Steps to Sell Information Products Online

Steps to Sell Information Products Online

Creating your online presence is about establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. Releasing information products is a great way to offer up your knowledge and make money at the same time.
Here are some of the steps you’ll want to take in creating your first information product.
Step 1 – Create the Product
You can create an ebook, special report, physical book, mp3, video or any combination of these products. There’s nothing to say that you can’t hire a Ghostwriter to do the writing and proof reading for you.
This product can be as long or as short as you like but just make sure it’s information that people are really in need of and it delivers high value to their lives or problem.
Have someone go through your finished product to proof read (or view/listen) it.

Step 2 – Set up The Salespage
Of course you’ll need a place to sell your new product from. Though you don’t technically need a new domain for this it’s always a good idea to have a domain specific to the product because it looks more professional and can make it easier to find.
If you don’t have experience creating websites or writing content that makes sales, then this would be another great place to outsource these tasks to get it done.

Step 3 – Set up an Affiliate Program
Though an affiliate program isn’t an absolute necessity, it’s a great idea to set it up from the start to really leverage your new product and create more sales.
There are so many strategies you can get into for finding great affiliates and I’ll have to leave that for another article. Getting a few key players helping you promote a new product can make a big impact on its release.
Decide on a commission to pay your affiliates. For my first product, which sold for $19.97, I decided to offer 50% commission to my affiliates. You’ll want to offer an attractive commission to your potential affiliates so they see it’s worth their time to promote your product.

Step 4 – Get a Graphic
Having a graphical representation of your product really does make it look more professional. If you can’t afford to spend the money right away to get a great graphic done, don’t try to do one yourself unless you know what you are doing. It’s better to have no graphic at all then a poorly designed one.

Step 5 – Start Promoting Your Product
The ways to promote your information product are pretty-much endless. Here are a few ideas to get started:
* Add a short ad in your email signatures.
* Change your forum signatures to draw people to your new product.
* Make a special offer on a forum in your niche that allows such a thing.
* Make an announcement to you list that you have a new product available.
* Post about your product on your blog.
* Search out and contact people who are authorities in the topic your product addresses and ask them if they would be interested in becoming an affiliate.
* Do teleseminars or online conferences on your topic.
* Keep your affiliates motivated by providing them with resources on how to promote your products.
It’s important that you get out there and start making things happen, don’t just wait for your product to start selling like hotcakes because that likely won’t happen unless you are already well known for the information you put out there.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

5 Inspiring Custom Logo and Graphic Design Ideas

5 Inspiring Custom Logo and Graphic Design Ideas

Many people think you need to be creative all the time to be in a creative field. I don’t believe so. I know I do pretty well and I don’t think that creativity is seeping out of me. I think I’ve just become good at developing ways to find inspiration when I need it so I can create great custom graphics and logos for myself and my clients.
So here are five sources of web site graphics design inspiration you might not have thought of:
1. Down The Road – When you’re driving down the street have a look at the logos and colors you see in the businesses as you drive by. Most of these businesses will have hired a professional to create the graphics you see on display and they are great sources of ideas for your next product. Have a look at the shapes, colors, fonts and the feeling you get when you view each image. Consider taking out a video camera and video taping as you drive by with your own commentary (as long as you’re not also driving the car, of course!).

2. Newspapers & Magazines – I was at my local library the other day and I picked up a couple of local magazines. One was the town activity guide about local living. Each had plenty of graphics and ads that I could peruse for ideas and inspiration. Collect your favorite magazines or a selection of different types if you serve clients and you’ll always have plenty to draw from when you’re stumped.

3. Popular Websites – Of course you’ll want to look online for sources of web page graphic design ideas. If you’re working on a particular product then look up keywords related to your project and see what sites come up. Pay attention to the colors and the logos you find on these sites. Also many popular sites have ads that you can look at. The great thing about looking at ads is that people often have these professionally designed as well so they’re often great sources of quality ideas and inspiration.

4. Nature and the Outside World – Sometimes being stuck at a computer isn’t the best way to get inspired. Nature is filled with beautiful shapes, colors and materials. If you’re needing a new idea take a drive or go for a walk, you’re sure to come up with new ways to design web graphics that you never would have thought of without drawing from natural beauty. Now, you can also go to a city and draw on your surroundings for colors, shapes and of course plenty of marketing you see.
5. Your Graphic Design Inspiration Book – One thing I’ve wanted to do for a while is to create a binder filled with graphics that inspire me. Also, in this book I’d add a section for all the design techniques I can use to create different effects. You see, there are so many ways to create graphics that sometimes we forget certain techniques when we need them. I know that’s how it works for me, anyway. My suggestion is to get a binder and a bunch of clear sheet protectors and then just start collecting graphics you like. Organize them as you go into different categories to suit your needs.

Inspiration comes from lots of places and the five listed above are a good place to start. I’m sure as you become aware of your need for inspiration you’ll start seeing new ideas as you go about your daily life. Good luck and have fun!

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

5 Ways to Increase Your Profits with Mailing Lists

 

5 Ways to Increase Your Profits with Mailing Lists
By Angela Wills

Do you have a mailing list? When was the last time you had a look at how profitable the list is for you and made sure everything was up to date?
You’re likely one of the many people who’ve set up their list, got busy, and then forgot about it for a while. There are many things you can do right now to start making more money with your mailing list.
1. List Checkup – Go through every single message you have in your autoresponder series. This may take you a while to get through if you have a lot of messages set up, but it’s worth it.
When I switched my website format over to a WordPress site I deleted a lot of the pages from my other design. I had my autoresponder setup to refer to articles on my older site and with the update these were out of date and needed fixing, so I had to go back in and change the links. If your series of messages are too long and it’s just too much to handle by yourself hire a VA to help.

2. Opt-in Location – Do people know about your list? Don’t assume everyone will find you because you have an opt-in box in one or two locations on your website.
When setting up your list and describing it you’ll want to make sure that you deliver exactly what you offer then and beyond. A bullet-point list works well to let people know what your list offers without requiring too much of their attention to get them to read.
Many people make their list stand out by offering a free ebook or report for signing up. Other ideas are to offer an audio or a video. Whatever you offer make sure it is of high valuable and something that makes signing up for your list irresistible.

3. Add Landing Pages – You should be using double opt-ins to make sure your list has really requested to sign up. After the initial sign-up you will be able to direct them to a landing page. Make sure the landing page they come to grabs their attention and tells them to confirm, you could use something like this:
“IMPORTANT: Please check your email inbox and confirm your subscription so that we can send you the information you requested.”
Use that landing page to make an offer on your own product or offer an affiliate product. Or if you have a service based-business and want them to get to know you better, direct them to your articles page.
Once they confirm, in the email you will be given another opportunity to create a specific landing page. Use that page to make another offer, or lead them to your website to read more information or articles.
You’ve got people’s attention once they get to your landing page and they HAVE to go somewhere once they’re done – it might as well be somewhere you can suggest, so that you benefit from it.

4. Promote – Think of the places where you promote your list. Is it just in one little box on your website? There are many other places you should be using to promote your mailing list.
-Write articles that you submit to directories that have a bio leading to your opt-in page.
-Make a special offer in your signature on forums (if they allow it)
-Add a signature to your emails that tells people why they need to sign up for your list
-Blog about your list and why they should join it

5. Contact as Often as Possible – You’ve heard this before but it’s time for a reminder. If your prospects don’t hear from you on a regular basis then they will forget about you and why they signed up in the first place.
How often you contact them will depend on what your list is about but it’s often said that you must be making contact at least once a month if you want to be remembered. Many topics will require you to contact your list once a week and this is perfectly acceptable to them because they asked for this information.

Are you ready to get your mailing list up and running so it can help generate more profits? Then join me as I walk you step-by-step through the process of building your list, creating a freebie, and getting more sign-ups.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

Why Marketing Your Book is Important

There are between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone. On average, they sell less than 250 copies each. With these given data on book publishing, what will you do to make you and your book stand-out? The answer is marketing. With the fast-paced book competition around the world, you need to engage yourself in the hands of the powerful marketing. If you are still in doubt, here are the things that marketing can help you. It Builds Your Association with Your Book Most authors overlook the importance of the author and book’s publicity. The thing is you can’t sell your books if you keep hiding in the shadows and pushing your book in the forefront. Gone are the days that the author’s unknown identity is patronized, today’s readers want authors with substance, and authors that they can derive inspiration from. As authors, you need to create your very own brand just like how other companies created brands for their products. Out of this brand comes your identity that will set you apart from any other authors. Once your readers perceive the image of your identity, it is easier for them to associate you with your work, thus creating more sales for your book. Be sure to create the image that will make your book better than the one on the shelf next to it. Marketing Gets the Word-Out So that books can gain sales, you and your book must be known to your readers and prospect customers. If your book is unknown to the community it will surely be gone with the wind. You need to build a strong connection to them and that is through marketing. Marketing allows you to spread your news, updates, and identity to the populace. By doing this, you are creating awareness for them and you’re able to reach the readers pedestal. As an author, you should never underestimate the power of the word-of-mouth and you can only gain this once your marketing strategy has already got the word-out for you Provides You and Your Book’s Reputation Your 150,000 copies often rely on the solid reputation that you’re able to build. Marketing helps you build your identity recognition and recall your book with your name. Marketing can do this through effective communication and highlighting your books’ overall package. When you’re able to reach and surpass the expectations of your readers you’re putting your reputation on a firmer ground. To say, by forming your reputation you are creating the possibilities of boosting your books’ sales. Be sure to have one. As marketing succeeds in branding books, words are spread around the world and garnering curiosity to the people. This is where the main purpose of marketing comes in and that is gaining more sales by creating your publicity. You can never go wrong with marketing and authors should not disregard this powerful tool in generating more sales. You need to remember that you are using the product that you are using today because some great marketing strategy delivers them to your knowing. With this, create the same thing for your book, delivers them into the hands of your readers because you have a great marketing strategy.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

Advices on Laying the Foundation for Your Blog

Laying the Foundation for Your Blog

 

You can put Google Adsense ads on your site from Day 1, and you can launch an amazing ebook in the first month of your blog’s existence … but let me spare you the suspense: you won’t make any money doing that.

