Top Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategy Tips for Business Growth

Effective customer acquisition and retention strategy is key to driving business growth and maintaining profitability. This article provides practical tips on how to attract new customers and keep your existing ones loyal. Expect to learn about the stages of customer acquisition, key retention strategies, and how to measure success. By the end, you’ll have a roadmap for balancing these efforts to ensure long-term success.

Key Takeaways

• Customer acquisition and retention are vital for sustainable growth, with a focus on balancing resources for both to maximize profitability.
• Implementing strategic approaches throughout the acquisition funnel—awareness, consideration, and decision stages—enhances customer engagement and conversion rates.
• Prioritizing customer retention through strong relationships, loyalty programs, and feedback integration is crucial for increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value.

Understanding Customer Acquisition and Retention

Customer acquisition and retention are the twin pillars of sustainable business growth. While customer acquisition focuses on bringing new customers into the fold, customer retention aims to keep existing customers engaged and satisfied. Both are crucial for maintaining a loyal customer base and ensuring long-term profitability. However, businesses often face the dilemma of whether to allocate more resources to attracting new customers or to delighting existing ones. Striking the right balance between these efforts is essential for scaling effectively.

The main challenge lies in balancing these efforts. On one hand, customer acquisition is driven by the need for growth, competitive landscape pressures, and the desire to gain more market share. On the other hand, customer retention is about turning customers into repeat buyers and preventing them from switching to competitors.

It is often more cost-effective to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Therefore, solving customer needs and consistently delivering value should be the primary focus to attract and retain customers.

The Customer Acquisition Process

Customer acquisition involves attracting and engaging potential buyers and converting them into paying customers to acquire customers through our customer acquisition strategy and acquisition efforts. This systematic approach can be visualized as a customer acquisition funnel, consisting of various stages that guide prospective customers towards making a purchase, highlighting the customer journey and the similarities customer acquisition, ultimately leading to customers acquired.

These stages are: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. Each stage requires targeted strategies and marketing efforts to effectively move prospects through the funnel.

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is where potential customers first learn about your product or service. Creating brand awareness is critical for customer acquisition and ensures long-term business growth. Content types that effectively generate awareness include educational articles, social media posts, and SEO-focused materials. For instance, targeted online ads tailored to specific customer identities can significantly boost sales performance.

One successful example is an e-commerce brand that significantly boosted customer engagement and conversion rates through tailored email marketing campaigns. Search engine optimization-focused materials enhance visibility and ensure that potential customers can find brand content effectively. Addressing pain points and sharing valuable information helps businesses attract and engage potential customers during the awareness stage of content marketing.

Consideration Stage

During the consideration stage, prospects are evaluating their options and considering whether your product or service meets their needs. Providing informative content increases the likelihood of prospects engaging with your brand. Techniques such as webinars and detailed product guides serve as effective tools to educate prospects and build trust.

Engaging prospects during this stage is crucial to influence their decision-making process. Utilizing these engagement techniques can significantly enhance the prospects’ understanding and trust in the brand, leading to higher conversion rates. Addressing customer needs and sharing valuable information effectively moves prospects through the acquisition process.

Decision Stage

The decision stage is where prospects are ready to make a purchase decision. To facilitate conversions, brands often provide special incentives like limited-time discounts or exclusive offers targeted at specific demographics and their target audience. For example, Michaels runs targeted campaigns during peak shopping times like back-to-school and holidays to engage specific customer segments.

To move prospects from intent to evaluation, provide convincing information on why your brand stands out. Purple enhanced its conversion rate by 6x through innovative marketing strategies, illustrating the effectiveness of such efforts. Similarly, Comcast experienced a significant lift in conversions due to effective promotional offers.

These proven strategies not only drive conversions but also lead to increased website traffic and overall engagement.

Essential Customer Retention Strategies

Customer retention is crucial for businesses as it is easier to maintain high profits and indicates product and service quality. Prioritizing retaining customers can often be more cost-effective than acquiring new customers to improve customer retention.

Key components of a good customer retention strategy include quality interactions, loyalty programs, and gathering and acting on customer feedback. Improving customer retention, even by a small percentage, can substantially increase profitability as retained customers tend to spend more over time, enhancing customer retention efforts.

Building Strong Customer Relationships

Building strong customer relationships is fundamental to long-term loyalty. Consistent and meaningful engagement, such as personalized follow-ups, increases customer trust. Retaining existing customers is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, as it can be five to seven times more expensive to bring in a new customer. Moreover, building emotional connections with customers can significantly contribute to long-term loyalty.

Long-term customers often become brand advocates, effectively promoting the business through word-of-mouth referrals. SaaS companies that implement educational content as part of their user experience can enhance customer loyalty and reduce churn, resulting in satisfied customers.

Happy employees provide better support and build long-lasting relationships that contribute to customer retention. Businesses can address concerns early by interacting with customers in online spaces. This engagement also helps in keeping buyers involved for the long term.

Implementing Loyalty Programs

Implementing loyalty programs is a proven strategy to retain customers and enhance engagement. Types of loyalty programs include points-based systems and tiered rewards, which help in collecting detailed customer data for personalized experiences. Identifying customer groups with the highest lifetime value is crucial for maximizing profits. Tailored loyalty programs can enhance customer engagement by aligning rewards with customer preferences.

Gamification in loyalty programs can boost participation and excitement among customers. Loyalty programs that focus on specific customer segments can dramatically enhance engagement and reduce customer churn. By implementing these programs, businesses can increase customer lifetime value and foster a loyal customer base.

Gathering and Acting on Customer Feedback

Gathering and acting on customer feedback is essential for improving customer retention. Analyzing customer feedback helps identify specific areas needing improvement to enhance retention. Prioritizing feedback resolution can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Gathering customer feedback is essential for understanding customer experiences and identifying pain points.

Businesses should actively integrate customer feedback into their strategies to continually improve customer experience and meet customer expectations. By addressing customer needs and consistently delivering value, businesses can retain customers and build long-term loyalty.

Measuring Success: Key Metrics for Acquisition and Retention

Measuring success is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of customer acquisition and retention strategies. Key metrics include Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and Customer Retention Rate. Evaluating these metrics helps businesses understand the efficiency of their strategies and make informed decisions to optimize their efforts.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) helps businesses determine the total cost of acquiring a new customer, which is crucial for assessing marketing efficiency. Higher customer acquisition costs can decrease the overall customer value, making it essential to monitor and manage CAC effectively. Brands can reduce customer acquisition costs and achieve lower acquisition costs by increasing current customer value and finding cheaper promotion channels.

Monitoring CAC is vital for businesses to ensure marketing strategies are effective and financially sustainable. Understanding and optimizing CAC allows businesses to allocate resources more effectively and maximize ROI.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) helps businesses assess long-term profitability by estimating the total revenue a customer generates throughout their relationship with a company. CLV is calculated by multiplying the average purchase value by the purchase frequency and customer’s lifetime. Understanding and calculating CLV allows businesses to focus on building long-term relationships with customers, ultimately leading to sustained growth and profitability.

Prioritizing high-CLV customers enhances marketing efforts and boosts overall satisfaction. This focus on long-term value helps in creating a loyal customer base and driving financial growth.

Customer Retention Rate

The customer retention rate is the percentage of customers who remain loyal over a specific period. A high customer retention rate is often associated with strong customer satisfaction and loyalty, indicating that customers are happy with the product or service. Good customer retention rates vary by industry, such as 83% for automotive, 84% for media, 77% for software, 78% for finance, and 84% for professional services.

Collecting customer feedback through surveys and service insights can enhance retention and is crucial in identifying pain points. Businesses should prioritize customer retention when they have a solid customer base to maximize ROI. By focusing on retention, businesses can reduce churn and increase customer lifetime value.

Balancing Acquisition and Retention Efforts

Balancing customer acquisition and retention strategies is crucial for sustained business success. Successful acquisition strategies often focus on building long-term relationships rather than short-term sales. Businesses need to adapt their focus on acquisition or retention based on current market conditions and growth objectives.

Integrating AI systems can provide a comprehensive approach to enhance both customer acquisition and retention.

When to Prioritize Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition is crucial for business growth during critical phases such as entering new markets or launching new products. Companies should prioritize acquiring new customers when they are entering new markets or launching new products to build a customer base and gain a competitive advantage. A low market share requires businesses to prioritize acquisition to counteract competitive pressures and strengthen their position in the market.

Focusing on customer acquisition not only addresses immediate market challenges but also lays the groundwork for sustained business growth. By attracting new customers, businesses can expand their reach and enhance their market presence.

When to Focus on Customer Retention

High customer churn rates signal the need to focus on retention to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. In subscription-based businesses, maintaining high retention rates is crucial for ongoing revenue generation. Focusing on customer retention is essential for maximizing the value of existing customers.

Prioritizing retention strategies can not only reduce churn but also lead to increased customer loyalty and lifetime value. Focusing on existing customers ensures a good retention strategy and sustainable growth and long-term success.

Real-World Examples of Successful Strategies

Real-world examples provide practical insights into successful acquisition and retention strategies. Brands like Globus and Comcast use identity marketing to connect deeply with their customers, effectively acquiring new clients. Identity marketing is known to enhance engagement and foster customer retention, making it integral to successful strategies.

Bombas implements a social responsibility strategy by donating a clothing item for every purchase, enhancing customer loyalty.

Example 1: E-commerce Brand’s Acquisition Campaign

Purple, an e-commerce brand, successfully raised awareness among potential customers through a lucrative market segment aligned with its brand. By implementing identity-driven offers, Targus saw a 413% revenue increase and a 389% increase in orders. The brand utilized online advertising to connect with new customers, which proved to be a highly effective strategy. The combination of awareness raising and strategic advertising led to substantial growth in the brand’s customer base.

Online advertising and identity-driven offers were pivotal in attracting and engaging potential customers. This approach not only lowered customer acquisition costs but also ensured a steady influx of new customers. Leveraging targeted marketing channels allowed the e-commerce brand to guide prospects through the acquisition funnel, increasing conversion rates and growth.

Example 2: SaaS Company’s Retention Program

A SaaS company launched a retention program targeting military customers, achieving an engagement rate 2-3 times higher than typical campaigns. This tailored approach in loyalty programs demonstrated the effectiveness of focusing on specific customer segments. By understanding and addressing the unique needs of military customers, the company could enhance customer loyalty and retention.

The success of this program highlights the importance of personalized customer experiences in customer success retention strategies. Prioritizing retention efforts helped the SaaS company reduce churn rates and increase customer lifetime value.

This example underscores how a well-executed customer retention program can lead to sustained business growth and loyal customers relationships.

Leveraging Technology for Better Customer Acquisition and Retention

Technology plays a crucial role in enhancing customer acquisition and retention strategies. Dollar Shave Club, for instance, uses a chatbot to answer common questions, showcasing proactive customer service facilitated by technology. CRM systems facilitate better customer relationship management by organizing customer data and interactions, enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences. Adopting AI tools can streamline customer interactions, build loyalty, and reduce churn rates.

The integration of technology allows businesses to optimize their marketing efforts and improve customer satisfaction. Leveraging AI and CRM systems provides valuable insights into customer behavior, enabling tailored marketing strategies and exceptional experiences.

This technological edge can significantly enhance both customer acquisition and retention, leading to a loyal customer base and sustainable business growth.

Summary

Balancing customer acquisition and retention efforts is crucial for sustainable business growth. While customer acquisition brings in new customers and expands market reach, customer retention ensures long-term loyalty and profitability. By understanding the customer acquisition process and implementing effective retention strategies, businesses can optimize their marketing efforts and build a solid customer base.

Key metrics such as Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and Customer Retention Rate help assess the effectiveness of acquisition and retention strategies. Real-world examples illustrate the success of tailored approaches and the importance of leveraging technology. By focusing on both customer acquisition and retention, businesses can achieve sustained growth and a loyal customer base. Remember, the key to long-term success lies in consistently delivering value and exceeding customer expectations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the importance of balancing customer acquisition and retention?

Balancing customer acquisition and retention is essential for sustainable business growth, as acquiring new customers drives immediate sales, while retaining existing customers fosters long-term loyalty and profitability. Prioritizing both aspects leads to a more stable and thriving business.

How can businesses reduce Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)?

To effectively reduce Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), businesses should focus on increasing the lifetime value of existing customers, exploring cost-effective promotional channels, and optimizing their marketing strategies for better efficiency. Implementing these tactics can lead to significant savings and improved profitability.

What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and why is it important?

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) measures the total revenue a business can expect from a customer throughout their relationship, highlighting the importance of nurturing long-term relationships to maximize profitability. Understanding CLV enables businesses to make informed decisions on marketing strategies, customer retention efforts, and resource allocation.

