Success in Importing

Folks,

I want to thank Crowboy for rising to my challenge to defiine success.
Notice something... Crowboy started out by naming a number, and then went
straight
into lifestyle ... view home, exciting developing products in field crowboy
loves, can't wait to get into next ideas.

Starting with a passion, experienced a problem, came up with a solution,
constantly innovating... I dare say "money" is not the main motivation. Which
is
something I've been reflecting on...

Last Saturday I taught a seminar in which a fellow who is highly educated in
business was keen on money opportunities. His understanding was that small
business was different from big business only in size. This is not true...
small is different from big in kind. By the end of the day he was no longer
looking for big quick hits in flipping drugs internationally, and more in
revolutioniziing the drug industry. Yes... better. He was in the class cause
what he
learned in school was not working so well, and now he is considering an
alternative approach.

I've always I only save people time and money by what I teach, and one of the
ways is getting people faster to where they should have started in the
beginning, that is with the best product or service the should have been
importing
or exporting or both, from the start.

Small businesses support the lifestyle of the owner, and how much money that
takes is up to the owner. Further, the business pays for much of the
lifestyle, for example, when I wanted to finish a bachelors degree and get a
masters,
my CPA showed me how to make that a business expense. The business is the
lifestyle, the lifestyle is the business. My working definition for "success"
is when you stop worrying about enough money and start worrying about enough
time.

Ultimately, being self-employed is about doing what is right.

Side note... I know I dismiss the web as an opportunity to develop business,
but here we have Crowboy expliciting citing the web as the means to accomplish
sales. Well, me too... my book took 16 years to write, and finally took
form when I began using the nweb and forums I set up to perfect the material.
Also, The web is moving far more volume of the book than retail stores.

So yes, even I use the web... what I object to is the tedious assumption that
all one has to do is open a web site and they will get rich. My experience
is the vast majority simply waste time trying to get biz on the web. More
stories contradicting me wil be appreciated.

Crowboy asked some more question which i will answer in a separate post. But
let me make a prediction: Sooner rather than later, the internet will be
shut down. Just as London turned off the cell phone network last week, since
cell phones are excellent trigger devices for bombs, the time will come that the
internet will be shut down for national defence. There is not a single one of
us who has not had our financial info hacked by enemy entities, and it is
only a matter of time when they hit us by hitting the financial network. It
will
be back to newsletters and snail mail ... never let the internet get to more
than 20% of your revenue, so you can weather any hit.

The iinternet as we know it is the result of massive malinvestment, with
fantastic waste as part of the game. If what we have not has to be dismantled,
I
am not too worried, a completely new and rational web would eventually replace
it. One step back, two steps forward.

John


In a message dated 7/12/05 2:17:44 AM, crowboy@earthlink.net writes:

<< I would define successful in that we make about 360,000 gross a year

with myself and my partner, bought a view home in Seattle in the last 9

months, do this full time and have a family member ship for us part

time. My partner and I started making adapters for the Kodak DC265

digital camera about 5 years ago after a friend bought a camera and

could not attach lenses or filters to the camera. We came up with a

prototype, took a photo and ask if anyone would be interested on a

large camera forum - they were very interested. So we hired a

machinist locally here in Seattle and put up a website. The key was we

had a unique item that we would sell around - meaning we added

filters, lenses, basic camera accessories as our customers wanted to

buy products all in one place.


It was tough going in the beginning because we had lots of customers

but did not have any credit, (we were artists and poor) at least not

enough to take credit cards online..........so we did PayPal and checks

for several years, now we are able to take credit cards from all over

the world.


We do not pay any advertising costs, we have no ads on our

website..............all our customers are by word of mouth due to

camera forums. We did not think this up or plan it, it just happened

this way..........


It has become much more competitive in the past 2 years, but have been

able to stay ahead of the competition by improving the product and

staying in a field where customers are more and more discerning in what

goes on their $800.00 cameras - our customers are 99.9% male, newbies

and more professional camera types.


Since the adapter is very simple in design, we have been focusing on

the finishes, matching them to the camera bodies, we are trying to

branch out into other camera related products we see missing in the

market. Since we already have a customer base we can introduce new

items or have old customers try a new prototype and tell us what they

think.


So I would say find a niche market in an area you already have an

interest in - forums are an excellent place to find people complaining

about how things don't work or what they would like to see made.

Improve products that already exist, or use materials from one field of

interest and apply them to an unrelated area. We have an old customer

who is a dentist who is using a new tiny digital camera to take

pictures of his patients teeth at $200.00 rather than the old equipment

usually used by dentists at $800.00. He has had so many dentist

friends say can you set me up? I am not sure what to buy and how to

take the pictures. So he quit is job and sells packages and gives

seminars to other dentists.........all over the US.


One of the latest success stories in our area of digital photography is

a guy who made a lens that makes a photo have the effect of Vaseline on

the glass, though he has improved it by allowing the user to move the

center or sweet spot to anywhere in the frame. Years ago this was all

the rage with photographers, but he came out with this about 9 months

ago and it is all over the web, in the latest photography magazines.

..........and that is all he makes, it is called the "Lens

Baby".


Craig invented the Lensbabies Flexible Lens Mounting System (Patent

Pending) in an effort to replace his Holga™ film camera with its

digital equivalent. After getting enthusiastic feedback from fellow

photographers longing to create unique imagery for their clients, Craig

decided to make Lensbabies available to everyone.

http://www.lensbabies.com/

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