Would you believe that it took me a little less than a day to write the 5-Day eCourse you’ve been reading? Well, it’s true. And I don’t even consider myself to be a writer!

How it all happened…

I was in the middle of writing a 20+ page report when I realized that I needed an eCourse on how to create products to make my report complete.

Everybody’s seen the “Make Your Site Sell” eCourse on how to come up with great product ideas so that was out of the question. I haven’t seen too many other similar eCourses out there that would suit my needs so I had to write one myself.

So, Here’s what I did…

I created an outline for the eCourse. A 12-Day eCourse. I did this for a couple of reasons.

=> I wanted to make sure I had enough subject matter to write about. A 12-Day eCourse was surely more than enough.

=> I wanted to make it easy to write the eCourse. A 12-Day eCourse may not seem easy to write, but I had no intention of writing a 12-Day anything.

Let me explain…

How many times have you thought about something you had to do and just sat there wondering how you will ever get through it all? If you’re anything like me… Too many times to count.

The tendency to get overwhelmed is a tendency I used to my advantage and you can too. Preparing to write a 12-Day eCourse takes planning and it also required me to force myself to get into the right mindset.

I started writing my 12-Day eCourse and by the time I was on the third or fourth report (out of twelve) I scaled down my 12-Day outline to make it five days.

Instead of looking at eight or nine more reports to write… I was looking at only one or two.

Halfway to my mark of five days!

In other words… I purposely overestimated the amount of writing I was going to put into this project with the intention of scaling back to make things seem easier.

Getting into the mindset needed to sit down and write twelve reports made writing five reports simple. There’s a natural urge to want to do less than we plan.

Planning to do more than you need to do helps you push through what you would normally think you can’t do.

If writing even one report seems too hard for you… Plan to write three of them. Make three your goal. You’ll find that it’s a lot easier to get the first report out that way.

The one thing that stops most people from writing is the fear of all the work that’s ahead. Knowing that I didn’t HAVE to write eight or nine more reports to create a 12-part series made the process of creating five reports an easy one.

That’s the reason why I was able to churn this eCourse out in a matter of a few hours instead of a few days.

Of course it also helped that I know the subject matter because I actually use the techniques outlined in this eCourse to grow my own business. Didn’t have to spend hours researching anything.

I’ll leave you with a Martial Arts example…

Have you ever seen a martial artist punch through a couple of boards or bricks? Ever wondered how they do that? Here’s a little insight into what it takes to do those things.

When a martial artist is looking at an object that he or she is going to strike and break… They aren’t really looking at the object itself. Basically they have to learn how to see through their target and visualize hitting something on the other side of it.

If not, they would end up not hitting their target hard enough to break it and hurt their hand instead. If a person is trying to break through 5 boards… They have to imagine 10 of them in order to strike 5 hard enough to break them.

So, if your goal is to write 5 reports, you have to get in the mindset of having to write 10 or more in order to push through the 5 you need.

The Power Of Byte Sized Pieces

Another way to make writing reports easier is to start small and expand. Create a ‘mini-article’. Write your report like you’re writing a short ezine article.

==========

TITLE

Opening Statement - Point out a problem people are having.

Agitate - Make the problem seem worse than you originally stated.

Solution - Offer your remedy.

Closing - Make your solution seem like THE solution.

==========

After you create your basic outline, hit the search engine and find relevant resources and point to content that reinforce your writing. By doing this you can focus on each piece of your report separately.

Your “TITLE” for example. Spend time only on that aspect of your report until you feel like you’ve got that nailed down.

Your “Opening Statement”. Focus on identifying the problem your report is going to help people solve.

And so on…

The point is to focus on your report in pieces. That makes is so much easier to write. Worry about editing later. Just write and write and write. Let it flow.

I spent more time rewriting this eCourse and correcting mistakes that I did actually writing it. As it should be. With writing and editing there’s about two days worth of work in here.

Writing becomes hard when you critique your writing as you’re doing it. Until I stopped doing that… Creating even a simple article took forever. Writing and editing are like oil and water.

They don’t mix well. Do one or the other, but never both at the same time. Trust me it doesn’t work.

In Summary…

=> Create more work than you actually need to do so that when you scale back… What you now have to do compared to what you thought you had to do is simple by comparison.

Getting geared up to write 20,000 words makes it simple to write 6,000. I’ve used this technique over and over again and it never fails to get me through any writing project.

=> Write in small chunks. It’s easier to write a 1,000 words if you write it 200 words at a time. Believe me on this one. This eCourse weighs in at nearly 6,000 words and it only took a little less than a day to create using just this one technique.

