You may have considered using eBay stores for your business but before you set up an eBay store there are some key things you need to keep in mine in order to get the most success.

Store Name – Naming your eBay store is very important, you might be tempted to put your business name in your store but fight this urge. You only get a few characters so choose wisely and remember this is not traditional brick and mortar. People search eBay for products not business or personal names so “Anthony’s Cool Store” would not be a good name but “Website Design Success” because I have used key words in my name. What ever you sell is what you want to use in your name, in key words.

Appearance – eBay provides pre-made store design templates to choose from but the problem is everyone else uses them too; there is nothing to set the look of your store apart from others. There is a design template in eBay stores that is easily customizable, take this template and add your own custom design or have a professional store designer create a custom design for you. Potential customers will notice the difference, they will also get the feeling that you really care because you have taken time to set yourself apart from other eBay sellers.

Custom Pages – This is something a lot of eBay store owners waste but one of the most important things for SEO purposes. Each level of eBay store subscription provides you with custom pages, don’t waste them. Set up your custom pages to talk about your products and use text containing your key words to describe your products. Remember to write for your readers first and search engines second.

About Me Page – This is your spot, it’s a place where you can really connect with your potential buyer and let them get to know you. Take full advantage of this section and add information about you, how long you have been in your market, how you got started, why you are selling on eBay, how you feel about customer service, etc. People love to deal with people on a personal level so let them get to know the real you!

Personal branding is a term that a lot of us are hearing today and I think its something we are going to be hearing a lot more of in the future. What exactly is personal branding? There is a great definition of personal branding here.

Is personal branding really a new thing though? It may be new in ways it is being used now but as far as being a new idea, no, I think personal branding is a very old idea that most businesses have gotten away from. As a matter of fact I will go so far as to call personal branding “old school”.

Personal branding to me is getting to know the person behind the business, not trying to hide behind the face or logo of a business. Anyone can create a business name and a logo and hide behind that but the fact is real people should not have to hide behind a company façade, that is being an outright coward.

Did you ever have those light bulb moments? You know when the light just seems to come on and something that was so evident yet was hidden just hits you in the face? This is one of those times.

Years ago the business owners before us practiced personal branding, they built relationships with their customers and they did it on a very personal level. Hop in the time machine and go back several years, go in the old country store or to the insurance office or some other establishment, what do you think it will be like? They will call you by name, they will make you feel important and they will ask about you and truly be interested.

The bottom line is the cold hard fact that you are your business, not the name or the logo you hide behind. I am Proimpulse (Me, Anthony McMurray), not the name that took me 2 weeks to come up with over eight years ago, not the logo I designed. Seriously, who is Microsoft? Bill Gates. Who is Amazon? Jeff Bezos. Who is McDonalds? Ray Kroc. Who is Kentucky Fried Chicken? Colonel Sanders. You get my point.

Now I have never talked to any of these people in person but my point here is we have come full circle and we are getting back to the old ways of doing business we just have a better vehicle which is social media.

Are business names and logos important still? Yeah I think so, we will continue to need those but we need to open ourselves up and let people know there is a human behind them.

Another great example of personal branding is something that happened to me not long ago. My dear wife made the statement “It seems like a lot of your old friends never call you unless they have a question or issue with their computer or something involving the internet”. At first it really upset me and I thought to myself if they can’t call me just to say hello they were they ever really my friends to start with? A few days later I was with one of my long time friends (a police officer) and I decided to confront him, I told him what my wife said and his answer blew me away.

His reaction made so much sense I had to laugh at myself for thinking the silly selfish thoughts earlier. His words were “When we call you and ask you a question about the computer or the internet its not that we just come to you when we have a problem it’s the fact that we come to you because you are our expert in that field, the same reason if you have a law question you call me. Besides, we are guys and we think different than women do.”

The world is cold enough as it is, we all want to feel important and feel special. I love to walk into a business and have the owner say “Hey Anthony, how’s it going?”

I look back at the many testimonials that clients have sent to me and it amazes me what they say, “Anthony was…” or “It was a pleasure Anthony”, or “I called Anthony and he…” Was I really that blind? Have we become that cold and insensitive?

I know personally I am focusing on getting back to grass roots of getting to know people and the way business should be, what are you going to do with it?