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Business Start
source by: businesstown.com Finding the Real Opportunities
Look for Avalanches Marketing avalanches, that is. “Drag your products into the path of an avalanche and you’ll be swept along with it,” says Alan Kaufman. Kaufman was the executive vice president of sales for Cheyenne Software when it was a small, vertical market software company that had big ambitions.
Cheyenne’s owners had been keeping a close eye on trends in the computer industry in the late 1980s. They felt that Novell local area networks (LANs) were about to snowball and started developing enhancement products for Novell LANs. Within six years, the avalanche (combined with good products and heads-up management) turned their little company into a $127 million operation before it was sold to Computer Associates. Cheyenne was the 13th largest software company in the United States and employed nearly 700 people at the time of the sale.
You don’t need to create exciting new products or services to go into business, either. Millions of business owners profit by selling routine and sometimes unglamorous services such as window washing, car repair, sandwich making, building maintenance, house cleaning, and plumbing. The key to making money with the mundane is to sell something your customers can’t do, don’t want to do, don’t have the time to do, or can’t get done well elsewhere.
Spin off a More Lucrative Business initial attempts to start a business don’t bring in the profits they had hoped for. Nevertheless, they often benefit by discovering new profit-making opportunities because of contacts or knowledge they pick up running their first business.
Las Vegas resident Beth Waite used to make $7 an hour as a self-employed dressmaker. Her customers often asked her for advice on choosing clothes, and she discovered that information available in books often was confusing and not really helpful. Because of her research, though, she heard of Beauty Control, an image consulting firm. After taking the company’s training course, she started an image consulting business, charging clients $50 an hour for her advice. She supplements the consulting income with profits from the sale of Beauty Control products.
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