Deciding What To Sell (Or Promote)

The possibilities are endless. Sometimes I feel like just closing my eyes and pointing at something to decide on exactly what I should sell to make money on the internet. It's turning out to be a lot more challenging than I expected just to decide what to promote. Plus, there's the decision of selling physical products, downloadable products, or affiliate marketing referrals. I've never been a very fast decision maker in the first place, so as you can see, I'm still working on this one!

I just read a comment I received as a result of this blog in my email. It was from Ally in Scotland. (Which I thought was pretty neat, since I'm in Delaware in the U.S.!) She just checked in to say hi and that she's just started a new internet business too. She sells health improvement products on 4u-net.com, and it made me think it's nice to see someone actually selling PRODUCTS rather than just advice or money making schemes. Good luck with that, Ally! :)

There are SO MANY people on the internet shouting (virtually) that they are incredibly wealthy and can teach you to become that way by following their instructions. I've seen many lately, needless to say, while researching this whole idea of computer income from the internet. What I find myself trying to do is figure out who are really the ones that have been around for awhile, and who are just students (or copycats!) of the true experts. It can be hard to tell because most all of them are pretty convincing in their own ways.

The money making information/business opportunity category of products is obviously one of the most profitable to promote. Maybe even THE MOST profitable. (Although, porn and gambling are right up there I'm sure...but not the kinds of things I want to build my business around.) So it's no coincidence there are so many sellers jumping on the bandwagon to become the latest "guru" and offer their own version of the rags to riches story.

But I'm wondering, do I really want to take part in this whole game too, parading as an expert and selling the same old information to people who hope to find an honest way to make some money? I've already purchased the domain name, "computer-income.com", so it seems like I'm starting down that path whether I meant to or not. Problem is, I'm not rich, (yet?!) so I can't say to learn from me because I've already made a fortune. So I'm thinking that my selling point needs to be my honesty and willingness to help others succeed in their own business...but would that be enough?

I've bought several different gurus' ebooks in the last few months, and you do start seeing the same ideas repeated. Plus, most of them encourage you to turn around and begin selling more copies of their ebook, as their affiliate. About the only one I'd be willing to do that with is called Honest Riches, by Holly Mann. She's taken the type of approach I would like to take, although she's also got the enormous income to fall back on...so I doubt I could compete against her. But hers is a great little ebook that gets right to the point on how you really can make money in affiliate marketing with your computer and the internet. And the author seems very accessible, with her own discussion forum, etc., which is a big difference from most of the others. I'm not going to make a habit of recommending other peoples' money making courses here, but I do highly recommend that one. I'll put a link to her website on this blog shortly.

So there you go, there's my first ever (good) product review! :) But after getting slightly off my intended subject...I still don't know what to sell yet! (Oh well, I'll settle on something pretty soon!)

John

Be Careful Who You Trust

It's hard to know who to believe on the internet, especially when it comes to money making advice. Everyone seems to have their own ulterior motives. (Usually being their plans to make money off of you!) I like to say there are no secrets on the internet, but sometimes it's hard to find the truth. I'm convinced it's even purposely hidden in many cases.

Example:
The WarriorForum.com forum site appears to be a good place to exchange ideas about internet marketing. It's the official forum community for the Plug-In-Profit site run by internet marketing guru, Stone Evans. That's the program I quit shortly after joining, as I mentioned in a previous post on this blog, when I realized it's just a recruiting tool to build Mr. Evans' downlines in his favorite MLM programs. It's not really just affiliate marketing help he offers by setting up free websites for anyone who wants one, which is what the sales page leads you to believe. There's a major ulterior motive.

Anyway, pretty much proving my point, he just recently changed the program to require yet another expensive program to be joined to qualify for the free website, and even asked his members' opinions of it. I noticed only a few negative responses about it, so I entered my own response to one of those and simply stated that I agreed, and listed some of the many free or cheaper options there are to choose from.

My post was deleted within minutes! (And so was the one I responded to.)

As an experiment, I immediately entered another post that simply said I think everything sounds great and that I'm excited to get started in affiliate marketing. Wouldn't you know it? It was still there last I checked! Of course, I also invited the readers to come and see this blog to follow my progress. (Sneaky, aren't I?!) I'm sure if anyone from the site comes here and reads this they'll delete that post too, but I can't do anything about that.

My point is, that forum appears to be an impartial community to discuss ideas on how to run your internet marketing business...but it's not. It's edited to make sure nobody reveals what a rip-off the Plug-In-Profit deal actually is. For totally new beginners who haven't researched much of anything else yet, it sounds like a great deal because of the "free" website they set up for you, but there's much more to it than that. (Hey, I fell for it myself!) :)

So you have to be careful who you trust, and what forums you place your trust in. The main tip-off that you should beware of someone's advice is when they start trying to SELL you anything - especially stuff that's grossly overpriced. There is SO MUCH marketing you can do that's either free or very cheap. No one needs to be joining expensive multi-level marketing deals that make you pay monthly fees or make monthly purchases in order to be a member, sales rep, affiliate - whatever you want to call it. In future posts I plan to list helpful forums as I find them that seem to be honest and impartial with their advice, but I certainly won't be recommending the Warrior Forum.

John

Starting To Make Sense

I'm finally back online after some major computer troubles. It SEEMED like a great idea to finally upgrade to Windows XP...but let's just say it didn't go very smoothly. I bought it for about half price (after a mail-in rebate) so it was a great chance to upgrade at last to the new version. (I felt like I was the last person still using Windows 98.) The last couple of computers I bought were "bare bones" generic units from computer shows, with no operating system installed. (You can really get a great new computer really cheap this way though!) But it resulted in my old version of Windows 98 being the hand-me-down to the new computer each time for the last several years.

For some reason this Windows XP upgrade just wouldn't install completely over my old version, and eventually even ruined my system to the point that it couldn't even start up anymore. I had to reinstall Windows 98 and back up ALL of my own data. (Not a small project - I probably have a few hundred eBooks I've bought in several lots that I've never even read yet!) Then I had to reformat the hard drive, install Windows 98 (again!?)...and finally install the XP upgrade. (I'm exhausted!) I've just started restoring my software and saved data, etc. It's all working smooth and sweet now though, so I GUESS it was all worth it!? Everything really seems to snap right along much quicker with XP, so it is quite an improvement. But I guess my lesson for you on this subject is...

BACK UP YOUR FILES BEFORE UPGRADING!

On a happier note, I just logged in to my Google AdSense account today, and lo and behold...I finally got my first ever click-through earnings! OK...now it was only 86 cents for 2 clicks yesterday, for the little ads at the top of this blog...but it's a start! Kind of cool considering that I haven't even begun to promote this blog site at all yet, so to get anything is pretty neat. You've got to realize...with just a little bit of exposure, that 86 cents could be every day, and after 365 days that becomes over $300 a year...for doing absolutely nothing!

I thought of the AdSense ads as a nice way to supplement your website profits, but I guess they could actually turn out to be a real income producer themselves. Imagine having about 40 websites all earning that modest 86 cents a day. Suddenly you're making over $1000 a month just from those ads! (Whether you ever actually sell anything or not!) I think that's a pretty exciting possibility, myself!

I think I'll print out those mighty .86 in earnings and maybe frame it to display as my first ever AdSense earnings. Hey, why not? People often save their first dollar earned, or their first check received, etc.

You might even say...I've finally made some SENSE here for the first time ever!

John

P.S.- Thanks to whoever it was who clicked on those Google ads of mine yesterday! :)