Starting Business As a Supply Chain

For an entrepreneur interested in expanding their reach beyond a local/regional market, and for the e-commerce novice prepared to make the jump from a simple template storefront to a larger online presence, the process of turning your small business into a viable supply chain can be intimidating. However, if you offer a product that is in demand and is capable of generating a strong profit margin for you and potential distributors, you may find your business can grow easily. All it takes is the time and willingness to invest in seeking out potential vendors, the ability to provide the required amount of product in bulk, and a knack for keeping productions costs down to allow for a higher profit margin.

Becoming Part of a Supply Chain

You may have heard the term before, but aren't quite sure what it means. Simply put, the supply chain describes the progression of businesses that offer the raw materials, the finished products, and the means to buy and sell said items. One "link" in the chain would be the company that produces what is needed to create the finished product - the plastics, the fabric, and so forth. In the middle is the supplier of the finished goods. If you are the one completing the crafts, clothing or handbags or baked goods, you are this particular link, and you cater to the next link - the retailer. The retailer in turn sells to the customer at the other end of the chain.

To become involved in a supply chain, it's important to make contact with the people who offer the raw materials and those who buy finished products to sell or drop-ship. When you join a real-time global trade portal, for example, you'll have access to buyers and traders around the world looking for various products for their stores. As you make contacts, you'll learn their needs and negotiate terms such as shipping, standing orders, returns, and even distribution rights. Some vendors may wish for exclusivity in selling your goods, so it's best to consider each offer carefully to make you sure get a good deal.

Build up your profile on a reputable supply chain portal and be prepared to offer samples when necessary. You may find you can quickly forge connections beyond your local market and engage yourself in successful international trade.

Home Business Opportunity - Online Shopping

The underlying forces behind this online business opportunity are;

1- Buying Power: The Power of a group of people to leverage significant discounts due to the larger buying power as a group.

2- Online Shopping Volume: Increased availability of nearly all standard consumables has resulted in the ability of large volumes of online shopping to occur.

3- Rebate Distribution: The paying of rebates to members of the group depending on what level of a tiered system of membership they are on.

4- Free membership: A small percentage of the discounts given are often held as management fees. No money upfront. Pay as you use type of philosophy.

In practice, this home business opportunity works very simply.

1- You shop for things that you were going to buy anyway, and then you are sent rebate checks for a % of your own purchases.

2- If you have introduced 10 people to the store who also do some shopping, a % of these rebates is also sent to you.

3- If your friends then introduce people to the store, you still receive a % of rebates from their purchases.

4- Most tiers do not go beyond 9 deep because any deeper than that makes the initial rebate distribution amount too small to attract people to the system in the first place.

It can be seen that this home business opportunity, online shopping, relies upon the numbers game. The benefits of receiving personal shopping rebates is a great bonus, but the compound growth of the shoppers giving you some of their rebates can amount to large sums of money, especially when the levels of people under you reach 4 or 5 deep. Below are some calculations that show how quickly a minimal introduction of say 5 people to a downline grows. Note: These people can be introduced at any time while someone is a member of an online shopping mall, but it is not a requirement to do so to receive discounts.

Tier 1 - You; 1 x 1 = 1 shopper

Tier 2 - You Introduce 5; 1 x 5 = 5 shoppers

Tier 3 - They Introduce 5 ea; 5 x 5 = 25 shoppers

Tier 4 - They Introduce 5 ea; 25 x 5 = 125 shoppers

Tier 5 - They Introduce 5 ea; 125 x 5 = 625 shoppers

Tier 6 - They Introduce 5 ea; 625 x 5 = 3125 shoppers

Tier 7 - They Introduce 5 ea; 3125 x 5 = 15,625 shoppers

Tier 8 - They Introduce 5 ea; 15625 x 5 = 78,125 shoppers

Tier 9 - They Introduce 5 ea; 78125 x 5 = 390,625 shoppers

Online shopping malls structure their rebate payouts slightly differently, and each tier generally attracts a different rebate payout. Income: With a $150 spend per month as a general figure by most shoppers, someone on say Tier 6 could earn around $900 mth which appears very achievable.

Someone who really treats this home based business opportunity as a full time business could earn well in excess of $110,000 mth on Tier 9.

My Power Mall is one particular online shopping mall that outlines very clearly what is achievable by members on their FAQ pages. They have now over 1000 shops available ( Some are very high profile retailers) to their members which alone indicates the support that the retail sector is giving the online shopping home business concept.