What are some effective customer retention strategies?

To effectively retain customers, focus on building strong relationships, implementing loyalty programs, and actively gathering and responding to customer feedback. These strategies will enhance satisfaction and foster long-term loyalty.

How can technology enhance customer acquisition and retention efforts?

Technology can significantly enhance customer acquisition and retention by streamlining interactions and providing crucial insights into customer behavior. Implementing AI tools and CRM systems fosters loyalty and reduces churn rates, making your efforts more effective.

The post Top Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategy for Sustainable Growth appeared first on Done For You.

How to Maximize Sales: Products Sold with Video

Looking to boost your sales? Using videos can make a big difference. In this article, we explore how you can get your products sold with video. Discover practical tips and strategies to use videos effectively in your sales process.

Key Takeaways

• Post-call videos boost client confidence by reinforcing key points and addressing concerns, making it easier to close sales.
• Trust is critical; using video content, like testimonials and personalized messages, can significantly enhance engagement and conversion rates.
• Educating leads and addressing objections with follow-up videos can streamline the sales process and increase buyer confidence.

Power of Post-Call Videos

Post-call videos are a game-changer in the sales process. They help reinforce key points discussed during your sales calls, ensuring that your message sticks with your clients long after the call ends. These videos address client concerns directly, making them feel like they’ve already been “sold with video” before a proposal is even sent out. This not only boosts their confidence in their decision-making but also increases the likelihood of closing the sale.

Imagine this: you’ve just had a productive call with a potential client. You follow up with a personalized video that highlights the main points discussed, answers any lingering questions, and addresses potential concerns. This approach leaves your clients feeling understood and valued, which is crucial for building trust.

Overall, the feeling of being “sold with video” can significantly enhance a client’s confidence in their decision, leading to higher conversion rates and a more successful sales process. Incorporating post-call videos into your sales strategy means offering not just a product or service, but peace of mind.

Building Trust with Video Content

Trust is the cornerstone of any successful sales relationship. Video content can engage potential buyers significantly more than static images or text, leading to a substantial increase in inquiries for businesses that include videos. People prefer video content for information, making it a powerful tool to influence buyer decisions and sell effectively.

Video testimonials from satisfied clients can work wonders in enhancing trust with new prospects. These testimonials not only showcase your success but also act as a powerful referral tool, driving business growth. Personalized video content creates emotional connections with viewers, significantly boosting engagement and conversion rates.

Authentic narratives and storytelling in your videos build credibility and rapport with your audience. Sharing behind-the-scenes moments and personal experiences adds transparency, making clients feel at ease. Embedding these elements in your video marketing strategy fosters lasting trust and stronger client relationships.

Educating Leads Through Follow-Up Videos

Educating your leads is a critical component of the sales process. Follow-up videos offer an excellent opportunity to provide detailed views of products and address specific concerns. Including videos in product listings can enhance conversion rates by showcasing unique features and prompting quicker decision-making among buyers.

Virtual tours are particularly effective, as they allow potential buyers to explore the layout and features of a product, answering many of their questions proactively. Engaging visual presentations can also simplify complex information about pricing options, making buyers feel more informed and confident in their decisions.

Optimized videos on listings not only improve search visibility but also convey a commitment to transparency, enhancing trust and credibility with potential clients. Educating your leads through follow-up videos reduces buyer hesitance and increases the likelihood of them making a purchase.

Eliminating Objections Before They Arise

One of the most powerful aspects of video marketing is its ability to preemptively address buyer concerns. Utilizing video content allows you to provide clear and detailed explanations of product features, effectively eliminating objections before they arise. This proactive approach can make a significant difference in the sales process.

Effective follow-up videos should always include a clear call-to-action, guiding leads towards scheduling appointments or taking the next steps in their purchasing journey. The quote from “They Ask, You Answer” perfectly illustrates how a video can pre-answer objections and build trust before closing a sale.

Addressing potential concerns early creates transparency and trust with your leads. This approach makes prospects feel more comfortable and increases the likelihood of them moving forward in the sales process, allowing you to maintain your focus.

Increasing Conversions with Personalized Videos

Personalized videos are a powerful tool for increasing conversions. Studies indicate that a significant percentage of consumers are influenced by videos. Specifically, 64% to 85% are more likely to make a purchase after viewing one. This is because personalized video content allows for tailored messaging that resonates deeply with prospects, making them feel valued and understood.

In the competitive world of business, those who create video content have a significant advantage. Despite the proven benefits, few professionals currently utilize this medium, giving those who do a competitive edge. Personalized video messages enhance purchasing confidence, leading to higher conversion rates and more successful sales.

Incorporating personalized videos into your sales strategy allows for deeper connections with prospects, ultimately driving more conversions and growing your business.

Examples of Effective Post-Call Videos

To inspire your video marketing strategy, let’s look at some examples of effective post-call videos. Business videos that include emotional storytelling can significantly resonate with potential buyers, creating a strong emotional connection. This approach can make your prospects feel more invested in the product and more likely to proceed with a purchase.

Drone footage is another powerful tool, providing stunning aerial perspectives that enhance viewer engagement. This type of footage can showcase the product’s surroundings and unique features in a way that static images simply cannot.

Post-call videos play a crucial role in engaging clients and reinforcing selling points. Creatively combining emotional storytelling and visually captivating elements produces videos that leave a lasting impression on your prospects.

Tools and Platforms for Creating Videos

Creating high-quality videos requires the right tools and platforms. The Sony Handycam FDR-AX53, for instance, is favored for its 4K footage, zoom, and stabilization, making it ideal for product showcases. VideoStudio is another excellent tool, offering features like color correction and multi-camera editing, essential for producing polished marketing videos.

Lighting is also crucial for professional-looking videos. The Dracast BoltRay Plus Bi-Color LED400 lighting kit is lightweight and adjustable, making it suitable for various video shoots.

For those who prefer outsourcing, Fiverr provides access to freelance video editors who specialize in creating content, ensuring quick turnaround for video projects on their website. Using a CRM tool can streamline the follow-up video process, allowing businesses to maintain consistent communication with a larger number of leads.

Leveraging these tools and platforms helps create professional-quality post-call videos that enhance your sales efforts.

How to Track Video Performance

Tracking video performance is critical to understanding audience engagement and refining your marketing strategies. Various tools and platforms, such as analytics software, video hosting services, and CRM systems, can be utilized to monitor key metrics like views, watch time, and engagement rates.

Best practices for tracking metrics include setting clear goals, choosing the right metrics to monitor based on your objectives, and regularly analyzing performance data. Interpreting this data correctly allows you to refine your video strategy, providing insights that can inform content improvements and better targeting.

Keeping a close eye on your video performance allows you to continuously optimize your approach, ensuring your video content remains effective and engaging.

Best Practices for Video Marketing

Maximizing the effectiveness of your video marketing efforts requires following best practices. A structured follow-up strategy significantly improves lead engagement and conversion by providing targeted information. Incorporating market trends into follow-up videos keeps potential clients informed and interested, fostering a sense of urgency about their purchasing decisions.

Personalized video marketing campaigns achieve better click-through rates compared to generic video content, making it crucial to tailor your messaging. Choosing the right platform for video posting is also important, as some platforms, like YouTube, are better suited for short content while others are ideal for longer videos.

Engagement metrics, such as watch time and click-through rates, are vital for assessing the effectiveness of your videos. By using analytics tools, you can understand viewer demographics and behavior, allowing for more targeted video content.

Case Studies: Success Stories

Let’s explore some success stories to see the impact of video marketing in action. Businesses that utilize video case studies are reported to be up to 53 times more likely to achieve a first-page ranking on Google search results. This highlights the power of video content in boosting online visibility and attracting more leads.

Even during economic downturns, 24% of companies have expressed intent to produce more case studies to enhance sales, underscoring their effectiveness. Videos that share client success stories can showcase a business’s capability and reliability, fostering trust among prospective customers.

Most businesses do not utilize video marketing, offering a competitive edge to those who do. Leveraging video case studies demonstrates your expertise and builds credibility with your audience.

Summary

In summary, post-call videos are a powerful tool that can transform your sales strategy. By reinforcing key points, building trust, educating leads, eliminating objections, and increasing conversions, you can leave your prospects feeling like they’ve already been “sold with video” before a proposal is sent out. The examples, tools, and best practices discussed in this blog post provide a comprehensive guide to maximizing your sales with video marketing.

Remember, the key to success lies in creating personalized, engaging, and informative video content that resonates with your audience. By implementing the techniques discussed, you can build stronger relationships with your clients and see a significant boost in your conversion rates.

So, take the plunge and start incorporating post-call videos into your sales strategy today. The results will speak for themselves, and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are post-call videos and why are they important?

Post-call videos are awesome follow-ups that reinforce key points and address any concerns after a sales call. They’re super important because they help build trust and make prospects feel more confident in their decisions.

How can video testimonials help in building trust?

Video testimonials are a game-changer for building trust because they show real people vouching for your work, making potential clients feel more confident in choosing you. They’re like personal referrals that can really boost your business!

What tools are essential for creating high-quality videos?

To create high-quality videos, grab a Sony Handycam FDR-AX53 for 4K shots, use VideoStudio for editing, and light up your scenes with the Dracast BoltRay Plus LED400 kit. You might also want to consider hiring freelance editors from Fiverr to make things easier!

How can I track the performance of my video content?

To track your video performance, use analytics tools from your video host to keep an eye on views, watch time, and engagement. Set clear goals and regularly check in on your metrics to tweak your strategy as you go!

What are the best practices for video marketing?

To nail video marketing, focus on creating personalized content and keeping up with market trends. Don’t forget to track your engagement metrics to see what’s working!

The post Top Strategies to Get Your Prospect Sold with Video Marketing appeared first on Done For You.

Artificial intelligence is transforming AI book writing, making the process faster and more efficient than ever before. AI book writing tools can help with everything from brainstorming and outlining to drafting and editing, making AI book writing more accessible than ever. Whether you’re an aspiring author or an entrepreneur looking to create lead-generating content, AI can simplify the journey of AI book writing, helping authors bring their ideas to life more efficiently.

However, AI isn’t a magic solution that writes a bestseller for you. Success still requires creativity, strategy, and refinement. The key is knowing how to properly integrate AI into your writing process while keeping your unique voice and storytelling intact. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to write a book with AI step by step.

The Rise of AI Book Writing

The publishing industry is evolving, and AI book writing is leading the charge. Many authors, marketers, and content creators are using AI to accelerate the writing process, improve content quality, and bring their ideas to life more efficiently.

One of the biggest advantages of AI book writing is its ability to streamline the process. AI can help writers generate new ideas, structure their books, and even assist in the actual drafting of content. This means that authors can focus more on refining their message rather than getting stuck in the early stages of writing.

Beyond writing, AI also plays a crucial role in editing and formatting. AI-driven platforms can suggest grammar improvements, enhance readability, and format a manuscript for self-publishing. By leveraging AI book writing tools, authors can create polished, professional books without the need for extensive manual editing.

How to Write a Book with AI

Step 1: Brainstorming and Idea Development

Coming up with a book idea can be one of the most challenging steps. AI can help by generating ideas, expanding on concepts, and identifying market trends.

Before jumping into AI-assisted brainstorming, it’s important to have a general idea of the type of book you want to write. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, AI tools work best when given a starting point. If you have a rough theme in mind, AI can help refine it into a compelling concept that resonates with your audience.

AI book writing tools can analyze market trends and competitor books to see what topics are currently in demand. This helps ensure that your book not only aligns with your passion but also has a viable audience ready to engage with it.

• Use AI brainstorming tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity to explore different book ideas.
• Input a general topic into AI and ask for unique angles or subtopics.
• Research trending book topics and market demand using AI-driven analytics.

Step 2: Creating an Outline with AI

Once you have an idea, an outline helps structure the book logically. AI can assist in developing a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

Creating an outline is crucial because it serves as the roadmap for your book. AI-generated outlines help ensure that your content flows logically and keeps readers engaged from start to finish. With AI, you can quickly organize thoughts into a structured format, making the writing process much smoother.

Furthermore, AI can help identify any gaps in your outline by suggesting subtopics or relevant points that might have been overlooked. This ensures that your book covers all essential aspects of your subject matter while maintaining clarity and coherence.

• Provide AI with your book’s theme, and let it generate an initial outline.
• Refine the structure to ensure coherence and logical flow.
• Expand each chapter with key points and supporting details.

Step 3: Writing the First Draft

AI book writing tools can generate content, but it’s important to maintain a human touch.