Why not? Nobody’s reading your blog. Nobody knows who you are, or why they should trust you, or what authority or credibility you have. No one is looking at the ads, because no one is looking at your blog.
Many bloggers start out thinking they can make some money right away, and put up every ad they possibly can. They end up with disappointment.

The missing ingredient is readership. It’s the foundation for making any kind of money off your site.

Now, let me clarify: you shouldn’t gain readers just to make money. There are lots of more important reasons to grow your readership: to help more people, to connect with fantastic folks, to let your means of self-expression reach a wider audience, to grow your credibility, to open up possibilities. And this last one is important: when you grow your readership, you open up even more possibilities.

It wasn’t until I had 26,000 readers that I got a book deal — the readers proved to my publisher that I had something worth saying, and that it was resonating with people. It wasn’t until I had those readers that I made any noticeable money with ads or affiliate links (like Amazon affiliate links). It wasn’t until I had those readers that I sold a best-selling ebook, or had the chance to write for some of the biggest blogs in the world, or start the A-List Blogging Bootcamps, or successfully launch a couple of other blogs.

A world of opportunities arise when you grow that readership — when you lay that foundation. It’s a platform from which you can launch all kinds of ventures, businesses, products, services. You can do almost anything, but first you need to build that foundation.

We’ll talk later about what you can do once you build that foundation, but right now, let’s look at the most basic thing of all: how to build the foundation.

Most Important Factor

If you could do only one thing to grow your readership and build that foundation, it would be creating amazing and useful content. In fact, I strongly recommend that almost all your blogging time be spent on creating content, if you don’t have that foundation yet.

You could spend time on other things: checking your stats, putting ads on your site, checking your earnings, emailing, doing social media, responding to comments, adding new widgets and buttons to the site, tweaking the design, instant messaging, and more. There’s lots that goes into blogging … but none of that really matters, as much as creating amazing content.

Why?

To find the answer, you need to get into the head of the reader: why does she visit your site? To admire the great design, or check out all the widgets you’ve added to the sidebar? To admire how much time you’ve spent doing email or Twitter or Facebook or IM? No: the reader comes to check out the content, because the content will help her in some way — by teaching her how to do something, by inspiring or informing or entertaining.

So if the reader is coming for content, that’s what you should be focusing on. The content is what draws new readers and keeps old readers coming back and compels people to subscribe or dig through your archives.

Let’s briefly look at three ways how really useful and powerful content can boost your blog’s traffic:

1. Other bloggers will link to your posts and send their readers your way.
2. Readers who do find you (from other blogs or elsewhere) will find so much use in your content they’ll want to come back, or better yet subscribe so they can get regular updates of your great content.
3. Great content will be shared by readers on delicious, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg and other social bookmarking services.

The benefits of great content go far beyond these three things. When readers really love your content, they will bookmark you as a reference and keep coming back. They’ll share the content with their friends via email and social networks. They’ll start to look to you as an authority, ask you questions, buy your ebooks. Great content is the start of amazing things for bloggers.

And the good news is that while it definitely takes hard work creating great content, learning how to do it, isn’t the hardest thing in the world. We’re going to look at some ways you can turn an ordinary blog post into something powerful.

How to Create Great Content, Briefly

Let’s look at what it takes to create great content that will draw readers.

Let’s start by remembering the goals of great content — you want the readers, and other bloggers, to find your content so useful and powerful that they will link to you, subscribe, bookmark the content, share it with others, and come back again and again.

So with that in mind, what does great content need to be? One or both of the following:

• Something extremely useful.
• Something remarkable.

A great post can be both, or one or the other. For example, I did a post on how to clear out the queues in your life (email inbox, to-do lists, social networks, etc.) and readers found it pretty useful. But a little while before that, I did a post called “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (Or, the Privatization of the English Language) — this post wasn’t very useful to readers, but was “remarkable”. It got hundreds of comments, Diggs, Tweets and bookmarks, and was blogged about many times. Being remarkable means saying something that people will take notice of, will talk about, will pass on. It catches people’s attention — not just to be flashy, but to get a conversation going.

Let’s look at how to do both of these things:

1. Be extremely useful.

It all starts with the topic of the post. You need to consider your reader, and center the topic of your post on your reader — not on yourself, your ads, your blogger friends, or anyone else but the reader. What are his or her needs, wants, hopes and dreams? What problems does he have in his daily life that you can solve? It helps to get to know your readers, and don’t be afraid to ask them to share their goals, dreams, problems with you. Think about the problems you’ve solved in your life, both personal and professional. Often, if you’re an experienced professional, you forget what it’s like to be just starting out, so you need to think back to the early days of your career and remember the problems you faced, the challenges you had to overcome, the uncertainty and ignorance you had. Remember those, and you have some extremely good post ideas.

Now choose a topic that will solve one of the reader’s problems, help him achieve something he’s always wanted to achieve. Create a resource for him: an extremely useful set of practical tips, links, tools to solve that problem. Again, it’s useful to have a beginner’s mind as you write this guide or resource: what does the absolute beginner need to know? What misconceptions does he have? What practical tips worked for you? What doesn’t work?

The more practical your tips, the better. It’s not enough to say that the keys to losing weight are eating less and exercising more. Those are both difficult things to do. Give the reader extremely useful ways of doing those things, and you’ve created a resource.

Creating extremely useful posts is a skill, but it’s probably the most important skill you’ll develop as a blogger. Read dozens of other extremely useful blog posts to give you some inspiration and guidance — learn from the best. And then imitate them — not in content but in style and depth. It’s in this imitation that you’ll get better. And with practice — writing dozens of in-depth posts of your own — you’ll get good at this skill, and develop your own style and voice.

2. Be remarkable.

To be a blogger is to be part of a large conversation that happens not only in the blogging world, but the Internet in general. To be a remarkable blogger is to make a strong contribution to that conversation, to say something worth listening to, to say something others will find worthy of talking about.

Start with bold ideas. Every post starts with an idea — take the idea you come up with for your post, and see if you can make it bolder. Be daring — aim for a big post, not just a regular one. Aim to say something huge, not just what everyone else is saying. Aim for a post that a major blog would link to, and that people will talk about. Get noticed!

Also see if you can take a stance on an issue that others are talking about … but make it something different. Not just different for the sake of being different, but different to be a devil’s advocate, to get people to think outside their normal patterns, to shake things up, to challenge traditional ideas.

Find a way to provide new information, a twist on what’s been done, or a fresh perspective. If you’re just doing what everyone else has done, in exactly the same way, people will yawn at your post.

Other Factors Besides Content

Creating great content isn’t the only way to grow readership — it’s the most important, but there are other factors. The second most important factor, once you’ve created the content, is spreading the word about your blog. Now that you’ve created amazing content, you need other people to find out about it somehow.

Creating content, and spreading the word — these are the two things you need to focus on to create the foundation of readership. The other factors are extremely minor compared to these two. We’ll look at how to spread the word in the next section, below, but let’s go over a few other minor factors that help build that foundation:

• Design: Important only because you want people to believe you have a professional blog, which helps with your credibility. Why should they read you instead of the thousands of other amateurs posting worthless drivel? Because you have something to say, and you have credibility. Also, bad design distracts from the content — the best design showcases the great content, and makes it easy to find useful content.
• Responsiveness: I don’t do this well on SCRIPTBURG INT’L anymore, but in my early days I was very responsive to my readers. I would respond to every comment, every email, and answer the best questions with a full post. Readers like to know that you’re connecting with them.
• Best posts: Readers won’t go through your archives to see whether you’re worth subscribing to — they want to make that decision with a glance down your front page. So they’ll look at your most recent posts, and then look at the sidebar to see your best or most popular posts, to see whether the posts look useful. Be sure that’s easily available in the sidebar, or you’ll lose a lot of potential subscribers.

Spreading the Word

So you’ve created the great content — how do you get the word out? There are lots of good ways. Here are the best methods:

1. Network with other bloggers your size or preferrably larger. The more bloggers you know, and the better your relationships with them, the better. Make friends by reaching out, complimenting what you like about their blogs, offering to help in some way, offering to do a guest post for them. Help others, and it will come back to you eventually.
2. Do as many guest posts as you can. At least one per week, preferrably 2 or even 3 a week. The more, the better. An aggressive campaign of guest posts will help your blog reach tons of new readers. When you do guest posts, try to follow the above guidelines for extremely useful content. If you don’t, and you make the benefits obscure, the advice vague, and the text rambling, you will have the opposite effect — you’ll scare readers away from your site. If you make the post extremely useful and easy to read, you’ll attract new readers. Once they go to your site, they should find much more of the same kind of great content. Look to do guest posts on blogs with larger readership than yours, but with an audience that will be interested in your content.
3. Social media — focus on Twitter, StumbleUpon and Delicious, but do it in an organic and non-pushy way. Create amazing content and headlines — you need to do both — and you’ll have a greater shot of your posts spreading on these services.

Growing Without Hype

Look, there are many who have grown rapidly by learning the art of hype. Unfortunately, readers can sense hype, and they begin to grow weary of it. You lose trust when you do too much hype.

I’ve been guilty of hype, and I always regret it. It doesn’t feel authentic, and the boost in popularity you get from it is temporary and empty.

A much better method is growing by helping others. Create great, useful, interesting content, and spread it authentically, through guest posts and growing relationships with other bloggers. Don’t try to “game” social media, or create posts just so they’ll get popular or linked. This is a fool’s game. Really try to help people, without making yourself out to be a god or tearing others down.
It’s possible to grow this way, and you’ll do it without making readers tired of your hype or distrustful of anything you say or do. That’s a good way to build the foundation.

How Long It Takes

There’s no one answer. I grew pretty rapidly, because I was aggressive about doing guest posts and getting my content and brand out there as often as possible. I probably wouldn’t do it that way again, but my growth would be slower. I’m OK with that.

How fast you grow depends on a lot of factors — how well written your content is, how useful it is, how people perceive you, how well you connect with readers and other bloggers, how often you get out on other blogs doing guest posts and the like … it’s not easy.

