Can you REALLY set up a thriving info product?

Stop and ask yourself this question right now: what little (or big) nugget of precious information could you turn into an info product right now?

If you’re like my daughter, Teal, you have something you could sell right now that could potentially attract and immediate audience. AND you may or may not be ready yet.

In the case of Teal, who is a singer about to begin her freshman year at Berklee College of Music, there are three finished demos with her vocals on them just waiting to become a mini-CD. Thanks to an inspired dinner at an Indian restaurant in NYC with me and Andrea J Lee, infoproduct guru to the stars, she now sees how easy it would be to set that up – no more than three or four hours of her time.

And yet … where’s the CD? Like many of us, Teal’s been meaning to get to it. She’s working more than one summer job – waitressing, babysitting, modeling, all time-consuming efforts that require you actually show up somewhere and put in solid hours of work. So who’s got time to set up something as nebulous as an info-product (or in her case, an intellectual property)?

While I don’t know if this is the case for Teal, what is true for many of us is that behind all of that lack of time is a quivery case of self-doubt. Would I REALLY be able to set up an info-product that people will buy? What if it isn’t very good? How can I possibly think people would buy MY stuff … when they could be so many others like it?

Aye, there’s the rub. Nothing like over-think to solidly squash all dreams of info products on the Web. Or is it just over-think? All I know is that there’s a whole lot of procrastinating going on – and not just around here. It’s true among us all.

So ask yourself … do you have an info nugget to share, the doing of which would produce more time and more money for you? If so, and if you’re not getting busy on your important project, I’d love to hear why.

(PS… Did I mention I’ve been working on one of my info-projects for five years? <grin>)

Playing with Google Adwords

So I’m back at it, a mere two years after my last failed attempt. That would be attempting to get Google Adwords to send lots of sales my way.

And yes, I’m doing so because Tim Ferriss made it all sounds so easy in The 4 Hour Workweek. NOT because my prior experience backs up what he has to say about it.

Here’s the ugly truth: twice I’ve attempted to use Google Adwords to drive traffic and sales, blown several thousand dollars, and both times fallen flat on my face. But here’s what’s new. My first attempt, five years ago, was when Adwords was new, untested, tricky and full of obstacles. My second attempt, two years ago was when I was thinking like a dilletante instead of a marketer, and I simply didn’t have my heart in it.

Now, I’m back for a third try, and here’s what I already observe. Google has wisely added the Google Adwords Editing Tool which allows you to download it for free, and organize, tweak and create campaigns offline. This is awesome because these campaigns are time consuming to set up if you do them right, so I can tap away on trains, planes, etc and get the job done.

Secondly, Google’s new generation keyword tool (also free) … formerly known as ‘Keyword Sandbox’ is excellent. This is a keyword search tool that’s totally geared towards setting up Adwords campaigns – something even the redoubtable WordTracker doesn’t quite do. (WT doesn’t tell you how much various Adwords keywords will probably cost you, for instance.)

Also, distance is the great clarifier. I now see that I was going about my two attempts in a really scattered, unfocussed way. I didn’t REALLY have clear, effective keyphrases working for me. I didn’t have organized campaigns with 50-100 keyphrases getting tested. I didn’t even lead people to the right landing page … waffling between freebie offers and sales pages, etc..

Now I’m organized! And I’ll report back here soon on my five day test and what I learned. Armed with my new Google tools I’m feeling much better about possibilities here. More adult, shall we say.

Anyone out there having success with Adwords?

More Comments on Marketing Calendars

Got the following on my recent post about the necessity of setting up a marketing calendar for the year.

Lisa Solomon added this helpful link:

“The Marketing Experiments Journal has a 2007 Merchandising Calendar that is very helpful for internet product retailers, and might give others some ideas as well. Take a look at their calendar .”

Podcast ‘Queen’ and fellow marketing conference speaker Leesa Barnes dropped in with this comment:

“When I hired a VA earlier this year, I was forced to put an annual sales calendar together as I could no longer "shoot from the hip."

This has kept me organized and less overwhelmed. Being a creative person, I tend to think of new products all the time. I think I now have enough product ideas to last me the next 2-years :) However, my sales calendar encourages me to put all my product ideas in a folder and focus on the products launches and sales that I already have slated in the calendar.”

