Internet Marketing

The type of video you decide to create will largely determine the other elements that you use. Keep these four key elements in mind during the planning and production of your video products:

* Target Audience: This is the most important decision you need to make. Who are you trying to reach? You have to think about demographics: age, socioeconomic level, gender, nationality, educational level. It’s no good to jump into the planning process with vague statements like, “I want to create a video product for sale on the Internet that will appeal to everybody, everywhere.” First define your niche market, narrow your target audience, and create your video with a specific type of person in mind. When you set out to create the kind of video product that one specific person will want to buy, you increase the likelihood that a lot of people will want to buy it. Always wrap your language in images that your target audience can relate to.

* Participants: If you decide to shoot a how-to video on an area in which you have expert knowledge, you are the natural choice as host. If you decide to create a do-it-yourself video in an area where you don’t have expert knowledge, you will need to take great care when choosing a host. Once you’ve decided on a subject and a host, you will need to work together on the script. And always remember that video is not just a format-it’s a language. Never say it if you can show it. The viewers will understand much better when they see it being done, so don’t just explain things while the camera focuses on you. The rule of thumb is: Whenever you can present a visual image of something, show it instead of talking about it. Instead of explaining how to do something as you talk into the camera, always show a demonstrator (whether it’s you or another person) carrying out the action as you describe what’s happening. You’ll quickly become an expert in the use of “voice overs”-speaking off camera as the audience sees action taking place. Do-it-yourself, educational, and promotional videos should be full of voice overs.

* Length: The type of video you decide to make will determine the best length. A great promotional video can be done in as little as 3 to 4 minutes, and should rarely be longer than 7 to 8 minutes. A do-it-yourself or educational video will be from 10 to 30 minutes.

* Props: If you’re doing a how-to video, the subject matter will determine what props you’re going to need. Even if you plan to be your own host or demonstrator, make a list of all the props you’ll need. Lay out the shoot before you do it and walk through it several times with your camera operator. This will keep the shoot from turning into chaos-even experienced studio professionals work with a prop list every time they shoot.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: home based business, business opportunity, home business, affiliate program, internet home business, small business, adsense, online marketing, online business opportunities, internet opportunities

For those who want to earn a bit of extra cash, writing a report or an ebook that gives valuable information about a hobby or passion others share, or solves a problem some people might have, is one of the recommended paths for would-be internet marketers.

But what if you do not have time or just cannot write? Maybe you do not feel confident enough; maybe there is a language barrier or maybe you just prefer not to. Well, if you fit into any of these categories, there is an answer and that is to use a ghostwriter.

A ghostwriter is someone who will write for you, even research for you if you wish; will write ebooks, articles, blog posts, press releases or even your family history. Whatever you want written, there is someone willing to ghostwrite it for you.

When the writing is finished and approved, you own the copyright to the work just as if you had written it yourself. The writer gets a guaranteed fee for their effort, but you have the task of using the work to make money and taking the risk of getting little or no return, so it seems to be a fair arrangement.

So how do you go about finding a ghostwriter?

Well, you could just Google “ghostwriter wanted” and sift through all the results, but an easier way to get started is to visit one of the existing online marketplaces for people wanting such work. Some of the most common are listed below:

www.elance.com
www.vworker.com
www.guru.com
www.odesk.com
www.freelancer.com
www.scriptlance.com

What you do on these sites is list your proposal and people looking for work will put in an offer for your job.

If you are not familiar with hiring in this manner, go to some of the sites listed above and have a look around, get the feel of the site, look at some of the proposals and the bids on them.

Start with the search bar at the top of nearly all these sites. If there is no search field, there will always be two links, one for those looking to hire workers or contractors and another for people who want work and list themselves for hire.

If you type in, say “ghost writer, ebook” in the search field, it should bring up current jobs similar to what you want.

On some sites you may have to register before you can see the full details but registration is free and you only need to supply basic information to get started.

