* I emailed this to my ezine list yesterday and wanted to reprint it on the blog.

#1 Problem Internet Marketers Have:

“What The Heck Do I Sell?”

I hear this time and time again…

People tell me they want to start making money online but they have no idea what to sell or how they will generate an income.

The answer to this question, for about 95% of those making money online, comes down to TWO product types:

1. CONTENT
2. MERCHANDISE

That’s pretty much it.

If someone is making money online they are probably making money from one of those areas or both.

And there are TWO ways to market and make money in those areas…

1. AFFILIATE
2. MERCHANT

Many people just want to be an AFFILIATE so they don’t have to deal with shipping products and what many feel is “actually running a business.”

Hey, what could be better than just driving traffic and getting paid?

There certainly is good money to be made as an affiliate, but if you’re only focused on generating income as an affiliate then you’re really missing the boat…

There’s a lot more opportunity in being a MERCHANT and having your own affiliate force working hard to send you traffic.

You’ve probably heard the analogy before, would you rather have 100% of your own efforts or 1% of the efforts of 100 others?

(Or however that saying goes.)

In other words, it’s a major advantage online to have a group of marketers working hard to send traffic to your site! You don’t even have to do any work… they do all the SEO, PPC campaigns, etc. You just pay that person a commission after they send you a paying customer.

It really is the “ultimate” business deal.

But to be a merchant you need to be selling your own products, right?

NOT EXACTLY.

This is a “myth” that most people completely misunderstand.

Many marketers think to sell products themselves they need to invent some unique “widget” or go and put in months of work to create some information product.

But let’s back up for a moment…

I mentioned there are TWO main product types being sold online:

1. CONTENT
2. MERCHANDISE

Content would be information products. From ebooks to DVDs, CDs, manuals, binders, etc.

But content can also be information freely publishing on blogs, web sites, or in other ways that is monetized by advertising. (i.e. AdSense or ads sold to advertisers.)

So don’t just think of ‘content’ as some infoproduct that’s sold. An active blog with regular posts that’s generating a good amount of traffic and can be monetized by ads is generating revenue from CONTENT.

To be in the content business as a MERCHANT you pretty much DO need to have your own UNIQUE CONTENT.

There are some minor exceptions to this such as “resale rights” products but in the over 15 years I’ve been marketing online I’ve yet to come across anyone making a lot of money from just selling a resale rights product.

Hey, just being honest.

Resale rights products CAN make some decent money for some, but the ones that usually do well with them are marketers that are already selling their own unique infoproducts to a group of customers and then make additional revenue by offering the resale rights product “in addition” to their main products.

I think many newbie marketers fall into the trap that they are going to get rich if they just buy the resale rights to some product they will have the license to sell.

Why doesn’t this usually work?

For the same reason almost anything won’t work… IT’S TOO EASY FOR OTHERS TO REPLICATE.

In other words, when 1,000s of people can buy the same resale rights, and all they have to do is put the pre-written, pre-designed web site online, the market is instantly SATURATED with way too much competition.

There is MASSIVE opportunity online to make money in a number of different ways, but the best opportunities are almost always those that take more WORK than others.

Yep, that’s the secret.

Okay so we discussed the CONTENT side a bit. Unless you’re going to do what it takes to create your own in-demend, UNIQUE content, it’s going to be very hard to make a lot of money.

So what’s the other option?

MERCHANDISE.

This is the ‘part’ of making money online that I think is the most misunderstood…

There are some companies online selling their own unique products that they actually manufacture, but you know what?

This is probably less than 0.1% of the BILLIONS upon BILLIONS being spent online for merchandise.

Do you think Amazon.com is actually ‘making’ the products they sell?

Nope.

How about Buy.com? Or Walmart.com? Or ToysRUs.com? Or JCPenney.com? Or BlueNile.com? Or Sears.com?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Or what about the thousands of smaller ecommerce stores that are making their owners a small fortune?

Nope, not them either.

HUH!?!?!?

Yes, it sounds a bit confusing but on the MERCHANDISE side of ecommerce the majority of what’s being sold is being sold by MARKETERS and *not* the actual manufacturer.

