subject: Starting a Home Based Internet Business Part 1 the First Step by:Dana Lind [print this page] It took me years to find one successful product that sold online. Over those years I have learned a lot. In this article I will try to provide real information that is not meant to sell you my over priced information product that will only tell you some things and not real ways to start an online business.
Now a days there is so much information available about starting a home based internet business most people would not know where to start. If they do have an idea the information on that idea is so vast and confusing the information overload will paralyze starting that business let alone making it progress once it is started.
Let me first explain why I am writing this article so you can faith in the information. Writing articles is a great way to get free exposure to your website and get a better ranking in the search engines. So I do have a partially selfish reason for giving out this information.
This is very important for you the reader to understand! Why? Because you need to know the motive behind the information you are researching so you can determine the validity and value of that information.
If you have found other information on the web you may wonder why so much of it is vague and why it does not really tell you anything. The reason is because most information about starting a home based internet business is designed only to give you enough information to wet your appetite only to a point. Why?
Because they are selling information.
Does that mean that you should not buy that information? Not necessarily. I personally have bought a lot of information and have learned a lot from that information. I would say if you have no idea where to start, getting the right information can be a great stepping stone in the right direction.
However, buyer beware! Many of those information products have serious draw backs to them.
1. Many of those info products will try to up-sell coaching and similar products at exorbitant prices and this is the real way they make money. So their real expertise is selling coaching and scams!
2. Many of those selling information products make their living online selling information products.
Therefore their qualifications you should call into question because unless you want to get into the business of selling information or coaching on internet businesses you won't learn much from them. But if you decide to sell info products you won't get any help creating your own info product.
There is a catch 22 to the information sellers that has some good benefit that I will cover in this article.
First I am going to tell you what I think and what I have learned is the best things to sell online.
However, there is another reason I am writing on this subject and I hope you can find this information beneficial. I am also writing it because I had so much trouble finding decent information on starting and profiting from an internet business myself.
I really wish there was some good free information out there that I could find that would cover what I had already learned and what I didn't know in a way that would not leave me with more questions than answers!
It is very frustrating because much of the information I found was deceptive and had a hidden agenda. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for good information that would help me further my business, but so much of it is questionable that it is impossible to decide what's right and what's wrong.
The other thing that makes it so hard is these people are masters at marketing!
Really that is what they are expert at. Marketing!
You should understand a key thing about marketing and advertising. It is all about psychology. These people have studied human psychology and they are masters at manipulation. They have made it there business to know what to sell and HOW to sell to any one and everyone.
These people make used car sales men look like saints.
Ok so let's get into some meat and potatoes about internet marketing.
In this article I will cover what the best products to sell online. Also, I will cover a very cool way to make money without having any products and it is not the drop shipping scam!
Probably the best thing (I personally have no doubt that this is true) to sell online is information.
What a bombshell right?
That is why there is so much information for sale online. Let me explain why this is a fact.
It is easy to reproducein fact you can send it electronically and never have to spend any money on any inventory!
It is also easy to automate. You could set up your info product to sell automatically without any effort on your part besides the creation and setup of the info product!
You can charge a low price, making in very reasonable for your customers to purchase therefore making sales to lots of people because they do not have to risk much.
So as mentioned there is a catch 22, and that is, those selling info products know how to sell info products and probably make their living that way.
The obvious question ishow do I come up with my own unique info product? Well you most likely will not get that information from someone selling an info product. I haven't.
The answer to that question really is tricky. I will explain what I did and hopefully that will give you some insight. I will also make suggestions that I think can help you come up with your own info product.
Once I learned this pointsell info products, I really had to think about what I knew (information I could sell) that I could sell and it would also be fair and a good value to my customers. Believe me I had been screwed more than once and had more attempts to screw me.
Being someone with a conscience I really wanted to provide something with real value.
Fortunately I have some very specialized training; unfortunately, my knowledge really could not be conveyed in a written form. It really needs to be hands on training.
However, there was one service we offered that was very easy and worked very well. It was also possible to write instructions for this service in a way that could be understood by a majority of people.
Finally I had a viable idea that I could sell that had value and was an honest info product that I could in good conscience offer and profit from.
I created a Headlight restoration guide! (At this stage it was only in my head.)
That being said I had a new dilemma. In order to use my info product you needed certain products that could end up costing close to $100. Also, some products were only available to professionals and could not be bought in small quantities.
To use my method the way I provided the service you needed 6 different grits of sand paper, a prep cleaner, a roll of masking tape, a buff pad, a compound or leveler (and the leveler or compound was the most important part of this product) a wax or sealer, and a final wipe spray wax or similar product for the final clean up.
To buy the different grits of sand paper alone would cost $30 because even if you bought an assorted pack you would not get all the sand paper I used and what I later put into what became my headlight cleaner/restoration kit.
The buff pads cost $10-$20 each, not to mention the chemicalswhich the cheapest chemicals would cost $5 each because they sell in 16 oz. quantities. Now you're up to at least $60 worth of product, and that's with no instructions what so ever.
