Posts Tagged → make money

The Problem With The Make Money Online Niche

In this extract from a comment on Perry Marshall’s blog, he sets out the problem with the make money online niche:

The problem is you’re selling “how to make money on the Internet” information, and that’s how you’re attempting to succeed online.

There is a whole host of problems with that:

1) If you do this the way you’ve probably been taught, it’s nothing but a glorified chain letter.

2) You haven’t succeeded yourself, so you have no business teaching others how to succeed.

3) This general ‘get rich on the Internet’ topic is one of the most competitive categories in e-commerce, period. Telling a regular guy off the street he can get rich on the Internet by showing other people how to get rich on the Internet is like telling your grandmother that she can go down to the local martial arts dojang, take on 3 black belts at one time and kick their ass.

Fat chance. This particular niche is a game for razor sharp, A-level marketers. Not for entry level people.

All that happens to entry level people is, one way or another their money ends up in the hands of razor sharp, A-level marketers and you have nothing to show for it. All kinds of razor sharp, A-level marketers take advantage of this fact without the slightest twinge of guilt.

(Their rationalization for exploiting peoples’ ignorance is: “Well if I don’t take their money they’ll just waste it on some other equally stupid thing.” Well hey, it’s not like they’re exactly wrong about that…even piranhas have their rightful place in the food chain, right? Hey pal, I’m just saying, if you’re not a piranha, don’t swim with them. Find a pond that just has regular frogs and dragonflies and hang out there.)

4) Carbon copying other peoples’ product is a doomed strategy, no matter what niche you’re in. Sure you might try to be the guy who makes El Cheapo knockoff products in China and sure, some people make a lot of money doing that, but the bottom line is: If you don’t have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) then sooner or later you’re dead.

My advice to you:

Abandon this niche entirely. Stop selling “get rich” stuff. Stop selling “how to market stuff on the Internet” stuff. Do a thorough inventory of yourself and your knowledge and your skills.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.

Find some OTHER niche (hey, there are only a MILLION other things you could sell on the Internet – yes, literally a million). Find some other product to sell. Find something that has NOTHING to do with making money on the Internet.

Maybe you’re familiar with specialized motor parts or some sort of industrial equipment or maybe there’s some odd thing you collect, like pink flamingos or wrought iron furniture. Or you grow orchids or collect 16th century romance novels or movies from the 1930’s.

Or maybe you can go to a trade show and find manufacturers in some market where most people are clueless about marketing, and build them an online presence. Work out some kind of profit sharing deal, or get them to put you on retainer. Sell that product.

(That’s a real useful tip I just gave you there.)

Or sell some kind of information about that topic. Like I said, do a thorough inventory of what you know and where you’ve been and go into a niche you’re intimately familiar with.

My nephew Josh asked me advice about starting a home business and here’s what I told him:

Josh,

1. Don’t get into a pre-packaged business. There are LOTS of them out there. Network Marketing deals, Internet deals, etc. You should capitalize on your individuality.

2. Doing something online…. boy I deal with that ALL THE TIME. Is is VERY competitive. An at-home online business is the white picket fence of the 21st century. Super great – if you can pull it off. Most common things are things like selling ebooks or selling things on ebay. If you do something like that you have to specialize in some particular niche.

The people who do best at that 1) know their subject and their customers EXTREMELY well; and/or are 2) very in-tune and comfortable with the whole online scene and culture and websites and everything.

The more nichy your topic, the more you can rely on #1 instead of #2.

3. Anything you know how to do – like plumbing or handyman stuff or swimming pools or repair hang-gliders… or knowing how to cook or take care of kids or organize a house… as soon as you have a way of advertising and getting customers, you have a business. Might not necessarily be an “at home” business, but it’s a business.

Oh, and by the way if you do a business like handyman stuff or repair or remodeling, all you have to do is show up on time, answer the phone, tell people the truth, finish projects on-time and on-budget, and you’ll kick everybody else’s ass in town. In a business like that, half the secret to success is literally “showing up.” You’ll get lots of referrals, customers will love you, and you’ll make a good living. Even in an economy that sucks.

4. If you know what you want to do, then I can advise you about promoting it. Let’s take plumbing for example… to advertise yourself as a plumber you need all the certifications and everything. Doesn’t keep you from doing it when people need it and getting paid for it, if you’re a ‘handyman’ instead of a plumber.

5. Any business that is going to work for you is based on the gifts and skills that you mostly already have. So it’s actually kind of sitting under your nose all along. You just need to start taking inventory. Asking other people what they see you being good at. Listing your skills and looking at all the things you’ve done etc.

