same products displayed the same way? It wouldn’t take long for you to say “What’s the point of coming here anymore, everything is always the same?”  What new things are you offering your customers? Are you continually bringing exciting products into your business?  It doesn’t matter what you sell – whether it’s physical products, affiliate products or digital products – you have to continually introduce new products into the marketplace in order to keep up with what people are buying now.

3. Your business model isn’t a viable business model. If you’ve read my recent blog post on profiting without passion or purpose, you know that I am a firm believer that you can’t be successful in your online business without a passion, purpose or interest. But that doesn’t mean “do what you love and the money will follow”. If you love goats and want to build a business selling goat products but there isn’t a big enough market for goat products – you don’t have a viable business model. If you want to build a business selling common craft project instructions that are widely available for free on the internet, it’s going to be a tough-go. And many times your business model and your numbers don’t add up.  I had a client who wanted to design, sew and sell her own clothes online. She also wanted to make a consistent $10,000 a month in her first year with no additional staff. We ran the numbers – she wouldn’t have had enough hours in the week to turn out the inventory required to make that kind of money on her own. Even with staff, she would have been working for free. Passion, interest and optimism are core when running your own business. But a viable business model is a requirement.

4. Sales are lagging. If your sales are not what they used to be, something has changed. And before things get any worse, you need to find out what the problem is and figure out a way to solve it by reinventing what your business offers.  If you sell physical products, the first place to start is by looking at your product line.  What new products have you brought into your product line recently?  If the answer is none, it’s time to restock. If you’re marketing affiliate products and your sales have dropped, what’s changed? How’s your traffic, what’s the demand for the product your marketing, did you get slapped by Google? If you’re business is not growing, it’s dying.  But don’t let it get to that point before you refresh and reinvent it.

5. Your niche is declining or has changed. Every niche market ebbs and flows, morphs and changes. This is why it’s so important to stay on top of the trends in your industry. Trends are about people – your customers. Lifestyle changes, demographics, the economy, marketplace changes all dictate the trends in your niche.  What about your niche? What’s really going on in it today?  Is it growing, changing or declining? How has it changed? Where does your business fit in?

6. You haven’t grown as a person and neither has your business. The person you are when you make your first $1 on the Internet is not the same person you’ll be when you make your first $10,000 or $100,000 or $1,000,000,000.”

In fact, it’s impossible for you to remain the same and make more money. If you’re not growing as a person, neither is your business. That’s why if you haven’t made your first $1000 yet, you shouldn’t be worried about how you are going to make your million.  You’ll  grow and change along the way and as you grow, so does ability to make money.

7. You’ve lost passion/interest in your business. This one is tricky. Because there is a fine line between temporary boredom or frustration in your business and a true loss of passion/interest. And  of course there are a whole slew of emotional reasons why we may think we’ve lost passion in our business, but we haven’t. Things like fear of failure, fear of success, wanting to “have fun” and not work, reluctance to adhere to a schedule, perfectionism, you name it. But don’t kid yourself. You know in your gut if you’ve truly lost passion/interest in the business you’ve been running. And if you have, the time to sell it or reinvent it is now. Don’t wait for it to die on the vine so that you have an “excuse” to shut things down.  I see this happen all the time. Instead of taking a stance of power and saying “I’m ready to move on.” and then sell the business or reinvent it while it’s still profitable, they wait till it’s on life support to make changes. It’s a lot easier to sell or reinvent a business when it’s on top.

Catalyst for Change

Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If it’s time to reinvent your business, it’s better done sooner than later. There’s no sense in waiting a moment longer to reinvent a business to make it more profitable!

How about you? Is it time to reinvent your business? Have you recently reinvented your business? Share your experiences below…

Are you struggling to build your online business? Not making the money you want? Following strategies but not getting results? Do you find yourself wondering why other people are successful and able to “make it online” and you’re not?

You might think it has to do with traffic, marketing, sales conversion, even what you’re selling.  And it’s true – to build a solid business, you need all of the above; a product people want to buy, a market that spends money, a way to reach those customers and enough customers clicking the buying button to generate income.

But there are two ingredients that are more important than all of the above – and without them, you’ll be hard pressed to become a success at whatever business venture you attempt…

Passion and purpose.

Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of entrepreneurs. I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurial profiles, biographies and autobiographies. And the one common trait among people that are successful and happy in their business is that they love what they do.  At the heart of their business there was a passion and a purpose that determined what type of business they built.

In fact, I can’t think of one successful business owner who has ever said “I don’t care about what I sell, I don’t care about my customers, I’m not interested at all in my niche market, yet I’m wildly successful.”

Somewhere in the equation you call your business, you have to be passionate and have purpose about what you do. You may not like every aspect of  your business (in fact most people don’t), but there has to be some part of your business that gets you out of bed in the morning and finds you saying “Yes! I am excited to do this today!”

Because it’s this passion and purpose that leads to the other “p” that you need in business – and that’s persistence.

If you don’t love what you do (or at least like it a lot) you won’t have the motivation to persist.  With out persistence, the success rate is nil.

How about you? Do you love the business model you’re pursuing? Do you get up in the morning excited about what you’re going to sell or with new ideas of how you can serve your customers?

Or are you going through the motions, hoping that if you just take the right steps, you’ll make some money.

