Truth Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Zimbabwe: Illusion, Intuition, and the Truth

I have been in Harare Zimbabwe for a week. I am sitting at the very modern and quite well laid out airport waiting for my flight home. I live in Northern California and it takes 4 flights and over 35 hours (including stopovers) to get from Harare to Sacramento. I live on six beautiful wooded acres. I am in the majestic California mountains half-way between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. Having traveled all over the world, I know I am one of the luckiest people on this planet. I live in a mountain paradise.

A few weeks ago I came to Zim for the first time. I had read much about Zimbabwe in the American press and was expecting to come to a repressive, military run country, where soldiers could be found on every corner harassing the impoverished, unhappy people.

I have been to many African and Asian countries, and have seen my share of poverty, filth and deprivation. I expected the infrastructure of Harare to be beyond repair and for the roads to be potholed and crumbling. I thought I would see the sick and beggars everywhere. I was sure Zim would thrust in my face, the suffering of humanity as I have seen in other third world countries.

I was absolutely shocked and amazed to find a modern, clean city. There were no beggars, sick, or indigent anywhere to be seen. The roads were in good shape by African standards and the only soldiers I saw were outside the President’s residence compound. Interestingly, when you pass the President’s residence you are not allowed to take any pictures and absolutely forbidden to point your fingers or hands towards the guards. I drove by his residence twice, and each time I was warned by my taxi driver. I later found out that the guards were under great stress when people pointed at them as they drove by because they could not tell if someone was just pointing their finger or if they might have a gun in their hand. You could imagine the stress if you were on guard duty and people kept sticking their hands out the window at you as they drove by. Guards, who are less stressed, are less likely to make mistakes and are more likely to go home to wife and family a lot calmer.

Some of the African countries I work in are friendly to foreigners, some, not so much. My experience in Zimbabwe has been that the people are warm, friendly, and respectful. I met people in various levels of society and felt welcomed by all I met. This is not to say everyone in Zim loved me. One man on a street corner glared at me with anger in his eyes. I smiled back knowing he must have read some of my other articles and is a critic.

The reason I describe Harare is because I am not happy with the misinformation I have received through the press and thought people show know the truth. Harare is a nice city and the people are sweet-natured.

The President, Mr. Mugabe has his admirers and his detractors. Amusingly, some of his supporters I spoke too raised concerns over some of his policies, and some of his detractors praised him. I am not a political commentator on the policies and procedures of countries I visit. I am not a political commentator on American politics and procedures either. I cannot afford to be a target of the NSA or the I.R.S.

This article, if I ever stop rambling, is about doing business in Zimbabwe now that the E.U. sanctions have been lifted. I use LinkedIn and my website to reach prospective customers from around the world. Because of my high visibility, I often receive offers to go to Zim to purchase rough diamonds. Up until recently, this was not possible. Just as a quick side-bar, the sanctions imposed upon Zimbabwe have been effective in creating a great deal of damage to the economy.

I know the sanctions are imposed to try and affect regime change, but that strategy has been counter-productive. The people I spoke with don’t blame Mr. Mugabe for their suffering and hardship, they blame the West. The banks have a severe liquidity problem and the poor and the average person are the ones who are paying the price for the sanctions. White, black, green or yellow, everyone I spoke to about the sanctions wanted to tell the West that it is they the folks, who are suffering and paying the price.

Back to diamonds. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I am approached to buy Zim diamonds at least once a week. Everyone tells me how easy it is to buy in Zimbabwe. They tell me they can bring me vast quantities of goods of the highest color, shape and clarity. Not having any experience in Zim, it was quite difficult to determine the truth. At any rate, I was not allowed to go to Zim and did not feel any need to find out the truth.

The American government has now removed the restrictions from the country and you can now bring in Zimbabwe diamonds into the U.S. The caveat is, there is a 25 page list of individuals who Americans cannot do business with. Perhaps, because I am not accustomed to trying to get information, I found it difficult to find out who is on this list. I spoke to my contact in the Ministry in Zim and was told there is only one mine; The River Range that is not on the list. Incidentally, it is closed. You cannot bring Zim goods into the US without risking the stones will be seized indefinitely.

