Muse Help

[KRKR]

Hi there,

I just finished reading Tim's book and before I put it down I had a long list of muse ideas.

The product that I'm looking at is distributed in the US but hasn't made it to Canada yet. I'm not sure if it ever will or if the manufacturer just doesnt see market potential. I have however, narrowed down my target market and am convinced the product will sell.

I contacted the manufacture and received the wholesale price list. The markup isn't quite what I was looking for but I feel if there aren't others in Canada doing this it'll be alright. The price list looked fairly basic and didn't have discounts based on volumes. I'm sure this can be negotiated (something I'm quite good at).

The wholesale product price is $28. Most US stores sell it for $50-65. Upon receiving the prices the wholesaler asked me if I wanted to buy/sell the prodcut as a classic distributor, or work as a salesmen taking 10% commision. Obviously there is more money to be made as a distributor, but from a time persepective I feel as though I could automate a lot more if I did sales on commission, plus I wouldn't have to ever buy any of the product or pay for any shipping.

As I mentioned at the start, I have a long list of ideas that could potentially work. My plan is to get to a point of complete automation with several muses.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.


Cheers

[preneur]

Awesome question. Look, it comes down to working at what works best for you. For a lot of people, just doing the affiliate-style solution where you’re getting paid a commission is a lot easier. You don’t have to deal with customers, refunds, returns, problems and issues; you’re just simply becoming a marketing angle or marketing agent for the manufacturer. So the profit you would have otherwise made by doing it yourself is actually taken away with all the headaches and time required to actually deal with the customer.

Another thing to think about is if you do go to the affiliate commission path and you start selling a lot of products into Canada, the manufacturer might actually realize that there’s a whole opportunity there and start doing it himself. Whereas, if you take a distribution or a distributorship, you might actually sort of tie up the whole Canada rights to the product, which means you have a lot more control if it does go really, really well.

Maybe you can negotiate a three-month, a six-month or a 12-month commission-only scenario and then have first right of refusal for the distribution rights throughout Canada. That way, if someone else comes along and approaches them or he wants to do it himself, you get first right of refusal.

Cheers,
Pete

p.s. This response was actually transcribed and posted by my virtual assistant.