How Rivendell created a million dollar empire by selling just 600 bikes

At first glance, you might think that Rivendell bikes are 20 years old. They are nothing like the modern bicycles. Instead of titanium and carbon fiber, they are made out of steel. Rather than electronic gear shifters, they still have mjavascript:void(0)anual derailleurs. And yet a cycling enthusiast goes crazy when he sees one of these bikes. In fact, each one of these bikes sells for $1,300!

The Rivendell bikes are manually made. But that still doesn’t justify spending $1,300 over it when other manual bikes are available at a cheaper price. And to buy one, you have to fill five lengthy forms! So why would any one pay $1,300 for a bike that isn’t as good as other modern ones? Because the “Rivendell bicycle works” have perfected the art of scarcity. They cap the total number of bikes supplied. They don’t sell more than 600 bikes a year.

But Rivendell bicycle works have not only decreased supply. They have also increased demand. They publish a quarterly magazine called the “Rivendell Reader” that contains everything from medical advice for cyclists to essays on good riding. The subscription costs $20 a year. And they have more than 6,200 subscribers. Imagine having 6,200 subscribers who know that there are only 600 bikes to be sold? The competition to get a new Rivendell bike is intense!

But that’s not all. Rivendell bike also sends a catalog that sells bike parts and other Rivendell accessories. Everything from rain capes and woolen pants to tools and handlebars. As people can’t buy the bikes, they buy the accessories instead. In fact, on an average, each subscriber spends 260$ per year! And they all are walking advertising machines for Rivendell. They showcase the products and accessories increasing the demand!


Action summary:

* Decrease the supply. Increase the demand. And then you can increase the prices. You can make less number of products but still earn higher profits.

* Spread the word of your company by selling accessories. Give people a chance to buy your company shirts instead of Nike ones. Make your accessories cool so that people would buy it and more importantly: show it to their friends.

* Build loyalty by publishing a newsletter. Send useful information to customers from time to time and they will end up buying more.

Book Of The Week - Blue Ocean

What is a BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY? The authors explain it by comparing it to a red ocean strategy (traditional strategic thinking):
1. DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.
2. DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.
3. DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.
4. DO NOT make the value/cost trade-off. INSTEAD you should break the value/cost trade-off.
5. DO NOT align the whole system of a company's activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. INSTEAD you should align the whole system of a company's activities in pursuit of both differentiation and low cost.

A red ocean strategy is based on traditional strategic thinking - e.g. Harvard's strategy guru Michael Porter.

Some cases:
* Airline industry price wars result in bankruptcies and low profit margins. Southwest Airlines creates a new market by offering the speed of air travel with the low cost and flexibility of driving.
* Golf equipment industry competes to win a greater share of existing golf customers. Callaway Golf creates "Big Bertha", a golf club with a large head that attracted new customers to golf that had been frustrated by the difficulty of hitting the ball.
* The cosmetic industry creates a red ocean with models, expensive advertising, and promises of youth and beauty. The Body Shop creates a blue ocean that lasts more than a decade by creating functional cosmetics that defied the industry which sold emotionally appealing cosmetics.
* The wine industry gluts the market with a red ocean of thousands of brands competing on the finest oaks and tannins and legacy winey names. Casella wines creates [yellow tail], a blue ocean wine that succeeded by eliminating complexity, elitism and consumer confusion and creating a fun simple image that non-wine drinkers could enjoy.

A blue ocean is created in the region where a company's actions favourably affect both its cost structure and it value proposition to buyers. Cost savings are made from eliminating and reducing the factors an industry competes on. Buyer value is lifted by raising and creating elements the industry has never offered. Over time, costs are reduced further as scale economies kick in, due to the high sales volumes that superior value generates.

Examples of strategic moves that created blue oceans of new, untapped demand:
- NetJets (fractional Jet ownership)
- Cirque du Soleil (the circus reinvented for the entertainment market)
- Starbucks (coffee as low-cost luxury for high-end consumers)
- Ebay (online auctioning)
- Sony (the Walkman - personal portable stereos)
- Cars: Japanese fuel-efficient autos (mid-70s) and Chrysler minivan (1984)
- Computers: Apple personal computer (1978) and Dell's built-to-order computers (mid-1990s).

The INSEAD professors Kim and Mauborgne have written regularly on the subject of Value Innovation since 1997 in Harvard Business Review. Being a business development manager, their thought leadership on strategic innovation has inspired me tremendously over the years. Their articles have been standard texts for many MBA students for some time (e.g. "Value Innovation", "Creating New Market Space", "Charting your Company's Future"). I expect their first book to be just as dominant in any strategy library as Michael Porter's books (the guru behind the classic red ocean strategies).

Fun, Practical and Personalised Post-its

We all know you can write on post-its. Did you know you can print on them too?

Printing

In the original OVERnote article the author admitted to playing "fast and loose" on a cheap Laser printer and suggested that printing these things carried some risk. Keeping that in mind I tried printing first on an old inkjet printer (my trusty Canon BJC-1000SP). No problem! I then tried it on an HP multi-function printer and finally on a Laser printer. Worked without a hitch.

I'll also say "proceed at your own risk" to cover my behind, but I've printed lots of these things now (mostly on the Canon) and none of the printers have complained yet.

Printing Templates

The original OVERnote documents were in PDF format. I created these easily-editable templates in Word (.DOC) format and OpenDocument format (ODF) to make it easier for you to make your own Post-it covers.

There are two templates:

1. The Printing Guide. This is the first page you want to print out. It has six boxes marked on the page so you know where to position your six blank Post-its. It's editable in case you want to use Post-its that are not the standard 3x3 inch squares. Download the Printing Guide here: ODF (9 KB) or DOC (13 KB).
Figure 2. The Printing Guide

2. The Cover Template. This is the document you modify to place your own post-it designs. The page has six 3x3 inch squares based on the standard Post-it size. The numbers in the column in the middle (0 to 3) serve two purposes. The first is to mark out (roughly) the inches down the page, 3 inches per box. The second is so the table's cells representing the post-it boxes remain at the proper size even when the cells themselves are empty (and ready for you to fill with your own designs). Download the Cover Template here: ODF (9 KB) or DOC (13 KB)

Template Tweaking Hints

Turn on the ruler guide in your word processor. Use it when editing to keep an eye on the post-it boxes of your Printing Guide and Cover Template to make sure they stay at 3" x 3" (assuming you're using standard post-its).