A few weeks ago, a British-South African group hired me to go to Zim to pick and evaluate diamond parcels for them. They had substantial orders. They were working with two seasoned, professional gemologists from South Africa, but needed my help to prepare the parcels for the customers. After much consideration, they kindly allowed me to bring forward some of my customers. I know how my customers work and I know their needs and concerns. We worked together to try and match the needs of their sellers with the needs of the buyers. If any of you have ever had any dealings with wealthy and powerful sellers and equally wealthy and powerful buyers, you know this can be a challenge.

We were able to work out a deal for two of my buyers that were acceptable to each side. We placed the order for our demands and were given a price that was agreed upon. The banking, terms and shipping were to everyone’s satisfaction and SPA’s (Sales Purchase Agreement) were signed.

The British-SA company was also new to working in Zim and was instructed on the requirements of the Zim government in order to purchase diamonds legally in ZIM. They soon realized it would take more than a few days and decided to send the three of us gemologists home while they completed the country requirements.

In the meantime, one of my good friends, also a client, had contracted to buy a very large parcel of rough in Zim. He needed a gemo to do the picking, evaluation etc. and hired me to go to ZIM.

I arrived here last Wednesday. I really did not want to go, because I had Thanksgiving plans with family and friends and was really looking forward to the Thanksgiving weekend. My friend told me that he had an appointment at the MMCZ (Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe) the channel for the export of all Zimbabwe’s minerals and metals, and that I absolutely, positively, had to be there on Thursday. He had worked on this for many weeks. I owed him a large favor. In addition, I was promised a very, very substantial amount of money to do the deal. ($3,000,000).

I made my apologies, to my wife, kids and friends and totally disrupted the family dinner plans. You see; I am the cook at my house, and I say with some false modesty, that my cooking is relished by my friends and family.I left Monday, and spent the next 40 hours flying and waiting and flying and waiting. I arrived late Wednesday and was pretty damn tired.

The sellers were to come pick me up Thursday morning. I did my best to sleep, which is difficult when you are on a 10 hour time difference. I awakened, worked out, showered, ate quickly, and dressed in suit and tie. I received an email. The seller’s rep apologized because his flight from South Africa was delayed and he would not be at the hotel until 12:30 P.M.

It is what it is, I sighed, and waited, I waited and I waited. 2:45 P.M. No one showed up, no call, no email.

Not until late that night did the seller’s people contact me and tell me there were some “issues” they had to deal with that caused the delay. It is better to overcome the issues and not show up, then to show up and have issues. They told me they rescheduled the meeting for the next morning. I thought to myself, they must really have some pull at the MMCZ in order to miss an appointment. Getting an appointment at the MMCZ is no small matter. Maybe I really am dealing with people who are on the “Presidential Level” as I was told. It was my understanding that new customers never missed an appointment with MMCZ. If they did miss the appointment, it would be highly unusual to receive another one the very next day.

Okay, it’s Africa… Hurry up and wait.

Friday morning, I repeated my routine and sat waiting for the seller’s rep to take me to our new appointment at MMCZ. I waited, and I waited, and I waited. No one showed up, no one called, and no one emailed. Now, I have never been called the brightest bulb in the pack,but even I know you do not stand up a government agency two days in a row.

Later that night, I was told that the seller’s rep had not come because he was working on my behalf to fulfill the government requirements for gemologists to enter the vault. When I asked why this had not already been done, he at first could not answer and then mumbled some bull. I asked him why he had not called, and again more lies. He then said he came to my hotel at 6:00 P.M. but could not reach me. This was surprising as I was sitting in my room eating dinner.

I am a patient man. A gentle man, but I cannot stand liars. I refuse to deal with people who lie to me. I did not know what was really happening, but I knew these people were not for real. I wrote to my customer and to the seller’s with a simple sentence; “I am done!”

For the next seven hours the sellers begged to talk to me. They called my hotel phone until 1:00 in the morning. They Skyped every 15 min. My email was filling up fast. Finally, I responded on my email and said; “Let me make this crystal clear, I am done. ”

Now I am getting emails telling me they have a definite appointment on the next day, a Saturday. Since the MMCZ is closed Saturday, they would have to have an extremely powerful person to get the MMCZ to open. Especially, since they had missed two appointments already. In addition, they are telling me I should be a man of my word since I had told them on Thursday night that I would give them until Saturday to get me into the MMCZ.

I pride myself on the use of logic and reason. I try to make important decisions after carefully weighing the situation, looking at my options and anticipating the outcome or results of any actions I may take. In this case, they swore they were not lying, just delayed. Rude yes, but liars, no!

