USP development - a Unique Selling Proposition

You hear about USP from all the good marketers. After measuring niche demand and analyzing the competition, we have to start honing in on a USP.

Jeremy has been great about providing the framework for each step as a worksheet format. Part of the step of building a USP is the SWOT worksheet. Essentially, you examine your Strengths and Weaknesses, which are things related to you and thus under your influence. You also examine your Opportunities and Threats, things which are not related to you and thus beyond your influence.

"If you measure it, it can change" is one of Jeremy's sayings.

The SWOT worksheet is interesting, because sometimes when you see things in your own writing, they sink in better, hah. Like realizing that your audience is not reachable (Threat), or that you don't have experience in the niche (Weakness), or that the subject is something you're going to explore in any case (Strength), or that you are pretty sure you've spotted a new trend on the rise (Opportunity).

I'm caught up on the webinars (need to catch the tail end of the Q&A from last Thursday, as I really needed to get to sleep, but was there for the content), and made some good headway on the niche selection. I am still lacking some confidence on any one of the niches I'm thinking of. Hopefully a 1-on-1 call will help clarify that.

Niche Selection continued

I'm a bit behind.
The day job had a ton of work last week, three malignant cases in one week, plus research samples. I was beat by the end of the week.

The last webinar was posted and I'm watching it. Also working on the niche keyword traffic and competition evaluation.

My computer was at least 8 years old and getting so slow that every time it actually booted I considered it a minor miracle. So I took a calculated risk and purchased a new one for my business. Dual core, 4 GB RAM, and Windows 7 are the bits that I remember off hand.

Unfortunately, not everything is Windows 7 ready (this happened to me in 2002 when I purchased my XP machine, too), and one of the toolbars that Jeremy recommends for cometition evaluation is not yet ready for either IE or FF on the new Windows box (the Compete.com toolbar).

Then each of us is to schedule one-on-one time to speak with Jeremy. Since I'm running a bit behind, I will aim for later this week. I'm glad that working "in the cloud" is getting more common. It actually makes it easier for me to grab a bit of time on a list or a document when I'm away from home, too.

Working with a human, not a superbeing alien ;)

Jeremy is so much like the rest of us in terms of sometimes getting caught up in technical details and not always seeing into the future. ;) What a great thing! Imagine if you had partnered with a superbeing alien who never made mistakes and couldn't imagine getting stuck on a technical detail. That could be a nightmare for us mere mortals.

Our 3rd webinar was on Wednesday 13 Jan., and I just had to sleep (I'm in GMT +2 and it didn't start until 11 pm here). I logged in to the Adobe Connect site to make sure my system was set up, but then I really had to get sleep, since I had to get to my day job in the morning, grab a sample and travel to another town over an hour away to learn some new techniques and get help with analysing the sample. It just wasn't a night to try staying up until midnight and risk the lack of functionality the next day.

This was the first time on Adobe Connect for many of us. Evidently GoTo Meeting is a problem for chat on Mac clients. Since there are some Mac users among the partners, Jeremy decided to go with the across platform functionality of Adobe Connect.

However the new technical glitch is the recorded files. Evidently they're huge. So he's going to re-record them, and I missed the Q&A because I couldn't make the live webinar.  Not everything is possible all of the time. I successfully logged in and saw chat fine in Chrome (my current browser of choice, because it's a LOT faster than IE or FF, though I MISS MY GOOGLE TOOLBAR TERRIBLY IN IT).

Still in niche selection process. I'm excited to see the new worksheets up, because this will break down into tasks the process of niche selection. I've gone through a lot of these steps before in my own business, but I see that just putting things in spreadsheet format itself is also helpful for getting a clearer picture.

More after I complete some more tasks and see how things are going on the niche selection unit.

Niche Selecting - Studying Supply and Demand and a story of adult diapers

We had a webinar introducing some of the methods for researching niche ideas in terms of supply and demand. I  have to admit that this used to be a lot easier 10 years ago. Back then there were a plethora of ppc engines that you could buy decently targetted traffic for a penny or two per click. You could get away with lukewarm ads and mediocre ad copy and still make a profit. Plus, competition in organic results was also less back then (when the dinosaurs roamed the internet all of 10 years ago, lol).

I finished the inventory task list that was useful for brainstorming niches that we may be interested in. I did some preliminary competition research using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Google organic results and was pleased and surprised that some nerdy keywords might have enough traffic to be a decent niche. One of them, however, is the name of a band -- beware inflated traffic markers when your nerdy keyword is the same as some band.

Reminds me of a time when I was doing  a lot of keyword research in Wordtracker.com, and found that there was a small amount of traffic with almost no competition for "adult diapers". I hired someone to make a comparison spreadsheet for me of adult diapers from a CJ.com merchant, wrote up content, integrated it into one of my affiliate sites... In my mind's eye, aging Baby Boomers were searching for a convenient and discreet way of ordering adult diapers for their parents who now needed these items. Ordering online would allow them flexibility, save them a trip to the drug store, and having things delivered would be one less thing to have to worry about with their beloved aging parents.

My conversion stank on that excellent landing page. Like worse than I could have imagined for this targetted page with all the information someone would need to order adult diapers for their aging parents!

A quick search in Google organic results showed me that (cough) the folks searching for "adult diapers" might just not be exactly those busy executives with aging parents that I'd thought. It might have been a fetish keyword phrase that was not being met at *all* by my info page.

