The Easiest and Hottest Products to Sell Online - Part 2
by: Corey Rudl

The Quest

Let me use an example that happened to me directly.

In my business I noticed that there was a need for a program that would automate Internet business without having to get all CGI, Perl, and Visual Basic scripts custom-made by a programmer. I did know of a programmer who was skilled enough to develop what I wanted; but if I had to build this software from the ground up, I could be looking at $50,000 in development costs (software development is not cheap)!

I needed a software package to:

• Automatically check e-mail for me daily.
• Automatically subscribe and unsubscribe people to a newsletter.
• Send out any autoresponders from ads which have run.
• Automatically put orders that I receive online into a database format.
• Send my personalized bulk e-mail to my past clients to follow up with them (and get back-end sales).
• Allow me to post to multiple newsgroups without getting canceled by the "cancel-bots."
• And much more.

The most important thing was that I wanted it to run off of our home PC (not the ISP's server) so I would have full control of the information -- just like most home/small businesses want.

I went on a search for such a product and found one after a few days. It was called Mailloop, but it was priced quite high at $699 (not something that most people with a small or home-based business could afford). It didn't have everything I felt was necessary, so I got a hold of the programmer and convinced him to re-do a few portions of the program and to add some features I thought were fantastic (and extremely valuable to small-/home-business owners who would like to automate their Internet business).

Also, with a good stroke of luck and a little convincing, the price was reduced to under $400 -- which was about the same as what you would pay for other "bulk" e-mail programs that were on the market at that time (like Net Contact, Extractor Pro, etc.). The advantage was that the revised Mailloop also included so many other features to help people automate their entire Internet business! For example, it included a fully automated scheduler, newsletter server, unlimited autoresponders, newsgroup poster, etc. In other words, Mailloop now really had value! Lots of value!

Becoming a Reseller

To make a long story short, I entered into a joint venture whereby I became a reseller for them. I didn't want to be too pushy and ask for exclusive distribution rights (and I was not sure if I would be able to sell enough copies to justify it).

A key factor was motivation: I did not sell Mailloop to make a profit, I sold Mailloop because I used the product and I truly believed that there was nothing out there that even compared to it. That enthusiasm came out in all of my sales letters and web pages about Mailloop -- which translated into a large volume of sales.

Important Note: You can't just sell a product or service because it makes you money. You have to truly believe in it. If you don't, your lack of enthusiasm will show in your sales letters and web pages -- and you will fail. I would never sell anything to my client base that I didn't personally use and that I wouldn't defend 100%.

Within 3 months after we started to sell Mailloop, we were selling more copies in one month than the programmer had sold all year!

With these numbers, we decided to buy the company out. We now have the worldwide exclusive distribution rights to Mailloop. In other words, any copy of Mailloop that is sold anywhere in the world or through any reseller has to go through our office.

The Moral of Joint-Venturing

I had a niche market with a problem to solve. I joint-ventured with a software company to fill this need, and the results were so impressive that not only did I make a very good profit, but I bought out the company!

Of course, you don't have to go to this extent (of buying the company out) to joint-venture with a software company. It can be as simple as finding a piece of software on the Net that is absolutely fantastic and offering to market it for them for a percentage of the profits – i.e., becoming a reseller for them. For example, you could search the Net for software that you think is great but whose company hasn’t marketed it well. There is a great deal of brilliant software on the Net, but the owners often lack marketing know-how.

The other angle is to find a need in a niche market and then find a piece of software that you truly believe in which will solve that problem. As long as you have a good sales letter, good sales process, and good promotion, you will be successful.

If you’d like to find out more about joint venturing, go to http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/27819/ to find out more -- including how to get exclusive distribution rights to software without spending any money or having the owner of the software risk anything (a complete win-win situation!). In the course, you will receive copies of the exact Joint Venture Contract we use to protect ourselves when we do joint ventures (to make sure we are not liable for their mistakes and that we are guaranteed payment). Just photocopy them and use them for your own joint ventures.

Corey Rudl gets over four million visitors to his web sites yearly, does 5.2 million dollars in sales online each year (yes, $5,200,000), and personally makes hundreds of thousands of dollars from his online businesses... all from his one small office. Visit his site at Internet Marketing Center where he reveals all of his unconventional tips, tricks and techniques with examples so you can learn the most efficient and fastest ways to make money on the Internet.