Small Business Idea

There is always a market for selling truly new and remarkable products. Here are 3 criteria for making this strategy work:

1. The product must be reasonably new (the marketplace isn’t saturated yet)
2. The product must actually be remarkable (this provides repeat sales; consumptable products are best for this)
3. You have a simple, low-risk profit model (no complicated pyramid schemes, no huge upfront-costs, and no other wacky ‘business necessities’)

When these elements all line up, there’s a potentially great win-win-win opportunity.

For giving an example of a great new product (and for sharing a decent small business idea…) consider this: selling silver sol from your home.

Although this specific example may become less juicy over time, selling silver sol from home is currently a great opportunity for small-scale entrepreneurs. It will also serve as a great example for recognizing the trends of spotting other good small business opportunities.

Step 1: Find a great product

• Try to find something you feel good about selling; something that will improve the life of your customer. This will make client relations way smoother than selling junk.
• Try to find something you can reasonably expect to sell to people you already know (neighbors, acquaintances, etc.)
• Try to find something people are already concerned about. (Trying to create a need for a product is way harder than just selling something that people are already concerned about.)
• Try to find something that doesn’t already have a saturated market.

Example: Silver sol makes people healthy.  Almost everyone is concerned about their health.  Plus, many people haven’t even heard of silver sol yet (let alone know where to buy it; yet folks are still dying of MRSA, malaria, and all sorts of other things this stuff kills…)

Step 2: Gather product information / sales collateral

Often, emerging products already have marketing materials available. They do this to make it easy for others to sell their product. Ideally, you should have to do almost no work in creating sales material.

Example: Silver sol already has several fact-filled resources and videos available. With videos like these, making sales is as easy as showing your customers a website and offering a price that beats the website (which is easy to do, considering the cost advantages of buying in bulk.)

Step 3: Figure out the financial model

If you can’t make money, what’s the point of doing business? Look for low-risk opportunities where you won’t end up with a garage filled with product and no way to sell it. Also, beware of complicated commission schemes and multi-level profit-sharing systems. These systems can work, but they often leave small business owners scratching their heads wondering what happened. Preferably, there should be a simple gap between what you can charge and what you pay for supplies. If there’s a bonus for selling increased volume (you can reduce your costs, thus increasing your margins), that’s good news for you. It also makes accounting easier, which leaves more time for concentrating on real business growth.

Example: Silver sol can be ordered in increments as low as 10 bottles per sale, but can be purchased in larger quantities with decreased cost (as far as I can tell, Guardian is the top source for this…) If a bottle retails for $25 but you can get it for under $18, that leaves $7 in your pocket each time a customer comes back for another bottle, which in the case of silver sol may be every week or two. Do the math for what happens when you raise the price or get 100+ customers

Step 4: Start selling!

If you’ve made good decisions in steps 1-3, this part of the process shouldn’t be very difficult. A great new product should almost sell itself. However, if you’ve taken a shortcut and are trying to sell something that doesn’t work, something that people don’t need, or something where the market is already saturated, you’re going to need a ton of perseverance or luck to make sales grow.

Once these 4 steps have run their course and the product is no longer enough of a niche to effectively market to new customers, it may be time to find a new remarkable product and then let it dominate your business for the next few years. The chances are good that you can simply keep your existing clients from the first business (if the product is consumptable, it works, and it makes people happy), which means that you can soon graduate to running 2 small businesses instead of 1!

Good luck selling your new and remarkable product!

Winter’s coming, heating bills are a pain to deal with, homeowners are too busy to do minor home maintenance tasks, and I smell a 100% green small business opportunity.

Home renovations are a big deal, so long as you’re dealing with things like moving walls, installing cabinets, finishing a basement, etc.  For the average entrepreneur, the barrier to entry on performing home renovations is too steep to actually give it a shot.  Aside from needing expertise, you need tools, a truck or van to haul gear and supplies, references from past jobs, actual skill, and so forth.  Its a great business for people who can do it well, but its is no business to the average Joe to pursue unless they’re 100% serious about it.

A Green Home Renovation Idea for Total Amateurs

However, many smaller aspects of home renovation, particularly with regard to ecologically-friendly upgrades, are simple and accessible to the average entrepreneur.  That means you, provide that you’re willing to invest a limited amount of time and energy.