And YOU have every right to be one of these marketers of merchandise online… Yes, YOU can be the MERCHANT.

AND…

You don’t have to ‘make’ or ‘invent’ a thing. Heck, you don’t even have to stock any inventory if you don’t want to either. It’s called “Dropshipping.”

You can make a lot of money with your own ecommerce store selling merchandise. (Or multiple stores if you want — they are easy and cheap to setup.)

BUT THERE’S *ONE* MAJOR PROBLEM…

Remember how I said the better opportunities are usually the ones that involve more WORK than others?

Well, when it comes to making money from your own ecommerce store, there *IS* a barrier to entry.

This is the single biggest factor that keeps so many other people from going into business with their own successful ecommerce store.

WHERE THE HECK DO I FIND A REAL WHOLESALER? (And how do I get setup to sell their stuff?)

And there it is. The Big Barrier.

THAT is why everyone and their brother isn’t setting up a successful ecommerce store.

It’s the same reason why a small percentage of eBay sellers make a lot of money week in and week out while the majority of sellers STRUGGLE to make any money at all.

If you’ve ever been surfing eBay and doing some research into these sellers you’ve probably already thought the same thing…

“If I only knew where they got their stuff I can make money by selling it too!”

And you’d be 100% right.

Too bad it’s nearly impossible to find out where they are getting their merchandise.

And don’t even think they are going to tell you so you can compete with them.

So How Do You Find Real Wholesalers?

You have two options…

1. Spend A Lot Of Your Time And Energy
To Do Heavy-Duty ‘Trial and Error’ Yourself

2. Just Pay Someone Who Has Done It
For You

Option #2 seems like a no-brainer for sure.

This is the option that companies like Amazon, Wal Mart, Buy.com, etc. use. They certainly don’t jump from ‘wholesaler’ to wholesaler and lose a ton of money only when they discover the wholesaler they were working with was a middle man marketing up the cost of the products — OR worse, they end up working with a company that doesn’t actually supply the products they promised to.

So these companies have research services they use to find the best deals and manufacturers and then they just focus on doing what they do best — MARKETING.

And this is what YOU need to do if you want to make a nice living from running your own successful ecommerce store.

But here’s the problem…

Online there’s no shortage of people ‘claiming’ to have “Secret Wholesale” lists. Look around, you’ll see them being sold everywhere.

And if you’re like me, you probably already bought some and got burned. It happened to me more than once and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I GOT SUCKERED.

And if you did too don’t feel bad. Thousands of other people get suckered every week by buying these FAKE wholesale lists.

So Let Me Just Cut To The Chase…

I know of the BEST wholesaler research service on the planet. And there’s a reason this company has been profiled by “eBay University” and Entrepreneur Magazine.

They are the REAL DEAL.

Their name is Worldwide Brands. If you’ve been on my list for awhile then you probably remember me briefly mentioning them in the past.

If you have any interest at all in this stuff then you need to just go and grab a LIFETIME membership to their awesome online directory/product research service.

It’s worth GOLD. And that’s no understatement.

And if you HURRY they are currently offering a $50.00 DISCOUNT for the next few days — which is what inspired me to write you this email to tell you all about it.

REMINDER: THIS IS NOT AN AFFILIATE PITCH.

As I previously mentioned, Income.com (my new company) is no longer emailing affiliate promotions. So I don’t make one single penny if you go and buy a membership from this company.

I just believe strongly in the INCREDIBLE VALUE that they are offering and that is why I am recommending them to you. *I* personally have my own account with them.

Income.com is going to be working with the “best of breed” products and services, and I have future plans to work with Worldwide Brands because I really believe in what they are providing their customers — and I am sick and tired of seeing people get SUCKERED like I did with those garbage supplier lists.

So in case you haven’t connected the dots yet…

Wonder where most of the successful eBay sellers found their products? Or many of the other ecommerce stores?

Through Worldwide Brands.

* You’d be surprised if you knew who some of Worldwide Brands’ customers were. Even some “big shot” gurus you probably know of are making millions by dropshipping products they found through the Worldwide Brands’ OneSource online directory.

