Last August, I met a woman at NAMS2 who quietly sat in the back of the room and absorbed everything. I knew she was a sharp cookie just by the questions she asked and the people she hung out with.

Last week, Nicole Dean sent me a note to tell me that I should take a look at Susanne’s Affiliate Niche Packs – they fit right in with my Niche-Mall storefront. (I’m always on the lookout for high-quality products to drop into my mall – hint, hint.)

And she was right; these are excellent. I bought them all. But more than that, I realized Susanne Myers really understood how to find profitable niches. One of the things she includes in her niche pack is a marketing checklist that shows step-by-step how to start promoting in the niche.

So, I ask her to write a guest blog post giving you a lesson in finding your niche. So, I’ll turn it over to Susanne…

Author: Susanne Myers
Affiliate Niche Packs

I’ve attended the last two NAMS events in Atlanta and spend a good bit of time chatting with other affiliate marketers. The question that kept coming up, especially from those just starting out was how to choose a niche that’s PROFITABLE.

Susanne Myers - Affiliate Niche Packs

It doesn’t take long for a beginning affiliate marketer to figure out that broad topic websites and wanting to provide information on everything and anything to EVERYBODY doesn’t work. Most of us quickly realize that choosing a niche and becoming an expert catering to a tight group of people is the better way to go.

The big stumbling block is often what niche to choose. Coming up with niche ideas is easy. Heck I could probably come up with about 50 of them in just a few minutes doing nothing more than jotting down my various hobbies and interests. The hard part is determining which ones have a good profit potential and are worth getting into.

Over the past 6 years, I’ve learned a lot through trial and error and have come up with some pretty good “tests” that I use anytime I’m considering a new niche. While I obviously can’t promise you you’ll be profitable if you apply these tests, they are a good indicator of whether or not a niche is profitable.

Does It Solve A Problem Or Reduce Pain

Think for a moment about what type of information products you have bought in the past. Chances are pretty good that they helped you either solve a problem or reduce pain. Those are both two very strong buying motivators.

Let me give you some examples. If your dog is barking like crazy any time someone walks up to your door, that’s a serious problem. If you came across a little ebook that promised to teach you how to stop this behavior in your dog in just a few days and it was $17, you’d buy it wouldn’t you?

Or let’s say you have chronic neck pain from sitting at the computer too much (I do). If there was a video or a report with some stretches that will help eliminate the pain, I’d be the first in line with my credit card.

Is It Entertaining

If you are not solving a problem, you have got to be entertaining (which in fact solves the problem of being bored). Think about it… If you look at the various information products available, they fall into one of those two categories. You are solving a problem (i.e. chronic back pain, bed wetting etc.) or you are helping keep your customers entertained (i.e. improving their golf game or learning to play the piano).

Is Someone Else In The Same Or Very Similar Market

Once you’ve established that your niche will either help solve a problem or entertain your readers, there’s one my thing I like to test. Make sure someone else is already profitable doing the same (or very similar thing).

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Chances are that someone else already has tried just about any niche you can come up with. The ones that are profitable usually stay around. How do you find out if there are serious competitors who are already making money in your niche?

My favorite is to use Google and Google Adwords. Google one of the main keywords in your niche and pay attention to the Google ads on the search results page. If you can’t find any ads for paid products for several main keywords, chances are pretty good that this is NOT a profitable niche.

If on the other hand there are several paid products advertised, chances are good that this will be a good niche to try. Don’t forget to visit some of the offers that are advertised and see if it’s something you may want to promote as an affiliate.

To see what I mean, I invite you to take a look at my affiliate niche packs. They are a great shortcut for getting started in any niche. I research each topic to make sure it has a high profitability potential using the steps outlined above and then provide you with the following:

• A niche and target market description
• List of some of my favorite affiliate products available in this niche
• 100 domain name ideas
• 1000+ keywords
• 100 article and blog post ideas
• 15 sample author resource boxes for article marketing
• 2 different step-by-step marketing plans with daily action items
• PLR content available in this niche
• List of tools and service to get you up and running fast

Ready to give it a try? Grab an Affiliate Niche Pack today.

Susanne Myers

P.S. I under priced these niche packs quite a bit for the first few months. I am going to raise the price to $27 on March 15′th . Until then you can get them for $14.97.

Visit the Affiliate Niche Packs today

When we last heard from farmer David – that was me last weekend – I talked about how important it is to find people who already know the tips and tricks that help you move through problems quickly.

Farmer David on the Dream Machine

What is that great quote? I think it’s something like this: The smart man learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from other peoples’ mistakes.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve made plenty. And finally, I’m ready to make fewer.

The problem I was trying to solve was how to use the big Kubota tractor – my dream machine – with a Box blade and a front end bucket to smooth my washboard driveway.

