Ask yourself following questions as you review your telephone bills:

Do I recognize names of all companies listed on my bill?

What services were provided by listed companies?

Does bill include charges for calls I did not place and services I did not authorize?

Are rates charged by each company consistent with rates that company quoted to me?

Keep in mind that you may sometimes be billed for a call you placed or a service you used – but description listed on your telephone bill for call or service may be unclear. If you don’t know what service was provided for a charge listed on your bill, ask company that billed charge to explain service before paying bill.

The cost of small, incorrect charges for telephone-related services adds up over time. Make sure you know what service was provided for small charges. Crammers often try to go undetected by submitting $2 or $3 charges to thousands of customers.

Keep a record of telephone services you have authorized and used – including calls placed to 900 numbers and other types of telephone information services. These records can be helpful when billing descriptions are unclear.

Carefully read all forms and promotional materials – including all of fine print – before signing up for telephone services.

Companies compete for your telephone business. Use your buying power wisely and shop around.

If you think that a company’s charges are too high or that their services do not meet your needs, contact other companies and try to get a better deal.

Federal Communications Commission · Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau · 445 12th St. S.W. · Washington, DC 20554 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) · TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) · www.fcc.gov/cgb/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article courtesy of International Long Distance Phone Service This article may be reprinted freely, provided this attribution remains intact.

c)A third method you can use is to seek out what is already selling. A great way to do that is to look at http://www.amazon.com and http://www.zdnet.com top movers op sellers in various market niches.

This will tell you ALLOT about what people are spending money on right now!

3. WHAT WILL PEOPLE PAY ME FOR?

Now that you have picked a niche market and an area of focus, you need to find out what people want BADLY within that niche.

Here are a few ways to find out...

a) Search google for "model airplane discussion forums". You are looking for active and reasonably good quality forums to TAP INTO ongoig discussions - this will offer you a goldmine of information on what people are looking for.

In a 5-minute search, here's what I found --

http://www.indiarc.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi

http://www.rcorlando.com/modules.php?name=Forums

http://www.flightlines.com/cgi- bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true

You will find TONS of active discussions that will lead to product ideas, allowing you to tap into what this market wants.

b) Get involved in Chat's - many of sites above also run live chat sessions periodically, another great way to find out pockets of demand

c) Check offline - read RC Modeller magazines and books, find out consistent topics, gaps in information or ideas that you could expand into a different medium.

For example, a common topic is flying techniques or flight patterns.

Why not travel to your local model flying club and video tape both flight paths and techniques used by flyers, converting them into digital files and selling them on CD-ROM?

You get idea.

d) Listen to your fellow model airplane buffs - find out what their frustrations are, what their spending patterns are and what else they are looking for, but can't find.

4. TESTING FOR DEMAND

Here are 3 quick methods of testing for demand - BEFORE you spend days, weeks or months on creating your infoproduct.

a) Surveys - using a free trial from http://www.surveymonkey.com you can find out whether your target market seems as passionate about your idea as you are. NOTE: Be sure to ask them IF and HOW MUCH they would be willing to cough up to get answers to their questions.

b) Special Report - Use this often overlooked technique to put together a few pages (from 5-20 pages) that you can either give away or sell for a low price to test popularity of your idea. You WILL need to market this report, so it will take some time BUT, it's a great way to setup your marketing channels ahead of time, preparing them for your full product which comes later.

The best resource I've come across on writing Income-Generating Special Reports is "The Special Report Bible" - you will be amazed at what you can put together in a matter of hours or days.

ANOTHER IDEA is to run an interview or teleseminar on your topic with a topic expert. Judge popularity of call can mean you will roll out new products later.

An example of this strategy is Yanik Silver's recent Public Domain Riches teleseminar (http://www.infoproductcreator.com/part/pdomain) which turned out to be such a hit that he quickly put together a $1,000+ personal coaching course on same topic.

c) Articles - Write articles on your topic directly addressing same desire you hope to fill with your full product. Submit your article to various article directories on Yahoo and many others out there. Request a courtesy notification from publishers who publish your article so that you get a feel for how popular article proves to be. Of course, you should also have a link to either a website or autoresponder email address at end of your article. Clicks on your link following article will also give you a sense of how popular topic is.

What should you expect?

You don't need to have HUGE numbers, a few publications and approx a 1% clickthrough on any published articles tells you there is enough response to continue - or at least do additional testing.

5. eBOOKS AND WHAT ELSE?

If you haven't asked question - WHAT ELSE and you are considering writing a typical book or eBook then you may be missing out on product opportunities that will both make you more money AND take far less time to create.

Here are just a few formats that many successful infoproduct developers use today...

- Audio files (telseminars, interviews, commentary) - Special Reports (5-20 page treatments) - Videos (It's easier than you think) - Software (Software applications or scripts can be developed by starving professionals on Elance.com or Scriptlance.com for far less than you might imagine. - Physical booklets or courses/binders - Bundled products

6. THE INTERNET MARKETING MARKET FALLACY

It has to be biggest un-truth floating around internet.

Contrary to what most people say, developing products targeted only at internet marketing crowd is NOT only OR most lucrative market out there.

It IS most competitive - so that's why you tend to see products everywhere, leading most people to believe those are only products selling.

In fact, there are products selling in many niches including...

- health and wellness - hobbies (models, crafts, collectors, music, sports, etc...) - relationships - parenting - career and business - business opportunities (ie. home business) - technology - pets - and many, many others

Each week I continue to be AMAZED at incredible opportunities out there in niche markets - our society is more information hungry than ever.

Don't make common mistake of ignoring a market you are interested in because you don't THINK products will sell. Instead, test and find out what products will sell to a given market.

With those obstacles out of your way - NOTHING stands in way of you creating that lifestyle you've always wanted by creating and marketing information products.