As heating bills begin to pounding tight budgets over the coming months, you can bet that homeowners across the nation will be looking for ways to reduce monthly bills AND to make their home more environmentally sound. Given concerns over mortgage payments and other financial uncertainty, its hard to find someone who wouldn’t like to slice a few bucks of their monthly utility bills…

So, here’s a green small business idea to fill this niche - put together a package of green home improvement services that:
a) you can actually do;
b) will be helpful to your customers (it will help them save on utility bills);
c) are things your customers don’t want to do or can’t do themselves.

Its kind of like shoveling snow off people’s driveways or mowing people’s lawns, except the actual services provided in this small business idea are slightly different.

So, what type of deliverables could you actually provide?  Well, how’s this for starters…

Green Small Business Idea

$0                   1 hour free Home Winter-Readiness Assessment (looking around the house for the biggest or easiest things that you could fix for someone; offering this for free entices prospective customers to let you in their house without any risk, allowing you to subsequently pitch specific services;  or, possibly, this could be a $50 assessment which becomes free for all people ordering at least $50 dollars’ worth of services.)

$25/window    Putting internal plastic barrier on windows
$25/window    Putting on external storm windows (where storm windows already exist)
$50                  Sealing leaks or gaps in older windows using silicon or a caulking gun
$50/door         Replace side and top weather stripping on external doors
$50/door         Replace bottom seal on external doors
$15/door         Secure hinges, doorknobs, etc. on all external doors for better sealing
$50                  Secure and maintain pet doors for better sealing
$10/foot          Provide wind/temperature barrier around the outside of the house along the ground level (if possible, using flax-straw bales or equivalent)
$25/rug           Delivery and installation of area rugs for cold floors on specific landings, hallways, or rooms (letting the customer choose and purchase from an online catalogue of your choice)
$____               (additional services of your choosing)

$50/hour         (Or an hourly rate of your choosing) For the completion of any additional tasks not mentioned above.

For the more serious handyfolks:

$____               Reinsulation of attic, walls, or basement
$____               Installation of double doors (storm doors)
$____               Furnace or hot water system maintenance
$____               Heating duct cleaning service
$____               (additional services of your choosing)

Simple Marketing Plan

Put together a one-page printable sheet that includes all of your small business’s services (chosen from above), clearly highlighting the fact that you will do a free assessment.  Print copies and either go up and down the streets of your neighborhood, post signs on community billboards with your phone number, or publicize according to your local situation.  Mention the benefits that your clients would receive if they bought your stuff: lower heating bills and a more environmentally friendly home.

The goal of this business, in sum, is to provide an easy and relatively cheap home upgrade to people who either don’t want to do this for themselves or who can’t.  It is not a complex home renovation business, but more along the lines of a neighborhood kid who mows lawns for all the old people on the block.  But, instead of simply mowing people’s lawns, you’ll be providing services that most 10 year old kids aren’t nearly sophisticated to pull off.

Hey - if I could pay someone a few hundred buck to take care of these things for my place, I’d do it in a heartbeat!

People’s #1 Asset: Their Own Health

Most people, especially the young, take their health for granted. However, once an illness or accident strikes you or affects a loved one, people start to re-examine their priorities and realize how precious their mobility, clarity of mind, energy, and well-being truly are.

And, of course, they’re willing to spend for it. And, of course, that means a big business opportunity.

The Most Important Point

As with all businesses, the integrity of the business owners, employees, products and services are of critical importance in the health products sector. Partly because you’ll find a discriminating audience, partly because its heavily regulated (ie. liars and frauds go to jail), and partly because (I would suggest) at our root level, we all simply want to do the right thing for each other.

Some business owners feel okay about screwing over their customers in the widget business or when selling useless luxuries, but few people feel okay about cheating their customers (ie. other people; their sisters, brothers, grandparents and nephews) when it comes to matters of health. If you’re uneasy about this topic or feel unsure about your ability to legitimately offer something useful to people of ill or mediocre health, you should move on to another business idea now.

Intro the Natural Health Sector

In most western, developed countries, “health” is commonly thought of by the state and insurance companies as “stuff that’s related to drugs and surgery”. Things like exercise, diet, attitude, happiness, flexibility, exposure to plastics/toxins/fast-food, “eastern medicine”, meditation, “natural healing”, acupuncture, and so forth are not included. Yet, they can be essential contributors to good health. In other words, there are many important topics relating to “health” that are not directly handled by the state (drugs or surgery), which gives entrepreneurs a bevy of prospective business ideas.