I’d say you can’t build a really good foundation of 10K readers in less than 6 months, and for most bloggers, it’ll take much longer. A year or two years, if they’re creating great content. That might seem like a long time, but remember that you’re building a business, a brand, relationships, and trust. That doesn’t happen overnight.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

What the Best Customer Engagement Pros Do (and You Should Too)

 

Customer engagement

Customer engagement is a business communication connection between an external stakeholder (consumer) and an organization (company or brand) through various channels of correspondence. This connection can be a reaction, interaction, effect or overall customer experience, which takes place online and offline. The term can also be used to define customer-to-customer correspondence regarding a communication, product, service or brand. However, the latter dissemination originates from a business-to-consumer interaction resonated at a subconscious level.

Online customer engagement is qualitatively different from offline engagement as the nature of the customer’s interactions with a brand, company and other customers differ on the internet. Discussion forums or blogs, for example, are spaces where people can communicate and socialise in ways that cannot be replicated by any offline interactive medium. Online customer engagement is a social phenomenon that became mainstream with the wide adoption of the internet in the late 1990s, which has expanded the technical developments in broadband speed, connectivity and social media. These factors enable customer behaviour to regularly engage in online communities revolving, directly or indirectly, around product categories and other consumption topics. This process leads to a customer’s positive engagement with the company or offering, as well as the behaviours associated with different degrees of customer engagement.

Marketing practices aim to create, stimulate or influence customer behaviour, which places conversions into a more strategic context and is premised on the understanding that a focus on maximising conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions. Although customer advocacy has always been a goal for marketers, the rise of online user generated content has directly influenced levels of advocacy. Customer engagement targets long-term interactions, encouraging customer loyalty and advocacy through word-of-mouth. Although customer engagement marketing is consistent both online and offline, the internet is the basis for marketing efforts.

Leveraging customer contributions is an important source of competitive advantage – whether through advertising, user generated product reviews, customer service FAQs, forums where consumers can socialise with one another or contribute to product development. In store, or offline customer engagement is best leveraged by associates’ extensive brand and product knowledge, and the digital access that supports it. Equipped with a tablet that also delivers store and sales training, educated on-floor associates become brand ambassadors who can show consumers high-definition product imagery and video to help cross-sell, up-sell, grow relationships and foster loyalty.

 

Definition

In March 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation announced the first definition of customer engagement as “turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.” However, the ARF definition was criticized by some for being too broad. The ARF, World Federation of Advertisers, Nielsen Media Research, IAG Research and Simmons Research were in the process of developing a definition and a metric for customer engagement. Various definitions have translated different aspects of customer engagement. According to Forrester Consulting’s research in 2008, it has defined customer engagement as “creating deep connections with customers that drive purchase decisions, interaction, and participation, over time”. Studies by the Economist Intelligence Unit result in defining customer engagement as, “an intimate long-term relationship with the customer”. Both of these concepts prescribe that customer engagement is attributed by a rich association formed with customers. With aspects of relationship marketing and service-dominant perspectives, customer engagement can be loosely defined as “consumers’ proactive contributions in co-creating their personalized experiences and perceived value with organizations through active, explicit, and ongoing dialogue and interactions”. The book, Best Digital Marketing Campaigns In The World, defines customer engagement as, “mutually beneficial relationships with a constantly growing community of online consumers”. The various definitions of customer engagement are diversified by different perspectives and contexts of the engagement process. These are determined by the brand, product, or service, the audience profile, attitudes and behaviours, and messages and channels of communication that are used to interact with the customer.

Since 2009, a number of new definitions have been proposed in literature. In 2011, the term was defined as “the level of a customer’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral investment in specific brand interactions,” and identifies the three CE dimensions of immersion (cognitive), passion (emotional) and activation (behavioral). It was also defined as “a psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative customer experiences with a particular agent/object (e.g. a brand)”. Researchers have based their work on customer engagement as a multi-dimensional construct, while also identifying that it is context dependent. Engagement gets manifested in the various interactions that customers undertake, which in turn get shaped up by individual cultures. The context is not limited to geographical context, but also includes the medium with which the user engages.

Customer engagement is critical for the success of companies or brands in a technologically connected society. This progressive customer environment requires direct communication with customers so that they are involved in the process, giving them control in exchange for their attention, to increase brand awareness and loyalty, and to earn word of mouth. These exchanges increase the success of marketing campaigns, add value to the brand, and/or product or service, and enhance customer service. Amazon re-branded into ‘serving the world’s largest engaged online community’, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has created a ‘Blueprint for Consumer-Centric Holistic Measurement’ and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), have put together the ‘Engagement Steering Committee’ to work on the customer engagement metric.

Online customer engagement

Although offline customer engagement predates online, the latter is a qualitatively different social phenomenon unlike any offline customer engagement that social theorists or marketers recognize. In the past, customer engagement has been generated irresolutely through television, radio, media, outdoor advertising, and various other touchpoints ideally during peak and/or high trafficked allocations. However, the only conclusive results of campaigns were sales and/or return on investment figures. The widespread adoption of the internet during the late 1990s has enhanced the processes of customer engagement, in particular, the way in which it can now be measured in different ways on different levels of engagement. It is a recent social phenomenon where people engage online in communities that do not necessarily revolve around a particular product, but serve as meeting or networking places. This online engagement has brought about both the empowerment of consumers and the opportunity for businesses to engage with their target customers online. A 2011 market analysis revealed that 80% of online customers, after reading negative online reviews, report making alternate purchasing decisions, while 87% of consumers said a favorable review has confirmed their decision to go through with a purchase

 

The concept and practice of online customer engagement enables organisations to respond to the fundamental changes in customer behaviour that the internet has brought about, as well as to the increasing ineffectiveness of the traditional ‘interrupt and repeat’, broadcast model of advertising. Due to the fragmentation and specialisation of media and audiences, as well as the proliferation of community- and user generated content, businesses are increasingly losing the power to dictate the communications agenda. Simultaneously, lower switching costs, the geographical widening of the market and the vast choice of content, services and products available online have weakened customer loyalty. Enhancing customers’ firm- and market- related expertise has been shown to engage customers, strengthen their loyalty, and emotionally tie them more closely to a firm.

Since the world has reached a population of over 3 billion internet users, it is conclusive that society’s interactive culture is significantly influenced by technology. Connectivity is bringing consumers and organisations together, which makes it critical for companies to take advantage and focus on capturing the attention of and interacting with well informed consumers in order to serve and satisfy. Connecting with customers establishes exclusivity in their experience, which potentially will increase brand loyalty, word of mouth, and provides businesses with valuable consumer analytics, insight, and retention. Customer engagement can come in the form of a view, an impression, reach, a click, a comment, or a share, among many others. These are ways in which analytics and insights into customer engagement can now be measured on different levels. All of which are information that allows businesses to record and process results of customer engagement.

Taking into consideration the widespread information and connections for consumers, the way to develop penetrable customer engagement is to proactively connect with customers by listening. Listening will empower the consumer, give them control, and endorse a customer centric two-way dialogue. This dialogue will redefine the role of the consumer as they no longer assume the end user role in the process. Instead of the traditional transaction and/or exchange, the concept becomes a process of partnership between organisations and consumers. Particularly since the internet has provided consumers with the accumulation of much diverse knowledge and understanding, consumers now have increasingly high expectations, developed stronger sensory perceptions, and hence have become more attracted to experiential values. Therefore, it would only be profitable for businesses to submit to the new criteria, to provide the opportunity for consumers to further immerse in the consumption experience. This experience will involve organisations and consumers sharing and exchanging information, which will generate increased awareness, interest, desire to purchase, retention, and loyalty amongst consumers, evolving an intimate relationship. Significantly, total openness and strengthening customer service is the selling point here for customers, to make them feel more involved rather than just a number. This will earn trust, engagement, and ultimately word of mouth through endless social circles. Essentially, it is a more dynamic and transparent concept of customer relationship management (CRM).

Marketing value

Customer engagement marketing is necessitated by a combination of social, technological and market developments. Companies attempt to create an engaging dialogue with target consumers and stimulate their engagement with the given brand. Although this must take place both on and off-line, the internet is considered the primary method. Marketing begins with understanding the internal dynamics of these developments and the behaviour and engagement of consumers online. Consumer-generated media plays a significant role in the understanding and modeling of engagement. The control Web 2.0 consumers have gained is quantified through ‘old school’ marketing performance metrics.

The effectiveness of the traditional ‘interrupt and repeat’ model of advertising is decreasing, which has caused businesses to lose control of communications agendas. In August 2006, McKinsey & Co published a report which indicated that traditional TV advertising would decrease in effectiveness compared to previous decades. As customer audiences have become smaller and more specialised, the fragmentation of media, audiences and the accompanying reduction of audience size have reduced the effectiveness of the traditional top-down, mass, ‘interrupt and repeat’ advertising model. A Forrester Research’s North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study found that people in the 18-26 age group spend more time online than watching TV.

In response to the fragmentation and increased amount of time spent online, marketers have also increased spending in online communication. ContextWeb analysts found marketers who promote on sites like Facebook and New York Times are not as successful at reaching consumers while marketers who promote more on niche websites have a better chance of reaching their audiences. Customer audiences are also broadcasters with the power for circulation and permanence of CGM, businesses lose influence. Rather than trying to position a product using static messages, companies can become the subject of conversation amongst a target market that has already discussed, positioned and rated the product. This also means that consumers can now choose not only when and how but, also, if they will engage with marketing communications. In addition, new media provides consumers with more control over advertising consumption.

The lowering of entry barriers, such as the need for a sales force, access to channels and physical assets, and the geographical widening of the market due to the internet have brought about increasing competition and a decrease in brand loyalty. In combination with lower switching costs, easier access to information about products and suppliers and increased choice, brand loyalty is hard to achieve. The increasing ineffectiveness of television advertising is due to the shift of consumer attention to the internet and new media, which controls advertising consumption and causes a decrease in audience size. This has shifted advertising spending online.

The proliferation of media that provide consumers with more control over their advertising consumption (subscription-based digital radio and TV) and the simultaneous decrease of trust in advertising and increase of trust in peers point to the need for communications that the customer will desire to engage with. Stimulating a consumer’s engagement with a brand is the only way to increase brand loyalty and, therefore, “the best measure of current and future performance”.

Consumer behaviour

CE behaviour became prominent with the advent of the social phenomenon of online CE. Creating and stimulating customer engagement behaviour has recently become an explicit aim of both profit and non-profit organisations in the belief that engaging target customers to a high degree is conducive to furthering business objectives.