Add and Resize images to fit. After inserting images into my post-it boxes, I found I could use the resize drag bars around the image box to enlarge or reduce my images to bring my boxes back to 3" as required. Note: You'll probably use Photoshop or MS Paint to come up with your images - whatever you're comfortable with is fine. I used the GIMP to create and manipulate my images. It's free and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Anyway, we're not printing on photo paper so some roughness in your images is acceptable.

Note: I created these documents using OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org allows saving to Word format as well as in the new standard, OpenDocument format (aka ODF). I haven't tested the Word version from within MS Word so your results may vary. If you're on MS Word, there's an ODF Add-in you can try here.

How to Print Your Personalised Post-its

Step 1. Print the Printing Guide. It has six boxes where you can position six standard post-its (3" x 3").
Step 2. Load your Printing Guide with blank post-its.
Step 3. Feed the loaded Printing Guide into your printer.
Step 4. Print the Cover Template you've personalised with your designs. If you like, you can try my sample cover template as in Figure 3, available here: ODF (24 KB) or DOC (27 KB). This step will print the Cover Template's designs onto your six blank post-its.
Step 5. Peel off your post-its and use as desired!


Figure 4. Loading the Printing Guide with blank post-its


Figure 5. Printing out a set of personalised post-its using the Cover Sample: Before...

Figure 6. Printing out a set of personalised post-its: After!

Ideas

Here are some of my ideas for your post-it designs.

Bookmarks

A blank post-it works perfectly well as a bookmark. Not much point in printing out the word "Bookmark" on a post-it, is there? But how about a bookmark that lets you know the date and time you last set it? Maybe even one that lets you know the current page number at a glance? And, of course, your name just in case you lose the book.

Leave a Message

To take messages and write notes, the original OVERnote is perfectly servicable, especially if you're a scribbler like the OVERnote's creator. If you want something different, how about this? Print your face on your post-its. Make your messages personalised. Advertise yourself. Don't let them forget the favour you did them. What goes around may come around.

Chapter tabs

Just like those plastic dividers, but even cheaper! Plus, you can print the chapter names out, write them in yourself, or just have the chapter numbers on these babies.

Targets

A bit of Office Fun. Included in the sample cover template is one for a human silhouette. Use it for a bit of deskbound target practice. Keep score! The beauty of these targets is, they can make a satisfying snap when you hit them. They can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. You might want to go visit OfficeGuns.com or splash out and get yourself some hardcore rubberband action from Rubberbandguns.com and BackyardArtillery.com.

Inbox Organiser

For your physical inbox. Separate the reams of paper with post-its sporting the titles: Must Do, Optional, Maybe, Recycle. Make up your own titles depending on whether you're a follower of GTD, some other productivity regime, or your home-brew version.

Status

The Doctor Is IN. The Doctor is OUT. Don't bother me just now, I'm REALLY BUSY. A variation of the Come in/Go Away! mat. Happy, Angry, Sad... A blank Smilie Face. A Series of enlarged Emoticons. Stick these on your monitor, on the door to your office, on your forehead. People will get the message. Crystal clear communication is a wonderful thing.

Practicality

Okay, so maybe not all of these things are all that practical (or practicable). Still, it's a way of indulging in a bit of procrastinating fun and looking busy while you're doing it.

Figure 7. No more wondering who took the trouble to take a message for them!

The Guarantee: Making Your Offer Even More Risk-Free

Using a guarantee in your sales copy is one of the most powerful ways to reassure your prospective customer that he or she is making a good choice by buying your product.

Expert copywriter Michael Samonek will show you how to turn 10 ordinary guarantees into blockbusters. You may have noticed that all of those guarantees fall into several categories. Actually, there are four categories - each one eliminating one more level of risk for the customer.

1. The Basic Guarantee.

You simply offer the prospect his money back if he returns the product within a certain time period.

2. The "Pay-Only-If-It-Works" Guarantee.

Now it starts to get interesting. This type of guarantee tells the prospect that he can try the product first - and then pay for it. Joe Karbo (its originator) made millions with this one.

3. The "Keep-All-the-Bonuses-Free" Guarantee.

You let the prospect keep his free bonuses - even if he returns the product for a full refund. This technique works like a charm to increase response rates.

4. The "Better-Than-Money-Back" Guarantee.

Not only do you guarantee satisfaction, you take it three steps further... until the customer can actually profit from returning the product: (a) The dissatisfied customer gets a 100 percent refund plus shipping costs, (b) the customer keeps the unsatisfactory merchandise (the only "but" being that they must give it to someone who can use it.), (c) the customer gets $10!

"This last guarantee is great for high-ticket items," Michael told me. "Use it, or a variation of it, with discretion."

An Ultimate Objective of Your New Business

By Michael Masterson

Prominent businessmen have long touted excellence as the ultimate corporate objective. And maybe it is - for Fortune 500 companies, that is. But most of the successful small-business owners I've known have grown their companies by pursuing something else.

Of the dozen-plus guys I know who have built multimillion-dollar businesses from scratch, many began with the "I can do that better" idea (which is a form of excellence, to be sure) - but none made excellence, in the abstract, a goal. More often than not, other ambitions - recognition, vindication, and cash flow - were predominant in their thinking.

When you are just beginning, you must pay attention to the critical financial issues:

* making sure your basic business transaction works

* making sure your basic selling proposition is profitable

* making sure you have the cash flow you need

Get the basics right first and worry about getting everything else perfect later on. That's what I mean when I say Ready, Fire, Aim.

That being said, there comes a time in every entrepreneur's career when the motivations that initially made him successful are insufficient. For his medium- to large-sized company to survive and prosper, he must figure out how to do things well and how to get a lot of people to work hard and well. In other words, he must pursue excellence.

If you expect to be proud of the successful business you will have one day, it's not too early to make the pursuit of excellence part of your Master Plan.

Here's how to make sure your new business is as good as it can be, without sacrificing your critical financial objectives.

