1. The idea. The Vision. We need a good idea for our readers and prospective clients. You notice, I didn’t say a good idea that I like—instead my idea must be something of value to my reader. It must be something that will motivate them to click on the link to buy and download my e-book.
2. Organize Your Thoughts. We must come up with at least 10 topics to include in our e-book. Or if you just want to write a short e-book of less than 10 pages then come up with a shorter number of titles. Start writing your topic ideas then organize them in the most logical manner. For example, if you are writing about ’10 Easy Tips To Keep Your Car Running Smoothly At All times,” your e-book will include 10 tips (10 topics).
3. Start Writing Freely. Begin writing your e-book based on your outline you created in #2. Since you are the expert in this field it should be easy to write down your ideas. Don’t worry about format, structure or grammar. Just get your thoughts down in writing. Write freely.
4. Finalize Your e-Book. Now it’s time to put some structure in your e-book. Ask yourself, “What is the easiest way to organize this so that my readers will understand it and follow it?” Always write from your reader’s point of view. Make it easy for your reader to find information and understand your concepts and thoughts.
5. Create Final Product. Now you decide how to produce your product to make it easy for your reader to purchase it. The most inexpensive and easiest way is to produce a PDF file. All computers now usually come with the PDF format available to use from Adobe. On my computer I press the ‘PRINT’ button and I can choose PDF from a choice of printing options. It then will produce a PDF file for me that go to my Desktop.
I like PDF files because they look professional. Can someone copy your PDF file? Yes, if they have the Adobe software. However, unless you are creating a “Harry Potter” bestseller book, it is a good way to get started producing e-books. Most of the e-books you order are produced this way. There are other software products that state they make your ebook harder to copy, but they are cumbersome to read because they usually separate every chapter and you can’t print them out easily. They are not available for a Mac computer. I still like to read long articles on the printed page instead of online.
6. Sell your e-Book.
Website. If you have a website set up then you will want to sell the e-book on your website. If you don’t know how to do this, hire a savvy Internet student to help you set it up on your site. You need a way to collect your money. I would start out with a Paypal account because it covers International countries that might want to buy your e-book. Later when you are financially successful you can add a commercial credit card service, but Paypal let’s everyone use their credit cards now so it is easy to get started.
Digital Products Retailer. If you do not have a website then start with a digital product retailer such as Clickbank, Payloadz, and others. You store your e-book on their site and they take a small profit for every e-book that’s sold on their site. Get the word out. What you have to do is send out e-mail messages to your list announcing your e-book and the great benefits your reader will get by buying it. You can also ask your friends if they would send a message to their list of friends and colleagues announcing your e-book.
This is a great rainy day project: Write and sell an e-book in 6 easy steps. Now is the time to start writing and who knows by the time the rain stops you may be finished!
As An Entrepreneur: Give Away Your Expertise!
One of the best ways to generate more income is to stop selling your expertise by the hour. Your expertise -- knowledge, skills, methods -- are your most valuable assets. By taking your expertise and packaging it in various forms, you can sell your expertise 24/7/365.
So if your knowledge, skills and methods are your most valuable assets, why in the world would I suggest that you give it away as a marketing strategy?? Because giving away your expertise lays the foundation for multiple streams of income. Why this works:
Access to lots of free information is already available and potential customers expect to find it. Making your expertise available enables your *ideal* customers to find you -- among all the free information available, they need to hear it the way *you* say it. Having information that tells them what they need to do isn't the problem for most customers -- implementation is where they need help.
Once potential customers have found your free information, make it easy and enticing to sign up for your email list. Now you've laid the foundation to build a trust relationship, and can start offering them the help with implementation they so desperately need -- and will pay for.
