Think Outside The Box!

By Robert Thompson Posted 28 Feb 05

One of the things that I like to do with my spare time is visit various business forums and chat rooms. It is interesting to see what others are thinking, and once in awhile, I run across a question or post that makes for a good article.

Here is a good example from the SMC Members Forum. I have changed the name to protect the identity and privacy of the user. This post represents a very common sentiment throughout the stay at home job community.

From Jennifer

I just started SMC not to long ago and I have mostly heard negative things in this forum. When I say negative I mean people who have been in 3-4 months and have not had any luck. That is very discouraging. I also noticed their are a lot of SMC members competing for business. This is also discouraging. Is there no one else that has success from this business with any marketing method? I think I'm going to ask for a refund. People these days are cruel.

Hello Jennifer,

Hang in there. You are just getting started, and you still haven't even paid for a business education yet. Once you spend a few hundred bucks on a promotion that fails to bring in a sale, you will understand why I say this. I don't think of my screwups as failures. Instead, I think of the money spent as tuition for a new business lesson. LOL

Here are a few things to think about:

1. You are right about the level of competition amongst SMC members. With several members selling items on Ebay, for example. Your chances of earning a decent profit there is limited by your knowledge of the little things (jacking up the shipping costs to cover the cost of the item sold, or how to effectively follow up with another offer to the customers who do buy).

Regardless of whether you are selling products from a large wholesaler, such as SMC, or promoting an affiliate program, such as SFI or Empowerment, you will find this to be true.

Since the competition is so heavy in the more traditional venues, it is best to avoid them until you have a better understanding of the unwritten rules of the game.

2. Think outside of the box. For example, if you develop a niche market for a small selection of items, you can earn just as much, if not more than if you were adding all 4,000 items to your website.

About five years ago, I needed an additional $1500.00 in order to pay for all of the deposits that I owed on the new store that I was about to open. I thought about it a bit, and identified a niche in my community that no one else was targeting.

=> It was about three weeks before Memorial Day, 2000 a very patriotic holiday

=> I am a retired veteran of the USAF

=> I am a member of the VFW

One plus one plus one equals $1500.00.

What I did was to take an SMC eagle statue to my VFW post after contacting the Quartermaster to get permission to solicit the post. He welcomed me.

I ended up selling him 15 eagle statues at twice the wholesale price. I was so emboldened by this bit of success, that I called every VFW and American Legion post in Anchorage to make appointments. I didn't get my foot into every door, but I still had the most fun that I ever had, and earned all of the $1500.00 that I needed in just a few hours.

Like I said, THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX.

3. Ignore anyone who is negative about what you are trying to do with your home business. Whiners and Snivellers never do anything but try to drag others down to their level in order to justify their miserable existance. Since they haven't figured out the secret code, they want to make sure that someone else doesn't either.

Stay positive, have fun with your business, and be tenacious! Never give up because of a setback. Because, that is all it is. Setbacks are not failures, they are opportunities to learn and refine.

Thomas Edison screwed up a lot of blown glass bulbs before he finally figured out the light bulb. He took tremendous amounts of notes concerning his failures and learned from each of them. You should do the same thing in your business. Every time that you try a new tactic that doesn't work out, learn a lesson from it and apply it to the next attempt. Eventually, the light bulb will come on, and you will earn a profit.