Joshua Black

Have you ever hoped to find a way that you could test drive an idea for an information product or e-book BEFORE you put all of the blood, sweat, and tears into it?

Have you ever wanted to get paid for producing a new product, instead of working your keister off, only with the hopes of getting paid later?

Well my friend, it’s totally possible…

Today on the ol’ InfoPreneur, I want to show you how you can test drive a new product or idea for a product BEFORE you waste a bunch of time creating something that no one will like.

This is going to cost a little money, but it will save you time and agony in the long run… Ok, on to the fun.

Here are 4 different things that you can do to test drive a new idea BEFORE you spend more than a few hours thinking about it:

1. Use the power of the squeeze page- Once you have done all of your keyword research (see Alex Whalley on the T.I.P. team for for that) create a few Adwords pay-per-click ads targeting your various niches.

Adwords copywriting is the topic of a whole different blog post, but what I will say is that you have to test every word. Once you have an ad up and people start clicking, rotate in a new one and try to beat it, just a few new words at a time.

This advertisment will be a teaser that gets people all with the same problem to raise their hands and show interest. Once they click, they ad will take them to your squeeze page, where you have a small sales letter about your new, upcoming product, and give people incentive to sign up for the waiting list.

This list becomes a powerful marketing tool if you end up with enough people on it. You can then use a steady email campaign to sell them the product once it comes out. If only a handful of people sign up, then you can dump the whole idea and start over without spending any more time on it.

2.  The power of pre-selling- Get paid to write your next information product.  Whether you already have a customer list or you need to build one, this is a great way to fund your next product. The big-wigs do this all the time. In fact, that’s how Apple did a lot of the funding for the new Iphone, just by having it’s raving fans pay for it BEFORE it came out.

Either using the technique in number 1, or mailing to your own list, you are going to create  a sales letter for the product which includes a TON of bonuses for people that purchase before the product is done.  If a bunch of people sign up, you get paid to write and you know it’s a success. If only a few buy, give them their money back and do something else.

NOTE:You have to be careful that you do not dupe your customer into thinking that the product is already done. This is illegal in some places. You can’t sell something that you don’t have. However, you can pre-sell a product, so make sure that you completely disclose the whole process. It probably wouldn’t hurt to say that they will get a refund if there is no interest.

Also, I am by no means a lawyer, and that is the extent of what I know about that subject, so you will have to do your own research there.

3. Survey the snot out of ‘em- This is where it helps to use the power of your own list to help them drive your next product or service. Create a simple survey though email, on your blog, or website. Give your customers no more than 5 questions, or 5 totally different product ideas to pick from.  Have them show you what they would like to buy.

You can also use surveys to test out chapters and to have your audience decide on which e-book cover to use, becuase the cover can make or break a sale all by itself.  If your cover looks like your kid brother made it in 3rd period art class, your customers will assume the content was created with about the same level of enthusiasm.

4. Get your bug antennas up in the air- This is your time to have your radar on. Look out there, in blog comments, in forums, in the news, in the aisles of the supermarket. Go to the where your prospects are, sit back with a yellow legal pad, and do some serious re-con work to find out what’s keeping them awake at night. What is the one thing that these groups of people are begging for that needs to be delivered?

How about you? What do you think is a great way to pre-sell an information product?  What tools to you use to make sure that you will have a successful product?

Until next week,

-Joshua Black

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

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Joshua Black

Many of us get trapped in the process of creating e-books.  We look at them as a single product, a book just like you would find on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, a book that has a price ceiling that the customer is willing to spend.

Now, for just a second, think of a college course or a seminar. Would you ever dream of only spending $19 to take a college class, or to be taught by a famous marketer at a seminar?

Nope, you would probably go into it assuming that you are going to shell out some money. You had a pre-conceived value in your mind about how much you needed to spend.

Well, your customers feel the same way. They put a much higher mental price tag on systems and courses than they do on a simple e-book. Yes, e-books are easier and quicker to create, but in this article I am going to show you how to create a very valuable course without having to put in too much additional effort.

Here’s what you do:

1. Create the E-book just like you would normally- Find a hungy niche that is willing to buy what you want to sell. Solve a problem that you customer wants solved RIGHT NOW.
2. Record that book in audio format- Now you are offering an additional way that the customer can digest the product without having to read the actual text.
3. Create training videos for the product- Sometime you can do this right alongside the audio, or create entirely separate videos that supplement the book.
4. Develop checklists and forms- These can be very valuable additions to a course. People love checklists, where they can use them to make sure that they are following a system step-by-step.
5. Include VALUABLE bonus material- This is not just stuff that the customer can dig up somewhere else, but stuff that can only be found with your course. Many times, if an infopreneur does it correctly, the customer may purchase the product just so they can get the bonus material.

