An Open Letter To My Subscribers, Affiliates, Partners, Friends and Customers. Let me say one thing up front: I’m not quitting as an internet marketer.

Let’s get that settled from the beginning. This is NOT another one of those “I’m retiring from internet marketing” deals. I’ve put in almost ten years as a full-time internet marketer and I hope to have many more decades of it in the future.

H – o – w – e – v – e – r … I AM “retiring” ALL of my current products, membership sites, coaching programs, ebooks, software programs, small reports, etc.

What do I mean by “retiring”?

I mean I am systematically going to begin removing ALL of my current offers from the internet and discontinuing the sale of them. Once they are removed, they will no longer be available for purchase.

The offers will be removed, one at a time, at a rate of about every 7-10 days. Everyone on my list will be given advance notice of what product is being removed with the date of removal. This will give everyone ample time to purchase anything they are interested in before it is gone.

August of this year will mark my 10 year anniversary since going full-time. I launched ProfitsVault.com in August 2000. (As a side note, I’ll be totally revamping that site and relaunching it in August of this year to celebrate!)

I’m not “quitting” internet marketing, but I’m going to scale back tremendously.

In a matter of weeks, every single current offer (ebook, membership site, etc.) will have been removed from the Internet and no longer available for purchase.

The big question is — WHY?

There are three quick reasons that I want to share…

1. To free up time for personal interests.

I’ve got a book that’s being released in March called “Lessons That Leave A Mark” for Sunday School teachers and another one that will be done for release in July or August. I’m going back to Poland this summer as the mission trip team leader. I’ve been speaking at some churches and have a Christian based membership site that should launch sometime first quarter 2010. I just feel like my life needs to head in more of a ministry direction. Plus there are a lot of other personal things that I want to give more of my time to such as family trips (we’re gone somewhere almost every month … and loving it!) and running, tennis, backpacking. Life is too short to work all the time and we’ve been blessed enough over the past ten years that we can spend the next ten doing what we enjoy and feel called to do. (NOTE: You can keep up with my ministry stuff at my “other” blog … http://www.LifeTurns.com)

2. To streamline my business.

Despite the fact that I outsource most of my customer support these days, there are still a lot of day to day operations stuff that I’m involved in that demand my time. When you oversee more than 100 different offers, it can be time draining trying to train team members to handle new FTC rules, update sites, use new technologies, troubleshoot errors, not offend 20,000 customers who all feel like “personal friends” which require a personal response, etc. By having only 1-2 offers out there to maintain as opposed to 100+, I’ll be able to be more personal with my customers and eliminate a lot of time drain.

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Let’s start out by talking about developing your own info products. Honestly, I believe that this is the route that you should take to ensure that you create the greatest income online (with the exception of combining methods). Even if you have to pay someone to develop your products for you, in the long run, your profit potential is greater.

You see, with this option, you are able to develop your own force of affiliates to sell your product for you. You also control whether you are selling the product only or selling some form of resale rights to the product as well. In fact, you can even charge a separate price for the product and the resale rights, providing you with multiple income streams from a single product.

The one downside to creating your own products (or having them created for you), is that it takes some time to do it properly. And, if you are paying someone else to develop the product, your costs can be quite high. However, if you have sufficient time and a desire to save a ton of money, the work is not difficult. In the long run, though, I am sure that you will find that the costs are minimal compared to the income you can derive.

One further benefit of creating your own product is the name recognition that you will certainly attain if you have a hit product on your hands. Once you produce your own product, you can instantly become an expert in your field. Who knows?

If your product is a big enough success, you may even attain that coveted “guru status” overnight!

Think about what this can mean to your income online? People always look to the experts to provide them with information. One good info product can open the door for an entire line of info products, all created by you!

The first step that you will take in creating your own product is to find your market. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of finding a market first, and then creating your product for that market. Once you have your topic selected, only then can you move on to the next step … deciding what type of product to create.

Information marketing is by far one the of the most lucrative forms of doing business online. Gone are the days of everyone expecting information for nothing. It is about solving specific problems and providing answers to issues.

If writing a full fledged ebook scares you and or makes you a bit nervous, then my suggestion is trying Jimmy D Browns Short Reports Fortunes. It shows you step by step how to create meaty products and if done the right way you can create a couple chapters at a time and before you knowit,  you actually will have a full fledged ebook in your hands. All of it filled with all the meat that your customers will be searching for and giving you the opportunity to over deliver.

Hold a Brainstorming Session. Write down everything you can think of that interest you or something from your past that you have knowledge in. It could be a past job you had or my favorite is a hobby of some kind that gets your blood flowing.

To start out, have a brainstorming session with yourself.  Have a brainstorming session with your significant other.  Have a brainstorming session with another marketer.  Do whatever you can to get those creative juices to start flowing.

When doing your brainstorming, you want to focus on your goal.  Remember that the ultimate goal is to produce a product.  The interim goal, though, is to find a hungry market that is willing to part with some money to obtain the information that you are selling.

Don’t limit yourself to any specific topic at this point.  Anything can be a product!  Not everything might justify a nice price tag, but everything can be a product.