Finally, Tammi Lenski asked who I share said calendars with … how do I ‘leverage clarity around my calendar in interactions with VA, etc.”

Awesome question, Tammi! Here’s the thing. I’m not sure I AM leveraging my calendar well yet at all – I suspect the best way to do this is to load it up on our web-based, shared calendar (www.trumba.com). Trumba permits different colors for different calendars (read, different types of events) – so yes, we have a marketing calendar. And on it should be due dates for sales copy, email broadcasts, invitations to affiliates, production deadlines for products, launch dates for products,  and more. We’ll be integrating those soon.

I’d be interested in hearing what systems you folks are using that work well with sharing this kind of info.

More on Fluky Teleconference Lines

I got some interesting comments on my recent post about the failings of certain free conference call lines, including www.freeconferencecall.com

Surprisingly (to me, at least) Nancy King of Free Conference Call stopped in to comment. (Are they doing Google Alerts to fend off bad press?) Here’s the essence of what Nancy said:

“We appreciate all the loyal support to FreeConference from our users during this challenging year. Major carriers have indeed taken actions to disrupt our low cost competing services, but we were able to overcome these problems by late spring. But this could be the source of many of the industry wide comments posted above.

To accommodate the extraordinary growth we have experienced this past year, we have also been making a switch to a new, proprietary conference bridge system that will allow us to increase the maximum size of individual conferences (we have already increased our minimum for all conferences to 150 callers) and add additional noise filtering technology. This change will prevent busy signals and scheduling conflicts, and it will allow us to continue to provide you with the high level of quality you have come to expect from our services.

One note specific to issues of sound quality on very large conferences: with any service, the more people you have on a conference bridge, the more chances there are for background noise and variants from each individual’s phone line. As noted above, we are also introducing new technology that essentially filters out any noises other than those from a person speaking to help reduce this problem. There are ways for the organizer to help control this issue with large groups, by resetting organizer conference controls to Q&A or Presentation Mode. There is an explanation of how these work at http://www.freeconference.com/ConferenceQuality.aspx.

We apologize to any user whose service has been disrupted by these two changes in the last few months …. “ Etc etc etc.

I also heard from reader Matthew Scott who reports

“I have used www.instantteleseminar.com with great success for the past two months. Besides the fact it serves as a great bridge line, it really serves as a great and interactive communication means for clients. My clients love it. They don't have the hassle of a webinar, and soon instant teleseminar.com will have a more user friendly webinar than webex. Also on the near future is the ability to create on-demand with audio transition PPT presentations.

I also had some customer service questions early in my sign-up period and the response was tremendous.”

Thanks for the comments, folks.

Who’s ‘The Maker’ in Your Business?

Up here in the Adirondacks, where I live on the shores of Lake Champlain, I’m lucky to be members of The Essex Farm – a wonderful CSA farm that has 35 members for whom it raises beef, pork, chickens, dairy, all manner of veggies, maple syrup, grains, beans, soap, herbs, flowers … just about anything you can think of. And in the midst of this swirling madness they keep it organized and functional without the use of gas engines – harvesting, for example, with horse drawn teams and 19th century machinery.

How do they keep things rolling? A mere team of 5 does the work (all of whom, interestingly, have Ivy League educations and most of whom have bicycled cross country.) The secret is that each week someone is ‘The Maker’.

The Maker makes things happen – they organize who’s going to slaughter the chickens, for instance, then they go get the chickens, hand out the duties and get those feather flying. The Maker gets on the phone to members if they have to and mobilizes additional troupes – or the Maker calls up assorted suppliers if some necessity has fallen short. The Maker is the doer or delegator of all deeds … but interestingly, just for a week.

Then the job falls to the next person who looks over what must be done for the week and steps into the role of Maker.

What I like about this is that it’s egalitarian; each Maker gets to determine how things will best happen.  And because the Maker rotates, no one bears the full burden for being ‘in charge’ for too long.  So no one gets unduly burned out. And there are no political struggles to be top dog, or in the good graces of top dog. In fact, there is no top dog. Just a bunch of doers and makers.

Nice idea!

Interesting model, huh?

Update on my Retreat

OK … perfect honesty here. I wrote yesterday’s post about going on retreat a full 10 days ago. Wrote it, giddily shut the file, didn’t load it … just found it now. Uh, yeah. I guess I needed a vacation!