While AI can help speed up the writing process, it lacks the emotional depth and storytelling nuance that make a book truly engaging. AI-generated content often needs refinement to ensure it aligns with your voice and delivers a compelling narrative.

Beyond that, readers connect with authenticity. A book that feels robotic or overly generic won’t resonate with an audience. This is why it’s crucial to review, rewrite, and add your own insights, ensuring that the final product feels uniquely yours.

• Start by drafting one chapter at a time, using AI to generate text.
• Review and refine AI-generated content, ensuring originality and clarity.
• Use AI as a supplement, adding your own voice and insights.

Key Benefits of AI Book Writing

AI book writing brings several advantages that make the writing process faster, more efficient, and less overwhelming. Whether you’re writing your first book or looking to optimize your workflow, AI can provide valuable support.

One of the biggest benefits is the speed and efficiency AI offers. Traditional writing can take months, if not years, to complete, but AI can help generate well-structured drafts in a fraction of the time. This allows authors to focus on refining their message rather than struggling to get words on the page.

Another key advantage is enhanced creativity. AI can help break through writer’s block by suggesting ideas, expanding on concepts, and even helping with phrasing. It can offer new perspectives and insights that authors might not have considered otherwise, making the content more engaging and diverse.

AI also plays a crucial role in editing and proofreading. AI-powered tools refine grammar, improve clarity, and help polish a manuscript before publishing. Additionally, AI can assist with formatting and structuring chapters, making the publishing process smoother and ensuring the final book looks professional.

Polishing Your AI-Written Manuscript

Step 4: Editing with AI

Editing is one of the most critical stages of book writing, and AI can be a powerful tool to refine your manuscript. AI editing tools help identify grammatical mistakes, improve sentence flow, and suggest better word choices, making your content more polished and professional.

Beyond grammar and spelling, AI can analyze readability and suggest structural improvements. It can flag overused phrases, recommend variations, and ensure clarity in your writing. By leveraging AI book writing tools at this stage, you can make your book more engaging for readers while maintaining your unique voice.

AI editing tools can enhance readability and correct grammatical errors.

• Use Grammarly or ProWritingAid for grammar and style suggestions.
• Use Hemingway Editor to improve readability.
• Use Sudowrite for refining creative writing.

Step 5: Formatting and Publishing

Formatting is a crucial step in preparing your book for publication. A well-formatted book enhances readability and ensures a professional appearance, whether it’s an eBook or a printed copy. AI-powered formatting tools help streamline this process by structuring chapters, adjusting spacing, and applying consistent fonts and styles.

AI can also assist with the publishing process. From generating book descriptions to selecting the right keywords for better discoverability, AI tools can optimize your book for online marketplaces. This ensures that your book not only looks great but also has a strong presence where readers can find it.

AI book writing tools can simplify book formatting and help with self-publishing.

• Use Atticus or Reedsy for professional book formatting.
• Generate AI-powered book descriptions and marketing content.
• Publish to platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with AI-assisted tools.

Maximizing AI Book Writing Success

AI book writing can be a game-changer, but to truly benefit from it, you need to use it strategically. One of the most important things to remember is to maintain your unique voice. AI-generated content can be helpful, but it should never replace your personal style or storytelling abilities. Readers connect with authenticity, so always make sure to infuse your own perspective into the writing process.

Another crucial factor is fact-checking. AI can sometimes generate misleading or incorrect information, especially when pulling from outdated or unreliable sources. To ensure accuracy, always verify facts, statistics, and references before including them in your book. A well-researched and credible book will stand out and build trust with readers.

AI should be seen as a guide, not a crutch. While AI can assist with brainstorming, drafting, and editing, human creativity and critical thinking remain essential. The best results come when AI complements your writing process rather than taking over entirely. By using AI effectively, you can streamline your workflow while still producing high-quality, engaging content.

Is AI Book Writing Right for You?

AI book writing is an excellent option for entrepreneurs, content creators, and aspiring authors who want to produce books efficiently without sacrificing quality. AI tools can assist in drafting, structuring, and editing, making the process smoother and more manageable. However, it’s important to remember that AI should enhance creativity, not replace it.

For those struggling with writer’s block or time constraints, AI can provide a framework to get words on the page quickly. It can generate outlines, expand on ideas, and suggest improvements, allowing authors to focus on refining their message rather than starting from scratch. This makes it a valuable tool for both experienced and first-time authors.

That said, AI-generated content still requires human oversight. While AI can accelerate the writing process, it lacks the emotional depth and unique voice that make books compelling. The best approach is to use AI as a collaborator, combining its efficiency with your creativity to produce a book that truly resonates with readers.

FAQs About AI Book Writing

1. Can AI write a book entirely on its own?

AI can generate text, but human creativity and oversight are needed to ensure originality, coherence, and quality storytelling.

2. What AI tools are best for book writing?

Popular AI book writing tools include ChatGPT, Jasper, Sudowrite, Grammarly, and Atticus.

3. Will AI replace human authors?

No, AI is an assistive tool, not a replacement. The personal touch of human authors is irreplaceable.

4. How can AI help with book marketing?

AI can generate book descriptions, email sequences, and ad copy, making promotion more efficient.

5. Is AI-generated content copyrightable?

Currently, AI-generated content may not be eligible for copyright protection unless significantly edited by a human.

AI book writing can be a rewarding experience. By using AI as a partner in the process, you can unlock new levels of efficiency and creativity in your writing journey.

AI Isn’t the Future—It’s the Present. Are You Using It to Your Advantage?

Most business owners are either wasting time on tasks AI could handle or missing out on powerful automation because they don’t know where to start. If you want to free up hours in your week, increase revenue, and scale without burnout, AI is the answer –> but only if you use it the right way.

Let’s talk. Book a free strategy call, and we’ll walk through how AI can be integrated into your business to make you more efficient, profitable, and unstoppable.

Schedule Your Free Call Now

The post How to Write a Book with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Done For You.

These business growth strategies help you increase profits, expand your customer base, and create sustainable growth. The best part? You don’t need a massive budget or a complete business overhaul—just small, strategic adjustments that create compounding results over time.

Understanding the Revenue Dials Framework for Business Growth

Scaling your business doesn’t always mean chasing new customers. Instead, optimizing what’s already working can lead to exponential growth. The six revenue dials represent adjustments you can make within your current business model to maximize profitability and achieve sustainable business growth.

Think of them like volume knobs on a soundboard—tweaking each one individually allows you to fine-tune your revenue model. Some businesses benefit most from increasing order value, while others see better results by adjusting pricing or targeting more profitable customers. By understanding these six revenue dials, you can scale smarter, not harder.

1. Increase Average Order Value for Faster Business Growth

If you want to grow revenue quickly, increasing how much each customer spends per transaction is one of the most effective ways to do it. Instead of solely relying on acquiring new customers (which can be costly), focusing on maximizing the value of each sale helps boost profits without significantly increasing marketing expenses.

Increasing average order value (AOV) is a simple yet powerful business growth strategy that boosts profitability without requiring additional marketing spend. By strategically adjusting product pricing, offering bundles, and using premium pricing tiers, businesses can significantly enhance their bottom line.

Strategies to Boost Order Value:

Upsells & Cross-Sells

Offer complementary products at checkout to encourage additional purchases. (e.g., “Would you like fries with that?”) This works well in both physical and digital businesses—software companies offer premium features at checkout, while retail stores suggest related items like chargers for electronics.

Bundling Products

Package related items together at a slight discount to incentivize customers to buy more. A great example is McDonald’s value meals, where the bundled price is lower than purchasing each item separately. Ecommerce businesses can bundle skincare products, fitness gear, or home office essentials to increase order value effortlessly.

Premium Pricing Tiers

Introduce a higher-end version of your product or service with added value. This works well in service-based businesses, online courses, and software subscriptions. Offering VIP or exclusive packages with extra perks encourages customers to spend more while feeling like they’re getting a better deal.

Minimum Spend Incentives

Encourage customers to spend more by offering rewards for reaching a certain threshold, such as free shipping on orders over $50 or a discount for spending $100 or more. This tactic encourages buyers to add extra items to their carts to unlock a better deal.

Example: Apple excels at increasing AOV by offering accessories, storage upgrades, and AppleCare+ protection plans during checkout. Customers frequently opt for these add-ons because they enhance the functionality and longevity of their devices.

By implementing these strategies, you can increase revenue without adding extra marketing costs, making each transaction more valuable while improving the overall shopping experience.

2. Boost Purchase Frequency to Drive Business Growth

Rather than constantly acquiring new customers, one of the smartest ways to grow your revenue is by getting existing customers to buy more often. A business that successfully increases customer retention gains a business growth advantage over competitors. Loyal customers are 50% more likely to make another purchase, making retention-driven revenue a key driver of long-term profitability.

The key to increasing purchase frequency is staying top of mind with your audience while providing ongoing value. Whether through personalized marketing, incentives, or convenience-driven models, repeat sales create a more sustainable business model that isn’t entirely dependent on constantly finding new buyers.

How to Increase Repeat Purchases:

Loyalty Programs

Reward customers for continued purchases by offering points, discounts, or exclusive perks. (e.g., Starbucks Rewards gives customers free drinks and bonus points for frequent visits, encouraging them to return regularly.) Loyalty programs create a sense of exclusivity while making customers feel appreciated.

Subscription Models

Offer convenience through recurring purchases, eliminating the need for customers to actively reorder products. (e.g., Dollar Shave Club delivers razors and grooming essentials every month, ensuring customers never run out of supplies.) This model works particularly well for consumable products like skincare, coffee, pet supplies, and household essentials.

Re-engagement Campaigns

Send personalized email or SMS reminders based on past purchase history. These could include reminders to restock a product, recommend upgrades, or provide exclusive returning customer discounts. (e.g., Ecommerce brands often send “It’s time to reorder!” emails for vitamins, supplements, or beauty products.)

Limited-Time Offers for Past Customers

Encourage repeat purchases with exclusive discounts for returning buyers. A “Welcome Back” offer or a VIP-only deal can be a strong incentive for past customers to purchase again.

Membership Perks

Offer benefits like faster shipping, exclusive access, or personalized deals to make returning more appealing. (e.g., Amazon Prime has mastered this by offering fast, free shipping, which not only increases customer satisfaction but also creates a habit of buying through Amazon rather than competitors.)

Example: Amazon Prime is one of the best examples of boosting purchase frequency. By offering perks like free two-day shipping, exclusive deals, and Prime Video access, Amazon ensures that members continue shopping on their platform rather than looking elsewhere. This membership model has driven higher order frequency, increased spending, and stronger brand loyalty.

By focusing on repeat customers, you can drive revenue growth without constantly needing to acquire new buyers—reducing marketing costs and increasing profitability over time.

3. Optimize Your Price Point for Sustainable Business Growth

Pricing is more than just covering costs—it’s a powerful psychological trigger that influences customer perception, sales volume, and overall profitability. Many businesses unknowingly underprice their products, leaving significant revenue on the table. Others price too high without offering enough perceived value, causing potential buyers to hesitate or look elsewhere.

Finding the right price is about balancing profit margins, customer demand, and competitive positioning. A well-optimized pricing strategy can boost conversion rates, increase customer lifetime value (LTV), and maximize revenue without requiring additional sales volume.

Pricing optimization is one of the most effective business growth levers. A well-structured pricing model ensures sustainable profitability while making your products or services more attractive to the right customers.

Ways to Optimize Pricing:

Test Different Price Points

Experiment with pricing models using A/B testing to find the most profitable and customer-friendly price. This could involve slightly increasing or decreasing prices across different customer segments and tracking which version converts best. Online businesses, especially those with digital products, can quickly adjust prices to test customer sensitivity and perceived value.

Introduce Tiered Pricing

Offer basic, premium, and elite versions of your product or service to appeal to different customer needs and budgets. (e.g., Software companies use “freemium” models where a free plan attracts users, and paid tiers unlock advanced features.) By adding higher-priced options, you allow customers to self-select based on their needs and willingness to pay, effectively increasing revenue without extra effort.

Use Psychological Pricing Techniques

Small adjustments in how you present your price can dramatically impact sales.

• Charm Pricing: Ending prices in .99 or .95 (e.g., $9.99 instead of $10) makes a product seem cheaper, even if the difference is minimal.
• Prestige Pricing: Higher-end brands round up prices (e.g., $500 instead of $499) to reinforce a luxury perception.
• Bundle Discounts: Packaging multiple products at a slightly lower combined price increases the perceived deal value while boosting the average order value.