As you can imagine, everyone in this deal was raging mad at me, especially, my friend who had much to gain and a lot to lose. Put yourself in their place, this deal took weeks and many man hours to put together. Costs were incurred to provide an MT199,(Proof of Funds doc) and MT799 (Blocked funds doc) and other expenses that go with putting together a deal in the hundreds of millions. So many people, so many dreams of wealth.

For me it was in some ways difficult and in some ways easy to decide what to do. On the one hand, all these people were completely dependent on me to make this deal a reality. I did not have any empirical evidence that would convince me not to go forward. After all, maybe they really did have the connections and power to do this deal. Anyone who can put hundreds of millions of dollars of diamonds together would have to be very, very powerful. In addition, if the deal worked I was a rich man. All the money I have lost over the years would be in my bank account by next week. Indeed, if I was wrong about stopping the deal, I would severely and permanently damage my reputation. To make a bad situation worse, I would probably be sued by multiple parties with deep pockets and $500 an hour lawyers.

For those of you who use intuition to guide your decisions, this decision would be a no-brainer. My intuition was screaming at me to get the hell out of Dodge! Logic and reason be damned. When you spend a lifetime taking risks and putting yourself in dangerous situations you come to rely on your intuition more than on what appears to be. In this case, I just knew this deal was no good and despite the risks and losses, I was not going to go through with it. I was going to bet the farm on my intuition.

Just then, I decided to phone a professional friend of mine in Zimbabwe on an unrelated matter. After discussing the situation I was in without divulging the details of my clients, I asked for a second opinion on how deals are completed in Zim. According to the regulations my friend cited me there seemed to be, as I suspected, some serious problems with this deal. I was advised of the correct procedures governing the exporting of rough diamonds from Zimbabwe, and that if my deal did not follow legal regulations I could end up in jail!. I had already decided to follow my own intuition and abort this deal.

The next day, I took a cab to the Emirates Airlines office in Avondale, a beautiful suburb of Harare. The houses are stately and the grounds beautiful and well maintained. In the middle of this residential area sits the Emirates office. I was tired, stressed and just wanted to go home. Of course, as luck would have it, the flights were booked solid for weeks and I had no choice but to stay until today, Wednesday.

Somewhat depressed, I took the cab back to the hotel. Once at the hotel, I emailed my client and informed him I would eat the $4000 cost of the trip. Now, I not only did not make money, I was out $4000 for my trouble.

The calls and emails stopped. I spent Saturday and Sunday thinking. I decided that since I could not get out of Zim, I would utilize my time by finding out all about the diamond business in Zimbabwe. I found the numbers for the Government Geological Department, and the Ministry of Mines.

I have gone through this process in several African countries and am familiar with the processes of these ministries. I find it wonderful that the people who work in these departments are happy to hear from foreigners who come to their country and want to know how to do business legally and ethically. I was somewhat surprised and very happy to make an appointment with Zimbabwe’s top geologist who allowed me to come to his office for instruction on the diamond resources of the country.

The geologist was a slight man in his 40’s with bright, kind eyes and was obviously very passionate about geology. His office was a typical office, except he had shelves going across two walls which were filled to capacity with maps, reports and rocks of all sizes and shapes. It could not help but look messy. However, when he went to show the different maps he had, he was able to instantly find the right geological maps.

Like all great teachers, he explained in methodical detail the various diamond areas. All of them were clearly marked and even the diamond concessions were drawn and detailed. He showed me each diamond bearing area and described the geological formations and peculiarities of each mine. There is even a region where the diamonds are elongated or strangely shaped octahedrons. He explained that the diamonds in this unique region had formed more than a billion years ago and had then found themselves under great heat and pressure causing them to liquefy and warp and bend into unique shapes.

The contracts that were presented to my clients were 5-20 carat, D-I color, VVS-SI. They were supposed to be Sawable 1, Sawable 2, Makable 1 and a small percentage of Makable 2. (See Google for descriptions and pictures of these diamond shapes), However, all of the stones were supposed to be without the typical iron coating that covers most Zimbabwe diamonds.

I asked the geologist if Zimbabwe produced diamonds in abundance without the heavy coating. He told me there were only two mines in Zim that produce diamonds without the coating. One produces very small gems under one carat and the other is currently undergoing Ownership changes.