Now there’s nothing wrong with creating a short-term cash machine. Need money by next week?  Anyone can list something around the house on Craigslist or eBay and make a quick buck.

What I’m talking about here is a business that generates a part-time or full-time consistent income.  Something that you are invested in that is going to pay you back with income.

Unfortunately many people who are stuck or struggling with success online are pursuing the wrong business model.

There’s a big difference between discovering that you love the thrill of selling physical products online and wanting to learn how to be very good at it versus trying to start an eBay business or a website because you heard there’s big money in online sales and “anybody can do it.”

You may be enthralled with the idea of being a profitable blogger, but you hate to write or be in the public eye. Each post becomes a struggle, each day you have to gear yourself up to blog.

If this is the case, it’s not the right business model for you.

If you’re struggling with what to sell online – you’ve gone through niche after niche, product after product, and you just can’t hit on something that feels right for you – there is something inside of you that’s blocking your progress. (Note: This applies to people who have been looking for profitable items to sell for a few years. Not the person who has been looking for a week.)

If you are trying to build a business without passion or purpose you won’t have the motivation to dig into your market and figure out what your customers want, what the new products are in the market, what books your customers are reading, what they are buying. etc.

If you’re out there searching and searching for a way to make money online, you first need to stop and take stock of who you are and what you like to do.

• If you like to write, you’re probably good at it – or you like it enough to want to get better.  Blogging might be the perfect business model for you.

• Love the process of ferreting out niches, putting up websites and driving traffic? Affiliate marketing might be your passion and purpose.

• Have a skill, an expertise, an experience that you want to share with the world? Information marketing might be your perfect model.

• Maybe you love to present in front of groups and enlighten and inspire? A business that revolves around teleseminars may be your path.

• Are you an expert at getting people organized? How about marketing that business along with related products online?

• Maybe you’re the ultimate connector, bringing like minds together wherever you go. The perfect business model for you could be a community portal – one that gets so much traffic as a result of your desire to connect that advertisers come to you and pay you to piggyback off your traffic.

• Maybe you have a passion for antique cars and video and you travel the country taking videos at all the events. What about a membership site where fellow antique car lovers can connect?

You could be like my friend Dave. Video and audio editing was his job. And he’s good at it. But he loves cooking.  These days you’ll find him cooking up something tasty on a local TV cooking show in his hometown.  I have no doubt it’s just the beginning of his path to the Food Network. Speaking of which – did you know that Martha Stewart started her empire because she had a passion for cooking and entertaining. She started a catering company with a friend. Do you think she would have been as successful if she had decided to start a business selling plumbing supplies?  It’s doubtful.

Or my other friend Jeff who’s what I call a “Deal Scout” – he’ll find a way to sell anything.  No matter what it is, he figures – why not try and sell it? And he’s always looking. You’d be surprised at the stuff he’s sold on eBay. This is a guy who if he sees me with a bag ready to be donated to Goodwill, will ask to go through it first to see what’s in there that he can sell.  He loves the thrill of the hunt.

What about you? What makes you light up? If you could have any business at all, in the entire world with guaranteed success, what would you do? In that answer lies the clues to what you should be doing.

I hope this is gets you thinking… gets you in touch with your dreams, your passion and your purpose…

Because what I’m about to say next might shock you.

Profiting online with passion and purpose is not about “Do what you love and the money will follow.”

What you love to do must translate into a business model if you want to make money.

You may have a passion for goats, but are there enough products , services and information to sell related to goats in order to build a business? And are there enough people buying products, services and information about goats to generate the kind of income you need?

If the answer is “yes”, then congratulations, you can monetize your passion!  If the answer is no, then it’s time to look at what is it about the “goat business” that appeals to you.  Maybe you can’t build a business solely around goats, but you can build a business around farm animals (goats included).

When I got started selling online, I was also contemplating  homeschooling my son. I had a lot of friends who were homeschooling their kids. So I thought about selling homeschooling products online. Unfortunately there are many limitations by the manufacturers as to what homeschooling products you can sell online. Additionally, there is not a lot of profit in selling used homeschooling products. Because my potential market – homeschooling parents -  like to make their training materials budget stretch as far as  possible.

If I had stuck with the homeschooling niche, I wouldn’t have been able to make a go of it. Instead I went into the more lucrative kid’s higher-end product niche. A market I also knew and loved – and one that was profitable. In the end, I was happy – I was selling high-end products to parents who had the money to buy them, and in turn, I was making an income that fulfilled my needs. I had a passion and a purpose in my business, and at the time there was a huge market for what I was selling.

If there is no market for your passion or purpose, take a look inside and see what else fuels your spirit.

We all have more than one thing we love or are interested in. I started my online business with e-tail because I had experience in retail, I was good at it and I liked it enough to want to really want to get into it and immerse myself in the niche market. I reveled in reading about the latest kid’s products.  Got excited when I went to a trade show and looked at all the innovative new products that were coming into the marketplaces. Felt joy when I received an email from a customer telling me how beautiful her granddaughter looked in the seafoam green and pink flowered dress I had carefully sourced. I also sold books on Amazon – which I also loved.  I love to read . I love books. It was a product line I adored. I looked forward to sourcing books and watching them sell.

But there was additional  passion and purpose inside me which revealed itself 7 years ago… to help motivated entrepreneurs turn their passion and purpose into a profitable online business.

