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Listen To What People Want

I had such an enjoyable time today talking to Farnoosh Brock from Prolific Living- about creating online products and programmes that sell.

Farnoosh – like me – has found that by following the trail of breadcrumbs that her readers are leaving and listening to their questions and challenges, she has been able to create products that sell in the thousands. Including her Green Juicing eBook that sells hundreds every month, without very little ongoing marketing effort.

It’s OK To Pout…

But most of us don’t start out that way and Farnoosh‘s first training programme was no exception. It’s OK in hindsight to laugh at the experience but it’s also OK at the time to allow yourself a little pouting. Learning is everything, and we go on to talk about how to step out of the fear and to stay motivated.

Join us for this content-packed interview. We do go a little over the half hour I usually set but there are such great lessons in this interview I wanted to make sure and capture it all for you.

Market Wide and Strong

We talk a lot about Kindle Publishing and how great it is spread to build your audience and sell more of your stuff.

We also talk about being clear and direct with your marketing message. Farnoosh has a highly segmented list and she is very direct with her buyers about what they can expect and whether they are a good fit for that part of her business. Again and again, entrepreneurs tell me they wish they had been more focused in their marketing so listen carefully to this part so that you can take a few shortcuts in your marketing.

Take A Longer Time Horizon

Fast action is great when we are in testing mode. But as we grow our business, the time horizons become longer. And when launching a programme – especially a higher end programme like Farnoosh‘s Smart Exit Blueprint, it can really pay off to plan ahead and be very strategic about your marketing.

Raise Your Prices

And another lesson that has come up before… pricing!

For a sustainable business it’s almost always better to be raising your prices. Add massive value with your programmes and give your clients and customers an experience that they will love and that will repay their investment.

But start where you are. If you have a lower price, don’t agonise over it (and we speak from experience here!). Just make sure to ask yourself if you can raise it next time around.

I think we share some wonderful experiences in this interview. I’d love you to leave a comment and let me know what in particular sparked a learning point or an idea for you…

A Business Born From Her Own Experience…

Today I talk to Tosi Ufodike from My Good Nanny about her transition from corporate career to a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Like so many of us her business came out of her own experience. Looking for good childcare wasn’t easy and when she found a solution she found that her friends and colleagues wanted to know how to do it too.

On Her First Book…

…Or more accurately her first successful book – 50 Parent Commandments.

Listen in as Tosi talks to me about why having good content isn’t enough and why you have to consistently market your book in as many places as you can.

Social media has worked well for Tosi and she shares some of her top tips for using facebook in particular to spread the word and build a community.

Set The Date!

Tosi isn’t the first entrepreneur I’ve spoken to who understands the importance of completion. That finishing needs to happen. And that while we might want to just give it one more edit, or another iteration of the web design, at the end of the day we need to say it is good enough.

Tosi’s solution was to set a launch date before she even wrote a word of the manuscript.

And she also commissioned cover illustrations to make the whole thing very real. This is a great tactic as so many of us produce work that stays stuck on our computer! See if you can borrow a couple of these to bring your work to life.

Know Your Clients

And Tosi’s business is very carefully targeted. Like so many successful entrepreneurs I talk to, she isn’t trying to target everyone. She has a very niche market and she knows her clients intimately – from where they shop, to their income levels, the kind of house they live in and even down to the books they read.

And finally…

Tosi’s final advice is to continue to market your book or your product. And if it’s your first one, then make sure you stay focused and finish. Because there is no better way to consolidate your knowledge and expertise, and your position in the market by having a book.

I’d love you to leave a comment on what inspiration you got from this interview and what you’re going to implement next in your online business…

You Know Enough…

I know I’ve said it before but sometimes we just need to take the step to launch our own programme, even when we still feel that we are somehow not quite expert enough.

And so it was for today’s interviewee, Olivia Bowen. Olivia listened to enough of her clients and contacts to know what they needed when it came to SEO. And that was a no-jargon, down to earth, and very practical way to do their own SEO.

And so she designed it. The SEO Glow Digital Course.