Leverage Value-Based Pricing

Instead of pricing based on costs, determine what your customers are willing to pay based on perceived value. (e.g., A high-end coaching program can charge significantly more than a standard online course if it promises one-on-one guidance and exclusive resources.)

Use Discounts Strategically

While excessive discounts can damage your brand’s perceived value, limited-time offers or seasonal discounts can create urgency and drive more conversions. Consider running promotions only for new customers or as part of a loyalty program to increase customer retention without devaluing your brand.

Example: Apple rarely discounts its products, maintaining a premium brand image. Their pricing strategy is based on value perception, product quality, and brand loyalty, allowing them to keep higher profit margins. On the other hand, McDonald’s and fast-food chains use value-based pricing, offering affordable meal bundles to drive high transaction volume and repeat purchases.

A well-thought-out pricing strategy ensures you’re maximizing revenue without sacrificing customer trust or brand positioning. Whether you’re testing different models, leveraging tiered pricing, or using psychological pricing tactics, small adjustments in pricing can lead to significant revenue growth.

4. Target a More Profitable Customer Segment for Long-Term Business Growth

Not all customers contribute equally to your revenue. Some are price-sensitive, while others are willing to pay a premium for quality, exclusivity, or convenience. If you want to scale your business effectively, you need to focus on attracting and retaining high-value customers—those who spend more, buy more frequently, and require less hand-holding.

Shifting your marketing and sales focus to a high-value audience is a business growth strategy that increases revenue while improving customer lifetime value. Businesses that successfully attract premium buyers often experience higher profit margins, stronger customer loyalty, and a more sustainable long-term growth strategy.

How to Attract Premium Customers:

Reposition Your Brand

Adjust your messaging, website design, and overall customer experience to signal exclusivity and higher quality. Premium brands don’t just sell products—they sell a lifestyle. Think about how Tesla positions itself as an innovative status symbol rather than just another car brand.

Offer Exclusive Products or Services

Introduce VIP memberships, limited-edition releases, or high-end versions of your products to appeal to those willing to pay more for exclusivity. Luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton thrive on scarcity and premium craftsmanship.

Refine Ad Targeting and Customer Acquisition Strategies

Focus on audiences with higher purchasing power by leveraging data-driven insights. Adjust your ad targeting to reach demographics that historically spend more, and personalize marketing messages to highlight quality and exclusivity rather than price.

Enhance Customer Experience

High-value customers expect premium service. Offering white-glove customer support, personalized recommendations, and fast shipping can justify a higher price point and foster brand loyalty.

Example: Rolex markets exclusively to high-net-worth individuals, reinforcing its luxury appeal. Instead of targeting the mass market, they focus on prestige, craftsmanship, and legacy, making their watches more desirable and justifying premium pricing.

By shifting your focus to the right customer base, you can increase profitability without having to scale operations significantly. Instead of chasing low-margin sales, invest in attracting customers who see the value in your offering and are willing to pay for it.

5. Expand Your Product Line to Unlock New Business Growth Opportunities

Expanding your product line is one of the most effective ways to increase revenue without constantly chasing new customers. By offering complementary products or services, you not only enhance customer lifetime value but also create new opportunities for repeat purchases. A well-thought-out product expansion strategy strengthens brand loyalty and makes it easier for customers to find everything they need within your ecosystem.

Diversifying your offerings ensures consistent business growth by increasing customer lifetime value. Whether through digital add-ons, complementary products, or premium-tiered services, expansion helps maximize every customer interaction.

Ways to Expand Your Product Line:

Offer Digital Products

If you sell physical products, consider digital add-ons like ebooks, templates, or exclusive online content. These products have low production costs and can be delivered instantly, making them an easy upsell. For example, a fitness equipment brand could sell digital workout guides or meal-planning templates.

Create Complementary Products

Adding accessories, bundles, or related items enhances the customer experience and increases average order value. A brand that sells cameras, for instance, could introduce tripods, memory cards, and editing software.

Develop Premium or Subscription-Based Offerings

Introducing a premium version of an existing product or launching a subscription model can create recurring revenue. This approach works well in industries ranging from beauty (subscription boxes) to SaaS (tiered pricing plans).

License or Partner with Other Brands

Instead of developing a new product from scratch, collaborate with other companies to introduce co-branded products. Strategic partnerships allow you to tap into new markets while leveraging existing brand credibility.

Example: Tesla expanded beyond electric cars into solar panels, battery storage, and energy solutions, creating an interconnected ecosystem that keeps customers engaged across multiple product lines.

By strategically expanding your product offerings, you create more opportunities for customers to buy from you, increasing their lifetime value while solidifying your brand’s authority in your industry. The key is to ensure that every new product aligns with your brand identity and genuinely adds value to your audience.

6. Introduce Add-On Services to Strengthen Business Growth

Service-based add-ons are an excellent business growth strategy that not only increases revenue but also strengthens customer relationships and brand loyalty. Customers often seek additional support, customization, or expertise when purchasing a product, and providing these services creates an opportunity for recurring income. Whether through one-time service fees or ongoing subscriptions, add-on services can significantly increase customer lifetime value while setting you apart from competitors.

When introducing add-on services, think about the full customer journey. What challenges or needs arise after they purchase your product? How can you enhance their experience while generating additional revenue? The best add-on services solve a problem, provide convenience, or elevate the perceived value of your product.

Add-On Service Ideas:

Installation & Setup Services

Many customers are willing to pay extra for professional setup, especially with tech products, appliances, or furniture.

Example: Best Buy’s Geek Squad offers installation and tech support for a variety of electronics, making setup hassle-free for customers.

Extended Warranties & Support Plans

Offering protection plans or priority support can provide peace of mind while generating additional revenue. This works well for high-ticket items like electronics, fitness equipment, or even software subscriptions.

Example: AppleCare+ extends coverage and adds premium support for Apple device users.

VIP Access or Consulting Packages

If your business offers specialized products, consider selling premium support, coaching, or exclusive access to expert guidance.

Example: Online course creators can sell one-on-one coaching calls alongside digital courses, giving customers a personalized learning experience.

Subscription-Based Content or Services

If your product aligns with an ongoing need, offering a subscription service can lock in repeat revenue.

Example: Peloton sells premium exercise equipment but drives long-term profitability through its monthly subscription for live and on-demand workout content.

Customization & Personalization

Customers love products tailored to their preferences. If you sell clothing, offer monogramming; if you sell planners, allow users to choose custom covers or layouts.

Example: Nike’s “By You” program lets customers personalize their sneakers, creating a premium experience that adds to the brand’s appeal.

By introducing strategic add-on services, you provide more value to your customers while boosting your bottom line. The key is to ensure these services complement your core offering and enhance the overall experience, making your product indispensable to your audience.

Leveraging Automation for Business Growth

Scaling a business doesn’t have to mean working longer hours or hiring a massive team. Automation allows businesses to streamline operations, enhance customer engagement, and drive business growth without increasing overhead costs. Tools like AI chatbots, CRM automation, and predictive analytics optimize workflow and sales processes.

Automation isn’t just about convenience; it’s a strategic advantage. Businesses that embrace automation can personalize customer interactions at scale, reduce operational costs, and ensure that no opportunity slips through the cracks. The key is identifying repetitive tasks that take up time and replacing them with systems that run on autopilot, allowing you to focus on high-impact growth strategies.

Ways to Use Automation for Growth:

AI Chatbots for 24/7 Customer Support

Instead of requiring human support agents to answer every customer inquiry, AI-powered chatbots can handle common questions, assist with troubleshooting, and even guide users through the purchasing process.

Example: Many ecommerce brands use chatbots like Drift or ManyChat to qualify leads, answer FAQs, and drive sales conversations in real-time.

Automated Email Sequences

Follow-up emails are crucial for nurturing leads, onboarding new customers, and encouraging repeat purchases. Setting up automated sequences ensures that no lead gets ignored and customers receive timely, relevant messages.

Example: SaaS companies use drip campaigns to educate users about product features, leading to higher retention and upsell opportunities.

Personalized Marketing with AI

Customers expect personalized experiences, and AI makes it possible to tailor product recommendations, promotions, and messaging based on browsing behavior, past purchases, or engagement history.

Example: Amazon’s recommendation engine generates 35% of its total revenue by suggesting products based on user activity.

Social Media Scheduling and Engagement

Staying active on social media is essential, but manually posting and responding to messages is time-consuming. Automated scheduling tools like Hootsuite or Buffer allow businesses to plan content in advance, while AI-powered tools can respond to comments and inquiries instantly.

CRM and Sales Funnel Automation

Managing customer relationships and tracking leads can be overwhelming as a business grows. CRM software like HubSpot or Salesforce automates lead tracking, follow-ups, and even deal-closing sequences, making the sales process more efficient.

Order Fulfillment and Inventory Management

For ecommerce businesses, automation can optimize order processing, manage inventory, and send shipping notifications without manual input.

Example: Shopify users integrate with fulfillment centers like ShipBob or Amazon FBA to automate logistics and focus on scaling sales.

Example: Ecommerce brands using AI-powered chatbots see a 30% increase in conversions because customers get instant answers and support, eliminating friction in the buying process. By automating customer interactions, businesses reduce cart abandonment and improve overall user experience.

Making Automation Work for You

The secret to successful automation is knowing what to automate and what still requires a human touch. While AI and technology can handle repetitive tasks, personalized customer interactions and creative strategy should remain hands-on. The goal is to build systems that work in the background, allowing you to focus on innovation and scaling your business.

By integrating automation into your business model, you create a streamlined, efficient operation that drives consistent revenue growth—without burning out yourself or your team.

The Power of Branding in Revenue Growth

A strong brand contributes directly to business growth by increasing perceived value, improving customer retention, and allowing companies to charge premium pricing. Customers don’t just buy products; they buy into brands that align with their values, aspirations, and emotions. A well-defined brand allows you to command higher prices, differentiate yourself in the market, and turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers.

Branding isn’t just about your logo or color scheme—it’s the entire experience customers have with your business. Every interaction, from social media content to customer service, shapes the perception of your brand. If done right, branding makes your business memorable, influences purchasing decisions, and encourages word-of-mouth marketing.

Branding Strategies That Drive Revenue:

Consistent Messaging Across Platforms

Your brand voice should be uniform whether on social media, your website, or in customer emails. A cohesive brand message reinforces trust and reliability, making customers feel secure in their purchasing decisions.

Example: Apple’s minimalist, premium messaging is reflected in everything from its packaging to its website copy, reinforcing its high-end image.

Emotional Storytelling for Deeper Connections

Customers make purchasing decisions based on emotions, not just logic. Brands that connect with their audience on a deeper level foster loyalty and engagement.

Example: TOMS Shoes built a brand around giving back—customers know that every purchase helps provide shoes to someone in need, making them feel good about their purchase.

A Strong Visual Identity That Sticks

The colors, fonts, and design elements you choose create an instant association with your brand. A distinctive visual identity helps your brand stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Example: Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white branding has remained consistent for decades, making it one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Positioning Your Brand as a Premium Option

If you want to attract high-value customers, your branding should reflect exclusivity and quality. From website design to packaging, every element should signal value.

Example: Luxury brands like Rolex and Louis Vuitton maintain exclusivity through high-end branding, allowing them to charge premium prices.

Leveraging Brand Advocates and Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Your most loyal customers can be your best marketers. Encouraging user-generated content, referrals, and brand ambassadors helps expand your reach organically.

Example: Tesla’s early adopters became vocal advocates, spreading brand awareness through social media and personal recommendations—without Tesla having to spend heavily on advertising.

Turning Branding into a Revenue-Generating Asset

Your brand is one of your most valuable business assets. A strong, well-positioned brand not only attracts new customers but also increases customer lifetime value by encouraging repeat purchases. Investing in branding isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about creating an experience that resonates with your audience and keeps them coming back.

By refining your brand strategy, you set the foundation for long-term revenue growth, customer loyalty, and market differentiation.

Your Key to Business Growth

Scaling a business isn’t about guessing—it’s about strategically adjusting these six revenue dials to optimize business growth and profitability. By refining your strategies in pricing, retention, branding, and automation, you can build a scalable and sustainable business model.

Start by tweaking just one or two dials—maybe experiment with pricing, optimize your product lineup, or introduce upsells. Small, smart changes lead to exponential growth over time.

Success in business comes from iteration, data-driven decisions, and continuously refining your strategy. Focus on optimizing what’s already working, and you’ll build a business that scales effortlessly.

FAQ: Business Growth and Revenue Optimization

1. Which revenue dial should I focus on first?

• Start with the one that offers the quickest impact—for most businesses, it’s increasing order value or purchase frequency.

