By Jimmy D. Brown
http://www.HomepreneurHabits.com

I’ve always been impressed with those who can take overwhelming
things and handle them with ease and poise.  It never seemed
to work that way for me, until I discovered the secret for
tackling those daunting tasks.

The secret is simple:  make things simple!

With just about every major undertaking, things can be simplified
into a handful of “core” components.  That makes them manageable.
Manageable fosters productivity simply because I can work on
something that seems accomplishable.  And when productivity goes
up, desired results come.

I received the following question from one of my clients…

“If you have to pick, what would you say are the top 2 or 3
things we should concentrate on? I’ve heard the
domain/site(blog) are the most important, then others say
writing info products, others say lists. For short term and
long term investment, what is the most important things to
be working on?”

This client wants things simplified.  And rightly so.  He knows
the secret to success is getting things down into manageable
chunks.

So, what are these core practices for building an internet
business?  There are three things – and three things only – that
you need to concentrate on with your business…

1. Offer Development.

You cannot make money online unless you have an OFFER. It’s that
simple. Unless there is some way for income to be generated, you
can’t get paid. End of discussion. Every business is founded
upon a revenue-generating offer. Now, this can either be your
own offer (small reports, ebooks, membership sites, coaching/consulting,
advertising, etc.) or something you promote as an affiliate and
earn revenue for referred sales.

2. List Marketing.

The fortune is in the list. You’ve heard it an untold number of
times in the past, right? Building and profiting from opt-in lists
should be a major priority on your schedule. You need to devote
yourself to attracting new subscribers and then getting all of
your subscribers to spend money with you … by purchasing your
OFFERS (see #1 above).

3. Traffic.

The third and final thing you need to concentrate on is “traffic”.
This includes both traffic GENERATION (getting visitors to a site)
and traffic CONVERSION (getting that traffic to buy). This includes
things like: starting an affiliate program, buying PPC ads,
participating in joint ventures, utilizing viral marketing tools,
raising your visitor value, tweaking your sales pages, etc.

With each of these categories, you have a variety of options to choose
from in directing your attention. It would be foolish for me to say
“grow your affiliate program” as your number # traffic activity since
I don’t know if you even have your own product to sell. That’s why I
don’t recommend specific activities, but rather three key categories
of business-building.

With each of these categories, find 2-3 activities to work on each
week and you should see results in a short amount of time.

I recommend you work on offer development every Monday, list marketing
every Tuesday, and traffic generation every Wednesday.  If you just
spend a couple hours each of these days working on these core parts
of your business, sales should come.

In a nutshell -

-    Find an offer to promote.
-    Setup a list to promote the offer.
-    Drive traffic to the list opt-in page.

Keep it simple.  Keep it successful.

—————-
Believe it or not, there is a tremendous “operations manual” that you can download to help you create a plan that works for YOU. Check out “Homepreneur Habits: How To Run A Successful Home Business ” by clicking here http://infoprofitshare.com/go.php?offer=lockhartwh&pid=16. You’ll learn all the tools you need, how to setup your work space and how to create a day-by-day schedule of recommended activities to start and grow your business.

—————-
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of the 65-page “operations
manual”, Homepreneur Habits:  How To Run A Successful
Home Business.  Learn The Internet Marketer’s Weekly
R.O.U.T.I.N.E.(TM) at http://www.HomepreneurHabits.com

By William Lockhart of CyberIncomeSolutions

As the economy tightens and more and more people seek alternative income opportunities, many opportunity seekers arrive at the all-important question that seems insurmountable with respect to developing alternative business activity or additional income streams. This holds particularly true for those online income solution seekers.

What is that question you ask? “What can I sell online to create an online income?” The “holy-grail” of questions asked by opportunity seekers….

For many this is a huge dilemma. Many have contemplated the advantages of selling online, the idea of becoming a netreprenuer. They’ve even researched existing online business opportunities… only to discover slight inconsistencies with their own ideas and concepts regarding the development of online income streams.

With this in mind, the thought of identifying a viable product that is self owned, which of course enables complete and comprehensive control seems to stop people in their tracks each and every time they consider the idea. This by far has been a barrier, especially to those that don’t consider themselves “technically savvy”.

Most people seek a product or service that provides value, addresses a specific market, and offers a unique selling proposition but the task of identifying that product can be over whelming. This can be quite a daunting task, however the fact is, it truly doesn’t have to be.

Here’s a viable solution.

We all have massive “untapped” products lying dormant in our mind. Products that offer expertise that can be extremely useful to others. These products lie silently inside our minds day after day after day, totally untapped. They are usually concealed and labeled as “common knowledge”. We’ve convinced ourselves that this knowledge is knowledge that “everybody knows”.

Typically the most difficult aspect of tapping into these silent marketable income streams is the process of simply identifying them.