So, I decided the best thing to do was make a kit. We already stocked everything you would need to put into the kit. All we needed was to redistribute the products into small bottles, smaller sheets of sand paper (you cannot buy 1 sheet of sand paper and they are sold in full 9x11 sheets which you do not need for this) tape, a buff pad that works , the bottles to put the products in etc.
Now we had turned our info product into a kit. The biggest reason for me doing this was because I really wanted a happy costumer. Believe me, that is not the motivation of most companies, their motivation is to turn a quick buck with as little overhead as possible with the least amount of effort.
As I said before I wanted to sell a valuable product that I could live with. We are a small family business and believe in family values.
Ok, enough about me you may be wondering why any of this is relevant to you creating your own info product or how it could be.
I remember reading something one time before all this that was supposed to be about creating my own info product. In fairness to the author it was a decent article and they were not selling something. However, it didn't really tell me much.
Now maybe I haven't either, but I am hoping that by telling my experience and how our creative process worked, maybe it can and will inspire you in a similar way.
Also, there were other people selling similar products but we had unique experience and no one has anything like what we made. So do not be discouraged if other people are selling something similar to your idea. That is actually a good thing because it means there is a market for it. Just make your information better!
One point I did get out of that article was the suggestion they offered was try making an info product based on some special knowledge you may have.
So as it turned out I was able to turn my knowledge into an info product.
This is what I would suggest, and please forgive me if this does not help because I really am hoping it will. Look at what you know, what you have learned through out life, and what you have been taught and try to evaluate that knowledge and determine if there is any special knowledge that others can find beneficial.
I have worked in many different fields and have become proficient in many areas. For example, I learned how to build my own computer in the last few years. Primarily because I have learned with the internet you can find any and all information you need about any field, which is really cool.
However, if you have some special knowledge that can benefit others that they could not other wise learn on their own, by all means make an info product!
When you are creating your info product, be sure to think about the fact that the best way to convey that information is to be sure and explain why your information is true and why it works that way. You will have better success getting the information received positively and in a way that benefits your customer.
The other thing to consider when deciding an info product is what information will have a broad audience.
To me the obvious answers are things every one uses; cars, homes, appliances, clothing, food, and the more people that would benefit from your info the broader your customer base will be therefore the more successful you will be in selling it.
Are info products starting to sound not so good after all? That was part of my dilemma. I was fortunate. There are alternatives to info products that can be sold but this is one of the better ones.
So in summary, if you have a great idea for an info product or products it could be a great way to get started in a lucrative internet business. Now all you have to do is get people to visit the site where you are selling your product and to buy.
As mentioned before another great way to make money online is what's called affiliate programs. If you have not heard of affiliate programs they are a way for companies to make money through your efforts and pay you a commission. No these are not MLM companies!
The great thing about these programs is you don't need any products whatsoever. This may sound like drop shipping but it is not.
The problem with drop shipping is, in order to make money you have to try to sell products at a competitive price which really cuts into your profits because the price you pay is nowhere near as low as what your competitors pay. Mainly because they buy in bulk and get a much lower price. In fact I have seen products on eBay cheaper than I can buy at my wholesale price . Also, what if you sell something and your drop shipper is out of stock?
That has happened to me and believe me it sucks. You have to contact your customer and try to explain why you are selling something you don't have! If you are selling on eBay like we are you can't file a non-paying bidder to get your final value fees refunded and you risk negative feedback.
The thing I like about affiliate programs is there are tons and tons of great reputable companies that have affiliate programs.
This is how they work. (You need a website in case you are wondering.) You simply find companies you want to become affiliates for, sign up, and post links on your website to your affiliate programs. When your visitors click on those links the affiliate stores your information for up months, in case the customer doesn't buy right away.
Once the customer buys you get your commission. The trick to this is getting the programs and getting the visits to your website.
Some people make a 6 figure income or more just on affiliate marketing. You can setup a website just for your affiliate programs. Your website home page is like a directory with brief descriptions on your programs and you can have hundreds of programs with hundreds of potential commissions.
The awesome thing about this is once you have your programs setup all you have to do is find ways to drive traffic to your website and collect on the commissions.
By the way, the reason I know this is because I read about affiliate marketing from someone selling information on making money on affiliate programs. Of course their information did not tell me what exactly they were doing. However, with a little research I found their website and pieced together other information I had learned and was able to see what they were doing.
In fact we plan on using this very idea ourselves in the near future to start our own affiliate website.
In my next article I'll explain ways to drive free traffic to your website and find out who links to your competitors websites.
I own an automotive paint repair company specializing in spot repairs, custom color matches, color blends, body repairs, touch up and scratch repair. We also run a website where we sell our exclusive headlight restoration kit which we designed and created. We have sold well over 2000 kits from our website and on eBay. We also have over 1900 positive feedback for our headlight restoration kit.