2. How do I test price adjustments without losing customers?

• Use A/B testing, introductory offers, and tiered pricing to gradually increase prices and measure customer response.

3. What’s the best way to identify high-value customers?

• Analyze purchase history, engagement levels, and demographics to find those who spend the most and return often.

4. How can I add services if I only sell physical products?

• Consider subscription add-ons, extended warranties, exclusive access, or personalized product recommendations.

5. Do all businesses need to expand their product line?

No—but offering complementary products boosts revenue and retention by giving customers more reasons to stay with your brand.

The post 6 Revenue Dials to Accelerate Business Growth appeared first on Done For You.

Black Friday presents a unique opportunity for sellers to capitalize on customers’ heightened purchasing intent by selecting the best pricing models for Black Friday. By carefully crafting your Black Friday pricing strategy, you can attract buyers and protect your brand value, ensuring long-term success.

This guide offers actionable insights on structuring prices for maximum conversion while preserving your brand’s integrity. With tailored pricing strategies for digital products, services, and software, you can drive sales without compromising your reputation. Implementing an effective Black Friday pricing strategy is crucial for maximizing sales during the holiday season.

Digital Product Pricing Sweet Spots: Crafting Your Black Friday Pricing Strategy

Digital products offer excellent profit margins even with deep discounts, making them perfect for Black Friday promotions. Understanding the best pricing models for Black Friday can help you structure offers that drive sales without compromising profitability. Here’s a breakdown of the best pricing tiers for digital products and effective ways to position them for Black Friday. A well-planned Black Friday pricing strategy can set your brand apart from competitors, especially when pricing digital products for maximum impact.

1. Entry-Level Products: A Black Friday Pricing Strategy for $7-$37

   Entry-level offers act as effective customer acquisition tools by providing value at a low price point. Pricing these offers for Black Friday at the lower end of the spectrum creates “no-brainer” deals that appeal to impulse buyers.

   • Dropping $37 Products to $7-17: Lowering the price to this range makes the purchase feel irresistibly affordable, often leading to impulse buys. Even with such discounts, digital products maintain profitability because of low delivery costs.

   • Bundling Multiple Lower-Priced Items Together: By combining several related products, you can increase the overall value of the offer. This justifies the original pricing while making the Black Friday discount appear even more substantial.

   • Adding High-Value Bonuses to Justify the Regular Price: Including extras, such as guides, templates, or resources, enhances the perceived value of your product even at a discounted rate. This reinforces the original price and maintains its worth even after Black Friday ends.

2. Mid-Tier Products: Key Black Friday Pricing Strategies for $97-$297

   This pricing range often hits the “sweet spot” for Black Friday buyers who want significant value without a large financial commitment. By selecting the best pricing models for Black Friday, mid-tier products can appeal to value-conscious customers while maintaining strong margins.

   • Reduce $297 Products to $97-147: Dropping prices in this range creates an attractive offer that feels like a significant deal, enhancing the appeal of mid-tier products without devaluing them.

   • Include Premium Add-Ons to Increase Perceived Value: Adding high-value bonuses like additional training modules or exclusive resources makes the discount feel even greater, adding an extra layer of perceived value to the product.

   • Offer Payment Plans for Higher Price Points: Breaking payments into 2-3 installments allows customers to access premium products at manageable costs. This approach increases affordability while maintaining profit margins.

3. Premium Products: Effective Black Friday Pricing Strategies for $497-$997

   Higher-priced offers require a carefully crafted strategy to maintain their premium positioning while still providing Black Friday value. These products typically attract more sophisticated buyers who need additional proof of value before purchasing.

   • Consider 50-60% Discounts to Create Compelling Offers: Offering discounts in this range provides a strong incentive to buy, while still retaining the premium positioning of the product.

   • Bundle in Consultation Calls or Implementation Support: Adding personal interaction, such as a strategy session or live Q&A, enhances both the perceived and actual value. This differentiates the product from lower-priced options.

   • Add Scarcity through Limited Quantities or Timing: Creating genuine scarcity by limiting quantities or sale duration drives urgency. This technique is particularly effective for high-ticket items and helps maintain exclusivity.

Software and SaaS Pricing Strategies for Black Friday Success

Software products require a unique approach to Black Friday pricing because they typically involve ongoing costs and support. The goal is to drive immediate sales while building sustainable long-term revenue through customer retention. SaaS companies can effectively use Black Friday to lock in annual or long-term subscribers by offering exclusive discounts or bonuses.

1. Annual Plans

   Annual subscriptions provide immediate revenue and encourage long-term commitment. Structuring these offers to reward commitment while still offering a substantial discount can increase conversions.

   • Offer 40-50% Off Annual Subscriptions: This discount range makes a compelling case for subscribing, appealing to users looking for savings on long-term commitments.

   • Include Additional Months Free: By adding extra months (e.g., 14 months for the price of 12), you increase the perceived discount without altering the regular pricing structure.

   • Add Exclusive Black Friday Features or Upgrades: Offering exclusive features or capabilities for Black Friday customers adds perceived value and makes the deal feel unique, further justifying the full price after the promotion.

   • Understanding consumer behavior is vital for developing a successful Black Friday pricing strategy tailored to SaaS products.
     

2. Lifetime Deals

   Lifetime deals are among the best pricing models for Black Friday, providing customers with exceptional value and generating immediate revenue. These deals should be structured to cover several years of subscription revenue, providing value for both the customer and your business.

   • Price at 2.5-3x Annual Subscription Cost: This pricing ensures profitability by covering multiple years of regular subscriptions. It appeals to customers who prefer to make a one-time investment rather than recurring payments.

   • Include Future Updates and New Features: Guaranteeing access to future updates makes the offer feel comprehensive, assuring customers that they’ll receive ongoing value without additional charges.

   • Limit Availability to Create Urgency: Set a clear quantity limit or sale end date to drive immediate action, which also protects regular pricing after Black Friday.

Service Package Pricing: Developing a Black Friday Pricing Strategy

Service-based businesses require unique pricing strategies for Black Friday that maintain the premium nature of their offerings while providing compelling value. For service-based businesses, choosing the best pricing models for Black Friday is key to maintaining a premium perception while attracting high-quality clients.

1. Strategy Sessions

   Initial consultation calls provide a low-cost entry point for high-ticket services, allowing clients to experience your expertise before making a larger investment. Offering these sessions at a discounted rate for Black Friday can attract serious prospects.

   • Price Point Should Be Low Enough to Encourage Trials ($47-297): This range makes the initial session affordable while still qualifying leads who see value in professional guidance.

   • Include Pre-Session Materials and Assessments: Preparation materials provide added value, helping clients come to the session informed and ready to get the most out of it.

   • Add Bonus Recordings or Resources: Offering additional resources, such as recorded sessions or PDF guides, increases perceived value and can guide prospects toward a higher-tier service.

2. Group Programs

   Group coaching or training programs are a great way to scale services while maintaining high profit margins. Black Friday promotions for group programs can help fill upcoming cohorts and attract committed clients.

   • Offer Early-Bird Pricing for Upcoming Cohorts: Offering a discount for advanced registration helps manage cash flow and program planning while creating urgency.

   • Consider 30-40% Discounts on Regular Rates: This discount level is substantial enough to attract buyers while preserving the perceived value of the program.

   • Add Exclusive Black Friday Bonuses: Including special bonuses only available during Black Friday increases perceived value without adding ongoing delivery costs.

3. High-Ticket Services

   Premium services require careful positioning on Black Friday to maintain their high-value perception. Rather than relying on deep discounts, focus on adding unique value to attract clients.

   • Maintain Premium Positioning Even with Discounts: Keeping discounts moderate (20-30%) helps retain the high-value perception of your service, attracting clients who are willing to invest.

   • Focus on Value-Adds Rather than Deep Discounts: Include additional services, such as extra sessions or personalized support, rather than reducing prices dramatically.

   • Consider Offering Upgraded Service Levels: Create Black Friday-exclusive service tiers with enhanced features or support that add value without diminishing the regular offer.

   • Tailoring your Black Friday pricing strategy to your target audience can lead to higher conversion rates for premium services.

The Multi-Tier Pricing Approach: A Comprehensive Black Friday Pricing Strategy

Implementing a multi-tier pricing approach ensures you cater to diverse customer segments with the best pricing models for Black Friday. Each pricing tier should offer distinct value to encourage upgrades. Here’s how to structure a tiered approach effectively for Black Friday. Analyzing past performance helps refine your Black Friday pricing strategy for future success.

1. Basic Tier

   The entry-level tier serves as an accessible point for price-sensitive customers. It provides essential value while encouraging eventual upgrades.

   • Highest Percentage Discount (50-70%): Offering the deepest discount here attracts entry-level buyers and encourages list-building for future offers.

   • Core Offering Only: Keep this level simple and straightforward, focusing on the main product without extras to maintain profitability.

   • Limited Support or Access: Offering basic support creates a clear path for upgrades to higher tiers for enhanced support and features.

2. Premium Tier

   The middle tier typically generates the most revenue by balancing price and value. This option should offer clear advantages over the basic tier, making it appealing to more serious buyers.

   • Moderate Discount (40-50%): A substantial discount keeps this option attractive while maintaining stronger margins.

   • Additional Features or Services: Include exclusive bonuses that add value, making the premium tier feel like a worthwhile investment.

   • Enhanced Support Options: Providing better support at this tier helps differentiate it from the basic offer and makes it more appealing to customers seeking more guidance.

3. VIP Tier

   The highest tier targets your most committed customers and maintains premium positioning. This tier should offer exclusivity and maximum value to justify the price.

   • Smaller Discount Percentage (30-40%): Keeping the discount moderate helps preserve the premium status and justifies a higher investment.

   • All Available Features Plus Exclusives: Provide full access to all content along with unique extras, making it the most comprehensive option.

   • Maximum Support and Access: Offer the highest level of service and support, ensuring VIP customers receive exceptional value for their purchase.

Creating Profitable Discount Structures: Key Elements of a Black Friday Pricing Strategy

Your discount strategy must balance attractive offers with sustainable profits. The key is understanding your margins and lifetime customer value while creating compelling reasons to buy now.

1. Maintain Margins

   Understanding your true costs and profitability enables strategic discounting that drives sales while protecting business sustainability.

   • Calculate minimum profitable price points, including delivery, support, and overhead costs to ensure profitability.

   • Factor in long-term customer value, considering future purchases and upgrades when setting initial discounts.

2. Use Strategic Discounting

   Different discount levels trigger different psychological responses. Understanding these thresholds helps optimize your offers for maximum conversion.

   • 50% off typically creates the strongest urgency, prompting quick action from buyers.

   • 67% off should be the maximum for digital products to avoid devaluing the product and affecting future sales.

3. Add Value Instead of Cutting Price

   Adding bonuses often proves more effective than deeper discounts while protecting your regular pricing power.

   • Bundle complementary products to increase perceived value without additional cost.

   • Include implementation support to add extra value, particularly for high-ticket offers.

   • Crafting a thoughtful Black Friday pricing strategy ensures both attractive offers and sustainable profitability.

4. Payment Plans and Financing

   Making purchases more accessible through payment options can significantly increase conversion rates while maintaining profitable pricing.

   • Use split payments for higher-ticket purchases, spacing payments 30 days apart to align with customer budgeting cycles.

   • Buy Now, Pay Later options can remove purchase barriers while ensuring full payment upfront.

Protecting Regular Pricing: Maintaining Integrity in Your Black Friday Pricing Strategy

While Black Friday demands significant discounts, implementing proper constraints helps maintain long-term pricing power.

1. Time Limitations

   Clear deadlines create urgency while protecting regular pricing structure.

   • Enforce strict deadlines to avoid customer expectations of extended sales.
   • Communicate exact expiration dates, down to the hour, to encourage action.

2. Quantity Limits

   Scarcity drives action while naturally limiting discount exposure.

   • Set reasonable limits that align with business capacity.
   • Publicly display availability to increase urgency and maintain trust.

3. Value Communication

   Emphasize the value you’re providing rather than focusing solely on discounts.

   • Showcase results and testimonials to support your regular pricing.
   • Maintain premium positioning by focusing messaging on value rather than price cuts.

Implementation Checklist: Executing Your Black Friday Pricing Strategy

A systematic approach to implementing your pricing strategy ensures smooth execution and maximum results. By preparing each element of your Black Friday campaign in advance, you can handle the increased traffic and demand effectively. Here are the essential steps to follow before launching your Black Friday sale:

1. Calculate Profit Margins at Different Price Points

   Determine your minimum viable price for each offer, considering production, delivery, and support costs. Knowing your profit margins allows you to set discounts that remain profitable.

