MOB #7: Filtering out What NOT to Market for the Purposes

Pay particular attention here, as this is where many get lost in the sea of choices and simply go from the job rat race to the internet marketing rat race.

Cash FLOW. Since you want to be paid over and over again for doing something once, this eliminates one time sales. Anything where you only get paid once is out.

Hands off. You don’t want to have to mess with order fulfillment, customer support, returns, emails etc. Creating and marketing your own products is out. Having your own membership site is also out, since it does require you to operate it, maintain it, provide member support and continue to market it.

No limits. Even if there are backend products following the initial sale, there is a limit to
how far that income will continue, even if you assume that the customer buys everything offered in the backend. If there is a limit to them, then this is out. Also, backend sales are not predictable, so again, single product sales are out, even if it is just a front end to other single sale items.

Also, quite a few membership sites have a finite customer-life to them for a number of reasons, either longevity of interest in the topic matter or lack of on-going support and site enhancement. These can be included, but with certain restrictions. They need to meet our next criteria. If they don’t they are out.

You also want to be looking to large and growing markets so that you have a large well to go to when you’re thirsty. There are other reasons for this explained later in the plan.

Recession-proof. There are generally two categories for things that people buy:
discretionary and non-discretionary, otherwise known as wants and needs.

People buy discretionary items because they enjoy them. They buy them at one’s discretion. During bad economic times, these are the first to be cut back on.

Non-discretionary items are those that are necessary for the survival of our selves and our family or our business. Examples would be food, shelter, transportation, utilities,
and insurance. These are also known as Evergreen items, because people need them.

Institutional investors move their money to non-discretionary markets when the
economy is cooling down and the rumors of recession are flying around. They do this because people will always buy things they need. When times are tough, people tend to cut back on the discretionary items. We want our income to be there regardless of the economy, so we’ll focus on what people need, what they have to have. Discretionary items are out.

Predictable. You don’t want your income over the coming months to be unknown. Nonconsumable items, and anything that isn’t billed and paying you a known amount on a monthly basis is out.

Wow! Sounds like we eliminated just about everything, huh? That’s good because we wanted to make this simple. Let’s see what we’ve got.