Today I received a long letter from a man who created a new self-defense system. He claims he can defeat anyone in under 3 minutes.

He wants me to promote him and his method. He went on to say he’d be happy to meet with me to prove his skills.

What did he have in mind?

He wants to beat me up.

I’m serious.

“If I can defeat you within 3 minutes,” he said in his letter, “then you promise to promote me and my products. Deal?”

He went on to give me the contact information for his agent so I could set up the match.

It might have made an interesting webcast. I can just see the headline:

“51-year-old formerly obese Internet Marketing Expert meets 30-year-old Superman-fit Martial Arts Expert in Quick-Kill Match. Register now.”

Gee, I wonder who would win?

I’d lose even if I went armed.

What would you have done?

How would you have responded to his offer?

Unless you’re a fighter looking for a match, you’d probably toss this offer in the trash.

I often wonder what people are thinking. Does this guy really think I’ll fight him? And then, if I lose, I’ll gladly smile and start marketing him?

I don’t claim to be a fighter and am not seeking bouts. I’m also not seeking new clients. Especially clients who want to break my nose to prove they are better than me.

When you reach out to anyone, keep in mind that no one likes to be told they are inferior. It is not a good way to win friends and influence people. In fact, it’s not a good way to do much of anything.

I think the lesson here is that we all have egos. The better way to approach people is to put your ego under theirs.

In other words, be willing to lower your status. Don’t flaunt your stuff. Instead, show your weakness and ask for help.

This nervy fighter might have done better by offering to teach me his new method, not offering to embarrass me with it.

Contrast his behavior to that of a man in Florence, Italy. This gent heard I loved leather jackets. He went and bought two of them and sent them to me, gratis.

I’ll never forget *him*.

This works in your marketing, too.

Rather than boast that you or your business is the greatest, focus on how you or your business can make your customer or client the greatest.

Or surprise your customers by giving them gifts (much like this article is a gift). People love to be surprised on the positive side.

See the difference?

This redirection of focus can trigger a true transformation in your sales.

Take heed.

See you in the ring.

Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients–without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate’s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.

When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane?

It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t logical, so I dismissed the story.

However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho ‘oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn’t let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more.

I had always understood “total responsibility” to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do. Beyond that, it’s out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We’re responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does. The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility.

His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist. He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous. Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

“After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely,” he told me. “Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed.”

I was in awe.

“Not only that,” he went on, “but the staff began to enjoy coming to work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.”

This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: “What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?”

“I was simply healing the part of me that created them,” he said.

I didn’t understand.

Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life - simply because it is in your life–is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life.

This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy–anything you experience and don’t like–is up for you to heal. They don’t exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with you, and to change them, you have to change you.

I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho ‘oponopono means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone–even a mentally ill criminal–you do it by healing you.

I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients’ files?

“I just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ over and over again,” he explained.

That’s it?

That’s it.

Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, your improve your world. Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message. This time, I decided to try Dr. Len’s method. I kept silently saying, “I’m sorry” and “I love you,” I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.

Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn’t take any outward action to get that apology. I didn’t even write him back. Yet, by saying “I love you,” I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

I later attended a ho ‘oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He’s now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive. He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book’s vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.

“What about the books that are already sold and out there?” I asked.

“They aren’t out there,” he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. “They are still in you.”

In short, there is no out there.

It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves. Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only one place to look: inside you.

“When you look, do it with love.”

-Dr. Joe Vitale

There are many places where you can buy private label articles. Some sites don’t supply very good articles but they can be used as a starting point for writing your own articles. Also many of these PLR sites have a high membership which means you will see the same articles being submitted time and time again to the article sites. Article directories frown upon this as they want every article submitted to be original and unique, if you submit an un-edited PLR article you risk getting your publisher account banned.

If you join an PLR article membership site, you should take some time to edit your articles by at least thirty percent, to ensure that there is plenty of unique content within your articles. That could be quite a time consuming exercise especially if you have 1,000 articles every month to edit or spin!

