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An Interesting Niche Idea

by Scott

In today's economy people are constantly looking for opportunities to create wealth in their life.  They may have been laid off or their company closed up shop completely.  Many will turn to being self employed or running a freelance business.

One of the biggest questions I always get is what kind of business or freelancing should I do.  Well the best way to answer that is "what are you good at" and what will people pay for?

Both of those questions tend to be difficult to answer for most people.  Things they are good at they assume that other people are just as good at and therefore wouldn't pay for their services.  You can reverse the question and go to sites like Elance.com and oDesk and see what other people are selling for a service. 

Based on that survey you can get a feel for what services people are outsourcing and willing to pay for.  Though I will say that method has a downside.  It tends to be focused on items that can be outsourced without regard to your physical location. 

There are many tasks that fall into that category and if you are good at writing, research, web related skills, etc then maybe you should sign up and offer your services.  You can generate some revenue in your spare time and build a small side business based on those skills.

But what if you have an unusual skill.  What if you are really really good at sharpening pencils.  Not with a fancy electric pencil sharpener or even one of the old fashioned hand crank models. 

Would you create a business based on that skill?  Manually sharpening pencils?  I think most of us would pass thinking their wasn't enough demand for it or any way to get business.  Well here is one creative person who developed a website based on it.

http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/ is his website.  He offers an upgrade to if you want a really nice Print to go along with your manually sharpened pencil.  He used to require that you mail in your own pencil but has not started offering a pencil included in the service.

Now that is adapting to the market.  Make it easier on your clients to get what they want and reduce the time to delivery.  I have no idea if he sharpens one pencil a day or 50.  Even if he only sells one a month he is making a small profit on his business.  

Setting up an internet based business doesn't mean you have to have internet type skills.  You can use them to market even a very mundane skill like pencil sharpening.  

So do you have a skill set that you could be creative with and develop a business that you market over the internet?  You might be surprised.

Scott Lovingood Signature An Interesting Niche Idea

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