Global Article Review Blog

Why You Must Write Your Book Now

Copyright 2006 Jeff Smith

I think you’ll agree, we all secretly want to have our own book or e-book. In today’s society, having your own book means prestige, added income, and appeal that makes getting the nicer things in life that much simpler.

You may think that writing a book is well beyond your capability, even though you have dreampt about seeing your name in print in the past

Imagine overseeing large orders being filled as your market races to place new orders for your highly successful book.

Perhaps you are looking to escape your suffocating job by quickly building another source of income?

It could be that you already have a great career, but really want to move up within your organization or business, and for that, you need to do something different to set yourself aside from the crowd.

Maybe you already sell products or operate your own business or operate a profession such as a lawyer, chiropractor, real estate agent or accountant - writing a book will become your tool to generate leads and a buzz around your business.

Get the idea, here are 7 reasons for you to write a book right now.

1. Generate revenue.  Regardless of whether you take the traditional publishing route or choose to self-publish your own book - you can earn extra income, sometimes SUBSTANTIAL extra income by marketing your own books.

2. Lead Generation.  If you operate your own business or rely on leads converting into sales for your living, then writing your own book can make a fantastic difference to your take home pay.

3. Branding.  As your market gets more cluttered, getting your message out becomes tougher and tougher.  Launching your own books, e-books, courses, or reports is a terrific way to build up your perception in the marketplace.

4. Seting A Solid Foundation.  Everyone who operates their own business knows that marketing your own products gives you more control, more leverage and more profit in the end. Information-based products such as books, e-books, and reports set your foundation for a real, high-value business.

5. Massive Publicity.  Some of the biggest names in the world understand the power that writing a book can give you in terms of publicity.  Books not only allow for reviews, exposure, opinions, interviews and other formal publicity, they also can be the launchpad for a social networking, word-of-mouth campaign that can truly become viral saving you hundreds of thousands on publicity.

6. Highly profitable.  In the case of self-publishing, publishing digital e-books, downloadable information products, 95% of the price is retained in profits which goes directly to you.  A terrific no-charge, e-book writing formula is available here:  http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ebook/

7. Attract Positive Activity.  Its difficult to explain, but when you have your own book e-book, report or course available to the public - it can take on a life of its own attracting experts, partnerships, synergies, co-marketing offers beyond anything you may have considered.

It suprises me how most people underestimate the power that writing your own book can bring to their lives.

What’s more, it is astonishingly simple and fast to put together your own book, e-book, report or course to market to your audience.

Thousands have succeeded in writing their own self-published book in as little as a few weeks when they understand the basics of what their market wants and how to outline and organize their writing - and even more amazing….the ones who succeed the most are those that have the least writing experience.

If you are looking for a highly profitable alternative revenue stream, a home-run hitting marketing tool and publicity tool, or just would like to finally live your dream of seeing your name in print - then its time to break through the untruths and get working on writing your own book.

Tags: book writing, e-book, freelance writing, infoproduct, online marketing, publishing, write a book

Providing Information Will Boost Your Web Site

I was at a meeting the other day when one member of the audience came up to chat to me after I had given my presentation. ‘I agree with what you told us,’ she said, ‘but it only applies to some people. After all in my business there’s nothing I can turn into an ebook.’ Within a minute of chatting to me she had developed two ideas for ebooks.

Now, I’m not saying I’m some kind of miracle worker. However, often I discover that many people who run their own business can’t see the wood for the trees. They are so tied up in delivering solutions to their existing customers, they can’t see what else might be possible. As an example, I was talking to a chap from the Midlands the other day who runs a plastic mouldings company. He said to me that my ideas for ebooks only work in the service industry and they they couldn’t possibly work within his sector.

A few minutes later we had developed an idea for an ebook which he is now going off to get written. As a search term, “plastic mouldings” gets around 45 searches a day in the UK. At the moment his web site gets almost none of those searches; instead his web site exists as a brochure to people in the know - largely existing customers. What this means is, his web site is missing important traffic that could provide business.

So, now he is writing an ebook on the theme of ‘how to use plastic and save the environment’. He will be making this available free of charge - but he could add future ebooks for which he will charge, such as ‘how to specif icy projects using plastic’. Now, he’s not going to become a millionaire selling such ebooks. But the free ebook will attract traffic he might otherwise have lost and the paid for ebook will finance his Google AdWords campaigns. The result will be much more traffic to his web site at no cost, perhaps even at a profit. Suddenly, my chap from the Midlands realised that the key to unlocking the future success of his company was selling information.

