A great business

[DaveinHackensack]

Had dinner with an old friend of my parents Wednesday night. He is in his late 70's, and for a long time had sort of a checkered career, bouncing from one thing to the next. Then he stumbled onto the business he has now, which generates six figures in revenue every month. He imports specialized surgical equipment from Germany, marks it up by about 700%, and sells it to surgeons in a particular specialty in the U.S., Australia and elsewhere.

Why do the surgeons buy from him?

1) He has exactly what they need. He keeps the inventory in his home office.

2) He can get it to them first thing tomorrow morning (e.g., if they have operation scheduled then).

3) He sends it to them on credit, and bills them later (they always pay).

4) They aren't price sensitive.

Somethings to think about.

[clanshrapnel]

Great information to think about. I do think the target audience is quite important. It's one reason I'm not to keen on one of my muses-- videogames-- because in the end, the majority of the audience (teenage boys) do not have disposable income, at least not to the likes of other industries (B2B, travel, medical, legal, and others).

Having the right target audience not only allows for higher margins, but less headaches overall (just as TF talks about in his book-- higher priced items typically yield better customers).

[luiscongdon@msn.com]

Thanks for sharing a real story about someone who is making lots of money doing something that he enjoys (I assume that he enjoys it). It is inspiring to hear/read about others who are doing things that seem unreal because it helps all of me (and others) move towards their dreams.

[DaveinHackensack]

No problem. Sure, he likes the business. Customers give him thousands of dollars a day for Fed Exing them little boxes -- what's not to like? Next week I am taking him to meet my developers in Manhattan to see if they can further simplify and automate his business (he's actually running this on a computer using DOS).