The ideal mail-order and homebusiness product

Would you like to start your own direct marketing business? 

Then you might be asking yourself this question: 


"What is the ideal mail-order and homebusiness product?" 

But before I answer this question, it is important to ask what the criteria for what the product ideal product is. 

Ask yourself these questions each time you encounter a new product: 

Do you know if any people are already interested in buying the product? 
How easy is it to create the product? 
Is the product inexpensive to create? 
How high is the profit margin? 
Is is easy to stock? 
Can the product easily be copied from an original or do all copies have to be created one-by-one? 
Is it inexpensive to copy the product? 
Is it easy to ship? 

These are just some of the questions you would do wise to consider if you are looking for a good product. 


How the ideal product will make your life much easier 

Wouldn't you agree, that if you can find a product that... 

is in high demand 
is easy to create 
is inexpensive to create 
has a high profit margin 
is easy to stock 
is easy to copy 
is inexpensive to copy 
is easy to ship 

... then, yes then you've certainly found the ideal product? 


Where will I find such a product? 

"But where will I find such a product," you may ask. "What product fulfills all of these criterias?" 

Well, let me show you! 


My own search 

You see, some years ago I were asking precisely the same question. 

But I soon found out that actually no one else can tell you for sure. Only you can tell, what product is the ideal product for precisely you. Even though a certain product has earned other people a lot of profit, the same product may not be suitable for you. For instance, even though a lot of people have made a lot of money from buying and selling real estate, I have never seriously considered going into the real estate business. Why? Because I have never really been interested in selling real estate. And if you don't feel a strong interest in a certain product or business, I won't advice you to try selling that product. The reason is that you'll need the kind of motivation a strong interest is giving you, if you are to keep going even in the tough times. 

So the NUMBER ONE RULE is that you should only sell products that you have a real interest in. 

The SECOND RULE is that your product should fulfill as many of the criterias above, as possible. The more, the better. 


I finally found the ideal product 

After having given all of these criteria a long thought, I finally found what I consider the ideal product. At least it seems to be the ideal product for me. 

The product I am talking about is of course information products! 

As you may already know, information products have a lot of advantages over many other products. But even though it has been repeated so often, I think that the advantages of information products over most other products will bear to be repeated. 


Why information products are ideal 

You can sell your information products from almost anywhere in the world. Geographic placement is not decisive for the success of your information business. 

For instance Ken Silver is a very successful infopreneur. But it's very interesting to see that he is not living very near the major part of his market. He is without a doubt selling most of his manuals to the United States. But actually he is living in New Zealand, thousands of miles from many of his customers. Is this a hindrance for Ken Silver? Not at all! It would almost certainly be a hindrance if his product was for instance cars or houses. But since his product is information, his market is the whole world. 

And take myself! I am living in Denmark, Scandinavia. Far away from many of you. Is this a hindrance? Not at all! Why? Again, because the business I am in is the information business. And you can create information products from most places in the world, market them through different many media (magazines, seminars, phone, newspapers, Internet etc., etc.), and you can deliver them over the Internet, by e-mail or by snail mail. So the possibilities in the information business is almost endless. The potential for freedom is so great. 


High mark-up 

Few products have so high a mark-up as information products. Often you will can charge 5-10 times the production costs of an information product. Sometimes much, much more. Of course you'll have to pay something for the marketing of your product. But anyway, you will still be able to make a profit on information products that's almost without parallel in the business world. For instance, the production costs of a cd-rom, may only be about one dollar. But if the information or software on that cd-rom is of high value to some people, you may be able to sell that cd-rom for hundreds of dollars. Tell me, Where else can you make such a profit? 


Incredible freedom 

Marketing and selling information products can give you an incredible freedom because you are your own boss. Fundamentally you don't need anything else than COMMUNICATION. 
The ideal way to make your information products is by using modern technology. For instance, if you have a computer, you can easily write your own products. Or you can create software that people would love to pay you for. You can also sell audio-tapes or video-tapes with important information on it. A fourth possibility is to hold speeches on seminars. So there are several different way of conveying the information you want to sell. 