Giving it away effectively and profitably
Use multiple channels and formats. For instance, give away information on your blog, in articles posted on other sites, in free giveaway ebooks, in audio teleclasses and excerpts. Get something in return when possible. Encourage blog visitors to sign up for blog updates via email. Put a subscription box to your newsletter on every page of your website (particularly where you post your newsletters, etc.) For bigger "chunks" of information like ebooks and audios, require that they sign up for your newsletter to get these freebies. In ebooks, make a link to your website prominent at the bottom of each page. Make the give-away process hands-free. Use an autoresponder to handle signups and instant download delivery for your giveaways. Once it's set up, it costs you no more to give away a thousand than it does the first ten.
Plus, potential customers get instant gratification. Leverage from one format to others. Write a blog post. Add more details and turn it into an article (to post on your site, use in your newsletter, and submit to other sites). Take a series of articles and turn them into an ebook. Engage someone to interview you about the content of your ebook and record it. Get help where possible and practical. You can hire a ghostwriter to write articles for you. Your VA can take existing articles and put them into an ebook format and set up the autoresponder and download capabilities. Recordings of classes and interviews don't need to be professionally done when given away for free; many bridge services offer recording capability.
So if your knowledge, skills and methods are your most valuable assets, why in the world would I suggest that you give it away as a marketing strategy?? Because giving away your expertise lays the foundation for multiple streams of income. Why this works:
Access to lots of free information is already available and potential customers expect to find it. Making your expertise available enables your *ideal* customers to find you -- among all the free information available, they need to hear it the way *you* say it. Having information that tells them what they need to do isn't the problem for most customers -- implementation is where they need help.
Once potential customers have found your free information, make it easy and enticing to sign up for your email list. Now you've laid the foundation to build a trust relationship, and can start offering them the help with implementation they so desperately need -- and will pay for.
Giving it away effectively and profitably
Use multiple channels and formats. For instance, give away information on your blog, in articles posted on other sites, in free giveaway ebooks, in audio teleclasses and excerpts. Get something in return when possible. Encourage blog visitors to sign up for blog updates via email. Put a subscription box to your newsletter on every page of your website (particularly where you post your newsletters, etc.) For bigger "chunks" of information like ebooks and audios, require that they sign up for your newsletter to get these freebies. In ebooks, make a link to your website prominent at the bottom of each page. Make the give-away process hands-free. Use an autoresponder to handle signups and instant download delivery for your giveaways. Once it's set up, it costs you no more to give away a thousand than it does the first ten.
Plus, potential customers get instant gratification. Leverage from one format to others. Write a blog post. Add more details and turn it into an article (to post on your site, use in your newsletter, and submit to other sites). Take a series of articles and turn them into an ebook. Engage someone to interview you about the content of your ebook and record it. Get help where possible and practical. You can hire a ghostwriter to write articles for you. Your VA can take existing articles and put them into an ebook format and set up the autoresponder and download capabilities. Recordings of classes and interviews don't need to be professionally done when given away for free; many bridge services offer recording capability.
Fear Of Public Speaking: 10 Steps To Know
There's an often-quoted statistic that the fear of public speaking is right up there with the fear of death as the two events people most fear in their lives. However, as a business owner, I can guarantee you that public speaking is a phenomenal way to grow your business, so if it's an activity that scares you, you need to take the bull by the horns and start working past that fear. As somewhat an introvert, public speaking isn't something that comes naturally to me, although I'm told I'm good at it. It's been quite a learning process, and I've had as many failures as successes. My best learning experiences have come through the process of finding the courage to just do it and learn along the way.
If you're a self-employed service professional, you work in a time-based economy. You have only so many hours in the day to work directly with your clients. Speaking to groups gives you the opportunity to reach out and touch and impact others who might otherwise never cross your path and for you to get them into your marketing funnel so that they can begin to get to know, like and respect you. Once they're in your marketing funnel, and if you provide a solution that solves a problem that they have, they'll ultimately hire you.
Here are ten steps I recommend to get you into action to use public speaking to fill your professional practice:
1. Pick 3 topics on which you can present a 20 minute - 60 minute speech. These should be topics on which you love to speak and will readily showcase your expertise to your audience. The topics also need to be ones that speak to your target market's pain and provides a solution for a problem that they're having.
