"Newbies" in particular may be led to believe that more "stuff" they sell on their websites, more money they'll make. They place dozens of banners and ads on their sites for everything from dating services to internet marketing manuals, from pet toys to self-improvement tapes. It's pretty hard to persuade a visitor to purchase anything from a site like this; chances are -- if they even managed to find your site in first place! -- they'll simply go back to search engines and find a site that's offering them exactly what they want. One click-of-the-mouse and they're gone, probably for good.

You can't be everything to everyone. Choosing a tightly focused niche market gives you ability to home in on a specific group of like-minded individuals: it's easier to find out what they want, and thus easier to come up with and develop new products and services. It's also easier to make your site "stand out"! You'll have a better chance of success if you take time to define a niche.

However, strain of trying to figure out what to build a business around often leads people to do what they perceive as "easiest": copy what other people are doing.

For instance, many people decide to build websites around teaching others how to market on internet. But if you use Overture's popular Search Suggestion Tool, you'll see that "internet marketing" received 102085 searches (at time of writing), compared to:

* recipe - over 1 million searches * pet supply - 109975 * jewelry - 449044 * gardening - 787621 * golf club - 548398 * exercise - 129368

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Summary: Are you a self-starter? Discover how you can increase your self-confidence (and change your life) by boosting your initiative.

Category: Small Business, Marketing, Writing

Words: 1000

Five Ways To Boost Your Initiative FAST!

Copyright © 2003 by Angela Booth

The educational system in western world has a lot to answer for. It crushes initiative right out of people. We get many questions from people who come to our Digital-e site. They want to work for themselves, or set up as a freelancer, or write a book. Our answers to these questions can be summed up by: "Use your initiative. Get creative. Anything you do will give you feedback, and then you can do another thing, and another."

For example, I've had several people request more info about writing proposals in response to my proposal-writing article: "How To Write A Proposal To Get Freelance Work" ---

http://www.digital-e.biz/art_writing8.html

The word "proposal" sounds official. Surely there are rules to writing proposals? People want to know what rules are, so they can do it right.

Here's a response I sent recently:

>> Don't get hung up on word "proposal". The mini-proposals I describe in article are LETTERS first and foremost.

Like---

Dear person at this business

Your business would be greatly enhanced and you would make much more money if ---X. (Or you have this problem that needs fixing.)

I can do this for you.

You can get in touch with me at/ by ---Y.

See?

No big deal. Send a letter. :-) It should take you all of 10 mins max to create one of these things.

>>

Here's a partial dictionary definition of "initiative":

1. The power or ability to begin or to follow through energetically with a plan or task; enterprise and determination.

2. A beginning or introductory step; an opening move: took initiative in trying to solve problem.

From: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Success begins when you take initiative. Here's how to boost your initiative FAST:

=> Tactic One: Realize there are no rules

In business, there's one rule: "whatever works". As long as you don't break any laws, you get to make up your own rules as you go along.

In writing field, it seems as if there are a hundred and one rules for manuscript formatting, for approaching markets, for this and for that. You can safely ignore ALL of writing rules --- you're an individual. Do it your way.

For example, there's a no-simultaneous-submissions rule which book publishers espouse. This is a problem for writers because book publishers will take anywhere from one month to one year (or even longer) to respond to any book proposal you send them. Since you might have to make 20 submissions before you get a publisher, this rule does not work for writers, so you can ignore it.