New Ways To Strike It Rich On The Web
One of the many remarkable aspects of the Internet is how easily people can use it to pretend to be something they aren’t.
David Carter has taken that capacity for misdirection and made it into a legitimate way to make money.
For instance, Carter didn’t know a thing about asbestos when he launched AsbestosSurveys.com – yet it sure looked as if he did. He wrote about regulatory changes in his native England by culling data from a government website. He explained what property owners needed to do to comply. He even posted local phone numbers for his “business” in London, Manchester, and Birmingham, each of which was forwarded to an answering service.
When inquiries flooded in, Carter steered them to an acquaintance who really was an asbestos surveyor. The requests were far more than one surveyor could handle, but Carter continued to book new customers.
In many cases, Carter simply becomes the middleman, using the Web to attract willing buyers that he hands off to others for a fee.
He identifies a business niche or a hot growth area like commercial real estate. He builds the sites, adds content, and waits for customers.
The whole strategy might sound slightly deceptive, and in a sense it is. But so long as the customer ultimately gets what he wants, Carter doesn’t see a problem.
Carter’s tips for setting up a web business:
- Line up your customers first, then create a business around them.
- Identify an overlooked need for services kicked up by, for instance, relatively obscure regulatory changes.
- Construct a first-rate website with a generic domain name that will draw in prospective customers.
- With clients in hand, create the business, providing the service yourself or subcontracting to established players.
Photo by trufflepig.
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