2. For each presentation, write a 2 - 3 sentence description of that provides a brief overview of your content. To add some meat to the description, create a benefits statement for each presentation and what they'll learn or get out of your talk. Remember, your audience will always be asking the same question, "WIIFM", or "What's In It For Me?", so make your description so compelling that they think, "Hey, I've got to hear that!"
3. Have a professional photo made, and create a 3-6 sentence introductory bio of yourself. Many bios sound the same and are pretty boring, so on my website, I decided to tell something of a story about myself to make my bio a bit different. Let your personality shine in your bio.
4. With your topics, bio, and photo in hand, you can now put together in MS Word a simple speaker one-sheet that tells a prospective association program chair everything s/he would need to know about you. If you have a list of audiences to whom you've spoken previously, you will want to list some of those under the heading "Satisfied Clients", and spread 2 - 3 testimonials from other speaking gigs throughout the sheet. In order to get ideas for layouts of the one sheet, visit the National Speakers Association, www.nsapseaker.org, and view the speaker one sheets of other speakers to jumpstart your creativity.
5. Create a speaking link on your website and have the presentations you've outlined available on your site, as well as your speaker one sheet, and a separate link with your photo and bio. Many association program chairs will want to "check you out" online, even though you're offering to speak to them free of charge, so give them the opportunity to read all about your speaking topics on your website.
6. Now you need to find audiences filled with your target market. To start locally, approach the program chairs of professional associations to which you already belong and see if you can get on their speaking schedule. Your local library or Chamber of Commerce may have a current list of professional associations in your area which you can also approach. Other sources for finding speaking gigs include the American Society of Association Executives. On the website, click Directories on the left hand links column, and then Associations, and then select Gateway to Associations. Once you're in the Gateway, you can look up associations by keyword or by location. A second place to locate associations is Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations. This multi-volume encyclopedia is present in the reference section of all major libraries.
7. You (or your Virtual Assistant) will then need to call these associations and get the name and contact info of the program chair. Some program chairs will want to talk to you right away regarding your speaking topics, so be prepared to have that conversation on the fly. Being able to send them to your website to read more about the topics is also helpful. Others will want you to send information, so you'll need to draft an introductory letter that you can snail mail or email along with your speaker one-sheet.
8. Once you've got a speaking engagement, ask the program chair some questions about the audience so that you can better tailor the speech to fit their needs. I learn best through hearing stories, so as I'm asking questions about the audience, I'm going through my own list of illustrative stories I've told to see which ones might best match my audience's needs. Remember that your audience wants a full experience of you as well as the information that you're providing, so be sure and inject alot of your personality and wit and humor into your speech.
9. Before your speech, determine how you want to get audience members into your marketing funnel. Do you want them to sign up for a complimentary consultation on the spot? If so, bring your calendar or a sign-up sheet. Do you want to get them on your mailing list? Give away something at the end of your presentation that is compelling enough for them to part with a business card or to write down their contact info to enter the drawing. If your goal is to get them on your email newsletter list, be sure and get their email address. If you use direct mail, you'll want to get their physical mailing address.
10. The day of your presentation, just relax and have fun! This may be the hardest of any of the steps outlined here, but being authentic and being yourself will get you in the good graces of most of your audience, despite what you might say (or forget to say!). Think of your presentation as the beginning of a great relationship that you're establishing, and leave your audience feeling good about themselves and about you.
Try and book 2-3 speaking engagements per month, and soon you'll become the "go-to" expert in your industry!
If you're a self-employed service professional, you work in a time-based economy. You have only so many hours in the day to work directly with your clients. Speaking to groups gives you the opportunity to reach out and touch and impact others who might otherwise never cross your path and for you to get them into your marketing funnel so that they can begin to get to know, like and respect you. Once they're in your marketing funnel, and if you provide a solution that solves a problem that they have, they'll ultimately hire you.