Consider this, most people spend years developing expertise that is used to provide valuable services to the companies or firms that employ them. In some cases, they spend decades developing this expertise. Managers, assistants, legal experts, you name it…

In other cases we have invaluable knowledge about specific hobbies and interests that others would absolutely welcome. We simply have to take the time to take a full and complete inventory of the expertise that we’ve taken for granted for many years.

You may not realize it but someone, somewhere is just beginning to learn about things that you’ve known and taken for granted for decades.

Sometimes we don’t even realize just how much information we’ve gained on specific subject matter until we begin to take full inventory of the things we’ve learned over the years. We sometimes fail to realize that the Internet is simply a huge pool of shared information.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of people that rely on the Internet for information on countless topics. We fail to understand that some of the information that is highly sought after relative to specific subject matter is information that rest squarely between our own ears… yes in our own brains. This information has been gathered over long periods of time either intentionally or coincidentally, but you can surely bet, you have lots of it.

Yes lots of information that many people in some part of the world wish they had. This is the very foundation of your best product ideas. The information simply needs to be extracted, organized, repackaged and presented in a marketable fashion. Understand, it doesn’t need to be extremely comples, simply valuable.

I know this may sound a bit crude and unrealistic for many, but stop, think and consider this… you know more about many things than you actually realize you know. Here are a few examples:

Maybe you’ve worked as an Administrative assistant for a company or firm for many years. You’ve learned how to streamline business processes and run an organized office.

You’ve discovered scheduling techniques and ways to improve efficiency. Maybe this is something that you’ve done for years so now it has become second nature to you… Have you ever considered how valuable your insights are to the new entrepreneur that has just began to address business efficiency and organization issues? Do you think the new entrepreneur would like the benefit of countless years of your expertise? Of course they would… it would save them time and money. It’s a valuable and marketable product.

There are also more non-traditional approaches to this very concept. For example, maybe you absolutely love to play golf, and through practice and years of enjoying the game, you’ve discovered a new technique that improves your putting stroke substantially… a technique that has consistently reduced your golf scores round after round. You may not realize it but there are thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of golfers that would love to know about your discovery. The information that resides inside YOU is extremely valuable, if you know how to extract, organize, package and resell it.

Opportunities to look within oneself and find valuable, marketable and interesting material that can be repackaged and sold online for profit are endless if explored correctly.

Some would suggest that they have nothing to share of value. I would simply suggest you look a bit closer… Are you a good father, a good single mother, a good school teacher… have you discovered a new approach to organic gardening that produces incredible results, or maybe you’ve discovered a new approach to cooking a favorite dish… these are all examples of innovative ideas that can be extracted, organized, repackaged and marketed online to audiences that share common interest. Many wait patiently for your untapped resources…

Regardless of what you discover about your dormant expertise, it’s important to understand the true value of your untapped discoveries. There are thousands of people (World Wide, as the Internet is a world wide communication medium) that would absolutely love to know some of the things YOU know. This presents all types of opportunities for establishing multiple online income streams.

The Internet has made it possible for you to reach people all across the globe with your specific approach or “take” on a wide variety of subject matter. With a few mouse clicks, you can copy and paste your thoughts and ideas into the minds of others that literally live on the other side of the globe. You can instantly reach out and share… and profit I might add.

When conducting your internal inventory, don’t limit your thinking to traditional “business topics”, think about non business activities like vacations or other activities that interest you… like sports, hobbies and other relaxing and entertaining activities. These types of topics have mass appeal and are of great interest to all types of people in every corner of the globe.

If you’ve engaged in activities that you find interesting for any length of time, chances are, you already know more about those activities than most people do so don’t sell yourself short. With a little extra research and additional creativity you can easily become an “expert” on that subject matter and create an information product that fills a need and captures the attention of like minds.

Many times these information products begin in the form of manuals or “how to” eBooks and evolve into audio and video programs that include online seminars that can be accessed online from almost anywhere.

Even if you do not consider yourself a “technical guru”… you can start an online business for a fraction of the cost of starting a traditional “bricks and mortar” business by simply getting someone else to create your web presence or simply by using some of the free web portals to post your ideas for testing the commercial viability and exposure of your ideas. Accesses to online communication mediums are endless.

It’s important to understand that the commercial return on what “you” considered to be “simple notions” or “common knowledge” can be staggering when you expose this common knowledge to those that have never been privy to your level of understanding. Instead of “commercial startups” that require huge capital expenditures simply substitute creativity and consistent effort and you’ll be surprised at the possibilities that emerge from your efforts to share what you consider to be “common knowledge”.

The fact is, the Internet is allowing many to introduce entirely new business models for exposing what use to be unknown and hard to find knowledge on every conceivable topic imaginable. This is a low cost and viable path to online commercial viability and immediate income diversification.

Take your time and think about the massive inventory of expertise that resides inside of you, your friends and your associates and you’ll be surprised at the vast array of highly marketable products and services that lie dormant…yet totally within your reach.

