All The Credit Card

Never Worry About Competition!

One of our pet peeves is the fact that everybody is so worried about competition! It just drives us crazy! Never worry about competition! Weve heard it so many times from so many customers and we try so hard to change peoples attitudes. What do you say to the person whos reading this thinking, Im not going to put anybodys link on my Website - thats going to drive business to them instead of me!

The Web is totally different - its a completely different world than inserting a flier for someone selling a competing product with you in your own product. Youre providing a resource that people will bookmark and come back to your Website to find links to other Websites. Its a whole different ballgame here! Youre actually providing a resource! One of the things that people on the Web are constantly looking for is a good place to go to other places on the Web.

Everybodys heard of Yahoo. Its a multi-billion dollar business in just a few short years. Guess what their whole business started out doing? It was nothing but a place to go to other Websites from. On top of that, every link you add you makes sure youve got a link on their Site bringing people to you from their customers. Anybody who clicks on a link and goes to another Website just has to go up to that little button that says back on their browser, hit back, and pow! - theyre right back to your Website!

They can go over these links and use them to go check out other stuff. And so what?!? Theres so many billions of users on the Internet, all you want to do is get enough traffic coming through consistently to make the sales from those customers who chose to buy from you.

We have a friend involved in credit card processing and hes got hundreds of people, maybe more, that have entered our Site to say, Hey, can I put an advertisement for your Site on my Site? and hed pay them if any business comes through. Sometimes somebody clicks on that banner which goes to another Site, which goes to another Site, which goes to another Site and eventually they end up on yours and they buy your product.

He talked to some of his customers and ask, How did you find us? And they say, Well, I went to buy a CD-ROM but I clicked over to another Site that had printing because I needed to get printing, then I clicked to another Site that had a mail room and I clicked to another Site that did packaging, then I clicked over, clicked over, and eventually clicked over to a Site that said Hey, need to accept credit cards for your sales? Click Here!

They just kept bouncing around til they found them. And its beautiful because they get business they wouldnt have had. The people who actually sent the customer to them gets paid a nice fee, and everybody is happy and the customers satisfied because with just clicking his mouse hes been able to get everything he needs for his new venture. Its wonderful!

Its so ridiculous that people worry so much about competition. Because its silly!! By joint venturing with these other Sites you just get your message across to so many more people. It reminds us in Mail Order of a mailing list. Over the years, we have made hundreds of thousands of dollars by renting out our names to mailing list brokers and to companies who used our buyers names.

There are some companies (we still run into them) that say, These are my customers and no one else shall ever have them! They wont take this money! These thousands and thousands of dollars they could make every year, tens of thousands, because they have this crazy idea that theyre not going to share with anyone else. Its really ridiculous!

Anytime you drive past a McDonalds, Burger King, or a Wendys, look around and within a block or usually across the street youll find the competition. And they both make more money because theyre both there. People know food and they move to that area. Next time you go in front of a fast food place, look around and youll see a competitor.

One of the most popular shopping centers in San Diego, actually in San Marcos now, is a real innovative shopping center . . .

The whole shopping center is restaurants! Theres an Italian restaurant, theres a Chinese restaurant, theres a steak house, theres a Japanese place, theres any kind of restaurant. Theres a Thai restaurant, there are about 12 or 15 restaurants all in the same strip mall and they all are doing more business than they can handle!

The shopping center is ONLY for restaurants. Theres no bookstore, theres no electronic store, theres no clothing store. Every place in there - and we think there are about 15 now - is a restaurant! That would be the place wed want our restaurant!

Have you noticed how every bookstore has a coffee shop in it now? If they were real scared they could say, Every dollar spent on coffee is one dollar less thats spent on books or visa-versa! Instead what they do is say, Hey, sit down and read a book! Have a cup of Java. Take your time.” They both make more money!

The other thing to keep in mind is they call it the World Wide WEB because its thousands of decided they wanted a little tiny web of their own, so theres 25 million different little webs. But how effective would that be compared to this gigantic WEB that covers the entire world?