If you want your articles to be unique then you will need to change them, and if you are not able to do this yourself, then you should consider outsourcing them. This will add to the cost of buying the PLR articles, so you might want to consider buying totally unique articles, these unique articles will be much more expensive than normal PLR articles but it may work out cheaper in the long run when you take into account the time it would take you to edit the non-unique articles.

One of the major benefits of PLR articles is that someone else has spent the time researching the subject and then writing the articles, this research takes days even weeks so there is defiantly some time to be saved in that respect. But since there are many articles are poorly written, and this is where you need to do your due diligence to ensure good quality articles, a bad article won’t have nearly the same impact on your audience as an intelligent, well written article.

If you decide to use private label articles then you will also need to decide how to use them. You can use the articles for part of your research on a topic or niche. You can also use them to write brand new articles rather than rewriting them.

If you are rewriting an article then you will need to understand what the original article is trying to portray and then write it in your own words or add some new sections or paragraphs to the existing articles.. As you spend more time doing this, you will find it becomes easier and easier. Like with anything, the more practice you have the easier it becomes! The beauty of rewriting articles is that you can continue to use the same formula until you are satisfied with the end results.

The final thing that a lot of people forget is article needs to be interesting. Sure you want the search engine to index the article, you want the article directory to accept the article, but if people find it dull and boring then they will not end up on your website or clicking on your other articles. Use the article to tease them, let them know about the gems waiting for them on your site. Let them know that they won’t be disappointed if they arrive at your site to learn more about the subject that interests them. Make sure you don’t turn your article into a pitch fest for your website, try and find a happy medium between pitch-fest and an informative, entertaining article.

Search engines are a free way to get customers to your business. To have this happen you have to pick carefully chosen keywords and phrases. The right keywords are like free yellow page ads. Work with good ones and a flood of targeted traffic will visit your site. If you do not pick with care, you will waste your time, so you need to do it right.

First gather and evaluate possible keywords and phrases. You may already have an idea of words, start with this and follow a few simple steps so you can find some easy traffic.

Think like your customers; write a short list of potential search words and phrases you would search to find your site. When you get a small list go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and enter one of your keywords. Google will generate related keywords and an estimate of their search volume. This should give you a good list. Spend some time; try different words and different combinations of keyword phrases.

Popularity does not necessary make a keyword a good choice. It needs to be specific to what your company sells. The more specific your keyword is, the more likely it is buyers will find your site. Build up a good size list and then narrow it down to words and phrases that will direct the highest number of buying visitors to your web site.

As an example, the keyword “food” is a very popular, but your company sells bread. Millions of people searched Google for the word “food” last month and there was hundreds of thousands of web sites trying to outdo each other for that word. “Olive bread” will not get near as many Google searches, but it will not have near the number of sites competing for that phrase. You still may have over 10,000 people a month searching Google for “olive bread”.

It will take you a great amount of effort to get to the top of the first page of Google results for the word “food” and you may not be able to do it at all. Getting to the top for “food ” will get you thousands of people interested in buying everything from tomatoes to potatoes. Getting to the top of the list for “olive bread” will get you people looking for olive bread.

Brand names often make great keywords. Many brand names get over a thousand searches a month and do not have much competition.

You want people to find you who are ready to make a purchase; this requires playing around until you find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most interested buyers to you site. This requires putting yourself inside the mind of your soon to be customers to figure out what word or phrase a person looking for your product will use to search for you.

Your work is not done once you have chosen your keywords and added them to your web pages. You must continue to evaluate and test keywords to achieve search engine success.

Although WordPress Goldmine contains 110 pages, each single one proves to hold a wealth of information that makes it great value for money. This book is ideal for those who are just starting out in affiliate marketing or have been an internet marketer for a while, because they will find information, advice and tips which can help to increase their online income within the pages of it. So if you are only intending to buy one e-book this year then I recommend that you go out and buy a copy of this one.

