It doesn’t matter where you are in life, we all have something to teach someone and that means that anyone can build an online business centered around teaching / writing. Perhaps, we aren’t the top expert in the subject…but there are always people who can benefit from what we know and when you’re a patient teacher, you build a loyal audience.
Here’s a really quick excerpt from our interview with Connie Ragen Green that talks about the very simple, but powerful idea of teaching. Connie is a former school teacher turned online marketer, who know brings her teaching skills to the digital world.
Quick Thoughts about Teaching from Connie:
All of us have it in us to teach something to someone. We’ve all taught someone else how to do something. So when I spend time with my online mastermind members, really we’re working together and it’s just like being back in the classroom where you patiently explain something and let people ask questions even if it’s over and over again.
The kids in class used to say, “Don’t bug Mrs. Green. She already told you that. Don’t ask her again.”
I’d say, “You can ask me a million times. If I get tired of teaching it. That means I’m not the right teacher and I shouldn’t be here with all of you.”
When someone gets it, let them explain it to someone else. That is very empowering for others and you’ve helped the third person to learn in a much easier way.
Take Aways:
Information products are essentially made by learning how to do something, doing it, then teach other people to do it too by creating the information products. You don’t need a teaching degree like Connie to make it happen. This is the basic information marketing model and we all can do it.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
As a writer, there’s nothing better than having a ready fan base, just waiting to read our next book, blog post or other content. If you’ve got fans, you’ve got customers, people who will spread the word about you and a group that will help you decide what to write next.
Jon Bard has some great advice on building a writing fan base and you can see an excerpt from Elite Writer’s Lab interview below. Jon has been helping people market their children’s books for over 26 years and has some great strategies that work, no matter what you’re writing.
John’s Advice for Building a Fan Base
The first thing is what they shouldn’t be doing. We’ve all seen this. It’s become an epidemic. You get onto Facebook, in a Facebook Group or Twitter and they’re just post after post of people slapping their book cover up there, their Amazon Link saying “Buy Now” as if that’s going to work. Right? (Laughs) As if anyone has ever bought a book that way. Yet, people do it because it feels like marketing. They don’t know how to do anything else. So, that’s the first thing. Stop doing that.
You can’t sell something to somebody that doesn’t know you. I don’t care how brilliant you are as a marketer is they don’t know who you are you can’t show up and say buy this and expect them to buy this. They need to know you, know the product, and know you as the author.
In many respects, you are the product.
So, the first thing is about building a relationship. I call it building a Tribe, I’m not the first person to say this — Seth Godin and others — You need to build a tribe. You need to build people who have your back — people who get a sense of who you are, what your work is about, and what you’re about and build a real relationship with them.
You guys (to Alice and Ron) I’m sure do a lot of regular marketing type stuff so you understand the idea of building an email list, and of building a relationship with those people once they get on your list and letting them see you as experts and as kindred spirits and authors need to be thinking exactly the same way.
You can’t just show up and throw a book at somebody. You have to
say hey guys, here is who I am, here’s what interest me. I know this interests you, so let’s get together about this.
It’s not so much about me the author; it’s about my common interests with my potential readers.
So, an example I use is let’s say I write books about Vintage Baseball in the 19th century and that’s where my book is set. I’m going to go out just go into baseball groups and start posting pictures of my group and say i write these books here’s where you can buy them. I’m going to instead, participate in those groups, find others who are fascinated by baseball in the 19th century, get together with them talk to them, be one of them, become part of the gang, then start adding value.
Say hey, I’ve written a sample chapter, or a short story I wrote about baseball in 1895…what do you guys think? Do you like it? Now you’re becoming one of them.
Then you start taking a leadership position by offering more value. Offering more things say “hey I created a video” or “check out my google hangout where I’m talking to this baseball historian why don’t you guys come and watch?”
Suddenly you have people who begin to look to you as a leader in this area. You’re building your tribe and I can tell you this — when you release a book there are two ways of doing it.
One you release a book into a world who has no idea who you are.
Two you release a book into a tribe into hundreds of people who already know you and actually are following as you are writing the book. You can even give those updates “hey guys I just finished the 3rd chapter it’s awesome, you guys are going to love it.”
Which is more likely to be successful? Which launch will sell more books?
It’s pretty obvious.
If you think about what I just described, that’s not “hawking your wares” that wasn’t even really selling a book. It was communicating, it was advocating, it was building a relationship with people who will not just have your back for this book, but will have your back for every book you put out in the future because they’ll be there as you continue growing this tribe.
