Any company which can source and find a business for you?

[mikehende]

Hey guys, so we've tried almost everything which came our way for years now especially in the wholesale and retail industry. I would like to ask if there is any company out there which can advise on a profitable business model?

[vangogh]

There's a lot of advice and information about business models that you can easily find, whether it's an article online or a company that offers services helping you create one. However, only you can make it profitable. A business model is a plan for how you're going to make money, but it can't make the money for you. A business model can help you determine if there's a possibility of making a profit. You still have to execute the plan and make the profit.

[mikehende]

Oh so then I used the wrong term "model", sorry. What I need is some sort of service which can help direct me to any product or service I can get into which can work.

[Fulcrum]

Doesn't exist. If it did it would kept as a secret to profit the finders or put into a book and marketed to the general public as a get rich quick scheme.

You've done retail and wholesale industries. So I have to ask:

What sub-industries did you serve?
Who were your customers?
What were your products?
What are your strengths?

[Harold Mansfield]

Oh so then I used the wrong term "model", sorry. What I need is some sort of service which can help direct me to any product or service I can get into which can work.
I agree with Fulcrum. There is no sure thing. Anyone who will sell you that is probably scamming you and telling you what you want to hear. Running a business, and keeping it running profitably is hard, and there are no guarantees. It takes more than just picking something and starting. You actually have to know (or learn) how to run a business.

Most businesses fail because of bad management, lack of funds, and bad marketing. Many people just choose the wrong business to get into for the wrong reasons.

You have to know something about what you're doing, to even be able to imagine who your market would be, and how to target them. And how to close sales. I always harp on marketing, but I forget to mention sales. Sales is how the money comes in.

Everything isn't a viable business model just because you want it to be, or because you've determined that it should be.

Play to your strengths. What do you know how to do? What do you want to do? Where do you think there's a market that you can capitalize on, and why?

Also failure is part of it. No one hits a home run on the first at bat, or even the first few.

[mikehende]

Myself and business partner started about 6 years ago to purchase electronics because I am a computer Tech and he's an electrician. We tried reselling at both wholesale and retail audio equipment, phones [new and used], computers, dry goods, ink, perfumes, used autos and nothing turned out to be positive. With the electronics we could never compete online because even the our suppliers were retailing directly on ebay and amazon. Local sales here in NY and PA could not work because way too much competition here. We could never find a niche product or service which didn't have tons of competition.

[vangogh]

If you want to find a product or service without competition you need to invent it, though the lack of competition will only be temporary. As soon as others see that it's making you money, they'll enter the market and you'll have competition.

The point we're all making is there is no magic product or service. If there was, don't you think we'd all be doing it> It's difficult to run a successful business, but once you accept that, it actually gets easier. Try to think about how you can add value with your business. For example your wholesale and resale business doesn't sound like it added any value. You were trying to sell someone else's products and I'm guessing you built a website to sell them. Those products are already sold online elsewhere. So why would your business exist? What did it add above what already existed?

That's what you have to figure out. We'll be happy to help you figure it out too.

You mention your a computer tech and your partner is an electrician. Those are skills not everyone has and can be used to add value. One idea might be to help people install some of the products their buying. Maybe someone wants to set up an audio room in their house or maybe a home theater. However, they have no clue what to buy or how to set it up. You presumably do and can help. That's the value you're adding.

When you sold online did you just list the products or have some shopping comparison thing. A better idea would have been to run a blog where you share your expertise about the pros and cons of different products. Maybe you even add a forum where people could ask questions. The value added would be your expertise and the expertise of the community. It wouldn't guarantee that people would buy through you, but usually if you're the one helping someone, they're going to buy from you because you've developed a trusting relationship.

Think about your skills, what you enjoy doing, and mostly how you can add value with your business. That's how you find customers or clients and how you get them to buy from you again and again. It's not about finding the right product or service. It's about how you add some value that's worth the money you want people to spend with you.

[mikehende]

You mention your a computer tech and your partner is an electrician. Those are skills not everyone has and can be used to add value. One idea might be to help people install some of the products their buying. Maybe someone wants to set up an audio room in their house or maybe a home theater. However, they have no clue what to buy or how to set it up. You presumably do and can help. That's the value you're adding.

When you sold online did you just list the products or have some shopping comparison thing. A better idea would have been to run a blog where you share your expertise about the pros and cons of different products. Maybe you even add a forum where people could ask questions.