Sometimes your competition on a keyword phrase is really, really important for you to understand the head space of your customer.

I found the band in the top 10 organic results for my nerdy keyword, so I knew my traffic volume was probably at least partly inflated by searches for that band.

I look forward to Jeremy's expertise in breaking down the research into measurable, doable bits. Truthfully, competition research can be dull. Or intimidating. I remember looking at keyword phrases 4 years ago and feeling like everyone in the top 10 organic results seemed to have a million incoming links, a Page Rank of 5 or 6, and be willing to pay $5/click in ppc. Who can compete in that kind of atmosphere?

First Webinar on Niche Selection

Let me start this post by saying that Jeremy amazes me.

I recently read a free report by Brian Tracy on goal setting as part of my local dream team (mini Mastermind style group). I worked about half way through it and got stuck on the goal setting process. You see, my goals were not tangibles like increasing sales of my beret pattern or losing 20 lbs (both of which I would also like to achieve), but things like launching my children successfully, finding meaning and fulfillment in my job, and having a life long love relationship with God.

Try to figure out individual steps to those goals...

But my dream team colleagues gave me an extra nudge (isn't that what a dream team is for?) and made the suggestion of "measurable" tasks.  For instance for the goal regarding my relationship with God I am already using the techniques enumerated by C. Robert Cloninger and the products produced at www.anthropediafoundation.org/ . So I can set measurable goals such as doing one act of kindness a day, one act of hope a day, and doing one "Quieting the Mind" exercise a day.

Well, I listened to the recorded webinar (couldn't make it to the live one), and behold, Jeremy has broken out niche selection into measurable tasks. Great! "If if is measured, it can improve" is his motto. So there are a lot of measurements in this process to keep us all aware of what can be improved. I like it.

Okay off to start on my tasks. 

Task for today, sign up for the first training webinar

Friday starts the live training. I'm one of those who will miss the live session, so I'll have to rely on the recorded file later.

I really likes webinars. My favorites have been from MarketingExperiments.com. They do a very nice job. I've also attended non-marketing webinars, such as those for members of HeartMath.org, but those sometimes had technical glitches.

The 2010 Partnership webinars will be through GoToMeeting.com . Looking forward to it.


While the 2010 Partnership Application Page states that Jeremy will "Give you one of the niche ideas and business plans from my whiteboard, or help you refine and build your existing niche idea" , currently we are looking at spending time learning more about how to chose successful niches.  This fits with his previous products and projects in his true goal to succeed by helping others be successful. The Cap'n is aimin' to teach us to fish, not just hand us a fish to farm.

First Step, a Written Agreement

I have to say that I am glad that there is a written agreement for the partnership. I read it slowly and surely, as it is slightly in legalese, that language that uses a bit more formal verbs and nouns than most of us do in daily practice. In my opinion, it's a Good Thing, this agreement.

An email went out today announcing a timeline and clearly defining stages of the partnership. Whew, that's good, too. It's January 5 where I am and we haven't started the Boot Camp. I was a bit concerned I'd missed something. Not a worry, there is a time table, and I haven't missed anything.

Besides the time table for this week and a general time line for the two year project, we had a basic task to get the agreement signed.

I built a Squidoo lens about this the 2010 Partnership with Jeremy Palmer: http://www.squidoo.com/jeremypalmer2010 . That may seem circular to you, as the first thing you see is the entries from this blog. However, I will be developing this blog and the lens slightly differently. The lens will keep track of other things I find online that are relevant to the 2010 partnership. This blog will be more about my personal journey.

I got accepted!!!

When I got the email from Jeremy Palmer (I'm on his mailing list as a customer having purchased High Performance Affiliate Marketing when it first came out) that he was offering partnerships for 2010, I actually didn't jump right away. http://2010.quityourdayjob.com/

I hummed and hahhhed.

I've had to go back to full time employment since June 2006, and my goals include doing a Ph.D., not exactly quitting my day job.

But I really don't like working a 40 hour work week, and my profession doesn't pay well. Wouldn't it be grand to work because I like it and only work the hours I need to get the work done and have enough income from another source? On the other hand, I return from work pretty exhausted to a home life including making dinner, dealing with teenage children, and often more household chores on top of that. How could I possibly make a commitment to another 10 hours a week of my life?

So I left the application page open in a browser window for a few days to think.

I decided to apply. I had been working on goal setting for the last few months, and having a sustainable online income could only help all the goals.

I applied, choosing the 3 payment plan. Not cheap, but Jeremy has guaranteed making back the deposit. I know I can make that much, I already do, in a year with my own sites that remain from my previous online business.

And then I waited. When I checked the page after not receiving a reply in 24 business hours, it said they'd gotten swamped with applications and the application page was closed.

Oh, no, what if I'd applied after they closed it. I'd left that browser window open.

So I waited more. A week later was Christmas day, so I waited the weekend.

I wrote to Jeremy, attaching a copy of the PayPal receipt, since it is in my corporation's name.

Jeremy replied and had a few more questions, but seemed positive.

I replied to his questions and added two of my own.

One of them was about blogging this experience. ;)

I'm accepted! Whooo hooo!

I can't tell you how much this has given me hope that I will once again have an online income that is significant.