If You Had A System That You Knew Would Make Money Would You Sell It Or Keep It To Yourself?

I would sell a system if it was
A) new
and
B) selling it would have the potential of earning me a higher return for time invested than just keeping at working the system.

I can imagine selling a system just to spread the love, so to speak, but only once I've made a ton of cash with it (call me egoistic). But then, I might as well give it away for free in the War Room.

I'm always a bit skeptical of a 7$ WSO that supposedly teaches how to make tens of thousands a month. Why bother selling something for pocket-change if it's making that much money?

I have no problem with selling methods that are making me money as long as doing so doesn't saturate them. For most broad 'ways to make money online' (affiliate marketing, website flipping, product launches etc) an extra hundred or even thousand people more competing wouldn't really affect the field so the competition is not a problem.

Personally, I feel of any make money online guide sold, especially at a lower price point - 95%+ of people that purchase won't even attempt the method, no matter how good the product is, while the remainder that do won't saturate it. Although product quality plays a part, people taking action generally has nothing to do with the quality of the product - we as people tend to be lazy.

As for selling a way to make money...

To me it's all about diversifying income streams, the more the better. If I'm making $5,000 a month on X, why bother selling a step by step guide how to do it? Because if I do so and make 10 sales a day at $10, I've just added $3,000 to my income, which is pretty substantial. Not to mention the long term benefits like a reputation for producing quality, a list, joint ventures and so on.

That said, if there was a method that would saturate immediately if only a few people took part in it, and was making me a ton of money - I wouldn't look at selling it, ever.

The majority of people probably won't follow through with the information anyway. They'll just move on to the next wso that they hope will make them rich without any work.

So, I doubt you'd be creating too much competition for yourself.

Keep it to yourself, outsource and expand

It depends...

I can think of two cases where I would consider selling the system.

1. If I can continue operating the system myself and not dilute the value of my own efforts by sharing the information.

2. If I was losing interest in the system and wanted to move on to something else.

The method really doesn't have anything to do with marketing. So if I created competition it would hurt me for sure.

Both.

Way over 95% of people who purchase your system will never put it to use. People just buy things to have them.

Even if you were creating competition by selling your system, only 1% of the buyers would be that competition. The others just bought your system to put it on the shelf.

Rarely do other users of a system even create competition. Usually it creates more partners who are doing the same thing that can relate to your business model. More partners are always good.

In the rare cases that it causes a little more competition, you will have made a lot more by selling the system than you lose with the little bit more competition.

People often question why someone would sell a system that works. That is why. You can have a system that works and share it with others and make even more money too.

There isn't just one goose that lays golden eggs. If you figure out how to make geese lay golden eggs, you can teach lots of people to do it too. Eventually the price of gold will drop if those you teach actually put what you teach into action, but you will have made a lot more than you lose with the drop in gold price by selling the system to others.

Selling the system could provide another income stream as long as it does not serios effect the method itself when revealed to other people.

However, how many methods can you say that are really unique and that no one before you has been using?

I would use that method by myself, after i get any success i would share it to my friends.

Selling the system would be fine as long as it was sold to a limit number of people.

But if you are thinking of selling stuff to internet marketers wouldn't you want to sell them something which will generate measureable financial returns for them? Otherwise they may not be too confident in any similar products you may have to offer or recommend to them.

When you're always looking for the answer like me, the best thing is when you find someone willing to share their knowledge and seems interested in your success too. You buy their stuff regardless of the price without even a thought, you follow through on their recommendations (affiliate products, websites to visit etc.), and basically consider their word very highly.

In my opinion that's the kind of seller you respect and will come back to time and time again. If they are selling, you're ready to buy. I think in the long run you make much more money from establishing a loyal, long-term customer by offering a product which delivers and delivers well as much as you can. Now you have establised a sure additional and sustained source of income in addition to the system which will still be making you money.

I would never sell unless I was retiring. Some systems take years of hard work to perfect and its not always about money.

There is also an inherent responsibility in selling a system that may damage other businesses. For example the 30day challenge system saturated EZA, squidoo and hubpages.

Any system that is sold needs to take into consideration the effects it may have on other businesses. Holistically spreading the virus and then saying you are not to blame for other peoples actions is not good enough. Telling 30K people to spam a business website is liable to end up with consequences for everyone in the industry.

Why not? It's the basis for a good product. It works, you know it works, and as stated above - if you don't sell the system, someone else will.