* Start by hiring extraordinary people.

* Have them trained by experts.

* Give them the best business contacts you have, and encourage them to get more on their own.

* Set high standards for them.

In the start-up operation I'm currently working on, we interviewed all kinds of people for three positions. Some had a great deal of relevant experience. Interestingly, we selected none of those. The candidates who stood out - head and shoulders above the rest - were just one, two, and three years out of college. What these young people lack in experience, they make up for in other qualities. They are smart, hardworking, and driven to achieve.

This may be a secret of hiring: Experienced candidates will probably never be any better than they already are. If you are looking for improvement, you probably won't get it.

To attract the kind of people we were looking for, we took a different approach to hiring. Instead of sending out an ordinary bureaucratic announcement of the openings, we used an expert copywriter to promote the jobs. Instead of focusing on salary and benefits, we stressed the challenge of each project, reasoning that the difficulty of the job would be a motivation in itself. I think it was.

So the first thing you need to do - if you want to make excellence part of your Master Plan - is to spend a little extra time and effort to hire excellent people from the beginning.

But that's not all. You also need great product ideas, great marketing skills, a great product-development system, and great management - to name a few things. To get these things in your business, hire experts to come in and train your people. Look for experts you already know, people you can trust, and pay them on a per-diem basis to give your new employees intense one-on-one training sessions. You want to be sure that your inexperienced-but-excellent people know the best ways of doing everything - including the tricks and techniques of true experts.

Next, introduce your key people to key vendors and consultants in the industry so that when they have a problem they will have someone to call. Give them a pep talk on the importance of networking, and make some personal introductions if they're a little shy.

One thing you won't have to do if you have done a good job of hiring is pressure them to work hard. Excellent employees provide their own pressure. They just need guidance so they don't go off on the wrong track.

You might want to hold special weekly meetings at which your new people can ask questions about anything they are at all confused about. If you can create a comfortable atmosphere - one in which inexperienced questioners aren't made to feel stupid - you won't have to worry about mistakes being made for lack of a simple bit of advice.

Finally, even at this early stage of your business development, consider making excellence itself a main objective - that everything you do and every way you do it should greatly exceed expectations... of your colleagues, your vendors, and your customers.

Five Books You Have To Read If You Want To Be A Master Copywriter

1. Breakthrough Advertising

Breakthrough Advertising, written by a copywriting legend and a multimillionaire Eugene Schwartz is the most expensive book on copywriting you can possibly buy. It's the best one, too. This book is very rare, you can hardly find it anymore. Most likely, you'll have to buy a used copy.

2. How to Write a Good Advertisement

This is a very overlooked book which touches on a little bit of everything, from soup-to-nuts, about writing copy and placing ads. I'm not sure why it isn't mentioned as much as the more well-known classics like the Ogilvy and Hopkins material is, because it should be. Although the book was written in 1962, it reads like it was written earlier perhaps that's why it's often not cited by the greats. Even if you're already a professional, the book will serve you well to stir up some good ideas maybe even for that promotion you're working on right now.

3. Advertising Secrets of the Written Word

Sugarman's written an instant classic with this well-crafted copywriting resource. It's on the short list of copywriting books (along w/Bly, Collier, Ogilvy, Caples etc) that's a must-read foundation piece for any copywriter or other sales professional. Going deep into the specific mechanics of how to craft winning pitches, Sugarman's brilliance shows through in this, as in his other 2 must-get books as well. Sugarman's a pro, well worth learning from. Excellent pitch and well paced writing style, the Sugarman chute is a classic and this, along with his other books, are immensely powerful and useful resources - grab your copy now!

4. The Ultimate Sales Letter

DO NOT attempt to write a sales letter without first reading THE ULTIMATE SALES LETTER by Dan Kennedy. Sure, I know, you're a good writer and you can probably construct a pretty good letter on your own. But along the way, you're bound to make a few mistakes that could have been easily avoided. Or, your letter wont be nearly as good, or effective, as it could have been. You might be able to survive quarterbacking an NFL game on your own, but if John Elway or Joe Montana were on the sidelines offering up advice, wouldn't you take it? Highly successful sales letter copywriter, Dan Kennedy, reveals in concise detail, the twenty-eight steps he uses to construct sales letters. Beyond that, there is a section describing the effective uses of sales letters, a section on sequencing, and a final section on electronic sales letters. Even if you are commercial writer who may not be doing much in the way of sales letters, you will still learn valuable and applicable techniques.

5. Million Dollar Mailings

This book is a MASSIVE collection of Direct Response Sales Letters that are not, good, not great, but CONTROLS, proven to pull in orders of at least $1000000. Any copywriter or business owner who wants to continuously improve their ability to write outstanding direct response advertising copy will find this book to be of incredible value.

Make Money Online: 109 Tools and Resources

Making money online is a dream for many, but the simple fact is that it’s often just as tough as making money offline. Due to requests, we’ve put together a list of the most popular money making methods today, many of them focused on blogging and peer production. A word of caution: for the sake of completeness, we’ve included a small number of sites that have been criticized for their ethics. If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is. Commenters are
welcome to share their experiences of the various sites.

Get Paid To Write


1: Weblogs, Inc. - Apply to blog for one of their ninety plus blogs or submit your own topic idea. They will pay you per post that you write and you must meet their minimum post requirements.

2: PayPerPost - Get paid as much as $500 or more a month writing articles and reviews of their sponsors on your blog.

3: Blogsvertise - Their advertisers pay you to mention and talk about their websites, products and services in your own blog.

4: Review Me - After your blog has been accepted in their network, they will pay you $20 to $200 per post that you write.

5: Smorty - Earn $6 to $100 dollars per post you write on your blog. Amount paid for each post depends on the overall popularity and page rank of your blog.

6: SponsoredReviews - Write reviews for their advertisers’ products and services on your own blog. They charge a 35% transaction fee for their services.

7: LoudLaunch - Blog about the advertisers campaign releases that meet your interests. They pay once a month.

8: Blogitive - Get paid weekly via PayPal for posting stories that interest you.

9: BloggerWave - Select the advertiser opportunities that best suit your blog and write reviews on their products and services.

10: InBlogAds - Write about websites, products, services and companies on your blog and get paid for it.