So how about you?

Are you building a business that plays to your skills, your talents, your passion and purpose? Or are you trying to follow a cookie cutter formula because you heard it works? Do you enjoy the core actions in your online business? Remember, you won’t like every aspect of it, but you’d better have an interest at the core.

Is there a market for your passion and purpose fueled business?

How much money do you want to make?

Maybe your passion is a facet of a larger scope.

The bottom line? If you’re not making the money you want online, before you buy another “traffic” ebook, or the latest get rich quick pitch, ask yourself “What exactly is it that I like to do? What am I good at? What energizes me?” Then see if it’s in alignment with what you’re doing now. Chances are it isn’t.

Want to revisit your business and help align it with your passion?

Share your thoughts below and let’s take a look at your next step.

-Lisa

In my last post  The 7 TOP Ways to Monetize a Niche, I outlined seven different ways to monetize a niche market. (You can start reading from the beginning of our Niche Monetizer™ series here.)

Today we’re going to look at 12 real-world examples of people who are successfully monetizing a niche in different ways.   Some of these sites are small, home based businesses, others are  larger organizations.

However it’s important to note, that it’s not the size of the business that matters. You can apply all of these Niche Monetizer™ methods at any level. And that’s exactly why this is a solid business building model, and a method that anyone can use to make money online.

Selling Physical Products in a Niche

Selling physical products is one of the easiest ways to monetize a niche. Why? Physical products are readily available.

I showed you earlier in this series how Wai Hong Fong monetizes 10 individual niche markets with 10 different websites.  Read how he does it here.

Take a look at how Melanie Landi, a member of my 2010 Business Growth Group monetizes the  kid’s products niche.  She runs two niche websites, Kid’s Chair World and Brianna’s Bedding and Beyond. By focusing on a specific niche, Melanie can search engine optimize her sites and focus her message clearly on her target customers. Melanie’s products have now been featured on some industry blogs (bloggers are very influential in promoting niche ecommerce websites) which led directly to increased traffic and sales. The combination of a niche market and the connection to industry bloggers opens up a whole new marketing and visibility pathway for Melanie’s business.

Fun Stuff for Dogs is a site for dog lovers with a sense of humor and a sense of fun. This is no generic Petco dog site, it has a clear focus on a niche. Not only does Fun Stuff for Dogs sell physical products, they’ve parlayed their expertise in this niche into a radio show on Blog Talk Radio that boasts over 21,000 listeners. . This now brings in other opportunities to monetize this niche.  In fact, this site is in a prime position to start having their own products manufactured and branded under this great brand!

Keep in mind that Fun Stuff for Dogs did not start out with a radio show – they started out as a simple ecommerce site.  And you can do the same.  No matter what niche you sell in!

Physical Products, Affiliate Products, & Information Products

When it comes to finer vintage china, no one is more of an expert than Sally K, owner of Kimbesas’s Closet and Diary of a Dishie.  Sally (who is also the uber forum moderator for my 2010 Business  Growth Group forum ) started monetizing her niche by selling products on eBay. But with the creation of her traffic driving blog, Diary of a Dishie, Sally has started monetizing her niche with affiliate marketing and consulting.  Sally’s business is now expanding into information as well.  She is a Platinum Ezine Articles author, (resulting in more than 11,000 new potential customers learning about her) has written for the Examiner, and has started two new blogs in different niches.

Branding Your Own Products

Here’s an example of a very successful site that started out as an email newsletter with 10 people on it, and has now grown into a multi-million dollar business. Marcia Cilley’s FLYLady started out as a small newsletter on how to keep your home clean and organized. It also addressed deep-seated issues that many of people experience like procrastination, perfectionism, lack of structure and more.

Marcia didn’t start out with a goal to turn this into a business that sells products – she only had a desire to help other people solve a problem. One of the  hallmarks of serving a niche.

Her originaly subscribers recommended the newsletter to their  friends, and before long FLYLady was a household name for millions of men and women across the world.

Marcia monetized this niche by taking an existing product and putting her brand name on it. And today sales of timers, feather dusters, De-Clutter kits, toolkits and more generate millions of dollars in sales.

Branding an existing product is a relatively simple thing to do.  It immediately gives you a product exclusive and you can customize it to fit the needs of your customers!

The Lizton Sign Shop on eBay has sold tens of thousands of custom ’street signs’  for personal use. Product customization is a super hot trend and this is a great example of a creative way you can capitalize on a trend by creating your own product to monetize a niche.

Niche Affiliate Sites – Multiple Monetizations

Themed weddings are a hot trend. Super Weddings is monetizing this niche in three ways.

They monetize through information marketing, physical product marketing and affiliate marketing.  They also sell advertising space to other information marketers.  And while the linking throughout the site and to their two wedding stores is not clearly laid out, the individual stores are keyword optimized, which means the people searching for the products or information being sold on these sites can find the site from multiple sides.

The Golf Collection sells physical products from their site, but they also have an affiliate program so that affiliate partners can market the sites products as well.

Urban Garden Solutions, a great site built around a sizzling hot trend, urban gardening, also sells their own products and offers an affiliate program for other marketers to sell products as well.