Open up some of the jobs that are listed, looking at the qualifications and experience of those bidding. Notice the price range in that site for the type of work you want done for yourself. Keep some notes of what you find on each site, what you like and dislike. That will make it easier for you to decide later which one is the best fit for you.

It is up to you, as a hirer, to decide how much your budget allows you to spend. Paying more for an experienced writer with good feedback should be a good investment, however if your budget is limited, you may want to select someone with less experience; they could still do excellent work, but because they do not have much feedback, may be willing to work for a lower price until they get established and have a good portfolio.

Expect to pay higher prices on Elance than on oDesk, for example. There are many workers who have an excellent education living in countries where work choices are limited bidding for jobs at prices that may seem very low. A low offer does not necessarily mean a poor quality job, on the contrary they may produce an excellent result. It is all about choice; yours and theirs.

Your first task will be to write your proposal. If you have not already done so, it is a good idea to search for other similar proposals to see what has been asked for in those ads, such as job description, skills and experience requirements, time to completion and whether you want a fixed or an hourly rate. Go to the Help section too, as you can get some good hints there. You will need to be clear in your own mind what you want, to be able to write a good proposal.

Once your ad is ready to list, check with the Help or FAQ to see what the site requirements for listings are. Many have instructions that walk you step by step through the whole process.

When you list, you need to decide how long you want to let your ad run; a shorter time will usually attract fewer offers but will allow you to get started more quickly, so it is a bit of a trade-off.

Some sites will let you invite applicants to bid on your proposal so if you found any who appealed to you in your research, invite them to make an offer.

Bid prices can sometimes vary widely; a project on scriptlance.com at present had bids ranging for $10 with immediate delivery to $7,000 in ten days, but this seems a bit unusual and is perhaps an indication that there is a misunderstanding about what is required. More often the range will be narrower, so your choice is made more on what you read in the applicant’s offer and in their bio than on price.

Before you make a decision, check out all you can find about the individual contractors who make an offer. Look at their past projects and any feedback from it, their experience, qualifications and areas of interest as well as the bid price. Sometimes you can see how much they have earned on previous contracts and that can be very helpful.

Take your time in selecting a candidate. If someone interests you and you want more information, send them a message to clarify before you accept the bid.

Once the selection is made, agree on milestones such as when you want to see the first draft, the final draft and any revisions completed. Many of the sites listed above use escrow funding, meaning you pay all or part of the fee in advance into a trust fund from where the money is paid to the worker as milestones are reached. oDesk is one site that currently does not require this, payments are made as work is done unless an agreement is reached beforehand.

It is essential for successful ghostwriting that you have good clear communication with your outsourcer. If you can develop a relationship where there is mutual trust and understanding, the whole process can be very rewarding for both parties.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: Entrepreneur, affiliate program, internet marketing, home based business, business opportunity, home business opportunity, internet opportunities, internet business, online business opportunities, home business

Lack of focus is the main cause of failure in business. This is true no matter what business you’re in. Focus acts like electricity-you can’t see it directly, but you can see how it affects companies and people when it’s running through them. To be a successful video producer and Internet marketer, you must make yourself an expert in one field or niche-the best way to do that is by sharpening your focus. Before you start to create your next video product, consider these simple tips to put the power of focus to work in your business:

* Focus increases your self-discipline. Focused people are able to distinguish between the jobs that bring them closer to their desired goals and the daily demands that only waste their time. They don’t get overwhelmed by all the urgent but unimportant jobs that demand their attention.

* Focused people know where they want to go. When you have a focus, you have a vision of what you want to achieve. Above all, focused people concentrate on reaching their goals. Focus helps you measure your results and readjust your game plan when necessary.

How to increase your focus
Post reminders for yourself. Hang your favorite motivational signs where you’ll see them when an idea for a video product seems to be going nowhere. Written reminders can help you recover your focus.

Set daily priorities. Be sure you have an action plan for every day. As you become more skilled at video production and as you learn from your mistakes, this will become second nature to you. But you will always need to do this. Always go back to your list of priorities before you jump into a new task.