It is not often that an e-book is published on a certain subject, which clearly shows just how useless others already available are. With the publication of WordPress Goldmine this is just what has happened. Where most of the other affiliate marketing guides ask you to focus on finding the right product through Clickbank and then creating blog in order to market it. With WordPress Goldmine you will find that this is not what you need to do. Instead through this book you will learn about different aspects concerning not only finding the right domain names abut also the right products to promote on your sites.

This e-book takes an in-depth look at not just the processes but also the different kinds of sites one can build. It also provides you with live examples that actually provide the value in this e-book unlike any other. What seems to make this book so special is that those who have already used it have found it easy to follow because the author has broken it up into five separate sections. Section one of the book looks at the ways of using WordPress for building blogs and takes you through the various phases of not just setting up but also running your blog in the shortest amount of time. Included within this section of the book are some bonus videos that will further help you to understand the whole process of making blogs from beginning to end.

When one reaches section three, this is probably a real gem as the author shows you a number of different ways in which you can monetize your WordPress blog. But be prepared to spend sometime on this section as it provides a good indepth explanation on how the author himself made a $15,000 income through just one blog post. Of all the sections you will probably find that this one alone is worth the money that you have spent purchasing the book. It is also here that you will learn about the ways to make money from a blog offline. It is through this authors plan that one can learn about how to create an extra $1,000 per week by the end of the year, which is a vast change from those plans which say “earn $$$$ in just 30 days” and so makes this plan more achievable. After reading section 3 you move onto section 4 and in this part of the book the author will explain the different methods that can be used to promote the sites that you build. There is an easy to follow diagram in this section which lists the kinds of sites that one can utilize and which will in turn help to make yours a success rather than a failure. Again this section is value for money simply because it is not often yuo will be provided with details of a traffic generation system for your site that is easy to master.

After reading section 3 you move onto section 4 and in this part of the book the author will explain the different methods that can be used to promote the sites that you build. There is an easy to follow diagram in this section which lists the kinds of sites that one can utilize and which will in turn help to make yours a success rather than a failure. Again this section is value for money simply because it is not often yuo will be provided with details of a traffic generation system for your site that is easy to master.

When taken as a whole WordPress Goldmine is a superb guide to help with affiliate marketing. By using commonsense over unnecessary hype certainly made a pleasant change and could well lead to more internet marketers actually producing books of a calibre similar to this one. Although WordPress Goldmine contains 110 pages, each single one proves to hold a wealth of information that makes it great value for money. This book is ideal for those who are just starting out in affiliate marketing or have been an internet marketer for a while, because they will find information, advice and tips which can help to increase their online income within the pages of it. So if you are only intending to buy one e-book this year then I recommend that you go out and buy a copy of this one.

By far the most important rule in Internet Marketing, and one that you MUST remember, is that you should always “Invest in Yourself!”

This saying gets repeated over and over again by a great many people and yet it is possibly one of the least acted upon rules out there. Chances are you don’t really know what it even means. Let me explain.

An internet business isn’t a building. It isn’t a place…not a real physical place. An internet business exists only in cyber space and in the heart and mind of the owner of that internet business.

Basically, your internet business is YOU. You are the heart of your business, giving it the identity that it has.

If you had a bricks and mortar business you could make physical changes to the look of the outside of your building, the decor inside etc, and people would notice and be drawn to take a look on the inside to see what other changes had been made and see what products lines you may now be offering compared to the past.

With an internet business you cannot make those kinds of changes. The most important changes you can make are to yourself. This is what it means to “Invest in Yourself”. In order to improve your internet business you need to improve yourself first.

Commonly people ask, “How and what do I invest in myself?” The answer isn’t a $150 haircut or a designer suit. The answer is knowledge. You need to know more. The more you know, the better quality decisions you will make, which your online business will benefit from.