So I think that’s really the key. Think in terms of finding people that you have some common interest with and that your book will share a common interest with and begin cultivating them as a tribe and begin building a fan base.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
If you’ve ever hesitated in promoting yourself or your book, you DEFINITELY need to listen to this interview excerpt with Jon Bard. Jon has been helping people market their children’s books for over 26 years and has some very sound advice that will turn ANYONE into a marketer.
Jon actually has two words he uses to reframe the idea of marketing to make it easy for anyone to do. The first one is in the excerpt below. You can find the second one and the full interview in the Elite Writer’s Lab (info below).
John’s Advice to Turn Yourself into a Fearless Marketer:
The first thing you have to do is forget about what you think marketing is. If you talk to a lot of writers, they use a phrase — “I’m not going to go out and hawk my wares.” If I had a dime for every time I heard that. When they say that you know immediately exactly what they think of marketing. It’s evil, it’s bad, it’s selling out. It’s giving up a piece of your soul. It’s bamboozling people. It’s all kind of stuff.
But of course in the world we live in everything is marketing. If you’re going to sell your book to a publisher you’re going to market to them. If you want to sell it to a reader you have to market it. If you want to meet someone and have them like you, you have to market to them. SELL YOUR BOOK. MEET SOMEONE and have them like you. The world is marketing. It’s not hawking your wares, it’s communication. So, there are two words that I work with writers to re-frame it.
Word #1 – Communication
Communication is one person talking to another person. One person is trying to add value to another person’s life. As writers we are communicators. It’s right in our wheelhouse we should be able to get our minds around that pretty readily.
Part of it is, understanding this notion of value. When you write something, no matter what it is, it could be serious, difficult subject or a funny joke book — it doesn’t matter — when you do your job right you are adding value to people’s lives. You should be proud of that. You should be out there talking about that.
You should be out there communicating to others about that. Most people have no problem — if I met you at a party and you had written a book and I asked you to tell me about your book — most people have no problem doing that.
That’s natural. They’re happy to do that. Somehow though, when the idea that more than one person is on the receiving end of this comes up people freeze. People forget that it’s communication and start thinking in terms of it being marketing or promotion.
There really is no difference. Just the medium you do it through.
That’s the first thing, get rid of this notion of marketing being selling out, or hawking your wares, or trying to fool somebody. Sure there is marketing that does that, but that’s not really relevant to what we’re talking about. Replace marketing with the word communication. I want to go out and talk to other people and tell them how the work I’ve done can make their lives better.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
Nicole Dean is dubbed as a “Passive Income Machine”. It’s what she loves (almost as much as she loves her family, traveling around the world, and Dr. Who). Since 2004, she’s been building her business online and creating and growing income streams, training and inspiring her readers, her customers, and her affiliates to make money.
Watch the video below and keep reading to know what things you can start outsourcing to start multiplying your time…
From Nicole:
Nicole says she always outsources, based on the needs of the business. For her personally, with one business, she works with a big team because there are so many moving parts to the business. With two other business, she works with just a few people. But what she wants you to get out of this, is you don’t have to go out and build a team right away. Instead, you can start small and grow your team as your business needs it.
She recommends starting with the invisible roadblocks. If you’re not consistently making money, figure out what’s stopping you and outsource that first.
If you’re struggling for 6 months to make money, you’re not doing yourself any favors and, depending on the topic or what you’re working, the window of opportunity to make money from it may disappear if it’s in a hot spot right now.
If it’s site installs, shopping carts, setting up your funnels or things like that, it’s easy to find people to help remove those obstacles for you.
If you don’t know what is standing in your way or if you don’t know if you have a profitable business, the first step would be to hire a coach or join a coaching group that can help you get there (hint: you may want to join our Elite Writer’s Lab).
If you’re already a profitable business and you want to grow that, then it will be the things keeping you from making more money. This could be things like customer support that tend to be time consuming for business owners (as Nicole and Alice talk about in the video), but a professional virtual assistant can come in, get it done quickly and the bill will be much smaller than you expected. Yet, when you do it yourself, it’s a large drain on your time and mental energy, that it keeps you focused from GROWING your business.
Thoughts from Alice and Ron:
We couldn’t agree with Nicole more on her strategy for beginning to outsource. The more you can take of your plate that keeps you from moving forward, the faster you’re going to get to success.
There are few things to consider if you continue to do all the work yourself:
You’ll simply have too much to do. Doing everything means you have to focus on the day to day things that keep the business running, but usually means you have less time for strategizing and actually growing the business.
You’ll start to procrastinate. When you’ve got too much on your plate that you just really don’t want to do (or don’t know how to do), you tend to procrastinate and it becomes more difficult to get things done at all.