The question arises; how could these suppliers have hundreds of thousands of carats of large uncoated Zim stones when the geologist who has been to every mine in Zimbabwe says that do not exist? There are two possible answers; the suppliers are lying, or, the goods are not from Zimbabwe and have been smuggled into the country illegally.

The likelihood of smuggling in such huge quantities is quite unlikely. Too many people would know about it, and it would require the corruption of everyone in the MMCZ and the Ministry of Mines. The manifests and deals being offered with transparent stones are scams.

I now knew my intuition was correct. I was right to walk away from the deal. No one can blame me now and some owe me. My next appointment was with the new Minister of Mines, I met him for all of 10 seconds. Our appointment was canceled because the President had summoned him and he had to go immediately to the President’s office. The Minister’s secretary is a kind lady and directed me to a gentleman she felt would be very helpful in answering my questions.

This young man is also in his early 40’s. He is very articulate and you can see a keen intelligence in his eyes. The wonderful thing for me, is this man is a high ranking official with duties in every sector of the diamond industry. He knows all the procedures, laws, requirements, banking, KPC regulation, and most importantly, he knows the banking and shipping laws and procedures. In other words, I had hit the jackpot. All my questions could be answered.

Lets go back to the question of coated stones. I asked him the same question about coated stones that I had asked the geologist. As you would expect, he gave me the exact same answer. He also told me he had heard rumors that large quantities of uncoated goods were being offered in the market. He said it was a complete scam as they do not exist.

In addition, it is impossible to buy CIF in Zimbabwe. They do not use, or accept an MT199, MT799, na MT103, S.B.L.C. or an ICBPO. The law states that no diamonds can leave Zimbabwe unless it is paid for first. This means my clients deal could not possibly happen legally. He had arranged an MT199 and and SBLC to buy CIF.

One other thing, when you buy from the MMCZ, you must be approved for purchases. There are a number of requirements one must meet and if you pass those requirements, an invitation is sent directly to the buying company. IT IS ILLEGAL TO BE A CONSULTANT IN ZIMBABWE. This means that the company who is buying is the company whose name will appear on the government invoice, shipping and KPC, and is the company paying for the diamonds. Anyone who tells you anything different is lying or ignorant of the truth.

This nice man cares greatly about his country and its reputation. They outlawed consultants finding no other way to rid themselves of the scammers. If you want to buy in Zimbabwe, you must apply and be accepted by the Zimbabwe government. You cannot pay for it after it leaves the county, there is no Brink’s or Malca-Amit office and there are few uncoated stones.

If you or a loved one are currently involved in a deal to purchase Zim diamonds and are told any of the above lies, then walk away quickly. If you are in the middle of one of these deals and my article saves your rear, reputation, valuable time, money, and energy, then you can pay me back by donating $1.000 to your favorite charity in your name. This will show you are thankful for the blessing and you are not foolish, ignorant, and greedy.

For those of you who wish to do business in Zimbabwe or other African countries. Do your due diligence. If you do not have the connections, skills and experience to do so, then hire a rough diamond gemologist who does.

The Truth About Kylie Jenner’s $800m Cosmetics Empire

Kylie Jenner’s cosmetics empire was recently featured on the cover of Forbes magazine – America’s most prolific business monthly.

Whilst much contention was raised about the claims that her wealth was “self-made” (which it wasn’t), the bigger question was how this actually happened – and the numbers behind it.

Jenner’s “Kylie Cosmetics” business has raked in an estimated $660m in sales during its 3 year lifespan, with $330m in 2017 alone.

Whilst the business is private, and thus its numbers are not publicly available, even if these estimates were 50% off, the figures would be staggering.

What’s more – the “company” only has 7 full time employees. Everything from packaging to PR is outsourced, and the only way that Jenner gets customers is by leveraging her 110m Instagram followers.

This article examines how it was done.

Social Midas

The core of Jenner’s success has been the 110m followers on Instagram.

The company doesn’t advertise outside of the platform, doesn’t have any shops or stockists and generally just peddles its products directly to its community.

Whilst this sounds like a marketer’s wet dream, the most important element was Jenner’s lips.

In 2017, precisely 2 years after registering the trademark for her brand, tabloids around the world started running reports on the size of them; with the help of fillers, she’d managed to almost quadruple their size.

