by Dr. Kevin Nunley
Index
of Articles
Don walked across the
street from his house to mine to announce he had finally
retired. "But I'm not ready for the golf course," he said.
"I want to make a living on the Internet. What can I sell?"
This is a question many
of us struggle with as we see money, freedom, and a bright
future for those who manage to find their niche online.
You may have tried to sell something from the Internet
only to find it is difficult to get visitors to your web
site and even harder to get them to buy.
The biggest hurdle is
simple: most folks are trying to sell products to consumers.
That's not where the money is. It is a more daunting task
than most realize.
Only one percent of retail
sales happens on the Internet. Even though selling to
consumers should be gargantuan one day, we have a long
way to go before the majority of people are placing orders
the Internet way.
Instead, sell something
to businesses. While consumer sales amounted to $20 billion
last year, business-to-business purchases vaulted to a
whopping $100 billion.
Clearly, if you want
the easiest path to tapping into the landslide of Internet
cash, sell a product or service needed by business.
So, you say, I should
sell a product to businesses? Not exactly. Most products
need to be sold in large volumes by many distributors
before they turn a profit. Chances are the product you
sell is also being pushed by hundreds or thousands of
other affiliates. In the end, many business buyers will
simply click to the main corporate site to make their
purchase.
Your best bet for starting
a small Internet business and earning a living online
is to sell a service to businesses.
Unlike products, it is
hard to mass produce a service. Most service providers
find their competition is relatively thin. This is especially
true if you provide a very specialized service or do your
job in a particular way that is hard to duplicate. Because
services require time spent by an experienced expert,
rates can be high, especially for business customers.
But I'm not an expert
in anything people on the Internet would want to buy,
you exclaim. Not true.
Sit down with a pen and
jot down all the things bosses have paid you for during
your work career. Add to your list things you have done
on your own time that friends, neighbors, or co-workers
have felt were valuable.
Which of these things
could be sold on the Internet? If you kept books for a
business with twenty employees, you can sell your bookkeeping
service to the vast number of small Internet businesses
who don't have the time or expertise to manage their growing
firm.
If you produced your
church newsletter for several years, your desktop publishing
and editing skills could fill the hot demand for people
who can write and publish e-messaging campaigns, web sites,
and print newsletters. Best of all, a writer/editor deals
in pure information which is easiest and cheapest to deliver
over the Internet.
My neighbor Don decided
his skills from a career in law enforcement would be hard
to sell on the Internet. But he knew lots of things businesses
needed and he had a list of town residents who could fill
those needs.
If you don't readily
have a service you can sell to business, find someone
who does. Many in-demand people don't know how to market
themselves on the Internet or haven't the time to try.
Represent their service online and take a commission for
each sale.
Put up your own web site
with some articles business customers will find helpful.
They can do double duty, showing you know plenty about
your line of work.
Post testimonials from
satisfied customers or other experts in your industry.
To get full impact, be sure to list the person's full
name and the name of their business or city they live
in.
Offer to send customers
and prospects a monthly update via email. Include brief
updates on important developments in the industry. Mix
in three line ads promoting your service.
Selling a service to
business is your least expensive way to get started making
money online. It is also the quickest way to tap into
the huge amounts of money traveling from business to business.