Your advice above is great but I have already done all of those things for my computer business and where I am in Queens, NY there is at least one tech on every block so this filed is over saturated where service is concerned and forget about selling computers, no one can beat ebay/amazon not even craigslist. That is the precise reason why I am seeking to get into any type of business. My business partner says the same thing with the electrical field.

[turboguy]

It seems to me that the world if full of people wanting to have their own successful business. One of the things that can lead to success is finding a niche where there is a need and filling it. That of course is pretty obvious. The hard part if finding that niche. Lots of people when the decide to own their own business pick something that there are a million people doing. The open a pizza shop or a thrift store or go into web design or a computer store. All of those busiensses have a lot of people who are very successful in them but they all are very competitive and have a high failure rate. I think the way to success is to specialize in some small niche and to be the best there is at it.

I see lots of people open something related to food and fail. Be it a restaurant, bakery or pizza joint. In my small metro area I see three that stand out. One specializes in Cinnamon rolls and although they have a few other offerings in the mornings you can't park within a block of the place and there is a steady stream of people carrying out boxes after boxes of cinnamon rolls. Another specializes in coffee. The roast and grind their own coffee daily and have coffee varieties from all over the world where coffee is grown. The have done great and can charge outrageous prices for their coffee. A third specializes in waffles. They have 30 kinds of waffles that taste heavenly and good coffee to go with it. When they first opened they did a Groupon and I happened to notice they sold around 3000 groupons. As an aside I was reading an article about waffle house and they mentioned why Waffle House used that name. It was the most profitable item on their menu. Waffles cost almost nothing to make.

My suggestion is to take a microscope to a big picture and find some small part of that where you can be the best there is. Perhaps instead of selling computers specialize in virus removal. Run a special for $ 79.00 (+/-) and become outstanding at cleaning up the viruses in computers or specialize in hard disk data recovery.

I have a little niche business as a side business that has almost no competition and put about 50 days a year into it and make around 30 grand in that time. I do that more because I enjoy it and it is something I do outside away from the phone which is very relaxing. Still it is good money for the time I put into it. It is basically providing a service using the machines we manufacture so it does have some side benefits of letting me use what we make to see how they can be improved and giving me some photo ops.

[Harold Mansfield]

Your advice above is great but I have already done all of those things for my computer business and where I am in Queens, NY there is at least one tech on every block so this filed is over saturated where service is concerned and forget about selling computers, no one can beat ebay/amazon not even craigslist. That is the precise reason why I am seeking to get into any type of business. My business partner says the same thing with the electrical field.

To add to what has already been said, you can't just pick a business. At least not when you're starting out and have no successes under your belt. As Turboguy said, you have to find a niche, hopefully one that fits within your talents or ability to learn it, determine if there is a market for that product or service, who that market is, and some kind of plan of how you will get customers. When determining whether or not to open a business you have to consider ALL of those things equally.

Using your past attempts as an example, you never really thought outside of the same old boring thing that everyone is doing. Computer repair and computer retailers are a dime a dozen in pretty much any area. You may have had more opportunity for success if you specialized in something and open your possible market up to more than just your immediate area. Such as maybe offering online tech support where you could target more people. Maybe specialize in teaching skills, helping small businesses learn Office, Quickbooks, or other business software? In office demonstrations of how to use certain hardware or technologies?

On the repair side, I agree it's a losing battle because people like me will fix their own, or buy a new one. As consumers get smarter and use backups, it's more common to just buy a new drive, and restore your back up than it is to call a repair guy. But what about building custom computers to order? Setting up offices or networks?...not just the computers but office printers, maybe learn telephony systems, security installation...other things that go on or with an office or home network?

My point..and the one that everyone is making....is that you have to think differently. Offer more. Offer complimentary services. Fill a need..aka find a niche that you can exploit. How can you do this thing and rise to the top? Not saying go back to that specific business, just giving an idea of how you need to approach it, and also determine if there is, or you can make a market out of it. You will never find success repeating exactly what others are already doing, without having the money to compete and take market share. Merely opening the doors with the same old, same old just doesn't work anymore.


Also, as I said before...there are no guarantees. It's a risk. If there were cut and dry, fool proof, always on, recession proof businesses out there everyone would be doing it.