And it brought a smile to my face. Because what Tim neglected to say in his ‘just go on retreat’ philosophy in The Four Hour Workweek is to make sure you have a really good working  email program in place. No, I did not have one \went I pushed ‘send’ on the big email that was going to cover me for the next few weeks with my VA … I thought I did, but it turns out setting up my new Mac email was a bit trickier than I thought.

One problematic email connection plus a ten day retreat PLUS an email with all my big to-do’s for the time I was gone meant …  well … the email was never received and not much got done.

If only VA’s were telepathic! 

But in true Tim Ferriss spirit I’ve just cancelled a limited mini-launch, said ‘Que sera sera!’ and pushed ahead. Oh yeah, and I finally got the big email into the hands of my good VA (who would have called me if she’d known it was supposed to be coming and therefore hadn’t arrived.)

When living the 4 hour workweek philosophy, you just gotta roll with the punches, achieve less sometimes, and breathe more.

I Just Went on Retreat!

Wow. Do I feel energized and lighter than air! I just took a big breath, gulped a little, and unleashed my business into the care of my capable team for the better part of two months. OK, I will be checking in by email every three days. And I will be doing some coaching and wrapping up my Extraordinary Business Builder’s Program … but all that other stuff? Email checking, administrating, planning, approving, planning, diddly work and more … done!

It’s that Tim Ferriss who’s to blame and his book, The 4 Hour Work Week. It’s full of excellent suggestions on what to do to trim your actual work time waaaaaaayyyy down. It all makes perfect sense, and at least at this early stage, it’s working like a charm.

What Tim doesn’t tell you is the creeping sense of dread that approaches as you get ready to ‘pull the trigger’. For me, it’s not because I don’t feel I can trust my staff – anything but! They’re A LOT better at all this stuff than I am. (THANK YOU, guys!)

It’s that … I feel sort of vulnerable. Like I won’t know what to do with myself once I pull the plug. I’m not going anywhere specific – just retreating in my own little paradise in the Adirondacks for the next two weeks. But then, even more amazingly, I am going to play with not working a full work week for the rest of the summer – just doing my coaching, launching a series of products that are already in the works (my part’s done pretty much), and, of course, blogging.

Can I get along not compulsively checking my email every fifteen minutes? Can I get along not constantly having my fingers in every corner of my business all the time? I suspect not only will I thrive, but my company may run a whole lot better once I get out of the way and let it really run!

Here’s to the next few weeks and months … I’ll keep posting here on how it’s going. (And if you haven’t read Tim’s book and you feel overwhelmed and overworked, well, read it NOW.)

See ya!

Funky Free Telebridge Services

Recently, alarmingly, I had a free teleclass bridge just crumble and fall apart before 600 pairs of eyes. That’s how many people had gathered to hear what Nancy Marmolejo had to say about Social Media List Building.

Boo on cheap or free telebridge lines that don’t work! I mean, yeah, the price is right but they have to be reliable, right? (I’m back to the paid resources here, folks, worry not!)

The funky bridgeline in question was called Live Office Free Conferencing

I've heard from friends who have had trouble with these ones too:

Free Conference Call
http://www.freeconferencecall.com/

Free Audio Conferencing
http://www.freeaudioconferencing.com

Free Conference
http://www.freeconference.com

My VA wrote to me:

“The services above have all had problems like echoes on the line, half the class getting in and half not, the line mysteriously booting everyone off the call, no one getting on the call (just looping back to asking for the PIN after you've entered it SEVERAL times), and once even entering your PIN and ending up in a completely different teleclass. We could hear the teleclass and hear each other but the other class participants couldn't hear us."

I know for a while, many of the services were having problems due to AT&T (?) blocking calls to these services from Customers on Cingular or other cell phones … Not sure if that has been resolved or not.

Funky stuff goes on with these services. Instant Teleseminar seems to be okay so far ( http://www.instantteleminar.com ) but I haven't been using it that long (maybe two months). It's a paid service. Another one that I haven't had any problems with is GoToMeeting ( https://www.gotomeeting.com/ also a paid service.”

What does anyone know about these bridges, good or bad?

More on Licensing Products

Reader Duane Lakin asked a great question about licensing.

“How do you avoid being a ‘franchise’ and having to meet state regulations? If a licensee uses "my" program with "my" name connected...an advantage for marketing...is that not a franchise rather than a license arrangement?