Assuming you spend just one hour a day reading newsletters and articles related to your industry, you will find that by the end of the month you’ve gained a tremendous amount of additional knowledge and new ideas.

Enrol in a couple of courses, listen to teleseminars and webinars. These are the kinds of things that allow you to invest in yourself most effectively. This is the most important thing in online marketing.

The next natural step is the principle of ‘Abundance Thinking’.

Abundance Thinking? What the heck is that? This refers to one of two possible modes of thought. In order to clarify this I will explain the second mode first. ‘Limited Supply’ thinking is where you believe there is a finite amount of business out there. This is a bad model because it induces panic and the mindset that motivates you to grab what you can at the expense of others.

Limited Supply thinking may earn you a living, perhaps even a decent one, but it won’t allow you to make the most money you possibly can. It’s the complete opposite of Abundance Thinking.

‘Abundance Thinking’ believes that there is a more than enough business to go around and that we will do best by working with others to provide customers with the best possible experience. Customers aren’t stupid, they know that when you advise them to buy something from someone else it costs you a sale. This very fact that you value their welfare over you making a sale earns you trust, which can reward you with more sales from them over the longer term.

Abundance thinking believes in working as a team rather than as individuals. This is where symbiotic, or mutually beneficial two-way business relationships tend to do better than one man bands. In internet marketing this thinking has proven to be especially true.

Limited-supply thinking means that you hold on as tightly as you can to what you have. You do not share anything with anybody. What is yours is yours. Often time decisions are made by people who apply limited-supply thinking based upon what the competition is doing. Limited-supply thinking is basically a defensive position.

Abundance thinking is a proactive, offensive method. It concentrates on building good relationships with customers, suppliers, even competitors. It is the mark of a well adjusted, mature, competent and successful person.

Once you experience Abundance Thinking you will realize that there is plenty of business out there for everybody.

The beautiful thing about abundance thinking is that it is contagious. The better you get at abundance thinking the more accepting of you your peers will become.

Joint ventures won’t be a problem to put together. There is more success in abundance thinking than there is in limited-supply thinking.

The millionaire membership site is a fully compacted program aimed at providing you with all the information needed to create your own membership sites. Inside the program you will be exposed to all the secrets used by everyday entrepreneurs who generate massive amounts of cash using membership sites. All the content will be provided with 6 DVDs and many blueprints for easy understanding.

The person behind this massive product is Bryan Dulaney. He is a well respected marketer with tons of experience. It is needless to say that the millionaire membership blueprint will deliver all that it promises.

The program promises to teach you step by step on how to successfully create and maintain membership sites. In addition you will be taught how to optimize these sites for search engines, dominate Google, and get the best contents for your sites. You also will see fool proof methods on how to earn a steady income in millionaire membership blueprint.

Now let’s talk about what membership sites are and how the millionaire membership blueprint will help you get the most from them. The first thing off the top of your head is probably that memberships sites are sites that you pay a fee to be apart of. Then, in return you are given access to the resources and other available content from the site.

After you have successfully implemented your own membership using the millionaire membership blueprint you will most certainly see how easy it is to earn with them. Millionaire membership blueprint will also guide you step by step with everything you need to further manage your site. Additionally, it will also teach you how to get the best contents on your site.

With membership sites you are paid every month by the members. After you successfully set up your membership site using the millionaire membership blueprint you will only be required to work one time and leave the site on auto pilot. That’s right, a passive income source with plenty of time for you to enjoy whatever you love doing.

Next, the millionaire membership blueprint will show you how to outsource all the work on your site. You don’t even need to be an expert in the field you are planning to design your site on. All you need to know is how to get the information or someone who is an expert and you are good to go.

There you had it! The most important ways membership sites can benefit you and also how the millionaire membership blueprint will assist you to create these sites. Sign up for the millionaire membership blueprint today to learn more about how you can become the next internet millionaire.

