How To Write Your Book: Eat An Elephant (Pt 1)

“They” always say that to eat an elephant, take one bite at a time.

Whoever eats elephants anyway?

The principle holds true, though. If you have a big hairy task in front of you that seems onerous and huge, start somewhere and start small.

So it is with writing a book.

Here’s a method for getting it done in a relatively painless manner.

Decide on your overall theme or overriding topic
Break that up into a series of smaller themes or sub-topics
Pick one sub-topic you know enough about or research one to gather information
Write 10 – 20 pages on that sub-topic. That’s 3000-6000 words, give or take. Oh, and try to write it in ONE sitting. Clear your desk, your mind and your computer screen. Dedicate 2-4 hours to complete the task uninterrupted. Kick procrastination and distractions away. “Just Do It!”.
Congratulations. Now, if you want to profit from that effort, you need to spend up to an hour putting together a sales page to promote that chapter.
Decide on a price for the ‘report’, say between $7 and $10
Let people know that only the first 10 buyers will get a copy at this price.
Promote your product and send people to your sales page, let them buy the report and make sure you get their name and email. Also make sure the buyer goes onto a customer list in your autoresponder system.
When the first ten people have bought, close the offer and don’t accept more sales.

At this point, you have one chapter of your book written; you have ten people added to your customer list and you hopefully have some pent up demand from those who missed out.

That’s not the end of it at all. Head back for the next instalment where the clever plan becomes evident!

Online Business: Spin The Plates

Something you have to work out when you start in internet marketing is how you sort out the minefields of information and decide which ballpark you want to play in.

If you scan through my categories list you’ll get an appreciation for the many different ways you can create a presence online and earn an income through one or a combination of methods.

If you are building a business, it pays to understand what each one of these areas is and does. But don’t get caught up trying them all – you’ll be doomed to failure.

The trick is to choose one that may suit your capabilities and develop it to the point where you are employing the techniques to best effect and have started to generate an income. Then build it so it continues to generate with little extra effort before moving on to the next method.

Remember the circus and the guy who’d spin all those plates? He’d get one spinning before starting the next, then get that going before starting the next. Then he’d run back to keep the first ne spinning. And so it went on. That’s how to build your business. get one spinning and earning before starting to spin another. Then as you build that one, go back to the first one from time to time to keep it spinning.

Where to get content for your blog

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/13-ideas-to-inspire-your-blog-content/

Creating Content Google Loves

http://www.copyblogger.com/how-to-create-cornerstone-content-that-google-loves/

How Much Should I Pay For IM Products?

I’m often asked by people who are new to internet marketing or marketing online about how they can get information to learn about the field. It’s a big space and there sure is a lot to learn. Unfortunately most people think of IM as the business rather than IM being a vehicle for building the business. It’s a bit like saying, how much should I spend on a car to drive around and sell my widgets to potential buyers? They focus on the car rather than the widgets.

I digress.

I’m surprised by how many people want to ‘get into internet marketing’ and simultaneously don’t want to spend any money. Now it’s perfectly possible to spend absolutely no money and make money online. Difficult but not impossible. For instance you don’t need an internet connection – you could use the pc at your local library. You don’t need a hosting account, a domain name or a website – you can use free solutions like wordpress, blogger or squidoo.. You don’t need to buy products, you can sell other people’s or make your own. You don’t need a merchant account – you can use PayPal. So it IS possible to run an internet business for free. Continue reading →

How To Quit Your Day Job

I was on a webinar with Robert Plank recently and he had some great advice using his own experience for how to transition from paid employment to doing business online. Here’s my take of what he had to say…

9 Ways To Get Ready For Quitting

make sure you pay down your bills so the debt doesn’t hold you back and automate whatever bill paying you can to save time and energy
learn while you earn … there are probably training courses you can do at work that will help you with your future online business. For example if you’re a policy writer, find out how you can legitimately learn copywriting generally or for the web
look for things you do at work that you could teach others eg a systematic approach to something or do a video tutorial on how to use a certain tool (learn at work , teach at home)
knock over any tasks you have to do eg assignments for uni asap so you can concentrate on your web business without nagging deadlines for other things in your head
NEVER do ANYTHING related to your online business while you are at work – you could get yourself sacked and possibly lose your IP to your employer.
Be efficient and focused to get things done at work so you avoid working back can get home and do your own stuff with the extra time
for that reason, don’t tell people what you’re doing – they don’t need to know and it could be detrimental to you … also don;t include people you work with on your lists – they may not realise you used an auto responder to send that email that arrived at 11am and may think you did it at work
be careful about who you tell in your family and friends – open up only to supportive people
similarly be careful about getting friends or family to work with you – only do it if their skills and interest is there and if your relationship will withstand it!

Do a Bit of Self Analysis

Make sure before you head into internet marketing full time that you are content within yourself, are highly self motivated and honest with yourself about who you are and what you can do. Being online is going to require high levels of productivity, action-orientation and focused positivity. Develop and practice those capabilities while you’re getting paid at work!

By the time you are ready to quit you will have made enough money online to support yourself and be very clear on what you do, why you do it and who you do it for. A standard 60 second elevator pitch that you need in any business.

Your online business needs to be bringing in new leads every day before you quit your job. When you work on it full time you can build it faster and bigger but have a sustainable base to start from.

Set up as a Business

Incorporate. People feel more comfortable dealing with a business that is seen as legitimate. Talk to your accountant about how to set this up. It may cost but it’s sensible. And it has advantages.