And with my friend’s advice (let’s call him my driveway mentor), I had the answer to smoothing my drive – drive backwards and drag the front end bucket to scrape the driveway smooth. And it was working very well until…my perfectionism kicked in.

That’s never good.

Perfectionism stalls me at every turn if I let it creep into my life. I’ll give you a few examples – the first is the driveway.

Following my driveway mentor’s advice, I got the drive fairly smooth – but was concerned about the loss of gravel. So, I wasn’t aggressive enough with the bucket and the driveway had a few bumps in it – maybe more than a few.

Saturday night, I was taking Charlsa, my lovely wife, to dinner and we bounced out to the road. She turned to me and said, “maybe you should call an expert.”

How did I go from a relatively, but imperfectly, smooth driveway earlier in the day to an almost unpassable quagmire again.

I forgot my main rule – good enough is good enough.

A few imperfections became big rolling gutters in the drive as I obsessed over getting it just right. Saturday evening, I was trying to finesse the ground with the box blade – just the tool my driveway mentor said to stay aware from.

So, Sunday morning I was back on the tractor really going after the drive with the front end bucket – no box blade.

I didn’t care if there was a ridge of gravel down the middle of the drive. Or if some of the gravel spilled over the edge of the drive into the gutter. The point was to get it 80 percent.

And guess what, within a couple of hours – it was very smooth – so smooth, I could drive 30 miles an hour down the drive without bouncing. (I don’t usually do that).

And I thought about my business…

How many things are not completed because they’re not perfect? The answer for me is way too many! It’s a good question to ask yourself too.

What’s keeping you from releasing your product or your article or getting your blog up? If you’re waiting for it to be perfect, you’ll wait be waiting until the day you die.

Let go of it now. I promise I will too.

Something big happens on Sunday night.

The fourth edition of the Niche Affiliate Marketing System workshop jumps to $397. And it will never be lower than $397 again. So if you’re waiting for a coupon – it ain’t happening! We are working our way to $697 or until it sells out.

We currently have 92 seats left.

That seems like a lot. It’s not!

In 28 days since we packed our bags leaving NAMS3 behind, we’ve signed up 93 people. The $297 price will be gone on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. EST. If you have friends, family or subscribers that are waiting for the best price to get in, this is it. And it won’t be this price when they wake up Monday morning.

During NAMS 1, 2 and 3, we used discount coupons to drive ticket sales. People can not count on that any longer.

But I can guarantee this: On Monday, when the price hits $397, NAMS4 will never be lower. That means sign up now or pay a higher price later if you decide to come.

Here’s three very important links for you:

1. NAMS Affiliate Video – watch this to see how to get your EXACT affiliate link.
2. NAMS Affiliate Program sign up page
3. NAMS Affiliate Program log in page

Sell two workshop tickets and you’ve yours is basically free.

NAMS is ever evolving, getting bigger and better. The problem, of course, is knowing how big to get… Obviously, if we could accommodate 1000 people at each event, that would be great for the NAMS faculty and me personally. But would it be good for you? I don’t think so!

So, we’ve found our physical limit – 185 seats.

We’ve negotiated (and will be signing) a two-year deal with the Crowne Plaza in Atlanta for several reasons, but the biggest three are:

• Internet: After stuttered with Internet access at NAMS 1 and 2, they nailed it with NAMS3. Accessing the internet for each person who attends is very important for the workshop. And to accommodate 185 people at the same time is a very complicated technical maneuver in which the Crowne Plaza has invested time and money
• Layout: The hotel is structured really well to accomplish our classroom structure. Frankly, NAMS would be a different workshop facility if we hadn’t joined with the hotel to take over multiple rooms to accomplish what we needed to do
• Price: They give us a great deal on room rates – $94. I’m a Marriott Platinum Plus member with 160 nights in 2009 under my belt. I NEVER get rooms for less than $100

As soon as the contract is completed, I’ll open up the hotel registration site.

So why is the workshop moving to $397 so soon? After all, it’s nearly six months until the NAMS4.

Well, if you’ve been a NAMS-ter for awhile, you’ll have seen a very clever marketing funnel, I believe.

We increased the price as the quality improved and the enthusiastic community grew. The $397 price is still cheap for the quality of the content and the education. It’s also a price point that is very attractive to affiliates. That means more sales and more tickets and more competition to get in which will means the price will continue to go up.

I could easily charge $1997 for NAMS now.

Seminars with NO education value are charging that kind of price and people are paying. But the quality of student and dedication of the instructors is more important to me. We’re building up people as we build up the price. And we prove it with results. Watch the video of Rafael Sanchez.

And you get to participate as an affiliate. See the links above.

