Starting an eCommerce business, or any business for that matter, can be a difficult task. Focus is critical! If we try to do everything at once, we can only expect mediocrity in pretty much everything.

Keep things narrow at first. Focus on the smallest possible problem you can solve that will potentially be useful. One of the biggest problems many new companies make is trying to do too many things at once. This makes life really difficult and can impede our progress. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: with much less work you can be the best at what you do. Small things almost always turn out to be much bigger when you zoom in.

The concept of focus is really logical; however, most of us seem to have a resistance to focus. Just remember, when you get to be #1 in your particular niche market and then find that niche to be too small, you can always broaden your focus.

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A Joint Venture is a “business strategy where two parties utilize one another’s strengths to positively grow their prospective businesses, creating a win/win relationship.” (dictionary.com). I truly think there is nothing better: utilizing one another’s strengths to effectively grow your business.

Here are a few steps I take when forming a Joint Venture:

- Step One: Set Goals about what you want to accomplish with this new marketing strategy - the more specific you are, the better chance you have of realizing these goals. Write these goals on paper so you can see them. “A goal unwritten is only a wish!”

- Step Two: Ask yourself: “Who already has a strong relationship with people to whom I might be able to sell a noncompetitive but related product or service?”

- Step Three: make a list of company names on paper, then DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Research the companies you think would make great partners with your company. Find out what their clients like best about them. Look at the companies marketing: What do they do now? Who do they target primarily? How could it tie in with what you do?

- Step Four: Contact those non-competing businesses and present them with a proposal that is hard to say no to. Show them how committed you are to making this work. Make a list of all the benefits your product or service will bring to their clients. Introduce them to your product or service. Supply them with plenty of information on what you sell, and some testimonials confirming its high quality.

What are steps you all have taken when forming partnerships or joint ventures?

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I watched the end of the Apprentice Los Angeles tonight and found it quite amuzing: the teams were being critiqued on a project they did for a bus tour ordeal or something. As the truth came out, Michelle Sorro, who was the Project Manager for the losing team, began to try to cover herself by saying things like “Well, this program wasn’t really what I expected…” and “My inner spirit just isn’t able to perform at it’s best in these conditions…” (quotes are made up but this was the general feel of her argument).

As I listened to the weak reasoning she gave for her failure, it helped me realize that there are going to be excuse makers and quitters everywhere! Some succeed and reach their full potential; others don’t. Why? Why? Why?

I really believed what Donald Trump said - No matter what business you go in to there will be trials and things that pull you out of your comfort zone; however, quitters will never see the success they are truly capable of because they throw in the towel and give up. He went on to point out that he’d much rather watch a boxer go out and fight to the finish, even get knocked out, before seeing him quit or give up early.

How true this is in small business management and eCommerce. The main difference between those that are extremely successful and those that don’t achieve what “they expected…” is one word: PERSISTENCE! When times get tough, when they don’t see immediate results overnight, do they get frustrated and sulk, or do they dig in and use the tools they’ve been given? When they see a little success, do they sit back and relax or do they focus hard and try to capitalize even more on the small success, which will lead to bigger success?

“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.” - Napolean Hill

Bottom line - it’s too bad that Michelle Sorro will have to live with the label of a “quitter” (even though she makes about $50 million a year in real estate )

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Good idea - wonder if my wife would be okay with this “marketing strategy”?

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Link Baiting, or linkbaiting, is one of the waves of the future for SEO and SMO. Below are some things I really liked from www.seobook.com.

Link Baiting
The idea of link baiting is to create a piece of content which is centered on a set demand from a specific audience. Questions to ask yourself are:

• Who is the target audience?
• Why would they care?
• Why would they want to share your ideas?

Some common link baiting techniques

• Talk about a specific target audience.
• Give people a way to feel important about themselves, someone they care about, or something they feel should be important.
• Take recent events and scale them out to others in your community.
• Be controversial.
• Be complete thorough.

Mine, Mine, Mine!

• People like to view themselves as being important.
  • Many bloggers search for links to their blogs on Technorati or Google Blog Search multiple times each day.
  • Calling out specific people, especially with humor.
  • People are more likely to believe and spread messages which reinforce their opinion.
• Community involvement is important to help others identify with and feel ownership in your link bait.

Just Ask!

• Ask for feedback from people who may be interested in helping you improve your idea or helping you market it.
• Asking people for feedback can help others feel ownership in your idea, and is a way to pitch them on your idea without looking sleazy pitching it.

• Some social news sites allow you to place voting buttons on your site. Do so on your most important ideas.
• Have a friend or yourself submit your best ideas to the most authoritative and relevant social news sites.
  • Ensures your story has a title that is easy to vote for.
  • Ensures your story is submitted at an appropriate time.
  • If you do not do it soon after mentioning a story on your own site someone else may submit for you, using a dumb title or dumb post content.

Leverage, Leverage, Leverage
Use the connections you have.

• Call in favors from people you helped in the past.
• Incorporate community ideas into your idea.
• Leverage friends and contacts via instant message and email.
• Build accounts on social news sites: www.delicious.com, www.digg.com, etc.

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