11: BlogToProfit - Make $250 dollars or more by writing new posts on your blog.

12: Creative Weblogging - Write 7 to 10 posts per week for their network and they will pay you $225 per month.

13: WordFirm - Make money publishing books as a freelance writer from home.

14: 451 Press - Write for a blog within their network and receive forty percent of all generated revenue.

15: Digital Journal - Network of bloggers that get paid to report on newsworthy articles through their blogs.

16: BlogBurner - Sign up for a free blog and get paid for writing new posts. Your commissions are generated through Adsense clicks.

17: Squidoo - Earn money by writing your new blog, or choose to donate your earnings to charity.

18: About.com - Become a paid guide writing articles for About.com. Compensation depends on the growth of your page views.

19: DayTipper - Earn $3 for every short tip you write and get published.

20: Helium - Earn a share of their advertising revenue by writing articles in their channels.

21: Dewitts Media - Get paid to write your own blog. This site requires you have a minimum page rank of 3 to sign up.

22: BOTW Media - Make money writing a blog for their blogging network.

23: CreamAid - Get paid to submit blog posts in their directory.

24: BlogFeast - Generate revenue from pre-installed Google Adsense ads when you blog in their network.

25: Mashable - Mashable hires freelancers and new staff, offering one of the largest platforms for tech bloggers.

Advertising Programs


26: Google Adsense - Most popular pay-per-click advertising provider. Make anywhere from $0.01 to $5.00 plus per click on site relevant ads.

27: Text-Link-Ads - Approve or deny the advertiser links that appear on your site. They pay you 50% of the sale price for each text link sold on your website.

28: BlogAds - The average blogger makes anywhere from $50 to $5000 dollars a month selling blog ads. To participate in this program you will need to get sponsored by someone in their network.

29: LinkWorth - Here you will find eleven different options to fit your advertising needs. Choose from text based advertisements, sponsored ads and paid blog reviews to name a few.

30: CrispAds - Access to over six thousand advertisers in their pay-per-click program. You choose the advertisers that suit you best.

31: Chitika - Offers six types of advertising to fit your needs.

32: AzoogleAds - Delivers targeted advertisers to their network of publishers to bring you the most profitable solutions.

33: Vibrant Media - Offers in-text contextual based advertisements.

34: MediaFed - Place advertisements in your blog’s RSS feed to generate additional revenue.

35: Qumana - Embeds ads directly into your posts. Ads are generated from keywords that you select. Not particularly popular with readers.

36: PeakClick - Austria based pay-per-click provider. Provides automatic insertion of site targeted ads.

37: DoubleClick - Offers a full suite of products for publishers that enable you to forecast, sell inventory, serve ads and analyze campaigns online and through other digital channels.

38: Tribal Fusion - They offer reliable payments, free ad-serving technology, a dedicated account manager and up-to-date, real-time reporting, with a 55% payout. Must go through an approval process.

39: AdBrite - Approve or reject any ads purchased for your sites. Also gives you the ability to sell ads direct with “Your Ad Here” links.

40: ThankYouPages - Shows ads based on demographics and relevancy. Majority of traffic must originate from U.S.

41: Clicksor - Inline text link advertising, underlines words directly in your posts making them clickable advertisements. Once more, we’d say that inline ads are not popular with regular blog readers.

42: TargetPoint - Contextually and search targeted pay-per-click ads.

43: IndustryBrains - Place relevant contextual text listings and graphical ads on your site.

44: BloggingAds - Post one-time ads on your site. Pays via PayPal.

45: BulletAds - Performance based online advertising network.

46: AdsMarket - Match your traffic to handpicked advertisers with top-converting products and services.

47: ROIRocket - Targeted campaigns specific to your marketing needs.

48: AdKnowledge - Offers complete outsourcing of your advertising management. Runs ads in websites, email and search engine inventory.

49: Yes Advertising - Payouts for running ads from their sponsors. Also offers a referral program that pays 20% of the referred webmasters earnings.

50: RevenuePilot - Offers pay-for-performance and pay-per-click advertising for your sites.

51: SearchFeed - Integrates paid advertisements into your site’s search feature.

52: Bidvertiser - Display text ads on your site and advertisers bid for placement.

53: Pheedo - Monetize your RSS feeds with this program.

54: ValueClick media - Generate revenue by displaying ads through banners, pop-unders and rich media. Be warned that pop-unders are unpopular these days.

55: OneMonkey - Another text based advertising program.

56: Yahoo Publisher Network - Use the internet giant, Yahoo, to display targeted ads on your site.

57: Q Ads - Monetize your site by placing ads anywhere you can add a picture.

Affiliate Networks and Programs

58: Amazon Associates - Link to Amazon’s products and services and earn up to 10% of the sale price. Converts well for product-focused sites.

59: Zilo - No IT or programming skills necessary! You can create and design your own shop quickly and easily, and Zlio allows you to choose from an extensive catalogue of over two million products for free

60: ClickBank - Over 10,000 products to promote with commissions as high as 75%.

61: Commission Junction - Promote the advertiser’s products and services in exchange for a commission on leads or sales.

62: LinkShare - Pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network. Gives you the ability to use individual product links on your site and generate revenue from sales.

63: Affiliate Fuel - Serves as a middle man to bring publishers and advertisers together to promote products and services.

64: LinkConnector - Affiliate marketing network that offers a zero tolerance fraud policy to keep you safe while conducting business.

65: LeadPile - Affiliate network that allows you to generate and sell trade leads to the highest bidder.

66: Forex-Affiliate - Affiliate program that allows you to earn commissions from trading Forex (currency exchange) online.

67: incentAclick - CPA (cost-per-action) affiliate program that guarantees the fastest ROI in the industry.

68: AdPlosion - Earn revenue by selling leads, clicks and products from their advertisers. Also runs an incentive points program in addition to your commissions.

69: AffiliateFuture - Another affiliate program that pays you for generating leads, sales and clicks.

70: ClixGalore - Affiliate network consisting of 7500+ advertisers for you to choose from.

71:ThinkAction - Affiliate network that claims to have the top payouts and the possibility of earning over $100,000 dollars per month.

72: RocketProfit - Affiliate network, pays via check after your commissions reach $25 dollars.

