Should your first business opportunity site be a one product Mini Site or more of a mall type of site? The issue when building your first business opportunity is you can focus on more than one product but should you?. Can you focus on more than one product and still earn money? That is the million-dollar question.
I would suggest that if you are like me then you should look at a Mini Site. Mini Sites usually concentrate on one product line. The beauty of these types of sites is that they force you to focus.
Focusing is the key. In my day job I sell advertising and leads over the web. I get to hear about all kinds of web projects. People expect results from their advertising dollar. That is why I always cringe when someone owning a mall site calls in to purchase advertising. My question to them is what exactly are you trying to sell? Unfortunately most of these people are trying to sell every item they have in their mall.
Trying to sell every item is very difficult. What they really want to do is promote a mall but promoting a mall does not mean that you will actually sell any products. People are not looking for a mall when they are online, they are looking for one particular item at one particular moment. By promoting the entire mall these site owners often times do not make any sales at all!.
What makes focusing on more than one product a mistake is that all of this cost money and time. Let us focus on the money. To make money we need to make that first sale. Beyond the first sale the site has to have a steady stream of sales to be considered a success or for even being profitable. How do you get that first sale?
The simplest and easiest way to get the first sale is to place a key word ad (Pay Per Click) on Overture.com or Google.com. If you try to do 15 different products like you would with a mall then that would mean that you may have to do at least 60 different key words. Each key word cost money!
Also the fun is just beginning once you make that first sale. The next issue is to find out exactly what made the customer buy that item. That can takes days or even weeks of sales. It can take days and weeks of watching the trends. You need to be watching how the customer proceeds through your site. All of that takes time. Imagine trying to track 15 different products through this same process.
If you want to have a whole mall full of items I suggest that you start small with only one product in one Mini Site. Then after you get that one to sell you bring on another one. Don’t bring on a third item until the 2nd begins to sell.
The object of the Mini Site is to make money by specializing. If you can not make money then it’s just a hobby site. It can be a huge mistake to try and focus on more than one product at a time. Your time and your money are in short supply. Don’t push it when you don’t have to.
David Peterson is a Managing Partner with Proactive Sale. He has 20 years selling and sales management experience. During those 20 years he has been responsible for over 50 million in sales. Visit his site at http://www.proactivesale.com/