Shevlin’s definition of CE is well suited to understanding the process that leads to an engaged customer. In its adaptation by Richard Sedley the key word is ‘investment’.”Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.”

A customer’s degree of engagement with a company lies in a continuum that represents the strength of his investment in that company. Positive experiences with the company strengthen that investment and move the customer down the line of engagement.

What is important in measuring degrees of involvement is the ability of defining and quantifying the stages on the continuum. One popular suggestion is a four-level model adapted from Kirkpatrick’s Levels:

1. Click– A reader arrived (current metric)
2. Consume– A reader read the content
3. Understood– A reader understood the content and remembers it
4. Applied– A reader applies the content in another venue

Concerns have, however, been expressed as regards the measurability of stages three and four. Another popular suggestion is Ghuneim’s typology of engagement.

Degrees of Engagement	Low	Medium	High	Highest
	Adoption	Collaborative Filtering	Content Creation	Social
	Bookmarking, Tagging, Adding to group	Rating, Voting, Commenting, Endorsing, Favouritising	Upload (User Generated Content), Blogging, Fan community participation, Create mash-ups, Podcasting, Vlogging	Adding Friends, Networking, Create Fan Community

The following consumer typology according to degree of engagement fits also into Ghuneim’s continuum: Creators (smallest group), Critics, Collectors, Couch Potatoes (largest group).

Engagement is a holistic characterisation of a consumer’s behaviour, encompassing a host of sub-aspects of behaviour such as loyalty, satisfaction, involvement, Word of Mouth advertising, complaining and more.

• Satisfaction: Satisfaction is simply the foundation, and the minimum requirement, for a continuing relationship with customers. Engagement extends beyond mere satisfaction.
• Loyalty – Retention: Highly engaged consumers are more loyal. Increasing the engagement of target customers increases the rate of customer retention.
• Word of Mouth advertising – advocacy: Highly engaged customers are more likely to engage in free (for the company), credible (for their audience) Word of Mouth advertising. This can drive new customer acquisition and can have viral effects.
• Awareness – Effectiveness of communications: When customers are exposed to communication from a company that they are highly engaged with, they tend to actively elaborate on its central idea. This brings about high degrees of central processing and recall.
• Filtering: Consumers filter, categorise and rate the market from head to tail, creating multiple, overlapping folksonomies through tagging, reviewing, rating and recommending.
• Complaint-behaviour: Highly engaged customers are less likely to complain to other current or potential customers, but will address the company directly instead.
• Marketing intelligence: Highly engaged customers can give valuable recommendations for improving quality of offering.

The behavioural outcomes of an engaged consumer is what links CE to profits. From this point of view,

“CE is the best measure of current and future performance; an engaged relationship is probably the only guarantee for a return on your organisation’s or your clients’ objectives.” Simply attaining a high level of customer satisfaction does not seem to guarantee the customer’s business. 60% to 80% of customers who defect to a competitor said they were satisfied or very satisfied on the survey just prior to their defection.

The main difference between traditional and customer engagement marketing is marked by these shifts:

• From ‘reach or awareness focused’ marketing communications and their metrics (GRP or pageview) towards more targeted and customised interactions that prompt the consumer to engage with and act on the content from the outset.
• From absolute distinctions and barriers between an organisation and its target customers towards the participation of consumers in product development, customer service and other aspects of the brand experience.
• From one-way, top-down, formal B2C and B2E interaction to continuing, dialogic, decentralised and personalised communications initiated by either party.

Specific marketing practices involve:

• Encouraging collaborative filtering: Google, Amazon, iTunes, Yahoo LAUNCHcast, Netflix, and Rhapsody encourage their consumers to filter, categorise and rate; that is, to market their products. They realise consumers are not only much more adept at creating highly targeted taxonomies (folksonomies) given that they are more adept at delineating the segment they themselves constitute, but, also, that they are willing to do so for free. And to the extent they cannot, they do it for them. If enough people like the band Groove Armada as well as the band The Crystal Method, there may well be a stylistic connection between them, despite the fact that one’s categorised as ‘downtempo’ and the other ‘beats and breaks’. Such strong associations tell Yahoo! to put the two on the same playlist more often, and if the positive ratings continue to come in, that connection is reinforced. Amazon does the same with their ‘customers who bought this item also bought…’ recommendations.
• Community development: Helping target customers develop their own communities or create new ones.
• Community participation: Consumers do not filter and rate companies and their offerings within company websites only. Being able, with little effort, cost or technical skills, to create their own online localities, a large percentage of the filtering and rating takes place in non-sponsored, online spaces. Organisations must go and meet their target customers at their favoured online hangouts to not only listen but also participate in the dialogue.
• Help consumers engage with one another: Give them content (viral podcasting, videocasting, games, v-cards etc.) they can use to engage with one another.
• Solicitation of user generated content: Engage them directly or indirectly with your product by giving them the means or incentive to create user generated content.
• Customer self-service: Help them create a customer service FAQ in wiki or blog format. Create a blog where technical support staff and customers can communicate directly.
• Product co-development: Create a blog where product developers and consumers can communicate directly.

Metric

All marketing practices, including internet marketing, include measuring the effectiveness of various media along the customer engagement cycle, as consumers travel from awareness to purchase. Often the use of CVP Analysis factors into strategy decisions, including budgets and media placement.

The CE metric is useful for:

1. a) Planning:

• Identify where CE-marketing efforts should take place; which of the communities that the target customers participate in are the most engaging?
• Specify the way in which target customers engage, or want to engage, with the company or offering.

1. b) Measuring Effectiveness: Measure how successful CE-marketing efforts have been at engaging target customers.

The importance of CE as a marketing metric is reflected in ARF’s statement:

“The industry is moving toward customer engagement with marketing communications as the 21st century metric of marketing efficiency and effectiveness.”

ARF envisages CE exclusively as a metric of engagement with communication, but it is not necessary to distinguish between engaging with the communication and with the product since CE behaviour deals with, and is influenced by, involvement with both.

In order to be operational, CE-metrics must be combined with psychodemographics. It is not enough to know that a website has 500 highly engaged members, for instance; it is imperative to know what percentage are members of the company’s target market. As a metric for effectiveness, Scott Karp suggests, CE is the solution to the same intractable problems that have long been a struggle for old media: how to prove value.

The CE-metric is synthetic and integrates a number of variables. The World Federation of Advertisers calls it ‘consumer-centric holistic measurement’. The following items have all been proposed as components of a CE-metric:

Root metrics

• Duration of visit
• Frequency of visit (returning to the site directly – through a URL or bookmark – or indirectly).
• % repeat visits
• Recency of visit
• Depth of visit (% of site visited)
• Click-through rate
• Sales
• Lifetime value

Action metrics

• RSS feed subscriptions
• Bookmarks, tags, ratings
• Viewing of high-value or medium-value content (as valued from the organisation’s point-of-view). ‘Depth’ of visit can be combined with this variable.
• Inquiries
• Providing personal information
• Downloads
• Content resyndication
• Customer reviews
• Comments: their quality is another indicator of the degree of engagement.
• Ratio between posts and comments plus trackbacks.

In selecting the components of a CE-metric, the following issues must be resolved:

• Flexible metric vs. Industry standard: According to some, CE “measurement has never been one size fits-all” but should vary according to industry, organisation, business goal etc. On the other hand, corporate clients and even agencies also desire some type of solid index. Internal metrics could, perhaps, be developed in addition to a comparative, industry-wide one.

Other exponents of a flexible CE-metric include Bill Gassman in his comments to ‘How do you calculate engagement? Part I’.

• Relative weighting: The relative weighting associated with each CE-component in an algorithm. For instance, is subscribing to RSS more important than contributing a comment? If yes how much more important exactly? Relative weighting links up with the issue of flexible vs. standardised metrics: Is the relative weighting going to be solid – as will be required if the CE-metric is to be standardised – or is it going to differ depending on the industry, organisation, business goals etc.?
• Component measurability: Most of the components of a CE-metric face problems of measurement. Duration of visit for example suffers from (a) failing to capture the most engaged users who like to peruse RSS feeds; (b) inaccuracy arising from leaving a tab open during breaks, stopping to converse with co-workers, etc.
• Length of measurement: For how long must the various CE components be measured if CE is to reflect loyalty rather than short-term, faddish engagement?

 

15 Things You Learn Now That’ll Help You (With Ways) To Increase Blog Traffic

 

Generating traffic is the lifeblood of your online business. Without sufficient traffic, your site and blog will never accomplish their purpose. And while there are numerous pay options to generate traffic, there are an equal number of effective and free tools and approaches. Here are some great traffic generators:

1. Free Traffic Source: Forum Marketing

Forum Marketing: Share your expertise with people asking questions about your industry.

In return, you’ll get a steady flow of traffic to your site. You will be the expert, after all. To ensure that you get traffic from all the time you spend answering questions, be sure to spend time on your forum marketing signature. Your signature tells other forum members who you are and how to read more about you. As you begin in forum marketing, you will want to watch out for (and completely avoid) these 8 Common Forum Marketing Mistakes.

2. Free Traffic Source: Blog Commenting

Blog Commenting: Very similar to forum marketing, blog commenting only differs in the platform it uses. Instead of being in a public forum, the commenting takes place within an individual blog. The linkback works very simply. In almost all blog platforms (Word Press, Blogger, etc) there is a field to enter your URL (your site address). If your comment catches a readers attention, they’ll click on the link and visit your site.

Be careful not to post comment spam. There is a need for caution when sharing links in the comment itself. Many bloggers don’t take well to this, as it comes across as a blatant attempt to siphon their traffic to your site. Unless the link you are posting directly answers a question, it’s best not to do it.

The other benefit to blog commenting, even if you don’t get many direct visitors, is that the search engines see the link and your site gets a small boost. If you post enough comments on enough unique blogs (different domains) then you’ll see a significant boost in traffic.

3. Free Traffic Source: Twitter Traffic

Twitter Traffic: When most users first sign up and start using Twitter it can be hard to see how it could ever bring significant traffic. Over time and with regularity Twitter quickly becomes a principal source of traffic. Many blogs use automation tools to feed links and past posts to their Twitter account. A favorite of mine is called Tweet Old Post. It takes past blog posts and tweets the title and URL to your account. Many blogs generate hundreds, even thousands of new visitors every month using this simple WordPress plug-in. 