Complete the video project you’re working on before you start a new one. We all want to create as many revenue streams as possible-this is a basic part of what we do as Internet marketers. But you’ll only make money by getting video products online one at a time. People who lack focus find themselves getting excited about a new idea before they have finished a project. If you have fallen into the habit of leaving projects undone, you suffer from a lack of focus.

Keep an idea book with you. When you’re working on an idea for one video product, it’s not uncommon to get a stream of ideas that could be a starting point for other great video products. Don’t let your next “great idea” cause you to lose your focus. Jot it down and keep working on the first project-stay focused on one project until it’s completed. Don’t start work on another idea until the last project is up and running on the Internet.

Stay focused on your vision. Write the vision for your video product where you can see it every day. Remembering your vision will keep you from drifting. If you get stuck, narrow your options and choose a single point to talk about. If you find yourself throwing out all types of different solutions and ideas at your viewers, you’ll only create chaos.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: small business, work at home, internet home business, online marketing, home based business, online business opportunities, affiliate program, make money, business opportunity, adsense

Web conferencing is a new way of communicating online across businesses to help companies answer to the needs of their business in this day and age of ever expanding technology. No less than conducting meetings across partners, affiliates, executives, and even departments are now as quick and easy as going online and having web conferencing software to support one’s needs. Regardless of how far you are from each other, there is a way to check off projects, organize functions and seminars, facilitate training sessions, and sign off deals. With web conferencing, you’re sure to have that answer to your business needs in your fingertips.

The world of technology now allows business to expand their horizons. Previously communicating is so difficult when distances between people distinguish the necessity to contact each other. Executives need to know how operations are going, managers have to check the status of each project they’re handling, partners want to learn how much is their cash inflow in each undertaking, and team members need to organize their activities for the day. Timelines have to be followed, targets need to be met, deadlines must be acknowledged. Without web conferencing, it would have been hard to proceed for these people to coordinate with each other, and pursue the objectives and goals of their business. Now that we have further technology providing such convenience, business is brisk, and is all alive and well, thanks to such offerings as web conferencing.

Nowadays businesses venture into online marketing and publicity to promote their products and services. If before the medium is limited to print and broadcast media, now channelling information is as effortless and straightforward, making complicated decisions is now as easy and less daunting, and data is now accessible no matter where you are in the globe. Web conferencing gives that option and more. Contacting the important people involved in your business can take no less than five minutes to set up.

Selecting the web conferencing software that suits your needs is important. There are many web conferencing programs that recognize the features and specifications that many companies need to do business. Be it for a small organization or a large one such as a multinational company, there are web conferencing applications to match your needs. If it’s for a low-level interaction between group mates assigned to the same task, an assembly of members within an entire division, a managerial committee, or a board meeting, web conferences are a highly recommended option. No need to fly back or drive towards the branch office – you can just pull up a chair, grab a phone line or a working Internet connection, set up your web conferencing software, and connect immediately with your contacts.

Plus a whole set of features in web conferencing software are made available to users. These include saving conference chat and audio logs, file sharing, network connectivity, and video conferencing. PowerPoint presentations, sharing spreadsheets, modifying files across a network, even reporting online can be done. Everyone can have access to important files, with modifications logged and noted by name, date, and time. Presentations can easily be shown to all members in the conference. Invitations to a conference can be distributed across members of a group, by division or department, or to individual members of an organization. Minutes of meetings can now be easily noted down using the chat and audio logs as reference, and be sent across the members of a project, team, or group in a click of a button.

