Have you heard of Gary Halbert?
The late Gary Halbert was a legendary direct response marketer and copywriter. And his advice was always straight to the point … and deadly accurate with his ideas.
Gary would occasionally run classes on writing sales copy. And he’d often the following question to his students.
“If you were running a hamburger stand and could have any advantage you wanted, what would it be”?
The answers came flying back.
“The best meat” some called back.
“The lowest prices” others yelled out.
“The most popular location” others still cried out.
When they’d all finished Gary would give HIS answer. “The advantage I’d want would whip the pants off the rest of you. All I want is” …
Because when you think about it, even without the best meat, the lowest prices or the best location if you’re surrounded by a starving crowd you’re going to sell out of hamburgers pretty damn fast.
And it’s the same in any business. Especially in your importing business.
What often happens is people go looking for great products to sell without checking out how much demand there is for them. This is a mistake.
You don’t start by finding your product. First go and find hot markets, then find out what they want and give it to them.
Do this and it’s easy. All the cards are stacked in your favour.
Let’s keep going.
One great market where this proven itself over and over again is building materials. OK, sure. There are a lot of building materials available. However the demand from renovators, builders and renovators is astronomical.
Many importers have made, and continue to make serious money in this market. I have personally made a small fortune here.
And there are heaps and heaps of hot markets. And sure, they take a bit of time to find but when you do you’ll reap the rewards.
One good place to start is with your own interests and hobbies. Is there something which you’d like to be able to get but can’t. What about your family and friends?
Another good way to start is just by keeping your eyes and ears open. Look for conventions on small niche hobbies, then hang around their online forums and Facebook pages and see what you uncover.
Check out what’s already for sale in their market, whether they’re spending big dollars and if there are any items which seem hard to find, or incredibly popular.
Do this and BANG – you’ve got your market and your product.
There’s very little risk it won’t work, and even if it does you can keep selling other things to this market and expanding your product range until you’re dominating it.