You just HAVE to watch this video – it shows a REAL LIVE example of a seller on Eaby doing about $5k per month in the Public Domain space – AWESOME.

Very cool

The tool being used can be found here

Hi folks – for anybody on the East Coast I hope you didn’t get too much snow today!

Anyway I am excited to say that our amazing new took – Auction Spy – is almost ready and we are looking for a couple of beta testers.

So if you are an Ebay user take a look at the video below – if you are interested (you will get this product free PLUS our next product – which is VERY exciting!) drop me a comment and let me know a little bit about what you do on Ebay (don’t worry I won’t let the comment become viewable)

Onwards to your success!

Simon

How is your online business going?

Are you having as much success as you would like?

Here we are at the end of January  almost 1/12th of the way through the year. Are you 1/12th of the way closer to your goals? If not why not?

It’s funny but often the solutions to our problems are staring is right in the face and we cannot see them. Something like we cannot see the forest for the trees.

One of the the things I enjoy doing the most is helping people. So I would love to hear what is stopping you making money online. Who knows I might be able ot help you fix it!

Having an un-emotional second party take a look can often help you solve your problem. Sometimes just saying it out loud is major step forward (you can’t solve a problem until you know what it is after all)

Drop me a comment below telling me what your biggest problem is with making money online and I’ll answer it personally. I can’t promise to provide a magic silver bullet but I will “tell it like it is” and “give it to you straight”. I won’t sell you anything or recommend any product where I make any money. I just want to give a little back to my readers.

So let me know what your biggest problem (or two) is and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Onwards to your success.

Simon

Are you really selling to a specific niche or are you just using the shotgun approach? Most people seem to take the shotgun approach when the laser targeting of focusing on a niche is often massively more profitable.  In fact you need to make your niche as tightly focused as possible - the more focused you make it, often, the more you can charge for it.

Dan Kennedy likes to use the Time Management example - if you create a time management course maybe you can sell it for $47. However if you make time management for Lawyers, you can probably sell it for $197.

If you focus on the right niche with the right product you can EASILY sell them your product and they will often pay more. And once you find this hungry niche they will buy just about anything of decent value if you treat them right

I saw a real world example of this today. My wife went to visit the podiatrist. Long story short he upsold her on a custom pair of orthodics – for the great price of $400. Now did she need them? Who knows but she WANTED them and didn’t think twice about paying the money.

When she got home and saw my sticker shock she reminded me that I ordered a $100 case of wine from the Wall Street Journal. Now that made ME think! I am no wine expert but I do like a good bottle of red wine – and when I saw an ad in the paper for a case of wine reduced by $169 I just HAD to have it. And you know what it’s a continuity program so there is a good chance I’ll be buying more!

So what niche are you focusing on? Do you have a range of products including upsells for them? Do you treat them well and send them valuable info? Because if you do – they can take care of YOU for a very long time.

Onwards to your success.

Simon

On one of the Internet Marketing forums I visit regularly I came across a post from somebody that basically said two things:

1) You cannot make money from Public Domain material in the self-help niche because it is overcrowded

2) You cannot make money selling ‘old’ niches such as blacksmithing.

The poster offered no evidence – just another ‘guru’ posting their warped views of the world. Well let me tell you it is complete and utter rubbish. There are LOTS of people making money in both of those niches. Don’t believe me? Well let me show you some examples – yes real world examples. I love showing actual PROOF as opposed to rhetoric – these ‘gurus’ kill me – never any proof.

Lets start with the good old self-help niche. I just love selling to this crowd. Take a walk down to your local book store - incidentally, your book store can be one of your best sources of ideas! Go to the self-help section. It is normally SEVERAL shelves of books – of yes, nobody is buying all those books? I’m sure the store wouldn’t waste valuable floor space if these weren’t selling like hotcakes!

So what sells in this niche. In this case I am going to fall back on a real old classic “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill. Arguably the most famous self-help book amongst entrepreneurs. This text is in the public domain. So surely giving it s available freely online there is NO way it is selling on Amazon right? Wrong! I see many copies for sale including this one:  http://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-Bestseller-Now/dp/1585424331/

What I like about this one is they didn’t just  take the text and sell it, they added some of their own work. According to Amazon this is ranked at #635 in Books. Holy Cow! This is the 635th best seller in ALL BOOKS that Amazon sells!!!! Think about that – how many thousands or millions do they sell???

I am willing to bet he added maybe 20% (probably less) to the original book and he has an amazing best seller! It is also #7 in “Business Life” and #18 in” Success” not too shabby! There also the plain old copies of the orginal with little or no changes, still selling well – take a look for yourself. Yep no doubt the original poster in the forum was right, this old self-help stuff doesn’t sell!!!!!!

So what about some of these really obscure niches like blacksmithing? Surely he is right and they don’t sell? Well lets take a look at good old Ebay. Well a quick search on “blacksmith” then looking at the completed item reveals a treasure trove of items that are selling! Look at this one for example: http://cgi.ebay.com/Blacksmithing-Blacksmith-Forging-Repousse_W0QQitemZ180449758506QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Nonfiction_Book?hash=item2a03a4cd2a#ht_526wt_1174

Now am I 100% sure this is in the Public Domain – no, but I am about 95% sure and with a little investigation could prove it, but I’ll save that for another day! Look at this seller – there is a LOT to learn from him.

So back to the original poster – yes please keep thinking in your limited way and spreading the message to stay out of these PROFITABLE niches so other people (wink, wink) can make money from them!

To hear about some of my ‘secret’ find of public domain goldmines join my Insider Newsletter click here.

So before you rush out and buy all those ‘amazing’ info products on how to make money on the Internet I want to let you into a little secret.

None of them are going to work unless you do this one thing. Thats right you will fail on every endevour if you don’t have this one secret ingredient. Nobody can sell this to you, you need to find it yourself.

The secret ingredient is ACTION.

Sounds simple eh? But you will be surprised to find out that 90% (probably 95%) of people just will not apply this secret principle. People will sit around procrastinating, making excuses or watching the latest episode of their favorite TV show, when they could be chalking up one success after another.

And the more of it the better! I like to call it MASSIVE ACTION.

In one of Dan Kennedy’s books he talks about turning around a company he has taken over – he sits down and lists 37 different ways to do it, then does all of them.  If I remember correctly 6 or 7 of them work.

So the question is are YOU going to take action in 2010? Sit down and write a list of all the things you are going to do in 2010 - then drop me a comment and let me know what you are going to do – I’ll try and keep you honest!

Good luck in 2010 – although I know you won’t need it if you are taking MASSIVE action

Simon