It all depends on how much good karma I want!

Seriously though, no matter what, only a small % of anybody who learns your system is going to actually implement it, so your chances of doing yourself out of income are probably quite low IMO. But then again it all depends on what the system is and the niche you're targeting.

Why would you sell something under the basis that
you "hope" most people won't use it.

Talk about ethics.

Daniel

there's a difference between thinking that it will work and actually seeing it work.
Sometimes the secrets we think will make us rich will turn out a dud after implementing it..

I've seen a lot of information products lately, due to the fact that I write about them. In most of the cases, the author himself has used the system for a long time before sharing it with others..

So this means that these authors also don't horde information regarding what works...but only after doing it themselves and earning a lot from it..in which case I can't help but ask if the methods are already saturated before they release them..

All the best,

Omar

I have my own system on how to make money online and I share it with other people.

You forgot one option.

Give it away for free.

Yep, that's another option.

One possibility is that you could build these systems
for people without revealing the inner workings. That
way you can control how many competitors you have,
and still retain your edge.

HTH

Glenn

I would first earn a million or two and then why not, I would share

As far as I am concerned - I WOULD! sell it unless it would close some doors for me

The thing is that we do not understand that the chances of making money in most markets increase as the no. of people in it increase. The graph is positively sloped! Also it makes good sense in economics terms.

Additionally I dnt mind the $$$ I would be making for selling the system.

If you have an ORIGINAL system that actually makes money and is based on a good business model than you really dnt need to worry at all. becasue then it'll be a WIN WIN situation for ever1:

-The Buyer
-The Seller

- And the Market!

at least this is my point of view!

I've spent a lot of time looking at this thread, and debating over how to explain my answer.

I believe there are certain methods it is irresponsible to sell.

I believe there are certain methods it is irresponsible NOT to sell.

It's kind of hard to explain the difference.

Think of any money-making method as being a series of layers. Imagine you're selling kangaroo fencing. You have all of this stuff that only really applies to selling kangaroo fencing. Then, under that, you have stuff that applies to selling other kinds of animal fencing. Under that, you have stuff that applies to any kind of fencing. And as you dig farther down, you come to this little collection of stuff that applies to selling anything at all.

There's a layer in the middle where it's iffy. Should you sell it? Should you not? It's a judgment call. Selling it will increase your competition and reduce your available profit. Keeping it will reduce your fellow marketers' ability to profit.

But as you get closer to the top, where it's all about kangaroo fencing, you start to hit a point where the market just won't support that many people selling kangaroo fencing. And if you sell your kangaroo fencing method to a whole bunch of people, everybody suffers. You suffer from the competition; your customers suffer from the competition; their customers suffer from the competition; it's bad for everybody. It's irresponsible to spread that around too much.

In the same way, as you get closer to the bottom, it gets broader and more general. At the very bottom you have some hackneyed aphorism like "buy low, sell high." But above that, you have your own unique spin on certain concepts and ideals. And that, it's irresponsible not to sell, because it doesn't hurt anyone and it helps a lot of people.

There's another little exception to the rule up at the top end, though. If you have NO COMPETITION... as in nobody else is doing what you're doing... you need to create some. Every major player in a market needs at least two solid competitors. If you're slaughtering your competition, and have what amounts to a monopoly, you need to go to your competition and help them ramp up. If you don't have any competition, find some. Grab a big player or two from some other business, and trade business models. Mentor someone. Whatever it takes to get someone to challenge you, so you don't just kick back and rest on your laurels.

I've spent over a year working and paper testing this system to ensure its consistency. If I were to tell a few people it would not hurt, but I would not want it mass marketed. I believe there is always more value in something that is not generally available for everyone to figure out. If it is easy chances are the value is not that high, not everyone will agree with this but it is the way I feel.

I would use it my self for a while and perfect it. Then I would package it and sell it to make more money.

Of course I would share it with others, sell it, or whatever. I would not keep it to myself. If no one ever shared their ideas -- no matter how dynamic-- there would be no progress in this old world.

Have an offer drive traffic to it... build a list... know the biggest source of leads to tap into... All of that information is already available, all of the biggest money makers use those basic principles.

Everything else is just strategies to add on but there is no secret system that someone's using that no one else knows about, at least not a million dollar system. Get your link/banner/video on as many sites as possible, in front of as many (targeted) eyes as possible (the same goes for offline media), optimize your site and get the conversion rates as high as possible, nothing else really to say.