Listen in as we talk about when Liv knew that she had enough knowledge and was expert enough to share it with others.

Marketing Is Harder Than It Looks!

A message that comes up again and again as I talk to entrepreneurs about launching their online products and programmes is to give more focus to the marketing.

Start earlier and give it more time and effort.

Yes people say they’re interested. But all that interest does not convert to customers. Liv talks us through her experience of what worked and what didn’t. I love this part and you might be surprised by what we uncover!

The Tech Tools

However, one part of the process that Liv is glad to have behind her is researching the tech tools.

For membership plug-ins have a look at S2Member (free) and Wishlist (paid).

And, finally, I get Liv to give us her best SEO tips (since she’s here ) and she recommends the SEO Yoast plug-in over All In One SEO Pack which is what I currently use (both of these are free).

I would love to know whether Liv’s journey has inspired you to launch your own product or programme and what ideas this interview sparked for you. Just leave a comment below…

Yooo-de-hoo?

This was the response I most often got when I launched my recent training on Kindle Publishing.

But then the second response was usually “Wow, thanks for introducing me to Udemy! It looks really cool”

And then came the questions “Hey Cathy, how are you getting on with that course you have on Udemy?”

The unwritten question of course being “How can I sell a ton of stuff and is it going to make my life easier…?”

The horse’s mouth

So, rather than try and answer everything myself, it seemed like a much better idea to get someone from Udemy to come along and tell you themselves. So let’s get straight to it and listen to today’s interview with Dinesh Thiru, VP of Marketing with Udemy.

You gotta hustle…

Just like any business – especially in the early days – Dinesh tells us how Udemy’s growth is built on hustle. Going out and convincing experts to share their vision and then trying to get as many customers as possible for those instructors. And with a ten-fold increase in paying customers over the last year, it looks like they’re doing pretty well.

Looking after the instructors

Dinesh talks to me about how their top priorities are to create a great student experience and to look after their instructors.

Now a lot of companies say that. But I know from the inside that Udemy really mean it. As an instructor you can earn up to 85% of the course fee, you still own all your content and you can still post it anywhere else you want to. Pretty flexible!

And although still new, they are really community oriented. An ethos I love to be part of.

And of course there’s the fact that they handle all the payment processing, returns, customer service and tech. I’m all for taking the focus off these kind of activities and am more happy to share my earnings with Udemy to look after this for me.

But surely I can’t make the big bucks on Udemy?

Great question! And one that I put to Dinesh. He tells me about the ten instructors who shared more than $1.6 million last year and gives me the specific on what it takes to put a good course together.

But I just want to learn!

No problem – Udemy is big and growing. With a focus in business and tech, Udemy is now expanding to photography and personal development and health and wellness with a side-swipe to ukulele… yep, you read that right.

What are the downsides?

Well, from the experience with my Kindle Publishing course – and I knew that going in – the biggest downside is that, for the audience I had for this course, Udemy isn’t big enough (yet) to give me a huge amount of natural traffic. You’ve still gotta hustle to sell your course. But once you’ve done some initial work, you’ll rise to the top of the rankings and your course will get more notice.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with my test of the Udemy platform and I hope you enjoy the interview with Dinesh.

I’d love you to leave a comment and I’ll try and pick up any more questions you might have about Udemy in the comments.

Is Living In Paradise All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

Today, I have the absolute pleasure of talking to Tara Lutman Agacayek about her journey from IT Management and working for the US Department of Defense to moving overseas and “being lucky if I was offered a job as a secretary…!”

International travel is a dream for many, and with Tara’s ten years in in Turkey, and my seven in Africa, we know that the dream isn’t always perfect. The joy of travel can come with a restless feeling. As if nowhere quite feels like home. But has “the social web” broken down these barriers, opened up new ways to connect – wherever we live?

Click the play button to listen in as Tara and I talk through the ups and downs of cross-cultural living and how to solve those inevitable tech barriers we online entrepreneurs face.

