I have Three Questions for You…

There’s a guy in San Diego named Charlie who likes to fry things.

Weird things that most people would never think of.  Stuff like Klondike bars, Girl Scout cookies, and Pop Tarts.

In 2011, he came up with a doozy: Deep Fried Kool-Aid. You may have heard the story.

He took something he really loved as a child, and used it as an ingredient in something new (Question #1: what did YOU love as a child that you’d like to bring back to the world in a new way?). If you do a quick search for the term “fried Kool-Aid,” Google serves up nearly 3 million results. In short, Charlie (by association) is remarkable.

He’s even referred to as “the fried food maestro.”

What does any of this have to do with you and your business? (Question #2: When was the last time someone referred to you as “a maestro?” Or even an expert?)

It doesn’t matter if you’re a service provider, or you’re selling products — in today’s Web 2.0 world, you need to be a specialist.

People aren’t parting with their money as easily as they did in the once distant past. They need to have multiple reasons to buy from you now — something they can point to that makes them confident they got the best value for their dollar.  Even if that proverbial dollar doesn’t exist (e.g., even “free” needs to be worthwhile).

One of the ways you can set yourself apart from your competitors, is by choosing a niche (Question #3: How could you take one of your passions and apply it to your business?) and then being the most outrageous expert in that area. In short, leverage your secret sauce.

The moral of the story: Don’t just sell socks. Be a sock maestro. Study the socks of other cultures. Interview other famous sock celebrities.  And then invent new types of socks.

Once you know what’s been done, you’ll also know what hasn’t been done, and you can try doing that.

So what’s your niche? What makes you a so-called expert? Share your stuff here in a comment below.