4. Free Traffic Source: eBay

eBay: The concept of using eBay as a sales platform is quite simple. Post a product (often at a loss or at cost) to generate attention and post your URL in the description as a source for more information about the product or the subject. Because of the size and traffic on eBay, you’ll reach thousands of new prospects. Other sales platforms to consider: CraigsList and Amazon.

5. Free Traffic Source: Contest Marketing

Contest Marketing: One of the fastest ways to generate non-purchased traffic is to have a contest. It is a great way to generate hundreds of inbound links, as bloggers love to share relevant contests with their readers, being the one to break the news. Many site owners have found it most effective to give away one very large prize, rather than numerous smaller ones. Everyone loves to dream about that huge trip to Europe, rather than the free song download. Big prizes create big results. In addition to the boost of traffic, be sure to require something of the visitors to enter. Consider requiring a simple newsletter subscription. That way you have their contact information should they win, and you also can keep them informed about new content as you publish.

An example of effective contest marketing was a Galapagos Trip for Two given away by Red Mangrove Galapagos Lodges. Contest period was open for a few months, more than 4500 people entered and the winner was drawn on video.

6. Free Traffic Source: Blog Design Adjustments

Blog Design Adjustments: Tweaking your site just a little can make huge differences to your traffic over time. Effective cross-linking, for example, will help Google to index your content, and help your human readers to see what other relevant content you have. These changes will also make for a better visitor experience and keep your readers on your site longer – which is never a bad thing.

7. Free Traffic Source: Content Aggregators

Content Aggregators: Getting your site (and posts) listed with a top content aggregator can send a flood of traffic. Consider Alltop.com. The benefit of an aggregator (a site that aggregates, or collects blog posts) is that they have a larger and broader readership than you do. By placing links to your content on these popular platforms, you can count on more traffic. But there’s a catch: they don’t accept just any site. While this is great for you when you are accepted, it can be hard to get accepted when your site is still new.

8. Free Traffic Source: Content Syndication

Content Syndication: This is most simply done via an RSS feed. This not only makes it easy for readers to follow your site but also notifies readers immediately upon publishing new content. It’s a great way to bring readers back to your site every time you publish a new piece of content. A popular tool to manage RSS feeds is FeedBurner (by Google).

9. Free Traffic Source: Write Great Content

Write Great Content: Nothing will build your traffic better than great content. Regardless of if it is blog posts, video or audio (or a combination of all three) you need to consistently produce great content. Great content encourages visitors to share your posts – via social media and links on their own sites and blogs. This social sharing by your readers has more weight than any purchased ad could ever carry.

10. Free Traffic Source: Build Your Blog Community

Build Your Blog Community: By taking the time to engage individual readers your site will benefit by increased traffic. An engaged community will happily share your content and refer new visitors to your site. 

11. Free Traffic Source: Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging: This is a popular one. But how should you do it? First of all, a guest post should only be done on a popular site (more popular than yours). And it should be your best stuff. A mediocre post will bring mediocre results. Post a compelling piece that adds real value to the site you are contributing to. This will help you get another opportunity to post. And give a lot of thought to your bio line. A well-written bio will help motivate readers to click through to your site.

In addition to publishing great guest posts, it’s also important to accept guest posts. This helps widen your base of content and takes some writing pressure off of you. Be sure to publish a clear set of blogging guidelines – this will help reduce the number of low-quality posts that you will receive.

12. Free Traffic Source: Trackbacks

Trackbacks: WordPress (along with many other blogging platforms) has a great feature called trackbacks. What are Trackbacks? When you mention another blog on your site, their blog (if it is also on a supporting platform) will get a notification that they have been mentioned. It creates a linkback for readers to follow. It is an easy and effective way to both share great content and get contextual linkbacks.

13. Free Traffic Source: Video Syndication

Video Syndication: Creating video takes time but is worth the effort. Once the video is created, don’t stop with YouTube. Syndicate your video content with a service like OneLoad (owned by TubeMogul). OneLoad will take your video and share it across numerous platforms. Non-commercial use is free and the next level is $75 per month. Works flawlessly and exposes your message and content to millions more people.

14. Free Traffic Source: Video Tagging

Video Tagging: When you upload your videos, it’s important to take a few minutes to research the best tags for your post. One great way is to check out similar and popular video posts. You can mirror theirs and thus increase the odds of showing up as a related video on theirs. This simple approach can increase video views and site traffic many times over.

15. Free Traffic Source: Cool Site of the Day

Cool Site of the Day: This extremely popular site has the power to send a huge amount of traffic to your site, should it be chosen as the Cool Site of the Day. They accept submissions, so if you have a unique site it’s worth the time to submit. If you are accepted you will see thousands of new vistors in a matter of hours.

You may also consider: Video Responses, Video Embedding, Writing Tutorials and using bookmarking sites as effective ways to generate more traffic. Getting traffic is a critical part of starting your online business.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

Automate Your Income to Simplify Your Life

 

The title of this post almost looks like the subject of a spam email when I look at it, and yet I’m completely serious — one of the best ways to simplify your life is to put your income on autopilot. It’s not an easy task at first, but once you’ve got it set up, it’s well worth the effort.

Instead of working hard to earn money every day and every month, work hard to set up your income stream, and then do minimal work from then on out to maintain that stream.

I’ve talked before about how to put your bills and savings on autopilot — now let’s look at how to do the same thing with your income. This isn’t an original idea, of course — author and blogger Tim Ferriss talks about how to do it in The 4-Hour Work Week, and Brian Tracy calls it Passive Income (also see his excellent Five Ways to Create Passive Income). Author Robert Kiyosaki, among many others, has been talking about doing it with real estate for awhile now.

But in this article, we’ll talk a little about how automating your income can simplify your life, and then look at ways you can go about doing it.

Simplify, simplify, simplify
On this site we’ve talked a lot about simplification, from simplifying your to-do list to simplifying your closets and everything in between. The idea is that by eliminating the unnecessary and the clutter in your life, you can have more time to focus on what is truly important, and enjoy more calm and less stress in the meantime.

These same concepts apply to income, although we rarely give that much thought. Most of us work a salaried job, putting in the hours every day to get a paycheck, and that’s what supports our lifestyles. Sometimes we work a second job, to help pay the bills, or pay off the debts, or save. That’s the normal way of generating income, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

But if you give it a little thought, our means of generating income can really complicate our lives. We have a lot of daily stress from our jobs, and the daily grind can be tedious and exhausting. We have long to-do lists and endless meetings and phone calls and emails and interacting with co-workers all day long. A job is the ultimate complication.

Now imagine that you create a small business for yourself, perhaps on the side, or maybe you create a property such as a book or a CD that can be sold over and over again once it’s created. Sure, this will take a huge investment in time and energy, and perhaps money (though not always), but once it’s done, your investment of time and energy is minimal, and the return is well worth that initial investment.

Put in some hard work, and soon a steady stream of money could be coming in, and you only have to put in a small amount of time each day or week to make sure that things are running smoothly. Now your automated income supports your lifestyle with very little work required, and you’re free to pursue your dreams and passions. No more long to-do lists, no more meetings and days full of calls and emails and co-workers. No more commutes. That’s the ultimate simplification.

It’ll take a lot of work at first, but isn’t the simplicity that results worth the effort?

How to Automate Your Income
There is no one way to create an automated stream of income — there are many different approaches. And the details required to implement them would take a book to cover. The following are just some ideas to get you thinking, and to open your mind to the possibilities. I should also note that there is always a risk of failure to any of these types of ventures — nothing’s guaranteed, but with some smarts and hard work, it can be a success.

• Creating a business. For many employees, the thought of creating a small business is scary, perhaps even unthinkable. But there isn’t that much to it. And if you keep your costs down — say, operating off the Internet instead of opening a real-world retail outlet — your initial costs don’t have to be super high. Do some brainstorming, do some research and testing, and then go for it! If you do it right, you don’t even need to hire employees — contract out the services you don’t want to do to freelancers or contract firms. The possibilities of small businesses are endless, but what you really want to do is create a product, and sell it on the Internet. Create a product that you would actually use, aimed for a niche market that you actually belong to, so that you will know a lot about the product and the customers and their needs.
• Websites. Why sell on the Internet? The initial costs are way lower, for starters, plus it’s much easier with less hassle, and everything can be automated, unlike real-world establishments. No real estate to rent, no equipment or furniture to purchase, no utilities or IT infrastructure to set up, no employees to hire. Keep it simple. Creating a website has low costs, all of which can be done under $1,000. Research each of these steps before getting started:
  • buying a domain
  • getting a web host
  • hiring a web designer (or doing it yourself)
  • buying CPC ads (such as Google or Yahoo)
  • getting a checkout system (again, like Google’s or Yahoo’s)
• Turn your service into a product. Do you currently provide a service? If so, you have to devote many hours each week to provide that service. However, if you can turn that service into a product, such as a book or DVD or web site or CD, you can create it once and sell it over and over. Brainstorm the best way to create a product that gives customers the same information or skills that they would get from you in person. See how others have done it for inspiration. Most of these products can be created easily and cheaply, using software on your home computer, and can be mass produced by a number of companies for a pretty low price.
• Other types of automated incomes. Instead of creating an information product, you could create a real-world product, such as a gadget or nutrition product. Freelance designers can turn your idea into an actual design, and contract manufacturers can turn the design into a product. Other types of automated incomes include real estate, online retail businesses (including an eBay business), affiliate marketing, a blog, and a membership-type website. There are many possibilities. Find ways to turn your strengths into a revenue generator.
• Initial investment. Most of these types of businesses require an initial investment of time and money. The time investment just means you’ll have to put in some hard work, at least for the first 2-3 months, until you have it automated. But the money investment can stop a lot of people. If you’ve got a little money saved up, creating a low-cost, low-maintenance business might be a good investment for that. You could also get a small business loan, or a personal loan from friends or family. If this is a problem for you, consider some of the lower-cost setups, such as a blog (only costs are domain name and hosting) or creating a DVD yourself and selling it online.
• Test first. Before you launch your business and start manufacturing your product, test it out with some ads first. You can do this with print ads in niche magazines (don’t try to sell to everyone, just a small, focused niche) or with Google Adwords. Set up your website to take orders, place the ads, monitor the stats, and see if there’s any demand. If the demand is good, begin the manufacturing immediately. If not, you may need to tweak either the ads, the niche you’re marketing to, or the product itself.
• Automate your business. Once you’ve got your website up and running, and you’ve begun taking orders and mailing out the product yourself, find ways to automate every part of your business. There are companies you can contract to take the orders, place the orders with a manufacturer, process the credit card charges, and ship the orders off to the customer. If you contract out the manufacturing, the credit card processing, the shipping and order handling, all you have to do it make sure there are no problems. Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Weekis a great guide to making this happen.
• Sit back, and enjoy. Once you’ve got everything automated, you’ll only need to monitor things to make sure everything is running smoothly. And to make sure the money is piling up in your bank account. At this point, your time commitment could be as little as 30 minutes a day or even an hour a week. Quit your job, watch your automated income flow in, sip Margaritas. Life, simplified.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

The Get-Started-Now Guide to Becoming Self-Employed

 

One of the best things I ever did was quit my day job and become self-employed. I’m so happy with it that I’m recommending it to everyone: my kids, my friends, my sisters.