The health sector is a huge market. Including hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year, you could argue that 90%+ of our purchases directly or indirectly affect our health. Name one purchase you’ve made over the past month that doesn’t in some way affect your health, lifestyle, level of fitness, exposure to toxins, or overall attitude, and I’ll stop suggesting that the health sector is one enormous business opportunity.

Big companies and industries have already been built up around the most obvious markets. Nutriceuticals (vitamin pills, special daily oils, mineral supplements, etc.), props for physical ailments (motorized wheelchairs, splints, tension bandages, vehicle modification kits, etc.), and professional services (home care, specialized practitioners like homeopaths or naturopaths, meal services, etc.) are all heavily saturated and regulated. So, unless you want to go through the years of training and set-up required to get into these industries, you need to look for a smaller, less populated, less regulated niche.

Possible Health Product Ideas for Your Small Business:
When searching for small business ideas within the health sector, consider some of the following ideas and then start brainstorming:

1. Natural Organic Food Supplier - Get your garden or plot of land certified as 100% organic, plant 15,000 carrots, rent a spot at a local farmers’ market, and let your business “grow.”
2. Grow Niche Herbs, Plants, Teas… - Many dietitians and health gurus make reference to specialized ingredients such as Milk Thistle, Echinacea, Senna Leaf, Buckthorn Bark, etc. Throw up a backyard greenhouse, post posters in local health food stores, yoga studios and left-wing political centers, set up a website to let people know where to find fresh rare herbs close to home, and become a small-scale farmer. (Be sure to check your local laws too, to make sure you’re 100% legal…)
3. Health Books, Plans, or Tips - If you’ve got killer information on how to cook, eat, exercise, or do something else that leads to better health, get your information together and monetize it via book or ebook sales, seminars/workshops, web traffic, or something else.
4. Exercise Equipment - Selling complex machinery may be beyond your scope of investment, but what about smaller items like squeeze balls, pedometers, office-friendly props, or exercise clothing (perhaps a catchy slogan on a tshirt or hat, sold via your website)?
5. Organize a Local Activities Club or League - Charge administrative fees for setting up, marketing, and managing a local sports league or activity club. Whether aiming for a multi-sport, multi-thousand-member organization or a simple once-a-month club for a niche activity (lawn bowling club, women’s recreational curling league, cycling club, regional beach volleyball tournament, regular all-inclusive ski or golf trips, moms-only weekly outdoor activity club with childcare included, seniors-only walking club with transportation included each week to a new location, etc.), this has the potential to be a very pleasurable social experience that also acts as a side stream of income for you.
6. Gardening / Health Food Co-op - Provide healthy food options to members on an annual subscription basis: fresh vegetables, niche herbs, fine teas, free-range non-medicated meats, etc. Advertise in dense urban areas where urban hippies (apartment and condo dwelling folk) lack access to gardens or healthy meat supplies.
7. Resell Natural Health Products - Perhaps the most obvious idea, consider setting up a website, small shop, or mobile stand selling healthy treats or health supplements. Essentially a widget business, be sure you’ve got a solid business plan and market in place before spending a lot of money to set up a store or mobile food stand.

The Bottom Line

Some people take their health very seriously, and those that do are willing to pay for high-quality health supplies. If you spot an unoccupied niche in your local community or on the web, health products could be great for you. Even if your idea is only peripherally related to health (its not drugs, surgery, wheelchairs, home care, or vitamins), try using the health angle in your marketing and watch people’s acceptance of your ideas grow.

In a time where we are quickly realizing that our food-production system, network of restaurants and entertainment options, educational materials, and personal routines have led to record obesity rates, a cancer epidemic, and other unprecedented health complications, demand for legitimate and natural healthy stuff is huge and growing. Pick an idea, make sure its healthy, make sure its natural, make sure its legal, make sure you have a clear business plan, and ride the health wave that is sweeping across North America.

Dogs, Cats, and other Million Dollar Small Business Opportunities

Whether or not you find it absolutely ridiculous (personally, I do), people spend gobs and then more gobs of cash on their pets. Doggy collars, bird treats, cat medications, home door alterations, art nouveau litter boxes, and so forth. And people spend these dollars gladly, willing to do anything to pamper their pooch (or, what the owner thinks will pamper their pooch… chances are Rover would rather have a week-old pork chop, no leash, no haircut appointment, and a few hundred acres to explore… but that’s beside the point. )

So, just how much are people willing to spend on their pets? Some estimates put the figure at over $25 billion in the US alone. WTF?!