The point here is not so much about what she looks like, but how she capitalized on the interest… she’d inadvertently uncovered one of the biggest “trends” of the modern West – women lusting over youthful, full lips.

To this end, putting $250k of her modelling money into 15,000 lip kits, she set up a page to sell them online. Almost instantaneously, they sold out.

Whilst this was a great step, the next process was Jenner’s omnipotent mother – Kris Kardashian – bringing in Shopify in February 2016 in order to make the business a fully fledged ecommerce operation.

A few months later, the company started selling with six shades of lip kit – all of which sold out very soon after launch.

Exponential Growth

Whilst the store did well immediately, what spurred continued interest was its maintained growth.

Rather than being a small blip – where girls go and buy the latest product because it’s on-trend – the business kept producing buyers at an alarming rate.

This could be handled thanks to the way in which it had been set up. It’s a quintessential “dropship” operation; all of the product development & sourcing was out-sourced to a company called Spatz cosmetics, who’re estimated to have made ~$180m from the venture.

This figure represents the COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) of the business; a little-known number which will help us actually determine the true value of what’s been developed.

You see, when it comes to money, 99.9% of people are generally wrong. This isn’t me being disrespectful; they’re just not experienced / level-headed enough to actually consider the facts from the hype.

Jenner’s “business” isn’t a real business. It’s a marketing company which trades in attention.

Like all things “Kardashian”, that attention comes from multiple sources – but is ALL directed towards the family. The matriarch (Kris) then turns this attention into money.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have conflated Jenner’s attention with the value of her business. They are mutually exclusive, and in the investment world, has lead the “price” of Jenner’s pull to be “overvalued” (people think it’s worth more than it actually is).

As mentioned, she doesn’t have a “business” because all the product creation is outsourced. She has a website that sells outsourced lip gloss etc.

This means that if you’re actually looking at what’s really going on, you have to be able to consider what the business actually is, and – ultimately – whether it can be sustained (no).

Worth / Value

When it comes to valuations of companies – the most important thing to consider is that almost the entire populace of the world is wrong about which ones will win in the long run.

And although I’m no sage on the topic, I’ve been around long enough to know which companies will sink and swim.

In the case of Jenner’s, I see a flash in the pan.

It has very little – if any – competitive advantage, and is primarily built around a persona which is false.

It’s my opinion that most of the current purchases (and yes, they are HUGE in volume) are predominantly impulse purchases.

Curious teenagers, and even mid-twenties women, are buying the products because of the promise of a richer, fuller pout. But without costly filler injections, this is just a dream.

My own estimation is that Jenner is probably worth ~$20m. Her “business” is worth about 1/5 of its profit (which is likely nearer to $100m than the $800 revenue reported by Forbes), and thus the whole thing just stinks of a marketing gimmick.

Further to this – actual metrics of the various products being sold by Jenner seem to indicate a slowing growth curve – just 7% in 2017 after a meteoric first year surge.

This is not to put shade onto her success. But to label her a “self made” success story is incorrect, as well as inflating the numbers in sales. With at least 50% of the revenue going to Spatz (who also work for L’Oreal), it’s my opinion that they are the real winners out of it all.

Entrepreneurs Getting Free Government Start Up Business Grants – What is the Truth?

It can be incredibly stressful to start your own business; particularly if your budget is running low as you get ready to launch. The last thing you want is to get information which raises your hopes, only to dash them upon discovering that this information was inaccurate.

There are a lot of young entrepreneurs who are under the impression that they can get money from the government to start up their business. This is a misconception; no one (except maybe your parents) will give you money no strings attached – so don’t be taken in by anyone who promises you this. There are a lot of people out there who will tell you that they can do this, but be careful – you’re starting a business to make money, not pay it out to these unscrupulous operators.

If you’re an entrepreneur trying to get your business off the ground and your hope is that the government will help finance your venture, you need to know the facts:

1 – Small business other than non-profits are rarely able to get government financing; these funds are generally set aside for non-profits and other businesses which provide jobs in economically disadvantaged areas.

2 – Businesses which are engaged in new technology research and development can often get financing. However, if you are opening a Laundromat, you will not be getting a government grant to do so. These funds are typically reserved for the best and brightest in the scientific and engineering fields -research projects can receive grants of up to $100,000 and an additional $1 million for production

stemming from this research.