73: CafePress - Earn affiliate commissions by selling your personally branded merchandise.

74: Avangate - Make money selling popular computer software titles through your site.

Paid Social Media Programs

75: Dada.net - Social site with a revenue sharing program that pays you for referring friends and driving traffic.

76: Jyve - Pays you to provide answers, advice and peer support to people in need of some help.

77: Cruxy - Specializes in social video, but serves as a venue to sell your digital media.

78: BitWine - Get paid to give advice and answer questions for people, on subjects of your interests and choice.

79: Kasamba - They enable experts to have paid online chat (and phone) sessions with clients. It's user rating based, so the better the expert, the more he/she can charge for his services.

80: Ether - Make money answering questions for your peers over the phone. You set your rates and call availability.

81: T Shirt Takeaway - Allows bands, Designers, and everyone else to Design t-shirts and sell them directly to My Space and other sites using widgets.

82: UpBlogger - Social net work site that pays you based on the amount of visits you receive to your uploaded content.

83: JustAnswer - Help others solve their problems and earn money for your knowledge.

84: MetaCafe - Upload your videos and earn money based on the number of views you receive.

85: Revver - Yeah, you can earn money by making an awesome video and putting it on Revver.

86: Vume - Upload your videos, pictures, and audio clips, or write some blogs. At VuMe, it pays to be creative.

87: ChaCha - Get paid to offer support to members of their community.

88: AssociatedContent - Earn money by uploading your videos, text, audio and images to their site. Earnings are determined by the exposure you receive from your content.

89: myLot - Pays you for posting, commenting and using their social network.

90: KnowBrainers - Another site that pays you to get involved with the community and answer questions. Optionally you can answer questions through the RSS feeds on your own blog.

Everything Else That Pays

91: Google User Research - Google Pays you money to participate in their user research studies online.

92: Microsoft Research Panel - Get paid from Microsoft for providing feedback on their products.

93: Amazon Mechanical Turk - Amazon pays you to complete simple tasks that their computers can’t understand. Payments are a matter of cents.

94: eJury - Earn $5 to $10 dollars per verdict rendered as a mock juror for practice trials.

95: WorkingSOL - This company pays you to handle technical support for many large companies. You can work from home on the computer or by phone and decide what times you are available.

96: Appingo - Always looking for experienced copy editors and proof readers. Must submit a resume.

97: IntelliShop - Pays you to shop at stores in your area and write a review of your experience.

98: Mahalo Greenhouse - They pay $10 to $15 dollars per site you submit to their directory.

99: Focus Pointe Global - Get paid to join their focus groups and voice your opinion. Available to teens and adults.

100: Agloco - Sign up, download their toolbar and get paid to surf the internet. This site has been criticized as a “pyramid scheme”, although the founders deny the allegation.

101: Arise - Make money providing phone, web and email support and sales for 40 plus companies in their network.

102: CraZoo - Earn money for starting new threads and posting in online forums.

103: Tutor.com - Get paid to tutor people online.

104: ForumBoosting.com - Make money posting in forums across the internet.

105: Share-A-Pic - Earn money by uploading and sharing your pictures on their website.

106: Opuzz Voice - Earn money by doing voice overs for their clients online.

107: SlashMySearch - Get paid to search the internet with their search engine.

Photography

108: Dreamstime - Sell your stock images and get 50-80% from each sale you make. Join our powerful photo community and reach new stock photography markets.

109: Shutterstock - Earn 25 cents per photo download.

15 Sites for Promoting Your Local Business

1. Website: Google AdWords
How It Will Help You: AdWords helps you target local online customers by setting your pay-per-click ads to appear only when people search a particular city, state or region. There's no minimum spending requirement--your daily budget is up to you.

2. Website: Yahoo! Local Listings
How It Will Help You: Local Listings will promote your business to customers looking for information in Yahoo! Local. Choose from three different plans (one is free) to meet your company's needs.

3. Website: CitySearch
How It Will Help You: CitySearch offers online advertising tools to easily open your account, manage your daily results and receive ad placement on MSN, Yahoo!, Google and Ask.com. Similar to the idea of pay-per-click advertising, CitySearch offers two paid plans, "Web Connect" and "Call Connect."

4. Website: Ask.com's AskCity
How It Will Help You: Ask.com recently launched AskCity, a new local search application that's a one-stop destination for making plans. In one screen, consumers can map a route, make dinner reservations, purchase movie tickets and e-mail plans to others. Pricing for advertising on Ask.com varies.

5. Website: AOL's CityGuide
How It Will Help You: AOL's CityGuide specializes in providing local entertainment information to AOL service members. Advertising with AOL allows marketers to target consumers specifically by lifestyle and market.

6. Website: Craigslist
How It Will Help You: Craigslist gets an estimated 10 million unique visitors per day. With an online classified ad format organized by region or city, Craigslist connects buyers and sellers in more than 300 communities; for the most part, posting on the site is free.

7. Website: MerchantCircle.com
How It Will Help You: This free site offers a local business listing service that allows you to better manage your online reputation and become more visible in search engine results.

8. Website: Dotster
How It Will Help You: Dotster is a web domain registration and hosting company offering a local web advertising package called "Local Site Promotion." You set your monthly budget and Dotster will make your ad visible on all the major search engines.

9. Website: Local.com
How It Will Help You: Advertising on Local.com will give you access to their 10 million-plus monthly customers. Choose from a free basic listing or pay-per-click options.

10. Website: Froogle Local
How It Will Help You: Google's shopping search engine allows users to search for specific products by location. It's a great way for users to find retail stores regardless of whether you use e-commerce.

11. Website:ReachLocal
How It Will Help You: This site provides a central location for businesses to set-up, maintain and track local search advertising campaigns. Pricing varies.

12. Website: RegisterLocal
How It Will Help You: RegisterLocal is a service, costing $199.95 per year, that allows you to create a master profile they submit to search engines and directories on your behalf.

13. Website: TrueLocal
How It Will Help You: This local search engine features full-text searching and offers advertising opportunities for businesses. Currently indexing more than 13 million local businesses, TrueLocal starts at just $1 per month.

