No, not what you are thinking. Not an electrically charged mentoring encounter with a high powered marketing guru.

Friends, take a short break from your work, and stay with me a couple minutes.

Tommy is a nine year old boy, an extraordinary nine year old, who had something important to teach us, my sister and me, and you too, perhaps. Teachers come in all kinds of packages. Don't be fooled by the cover.

Spending time with Tommy was one of the most pleasurable times I have had in a very long while, certainly one of the most rewarding.

My sister and I were having lunch at  the local pub restaurant, talking business as usual. Karen and I are partners in a design business. Out of nowhere, this elf-like little boy decided to take residence at our table. At first we were charmed by his attention, but we really didn't like being interrupted. After all, we were having a business meeting. Can anything be more important than that? Of course, we were flattered that he was interested in sitting with us, two adult ladies, ancient from his perspective, and ladies too? Maybe, he knew we were imposters, kids in adult clothing. That would be an accurate assessment.

Tommy's Mom worked at the restaurant, and he was waiting for her to finish work and take him home. Not a problem for him, for he was more than content to be with us. Tommy put us through a grueling initiation, probably to determine if we were on a par with him intellectually. There were a series of questions about history, math, literature, culminating in a flurry of questions about the Harry Potter series. Thank God, I read every one of those books so it was easy to answer his questions. It felt more like lunch with Bertrand Russell than a little boy, so I kiddingly asked Tommy what he did for a living. He said he is an actor, and just made a movie with Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon. Sure enough, he's a child actor.

What impressed me most about the precocious nine year old is not that he is making movies, but that he has such a sense of himself at such a tender age. He is self contained. He knows exactly who he is, and is completely unaffected, unimpressed, unspoiled, and comfortable being himself. He has grace. Oh, and Tommy also has definite ideas about the scripts he is reading, and thinks most comedy is poorly written. How "bout that for a nine year old? Is this the way Ron Howard started?

How do I correlate this experience with what we are doing at WA? The important message is to "know yourself." When choosing a niche, I think it is important to figure out what and who you are. Are you an apple? an orange? a peach? or a tomato? Who are you? What is your strength? Where can you be of most service to others? Follow that path, the obvious path.

Kyle and Carson tell us that you can market just about any product over the Internet. If that's true, then go in a direction that is fun for you and where you have something special to offer. The rest will follow.