Like many people, he has begun to realise that Internet users are mostly searching for information. We sometimes forget that when the Internet really started to take off, just ten years ago, it was called ‘the Information Superhighway’. Nowadays, it is largely the ‘brochure superhighway’. Having a web site which is just a brochure for your business is only going to get you so far. To take that next step upwards to greater online success you need to be trading in information.

Much of the information you provide could be free; but it needs to be practical, useful information targeted specifically to particular groups of people. Some of the information you provide could be sold; that will provide you with an additional income stream you previously might not have thought about.

Information marketing is an essential component of any business online these days. Without marketing information you will not gain as much success as you would do. Indeed, I spoke with one marketing guru the other day who has dramatically changed his business, based on just two months of testing online. He had one web site where he tweaked the keywords and did all the optimisation tricks he could. He had another web site which he didn’t optimise but for which he wrote several articles and got them published widely around the Internet. Guess what? The information won hands down against optimisation; more links, more clicks, higher ranking.

Providing information is essential online. Whether it’s in the form of ebooks, specialist web sites, email courses or traditional books and reports is neither here nor there. You need to be in the information business to attract interest in your main business.

Tags: ebooks, infoproduct, information, internet, Internet marketing

Discover Wealth Secrets Of Information Marketing Professionals

Copyright 2006 Jeff Smith

It’s a very odd phenomenon, the fundamentals of business are so simple and yet the failure rates of business continue to disappoint at well over 50% - looking even more dismal the longer you track a business from its inception.

On a more specific level, I have had a great deal of experience in the information product marketing business segment both offline and online and see marked differences between those who struggle with this business and those who take off and never look back.

One of the biggest factors differentiating the hobbyists from the real big money earners in the information marketing business is the degree to which the entrepreneurs look at their ventures as  end-to-end businesses versus businesses that are based on a single event (website developed, ebook written, affiliate marketing site created, etc…)

Once you begin to look at the various facets of your information product marketing business, it becomes obvious that there are many skills required to carry out all functions of your plan.

It’s likely that you are better at 1 or 2 of these, perhaps being able to perform all functions, but not to quite the same level.  Considering the information marketing business and your role within that business is a critical factor toward your results.

So, let’s look at the skills required for your business.

1. PLANNING & STRATEGY:  Over and over again I’ve tried to drive home the importance of coming up with a business plan for your information marketing business.  Starting with a 3-5 year goal and working backward is a great way to chart a course making your journey more certain.  For someone who loves to take action, this stage can be a little daunting.  Realize however that it must be done, if you struggle with business planning, then hook up with someone who has been through the process before - you may even find such a person at your local entrepreneur or mentoring program offered by Entrepreneur centers in many towns and cities.

2. RESEARCH AND TESTING:  A critical, often underestimated set of skills important to the success of your information product is the ability to research a market for opportunities and test your market, ideas and topics for signs of existing demand and spending activity. People who have great skill at tapping into opportunities in a market often are curious by nature, good listeners, have a good ability to relate concepts to one another and generally are good investigators.

3. JOURNALIST SKILLS:  Closely linked to research and testing, a journalist combines the skills of uncovering the the few “in depth” questions that your market really wants to know, networking skills, a very powerful knack for asking questions, a true passion for their topic and a good ability to write or edit their work to bring out the most important points.

4. PRODUCT CREATION SKILLS:  Product creation is really about understanding the format(s) that best suite the material you will be marketing to your customers and being able to quickly and efficiently package that material in written, audio, video or in real-time seminar formats.  Remember, we are trying to find your idea skills.  We can all master each of these tasks if we are given enough time and teaching, but what you want to do here is give an honest opinion of your current strengths.  For example, if you were an expert at packaging audio and video products, then it would make more sense having someone else plan your business and generate the content, while you can focus on your strength of packaging products behind the scenes.

