How to find a new product or service

To start with, you will need to read through everything you can find. How do I mean? You have heard the old saying, services, or business opportunities, read the magazines and newspapers where they are offered. Read all the trade magazines and newspapers where they are offered. Read all the trade magazines in your field and in business in general. Read all the business magazines, newspapers, publications, and even newsletters in your area of interest. Subscribe to everything that you can find. Do not be cheap or lazy in this area.

Sometimes, one idea in one specialty publications in your field of business can save or make you a fortune if you recognize it and act quickly.

For example, there is a story told about an automatic recreational vehicle washing bay. The concept had been developed by a mechanic in Arkansas and he was looking for people to license the concept nationwide.

Normally, it takes about two hours to wash an RV, from top to bottom. It usually takes one or two people using long-handled brushes and hoses to soap down and rinse the sides and top. With an automatic RV washing bay, the entire job can be done in nine minutes and the vehicle is clearer than if one or two people took two hours to wash it.

Some folks got the information, bought a license for technology, set up the RV wash bay on their property, put out the word in the local market, and within one year, they were generating more than $25,000 per month in sales with a gross profit of more than 80 per cent.

Also, make sure you attend consistently trade shows, fairs, and exhibitions in your field. Buddy, in reading through newspapers and magazines, you will learn about trade shows being held all over the country in your field of specialization. Currently, many trade shows in Nigeria are being held per year. Explore them!

The people who attend these trade shows are there to demonstrate the latest breakthroughs in products and services. They are seeking to make direct sales to professional buyers and to find licenses for their products in other markets. You can learn more about what is going on in your industry by walking around the floors of a trade show for a few hours than you could if you read, reviewed, and asked questions for an entire year.

Always read the business press too! Look for new product or service ideas that are being featured as news stories. Read Forbes, Fortune, Business Day and Business Week. Read the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily. Read the business and business opportunity in your local newspaper. Be prepared to look at a lot of opportunities before you find the right one for you.

Dolf de Roos, author of Real Estate Riches, teaches people how to buy houses with no money down. He uses what he calls the “100-10-3-1 Formula.” He says that, at the beginning, you have to look at 100 houses before you will find ten houses which you can make a “no money down” offer. Of those ten offers, only three will counteroffer with acceptable prices and terms. Of those three, you negotiate and purchase only one.

gives you a ratio of 100:1. It seems like a lot of work, but I have spoken to many people who say that this formula is quite predictable. If they look at 100 homes, they will end up buying one home at an excellent price that they can fix up and resell or rent out for more than their total cost of purchasing and carrying the house. If they do this once per month, they can eventually become skilled enough to buy 12 houses per year with little or no money down. People who do this systematically can build up a substantial estate in residential housing. Someone in Dallas used this formula to buy 66 houses over a period of three years. He made more than three million dollars when he sold them all and moved onto his next venture. Isn’t this awesome?

My point is this: you may have to look at dozens of business opportunities and new products or services before you find the right one for you, but if you keep looking and exploring, the law of probabilities says that you must eventually find something that fits into your plans and your budget.

Also, make sure you keep your eyes open while you are traveling. How do I mean? Many new product or service ideas are never sold outside of their home markets, local, national, or even international. Many people have become wealthy by seeing a product for sale while traveling overseas, inquiring and getting the rights to distribute it exclusively in their market area and starting a successful business as a result.

Hear this: fully 95 per cent of products manufactured and sold successfully in foreign countries are never sold overseas. The main reason is that the manufacturers or producers of these products are so busy making their businesses successful at home that they have no time or ability to expand into other markets.

Consulates and embassies of many nations include economic divisions, the purpose of each being exclusively to promote trade between the country that it represents and other countries. These economic divisions of the consulates and embassies carry catalogues, brochures, and information from manufacturers of products seeking distribution in other countries.

Lastly, you can often find a tremendous product opportunity by simply phoning or going online to contact the foreign services offices of countries like China, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Britain and Italy. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of products that are well made, attractive and selling well in their home markets. Often you can get the exclusive rights to distribute these products simply for the asking. Till I come your way again next Monday, see you, where successful leaders are found!

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