Always Room for One More!

If you run an Internet business or e-commerce site, people always want to pick your brain.

After the dot com meltdown three years ago and with the state of the economy today, people want to know how you have survived.

"What are your secrets?"

"Are there any opportunities left?"

Even in good times, I have been asked by would-be entrepreneurs, "Is there just too much competition to survive?"

The common wisdom is that some markets are so overcrowded that any new entrant is doomed to failure.

An entrenched giant like Yahoo or Amazon may dominate the market, or there may be a glut of companies selling to the same customers, making profitability impossible.

The myth that drove the Internet for much of the 1990s was that the first company into a market had an advantage in building brand awareness that latecomers could never overcome.

It looks pretty hopeless for an Internet start-up. Here is why the common wisdom is wrong.

There is always room in a market for someone who does it better.

One of the great battles of the Internet boom was fought between search engines Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite and InfoSeek for supremacy as the Internet portal of choice for the new economy.

"Do you know who won the battle?"

A company called Google, which is now the top search engine on the Internet.

People love Google because the company did what other, established search engines did, but they did it better and they did it faster. Now Google sells its services to former competitors like Yahoo, and it has buried much of its competition.

"Have you visited Excite or InfoSeek lately?" InfoSeek is now Go.com, owned by Disney and powered by -- Google.

So how can you prosper in a crowded market?

What lessons can you learn?

1. Do what the other guys are doing, but do it better and tell potential customers why.

2. Don't be a "me too" company that follows the herd.

3. Position yourself as the fastest, cheapest, most reliable, most diverse, or most honest company in the market.

You don't have to be the biggest to be profitable. Being small means that you won't attract the big guys' attention.

You can follow the business model that is already working, but make it better. And differentiate yourself by your outstanding customer service, or whatever you do best.

Take a look at your competitors and find the thing that everyone else has overlooked in their rush to imitate someone else's success.

For example, make sure that the keywords you choose are the words that people actually search for when looking for your product.

Do some research to uncover a keyword or search phrase related to your business that your competitors haven't taken advantage of.

"Is there any room for hope?"

"Is there a success story in one of the Internet' s most crowded sectors - Internet marketing?"

Most advisors will tell you to steer clear of such saturated fields. Even people who are already successful will tell you they couldn't, or wouldn't do it again.

Not today.

The competition is too tough even if you're good, they say. If you aren't leveraging an existing business, you're crazy to even try to break in.

In December 2002 an unknown author, Stephen Pierce, published an Internet marketing book.

The book is called "Under Oath - The Whole Truth" and it sold 1,500 copies within two weeks of its launch.

The author's website, http://www.the-whole-truth. com, went from no traffic to being one of the 2000 most popular websites according to the Alexa search engine.

All because his book gives readers something they are looking for - "a fresh, cliché-free and original take on one of the Internet's most
popular subjects" - marketing.

You can find an underserved community in the most crowded market. And make money when you find them.