There are a number of questions people have when it comes to how can they actually earn commissions marketing products. Here are a few of them:
Don’t they need to first develop the products?
The short answer to this question is no. There are a lot of companies which have already developed products ready to sell, but they don’t necessarily have the marketing department to get the products out to the marketplace. What they do instead of hiring a full time marketing staff is allow people like yourself to sell their products. In return for each sale you make, they are willing to pay you a commission
What about doing marketing surveys to see if the marketplace is ready for them?
While conducting marketing surveys is a good thing, most people when they first get started usually don’t want to invest the time or effort into doing a minimal amount of research. So they go off of what is called emotional attachment research. It is basically a feel good approach. They figure if they think it is a good idea, then it will probably sell. Kind of like the proverbial “Field of Dreams”. They think that if they build it, the people will flock to their door or in the case of the Internet, their website. Nothing could be further from the truth. In future posts, we will look into what the better approaches are to market research. For the time being, know that if you go with the “field of dreams” approach, it is more likely that you will fail than succeed. Some people have had success with this, but repeating this in other products is challenging at best.
Do I need a college degree in Marketing?
To succeed in any field of effort, it will take some sort of education to gain the knowledge you need to make it work. However, you don’t need a college education to do this. Think about this little fact…How many professors in college have actually ran their own business? How many of them have developed their own products? How many have had success in marketing? I have taken college courses in Marketing and I did not have any professor or instructor who had real world business experience. If you want to learn the theory behind marketing philosophies, then go ahead and make the investment in time and money. However, the best way to learn this process is from people who have actually done it, maybe even failed miserably and then figured out how it all works. It is like having to cross a mine field. Do you want to go out on your own, study under someone who never seen the mine field, or learn from some one who knows where the mines are located?
What about research and development?
When you are on the marketing side of the business chain, you don’t need to invest money into your own research and development of products. However, as mentioned above, you do need to do some basic research to determine the best products to market. You don’t want to be wasting time and money only to find you have little to show for it. Let the other guy go out there and assume the risk of product development. You focus is on whether there is a market for the product. And as you will soon learn, there is a whole range of products already out there that you can get a piece of the pie once you find the right marketplace for it. Think of your commissions that you received from marketing as your fee for bringing the buyer and seller together. When that happens, you get paid.
In the next post, we will cover more on the type of questions people have on how they can get paid commissions for marketing products. Just know that it takes more than just deciding to do it. There are bad pitfalls that can suck you in if you do it incorrectly.
Feel free to share any challenges you have had or questions you may have regarding this topic in the comments. We will work to answer your questions in future posts.
Until Next Time….
ComMktg