How Tara Turned A Problem Into A Movement…

Tara tells me how she and her co-founder, Anastasia Ashman (who she met on twitter!), manage their partnership from opposite sides of the world. And how teaching social media led to the creation of a broader movement.

The Inevitable Tech Headache!

I don’t know anyone with an online business who hasn’t had some kind of tech headache – big or small.

In the debate between ease of implementation and sophistication of the tech solution, Tara and I agree on keeping it simple. But simple comes with challenges and we talk through the arguments for protecting your intellectual property versus getting your programme out quickly.

We also talk affiliate options and Premise versus YouTube…

Renting versus selling your product…

Psychology… (here’s the book I mentioned)

Supporting women’s enterprise…

Project management…

Product testing and refinement…

…and getting your ego out of the way.

I think it’s fair to say we were wide-ranging and interesting in this one! Remember you can check out Tara’s Programme here.

I’d love to know what challenges have come up for you as you launch your products and programmes – tech or otherwise. Just leave a comment below…

Scale Your Business…

Like so many service professionals, fitness instructor and health coach, Julie Ritchie, knew she wanted to develop a product that she could market and sell online. It was the only way she was going to be able to scale her business and free up some of the time she was spending with clients and teaching classes.

..With An Online E-Course

With her professional experience and Masters Degree in Weight Management, Julie was well qualified to enter the competitive world of weight loss. But although creating the course was easy, finding the right people to buy it wasn’t.

Listen in to find out what she did and how it worked out for her…

It’s About More Than Money

Julie did a lot of the “right” things – testing the price of her course and connecting with the Google AdWords team to adjust her ads and her page…

But, still, the “fiasco” as she called it (or rather the learning experience as I called it!) made her realise that focusing on weight loss alone wasn’t her passion and she wanted to find a way to combine the way she loved to work with people with her dream of having a scalable business…

Finding Her Tribe

I was honoured as Julie said she had been inspired by me to just test what you have and get your offer out sooner. She got in action right away (girl after my own heart ) and offered a four week virtual programme where she will send health and fitness videos so her clients can stay inspired between classes.

There are some great insights in this interview about staying with what you love and are great at, as well as some tactical experience on using AdWords and on finding the right customer for you. I’m excited to see where Julie goes from here and I could hear the energy in her voice now she’s found the way to connect with the right tribe for her.

Pssst: I also managed to get Julie to share her best health and fitness tips with us!

Tech Links

Julie and I talk about Aweber and MailChimp for email marketing. You can check them out at these links.

I think it’s better to start small and test the interest in what you have, rather than invest a lot of time and effort. I’d love to know if you agree – or not! Just leave a comment below…

Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?

Carol Dodsley is today’s star interviewee and she starts by telling me how her journey into business was given a big push when she was made redundant. But it was a move she always wanted to make and this was just the boost she needed to become a full-time entrepreneur.

And this proved a wise move as a shift in her personal circumstances closed the door on going back to work.

Join us as we talk about her personal and her online business experience in this content-packed interview:

Listen To What People Say…

As with so many of the women (and men) who are coming on these calls, their biggest success often come from listening – and providing – what their audience is asking for.

Carol did this with her programme – Facebook Business School (now in it’s second iteration). And although this wasn’t where she started out – so many people were asking her how she was being successful on Facebook that she created an online membership site to show them how.

It’s All in The Presentation

But things don’t always go to plan. And so it was with Carol’s first product – Ultimate Confidence. Although she received industry accolades, she admits that she was “trying to talk to everyone” in her marketing – and no-one was listening!

We exchange ideas about the difference between creating a product which can help a lot of people – and packaging and marketing it to a very specific group of people. Something that Carol has found out to her cost. She openly shares how to avoid making this mistake with your product – and what she now does that guarantees her products will be successful before she creates them!

Carol’s final piece of advice is that

This is a tremendously valuable interview with a woman who definitely didn’t give up at the first hurdle!

I’d love to know what ideas this sparked for you. Just leave a comment below…

From Dark Days to Accidental Product Creation

Today I talk to Jesse Ali, elementary school teacher (that’s primary school to us Brits) turned tech guru, about how he turned a disaster in his personal life into an online membership programme.

