When people approach me for help in starting an online business, the first thing they ask me is “Whats the most popular item I can sell?”

or

“I don’t have any products, where can I get them”. Well the first thing you need is a market, and then you STILL don’t really need a physical product.

You don’t even need dropshippers!

Lets get even more deeper . . .

What is a product?

A product is the ’solution’ that you are offering people in exchange for money - or to monetize your online efforts.

Makes sense right?

Now, this thing called ‘product’ doesn’t always have to be physical. It could be information or it could be a service etc.

This is what is amazing about the internet - you don’t have to offer a physical product.

When I first started making money online, it was through dropshipping. However, my income was soon stuck and to be honest, dropshipping was getting kind of boring.

Although I was dealing with just one product - which means everything was easy to manage. To grow my income, I could either add more dropshippers or do something completely new.

I started researching for other ways of making money as managing more dropshippers could be very hard.

Being the super creative person that I am, I started researching and studying other sites.

This is where I realized that I don’t really need a physical products.

I was like “If I’m so good at finding dropshippers, why not turn this skill into a web based service?”

So I used something that I like to call the 4M Formula

Market Research + Market Solution + Market Location + Market Promotion = A real business.

Market Research:

I did my research. At the time when I started, their was hardly any dropshipper lists around, 2 to be exact. I was like I really like finding dropshippers, I can do this and did some heavy research using special ‘keyword’ research tools. See when someone tells you that you need to do ‘research’ first on the internet, they are telling you to find the right keywords.

You can literally pinpoint the keywords using some of these tools and ‘drill down’ to the most lucrative market. Remember, this is the most important step. Market Research is the foundation of any online business - or business in general.

Market Solution
The solution people were looking for reliable and real source of dropshippers. My product was me reviewing dropshippers. This is how I got started and was the original purpose of WDclub. I only had like a list of 20 dropshippers which slowly grew to 161 (and still growing) - but I was the only ‘human being’ reviewing them - I was giving people the real on dropshippers and dropshipping.

Another great thing about the internet is their is no such thing as competition.

Why? Because when you are selling something online, you are not selling the product, your are selling YOU. People get in their for the product, but they make a purchase and continue to do so because they like your ‘uniqueness’. It’s all about building trust and relationships and no matter how many people sell the same product, if you’ve gained your customer’s trust, and established credibility, you’ve won! Because you will always make sales. Your customer is ‘comfortable’ with you and appreciates your ‘uniqueness’.

Market Location
Remember when I told you that market research is the most important step. Since I did my research right. I knew exactly what keywords will bring in the most traffic and have the least amount of competition (sites competing under those keywords), and before I knew it, I started attracting some serious traffic.

So since I did my research, I found keywords with the most amount of traffic and with the least amount of competition. Less competition means getting top 10 rankings under keywords that actually mattered was a breeze. I just optimized my pages for the search engines (Little SEO Action) and soon I shot up in the search engines.

NOTE: Do your research right on the internet and you are guaranteed to be a success.

See why ‘research’ is the most important step of all. Research leads you to the right market, then just find a solution (easiest part of all), getting top 10 rankings becomes very easy and guaranteed to bring you results.

90% of businesses fail because they cant seem to establish an online presence in the search engines. Well most business don’t do their research and no nothing about ‘keywords’. Ofcourse they are going to fail.

Remember, you are working with computers - which means its all about the power of numbers. No assumptions, no guess work.

Straight numbers. And numbers don’t lie. Get your numbers right, and you are guaranteed to catch the ’success’ flight.

This leads to the last step.

Market Promotion
Now here is where you focus on what matters - your customers. I built solid relationships with each of my customers and BAM! Before I knew it, I just turned my skills into a full time online business. Simply educate your customer, solve their problem and they will pay you for it.

Give them free information to establish trust and credibility, send them free information on a consistent basis to educate them and help them make an informed decision. And finally, give them a killer solution and they will praise you forever. Market promotion also consists of making sure you are on top of your game which means you are regularly promoting your website in the search engines too (Backlinks, creating content that your customers want and thus covering more search engine ground or s.e.r.p.s) and that is all their is to it!

Market Research (The Foundation)
+
Market Solution (The Product)
+
Market Location (The TOP 10 Rankings)
+
Market Promotion (The Business)

That is the ‘4Step Formula’ in a nutshell.

2008 is a great year for having an online business . . .

Ever thought about turning your hobby or skill into a thriving online business?

Especially these days, their are so many opportunities to monetize your passion on the internet that its not even funny.

Here is a list of non-physical things that you can make piles of money on month after month.

Ebooks - Package your knowledge in an ebook and keep 100% of the profits as no shipping or manufacturing costs are invovled.

Is their a subject you have extensive knowledge about? Write an ebook about it and use the simple 4M Formula to turn it into a business. Forget an ebook, just write a site about it and share your knowledge on a daily basis (Blogs come handy here). If you follow the steps above I guarantee you that you will have a business running in under 365 days where you would be making more money then any “Life Sucking”, “Dream Sucking”, “Youth Sucking” job out their.

Create a web-based service and charge a fee for it: Their are so many sites out their that if you share your ideas with them, they can do the programming for you - hire someone from a developing country or outsource the programming of your magical software or service.

Leads - collect leads through your site and sell them to other companies. One of my buddies use to do this and he did this successfully for quite some time. A lot of local businesses want leads and are willing to pay top dollars for it. Business such as private schools, real estate companies even hotels looking for new business.

Affiliate Programs - Sell other people’s products online and get paid big commissions. Just copy and paste their code!

Google Adsense - Google’s advertising network is where you get paid per click. Some hobby sites are raking in insane amounts of money through this. How does $30,000 a month or more sound?

This is just a tiny little sample of what you can do ‘without selling’ online.

Starting a business should always be something about you truly enjoy, as you will be spending a lot of time on it.

If you are passionate about something, start typing!

Popularity: 3% [?]