At NAMS4, we’ll introduce the monthly version of NAMS that will give students from NAMS 1 through 4 VERY special benefits. But only those who have attended NAMS to that point will get those benefits.

Stay tuned and be sure to come to NAMS4.

Yep, that seems a little harsh. But it’s the truth. Unless you have a domain and some webhosting space where you can put your stuff, you really don’t have much of a web presence.

I love Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social marketing sites. But are you being “social with a purpose”? If you’re not driving your social friends to your own links – your personal webspace – you’re not really building a business.

That’s one of the first premises of online business. The “asset” is in the list. If you’re building a targeted list, you’re building a valuable asset. If you’re not, you’re just treading water.

Why am I bringing this up now? Tomorrow, and every week for the next several, I’m releasing brandable reports to help you drive traffic to the 100% commission products and other affiliate programs available to you such as the next NAMS workshop! But you’ll need a place to park your reports (with your affiliate links embedded) and to collect email addresses to build your list.

If you already have a domain (I have about 500) and hosting, then you still need to watch this short video to see how to take advantage of this special deal on SEO Hosting to get 5 cPanel accounts with 5 completely different IP addresses. That’s important because you can begin building your own hub and spoke traffic systems immediately.

This short video will show you how to create a significant web presence very quickly and cheaply and right. It’s just an introduction, but that may be all you need right now. But watch this space – there’s much more coming your way in the next few days.

Take a look – it’s less than 6 minutes.

Just a couple of days ago, I had an awesome brainstorming session with Jeff Herring and Maritza Parra.

And I was carrying my handy-dandy Kodak Zi8 video camera with an external microphone so I could tape a 30-minute session about it and it was great. I thought you’d like to get a peak inside the inner workings of an intense brainstorming session, so I’ve got the video below…

Stuff happens fast in the internet world. So, we should be ready to respond. That’s why I’m setting up a couple of last-minute webinar training sessions.

The first is part of an ongoing series I’m starting about profiting from NAMS as an affiliate. Yes, this is late notice, but I wanted to let you get started as quickly as possible.

Discover techniques for profiting as a NAMS affiliate

Wednesday night – that’s tonight – from 9 to 10 p.m. EDT

We’ll focus on setting up and driving traffic over the next few weeks to promote the NAMS4 workshop with your affiliate link.

Register Now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/936117474

A SIMPLE10K formula for quick success…

The second webinar is Thursday night at 8 p.m. EDT.

We’ll dig deeper into the School For Information Marketing Profits – Bob The Teacher’s unique 3 step process for driving simple online income.

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/586889291

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

It’s so nice to be home.

After 5 intense days in Atlanta for the NAMS3 workshop, I’m ready to take a long nap. The dogs were jumping all over me and the cat even climbed up on my chest for a quick pet before she went outside to keep our house safe from varmints.

Everyone was happy to be going home Monday from the workshop, but no one happier than our new friends from Venezuela!

We put together a 100% commission product on Saturday to give our students an opportunity to sell a brand new affiliate product called Strategies 4 Social Marketing.

It was a live 60-minute panel discussion with Kevin Riley, Willie Crawford, Jeff Herring, Maritza Parra and Joey Smith revealing their secret – and best – tips for driving traffic using social marketing.

We took the mp3, created the sales page in 90 minutes using tools and techniques that we taught studnets, added some great bonuses and started a 24-hour sales contest. Seven people made first-time sales including Rafael Sanchez who killed the competition with 26 sales. See his video below.

Rafael and his wife Luz made the trip from Venezuela.

This was Rafael’s first time selling anything on the internet.

He has no list. And get this – his country doesn’t allow credit card use on the internet. Nor does it allow the use of PayPal. So, he sent his affiliate link and ask his friends in Venezuela to send it to their friends in other countries.

In essence, it went viral on a smaller scale.

Sales started coming in. It was amazing to watch his excitement. When it was over and we were all heading home, I made a video of him talking about the experience. After the video, he asked what he was supposed to do with the $442 that he now had in his PayPal account from his sales.

He thought he was supposed to give it back to us!

He and 24 other people made 112 sales in the 24 hours. Thirty-five of those were from first-time sellers!

NO other internet mareketing workshop is like it. Willie Crawford said, “This was one of the best seminars/workshops that I’ve ever attended.”

All the speakers were raving and the 180 students were exhausted, exhilarated and excited.

Until Monday, Feb. 8th at midnight EST, we’re making available more than 50 hours of audio recordings to the three Niche Affiliate Marketing System workshops – NAMS 1, 2 and 3.  Be sure to check it out here.

How can Scrabble lead to finding your niche?

Today, I’m going to prove to you that you have a money-making niche inside your head (and heart) that you’re probably ignoring.

