Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I would like to know how many of you that sell products (not services), either online or off, decided what to sell.  Where did you do your research?  Did you find a good drop-shipper?HOW? Do you create, manufacture, invent your own products? Do you make them right from your home? Outsource? How did you find them? Did you know a lot about your products before hand or did you research them and learn as you went?

 

thanks in advance.

I figured out what sell by finding an industry that I am passionate about and seeing if I can sell something within it.

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Credit Card Counseling / Small Business Owner

Great questions! When I was exploring my options in the home business world, I was really overwelmed.  But I keep going back to the fact that I wanted my business to make a positive and profound impact on the people I served.   When I looked at the population at large I realized that the two main concerns in our country today are for health and finances.  So I looked for a company that offered hope for people`s health and their finances****AND one that would give me the opportunity to be financially free!!  My third criteria was an opportunity with very low overhead and paperwork.  Believe it not---I found it.  So set your criteria for what you want and go looking for it.  Feel free to email me if you would like more information about how I found my dream business.

Best wishes,

Jennifer    theplan2success@hotmail.com

We went about it in the opposite direction from what seems to be typical. We didn`t start with wanting money or retirement. That`s sort of obvious. Nor did we start with what we`re passionate about. We also didn`t look for a need to fill, or some way to broker someone else`s products.

Instead, we sat down and wrote out a description. We wanted something we could make, to control the manufacturing at first. But it had to be something that we could eventually outsource. It had to be cheap to make, with a high profit margin.

But it also had to be inexpensive to sell, hopefully with more than 1 item in each sale. It had to generate a minimum of about $30 per sale, but be like a commodity. We wanted something unusual, but that applied to everyday life.

When we had our description, the hard work was to then mull  it over and try out lots of ideas. If they didn`t fit the description, we tossed them out. Eventually, we came up with signal flags that  spell personal messages.

Pretty interesting stuff.  Craig your business is very unique.  It appears that this idea came from something that you have done in the past,  i.e. military, scouts, etc. 

 

Is this tyrpical for most?  Has anyone started selling something that they had no clue about prior to starting the business?

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Jeremy Cote
Owner
Covered Bridge Cellars, LLC

blog.coveredbridgecellars.com

Jeremy..WOW thats a huge difference in the cost to start your business.  Thats is a business that must be really fun to be in....  Finding something that you enjoy seems to be a bit more important than the margins.  Of course making money has its rewards too..

I think we`re seeing a growing emergence at this point in history of a sort of sense that there is a plot to life. There does seem to be a guiding plan, larger than our own personal thoughts. Books like "The Secret" have countless flaws of interpretation in them, but the underlying idea that there`s more to life than our waking beliefs is, I think, valid.

If you follow the logic of this sort of mysticism, you also see repeated the idea that if you have a vision---an intent---then a passion for that vision, more often than not, opportunities present themselves.

One discussion is whether or not those opportunities are contrived by "something." But I think a more productive discussion is about the opportunities themselves.

It`s not new, the idea`s been around for ages. Ultimately, if you know what you want, the likelihood is that you`ll find ways to get what you want. All your experience in life up to any given moment is part of the grist for the mill.

Yes, I sailed when I was a kid, and was a scout, and did many things with rope, knots, and wood. I also enjoy words, language, and communication. I could say that the idea for the signal flags arose out of Kathy`s and my past experience. But I could also say that our past experience took place in order to "prepare" us for what we would eventually create as a business. Does it matter which came first? Not really.

What matters is to see an idea, build it into a vision, examine how you could make that vision a reality, and then the final and first step: Act upon that vision.

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GM, The Entrepreneur Community Network™
My Little Place on the Web