This post was prompted because I was watching a video earlier where a guy was trying to sell his ebook + video series. He must have used something horrible to create the audio. When I decided to create my own audio course for parents, I talked to a trusted friend. He recommended the Snowball microphone. I did my online research and what I learned in these reviews was consistent with what my friend advised. I bought the Blue Snowball USB mic and have been *really* happy with it. For under $100 you will have audio that sounds truly professional. If you are going to do business online, you NEED audio (and hopefully video). If you want to come across as professional, the sound needs to be good quality. Get this mic. |
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Get a Great Microphone for Audio Porjects
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Outsourcing: Great Start!
So my assistant in India is now emailing all of the website owners that he found for me. In my last post I described how I'm outsourcing affiliate recruitment. I wrote a form letter to send to website owners and I gave my new virtual admin the gmail account login info to use. So it looks like I'm sending emails even though it's not me. I wrote the message and I don't feel back about outsourcing the mechanical part of finding sites and sending the message.
I'm logged into my account and I can see the emails that my admin is sending (because he copies me on every email). It's exciting. I'm paying peanuts for this (I think I'll pay him extra), and it's like having magic happen. Every minute I refresh my email list and I see he's sent out more messages. This guy is a machine.
Of course now I have to get back to *real* work. Watching him do his job is not very productive. But it is exciting to see results in the beginning.
I'm logged into my account and I can see the emails that my admin is sending (because he copies me on every email). It's exciting. I'm paying peanuts for this (I think I'll pay him extra), and it's like having magic happen. Every minute I refresh my email list and I see he's sent out more messages. This guy is a machine.
Of course now I have to get back to *real* work. Watching him do his job is not very productive. But it is exciting to see results in the beginning.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Outsource Whatever You Can - Use Elance!
When you are building an online business it is important to stay focused on what you are great at. Time is precious, and other people are certainly capable of doing many of the tasks that you'd otherwise do yourself. Time is finite. Outsourcing matters.
I tried Elance once, with little success simply because I did a bad job of defining the requirements, and I did a bad job of making sure the candidate's feedback (and prior jobs) matched up with what I was looking for.
Today I'm back in the game. My product is related to the parenting market and there are thousands of websites on the planet that might want to promote it. The hard part is finding them and telling them about your product / affiliate program.
Enter Elance.
I posted a job describing my simple requirements. Search the Web for parenting-related sites where the owner looks more like an individual, not a large corporation. Mommy blogs, small web stores, consultants, etc. If the site has an opt-in form then I know they have a list they can email about my product. If they advertise other ClickBank products, then they'll be familiar with how mine is sold and how the affiliate program works.
I got 6 proposals in the first day. Hourly rates ranged from $3 to $8. I picked a guy named John, located in India. He had great feedback and seemed to understand what I was after. He had even done similar jobs (I read the prior postings) and he had delivered good results.
I funded him for 2 hours of "test work". His assignment was to find me relevant websites and put the URL + contact name/email in a spreadsheet. One day later he gave me a spreadsheet with 40 URLs, about 35 of which looked pretty good to me.
So I've now funded him for another 8 hours with instructions to email a template letter to all of the website owners, inviting them to be my affiliate. He should copy me on all emails. The mechanical part of sending emails is easy. My worry was that he wouldn't be able to identify the type of sites I was after. But he did well, so I am looking forward to his next 8 hours of work.
If this goes well then I've just solved my biggest problem - which is to recruit a few hundred people to promote my product.
If you are reading this and are an online entrepreneur (or offline, for that matter), you should go sign up for Elance. It is free, using it is free, and the benefits it will have on your life are enormous. Just go do it now.
I tried Elance once, with little success simply because I did a bad job of defining the requirements, and I did a bad job of making sure the candidate's feedback (and prior jobs) matched up with what I was looking for.
Today I'm back in the game. My product is related to the parenting market and there are thousands of websites on the planet that might want to promote it. The hard part is finding them and telling them about your product / affiliate program.
Enter Elance.
I posted a job describing my simple requirements. Search the Web for parenting-related sites where the owner looks more like an individual, not a large corporation. Mommy blogs, small web stores, consultants, etc. If the site has an opt-in form then I know they have a list they can email about my product. If they advertise other ClickBank products, then they'll be familiar with how mine is sold and how the affiliate program works.
I got 6 proposals in the first day. Hourly rates ranged from $3 to $8. I picked a guy named John, located in India. He had great feedback and seemed to understand what I was after. He had even done similar jobs (I read the prior postings) and he had delivered good results.
I funded him for 2 hours of "test work". His assignment was to find me relevant websites and put the URL + contact name/email in a spreadsheet. One day later he gave me a spreadsheet with 40 URLs, about 35 of which looked pretty good to me.
So I've now funded him for another 8 hours with instructions to email a template letter to all of the website owners, inviting them to be my affiliate. He should copy me on all emails. The mechanical part of sending emails is easy. My worry was that he wouldn't be able to identify the type of sites I was after. But he did well, so I am looking forward to his next 8 hours of work.
If this goes well then I've just solved my biggest problem - which is to recruit a few hundred people to promote my product.
If you are reading this and are an online entrepreneur (or offline, for that matter), you should go sign up for Elance. It is free, using it is free, and the benefits it will have on your life are enormous. Just go do it now.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The importance of tracking customer questions
This past week I've had a flurry of orders from customers, and these orders were driven by affiliates who emailed their lists about my product. Huge order volume. It's very exciting. But I have had a bunch of emails from customers.
