In the words of Zig Ziglar... 'You can have everything in life that you want... if you will just help enough other people get what they want!.'

So how do you find out what people need? What it is that people will pay for?

Ask, and Ye shall receive...

Ask them! It's really that simple. But you have to be in contact with your potential customers to be able to do that. If you have a list of subscribers already, you can just send them all a broadcast email and ask them the questions. 'What do you need? Where's the pain?'

But you must act on the replies. This not only gives you an effective blueprint to create or find products/services your subscribers need, it also starts a buyer/seller relationship. If you are asked for help... and you DO help, you are then in a position of trust. You delivered. So when that potential customer wants to spend some money who will they go to first? An unknown entity? Just a name on a web-page or someone who has proved themselves trustworthy and useful?

The answer is obvious!

Earning cash is about developing a relationship and supplying a worthwhile product. A product that answers a specific & genuine need.

No list?

If you're just starting out and haven't built any buyer/seller relationships, how do you ask your potential customers what they need?

You can find out exactly what people are searching for online. You can discover just how many enquiries there are in a particular niche and what solutions people are looking for. Once upon a time you had to PAY to do this with 'wordtracker' or any number of other online search trackers, but now the lovely people at Google have given us a FREE search engine keyword research tool. You can now discover how many people are searching for the keywords you specify AND other keywords and phrases related to the topic. Which is extremely useful if you are looking to solve other people's problems for them!

Google's keyword Tool

If you have a Google Mail account you don't actually have to sign up for an Adwords account. Just click on 'My Account' on your sign-in page, then click on 'Adwords' and you will be invited to sign up for an Adwords account.

Bonsai Trees!

On the same page is a link that says 'Get Keyword Ideas'. Click the link and you can enter keywords for the topic you're looking into: Eg... I entered the search term 'Bonsai'?, planting, tree and pruning' and clicked on the 'Get Keyword ideas' button. The resulting information would be invaluable to anyone in the Bonsai market. It gives me search volumes for not only single keywords but related phrases so I can see what people are looking for. Important information like... more people are looking for 'Bonsai Pots' than 'Bonsai Trees'. So if I were in the Bonsai business I might do better selling the containers than the actual product. The keyword tool also tells me that by far and away the most sought after tree is a 'Cherry Tree.' With over 40,000 searches for that phrase compared with the nearest other type of tree... 'Pear Tree,' with 27,000. Mmmm... a possible niche market there I think!

And Finally...

So... that's where you have to start in your mission to earn cash. Determine what it is that potential customers need... And sell it to them!