ATTN: Second Life "Millionaires" ... Share Your Secrets!

I get a few hundred TPs from the classified ad for the store I share with Parker, so I guess it works.

I don't do sales pitches, sometimes even I'll talk to the potential customer and try to make sure that what they're looking at is really what they want. I'd rather someone went elsewhere than bought from me and felt they'd made a mistake because it didn't suit their needs after all.

I answer every question I get in IM during the day, even if the answer is "sorry, I don't do custom work" or "I don't sell textures." I respond as quickly as I can. I do have a policy of only providing support to owners- not only because otherwise I ended up being used by some landlords as an unpaid janitor, but also because I can't actually do anything with an object without the owner there to do permissions anyway. So that frustrates people sometimes, but it's a question of reasonable balance I think. I deal with up to a dozen queries/customer support requests a day, which often leaves no time at all for doing the building itself, let alone getting any social time.

All I ever really did was build things I liked, and put them up for sale. The rest has just happened through dumb luck I think.

Make stuff that doesn't suck.

High priced classified ads do seem to be effective for SOME classes of business. The clues that spending big might work for you:

1. You're trying to launch something that really is new and different, or superior in quality to existing goods, and you want to get the word out quickly. Sine Wave Dancing is a good example; they ran expensive ads for the first couple of weeks they were open.

2. You're selling something that is useful to a large percentage of the population, so niche marketing isn't enough.

The main key in the Classifieds is to be well-positioned in relation to your competitors. If you're selling a product that only appeals to a small number of people, and that has easy-to-guess keywords that people looking for you will know, you only have to spend as much as other makers of the same type of product do. Depending on your product, that might be L$50 or L$50,000.

No advertising will work if you don't have the goods. Advertising will get people into the store, but unless they see something they like, they won't buy.

I'm not a millionaire but...
I've also been working on advertising and such. I'd had a group for a while but had never done a thing with it. I decided to take advantage of it. Everytime I release a new item, I send a notice to my group with a texture of the item. Every week I do a special thing where I give 2 random group members a newly released item from that week for free. I also try to pass out free things I make special for the group to everyone from time to time. There's never spam in it.
Every 2 days or so, I go back in my transactions history and copy each name that spent a decent amount in my store and invite them to join my group. Most people seem to accept these invites, and I've never gotten any upset replies over the invites.
Another thing I started doing was trying to also post every new item here in the forums under the new products section. It REALLY helps! These postings seem to get an avg 180 viewings within a couple of days of posting for me anyway and alot of people get much more views than that.
I've been doing some experimenting with classifieds. I have 1 high priced (for me anyway) and then I have 4 more ads ranging in price lower than the high priced one. The higher priced one seems to get more hits than the others, but I've found that that is greatly dependant upon the texture I show of the new thing I've released in my store. This has almost led me to the conclusion that you should only picture your best items on classifieds.
Anyway, these are the things I've been doing and working with, and I have seen a great increase in my sales, but that could also be the fact that SL *seems* to be working decently again.

-Sae

Dito

I love your buildings...I've used them for my last two art galleries.

What worked for me on a small scale was to have lots of small sale plots - 32 sq m, on each of which which I could sell up to 7 boxed items. Or people could buy the land, at a small profit to me, and they got the goods thrown in for free. The more plots, the more market exposure. I had about 15 plots max - but if you had, say, 50, it would need a lot of time input if you need to change anything, but when the money starts coming in you can think of switching to 64m plots or bigger.

I shop A LOT and I never use the classiifeds. I usually type the item or service I need into search and go from there and build my list of perferred merchants that way. But I do check the New products listings here on the Forums.

I worked 20 to 30 hours per week on here for 6 to 9 months before really doing well enough to consider it more than just a hobbie. I would say don't plan on making a lot for a while and be prepared to lots of investment of time and money. Isn't that true with anything though? So really not too many secrets in it.

Yay!

1. Make money in RL
2. Buy L
3. Done.

I am 1/2 the way to having spent 1 million $L on SL

--
I have people look at my club and ask me how to make money or how to make there club popular and all I can tell them is what NOT to do.

1. Don't force your patrons to walk halfway across the sim each time they arrive. If you must restrict the landing point, place a teleporter.
Pssst "this is for you RT"

2. Stay consistent. I find it takes over 6 months before people stop using old landmarks after you change.
So moving things around is a real pain.

3. Never shut down! I don't care if you are redecorating. You need to stay open or people will remove your land marks from there inventory.
After that happens you have lost them.
Kicking out renters just to change the theme will also cause problems.

Slowly changing a sim to a new theme works. Just place construction signs up like they do in RL road construction.

4. Write out your rules and stick to them. Business owners can't play favorites. If you ban someone... you need a reason.
I may not like the AV's that wear natzi uniforms but most of them arn't braking the rules at my club. (I've banned some for specific harassment)

5. Avoid the sim curse!
Some places and clubs think that getting a sim is a great idea, but you actually get more for your $ using 4 mainland sims. (quad corner)
I've seen several clubs and groups buy sims just to run into financial or ego problems.
Remember that it takes months to get a sim rented and for people to find your new location and you will have to pay the sim cost out of pocket for at least 4 months just before you break even.

