Financial Freedom Resources|Gain Financial Freedom

Choosing the Right Product for your Niche

“But what do I have that I can sell to folks who are into organic gardening?” you ask.  Good question.  I don’t have an answer for you—I don’t sell to the organic gardening crowd—but I can tell you how to find out the answer.

Before you worry about what products to offer, you will have to dive into the world made by your niche market.  For example, if you want to sell to the organic gardening aficionados, you will have to learn something about organic gardening—and them.

First, familiarize yourself with their “lingo.”  What terms do they use?  Are there industry terms that your market uses?  Acronyms?  Slang?  Knowing how to communicate with your market is key, so knowing the lingo is crucial.

Second, what do the people in your market do?  What are their typical activities?  How do they prepare for them?  How often are they done?  To take our organic gardening example: what sorts of things does an “organic gardener” do?  How often?  What kinds of tools do they use?

Third, look and see what your target communities are talking about.  What are the hot topics?  What are their complaints?  What issues constantly come up?  What ideas are they open to? More importantly, what ideas are they not open to?  (For example: organic gardeners might complain about bugs and pests all the time, but they probably won’t be open to the idea of artificial pesticides!).

Once you have done this research—do the research again.  I’m serious: there is always more you can do to research your market and “get inside the head” of the people who populate your chosen niche.  Once you have done your research twice, you should be able to answer the following questions:

What do the people in my target market want?

What are the more pressing issues for the people in my target market?

What sorts of problems need to be solved, and quickly?

What sorts of things are they searching for online?

Perhaps our organic gardeners are having a tough time with pest control, but are not willing to use heavy pesticides.  I’d bet that there are dozens of safe “home remedy” type of solutions to this problem.  Some probably work, many don’t.  Wouldn’t an eBook that lists the various things people have tried, and which ones work for which kinds of pests, be nice to have?  You get the idea. 

Once you have answered the above questions, you are ready to brainstorm products for this niche.  Do a TBI list and think of twenty or so products you could offer them.  How zany the idea is at this point doesn’t matter—remember, out of the twenty ideas you come up with, chances are that only one will be worthwhile.  But, oh, what a goldmine that idea will be!

Once you have twenty or so ideas, you need some way of narrowing your list down to get to that one “goldmine” idea.  When you do this, keep in mind the following:

People want instant solutions, when possible.  If they have a problem, they want the problem solved yesterday.  So focus on products that deliver immediate value to your customers.

People are not bothered by problems just because they are annoying; they are bothered by problems because those problems make them feel a certain way: inferior, stupid, lost—you name it.  A good product taps into this tendency and tries to alleviate these feeling.  For example, does your product…

Help people feel in control?

Help people feel competent?

Help people make or keep money?

Help people get or keep a job?

Help people with their image?

Help people take control of the health?

Your product should make people feel like they won the lottery when they made their purchase.  An example: when my wife and I had our first baby, we were dead exhausted after a couple of months.  And no wonder: babies wake up every couple of hours to feed (and poop).  Desperate for sleep, my wife went online for an eBook by a respected doctor on a sure-fire program to help train baby to sleep through the night.  We paid $75.00 for the book… and the book was worth every penny.  In two weeks, we had our child skipping his two late night feedings and getting a great night’s sleep.  We’ve even suggested the book to friends.

If you did your homework and made a TBI list of twenty products, you should be able to find one that meets these criteria.  If not… you can either go back to doing more research, or else pick a new niche.

Now Build!

So you’ve got your market mapped out, you’ve got your product idea… now is the time to jump in and build your business.

Your product will depend, of course, on your niche market, your abilities, and your research.  Saying anything general at this point doesn’t help—concrete is the way to go.  So I’ll give you an example from my experience: building, promoting, and selling an eBook.

From my research, I determined that an eBook would be the way to go.  For the eBook that I’m promoting, I chose to focus not just on Investing on Real Estate alone, but on financial freedom in general.  That was the problem that needed to be addressed.  I chose to stress the need to take action, to work hard, and to learn the secrets of making income passively.  But you already know all of this. J

So how do I make money from this product?  There are two sides to this coin: generating the product itself and getting the product into the most hands.  The rest of this section will focus on product generation; later on, in “Building a Presence,” I deal with web site building—that is, getting your product into people’s hands.