3 – Even businesses which are qualified to receive these grants cannot get them simply for the asking at any time. There are specific application processes for these grants which are time sensitive. If you miss the application deadline, you may have to wait until the next year or until a call for applications is announced.

4 – There is some hope of receiving government funding, but keep in mind that not all of this money is in the form of grants. There are small business loans which can be either a traditional interest bearing loan or matching grants with 25% of the cost being granted – the other 75% must be raised by your business. You will generally have to submit detailed reports of your business operations for tracking purposes when receiving these grants.

There are business grants on the local, state and federal levels – a good business plan can help your business to secure one of these loans. Your business plan should include a detailed description of how you will produce your product; provide your service as well as how you will market your business, among other things.

Your business plan will also give you a clearer picture of the viability of your business. After looking it over, you can decide if your plan needs some revamping – or if it’s time to go back to the drawing board altogether. This can save you a lot of time when you start up your business.

With the right information, your business will have a much better chance of securing financing – and of course, being successful overall.

Video News Shows Truth Behind the Words Said in News

News has always been an important part of our lives. It seems that we just cannot live without getting informed about things or events happening around. These days, the news has not remained as a mere piece of information that is read and forgot after sometime. It is something that casts a long lasting impression and forces the reader to think or discuss about the issues. Since everybody likes to know about each and every type of news in detail, this raised the demand for video news. The reason behind broadcasting news in this way was that it provided a sort of direct interaction of the masses with the news piece.

Through the live news videos, you can get to know something very recent happened around. In fact, you can check out all the details, such as the face of culprit, the incident happening in detail, the aftermaths of the incident and other related information. All these information are an essential part of knowledge that enables us to increase our bank of current affairs. After all, who does not want to be a master of knowledge and have a wonderful intelligence? The news is meant to tell about an issue that has some importance and is news worthy.

It is because of the news that we feel fresh and being informed. There are various things happening in the country and abroad. With the help of top news videos, we get to know the incidents in detailed version. If you want; then, you can also pick the quotes given in the video for your further references. As it is said, seeing is all believing. This lays the fact that the live news video is extremely essential in the media world. Moreover, the things seen raise reactions more than the news in written. After all, news has a special place in our life.

There are a variety of sources that can give you complete information. Newspapers, radio channels, television news channels and news websites are those resources. But, the fun of catching news items on live news video is slightly different. You can feel to be face-to-face with the news piece and get a hand on complete information. After all, it is highly important to keep yourself updated on the current affairs as we all have to live in a world of intellectuals. It is essential to get hold of latest news to keep yourself running with the world’s demand.

The Truth About Starting an Online Business

What happens when your Internet marketing empire doesn’t take off that quickly or isn’t that profitable? Yyou feel like a miserable failure. So, then you invest more time and money to get more information, with similar results. Who really gets rich here? The people selling the information on how to get rich. It begins to feel like a hamster wheel in which you run and run and run but never get anywhere.

I’ve had a virtual online business since 1999, and it’s neither quick nor easy. What I’ve discovered is that some people can exploit a particular strategy for a short time until someone or something shuts them down, and then they’re on to exploiting the next newest strategy until it no longer works, and then they move to yet another new strategy. It’s tiring just to write about this process!

As I reflect on my 7 years in business, I really wish I’d known then what I know now. Since I get a number of questions and inquiries every week from “newbies”, or business owners new to the Internet marketing world, about how to get started in an online business, here’s my list of 10 things I wish I’d known about Internet marketing when I started my online business:

1. Niche your way to riches. Finding the exact market that needs what you have to offer is one of the primary keys to success in any business, but especially when you’re trying to do business online. Taking a shotgun approach and foolishly believing that “everyone” needs your product or service is the quickest way to failure. You need to be able to identify and describe your niche market, from determining what problem the niche market is actively trying to solve and what they’ll pay for (as well as how much they will pay) to what publications they read, what groups/associations do they belong to, and where they hang out both on- and off-line. The more narrowly focused your niche, the better. So, owners of Golden Retrievers is a better defined niche than dog lovers, and executive female golfers is better than women athletes.

2. Acknowledge your expertise. One of the great difficulties of online business owners is their inability to acknowledge their expertise in an area. It took me years to realize that while others did have a higher level of expertise than me, there was a very large group of people who knew less than me — and it was to those people I could become an expert! And, better yet, they would pay me to learn it so they didn’t have to go through the same trial-and-error method I did.