5. MARKETING SKILLS:  I’ve split marketing skills into two large sub-groups, skills that require behind the scenes work and skills that involve outbound and relationship management activities.  For example, you could be quite good at creating press releases, marketing plans, written articles and interviews, blogging, etc…these are all examples of behind-the-scenes marketing typically enjoyed by people who like to work alone, have more control over their environment and perhaps are more on the introverted side.  Alternatively, marketing skills such as networking, public speaking, team building and leadership lead to more successful outbound and relationship marketing.  Both are required to raise your business to the high-achiever ranks, few people are experts in both of these areas.

Bet you didn’t realize there were so many skills required to operate your own super-profitable information product marketing business did you?

No wonder you get overwhelmed by the sheer effort all of this requires.  A couple of these skills may allow you to perform that part of your business in your sleep, while other factors mean you take four-times longer than an expert to accomplish the same task.

Its no wonder that most people hit roadblocks along the way.  Even if you master each of these areas enough to get your first product out the door, can you really scale your business success to where you want while doing all of this yourself?

By now, you should have a good idea of what strengths you bring to the table and more important, which ones you do NOT.  By understanding where you need help, you can make decisions about how you want to structure your business, what type of business you would like to run and who to look to for help.

Tags: e-book marketing, infoproduct, infoproduct entrepreneur, Internet marketing, write a book

Building Skills in Information Marketing will Boost Your Business

Yesterday I was sitting on a train going into London when I thought I’d take a look around the carriage just to see what everyone was doing. I wanted to make a mental note because my five year old son always asks me ‘what happened at your work today Daddy?’ So I put my newspaper down and took a look around me.

The chap beside me was reading a book about selling, the woman on the other side of the aisle was using her computer and the two men opposite me were discussing a presentation they had seen. Then it struck me - everyone around me was an ‘information consumer’. Everything they were doing involved the consumption of information that somebody else had provided.

Now that shouldn’t have surprised me too much. After all, that’s what I do - I sell information to people. But it was the train journey that reminded me how much information people are buying. They are getting it from books, online, in meetings, via reports - all sorts of ways. We live in an information society nowadays.

That means there is an opportunity for you. Whatever business you are in, you deal with information - and people will pay you for what you know and what you have experienced.

Just six months ago my main business was speaking at seminars, conferences and running workshops. Now I’ve changed the way I earn my money by selling the information I used to give at talks and meetings directly to people who would otherwise be in my audience. And I am doing that online. People can download my talks, or they can buy ‘ebooks’ I have written about the subjects I specialise in (business psychology, if you must know). And it’s working.

In the past year, the Internet has gone from being just a source of referrals to my business, to being the prime source of my business. Last year about 2% of my income came from the Internet; now it’s 95%. And the switch has been because I deliver information online.

Many businesses, however, do not take advantage of the huge consumer thirst for information. Instead, they just provide brochures and catalogues online. But what Internet users want is the information and the knowledge that exists within businesses.

So, to enhance your business and to ensure that your company succeeds online, make sure you provide information and knowledge-based products, such as ebooks and audio files. That way you’ll be tapping into the consumer demand for information. You will be able to make money out of selling the information you normally keep only for your customers. With the Internet you can now sell that information to anyone.

Tags: ebooks, infoproduct, information, internet, Internet marketing

10 Success Factors Of Wealthy Infoproduct Marketers

Copyright 2006 Jeff Smith

Why not you?  Why can’t you be the next Million dollar information product marketing guru in your field?

What is it that sets us aside from a wildly successful, wealthy and highly respected information product marketing professional - or any high achieving entrepreneur for that matter?

You can’t tell me this question hasn’t crossed your mind a few hundred times in the last several months?

Some people never seek out the answer to such an important question.

Others think they know the answers, but continue to struggle stubborn, unwilling to admit they need help.

Still others underestimate the importance and number of factors that must be taken into account in achieving massive results within their infoproduct businesses.

10 INFOPRODUCT MARKETING SUCCESS FACTORS

While its essential that you be aware of all 10 factors and that you make progress in all 10 areas, any improvement can result in vast improvement in your results.  Rather than being overwhelmed by this extensive list of factors, focus instead on making small improvements in each area as the roadmap to building your own information product marketing empire.

SUCCESS FACTOR 1: Set a target that is on the upside of realistic.  Ok, so you’ve heard this one before, but it bears repeating. Setting targets including lifestyle, health, income, time off, material purchases are all important.  While these must be achievable, they must also stretch the limits of what you may judge as achievable today.  You need to be aggressive.  Do not stop at setting targets however - a target without the other success factors will do absolutely NOTHING toward improving your current situation.