Generating the product itself should not be rocket science.  I use the word “generating” because, in some instances, you will be buying products from a supplier, and in other instances you will be creating the product.  For my eBook example, the product was created—the product is something new that I am offering, not something from a supplier.

Finding a Supplier

Finding suppliers of products is not hard—a little Internet research will get you there.  You might start out with these sites:

http://www.topwholesalesuppliers.com/

http://www.wholesaledir.com/

http://www.tradekey.com/c_wholesale-supplier/

There are also many inexpensive suppliers overseas, and their low prices more than make up for the shipping costs incurred.  There are, however, some legalities involved.  Here are some ideas for web sites to get you started in this area:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1073793608

http://www.buyusa.gov/home/export.html

http://www.buzzle.com/boards.asp?board=231&message=102820

Remember to research your supplier or wholesaler carefully!  Make sure they have a good track record, that they are willing to let you “test drive” samples, that they can deliver reliably—and that they speak a language you understand.

Tagged as: Building a Product, Finding niche

{ 0 comments }

If you want to get on the road to financial freedom then not only are you going to need to learn how to make money, but you’re also going to need to know what to do with it. There’s no use making an extra $1,000 per month via online ventures if you’re going to spend an extra $500 per month on your grocery bills. Unless of course, that’s why you’re making the money.

With so much information around the web on the subject of personal finance it can be hard to a) know who to trust b) digest all the information and c) put it into effect. For that exact reason we’ve decided to put together 11 bite-sized personal development ‘nuggets of knowledge’ for your financial pleasure.

Feel free to contribute your own in the comments!

1. Earn More than You Spend - Obvious? Yes. Put into practice? No. Millions of americans across the nation suffer from financial debt and over-spending on their credit cards. It’s not just americans, millions of people around the world spend way more than they have to spend. For some items it’s practical, for others it’s unnecessary.

Keep it simple, earn more than you spend and you’ll start increasing the size of your bank account.

2. Save Early in Life - And it will most certainly benefit you in the long run. Coming from a young man, I know that myself and all my friends don’t even consider anything like this at our age, and that’s probably a big mistake. Save now so that you don’t have to worry about finances later in life when you aren’t in the physical shape that you are in now.

3. Make Your Own Food - McDonald’s, KFC, Wendys, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell…the list goes on and on. It’s not the list that just goes on though, it’s also the deducations from your wallet. Eating out definitely has it’s place, there’s nothing nicer than a meal at a fancy restaurant, but too much of a good thing will eventually take its tool.

Make your own food now and then and don’t buy all the ready-made stuff that you find in the supermarkets. You’ll end up much healthier and so will your bank account.

4. Earn Money Online - The best way to learn? Keep following this site. There are literally thousands of ways you can earn money online, some ideas include:

• Setting up an eBay store
• Starting a blog around one of your passions
• Expanding your offline business
• Consulting in your niche

The opportunities are endless, start researching today and you never know, in a month or two a few hours per day could be earning you some serious side income.

5. Set a Budget Each Month - And make sure that you stick to it. Setting a budget allows you to really look at how much you are earning and then translate that into how much you can spend. Sticking to this simple formula will mean that you’ve always got cash in the bank and it will help stop you from making those extravagant purchases.

Set a budget and stick to it, if you do go over then see if you can lessen your budget for the folowing month.

6. Pay Yourself Before Putting Money Elsewhere - You may have kids who want to go to the cinema or a girlfriend who wants to be wined and dined, but you come first. Your kids wouldn’t care about the cinema if it stopped you from being able to put money on the table. At the start of each month, make sure you have enough money for yourself and your own bills before splashing the cash on others.

Clothes, day trips and new cars can wait…surviving can’t.

7. Buy a House that Requires ‘Work’ - If you are looking into buying a house, you can save a large amount of money by buying one that requires work to be done. Work requirements mean initlally that the house will be much cheaper, and it also means you can increase the value of the house substantially by getting work done.

Of course, this works out better if you are a handy man and can complete most of the work yourself.

8. Write a Will - This isn’t so much something that works in your favour directly, but it is important. In this day and age, there have been far too many finance companies getting away with far more than they deserve, simply because certain deceased people never took the time to put together a will.

