by Diego Norte

Product

In the example we have been giving, the product is a mousetrap.  When I say “product”, I am including services.  There are a lot of different kids of products.  You don’t have to have a box.  You can offer a service to get traffic… or a service to provide copywriting.  In my various Internet businesses, I do both.

Some people like to get started with affiliate programs.  These are programs that pay you when you sell someone else’s product.  In this case, you should realize that the above formula still applies.

You just need to understand that the product you are selling is actually a service to the other company to get them qualified traffic.  It isn’t the actual product.  The product belongs to that other company.  Your product is providing a service to that company.

Your choice of product is very important.  I hope you recognized that my example above was a bit silly.  There are no conventions of mousetrap users that have a million people attending.  That’s important to recognize before you choose a product to sell.

I recommend that you start with large markets.  Don’t worry about competition.  I’ll teach later about why competition is a good thing, not a bad thing.  If you don’t have massive competiton, you are probably in a market where it is very difficult to make money.  Otherwise there would be lots more competitors.

I recommend that you imagine in your head going to some public place with a lot of people (the mall, a fair, etc) and in your mind… ask them the following two questions:

1. Are you interested in ______________?

2. Would you pay $___ to ______________?

I like markets where 30% or more answer yes to both questions and the blank after the dollar sign is something over $25.  I also like to make sure that the costs involved in creating the product or service are extremely low… on the order of 10% or less of the product price.

Some examples of good markets are:

1. make more money

2. lose weight

3. look better

4. live longer

5. have a better relationship with a significant other

If you went to the mall and asked 100 people if they would like to make more money, more than 30% would say “yes.”  If you asked them if they would be willing to spend $100 to learn how to make $1,000 more per month, more than 30% would say “yes.”

That’s a good market.  The same goes for losing weight and the others listed.

Start in one of those markets.  Don’t try to make your break selling to Norwegian alpaca farmers who are also fans of South American skiing.  All of the above numbers work against you.

OK; those are the basics.  I’ll go into more detail in future blog posts.

For now, start thinking about a product you could sell that meets the above criteria.