You don’t even have to write an entire eCourse in one day like I did. You could write just one report a day broken up into smaller pieces. Nearly every person who writes a lot does this because it keeps you from becoming overwhelmed.

Steven King has written so many books it boggles the mind and the reason he can do this is because he writes a little every day. The little things add up.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. Mark Twain

Set aside a little time every day to do some writing. Even if it’s only thirty minutes. That’s three and a half hours a week. Fourteen hours a month. Use the time you have to your advantage because in the next few weeks while your competitors are still selling other people’s products… You will have a product of your own.

Let’s suppose you had a bank that each morning credited your account with $ 1,440 — with one condition: Whatever part of the $ 1,440 you had failed to use during the day would be erased from your account and no balance carried over. What would you do?

Of course you’d draw out every cent, everyday and use it to your best advantage. Well, you have such a bank and its name is TIME. Every morning the bank credits you with 1,440 minutes. It writes off forever whatever portion you failed to invest to a good purpose. INVEST WISELY

Everybody gets 24 hours in a day. It’s how you use those hours that matters. If you want your own product and you’re serious about it you’re going to have to prioritize.

What’s more important to you? Creating a few extra income streams or watching TV? The people who you see on TV are getting paid to do what they do. You aren’t being paid for watching them.

The biggest obstacles you have to face is the fear of getting started and the (untrue) belief that what you write won’t be good enough. I’m not worried about what people will think about what I write and you shouldn’t be either.

Put your heart into writing something that you truly believe is worth reading and what others think will take care of itself.

Ideas for products are literally everywhere. You just have to stop thinking and start doing. I could have put this eCourse off, but what good would that have done? It would still need to be written. My competitors sure aren’t sitting on their hands wondering what to do.

They’re out there taking action. The question is… Will you?

People who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others have idled, have persevered while others gave up in despair, and have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success often erroneously attributed to good luck. Grenville Kleiser

Do what you know you have to do. The techniques I’ve outlined in this eCourse (while extremely effective), still take work. People who have what they want always have purpose. They have focus. They know what must be done and they simply do it.

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How To Get Future Customers To Tell Exactly How To Get Their Money!

Written by Allen Brown on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 in Sales & Marketing.

Too many courses, ebooks and reports outlining how to create your own product (in my opinion) don’t give enough strategies for you to find out what people want before you spend your time (money) developing a product.

I’ve seen people completely devastated by the fact that no one wants the product they’ve created. They realized too late that nobody but them wanted their product.

Weeks… Months… or even Years… Wasted.

I don’t want to see that happen to you. I’m about to give you a few solid techniques for delving into the minds of your target market and get them to TELL you how to get their money. People want solutions and they will tell their problems to just about anyone who they believe capable of delivering a solution.

FIRST TECHNIQUE: Thank You and How Can I Get Your Money, I Mean Is There Anything I Can Do For You? ;-)

I’ve rarely seen this done, but it’s a very powerful way to get insight into what your target market wants from you.

I know you give away something for free on your site so I’m going to show you how to turn your freebie into a “Million Dollar” idea generating machine.

When someone goes to your site looking for your freebie, do you ask for their email address before letting them download it? If not… Shame on you. Go sit in the corner for 10 minutes and think about how wrong that is.

Seriously… What are you thinking? Capture the leads you generate. The future of your business depends on it. Now that you’re collecting the email address of the people who want your freebie here’s what you do…

Use your “Thank You” page as a feedback form.

Instead of just having a message that says your email has been sent… “Ask People What Type Of Information Would Really Help Them Out In Their Business”. Don’t waste the opportunity to get valuable feedback you can use to get ideas for products you probably never would have considered before.

It’s free targeted research handed to on a silver platter. I love it when people complain about something and you should too. Listening to complaints puts you in a position to step in and say… “Hey, everything will be alright. Just send me $x.xx and I’ll make the pain go away”.

SECOND TECHNIQUE: Pay For Feedback

This is a variation on the first technique where instead of sitting back and waiting for your existing traffic to request your freebies from you… You go out and create a surge of new traffic you can collect feedback from.

How?

Ezine ads of course.

With this strategy you only want to “risk” money you can afford to use on testing or gathering valuable feedback. Then, in your ad(s) you aren’t going to sell a product directly. You’re going to be offing a free download instead.

Remember… The feedback you generate on your “Thank You” page is what you’re after. Your free offer should be tailored to the list you’ll be advertising to and it should also be something that people will get reprint rights to after they download it.

This is best done with a unique report of your own creation. The reason is simple. You can design your report to promote various affiliate programs and give people the option of customizing it before they give it away for a small fee.

