by Bill Cherry
Today in the midst of a national recession there are more opportunities to make money than ever before. In the past recessions more businesses were started than any other time in the recent past. The question is where are those opportunities and where are the money making products?
There are many ways to make money with a privately owned business. There are three basic areas of doing business; selling products, selling information, and selling services. There are opportunities in each of those categories. Let’s start with where are those opportunities?
What are people interested in? What are they concerned about? What are they afraid of?
What are the top news stories? Start watching and listening for those topics in media you use such TV, radio, news magazines etc. When you start watching to identify what people are interested in you will find opportunities.
Currently we are in a historical financial down turn with political issues the country has not seen for 80 years, and trends such as 70 million baby boomers retiring. There are threats by militant countries of nuclear bomb development, and an eight year war in Afghanistan. How can opportunity come from these?
When you start paying attention to stories in the media you will find many possibilities. With the monumental changes in health care coming there will certainly be drastic changes in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Seniors see that as a huge threat to their care.
One of my students decided to write an e-book about how to navigate the Medicare Maze, The Medicare/Medicaid Survival Handbook. When they entered the Medicare system it was so confusing and frustrating it was madding. Everyone they talked to had a different answer, contradictions, and considerable frustration. They took advantage of a current situation baby boomer were facing and wrote an e-book that would help others avoid the terrible experience they went through.
A year and a half ago when the price of gasoline hit four dollars a gallon, the public, the media, and government officials were outraged. “We need to get off foreign oil.” They said. “We need to develop more alternative energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal.” At that time I saw a future need in the solar energy business. I believed as government funds became available to develop solar energy, many people would want to get into the business so I wrote an e-book, How to Start a Solar Energy Business. I put up a simple website and am selling the book at www.solarbusinessprofit.com.
In the fall of 2008 the stock market collapsed and most of us lost 30% or more of our 401K and retirement money. This was devastating to retired baby boomers and to the 70 million that would soon retire. The media was terrified. The largest financial institutions in the world were failing, and the U.S. government infused hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy. Everyone was afraid.
I was coaching a student who wanted to write an e-book to sell and make money but he didn’t know what to write about. After brainstorming a while I told him about a little known annuity people could invest in and the principle would never lose value. It was guaranteed safe. He decided to write his e-book about that financial solution to millions of baby boomer’s fears and he wrote his book and created a website on which to sell it.
More people are starting businesses now than ever before. Millions of boomers are retiring with little or no retirement funds. They need way to maintain their lifestyle. Being a greeter at Wal-Mart or a crossing guard won’t provide the income they need so they are starting businesses.
Other boomers are retiring with plenty of retirement money but they have always wanted to have a business and now is the perfect time. Then there are all of us who are afraid of loosing our jobs and are looking for additional sources of income.
There are thousands of inventors across the nation who have developed wonderful products but who don’t know how to sell and market them. One example is the sets of CDs I sell on one of my websites. I sell three sets with 50 CDs each. One set is The World’s 100 Greatest Books, another is The World’s 100 Greatest People, and the third is The World’s 50 Greatest Composers.
The creator of these wonderful products spent over a million dollars to create them but was unsuccessful marketing them. A big problem. When I found out about the three sets of CDs I ask the owner if I could try to sell them. Upon getting his approval, I created a website with all three sets on it and people started buying them. A problem turned into an opportunity.
When you start looking for opportunities, you will start to see them all around you. The more you look the more you will find. Your opportunity is out there. Go find it.
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