Asked to address a group of business people regarding the internet

I'm not covinced it's a financially viable proposition

[HeyJim]

I mentioned to a first time acquaintence that I "promote websites" to the search engines. Part of that is that I alert the various search engines to the existence of various websites...direct some searchers to... sell stuff, etc., etc. It was just a statement of fact (I do "try") and not a business proposal.

Well, now she's excited to meet someone involved in the internet because she'd like to put up her own Avon site AND she displays Avon at a flea market where other people might want to do the same, that is, have a web presence and either direct people to their booth at the flea market or sell their junk directly from the website. (Me: I don't do this for other people.)

Now I get a call from the owner of the flea market wanting to know if I want to meet with all of them and "...pitch them your ideas. They might want to pool their money and do something or maybe some of them will want their own website".

I picture meeting with a bunch of noobs (no insult intended - just a fact) that don't have a clue but will immediately anticipate becoming dot com millionaires and/or wouldn't have a clue about how to update their own products on any website I might build for them.

The whole thing seems to be just a financial distraction for me, diverting us from our own goals. However, we're not exactly rolling in money here (yet) either.

Am I missing the point here? Is this an opportunity for some fairly easy money? (I'd be clear that I can't guarantee sales.) I don't want to be foolish about this and just walk away from an opportunity. My first (second and third) impulse was to say, "Not interested." But, since I kind of work in a vacumn I thought I'd get some input from you all.

[diamondgrl]

Most niches are filled with plenty of competitors. If they aren't all that bright, frankly, it's probably not going to be a successful venture. It's possible to make it work but if they are all innocent rubes without any special knowledge of selling on the web and without much brainpower, they are likely to be disappointed.

If I were you, I would ask them some tough questions about what their competitive advantages are over others who do similar things on the web. If they are still interested, maybe you should be too. But you may just make them realize that they really don't have any clue what they have to offer people.

[decaff]

HeyJim..

You never know what you might find if you open this "book"
(flea market) and take a look at some of the inner "pages"..
(the people)...
yes...perhaps many of these folks don't have a clue..but that is an awfully arrogant attitude...

I would spend a bit of time exploring this and especially rooting out exactly what these people are expecting from the experience..and if you do get involved you need to educate them all on the actual realities of doing business online...

Selling Avon online..hmmmm? seems like this sector of "beauty supplies", "make up" "cosmetics", "skincare" ...etc..is awfully saturated..

Putting up some sort of global (from the perspective of all the flea market participants) web site...that could represent a fairly diverse set of "junk" - things...

One angle you could pursue ... if the flea market owner is willing to put together a pool of investors from the market and you were to build out a customized web application that would do all the work (database driven on the back end with a nice neat CMS on the front end)...then would be able to set a fee that you liked for this project with some support fees along the way...and if it is a success .. have someone sell the app to other flea market vendors...

Or on the other hand...I have just wasted my valuable time and yours even sitting here suggesting this...

just some thoughts..

[HarleyGuy]

Heyjim
You are a fool if you don’t take advantage of this. (no offence)
1. You will have a whole bunch of people who will want you to make sites for them. Think about the links to your site you will get.
2. Think about the income you will generate for web design
3. The networking.
4. When you want to charge someone to build a site in the future you will have many references to share.
5. You could do partnerships with all interested (think commissions)
6. Hosting commissions will be great.
7. Once you have done one entire flea market you could then approach other flea markets and show them your experience (every point then magnified)
8. Avon has thousands of sales people. Each one is a new customer.
9. A partnership with each vender is a new website that you are part owner of, you send them the sales (of course minus your commissions). Also as part owner you are entitled to place Adsense on the sites.
10. You do not have the time for this nonsense so please sticky me thier email so I can waste my time with them.

Of course these are just a few things that I have thought of off the top of my head, I’m sure that there are more benefits involved but instead of telling you I would just rather tell them to your contact.

Heyjim this may seem a little sarcastic to you however, I have just given you a couple of ideas. Please think about the long term ramifications of this offer you have stumbled across.
Just as a wolf will sometimes appear to us in sheep’s cloths, the opposite is also true. Don’t play this off as a waste of your time. If you have not made incredible fortunes from your efforts up to this point in time, you just maybe are missing the big picture.

The first rule of business is to find a market and then fill it.
It seems that you have found a need of others now take advantage of it.

Whatever happens I wish you the best of luck.

[mincklerstraat]

Sounds also to me like a nice opportunity if you have time to spend on some new business.

Thinking how this could work out if things roll well, you could, eg, look into some open source shopping cart solution like oscommerce, and figure out how to hack it a bit so it's more spider-friendly - mod_rewrite hacks, getting title and description tags nice, adding custom content to the listings pages, integrating other static pages nicely, and offer them a very good added value with your SEO knowledge. You'd have a lot of different customers on this one system, so you could get to know the system in and out, and learn how to make up a custom css sheet for your system real fast - maybe with some standard templates that you spruce up a bit per customer. You can get a decent resellers account to start out with for only $20 a month (or less if you want less decent), that would allow you to set a few up, as well as a main site promoting the service.

While you're at the first fleamarket session, in addition to asking some of the smart challenging business questions, you could point out that once they get those sorts of 'what am I about? what kind of niche do I shoot for?', explain the pitfalls that many newbies find themselves in re. search engines, and how you will be able to let them start out with a basis that's a lot more solid than just randomly finding a webmaster to set them up. Show them just how easy it is to add products once you're set up - then show them how easy it is to get set up - if you can't borrow or rent a projector, ask for a volunteer out of the crowd who's 'not computer oriented'. A lot of people have no idea how easy it is to add stuff to a cms.

If you can work out how to put some of these first people all on one database, you might even be able to put up a 'latest new products' or whatever on the main site. Let 'em start out cheap, and get more features / a more customized template / own domain name / better linkage from main site when they decide they have figured it out and are more comfortable with the system.

This is also an excellent opportunity for bricks-n-mortar co-promotion. If you work something out with the fleamarket organizers, they can have your url displayed prominently - and you'll have the fleamarket url on each of the tiny sites. A good chance, too, from getting attention from elsewhere if you can manage it well. Much better for everyone involved, I'd think, than if each fleamarket stand tried to go-it-alone.

[Livenomadic]

If you have doubhts, then instead of "pitching them the idea" you should explain to them the problems and see if you can work out a competative advantage to MAKE the project work.

It's stupid just to say no right away, but its unprofessional to not voice your opinion when you know a client's plans arent going to pan out.

[glengara]

Would be a lot easier to promote the Flea Market itself, with seperate pages for stall-holders.
It would also save on a fair amount of aggravation, I suspect.

[vkaryl]

HeyJim, if you can't be bothered with this group how 'bout you send them my way? I have a MARVELOUS solution that would fit perfectly with what these people have imaginated. I'm not too busy or too important to talk to them; I'll steer them into a niche that will just fit them.

Will I make millions on this? No. But when was that ever the point?

[No - I'm not being "entirely" sarcastic. I do have something that would work quite well for this venue. My sarcasm is pointed at a "puffin" attitude....]