So here is where it started …

I went to a car auction last week. As I walked past the auctioneer he made an odd joke about not wanting to make the big guy upset or anything. My head spun around looking for the big guy that the auctioneer mentioned on his mic.

I did a double take as I realized, hey its me.

About an hour later, a 2004 Chev Impala came down the line of cars and I heard from across the large auction area that it was going for 1600. I quickly shouldered my way thru 2 lanes of cars and people to see it.

By the time I got there, a horde of people had descended on it and the bid started moving quickly upward from 1800.

I walked around it quickly and before I had done that, the price was 2000.

I looked in the window at the odometer and the price went to 2100.

I paused 2 seconds to make a quick decision and the price went to 2200. I started putting up my hand and the darn price went to 2300.

Finally I was noticed and the fast talking auctioneer set the price at 2,350 dollars. Then the strangest thing happened, everyone looked at me and there was silence. The bidding simply stopped.

The talkative auctioneer tried for the next 30 seconds but no one would place another bid on the car. Finally, he made some joke about big arms and frightened competition and the bidding was stopped.

So, I got this medium mileage 2004 Impala, worth about 6,000 for a mere 2350.

So size does matter sometimes.

And how is this related to Internet marketing

I told a friend of mine this story and he said that would not have happened if the auction took place online. And he was right. As an online marketer, seller or buyer, you can do everything in your pajamas, without your makeup, hair piece or eye shadow. You can’t be intimidated by someone else’s physical presence, their perfume, suggestive clothing, aggressive stance or any of those other human aspects.

Picking up a niche market that you believe in, googling it, getting a domain name and using a content managment system like Joomla or WordPress to quickly put up a site, then actively marketing that in similar discussion boards and other blogs is — in one runaway sentence **all you need to do**

Running an online business from home is like a dream job. Demanding, sometimes frustrating but definitely worth the reward for the 5% who figure out how to make it work.

With an online business, to hang around in bed or not is your decision. You can work with your computer on your lap, snuggled up nice and warm under your blankets while others are fighting snow drifts trying to get to work…

Or, and this is my favorite – Get out on a beach. Feel the warm sand under your toes, bring that laptop and try not to let your annoying Attention Deficit Syndrome get the better of you — as scantily clad bodies get between you and your view of the warm inviting water, ahhh I mean your computer screen.

P.S. I am strongly advocating that you attempt to grow a business that enables you to work online however please please never ever buy a car at an online auction. The cameras that you use online to see the cars, do not allow one to smell the exhaust fumes, see the color of the white exhaust fumes or see long dents that might run the entire length of the car. I and many others have stood there and watched peers stop bidding on a car while the online folks continued to run up the price several thousands of dollars past the point that it should have.