Even if you’re slightly “on the fence” about this stuff just go to this web site and watch the VIDEO DEMONSTRATION of what this is all about. You’ll learn a lot about setting up your own online store…

* The discount ends soon so you do need to hurry if you want to save some money:

http://www.worldwidebrands.com/discount

AND IN OTHER ‘NEWS’…

I’m starting a new “series” on the Income.com Blog…

It’s called “What Are You Struggling With?”

I’ll be making posts that address many of my students’ main problems and questions with making money online.

You won’t want to miss out on this valuable information!

You can post a comment in the following entry to submit your own struggles for consideration.

I can’t promise that I will address everyone’s submission but I will do my best:
http://www.income.com/blog/2007/07/12/what-are-you-struggling-with/

I bought an iPhone on Friday (the official Launch Day) and I have really enjoyed using my new gadget. I’ve owned nearly every conceivable cellphone and PDA (Blackberrys, Sidekicks, Nokias, Palm Pilots, etc.) and I got so tired of hearing all the whiners and naysayers complaining about how the iPhone lacked this feature or that feature… well, the iPhone met my expectations and MORE.

As someone who has owned and used all of those other devices, I can easily say the iPhone CRUSHES ALL OF THEM! Without going into an all-out “feature comparison war” I’ll just sum it up this way… it’s EASIER and more pleasant to use than ANY of those other devices. Period.

Does the iPhone lack certain features? YES. But do the lack of those features outweigh the other benefits of the phone? NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The screen is HUGE. It’s a lot easier to surf web pages, read news, and watch video (or look at photos) than any other phone. That alone is reason to own it.

But it’s also FUN to use. Some people said the “virtual keyboard” was a big downfall of the iPhone. It is? Well, that’s news to me. I *PREFER* the virtual keyboard. In fact, I type MUCH FASTER than on the ‘real’ keyboards of those other phones.

You can’t change the battery yourself, and I agree with others that this is a negative feature. BUT WHO CARES! It sure isn’t going to keep me from enjoying the phone for a year or more before the battery might need to be replaced.

And others are whining about the phone using AT&T’s slow EDGE network for using the Internet. Well, yes, it’s slow if you’re trying to surf 2,000 web sites and do HEAVY usage. But if you’re going to sit for awhile with the phone and surf that much, then just go to a Wi-Fi hotspot (like any Starbucks, Panera Bread, any airport, and a million other places) and the iPhone will auto-switch over to the fast network. I have Wi-Fi in my house and it automatically switches to use it when I’m home. Not to mention that once Wi-Max starts appearing in many cities around the country this EDGE thing isn’t going to matter.

I love this little phone because it makes it fun to easily keep track of my Internet marketing efforts. I have “favorites” setup so I am always one click away from being able to check important stats or marketing campaigns that I want to track. Here’s a photo of me using the iPhone to check in on some Google Analytics stats that I am monitoring:

I recently posted about search engine optimization for blogs and asked my readers to chime in on the subject.

As expected, there were many contradictory answers and suggestions — and it’s no surprise since no one really knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works. And Google likes it that way.

But there were some incredibly valuable suggestions that were posted. You definitely should take a moment and read all the comments that were posted for that entry.

And as promised, anyone that submitted a solid tip earned a link of their choice on this blog.

Here are the contributors that I selected and their brand-spanking-new links…

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an awesome marketing presentation you can watch on video.

It has tons of extremely valuable concepts and ideas — many of them I already had plans to incorporate into the development of Income.com.

Definitely check it out. I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it.

A special thanks to my friend Michel Fortin for referring me to it.

This may be the single most important blog post you may ever read.

Please understand, that sentence isn’t just some attention-getting marketing copy with the intention to get you to buy something. What I am about to tell you can change your life — but only if you let it.

What I am about to explain to you contains the ‘code’ for you to generate Internet riches. But most people that discover this ‘code’ will fail to take advantage of it.

I MUST WARN YOU… it’s very possible that the first time you read this post you will overlook it’s power. It’s very easy to do.

So I beg of you… PLEASE follow just two rules before you continue…

1. You must PRINT-OUT this blog post before reading it. I want you to read this entire post while being able to hold it in your hands. This will give you the best chance of getting it.

