What does every business, every product and every marketing strategy begin with?
An idea.
Ideas make money. Period. It’s not the product or the business. It’s the idea behind that product or business. And here’s the thing. Hardly any bugger is thinking any more. That’s sad. But it also represents a truly massive opportunity for those of us who are willing to think.
Now before I continue don’t panic. People see the words “think” or “creativity” and freeze up.
They think “I’m not creative” or “I can’t think”.
That’s wrong – very wrong, as I will prove to you in this series of articles over the next few weeks. And what’s exciting about this is the fact that you can be paid very, very well for “thinking” (not much thought involved as you’ll see) for other business owners in a fun, fulfilling and exciting way.
And that’s what we all really want from life isn’t it?
Fun, excitement and fulfilment…
And money to enjoy some freedom too!
What I am going to teach you over the next few weeks is life changing. By the time you finish reading the series you will see opportunity everywhere. This applies offline and online. It applies whether you have a business or don’t yet have a business. Also you:
* Don’t need a product
* Don’t need an email list
* Don’t need a web site
* Don’t need any marketing skills
* Don’t need a shop
* Don’t need any contacts
* Don’t need any start up cash
So What’s This All About?
This business model is about connecting ideas, products and businesses that already exist – and getting paid for it.
The key word here is connecting.
Marketing legend Jay Abraham says there are 3 ways to grow a business. Just 3. That is:
1. Get more clients
2. Sell them more products/services
3. Sell them more products/services at higher prices
What is the easiest way for any business to do the above?
By plugging their products and services into other peoples business – and vice versa. That way they tap instantly into someone else’s assets.
Your role in this business model is to bring the two together. To connect them. It’s easy when you know how.
Overlooked Assets In Nearly Every Business
Are An Opportunity For YOU To Profit
Here is what I want you to understand. Business is all about solving problems. It is about providing a product or service that solves problems. Most businesses do this (or they go out of business very quickly!) but they only do it to a certain extent. They miss other products/services that could be offered to their customers.
Let me give you an example…
A few weeks ago I went into a fitness shop in Southampton. This shop is not a chain, like JD Sports, it’s a small ‘Mom And Pop’ (as the Americans say) type business.
So there I was in the shop looking around. There are weights, treadmills, exercise bikes…you know the normal thing you see in these types of shops. But something was missing. Something I spotted because my RAS (Reticular Activation System – more on this next week) is always turned on to this kind of thing.
The shop wasn’t selling any fitness supplements.
Now when I see something like this, and I see it all the time, I get a bee in my bonnet. Because I know the shop or web site owner is missing out on money a good percentage of their customers would want to give to them. So, as I was speaking to the manager of the shop I piped up…
“Have you ever thought about selling supplements in here?”
I got a blank look. So I continued.
“You know fitness supplements. Creatine, protein shakes, weight loss shakes that kind of thing?”
“Oh. Oh we considered it once but that’s something only the big boys can do”. I assumed he was talking about the big fitness chains and sites.
“It’s not. You can get supplements wholesale, dropshipped, private labeled or even just hand out a leaflet to everyone who comes in here with a link to a web site that sells them. That link could be your affiliate link so you get paid every time someone buys. The point is people interested in fitness will often want supplements, I do, and you don’t sell them. You should do”. I smiled excitedly.
“What’s an affiliate link?”
I spent the next five minutes giving him an ultra quick rundown of what an affiliate link was and the types of ways he could source supplements to offer his customers. He seemed pretty excited as I left. I walked away with a sense of pride. But also a sense of desperation knowing he probably wouldn’t put it into action himself.
As I lay there on my bed thinking about my heart and the future I realised that there are businesses, everywhere, who are missing out potential profits in their business. Profits that you could get a part of with a bit of initiative. If I had the time I would have got hold of some supplements, gone into that shop and said “Right, put these on the counter. If they sell let me know and I’ll get some more in”. I could have shared the profits with the shop owner and earned a passive income knowing I had helped increase his business. That’s pretty cool.
Let me give you another example…
Recently I was buying a Wing Chun wallbag (Wing Chun is a martial art and a Wing Chun wall bag is a bag that hangs on your wall for you to punch) online. I bought the product and thought to myself “this would be the PERFECT opportunity for the web site to offer me a Wing Chun training DVD”. Think about it. I had just purchased some Wing Chun equipment. A DVD on how to train in Wing Chun would compliment the wall bag perfectly.
They didn’t offer it to me though.
If I had the time I would contact the site owner asking them if they’d be interested in increasing their profits by offering Wing Chun DVD’s for sale (worded in the right way they would be a fool to turn this down). If they agreed I’d go and find a company that either dropshipped Wing Chun DVD’s (dropshipping is where you sell a product that another company stocks or wholesales.
When you make a sale you let them know and they ship the product to the customer. You pocket the difference between what they charge for dropshipping and what you charge the customer) or I’d find a web site with a two tier affiliate program that sells Wing Chun DVD’s (more on this later in the series. Don’t worry if you don’t know what this is. You will do shortly!). I’d get the web site to sell the DVD’s and share the profits with them.
Again if I did this I could make money passively without doing much after the initial set up.
Can you see how I would be falling between the customer and the business? I help the customer get what they want and the business to grow their profits and provide a better service to their customers.
And one final example…
Taekwondo is a martial art I trained in, until my knees started giving me aggro and I had to give up. My instructor, Master Joe Brown, is one of the top TKD instructors in the country. I’ve already created a set of Taekwondo DVD’s with Joe (tip: Easiest way to create an info product is find an expert, get a camera, and film them talking/showing their expertise) but that’s not what I want to talk about here. What I want to talk about is our meeting just before Xmas…
We were sat there talking about our plans for this year. How we wanted to really make an impact on the Taekwondo world with our training. And then Joe said something that I picked up on.
“I’d like a new challenge as well. Something away from the TKD that I could run on the side. Maybe something fitness related?”
Now I know Joe has a glittering background in the armed forces. I connected the idea of fitness and the armed forces together and guess what – this year we are going to be running military type fitness classes in and around Southampton.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t come up with the idea for a military fitness class myself. You’ve probably seen “Fat Camp” type shows on TV before. Or maybe you’ve even seen adverts for military fitness classes in your area or online. The point is I didn’t reinvent the wheel. I just tapped into what already existed and applied it to Joe’s business.
And this, my friend, is the exciting thing about being in the ‘brokering’ position.
You don’t need to do ANY creative thinking yourself. It’s all been done for you. With the internet at your fingertips the research has been done by others already.
You just need to learn to recognise opportunity and apply it in other peoples businesses. When you can do that – there is money everywhere.
“Aha” I hear you cry. “But I can’t recognise
opportunity. I don’t know where to look!”
Wrong. You can. And you will.
Over the next few weeks I am going to train you how to spot opportunity.
There are psychological reasons why you have not yet been able to spot opportunity everywhere. I’ll go into this more next week but basically if your brain doesn’t know it should be looking for something it ignores it. Next week I’ll switch this part of your brain on. And every day you’ll see opportunities for brokering or any other business you want to start.
So I don’t care whether you don’t have a business yet. I don’t care whether you sell on eBay or Amazon. I don’t care whether you sell online or offline. If you want to increase your earning power then the next few weeks articles are a must read.
By the way, there’s a very cool video that can help you see how aware you are. It’s only a minute long. See how you get on. You may shock yourself!