One sister has already started her own fitness business and I’m strongly urging the other to go out on her own as well.

And while being your own boss can be scary and a little risky, it’s not as difficult as people think. You do have to be someone who loves his freedom, likes to be able to set his own schedule, likes to work on things he’s excited about. I know, that’s a tall order.

Is that all there is to it? No, it takes a ton of hard work, and an ability to learn from your mistakes, and an ability to try.

Let’s briefly look at some of the things I’ve learned, in hopes that it’ll help you on your journey to freedom.

First: Can Anyone Be Self-Employed?
Not everyone should, because some people just love working where they’re working, they love the people they’re working with, and they absolutely love what they do. They couldn’t be happier working on their own. And I think that’s great.

But … I think there’s a fallacy that those who start their own businesses or work on their own are somehow born with an “entrepreneurial spirit” that the regular workaday employees just don’t have that. They aren’t “risk-takers”, they aren’t self-motivated, and they just can’t manage themselves.

I think that’s a load of crap.

Sure, some people like the security of a regular paycheck, but if recent events have taught us anything, it’s that this kind of security is an illusion.

Sure, some people are afraid of starting their own business, because it means they have to figure out things they know nothing about … but don’t we all do this, anyway?

And I don’t think anyone really likes being told what to do, and working on someone else’s terms, doing things someone else wants to do. We all like freedom, but we allow our freedoms to be sacrificed out of fear.

It’s this fear that stops us. And so the question really becomes: can anyone overcome this fear?

I believe it’s possible. Whether you’ll be successful at overcoming the fear, and at starting your own business, is another question — it takes work, and time, and an ability to accept failure and learn from it.

How to Overcome the Fear
Ask yourself: what’s the worst that can happen?

For some, it’s that you’ll lose your mortgage and become bankrupt. But that’s happened to millions of people recently, and they’re OK. They just can’t get another loan soon, but they’re still living. For others, it’s a fear that you’ll be out on the street or hungry. Ask yourself, though, if you have a safety net: family and friends who will take you in if it ever comes to that.

That’s the worst case scenario. Now ask yourself: is that likely to happen? Probably not. If things get bad, you can take a job with someone else, or try a new tactic, or figure something out so that things don’t get that bad.

Stay Lean and Small
Lean and small and hungry and nimble and flexible are good things. It means you don’t need to pay a lot of bills, you don’t need a huge amount of revenues, and you can change as you need to. Big corporations need to make huge revenues, need to sell millions, and have a hard time changing because of a massive corporate structure and thousands of meetings and lots of invested time and lots of people who are resistant to change. Small and lean has none of those problems.

Don’t start with a lot of expenses — start small, with zero or almost zero expenses.

Script Burg is a good example. I had $0 when I started out. I started with a free blog host and software. I had a computer already. I just started creating. And I started marketing, for free. There are tons of ways to do this now, with social media and other similar platforms.

Sure, not everyone can start for free, but you can start small.

Want to run a ballet studio or fitness studio? Start by going to your clients, or start in your home, or do it at schools and use their space. Want to start in retail? Start online, with a cheap host and free web software. Want to be a marketer? Do it out of your home, with a cell phone, a computer and a car. Want to be a landscaper? All you need is a lawn mower to start out. Want to start a health clinic? Operate out of your home, or make house calls, in the beginning.

There are lots of ways to start out cheap — if your business requires lots of money, think about scaling it back or finding a different way of doing it, for free.

Starting out cheap means it’s hard to fail and easy to succeed.

Start Right Away
Don’t wait for perfection. Figure out the simplest way to start, and just start. Don’t worry about taking a bunch of expensive courses — just do it, and learn as you go. You might even start for free if possible, so that you can gain experience and as you get better, you’ll get good word of mouth.

Start out without an office, a website, business cards, employees, and a lot of equipment and software. Sure, you’ll need some of those fairly soon, but you don’t need them to start. Well, unless your business is a website — then you’ll need a site, but those are cheap.

You can get a business card later. You can set up your accounting structure later. You can figure things out as you go. The important part is just starting.

Does that mean you don’t need to plan? Well, you should, but don’t overdo it. You should give a lot of thought to what you’re good at, what you can offer, who your target customers are, how you’ll make money, how much you should charge, how you can add value beyond what is already offered out there. But don’t let it stop you — if you can’t decide on something, just start and adjust your targets as you learn.

On Quitting Your Day Job
This is a big question, and I don’t have a single answer for everyone.

I’d say for most people, it’s best to keep your day job at first, just so you have some income while you get the business started. Work in the morning, on your lunch break, after work, even during work if you’re not super busy — just don’t get fired. This is a good way to fund your startup — have a steady income and get the business going until you’re ready to quit the day job. For me, it took a little less than a year, but if I were doing it over again, I think I could do it in much less time.

For some, quitting the day job is best right away, because it gives them the kick in the butt they need to get moving. It’s scarier this way, of course, but there’s no better motivator. This is best for people who don’t have a big family to support — singles or couples without kids — or if you do have a family, perhaps you have some savings you can live on for at least 2-3 months while you get the business off the ground.

Even if you quit your day job, you might be able to do some freelancing or consulting business to get some regular income right away, as you also get the business going.

What to Do
First, you should choose something that you love and know a lot about. If you love gardening, do something related to that. If you love writing, do that. You should ideally have some experience, or be willing to put in a lot of hours learning at first. If you’re already good at something, and you love doing it, you’re off to a great start.

Next, you should figure out what you have to offer, and how it will be different than what’s already out there. How will you meet people’s needs in a new way? Who needs your service or product? How will you reach them? Where do they go now, either in the real world or online?

And what’s the simplest way you can reach them and offer your product or service? Simplest means the least work, the least amount of steps and complications, the easiest for the customer, the least expensive, the least amount to startup.

And how fast can you get started? What’s the bare minimum you need to get started? For many, this is signing up for a free web account and putting up some content. For others, this is calling the right people and meeting with them with an offer to provide services. And that’s all — get the basics started, and add the rest later.

Again, you can get the business card later. You can figure out accounting and corporate structure and all that later. You can refine your marketing and product later — just start, and keep improving.

Never Stop Learning, and Never Stop Failing
Failure is not the end of your business. It’s just the beginning.

You have to take the attitude that failure won’t stop you from making it on your own. If your business doesn’t get off the ground, learn from that. And try again, but do it better this time. You might need to get a job temporarily to fund your life as you make another attempt, but that’s OK. You do what you gotta do.

Failure isn’t a reason to get depressed, to quit. It’s a learning opportunity. Failure is a stepping stone to your success.

And if you make it, don’t take that as a reason to get complacent. You should always be learning, always improving — not because you’re not satisfied with what you’ve done, but because if you stop learning, you’ll stop having fun. There should always be new challenges, new things to explore, new skills to learn, new ways to grow.

One more thing: do not be afraid of hard work. You’ll work harder than you ever have. Becoming self-employed is not about laying around in a hammock and drinking Margaritas. Although you can do that, when you want to. It’s about loving what you do, about working hard to build something you’re proud of, about pouring your heart and soul into something rather than giving it to someone else. Make no mistake about it: you’ll work hard, or you won’t succeed. But you’ll love every minute of it.

Should I Start in a Bad Economy?
Yes.

This is the best time to start. This is a time when job security is low, so risks are actually lower. This is a time to be lean, which is the best idea for starting a business. This is the time when others are quitting — so you’ll have more room to succeed.

And with social media and networking taking off, this is the easiest time to start a business, the easiest time to spread the word, the easiest time to distribute information and products and services.

And while the big corporations may struggle in a bad economy, you’re small and lean, which means you don’t have the fat that the big guys have, you are able to adjust to the market much better, and you’re less subject to the problems of financial markets, real estate markets, and other external realities.

But What If Everyone Were Self-Employed?
Is that even possible? I have no idea. I’m not advocating that, actually. I’m saying it’s been great for me, and I recommend it for those who are looking for freedom and the ability to pursue their passions and dreams. And if you are, I don’t guarantee success. I’m just sharing what I’ve learned.

But what if everyone were in business for themselves? Would this be a horrible thing? I can imagine a world of tiny businesses and free agents. I think people would collaborate — as I do today, with many people — but they’d do so as free agents, not as employees. And that’s a huge difference. A world of difference. Because then they’d come in as equals, and they’d be collaborating because they want to, because they’re excited about a project. Then the world of trying to motivate employees disappears, because people are motivated already — they’re excited, they have freedom, they choose to do the work.

That’s a utopia, obviously, and the real world would have all kinds of problems. But there are all sorts of problems today, so that would be nothing new.

I don’t know if it could happen or if it’s desirable. All I know is I enjoy my freedom, and I’m happier than ever. I wish nothing less on all of you.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already onboard) 

9 Little Secrets About the Authenticity And Trust In Business Industry That’ll Rekindle You

 

When I started to think about what I wanted to say at this talk, I began to sweat a little. Why was that? What was I worried about?