Whoever you do put in your will, make sure that you are making the right decision. In other words, i wouldn’t include a ‘lover’ who I’ve known for a few months but I would definitely put my kids or other family members in there.

9. Save at Least 10% of Your Annual Salary - Or, put simpler, save at least 10% of your monthly income. You may think this is rather high, but when you actually try to do this you can surprisingly succeed. Set up a way to automate the process so you don’t actually ’see’ the money and can’t spend it by accident.

If you do this you’re going to end up with a great amount of money in a savings account which can cover vital medical bills, new material items or even help withyour retirement.

10. Change Your Job (or Get a Raise) - With the first point being earn more than you spend, it’s probably wise to look at ways you can start to earn more than you already earn. There are two possible ways to do this:

1) Go to your boss and ask for a raise. Make sure you point out your dedication to the company and highlight some key projects you’ve been involved in

2) Change your job. If you have experience and your expertise is in demand then it’s very likely that changing jobs will enable you to bump up your salary

11. Don’t Gamble More than You are Willing to Lose - This involves theoretical gambling and the real thing. If you do like to splash your cash on the roulette wheel now and again, only take with you as much money as you are willing to walk home without. The same goes for car purchases or buying a new home that may not be stable, don’t take risks that you can’t afford not to work in your favour.

{ 0 comments }

While money directly doesn’t make people happy, it can allow us to live more comfortable lives. On top of that, financial abundance also allows us to do a number of different things such as taking more holidays or spending less time at work so we can focus on our passions.

However, there are two main lessons in regards to personal development. One is that you should just be yourself and love who you are. And two, you should grow and become the best you can be. But which is right, which path should you follow? Let’s find out…

Loving Yourself

The old saying goes “if you don’t love yourself, then nobody will” and there is an element of truth in that message. If you are constantly moaning about your flaws and thinking the world is out to get you, then people aren’t going to want to be around you due to all your negativity that you pass onto them. Of course your good friends will be there for you, but they would rather be around the happier, positive you.

So, what are the pro’s and con’s to accepting your situation and just living your current life as it is until you die?

Pros:

• No stress, you’re used to life like this anyway
• You don’t look to others to be happy
• You don’t need people to think highly of you
• There are no ‘demands’ on you to grow or change

Cons:

• Whatever ‘flaws’ you do have will stay the same
• Your financial position won’t change much
• You’ll never know what your limits are

Personal Growth

Should you accept who you are or should you grow? Personal growth can come in many forms, whether it is working on your health, your social skills or of course, your finances. Over the last 18 months I’ve spent time in countries where I didn’t know one single person, I’ve joined public speaking clubs and I’ve gone from not going out much to being out 5-6 nights per week.

I think this change I’ve noticed personally has put me in a good position to answer the question between loving yourself and personal growth. First though, let’s look at the pros and cons of wanting to change yourself and transform your life:

Pros:

• You can improve any area of your life
• There’s new experiences around the corner
• Each day is different and unexpected

Cons:

• Challenging yourself can be difficult and stressful
• You may never know when (or whether) you should stop
• You mistake personal growth as a mission to find out who you are

Which is it?

“So, what should we do. Grow or be content with our current position?” - I know there are two solid messages that are preached by many online, and both points are valid. What do I think? Do both. Look, first of all you need to be happy with who you are and you’re current situation. Being an amazing public speaker won’t make you happy, having a supermodel wife won’t make you happy (at least, not forever) and being a billionaire won’t make you happy.

It took me five brand new cars to realise they weren’t making me happy. After I parked each one for the first time I thought ‘now what’?

- Russell Simmons (worth half a billion dollars)

What you have to do is accept your current situation, love yourself, and then enjoy everything that life has to offer. There may be another ‘world’ after this one but there may not, nobody knows. Either way, in no circumstance do I think we should sit around and feel we need to stick to our current routine. That would be existing rather than living.

If you want to improve at [insert anything here] or you want to own [insert anything here], then that is great. Go for it, what do you have to lose? Just don’t do it because you want to find peace or happiness. Peace and happiness are right here and right now. Good luck on your journey…

{ 0 comments }

 Now is the time to “get down to business”: actually building your Internet empire and getting the cash flowing.  Recall that I said there are six projects you will have to tackle in order to start out right.  This article would not be worth the price of your monitor if I didn’t give you concrete, specific details about managing each of these projects.

