It's Hard To Find a Good Granola Bar Teacher: Gary Rudder My standard breakfast is a granola bar and a cup of coffee. This may not make me an expert on granola bars, but I do know what I like. In my (humble) opinion, the Little Debbie company makes the best tasting granola bars, PERIOD. In particular, their Fudge Dipped Chocolate Chip granola bar is fantastic. The problem is they're extremely hard to find. This gets to our real subject. MARKETING. I stopped for gas at a mini market this week while out of town on business. In search of breakfast, I browsed to see if it was one of the rare markets where Little Debbie products are sold. Lo and behold, not only did they carry Little Debbie products, they even had Fudge Dipped Chocolate Chip granola bars. As I pulled out of the lot savoring my favorite breakfast treat, I thought to myself, "I would happily pay 89¢ for this." You see, someone at the Little Debbie company has the idea that they can't charge more than 25¢ each for their products. Therein lies the problem. At 25¢ each, nobody can make any real profit on the product. The mini market can't make much. There is not much room for the route salesman that stocks the racks to make any commission either. Even the Little Debbie Company can't make much profit on a 25¢ sale. I am convinced that is the reason so few stores carry them. If you look at all the other granola bars, you will see prices from 69¢ to 89¢ or more and they aren't as good as my favorite (not even close). What does all this mean to a bunch of Internet business folks? 1) Make a good granola bar. In other words have a quality product. 2) If you have a great product, don't under price it. The important thing to realize is that once you have a quality product, be sure you charge a quality price. Like the granola bar, you have to charge enough that you and your affiliates can make a good profit. If you have the best granola bar, people don't mind paying a reasonable price to get it. Low price = low profit = not many affiliates = low sales volume = not enough money in your pocket at the end of the month. The point to remember is this: It is so very hard to find a good granola bar. Why? Because they just don't charge enough for ANYBODY to make any money. About the teacher: Gary Rudder has been working as a computer network consultant for over 10 years. For time saving hints and tips for Windows 95 and 98, visit his web site CompuHints.com If your computer crashes, who do you call. Check out the offer for FREE disaster recovery support! Email: gary@compuhints.com