Preview:
In Part One of this Pre-System lesson
you'll learn how to predict the profit
potential of any business idea.
In Part Two, one of our most experienced
System faculty members (ten years online)
shares his personal formula for finding
the best Internet marketing opportunities.
(The link to the tele-seminar for this
call appears at the end of this e-mail.)
======================================
Reader
How to find a hot market...
I'm going to start this lesson by summing up the first
lesson in the Pre-System series with a simple, easy-to-remember
rule.
This simple rule will keep you out of trouble, save you a ton
of money, and speed your success dramatically.
I've practically never heard anyone else talk about it - even
though I've been teaching it for years to my students at the
System Seminar - so if you're not a System insider,
odds are this is going to be brand new to you.
The rule is this:
"The market is more important than the marketing."
99% of all "gurus" get this wrong - and lead their students
astray.
They focus exclusively on tips, tricks, and techniques and
leave out the single most important lesson of all...
Your success will not come from what a "genius" marketer you are,
but from your relationship with the marketplace you're in.
There are a lot of marketing "tricks" - packaged and offered
at great cost - that either just don't work or have such
a short shelf life they're not worth the small fortune people
try to charge for them.
Real money is not made by following guru tricks.
It's made by following this formula:
1. Pick a promising market
2. Figure out what the market is lacking and willing to pay for
3. Deliver your message and your solution - ethically.
That's it.
Those are the three skills that really matter. Everything
else is hot air.
*** Step One: Pick a promising market
There's no way I could ever overstate how important
this step is.
I've lost count of how many times someone has come
to me after they've invested months and sometimes
years in a "business" that has little to no chance of
success.
* The product may be great...
* The entrepreneur may be smart and work hard...
* The target market may desperately need the company's
services...
...But none of these things mean squat in a "dead" market.
That's why I started off the Pre-System series with an interview
with the guy I believe is the best online opportunity finder
on earth Glenn Livingston.
If you haven't yet listened to this interview you should.
In this lesson, I want to share my own simple guidelines
for picking a hot market.
*** My personal formula
Whenever I look at a new business opportunity, I ask
myself these eight questions:
1. How big is the market - and is it growing?
2. How responsive is the market?
3. How reachable is the market?
4. Can I bring real value to this market?
5. Are there repeat sale opportunities?
6. What kind of infrastructure investment is required
both ongoing and just to get started?
7. How long will the market be around?
8. What is the profit potential after I pay for the
product, the marketing, the delivery, the customer
service and the overhead to support the sale?
I could write a book about this opportunity check list.
In fact I have.
It' a real book by the way, not an eBook. You might
want to check it out. It's the book with the blue cover.
It's called "System Secrets."
Info: http://www.realmarketingbooks.com/
Meanwhile, just reading this list has probably clued
you in to why I and so many people have been
passionate about Internet marketing for such a long
time (in my case 15 years.)
*** How the Internet makes business easy
Notice how the Internet provides the tools
to answer every one of these eight questions.
1. I can find out how big a market is using
the Internet in about five minutes
2. In the same amount of time, I can get a good
sense of how responsive the customers in that
market are.
3. It might take me as long as a half hour, but
in that amount of time I can get a good sense
of how "reachable" it is.
4. As for "how can I bring real value?" that's something
that takes some ingenuity, but it's not as hard as
you might think.
I have a method that streamlines the process
of getting an answer to this all-important question
dramatically which I'll talk about in Lesson Three
of this series.
5. Repeat sales opportunities are sometimes obvious.
Sometimes you have to dig a little.
But let me say this:
Think 1,000 times before you enter a business where
repeat sales are not obvious and easy. In practically
every business I know, the REAL money, the "cash out
and retire early" money is in the SECOND sale (and the
third and fourth etc.) to the same customer, not in the
first up front sale.
6. There are many great Internet-based businesses
where the sum total of your necessary start-up investment
is a computer, an Internet connection, some very
low cost tools - and what's between your ears.
I know that I've personally generated millions of
dollars in sales over the years with nothing more
than that and many of my students have done the
same - and sometimes done much better.
7. The Internet won't tell you how long a market will
be around. Common sense will.
This is an area where people kid themselves. They
"fall in love" with a business idea before they
think it through.
Here are some examples of people acting dumb:
* Investing in beanie babies was not a good long
term business strategy
* Basing an Internet business solely on banner ads
(a 1990s mistake) or dirt cheap pay-per-click ads
(a 2000-2004 mistake) was not smart
* Assuming that the US dollar would be high
and oil cheap forever was a bad assumption.
Bottom line:
Prices change...Fads run their course...New razzle-dazzle
marketing tools burn out...Grossly overpriced assets
return to earth and find their true value...Grossly underpriced
assets find their true value too by their prices going up.
So what *does* last?
Human needs. These are incredibly persistent.
A good rule of thumb: If it was important to a cave man,
it will be important to a spaceman too.
People need food, clothing, shelter...They need income
and education...They need self-respect and the respect
of others...They need a better life for their children...
They need health...They need entertainment and recreation...
They need friendship and affiliation.
I'm probably leaving a few things out, but you get the
idea.
If your business is not DEEPLY ROOTED in helping
people meet these basic, unchangeable needs, you're
in the wrong business.
You may be able to help people meet these
needs in a high tech way...fine. But never lose site
of the fact that the need is what they're paying
to fill, not the tool that fills it.
"Sell the hole, not the drill" is an old, but
eloquent saying that drives this essential
marketing truth home.
8. Profit potential after expenses...
One of the neatest things about the Internet is that many of
the usual costs associated with running a business just
don't exist in Internet marketing.
Here's just one example and it's...
*** A great place for beginners to get started
One of the most fascinating opportunities that the
Internet has created is affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing allows you to be in a lucrative marketplace
and generate significant income...without having to make or source
a product...without having to ship a product...without having
to provide customer service for a product...without having
to make the kind of big cash investment most businesses
need to get started.
Affiliate marketing is a relatively new way of doing business.
It barely existed ten years ago, and every year the field grows
and new opportunities emerge.
This year, for System 2008, we secured one of the top
educators in this field to reveal the secrets of this
"perfect" business to our students.
If you'd like to learn more about current opportunities
in this unique kind of marketing that cut your start up costs
and overhead to the bone...
And find out how a master finds his red hot affiliate marketing
opportunities, cl'ck here for a free tele-seminar on the subject.
http://www.thesystemblog.com/2008/03/james-martell-.html
Ken
P.S. This year's System Seminar - System 2008 - will be in
Chicago, May 31, 31 and June 1.
TWENTY-FIVE focused, state-of-the-art workshops on every
subject important to business owners and Internet marketers.
There's nothing else like it and no other seminar has produced
as many success stories among its students and attendees
as the System Seminar has.
Details:
http://www.TheSystemSeminar.com
Ken McCarthy
The System Seminar
---------------------------------------------------------
* Home study solutions for Internet entrepreneurs
http://www.KensCatalog.com
* The System Seminar May 30 - June 1, 2008
The annual gathering of *serious* Internet entrepreneurs
http://www.TheSystemSeminar.com
* Serious marketing books for serious marketers
http://www.RealMarketingBooks.com
---------------------------------------------------------
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Education for Internet Entrepreneurs
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