[Harold Mansfield]

I wanted to break this up into a different post, but I wanted to share my own experience.

I first started out as strictly a website designer in 2008 at the height of the recession. I envisioned sitting in nice offices with my bad ass laptop selling web design services. Easy money, easy living. That is not how it happened.

Before going full time I'd dabbled in a few side jobs for Real Estate agents and some mortgage companies and figured that was going to be my niche market. Obviously that market dried up faster than the time it took to write this sentence.

I stuck it out. I knew NOTHING about SEO or marketing online. I built it, but they didn't come. So I learned what was standard at the time and worked on my SEO. I'd made a decision not to limit myself to the local market. I actually avoided it.

If there was one intuition that I had that I can point to as the best decision I ever made, it was that I knew to be successful I needed to target the kind of people who were comfortable doing business online.(knowing my target market). Not locals who wanted to meet with me 2 and 3 times, wanted to see power point presentations, and otherwise talk things to death. Not only did I see that as a waste of time, I didn't have the money for that. No laptop. I didn't have the clothes to look professional. I didn't even have MS Office because at the time it was like $700. Also I was about fair pricing. Going across town to 3 and 4 meetings spread out over weeks doesn't allow for ALSO keeping prices in line with what people want to pay.

At the time most freelancers didn't have regular hours, their websites were contact forms. and NONE had rates listed. Everyone had a horror story about dealing with a website designer. Bad service, outrageous pricing, felling like they got ripped off...basically it was one of those things that people HATED dealing with. I saw opportunity in that.

So I knew I had to have regular office hours, up my phone game and sales skills, website had to be dialed in, and so on. I committed 100% to online sales and marketing and making it as easy as possible for people to do business with me.

My whole life I HATED sales. But while contemplating starting my own business I got a job in a phone room to pay the bills. I hated that job, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it taught me to close over the phone. An INVALUABLE skill. I also had 20 years of customer service under my belt as a bartender and limo driver. So I knew how to be nice to people and serve them.

At the time WordPress was getting pretty popular and not many people were specializing in it. None of the web hosts were up to speed. There was no such thing as One Click install. It was all manual baby. Nothing but grit, the codex, forums, and notepad. And a lot of white screens.

So that's what I did. The market was small (under a million users/installs back then), but growing. Big companies were starting to use it. The Government was starting to use it. Even though the economy sucked, I knew there were still people out there with money so I persevered. Blindly.

Felt like a 17th century missionary walking alone through a strange South American jungle with nothing but faith, rosary beads and a bible..hoping not to get stuck in quick sand, or catch an arrow in the neck from a local tribe. It was scary.

I cut down all of my expenses to bare bones. Cut down lifestyle expenses from Happy Hour to dating. The only thing I cared about was my crap 3.5 GB RAM Compaq computer running XP, and operating expenses. And I kept going. Cruising freelance boards, doing work for cheap just to eat, whatever I had to do to get some happy customers under my belt to build up some references, referrals, reviews and a portfolio.

In no version of this story do I ever tell anyone that it was great like they make it look on TV. It sucked. Many weeks of nothing but Top Ramen and hot dogs. A LOT OF pasta and cheap sauce. Only having $10 to get through the weekend. Weeks of having nothing. Not a dime. Many months of paying the electric and cable ( basic cable, but the fastest internet) at the last possible moment before shut off, and there were some shut offs. But I kept going.

In the meanwhile things slowly started happening.

My weak attempts at SEO was starting to pay off. It was also different back then, and I didn't have hundreds of competitors. Of the ones I had, I made it my mission to present better than they did. Most were really missing the boat on sales and marketing. Almost NONE had phone numbers. I could tell they had NO customer service skills and that was my opening. I made customer service evident from the first word of my website to the last word of the phone call.

I worked on my site constantly, blogged, hit social media, submitted articles to websites and magazines, entered design contests...tried and failed at a lot of things. Wasted some money, but learned something every time.

Then I noticed that I was getting calls for help with WordPress sites. Fixing white screen of death, plug in issues, broken layouts..all kinds of stuff. The same stuff that I had done to my own sites and had to fix. So I pivoted and started offering those services too. I learned as I went. Sometimes I got screwed on the hours, but I learned.

At the time 2 pages (or key phrases) on my site were responsible for most of my calls..."WordPress Webmaster" and "Fix WordPress White screen of death"...AND THERE WAS A PHONE NUMBER and regular business hours. (Those don't work as well anymore. Tons of competition and white screen of death isn't much of a thing anymore).