Home Business Opportunity, Online Shopping Conclusion: Reality and history will probably show that many people will join and benefit only from some personal shopping rebates with the benefit that it has not cost them any membership or account maintenance fees out of pocket to do so.

On they other hand there will certainly be some marketers who will promote the online shopping opportunity heavily and benefit very favourably from the effort they inject.

So is this new Home Business Opportunity Online Shopping a viable home business? It appears the old cliche will apply. You shall reap what you sow. Effort injected often equal rewards received, and it appears that the Free startup to this opportunity will allow many who have baulked at spending upfront money with other schemes to finally make a difference in their lives.

Information Products Business - Why Selling Short Reports Should Be the Focus of Your Business

One of the biggest hurdles people face when trying to start their information products business is creating their own information products to sell. The prospect of writing a 90 page ebooks can be really intimidating when you are not an expert in a topic. There is a simple way to get over this fear that very few marketers are taking advantage of, which is a shame. That way is creating short reports. In this article I'll introduce you to some of the benefits of using short reports as a basis for your information marketing business.

1.You can write a short report in a few hours. This means that slaving over a product for weeks at a time won't be an issue anymore. How long would it take you to write 7-20 pages? If you have a clear niche and outline to start with, you can easily do it in a few hours or less.

2. The low price point means higher conversions. You can sell a 10 page report for $7 pretty easily. The price is so low that you don't need a fancy sales letter, and you will have higher conversions because there is such a low bar to entry. Many people will buy these products on impulse because it is such a low financial commitment.

3. The supply of topics is endless. You can break down a large topic into many smaller topics to use as the basis for short reports in your information products business. For example, look in a non fiction book and notice the chapters. Each chapter can be a short report. So you can easily make 20 products out of one book! Similarly, look at a sales letters and notice the bullet points. Each one of those can be a short report. Now, think of all of the books and sales letters our there, not to mention various other sources for topics such as magazines. The topic can be very specific since the product is so short, and this results in expanding the number of potential ideas for products far beyond what you'd have for a more substantial product.

4. When other marketers are having success with their product, you can profit from their success by producing a complementary report on a similar topic. If a market has a successful product on link building techniques for example, you can product a short report on actual places where you can get high PR links. Use your imagination and piggyback on the success of others.

5. You can maximize the lifetime value of a customer. If you give your reports a theme, you can position them so that customers feel compelled to buy each report in your series. So you can have a 5 Minute Guide to Traffic, and a 5 Minute Guide to Product Creation, and a 5 Minute Guide to List Building, for example. In order to not feel as if they are missing part of the series, many customers will automatically buy all of the products in the series. This is a sure fire way to get tons of repeat sales for your information products business.

Critical Strategies to Get Your Network Marketing Business Online

In 1998 savvy, successful Network Marketers began looking toward the internet as a way to move their business building efforts from the hotels, motels and living rooms dotting the landscape to websites, chat rooms and web conferences. Companies began to move product fulfillment from toll-free numbers and FAX lines to on line ordering through websites assigned to individual distributors.

The internet's promises were myriad: 24 hour marketing, standardized presentations, the leverage of technology, the ability to cast a wide net to attract new customers and distributors without the limitations of region and distance.

Yet, by the year 2000 the viability of the internet as a business tool was seriously in doubt. The majority of consumers were using dial up connections at 56 kbps or less and could not access many of the presentations and downloads available online. High speed internet connections were reserved for businesses and consumers who could afford the 60 to 100 dollar per month premiums charged for a high speed connection. Consumers, concerned about online fraud, were reluctant to shop online. Finally many of the companies now considered internet bell weathers had yet to turn a profit online.

Additionally many companies and distributorships who found success with traditional network marketing models were reluctant to embrace online technologies or provide support for distributors seeking innovative ways to expand their businesses. Even today, distribution of information, technology and systems across the industry that may compliment and augment an individual distributor's business building efforts is not uniform leaving individual distributors to adopt older strategies which do work but to which they may not be suited or engage in counterproductive budget-draining strategies in search of the next guru with the answers.

Yes, the internet held promise but the overriding question was would high speed internet usage become common place enough to allow the free-flow goods, services and, most importantly, information in the market place?

According to a November 28, 2007 article in the LA Times, internet access in the US has grown tremendously since 2001 from an estimated 4.5% of households to 22.1% of households in 2007. Most excitingly the US currently ranks 15th internationally in the availability of high speed internet opening the possibility of broad exposure in both domestic and international markets for the entrepreneurial distributor backed by effective technology, quality products and a seamless compensation plan.