The other day, my mom shocked me. She asked me what a niche market was, and since she is not an online marketer ( doesn’t turn the computer on regularly enough to use email ), this question appeared quite out of the blue. Perhaps I should not have been surprised because in the area of marketing but particularly online marketing, this term is showing up more and more frequently. In truth, one of those late night, “Be the next internet Millionaire” scams that airs at 4 am for those with insomnia, also trumpets this term.

So, to the heart of it - what is Niche Marketing ? Is it another of those overhyped terms or does this fad have some legs?

So how would we define it ? * It’s the current fad, but its not ( This one has really long legs ) * It’s not going to be a good Xmas present - so don’t look for it * It’s not going to make anything bigger longer or … ( u get the msg ) * It’s not likely to be a new job opening anywhere soon

Niche marketing example

Some would say that the definition of Niche marketing is narrowing down a broader need in the market places until one derives at a much more focused segment that has little or a smaller but reasonable number of competitors.

Marketing to those that buy - Basketball shoes. Niche or not? Not - Michael Jordan running shoes. Niche or not. Not (What did that surprise you?) - Michael Jordan HighTop running shoes. Niche or not? Feeling the sun yet ? - Michael Jordan HighTops signed by the great one himself . Niche or no Niche? Jackpot !

Congratulations on accurately identifying a niche market area. And it really was a niche, not that broad definition or a marketplace need that we may have had in mind earlier. So, like most others, we could use some extra cash, whats the next move? Do we buy inventory now before the rush?

If you want to lose your shirt go ahead! That was a joke, don’t do it. Please don’t think I slipped and just told you about my huge money maker and have now decided to take it back. Further from the truth we could not be. We have an unproven premise here.

The little questionnaire is not the process used to find a niche market product or service. You really need a tool for that. It can be done manually but searching hundreds of ideas manually isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. That was merely an example of what a niche market might look like, but for any number of reasons, I would never enter that marketplace - and I don’t much care if 4 of my marathon running friends ask me for those specific shoes next week.

So, did I just give you a really bad Niche Market example?

It might be and maybe it wasn’t but we don’t know that yet. When doing this kind of research one has to remind oneself that people use specific key words when searching for a product or service. Only the search engines, search engine tools ( like wordwatcher ) really know what is being searched for. And unfortunately only niche marketing software tools can give one the market intelligence needed in order to make a business decision.

If we know how many people are searching for the product and how many competing websites there are, isn’t this enough information to quantify this as a niche product? Wasn’t this what groups traditionally used to make their decision in the past? Well, it was, but its not enough anymore. There are tools out there now that can make a newbie 10 times more efficient and powerful than the traditional analysis used just 6 months ago.

Perhaps you are experienced and know that this was not the process used to find niches. Perhaps you are still using the tools inside google adwords, or google trends or wordwatcher. They are time tested and have worked wonderfully for the past few years but a newbie using a niche market tool and having little or no knowledge of the existing search tools from Google could blow you and I out of the competitive water in less than 5 minutes.

Competitive Niche tool products go significantly further than just how many potential clients are searching and whether the competition has the keyword on their site. They use algorithms that use several additional variables for ranking competition. They can immediately open affiliate sites like clickbank and others with a related product already found and ready for you to use. They can find articles from Private Label Sources for reprint. And this is less than a 1/10th of their abilities.

Finding Niche Products is now so easy, even a newbie can do it. It does not require the in-depth type of intelligence that former adwords professionals used to use. Follow the links back to my site for lists of possible tools that you can use.

I am excited to share with you a program that I recently found to increase traffic to my mlm business. We all know every business needs traffic. Until I found Unique Article Wizard, I thought I had to spend a lot of time and money.

I had the best mlm company and the best products but who knew? How was I going to find customers? Eager, targeted customers.

In the past, I submitted my site to hordes of search engines. I went onto forums. I bought classified ads. I tried dozens of traffic courses. Nothing gave me the result I was looking for. I almost gave up on my great mlm business. A business I really believed in.

