Clay,

I can't agree more. I really don't understand why this is so profound. Off-line, this is what's being taught and practiced.

The online "experts" say "find something you know or love, create a product, then promote it".

Wrong! Find your customers FIRST. This is why you create a marketing plan.

Sure, create an outline of your product/service, but before you spend tons of time creating a product/website/sales letter/autoresponder, actually go and see if you can find customers first.

Is there demand in the search engines for your relevant keywords?

How much competition?

Ezine advertising? Are you sure there are even relevant ezines to advertise in?

PPC's-Does AdWords/Overture/Findwhat deliver ehough traffic for your words? Overture searches doesn't mean clicks.

How much will clicks cost for you to get traffic. Remember, if you bid in the top 3 on overture, chances are the other sites have auto bidding, and their bids will increase, meaning you need to plan on spending a little more than the current bids to get top spots.

There was a thread on the Warrior's...Do a search for "dentist" and I think it will come up.

Here's a guy that seemed to follow the "typical advice" and wrote an info product on how to market a dentist business online, since he is a dentist.

He followed the typical recipe "to a tee". He wrote about something he knew well, and created a product, then got to step three "promote your product" and found there were no resources to use to "promote".

Couldn't get traffic from the PPC's because of no demand and found there were no targeted newsletters for his niche.

He's obviously an intelligent person...Has a PHD in a medical field. So I'm guessing his problems weren't due to being "dumb". I personally think he followed the "formula" he had read from so many online resources...

Personally, I may have suggested that he create a product about "teeth", since there's a lot more people with teeth than there are dentists.

A couple of ideas:

100 things you should know about your dentist
8 homemade recipes to whiten your teeth.

I think both these products could be marketed to just about any audience...

Clay...You have one of the great "marketing names"! Very memorable...