June 2004

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eBay Live! is coming, and Wholesale Marketer is going to be there!

Wholesale Marketer has passed eBay's stringent interview process and has been invited by eBay to be an official exhibitor at this year's eBay Live! show.

eBay Live! is an annual conference bringing together various players of the eBay community: PowerSellers, exhibitors, expert authors and guest speakers from all over the world.

At eBay Live!, we'll be displaying some of our hottest items that Wholesale Marketer members are successfully selling on eBay right now!

We'll also be talking about the addition of several new distributors, which we expect will at least triple the number of products available to our members.

To learn more about our role at eBay Live!, visit our website at the following address:

http://www.wholesalemarketer.com/pages/ebay.html

We've also displayed a map showing exactly where you'll be able to find us, should you choose to attend.

We're excited for this opportunity to network with other similar businesses, and possibly create new partnerships that will improve the Wholesale Marketer experience, and we're particularly excited about the possibility of being able to meet and interact with our members.

We hope to see you there!

- by: Stuart Lisonbee

Up until 1995, I was an avid motorcyclist. Why did I stop? Well, a little old lady pulled out in front of me and the collision that occurred resulted in disabilities that prevent me from continuing with that particular passion of mine. But we won't get into that.

My motorcycle was a 1985 Honda Interceptor 500. I had the oldest, smallest, slowest motorcycle in my area. But I also regularly got the looks from the girls (and drooling mouths from the guys) that the faster, newer bikes never got. Why?

First, my motorcycle had a V4 motor with a redline of 12,000 rpm. It made the sweetest sound that newer bikes, which all had inline fours, couldn't possibly hope to duplicate. I had custom pipes that brought out the sound of my V4. I also had custom fairings and a custom pearl-white paint job.

In other words, my motorcycle was the most unique. Nobody knew or cared that my bike was over 10 years old. Nobody knew or cared that my bike only had a 500cc motor in it. People only cared that I was the only person that had a bike like mine.

Despite the attention I got from guys and girls alike, I always dreamt about getting another motorcycle. It was the Bimota YB11. My "dream" bike.

What is a Bimota you ask? Chances are you've never heard of them. And that was my whole point! Bimota builds hand crafted motorcycles in Italy where Bimota is headquartered.

And Bimota bikes are so rare (and expensive), very few people have ever heard of them. In fact, I think the closest Bimota dealer to where I live in Utah is located in California!

In my mind, I could see myself riding around town on my new (and very fast) YB11. Everybody I drive past stops to look at a bike they had never seen the likes of before, and think to themselves, "That is one cool guy on that bike!"

Though I didn't know it then, I was attempting to fill one of the top dozen "needs" that cause people to spend money:

- I wanted to be different and be individual

Everybody wants to be different, to stand out from the rest. Strangely, hot trends come along that everybody jumps on to, thus making everybody who thinks they are being different actually be the same.

But ask somebody who thinks they are being "different" and "individual" if they care that there are millions of others being "different" and "individual" in the exact same way. Most don't care. Some genius marketer somewhere told that person, indirectly through genius marketing, that by purchasing and using a specific product, it would somehow make them unique and set them apart from everybody else.

Take a look at your product and/or service. In what way can it help your potential customers become more unique and have a greater sense of individuality?

Don't get extreme. If you're selling a baseball bat, you don't want to say that you can become more unique by being the only person in your town to beat people up with a bat.

On the other hand, if your bat has some new technology that other bats don't, no matter how minor the technology may seem, let people know about it!

Good marketers will highlight things about their product, even if every other similar product on the planet has the same features, whether good or bad. And even if that feature isn't unique, they will make people think that it is. And in reality, there is no "bad" feature. Everything is good under appropriate situations.

For example, I was watching an ad for a new car. At the end they said that it has a 2.0 liter engine, and they implied that this great 2.0 liter engine will allow you to quickly speed away from undesirable locations.

Well, if you know anything about cars, you know that a 2.0 liter engine is going to be weak, give you poor acceleration, and little torque. In the right hands and properly modified, yes it can be made more powerful, but the stock motor in this car was none of that.

Yet the car manufacturer's marketing guys sure made it sound as if having a 2.0 liter engine was the greatest thing in the world! While I was at home laughing at the idea that having a 2.0 liter engine was somehow good, I knew that there were thousands of others that had the idea implanted into their minds that if they were going to buy a new car, it must have a 2.0 liter engine in it. And which car has this highly coveted 2.0 liter engine in it?

You get the idea.

Next month: Selling the benefits.