From: "Chris Gozdzik" <diviningmind@diviningmind.com>

Hi Bogdan and the List,

Well, after that last prompt I decided to write my little success
story. It all started during my visit to Poland in 1997 when my old
passion and interest in dowsing and alternative healing reached the
peak. I contacted some manufacturers of dowsing equipment and went on
to create a business plan. I knew nothing about the business on the
Internet, so I asked a friend of mine to design a web page for me. It
took a long time to get my front page - he was very busy. I decided
to learn it myself - it took me several weeks to create my first
"masterpiece", but it was all mine! Then the advertising part came
in. I went through the usual for a novice - FFA links, free ads,
rented a "safe" e-mail list and almost got kicked out of my server.
You should've heard my heart pounding when I got my first order! This
is the greatest feeling for a new business operator. I signed up with
several discussion groups on similar topics and gained a bit of
respect - this helped a lot when I learnt to use signature files! I
subscribed to several ezines on the subject of online marketing,
including this one, and started employing some new strategies. Little
by little my position on the search engines went up and the customer
list grew bigger. Then there was my listing on Yahoo, that brought
new traffic, I started accepting credit cards and started my own
newsletter and mailing list, the recent addition was my own affiliate
program. My site doesn't get a lot of traffic, but the conversion
ratio is very good. I get a lot of repeated business - customer
service is the number one priority. This leads to satisfied and loyal
customers and the best kind of advertising - word of mouth. I get
about 60% of traffic from search engines and the rest from reciprocal
links on other sites and affiliates. Advertising is still my biggest
concern - it's a bit more difficult to get through to your target
market in such a very narrow subject. My plans - just started working
on my second domain/website; I'd like to develop a portal
website/link directory related to dowsing, alternative healing, etc.
with lots of free resources for visitors. I'm still looking for a
script that would run it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
In conclusion - I base my business on honesty and trust and
responsive customer service. Whenever possible - I try to apply the
principle: promise less, deliver more.

Take care!
Chris Gozdzik

"Dowsing Tools with a difference"
http://diviningmind.com