2. Read this entire blog post with an OPEN MIND. Promise yourself that you will not cast judgment, ‘react’ or even try to discount anything you are about to read until you have read the entire post all the way through AND have given it all a chance to sink in.

If you can follow those two simple rules you are ready to continue. You are ready to change your life.

After you click the “read the rest of this entry” link below PRINT THE PAGE FIRST then proceed to read it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know where your market is going?

Do you know what is the primary thing on their minds right now?

If you aren’t yet using it, make sure to start keeping an eye on your market with Google Trends.

Google Trends is an awesome free tool you can use to see how the search volumes are trending for your market. It can be a very valuable tool if you use it to adapt your business to the changing trends and needs of your market.

Jeremy Schoemaker and Rand Fiskin recently got into a healthy debate about their thoughts on disclosing affiliate links and other financial relationships. They pretty much had opposite opinions.

By now you should know who “Shoemoney” is as I recently interviewed him for nearly two hours. Jeremy is the creator of AuctionAds.

*There’s a reason I just used that AuctionAds affiliate link. It’s so I get to use my new Disclosure Button. I’ll explain it in a moment…

If you don’t know who Rand Fiskin is you need to. He’s one of the top SEO experts in the world. I highly recommend you check out his site - great stuff!

Andy Beard recently chimed in on the discussion and had some great stuff to say about this blog disclosure issue.

I’ve become a big fan of Andy’s blog and highly recommend it. He does a great job of creating very thorough posts.

So what do you think? Do you think a blogger should clearly disclose that they are being compensated for posting affiliate links on their blog? (Or other links where they receive compensation.)

Here’s What I Think

I think it’s best to be as open and honest with your prospects and customers as possible. Trust is a major issue online and anything you can do to gain that valuable trust the better.

The ‘laws’ regarding this type of marketing disclosure are still a little unclear. Some think it’s fine to just include a small link somewhere on the blog that discloses that the blogger receives compensation from certain activities on their blog. Others feel there needs to be more transparency than that.

I agree with those that think there should be more transparency. There is already an abundance of deceptive tactics being used online — and Internet users are realizing it more and more everyday.

I believe we, as marketers, need to start doing more things that build TRUST with our users. It’s just like publishing great content. The more VALUE you provide your audience the more it will benefit your business.

And oh yeah, it’s probably also just the right thing to do anyway.

And here’s the ironic part for marketers that are afraid that their compensation activities will suffer if they bring more attention to it.

I believe the opposite is true.

If you aren’t aware of the psychological implications of reciprocity then you need to read (or reread) Robert Cialdini’s valuable book Influence.

If you’re delivering tremendous value to your blog readers they will actually want to help you. And this includes making purchases or following your recommendations when they are fully aware that you are being rewarded for it. They want you to be rewarded.

Because blogger disclosure is still very much a voluntary thing, I want to do my best to set a good example and start doing more for the Income.com Blog.

Starting today, if I ever make a blog post that contains an affiliate link or any other link that directly compensates Income.com in someway, I will include a little ‘button’ at the bottom of the post to indicate it. The link next to this little dollar sign button will say Contains Compensation. When someone clicks on this link this is the message they will see:

Financial Relationship Disclosure

This blog post contains one or more links that Income.com is being financially compensated for and we wanted to be open and honest with you about it.

From time-to-time other companies will pay us a commission on any referred sales or other compensation if we send any of our site visitors to their web site.

Although we are sometimes compensated for making such recommendations please rest assured that Income.com will NEVER willingly promote poor quality products or services.

You have OUR PROMISE that we will only recommend products and services that we honestly feel will provide you with tremendous value.

You can test the new button at the end of this post.

Why am I including this at the bottom of all those posts and not just putting a link in my sidebar or footer menu? It’s simple…

Because most people WON’T SEE IT in the sidebar or footer menu. And if most people won’t clearly see it, it’s just like not having a disclosure policy at all.

A tiny sidebar or footer link might protect you legally but it’s not going to increase the trust with your blog readers.

Since 95% of the attention on a blog happens within the space where the blog posts are displayed, I feel it only makes sense to include it in the same section.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

* I’m working on a solution for my feed since they can’t view the button.