If you want to fully see the potentials of your business, then tap this online resource and get into web conferencing. A business that’s always connected makes customers and partners feel secure. Web conferencing truly helps companies pursue the core objectives of their business by staying connected and accessible to all their contacts. Don’t wait a single second or waste any moment – communicate right away through web conferencing. Business has never been this brisk with web conferencing. You will surely see the gains and advantages of online web conferencing to your business. Exhibit the confidence of a reliable working environment no matter where you are located, and go online with your workers and affiliates. With web conferencing, there are lesser costs and more benefits, and means higher profits. So go on and get connected through web conferencing today.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: home business opportunity, internet opportunities, Entrepreneur, business opportunity, online business, internet business, make money online, home business, affiliate, business opportunity leads

Outsourcing can really be beneficial for a number of reasons. Some companies enjoy benefits such as reduced labor costs, larger workforces, access to industry experts and increased flexibility through outsourcing. However, despite the obvious advantages to outsourcing there are some situations when outsourcing is not a good idea. Although there a number of scenarios where outsourcing is a viable business option there are other scenarios where outsourcing is not the best idea. In these situations it is best to keep the work in-house rather than attempting to make an outsourcing situation work out.

When Outsourcing is Too Costly

One of the primary advantages of outsourcing is a cost reduction. In many cases outsourcing results in reduced labor costs because costs such as social security, health care and workers’ compensation are eliminated. Additionally, the increased efficiency resulting when tasks are outsourced to industry experts can also result in a cost reduction.

Despite these many opportunities for cost reductions, there are some situations where outsourcing might be the more expensive alternative and it may also lead to a financial loss instead of a gain. This may include a situation where the cost of outsourcing to a highly specialized expert exceeds the budget for the project. Fees for individuals with highly specialized degrees or areas of expertise are often quite expensive. Another possible situation is one where finding an individual qualified to complete specialized tasks would be too expensive of a process.

When Outsourcing Causes You to Lose Control

Even when tasks or projects are outsourced the company responsible for the work likes to continue to manage the project and keep close tabs on the progress of tasks. It is important for the company to continue to manage the project even after it has been outsourced because they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the successful completion of the project. Whenever an individual or company wants to deny the company access to project files or documents, outsourcing is a bad idea. The company who has the vested interest in the outcome of the project should never be excluded from participating in making decisions regarding the project.

Before outsourcing a task or project care should be taken to establish criteria for the management of the project. Depending on the length and complexity of the project it may also be wise to schedule regular meetings to provide updates on the progress of the project. During this time the contractor should provide the employer with all documentation necessary to evaluate the progress of the project and verify it is still on track for completion by the established deadline.

When Outsourcing is Not Permitted

Sometimes outsourcing is not a good idea simply because it is not permitted by contract requirements. Some project contracts may have stipulations stating the work cannot be outsourced to an individual or to another company. Inserting such a clause into a contract document is well within the rights of the clients. When they hire a particular company to complete a project or task, they expect all work related to the project or task to be completed by members of that company unless they specified otherwise when negotiating the contract. Violating the contract documents in this situation is not a good idea. The company could be penalized by the client. Penalties may include withholding payment or refusing to award future projects or tasks to the company.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: internet business, internet marketing, business opportunity leads, work at home, business opportunity, online marketing, internet home business, affiliate, online business, affiliate program

Smart Internet marketing involves smarter business strategies – and one such strategy is drop shipping. With drop shipping, you can save your time and put it to better use making you more money.

Drop shipping is an entrepreneur’s dream, offering a host of benefits. To put it simply, drop shipping allows you to sell goods online at a price of your choice without keeping any inventory. When the customer purchases the goods and makes payment for them, you will place an order for the product though your supplier, a drop shipper. Your drop shipper then charges you a wholesale price for the product and ships the product directly to the customer. You get to keep the difference between wholesale and retail price.

Drop shipping offers many unique advantages to you:

1. You don’t need to keep stock or inventory.

2. You don’t need to bother with packing and shipping.

3. You can make money easily by just taking orders.

4. Your profit margin could increase.

Even though drop shipping can have many advantages, however, there are some things you need to consider:

1. Any product or service you intend to sell online must be in demand.

2. The product you choose must sell in high volumes: the fact that you could sell the profit cheaply and make a good margin doesn’t mean anyone is buying. Research the market for any product line you’re considering. Try to determine demand for the product, how much competition there is, and what they’re charging.