And how it was, in his words, “the easiest thing I ever marketed online…”

Listen in as I talk to Jesse about how he created a community and stayed in connection so that when he DID create his first product – almost accidentally – 100% of the attendees on his first webinar wanted to buy it. And, that’s pretty unusual when it comes to marketing something online!

Forget Keywords – Create From The Heart

Jesse was so desperate to share his personal story with other people who were going through the same experience that he didn’t think once about keywords, or tags, or SEO. His YouTube channel was “just a bunch of random letters and numbers“. Because for Jesse, at that point, he had no idea that he would turn this into a product to sell. That came later.

The big lesson here, I think, is that when you create with a passion, you connect with the right community.

Again and again the people I interview tell me that their best success comes from what they feel most passionately about…

Go Low Tech

Jesse is a bit of a tech guy – he loves creating and editing video. But his first attempt at online video was done with a camera that was his high school graduation present – with a tape – not even digital (he’s embarrassed, I can tell, when he shares this with me!). Proving that you don’t need the latest high tech gadgets to get started.

Moving On…

That product was something born in a particular set of circumstances for Jesse and was never going to be his whole life. He now creates membership sites, websites, and video marketing campaigns for coaches and experts and online business owners just like us. You can connect with Jesse these days over at WebTechNinja.

We do talk about a couple of online tools during the course of the interview and I promised you links… InstantTeleseminar (which I also use – highly recommend it) as well as OptimizePress (which is a WordPress theme) and Kajabi (which is a membership site software that runs outside of WordPress).

Enjoy the interview! And listen right through to the end as Jesse shares his best advice on what to do when first getting started…

(pssst – Jesse didn’t want me to post this – but here’s the link to those videos he wishes he could go back and change )

Let me know what you think, whether you agree with the lessons that I’ve pulled out on creating from your passion. And we talk a lot about video in this interview. What experiences have you had with online video? Just leave a comment below…

Why Are You Waiting?

Are you put off creating an online product or programme because you think somebody else has something similar? That somebody went there before you?

Well, today’s interviewee Christie Halmick waited nine full months after a friend told her that the programme she wanted to create had already been “done” by someone else.

But she kept coming back to the fact that her clients kept asking HER for this information. (hint: if your customers keep asking the same questions, it’s time to think about how you can respond to that!) And a year after first conceiving the idea, Christie has launched her PDF Workshop.

Listen in while she talks to me about her journey and the lessons along the way…

Set The Date!

“Set the date” comes up again and again when I talk to these amazing entrepreneurs. Don’t wait until all the content is ready.

Christie isn’t the only one of us who battles her inner perfectionist. Setting a deadline and selling her programme in advance means she is holding herself accountable to complete. Success happens sooner because setting a date (and those paying customers!) means you WILL get it done.

Boundaries

Putting boundaries around what she’s including in the programme and not responding to all the things she could add in is helping Christie to keep this first version of her workshop manageable. She could add in more. But she’d rather do this well and re-assess for round 2.

Start Where You Are – You Know Enough

I was really surprised when I asked Christie whether she thought being the expert at what she did gave her an advantage when it came to launching her programme. Listen in to the end to hear how she responds!

I’d love to know what this sparked for you. Are you waiting for something? Does this inspire you to start sooner? Leave me a comment below!

Play Bigger

What fun today talking to Amber McCue, who teaches entrepreneurs to go from having a business to really owning their business. Amber told me how she’s transitioning from her full-time job as a change management consultant, to full-time entrepreneur.

Not one to play small herself, Amber took on the creation and launch of an eight week group programme while still working full-time. She talks to me about how the Play Bigger 2012 programme took her in a different direction to where she expected, but one that she knows has more of an impact on the women who joined that programme.

Find out what she learnt about herself and about starting an online programme in this lively interview (just click the play icon to start the audio).

Connection

We talk about how important it is to connect – even when you’re selling online. Amber does this beautifully and it resulted in a phenomenal uptake for her first programme in a totally new business venture!

