I’m subscribed to my competitor’s email lists, as you should be too. You will gain great insight into a niche, get great free content, and even better, know exactly who to contact when it comes time to JV with them when you launch a new product.

So out comes this message from my #1 competitor stating he has something big coming up. Then he goes on to explain what the new product will entail and to watch out for it on Tuesday. Wouldn’t you know, the description matched my product concept, almost word-for-word.

What was going to be a decent, $20-30k a month product that was rediculously easy to create and market because there is no direct competition will now require me to find a better USP, charge less, have a few less JV partners (because he has already partnered with a few others), etc.

The worst part? In my short list of maybe 15 different JV partner possibilities, I’m absolutely positive that at least 7-10 of them were going to accept a JV with me because my product was different enough from theirs that I could easily convince them to help me launch this product. Now I’m probably down to 3-4 at most.

Instead of being able to say, "it’s the only one of its kind online", my USP now has to be something like "it’s the least expensive of its kind, or best of its kind or has the most features" or something along those lines.

That is how business goes. I could just as easily switch directions and scrap this product. Instead, I am just going to make it much better and be able to market it better.

That, IMHO, is the difference between the super successful and the semi-successful. Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome.

What do you think?

My mom knows nothing about business. She has taught piano lessons for the last 20 years to neighborhood kids, and she’s pretty much a typical Italian mom

We have a different type of relationship. She is an extrovert, and is always striking up conversations with other people she doesn’t even know. I am a natural introvert, which has served me well, especially in the Navy when I couldn’t talk about 90% of what I did. It also probably helped in my decision to start doing business online, as well, since you never have to talk to people you don’t even know, or so I had thought.

I honestly don’t think I learned all the much from my mom, but I did learn one thing that I can point to as playing a huge part in my success as a businessman:

It’s not about what you know, but who you know.

In my neverending quest to automate everything I possibly can, there are some things I will never outsource or automate, no matter how busy I get (and recommend you do the same):

1. Blog posts – You, as my reader, deserve more than a hired freelancer or "intern" who writes my posts for me. I have a lot of experience in internet marketing and making money online that I am not sure a freelancer could ever convey
2. Blog comments – If you see a comment with my name, Bryan Reed, on it, I wrote it. That is my contribution to that blog.
3. Joint Venture relationships – Any one of my joint venture partners have direct access to my personal cell phone, email address, and snail mail address.

That’s it. Everything else is either automated, outsourced, or will eventually be automated or outsourced. Those three never will be. Why don’t I hire blog ghostwriters, outsource blog comments, or hire an affiliate/joint venture manager? Simple: it’s what my mom taught me: it’s not about what you know, but about who you know. Without relationships on the web, we would there would be no web.

This is a fundamental aspect of business that I wrote about (among other things) in my book, which I just released. If you would like a copy, it’ll cost you a subscription to my blog updates. It’s a 28 page, single spaced, all-meat-and-no-fat ebook that gives a step-by-step overview on how to start an internet business. I have used this as a guide to successfully start every one of my businesses online, and don’t plan on stopping.

I challenge you to always be thinking about how you can be improving your relationship with your customers/clients/readers by helping them and doing something for them. Like I said, my mom taught me that, and I think it’s the single most valuable piece of business advice I could ever give.