Hiring a virtual assistant with a wide skill set (there are LOTS out there) will allow you to get the help you need with those various roadblocks Nicole mentioned, so you can get to profits…and for us, even more importantly…the time freedom you deserve from having your own business.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
Nicole Dean is dubbed as a “Passive Income Machine”. It’s what she loves (almost as much as she loves her family, traveling around the world, and Dr. Who). Since 2004, she’s been building her business online and creating and growing income streams, training and inspiring her readers, her customers, and her affiliates to make money.
Recently, Alice and Nicole got together for a chat about creating more massive income and this is what she has to say about multiplying your time. In other words, how to get more out of your time WITHOUT working harder.
From Nicole:
When asked how she gets the time to get everything done, she says “I find the time by multiplying the time.”
You can multiply your time and have people that are out there working for you. These can be people who you hire and need the extra income and are faster and better at the tasks you don’t want to do yourself.
It can also be affiliates who work for you that don’t actually get paid unless they make a sale. Nicole spends time motivating them because it’s an easy way to multiply her efforts. That way they’re out their creating videos, buying Facebook ads, conducting podcasts and promoting her product for her.
In short, leverage the time of others, so that you can have a bigger impact on your business.
Thoughts from Alice and Ron:
We completely agree with Nicole’s focus on outsourcing and the use of an affiliate team.
About Outsourcing:You only have so many hours in a day and if you’re focused on all the little tasks that need to get done, it’s hard to do the strategizing and planning your business needs to really grow. The more you can take off your plate (start small, so you get the hang of outsourcing effectively), the more you can focus on business growth. Other benefits include less stress and more time to do things you love….that’s a win for sure.
About Affiliates:Affiliates are very important to our businesses as well. It’s an easy way to leverage the content and promotions we’re ALREADY creating. All we do is allow our affiliates to share our awesome content we’ve made and they earn a commission when they make a sale.
Of course, developing a loyal affiliate force does take effort, time and you need to be creating content and offers that turn into revenue for them. But it’s all definitely worth it because it makes it so you can multiply the time you spend…because you’ve got multiple people promoting you.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
Here’s another great perspective from a private label rights content provider. After spending almost 20 years as an instructional design consultant for Fortune 500 companies, Sharyn Sheldon now uses her business and training experience to create the high-value, premium content that her customers need to shine a spotlight on their expertise and fire up their business growth.
And one of the things she focuses on is selling her content at a higher price point, which meant she ditched the low cost front end products and upsell cycle. It’s just another way of approaching selling private label content and shows there are many ways to position your business.
Here are Sharyn’s thoughts on the subject…
Sharyn says about high vs. low price points…
I started testing the waters with smaller packages and lower prices. I had upsells and people always bought the upsell offers so I knew people wanted it. That got people in and I just gradually raised my prices and tested the market to see at what price point they would be willing to pay. There are a few other people, but not many, who are charging similar rates for their content.
Sometimes buyers go to sites that sell products for say, $7. They see a bunch of information on the sales page, they get upsell after upsell and before long they get overwhelmed. They go ahead and buy but they may not use it because at that point, they’re overwhelmed. They look at it as, well, it was only $7 so I’ll get to it when I get to it.
These same people may come to my site, and occasionally they get overwhelmed there too but the difference is, if they buy it for $97 or $197 they are more likely to use it. When they use it, they see results and they’ll buy from me again.
When I get feedback that there is so much in my offer that it’s overwhelming, that means I need to make more training material and make it easier for them to use it.
I do have smaller packages that cater to a variety of groups but what I see is that the bigger packages still generally sell better. But there are the smaller ones available if that’s all someone wants.
Sharyn says about upsells…
I stopped doing upsells where you had to buy more at a higher price to make it complete because the feedback I got from my people was that they didn’t appreciate that. Instead, I use exit redirects which are sort of like downsells and I have custom thank you pages that have related recommendations and a coupon. But once they buy something at $97 or more, they’re not really ready to go spend more this early. So, I give recommendations and give them a coupon and I keep reminding them that the coupon is there when they are ready to expand on what they just purchased.
Big Picture Thoughts from Alice:
This is what worked for Sharyn and it shows there is room for all types of PLR products, catering to a wide variety of customers.
One advantage of Sharyn’s approach is that she targets a customer who is very willing to pay well for good quality content and isn’t simply hunting for a bargain. And to be honest, bargain hunting customers are the most demanding and hardest to please. Plus, when you focus on higher priced items, you need fewer customers to make as much or more profit. That has the added benefit of having a lower maintenance customer base.