Because you can make that kind of products almost everywhere in the world, the information business gives you a lot of freedom. This has especially become true since the introduction of the Internet. As I've already mentioned above, you can sell your info products from one part of the world to another, through the Internet. And you can do it, while you're sitting in your own home. 


You can do what you like most 

When you are marketing information products, you can thrive on your hobby and interests. You don't need to constantly do something you hate. Actually the best you can do is very often to produce information products on what interests you most. That way your work becomes much more fun, and you will work much more effectively. 


Easy to create and produce 

Information products are relatively easy to produce. Strictly speaking you don't more than your mind and some way of telling other people what's on your mind. You can do it from your own home. And you can use tools that are available to most people today in the Western World today. You can for instance use a computer or a normal audio-cassette recorder to create your products. 


Inexpensive to create 

Information products are inexpensive to create, produce and copy. Often information products are made of paper, audiotapes, videotapes, diskettes, cd-roms or vocal delivery. None of this tools are expensive. If you compare them to other kinds of products, you see some marketer sell, I think you will agree with me in that so to say anybody can afford to create, produce, copy and distribute information products. 


It's inexpensive to get started 

It doesn't take a lot of money to get started in the information business. Production costs are low, shipping costs are low, and if you do it right, your promotion costs can also be rather low. The way to do it is to use print on demand. That means that you only print as many copies of your product as you currently need. Your original of your info product is in a file on your computer. And when you need more, you just print more. That way you only need minimal place for stocking your products. 
Of course, if you sell your product as an e-book, you don't need any stocking place at all. Everything is on your computer, and every transaction and delivery is done over the Internet or by sending diskettes or cd-roms. 


Demands very few creation tools 

Often you don't need other creation tools to make your information products than your brain and some writing tools (preferable computer). If you don't have a computer you can even write your product by hand, and then have someone else write down your product on a computer. A typewrite may do, but you should certainly aim for a computer. You can also sell your information on audio-tapes. Or you can use video-tapes, even though they are usually much more expensive to produce than books and audio-tapes. If you use audio-tapes, you can also just copy from your original as you need. In the beginning you can use your own tape-recorder (if it can take double cassettes), 


Easy and inexpensive to stock 

As already mentioned, you don't need to have a lot of place to stock information products. You only need your original and as many copies of it, as you sell. 


Easy and inexpensive to ship 

Information products are easy and inexpensive to ship or deliver by the Internet (web-site or e-mail). In comparison to most other products you can send information product to almost any place in the world without charging you customer a fortune. And as I've already mentioned, if you sell e-books, the shipping costs will be zero. The only costs will be the electricity it costs to use your computer, plus of course any costs you have for being on the Internet. 


Easy to mass produce 

Information products can be copied again and again from one original master copy. Compare to this most other products! When it comes to most other products, you can't just copy an original master model easily and inexpensively. You need to create a totally new product each time you get a sale. Of course each new product will often be an exact copy of the original, but the process of copying can be quite time consuming and expensive. In order to lower the production time, you will usually have to make many copies of the original. And once again, all these copies are expensive to have on stock. 


Information products are often in high demand 

Of course that depends upon what kind of information you sell. But one of the factors that make information products wonderful, is that you can easily find a group of people that already thirst for some special information, and then you can usually find a way of providing these people with precisely that kind of information. 


Information products can easily be updated 

You don't need to construct a whole new machine that can produce the new edition of your product. You don't need to pay other people a small fortune to update and revise your product. Instead you can do it by just opening your computer and changing what's necessary. Can it be easier? 


You don't need to have any real competition 

Of course you will often be in a situation where other infopreneurs will sell a product that has some similarities to yours. Anyway your product will usually be unique - provided of course, that you create it yourself and don't copy the work of other developers of information product. 


So here is the solution 

These are just some of the advantages of being in the information business. 

No wonder Ben Suarez - one of todays most successful direct marketers - says that if he should start totally from scratch, he would create and sell and information product. 

Actually that's the way Ben Suarez started his billion dollar business. He simply created a newsletter. And he went on to write and publish books and tapes. 

He did it! And so can you! 

(c) Klaus Dahl, 1999.