Posted by Mark B on October 29, 2009 under Marks Blog Posts | 
Don walked across the street from his house to mine to announce he had finally
retired. “But I’m not ready for the golf course,” he said. “I want
to make a living on the Internet. What can I sell?”
Post testimonials from satisfied customers or other experts in your industry.
To get full impact, be sure to list the person’s full name and the name of their
business or city they live in.
This is a question many of us struggle with as we see money, freedom, and a
bright future for those who manage to find their niche online. You may have
tried to sell something from the Internet only to find it is difficult to get
visitors to your web site and even harder to get them to buy.
The biggest hurdle is simple: most folks are trying to sell products to consumers.
That’s not where the money is. It is a more daunting task than most realize.
Only one percent of retail sales happens on the Internet. Even though selling
to consumers should be gargantuan one day, we have a long way to go before the
majority of people are placing orders the Internet way.
Instead, sell something to businesses. While consumer sales amounted to many
billion last year, business-to-business purchases vaulted to a whopping ten
times that much. Clearly, if you want the easiest path to tapping into the landslide
of Internet cash, sell a product or service needed by business.
So, you say, I should sell a product to businesses? Not exactly. Most products
need to be sold in large volumes by many distributors before they turn a profit.
Chances are the product you sell is also being pushed by hundreds or thousands
of other affiliates. In the end, many business buyers will simply click to the
main corporate site to make their purchase.
Your best bet for starting a small Internet business and earning a living online
is to sell a service to businesses. Unlike products, it is hard to mass produce
a service. Most service providers find their competition is relatively thin.
This is especially true if you provide a very specialized service or do your
job in a particular way that is hard to duplicate. Because services require
time spent by an experienced expert, rates can be high, especially for business
customers.
But I’m not an expert in anything people on the Internet would want to buy,
you exclaim. Not true.
Sit down with a pen and jot down all the things bosses have paid you for during
your work career. Add to your list things you have done on your own time that
friends, neighbors, or co-workers have felt were valuable.
Which of these things could be sold on the Internet? If you kept books for
a business with twenty employees, you can sell your bookkeeping service to the
vast number of small Internet businesses who don’t have the time or expertise
to manage their growing firm.
If you produced your church newsletter for several years, your desktop publishing
and editing skills could fill the hot demand for people who can write and publish
e-messaging campaigns, web sites, and print newsletters. Best of all, a writer/editor
deals in pure information which is easiest and cheapest to deliver over the
Internet.
My neighbor Don decided his skills from a career in law enforcement would be
hard to sell on the Internet. But he knew lots of things businesses needed and
he had a list of town residents who could fill those needs.
If you don’t readily have a service you can sell to business, find someone
who does. Many in-demand people don’t know how to market themselves on the Internet
or haven’t the time to try. Represent their service online and take a commission
for each sale.
Put up your own web site with some articles business customers will find helpful.
They can do double duty, showing you know plenty about your line of work.
Offer to send customers and prospects a monthly update via email. Include brief
updates on important developments in the industry. Mix in three line ads promoting
your service.
Selling a service to business is your least-expensive way to get started making
money online. It is also the quickest way to tap into the huge amounts of money
traveling from business to business.
About The Author
Kevin Nunley
Puzzled about earning a profit on the Internet? Get your FREE subscription
to Kevin Nunley’s e-zine “DrNunley’s Marketing Tips” at http://DrNunley.com.
Kevin has been helping people just like you make money online since 1996 with
copywriting, promotion packages, and marketing advice. Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com.
Posted by Mark B on under Other Useful Articles |
Drop shipping, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a system whereby you promote the products of a particular manufacturer, take orders directly, and the manufacturer/source handles all the inventory and fulfillment functions for you. In a nutshell, here is the drop-ship system:
==> You generate and accept the order.
==> You take your profits out of the sale price.
==> You forward the order and the wholesale cost to the drop shipper.
==> The source factory ships directly to your customer.
The benefits of this arrangement are probably obvious: No inventory cost to you.
* Substantially higher profits to you over what most regular affiliate programs allow.
* The ability to quickly set-up inexpensive, highly targeted, niche or mini-sites to test and promote diverse products.
This process has been around for years and has been responsible for many highly successful mail order dealer relationships in the past. Many of the top catalogers and other direct response marketers, have been using this system to increase profits for decades. If you have ever ordered a high priced item from a mail order catalog and been told that the product was being shipped from the factory… then you have experienced drop shipping first hand.
Drop shipping is, I believe, a virgin un-tapped storehouse of profits for todays internet marketer.
