Just the other day I was very pleasantly surprised when an old friend of mine from whom I haven’t heard since over a year called me. After the usual “how’s the weather over there?” talking I quickly found myself engaged in an excited discussion about web design. After half an hour of conversation where we were talking about a lot of technical stuff I remembered how we started this conversation and BANG, it hit me. Why? My friend actually started this conversation by asking me about my work as an ecommerce and web marketing consultant! So how did we end up talking about web design and programming? Well, when I answered him he only picked out what he found important and what he could understand. And unfortunately the only thing he finds important is web design and programming! Like myself my friend is a trained web designer and network administrator and we both worked already for a bunch of people and companies creating websites and like me he recently started his own web design company. The only difference between us is that he still belongs to the 90 percent of people who have no success on the web while I belong to the 10 percent who are earning big money. So how does it come that some people are so incredible successful, while others are not even earning enough to pay their web host? It’s all about the mindset. Ask 90 percent of all so called web professionals what you have to do to build a successful web business and they will tell you all the same: It’s all about Web programming, web design and web programming again. Their eyes start sparkling when all this funny words start flushing out of their mouths and they tell you for hours all about the things you can do with java and javascript, php, flash animations, perl, cgi and whatsoever. To be true. I can understand their enthusiasm about all this fancy technical stuff because I really love it myself, but hey, I did not ask about technical possibilities. No one answered my question yet. They just got excited by all that technical stuff. What I asked was: How can I build a successful web business? And the shocking truth is: The answer is so simple that 90 percent of all the people don’t get it. It’s just one simple sentence: Do not tell your customers what they need. Ask them. That’s a simple formula. It’s easy and logical and everyone can try it. You will be amazed about the results. Of course, in order to practically apply this formula it would need much deeper exploration, but that’s not necessary at the moment. Before we go into details we have to understand the basics and the basic point here is that this mindset and ONLY this mindset is the key to a successful net marketing business. If you don’t develop this mindset of putting your customers first you can be a complete laymen or the most sophisticated search engine optimisation expert, but you will NEVER succeed. If you want a successful marketing business you need happy customers and the only way to make them happy is by first understanding and then fulfilling their needs. Like my friend, most of nowadays “web experts” focus on technical issues, programming and web design because THEY like it. But they don’t understand what their customers are looking for. Their customers aren’t looking for java, flash animations, changing images etc. They are looking for high quality information! I repeat: For… …first class high quality information. Therefore: Like in every other part of economy find out what people need. Do a great market research discover a suitable niche for yourself and focus on delivering high quality information to your interested visitors. And once they see that you understand their needs, they will build confidence in you and will be happy to buy your products, cause they know that your products are as great as the information you provide. We all have the same possibilities. You have the same possibilities as I have and I have the same possibilities as my friend, but although the internet contains the same success potential for everyone not everyone uses it. It’s your choice. You can choose, if you want to use it and be part of the 10 percent successful people or if you want to ignore it and stay in the gulch of failure. You decide.