As usual, I gave my usual answer, i.e. find something that you really like and care about and sell products related to that. Your interest in the field will keep your interest in your business fresh and that will reflect in your marketing...particularly if you are avid about the subject. Take my friend Tony, for example....please...as Henny Youngman would have said :) Tony is nuts about bicycles, bicycling, anything in that genre. What better area to find products to sell than things bicycle related...or outdoors, or athletic.

Tony is full of...well, ideas and he likes to share them. Seriously, Tony likes people, likes to talk to people, and...guess what...ask him a question about bicycles or bicycling, and he's off. He can not only give you all you need to know on the subject, but he is very good at asking the right questions and anticipating your needs. He's a perfect salesman except for one thing. Like most of us, if I asked Tony to actually "sell" something, he would be reduced to mumbles and half-baked information. Put him in a bicycle shop or on a bicycle blog, however, and he would have anyone else interested in the subject eating out of his hand. He would be the guru, the big kahuna, the...well, you get the idea.

Unfortunately, a lot of people starting an internet business are not sure what to sell or how to go about it. They feel that they don't know a lot about anything (which is usually untrue), and that nobody would listen to them anyway (also usually untrue).

So, they sign up for all sorts of things that everyone else is selling, use the same marketing materials that everyone else uses, and usually try to sell their specific product to some generic audience which is probably looking for something else at the time anyway.

In fact, as it works out, a lot of their audience, at least when they are new to internet marketing, is made up of people just like them...the newbies and not as yet niched people. Which brings me back to my question: What can a newbie sell effectively?

Actually, I learned the answer years ago when I was just getting started in direct mail marketing.

Ask yourself, if my friend Tony (big guy, nice, smiles a lot and tells funny stories) decides to start selling something like bicycle parts, what is HE going to need. Well, he will need to register a website, get web hosting services, get a web site designed, and market it.

What was that last thing?

Marketing. Yep, good old fashioned advertising. Tony, and every other person selling things on the internet needs all of those things, but the one that constantly has to be acquired over and over again is plain, old-fashioned advertising. I don't care if you are talking about Tony who has been in an internet business just over 5 minutes, or me, who has been in an internet business for over 5 years, we all need advertising.

Even as a newbie, I can offer advertising services. If the service is basically free but can be upgraded through a later purchase of which I get a commission, so much the better. The materials don't even have to be that fresh. All I have to do is take my advertising advertisement to the places where new potential advertisers hang out and dangle my lure. With perseverance and a little ingenunity, the hits will come. The list of people using the free service initially will grow, and, if the service is good and seems to work, some of those people will upgrade and I will get a commission.

You know what's even nicer? Many of these services are renewed monthly, which means I have created residual income, and some allow me to build a downline, which means people I inform about the service may, in turn, inform others and make additional income for me!

On top of the opportunity to introduce my friend Tony to a new service that may be of value to him, and the chance to make some money in the process, I have begun building that "list" you hear so much about. If I have picked a good advertising service to promote, my list members will be grateful and may be interested in learning more about other projects I am interested in.

There are many such services out there, DirectMatches.com and AdlandPro.com just to name a few.

So! Wanna be my friend?