I keep telling my friends, especially the one's who are out of work, that this is the best time for them to start a business. If you stop to think about it when you are out of a job is always the best time to start a business because you have the least amount to lose and the most amount of incentive. You can't quit a job that you don't have. Now is that pure genius, or what? Of course you don't have any money either so now you have a real incentive to get out into the swim and accomplish something for yourself instead of making someone else rich on your back. So now that we have settled that we can move on to the next step. Now is the time to use both your brain and your imagination.
You have to sell things that people really need and want because they must have them to survive. This is not a good time to be selling frivolous and unnecessary items. Just look around you at the businesses that always seem to make money regardless of the economy. You know, basics simple stuff like food, clothing, shelter, and most of the items you find at the grocery store. These are the things that people must have. It's so easy today with the Internet to start a business because you can start a business in a storage locker, basement, or a garage if you have to. Try to stay away from food if you can because it requires a lot of special handling and sanitation. Food also can spoil whereas something like fireplace logs, or pizza oven logs only get better with age as long as you keep them dry. Now don't go out and sell pizza. There are too many pizza places already, but the firewood is bringing top dollar. I'm not suggesting that you go into the business. I just want you to follow my drift as to how I have always analyzed a business idea. Basically what I am seeing today is that most people start a business because the have seen someone else making a very good living at it. That's the way of the world today, but it's not good enough just to copy them. You have to be better. Being better is the real opportunity no matter what the product is. You have to find a way to make the product better in as many ways possible and still beat the other guy in the pricing game. People will always buy a better product at a lower price, but they also have to know that it's out there and available. You can accomplish that with the Internet in a hundred different ways.
I lived in California when Ray Crock, a restaurant equipment salesman, bought out the McDonald Brothers. I believe there were only two stores at the time. Ray was so successful that several years later he was coast to coast and there were three other copy cat stores on every corner! Well many of them departed the scene a long time ago because they could never match the price, the quality, and atmosphere of McDonald's. It's not enough to have, or copy a good idea. You have to think it out and you have to follow through. One more thing is to try to keep it simple, but always in demand.
Now having said all that I am making a little experiment in business for everyone's benefit. It's a learning experience for all of us. I believe that success could take me up to a year to prove out and I am prepared for that outcome. I have also decided that failure is not an option. I have decided to take on a very tough and competitive business. We are now manufacturing Eco Green, unscented, concentrated laundry soap in kits that make up to five gallons of liquid detergent in one batch. It's a lot less expensive to ship 19 ounces of dry mix that it is to ship over 50 pounds of water. I have thought this out very carefully we have done a great deal of free laundry around the east coast, and yes, the product has really done a great job.
Now the laundry detergent business has been around a long time and it is very successful. They have spent millions of dollars on advertising and lots of pretty colored boxes and plastic bottles. Our approach is different. We will do free ads on the Internet and everywhere else possible. We will put the dry concentrate in plastic bags and then plain little boxes, and we will ship our really great and well-tested product anywhere in the lower 48 USA for only $10.95 delivered. When the little package arrives you simply add it to warm water and dissolve the whole thing in a five gallon pail. We call it Walt Barrett's “Simply Add Water” Laundry Detergent. We can do it because we don't have anywhere near the overhead that the big guys do and always remember that! Find a niche market and fill it. Who doesn't like to save money? Follow along with us on our Facebook page "Walt Barrett" and our web site http://www.usadepotstore.com . This should be interesting because people can save a great deal of money with this needed green product.
