When you’re operating in a crowded market, it’s not always possible to compete by offering a better or  cheaper product, so what can you do. I just read about two companies…one is probably the biggest company of its type in the world and the other a start up…but they both reached the same conclusion – people want stuff faster.

Amazon are about to offer one hour delivery in New York. The service, which promises delivery in as little as an hour in Manhattan between 6 a.m. and midnight, will expand to other cities in 2015. The company will charge $7.99 for delivery within an hour. More than 25,000 items are eligible under the Prime Now program, which is only available to customers who pay $99 for the annual Prime membership.

At the other end of the scale, new business UrbanStems hopes to beat its competition in the pricey Manhattan flower delivery market by carrying fresh bouquets to your door within an hour for $35 dollars including delivery.

There’s no doubt that consumers are becoming increasingly impatient and demanding vis a vis delivery time. Could you gain a competitive edge in your market by offering extraordinary delivery times?

I wrote a book called “How To Stop Working And Make A Million Pounds Instead.” So I was very interested to read someone else’s take on how to make a million in a year, which they broke down into four key points. Here they are:

1. Choose a growing market… If you can find a growing trend you can ride the wave all the way to the top.

2. Figure out how to make money first… Don’t follow the .Com path and start a business with little idea where the revenue will come from. A business that doesn’t make money is a hobby.

3. Find a market with competition and be the best. If there’s no competition, there’s probably a very good reason! You’re unlikely to be the first to come up with an idea, so no competition probably means it’s not a great idea. Figure out what the competition do badly and aim to do it better. In fact aim to be the best.

4. Constantly review, revise and repeat. Never stop analysing and improving.

I can’t argue with any of that. Excellent advice.  Just one more thing not mentioned here which is critical… Take action!  Nothing works until you do.

I have a Linkedin account but have to admit that I’ve never really used it properly – mainly because I don’t really operate in the corporate world. I think I could make a lot more of it though, and just read some advice for site users which I think could bear fruit over the long haul.. Here it is in a nutshell:

1. Send thank you notes to everyone you connect with.
2. Connect with those you might do business with in the future – not just people you already work with.
3. Commit to connecting with one new person a day.
4. Share content regularly.
5. Comment on other peoples content.

Worth a try? There’s not a lot to lose.

How much would you pay for a story? Before you answer, consider the following.

A three foot piece of wood is probably worth about a pound, maybe even less if it’s an old piece of wood. Fashion it into something you can use and the value goes up a bit. I’d imagine you might pay £10 or £20 if that piece of wood was shaped into a Baseball bat. So how come someone paid around £130,000 for a Baseball bat? Well the bat in question was the one used by Babe Ruth to hit the first home run out of Yankee Stadium on April 18^th 1923.

Whoever bought that bat didn’t pay for an old piece of wood, nor did they pay for a functioning baseball bat. Almost all of the value was tied up in the story surrounding the bat. The tangible item is no different to thousands of others valued at just a few pounds.

So what can you take away from this? Well if you’re able to tell an interesting story about or around something you’re selling it can have a dramatic effect on value….maybe not quite as dramatic as this, but it’s worth thinking about.

Do you have an iPod Classic Mp3 player? If you do, you could be sitting on something that’s worth more than you think. The product was withdrawn from sale in October 2013, but now it’s selling on Amazon for up to four times it’s original price. Why? Well apparently the obsolete model holds more than double the number of songs of the current model.

I have no idea why Apple have reduced the capacity of their iPod’s, but that’s not really important. What might be important though is that you could have something sitting in a drawer doing nothing which someone would happily pay £300 or more for.