On-line directories exist which reveal essential contact information for drop shippers of over 2,000,000 products and 4,000 brands. Most legitimate drop ship sources will require that you have a state tax reseller number in order to approve you to sell their products and give you the wholesale pricing you are looking for.
Beware of any drop ship source which requires you to pay a fee in order to become a drop-ship dealer… or requires a membership. These are generally organizations which make their money selling “drop ship licenses”… and are, for the most part, scams. Legitimate drop shippers and factory sources never charge you any fees other than the actual shipping costs of the products you sell.
Another caveat… always make sure that you have a written agreement with the source factory that you own the customer! The factory or drop ship source should agree in writing not to solicit your customers in any form. This is very important to you. Your customer list is one of your most important assets. If the factory you are dealing with balks at this request… use another source who will agree.
Almost every conceivable type of product is available from a drop shipper willing to ship products in single units under your companies name. Pick your interest area… electronics, consumer products, agricultural & industrial products, office equipment & supplies, hobby gear, recreational / sporting goods, clothing, furniture, etc. The list of available products from drop shippers is almost endless.
The products actual source is invisible to the consumer. The seller (you) is able to build a database of customers that he/she owns and controls (by agreement with the manufacturer) and has all the direct marketing advantages that accompany that arrangement… while eliminating the need for maintaining expensive inventory.
This arrangement offers maximum flexibility and cost savings for the seller. If a product does not sell well online you can pull the advertising (web page or mini-site) instantly with very little cost to you outside of the actual time it took to build and test the web marketing effort. Or, since this type of page/mini-site is so inexpensive to maintain and host… you can simply leave the pages online and take whatever orders trickle through… while you move on to the testing and promotion of new drop ship products.
The manufacturer benefits from this relationship by gaining a legion of active marketers promoting their products… at little or no cost (other than those small costs involved with supporting the marketer with online marketing materials like product images, sales materials, etc).
As a marketer you are looking for several key components in developing the drop-ship relationship with a source factory or distributor:
* High Quality Products
* Blanket Product Liability Insurance (if applicable)
* A clear guarantee and return policy
* High Quality Marketing Materials … product images (gifs, jpegs, etc.), selling copy, other suitable web graphics, etc.
* A Customer Service Department that will work with you to develop the best selling situation for you.
If you are a manufacturer seeking to expand distribution (or an inventor with a new product ) you will find the willingness to drop ship in single units will give you a strong competitive edge while you carve out increased market share at little cost.
If you are an online marketer interested in offering high profit products to your niche market (your website visitors) without incurring high front-end development or inventory costs… then drop shipping is for you.
Internet marketers are uniquely positioned to take profitable advantage of the drop ship arrangement and should give this system a serious look.
About The Author
Kevin Nobleman has researched and uncovered numerous scams in the corrupt online drop ship industry. He has written special articles to help people avoid drop ship scams. With five years of experience in the online drop ship industry, Kevin has discovered over two dozen legitimate drop ship companies, wholesalers, independent suppliers and buyer/seller communities he would encourage you to do business with. He provides this report in a valuable information package on his website, http://www.restaurantandbar.org.
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Posted by Mark B on under Other Useful Articles |
Making money online used to be easier. With fewer websites, it was easier for
people to find you. This is not true any longer. Still, some people do well online.
What are the secrets of online money makers?
The secrets of online money makers are mostly common sense. If you want to
make money online, do something you love. Then realize that this is going to
take time and effort.
Many people are looking for quick riches or easy wealth. The secret of online
money makers is that they are prepared to work hard. They choose something they
love so that they stay motivated. Online money makers learn everything they
can about promoting their particular form of making money. They don’t expect
immediate wealth. They work on their business daily and continue to learn as
they grow.
Promotion is a critical secret of online money makers. Promotion helps customers
find them. Sometimes the rules of search engines change, and online money makers
keep up with these changes. It’s what they do for a living.
Good customer service is another essential secret of online money makers. You
want customers who will come back and customers who will tell others about you.
It’s no longer just word of mouth when a business serves somebody well. Now
that customer might tell some friends in an email, who will tell other friends,
and work can get around pretty fast. They can also post their reviews at various
websites, which can gain you more customers.
The secrets of online money makers are not any different than making money
any other way. It’s about doing what you love, working hard, learning to promote,
and serving the customer well. If you can do that, you can make money online.
Copyright © Cheryl Mustian
Posted by Mark B on October 25, 2009 under Marks Blog Posts |
This is the test page for my new blog site.
You won’t find any details on here at all … its just a test.
domain registration and hosting by gohostit4me.com
search engine optimisation by ibp
Mark B