These product and service ideas are just waiting to be exposed to a wide audience and can ultimately lay the foundation of an entirely new online commercial journey for you. Seize the moment… and share the expertise you’ve obtained through years of study and experience. It could be your ticket to multiple online income streams.

By W. Lockhart

Researching a niche market is the most important step to creating an online business or online income.

If you spend adequate time understanding niche market research concepts your success possibilities will increase substantially. Not only will you increase your chances of online marketing success, you will also greatly increase the chance of avoiding many headaches that are associated with poor niche market performance.

A great deal of niche market research can be performed on teir one search engines like Google, MSN, YAHOO etc.

I recommend Google. Why you ask? 65-70% of “information, product and service seekers“ in the world depend on Google to find answers to commercial questions. Many start by simply typing in a term or word to perform a search. What better place to do business research. You’re getting the information directly from “the horse’s mouth“ as so to speak… the information is relevant, current and in most cases very accurate.

When performing nich market research the objective is to become very knowledgeable on “your specific prospective market”. This is important and should not be under estimated.

The good news is this… the process is relatively easy if approached correctly. It’s also a good idea if your “prospective market“ or “prospective online business idea “ is related to subject matter that interests YOU…

Many marketers debate this idea, however I’ve found that this will help you stay focused on the research process as well as the subsequent process of content development for your chosen niche.

Many new online marketers target a niche because of it’s commercial possibilities. This is understandable and quite appealing, however, if you’re a new online marketer you may find that you loose interest in the subject matter long before you make substantial progress relative to marketplace penetration. Besides, you can always take that approach later, but for starters, I highly suggest you begin with an area that has personal interest to you. This simply makes your work easier and more interesting.

Many people will reply to this concept by stating what appears to be the obvious, “I’m not sure if I can make any money with the topics that interest me…” That’s usually the initial reaction and it’s a quite normal reaction, however nothing could be further from the truth. People are making money in niches that are quite obscure and non traditional. Don’t limit your possibilities here…

When performing niche research it’s a good idea to leave “no stone unturned” as so to speak. Here are a few ideas as to how you can approach this important task.

Using Notepad, MS Word or even on a piece of paper, list several topics or areas that are of personal interest to you. Be sure to use “specific keywords or specific keyword phrases“ that describe these topics. It’s a good idea to make a list of 15-20 topics and trim them down as you acquire additional information about each topic.

Here’s an example of a few topics that one might target:
Golf
Weddings
Photography
Family Entertainment
High Tech Gadgets…. (whatever you wish…)

After you’ve listed broad or general areas, be sure to return to your list and add more specific terms and key phrases. Specificity is important to the process so take your time developing more specifics.

Now let’s head over to Amazon.com… (heard of these guys?) to get additional ideas about the markets we’re researching. Take a close look at the “Best Seller List“…. Maybe we can find books associated with areas that we’ve targeted. This will also help with specificity and brain storming. Why target the best seller list? Because they are BEST SELLERS! We don’t have to guess as to whether these topics are of commercial interest. Again, they’re best sellers right!

Many authors have identified specifics in their books that are closely associated with your targeted areas of interest. They’ve done lots of the hard work and research for you. Obviously people are interested in the subject matter. In addition, it’s important to note this key fact… few people go to Amazon to “look around“ or “browse”. As a matter of fact, many people have credit card “in hand“ before the Amazon page even loads, confirming the commercial intent of the topics listed on these pages. This is key to keep in mind.

Here’s another idea… go to Ebay.com and search for items that are relative to your area of interest with “high search volume counts. This also indicates high commercial interest… it’s Ebay… yes… people go to Ebay to BUY also!

Now that we’ve look at a couple of viable research sources…here’s a quick but important word about “commercial intent”.

As you perform your research you will want to pay special attention to the “keyword or keyword terms“ that you choose. This is very important with respect to the commercial intent of the keywords you’ve chosen. Remember, not all key phrases are “buying” key phrases. We’re only interested in words and phrases that are associated with the act of purchasing right? This is a common mistake made by many amateur online marketers make. They choose descriptive phrases and keyword ideas that are relative to their chosen market but have no “commercial intent”. Pay special attention to this area.

Another great tool for performing research on your market is Google Insights… this is a great tool for understanding demand of a product, service or idea anywhere in the world… You can find it by searching Google for “Google Insights“…. There is a wealth of information that be gained by using this online research tool.

Last and not least… also try finding “popular trend“ information… by researching topics of interest at Google Trends… Google Trends reports on popular trends throughout the world and can be a great source of information when you’re brainstorming product ideas…

Take your time and perform thorough research before deciding to enter a niche market. Even if you’ve chosen subject matter associated with a hobby, a sport, or a particular area of personal interest, performing preliminary research will always give you addition insight and bolster your chances of online marketing success .