3. Assess Your Experience
Your personal experience will probably determine the area in which you should direct your Internet research business. To do the assessment, consider the experience you gained over the years, particularly in the following categories.
3.1 Work Experience
It is assumed that most people reading this book have had work experience, and some people may be close to retirement with considerable work experience. That experience may have been limited to a few particular areas or it could involve a variety of previous jobs.
Either way, you will have gained experience that may be of value in an Internet research business.
To begin, create a list of your work experiences and as you think of more experiences add them to your list. You will be surprised at the variety of work experience you have had over the years. For example, your list may include:
• House construction
• Buying manufacturing components for a company
• Installing equipment for customers
• Sales in different areas
Make sure you list each sales experience separately by the products you sold, because the sales area may be significant in your assessment.
Next you want to rank these experiences in three categories —
• depth of experience you obtained,
• how good you were at doing the job, and
• how much you enjoyed doing the work.
Your objective is to have three lists of the same experiences, but in different relative order, numbered with the highest experience being number one, and all others following in the order you determine. The ranking does not have to be precise, only a comparison of each item against the others. You will use these rankings to do an overall assessment of where you should specialize in your Internet research business.
For the depth of experience section, rank each item on your list by how much useful experience you obtained. If you gained a tremendous amount of practical experience in one area, this will probably be your number one ranking. Some experiences may have been only fleeting, and they of course will get a very low ranking. Using the example list of experiences above, you may have spent most of your time installing equipment for customers, so this will be your number one under depth of experience. The house construction may have just been a brief summer job years ago, so this will be at or near the bottom of your list. Similarly, your sales experience may have been parttime years ago, such as when you worked as a grocery checkout clerk. The other items will fall in between according to how you assess them relatively.
Next consider how good you were at each experience on your list. This is, of course, your opinion on how good you were, so make sure you do an honest assessment. Using the examples again, you may not have done well at installing equipment, even though you did it for quite a while, so this experience would be way down on your list. You may have done quite well at dealing with customers in your sales positions, so this would be higher on the list. You may also feel that you did a good job when dealing with suppliers when you were a buyer for a manufacturing company, so this goes high on the list.
Finally, assess each experience you had according to how much you enjoyed the work. You may not really have liked the face-to-face encounters with customers, but you did like talking to suppliers on the telephone. By far your happiest experience may have been during the construction job, when you dealt with tools and techniques that were all new to you. Arrange your list accordingly.
3.2 Hobby and sports experience
Hobbies can also lead to jobs or careers. Many people have been able to turn a passionate hobby into a lucrative business. You may think you do not have or have had a hobby that could lead to a business, but have you really considered it? Think of all the hobbies you had or attempted. List them in the order you would like to pursue them as a business, and put them in the evaluation table. The list could include, for example, woodworking, gardening, or photography.
Sports should also be considered, particularly if you are very active in one or more sports, such as organized soccer or baseball. Even if you are only a casual participant, such as a round of golf two or three times a year, list it. Then arrange the sports in your order of priority.
Put the hobby and sports lists together and arrange them in order of priority. Some hobbies may outrank some sports, and vice versa. Then put the list into the evaluation table suggested in Section 4.
3.3 Educational experience
You may have more than one university degree, or you may have only a high school diploma. However, over the years you probably have taken many short courses such as on computer spreadsheets, yoga, beekeeping, or building a basement recreation room. List all of these in their order of importance.
4. Overall Personal Assessment
By now you may have already decided on an Internet research business specialty, or you may be starting to zero in on one. However, if you are still wondering, you can make a listing of all your experiences, assessed by category. Create columns for work experience (depth); work experience (good at); work experience (enjoyed); hobby experience; and eductional experience. Fill out each column with all the jobs and hobbies you've had or done.
5. Select Your Specialization
The evaluation table you made should help you select your specialization. Take a look at the top row of items and see if anything pops out at you.
If nothing comes from the first row, look at the second row of items, and let yourself explore these areas. Then explore the third row, and so on. You should be able to come up with a specialization, or some areas to consider further.
Again using the example, the second line has company buyer, baseball, and a basement recreation room construction course. Baseball is probably not a consideration, but company buyer is. More importantly, during the basement recreation room construction course, the instructor may have talked about several new products on the market that applied to house construction in general. So putting together company buyer, house construction, woodworking, and the new products associated with basement recreation room construction, a specialty could emerge. Home building and construction companies are always on the lookout for new products that will reduce their costs, and make the finished product more attractive to the home buyer. Why not specialize in researching new house construction products for home building and construction companies?
The evaluation process should help you select a specialty. In addition to the data you wrote down and analyzed, you will also have to apply some original thought. As the common saying goes, you might have to “think outside the box.” This process is only a tool to help you focus your thoughts. It is up to you to identify your Internet research business specialization.
6. Changing Your Specialization
As your Internet research business progresses, you may find that your specialization is expanding, or that there is not enough business coming in with your selected specialization. If your specialization is expanding, and your business is as well, let it do so, as long as it makes business sense. However, if you find you are branching out into too many areas, and neglecting business opportunities associated with your defined core specialization, go back to that specialization because it is probably more cost-effective for you.
If you find that there is not enough business coming in with your chosen specialization, review your marketing and sales efforts. This is often the downfall of a business; insufficient or ineffective marketing and sales. You have to put a lot of time and effort into it to establish and continue business. Make sure