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by Michael
Ellis (12/05/2005)
Knowing
exactly where to start an online business is extremely confusing to a
new entrepreneur.
What
type of business should I go into?
What
am I going to sell?
Where
do I start?
These
are all common questions that all new entrepreneurs ask themselves when
looking to start a home business. Unfortunately most of those entrepreneurs
will never actually make it to the starting line. This lack of a starting
point is just about always due to the overwhelming number of answers
that a new entrepreneur is faced with when asking these questions.
The
fact is, if you're looking to make money online, there are many correct
answers to the above questions, and there are many wrong answers to the
questions, and there are a whole lot of answers that start you in the
right direction only to end up veering you off into Neverland.
A
good way to determine what you can do to make money online is to look
at what other people are doing to make money online...so let's do just
that. Let's take a look at a couple of examples of Internet businesses
that are operating with great success today. At the end of this article
hopefully you will have a good feel of what the successful online entrepreneurs'
are doing to make money. And hopefully with this knowledge, you will be
able to start your own successful online business on the right track.
You
can sell anything on the Internet!
Don't you just hate when people say that? Of course you can sell just
about anything on the Internet, but how in the heck do YOU get a lot of
*anything* to start selling? That's the question. I can tell you to sell
cars, computers, books, blah, blah, blah on the Internet until I'm blue
in the face, but just how do you get those products cheap enough to actually
make money? That's the real question - and that's the question we will
try and answer in this article.
Let's
take a look at two very popular methods that entrepreneurs' use to get
products to sell on the Internet:
- They create
informational products to sell
- They purchase
products at wholesale to resell
Neither
of the two methods seem very difficult to understand. In fact, they seem
rather self explanatory. But just what's involved in each of these methods?
And how does a newbie go about getting into the business - the right way?
Well let's take a closer look at each method and try to answer those very
questions.
However,
before we dive into each method, it's a good time to point out that a
new entrepreneur should probably pick just one method and dedicate themselves
to becoming an expert in that area. It just isn't productive to try and
cover too many things at one time - at least in the beginning. But before
you pick what you want to go into, let's go over some details of each
method to help give you an idea of what is involved.
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Create
Informational Products to Sell
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|
Selling
informational products are a great way to earn an extra income on
the Internet. And creating your own information product to sell
on the Internet can be extremely profitable. Believe me, there are
Internet entrepreneurs out there that create simple 30 page documents
and package it into an E-Book and sell that product and updates
to the product for years!
Just
what is an E-Book? Well, an E-Book is simply an electronic book
that is stored in a file and you read it directly from your computer
screen. They are very popular among Internet entrepreneurs because
of the low cost to create and virtually no cost to duplicate and
transfer. For example, E-Books can be created with very basic programs
- and they are just as easy to create as writing a long letter.
There aren't any costs for materials like in a normal book production.
And since these E-Books are just files on your computer, the duplication
process is as simple as copying a file. The transportation cost
of sending an E-Book to a customer is also virtually free, that
is, you can simply send the file via email or make it downloadable
from your website.
But
here's the kicker...
It
may be hard to believe, but E-Books sell for as much as regular
books, and many times, they sell for much more! For example, it's
very common to see an 80-100 page E-Book selling on the Internet
for $27 - $97. For 100 pages of content that can be duplicated and
sent to the customer at zero costs! With that kind of profit margins,
it's very easy to see how an author of just 1 E-Book can find herself
(or himself) raking in enough income to quit their job and dedicate
themselves fulltime to writing and selling more E-Books - which
is what I see successful Internet entrepreneurs' doing all the time.
And think about it, once the E-Book is created, there isn't anymore
work to do other than advertise! This is a great automated income
strategy.
So
how does a newbie write an E-Book?
Well,
what do you know about? Do you have a hobby that you like talking
about? Maybe your regular job makes you an expert in your particular
field? I would bet that you are already an expert in at least one
particular area. You can write about that area!
You
can write about gambling, fishing, fixing cars, fixing homes, making
money in real estate, or making money in anything else... the list
goes on and on. Take for example, the successful Internet guru Corey
Rudl. Corey started out in the Internet marketing business by selling
an E-Book that he created called "Car
Secrets" which contained numerous tips for the everyday
car owner. Within a few short years Corey's business grew into a
multi-million dollar enterprise. And he's not the only one. I can
think of example after example of other regular people that have
also found their fortune in selling their writings via E-Books.
How
do you know there is a market for your topic?
There
is a market for just about anything. You can even test that market
before you write a single word. For example, go to your favorite
search engine and type in the name of your topic that you would
like to write about. Odds are you're going to get bombarded with
1000s of forums and websites interested in the topic. You can study
these sites. Take a month and research the forums and get a feel
of what your potential customers would like to know. Then write
an E-Book on the topic. Keep in mind, you can advertise in these
websites and forums once your product becomes available.
What
if you don't know enough about anything to write about it?
