Want Phenomenal Ecommerce Success? Learn and Implement These Two Important TIPPPS™

According to Wikipedia, “Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as email as well.”

Almost everyone in business these days conducts eCommerce to one level or another. Even professionals like dentists, lawyers and accountants. Our observations however reveal that many eBusinesspeople are failing to achieve the level of success they want to achieve because they’re making two grave mistakes.

As stated in my email signature, I’m an “eBizzBooster” and an Internet Marketing Advisor. My wife (the other eBizzBooster) and I teach businesspeople how to boost their business, particularly their eBusiness.

To be effective teachers, we need to be good students. We are. We study eCommerce pretty much ALL the time. We do that to learn what works the best currently, and to observe the harmful mistakes people make in their eCommerce strategies for the purpose of teaching our customers and clients how to avoid those in order to boost their eBusiness.

By “boosting their eBusiness”, we mean making things easier, saving time, saving money, beating the competition, driving more traffic to their Web site, generating more leads, prospects and customers, making more sales, more money, and ultimately, more profit!

If those are results you aspire to in your eBusiness, read on because the 2 eCommerce Tips (we call them TIPPPS™) I will talk about here will help you avoid two of the god-awful mistakes we observe all the time that cause eBusinesspeople to fail—or at least underachieve. I promise you that eCommerce will be a lot more profitable for you when you practice these 2 tiptop TIPPPS™ (Thoughts Ideas Principles & Practices for Professional Success).

Here’s the first TIPPPS™ compliment of Zig Ziglar: “You can get everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”

Lets follow that nugget of wisdom with a brilliant observation by Robert J. Ringer, and then by going back to Wikipedia for their definition of marketing: "If you want to do well, sell people what they need; if you want to get rich, sell people what they want."

“Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers' wants, focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to move the consumers toward the products or services offered. Unless it pays due attention to its products and services and consumers' demographics and desires, a business will not usually prosper over time.”

Have you spotted what those three statements have in common? Wants. Wants and desires (which are synonymous), but not “needs”. Unfortunately, way too many businesspeople out there (eCommerce or otherwise) still believe the anachronistic suggestion to “Find a need and fill it.”

That statement made sense 100 years ago, but not today. Everything that people really “need” to live long and prosperous is pretty much available – at least in the developed countries. Everything else is stuff people want. Cater to those “wants” in your eCommerce venture and you’ll do very well.

My second TIPPPS™ sounds very much like a twin of the first one, with an important add-on.

TIPPPS™ #2 (courtesy of Robert J. Ringer): “The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to make it a habit to sell people what they WANT, NOT what they need, NOT what they THINK they need, and especially NOT what YOU think they need.”

There’s a subtle difference between the 2 TIPPPS™, but a difference worth paying attention to nonetheless. The first deplorable mistake marketers make is trying to sell what people “need”. The second ruinous mistake is to try and sell people what YOU think they need. Here is Robert J. Ringer once again:

“People want to smell better, look better, feel better, be more sensual, work less, make more money, play more. The fact is that people don't need beer, cigarettes or thousand calories triple burgers. And they don't need pick-up trucks that go from zero to 100 miles per hour in five seconds. Try to sell people what they need (vitamins, education, insurance), and you're liable to end up in bankruptcy court.

However, if you try to sell people what YOU think they need you might also go broke in the process. The problem with selling people what YOU think they need – even if they really need it – is that it takes too long and costs too much to educate them, i.e., to convince them that they need your product or service. The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to be an accommodating free-enterpriser and make it a habit to sell people what they want.”

Let’s demonstrate. A few years back, I was very involved in a MLM that marketed fantastic health supplements. Great stuff! But I almost lost my marbles and all of my savings trying to “educate and convince” people online that they needed those supplements to stay healthy and live long. The only person who got an education was me.

I got that education partly from my failure to make headway with my supplement business, partly from watching a good friend of mine making a fortune selling video-games (aka something people “want”).

Then I came across the text above by Mr. Ringer. One part of the sentence was flashing in my head like a neon sign on Times Square: “People want to… make money.” Following that enlightenment, I put aside ALL my literature about the products and focused solely on showing people how they could make money with my business opportunity… money they could spend on video-games, big-screen TVs, and pick-up trucks that go real fast.

As a result of that change of approach, my eCommerce enterprise took off like a Ferrari on steroids!

I’ll conclude by repeating the wise words of Robert J. Ringer, bestselling author and entrepreneur extraordinaire: "If you want to do well, sell people what they need; if you want to get rich, sell people what they want." These are words you can take to the (virtual) bank.

I hope the “knowledge” you gleaned from this article will be helpful. Remember though that knowledge is power ONLY when it’s combined with ACTION! If you think the TIPPPS™ above are valuable, DO something with them, and seek out more of them.

I wish you ALL the business success you desire and deserve. Remember that the success you desire is function of your ambition, but the success you deserve is function of your ACTION!

Daniel G. St-Jean
BizzBooster, and The Sparkplug of Personal Development
Author of 7 Simple Keys To Spark Change In Your Life Now!
Co-author of 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life – volume 2