Why is selling information so profitable?

You may have noticed the rise of online courses, like Udemy or Coursera, and you may be wondering how these websites can offer so many courses for so little money. There are a few reasons why selling information is so profitable: 

Firstly, there are limitless people hoping to acquire skills like entrepreneurship or web development but the number of people who feel that they have the time and resources to get these skills in person is limited.

Secondly, there's never been a better time to monetize information than now because we've got more ways than ever before of sharing and marketing this data with a global market via social media channels.

Thirdly, digital information is the cheapest to produce and can be distributed quickly and inexpensively.

Lastly, people are willing to pay for information because most of these courses are things that they're not taught in real life, like entrepreneurship OR they're just extremely convenient.

And so, even if you have excellent skills as a freelance web designer, you'll still find yourself charging $30 for an hour's worth of work because there's someone out there who can't afford an hourly rate that high and yet desperately wants a website. Alternatively, you could flip the situation on its head AND charge your customers $30 for selling them a product they can then sell themselves for $1,000+ on their own websites.

The best part about these websites is that they're completely free for the person teaching you or their advertisers. But of course, it would be foolish not to consider how much of your time and effort the courses you're watching might take from you. You can pick and choose what you'll put in your course, but remember that a good rule of thumb is to make it 10% or less of your own work.

So, if someone wants to learn affiliate marketing then they download this 5-hour video so they can spend 5 hours learning their new skills. They come away with nothing else other than information, which now belongs solely to the creator of that video. You can do that too with your courses.

The best thing about selling your information is that it's completely legal and you don't have to disclose any sort of financial information on a public record. It'd be immoral to sell information by giving away homework, personal medical records, product designs or anything else that could be considered confidential.

However, the only way to make any money is if at least one person decides to buy your course. So make sure that what you're selling is valuable AND it's just like trying out 5 cool new things for yourself.

You'll never make money unless people actually pay you for your information so this might not be the highest paying career option but it's definitely one of the most profitable.

If you're looking for a course that you can do at home then check out Udemy. It's a great marketplace for those who want to make money by selling their knowledge.

--Stuart St Clair

 From: Stuart St Clair <stu@bootstraptechno.com>

Date: Thu, August 29, 2015 at 2:39 PM To: Charles >> My point is that information is much more valuable than other forms of intellectual property so it makes sense to treat it as such.

Conclusion

What was the reason for sharing this? What did you learn about yourself as a reader? What might you be willing to do differently now that you know these things? Why did you decide that this information was worth your time to read/watch/listen? Maybe the answer is related to finances. Maybe it's related to right livelihood.

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