Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

Hey everyone, welcome back! A new year, new possibilities – I’m excited!

I wanted to lead off this year with something I noticed while I was on break. It’s about the claims you make as a business about your product. More specifically, the ability to back them up.

My example comes from a drive I was on, where I passed through a small grove of shops. In the same town, there were two bakeries both with shingles out that proclaimed their pies “the best in the world”. What are the chances? The world is a big place, and here we have not one, but two stores virtually next to each other proclaiming their product to be the best.

Now, obviously this is hyperbole on the part of the bakery, but it illustrates an important point when making claims about your products – particulalry when your business exists online.  Read more...

A few weeks ago I wrote about how you position your business to place you ahead of your competitors, using the coffee shop in my office foyer as an example.

Today, I noticed something else they are doing that puts them ahead of the competiton. Pre-paid coffee cards.

Nothing fancy, just a regular coffee loyalty card except this one is pre-paid for 10 coffees. Why is this brilliant? Well for one – the nearest ATM to work is about a 10 minute walk, or you can get cash out from the supermarket that is about 5 minutes away, but need to spend at least $10 in store to do so.  Read more...

My collection - yes, I'm a fan

Paid versus free content is really under the spotlight at the moment, and I wanted to take a look at one of the most successful brands of recent years and demonstrate how providing information and services at no charge can lead to revenue and more on the back end. This is a post that I have been wanting to write for a while, but with a TV show on air in a couple of weeks, it is timely.

Since being discovered on a TV show, Jamie Oliver has become one of the most successful brands of the last decade. I am a huge fan of everything he does in both cooking and business. Notice I said brand, not chef. Sure he deals with food, but Oliver’s real business? Education. His positioning? Simplicity. The Naked Chef moniker of his early days was derived from the simplicity and accessibility of his food, that you can create something great without too much fuss.  Read more...

This morning I was sitting in a sales meeting, and as I looked around I noticed everyone had a coffee. But what struck me was the fact that everyone had the same cup, from the same place.

Around my office, there are a handful of coffee shops. So why has everyone chosen the buy from the same one? Does it taste better? Hard to say, it’s a matter of individual taste. Is it cheaper? Not really, the others charge the same. The answer is in their location. The one everyone buys from is inside the doors of the foyer, in front of the lift. Their positioning makes them the convenient and easy choice for the staff, and so they sell more.

While this is a physical example, it’s an interesting analogy for the positioning of your product.  Read more...