   • Calculate your “floor price” that includes all associated costs to avoid underpricing your products or services.
   • Factor in customer lifetime value, considering potential upsells or repeat purchases that justify your discount levels.

2. Test Payment Processing Systems

   Ensure that your payment gateway can handle the increased volume and that there are no hiccups during checkout. A seamless payment experience is crucial for high conversion rates, especially on busy shopping days.

   • Conduct test purchases to ensure smooth transactions from start to finish, with no issues in processing or payment errors.
   • Prepare backup options if necessary, in case of issues with your primary payment gateway.

3. Prepare Clear Terms and Conditions

   Document the specific details of your Black Friday offers, including refund policies, delivery timelines, and any limitations. Clear terms help prevent misunderstandings and build trust with customers.

   • Outline refund and exchange policies to manage customer expectations, especially for discounted items.
   • Ensure all terms, such as limits on quantity and time-sensitive bonuses, are displayed on sales pages and checkout screens.

4. Create Urgency Triggers

   Design and implement scarcity elements like countdown timers and stock levels. These triggers encourage customers to take action before the deal expires.

   • Use countdown timers on your website and in email marketing to reinforce the limited availability of your offers.
   • Publicly display remaining quantities for limited-stock items to emphasize scarcity, which can boost conversions.

5. Set Up Tracking and Analytics

   Use analytics tools to monitor key metrics in real-time, including page views, cart abandonment rates, and sales conversions. This data helps you optimize your campaign while it’s live.

   • Set up tracking in tools like Google Analytics and your eCommerce platform to monitor sales, traffic, and conversions accurately.
   • Analyze data daily to identify any issues or opportunities to improve the campaign’s effectiveness during the Black Friday period.

6. Plan Post-Purchase Sequences

   Prepare follow-up emails and workflows for customer engagement after purchase. Keeping buyers engaged can drive future purchases and reinforce brand loyalty.

   • Use thank-you emails to acknowledge purchases and provide details on what to expect next, especially for services and digital products.
   • Schedule post-purchase emails to introduce upsells, cross-sells, or loyalty offers to retain customer interest beyond the initial Black Friday sale.

7. Prepare Fulfillment and Customer Support Resources

   Black Friday can significantly increase demand, so ensuring you have adequate support is essential for customer satisfaction. Prepare your fulfillment and customer support teams to handle the extra load smoothly.

   • Stock up on inventory for physical products, and test automation for digital products to ensure immediate delivery.
   • Schedule additional support staff or extended hours for customer service to address any queries quickly and efficiently during the sale.

A successful Black Friday pricing strategy requires a combination of compelling offers, robust preparation, and effective execution. By calculating your margins, testing systems, establishing clear terms, and setting up tracking, you ensure a smooth and profitable Black Friday sale.

Thoughtful post-purchase follow-ups further enhance your brand’s value, helping turn one-time buyers into loyal customers. Implementing these steps well in advance will help you make the most of Black Friday, maximizing both immediate revenue and long-term customer relationships. By adopting the best pricing models for Black Friday, you can maximize sales while maintaining brand integrity and customer trust.

The post Black Friday Pricing Strategy: How to Price Your Offers for Maximum Conversion appeared first on Done For You.

Black Friday represents a massive opportunity for digital entrepreneurs, software companies, and service providers to boost sales and acquire new customers. But with so many businesses competing for attention, choosing the right offer can make or break your Black Friday success. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the most effective types of offers for digital products for Black Friday, software, and professional services, with detailed tips on structuring your offers for maximum impact. Whether you’re selling courses, memberships, software, or high-ticket services, these strategies will help you create compelling offers that attract buyers and drive sales.

Black Friday Digital Products That Convert

When it comes to Black Friday digital products, shoppers are looking for immediate value and substantial discounts. Black Friday digital products are ideal promotions because they often carry high profit margins and can be delivered instantly without additional overhead. To stand out, it’s crucial to create an enticing Black Friday Digital Product offer that balances perceived value with profitability. Here are some top-performing Black Friday digital products that you can sell, along with strategies to make them irresistible.

1. Video Courses & Educational Content
   

   Video courses, typically priced between $97 and $997, are excellent choices for Black Friday sales. These high-value resources cater to customers interested in gaining new skills or knowledge, making them prime candidates for attractive discounts. Offering additional resources alongside the course can increase perceived value, making the deal feel exclusive and worthwhile even at a reduced price.

    

   • Complete Video Training Programs: Full-length, structured video courses guide learners through a specific skill or knowledge area. These programs often include multiple modules and allow for a step-by-step approach to learning, which customers find appealing.
   • Downloadable Workbooks and Resources: Supplementary PDFs, like workbooks and templates, provide hands-on applications of course content. These materials help learners reinforce their understanding and make the course experience more interactive.
   • Access to Private Communities: Exclusive groups, such as Facebook or Slack communities, allow students to engage with one another and receive additional support. This social element adds value by fostering a network of like-minded peers.
   • Implementation Guides: Step-by-step guides help customers implement what they’ve learned from the course, increasing the likelihood of success and customer satisfaction.
   • Case Studies and Examples: Real-world examples showcase successful applications of the course material, helping build trust and demonstrating the course’s practical value.
     

2. Membership Sites & Subscription Offers
   

   Membership sites provide recurring revenue potential and can be especially appealing on Black Friday, even at a discounted rate. Offering special memberships or subscription deals attracts long-term subscribers while increasing brand loyalty. Here are some membership offers that work well for Black Friday:

    

   • Lifetime Access Deals: A one-time payment for lifetime access appeals to customers who prefer permanent solutions. This option gives users unlimited access to the membership content, creating a strong incentive to buy.
   • Annual Memberships at Monthly Pricing: Discounting the annual plan to the equivalent of a monthly subscription rate encourages customers to commit for a year. This reduces churn and secures longer-term revenue for your business.
   • Bundle Deals Combining Multiple Membership Levels: Offering a package that includes access to various levels or sections of your membership site adds depth to the offer and makes the deal feel comprehensive.
   • Early Access to New Content: Allowing early access to upcoming features or content gives new members a head start, adding a layer of exclusivity to the offer.
   • Special Member-Only Bonuses: Exclusive bonuses that are only available during Black Friday enhance the appeal of the membership, making it feel unique and valuable.

Software & SaaS Black Friday Strategies

Software and SaaS companies can leverage Black Friday to drive long-term customer acquisition, especially if they offer strategic deals on subscriptions and features. Black Friday promotions for SaaS products often center around locking in users through attractive pricing for long-term plans or premium access. By providing discounts on annual plans, feature unlocks, or limited-time lifetime deals, software companies can maximize their Black Friday sales while building a loyal user base.

1. Extended Free Trials
   

   Extended free trials, lasting 30 to 60 days, offer customers ample time to experience your software before committing to a paid plan. This approach not only builds trust but also gives users a chance to integrate the software into their routine, increasing the likelihood they’ll become long-term subscribers.

    

   • Offering longer trial periods provides users with more time to understand the full value of your software. By the end of the trial, users are more likely to realize how your product can benefit them and feel ready to commit to a paid plan.
   • Pairing extended trials with discounts on annual plans creates an added incentive for users to convert, combining the benefits of a risk-free trial with the appeal of cost savings.

2. Lifetime Deals
   

   Lifetime deals provide customers with lifetime access at a one-time fee, typically set at 2-3x the annual rate. This kind of deal is highly attractive to buyers looking for long-term solutions, and it helps your company generate immediate cash flow while rewarding loyal customers.

    

   • Pricing lifetime deals at two to three times the annual subscription cost ensures profitability while providing genuine value to customers willing to make a higher upfront investment.
   • Offering lifetime access also builds a base of loyal users who may become brand advocates, helping promote your software within their networks.

3. Feature Unlocks
   

   Bundling premium features with entry-level plans during Black Friday increases the perceived value of the offer. This approach provides customers with a taste of premium functionality, potentially encouraging them to upgrade to a full-featured plan later on.

    

   • By offering higher-tier features at entry-level pricing, you allow customers to experience added value, enhancing their satisfaction with the product.
   • Feature unlocks can also create a positive first impression, as users get more than they expected, leading to higher retention rates and potential word-of-mouth referrals.

High-Ticket Service Offers

High-ticket offers, such as coaching, consulting, and other professional services, can also perform exceptionally well during Black Friday when packaged strategically. For service providers, Black Friday is a chance to showcase expertise and attract clients through special pricing or added value. Here are a few high-ticket service offerings that can attract committed buyers and yield strong revenue:

1. Strategy Sessions & Consultations
   

   Offering discounted strategy sessions as an entry point allows prospects to experience your expertise without a significant upfront investment. This approach builds trust and creates an opportunity to up-sell them to more comprehensive service packages.

    

   • Strategy sessions at a reduced price enable potential clients to test your services, helping them see the value firsthand.
   • This approach also qualifies leads who are serious about getting help, making them more likely to convert into paying clients.

2. Group Programs
   

   Group coaching or mastermind programs, offered at a discount, can help you fill spots in an upcoming cohort quickly. This setup allows you to serve more clients simultaneously while maintaining profitability.

    

   • Group coaching formats allow you to deliver value at scale, providing clients with access to your guidance and insights without the higher cost of one-on-one consulting.
   • Discounting these programs for Black Friday can help fill seats while building a community of clients with similar goals and interests.

3. Service Packages
   

   Bundling your most popular services with exclusive bonuses creates urgency and increases perceived value. Customers are more likely to invest when they feel they’re getting added benefits they can’t access at other times.

    

   • Service bundles create a comprehensive offering that addresses multiple client needs in one package, making the deal feel more valuable.
   • Exclusive bonuses, such as additional sessions or resources, further incentivize customers to act quickly and secure the deal.

4. Events & Training Programs
   

   Black Friday is ideal for selling spots in future events and programs. This approach works particularly well for workshops, retreats, and virtual summits.

    

   • Early bird pricing for live events or workshops scheduled for later dates helps secure sign-ups while giving customers something to look forward to.
   • Offering discounted access to virtual events or training programs can appeal to buyers looking for high-value educational experiences without travel requirements.

Structuring Your Black Friday Offer

Regardless of what you’re selling, follow these principles when structuring your offer to ensure it resonates with customers and maximizes conversions:

1. Clear Value Proposition
   

   Clearly explain the normal price versus the Black Friday special offer. Customers need to understand exactly what they’re saving and why acting now is beneficial. Emphasize the exclusive value they’re receiving as part of the Black Friday deal.

    

   • A clear value proposition helps customers grasp the savings instantly, making it easier for them to justify the purchase.
   • Providing a comparison of regular and Black Friday pricing can reinforce the deal’s attractiveness, encouraging quicker decisions.

2. Irresistible Bonuses
   

   Include time-sensitive bonuses that enhance your core offering. Bonuses can increase the appeal of your offer without diminishing its perceived value, making it feel exclusive and highly desirable.

    

   • Limited-time bonuses add urgency, encouraging customers to act quickly before the offer expires.
   • Valuable extras, such as additional resources or services, make customers feel they’re getting a special deal they won’t find at any other time.

3. Scarcity Elements
   

   Limit quantities or set availability windows to drive urgency. Make sure any limitations are realistic and can be fulfilled to avoid negative customer experiences.

    

   • Scarcity tactics like limited-time availability or capped quantities can enhance urgency, prompting customers to buy sooner rather than later.
   • Clearly communicate these limits to build excitement and foster a “now or never” mentality among potential buyers.

4. Future-Proof Pricing
   

   While discounts should be substantial, avoid undercutting your product’s long-term value. Structure the offer so that regular pricing remains appealing even after Black Friday ends.

    

   • Avoid devaluing your product by offering unsustainable discounts that might harm your brand in the future.
   • By preserving long-term pricing, you ensure that your regular prices still feel fair and valuable, maintaining your brand’s integrity.

Implementation Timeline

The key to a successful Black Friday offer is advance preparation. Planning each stage in detail ensures that your sales process is seamless and effective. Here are essential steps to follow in the weeks leading up to Black Friday:

1. Review Your Existing Products and Services
   

   Assess your current offerings to identify which ones can be best positioned for Black Friday. Look for products or services with high customer appeal and potential for strong demand.

    

   • Prioritize items with high perceived value, as these will attract customers seeking premium deals.
   • Consider products that are easy to scale for Black Friday volume without straining your resources.

2. Identify Potential Bonus Materials and Value-Adds
   

   Determine what additional resources or value you can add to your core offerings to make the Black Friday deal even more compelling.

    

   • Look for digital assets like eBooks, guides, or templates that can be bundled with minimal additional cost.
   • Value-adds should enhance the customer’s experience without significantly increasing delivery time or complexity.

