I've gotten a number of e-mails asking the same
intelligent question. Basically, they all boil
down to this:

"I see lots of promotions for how to make money on
the Internet, but the only thing they seem to be
talking about is how to make money on the Internet
by selling people info on how to make money on the
Internet. Then when I look at the testimonials, it
just looks like the same group of people endorsing
each other's products over and over again.

Here's my question: Is anyone making money on the
Internet selling anything other than 'get rich
quick' stuff?"

The first thing I have to say in answer to this
question is: "Amen!"

The second thing I have to say is: "Yes, people are
making money selling all kinds of products and services
online." And that's what this lesson is going to be
all about.

Let me address the first point first.

Frankly, it baffles me why Internet marketing education
has sunk to such a low level. 

Here we've got the most spectacular media invention in
the last 50 years and one that offers the small business
person (and the large corporation) more immediate, low
risk profit opportunities than any other medium - and yet
the vast majority of Internet marketing 'how to' info is
out-of-date, badly recycled junk.

Part of the problem is that sometime around 1998-1999,
suddenly everyone decided they could declare themselves
an Internet marketing expert, whether they had any experience
in the field or not.  And the product they had the easiest
time selling was - you guessed it - how to make money on
the Internet. (Remember what I said about markets in the
previous lesson? Money flows where money flows and even
people selling junk can make money, temporarily, if the
demand is great enough.)

So we now have third and fourth generation Internet
marketing 'gurus' who learned from someone who learned
from someone who learned from someone who never really
understood the subject in the first place, but was able
to do a quick 'cut and paste' job.

So that's the problem. What's the solution?

It's actually pretty easy. Learn from people who've got
real experience and who've sold things besides 'get rich
quick' courses on the Internet.

So I hope that answers the first question. Yes, there is at
least one Internet marketing training that is staffed by folks
who actually know what they're talking about and have sold
things besides 'how to get rich on the Internet fast' courses.

Why aren't there more seminars likes this? Beats me. But there's
a lesson in all this for you.

Even the most crowded, noisy, hyped-up marketplace in the world
will bend to quality: quality marketing and quality product. 

Here's a good rule of thumb: If it sells via traditional mail order
channels (direct mail, catalogs, direct response TV, infomercials),
it can probably be sold on the Internet.

What can be sold via 'mail order?' That's an easy question to answer.

Just look at all the catalogs, direct mail pieces, direct response
TV ads, infomercials and direct response magazine ads there are.
And get some books out of the library on direct marketing. Your
library might also carry 'Direct Marketing' magazine.

The field is huge and it's estimated that roughly 50% of
all dollars spent today are spent on direct marketing.

As fantastic as 'mail order' marketing is, Internet marketing has
some distinct advantages over traditional direct marketing or
mail order marketing:

* Low cost of entry

There's nothing cheap about doing direct mail, magazine ads, or
TV commercials. If you know what you're doing, these can be
incredibly lucrative fields. But if you don't, you can burn
through a mountain of cash in the blink of an eye before you
figure out what's going on. 

In contrast, you can 'try out' an Internet business idea for a
few hundred bucks (less if you really know what you're doing)
and find out right away whether you have a winner or a loser on
your hands.

* Rapid-fire market research and testing

An experienced Internet marketer can evaluate potential
Internet markets - from initial marketing research to testing
specific headlines, ad copy and offers - in just days.

Contrast this with traditional direct marketing which require
test mailings in the *thousands* or fully produced TV spots run
in multiple markets just to get simple answers to basic marketing
questions.

* The Internet reaches new markets than can't be reached by
any other medium

There are some lucrative 'niche' markets that can't be
economically reached by another medium other than the Internet.

Here's a whacky example I came across recently: coat hangers.
Yes, common, boring old coat hangers. How would you sell
specialty coat hangers profitably direct to the public
via direct mail or magazine ads? Answer: You can't. But
you can via the Internet and, believe it or not, it's a
seven figure a year business for one company (that's $1
million plus a year in sales.) 

Marketing profitably is all about being able to target
buyers and spend less on your advertising than you make
from your sales and operations. There are lots of great
products that simply can't be marketed profitably because
the cost of reaching buyers is more than you can make
from the sale itself. (Big hint: If you're in that situation,
get out fast.)

Because the Internet is so good at reaching small, unique
niches economically (via search engines, specialty web
sites, e-zines etc.), it's opened up a whole new world of
potential business opportunities.

One of the best products to sell, either through traditional
direct marketing channels or on the Internet is information,
especially 'how to' information.

Information is a great product, especially for smaller operators,
for the following reasons:

1. Profit margins are high
2. Production costs are low. Overhead can be the corner of a room.
3. You can deliver the product 'on demand' which means you
   don't need to invest in a large inventory
4. There's a huge universe of 'mail order' information consumers
5. The industry is protected, theoretically at least, by the First
   Amendment, which the normal battery of federal, state and local
   'regulators' that make the lives of most business people
   miserable,
   don't tap into your profits.

Just to show you a bit of the variety that's possible, we've
had students with profitable online business selling info on
the following subjects:

How to be a successful magician, how to lose weight, how to
build big muscles, how to plan weddings, how to train horses,
how to write sales letters, how to defend yourself,
how to train horses, how to beautify your home, how to beat
your traffic ticket, how to be a professional speaker.

Notice that there's not one 'how to get rich on the Internet'
in the bunch and several of these businesses generate six
figures a year in purely online sales. 

But forget the big 'home run' businesses for a minute. Do the
math on selling just one 'how to course a day with a net profit
of a measly $29 per unit sold. (Multiply $29 by 30 and then again by
12.)

For those of you without a calculator, that's $10,440 net
per year. And that's from a business that's barely alive. We
have numerous 'how to' marketers among our graduates who do
that number and much more each month.

To refer back to Lesson Three, generating these numbers is not
magic or rocket science. It's a matter of finding a good-sized
audience with a hunger to solve a particular problem and putting
a product that solves their problem in front of them.

And yes, that can mean $1 million dollars a year selling coat
hangers or $250,000 a year showing people how to write simple
sales letters. Remember, money is impersonal. It flows where it
flows. Your challenge as an entrepreneur is to find promising
markets and create and/or acquire products to offer them and
then wire the two together through advertising.