Then I found Unique Article Wizard. A program that transformed my mlm business in a way I had only dreamed about. Click here to visit the Unique Article Wizard website.

You will be amazed at just how simple it is get your website to the first page on Google and to find and attract valuable visitors to your site. You will as excited as I am when you realize that Unique Article Wizard works for any and every type of online business whether you intend to sell a product, promote affiliate programs, or display Adsense or other advertising.

My business needed leads. Your business needs leads. You know leads make or break a business. The more traffic your business gets, the more leads you get. The more leads you get, the more money you make.

Your articles will be on as many websites as possible. How about well over 3,000 directories ,websites and blogs with many more being added all the time. You get this with Unique Article Wizard.

You get the best tool on the web for creating genuine backlinks to your site. Correctly formatted links that bring traffic to your website. Hundreds of links that turn into thousands and tens of thousands over time. The search engines will love you. You also get unlimited submissions for a many domains as you wish. Your credibility will increase. Your site will climb to the top of the search engines.

I didn’t want a complicated system and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Unique Article Wizard is easy with step by step tutorials. It is also very reasonable. I might also mention that the Wizard has a generous affilliate program that pays 40%. You can actually make money while advertising your business. Incredible!

I am a stay at home mom of two small boys. Like a lot of stay-at-home moms, I am limited to what stores are \”accessable to me\” by a number of things. Things like the width of store aisles, the ease of parking, helpfulness of employees, and the size and maneuverability of the available shopping carts are all a factor in where I can and can’t go.

In a majority of American households, the women do the necessary shopping for the house. Whether this is fair or not is irrelevantit is a fact. Frequently, women are required to bring their children along to do the necessary shopping. Things which I mentioned above play a larger role to consumers than one might thing. For example, I have an appointment at a nearby beauty supply store later this morning, and I am already dreading it. The aisles are narrow and cramped, and there are not shopping carts available. The amount of time I spend inside the store is going to be minimal, at best.

I feel this is the case for most women in my position. When faced with challenges such as aisle size and or maneuverability, most will completely avoid that store or limit the time spent inside by only getting the few items they need. Hence avoiding the \”impluse buys\” that they may otherwise purchase. This means less money spent along with the avoidance of a public meltdown by either mom or the children.

Of the various factors, maybe the most important one is the shopping cart. For me to shop at a store and possibly linger versus simply getting the specific items I seek, the shopping cart needs to be wide enough to securely place a car seat or infant carrier inside without the feeling of the possibility that the cart may topple over.

The ideal shopping cart for a small business should be sturdy and lightnot bulky and heavy. It should be large enough to contain the items a shopper needs, but not so large that maneuvering through aisles becomes difficult and frustrating.

There have been a number of times I have left a store out of sheer frustration and not being able to maneuver smoothly through the aisles. The shopping cart for the small businesses in question were either too large, had difficult to move wheels, or the aisles were too cramped to get around to where I needed. My frustration level would go up as I would try to navigate, and generally I end up leaving sooner, rather than later, and make every effort in the future to avoid that particular store.

I understand that there is a fine line between having shopping carts the appropiate size in comparison to the needed aisle width to accomodate the type of products a store may carry. But I need a cart which is large enough for a five year old to sit in the basket along with whatever items I am purchasing. A good balance is needed for a store to provide a convenient place to shop.

To put so much emphasis on the shopping cart may seem silly, but it’s necessary. There is one particular store which I have had to avoid until my child was big enough to sit up on his own. The stores carts would not accomodate my infant carrier. For my small business, I would make sure to provide a shopping cart that was light weight, probably plastic, sturdy, free turning wheels, wide enough for an infant carrier to be secure and possibly allow for a second child inside. It would be the appropraite size based on the overall size of the store, the products sold at the store and the width of the aisles. This would ensure its ability to maneuver throughout the store and would allow for customers to linger and spend more time, hence spend more money.