Okay, Pets - But What’s the Business Plan?

There are plenty of angles a person can aim for. The keys are to find a business plan that has real demand (something pet owners would actually pay for) and not too much local competition (if there are already 50 kennels in your neighborhood, you might consider something else.) For starters, how about beginning a brainstorming session on one of the following ideas?

1. Certified Pet Health Services - In other words, becoming a vet. Yeah, its a ton of work to go through school and get certified, but at least you won’t have much competition (because the barrier to entry is so high.)
2. Uncertified Pet Health Services - Remembering that fraud is a crime and you should not lie about what you do, there are pet health service options that do not require professional certification. For instance, how about setting up a pet spa, doggy massage clinic, cat stress relief center (an entertainment center filled with cat nip, scratching poles, sunbeam, window sill, and a ready supply of fresh tuna?), pet gourmet dietary center (selling crickets, meat scraps, rare international grains, etc.), and so forth. In other words, something that appeals to the health and well being of a pet without the hassles of surgery, prescription medications, plaster casts, and other activities that require licensed pros?
3. Other Pet Services - This category of ideas may be the best for you because of one big factor: big national companies can’t compete with a local, well-known option. In other words, in most neighborhoods, you’re not likely to find a lot of competition. Options to consider include:
   • Dog walking service - Great for kids or other part-timers
   • Dog bathing/grooming service - Good for monthly or weekly appointments
   • Pet babysitting - Requires a place to keep the pets, plus an impeccable level of trustworthiness
   • Pet-friendly _____ (fill in the blank) - If you’re running another business already, switching to a pet-friendly model (and including it in your website or advertising) can reap big benefits primarily from attracting more humans (pet owners) to your establishment. However, the added revenue from running a pet-friendly hotel, restaurant, tour, museum, park, etc. could be very handy!
4. Useful Pet Supplies - All pets need a multitude of items. Selling these items, either online or in a local shop or farmer’s market, might be right for you: pet houses (cages, kennels, houses, fences, etc.), feeding supplies (dishes, water cans, food), out-and-about supplies (collars, chains/ropes, mobile kennels, etc.), and other necessary supplies. For more ideas, visit a local pet store and scan through their inventory.
5. Non-Useful Pet Supplies (Toys) - This is where the money is - mainly because non-useful supplies (”kitch”) is a non-saturated market, leaving room for your creative juices to flow. Decorative items “for the cat to enjoy”, toys, fashionable collars, extra clothing (cat jackets, dog boots, etc.), and other non-essential items (how about a krypton dog bed?) have the advantage of being fickle, meaning that one more catchy or witty item on the market (yours) might just have a chance of taking off.
6. Useful Supplies for Pet Owners - Pet door modification units, chains, functional collars, house barriers, dog mats, blankets for on top of the bird cage, etc. Again, check through a local pet store for a fuller list of items. Also, note that this marketplace is already pretty full.
7. Non-Useful Supplies for Pet Owners - As with non-useful pet supplies, this category of items has as much potential as you have creativity. The funny part of this category is that, while pet owners pretend to buy witty t-shirts, bumper stickers, hats, etc. for their pet, they are really just buying presents for themselves. For instance, every time you see a sign in a car window reading “Caution - Cat on Board!”, you can see an example of a non-useful pet owner supply who spent $12 on something for themself, but sort of for their pet. Taking advantage of this type of buyer is the name of this category’s game.

Extra Tips

Aside from choosing a business model with an economic upside, its essential that you take care of a few other things.

If you don’t love animals, don’t try any of these plans. Your lack of enthusiasm will eventually show and kill your business.

Likewise, if you don’t realize the difference between a business and a hobby, don’t choose this business. You’d be better off getting a pet than starting this business.
Honesty, trustworthiness, and the ability to communicate those two are essential in this business. If prospective customers get the impression that you’re second-rate or that their beloved pet might be mistreated, you are guaranteed to have a failing business. Be friendly, be exquisitely clean, keep your facilities exquisitely clean and “happy”, and be sure to be a great listener (when prospects are talking about inane details about their pets).

Good Luck!

Pets are a happy part of people’s (prospect’s) lives, so this has the potential to be a very pleasant and joyous sector for your small business!