3.    Enough product ideas.  I am positive that there is a large, active community focused on “Obama for President.”  But seeing what products could be sold to this community that they don’t already have would be hard.  However, I bet there are hundreds of products for the organic gardener.

4.    Signs that people are already making money in your market.  This is a tricky one to master.  If you see that there are some people working in your sub-niche, that is a sign that there are products in demand there.  But you don’t want a sub-niche with too much competition!  Clickbank and other affiliate sites are great for researching this kind of stuff; so is Google.  A few sites with products that cater to your sub-niche are a good sign; dozens of sites signal an over-crowded market.

There are numerous tools you can use for market research.

 Once you have identified the sub-niche you want to work in, you are ready to think about the products you will sell.

Tagged as: Finding a niche, niche research

There are three ways to get your feet wet in the world of Internet marketing:

Creating “info products,” i.e., eBooks

Creating a membership site

Creating a content site

Each of these products is relatively easy to create and can generate passive income once running.  Eventually you will want to offer all three products and use each one to promote the other two.

The Skinny on eBooks

You’ve probably heard that we are living in an “information age,” and that America is moving from an industrial economy to an “information economy.”  These rumors are true, but the lesson has not sunk in for most of us.  The great thing about information is that, once generated, there is no cost to maintaining, storing, or shipping info-products.  Information isn’t physical, so there are none of the hassles that go along with physical products.

 That’s why eBooks have become so lucrative.  Once you have an eBook product, that product is poised to make money—without any additional costs.  Getting an eBook to your buyers is almost instantaneous.

You can also use an eBook to educate your buyers.  The folks looking for your eBook are not experts in that area (else, why would they buy the eBook?).  Because your buyers are not experts, they will probably not know the products and services available in your market—they might not even know that there are solutions to some of their most nagging problems!  An eBook can be used to educate your buyers and make them into even more savvy buyers.  Of course, you will have additional products ready to offer the savvy buyer!

The Skinny on Membership Sites

The typical eBook is an “instant gratification” product: buyers want, they pay, and that’s that.  The beauty of a membership site is that you can generate monthly income from your members.  They pay not once, but again and again.  A membership site is a good way to keep a small amount of cash coming in to pay for the day-to-day expenses of running your empire.  A good membership list is also an invaluable marketing tool in itself.

The Skinny on Content Sites

Content sites are a great way to generate new traffic to existing products, as well as an excellent way to establish yourself as an expert in a particular field.  A content site can be created in conjunction with a membership site or eBook, and is relatively easy to set up with free blogging software.

The Projects are Yours

Now you know the “Big 3” ways to launch an Internet business.  Now is the time to look at the specific projects that you will need to be involved in if you want to succeed.  But, before we do, I can’t resist some last pieces of advice.

So here is that bit of advice : stay organized!  Without organization, you will find yourself drowning in a sea of web sites, affiliate program

Tagged as: How To Start Internet Marketing

You now know what thousands of rich and successful people know: the three fast tracks to earning a passive income and eventually lifting yourself out of the Rat Race.  In this article, we will focus on the third of these vehicles: starting an Internet marketing business.  This is perhaps the easiest and least costly vehicle to start with.  But in order to get the pay off, you must start out right.  Starting your own Internet marketing business requires six steps.

Wait, that’s not quite right.  Starting your own Internet business involves six projects.  To succeed, you will have to visualize, plan, and implement each of these projects.  I’m not using the word “project” to scare you off.  Far from this.  But think: do you get psyched about the outcome of a “step,” or about the outcome of a “project”?  Do you tell your friends about the “steps” you’ve taken, or about the “projects” you are working on?  Do you spend hours on the Internet doing research for a “step,” or doing research for a “project”? 

You get the picture.  Each of the following is a project that you can invest in to build your Internet empire and generate cash that you can put towards your financial freedom:

Finding a Niche

Building a Product

Generating a Product Line

Building a “Presence”

Generating Traffic

Working your JVs

To start out, you will want to choose a particular type of product to focus on.  As you build your company, you can offer an array of related products that build on and promote each other.  Starting small is OK—Rome wasn’t built in a day.  The important thing is to start now.  Remember, no one ever got rich eating lunch.  Spend your next few lunch breaks (coffee breaks, Saturday nights, whatever) working on the next project on your list. 