While it is our opinion that the internet will never completely replace the need for and value of human interaction, social networking sites, forums and chat rooms amply demonstrate the value of the internet in forging new connections and strengthening bonds in the business community.

The truth is that successful network marketers have always had the ability for forge new connections, build large social networks and market themselves over time and space. These marketers, successful using traditional models, were "always on". They were always on the lookout for potential new business partners sometimes to the embarrassment and consternation of their friends and families. A trip to the mall was never just a trip to the mall. A trip to the movies never just a trip to the movies. A trip to the grocery store never just a trip to the grocery store.

As it applies to network marketing, the value of the internet is obvious. The following benefits are listed as illustrations and are by no means exhaustive:

1) standardized presentations that run 24 hours a day 7 days a week
2) order fulfillment that runs 24 hours a day 7 days per week
3) 24/7 business building and downline growth
4) multiple language presentations to grow your business
5) access to new markets
6) access to new warm markets and spheres of influence
7) on-going, long-term, customizable follow up with your prospects
8) time and space leveraged technologies that allow a presenter at home in his or her pajamas to present simultaneously to prospects in multiple locations
9) limitedless interpersonal connections required for business growth
10) ability to customize technologies to allow self-expression for the individual entrepreneur

What should a network marketer do who wants to take advantage of the internet yet has no support from his company or upline? That is a difficult question. Difficult because our experience teaches us that it is very easy for a distributor to get lost in the miasma of guruism in search of information or the "magic bullet" and forget all about his or her company, products or services thereby compounding rates of attrition already present in the industry. An internet marketing system will, in general, be an expense added to the already existing business expenses of autoship, product purchases, and corporate subscriptions. The following list is a guideline to assist you in finding or developing the system that is most appropriate for you and assist you in taking a practical approach to evaluating a system before you attempt to duplicate it throughout your organization:

1) A system should have professionally written autoresponders
2) Link tracking. If a prospect clicks on your link, where did that click come from?
3) Well-designed landing pages that capture prospect information
4) Category sorting for prospects and the ability to customize campaigns to those categories
5) White-listed server. Will your prospects get e-mails send from your system?
6) Can-spam compliant
7) Unsubscribe function that should unsubscribe prospects from all prospect categories
8) System upgrades and new sites included in purchase price and ongoing subscription
9) Internal well-designed presentations
10) Integration with your corporate websites to facilitate product purchases
11) Excellent customer service
12) Initial start up cost of no more than 80 dollars and ongoing subscription rates of no more than 49.95 per month
13) Dedicated web team to keep the system running
14) Form code generators that allow you to integrate independent pages into your system
15) Refer-a-friend pages or scripts for your pages
This list is not exhaustive but will serve as a useful guideline to help you get started on the right foot if you want to build your network marketing business online.

Finally, as access to high speed internet connections continues to grow around the globe, the internet holds tremendous potential for those seeking to build their network marketing business online by providing access to new markets. Access that was once restricted to those with large budgets and the unrestricted ability to travel. The internet, in short, levels the playing field allowing more avenues to the "winners circle" of your chosen company.

The Number One Key You Need To Master To Be Successful In The Info Marketing Business

As I was brainstorming a hot market for my next project I came across a realization and that is the Art of Specialization. Hey, that rhymes!

Let me explain...

As I do my research to find hot products, one of the techniques that I keep in the back of my mind is specialization to a particular market. What that means is how can I take an existing product and put it into another niche market. This technique works best with broad topics. For Example:

Topic: Marketing

Specialization: marketing for real-estate agents, restaurant owners, car garage owners, and the list goes on.

Topic: Cooking

Specialization: cooking for the busy executive, for busy moms, and so on.

Topic: How to fish

Specialization: How and where to fish on the eastern shore, How and where to fish in MD, FL, CA, etc...

You kind of get the idea of how this works. Now let me tell you some of these specialization techniques that you can put to use.

* Find two hot topics and join them together to get that specialization. For example: You may find that quick and easy meals are the hot thing in cooking and find that yoga and Pilates are hot in physical fitness. You can then marry both together to form a unique product. For example: The Pilates cookbook: 35 quick and easy healthy recipes to maximize your strength, flexibility, and energy for your Pilates workouts. I know this might be a little off the wall but this is an example of how to do it.