3. Signing up with a well-known supplier offers you many benefits. For instance, you will probably find it easier to return unsatisfactory products. Some drop suppliers will even pay the return costs in these cases. As a promotion, some suppliers will even offer you products for free if you meet their targets.

4. Target one or two products at a time — don’t be in a rush to sell lots of different ones. Maintaining a large drop shipping business is often difficult and can become unmanageable.

How do you set your drop shipping business? To get started, find a directory of legitimate drop shippers with excellent reputations. Make a list of drop shippers who are established in the business and have a proven track record. Next, take the top five from the list and look through their website for products and services. In most cases you will find that their catalogue is massive, with all sorts of things available. Above all else, you need to be sure that you can sell what you choose.

Once you’ve done your homework, make contact with the drop shipper, either by phone or by mail. Don’t start prematurely telling them all about your project, though — you should start by asking for additional information on the terms and conditions. You will have read every clause and sub-clause thoroughly, taking care to understand the business model you’re signing up to. Terms and conditions and service policies often vary with different drop shippers — look out for any hidden clauses that could cause you trouble in the future.

The next step is to select the best offers from the drop shippers and start negotiating for better commission rates. If you have a thriving web business with a lot of traffic, it’s possible to make a case for a better commission rate. Once the terms and conditions are acceptable to both of you, you can add the products to your online store.

When you work with a drop shipper, you become a “merchant” or “trader”. This usually means that you will need to register with the relevant authorities. To become a merchant you may have to register to file tax returns and get a valid license to sell your products. Such regulations vary from region to region, so you should check it out with your local authorities.

The biggest headache associated with drop shipping is product returns. Don’t expect it to be anything like smooth sailing. You’ll run into back orders, product returns or even refund demands, if products are defective. As the shipping isn’t under your control, it’s difficult to explain your customers what’s going on when products are unavailable or delivered late. Your own terms and conditions, user policy and other such notices must be precise and explain everything in detail to the customers. Always aim to avoid legal hassles, but do be prepared to contest customers’ claims.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: work at home, online marketing, home based business, make money, internet opportunities, home business opportunity, internet marketing, home business, online business opportunities, work from home

Within this article today on creating and starting an online business, we are going to look at different ways of creating an online business for you.

There are many different online businesses that you can start but most of them come down to three broad categories which are: selling products or services to retail customers, selling on eBay, and business-to-business selling. When you are looking at creating and starting an online business, you’ll want to look at what your specialty is in creative business around one of these three broad categories. If you decide that you want to sell to retail customers, you will have to find a way to sell your products or services in a different manner than many of the other retail websites out there. If you decide that you want to sell on eBay, you’ll want to find a wholesale distributor of products where you can buy your products at a great discount. If you already work within the business-to-business forum, this will be an easy transition for you.

Each of these three categories can be broken into but you must decide upon which of the three will focus. Many people will decide to start an online business but have no idea where they should focus their efforts. By focusing your efforts on one of these three categories, you’ll know in which direction to start. If you decide to start with eBay, look for a wholesale distributor where you can buy your products of the great discount. This is most effective for many startups because you do not have to buy the products in you can worry about selling online to people who want your product. The people who want your product will be the ones who are bidding so that you know exactly what they want when the auction is over. To find some wholesale distributors for you, look at the following website: www.worldwidebrands.com.

If you decide that you want to sell products or services to retail customers, try and find a niche that is underserved by your and your Internet competitors right now. This is when the keys to creating a starting an online retail business because you want to find an area where there is little competition that you can dominate. To find some of these underserved niches, visit the following website: www.findhotniches.com.

Finally, if you decide that you want to do business to business selling, figure out how you can provide benefit to the particular market that you want to go after. Many people work online as freelance writers and you are able to do this and potentially differ yourself from the competition if you market to one particular niche. Business-to-business selling is similar to the retail strategy in that you want to focus upon a niche and try and dominate that niche.

