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Dick Nichols:
PR Pro Launches
"Boomer Boutique" on Internet
 After 25 years in public and investor relations,
for a community college, an integrated oil company, two hospitals and an multinational
chemicals firm, Dick Nichols, 57, took a retirement package and worked on contract
"while I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. My contract lasted four
years and I'm glad it did because planning for idle times is a lot harder than it
sounds." Dick saw the truth of that, both the problem and its solution, as a
young man.
"I remember my father's first year of retirement. He had owned a restaurant for
more than 30 years until ill health forced him to sell his business. That first year
at home, he almost went out of his mind from boredom. Fortunately, it was an
election year and, as he was fairly well known in the community, he got himself elected to
City Council, which served as an outlet for his creative energy until the day he died.
"Dad's experience convinced me that retirement had to be more than just
playing golf and clipping coupons. I had always been interested in computers and
after reading a lot about the emerging ecommerce economy, I decided to learn as much as I
could about that Internet marketing set up my own operation from home.
"Like everything else that is advertised as a 'surefire path to easy riches,' there's
a lot more to Internet marketing than meets the eye. For one thing, the Internet
market is so diverse that even picking a product to sell, or a market niche to sell into,
is a major exercise in self-analysis and discovery. It took me more than six months
to confirm my wife's initial opinion that my wide range of interests and experiences,
coupled with the fact that I was at the leading edge of the Baby Boom, qualified me to
recommend quality products and services to other Baby Boomers. And once I had that
figured out, it took another couple of months to learn how to make money doing that.
"Meanwhile, I taught myself as much as I could about HTML programming so my web site
would look professional. Last week, after four months of intensive
learning, trial, error and revision, I finally launched The Boutique for Baby Boomers on www.RANichols.com.
"Using affiliate links, my site recommends products and services of interest to Baby
Boomers. It's still early days but I think the idea has merit. The neat thing about
the Internet is that if I'm wrong, I can just change the focus of the site and try
something else.
"My dream, however is that people will come to trust my judgement and the
site will become a venue to find links to products and services that reflect
the maturity of taste and insistence on quality that reflect the character of those born
between 1946 and 1964.
"But it's not all
business. Visitors to my Boutique are also encouraged to
subscribe to my free weekly newsletter 'Loose Change' in which I offer a
'life's like that' commentary on things of interest to me and my audience. I did this for
years for my employers as a public relations practitioner, winning writing awards from
communicators' organizations and constantly receiving enthusiastic comments from readers.
"What I've learned from the experience of setting out on a new career is that you're
never to old to begin something new. I still provide PR advice to a number of clients,
still write articles for magazines, still play lots of golf. But ecommerce is opening a
whole new vista, one which, with any luck, I will continue to explore for years to come.
"The happiest seniors I've ever known share one outstanding characteristic - their
minds are younger than their bodies. Curious and enthusiastic, they continue to find new
sources of wonder every day of their lives. That's my long-term goal."
Check out Boutique for Baby Boomers
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