14. Website: YellowPages.com
How It Will Help You: YellowPages.com is a large online local directory site featuring city guides and advertising solutions. Basic listings are free.

15. Website: Web.com's MyEzClicks program
How It Will Help You: MyEzClicks lists your business on more than 30 major search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN for a monthly fee.

How to Find High-Demand Products That Sell Like Hotcakes

By Paul Smithson

You can't sell a product if you don't have someone to sell it to! A good guideline to help you figure out whether Internet surfers are simply doing research - not looking to buy - is the number of words they use in their search terms.

• One or two words ("gift baskets") means they’re probably doing research.
• Three or more words ("corporate gift basket" or "gift basket supplies" or "Orange County gourmet gift basket") means they’re probably looking to buy.

You can supplement the product demand information you gather from your keyword research with the following:

• Go to PayPal.com. Click on the Shops link at the bottom of page. All 42,000 websites that accept PayPal are listed here by category. There's a Categories column on the left side of the page. Click on the category of the product you're researching. PayPal will display the top shops in that category, ranked by volume (the number of sales made through PayPal).

If, for example, you're thinking of selling tooth whiteners, you'd click on the Health and Nutrition category. And one of the things you'd find is a listing for a company that sold 16,736 of their bleaching kits through PayPal. Since that company seems to have robust sales, they're obviously making money. A tooth whitener, therefore, is a good product to sell.

• Go to groups.Google.com. In the search box, type in the kind of product you're interested in selling - let's say, a supplement that has something to do with human growth hormone. The search results will list all the news groups that are discussing human growth hormone (40,200). Click on the links and you'll find out how many people are posting to those news groups. If there are lots of them, that tells you there is a great deal of interest in human growth hormone, and a supplement like yours will probably be very popular.

• Go to Amazon.com. Click on the Top Sellers tab. The items featured there are organized by category and updated hourly. Amazon may be best known for being an online bookseller, but they also sell a wide variety of other products - computers, jewelry, apparel, automotive, personal care, cell phones, and electronics, among many others. This will give you a good idea of what people are buying on the Internet.

• Go to eBay.com. In the search box, type in the product you're interested in selling. eBay will display how many items are available for sale in that category. If you type in "yoga mats," for example, you'd find that 455 such items are available. That's good information, but what you really want to know is how well those yoga mats are selling. So click on the Sell tab at the top of eBay's home page. Then click on the Seller Central link at the bottom of the Sell page. Scroll down the page, and click on the What's Hot link, then click on Hot Items by Category. This is where you find out which categories and products are HOT - and where demand is outpacing supply!

The Four-Hour Work Week

I've been reading The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. It's very engaging - smart and full of good stories and good humor. The book's argument - that you can run a successful business by working only four hours a week - is mind crack for any busy entrepreneur. Ferriss makes the idea seem plausible.

I don't remember how I found out about him. I do remember seeing a piece he wrote in Forbes Small Business that featured a photo of him training in mixed martial arts with a caption that went something like, "I run a great business... and spend more time on sports than work... using my simple time-saving system."

Ferriss is not only an interesting guy, he's a master at promoting himself. For example, he holds a world record in the tango (for the most turns made in a given time) - and to document the achievement, he got himself on Regis and Kelly. He also won a martial arts competition by, as it turns out, taking advantage of a technicality in the rules.

Ferriss was working 15 hours a day, he says, when he came across the work of economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto is the one who came up with the original "8/20 rule" (also known as Pareto's Law), demonstrating that 80 percent of a society's wealth is produced and owned by 20 percent of the population. "This highly debated principle," Ferriss points out, "also applies to other situations. For instance, 80 percent of a company's profits typically come from 20 percent of its products and customers."

Ferriss applied Pareto's 19th century concept to his company "by pinpointing the sources of most of my sales - and my problems - so I could spend my time more efficiently." He quickly realized that of more than 120 wholesale customers, only five were bringing in 95 percent of his revenues. Then, in a single day, he made a few simple but "emotionally difficult" decisions that changed his life for the better.

"First, I decided to stop pursuing most of my customers so that I could profile and duplicate the most profitable ones," Ferriss says. "I was spending most of my time working on small accounts, when the big five already ordered regularly without any follow up. I also abandoned being busy for being productive. I realized I could reduce my hours by limiting tasks to the critical few and cutting my work time to force myself to focus on the most important projects."

I like what I'm hearing from this guy.

Make $250,000+ a Year ... With Your Video Camera

By Paul Lawrence

When my two partners and I agreed to pursue the venture, we thought of it as almost a hobby. We all enjoyed combat sports and thought it would be cool to sell related videos. And, if we made a few extra dollars by doing it ... even better.

Fast-forward a few years and the enterprise we started is anything but a hobby. For the employs 10 people. people who now own it, it's a very serious business that nets over $250,000 a year and

But what I find really incredible about this story is that we started this business with only a few hundred dollars.

For the first videos we produced, we just rented the lowest-level broadcast-quality camera for $50. And we hired a service to do some simple edits for about $100 more. After that, we placed some small ads and created a website. The rest, as they say, is history.

Naturally, if you're financially able to purchase all the equipment, it makes the whole thing more convenient. Still, I recommend producing a video or two first. Then, once you've got some cash coming in, go ahead and buy a video camera, a computer, and the appropriate software. You should be able to get everything you need for about $6,000.

There is an almost unlimited opportunity to produce videos, because there's a demand for them in just about every area of interest. Since my experience with that first partnership, I've created and produced a variety of other videos that have all been extremely profitable. (By the way, I eventually sold my share for a nice profit.)

Some of the best kinds to produce are instructional videos. Because people are buying information - not special effects or top-notch acting - your production doesn't have to be perfectly polished. It shouldn't look like you shot it in your garage with a camcorder, but it doesn't have to look like a broadcast television show or blockbuster Hollywood movie.

You may already have the technical know-how to create your own instructional video, and you may even feel comfortable being on camera yourself. If not, no problem. All you have to do is hire people who have the skills or knowledge you lack.

In one instance, I became acquainted with a fitness instructor who had developed an awesome technique for stretching the back that really helped me. And because so many people suffer from back pain, I figured there might be a market for her system. So I hired her to host an instructional videotape that I produced.