I realized it was this: I wanted to knock your socks off. I wanted to come off as smart, a great speaker, someone who brought you to tears, brought you to your knees, really handsome, who gave you value for your money tonight.

Then I realized: you’re not paying anything.

And I realized another thing: I was worried about failing at being something I don’t really believe I am. I’m not an amazing speaker: I’m a writer, dammit. I’m not incredibly handsome: I’m bald and aging.

So what if, instead, I let go of that fantasy of wanting to be something I’m not, and let go of the fear that goes with it? What if instead I just tried to be who I am, and let that be enough. I can’t fail at that, because it’s the truth. It’s reality, not a fantasy.

So here’s who I am, and you’ll see it tonight: I’m human. I stumble, and forget my place in a talk, and stutter a bit, and say umm and uhh. I have learned a few things, and I’ll share them. But I’m human.

This is the 1st truth of authenticity: the fear of failing goes away to a large part, when you’re not trying to reach a fantasy. You’re just letting reality show through, and the only failure is the failure to be honest.

Let’s back up and talk about why authenticity is important at all. Let’s take a longer view.

A hundred years ago, when our grandparents or great grandparents were kids, you’d go to a mom & pop business, where you could actually get to know the store owner, and they were human. They knew you, and cared about you because if they were a scammer, it would quickly become known and no one would trust them. That’s what a small community is like.

But that model was replaced by Walmart and other chain businesses, and customers became data points, and the people in stores and restaurants became tools, robots. The human-ness came out of the transaction.

My grandfather was the editor of the only newspaper on Guam, and people not only depended on him for information and context, but they could call him up, even have coffee with him and talk to him. He was replaced by chain newspapers and corporate magazines, who don’t want you to call them and won’t buy you coffee. They lost the human-ness.

Let’s put aside that old story and move to the Internet age, where newspapers were disrupted by blogs, like mine and many others. Books were disrupted by the same online publishing system. All of a sudden, millions of people were starting businesses online, not only online publishing but web apps and then mobile apps and youtube channels and Etsy stores and so much more …

These are human beings like you and me, and they want to know: how do you make any money online?

So they turned to the people who were already making money … there was Google and Amazon, but not everyone can build huge warehouses or be the world’s leading ad company …

Then there were Internet marketers with their email tactics and landing pages and popups and sales tactics … these learned from direct mail marketers before them … the guys who pioneered telemarketing and direct mail blasts and text marketing and infomercials and later email marketing. These are not new tactics, and they are not good — they’re very effective ways of squeezing the most money out of people in a short amount of time. Using the philosophy often attributed to P.T. Barnum … there’s a sucker born every minute.

That’s great if you want to make a quick buck, and I can tell you, millions of quick bucks are made. But it leaves the customer feeling slimy after awhile, and people quickly lose trust in these kinds of businesses … except the customers who are also trying to make a lot of money and want to learn from the masters.

The problem is that these types of tactics are focused on numbers: not only profits but email subscriber numbers, pageviews, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, churn rate. When you’re focused on those numbers, you will do everything you can to move the needle in the right direction.

Unfortunately, they’re looking at the wrong needle. These are numbers they’re trying to move, but they don’t realize they’re dealing with humans.

We shouldn’t try to move our numbers … we should endeavor to move people.

That’s the 2nd truth of authenticity tonight: the reality of our businesses is that we’re not dealing with numbers. We’re dealing with human beings.

Let’s start talking about the human side of businesses.

I had a good friend who got into selling Amway … or maybe you know it as multi-level marketing. He was sold on this business model, and believed he was going to make millions, if only he could get others to start their businesses under his umbrella. He bought products, marketing materials, DVDs, and went to conferences. He spent a lot.

He was encouraged to talk to his friends and family, and so I got invited to meetings where he’d show me this amazing business opportunity. I got pestered so much that it irritated me, and while I might have bought a few vitamins from him, we drifted apart and aren’t really friends anymore.

So here’s 3rd truth of authenticity: people don’t want to be friends with people who just want to make money off them.

I’m going to give you a couple more case stories, contrasting each other.

The first is of a guy who tried to sell me a product while I was walking past him on the sidewalk — he just got in my face and tried to push his product on me. I’m sure it was a perfectly fine product, but I don’t know this guy and certainly don’t trust that his rolex is real. So I didn’t buy.

Contrast that to a friend of mine who is a real friend, who has helped me numerous times and proven himself to me as trustworthy … when he wanted to expand his restaurant business, he explained his vision to me, of changing the world … I invested a large sum of money (for me … but I’m a cheapskate so operate on a different scale of angel investing).

So on one hand I have a stranger going up to me, who I don’t trust, and trying to sell me something off the bat, and I bought nothing … on the other hand, a trusted friend who I gave thousands of dollars to (OK, dozens). The difference? Well, one had a much better product, though it is definitely a risky investment … but the main difference was trust. I trusted this guy and believed in what he was doing.

That’s 4th truth of authenticity: you’re much more likely to do business with a person you really trust.

Here’s another case study: I have a friend who runs a successful tea business, and has lovely tea lounges with carefully cultivated atmospheres … it’s an amazing experience he’s designed, and I love going there.

And his website is also beautiful and a lovely experience … except that he had a popup to increase email subscribers. It was very effective, and so he didn’t want to get rid of it even though I told him to.

I asked him this: think about the great experience you’ve crafted in your tea lounges … what if, before the customer even got in the door, you shoved a sign in their face asking them to subscribe? You’d ruin the experience! They haven’t even had a chance to enjoy your great service. You’ve turned something wonderful into something irritating that they have to get past just to get to the peaceful space … and now they’re not in a peaceful state of mind.

Why ruin the experience with a popup?

That leads us to the 5th truth of authenticity: don’t irritate your customer. Get out of their way, let them do what they want, and don’t put obstacles in their way just to get your numbers up.

Here’s another case study, from my own writing: in 2008 I decided to copy the free software movement and uncopyright my blog and books. I was the first blogger to do this, as far as I know, and was one of the few authors doing it.

I was afraid that if I released copyright, I’d screw up my emerging business. I was giving things away, after all!

But not only did I not ruin my business, I did something that turned out to be incredibly important: I increased trust in me. People already liked my work (it’s awesome, after all), but when I made my work part of the public domain, they had such an interesting reaction that I didn’t expect … they were grateful. They thought that if someone shares and trusts others to do good things with his work … that person is trustworthy.

So that became a 6th truth of authenticity: when you share and when you trust people, you become more trustworthy. Releasing copyright, giving things away for free, being open and transparent … all increase trust.

I started to become a student of trust back then, and still am today. I notice that when I need to hire someone I don’t know, but I need to trust them …. I look to other people that I trust.

One example is when I needed an accountant / tax guy … it’s hard to trust a stranger with your books … so I turned to my friends, and one of them has a friend he really trusts who does a great job. I instantly trusted this stranger, my new accountant, and as I talked to the guy my trust increased because he seemed honest and doesn’t feel slimy like a couple other tax guys I’d talked to.

This has happened over and over … the guys who handle my investments were recommended by the same friends … the people I do business with online were recommended by trusted friends …

Now, there are lots of ways to show that you’re trustworthy … you show up regularly, you don’t keep trying to sell something to people, you show openness and transparency, you tell the truth. But being recommended by a trusted friend is one of the best trust indicators.

That’s the 7th truth of authenticity: trust is transferrable, to some extent.

And the 8th truth is this: trust is also erodable.

One day, a friend of mine offered to help me teach blogging to people. She was a wonderful, competent, trustworthy friend … and so I said yes. Why not help people find their way in the blogging world, teach them a few things I’d learned.

So we started a blogging program, and she called it A-List Blogging Bootcamps. I didn’t like the name, because it sounded too elitist, but I trusted her so I went with it. It turns out, she’d taken an Internet Marketing course and had a whole email campaign strategy that she put in place, with emails going out in my name.

We made a lot of money, giving away a free report that had “secrets” of blogging. But people said they were surprised, because the emails all seemed spammy. I agreed, and felt horrible. And people’s trust in me was eroding.

During the course of this business, I tried to work with my friend to not be spammy, but she was afraid of failing me. She knew these tactics would work, and didn’t want to fail, so she tried them over and over.

We eventually parted ways because of this. I left behind $10,000 per month (and growing) because the trust that people had in me was eroding.

I was afraid I’d lose my income, but my fear of losing people’s trust was greater. I walked away, because fear shouldn’t rule my decisions. Fear shouldn’t be stronger than a desire for trust.

That’s the 9th and most important truth of authenticity: people do inauthentic things, untrustworthy things, because of fear.

We fear not succeeding as a business. We fear this unknown, uncertain world. And so we find a model that seems to work: Internet Marketing. Direct Mail. Spam, popups, ads.

Fear drives people to do these things, and follow the Internet Marketers.

How do you let go of the fear? By letting go of the fantasy. We tend to instantly believe a fantasy when it pops into our heads (and is put there by the success stories of other businesses) … but that fantasy is not real. The truth of these other businesses isn’t what we fantasize about. These are just regular people like you and me, who’ve found some success but who are just as scared as you are.

So let go of the fantasy, and instead focus on the people. Be authentic. Be trustworthy. Be open and transparent. Show your vulnerabilities. Be honest when you don’t know something. Admit when you’re wrong. Be valuable. Help people. Change their lives. Treat them like human beings.

The Direct Marketers coined a term … “Call to Action”. I’m going to end this talk with a Call to Inaction.

Don’t go out and spam people. Don’t go out and try to build a massive list and make a billion dollars.

Instead, pause. Turn inward and see when fear and fantasy are driving you. Pause and be conscious about your actions, about your choices in your business.

Be curious. See whether you can be less spammy, less market-y, and instead treat people like human beings, and allow them to see you as an authentic human being.

This is a call for making conscious, authentic, trustworthy choices in your business. Because trust is more important than any number. And people are more important than massive profits.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR INTERACTIVE ONLINE CLUB
(over 2.5 million world wide members are already on board) 

How to Create an Awesome Dream Job | The Digital Way

I was once unemployed, and I know the debilitating depression and the feelings of frustration and helplessness that can come with that. I’ve been stuck in a job I hate, and I felt imprisoned, trapped doing work that bored me while following orders of others and helping them achieve their goals.

Those times were … less than ideal. In fact, those were some of the worst periods in the story of my life.

