Archive for September, 2009

The Lion or the Antelope, Either Way You Better Hit the Ground Running

September 25th, 2009

A wise person once said, “You can’t expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday’s tools and expect to be in business tomorrow.” Basically, your business strategy must change. There are businesses which believe that change is not necessary but how long do they actually stay in business? We see this with the movie rental industry. After NetFlix and Red box got going, movie rental stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video had to adapt in order to stay competitive. Many Video Stores have actually gone out of business because they are unable to make a sufficient profit while competing with such low cost alternatives.


If that didn’t convince you that change, in business, is a necessity maybe this will. Can you imagine if Gateway would have decided that they didn’t want to go through the hassle of coming out with new products to stay competitive with the industry? I would imagine that they would not have lasted very long if they were still selling old machines with floppy disk drives. You see what I’m trying to get at? Without change in your business strategy your business may go extinct and become an item of yesterday.


I read this African Proverb a while back and I think it can be useful in business related topics. It reads, “Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or an antelope – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” To me this says, if you don’t prepare today to be running when tomorrow comes, you’re already in big trouble. It also means that no matter where you stand in the food chain, whether you are a Mom and Pop store or a big corporate entity, you had better hit the ground running every morning.

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Pay Attention to the Warning Signs

September 22nd, 2009

Have you ever seen those crazy people who feel the need to do the opposite of what is suggested? For example, you go to Yellowstone National Park and see someone standing right next to the bison. In fact, some of them even put their children up on the bison so they can take pictures. Seriously? How incredibly stupid can a person get? Oh, and we better not forget those clever fools who stray away from the well beaten path and past the sign that says do not leave the trail. Do people really think that someone put the sign there just for fun, that some park ranger got board and decided to go around placing signs for the fun of it all.

There are certain trails that should not be abandoned, certain wild things that should not be approached, and there are lots of dangerous cliffs just waiting for someone to fall off of them. The point I’m trying to make is that just as you need to use caution when venturing out in unfamiliar places, you need to use caution when venturing out into unfamiliar business. The only way to know what ominous adventures are looming around the corner is to pay attention to the signs around you. For example…

Don’t Feed The Animals

Don’t give reasons for things to come out and bite you. This includes other businesses, coworkers, employees, whomever. Also, don’t do anything unethical or shady that’s going to come back and bite you in the future. There are signs all over the zoo saying don’t feed the animals. Still, people continue to think they are the exception to the rule. Trust me, you are not the exception.

Watch For Falling Rocks

Okay, this sign is a given but would you believe there are actually people who attempt to climb cliffs with falling rock warnings? Again, I suppose these people must think someone got board one day and decided to put up a random sign. No way! The truth is that someone must have gotten into some trouble on that cliff and so they put up a sign warning others who come down the same path.

Big surprise, there are watch out for falling rock signs in business too and many people ignore those too. How do they ignore them? It’s very simple, they don’t do their research and then they get wiped out by the same “falling rocks” that took out businesses before them.

Dangerous Cliffs, Do Not Cross

Okay, yet another obvious one…seriously…who wants to fall off a cliff? Would you believe there are people who really do want to fall off cliffs and I don’t mean cliff jumping. There are people who actually go past signs on the path that say “WARNING Dangerous Cliffs Ahead”. By passing this sign you put yourself at risk of falling and losing your business.

So, how do you avoid such peril? The answer is simple, watch the signs, do your research and thus avoid the pitfalls that have taken down other businesses.

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Just Another Healthy Adventure

September 15th, 2009

When I was about 16, I went on an overnight hike with some of my friends and their Dads. In the beginning, I didn’t want to go, because it seemed like it was way too hard. I wasn’t really in the best shape for backpacking that long of a distance and, besides that, my Dad couldn’t even go. I didn’t want to do it, in fact, I tried every excuse in the book trying to talk my parents into thinking it was a bad idea for me to go. Somehow, they convinced me it would be okay, and I packed up my things the night before. When we got there, everyone seemed to be so excited about the hike, everybody but me that is. I glumly crawled out of the car, put my pack on my back and headed up the trail with the rest of the company.

The trail wasn’t easy for me, in fact, I just wanted to stop and not reach the top. I could survive out there all by myself, right? For a moment, I didn’t care what happened to me. My feet hurt, my back felt like it was burning, and my sides felt like they were going to rip right open with pain. Yet, I kept climbing. By the time we reached the lower lake it was almost time for dinner, we had been hiking for hours and all I wanted to do was set up my tent, crawl inside, and take a long long nap. One problem, much to my dismay, my tent poles were nowhere to be found. Could this be? As you could guess, the night went on at about that same rate, concluding with most of the girls feeling sick to their stomachs.