Writing Your Idea Down

When a brainwave hits, the clouds part, and it seems like you’ve just uncovered the ultimate money-making idea, drop whatever you’re doing, get some quiet space, explore the idea with your mind, and start jotting down notes. Don’t pick up the phone. Don’t turn on the TV. And whatever you do, don’t simply assume you’ll remember the idea the next day.

In those few moments of clarity that may only come along once a month, once every 3 years, or even less (there are many people who may NEVER come up with a good business idea), take advantage of it. Without worrying about the format, simply record your thoughts and go where the idea takes you. Without worrying about the parts you don’t know, jot down the ones parts you do. Without worrying about the business administration, investment capital, or manufacturing requirements, simply roll with the aspects of the idea that seem exciting, original, and guaranteed to make you a million. You can fill in the boring holes and details later on.

Using Props and Tools

Create spaces or props to support your brainstorming. If you come up with ideas at home, get yourself a blank notebook. [insert pic of my brown notebook] Or, some people prefer thinking at a keyboard with a word processor (personally, I like notepad.) If you’re a nocturnal thinker, keep wads of paper and pencils by your bed so you can capture the fleeting moments of clarity. If you come up with great ideas while at work, get a stack of sticky notes and jot down reminders to develop at lunch or later on. Keep records in your phone or PDA. Snap pictures of thought-provoking objects, book titles, signs, or other images with your low-res camera phone. Leave yourself phone messages. Do something, anything, to help yourself round the corner from “wow, what a vague, fancy, interesting thought I have” to “here’s a concrete brainstorm which I can easily implement later on.” Whatever you do, do it religiously, and do it often. This is the first commandment of generating and developing great small business ideas!

There are a few reasons to do it frequently:

• Most of your ideas will be terrible, so you’ll need a lot to choose from. Don’t take failure personally; its just the price of brainstorming your business. Recording artists typically write 10 songs for every 1 that gets recorded, just as sports stars take 100 shots hoping that a few of them go in. It’s the same thing with brainstorming, so your notebook or camera phone better have lots of room in it…
• You’ll get better at it over time. After brainstorming 15 businesses and trying 2 or 3 of them, you’ll get much better at realizing which of your ideas are only half-baked, avoiding pitfalls and recognizing recurring holes in your business assumptions.
• You’ll start to recognize your own patterns. Looking back over your past 15 business ideas, you’ll start to see recurring elements such as revenue model, distribution systems, geographic focus, subject material (cats, software design, etc.), scope, etc. Once you start to see your own patterns, you’ll be able to move beyond your limitations and leverage the ideas that surpass your own preferences and shortcomings.

After the Brainstorming Calms Down…

Once your wave of brainstorming is finished, put your notebook down, go for a bike ride, call up some friends, or do something else active and fun, and come back to your idea in a few days. In other words, let your subconscious play with idea without any help from you.

Often, an idea you thought was brilliant at 10pm the night before can look pretty stupid even by the next morning. Even for brilliant inventors, over 90% of new ideas turn out to be not worth the effort of actually developing. However, if an idea keeps looking good and catching your imagination for a week or longer, it might be time to develop the idea further and consider developing a more detailed business plan. If you’re lucky, the idea will be a hit, it will be easy to implement, and you’ll be off to the small business races before you know it!

Small Online Business Idea: Making money with your high traffic and/or high reputation website using Donations.

(The rest of this post assumes you’ve already got one or many high traffic/high quality websites. If you haven’t finished step 1 yet, go here for information on how to build a high traffic website.)

Getting Money from Donations on your Website - Basics:

Rather than trying to offer a direct trade for people’s money in a traditional two-way transaction, some websites can get away with simply asking visitors to make a donation. Whether this donation seems worthwhile or not (whether you’re a legitimate charity, community organization, or just some kid hoping for a quick buck off your blog) anyone can ask their online community for a donation and see what happens.

Most websites that try this technique will get virtually or literally no money via donations. However, the sites that do get money can get big amounts of money. It all depends on what kind of website you’re running.

How it Works:

Setting yourself up to receive donations is remarkably easy. The hard part is getting people to actually donate.

From a technical standpoint, set-up is as easy as 1-2-3

1. install the code on your website (see below for details)
2. instruct visitors how they can donate, why they should do so
3. collect the money in your account and do whatever you want with it.

