Expectations...What Are Yours?

This has been an interesting week to say the least. My biggest lessons this
week came in the form of expectations.

Not my own...other people's.

I won't go into the details because quite honestly, they're not important,
though I have learned a lot about human nature and what they expect to
get out of a purchase...regardless of the price.

Sometimes the expectations coincide with the price, such as a person buying
a $1,997 ecourse and expecting to eventually earn a 5 or even 6 figure
income from it.

Sometimes the expectations are way below the price, such as that same
course being purchased by somebody who is only looking to make $300 a
month. Even at that small an income, he'd still make his money back in
about half a year. So maybe in his mind, it's a good investment.

And then sometimes somebody will purchase a $17 ebook and expect
that book to also make them a 5 or even 6 figure income all by itself.

Trust me, you'll run into all kinds.

But again, the point is not to complain about people's expectations. If
somebody asks me if my $17 ebook is going to generate them 6 figures a
year, I write them back, "Probably not, though I guess anything is possible
if you work hard enough at it. I just don't see it."

And that's about as honest an answer as I can give.

Okay, so what is the point?

The point is to get you to look at your own expectations because in my
opinion, I think expectations are some of the biggest reasons why so many
people have so much trouble with this business.

You see a book selling for say, $27, and you read the sales page. The
book is maybe about some SEO techniques. I don't know. It doesn't really
matter. Point is, certainly you can't expect $27 worth of information, in
itself, to generate you a 7 figure business. Heck, I wouldn't even expect
that from a $2,000 course. Maybe $50,000 to $60,000 a year extra. And
even that is probably asking too much.

But again, it all comes down to expectations. Each person is going to be
different. While I may be happy to make $50,000 extra a year from a
$2,000 course, you might expect that same course to take you to 7 figures
while another person might be happy with another $10,000 a year.

The bigger point is, I believe the greater the expectation, proportionally
speaking, to the price of the product, or maybe more correctly,
disproportionately speaking, the greater the disappointment and the
greater the chance that the customer will end up scrapping the course
and ultimately lose what money they would have made simply because
their expectations were, dare I say, unreasonable.

Which brings us to...what is unreasonable?

Certainly many of the sales pages are to blame. How do you not have
great expectations when you see screen prints of people making thousands
of dollars per day?

And trust me, not all those screen prints are on big ticket items. Some are
on $97 ebooks.

Is it reasonable to expect to earn $1,000 a day ($365,000 a year) from
a $97 ebook?

Think about it.

I'm sure there will be many here who don't even factor price into what
to expect from a product. If the sales page shows making thousands
per day then that's what we should expect...right?

But at what point do we have to use a little common sense and think
about how reasonable it is to expect a $97 ebook to generate over a
quarter million a year in income.

Sure, a lot of the blame has to go to the product merchants for selling
the pie in the sky dream (for a song) but eventually we have to try to
use a little common sense.

So what are your expectations?

Do you expect 7 figures from a $97 ebook?

Do you think that because a book is only $17 that it's not worth much?

I bought a $19.95 book once that earned me thousands per month.

Of course at the time, it was the first book I ever got and didn't know
what to expect. Looking back, I think it was a great investment.

But is it the norm?

Or does the price really not matter?

Is it what you do with the info?

Can any book be turned into a huge return if you've got the smarts?

Okay, I've rambled on long enough.

Now I want to know what you think.