Hopefully this article on creating and starting an online business gives you an idea on which of the three areas you would like to focus.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: Entrepreneur, affiliate, online marketing, internet opportunities, internet business, business opportunity leads, work at home, home based business, affiliate program, home business opportunity

When someone sends an email, they would prefer to get an immediate response. Although most responses take time, customers and potential buyers prefer to get their response immediately. To give an immediate response to an email, you can use an autoresponder. They are a great way to let someone know that you received their email, and that you are taking care of their request. Autoresponder messages can be custom tailored, and look much better than simple thank you pages.

Some Internet marketers use their autoresponders to save themselves time and make their customers feel a bit more at ease until they get the time to handle the request or issue. If you set up your autoresponder in your email account, you’ll find that there are many advantages, although the biggest advantage is answering email questions and acting as tech support.

Your autoresponder can act as tech support for your business by answering any questions you receive via email. To make this work smoother, you can always add answers as you go or just include the most common preset answers in your autoresponder. If your website has a technical support page, you can include different addresses for each specific question. When a customer emails the address, the autoresponder at the other end will automatically send them the answer.

Using an autoresponder to answer your email questions can drastically cut down the amount of emails that you need to answer. Instead of having to wait on your response, your customer will get an instant reply. Customers love to get instant replies, which is one of the main reasons why autoresponders are so popular with online businesses and Internet marketing. If customers start to ask questions that your autoresponder isn’t set up for, you can easily add answers to it anytime you need to.

No matter what the question may be, you can use an autoresponder to answer it. With most autoresponders, you simply type the answer to a question or other piece of information into a text file. You can include an answer section on your website as well, where customers will ask their questions. If you set it up so that it includes a mail form, you can add several pages to the answer section. Once a customer sends the question, the autoresponder should immediately send them an answer.

For a growing Internet business, an autoresponder is a must have. If you deal with a lot of customers, you’ll find this tool to be very beneficial. No matter what type of company you may have online, an autoresponder will help you stand out in a crowd – and keep you looking good night and day. When customers email you and get an immediate response – they won’t forget it.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: internet opportunities, business opportunity, home business opportunity, Entrepreneur, internet marketing, work at home, affiliate, online marketing, make money, internet business

Strange as it may seem, our life is made up of a series of “sales presentations”. Sales may not be your gig, but if you’re the boss you’re making presentations everyday. Be it a pitch to your Board, announcing a policy change to employees, selling an idea to your spouse, or just trying to win others over to your point of view – you need to punch up your people skills for winning pitches.

Human nature is such that people support solutions that they help create, so involve them by allowing your audience to participate with questions or ideas. It goes without saying that to not involve key people is risky, because messages can be misunderstood. Your plans may be derailed before they begin if sufficient “buy-in” is lacking. Use lots of open-ended questions in your presentation to draw out the silent type.

Preparation is a key to success. Prepare your listeners to what’s coming during or before your presentation. Try these pre-meeting tactics:

• Assign task-related pre-work. This could be pre-reading or study of a problem, and the preparations of possible solutions. An example could be, “go and visit three kinds of accounts before the meeting.”
• Make pre-meeting contacts with those invited by email, phone, or in person. You might want to try an informal survey to get people’s position on the issues at hand.

Remember support on key or controversial matters can be established ahead of time by lobbying, if you know where to lobby.

Do your research! People who make it look easy and are effective presenters have a hidden arsenal. This is an arsenal of up-to-date, organized material that can be accessed quickly in ready-to-use form when needed. They have the stats to back up their ideas, and they have a mental arsenal of stories, examples, jokes, and ice-breakers to use when needed.

Your physical presentation could include tangible items relating to the issue such as recent articles clipped from newspapers or magazines, photographs, reports, and demonstration property. To become masterful in this art learn to maintain resources you can access for just the right thing at the right time.

The next thing you must do is to explain “why?” The single most powerful thing you can do to convince your audience of something is to provide a convincing reason why they should do what you suggest or believe what you say. People want and need a clear “WIIFM” – “what’s in it for me?” – to be able to react positively to what you want them to do. It’s extremely important that you deliver a vision of benefits. Hearing the “why” won’t automatically generate a “yes” to your proposition, but it’ll open the door for receptivity to your idea.

