Working at my evening shift law firm as a lead word processing operator, having a myriad of secretarial experience from investment banking firms, I decided I needed a change. With the children growing up and one almost ready to leave the nest, I needed to unpackage my dreams and skills acquired along the way.

Vending seemed fun and so is online auctions. There are eager people available who have products but needs someone to sell them. For this reason, I felt my obvious choices were to: a) remain small, become stagnant, with profits dwindling; or b) think bigger each time.

What if I did advertising on the internet, local newspapers, direct mail, and of course, one-to-one selling? Well this is what I found:

1) internet advertising is a long drawn out process. The key is hitching your website to a winning site such as banner exchange; this will usually cost you.

2) Classifiedsgo for the big guys like Yahoo. MSN, Amazon, etc. it usual works with persistence

3) Pay-Per-Click, well as the well known television ad says "What's in your wallet?" fits here very well, You get what you pay for sometimes;

4) Never forget to submit your site to as many search engines as possible or your customers can not find you.;

5) Newspapers so far worked best for me, simply because my customers already want what I am offering. Selling at this point, is not hard at all;

6) Unsoliciated Direct mailDon't do it. I have lost so much money on bad lists its tragic. Even creating your own list comes from present customers is sporadic; and oh yes,

7) One-to-one selling. Well its a numbers game as well as your skill level to connect with your customers. By the way, who is your customer? Your customer is out there, but how long will it take you to find him or her through this one-to-one method. I don't know. I much rather have my customers looking for me.

Why do I want to go into business, particularly on-line? Well there is, flexibility, keeping in touch with the rest of the world of information, and yes, sweet independence. You know what I mean.

By: Marjorie Broodie aka jewelscorner.org