If you’re interested in actually getting people to donate, the following tips may be helpful:

• People only want to donate to a legitimate cause. This can include charity, entertainment, voluntary payment, support for a website the visitor found helpful, etc. If your website offers nothing that would lead a person to donate, consider whether you can offer a donation-friendly motive or if you should simply forget about donations.
• Fraud is illegal. If you say donations will be used for one thing, then turn around and do something else, you’d better have a good lawyer or an international hide-out. If you’re simply looking for a few extra bucks to help keep your website afloat or increase your income, be sure to say so on your website.
• Use a trusted, secure donation service (see below.) This reduces visitors’ fear of getting scammed. Don’t build your own unless you’ve got a big-time major brand at your disposal.
• Let potential donors know what their money will go toward. Be as specific as you can without getting pedantic or dishonest.

Dangers:

Aside from potentially diluting the focus of your website (too many options makes a website confusing), calling for donations may hinder the overall messaging of your website. If you think your visitors will be turned off by seeing a donation option, maybe you shouldn’t include one.

Important Partners:

• My favourite option is offered through Paypal. Paypal is trusted, secure, and easy to install on your site.
• Another fair option is offered through Amazon. Similar concept, similar process.

Small Online Business Idea: Making money with your high traffic and/or high reputation website using Affiliate Programs.

(The rest of this post assumes you’ve already got one or many high traffic/high quality websites. If you haven’t finished step 1 yet, go here for information on how to build a high traffic website.)

Getting Money from Affiliate Programs & Your Website - Basics:

Affiliate programs are basically the same concept as lead-generation, a sales person, or a “middleman”. In short, you neither close the sale nor create the product. The only value you need to provide is to connect a prospective buyer to someone else’s store. With the right kind of website, this can be an easy addition to your content that pays dividends for little extra work.

How it Works:

Large numbers of suppliers and internet retailers (who are trying to sell more stuff) realize that, even if they pay you a percentage of the cost of an item they’ve got stocked, its still in their best interest to make the sale and pay you a sales commission. So, even if they pay you $10 on a $100 camera sale, they still get $90, which is still a good deal for them.

In order to organize this demand, large “affiliate programs” have been set up to accommodate the sale of just about any item imaginable. As a result, its quite easy to offer products for sale on your website that your visitors may be interested in buying. Once you’ve hooked up with one or several affiliate programs, which is pretty easy to get going, you simply sit back and hope that some of your website’s visitors feel like buying.

Dangers:

Any time you send a visitor away from your website, you may never see them again. So, only get involved in an affiliate program if the overall impact on your site and revenue is positive.

Also, by promoting other companies’ products, you are endorsing items which may or may not match your own quality standards. If you promote crappy content and your visitors have a bad experience with them (or if they simply see you endorsing them), their opinion of your site may weaken and that may be that last that you see of them.

Important Partners:

In your search for an affiliate program that offers ease of use, products that fit your website, and a payment model that maximizes profits, consider some of the partners below. For quickly introducing yourself to the principles and common issues surrounding affiliate programs, play around with the Amazon Associates program first and then consider moving on to the other programs.

• Amazon.com
• iTunes Affiliates
• WidgetBucks
• LinkShare
• zanox
• uSuggest LLC
• Auction Ads LLC
• Commission Junction Inc.
• shareasale.com
• ClickBank
• Chitika RPU
• Chitika ShopCloud$
• Chitika Linx

Small Online Business Idea: Making money with your high traffic and/or high reputation website using Merchandising.

(The rest of this post assumes you’ve already got one or many high traffic/high quality websites. If you haven’t finished step 1 yet, go here for information on how to build a high traffic website.)

Merchandising & Your Website - Basics:

Every time you see some kid wearing a sports jersey or musician’s album cover, you’re seeing evidence of someone else’s merchandising. Or, someone else’s $3 profit. Learning how to do merchandising for your own brand is surprisingly easy, especially when leveraging partners like CafePress to help you on your way.