* The beauty of this technique is that you can create a line of products without doing to much work to create them. Let's use the marketing example above. Let's say you used the broad topic of marketing for a small business. You decide to create a marketing book for nightclub owners. Well, guess what! Now you can take that same book and tweak it to fit any small niche and sell it. You can create a line of marketing books based on this technique and create multiple streams of income from each niche market. I will recommend that you don't just change the title but do some research on each market to fit the marketing concepts to those markets.

You may be asking yourself, "But don't you need to be an expert in these fields to create these specialization topics?"

And the answer is NO. A gentleman by the name of Rory Fatt created Restaurant Marketing Systems. What he did was take Dan Kennedy's marketing strategies and apply them to the restaurant business. Now get this. He doesn't even own a restaurant! He was smart enough to find a hot niche market and fill a need. There are a lot of restaurant owners out there who are struggling in the business and he helps them get what they need...CUSTOMERS! By the way, he's a millionaire based on this one niche.

You can go into any bookstore and any library and spend a couple of hours doing the research. Here's how to do it:

* Find a broad topic and just narrow it down to a specific niche

* Gather a few books on the broad topic and start to study them

* Do research on your niche. Let's say your narrow niche is going to be travel agents. Gather info on the industry and see how you can marry the two together.

* Take out all the fluff and put the relevant information into an easy to understand guide

This is easy to do because all you're doing is gathering information and putting it into your own words and applying it to your specific niche. You don't need to reinvent the wheel here. All the research has been done for you at the bookstore/library. The best approach is to simplify the information. Your niche will love you for it!

Here's another idea if you just want to test the waters. Find your broad topic and select a specific chapter from the books and write a simple report based on this chapter and offer it to your niche. You can make good money writing and selling these reports.

So, in a nutshell, here is the formula:

Broad topic + Narrow niche + info gathering + 123 easy to follow guide/report= Hot selling info product

If you're looking to really be successful in the info marketing business then the best word of advice is to specialize. The more specific you make the niche the better.

Why? Because when you take a topic that is directed to a certain group of people and not geared to the general public, these groups of people are going to say "Hey! He's talking about me." For example: You are a real-estate agent. What would you buy? A book that said.

Marketing Your Small Business

Or
Real Estate Agent's Survival Guide: Learn How To Find Hungry Buyers and Eager Sellers In A Snap

The information is basically the same. The only difference is that the latter has been tweaked to accommodate Real-Estate agents.

This really isn't rocket science. It's just plain old positioning your product to the right crowd. Now get out there and start building your information marketing empire.

Information Marketing - Key Issues When Booking Hotels

Companies book hotel meeting spaces for a variety of different purposes. Here are a few helpful tips for what to look out for when you are booking space at hotels for your own meeting.

As the President of the Information Marketing Association, I host a monthly coaching call for info-marketers who have questions and are trying to launch their infopreneur business. Here is a question from Scott in St. Louis, Missouri about what to look out for when booking meeting space at hotels. Since this is a common question, I decided to prepare an article about this challenge to help you.

There are a couple of the key issues that hotels are going to look for an attrition clause. Hotels are in the business of selling sleeping rooms and while they do have meeting spaces at hotels, the only reason they have that meeting space is so that they have the ability to sell sleeping rooms for the people attending the meetings. As a promoter, we want their space by guaranteeing the fewest number of rooms possible, however, they as a hotel, want to give their meeting space up only to people who will book as much sleeping space as possible. When you get the contract or when you engage in the discussion, the first thing they're going to ask you is, how much space do you need and how many rooms are you going to book? And based on that equation, they'll figure out if they're going to give you any kind of discounts on rooms. And then when they give you the contract, their going to ask for you to book a certain number of rooms. If you don't book that number, then you're liable to pay them for those rooms whether anybody slept in them or not. Then they're also going to ask you for a food and beverage minimum. This is the amount of food, coffee, lunch, and things of the like that you buy are all going to be factored into that original contract. Some of the provisions and then there is going to be a cancellation provision. That's the third thing that you really need to think about.

Now in terms of the attrition, a couple of years ago it was difficult to get any hotel contract without a real aggressive attrition penalty in it. Now, that is less and less the case and I find that hotels are more open to negotiating those terms.

The other issue you must consider is the amount of the food and beverage the hotel will require you to buy in order to use the meeting space at the hotel. The thing that surprises most people, is when you buy say $5,000.00 worth of food and beverage, that is plus service charge and plus sales tax. That's like another twenty-eight percent that you'll have to pay on top of that. If you look at the contract and think, "Okay five thousand dollars food and beverage will do great. That's all I have to spend. That's my budget." Well, that five thousand is actually five thousand minimum food and beverage plus tax plus gratuity, so that ends up being closer to $6,500.00.