Then people started asking about help with social media, sales, eCommerce, basically marketing. By now I had been learning how to market my own business, so I started offering help with that too.

2 years in things started going pretty good. Had some partnerships with other companies to do all of their WordPress and Facebook jobs. I was making money again, paying bills on time, money in the bank, and so on. That lasted for about 2 years.

Then the wave of do it yourself web site services started hitting. Web.com, Go Daddy, Squarespace, Wix, Intuit...they were everywhere and they were on TV. It was like watching satellite images of a hurricane coming towards shore. I knew that when it hit that it was going to destroy the market, which until then independents like me OWNED. People HAD to call guys like us.

I again pivoted and changed all of my marketing AWAY from just website design, towards WordPress support. I knew I had to be as far away as I could from $20 a month website builders or they would take me down like the Titanic. I had to be all niche. Specific services. Less traffic, but better targeting. Spenders.

Slowly new website calls stopped coming in as much as before, but support calls were up. Also businesses were now using WordPress more than ever, Where at first I was targeting people who needed their first website, my market now became people who already had one, or needed a new or better one. My phone game got good. I was closing all most all of my calls on the first call, and getting deposits the same day. I had embraced being in the right place at the right time and bringing the people to me. I had gone from selling websites to closing services.

Today support and marketing help calls are 80% of my business, and for years many of those are people discouraged or pissed off because of the service of their old web person (my favorite call :)) And now I'm pivoting again to mobile development to do some things that are just for me.

Along the way I ran a pretty popular music blog for 5 years, wrote for Examiner, dabbled in affiliate marketing, adsense, domain sales, writing articles, and so on, and so on.

I went through that long story to show that I survived by sticking and moving. If I had a one track mind of, "I'm just going to do this because that's where I heard the money is", I would have failed. I don't listen to "they", or "I heard". I like to see for myself. Know the source. Get more information. You can't build or run a successful business by listening to people who don't have one, or falling back on assumptions of what you think. You need to know, and information is everywhere now so there's no excuse not to know. If the information doesn't exist, create it. Test things. Try things. Get feedback. Ask questions.

If you had told me that today I'd be helping people develop ad campaigns, be fixing hacked websites, and that I would self publish a book on Amazon..that was inconceivable back then. The market wasn't what I imagined. I didn't go as I had planned. The market (people) told me what I needed to do to eat.

Yeah.."hard work, commitment, sacrifice, passion..blah, blah blah"...that all matters, but so does having some actual money. Bootstrapping is no fun. It's not cool or romantic. It's pretty much assured failure 95%+ of the time when you know nothing about sales or marketing.

Also a little bit of luck, a little bit of help from others, partnerships, learning and listening to others, forums ( forums were a HUGE help to me), and how continuing to learn opens up other opportunities that you would have never even considered before.

Don't just show up everyday. Never stop learning new things.

I also recognize how easy it was for me to live bare bones because I only had to take care of myself. So that's another thing to consider. What's your pain point? How low can you go? How poor are you willing to live if need be to get to the next level? I stuck with it because I didn't have a plan "B" or a safety net.

A lot of people can't do it, so it also takes being honest with yourself. Everyone "wants" it. But how much reading, learning, rejection, and how much ramen are you willing to eat to get it? And are you willing to go all in with the understanding that it STILL may not work?

[Harold Mansfield]

If all of that sounds scary, too much risk, or doesn't spark any new ideas or motivation...then maybe a franchise is the way to go for you. It costs to get into one, but it's structured and supported and most major franchises do the marketing for you. You just need to learn their way, and run a business well.

[mikehende]

Well, that certainly was lot of info but thanks for taking the time and effort to write and share all of that. Strange we have a lot in common it seems. I too have tried a lot of different things over the years and went through similar situations with starting with the next big thing but only to get phased out when whatever field got over saturated. I started with pc repair, then support then web design then pc sales then specialized in virus removal, also specialized in digital music setup and support. Then myself and business partner tried all kinds of products for wholesaling and retailing. No matter what niche I/we tried going into, seems everybody is doing that. I recently took 4 different marketing courses to try to boost my site and that's a work in progress but again for pc business it's slim to none chance mainly due to my location here in the heart of NYC. I know a pc tech in a small town in Canada where he has no competition, also one in in a town in PA same deal, they both don't need to do much advertising, lucky them! We had looked into franchising but yes, requires a lot of capital. I can't see myself providing any physical service where I am which is not already saturated so any chance would need to be online.