However, it does go against the grain of what is typical in the market. When you charge more on the front end, it makes it difficult to get some high powered affiliates on board to promote you. Their customers are used to the bargain offers and they won’t be able to sell a higher priced offer easily, so most won’t. BUT looking back at the advantage I just stated of Sharyn’s approach, it may not matter in the long run. As more private label rights content sellers are going to a premium model, there are more eligible affiliates you can partner with.
Moral of the Story:There is space for low cost and premium priced products in the PLR market. What you choose will dictate who you market to, who will market for you and how you will market.
What to Do Next: Get Training and Support Directly from Alice for Your PLR Business
As you may or may not know, we have a training and support program where Alice walks you through the ins and outs of getting started with a PLR business and she even reviews and promotes your first product for you, giving you that kick start you need to get your business growing.
As you can imagine, the extra promotion and support Alice offers does take up a lot of time and resources, so that part of the program won’t be available at that price for much longer.
Plus, if you join now, you’ll receive instant access to the bonus training session called: How to Boost Your Earnings Per PLR Sale, that shows you how to ensure typically low cost PLR products bring an even better income for each sale you make.
In the last year, Tracy and Susanne ventured into the private label rights, or PLR, business after taking our Content Cash Flow Course. They have done some pretty amazing things with it and created a 6-figure business with what they learned.
In this interview excerpt, they talk about the value of the CUSTOMER list. And we agree 100%.
Customer Lists. At the end of the day, our most valuable business asset is our customer list. No matter what happens, these are people we have a relationship with. We know what they need, what they want, and no matter what happens, we have something to fall back on to build.
If at some point somebody decides PLR is no longer the way to go, or all of a sudden, it’s all video content — which I’m sure is somewhere we’re moving towards and we don’t need any written words anymore — we have an asset. We have something that we can work from and continue to evolve and grow this business from.
Big Picture Thoughts from Alice:
When running a PLR business, I put very little focus on building a list of opt-ins. We sell low cost products, so my focus is on getting EASY customers.
Of course, I do make free offers, but they are usually offers for free PLR packs. And once they opt-in for the free pack, they are offered a paid upsell to a bigger pack. That way, a large number of the new subscribers are turned into customers RIGHT away.
Moral of the Story: CUSTOMER lists rock.
What to Do Next: Get Training and Support Directly from Alice for Your PLR Business
As you may or may not know, we have a training and support program where Alice walks you through the ins and outs of getting started with a PLR business and she even reviews and promotes your first product for you, giving you that kick start you need to get your business growing.
As you can imagine, the extra promotion and support Alice offers does take up a lot of time and resources, so that part of the program won’t be available at that price for much longer.
Plus, if you join now, you’ll receive instant access to the bonus training session called: How to Boost Your Earnings Per PLR Sale, that shows you how to ensure typically low cost PLR products bring an even better income for each sale you make.
In the last year, Tracy and Susanne ventured into the private label rights, or PLR, business after taking our Content Cash Flow Course. They have done some pretty amazing things with it and created a 6-figure business with what they learned. In this interview excerpt, they talked about small vs. large PLR product launches.
This is useful information for you if you’re thinking about starting a PLR business, but you’re holding back because you think you need a massive package with all kinds of upsells and downsells to get started. This might change your thinking…
From Tracy and Susanne:
Pretty much from the beginning, we launched one of those small packs. In the beginning, it was every two weeks, but then we quickly graduated to every week instead of spending a month or two on creating a big pack and then you don’t know what sells and what doesn’t. All those little packs quickly add up.
They help you very quickly determine what your market wants and which niches and topics work well for you and which don’t. It also gives you a chance to try some off-the-wall ideas. I had a thought one day: “Why don’t we do a pack on bone broth?” Tracy was like, “You’re crazy. Who would buy that? What is that in the first place?”
We tried it and it ended up being one of our best-selling packs during that quarter. You would never take those chances with a big, huge pack that you have to invest a lot of time or a lot of money hiring the writers.
Some people love the big product launch models. We tried it as well and it was just stressing us out. We didn’t like it, so we’re not going to do that. Now that I’ve said that out loud, we’re probably going to do big product launches in the next month.
Big Picture Thoughts from Alice:
Now certainly we have preference coming into play here, but it just goes to show you that you do not need to massive launches to get in the game. Ultimately, if you can work up to doing large launches and get a lot of affiliates on board with you, you WILL make more money…but it clearly isn’t necessary.