You can monetize a niche this way too.  Set your primary site up to sell products. Create an affiliate program for affiliate marketers to sell your products.  Or be the affiliate marketer who markets products for other people.

aStores for Amazon Associates

Amazon aStores are another great way to monetize a niche.  With aStores you can create a professional looking online store in minutes and monetize it with products from Amazon’s Affiliate Program. Then create an aStore and either embed it in an existing site, and customize it to reflect your branding as Sally K, owner of Diary of a Dishie does.

Monetizing a Niche Skill

Quilting teachers Jan and Leslie have taken their quilting skills and expertise and monetized it by creating an information products business. Top to Bobbin Quilting on eBay sells their how-to  DVDs teaching people their unique quilting expertise. They could also monetize this niche by selling beginning quilting products for an all in one shopping experience.

eBay seller beautifulfaces is a professional doll repainter. Not only does she sell her custom repainted dolls on eBay and her website, she also teachers other how to learn this skill so they can create their own repainted dolls to sell on eBay.  She does this by selling her training DVDs both on eBay and from her website.

Ask yourself “What expertise do I have? What do I know that other people would like to learn?” Then set about to create your first information product! You can burn it to DVD or CD and sell it on eBay. You can set it up as a digital product to sell on Clickbank (and have affiliates sell it too.) Or you can sell it from blog and using your existing PayPal account or Google Checkout account as a payment processor.

And these are only a few of the multitude of ways you can monetize a niche skill through creating and selling information products!

Find YOUR “Hidden” Monetization

Now that you know what to look for, it’s time for you to find the different ways to monetize your niche!

I call this  the Niche Monetization Mindset™.  When you know what opportunities to look for, you’ll see your opportunities differently.

All of the sites we looked at today are real sites, run by real people, making real money.

None of this is pie in the sky stuff. None of these are fly by night methods for making money. Just real people making real money based on solid business fundamentals.

Now that’s good business!

-Lisa

Last week in the kickoff post of our niche selling series Want to Have Success Online? Find a Niche and FOCUS!, I detailed that one of the benefits to finding a niche and focusing is this…

There are multiple ways you can monetize one niche.

Imagine taking one niche, one center of experience, all your time invested in building a business in that niche, and then leveraging it into different streams of income.

Therein lies the power of a niche!

Depending on what niche market you sell in, there are at least 7 ways to monetize a niche! In fact when working with consulting clients, one of the primary things I work with them on is identifying every potential profit center in their niche!  There’s no reason to move to the next niche, if there’s still good money to be made in the one you’re in!

In today’s niche case study, we’re going to look at some different ways to monetize your existing niche.

Let’s first start by identifying the top 7 ways that anyone can monetize a niche.

The 7 Top Ways To Monetize a Niche

Physical Products. When it comes to monetizing a niche, physical products are the “low hanging fruit” on the money tree. Most every niche has a product associated with it. And if people are interested in buying hard goods in a niche, it’s a clear indication that they will buy other things as well.

For example, in-city vegetable gardening is THE hottest trend in gardening this spring and summer.  Made popular by people’s desire to eat healthily and have control over their own food, city folks are gardening in their back yards, on their decks, even on their rooftops!  And if this trend wasn’t already hot enough, Michelle Obama skyrocketed this trend with her White House vegetable garden!

There are many opportunities here to make money.  But let’s start with physical products. If people are buying physical products to use in planting their vegetable gardens. They’ll also buy information products that show them how to plant a vegetable garden. “Done for You” vegetable gardening kits.  Affiliate products associated with vegetable gardening like greenhouses. And for those  who are enterprising offline entrepreneurs, you could even start a “done for you” vegetable gardening service!

I worked with a client the other day who is a successful landscaper, but she wants to set herself apart from the rest of the landscapers in the area. She is going to start specializing by offering a vegetable gardening service and then continue to monetize that niche by offering gardening tools and decorative accessories (decorative plant name identifiers for example), and information on maintaining your in-city vegetable garden.

Physical products are available everywhere. If you want to monetize a niche or test market it’s, this is an easy place to start. There are hundreds of thousands of new products that come into the marketplace each year.  In our first niche case study, I introduced you to Wai Hong Fong, the owner of OZHut Stores.  Wai Hong currently operates 10 niche websites selling physical products which will generate a whopping $1.5 million dollars in sales this year.

Information Products. People love information. We voraciously consume the written word, audio, and videos on every topic under the sun. And there is not a niche market on the planet that someone, somewhere doesn’t want to know something about. What would you sell them? eBooks, hard copy books (using Amazon’s create space), video training, audio training, home study courses.

Purchasing information products that compliment the physical or affiliate products you sell is a natural extension for your customer.

You can either create the information products or have them created for you.

The great thing about information products is that you don’t carry a cost of goods with you beyond the initial investment of creating the product.

So now, on your website, instead of only carrying physical products, you can also offer your customers pertinent information products as a cross sell or upsell and increase the final sales price of every sale.

It’s a natural extension for the customer. If the customer comes to buy products to start their first rooftop vegetable garden and they see your ebook titled “Vegetable Gardening for Beginners” it’s a natural “click to buy” because there are already there making a purchase.

The end result? You’ve just monetized your niche two ways and increased your final sales ticket price.