I only recently got into remote tech support which has started paying some bills but for an experienced tech working for $20 and hour and part time sucks but is better that nothing and I thank God for it.

[Fulcrum]

I know a pc tech in a small town in Canada where he has no competition

That's got to be a real small town. I live in a village of about 1000 people and there are at least 3 people who repair computers.

I liked Harold's suggestion of HD backups and data storage/recovery. Another option would be to look at the industrial side and learn how to repair machine controls and obsolete drive units.

[mikehende]

Yeah, that was a few years ago, don't know if it's still the same with him. With Cindy in PA, it's still the same for her. Too many youtube videos and online storage options for the average Joe. Only way for data issues would be to get FBI Forensics type machinery which is super expensive and also most people don't want to pay more than $50 [and if that] for data recovery. All a pc tech can do is try either software options or connect a HDD directly to another machine and that in most cases doesn't work so only option is to take to a lab.

[Harold Mansfield]

mikehende, the important take away that I see is that you have the bug. The entrepreneurial bug. It's easy to try and compare guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, or quick hits that some people got lucky with. But those aren't normal stories of the average entrepreneur and business person. Those are manicured exceptions, many of whom were lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

The average entrepreneur scratches their way up from the bottom. From selling T-shirts out of a trunk to creating a clothing line...and that could take them 20 years. There are a lot of failures. Warren Buffet didn't start making money until he was over 50, and 95% of his current wealth after he was 60. I'd rather hold on to that story, than the one of 3 kids that created an app and got lucky because that's not normal.

Sometimes we get so caught up in expectations that we're too hard on ourselves, stay rigid, and keep repeating mistakes. There is no schedule or process that is the rule. It's totally happenstance, risk, failures and learning. But it's a controlled chaos. One with vision and determination. If I learned one thing its that you can't be scared to take a risk, try something new, or fail. And sometimes the crazy ideas work. Sometimes the small things that seem insignificant end up becoming 80% of your income. You just never know. There is no blueprint.

[mikehende]

mikehende, the important take away that I see is that you have the bug. The entrepreneurial bug.

YES, very accurate and nice post with GREAT info! I'm 54 so I feel like time is running out but that Warren story does give me some comfort [thanks]. Yeah, myself and business partner have been taking a lot of risks and losing money and efforts in the process so we got to keep on truckin'.

[Harold Mansfield]

YES, very accurate and nice post with GREAT info! I'm 54 so I feel like time is running out but that Warren story does give me some comfort [thanks]. Yeah, myself and business partner have been taking a lot of risks and losing money and efforts in the process so we got to keep on truckin'.

I learned a lot by studying failures. I used to read all the tech magazines back in the day, Business 2.0, Fast Company, Red Hearing..you name it, I subscribed to it. I followed the first .com boom from beginning to end. It was the stories of the failures that really energized me. The failure stories are a lot more honest than the start up stories. The start up stories are embellished BS..back patting motivational speeches.

The failure stories are real. Raw. Truthful. They didn't exactly teach me what to do, they just helped me recognize what NOT to do. You can learn a lot from someone who started with nothing, had a great idea, got a $100 million investment, and failed.

[mikehende]

That makes sense, never looked at it that way.

[Harold Mansfield]

Start up and success stories never tell you everything, nor do they focus on the hard times, or boring times, or what kind of luck they may have gotten. Every successful entrepreneur has at least a small flaw that wants to make the story look as if they were completely brilliant, and the smartest person in the room at all times. It becomes about them.

But failure stories will tell you EXACTLY where things went wrong in the company, where they personally screwed up, and what happened. There's no reason to (as we used to say back in the day) "font".

The hindsight is truly 20/20.

[Fulcrum]

online storage options for the average Joe. Only way for data issues would be to get FBI Forensics type machinery which is super expensive and also most people don't want to pay more than $50 [and if that] for data recovery.

And here is a $64,000 question.

Do you want "average Joe consumer" as your customer or upper end companies that need offline storage and data backups/recovery?

Play on the paranoia (cloud hacks and data breaches)that is being played in the media these days and you might hit a home run.