Here’s something I sent to a personal friend of mine, Anita, last summer when she asked me pretty much the same question:

Anita,

OK, here’s some things I’d like you to do… Good stuff to do over your morning coffee or whatever.

BTW what we’re ultimately looking for here is intimate knowledge of various microcosms in the world, where you may have sell-able skills.

BUT….. right now I don’t want you to think in terms of selling or jobs or all that while you’re doing this. That would be a limiting way to think of it right now.That can fall out of it later. For now, just crank out the list o’ stuff.

-List every magazine you’ve ever subscribed to for any length of time

-Same for newsletters & various publications that you consistently enjoyed reading

-Every job or industry you worked in long enough to become really familiar – even if you’ve been out of it for a long time

-Every “group” that you’ve been a member of. Examples could be – golf, Presbyterian church, girl scouts, cancer survivors support group, bowling league, pottery making class, David Hasselhoff Fan Club, horsemanship, stamp collecting, backgammon, owning rental property, investing, chess club, etc.

-Every major schooling / training / educational experience you’ve had (like travel to Africa or airplane mechanic school or nursing degree)

-Every hobby or fascination you’ve had

-5 topics you know a lot about, that most people don’t know you know a lot about

-Specific products, services or experiences that you have great familiarity with (like a washing machine that broke down so much, pretty soon you knew how to fix it better than the repairman)

-Topics you own more than 5 books on

-A story of 2 major personal victories from each of the following: childhood; teen years; early adult; recent adult. Tell what happened and what made you feel GOOD about it.

Why don’t you chunk on that for awhile and let me know what you come up with. I bet somewhere buried in that list is a marketplace that would pay money for your skills.

From that you can form a USP, determine something unique to sell, have a ready-made understanding of the customers who buy that sort of thing, and have a MUCH easier go of it.

If you in fact do have a solid grasp of basic direct marketing principles, then I DARE you to do this homework assignment – and I mean, do *everything* I just said to do right here – I dare you to do that and not have some kind of successful business that you are really proud of, 1 year from today.

Perry Marshall

This comment was made in response to a frustrated make money online marketer after Perry had looked at his website.

What he is advising is to take the marketing skills learnt in the make money online niche and use them to promote products and offers outside that niche, preferably in an area that caters to your strengths, because the competition will be weaker.

Life’s Big Question – How Can I Make More Money?

I came across the image below in Carl Picot’s Copywriting Forum with the headline – Life’s Big Question – How Can I Make More Money?  

Make more money

I thought that this was a terrific headline that made me stop and ponder a second…

Because this IS an important ‘life question’ that we all ask ourselves from time to time – particularly at times when money is in short supply!

The article goes on to promote a university education.

But without wishing to denigrate a university education, there are plenty of university students who leave university with a pile of debt and can’t get a well-paid job. 50% of young people in Spain are without a job and the proportion in Greece is higher still.

In fact, in my son’s business and marketing class at Nottingham Trent university, he was the only one who managed to get a job before leaving university and no one in his girlfriends class on property had a job at leaving time.

Ironically, both my son and his girlfriend are currently on a 2 month sabbatical tour of the USA and my son messaged me yesterday to say that he has a business idea he wants to pursue.  Also, he told me that there are plenty of  jobs for graduates in Grand Cayman.

In other words, for those that are motivated, the opportunities are abundant.

You just need to be prepared to take a more global approach to finding them because we are now competing in an international marketplace rather than a local or even national marketplace.

This, in a nutshell, is why I chose to strategically pursue internet marketing as a skill – I wanted to be able to transcend the vicissitudes of local markets so that if the UK was in depression, I could find a marketplace that was in a growth phase.

It’s also worth mentioning that in most countries who don’t have English as their first language, English is the second language.  That means that English speakers have more access to market-places than any other language.  That’s a competitive advantage right there.

That’s why our latest product about Google Hangouts is so critically important – it’s the ability to transcend local and national boundaries that makes it an excellent tool for selling goods and services and for forming relationships.

So if choosing internet marketing was a strategic decision in the first place, choosing Google Hangouts as a communications and promotions tool is another strategic decision too.

The more I think about the power of Hangouts for building relationships, the more excited I get.

I predict that promotions via Hangouts, rather than through Email marketing (or perhaps complementary to), is the way forwards simply because they will convert so much better.

Now you can look the marketer in the eye and ask yourself if you would trust this person – they are no longer hidden behind a veil of secrecy.  They can demonstrate and show you how their product or service works and you can ask questions before buying.

So in answer to life’s big question – How Can I Make More Money? – I recommend that you purchase The Hangout Cash Code because I predict that it will become strategically important within your business to acquire these skills and we show you many methods for monetising Hangouts.  (Every business, whether offline or online, needs this tool.)