Affiliate products. Do you know that Amazon has an affiliate program that enables you to sell most everything they carry at Amazon.com? Did you also know that affiliate programs are the hottest marketing tool being adopted by today’s retailers? In fact if you check any of the job boards like Monster.com, you’ll see that companies are clamoring for people who know how to run an affiliate programs.

Why?

Because companies have realized that they need an army of product promoters (aka affiliates) in order to get the broadest reach for their products and make the most sales.

So what this means (and pay very careful attention to what I’m about to say) is that there is tremendous opportunity for you when you think of yourself as a marketer in a specific niche, not as ” retailer.”

Now I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming blog post, but I want to seed the idea now, because thinking of yourself as a marketer of products and not a retailer who most hold the product, is the way of the future for independent online sellers.

You may not want to source and stock a backyard greenhouse, but that doesn't mean you can't monetize the gardening niche by selling them! There are hundreds of affiliate programs in every niche, just waiting for you to market the products that compliment the niche you sell in.

Getting back to our vegetable gardening niche. Or the kitchen niche. Or the wedding niche. You name it… there are affiliate products you can sell in almost any niche.

Not only that, you can sell “hard goods” such as rakes, shovels and green houses or you can sell information products, such as how to eBooks, home study courses, books and videos as an affiliate.

These are the top 3 ways that most any niche can be monetized.

Now let’s move on to 4-7

What exclusive product could you assemble to serve the problems or the needs of your niche market?

Create your own product bundles. A lot of times when I recommend that people create their own products, they automatically think of manufacturing merchandise. But creating a product bundle from existing components and customizing it to your target niche is a powerful way to have an exclusive product and not have to deal with doing the manufacturing yourself.

How you monetize through product bundles is by assembling a product from existing components.And focus on solving a problem or desire that your niche market has.

All of a sudden those individual gardening tools, your Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening and some decorative plant ID stakes are combined together in an attractive presentation to become the “Ravenous Rooftops Gardening Kit” See It! Grow It! Eat It!

And voila! You have your own exclusive product and another way you’ve monetized your niche.

Have your own products manufactured. 5 years ago it was not easy to design and create your own products. Today with the help of computer aided design,  it is much easier to have a product prototype made. And with platforms like Alibaba.com, it’s possible for a small entrepreneurial organization to work with a manufacturer in China.

There is more risk involved in this and you have to know learn how to do this, but the niche monetization potential is endless!

“Done For You” Services. Even though the Do It Yourself trend is hot, there are a lot of people that want it “Done for You.” And for those of you who are interested in starting an offline niche business, creating a Done for You service in a niche is a great way to monetize it. Whether you are an expert chef, preparing home cooked meals for your clients, or a landscaper turned in-city vegetable gardener like my client, or an artist, teaching art to school-aged kids and adults and selling the beautiful art supplies for your students to create their own masterpieces at home…

Consulting Services. Using your niche expertise to help someone else monetize that same niche can be a very in-demand service. For example, I have a friend whose parents just started an all organic/eco-friendly home child care business. Their target market is families of kids who live an organic, eco-friendly lifestyle and want that same environment for their children when they are at childcare.

There is a learn when starting a childcare business like this and so rather than read books, wade through information or learn by trial and error, they hired a person who has expertise in starting and running an organic/eco-friendly home child care business.

Now they are learning from someone who has niche expertise.  Someone who has done this before and can advise them of the fastest way to ramp up and the pitfalls to avoid when getting started.

I recently saw them at a get together, and after talking with them, they now plan to create a small eco-friendly in home care boutique where busy parents can purchase cute eco-friendly clothes for their kids, toys without plastics and toxins, environmentally friendly art supplies and books on living an organic lifestyle.

Monetizing a Niche Multiple Ways

The real income potential comes when you pick multiple ways to monetize one niche. For most online entrepreneurs, the first three: physical products, information products and affiliate products make up the wining trifecta!

Not only does this approach generate several income streams income from one niche, it will also helps to hedge against cyclical sales cycles.

You can ramp up one stream if the other tapers off.

It’s important to note that you want to get one stream of income up and running before moving on to the second method. If you’re selling physical products, get something going in that niche first, then supplement your income with information products and affiliate products.

If you’re an information products seller, compliment your information products by embedding links affiliate links to products related to what you’re covering in your ebook or special report.

The bottom line? Once you’ve identified a profitable niche, there’s always more than one way to monetize it. Never stop at one, or you’ll be leaving money on the table.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a case study that showcases how some enterprising entrepreneurs are monetizing their niche markets in multiple ways!

I had just put the finishing touches on the first blog post in my new blog series Want to Have Success Online? Find a Niche and FOCUS! when I heard that Wai Hong Fong owner of OZHut Stores and one of my 2008 Business Growth Group members had just made the prestigious Smart Company 2010 “Hot 30 Under 30″ List!

First, I want to congratulate Wai Hong and his team!

This is a great example of how vision and a niche focus led to success.

Landing on Smart Company’s Hot 30 Under 30 list is no small feat. Smart Company is Australia’s leading online business site with news, information and resources site for Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners, and business managers. Each year they publish a list of the hottest and most successful up and coming entrepreneurial businesses in Australia.