And the best part is, if you get your PLR business up and running quickly and start selling small products, soon enough you’ll have a large library of content that could be bundled up into a larger launch. You’ll also have made some money that you can invest into that launch with advertising, affiliate prizes and anything else you need to make it a success.
Moral of the Story: It’s easy to start making money from your content and quickly.
What to Do Next: Get Training and Support Directly from Alice for Your PLR Business
As you may or may not know, we have a training and support program where Alice walks you through the ins and outs of getting started with a PLR business and she even reviews and promotes your first product for you, giving you that kick start you need to get your business growing.
As you can imagine, the extra promotion and support Alice offers does take up a lot of time and resources, so that part of the program won’t be available at that price for much longer.
Plus, if you join now, you’ll receive instant access to the bonus training session called: How to Boost Your Earnings Per PLR Sale, that shows you how to ensure typically low cost PLR products bring an even better income for each sale you make.
Here at Elite Writer’s Lab, we often stress just how important building relationships and networking is to make it as a writer and online business owner. We recently interviewed Kelly McCausey of Love People, Make Money as she is an amazing example of how focusing on creating partnerships, connecting others and building a community comes back to you tenfold.
In this interview excerpt, Kelly shares how her relationship with Alice helped shape her business and helped her grow.
From Kelly…
“I can’t even imagine what my life might look like today if I hadn’t met you back in 2002. If you hadn’t encouraged me to start my internet radio show, if you hadn’t invited me to partner with you on launching my masterminds, I just don’t know if I would have had the guts to do so many of the things that I did then and that I do now. So you know what if that relationship hadn’t existed?”
Key Take Aways:
* Working in Isolation Stunts your Progress: When you are open and actively try to meet other fellow online businesses, new opportunities and learning experiences come to you. Working online can feel lonely and relationships take time to build, but it’s so worth it.
* With Friendship, Comes Accountability: As Kelly described her friendship with Alice, you can see that Alice encouraged her to do something new with her business and through their relationship, Kelly found the courage to see that goal all the way through.
By the way, one great way to meet fellow writers and business owners, is to join us at Elite Writer’s Lab where you’ll have access to our members only support and discussion group. Details are below.
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
Here at Elite Writer’s Lab, we often stress just how important building relationships and networking is to make it as a writer and online business owner. We recently interviewed Kelly McCausey of Love People, Make Money as she is an amazing example of how focusing on creating partnerships, connecting others and building a community comes back to you tenfold.
In this interview excerpt, Kelly shares using strategy of Content Curation to get the attention of people in authority that she can develop relationships with. It’s a perfect strategy for writers!
Watch below or keep reading for more details…
From Kelly…
“My favorite way to get started is to curate them. We admire them because they are creating great content, at least that’s why I usually admire someone, and they are a great blogger, great podcaster.
They’re creating great stuff on social media. I’ll curate them, so I will write a little post on my blog quoting them and linking to the rest of the content on their site and tell my audience why I think they are going to be interested in reading that. In linking to them, I’m showing them some support. I also of course comment on their content and let them know that I liked it so much that I shared it with my audience and then share it all over on social media and I loaded it up on MeetEdgar.com.
I’m using MeetEdgar as a way of continuing to give attention to things on social media so that it repeats every month. On MeetEdgar.com you can create a library of social posts, and then Edgar will cycle through and continue to post it according to your preferred schedule. If there is someone that I have curated a couple of times, every month or so that re-posts somewhere, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever. I continue to give it social love.
That’s my favorite first step because it’s one thing to see something on Facebook and click like or even to share it on Facebook. They may or may not ever notice that, but when you link to them from your site, some of them will get it if they have pingbacks turned on or trackbacks turned on, they will know you did it, but it depends on how busy their blogs is, but if you actually send them traffic, and promote it will and send some people over, they are way more likely to notice it.
This is what I’ve experienced a few times now, I’ve curated somebody once or twice and have given it good promotion and commented that I liked what you had to say so much that I shared this point with my audience and sent them over to read it.
Those people come back and comment on my curation and say hey thanks for sharing, when I see them do that then, boom, okay they’ve seen my face, and they’ve seen my brand. Boom, I’m back. Hopefully, I’ve friended them on Facebook and I will send them some type of message, hey thanks for the comment, I love everything you do, I hope we find some way to work together sometime.
It has totally worked to start relationships, I’ll take it even further and submit their content to BizSugar, which is a social bookmarking site specifically focused on business.”
You’ll also have access to a huge library of other expert interviews, courses and resources for turning your writing skills into a living. You’ll love our Quick Start Success Kit that will you publish and market your first book or information product quickly!