Here are ten steps I recommend to get you into action to use public speaking to fill your professional practice:
1. Pick 3 topics on which you can present a 20 minute - 60 minute speech. These should be topics on which you love to speak and will readily showcase your expertise to your audience. The topics also need to be ones that speak to your target market's pain and provides a solution for a problem that they're having.
2. For each presentation, write a 2 - 3 sentence description of that provides a brief overview of your content. To add some meat to the description, create a benefits statement for each presentation and what they'll learn or get out of your talk. Remember, your audience will always be asking the same question, "WIIFM", or "What's In It For Me?", so make your description so compelling that they think, "Hey, I've got to hear that!"
3. Have a professional photo made, and create a 3-6 sentence introductory bio of yourself. Many bios sound the same and are pretty boring, so on my website, I decided to tell something of a story about myself to make my bio a bit different. Let your personality shine in your bio.
4. With your topics, bio, and photo in hand, you can now put together in MS Word a simple speaker one-sheet that tells a prospective association program chair everything s/he would need to know about you. If you have a list of audiences to whom you've spoken previously, you will want to list some of those under the heading "Satisfied Clients", and spread 2 - 3 testimonials from other speaking gigs throughout the sheet. In order to get ideas for layouts of the one sheet, visit the National Speakers Association, www.nsapseaker.org, and view the speaker one sheets of other speakers to jumpstart your creativity.
5. Create a speaking link on your website and have the presentations you've outlined available on your site, as well as your speaker one sheet, and a separate link with your photo and bio. Many association program chairs will want to "check you out" online, even though you're offering to speak to them free of charge, so give them the opportunity to read all about your speaking topics on your website.
6. Now you need to find audiences filled with your target market. To start locally, approach the program chairs of professional associations to which you already belong and see if you can get on their speaking schedule. Your local library or Chamber of Commerce may have a current list of professional associations in your area which you can also approach. Other sources for finding speaking gigs include the American Society of Association Executives. On the website, click Directories on the left hand links column, and then Associations, and then select Gateway to Associations. Once you're in the Gateway, you can look up associations by keyword or by location. A second place to locate associations is Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations. This multi-volume encyclopedia is present in the reference section of all major libraries.
7. You (or your Virtual Assistant) will then need to call these associations and get the name and contact info of the program chair. Some program chairs will want to talk to you right away regarding your speaking topics, so be prepared to have that conversation on the fly. Being able to send them to your website to read more about the topics is also helpful. Others will want you to send information, so you'll need to draft an introductory letter that you can snail mail or email along with your speaker one-sheet.
8. Once you've got a speaking engagement, ask the program chair some questions about the audience so that you can better tailor the speech to fit their needs. I learn best through hearing stories, so as I'm asking questions about the audience, I'm going through my own list of illustrative stories I've told to see which ones might best match my audience's needs. Remember that your audience wants a full experience of you as well as the information that you're providing, so be sure and inject alot of your personality and wit and humor into your speech.
9. Before your speech, determine how you want to get audience members into your marketing funnel. Do you want them to sign up for a complimentary consultation on the spot? If so, bring your calendar or a sign-up sheet. Do you want to get them on your mailing list? Give away something at the end of your presentation that is compelling enough for them to part with a business card or to write down their contact info to enter the drawing. If your goal is to get them on your email newsletter list, be sure and get their email address. If you use direct mail, you'll want to get their physical mailing address.
10. The day of your presentation, just relax and have fun! This may be the hardest of any of the steps outlined here, but being authentic and being yourself will get you in the good graces of most of your audience, despite what you might say (or forget to say!). Think of your presentation as the beginning of a great relationship that you're establishing, and leave your audience feeling good about themselves and about you.
Try and book 2-3 speaking engagements per month, and soon you'll become the "go-to" expert in your industry!
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