Contains Compensation

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Shoemaker AKA Shoemoney.

What was originally planned to be a candid discussion for about 20-30 minutes turned into an all-out marathon of a call that lasted nearly TWO HOURS.

Jeremy is one of the foremost authorities in the world when it comes to making money with Affiliate Marketing and we had an amazing discussion about different ways that any webmaster can make more money from their web sites and blogs.

This interview delivers more value than most Internet Marketing ebooks being sold.

In this interview we discuss a number of ways that anyone can start making more money from their existing web site traffic. We also talk about Jeremy’s incredible AuctionAds service and technology.

If you haven’t yet tested it on your own sites, don’t walk but run on over and create an AuctionAds account and immediately start testing it on your pages.

AuctionAds doesn’t conflict with the AdSense Terms Of Service so it’s okay to use it on a page where you might already be running AdSense.

What’s amazing is how fast AuctionAds is growing virally — and it’s powerful to see how participating webmasters earn money when other webmasters join after clicking the ad blocks displayed on their pages.

It’s definitely one of those… I wish I would have thought of that.

Download and listen to this incredible interview. I promise you, it will be well worth your time. If you pay close attention to what the interview reveals it could earn you a small fortune. And that’s no joke.

Right-Click here to download the MP3 file of the interview [76MB].

* Disclosure: The above links to AuctionAds are affiliate links for Income.com. It will take you to a page where you can get a bonus $5 just for signing up. If you’d like to go directly to the site you can just go to AuctionAds.com

Contains Compensation

I recently made a post that had some long overdue praise for Internet startup, PayPerPost.

As I mentioned in that post, I had never met PayPerPost’s Founder/CEO, Ted Murphy, even, though, PayPerPost is also located in Orlando where we are.

Ted emailed me after seeing my blog post and invited me to join him for lunch. And after spending a couple of weeks trying to get our schedules to cooperate, we were finally able to get together for lunch this week.

Ted and I had a great lunch and enjoyed sharing “war stories” about our adventures as entrepreneurs. We had a lot in common.

I talked with Ted in great detail about how PayPerPost was doing and picked his brain about his Master Plan for the company…

Let’s just say the Internet will soon being seeing a lot from PayPerPost.

Ted’s a sharp guy and I could really tell he’s very passionate about what he’s trying to build with PayPerPost. And my initial thoughts were definitely confirmed — he sincerely cares about the “Posties” that allow PayPerPost to even exist.

It was a lot of fun to visit PayPerPost’s headquarters. It’s quite a setup. They have bright colored walls and ‘fun’ stuff everywhere. Most of the employees have decorated their work areas with toys, memorabilia, and all kinds of personal objects.

PayPerPost has pretty much outgrown their existing offices as they have people working very close to one another in a large open room. But what I thought was truly amazing was how absolutely QUIET it was in their office.

Everyone was extremely busy and just quietly working away.

My visit to PayPerPost pretty much confirmed my thoughts on what I thought their company would be like… a team of hard-working people that really cares for and appreciates its customers.

Google just announced that they will be releasing a major update to their algorithm and to the format of how their results are displayed.

Their new results page is called “Universal Search” and it will combine results for Video, Images, News, and the rest of the Web.

This is a MAJOR change that will have a massive impact on the world of SEO. 

It will also have a big impact on the traffic some were getting from search results.

For example, a site that used to rank #7 for a specific keyword phrase will probably now receive traffic as if it were ranked #12 or #13 — because the Video, Images, and News listings will push the web site listings farther down on the page.

We will now most likely see a lot of new SEO strategies that target Video, Images, and News.

I think Video-optimization will see the most activity since News will be too hard for marketers to game the system.  Images will seem like the easiest target but I’m sure Google already has some tricks up their sleeve to keep people from gaming the system there as well.

I believe Video is where we will see the most activity — and it will probably be a combination of user ratings and other factors that determine which videos get displayed; not just a matter of video tags.

Here’s a great detailed write-up about these changes from Search Engine Land.

Here’s more on this important story from Search Newz.  And here’s an article from CNN.com.