Why Information Marketing is Still the Best and How to Maximize Profit From It

Information marketing is no doubt the best form of internet marketing, you no longer need to create your own product, you can hire a professional to help you do the job. Before creating any product, first do a research if the product will sell, this is good because if it won't sell then you may not make back your marketing cost. To know products or niches that will sell, look for one that is already selling and has much search on Google search engine. You can set it and allow affiliates to help you make sales and list. Information marketing though is a little bit professional, it is still the best if done well. You can create a product and create a website for it and then allow affiliates to promote it and in turn you pay them fifty percent per sale, here you do not need to drive traffic to your website, all you need do is notify affiliate marketers of your product and its relevance, then you will begin to see sales.

The first thing needed to start an information marketing business is a product to sell, always remember that products on health, weight loss, make money online, dog and guitar will always sell, so get a niche to write on, if you can not write well on the niche you can hire a professional to help you write an e-book and also help you proof read it for grammatical or spelling errors, once you have it, convert it to a PDF format and then you can create an e-cover and a sales page for it, make sure the sales letter is good enough to convince your visitors to buy your e-book. Also you will need to add an auto responder to your website.

About maximizing your profit, you will also do your own work of driving traffic to your sales page and also list your product on more merchant sites like, ClickBank, Amazon, click to sell, pay dot com and other sites, here you can offer affiliate marketers up to sixty percent commission per sale, this is an added advantage because they will drive traffic to your sales page for them to make money, so your auto responder list will increase and as they make sales you will also earn money without you working, so maximizing your profit comes from you still working to get more sales instead of relying on affiliates.

There are so many ways to drive massive traffic to your sales page, you can inform joint venture partners, about your new product, do press release, write and submit articles to article directories, register with related forums and look for post that your product can solve and then recommend your product to them, also by commenting on blogs that have high traffic and search engine rank with your sales page URL will increase your search engine ranking, thereby bringing in more traffic for you. You can also create blogs and then link them to your sales page.

Blast To The Masses: Important Ways To Get The Word Out About Your Company's Trade Show Exhibits

Making the critical decision to purchase trade show booths to participate in marketing conventions brings with it tremendous executional responsibility for any business. In order to consistently justify the expenditure associated with trade show exhibits, companies must connect with the greatest number of clients possible at every event. Thus, companies engaging in these promotional outings need to strategically devise a plan of action to effectively get the word out to their targeted demographic and ensure that their business displays see a steady stream of interested consumers engaging with staff throughout the convention. If your company has upcoming marketing conventions, now is the time to go into shameless self-promotion mode and consider incorporating some (or all) of these budget-friendly resources to guarantee a healthy turnout of consumers on function day.

Free Methods To Get The Word Out About Your Trade Show Exhibits

Naturally, you'll want to tap into the free resources that allow you to send a blast to the masses about your upcoming trade show displays. Always start with your own internal methods first as they will usually only require your time. When signing up for any advertorial event, always ask the function organizer for a link and/or logo that can be displayed on your business website listing all the details of the event. Be sure to include any relevant internal information such as new products being unveiled, booth giveaways, etc. to start to build buzz and excitement. Also, many venues have their own marketing resources for the event - ensure that your exhibiting price of admission grants you the right to have your businesses listed on their promotional tools as well.

Once your website has been appropriately updated, it's time to connect with your past, current and potential list of clients. Create an email template letter that can be tweaked and customized as needed for each recipient letting them know about the upcoming event exhibits. Remember to always include personalized reasons why you think the function will be exciting for them as well.

Next, hit the social media marketing scene. Don't have any online networking pages? It's officially (past) time to set some up. Social media marketing sites provide an excellent means for your business to connect directly with the consuming masses. Once your business pages are established, start posting and tweeting about how excited your team is about the trade show exhibits you'll be at. Be sure to include pictures of your trade show booths and products so your network understands why these are must attend events!

Budget Friendly Method For Promoting Trade Show Exhibits

Still looking for an effective way to draw the crowds to your trade show booths? Try an optimized press release. While creating a press release with a professional copy service will incur a cost, a reputable vendor will offer various options sure to work with any budget. Best of all, not only will a press release help get the word out based on determined key word phrases for optimal target audience impact, it will also entice visitors back to your website for a closer look at what your business does. A virtual and literal traffic building win/win!