Securing your piece of PIE – personal, independent earnings – isn’t the same as taking a hand out. There’s no sugarcoating it, you’re going to have to put in time and effort. But there are some fundamental principles to the process which, when understood and applied properly, can make your task not only simpler, but also easier and even enjoyable.
One of these fundamental principles of PIE is securing a product or service for which there is universal demand, or as near to it as you can achieve. It doesn’t matter what you’re offering or at what price – if there’s no demand for it, you won’t sell. Conversely, if you’ve got something people have a demand for, then the nature of the offering hardly matters.
People often think of advertising as a means of creating demand, but advertising doesn’t create demand; all it does is tap into latent demand by letting people know that your product or service is available. People may not have known they had a demand for your offering, and advertising can bring that to the surface, but if people didn’t want your offering before, they won’t want it after, either.
The key, then, is identifying an area in which there is plenty of demand for you to serve. Look for growth markets – for example, compare the amount of business conducted on the internet in the 90s to the amount conducted there today. It’s easy to see that there has been tremendous growth so far, but what’s really relevant is that the already extensive increase in economic activity that has been seen on the internet pales in comparison to what’s to come – by some estimates, the 1.5 trillion dollar online economy is set to double in four years. With that kind of economic outpouring, online marketing and business services are clearly poised for explosive growth – and by being aware of that and positioning yourself to offer services in line with that, your business too can be poised to take advantage of it.
With a steady business located in a growth market sector and equipped with a quality product or service (or both), you’ll be well on your way to securing your own personal, independent earnings stream – the key to financial freedom.