Don’t worry about the final product; don’t dream of a 10,000 hit-a-day empire.  Throw yourself into the project at hand.  If you follow the plan I have listed for you, the overall shape of your Internet empire will take care of itself.

Tagged as: Internet Marketing

{ 1 comment }

If you take nothing else away from this blog, you should remember the real key to financial freedom:

Create something that can run, grow, and profit on its own to generate passive income.

By “passive income,” I simply mean income that is generated with little to no effort on your part.  For example, if you rent out an apartment, the profit you earn is passive income.  You did not have to work for that income.  That income is due to you just by owning the apartment.  Passive income gives you the time to pursue other ways to make money, and eventually be able to quit working altogether.

I have reviewed here the three time-tested vehicles that you can use to generate passive income.  I suggest that those interested in real estate investing check out my companion book, How to be a Real Estate Millionaire or you can also download my free 31-page report, Your First Step To Financial Freedom .But real estate investing and small business ownership take money to make money, as the saying goes.  How can you get a head start on these money making ventures if you don’t even have the cash to get started?

This is where Internet marketing comes in.  In the coming postings, I will detail a step-by-step process that you can use to turn the Internet into a moneymaker for you.  The start-up costs are modest, the market is wide open, and the income is passive: you will eventually be able to put the business on autopilot while you do more interesting things.  Hard to believe, but financial freedom is just a few clicks away…

Tagged as: Financial Freedom, generate passive income

{ 0 comments }

Things are even better once your Internet marketing business is fully automated.  With little input from you, the site will generate revenues while you can continue to do other things: invest in real estate, search for the perfect job, or work on yet another business.

Getting an early start is crucial to building wealth and obtaining financial freedom.  Investment vehicles work over time: the longer they are operational, the more money you stand to make.  The more money you make, the more money you will have to invest in other vehicles, which will make you money even quicker.  The value of time cannot be over-emphasized—the sooner you start, the sooner you will reach true financial freedom!

The main reason people stuck in the Rat Race stay stuck is that they use their nine-to-five job as an excuse, rather than as an asset.  A regular job offers you a “safety net”– a way to pay the bills, especially during those first few lean months.  Use this to your advantage!  You will likely make mistakes as you start out as an Internet entrepreneur.  Knowing that you can make a few mistakes without having to miss a mortgage payment is a nice assurance to have.

But… do not use your nine-to-five job as an excuse.  As discussed earlier, most people put up mental “roadblocks” that prevent them from taking action.  Thinking that your regular job runs your life is perhaps one of the biggest of these.  To prevent your work-a-day job from becoming a roadblock, do the following on your next lunch break (and every lunch break until you are done):

Research at least four ideas for a business

Really do these things!

Remember: unless you are a writer of a food column for the local paper, no one has ever gotten rich just eating lunch!

Ahead of the Game

Perhaps you are already financially well off: good for you!  This probably means that you already have money that you can use toward a new business venture.  Having a stockpile of extra cash is crucial these days, not just for emergencies, but also for the twists and turns in the economy.  I am sure that everyone who invested in Enron wished they had a backup plan for their cash!

If you managed to get wealthy by your own knowledge and skills, then you are even more ahead of the game.  Other people will want to find out just how you did what you did… and this is precisely the kind of knowledge that makes for an ideal “product.”  You would be surprised how many people will pay just to hear what you have to say about getting (and staying) rich!

Tagged as: Internet Marketing, Journey to Financial freedom

{ 1 comment }

Really, anyone anywhere can become involved in the three investment vehicles.  Every day students fresh out of college (or who are still in college, even) who have little cash and no assets are starting businesses like these and making their way toward financial independence—but these businesses also work for people who have been in the Rat Race for some time and are finally tired of that trap. 

You can start these businesses as part-time ventures to supplement your income from an employer, or dive in and make them into full-time jobs.  How you begin will depend on your current situation and financial needs.

Tagged as: Internet Marketing, Real Estate Investing, Small Business

{ 0 comments }