The most popular questions I am getting are:
There are so many types of questions that I'm being asked. In the first few months my strategy is to deal with all of these questions personally. Afterwards, I'll write a detailed FAQ that will be sent to all customers as a link, contained within their "thank you" email. I'll show them how to make CDs by using iTunes, I'll tell them what to do if their download expires before they get around to using it, I'll tell them how to find the download on their computer, etc.
But the most important lesson here is to SAVE these emails from customers. They are important questions that I need to access later when building up a more detailed FAQ.
The most popular questions I am getting are:
- "My download link expired and I haven't downloaded it yet. I need your help"
- "I downloaded it but I can't find it on my computer - please help"
- "I want to buy your program but I don't have a credit card, what can I do?"
- "I need these shipped to me but never entered my shipping address on the order form. Can you ship them to me?"
There are so many types of questions that I'm being asked. In the first few months my strategy is to deal with all of these questions personally. Afterwards, I'll write a detailed FAQ that will be sent to all customers as a link, contained within their "thank you" email. I'll show them how to make CDs by using iTunes, I'll tell them what to do if their download expires before they get around to using it, I'll tell them how to find the download on their computer, etc.
But the most important lesson here is to SAVE these emails from customers. They are important questions that I need to access later when building up a more detailed FAQ.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Use Wordpress for your site
I wanted to write a quick post to say what a lot of other people are already saying. I am using WordPress for my websites because it is easy to use, there are millions of people ready to do whatever I hire them to do (who understand WordPress) and there are a ton of useful plugins.
WordPress makes creating a website a cinch.
My use of WordPress involves:
WordPress makes creating a website a cinch.
My use of WordPress involves:
- In all instances I set it up to have a "static" home page, and this is the sales letter
- I hire a graphics guy to do a great job making a header image and product images
- I use plugins for SEO, Google Analytics
- I use DLGuard to sell digital products.
- I use several page templates for squeeze pages, sales pages, blogs, etc. I learned how to make my own template just by editing text files for existing templates
How to automate delivery of digital products to your customer
Hi Folks,
Ever since I started doing business online I have noticed that many of the typical problems that I've overcome, or questions I've asked (and learned the answers to), are repeated over and over in online forums.
One of the most common questions is "how do I sell digital products to my customers".
There are many ways around this, and may of them are third party solutions where you host your file somewhere else (not your website).
I prefer having control over my process. I use a product called DLGuard by Sam Stephens out of Australia. This guy has competitors, but his support is world class (I've emailed him for several minor things over the last year and he solved every problem and anwered every question perfectly. He rocks. No wonder everyone loves this guy in the Internet Marketing world).
Here is how DLGuard works:
1) You install it on your web host. The installer is dead-easy to use on any Windows PC (if yo uuse Mac, just use a PC for the install and go back to your Mac).
2) You do a brief setup that takes all but a few minutes
3) You login to DLGuard and start adding products. It supports ClickBank, PayPal, and all the major online vendors. So no matter how you sell your stuff, DLGuard works for you.
4) On your sales page, you paste the code that DLGuard gives you (product-specific) and this creates the "buy now" button, and takes the customer throught the entire sale process and download.
Some features that I absolutely LOVE.
What does it cost? $127. Seriously, this is ultra-cheap for the value you get and the world-class support that Sam provides. Your risk is zero because it has a 60-day money back guarantee if it doesn't do what you expect (but it does!). Honestly, if you are serious about running an online business then you are nuts if you don't get a tool like this. After reading "The Four Hour Work Week", I knew I had to use something like this.
This was the best money I spent so far on my online business.
Now go checkout DLGuard's website, see the screenshots, read more about it and decide if it looks right for you. Just do it! Life won't wait for you.
Ever since I started doing business online I have noticed that many of the typical problems that I've overcome, or questions I've asked (and learned the answers to), are repeated over and over in online forums.
One of the most common questions is "how do I sell digital products to my customers".
There are many ways around this, and may of them are third party solutions where you host your file somewhere else (not your website).
I prefer having control over my process. I use a product called DLGuard by Sam Stephens out of Australia. This guy has competitors, but his support is world class (I've emailed him for several minor things over the last year and he solved every problem and anwered every question perfectly. He rocks. No wonder everyone loves this guy in the Internet Marketing world).
Here is how DLGuard works:
1) You install it on your web host. The installer is dead-easy to use on any Windows PC (if yo uuse Mac, just use a PC for the install and go back to your Mac).
2) You do a brief setup that takes all but a few minutes
3) You login to DLGuard and start adding products. It supports ClickBank, PayPal, and all the major online vendors. So no matter how you sell your stuff, DLGuard works for you.
4) On your sales page, you paste the code that DLGuard gives you (product-specific) and this creates the "buy now" button, and takes the customer throught the entire sale process and download.
Some features that I absolutely LOVE.
- I can add "bonus" products. Say I have product A and product B. I want to be able to sell both of them, but if product A is purchased, I want the customer to have free access to product B ... no problem. I tell DLGuard that product B is a free bonus when product A is sold. This means that customers can still buy B separately. Beautiful!
- I can add "free" products. I might want to give away a PDF document as a lead generator. DLGuard supports this.
- I can add coupon codes so I can offer sale prices to my customers
- You can sell digital products from other websites that you run and manage all of the downloads through DLGuard on your "primary" website. This is an awesome feature.
What does it cost? $127. Seriously, this is ultra-cheap for the value you get and the world-class support that Sam provides. Your risk is zero because it has a 60-day money back guarantee if it doesn't do what you expect (but it does!). Honestly, if you are serious about running an online business then you are nuts if you don't get a tool like this. After reading "The Four Hour Work Week", I knew I had to use something like this.
This was the best money I spent so far on my online business.
Now go checkout DLGuard's website, see the screenshots, read more about it and decide if it looks right for you. Just do it! Life won't wait for you.
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