Lesson: we want buy from people we know like and trust – find a way to connect in person whether that’s one on one or iin front of a group.

Keep It Simple

Amber and I agreed on the importance of keeping it simple when you first get started. We talk about how to put boundaries around what you deliver so it gets out there sooner. And why you don’t need to go for the highly produced video launches that you see online!

Do what’s right for the level you’re at and the programme or product you’re launching. Pace yourself…

Tech Stuff

In the same thread of keeping it simple, Amber used Wix to upload her content. It might not have the functionality of a full WordPress site, but it’s perfect for a simple membership site or to store your online product. Easy to set up and very visually intuitive to adjust (oh yes, it’s also free ).

Amber runs her group calls with GoToMeeting, so she can use video rather than traditional skype or teleseminar calls (I love this idea and might steal it from her!). A great solution for up to 25 people. And both of us were keen to try out the new Google+ video hangouts for up to 10 people.

Get Help!

We might not be able to afford the help we want when we start out. So prioritise. Amber tells me what she’s prioritising and doing differently next time (hint: it comes back to your strengths). And also how she’s using an intern to document her processes so she can outsource better as her business grows.

I can’t believe how much ground we managed to cover in this interview. I’d love to know what stood out for you listening to Amber and I exchange our experiences. And what you think you can implement in your business right away? You know what to do – leave a comment below…

The Perfectionist Goes Naked!

One of Lauren Forest’s business brands is “The Word Perfectionist”. And it’s a moniker that is well deserved for the attention to detail she pays in her editing and copywriting business.

But when it came to developing her first information product Lauren pushed herself to overcome that perfectionism. She pushed herself to go out with a part-completed, very definitely imperfect training and coaching programme.

She found that this was the pivotal point in her process. The single thing that made her product better, got it out sooner, and created a better fit for her ideal customers.

Click the play button to listen in as Lauren describes this process to me – a process that she says was

“Like being suddenly exposed wearing little more than a swimsuit after being wrapped head to toe in cold weather clothing!”

Test First, Brand Later

We already know this, but are we doing it? Lauren makes me laugh as she tells me her experience of what happened when she tested. It’s a great lesson for all of us and reveals why you should never become too wedded to your product name, or spend a lot of money on getting a website and logo done before you go through this phase…

And, Finally, Nothing Happens Overnight…

Like many of us, Lauren didn’t get to her programme overnight. There’s definitely a back story. But when all the pieces come together the genius that happens can be amazing.

Click the image to find out more about Lauren’s “Shift Into Genius” programme. And find out more about her at her own site and over at The Word Perfectionist.

To check out my Get Momentum book on Amazon that Lauren says was transformational for her, just click here (or in the UK here).

I would love to know if any part of Lauren’s story resonates with you. What lessons did you take away from the many stages of the process that we covered? Just leave a comment below…

Finding Your Life Purpose Is A Journey…

Join me as I talk to Gill Potter, author and life purpose consultant about her new book Sacred Paths Entwined. The very first in my series of interviews with entrepreneurs who have created an online information product or written a book.

Gill’s story starts back in 1988 when she became ill with ME and realised that there must be a deeper meaning to life. Working as a nurse, and later an NLP and personal development coach, and then following her interests in astrology and her travel to Nepal (I told you the journey to your first product was often a long one!), she reveals the highs and the lows of how the book came about in this touching interview.

Just click on the play arrow to start!

Once she made the decision – in December 2011 – that she was going to “birth her book” in 2012, the actual writing process took only a few weeks. Listen in to find out how what made this easy and what last minute decision she almost got wrong!

You Must Have A Product

Gill thinks that everyone should have a product – and preferably a book!

“It’s how people get to know you and it’s how you spread your message to a wider audience.”

You can find out more about Gill, her story and her work here

And don’t forget to check out her book on Amazon.com …or on amazon.co.uk if you’re in the UK.

I’d love to know what you thought and whether it sparked a desire to write your first (or next) book? Just leave a comment below…