By taking your e-book as a base and building the rest of a course around it, you can quickly increase the value of your product and have a system that the customer completely expects to pay much more money to obtain.

Of course your product will have to live up to your customers’ expectations, but if you can deliver on what you promised in your sales copy, you could have a winner. Think BIG from the beginning of your e-book journey and you will be rewarded BIG in the end.

What about you? What are some ways that you use to enhance the value of your e-book or services? Have you ever created a course from something that started out as just a small report and grew into a large product? Let’s get the discussion started below…

Until next week,

-Joshua Black

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

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Hey InfoPreneurs,

Just wanted to give a quick update on the ventures I’ve started this week.  Remember my first posts about Building a Million Dollar Business (Million Dollar Part 1 and Million Dollar Part 2), well I want to give you some tips and keep you up to speed on what has been happening this week.

Venture 1…never really got off the ground.  The concept was conceived and written in my journal.  It was originally the concept that led to the Part 2 post.  It is a venture that I think could make about $10-$15,000 per month, for one niche per month, of net income.  There are virtually an unlimited number of these opportunities from what I can tell.

Venture 2…more or less has become my pet project, starting immediately.  I’ve been working hard core the past 2 days.  Why?  Well, I made one sale this week, and have another sale in the works.  This one sale should lead to approximately $350 of Profit.  Here is the really cool thing.  This one sale has the potential to lead to …who knows…50 or 100 sales.  My downfall though is not having an actual product ready to go that I can mass produce.  Dolt!  I guess I need to learn from my own courses, huh ?

Test Your Market First

Always test your market first.  You do not want to run high expenses developing something that nobody wants.  I’ve been there and done that.  Are your ebooks selling like hot cakes?  If not, maybe there isn’t a whole lot of demand.  Or, possibly the market is sooooo flooded with that information…it’s not a premium.

Raving Review

My first customer gave me a raving review.  His friend wants in also.  So, I did a quick test…received feedback, and the market desire seems to be high.

Bottlenecks – Don’t Allow Them to Be You

I quickly see that if I continue down this path after 2 sales….that I’m going to be a bottleneck.  In order to capitalize, I need to really systematize how this business is going to come together.  So, that is what I am pouring my heart and soul into at this moment.

Remember, this is ultimately about building cashflow streams that do not tie us down to a desk and imprison us.  When we are our own bosses…we can be NUTS sometimes, right ?    I’m a lunatic to work for.

After this small market test, my mind has begun to just stream with possibilities….and the possibilities are BIG.  I won’t go into too many details here…cause you never know…maybe the entire venture will flop and I’ll be left looking like a dufus.

I am going to revise my 60 day goal I made in the Part 2 post.

On the low side….I’m shooting for $15,000 of Net Profit.  So, I have 57 days to get cracking.    Should be Interesting.

On the high side…and this is going for the stars….I know…$30,000 Net Profit.

Who knows….I may not even hit $5,000, but it helps to set better goals, and readjust them, after you have a chance to test your market.

BottomLine

Test your market first (maybe it’s a free ebook offering, maybe you hold a webinar …it’s up to you).  Once you test the market…Put it on HOLD.  That is the phase I am right now.  I’m not going to take any more orders for 1 or 2 weeks.  Once you’ve tested and had good results…THEN build a product… whether it is an information product, or a service, or a physical product to deliver to your hungry market.

I am building my backend system up using Nanacast and a WordPress site.  I’m going to finish the ordering process for it today and tomorrow….work on video stuff, and then get them transcribed and edited….and then who knows….possibly going to check into getting a VA through Chris at Virtual Business Lifestyle.

Anyway.  Think Big.  Think Cashflow.

Who knows…maybe it will only make $10K per month (that would be way coooool with me)…Remember from our example in Part 2….that $7K per month of passive income actually gives you a full fledged business worth $1MM.  Try to start thinking in terms of cashflow for your businesses.  A business that has the potential to be sold.