Have Support

An accountability partner. A mastermind group. Get involved with people you can trust, build relationships with and who can help you to grow your business. People who understand IM and can give you advice or keep you honest.

Set Goals

Be really clear on what you want to achieve – for the next year, the next quarter. Know what that will give you and how you will now you’ve got there, especially if it’s not a numerate goal.

Have a Back Up Plan

What’s the cushion you’ll have behind you if things don’t go the way you planned? Have you got some savings? Can you freelance to earn some extra money? What’s the plan to make sure slow months or failures don’t happen or have a crippling impact?

How Do You Get Started While Working?

Freelance! Get your hands dirty by performing tasks for others in your spare time eg write articles for people, set up a blog for people, seo sites for people, do their social networking mechanics – do whatever you know. Find things you like and get some juice from.
Produce products from your freelancing – how to guides etc, then set up sales sites for those or put them on clickbank. If it works, do it again and again. Make an upgraded version. Add extra tools to the original product. The quicker you can create products and sell them the faster you grow your business.

According to Plank, and I agree, the only solution to becoming successful in internet marketing is to take action. Do something. But be clever about it. Doing something isn’t continuously reading other people’s stories and being on forums. Sure that helps. But what really helps is putting your oar in the water and actually getting product up, getting sales pages up, getting autoresponder sequences up, getting people on your list, getting paid.

So start

Then when you have some momentum and you are actually generating income and continual leads, then think about whether it’s time to quit your day job to build better and faster and bigger.

OK. Now the biggie…..

What’s the next actionable step you will take to move forward?

Internet Marketing is a Scam!

Yep. Heard it before.

In fact, my family still say it to me. Especially when I disappear for days on end setting up new sites.

“What are you doing?”

“Surely it can’t take that long!”

“Why are you bothering anyway?”

“Just get a real job!” … Yeah, right! Continue reading →

Tips to Promote Your Website

Congratulations! You’ve completed your very own website. All your products and services are now presented to the online world. You have developed propositions and sales copy to catch your target audience’s attention. So, you have accomplished everything you should do in building up a great company web site.

Or have you?

Promotion is the key to online success. There are free and paid methods that you can utilize to promote your site.

Here are ten guidelines on how to effectively promote your site:

If you have started to promote your site, keep it constant. If you promote your site with persistence, it will catch your audience’s attention. Be patient.
Try and experiment with each promotional method until you determine which works best for you. Free promotion is an option. There will be a process of trial and error until you find what works best.
Make the most of free promotion sites. Search engines and directories can do wonders for you.
Submit articles to http://www.ezinearticles.com using a basic account.
Become a guest blogger on other blog sites.
Join forums and contribute actively. Build your network.
Make valuable comments on others websites and blogs. Trade back links with the website owners if they are open to doing so.
Find free classified advertisements and use those to promote your site.
Place advertisements via CPC or in social media sites.
Join and build great networks in social media sites.

More ideas

Track all visitors, advertisements, and transactions.
See what works best for you.
Analyze if your site is increasing in page rank.
Perfection is impossible – you need to be prepared to always tweak your promotional campaigns.
Try to locate the error, improvement areas and make adjustments to your website and your promotional strategies.
Add more exciting features to your site.
Offer new things for your website visitors.

Site promotion is a strategy which is best done slow and steady. Avoid feast-and-famine attempts at occasional mass promotion – that will only upset your regular readers and flag issues with the search engines which may penalize you. Schedule promotional activity each week and you will be much better off.

In time, your efforts will bear fruit.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas Edison

What Do I Need to Know To Build An Online Business?

Forget all the hype and flamboyant promises. Here is an online business in a nutshell:

you need to sell something
what you sell needs to be something people want and/or need
for them to buy from you they need to get to know you
for them to get to know you you need a way to contact them
for them to give you their details you need to have them find you

It’s not so different to a traditional business, really. The principles are the same and you have probably heard these lines before:

“Nothing happens until you make a sale” (point 1)

“People buy on emotion and purchase on logic” ie they rationalise their gut reaction (point 2)

“People buy from people they know, like and trust” (point 3-5)

So, fill in the blanks for yourself:

what can you sell?
how do you know people want or need what you have to sell?
have you got an autoresponder?
where can I sign up?
how will they find you?

That’s it, in a nutshell.

Be open. Be honest. Avoid the hype and follow good marketing practice.

Make a decision on one thing and stick to it. Don’t switch and continually chase rabbits down holes – you might find you are leaving the money on the table right under your nose.

The Secret of Success Online

Reading a recent post on Yaro starek’s blog I was intrigued by how his colleague had come to enjoy the success he had. I have a theory.

When I was purely focused on bricks-and-mortar business and earning a living from that, I used to teach people starting up new businesses. They were all starry-eyed and enthusiastic about the prospect of their future. They were excited about their product or service. And as I glanced around the room as I was training them I could tell with a certain degree of certainty who were the ones most likely to succeed and who was going to struggle and probably not survive at all.

One of the indicators for success was

(a) if they had a family member who had a sucessful business and

(b) if they had previous experience running a business.

Same seems to hold in the online business world – if you were successful offline and can adapt to the online then your chances of success are high.

The good news is that those who have a clue about how to run a business, even if they haven’t run one, can also enjoy online success. It just may take a little longer.

The secret is not in the systems and methods and processes (although these are essential). The real secret is in how you operate and what goes on in your head.

Behaviours, attitudes and actions.

Get these syncing and you’re success ratio is very high.

Red Hot Internet Marketing

… online business for the rest of us

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