THOUGHT OF THE MOMENT:

Freedom,  Prosperity and Peace...

FOREVER.

SELL IT & CONNECT THEM - 2/25/05

By Mark Augustyn and Maria Kessler-Reaves

As we move into our second year of operations with thinkLIBERTARIAN.com and the LibertarianYellowPages.com, we’ve often been asked about our ‘angle’; how are we approaching our business and what exactly is it that we are trying to accomplish?  Well, here it goes….

Our first goal is to market, sell and promote the Libertarian Party and its ideals to current and future Libertarians, with a special focus on younger people.   By utilizing thinkLIBERTARIAN.com in a variety of ways, including our merchandise, our multi-media experiments and the weekly site updates, we are passionately engaged in the creation and marketing of a Libertarian identity which is ‘current, hip and competitive’.   With plans for more local and regional appearances wherever and whenever possible, a regular webcast, television advertising, and other promotional activities, we are actively working to raise the visibility and awareness of thinkLIBERTARIAN.com so that more people think about and consider what the Libertarian Party has to offer.  We operate by keeping in mind that a person cannot ‘vote’ Libertarian until they at least ‘think’ about it; if we can stir up some of that interest in our little corner of the universe, then we know that we are doing something good for the Libertarian Party.

Whereas our work with thinkLIBERTARIAN.com is in many ways geared towards creating ‘new’ Libertarians, our work with the LibertarianYellowPages.com is targeted at ‘current’ Libertarians.  Thus, our second goal is to help Libertarian sympathetic individuals increase their business and wealth by connecting and transacting with other like-minded people via the LibertarianYellowPages.com.  We also believe that increased business between Libertarians will indirectly lead to an increase in donations to the party itself along with other Libertarian causes.

With almost 350 listings to date, we are looking to expand the scope of the LibertarianYellowPages.com significantly during 2005.  Perhaps most importantly, we want to encourage a far greater range of individuals to list on the site well beyond just the business owners and professionals we have targeted to date. For example, Jane Doe sells cars at the local Ford dealership.  She does not own the dealership.  However, by listing herself on the LibertarianYellowPages.com, John Smith, a Libertarian, was able to find her, seek her out at the dealership, and purchase the car through her. John gets a nice, new car and a fellow Libertarian gets a commission. If you work in a business setting where ‘leads’ and ‘contacts’ can generate more business and income, we would encourage you, and everyone else who can, to register.  This along with some other ideas being suggested to us by a Libertarian business consultant have us quite excited about the future of the LibertarianYellowPages.com and its long term potential impact for the movement as a whole

Lastly (or firstly depending on one’s perspective), our final goal is to make the business model that includes thinkLIBERTARIAN.com and the LibertarianYellowPages.com successful enough to (1) fund itself and (2) put us in a position where the business itself can start to donate a percentage of net profits to the party and other Libertarian causes.  

What is our business reality?  We have financed all of our activities to date; cash flow during last year was sufficient to service this debt but with a post-election slow down, revenues (exclusively on the thinkLIBERTARIAN.com side) slowed.   It was only last month that we had to, for the first time ever, invest some of our own money to service our debt.  As we start to collect listing fees and explore other revenue generating activities via the LibertarianYellowPages.com, along with continuing to exploit the thinkLIBERTARIAN.com concept to its fullest, we remain profoundly positive and excited about the possibilities for both endeavors.  We certainly see the Libertarian movement as a growth industry.

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