It’s no secret that in America today, jobs are leaving the country daily and more and more folks who were in the manufacturing and automotive industry have lost their jobs and retirement packages and for many, that’s the only job they know.  Jobs some of us have had since high school are now gone.  Companies going out of business right and left, jobs security has gone out the window.  In the last 10 years the Unemployment Rate has nearly doubled.  Stimulus packages, while putting a band aid on the problem, ultimately doesn’t help because it sends us into even more debt and offers yet more opportunity corruption, as if we didn’t have enough already.

Even though we are in tough times, there’s never been a better time to start your own business.  The sky is the limit and you’ve never had a better more opportunistic time in history than right here, right now.

Global Transformation

We are in the midst of one of the largest and greatest transformations in the history of mankind.  Since the Internet and continuing onward, communication has broadened and how we communicate has evolved and transformed the way we do business.  News, yellow pages, newspapers, libraries, University courses, everything has changed in is changing constantly to keep up with the every advancing technology of communication and collaboration.  A transparency revolution and a global shift in consciousness is upon us and with these changes, business are going to change and adapt.  New business opportunities are available and will continue to make themselves available during this stage in the world’s economic cycle.

In this shift, we’re changing how information is produced, gathered and consumed.  Once it was hard to get your article or opinion read by others now, you can write something and the world can see it.  The expansion of the ability to communicate like this very blog or facebook, linked in, etc. etc. has brought forth to us limitless boundaries of wealth and information.  If we want to take a university course at Yale, it’s not only possible, it’s free.  The resources are available to us, all we have to do is reach out there and utilize them.

Starting a New Business

OK, so now I want to start a new business, what’s next.  While I’m not going to go into too much detail in this post on starting a new business because that can be a lengthy process and this blog would end up very long.  However, plant the seed.  Take a look at this tough time we’re in as an opportunity to grow and grow into something or someone you’ve in the past only dreamed about.  So while we’re not going to get into the mechanics of starting a new business there is some important information that will get you headed in the right direction.

Look at it Differently

Starting a new business is easier today than ever, the difficult part of starting a new business is editing your outlook on it.  We can sit around and complain and wait for things to happen or we can be pro-active and look at the smorgasbord of opportunities that are already available at our fingertips.  Couple things you’re going to need to get started.

1. Computer – If you don’t have one, get one.  I know a good handful of folks that have been laid off and while some don’t have a computer, they still have cable with all the movie channels.  Turn the cable off and invest into a computer.  I recommend a laptop and you can get these for less than $300 these days.
2. Internet – If you don’t have the Internet at home, plan to get it and while you don’t have it at home, there’s probably a coffee shop in your area where you can use their Internet.  Use it.
3. Excuses – Everyone has them, dump them.  Economic downturns can either kill you or make you adapt and today, in this shift, it’s all about adaptation.  There has never been a better time than now to start a new business and ideally, doing it in something you love and have an interest in like a hobby.  There are no excuses anymore so forget about them.

In a Nutshell

Get up and get going.  This is an exciting year, do something with it.  Stop dragging your feet and sitting around playing games on facebook and yahoo and get started in business with something you love and something you are passionate about.  No matter how narrow the niche, you can bet their are others that have the same interests as you do.  Get started today.

Here are a couple proven opportunities that can help you get started:

• The Niche Blueprint
• Michael Jones Affiliate Code
• Market other People’s Products through Clickbank

The above are just a few ways to get started on the web.  Read them, take a look at the resources and then discover your niche and turn your dreams into their physical counterparts by doing what you love and love what you’re doing.

Recent Earthquake In Haiti

Little off the subject of the blog but non-the-less, people of Haiti need our prayers and positive energy more now than ever.  There’s power in numbers so say a prayer, meditate, send your blessings to those effected and if you’d like to donate, give to a reputable charity.  See Charity Navigator.

As a domain name collector, I’ve found through the years that there are different ways to monetize traffic to a domain name. I’ve recently experienced a product called “Build a Niche Store“, and consider it to be the best $100 I’ve spent on a ClickBank product. With so many products out there on the market, it would be impossible to use them all but when it comes to monetizing domain names that fall into a niche category, Build a Niche Store is the best I’ve seen.

What is Build a Niche Store?

Build a Niche Store is basically a website system or builder that allows you to create a website quickly serving Niche eBay products via an affiliate RSS Feed from Commission Junction. Essentially, Build a Niche Store is a php software you can unzip and upload to your host and produce a basic eBay Niche store within minutes. The neat thing is that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do this. There’s also not an overwhelming learning curve. It’s simple and effective and it seems to be working well based on my experimentation with it so far. The product cost is around $100 and is available for purchase through ClickBank.com.

Niche Stores and Ebay

An eBay Niche store actually makes a lot of sense. If you think about it, you can go to eBay and it takes a while to find exactly what you are looking for. There are so many options and so many ways to search eBay, it can be confusing for someone wanting to browse a certain category. Basically with a Niche Store, you do that searching for them and provide them narrowed results in a nice looking template. The beauty of this is that eBay will pay you for products that are sold through your eBay store.

Hockey Store – StickRack.com – example

This was my first BANS site. Nothing fancy and not a lot of time into it, but effective so far in producing more income than it would if it were parked at Sedo, Fabulous, Domain Sponsor or any others. This website was basically slapped up on the server with about 2 hours getting used to how things work and reading directions. The neat thing is, it’s already producing a little bit of income which so far is more than traditional parking. The potential is there, the next step is optimizing. I’ll do some blogging on this as well.

How you make money with BANS – Build a Niche Store?

That’s simple. eBay has an affiliate program that is managed by Commission Junction that pays you for traffic you send through your site to eBay.

“You will be compensated for traffic you send to ebay.com in two distinct ways: earn between 50% and 75% of eBay’s Revenue (not item sale price) on ALL Winning Bids or Buy It Nows (BINs) within 7 days of an affiliate action AND up to $35.00 for each active registered user!”

Now, I’ve been an eBay powerseller and have sold products on eBay. There’s a lot involved in this. First you have to set up your eBay account… which can take up some time. Then you have to take pictures of items and write descriptions. Usually powersellers have some sort of services they purchase monthly to assist them with this. Once your product is sold, you collect payment and then box and ship to the user. Selling on eBay is not a piece of cake at all. It takes work and emails and following up with your customers. There are many times I’ve sold items and actually lost money on poor shipping calculations, PayPal fees, damaged goods, etc.

With BANS you just sell others peoples items. It’s that easy. The Build a Niche Store software is a content management system all by itself and you simply enter your CJ.com PID into the correct spot on the set-up and then enter the category number of the Ebay items you want to host. The auctions are fed into your site through the affiliate RSS feed. Essentially, you can set up and optimize a store and it’s on autopilot. Then build another one and keep going. The sky is the limit. What’s neat, is you are making money and not having to deal with all the headaches of being an eBay seller.

Here are some steps with Links to get you started:

1. Build a Niche Store – First step, read the page. Understand it. It’s not a lot of phony hype and it does work. It also provides you with exact directions. Purchase and download the zip file.
2. Commission Junction – Sign up through their affiliate program. Search for the Advertiser eBay and request to be added as an affiliate. This process is usually approved automatically and quickly.
3. Hosting Account – Get a hosting account through HostGator. For Niche Stores, I recommend the Swamp which is $14 a month and can host unlimited websites.

The rest is relatively detailed but not difficult at all. I will produce a video for this and upload it eventually with text to follow.

For anyone who purchases Build a Niche Store through my link and gets hosting from Hostgator, I will help you set up your first store as well as your hosting account. Use the contact me link on this website.