And this is a pretty amazing list when you look at the demographics:

• The entrepreneurs had to be 30 years of age and under
• Their business had to have at least $1 million in annual sales
• This year’s recognized business owners have $100 million in combined revenue
• They employ well over 600 people
• On average, their start up costs were under $100,000 and in most cases their companies have been in operation for less than five years

What makes this story even more remarkable is that Wai Hong started selling on eBay Australia just under 3 years ago and today owns a business that boasts ten niche websites with projected revenues of  $1.5 million dollars this year!

And that’s why OZHut is the first case study in the Want to Have Success Online? Find a Niche and FOCUS! series, because it all started with a niche.

When Wai Hong Fong first became a member of my 2008 Business Growth Group, he had just completed our exclusive Holistic Business Review on his up and coming business. At the time, he was working with a relative on the business, and when they went on vacation for a month, Wai Hong was in charge of the store. He had a big vision for the business, but didn’t have the clarity as to how it would all happen.  The Holistic Business Review provided him with the organization, clarity and next steps to expand his business online.

OZHut started on eBay, like a lot of online sellers do, selling a variety of different products. The “variety store” model was working for OZHut, they were successful on eBay – but it soon became apparent that some product lines were making money and some were not. Some were easier to sell and ship and some were not. Certain items had a higher rate of return and others had a low return rate.

If you sell in the variety store model, you’ll find that your results are the same.

Wai Hong had already been thinking in terms of starting a niche websites. But with several successful products, the question was – which one to monetize on a niche site first?

The first thing I recommended he look at was which of his products on eBay were the most successful? Which had the highest profit margin? Which were the easiest to source, stock, ship and sell? Which products would lend themselves best to a niche website?

Wai Hong  immediately went to work to identify the right product line for a niche site and shortly thereafter, OzScopes was born.

Today, OZScopes is Australia’s leading niche telescope store. And after cementing that niche success and systematizing the process, Wai Hong went to work to build the next niche site.

Today the OZHut network of niche stores consists of ten niche sites, each focused on a separate niche. From the telescope niche to the baby pram niche, to a niche gadget store, Wai Hong Fong and his team focus on one thing – creating success one niche at a time.

When interviewed on his niche strategy for the Hot 30 Under 30 List, this successful 24 year old entrepreneur said:

“While others are seeking to build large online departmental stores, we’ve found that focusing on specific product niches via dedicated stores allows us greater SEO and online marketing leverage to create a strong presence in those markets,” he says

It all gets back to the 7 Reasons to Find a Niche and FOCUS. Had Wai Hong tried to build a department store site, he would not have realized success as quickly, clearly or definitively.

However by  focusing on a profitable niche he was able to:

1. Become a destination site in a niche

2. Know his market

3. Source the products his niche customers want

4. Clearly brand the business

5. Maximize his advertising  resources

6. Build a site that Google likes

7. Leverage his time and resources, and take actions specifically focused on niche success

Start With ONE Niche, Then Lather, Rinse and Repeat

It’s important to note that while Wai Hong Fong and OZHut stores have achieved massive niche success with sites in ten different niches, he didn’t build them all at the same time.

If he’d attempted to build all ten at once, spreading 10% of his efforts across each of his 10 sites, he’d still be trying to get the first one off the ground.

Instead he started with one niche site and a sole goal of making that niche site profitable.  It was only when that site was up, running and profitable that he turned his sites to the next niche.

How about you? Are you trying to build a business in multiple sites simultaneously?

If so it’s time to pick the most profitable one or the one with the most potential and put your energies into that site. Put the other one on the back burner for now.  Once the first site is up, running and generating a steady income, then you can focus on the next site.

Coming up next in the Want to Have Success Online? Find a Niche and FOCUS series find out how having an expertise in one niche can be monetized several different ways.

-Lisa

Last month, when speaking at the 2010 Ecommerce Summit someone asked me  “If there was one piece of advice you would give to up and coming online sellers, what would it be?”

My answer to this question is always the same and it applies no matter what you sell or where you sell it.

Your best opportunity for creating a successful business on the Internet is to…

Find a niche and FOCUS.

• If you’re a jack of all trades, master of none,  it’s time to find a niche!
• If you’re spreading yourself thinly between three different eBay stores and 12 different types of products and none of them are up and running profitably, it’s time to find a niche.
• If you’re selling information products on health and fitness, starting an eBay store that sells used computer parts and trying to monetize a green-cleaner website all at the same time, it’s time to find a niche and focus!

Over the years, in working with thousands of online sellers in11 different countries, selling in more than 2300 different niche markets, sub-niches and micro-niches -  one common thread runs through the most successful businesses…

Each one is succeeding in a niche market.

You see, once you’ve identified a profitable niche to serve, you can monetize that niche many different ways.   But without that niche identified you’ll find yourself chasing market after market, opportunity after opportunity, never making any traction or money.

Many would-be business owners find themselves dabbling in multiple niche markets, putting in 10% of their time and attention on each.  But 10% effort in 10 different niche markets does not add up to a 100% income.

You need to first be 100% focused on serving a niche and maximize the monetization of that niche to enjoy  a 100% income.

Because of the importance of this topic, I’m putting together a series here on my blog, showcasing some successful niche businesses and explaining why they work.  Additionally I’ll be explaining  how you can implement this in your business.

So let’s start first, by talking about 7 business reasons why you should find a niche and focus! (Note: There are many more reasons than this, but let’s start with 7.)