Well,
are you good at doing research? The truth is, nobody has knowledge
of anything until they research and study it. And that's exactly
what you can do - find a topic of interest that has a good market
demand, research it, and write a short book on your findings. There
are a lot of successful entrepreneurs that do this all the time!
For
example, I know of a couple entrepreneurs that pay very close attention
to the book titles on the Amazon.com non-fiction best-sellers list.
Once they find a topic that they are interested in, they go out
and aggressively research that topic and write an E-Book on their
findings. The whole process of research and writing takes them about
4-6 weeks, and they are very successful at creating an informative
product that is sure to be a good seller. How do they know that
it will be a good seller? Well, they already confirmed that there
is a market and high demand for their product - the topic is on
the Amazon.com's best-sellers list. And after spending a month of
hard work researching and writing, they now have a product that
they can sell and provide updates for years - from just those 1.5
months of work!
What
do you need to start?
How
to write and publish your own outrageously profitable ebook... in
as little as 7 days!
Everything
you'll ever need to know about creating eBooks on the cheap (and
quickly) can be found in Jim Edwards & Joe Vitale's course:
How to write and publish
your own outrageously profitable ebook... in as little as 7 days!
These
guys are true professionals that hold nothing back, and their step-by-step
instruction is some of the best out there.
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Now
let's switch gears a bit and look at another popular way to get products
to sell on the Internet.
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Purchase
Products at Wholesale to Resell
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Unfortunately,
this topic irks a whole lot of people (including myself). If you've
spent any time looking for wholesale product sources online, then
you're very likely to have a bad taste in your mouth right now.
There are just so many online advertisements promising to show you
how to make money by buying and selling their "secret" wholesale
products from their "secret" wholesale sources. Baloney, baloney,
baloney.
You
are probably familiar with the concept of the wholesale list. If
not, the idea here is that you purchase a list of wholesale sources.
From the list of wholesale sources, you can purchase products for
resale. Supposedly, you can purchase these products at a low enough
price (wholesale) that you can add a profit and resell them online
or other venues.
The
term 'Wholesale List' is very enticing. Having a list of contact
information to wholesale companies willing to sell you products
that are in demand for extreme discounts is obviously a business
goldmine. Many times you will find these lists being peddled around
home business magazines or online auctions. Usually the advertisement
will say something to the order of "Become a Distributor to 1000's
of Hot-Selling Products" or "Be an auction super-seller like us"
while referring you to their "secret" list of wholesale sources,
which is for sale of course.
If
you buy into this offer, it is very likely that you will find that
each of the venders listed within the secret list fall into one
of the three following scenarios:
- The
vendor no longer exists
- The
vendor is NOT a true wholesale vendor at all (just middleman in
a middleman-chain)
- The
vendor is promoting some other products (not for wholesale I might
add)
| Middleman-chaining
is a common process in wholesale product purchasing arrangements.
It refers to the situation where the wholesale vendor turns
out to be a middleman that purchases products from another wholesaler,
or even another middleman. You simply cannot make any profit
from these types of arrangements - your discount on the products
is simply not high enough for resale. |
The
fact is, finding quality source information to true wholesale products
(which are in high demand) takes time and effort. Many companies
have entire teams dedicated solely to this task. The sad truth is,
a great majority of the so-called wholesale lists being marketed
are nothing more than a cut-n-paste compilation of the search results
from someone typing 'wholesale products' in an online search engine!
And as a result, you end up with information that falls into the
three scenarios list above.
Is
there hope?
Yes,
absolutely! People are getting rich selling products on the Internet
every day - just look at the heavy hitters on eBay. These people
have to be getting their products from somewhere, right?
In
order to make it in this area you must have a legitimate product
source willing to sell you the products at a low enough cost to
allow you to make money.
So
where do you find a legitimate product source?
I've
spent a lot of time looking for a true source of wholesale products,
and the truth is, I've only found one: Worldwide
Brands, Inc.
This
is a very honest company that provides a great service. If you're
interested in reselling products on the Internet, save yourself
a ton of money and years of searching for the right wholesale source
and check out what Worldwide
Brands has to offer. In fact, they are the only wholesale and
drop-ship directory publisher that is certified by eBay.
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Each
of the above methods has been successfully used by thousands of online
entrepreneurs to generate full-time and part-time income. There is absolutely
no reason that you cannot do the same.
As
said earlier, it's best to select just one way to make money online at
first. Whether you choose to create E-Books or buy products for resale,
just select one route first. It's important for a beginning Internet entrepreneur
not to try and cover too many things at once.
The
fact is there are many ways to make money online, if you have the right
information. But even with the right information, you really need to go
about starting your business in steps, and once that business is off and
running, starting another business, again in steps.
Remember,
creating multiple streams of income is the ultimate goal, but for the
highest chances for success, you should only start with one stream! Remember,
start somewhere, but not everywhere. Once you get good at one money-making
method, branch into others.
Good
luck! And be sure to come back to visit VictoryKey often for more online
business tips and discussions!
Author - Michael Ellis (Email: michael@victorykey.com)
Talk more about this topic in our VictoryKey Internet Marketing
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