Chris Anderson wrote a book called Long Tail . The subtitle was “Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More”. Which is gibberish until you read the book.

Basically the concept is: we all focus on the BIG. And when people think about making money they thing they’ll go into fashion or the car business or construction. And so if we visualize the tail of a brontosaurus as the free market most people go up against the giant part of the tail. In other words you are contemplating taking your music business online. Well, if you do that you are going up against giants that have very deep pockets. It’s basically in a word: impossible. Instead of attacking the entire music industry and trying to dominate it online (uh, did I say impossible) focus on jazz music produced starting in the 30’s. Or instead of competing in the car restoration business compete in restoring the interiors of Ford Trucks. Get the idea.

Instead of focusing on the “thick” part of the tail in a niche go down to the very thin part of the tail. It’s there that the average person can make a lot of money. And once you do it in one area you can duplicate it indefinitely. I ran into this over 10 years through a friend. He told me about his son who loved folk music from the sixties. So he started hanging out in record stores and collecting records. After awhile he had duplicates so he started selling them on eBay and did well. I thought it was brilliant at the time and now understand he’d tapped into the long tail. I never connected the dots but now that I understand it I know it will be my modus operandi the rest of my life.

I always like to end a post with a so what for local business because that’s what we are all about here at Small Business is Big. The first thing you need to do in regards to the theory of the long tail is to make a very detailed and thoughtful inventory of what you have going on in your business. And what you as a person have going on inside of you. In other words, you have a skill set, a knowledge base, a wisdom that no one else on the planet has – so find it. Identify it and write it down and then reduce it to one succinct sentence. Then do it in your business. What has made you the most money? What is the big profit service or product?

More times than not they will be a match with your local busines and what you love and what you know. Using information from this site and other online sources and a free consultation make a game plan to dominate your tiny piece of the long tail.