7 Reasons to Find a Niche and FOCUS

1. You can’t be everything to everybody. At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the number of business owners I see trying.  This especially afflicts new Internet business owners, who see the internet business buffet and want to sample everything. The problem is that this sampling goes on long past “happy hour” and into the “main meal” – the point at which you should be building a business that is hearty, focused and nourishing to your bank account.

2. The money comes from knowing your market. What does your market want? What are their problems? What are they buying? How do they like to be marketed to? Where do they hang out? It takes time to really get to know your market. If you don’t know your market, you won’t know what to sell to them and how to sell it. If you sell baby products, how to make money with Google Adsense eBooks, and affiliate products for pomeranians, you won’t have enough time to find out about ANY of those markets.  So you’ll throw a bunch of stuff up on the Internet and hope someone buys. And then they don’t.  Contrast this to selling baby products, eBooks about parenting and affiliate products in the baby niche and now you’re cookin’!

By the way, I call this my Niche Monetizer Method™, but that’s a subject for a later post.

3. It takes money to monetize a niche. If you sell physical products, in order to find the products buyers want, get the best inventory and stock your store, you need to attend trade shows, read industry publications, purchase information on your niche. This alone could cost you several  thousand dollars a year. You may attend the Sporting Goods Trade Show a couple times a year, subscribe to a couple sporting goods industry publications and consumer publications. You may make a few other buying trips during the year to source inventory.

4. Google loves themed, quality sites. This means a niche site with content, audio, video and products all geared toward achieving the same objective.  Want to sell products in the juggling niche? Your site must not only have products, but also content to go with it.  If you have a site that is not niche focused, creating a quality, themed site is impossible to do.

5. Become a destination site online. As a small to medium-sized business, you need to be a go-to destination in your site  in your niche. A well optimized site, featuring the products and services that people want is the path to becoming a destination site online.  If I’m a customer looking for a unique prom dress, I want to browse a site that specializes in prom dresses, with a depth of selection and a knowledgeable customer service staff.  If I’m shopping an eBay store for a prom dress, I don’t want to be looking at running shoes and circular saws being displayed next to the pink frilly prom desk I’m looking at.

6. Branding for the big bucks. Focusing on a niche enables you to build a brand. Your logo, the look and feel of your store and website, your blog, all play an important role in building your brand online. In my upcoming blog series, I’ll show you some examples of online sellers who have built a strong brand  – brands which is now getting people to sit up and take notice!

7. The number of hours you have in each day are limited, with a niche focus you leverage those hours. The Law of Attraction says “What you focus on expands.”  Lisa’s Law of Action says “What you take action expands.”  And the way to leverage your actions is to get more than one benefit from that action.  For example, let’s say that you’re selling info products in the sizzling hot niche, in-city vegetable gardening.  You write the eBook (or have it written), create some article marketing articles, identify your niche keywords and put together your Keyword Bank™ – you can now leverage all these actions into more advertising and marketing.  The article marketing articles are now re-purposed as blog posts or tweets, your keywords are used to optimized your sales page, and the associated products you are selling on eBay. And your eBook becomes a stand-alone product or a bonus for the physical products you sell or your new home study course.

In the span of two days, you’ve leveraged the actions you’ve taken in one niche.

And of course, once you get the system down for monetizing one niche, then it’s lather, rinse, repeat for the next one!

Ask Yourself Today.  “What is my niche?”

How about you? “What niche do you currently sell in?”  or “What niche will you focus on?” The answer to that question is key to your next steps.

Throughout this blog series, I’ll be showcasing businesses who are monetizing in several different niche markets.

Coming up first in our series…

1. From the Variety Store Model to Rapid Niche Success we’ll look at an entrepreneur from Australia who started selling in the variety store model on eBay, but whose business really took off when he started focusing on a niche.

- Lisa

Join me for a FREE webinar on Monday February 8th 2010…

“What Will You Sell Online in 2010?”

What to Sell, What Else to Sell and What NOT to Sell…

Dear Online Entrepreneur,

With the dawn of a new year, it’s time to start thinking seriously about what you’ll sell in 2010 & beyond…

A lot has changed in online selling over the past several years  – more people are shopping online than ever before and they’re looking to buy millions of products in specialized niches.

But there’s also more competition for sellers who sell commodities that are also sold by big box retailers with deep pockets.

Join me this Monday for a webinar that will get thinking differently about what you’ll sell online in 2010 and beyond!

In this webinar, you’ll start thinking about:

-

This week I shared with you that it’s my 8 year anniversary as an online entrepreneur.

I also shared the single biggest factor behind my success over the years.

Well something big came out of it that will help YOU with your business in 2010.

THE BACKGROUND:

What I discussed in the email really touched a lot of you – I received more than 60 long emails in response -

Congratulations, appreciation – and also many very detailed emails in which you shared your stories, your struggles, and your successes.

And it was these emails that made me realize the time is RIGHT to do something that I’ve been wanting to do for several years..

THE MESSAGE:

You see one of the COMMON threads I heard was:

“I’ve tried all the get rich quick programs, attempted the strategies, things I see others do, but I’m still not succeeding the way I’d hoped in my business.”

Well, there’s a REASON for this – and it’s something I’ve observed for many years.

