While you know me as author of this sales prospecting tips blog, you probably aren’t aware I’m also an eBay enthusiast and eBay Consignment Seller who achieved eBay Power Seller status in 2003-2007 by successfully mining a neglected niche market.

Like many eBay consignment sellers, after selling their miscellaneous household items, I was stumped with where to get inventory to fuel my weekly online auctions. Exhausting and frustrating visits to weekly garage sales and consignment shops annoyed me. My peers told me of their nightmare experiences with Drop Shippers. Nope, not for me!

FACT: Where can I get stuff to sell online? Is one of the most popular questions queried online Search Engines. Many of the unemployed, who once poked fun at eBay, are now giving it a serious second look as their day job, especially with Corporate America’s daily announcements of huge layoffs and hiring freezes.

Never one to let a challenge stump me, answering this question became my battle cry. One 2003 February Sunday, while sitting in church, the answer (answers) came to me.

The answers were sitting all around me. The answers were the retired seniors in my church family. Just suppose, I could figure out how to mine the real antiques and collectibles seniors stored in their attics, cellars and garages?  I bet some of them could even use the cash!

I did it and I was very successful at it! So, I wrote an ebook about my detailed marketing plan with all the fixings. Everything that worked for me, why it worked and, how to duplicate my success including free prospect list URLs and working forms are included in this 4 chapter ebook. I held nothing back!

The title of this week’s blog: Making “Real Money” on eBay is the title of the first reader review given my new ebook. I’m thrilled the reviewer saw fit to grade it 5 of 5 possible stars. Also, he placed it in the must-read category for anyone seeking to earn big bucks on eBay as a Consignment Seller.

This is the subject of this blog for these 3 reasons:

• The ebook is a near-perfect example of the marketing maxim: Find a Need and Fill It!
• My patriotic contribution for getting America’s Unemployed back to work.
• Unashamedly, I’d like to sell some ebooks at $18.95 each.

At hundreds of workshops I conducted around this country for 17 years, I always said: finding a need and filling it was the Number 1 Rule of Successful Marketing. Add the right timing of marketplace introduction, a product which solves a contentious problem; and, make it affordable. This is the secret sauce for a marketing success recipe.

Wouldn’t it be great if eBay once again became an American Success Story by putting Unemployed Americans back to work? Like the mythical, Phoenix bird rising from the ashes! What a hoot, if my little ebook had something to do with this happy ending.

To get your FREE Preview peek, downloadable to your PC, cell phone, smart phone, electronic ebook reader or PDA, go to: www.mobipocket.com and type: Gordie into the Search box at the top of the page.

It’s appropriately titled: How to Get Stuff* to Sell on eBay (*an Endless Supply of Real Antiques and Collectibles, NOT Drop Ship) and I think it does the Number 1 Rule of Marketing proud. Do you agree? 

I still keep bumping into them: account reps, sales consultants and management consultants. These are the poor, despondent souls who have joined the growing ranks of the unemployed 7 million. Their faces mirror the sad look of Chicken-Little. Their skies, self-esteem and attitudes have fallen to new depths.

Yet, each time we cross paths, they ask me the same, tired question: what’s your secret for getting new customers during this Recession? I tell them: Become a problem-solver and prove your value to your customers and prospects!

Effective Problem-Solvers Share these 4 Success Habits:

First, they have a bullet-proof attitude. My glass is always half full. Like everyone else, I’m feeling the pinch of higher prices but I refuse to dwell on the bad news. Even when doors are slammed in my face, I stay motivated because I know positive change is coming. In my 41 years in business I have experienced and even thrived through 7 lean times, not too different from now. Staying focused and productive will lead me out of this wilderness back to the Promised Land of Prosperity!

Recently, President Clinton while being interviewed by CNN’s Larry King, said, “No one has ever made money betting against America.” We still live in the most productive and resourceful nation on the planet. We will survive and live to thrive, again. Count on it!

Second, they know their best prospects. Wake me up at 2 am and with incredible accuracy, I’ll rattle off my best customers’ demo and psycho graphic characteristics. I stay laser-focused on my narrow niche and I let nothing distract me. Clients and prospects, like these, have paid my bills since 1967 and they will continue to do so.

Third, they stay connected. Read my Feb 22nd blog to see how I do it. Even when decision-makers tell me, Gordie Allen:

• We aren’t budgeting for any new projects, now.
• We aren’t hiring sales people.
• We don’t need your sales training services.
• We aren’t opening any new offices.
• We have a hiring freeze.
• Stop by in a month………6 months, or next year.

Guess what? Whenever I have put the right, new projects at their feet they have always moved mountains to find the funds. How do I discover what’s hot and what’s not? It’s simple, I just pay attention.

Fourth, they begin by asking fresh, open-ended, questions to discover what has changed with their clients’ processes. For me, questions about their: new competition, distribution channels, product life cycles, product upgrades; special promotions, and the longer or shorter decision cycles which challenge their sales teams. 

My secret: I listen intently for key trigger phrases or cues. Problem-solvers, like me, hear opportunity knocking whenever a decision-maker says, Gordie, our problem is. The word, problem, is music to our ears. Here’s why: if this problem is causing enough severe pain, it is my opportunity to make it go away. I become their Doctor Feel-Good! Problems are nothing more than disguised opportunities.

I could ramble on about other, effective question-asking techniques. Here’s a better idea: buy and study The S.P.I.N. Selling Fieldbook, by Neil Rackham, ISBN #0-07-052235-9, published by McGraw-Hill.  Complete the homework assignments and you can become a master asker, just like me.

I forget where I heard or read this saying but I changed it because it beautifully sums up my attitude: “If opportunity doesn’t knock, then I build a door.”