And I’ll prove that you can get it out and have it working for you in almost no time by following a simple 3-step process that includes a fun game.

1) What’s your passion?

Make a list of all the things you love to do no matter how silly other people think it is. This is your passion list. You should have as many items on this list as possible. Mine was more than 100.

Here’s some ideas:

• Family
• Raising horses
• Helping others succeed
• Collecting stamps
• Hiking in the woods
• Watching TV

For me, I have a passion for riding motorcycles, travel and creating things.

2) What are you good at?

Create another list. This is your expertise list. Again, as many things as possible. If you can’t come up with many, ask your friends this question: What do you think I’m good at? This is really hard because you have to give yourself a little credit. Don’t be shy.

More examples:

• Organizing closets
• Training dogs
• Creating an exercise routine
• Painting pictures of birds
• Reviewing movies

In my case, I’m good at building systems, writing and photography.

3) Next, let’s play a game called Prosperity Scrabble.

Prosperity Consciousness

This is a game created by prosperity guru Fredric Lehrman. This program changed my mindset completely about 10 years ago and showed me that you can make money – a lot of it – by changing how you think about money and limitations.

Take your two lists and cut each item into a single piece of paper. Keep the list piles separate. Passion pile on the right; Expertise pile on the left.

So, to be clear…

You’ve got two piles of small slips of paper – probably an inch by inch.

Now, dig into each pile and pull out one slip of paper from each.

Here’s the game part of this process – ask yourself this question: How can I make money with my expertise and my passion.

For example, let’s say that you pulled:

Passion: Love to write poetry
Expertise: Good at working with animals

How can you make money with that? (We’re not going into the whole market research piece of this until later, so don’t worry about keywords, market size, etc. Now, it’s about thinking creatively.)

The strict version of this game says that you don’t move to another combination until you make $1 from it, but I’m more interested in stimulating your thinking. Lehrman’s point was that you can make money from anything, so why not choose your passion and your expertise.

So, poetry and animals. That’s a niche. How do you make money with that niche?

Here’s just one example:

People who love animals love animals passionately, so they are a motivated group.

And poetry is a great form of inspiration.

The first thought off the top of my head is that you could use pictures of animals that you get from free resources and the $1 stock houses to create cards or motivational “business cards” with poetry snippets. Include a link to an affiliate product in that niche such as Send Out Cards or Amazon pet supplies and you’ve got a money making venture.

And if you make a little money from it, figure out how to scale it up to make a lot of money from it.

See how easy that is?

I’ve created a forum specifically for discussing niches. Talk about the niche you’re in if you’re having problems or success. But also, play this game and discuss your results. It really works well when you form a mini-mastermind group (in the forum) to brainstorm ideas.

I’ve also included a couple of handouts to get you started. Pick them up in the forum.

Remember the Gorilla-Gram business a few years back – like the singing telegrams, messages were delivered by people in gorilla costumes… That business was started using this technique originally. Lehrman talks about this and others in Prosperity Consciousness.

We’re getting very close to NAMS3 and you can still make it!

In less than 2 weeeks, we’ll be finishing our first workshop day in Atlanta. At 6 p.m. on that evening, we’ll migrate to the opening reception drinking beer or soda, nibbling on snacks, getting to know one another and digesting the overwhelming information we received that day.

We’ll be tired, overwhelmed, exhilarated and incredibly excited.

Before the guzzling begins, you will have given feedback on the day so we can adjust Saturday’s schedule and teaching focus if we need it to be more effective and we’ll have gone over what we’re experiencing in Day 2 of the workshop.

We’ll have issues that need to be resolved and success stories that need to be trumpeted. And we’ll have about a 1000 tweets on Twitter with #NAMS hashtag that need to be sorted through.

Videos will be posted on Youtube and blogs will be blazing with reports from the Niche Affiliate Marketing System.

And those of you who will be at home reading and listening to the buzz will be so sorry you didn’t make it.

But it’s not too late.

We’ve had some cancellations because of family situations and last minute changes. One person had a car wreck. Another had to take care of a mother who’s gone into a hospital. Life sometimes gets in the way. We’ll miss them and keep their situations in our thoughts and prayers.

But fortunately for you, about 10 NAMS3 slots have opened up. Remember, NAMS3 sold out on Dec. 1. I put the sales page up last night, and already 2 of those are gone. It will come down on Friday at noon EST or when the remaining 8 seats are gone.

If you’d like to attend NAMS3 next week, go to the Niche Affiliate Marketing System page to register with a $300 coupon discount off the $697 price.

This is a very special group of people as proven by the incredible response in the new forum. If you haven’t seen it or become part of it, see what they’re saying about NAMS3.

See you in Atlanta…