The next day, I actually took the time to look around me; everything was so beautiful, I was sorry that I hadn’t taken the time to notice before. On the way back down, I couldn’t help but notice all the beautiful scenery that I had hated the day before.

The point I’m trying to make is that had I taken the time to enjoy the journey, the hike would have gone so much faster. I hope that if you’re starting your own business that you’re taking the time to enjoy it and that you’re excited to see the end result. If you’re not excited about it, the journey could be dull, painful, and take a long time. However, if you go into business with the right attitude, it could end up being another healthy adventure.

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Stuck in the Middle With You

September 8th, 2009

Most things are best done with a friend. A second set of hands to help with the work, a shoulder to lean on. Its a beautiful thing. However, where a good friend helps without thought of recompense, a “buddy” in the business world is not always the best thing. Especially when this “friend” hasn’t actually let you know his or her involvement with you!

I’m talking once again about the dreaded middleman, the proverbial whipping boy of the dropship world. These rapscallions get continually better at hiding themselves as wolves among the sheep, but as good as they are, they still slip up, and red flags can be raised.

While its easy to flag oneself as a wholesale dropship company, it can be pretty easy to find out just how true that statement is. Let’s examine it bit by bit. Wholesale? No brainer. Means you’re not buying at retail. Dropship? Its a wholesale company that ships a single product at a time, usually for some nominal fee if at all. Company? Company. Simple terms, simple rules to follow.

A middleman will try to muck up the rules, but being inherently simple, its a pretty easy task for you to see past the deception. When a “wholesale dropship company” violates even one of the three words, you know you have cause for alarm.

Wholesale is a big world, so sometimes you can see some discrepancy between one “wholesale” price and another. To be expected, but still something to watch for. If one wholesale price is precariously high above all the rest, perhaps caution is the way to go.

Next, we have dropship. If your “dropship company” requires a minimum order that is much higher than the cost of an individual item, you’ve got a problem. The concept behind dropshipping lies in single items, and if your company doesn’t know that, chances are they’re not quite on the level.

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Stepping Stones to Bridge the Dropshipping Gap

September 4th, 2009

In dropshipping, as in life, there are stepping stones that must be placed along the way. Without the stepping stones, there will be little to no success in in dropshipping; it is not easy to build the bridge of stepping stones that will bridge the gap between failure and success in dropshipping.

Finding a product niche to drop ship can be the most difficult stone to place but it must be firmly placed before proceeding on in the dropshipping industry. Keywords revolving around your product niche should also be found. I would suggest using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. The best keywords will have over one thousand searches per month and under five million search engine results.

Now it’s time to find a supplier for your niche product. If you need help doing this, you may contact GoGo Dropship who has a Product Research Team designed to find a supplier for you. Please visit GoGoDropship.com for more information.

Once you have a product niche, create a company name and a website revolving around your product and target market. You want your website to include images that your target can relate to. Your website should follow basic design principles and have some kind of call for action.

You should also have a dropshipping strategy which may revolve around the following questions. At what point will I expand my product niche? What complimentary products do I intend to sell with my niche product, etc

Just remember to get each stepping stone firmly in place and don’t get too ahead of yourself. Take it easy and don’t skip any steps and you’ll be able to bridge the gap.

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Try With A Little Help From Your Friends

September 2nd, 2009

There’s an old Chinese proverb that states that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” To many of us, this is the first time we’ve stepped into the arena of business. Its a big world, and there’s not often a lot of helping hands out there. On the contrary, you see a lot of things that are trying to trip you up, a lot of dead ends to trap you and waste your time. One site says it is a wholesale company… others proclaim to be dropship companies… others still claim to be wholesale dropship companies! Its overwhelming. Its confusing. What is a new business owner to do?

Fortunately, you’re not in this alone. You could be working with a trusted friend or spouse. You may very well be working with some sort of coaching or mentoring program. But even if you’re not, you are working with GoGo Dropship. There are many wholesale dropship directories out there, but none of them put the same emphasis on customer care and service as GoGo Dropship.

The answer to any unasked question is “no”, and the only dumb question is a question not asked. Perhaps a little tired, but these phrases should be memorized and taken to heart. If you’re new in the business, you’re bound to be full of questions. Rather than leaving them alone, and not allowing yourself to ask them, here at GoGo we welcome as many questions as you can think to ask. This business is something YOU will be running, and you want to go into the game with as much information as you can!

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