SUCCESS FACTOR 2: Know Your Big WHY!  Once you have decided on your targets, ask yourself why you have set each target.  Its a good idea to write down each of your targets and beside each one write 1-3 reasons that really hit you emotionally as to why you want to achieve those goals.  You will need to draw on these higher purposes many times as you build your business - eventually it will become automatically engrained and you won’t have to think about them.  In the beginning though, you need to really dig deep to find the big WHY and refer back often.

SUCCESS FACTOR 3: Fearless Against Failure. Even though I practice this principle regularly, I still am amazed at how fearlessly information product publishing top guns are at trying new things, changing their direction, renewing their business, testing their actions.  The real secret is to fail often and fail big, from each failure comes an insider’s understanding that eclipses what anyone else in the market knows.  By failing bigger and more often than the rest of your market, you will gain a huge advantage over your competition who will not be able to keep up with you.

SUCCESS FACTOR 4: Think For Yourself. If you look to the top 2% of successes within any business, they get there by leading, not by following. Be creative, do not only rely on other people’s information to build your business.  Standing out from the crowd, being a leader means by definition that nobody else has done what you aspire to - so why look to someone else for all the answers?  Mentors are good - they help steer you in the right direction and help fill in the blanks, but you must think beyond current methods and knowledge to create your own path

SUCCESS FACTOR 5: Be Committed.  You may want to see short-term results, but for highly successful entrepreneurs, they like to see constant growth in momentum and growth.  This requires skills such as focus, ways of dealing with stress and boredom, flexibility to change direction when the market does and seeing yourself as a longer term builder of value rather than someone who enters a market to take advantage.

SUCCESS FACTOR 6: Be Action Oriented - Not A Perpetual Planner.  This one factor alone separates high achievers from low achievers.  Low achievers spend 90% of their time dreaming and less than 10% of their time acting.  They continue to wish and dream, their definition of success is to be able to set targets, plans and goals.  High achievers spend 10% of their time planning and 90% of their time acting.  They get their satisfaction from seeing results and understand that plans need to be changed based on feedback from actions.

SUCCESS FACTOR 7: Have a Wealth Mentality NOT Desperation Mentality.  Your market has a way of spotting desperate entrepreneurs who make decisions based on short-term goals, and that impacts trust leading to poor results.  Alternatively, if you truly feel blessed, know that success will come to you in time, make decisions based on the premise that giving will ultimately result in more wealth for you - you will attract positive results.

SUCCESS FACTOR 8: Know Your Strengths - And Weaknesses.  When I first started out, my strength was in understanding the psyche of a market such that I could easily find product and service opportunities - but packaging information and presenting it to my market was something beyond my skills at that time.  So, that’s where I got better - I focused on learning, sought out a mentor, followed the leaders that were experts at marketing online and learned how to combine what I quickly learned with my expertise to earn a fortune.  If you know where you are strongest, and focus on filling in the gaps of where you are less strong, you will achieve success much faster.

SUCCESS FACTOR 9: Live outside their comfort zone.  Great things happen when you extend yourself beyond your comfort zone.  If you fear public speaking, then at some point that will impact your business and you’ll need to learn how to overcome that fear.  If you fear writing, then you’ll need to look for alternatives because writing is an essential skill for your business.  Be conscious of what built-in factors block you from achieving greatness.  Learn to recognize your own reactions to fear, allowing you to know when it gets in the way and how to control it allowing you to break through to the other side.

SUCCESS FACTOR 10: Stay healthy.  Health is both physical and mental.  Growing any business venture is an endurance test, are you ready both mentally and physically for the journey?  If you have bad habits now, when you find yourself inside the tornado of a successful, thriving, growing and changing business - can you handle it?  If not, get rid of those habits now - it will pay off dramatically in the future.

I bet you hadn’t thought there were so many success factors underlying high achieving information product entrepreneurs had you?

Remember, its not about mastering each of these factors, but rather its knowing they are all important as you build your information product marketing business.  Each day, pay attention to the factors, make small, gradual improvements in each area and you will see the rewards.

After all, there are reasons why you see 2% of any business rise to the top, achieving the ultimate rewards.  Now you have the 10 factors that you can control on your way to the top.

Tags: ebook writing, infoproduct, Internet marketing, online marketing, publishing, write a book