2. Making Products People Don't Want According to New York Times, "General Motors and Ford have swerved off course for a far more basic reason: not enough people like their cars." Whoops!

The objective is to market a product or service people want.

3. Not Paying Attention to What People Want If you want to make money you'd pay attention to what your prospects want? Right?

In case of Daimler Chrysler you'd be wrong. At Detroit Auto Show crowds loved two-seat 8 foot long "Smart Car". So logically Daimler Chrysler decided not to sell it in United States despite booming sales in Europe for years. Zap, a Santa Rosa CA firm, saw an opportunity especially with rising gas prices and went direct to European Daimler dealers to buy cars. Surprise! Ten thousand U.S. buyers put themselves on a list to order over $55 million worth of cars in just a few months.

Avoid discount pricing, provide products and services your prospects want and you can avoid losing a billion or instead make 55 million. I don't know about you but if I lose ten thousand dollars I get upset and when I make a million in a year I'm pretty happy.

So your ability to ‘break out’, as it’s known in media, is not about nobility of your cause or even, ultimately … sigh … depth and quality of your work. It’s all about how many people already know who you are and what you do. Like right this minute. Before all that great TV and magazine exposure even begins. This has to be this century’s biggest catch-22, because how can your work actually get known unless you impress all those folks listed above?

It can, in fact, if you're methodical about self-marketing and you plan to put a good year into it Ultimately, platform for beginners is all about your ezine list - and how many people are actively signing up to hear from you on a regular basis.

Here's a list of ten things media and pUblishers look for in good platform. These items are not only thing you might offer these folks. And you certainly don't have to have all of them in place to be appealing to publishers and TV producers. But they are a help.

A healthy platform should include:

1. A hearty ezine list of 5-10K 2. A distinctive brand name or position (i.e. Dr. Phil, Fly Lady, Frugal Gourmet) 3. A website that has energy and style, and reflects brand heavily 4. Optimized methods for capturing names on website that help grow ezine list 5. A blog linked to website, and a blog promotion program 6. Major media clips, or regional ones that can inspire stories in major media 7. A video of excerpts from TV appearances (for more senior platform builders) 8. A tightly put together media kit 9. Excellent quality, high resolution black & white and color headshots that can be downloaded from site 10. A book or audio CD produced by a major publisher

How does your own work measure up? Have you got good platform yet?

Suzanne Falter-Barns is an internationally known author and speaker who's work has been featured in Woman's Day, SELF, More, Fitness, and more than 100 radio and TV shows. Pick up her free database of platform building contacts at www.getknownnow.com