I started within my market (promotional advertising represents an estimated $18 Billion market in the US annually. Up over 3 Billion in the last decade, so some very nice growth for people looking to start or expand in this field.) and look for ways to find what the hot products art.

In my field it's as simple as picking up the 4 or 5 industry magazines and attending some of the national or regional expos and table-top shows. I prefer the half-day shows that visit my region, allowing me to get current info without the expense in time and money for the 3 to 5 day national expos.

The reps setting up at the table-top shows increase their earnings by driving more sales to the company(ies) they promote. They may be either employees or contractors, but either way, they need to increase sales for their market. The easiest way to do that is to direct the individual salespeople to the products in their lines that are flying out the door.

In many cases, they will even bring extra samples to give to the salespeople to help them get more sales.

At the same time, I also pick up additional sales techniques that can apply to other products, so it's definitely a good exchange of my time for increased sales in the near future.

I realize my response is specifically related to my industry, but any sales professional on online marketer can use the same idea to learn what is hot within their product lines. Dig deeper in the industry expos and magazines targeted to their field to discover hot products.

Dennis Bevers