Making $7,000 per month (is worth $1,050,000 at 8% return on invest) sounds, and IS a lot easier….than going out and trying to sell a $29 ebook and make $1MM in cold hard cash, right ?  Now, if you were able to produce a system that sold your $29 ebooks, day in and day out, and make $7,000 per month in net cashflow….then you technically have a Million Dollar Business that can be sold.  Make sense?

Meet You at The Top

You may recall a post I had a couple weeks ago about a Million Dollar Business and what it looks like, and the different ways it may be able to come about.  Well, now that 7 Day Info Products, is wrapped up for the most part, I’m going to be pulling a couple more things from out of my sleeve.

I’m going to start a new venture and see if I can’t figure out a way to generate $5,000 within 60 days from today.  It’ll be a stretch to take something from something to nothing and make that much, that quickly, but I think I can do it.  I’ll be updating you all here along the way.  It absolutely ties right into TheInfoPreneur, but with a twist.

Now, envision this for me….if you were able to create a site which produces $7,000 per month of income, relatively passive income each month, how much would it be worth??

Well, $7,000 X 12 Months = $84,000 per year.  $84,000 per year???

WHAT if. What if someone was wanting to earn an 8% Cash on Cash – Return on Investment?

That would put a cash value on that cashflow stream of right around $1,050,000. Hmmm…I could live with that.

But Brandon…

I know…I’m a dreamer.  But that is what keeps me going.  I don’t think what I’m looking to do is impossible.  Really.  Possibly it’ll turn out to be a real stinker and disappoint, but at least I’ll know what doesn’t work, and sometimes that is half the battle.

And again, like I had mentioned on the previous post, if you shoot for the stars and only reach the moon…that’s not too bad either.  Aim high, and strive to meet your goals.  If I miss my goal by 50%…I’m still looking at $3500 per month of pretty passive income.  Would be fairly steady.  Will be starting on this new project tomorrow.  Should be interesting.
Or what if I really bomb it, and put 4 straight weeks into a project and it “only” makes $1,000 per month?  Again, that is $12,000 per year without really doing much of anything.

Talk soon InfoPreneurs!

Brandon

PS.

Is it easier to generate $1Million dollars in cold hard cash?  Or a CashFlow Stream of XXXX per month, that someone else is willing to pay you $1MM for ??  It’s really an interesting concept when you begin to think about it.

Joshua Black

One of the things that keeps many people from progressing forward as infopreneurs is that they get completely bogged down by the information overload process of research.

Now, of course you know that you need to research your market BEFORE you create a product, and you know how to search the Internet like a total pro, but what do you do with all of the information once you get it?

How do you know if someone is going to buy the e-book that you create?

How do you know if anyone will give a damn about your product once you have worked for many hours, pouring your blood, sweat, tears, and frustration into it?

…well there is no magic answer, but if you are like most people, you are probably trying too hard. You see, the one thing that you need to take into consideration is that if it’s selling off-line, it will most-likely sell on-line as well.

You need to go to where people are already buying what you want to write about.

You have to go to the mountaintop and ask the real oracle.

This brings us to step 1: Go to Amazon.com

Once you are on Amazon, they are a Mecca of research for every, single thing that their customers purchase. In this case we are going to go to the books, section, but you could use this for researching other goods as well.

Each genre of books has a top seller list. All you need to do is go into the genre that you are interested in, look at the top 2-3 selling books, check out the table of contents and you will have a rough outline of what you need to make sure is in your e-book as well.

Note:You are only using this as a tool for getting a rough outline of a hit-selling product. Please don’t be an idiot and plagiarize something that is already in print. That is stealing.

Are you ready for step 2? It’s a little bit more involved, but it will show you the other half of the puzzle. You need to know what people are searching for on-line, so that you can get them to your super-awesome product that you just created.

Step 2: Google Adwords Keyword Search Tool (FREE)

This is another totally free link that ANYONE can use, whether or not you are using Google Adwords for advertising.

Here, you will enter a short 2-3 word phrase or a single keyword related to your product and the Keyword Tool will spit back a huge pile of information, including advertiser competition for a keyword, how many times that word is searched in a given month and the average that the word is searched over time.

I would highly suggest that you pick keywords that have LOW competition and more than 5,000 searches per month. This way you are not competing for the REALLY HIGH volume words, but you will be able to rank higher for less competitive words with a high enough search volume to make you some cash.

Extremely Important Note: Make sure that you do all of this research BEFORE you purchase your domain name. You will want to have your keyword or phrase as part of your domain name, not necessarily your business name.

People aren’t searching for your business or you personally (in most cases, unless you really have made a name for yourself). They are searching for your product.