Luckily I rose above those traps, but I have to admit it wasn’t easy. The solution has been one of the most liberating, empowering, joyous things in my life.

I wanted to share that little secret with those of you who are having a hard time finding a job, or who feel trapped in a job you hate:

Create your own dream job. Don’t wait for someone to hand it to you. Don’t hope that you’ll win the lottery. Don’t give up and consign yourself to a fate of misery and (worse) dullness.

Create your job! It might sound far-fetched for some of you (while others have already done it) but it’s very possible. Not easy, mind you: it takes hard work and smarts and passion and a crap-ton of learning and a willingness to take risks and make mistakes. If that sounds like you, read on. If not, stop reading.

Your Big Idea

You might already know this but if you haven’t given it much thought, start to consider: what do you truly love doing? What are you passionate about? If you’re lucky you’ll have multiple answers. If you have no answers, it’s time to start finding things to be passionate about.

If you have multiple answers, just choose one. Or find ways to combine two of them (if you love sewing and Star Wars, sew Star Wars costumes and put them on Etsy). Don’t be paralyzed by this choice: if it turns out this isn’t what you want then you can always start another business later. You learn by doing and making mistakes, not by analyzing every possible outcome and factor.

This passion will become your dream job.

This is how I did it. I love writing and I love taking steps to change my habits and my life. I started Script Burg just for fun and it turned into my dream job.

How to Find Funding

You need a lot of money to get started, right? No. I explicitly reject the idea that “you have to spend money to make money”. Sure, that can work, or it can lead to a mountain of debt and monthly expenses that greatly exceed your income and possibly failure before you’ve had the chance to succeed.

I started my business with nothing. Zero dollars. In fact I had less than nothing: I was highly in debt and broke. I started with free online services (there are plenty — I used Blogger.com and Google Adsense and Google Analytics, but those are just a few examples). I refused to even buy my own domain until I made more money from my business than the cost of that purchase. I refused to pay for my site design or to use a paid host until I was making much more money than those purchases required.

My rule: spend much less than you make. It works for personal finances too.

Actually I didn’t start with nothing. While I had no money, I had some pretty big assets: my mind and talents and hard work and life experience. Those translated into a strong business, it turned out.

How can you start your business with nothing? I won’t create an exhaustive list but here are some examples:

• Someone I know wanted to start a marketing business. She didn’t need an office and staff and stationary — all she needed was her laptop (she had one), her skills (she had the experience), her contacts (she had a lot of them), and for people to know she was out there. And for that last bit, it just takes some … marketing skills. Hit businesses up and offer her services. Network online and gain clients that way. If she has expenses for a job she can charge those to the client.
• My sister wanted to start a ballet school. I suggested instead of building a studio and being hugely in debt, she start by going to private schools and offering to create an after-school ballet program at the schools. Parents would love it, the schools would benefit because parents want services like that, and she has practically no expenses.
• My other sister wanted to become a personal trainer. I encouraged her to start in her home, with minimal equipment, or go to her clients’ homes and businesses, or do outdoor bootcamps. She did and is amazing at it.
• Love to play video games? Start a site where you show people how to become elite players. Offer coaching.
• Start an online store where you sell stuff you make.
• Teach people how to do whatever you’re good at. They’ll pay you.
• Want to be a chef? Host dinner parties with gourmet cuisine, and charge $50 a head. Sell tickets in advance and use some of that money to buy the food and some dishes.

Again, these are just a few ideas. Sure, there are some businesses that require an initial investment but I suggest you find ones that don’t. Start free or cheap, borrow space from friends if necessary, and get started.

Get Good

If you want to make a living at what you love doing, you need to get good at it. Some of you are already good at what you love — you’ve been doing it for years, either on the job or as a personal passion. Others are just starting out, but that’s not a barrier — you just have to put in more time and effort.

I was already an experienced writer when I started Script Burg (I’d been a journalist for about 18 years), but I didn’t know a thing about blogging or teaching people to simplify, improve their lives, change their habits. I knew about how to do that myself (though I was still learning) but I’d never taught anyone. So I learned: I read other blogs, read personal development sites and books, read blogs about blogging, studied the best, figured out what they did that made them successful. It takes a lot of study, a lot of analysis, a lot of trying and doing and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

I made a ton of mistakes. That’s a good thing. You can’t get good at anything without making a huge amount of mistakes. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes — they’re stepping stones to greatness. Try everything, see what works, see what doesn’t. Stick with the things that work.

Put in a lot of hours of practice and doing. The more, the better. Reflect on what you’ve done and what you’ve learned, write it down. Put it in your blog so you can help others learn, but more importantly you’ll force yourself to learn from your own experience.

Get good. Others will gladly pay you if you’re good.

Build an Audience

Any business, big or small, benefits from an audience. That’s different than a customer base — an audience is a group of people who you help and who love you. They might not pay you. Some will want to pay you for more of what you offer, but many will just love you, and that’s a great thing.

The best way to attract an audience is to provide really valuable content. It’s that simple. Help people solve their problems, give away lots of powerful information to do so.

Building an audience is tough. It takes time, it takes a lot of giving, it takes a willingness to wither criticism and to learn from that criticism (though ignore the idiots).

Build Income

OK, you’re pursuing your passion, you’ve developed your skills, you’ve built an audience. Now what? How does that pay your bills?

You build income streams. There are many, many ways to do that, including:

• Give away free articles but charge for ebooks or other digital products (that’s what I do).
• Create a subscription or membership service for powerful content.
• Create online courses.
• Sell ads or run ads from ad networks.
• Do consulting or freelancing.
• Do speaking engagements or training seminars.
• Sell physical stuff online or on a site such as Etsy.
• Create an app and sell it on the Apple or Android platforms.
• Build a web app and charge for the premium version.
• Provide a service where you go to people’s houses and do something for them (yardwork, massage, fitness training, houspainting, etc.).
• Sell T-shirts or coffee mugs or stickers with your slogan or logo.
• Sell other people’s stuff as an affiliate and get commissions.

Which of these should you do? Try one, see how that works, then try another, then another. See what works best and be willing to build multiple income streams.

The Empowerment of Creating Your Own Job

I’ve only given you a rough outline but if I gave away every step that would be taking away all the fun. The fun is learning how to do it yourself!

There is something incredibly empowering about seizing control of your life and creating the job you want, rather than waiting for it to happen or waiting for someone to give it to you. You are no longer a passive viewer of the world, but someone actively changing it. You become your own boss, pursuing your own goals. That’s incredible.

If you’re out of a job or stuck in a lousy job, I feel for you. But look at your horrible situation as a wonderful opportunity to change your life and do something great. It could be the best thing you’ve ever done.

 

CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOADS NOW! 

How We’re Harmed by Our Dissatisfaction with Ourselves

Over the last five years or so, as I’ve worked with thousands of people on changing their habits, I’ve come to a realization: dissatisfaction with ourselves is a pretty universal phenomenon.

We are unhappy with who we are, sometimes in small ways but often in very fundamental ways.

We doubt ourselves, feel inadequate, dislike our looks, criticize our failing harshly, feel uncertain about whether we’re worthy of praise or love.

The result is anxiety, procrastination, fear, and the inability to change our habits. I’ve seen so many people who are unable to stick to an exercise program or healthy diet changes because they don’t believe in themselves. At the heart of their failure to make positive changes is a deep feeling of unworthiness and inadequacy.

Every time we fail, we are harsh with ourselves, and we see it as just more evidence that we suck. Every time things are less-than-ideal, we blame ourselves (or, if we don’t want to be blamed, we blame other people).

What if, instead of beating ourselves up (or blaming others), we just accepted what happened and then took appropriate action? What if we took this as an opportunity to see our humanness, to love ourselves, to see ourselves as innately good?

This dissatisfaction with ourselves doesn’t just hurt our health habits … it hurts our productivity and ability to focus on meaningful work. We doubt whether we’re up to facing this task filled with discomfort and uncertainty, so we look for relief from all of it instead of just trusting that we’re up to the task. We procrastinate, seek distraction, try to run from the uncertainty.

Our relationships are also harmed by this dissatisfaction with ourselves — when we don’t believe in ourselves, we are insecure in our relationships. That can result in jealousy, anger, fear of losing someone, and treating the other person with distrust. That’s not a good recipe for a good relationship, and if the relationship becomes shaky, we often either blame the other person or see it as more evidence that we suck.

Our happiness is marred by this dissatisfaction with ourselves— if we don’t like ourselves, don’t trust ourselves, don’t see ourselves as worthy of love … then how can we truly be happy in each moment? Underlying each moment is a dissatisfaction, a lack of contentedness, a wish that things would be different.

These are just a handful of ways that dissatisfaction with ourselves is harming us. This problem actually affects every area of our lives, from jobs to finances to parenting and more.

The Way Out: Loving Ourselves

Instead of harming ourselves with this self-doubt, this constant feeling of inadequacy … what if we loved ourselves instead?

What if we trusted ourselves, believed in our basic worthiness, believed that we would be OK even if things didn’t work out as planned, believed that we are loving, kind, and innately good human beings?

That would change everything: we’d be more trusting in relationships, we’d procrastinate less because we knew we could handle uncertainty and discomfort, we’d become healthier because we would see healthy food and exercise as just two more ways to love ourselves. We’d seek ways to love others, to serve the world with meaningful work, to enjoy the basic goodness of every moment. We’d be happier, and in the times when we’re not happy, we’d still be able to find contentment in the middle of difficulty.

Of course, that’s much easier said than done. We have so many years of experience in disliking ourselves, in being harsh with ourselves, that loving ourselves can seem impossible. It’s not. You can do this.

It starts with the simple intention to love yourself, to see yourself as adequate and worthy of love, to wish for your own happiness and the relief from pain and stress.

Once you have this intention, you can practice a daily session of wishing for your own happiness, wishing for an end to your pain. A daily session of gratitude for the good things about yourself.

You can start to see the basic goodness in everything you do, even if it’s less than perfect (as all humans are). You can see the good hearted nature in every one of your actions, even the ones that are harmful. You can start to see the good-hearted nature in what everyone else does as well.

This is the practice, and it takes lots of practice. But loving yourself might just be the most important project you’ve ever undertaken, because it will change your world.