Since most people will want to make money from links within something they give away… you will be able to generate revenue from something that you give away for free. Plus, since this freebie will come with free reprint rights it will continue to spread and draw more traffic to your site.

There are literally thousands of frustrated people out there practically foaming at the mouth for something valuable to sell or giveaway without creating it themselves. Be the person who gives them what they want.

The primary purpose of your freebie however is to build your list and get people to your “Thank You” page. Instead of charging a fee for people to get a custom copy of your report you can offer the option of customization for free if they will give you feedback on what type of product they’re looking for.

Like this…

1) Someone gives you their email address in a form.

2) They are forwarded to the download page of your freebie where they see a headline similar to… “Would you like a free custom copy of the report you just requested so that YOU can profit by giving it away?

3) Then explain that you would like their input. Ask an open- ended question that requires a little thought. Find out what problems people have.

This is a very irresistible offer many will find it hard to pass up. You can not only get your target audience to TELL you in explicit detail how to get their money… You can potentially get thousands of dollars in free advertising when these people spread your report with reprint rights all around the Internet.

Ideally your report should be in PDF format. The thing is… in the past you would have to customize each report by hand, but for the purpose of what I’m talking about here that’s just not very practical. There are better ways to spend your time.

So, what you CAN do is turn over the .doc and .html version of your report along with instructions on which affiliate programs to join and where to insert those links.

Then, you should also let people know what they cannot do to your information. For example if they only have the rights to add in their affiliate links… Say that. If you will let them add information about their site and newsletter… Say that.

THIRD TECHNIQUE: Ask Your Subscribers.

If you have a nice sized list you won’t have to look outside of your own circle of influence for product ideas. Your subscribers should be MORE than willing to give you the feedback you’re after. You could set up a simple survey to collect the results.

You want to ask open ended questions. If you questions can be answered with a yes or no then you’re asking the wrong questions. You want people to open up and tell you what they want.

Again, you could use a report with reprint rights as an incentive. It shouldn’t take you too long to write up a ‘hot’ report that your subscribers would drool over. Re-read the first two reports in this eCourse.

FOURTH TECHNIQUE: Create A Feedback Product Page

I’ve used variations of this technique to get inside the mind of my potential customers by having them tell me what they want without even realizing it.

Once you have your link counter it’s time to set up your tracking page. This is just a simple HTML page where you have two to three headlines stressing different benefits.

For example…

Headline #1:

Insider Secrets To Making Fast Money With Other People’s Products!

Headline #2:

Discover the Little-Known Secrets To Creating ‘Hot’ Video Tutorials Your Customers Will Jump At the Chance To Buy!

Headline #3:

Rarely Talked About Insider “Fast Money Secrets” That Can Put Money In Your Pockets In As Little As 7 Days!

Of course you wouldn’t label the headlines with Headline #1 and so on. I just did that in this email.

Link each of those headlines to an affiliate product or a product that shows people how to do what the headlines suggests. You can possibly make affiliate sales and you can see what type of information people are interested in most by which link gets the most clicks.

Instead of asking for feedback you can just count the clicks to see where you should focus your time and energy. You may still want to take what you learn from the clicks you get and use one of the other techniques above. Ask people to back up your “click data”. Find out how many of them would be interested in a product like the one that got all the clicks.

This is a simple way to see where people’s interests are.

FIFTH TECHNIQUE: Use Your Email As An Idea Generator

I constantly get emails from people telling me all about their marketing problems and the gripes they have with the way other marketers run their businesses. I always pay attention to this.

I’m also constantly getting questions from frustrated marketers who have tried a bunch of different things with no success. Those emails go right into a special folder that I keep to give me some insight into what people want.

SIXTH TECHNIQUE: The Encrypted Surprise Bonus

The idea here is simple. When people download your freebie, you add in a simple extra report that’s encrypted. People will need a password to open it. Include a README.html file that explains what’s on the encrypted file and includes a web page to get the password needed to open it.

Once a person is on the page you’ve given them, they see what?… A feedback form of course. They are told that the password is theirs in exchange for answering a question or two.

What type of product (In Their Mind) would give them more control over their business or… What type of product would they LOVE to get their hands on.

Then when they hit submit… They get the password. To make this work you have to really make them want the encrypted file enough to go through the trouble.

You might also consider offering them free reprint rights to the encrypted report. That’s always a good incentive. I know this would work for me.

SEVENTH TECHNIQUE: Collaborate

There’s that word again. If you think that you always have to do things on your own… You don’t.

Let’s say that you want to co-create a product with someone. Why not BOTH use a few of these techniques for a few weeks and then compare notes so that you can BOTH get a great idea for the type of product the two of you need to develop?