That’s all there is to it. Now you are about a million times ahead most info-preneurs that are trying to create a new e-book from scratch.

Happy hunting!

However, before you go why don’t you share with everyone else that reads The Infopreneur and give us a great tip that you like to use when you are researching your next product or service.

Until next week,

-Joshua Black

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

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Hey InfoPreneurs!

Just wanted to climb out from under the rock for a quick second and give you updates on what is happening, here, there, and everywhere.

1) A friend of mine alerted me to a recent correspondence they had with Aweber.  It appears that since 7/11, they are having bounce rate issues and checking into it.  Many are seeing their bounces rates 3-6X higher than normal.  What’s the big deal?  Well, for one, that is less emails making it to your readers.  More importantly, Aweber has a rule of some sort that if there are 3 bounces in 60 days to the same email address…it gets Eliminated.  Arrgghhhh.

What do I recommend:  Contact your local government representative.  I’m SURE they can help you out. 

2) Don’t forget about the Autoresponder Challenge going on.  TODAY is the last day to get in the mix.  Head on over to the post and “get in”.

3) I’ve been feverishly working on a new product release.  It will really round out what TheInfoPreneur is all about and help a lot of people.  I’m anticipating releasing it on Monday.  Will let you know as we get closer.

4) Just finished putting together a short TIP quick start guide page.  I do plan on adding to it in the future, but it’s been burning on my backburner, and needed to get up on the site.

That’s all for this post.  Short, sweet and concise.  (Just the way I like them.) 

Talk soon,

Brandon Yeager

Joshua

If you are at all like me, then you know some of the pains that are possible when trying to start your own small business.  Everything, I mean EVERYTHING seems to stand in the way of your success at one time or another.

There is one thing that all successful infopreneurs and small business owners have in common. It’s one thing that you MUST master before you can get from where you are now to where you want to be.

…but we will get to that in a minute.

Here are some things that keep entrepreneurs from reaching their goals:

• Relatives or loved 0nes that think you are chasing a pipe dream.
• Lack of sales or lack of customers.
• Naysayers in your product or industry niche that think what you are trying to accomplish can’t be done.
• Not being able to get started.
• Your goal will be HARD to accomplish.
• Not willing to make certain sacrifices to achieve what you really want.
• Getting STUCK on a certain part of your business development.

The list goes on and on.  However, there is one thing that will keep  you going during these really hard times and one thing that will allow you to get anything that you really want.

That thing is PERSISTENCE.

Persistence is the almost-magical trait that all successful entrepreneurs and small business owners have in common. It is the one thing that keeps pushing you forward when it looks like your idea won’t work in the short-while.

Failure and roadblocks can’t hold a candle to persistence, once the user has mastered it.

Sure, you might have a whole bunch of ideas that turn out to be complete failures, but persistence keeps you going to find the ONE idea that brings you success.

Sure, your original business plan may have NOTHING do with the route that you end up taking, but it’s persistence that grabs you by the hand and keeps pulling until you find the route that you were meant to follow.

You see, money and ideas like speed. Money and ideas only seem to stick with people that are willing to go to great lengths to deserve the outcome that these things can bring. It’s like a rite of passage that each entrepreneur needs to go through, a real test of willpower.

Here are a few tips that can help you develop your persistence:

1. When you hit a roadblock or huge setback, welcome it. This might sound a little crazy but think of it as the price of admission for success. If you have not yet hit your roadblock, then you are not pushing yourself enough.

2. When you feel like giving up, know that this has happened to EVERY successful person in history. This is the time when you are being tested for how serious you are about your idea. If you can slowly push through the setback then your persistence is showing through.

3. If you feel like your idea just won’t work and you want to give up, look inside. Is this inforpreneurial idea something that you are REALLY passionate about, or something that just seemed like a cool idea. You have to eat, sleep, and breathe this thing is you really want to be a rock star with your idea. Maybe it’s a sign that you need to take a different direction instead of giving up.

4. Fight no matter what. When a person that is close to you does not believe in you it can be very hard. This is the time to keep going. This is the time to fight for your success. When your product or service seems to be a dismal failure, even though you KNOW deep inside that it will work, this is the time to fight.

5. Develop a sense of humor about the whole thing. Remember that you are not going to die if you have a few setbacks. Remember that you MUST go through this to get to the other side. Remember that if you can see the humor in the situation, no matter how dark it can get, you can help pull yourself out of the hole.

