In every group of friends, there is a leader. This person isn’t necessarily the smartest, bravest, most daring, or even the one with the most leadership skills.

This person is the one that everyone listens to. Where everything said to listened to with respect, and absorbed as if it were the absolute truth. Say something enough times, and it will become the truth. Soon enough, everyone in that group will have the same opinions, same ideas, and same beliefs. This is how communism spread so quickly and effectively. This is how Apple has such a large cult following. And, this folks, is how Hitler became so successful. Once you drill something (a way, a fact, a piece of information) into peoples’ minds, they will believe it.

The problem is that this type of relationship takes some time to develop. To friends, you will need to earn their trust, and at least be right some of the time. With products, you need to be the first and make something semi-decent. It’s the same for everything…

I’ve always had a hard time when it comes to selling a website. The problem is POTENTIAL. Have I gotten the most out of a website that I could have? Is there still potential left in it? And if so, can I reach it?

I’ve always sold my websites when I felt like there was nothing more to be had in the niche. Maybe someone else could take it to the next level, right? Selling a website does not work like selling cars/houses and other things, because you can’t just “sell when the demand is high”…You sell when you don’t see a clear future for it anymore. Will the niche die down in a few months? For examples, proxies are generally sold before summer comes because traffic is literally dead come summertime (in comparison to the rest of the year).

Style Ignite has a great article on 8 tips to remember before designing your next site.

I feel that the most important thing before setting out to build/design a website is to know your niche. It’s very likely that someone else has thought of the same idea before you and has it published on the net already. In fact, it’s highly likely that your niche is polluted with competition. This does not mean that you cannot produce some sort of success. (Just take a look at how many web proxies are out there.) “Knowing your niche” means that you know who the big time players are, the audience they go after, and why they are doing so well.

My CTO mentioned that it seems like there are 75 “web 2.0″ templates out there and people just change the colors and text around for each new site. Why does it have to be like this? Why can’t “designers” harbor their creativity and just make something nice. The rise of flamboyant colors, images, and white space is great for many sites that target the new generation. But how many 30+ people like it? 40+? Have you ever asked someone other than your 18 year old web design buddies? If you take a look at BaseCamp and CentralDesktop’s websites. It’s clear which is more of a simple web 2.0 application, and which is more of an enterprise level application. If you are building a website that targets grandmas who want to organize photos *ahem*, don’t use bright colors. You are just hurting their eyes. Their eyes are tired. They just want to lay down and drink tea and eat the scrumptious crumpets that they baked in the morning.

The next point, is noticing what your competition is doing. Look at their landing pages and product tours. They may not be the very best executions, but their success *might* be attributed to how well their campaigns are converting.

Search Google for some news, comments, reviews, etc on your competition. See what their users are saying. Learn from their mistakes. Find out why people aren’t using their services and figure out how you can capture those users.

Here is a good article titled, Stealing Business Away from your Competition.