THE REASON:

MOST people don’t have a clear picture of ALL the ingredients that go into being a successful Internet entrepreneur on a daily basis.

In fact there are HUGE pieces of the puzzle missing -

Whether it’s:

==> Implementing the fundamentals correctly
==> Knowing if you’re pursuing the right type of business
==> Having the Entrepreneurial Mindset
==> Finding time to market
==> Having the funding to grow your business,
==> Understanding how to fit building a business into an already busy life
==> Overcoming fear and doubt
==> Knowing what information to trust and what works< br />==> Using the right tools to grow you business

(And a whole lot more.)

ALL pieces of the DAILY puzzle that no one talks about -

Until now.

============================================

Growing a sucessful business is no different than
cooking a dish from a recipe.

Leave out a several ingredients and your dish won’t turn out!

=============================================

THE PROBLEM:

To be a successful Internet entrepreneur you need:

==> The strategies
==> The mindset
==> And all the little DETAILS of how to run a successful business on a DAILY basis.

MOST people never get any traction because they’re running their business in a hit or miss fashion.

*********************

THE SOLUTION:

Up until now, my newsletters have been primarily focused on ecommerce strategies.

What to sell.  How to sell it.

But it’s not enough.  You need the ALL the ingredients.

The ingredients you’re not getting anywhere else.

So after 8 years online, the time is  right for me to teach you ALL the ins and outs!

I know what it takes.  I’ve made the mistakes.

I’ve found the right paths. I’ve weeded out the what works and what doesn’t.

////////////////////////////////////////////////

Announcing Daily iPreneur(tm)

////////////////////////////////////////////////

What is Daily iPreneur(tm)?

Well it will start with THIS newsletter. And expand to much more in 2010.

In addition to providing the leading-edge ecommerce strategies you’ve
relied on over the years…

I ‘ll be covering ALL the ingredients for Internet Entrepreneurs
(iPreneurs) that go into creating a successful online business on a daily basis!

Daily iPreneur(tm) will focus on the SEVEN “I” ingredients:

1. I = Internet. Focused attention on the SKILLS required to build a successful Internet business

2. I = “I”. Your mindset. It DETERMINES your income and your outcome

3. I = Innovative Information. Leading-edge STRATEGIES & tactics to sell successfully online

4. I = Implementation. Because information without daily IMPLEMENTATION results in no income

5. I = Income. What it takes to actually EARN money! If you’re not making money, you have a hobby not a business

6. I = Inspiration. Every iPreneur NEEDS encouragement, motivation, inspiration

7. I = Integrity. Building a REAL bus iness that provides you with consistent income.  Whether part-time, full-time or somewhere in between

No matter what you sell or where you sell it.
You need these ingredients.

*********************
SO what does it take to participate in Daily iPreneur(tm)?

If you’re reading this newsletter…  You’re already in!

Welcome to Daily iPreneur(tm).  It’s going to be a good 2010.

I just finished watching an excellent webinar interview conducted by my colleague Jim Edwards with Mr Rich Cleland of the FTC regarding the upcoming changes on 12/1/2009 to the current FTC policies on endorsements, affiliate marketing, testimonials, and product or results claims.

• If you are an affiliate marketer, information marketer or blogger who has any type of ads on your blog, you’ll want to listen to this webinar.
• If you sell physical products online and review them or post reviews/claims from your customers “This brand new men’s leather belt shaved 3″ off my waste size.” you’ll want to listen to this interview.

In it, Jim goes in-depth with questions on what these policies updates really mean. You can watch the interview in webinar format, listen to it in audio format or download the PDF of the interview.  The interview is free to everyone here.

Here is just a sampling of what Jim covers with Mr Cleland in the interview:

• How these policies apply to online marketing (and offline marketing).
• Whether or not this applies to non-us sellers
• The biggest misunderstanding that people have about the new FTC rulings.
• How to know if you’re inadvertently stepping over the line.
• What affiliate marketers have to do/say when promoting affiliate products.  (And there are several different scenarios to be aware of.)
• How to handle customer testimonials (for both  your products and other people’s products.  (Pay particular attention to the segment on Customer Testimonials.)
• What does this mean for bloggers, blogger reviews and banner ads.
• How to word your disclosures if you are an affiliate marketer.
• The difference between results based testimonials versus satisfaction based testimonials.  Can you still use results based testimonials?
• The difference between advertising statements and endorsements.
• How this affects promotions you do in social media sites (this is big considering that we are moving rapidly into the world of social commerce.)

There are many additional points covered as well.

I watched the webinar version of the interview because Jim has it split out by segments.  All you need to do is click on the segment you want to listen to first and away you go!  (However, you really should take the time out to listen to the whole thing.)

There is so much misinformation being posted on the web about this topic.  Including the fallacy that the FTC is going to fine violators $11,000+ for each violation (you’ll hear about the fine/penalty issue as well.)  This is why Jim went right to the source – the FTC and went in-depth to get the answers.

So click here right now and download, view or read a copy of this interview. If you’re selling something on the web, it’s your responsibility to make sure you are up on this issue.

** BTW, in keeping with the new FTC regulations, I’d like to disclose that I am not getting compensated by Jim for passing on this valuable interview to you.  It’s very in-depth and the best coverage I’ve heard on the topic.  Because it is key information to all online sellers, I want you to be up to date!