3. Calculate Sustainable Discount Levels
   

   Decide on discount levels that are attractive but also allow you to remain profitable. Review your costs to ensure you’re not sacrificing margins in a way that harms your business.

    

   • Base discounts on your profit margins and typical customer acquisition costs.
   • Consider offering tiered discounts, so the deepest discounts are available for premium bundles or higher-priced items.

4. Create Promotional Materials and Sales Pages
   

   Design visually appealing sales pages, banners, and graphics that showcase your Black Friday deals. Each piece of promotional content should emphasize urgency and exclusivity.

    

   • Ensure sales pages are mobile-friendly, as many Black Friday shoppers browse and buy on mobile devices.
   • Highlight savings and exclusive bonuses prominently to make your offers clear and compelling.

5. Test Your Purchase Process and Delivery Systems
   

   Conduct thorough testing of your checkout, payment processing, and delivery systems to avoid issues during the sale.

    

   • Run test purchases to check that each step in the checkout process works smoothly and that customers receive what they ordered.
   • If offering digital products, verify that download links or account setups are automated and immediate.

6. Prepare Email Sequences and Marketing Assets
   

   Develop email and social media marketing assets well in advance. Your email sequences should include a mix of teasers, countdowns, and reminders.

    

   • Plan a sequence that builds anticipation, announces the sale, and sends final reminders as the sale end date approaches.
   • Use social media posts to highlight different aspects of the offer, including bonuses, limited-time discounts, and scarcity-driven elements.

The Most Common Black Friday Mistakes

Avoid these pitfalls when planning your offer:

• Discounting Too Deeply and Hurting Long-Term Pricing Power
  Offering excessive discounts can reduce the perceived value of your products over time, making it challenging to revert to regular prices. This can also condition customers to wait for sales, affecting revenue outside of promotional periods.

• Not Having Clear Terms and Limitations
  Ambiguities in your offer’s terms—such as unclear refund policies or expiration dates—can lead to confusion and customer dissatisfaction. Ensuring that every aspect of the offer is clearly communicated helps prevent misunderstandings and fosters trust.

• Failing to Prepare Fulfillment Systems for Increased Volume
  Without adequate preparation, fulfillment processes can become overwhelmed, leading to delays and errors. Testing your fulfillment systems and scaling up support ensures a smoother experience for your customers, even during high traffic periods.

• Missing Opportunities for Upsells and Cross-Sells
  Neglecting upsell and cross-sell opportunities means leaving potential revenue on the table. Strategically placed upsells or add-ons can enhance the customer’s purchase while increasing your average order value.
• Neglecting Post-Purchase Follow-Up Sequences
  Failing to follow up with customers after their purchase can result in missed opportunities for repeat business. A well-structured follow-up sequence keeps your brand top of mind, supports customer satisfaction, and can encourage future purchases.

Start Planning Now

The most successful Black Friday offers aren’t created last minute. Begin strategizing your offers well in advance to ensure smooth execution and maximum results. The more time you spend planning and testing, the more effective your campaign will be.

Want to learn more about creating high-converting Black Friday offers? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post where we’ll dive deep into Black Friday pricing strategies and psychology.

The post What to Sell for Black Friday: The Ultimate Guide to Black Friday Digital Product & Service Offers appeared first on Done For You.

Similarly, selling marketing services is as much an art or a marriage as it is a certain automation or business development person. While the selling of your services needs to solve prospect’s problems, you also need to be “appropriately aggressive” in pursuing prospects – much like the tenacious, deal-making strategies outlined in Donald Trump’s famous book, *The Art of the Deal*. While his approach to business inspired a relentless focus on closing, the same spirit can be applied to converting warm leads into loyal clients. This guide will take you through the essential steps to mastering the art of the sale, ensuring you turn interest into commitment.

1. Understand Your Warm Leads Thoroughly

The first step to successfully selling your services is to know who you’re talking to – you need to understand your warm leads inside and out. These leads have already shown interest, so it’s crucial to understand their specific needs, challenges, and motivations. And more importantly, you need to know how your services speak to or solve their needs and challenges. 

Tip: Use your CRM and analytics tools to track lead behavior and interactions. Knowing what content they’ve engaged with and what questions they’ve asked will help you craft a more targeted pitch.

2. Tailor Your Pitch for Maximum Impact

Your pitch should be more than just a presentation of your services—it should be a solution to the specific problems your warm leads are facing. Focus on the outcomes they can expect from partnering with your agency. You can even retarget these leads with that same messaging – helping coax them down the funnel to conversion or prepping them to book a sales call by answering their questions in retargeting ads. 

Tip: Highlight case studies and success stories that align with the lead’s industry or challenges. Make your pitch about them, not just about what you offer.

3. Create a Compelling Call to Action

Prospects need a reason to act now. Creating a sense of urgency can help push them from consideration to decision. Whether it’s a limited-time offer, a free trial, or the promise of immediate results, your CTA should motivate action. One ecommerce brand I worked with simply added a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” badge at the bottom of every page. This action alone (not even parameters or disclaimers unpacking details of the guarantee itself) drove a 15% increase in conversion. Now, we were ready to stand by our guarantee if we ever had a disgruntled customer via refund or replacement, but it rarely came to that. The reassurance was enough to instill trust and confidence in our brand.

Tip: Use phrases like “limited availability” or “start seeing results within weeks” or “satisfaction guaranteed” to create urgency. Make it clear that delaying could mean missing out on significant benefits.

4. Address Objections Proactively

Prospects will certainly have objections—whether it’s the cost, timing, or doubts about the ROI. Address these concerns directly and with confidence, providing data or testimonials to ease their worries. Try to mitigate as much risk for the prospect before ever hopping on a sales call with them. Reassure them of the value of working with your agency compared to the risk of not doing so and the impact that will have to their business. 

Tip: Be prepared with a list of common objections and responses. For example, if cost is an issue, demonstrate the long-term value and ROI your services provide OR (if margin allows) show a discount for services in the proposal itself as an added value for this prospect. It shows you’re willing to have some “skin in the game” with the client because you believe so strongly that you will be able to help them. 

5. Close with Confidence

When you’ve addressed a majority (if not all) of the prospect’s concerns and they are ready to take the next step (onboarding to become a client), it’s time to close the deal. Confidence and reassurance are key elements here—guide your prospect smoothly through the final steps, making it easy for them to say yes – even reminding them of questions you’ve answered along the way.

Tip: Use closing techniques like the assumptive close (“When would you like to start?”) to encourage a decision. Ensure all final details are clear and straightforward. Then book the now-client’s onboarding session(s)!

6. Follow Up and Support a Long-Term Relationship

The sale doesn’t end with a signature. In fact, now the real work begins! Set up the client for a solid onboarding (defining the scope of work, developing their messaging and offers, and defining what success looks like in your partnership is essential for client retention)! On top of that, proactively following up with quick wins or reporting to ensure client satisfaction and continuing to nurture the relationship is crucial for long-term success. This approach not only secures future business but also opens the door for referrals.

Tip: Implement a healthy client mtg cadence and proactive follow-up schedule that includes checking in regularly, reporting on performance (if relevant), updates on the project, even providing additional value, and identifying new opportunities to assist your client.

Conclusion: Seal the Deal with Confidence

Selling marketing services to warm leads, converting them to prospects, and eventually onboarding them to become new clients requires a thoughtful, strategic, and confident approach. By understanding your leads (first), tailoring your pitch, addressing (prospect) objections, closing with authority and onboarding strategically, you can master the art of turning interest into long-term business relationships.

Are you ready to streamline your lead generation and sales process? Partner with Done For You and gain access to a steady flow of high-quality leads without the hassle. Become a partner today at DoneForYou.com/Partners!

The post The Art of Selling Marketing Services to Warm Leads: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Done For You.

Step 1: Find Your Niche

The first step to becoming your own publisher is to identify a topic that people are willing to pay to learn about. This is where your expertise comes in handy. Are you a whiz at digital marketing? Or perhaps you’re a master chef with secret recipes to share? Whatever your field of expertise, there’s likely an audience eager to learn from you.

Don’t worry if you’re not an expert in a particular field. You can become knowledgeable enough to provide valuable information to others with thorough research. The key is choosing a topic you’re passionate about with a market demand.

Step 2: Create Your Content

Once you’ve nailed down your topic, it’s time to start creating content. There are three main ways to capture information:

1. Please write it down: This could be an e-book, a series of blog posts, or a comprehensive guide.
2. Record audio or video: If writing isn’t your strong suit, consider creating podcasts or video tutorials.
3. Produce a combination: Mix and match written content with audio or video for a multimedia experience.

Remember, the goal is to present your information in a way that’s easy for your audience to consume and understand.

Step 3: Package Your Product

Now that you’ve created your content, it’s time to bundle it into a product. This is typically an e-book or a digital package your buyers can easily download. Make sure your product is well-organized and professionally presented. After all, you want to make a great first impression on your customers!

Step 4: Craft Your Offer

This is where you need to put on your marketing hat. What exactly are you selling, and why should people buy it? Your offer should communicate the value of your product and why it’s worth the price you’re asking. Think about the problems your product solves or the benefits it provides to your potential customers.

Step 5: Set Your Price

Pricing can be tricky, but it’s crucial to get it right. You want to set a fair, value-based price for your offer. Consider factors like the depth of information you provide, the potential value to your customers, and what similar products in your niche are selling for. Remember, don’t undersell yourself – if your content is precious, people will be willing to pay for it.

Step 6: Set Up Payment Processing

The final step to becoming your own publisher is to set up a way to get paid. PayPal is a popular choice, accepted in over 180 countries. It’s easy to set up and use, making it ideal for new publishers. However, other options, such as Stripe or Square, are available if you need more flexibility.

Embrace Your New Role as a Publisher

And there you have it! You’re now ready to embark on your journey as an information publisher. Remember, this is just a basic outline. As you grow more comfortable in your role, you can explore more advanced strategies and techniques to expand your publishing business.

Becoming your publisher is an exciting venture that allows you to share your knowledge, help others, and potentially create a new income stream. It might seem daunting at first, but by following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to publishing success.

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to take that knowledge you’ve been holding onto and turn it into a valuable product. Who knows? Your expertise could be exactly what someone out there is looking for. Happy publishing!

The post How To Become Your Own Publisher appeared first on Done For You.

Unlocking the Secrets: A Comprehensive Guide to Crafting Your Online Course in 10 Detailed Steps

Are you passionate about sharing your expertise and knowledge with a broader audience? Creating an online course offers an excellent avenue to do just that. As the demand for e-learning continues to surge, individuals increasingly turn to online courses to acquire new skills or propel their careers forward. This guide will delve into a detailed, step-by-step process to help craft a compelling online course that resonates with your audience.

Step 1: Choose your topic and target audience

Begin your online course creation journey by selecting a topic that aligns with your expertise and resonates with your passion. Whether it’s culinary arts, coding, or marketing, your chosen subject should reflect your proficiency. Furthermore, identifying your target audience is crucial. Understanding their needs, pain points, and learning preferences will enable you to tailor your course content effectively.

Step 2: Conduct thorough market research

Extend your preparation by delving into market research. Explore similar courses in your chosen niche to identify gaps and opportunities. This step ensures that your course stands out and offers unique value to your audience.

Step 3: Develop a comprehensive course outline

Create a detailed course outline once you’ve chosen your topic and conducted market research. Break down your subject matter into digestible sections or modules, each with a clearly defined learning objective that builds upon the previous one. This approach enhances the overall structure and coherence of your course.

Step 4: Choose your course format and platform

Diversify your understanding of the e-learning landscape by exploring different course formats and platforms. Each format has strengths, whether video, audio, text-based, or interactive content. Similarly, platforms like Udemy, Teachable, and Coursera offer distinct advantages. Tailor your choices based on your target audience’s preferences and course content.

Step 5: Create your course content

With your chosen outline, format, and platform, it’s time to dive into content creation. Whether you’re recording videos, crafting text-based lessons, or designing interactive exercises, keep your audience engaged and motivated. Incorporate elements that align with diverse learning styles, ensuring a rich and comprehensive learning experience.

Step 6: Optimize for user engagement

Elevate your course content by optimizing it for maximum user engagement. Integrate quizzes, discussions, and interactive elements to foster a dynamic learning environment. This step ensures that your audience remains actively involved throughout the course.

Step 7: Implement multimedia elements

Enhance the richness of your course by incorporating multimedia elements. Multimedia adds depth and variety to the learning experience from high-quality visuals to supplementary resources.