What? You don’t know how to brainstorm?  It’s easy really.  Just throw out ideas.  This early in the game, there are no bad ideas or good ideas – there are only ideas.  Break each idea apart – combine a few together – follow one idea to another.  This is what brainstorming is all about!

Now, it can be much harder to do when you are trying to create a product that you don’t know much about.  Then, topics are a bit harder to come by.  Otherwise, look around you.  Try thinking of everything and anything as a potential product.

One piece of software you can use to help you brainstorm is called the Complete Brainstorm Lab.  You’ll find it at:  http://www.InstantEzineContent.com .

If you just glanced across your room and you see a telephone, perhaps you could find a way to turn that into an info product.  Let’s brainstorm it.  You could have an ebook about using the telephone to profit.  You could have a software product that helps you use the telephone to profit.  One way to do this easily is start thinking in terms of “How To”.  When you look at something, think of all of the “How tos” that could go with it.  You’d be amazed at the “gazillions” of products that you can come up with!

One of the ways I use that I have found extremely useful is to go to ezinearticles.com and look thru their directory listings and see what people are writing about. Here’s the thing. If people are writing about a specific subject then they are probably making money in that given niche.

One mantra I have continued to follow through out my online journey is find something you are passionate about or have a high degree of interest in. There are a couple of reasons for this. First and foremost it makes it much easier to sit at your computer every day and write content about it and it makes your processes much much easier and it actually drives the enjoyment factor up.

That’s not to say you won’t do well with niches you have less interest in, it simply means you know something going in and another way I come up with ideas is to to either a local bookstore where they have a huge selection of magazines and it becomes a never ending flow of possibilities.

If they are producing content in a magazine that is your instant hungry market. By reading periodicals, you can also come up with ideas and marjets you simply could have never thought of as well as many sub-niches by looking through the classified ads.

A freebie for you today by one of the greats- Marlon Sanders Online Marketing Ebook .

Two others for creating your own product are Marlons Info Product Dashboard that shows you how to point and click your way to your first ebook. One of my all time favorites is Create Your Own Products In A Flash

Why You Don’t Gotta Be A Rocket Scientist Or Extreme Expert To Get Started In The Info Product Business — And A Simple Way To Cash In On Quick Hit Products You Can Create THIS Week!

You know how when you get started as a newbie in this business you don’t know WHAT to sell, WHO to sell it to or HOW you are gonna get started? I’m gonna break it down for you today and give you a simple, easy, non-threatening way to get started in this business.

First, you have the big boys on the block in any highly lucrative market.

They pull out all the big guns — sophisticated product launches, video, high end membership sites, seminars, coaching.

This is the full arsenal.

And frankly, the skill level is beyond most beginners unless you have exceptional talent.

There’s another kind of player — the Guerilla player. This player knocks off specific topics the big boys overlook or don’t cover.

What they do is create little info products, PDF reports, ebooks, teleseminars that cover very specific topics within the broad, overall market.

The advantage of these products is they are fairly quick hits to create.

The other advantage is you can round up 10 of the products into a bundle and sell that. Or you can break them out and sell them separately.

I’ll give you an example: I’ve mentioned the market recently that that teaches guys how to meet girls. And vica versa, girls and women how to meet guys.

I ran across a site the other day that was cool. He isn’t a big name in the market. So he just is hitting topics that are very specific that no one else is covering in as much depth.

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My wife and I have been married since 1994. During the years since our wedding, we have stayed in a variety of hotels ranging from a “glorified closet” to a resort suite, everything from a 1-star rating to a 5-star rating. We’re not into astronomy, but we do like to see a lot of stars when it comes to our accommodations! Here’s what Hotels.com says of a “5-Star” rating…

“These luxury hotels offer the pinnacle of service and pampering. Pristine surroundings often include manicured landscaping and famed works of art. Guests may expect multilingual concierge and/or butler services, extensive pool, spa and fitness facilities, and gourmet restaurants with world-renowned chefs. There is typically a high staff- to-guest ratio. Guestrooms feature ample space, designer linens, and special touches such as fresh flowers, champagne and flat-screen televisions. These hotels most often are located in the most desirable cities or resort destinations.”

In other words, 5-star means “the best”. It represents the highest order of a hotel. Or, anything for that matter.

There are 5-star hotels, restaurants, campgrounds, salons, banks and much more.

In fact, you can apply the 1-5 star rating system to just about anything.

Even internet marketing.

What I’d like to do is share some insights into becoming a 5-star internet marketer. And what I’m going to focus on is the strategy that serves as the foundation of all 5-star ratings: ongoing change in pursuing excellence.

• Can you imagine a hotel receiving a 5-star rating today by offering a black and white television?

• Can you imagine a restaurant receiving a 5-star rating without air conditioning?

• Can you imagine a campground receiving a 5-star rating with no “full hookups”?

While this may have generated a 5-star rating 50 years ago, it’s simply not enough for today. There is an “ongoing pursuit of excellence” for those who achieve AND maintain a 5-star rating.

That’s the principle I want you to learn today: 5-star internet marketers make adjustments to their business ahead of the pack.

Back in the 1978 one of my favorite songs (I was only 8!) was “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. In it, he provides some sage advice that internet marketers would do well to apply in order achieve 5-star status…

“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run.”

These statements form the four stages of a transitional business mindset…

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