3. Create a content-packed web site. Content relevant and useful to your target market, embedded with keywords that your target market might use to find you, are the magic wands that enable you to be found on search engines. For years, my web site was simply an online brochure with details of my service offerings. It was not until I regularly started writing articles for my target market and posting those to my web site and blog did I see a noticeable increase in both the amount of traffic to my web site as well as in my number of newsletter subscribers. If you’ve been in business for awhile, you’ve got a good idea of the problems that your customers face. Your articles can serve as the solution to the common problems and questions of your target market.

4. Build relationships online. Even though an online business is virtual and you meet few of your clients and prospective clients face-to-face, it is still possible to build trusting relationships online. The most important thing to remember is that your personality needs to shine throughout all of your online ventures. So whether you share personal stories about your life or business (these will be very popular with your visitors), or write articles or web site text in the same way you speak, you need to give visitors an experience of what it means to do business with you. You can also use audio and video on your web site as well as photos of you in action in your business. Remember, most people need to get to know, like and respect you before they’ll decide to buy what you have to offer.

5. Discover reputable sources of technical and Internet marketing “how-to” information. Online technology and Internet marketing strategies change from moment to moment, and it’s tough to keep up with the latest and greatest innovation. You’ll need to read lots of ezines and visit lots of web sites each week just to stay on top of things.

6. Create several “stay in touch” devices. An ezine (email newsletter), blog (web log), and autoresponders (series of automated follow up emails) are the quickest and easiest ways to stay in touch with your current clients and to bring prospective clients into the fold. I think the most effective ezines are published weekly — it gives you one excuse every week to reach out to your contact database. Blogs tend to be attention hogs, so they are most effective as a marketing strategy when you post to them 3-4 times per week. Once you’ve written the content for a series of autoresponders, they can serve as a personal marketing arm for you, as they can be personalized and give prospective clients the impression that you’re writing a personal email just to them. The more “stay in touch” strategies you use, the quicker your prospective client base will get to know you and expect to regularly hear from you.

7. Provide a clear call to action. Web site visitors generally want some direction in what action they should take next. Whether they visit your web site, attend your speaking engagement, read an article you’ve written, or listen to one of your podcasts, they want to know what to do next to stay in touch with you. The call to action I always recommend is to get people subscribe to one of your “stay in touch” devices, whether that’s your ezine, an autoresponder series, or your blog. In most businesses, your contact database is the asset with the greatest value. It’s no different in an online businesses, where the the name and email address of your visitor is gold. Make it simple for someone to decide to initiate a business relationship with you — have your call to action in your brochure, on your business card, on every page of your web site or blog, and in the audio of your podcasts.

8. Immediately create information products. Creating information products, like ecourses, ebooks, CD or DVD series, workbooks, or audio downloads will help you immediately establish your expertise, create multiple revenue streams for your business, as well as give you a good understanding of the problems faced by your niche market. I’ve been quite slow to jump on the info product bandwagon, as I’ve just been unwilling to carve out the necessary time to create them. The creation process is time-consuming, but once something has been created, it can be a revenue stream for many years. In my early business years, I didn’t think I had any useful info to share with anyone, and now I realize that all the stuff I attributed to “common sense” should have been packaged and sold as information products. So, what info do you think is common-sense in your industry? What format will be most attractive to your target market?

9. Develop a marketing funnel. Creating a marketing funnel of products and services priced from free to expensive, as well as a way to get visitors through that funnel via a marketing plan will give many more people access to your expertise at different price points. Many business owners make the mistake of offering just one thing — their service — and miss out on other ways to sell to and educate prospective customers. Brainstorm on other ways you might deliver your expertise to prospective clients — an ecourse, ebooks, teaching workshops, holding teleclasses, sponsoring mentor groups, etc.

10. Don’t expect overnight success. Despite what the television ads might state or what the information products might claim, success in the online world doesn’t happen overnight. There will be a few who will spot a profitable trend before anyone else does, but eventually the income will fizzle and they’ll have to find another profitable trend. Just like any other business, an online business takes a great deal of time and attention. Some of the tasks can be automated, but you still have to pay attention to what’s happening so that you can effectively create your marketing and promotion strategy.

It is possible to make a decent living from online sources. However, to be successful, you’ll need to do your research, be willing to invest your time, and persevere when the going gets tough.