Guest post from Melinda F. Emerson who wrote the national bestseller Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months; A Month-By-Month Guide to a Business That Works. Melinda is known to many as the “Small Biz Lady,” one of the country’s leading small business experts. 

One of the top reasons why small businesses fail is because they try to sell to anyone that they think has money.  Now hear this:  If everybody can use your product or service, no one will.

That is why it’s important to have a niche – narrow in on your potential customers.  A niche has a particular market or specialty area where a company finds it profitable to concentrate its efforts. Niche marketing also offers an area of limited competition.

Why Niche?  Continue reading to learn how you can get a free copy of my book brought to you by the Verizon small business team.

Please join me in welcoming this week’s featured author Melinda F. Emerson who wrote the national bestseller Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months; A Month-By-Month Guide to a Business That Works (Adams Media 2010).  Melinda is known to many as the “Small Biz Lady,” one of the country’s leading small business experts. 

This Thursday, August 11, at 2 p.m. ET, Melinda will be available for a full hour on Twitter (#bizbooks) to answer questions on starting and running a small business.  When asking a question be sure to include #bizbooks in the Tweet so we can track it.

By popular demand, the Verizon Author Series introduces four more authors in August.  Authors' books will be given away on our blog; on Twitter (www.twitter.com/VZSmallBiz); or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/VerizonSmallBiz).  Each author will be available LIVE on Twitter so get your questions ready!

We will bring four more authors to the Verizon Author Series this month so stay tune to this blog to get advice from Melinda Emerson, Steven Sisler, Wendy Stevens, and Susan Solovic.

Check out the articles we found this week that’s interesting.

Happy reading!