How it Works:

Businesses with custom production and delivery capabilities combine with your custom merchandise needs (logo’d tshirts, pens, mugs, mousepads, books, etc.) to create a virtual store in almost no time. Setup is as easy as 1-2-3:

1) You create a suite of customized products and place them in your “store”

2) You send mobs of eager traffic to the store (possibly on your site, possibly a “store” on another site)

3) You collect cheques after someone else does all the hard work

Dangers:

The main dangers involved are:

• Wasting your time setting up a store that no-one will buy from:
  • If your online community does not want to buy things with your logos or ideas on them, all your creativity and set-up time could be wasted.
• Wasting your money setting up a store that no-one will buy from:
  • Choosing a free system (see below) to start with is the best way to avoid this risk. If you start selling material like crazy, you can then do the math on how much %’s you’ll save by moving to a more complex, independent, custom-built system.
• Setting up a store that people do want to buy from:
  • What will you do with all that extra money?? J

Important Partners:

The following websites are great places to start (and likely finish) your search for an easy-to-operate and inexpensive merchandising system:

• CafePress
• Printfection
• Lulu
• GoodStorm

Small Online Business Idea: Making money with your high traffic and/or high reputation website using Ads.

(The rest of this post assumes you’ve already got one or many high traffic/high quality websites. If you haven’t finished step 1 yet, go here for information on how to build a high traffic website.)

Getting Money from Putting Ads on your Website - Basics:

One of the easiest ways to make money online is by selling advertising on your website. There are many major services on the market, so the process is extremely simple. In other words, they’re easy to install, easy to run, and its easy to collect payment.

How it Works:

Businesses all over the world are trying to get consumers’ attention and get their message in front of an audience. In the offline world, this includes magazines, TV, radio spots, etc. In the online world, it means any website with an audience, which means you and your website.

In order for ease of administration, these businesses go to a major broker in order to sell a bunch of ads across a network of good websites. The biggest brokers are listed below. These brokers then need websites to place their ads on, which is where you come in.

By adding a small piece of code to your website, major brokers gain the ability to display ads on your website for as long as the code is left untouched. Once the ads are there, there are 3 main methods by which you can get paid for having these ads:

1) CPM (cost per mil / cost per thousand / cost per impression) – Every time an ad gets displayed 1000 times, you get paid the agreed amount. This can be good for very high traffic websites.

2) CPC (cost per click) – Every time a visitor clicks on an ad, you get paid the agreed amount. This can be good for a high traffic website or a site within a niche where visitors are likely to click on ads for more information.

3) CPA (cost per acquisition) – Every time a visitor buys an item on another site after getting there directly from your website, you get paid the agreed amount or % of revenue. This can be really lucrative or result in little revenue, depending on your niche and the likelihood of people buying something.

The best thing to do is try different models, let each system run for an appropriate amount of time, and then see which model produces the best results.

Dangers:

The biggest danger is the loss of a hot prospect in the event that you have a higher-value potential conversion on your website. If a visitor might be worth $500 dollars to you, but they leave on an ad that gives you $0.15, putting ads on your site might be the worst strategy you can implement.

For information-based sites, some website visitors do not like seeing ads. As a result, your readership may be offended and culled if you introduce ads to your website.

Also, putting ads on a high-profile website can look petty or unprofessional, which is not worth the damage to your brand if you’re only going to get a few bucks out of it.

Some of these sites sell ads primarily to get inbound links to their website to trick Google into giving them higher search rankings. Sites that try to sell links based on their value for “increasing your link value” are highly disfavoured by Google. So, if your website relies heavily on Google traffic and you don’t want to get penalized by Google, consider staying clear of these companies (see list below). The details surrounding this last danger are contentious and numerous; a fodder for a future post…

Important Partners:

By far the easiest and best system to get started with is Google’s Adsense program. Sign-up should take less than 5 minutes, and you can have ads on your site in as little as 10 minutes. Plus, its free, trustworthy, user-friendly, and has a large number of people buying ads through it (so the ads on your site will likely be relevant to your content.)

For those of you convinced to try something beyond Adsense, the following vendors are places to start your search (although I think this list is a complete waste of time):

• Yahoo! Publisher Network
• ValueClick Inc
• Tribal Fusion
• Clicksor Inc
• Indeed
• AdSonar
• AdVolcano LLC
• grokAds.com
• Adify
• AdBriteInc
• Blogads
• Casale Media Inc
• DoubleClick Inc
• Chitika eMiniMalls
• BlueLithium
• Exelate
• ExpoActive

User beware if you rely on Google traffic:

• Text Link Ads
• LinkWords
• Textlinkbrokers.com
• LinkAds
• PaidTextLinks.com
• Kontera ContentLink
• LinkAdage Auctions
• Vibrant Media