What Do You Care About?

Grouping the information you've collected about yourself as you completed the Put Like with Like task created a profile of you. When you look it over, as you'll do in this 20 minute task, think of it as a kind of x-ray image of your strengths and interests.

If you were to create a similar profile of someone close to you--say, your spouse or parent or a good friend--it would differ from yours, wouldn't it? You're unique and what you have to offer the world is important. Possibly no one will have your exact profile, but there will be many who share bits and pieces of it. Those people are the ones you can best serve and they will become your customers when you offer them solutions to their problems.

You're a complex individual with many strengths and interests. Now it's time to make use of your profile by scanning it for the things that you're passionate about. The reason is that passion gives you energy. You already invest time in things about which you're passionate. Working on a web business that concerns something you're passionate about gives you pleasure and gets you ahead at the same time.

Your 20 Minute Task

Take out your "Put Like with Like" page. Look it over. Enjoy realizing who you are. You may or may not be completely satisfied with the profile you see. But, being practical, you need to "play the hand you've been dealt." That means using your profile to find a great market niche for you.

As you look over the paper, think about each item and decide how excited you are about it. Try to choose the things you would do even if no one paid you, the ones you burble about to your friends until they're sick of it, the ones you can hardly wait to get up for in the morning. If there are things you haven't written down earlier but that really excite you list those, too.

Take a pencil and write a "1" next to the things you find give you the most energy. Write a "2" next to things that are pleasant enough but not super exciting and a "3" next to things that really don't excite you at all.

When you've found all your "1's" go back through them and put a little star next to the two or three that you find most absorbing, that seem most like "you." Pretend for a moment that you were stranded on a desert island for two weeks with absolutely nothing to do. What would you dream about doing when you were rescued and got home? When you've chosen two or three important "1's," put the list in your Market Niche folder.