Your partner will find out things that you probably wouldn’t have known otherwise and vice versa.

Taking the time to find out what people want will quickly put you on the road to developing powerhouse information and/or software products. I’m sure you can come up with many more variations on the ideas that I’ve presented today so get to it.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a simple way to write a report or a whole series of them. It’s a lot easier than you think. This eCourse is just a collection of reports. There’s no reason why you can’t create your own eCourse using what you’ll see.

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The Importance of Web Copy

Written by Allen Brown on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 in Content Creation, Copywriting.

We have all heard that “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”.

Well, the same applies to your website content. In this article I will discuss the importance of web copy and how to turn your visitors into customers.

Your website content should convince visitors that your service is either unique or superior to that of your competitors in terms of quality or is competitively priced. It should show your potential clients that you can provide the solution that they are seeking. Your product or service will solve their problems, answer a dream, enrich their lives, and/or improve their businesses. You are the dependable expert that they want and need!

Your website copy plays a major role in establishing and growing your customer base. Web site copy creates the “voice” of a company, just as the look and feel of a site put a “face” on the company and on otherwise intangible products and services. On an e-commerce site, the copy plays a key role in closing sales as well as in up-selling and cross-selling products and services. Good copy delights first-time visitors, encourages return visits and propels both customer acquisition and retention.

People read a Web page differently than they do a brochure or a newspaper. They scan, scroll, click, hit the back button, and hit the forward button. “Reading” is about moving around and being in control. You have one chance to make a first impression - to quickly convey the benefit of staying on your Web site. I can’t overstate the importance of first impressions, which in Web-time are measured in milliseconds. The layout, functionality, message and overall look and feel of your web page determine who stays - and who clicks away.

Your story should be clear and to the point. The goal of any web page should be to get the visitor to DO something: to move on to the next step in a purchase sequence or to click for more information about a product or service. Without readable, compelling copy and clearly organized hypertext links, visitors are much less likely to complete a transaction - and return to your site again.

Writing for your Web page should always start from your visitor’s perspective. What is your Web site visitor looking for? Why is he/she here? How can you make his/her visit as quick and efficient and positive as possible? You should take the time to clarify the goal of each page before starting to write. If the page is part of a transaction sequence, identify what may be hindering the buying process. Be sure instructions are clear and easy to read.

If you are selling a service on your website, your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is your service/product’s most powerful benefit, in combination with a strong, unique feature of your business. It answers that most difficult question:

Why should potential customers use service/productt of your company?

Tell your customers what service you are selling and explain what your service provides. What is the key benefit(s) to your customers? What pain does it cure, what solution does it provide? Compare your service with that of your competitors and highlight what makes you stand out from the competition? Keep working on this until you can clearly separate yourself from the field. As stated earlier there must be a convincing reason for doing business with you, instead of your competitor.

Summarize the above into one tight, powerful, motivating phrase that will persuade your customer to do business with you and to trade their money for the benefits delivered by your service.

As you start to work through the above four steps, you may find this to be a lot harder than it looks. Don’t blow it off and give up! You must have a USP. If it was easy, everyone would have a great USP! Come up with a tight, sharp USP that sells your service to your customer.

Write tight, get right to the point, be keenly aware of the audience for the page, and don’t use a three-syllable word when a one or two-syllable word will do. Use call-to-action language and be interesting. The page should be so clearly organized that, in seconds, visitors can understand and get convinced to buy your product and be able to anticipate where a hypertext link - or a “Continue” button - will take them. Studies show that “ease of use” is the winning factor on an e-commerce site.

If you’re going to promote your service and expand your customer base using your website, potential clients have to be able to trust you. Their confidence in you and your products has to be boosted. Endorsements on your website from a valued friend or colleague, or a referral from a strategic partner are the types of “leads” that boost your credibility. You and your service must be perceived as being trust-worthy before your visitor will be confident enough to contact you or even buy your product.

Show prospects that you have their best interests at heart and that you can adapt or customize your service to meet their individual needs. Foster an ongoing relationship that steadily increases their trust levels and cements a view that you are an “authority” in your field.

Another important aspect of convincing prospective customers is to keep abreast of recent developments in your field. Check on what your competitors are writing about, and watch for new trends. This will keep your website current, razor-sharp and unique. By keeping your eyes open, you will be able to grab an angle or niche that hasn’t been well covered yet by your competitors. Portray this angle or niche on your website.

Finally, be wary of broadening the theme of your site too much. Try not to dilute your product or service’s targeted niche simply to expand your base of merchant partners. Remember; focus on your selling your service. That’s where the “meat and potatoes” of your business will come from.

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