2nd blog in a row!

I know you're going to be bored with this, but "Hey", it's my blog!

This is my second using the blog the automatic dictation program.

Today we are going to talk about niche marketing, and I will try to explain the difference between a market, a niche, and a micro-niche.

A market is anything that a large group of people are interested in.  It could be something as wide as golf or fishing or as narrow as raising roses.  Even a narrow category such as roses can be broken down into much smaller groups.  There are people who are interested in the raising of roses, there are people who are interested in the selling of roses, there are people who want to find genetic differences in roses and there may be those who are looking for a thornless rose.  You can see the infinite number of possibilities.

Each of the above submarkets is what we call a niche.  But each of those is still too large for the kind of Internet marketing we seek to do.  What we are looking for is known as a micro-niche:  that sub category of interest.  For example, a seller of roses might be wanting to open a roadside stand, sell to flower shops or be interested in international marketing.  The key is to break down an Internet niche into smaller and smaller niches (micro-niches), concentrating on our effort on reaching a select group of purchasers.

I know that there are people who have made money on the Internet.  What I want to do is take advantage of the learning opportunities that are available.  What I am going to learn I intend to put down in an organized manner

I have given you a brief overview of marketing and niches, now I want to look at the areas of market research, traffic, conversion and product. What often happens when people start a business: they come up with an idea for a product believing that it is something that the public wants.  And they go off, and invest  an amazing amount of time effort and energy, write the book, make the product, only  to discover that there was never a market for that at all.

It is a tragedy and yet a large percentages of all businesses start out this way and the personal tragedy is that you've invested so much time and effort and emotion, even perhaps a great deal of money.  When there wasn't any need to do that at all. Using the Internet one can eliminate the majority of the risk.  That is why we do market research.

Market research is so important, but usually it is the thing that is glossed over or missed completely.  Hopefully online market research will provide us with the tools and information that we need to eliminate most of the risk. For example:  If I were to open up a coffee shop it would be great to know how many people each day  walked past the shop, how many people would stop in, know exactly what they would want to see on the menu, and know precisely how many of them are going to buy.  If that kind of information were available I would have no worries about whether or not to open a coffee shop. Well, that's enough for today.  You are probably bored already!

Tomorrow we will look at the concepts of traffic, conversion and product.  With hard work I am going to become an Internet marketer.  Who would have guessed?

1st Steps to freeing the mind-and resting the fingers!

What you are about to read is the first document that I have prepared using a dictation system.  I spent a number of hours working with this program, trying to learn its tricks. It has been very frustrating.  One of the things that I’ve discovered is that improper usage of the automatic commands can cause an entire document to disappear.

So, one of the things I’m going to do is dictate the entire document, save it, and then manually make any corrections.  That way I do not risk its entire destruction.  I have had to go to some sort of automatic dictation system because I’m not a fast typist.  The frustration that occurs when I’m trying to think and type and make corrections results in a “mind freeze”.

I believe that I am a creative person. I can go on for hours thinking about the possibilities yet when I try to put those things down on paper I am frozen. My fingers grow tired, the errors grow more frequent, and I give up in disgust.

I guess when you try to deliberately set upon a program that is when you run into your limitations.  Perhaps it is a touch of ADD, maybe I have a master’s degree in disorganization; whatever the cause I have a hard time dealing with the small details of life. I hate cleaning my office – I know where everything is!!

Okay I lied.  I haven’t a clue!!  So the first thing I’m going to do Monday morning is clean my office!

I said when I began this blog that it was a journey. From the outside looking in it may not seem I have come that far. But you would be wrong. It was a little over a year ago that I had come to the conclusion that life could not continue on as it was - that a change was necessary.   But change is slow and change is painful. It is hard work.

That is it for today, perhaps we will talk tomorrow.

A new beginning for the blog

It has been a long time, over 3 months, since I have done any blogging.  There were a couple reasons for this:

First, I recently found that I did not have time, that the various activities of life: work, taking care of a home and trying to build up a business, simply used up all of the moments in a 24-hour day.

The other reason was that I simply had nothing to say.  I had started out with the idea of sharing my experiences as I began positive thinking.  To be honest, I did have some positive results:

a.  My business has doubled over the last five months,

b.  And I have had an increase in confidence and self assurance.

Part of my frustration was that the changes in my life were hard to document.  I have come from a background of doubt - a sense of impending failure, most of which I attribute to my upbringing.  There are times in my life when I know I have deliberately worked to defeat any progress that I was making.  It was as though I could not handle the thought of success; perhaps it was the belief that I was not worthy of success; that even God himself would not allow me to rise above a certain level. 

Part of the problem was that my view of God was that he was not a caring and loving God. I've heard it said that your view of God is a reflection of your view of your own father.  In that case, my view of God was a very poor one. No details are necessary here.  Let us just say that I felt there were limits on the possibilities in my life.  More specifically, I didn't have sense of purpose.  There was no passion.  I was simply on a treadmill doing the daily routine.  It is hard to get excited about that!

And then something happened.  The hours of listening to a number of self-help and ‘visualization’  speakers suddenly opened my mind to a new possibility...  A way of gaining wealth!

Please understand, it is not wealth itself that I desire.  It is the fact that money provides opportunity.  It is money that allows one to live in a comfortable home.  It is money that allows children to get an education.  It is money that allows you to drive a vehicle that doesn't break down all the time.  It is money that allows leisure time for relaxation, travel, further education, the building of relationships.  And so, I now have a focus on my journey in life.  I will credit the use of visualization in helping make this a reality.  There is no magic here, no a quick fix, no silver bullet.  This will be hard work. In further postings I will share with you what I'm going to attempt to do,  and  the way in which I will do it.