6. Remember that you don’t have to do it alone. Network with other like-minded people. Swap ideas. Swap failure stories and explain how you coped with each situation. We are ALL going through it, so you might as well band together and punch through to the other side.

Persistence is the key. It is the one thing that you can do to make sure that you will succeed no matter what the universe decides to throw at your small business.

What are some things that you have encountered when trying to develop your own infopreneurial business? What did you encounter that was a true test of your persistence, between making it and throwing in the towel?

I’d love to hear about it.

-Joshua Black

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

• Need More Traffic?
• Want a Massive Email List?
• Want to Create Cash From Information Products?

If you answered Yes, to any of the above, welcome to the best site on the Internet to help you!

Talk soon,  Brandon Yeager

Joshua Black

In case you have been living under a rock for the last 5 years, the information product business has taken off like a rocket. Customers are just recently starting to accept information products and downloadable e-books as REAL vehicles to gain valuable knowledge about a given subject.

This is great news for you!

The cost of starting an information business is cheaper than ever before and now you can build your own international business without having to leave your couch.

Here are some powerful reasons why you may want to become an infopreneur:

• No employees
• No inventory to maintain
• Live or vacation anywhere you want and still be able to run the business
• No sales tax (in many locations, but this could change)
• No Shipping costs
• No face-to-face selling
• Continuous selling 24/7/365 automatically

…and the list goes on and on

Although the information product business takes a ton of work to get off the ground, and not everyone will succeed doing it, there just might be a chance that this is the small business for you.

Here are the 5 steps to starting an info-product empire from scratch:

1. Make sure you have niche of hungry customers before you start.  This is the single, most-important thing that you can do in order to boost your chances of success. Too many entrepreneurs create the product, then try to find their audience. You got to start with something people want FIRST.

I like to use the  Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Here, you can research any search term that is going through google and you can see how many daily and monthly searches are happening for the term you want to research.  Look for “long tail” keywords that are not too competitive, but are still getting at least 5,000 searches per month.

2. Develop a product that people can’t keep their hands off.  This is the hard part. Not every product you make will be a success. Even the best of the best get it right about 2 out of 10 times, so you will need to create more than one product.

The best way to create a product that people should love, is to completely hold their hand and give them an almost-magic answer to their problem. You want to feed the customer a step-by-step solution, telling them “I know you have this problem and this is the only thing you will have to buy to solve it.”

Here are some things that you should avoid (they are almost guarantees to a failed product):

• Don’t sell philosophy. It needs to be a step-by-step solution
• Don’t even try to sell fiction unless you have rabid fans already
• Don’t sell anything that could get you into legal trouble

Other than that, the sky’s the limit. You can create products that sell like hotcakes in ANY product niche as long as you have customers that want what you have to sell.

3. Develop a professional web site and build a list, starting from day one. You will not sell most of your products on the first visit to your site. You need to have a way to stay in contact with your customers for the long haul.

It is VERY time consuming and expensive to gain a single, PAYING customer. Businesses that rely on getting a new customer each time they have to sell something, do not last very long. Instead, you want to keep selling to your happy, existing customers. Maintain that conversation, keep in touch, and show them how you can serve them with your great products.

Get your site indexed in Google quickly using this tool. I haven’t used it yet myself, because I can get indexed in a few hours now, but if you are just starting out, try the tool.  It is WAAAAAY better than having to wait 6 weeks for Google to randomly find you.

4. Drive that magic traffic bus right to the front door of your site. This is the hardest part. This is where you will spend many sleepless nights, typing your fingers to the bone, but it will all be worth it in the end.

You have to pay for traffic no matter what. Either you will pay for it with money or time, but there is no free lunch. Here are some great ways to drive free traffic with nothing but your time:

• Write articles
• Write blog posts
• Write guest posts
• Comment on blogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and everywhere else
• Use off-line guerrilla-style marketing (business cards, bandit signs, etc.)
• SEO
• Networking with other like-minded people
• Create an empire of affiliate salespeople

…just to name a few

5. Repeat the entire process and go back to step 1.  Like I said earlier, you will not get rich off of a single product. In order to build an information product empire, you will need to sell multiple products across different niches, at different price points.

You will have a hard time taking a cold customer and selling them $10,000 worth of consulting, but if you start with a $17 book and gradually build a relationship over time, you should have no problem turning a certain percentage of your customers into big-ticket buyers.

___________________________________________

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

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