When I started Bodyart, I was one of 6 tattoo listings that turned up in Find. And the only one that specialized in it. Hard to imagine, eh? Is about the only great foresight I can claim in any life. LOL

My main thing about Bodyart has always been what Desmond said. Though I must admit, were I more money hungry I may have built up my small business.

Mind you that I'm not big on practicing all of these things & have sat back and watched my competitors kick my small business butt. But like Desmond says.. I do it when I am loving it & I'm not in it for the money.

I've learned a few primary things over time with my own lil shop & my SL shopping.

1) Offer quality work! If you wouldn't buy it yourself, don't set it out for sale!

2) Don't wait too long to add new content! I can't emphasize this enough. My sales always begin to decline when I don't (and I'm the world's worst). And I'm constantly checking my fav designers for new content.

3) Keep an eye out for what the general population is into.
I always try and add something for the mainstream, without compromising my own work & quality ethics.

4) Make sure the actual product you are trying to sell can be easily seen.
a. Full bright on the picture/texture side of the box/vendor is your friend.
b. If you can only show one picture, make it a closeup.
c. Avoid floaty text in tight areas.

5) Don't price yourself out of the market.
This goes equally in both directions. SL is getting too populated to worry much about exclusivity. And pricing too low for an unknown, will most likely make people doubt your quality.

6) Use the New Products forum for listing NEW releases. Supply pics along with slurls & blog links.

7) Listing on the popular SL shopping sites.

Offer a free gift item of your own creation.
I always have done this & change out my free inks occasionally. Is amazing how many return visitors I have, that come back when they have a lil spending money. People tend to remember a quality freebie.

9) Good customer service!
I always consider my IM may not have been recieved. But if I make several attempts, bother with a notecard, another IM & still no reply, that person loses future business & any word of mouth from me.

10) You have to be listed in Search some kind of way!
Be it through owning the land to be found in the Places & All tabs.
Or by purchasing a Classified Ad.
I have both and never spend more than the minimum $50L for the classifieds.

11) Always ethically represent yourself!
Avoid the temptation to resort to trickery in the numerous ways of adding paid zombie campers, false keywords in your ads, content ratings such as PG, Mature & the soon to be Adult.

12) Choose a main location, keep it open & monitored regularly.

*As for my business logo in my forum signature, I am leaving it set to show in this particular post. I made it for the New Products forum posts & rarely forget to uncheck it when posting to this particular forum. Perhaps I need to rethink this!

Lots of great tips in this thread. Again, I chose my specialty when nobody else was doing it. I definitely made my fortune early on with it, and I do have a decent return base. Doubtful I'd pick anything so done to death & keyword abused, were I seriously wanting to start out on making millions today.

Best of luck with your new business!
~Pal

Yeah.. Ace's building is really great... i love it and get two houses for my friends

back before ads used to auto-update Id notice a definite decrease in sales when my ad expired.

So they definitely do affect sales. Especially if you sell a product many new players want.

New players havent been around long enough for word of mouth to sink in on them yet.

My classified definitely helps. I get about 100 TP's every 3 days or so... I'm assuming that those are people who've never been to the shop before, since I include landmarks with every package.

Also, balance your checkbook! I'm always amazed to see that I spent X L$ on a new hair for a model, or new shoes for a model, etc.

Well... I don't know if you want my 2 cents, since I'm not a business owner, and certainly not a millionaire.

But...I am a shopper. And I know a couple of things that would make me buy more stuff.

1) Putting the number of prims of objects on the sales boards. I hate having to look at pictures and try to guess whether or not I'll be able to use something. I detest buying something, only to discover it's so many prims I will never be able to use it.

2) Make your items modable & copiable. I like to be able to play with the textures and such, and am also afraid of losing items I only have one of. It makes me reluctant to buy one-of-a-kind items if they cost more than $L100.00 for fear I'll lose them somehow.

3) Answer IM's you get with questions, even if you think the questions are dumb.

I can give a few tips from the time that I've spent studying my rich-ass boss.

-Get together a good team, scriptor, builders, texurers, animators... (as needed)

-Dont trust any of your team with the business, only trust yourself with the money matters. (drama and all that)

-Create a company logo and stick with it, so people can recognize your product.

-Build (or have built) a good looking store, project the professionalism.

-FILL your store. Nothing says under-acheiver than an almost empty store.

-Make a quality product and rail on other sellers for making crappy products. ^^ (Gotta have bragging rights)

-Happy customers means MORE customes. (Word or mouth is GOD)

-If you have enough customers, make a customer group they can join for updates.

-Expand when needed. Multiple store locations (smaller ones) can be good, but make sure to get lots of trafic at youre store.

-Try to get traffic to your main store. Traffic bumps it up the search list when people search for your product. But do go with stupid dance pads or sitting chairs. Your store will become a leach hangout, not a... store.

-Have trusted staff to protect the land, shoot griefers, and clean up dropped trash. Make sure they dont go overboard and act like jerks. A bonus if they can demo the product for customers.

-DONT RUN A NIGHTCLUB! Everyone and their mama thinks they're popular enough to run one, everyone and their mama fails. If you DO manage to get it somewhat popular, the UBER-CLUBS will attempt to destroy you and run you out of business. It's a cuttthroat business, really.