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Rick's Rants: Competitive Advantage (June 2004) - by Rick Latona, Dollars.com
The adult Internet industry is a competitive market and you need an advantage to get ahead. There are many things that you can do to create an advantage, and it's more than possible that you may have some of these qualities already.
Your only real goal should be to exploit those advantages. This month I'm going to sound a bit more "spammy" than normal because I have to use my own companies as case examples in order to get my points across. Let's take a look at some of the competitive advantages you can utilize to make an impact on your business plan.
Technology
Sometimes we joke around in our office that the name Dollars.com is an appropriate name for our technology platform, considering that we've spent millions of dollars building it. However, we wouldn't take a single penny of it back if it meant we had to give up the technology. We've bet the ranch that a superior platform which includes a built-in banner management system will make a better system for running affiliate programs such as CJ Bucks. Connecting those affiliate programs together for real-time, seamless exchanges of joins and traffic into one cohesive network will create the ultimate Business-2-Business exchange (Dollars.com). Future versions of our platform will run our members' area as well as advertisement sales for our free sites, such as consumptionjunction.com. When we do have one platform for running all aspects of our business it'll be a competitive advantage, as most companies haven't been able - or were unwilling to spend the time and money to build such a high-tech platform.
Cost Advantage
We've opened an office in Panama City, Panama recently, not so much to lower our costs, but to increase the velocity of our development. We have many projects in development right now, and we need all of the resources that we can gather in order to complete them all. In Panama we can hire gallery makers for only 300 dollars a month. Clearly, having 10,000 hosted galleries for CJ Bucks would be a competitive advantage, and hiring inexpensive full-time gallery makers is the quickest way to get there. I can separate all employees into different categories. They are either in the business process category or they aren't. Business processes are those items that are repetitive - such as gallery making. Those positions should be offshore, and done in mass at a low cost if you can get away with it.
Differentiation
What makes you stand out? Take a hard look at every product and service that you are offering, and tell yourself honestly whether or not they are at all different from everything else that is out there. Simply put, don't even get out of bed in the morning if you aren't trying to do something interesting and unique. We try to have the best and most interesting free sites on the planet. We strive for super differentiated paysites, defined by value, in our affiliate program. We go out of our way to create technology that is different and exciting. Successful companies have pizzazz.
This is an important lesson, so I hope I've motivated you here. Your customers, suppliers, partners and employees are thirsty for interesting companies that have these qualities. These are the points that separate you from the crowd and give you a competitive advantage.
Rick Latona's company started with Consumption Junction and has turned into a powerhouse delivering tens of billions of banner ads and text links monthly through a network of free adult sites. Each of his sites has strong consumer brands that generate bookmarkers and a loyal fan base. Recently we've seen him launch Dollars.com which as a B2B advertising exchange only puts him in charge of even more traffic. Visit www.kblogger.com for more of Rick's tips.
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