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Old 09-04-2006, 03:30 PM
Dcrux Dcrux is offline
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Nope. Nothing wrong. And do you know how I know that? Because there are about twenty thousand sites doing the same thing.

Let's start taking this "outside perspective" thing seriously.

A woman starts a giftbasket service. It does about what you would expect with twenty thousand direct and indirect competitors -- poorly.

So this woman rethought the basic assumptions underlying the product. She redesigned her business and got free TV converage, newspaper coverage, and tremendous word of mouth.

She sells anonymous giftbaskets for employees and relatives to send coworkers a message about breath problems, odor problems, and so on. So one might be mouth wash, floss and chewing gum.

Another woman had gotten tired of throwing out the wilted product from her flower business. She repackaged them as "breakup bouquets," put in boxes of melted chocolates, and made a fortune. Another woman redesigns wedding bands for divorcees into pieces celebrating their new life.

These are just a couple of ideas about people who actually stepped out of the mental straitjacket of their preconceptions about the products they were selling. Each of these have a "that just isn't done" factor. Make a list of all the "if you had been in this business as long as I have..." things. Find out all the "impossibles" which can't be done, but would absolutely crush the competition -- then do it.

If you're working outside the competition's comfort zone, they aren't competitors.
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