The results were nothing short of fantastic. I made a $5,000 profit within days of putting the video up for sale. And I did it without having any personal expertise in videography.

And I'm definitely not the only one who's been able to turn instructional videos into a profitable business. KH came across a man who, in his 60s, was in better shape than most 20-year-olds. His muscles were toned and he had amazing energy and vigor. The man agreed to turn his personal exercise regimen into an instructional video (with KH as the producer) - and within 30 days of shooting it, KH had made a $10,000 profit. The best part is that KH had started with a mere $250 investment.

If you have your own area of expertise that you can transform into an instructional video, so much the better.

As I've mentioned several times in ETR, I taught ballroom dancing for years. And I've earned a nice stream of income from an instructional dance video I created during that time. Because I featured my own skills in the video, my investment was even smaller than it would have been had I needed to hire an outside expert.

One of the best things about creating and selling videos is that they can provide a continuing income stream. Once you've made the video, all you have to do is fill orders. And if you have a topic that continues to interest people - and you continue to market it - the video can sell forever.

Here's how to get started with your first "how-to" video:

1. Choose a subject.

2. Either plan to be in the video yourself or hire a qualified expert.

3. Rent or buy the camera and editing equipment.

4. Shoot and edit.

5. Using the direct-marketing techniques you read about in ETR all the time, sell the video to your target customer.

Producing and marketing your own videos is not only exciting and fun, it can also be very lucrative. Plus, this is a business where you can quickly get your foot in the door with a very small outlay of capital. Just take an inventory of subjects you know already or find interesting ... and you could be a video producer in a matter of weeks.

Second Time's a Charm

by Jay Abraham

This is the second opportunity I've had to make a meaningful impact on your business life - and I want to get right down to work.

You have a business - new or old, large or small, successful or struggling. I have the methods for making it grow, prosper, and thrive. More importantly, I can teach you how to do all that easier, faster, safer, and with far less stress than the way you've been trying to do it.

And I'm going to prove that to you right now.

His name is Doug. (No last name needed.) Doug is frustrated and feeling beleaguered. (Perhaps you are, too.) He's struggling and up against a mental wall. (Sound familiar?) Doug hasn't enjoyed the success or results he's been expecting since he started his business. So he asked me this question:

"What advice/resources would you give to an over-40 entrepreneur who has not had a lot of financial success in his life? The problem seems to me to be psychological."

Psychological? Apparently, Doug feels that his problem is something "inside" him - low self-image, perhaps... or low expectations. And he desperately wants to know how he (you?) can step out of this mental "miasma." (See "Word to the Wise," below.)

* First, recognize that success is a combination of ability and possibility... all mixed with the healthy understanding that failure is not a permanent state - only a temporary response to a test or experiment that didn't work out.

Stated differently, most of you are needlessly limiting, restricting, and unintentionally impeding the level of success, income, certainty, and control you can have in business - all because you're not seeing how much more you can really do.

* Stop doing that!

First of all, in business, being a good marketer is the key difference between mediocrity and making millions, tens of millions... even billions.

So the first thing you have to do to change your negative mindset is become a more masterful marketer. That can increase your long-term business success rate by more than 10 times - if you know how to do it right.

Next, you need to develop what I call "funnel vision" instead of "tunnel vision." When you have funnel vision, you see with absolute certainty not only what is possible - but also exactly how to engineer and successfully achieve any and all realistic (or even audacious) goals you set for yourself.

My way of developing funnel vision is to study different approaches that have been "borrowed" from one industry and successfully adapted for use in another industry. What you learn is that if you are the first one to use such a concept in your industry, it could skyrocket your success. Stated differently - a business-building approach that's as common as dirt in one industry can have the profit-making impact of an atom bomb... if you are the first/only one in your industry to try it.

There's one more factor involved in greatly improving your success in business. You need to become an expert in three techniques that I'll be elaborating on in the weeks to come:

(1) masterminding

(2) testing various assumptions

(3) building on multiple income streams, revenue sources, and profit centers.

So, Doug (and everyone else who feels the same way), as you can see, success in business has nothing to do with your psychological makeup. It's all about developing a certainty about what works and what doesn't... and what works better and best... to build a recurring business income model.

Unfortunately, they don't teach this at business school. But that's what I'm going to do - in easy-to-master installments - in the weeks and months to come.

Grab Market Share - but Be Prepared for What's Going to Happen When You Do

by Paul Lawrence

One of the most effective strategies to break into a new market and obtain market share is to offer your product or service at a much lower price than that of your competitors. In fact, this was the subject of the very first ETR message: "The Most Powerful Way to Grow a Business".

It is often possible to do this by containing your expenses and being willing to start out with a smaller price margin. And then, once you are well established, to slowly raise your price closer to the rest of the market and increase your profitability further.

I have done this with several types of small businesses (you can learn about many of them in my Microbusiness program) - but for today's discussion, I'd like to talk about one in particular.

Several years ago, I began and became the successful operator of a swimming pool maintenance business.

When I started this business, I determined that the competition had a very large profit margin and that I could still make money by offering my service at a much lower price.

The strategy worked very well, and I rapidly built a thriving small business. But some problems cropped up that I hadn't expected at all.

When executing this "discount price" strategy, I had anticipated that I would have trouble keeping expenses low enough to earn a large enough profit. And I was concerned that customers might be skeptical as to the quality or the reliability of my service.

In fact, neither of these things happened.

What did become a problem was that my competitors became very hostile toward my business and took action to try and destroy it.

One of the things they did was report me to government regulatory agencies for running an "unlicensed" business.

You see, in the swimming pool maintenance business, you have to be able to purchase the chemicals you use at a wholesale rate. And this wholesale rate is only available to licensed companies.

Fortunately, I did have the license. So this effort on the part of my competitors to shut me down didn't do any harm. But they did use their clout to make life difficult for me in my dealings with the few pool-chemical vendors in the South Florida market where my business was located.

One very large competitor threatened to pull his business from a certain vendor if he continued to sell to me. Because of the competitor's size, the vendor, although apologetic, cut me off.

I quickly realized that if this were to happen with one or two more vendors, I would be out of business. So I changed my strategy.

