My Business Did a 180...and I'm Perfectly OK With It

It's funny how most of the time your business doesn't go exactly as planned. Notice I said funny - it's not a bad thing. If you are running your business properly, your customers will dictate your business plan. Sometimes it's the exact thing that you had in mind, but most of the time it's something a little different.

When I started SportsLizard.com in 2004 my goal was to provide a marketplace for buying and selling sports collectibles. I wanted to become to sports collectibles what Amazon.com is for books. There wasn't a place out there like that and I thought that I could become it. I would infuse collectibles news with buying and selling and create a 'community' for collectors. A great idea...right?

In hindsight there was a problem with this plan - collectors really didn't want or need a new place to go. Ooops. They were completely fine with going to eBay to find anything and everything that they needed. They were confident with buying and selling on eBay and it's become next to impossible for me to get even half of that confidence from collectors.

BUT I have found an extremely successful niche. The collectibles news that was once thought to exist to promote the buying and selling of collectibles has now become far and away the most popular area of the site. I've come to find out that collectors value getting their news from an average collector. They value my honest (and unbiased) opinion. I realized that I could capitalize on this by adding a newsletter, RSS feed, and a mobile site...and that I could make money off of the advertising.

For years the only way to get collectibles news was from magazines like Tuff Stuff and Beckett. Both of whom work closely with all of the collectibles companies and tend to give a very biased view of the industry - one that results in all parties making the most money. Many times this isn't always in the best interest of the collectors, although they'll never admit it.

Between myself and a few other writers we have used SportsLizard.com to become the voice of the collector. We have no vested interest in the success or failure of any other company. Our only goal is to provide honest news about a struggling industry in hopes of generating more loyal readers. In particular, my articles about autograph authentication and a biased Tuff Stuff article have caused quite a stir in the collecting community.

So the past few months collectibles sales have dropped off. But my business has grown because I was able to recognize what my visitors wanted from my site and what they didn't...and then I was able to counteract the "failure" of the buying and selling with ad money from articles. I have officially crossed the line and am making more money off of advertising than off of collectibles.

Don't get me wrong, I still think there are opportunities out there to exploit in the buying and selling of collectibles, and I've still got a few aces up my sleeve, but I am much more realistic about what I am up against.

I also realize that my greatest opportunity appears to be with getting collectors a fresh view of collectibles news. Rather than force something on my visitors that they don't want, I'm moving towards becoming what they do want.

Now, most businesses probably won't do a 180 like I did with SportsLizard, but every business will have to adjust their strategy along the way. The best way to know when and how: keep good metrics so you can quantitatively analyze what your customers want and like and what they don't. If you don't track what's going on, you won't know what changes need to be made to keep you competitive.

Oh, and don't think that I don't realize that a lot of this couldn't have been avoided if I had done a little better market research. I'm not talking about the expensive kind. I bet a few weeks of hovering around the right message boards and I could have saved myself some time and money. I consider it a lesson learned for the future...