Good question, Duane. First of all, I’d advise anyone seriously wondering details like this to get with their lawyer and check state-related regulations on this. Meanwhile, the fast and easy explanation I give is that a franchise is a sub-business with an entire turnkey operation that you license – from uniforms to French frie cookers and signage, usually. Trademarks are involved, as are audited books and gross profit statements. Licensing, on the other hand, allows someone to take your content and deliver it themselves, as in the case of my Joy Facilitator’s Training. This is a much looser affair, in which all you are handing over is the permission to deliver the content. And in the case of my own program, it’s a buy out up front without on-going payment of fees.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about franchising. 

Thanks for asking, Duane.

Setting up an Annual Calendar

Recently, while working with a sales consultant, he asked to take a look at my annual calendar.

Gulp.

I shamefacedly had to admit I don’t have one … well, OK, I carry a list of gotta-do kinds of things around in my head. For instance, I always do a sale in mid winter on my How Much Joy Facilitator’s Training, and I probably do some kind of contest in April which is a draggy month. And I know I have some launches coming up this summer for new products….

But … a calendar? Like, commit these loose ideas to paper and distribute throughout the company. Yikes!

Of course, Graham is right as usual. Yeah, I need that. While talking about the calendar, and beginning to craft my own, I noticed that there are certain months when certain things naturally want to be launched.

And there are times of the year when certain things want to be on sale.

So here’s my best shot at ‘rules’ for said calendar.

JAN & SEPT (Back to School season; New Years) – Focus on motivation products, organization, education, financial

DEC & MAY-JUNE – Gifty stuff for the holidays, weddings, graduations

NOV, APRIL, AUG – Product Launch time ('off season’ … before the rush)

…doldrums times … NEVER NEVER NEVER launch a new product in September. Your best efforts will be lost in the shuffle of everyone else’s launch.

Don’t try to enroll group programs in August and December either.

So want to join me in creating your own annual calendar? Here are some categories of business events you can include:

a) product launches

b) special sales

c) fun events

d) bundled product pushes

e) partner events (JV’S)

f) free teleclasses

Anyone else have calendar tips to share?

How to Enjoy Work More

Reader Rich McIver recently sent me an interesting, upbeat article called ‘Feeling Unfulfilled? 37 Tips to Enjoy Work More. Here are a few…

1. Listen to music.

Don’t let the phones, clacking keyboards and loud talkers bring you down. Come to work prepared with earphones and some tunes.

2. Stay away from Negative Ned.

That guy who complains about the coffee, the carpet, the customers and your boss is not the person you want to make friends with. Nothing will ever make him happy, and you can bet that he wants you to feel the same way, too.

3. Make Friends With Your Boss. Ask your boss for feedback.

Perhaps you’re feeling underappreciated or looked over. Schedule some time with your supervisor to discuss where you stand. Find out how he or she feels about your quality of work and what they’d like to see from you in the future. This can provide some positive affirmation and guidance about your role within the organization.

4. Ask for a raise.

Don’t be afraid to ask for your fair share. Consider your overall impact on the company and what you’ve done that merits more pay. Perhaps you’ve absorbed some accounts or developed a more efficient work process. Point out how your actions have benefited the company with effort and money saved.

Check out his other lively tips! Thanks, Rich. Feeling Unfulfilled? 37 Tips to Enjoy Work More 

Are You Living the 4 Hour Workweek Yet?

Anybody read Tim Ferriss’s best-selling book yet, The 4 Hour Work Week? I did and as you may have heard, I’m totally cranked up about his concept. Essentially, Tim has designed certain management strategies that ANYONE can follow (yes, that would include you, oh miserable cubicle-trappees) to allow you to live like a king on 4 hours a week of work.

Yeah, you may have to hire help (at $4-10 an hour) and yeah, you may want to live in Thailand. But I’m promising you, this is the real thing. I’ve done this to some extent, as I run a Net business (Tim even interviewed me for this book). But what a great reminder it was that no, I don’t have to be a time-slave to my business.

I’ve been putting in 8-10 hour workdays for the past two months, so I’m ready for what he calls a ‘mini-retirement’ for the rest of the summer. Yeah, I’ll be blogging on my progress right here.

A reader namede Sarah Robinson has done the same with her new blog, Living the 4 Hour Workweek. Check it out!