But I'll be honest. My first reaction to the hostility was to be defiant.

When I received nasty calls, I snarled back at the callers and shouted (with an equal number of profanities) that this was America and I could charge any price I wanted. But after being cut off from that first wholesale vendor, I realized that what I needed was a strong ally.

I contacted one of my other large competitors and told him that I'd like to propose an arrangement whereby he could earn additional profits.

I explained that I was a young company with a low overhead and thus didn't have any repair staff on hand. But my business was growing - and I was finding that I needed to have a way to handle repairs that my customers wanted to have done.

I proposed that this competitor could handle those repairs in exchange for my receiving a small "commission."

The deal made sense and he agreed.

I then began using the same vendor that this guy used. (And I made it clear to the vendor that this competitor and I had a "business relationship.") With a strong ally on my side, I was then immune to the griping of other competitors.

10 Tips for Safer International Travel

by Lori Appling

1. If you're traveling to an unfamiliar country, it's a good idea to contact the American Embassy for information about safety. They can tell you what crimes U.S. citizens need to be wary of and what precautions you should take. You'll find a listing of U.S. Embassies and Consulates at http://usembassy.state.gov .

2. Do a little research about clothing customs and pack accordingly. In Turkey, for instance, in many places it's considered provocative for a woman to show her knees. The website http://www.internationalbenefits.com talks about making the most of international travel, including dressing appropriately.

3. Don't wear flashy jewelry or expensive watches. Arrange to keep your valuables and passport in a hotel safe. If you need to carry them with you, a money belt or pouch worn under your clothes is the most secure way.

4. Don't travel with cash. Instead, consider traveler's checks and credit cards.

5. Make a photocopy of your passport and take it with you. If you have the misfortune of losing your passport or it gets stolen, this will make it easier for the American Embassy to arrange a replacement. Consider leaving an additional copy with a friend at home. Extra passport photos are helpful, too.

6. Ask the American Embassy or the country's tourist bureau about laws that are different from those in the U.S. In Singapore, for instance, you can be fined instantly for smoking in public buildings, littering, jaywalking, spitting, feeding birds in public places, chewing gum on the local transport system, and failing to flush public lavatories.

7. Check with the tourist board or your local phone company for instructions on how to call home. AT&T and MCI have toll-free numbers that reach a U.S. operator. You can then use a credit card or phone card to make a call.

8. Keep your prescriptions in their original bottles. Drug laws are very serious in many countries. The original containers, along with copies of your prescriptions, will help you avoid problems. Be especially mindful of prescriptions that contain narcotics. In that case, a letter from your doctor is a good idea, too.

9. If you are traveling alone, make sure a friend back home has your itinerary and knows where you will be and when.

10. Use your street smarts. Keep to well-lit places at night, and be aware of the people around you.

What's Better Than Money When You Don't Have Any?

by Jay Abraham

If you're thinking of starting a new business, or if your existing business wants to grow, it's easy to get frustrated if you don't have the capital to fund what you're dreaming about.

But you don't have to be frustrated. You can use your creative alternatives - and they are extensive.

First, ask yourself the two big questions: "If I had the money, how would I use it?" And "What would I spend it on?"

For example, do you want to run ads, hire a sales force, or build an Internet website or e-commerce division? Do you want to expand your inventory? Your product offerings? Or do you need more technology, software, computers, and so forth? What is the purpose of your capital requirements. That is, where would that money go?

Once you're clear on the answers to those questions, realize that you can persuade plenty of businesses and people to provide you with the equivalent of what your money would be used for. But instead of paying them upfront cash, they'll probably accept a more creative payment alternative.

Here's a good example to stimulate your mind ...

A past client of mine had zero marketing money. So we got 1,000 magazines, newspapers, TV and radio stations to run ads for us, selling a starter-sized unit of our product for a $3 purchase. The advertising media put up over $20 million in advertising for free, so we let them keep all the money from the first purchase (the $3 sell). We got enormous exposure - and a million people who purchased for the first time. But we also got 100% of the back-end (repurchases) too! And 500,000 out of the million people kept repurchasing over and over again. (They averaged 10 times with an average of $3 per purchase - or $30 each on the back end.)

This promotion did so well that we made an 80% gross profit. In fact, a NYSE-listed company asked us to sell the company for tens of millions of dollars.

Does this give YOU any ideas?

Here's another example ...

A friend of mine needed a sales force, but he had no money to pay for salaries, travel, and so forth. So he did two brilliant things.

First, he found three people locally who sold non-competitive products to the same market he was targeting and offered them twice the normal commission to take on his product. They did - and sold millions of dollars worth.

But he didn't stop there. He found a large, well-capitalized telemarketing company whose main activity was calling homeowners at night. Since they hardly used their daytime hours, they were delighted to sell my friend's "business to business" product for him during that normally light time - and receive half the profit (which was four times their normal compensation). My friend didn't care, because every sale that they generated was pure windfall profit (see "Word to the Wise," below) for him - and, of course, he also got 100%, of the back end.

Another friend found a business that had over 100,000 square feet of unused storage warehouse capacity. My friend needed 75,000 square feet, but was low on capital. He persuaded that company to furnish him with their unused space ... in exchange for a small share of the sales he generated with the new products that he was able to inventory.

Still another exciting story is about a friend who wanted to be in the business of selling cassettes at grocery stores and mini-marts. But he had no capital.

He learned my theory: that there's always someone out there who needs what you want or need even worse than you need or want it ... and who will be eager to make it happen for you. So he went out and found a huge music distributor that had just lost a major account and wanted to replace the business. He easily persuaded them to furnish hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tapes for him to distribute in a way that allowed him to offer the grocers better payout terms than their current suppliers. Both sides prospered mightily.

Or how about barter?

You can trade whatever product or service you sell or make for whatever you need. I've traded my consulting and seminar-type products for expensive trips, cars, jewelry, furnishings, and services for my office.

When they didn't have capital, I've seen people make deals to get needed products or services (such as giving the provider a share of future sales in exchange for the needed items) for a period of time or up to a multiple over the market value of the product or service furnished.

For example, once a friend got a software company to give him $200,000 of needed software in exchange for giving them 3% of his future sales for 18 months or $400,000, whichever came first.