In starting a business from your home, your first decision will be critical to your success.
What product or service do you intend to market and sell? Most people have two choices; follow their passion, or, go where the customers are.
In a perfect world you would not have to make this choice, you would be passionate about providing a product or service that would meet the needs or wants of a great many people who are actively searching for your product or service.
All too often this is not the case however, and you would be wise to consider the potential market for your product or service and make a choice, or perhaps a compromise, between following your passion or looking for a big active market with lots of eager buyers.
You can succeed either way, but one may be a better choice for you.
Both have pros and cons.
Let's take a look.
Before we look at the two choices, let's remember three marketing truths, one from old fashioned off-line marketing and sales, "Find a Need and Fill It", and one from the on-line world, "No clicks, No Sales", and the third that knows no time line "Sell Benefits, Not Features.
" Now with these truths in mind, let's look at the choices, Follow Your Passion - Starting a business involves hard work, long hours and sacrifices.
Your chance of successfully getting your new business up and running is much greater if you are doing something that you are interested in, that excites you, and that you are passionate about.
It also goes without saying that you will have a great deal of knowledge about the subject which will greatly enhance your ability to market by holding yourself out as an expert on the subject.
Your passion will also carry you through one of the most common causes of failure among persons starting a business - inability or unwillingness, to stick it out as long as it takes, and giving up too soon! Conversely, if there are few buyers for the product or service you are passionate about selling, you are unlikely to ever become successful.
Example - let's say you are a cat lover and have developed a way to teach cats to respond to commands, and even do tricks like a dog (I'm impressed).
You develop this great book on "Cat Training", put up a perfect website to sell your book and even a few great advertisements.
You know it works and can't wait to tell the world about it.
How many people will respond to your advertisement, click on your site and buy your book? I'd guess very few.
At the time of this writing, there were only 27,100 monthly searches on Google for "Cat Training" (4,400 of them for "Cat Toilet Training"), vs.
823,000 searches for "Dog Training.
" If your passion was for dog training vs.
cat training you would have 795,900 more potential customers searching for your book every month.
Go Where the Customers Are - while I believe following your passion is more motivating, and more likely to develop long term residual income, I must admit it's more fun to fish in a pond filled with fish.
Especially in the beginning when you need a few quick sales to motivate you and keep you going.
The problem here is competition, because this is the path that most internet marketers follow.
You will be playing against the "big boys" and, if you choose paid advertising, unlikely to be able to match their marketing budget.
My advice to a beginner who chooses this route - stick with free traffic methods while you are learning and then, when you can, stick your toe in the "pay for play" pool (but be careful, it's full of sharks).
So how do you find out where these hoards of eager buyers are hanging out? An internet search is the first step for most people looking for something, and because of this your first stop should be Google Keyword Tool.
If you are interested in selling digital products, check Clickbank Marketplace, where you can see not only frequency of search, but the amount of recent sales of the product as well.
That first decision in starting any new business - " what product or service am I going to market and sell?" - is an important one.
Choose carefully.
What product or service do you intend to market and sell? Most people have two choices; follow their passion, or, go where the customers are.
In a perfect world you would not have to make this choice, you would be passionate about providing a product or service that would meet the needs or wants of a great many people who are actively searching for your product or service.
All too often this is not the case however, and you would be wise to consider the potential market for your product or service and make a choice, or perhaps a compromise, between following your passion or looking for a big active market with lots of eager buyers.
You can succeed either way, but one may be a better choice for you.
Both have pros and cons.
Let's take a look.
Before we look at the two choices, let's remember three marketing truths, one from old fashioned off-line marketing and sales, "Find a Need and Fill It", and one from the on-line world, "No clicks, No Sales", and the third that knows no time line "Sell Benefits, Not Features.
" Now with these truths in mind, let's look at the choices, Follow Your Passion - Starting a business involves hard work, long hours and sacrifices.
Your chance of successfully getting your new business up and running is much greater if you are doing something that you are interested in, that excites you, and that you are passionate about.
It also goes without saying that you will have a great deal of knowledge about the subject which will greatly enhance your ability to market by holding yourself out as an expert on the subject.
Your passion will also carry you through one of the most common causes of failure among persons starting a business - inability or unwillingness, to stick it out as long as it takes, and giving up too soon! Conversely, if there are few buyers for the product or service you are passionate about selling, you are unlikely to ever become successful.
Example - let's say you are a cat lover and have developed a way to teach cats to respond to commands, and even do tricks like a dog (I'm impressed).
You develop this great book on "Cat Training", put up a perfect website to sell your book and even a few great advertisements.
You know it works and can't wait to tell the world about it.
How many people will respond to your advertisement, click on your site and buy your book? I'd guess very few.
At the time of this writing, there were only 27,100 monthly searches on Google for "Cat Training" (4,400 of them for "Cat Toilet Training"), vs.
823,000 searches for "Dog Training.
" If your passion was for dog training vs.
cat training you would have 795,900 more potential customers searching for your book every month.
Go Where the Customers Are - while I believe following your passion is more motivating, and more likely to develop long term residual income, I must admit it's more fun to fish in a pond filled with fish.
Especially in the beginning when you need a few quick sales to motivate you and keep you going.
The problem here is competition, because this is the path that most internet marketers follow.
You will be playing against the "big boys" and, if you choose paid advertising, unlikely to be able to match their marketing budget.
My advice to a beginner who chooses this route - stick with free traffic methods while you are learning and then, when you can, stick your toe in the "pay for play" pool (but be careful, it's full of sharks).
So how do you find out where these hoards of eager buyers are hanging out? An internet search is the first step for most people looking for something, and because of this your first stop should be Google Keyword Tool.
If you are interested in selling digital products, check Clickbank Marketplace, where you can see not only frequency of search, but the amount of recent sales of the product as well.
That first decision in starting any new business - " what product or service am I going to market and sell?" - is an important one.
Choose carefully.
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