Knowing and accepting the “why” satisfies a basic need that we all have – to understand the purpose of our actions. Use the words “because” or “so that” in your presentation and then finish the phrase. When your subject matter is controversial or likely to generate emotions, it is essential that your “why’s” be tested in advance. Ask some people you trust or that are on your “team” to play devil’s advocate to help you with your logic and arguments.

These are just the first four points for making successful presentations. There are eight of them in total, and we’ll look at the other four in my column next week. For now, let me leave you with this thought.
Life is a sales job from beginning to end. From the moment that we discern how to get approval as children, winning friends at school, getting our first beau, getting our first (and subsequent) job, getting engaged and married, achieving our goals, and anything else you can think of in between – we’re selling ourselves or our ideas all along the way. Who said you weren’t a salesperson?

To Your Success
Cody Moya

Tags: adsense, work from home, online business opportunities, affiliate, online business, small business, internet marketing, internet business, home business opportunity, business opportunity leads

If you want to sell niche products from your own website, physical store or even on eBay, you need to be able to compete with your local retailers. This means finding a wholesaler willing to trade with you at prices which give you enough leeway to make a profit.

The first place to look is locally, why pay shipping charges for goods sent from a supplier across country when you could take a drive in your own car to a local supplier for small goods or hire a van for bigger stuff? Some local wholesalers might even provide a cheap or even free delivery service.

Wholesalers as a rule don’t advertise in the mass media such as TV or newspapers and so they are often difficult to find. To get you started, here are a few ideas for locating wholesale sources of niche products for you to sell:

1) One of the first places to look is in your local trade directory, many wholesalers place advertisements in local trade directories and even in the Yellow Pages for the products they carry.

2) Another place to conduct your research is on the internet, and there are search engines which are wholesale specific such as www.wholesalecentral.com and www.wholesalequest.com. These wholesale specific search engines allow you to search for wholesale sources by browsing categories or by entering keywords (related to the products you want to sell) into a search bar.

You can find other wholesale specific search engines or directories by typing “wholesale search engine” or “wholesale directory” or “wholesale directories” or even “wholesalers” into the search engine of your choice.

3) Nearly all wholesalers will belong to a trade association and these trade associations will often host trade shows all over the world. It stands to reason that an excellent place to discover new wholesale sources is to visit as many trade shows as you can. Here are two ways of finding suitable tradeshows:

i) Join a trade association related to the goods you wish to sell and subscribe to their periodicals or newsletters as these always carry details of local, regional and international trade shows.

ii) Conduct research on the internet by visiting websites such as Trade Show News Network (www.tsnn.com). You could also search for others by entering “trade show directory” or add a keyword related to your products to the search phrase – for example, “jewelry trade shows”.

4) Look for the items you wish to sell in a local store, when you find the item look carefully at the packaging as many suppliers provide their contact details and often include their website URL. You can either contact them directly or visit their website to discover how to either purchase from them directly (which is often cheaper than buying from a wholesaler), or if that is not possible ask them who your local wholesaler is and if they can give you the wholesaler’s contact details.

Once you have a list of possible wholesale sources for your niche products you need to do some due diligence on each wholesaler. You need to find out if they are legitimate businesses and are approved by the manufacturers. They last thing you want to get involved in is a copyright lawsuit because you are inadvertently selling illegal copies of the original product.

From a purely business point of view you need to find out their payment terms, return policies, shipping charges and methods. If you can, you need to get references from other customers; are they happy with the wholesalers service or not?

Once you have decided on a wholesale source, there’s one thing you need to be aware of… When you purchase from a wholesaler you have to buy in bulk, you cannot buy individual items. If you’re just starting out you’re probably going to find this quite expensive, but there is a way to reduce this cost. If you can, find another established customer who buys the same products as you, you can approach them with a joint venture whereby they sell you products for a set profit, say 20% on each item you buy. Your end of the joint venture will be that you agree to buy a set number of items each month and that don’t compete with them directly.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

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