Step 8: Quality assurance and testing

Before launching your course, conduct thorough quality assurance and testing. Ensure that all elements function seamlessly and the content is error-free. This step guarantees a positive learning experience for your audience.

Step 9: Develop a robust marketing strategy

Invest time in developing a robust marketing strategy as you approach the launch phase. Set a launch date, determine a competitive price point, and create promotional materials, such as preview videos or free trials, to generate interest.

Step 10: Launch and promote your course

The final step involves the actual launch of your course. Execute your marketing strategy, monitor the response, and be prepared to adapt based on user feedback. Leverage social media, email marketing, and other channels to promote and refine your course continually.

Embarking on the journey to create your online course is an exciting endeavor that allows you to share your expertise and passion with a global audience. By following these ten detailed steps, you can craft a course that is not only engaging and informative but also tailored to the needs and preferences of your target audience.

So, why wait? Start your online course creation today and unlock the secrets to a successful educational venture!

The post Unleash Your Expertise: A Comprehensive Guide to Craft and Create Online Courses appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s episode of GSD Daily. This is episode 154 and the Expand series. Today, we’re going to talk about basically expanding your influence through other methods. Particularly through printed material. It might sound a little weird, but let me dive into this a little bit.

We are absolutely in a digital culture right now. People are buying digital PDFs. People are downloading digital stuff. That’s all there is to it. And as with any great kind of revolution or change that the old thing remains equally, if not more, viable. And here’s what I mean. Since the pandemic started and there was a run in book manufacturing, back in March or April … I read a lot. Back in March and April, there was just a holdout on books because books weren’t essential.

Basically, I would order three or four books a month, and all of a sudden the delivery date was pushed out four or five weeks because they were prioritizing food and all that other kind of stuff. What ended up happening was there was this mass migration to digital stuff, including myself. I mean, I love physical books. I’m 50/50 digital versus paperback now, which I never thought I would have been there. Do you know?

The fact is like selling PDF reports, selling PDF books on your website is a very profitable, very viable strategy right now. However, it’s important to package your stuff in a way that people want to consume it. Here’s a cool project. If you remember about a month and a half ago, we released our legendary playbook, the Automated Webinar Playbook that walked through how to put together automated recurring webinars for you to get clients. But now through a couple of weird iterations back and forth just because the formatting didn’t work out right, we actually had them printed.

This is a 54-page workbook that is full color. It’s up on Amazon for 10 bucks. But basically, the inspiration behind this playbook was we wanted something that was equal parts training and how to, journal, and checklists. You can actually go through this thing and put it together for yourself if you want, or you can write notes in the margins and go through checklists and everything else to actually … so you can hand them off to us and say, “Hey, go build this.”

So, this is kind of how it turned out. If you look, very, very small. 54 pages. It’s 8.5 by 11 on just a flat cover, but it’s full color on the inside. You can see that. That’s pretty cool, right? Full color on the inside. And here, right here, we have a little notes section. A little notes section there, and then there’s a little checkbox. Your webinar tools, checklist, microphone, camera, lighting, webinar software, email marketing software. This actually goes through and puts together our strategy for putting the whole thing. There’s the funnel right there.

All in all, this little thing. So damn excited about it because we’re going to end up having a bunch of these playbooks for a lot of different scenarios. This is really the first one, and it worked out so well and it looks so awesome from a printed standpoint. Now, where to print it? That’s always the question. I don’t ever print on a publisher printing house. Where to publish a workbook though? We just publish a workbook right through Amazon.

If you go to kdp.amazon.com, it used to be where your Kindle books were published. You would upload your PDF, upload your EPUB file to Amazon, and then they would approve it and publish a workbook on Kindle. Well, a bunch of years ago, Amazon bought CreateSpace. It doesn’t look like CreateSpace is even up anymore. I tried to type it in to show you. But basically, CreateSpace was the on-demand, physical product company. For my first book, Phoenix Formula, they actually put it together, formatted it, did the cover, the whole thing. It was like $1,000 or something. And then they actually put it all together.

But since it is 100% self-service. They have the Kindle Create software that you download on your computer, and then you can put together a book. But you upload it into kdpamazon.com, and then you go through the form factors. You pick your signs, you pick a full color, you pick glossy or matte covers. That’s a matte cover. It’s 8.5 by 11, and when you design it. There’s a print preview and everything. Go through a little approval, and then you can order bulk cost books.

I ordered five of these things just to get some video and maybe do a little giveaway. I got five of them. They were each like $5 a cost, and they’re being sold on Amazon for $10 each. But this is a very, very, very cool way of being able to give your clients something or send your clients something in the mail. If you have a high ticket product, high ticket service, or whatever, you can just literally mail this thing up and say, “Here you go.” It comes in a big ass envelope. It would be so cool to have it delivered to somebody with who you just got off the phone.

That’s what I got for today. It’s a way to expand your knowledge. Way to expand … it just generates more trust, generates more awareness, more likeability from your prospect to publish a workbook so that you can ultimately sell them something else.

For Questions and Guide

Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com and you just click the little button. Somebody will be with you.

The post How To Publish A Workbook That Sells Fast appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s GSDdaily episode 135. We are going to talk about compressing video. This is a five-minute guide podcast or live stream I should say. This little issue came up twice this last week. I figured I might as well take the time to record a short tutorial video on how to take your 10 gigabytes in a 20-gigabyte video and compress it down to hopefully something that is a gigabyte or less. Something that you can send online or you can upload to Dropbox and it doesn’t take all day for you and all day for the receiving party.

Handbrake Software

What we’re going to do is we are going to install a small free piece of software called HandBrake. So HandBrake, if you do a Google search, if you just type HandBrake software, then it’s going to be the top result here.

That’s important because if you type handbrake, then you’re going to get all kinds of handbrakes. So HandBrake software. It’s an open-source video transcoder. Super, super simple to use. You’re just going to download here. This button is going to update. I believe it updates for whatever platform you’re on. So HandBrake MacOS is what you’re going to pick.

Then once you download and install it, you are going to have a window that looks like this. Let me share it here. This is HandBrake and you can see that we have a couple of different options. What we want to do is we want to pick a source so the source is going to be the video file that you are looking to encode. I got a bunch of stuff on my desktop.

I’m going to search by size and then let’s see, maybe not size. So yeah, we’re going to go desktop, and then let’s see, we need to find something that’s relatively big. There’s one right here and there we go. We have just a little tutorial video here that I shot for a team member, but basically what we’re going to do is we’re going to compress this. There are a lot of options in this software.

The biggest one that you want to worry about is over here in presets. This is going to get you 98% of the way there. It just depends on what kind of video file you want. If you want a high-quality video file, then you’re going to pick probably HQ for high quality. 1080. So that’s 1080 is kind of the default resolution of most screens and stuff. Unless it’s 4k and the 4k option isn’t even here yet.

To compress 1080 which is going to look great. It’s going to be of high quality. It’s going to be surround sound. If you don’t care about surround sound, then you’re probably going to want to do fast 1080. If even you don’t care about how big the video quality it is, you can go very fast. Once you find … It just depends on what kind of quality you want. These were all presets. If you want something typically on a web-based video, the compression algorithms of YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo, they’re going to strip out a lot of stuff anyway. The most important thing is just to get it to where it needs to go quickly – usually very fast is going to work.

Just hit the preset very fast. Then you’re good. The other thing you want to do is you want to browse for the file location of where it needs to output to. What it’s doing is it’s sucking in that big, big video file, and then it’s outputting a smaller compressed video file by stripping out some of the frame rates, by stripping out some of the audio quality. All of it, none of it you’re going to be able to pick up because we’re so used to watching video online anyway.

It’s not like we’re looking at a full 4k on compressed video most of the time. We’re just going to hit browse and find our file and then we are going to hit start. At this point, it is queuing up that video now. We have 1.74%. So it is it’s going to be done here in about five minutes.

That’s it. I mean, that’s as simple as compressing video is. The file was probably going to be about a quarter as big as it was. Might behalf, might be a third. But all in all, it’s going to be reduced pretty well. Now you can upload it to Dropbox without it sucking up a ton of bandwidth or taking a long time. You can upload it to Base Camp, send it through Slack or your team, whatever and it’s a compressed file that it’s a little bit more easily transferrable.

For Question and Guide

That’s what I got for you today. A little tiny little hack that’ll hopefully make your life, your digital life quite a bit better. If you have any questions at all, we are utilizing a domain that I’ve had forever a little bit differently. So go to consultantsession.com if you’d like a little bit of business help if you’d like to set up an action plan call with my team and I.

The post Compressing Huge Video Files For Your Website appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to episode 133 of GSDdaily. Today, we’re going to talk about scaling through video. We have five advantages to why video is necessary for your business online right now. And they cover every phase of the funnel. Top of funnel, mid-funnel, bottom of the funnel. At the end of the day, you need to be using videos for marketing because people react to different modalities. Some people react more to reading. Other people react more to watching. The younger generation, for the most part, likes video. The older generation, I guess they like video, but they tend to skew more towards reading.

If there isn’t a way that I can watch a video two times the speed, I probably won’t watch it. There are some popular players who are letting you speed through the video but I prefer to read. I’d rather skim through something, see if it’s worthwhile, and then dig in a little bit deeper into that something. Whereas other people would rather read or would rather watch a YouTube video

The whole point is, using videos for marketing is super important for qualifying your prospects for selling. It also engages people after they already start consuming your products or your services.

Five Tips on Using Videos for Marketing

First of all, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. It means that the first being Google, and people are going to YouTube and searching for all kinds of things. So if you are a knowledge worker, you’re in a knowledge business, whether you’re selling digital products, you’re selling coaching, you’re selling consulting, you’re selling services, you should have videos on YouTube that talk about the hot buttons in your market.

1. Upload Videos on Youtube

Your videos will not only show up on YouTube, but Google also owns YouTube, which means that the third spot on the first page of Google, three down, is YouTube, but it’s allocated to a YouTube video. If there is a strong YouTube video that would show up in the search rank, the search engines for a keyword phrase, it is going to be in that third spot. It’s highly likely that you could have a video that ranks in Google and it’s listed on YouTube. Google likes giving preferential treatment to its other platforms. And not only do you have the video on YouTube, but then you can also bake all of your keyword phrases into that YouTube listing, too.

It’s something we do quite a bit, even on our live streams, we will go get the live stream transcribed, and then copy and paste it into the description. Then keyword load that description and we’re able to rank that much better in Google. I can’t tell you how much search traffic we get from YouTube, and then they go over to Done For You or they go over to one of our other properties. And that’s how they find us. Four or five years ago, when I launched Scriptly, that was predominantly where all of our traffic came from. I ended up, I had a video on how to write a pre-webinar launch sequence, and somebody would go to Google and type the webinar launch sequence. They’d hit a video, then they clicked through to Scriptly and be able to fill out the templates.

So it is a fantastic traffic generation tool by using video. Get comfortable with video because it’s where everything is going.

2. Upload Videos with loaded Keywords

Number two, you’re going to rank higher in search. We’ve kind of already touched on this a little bit, but with video, as I said, Google gives preferential treatment to YouTube. If there is a YouTube video that can be ranked, Google is going to rank it and it’s going to rank it above your competitors because they would rather keep all that traffic in the house. So if you have a video that is keyword loaded, that is specifically solving somebody’s problem, or specifically something that somebody wants to watch, then Google is going to list it.

I have a DIY builds channel. One of the videos that get just incredible, organic traffic is how to put together an outdoor swing set, so a double-decker outdoor swing set and it’s listed in Google. The traffic trajectory is down right now because it’s starting to be false, so people aren’t necessarily building swing sets anymore. But all in all, like spring, summer, it was going up, up, up, up because it was ranked in Google. Then it started getting likes and watches and it started showing up in related posts. Once it starts getting some engagement, then the momentum starts to build and it starts to rank in more places, not just Google search, not just YouTube search, but then you’re also getting related searches and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a good way of expanding your reach without putting in a whole lot more work.

3. Low Barrier To Entry a Video

Number three, very low barrier to entry for a video. Like now, I’m streaming through a platform called StreamYard. You just need a webcam, you need a mic and that’s about it. Before you know it, you have 133 videos under your belt that can be used for all kinds of content, whether it’s snippets, whether it’s social videos, whether it’s course content, whether it’s just engaging people and just kind of keeping people in the mix. There are lots of reasons and lots of ways of using videos for marketing. It’s just getting started. And you have a mobile phone, the mobile phone has a camera on it that would rival DSLRs a couple of years ago. So you have the power in your pocket to go and record video and create something that is going to engage your prospects with you, so make use of it.

4. Create an Ebook or PDF

People want videos, others want to read. We kind of opened with this, but some people would rather watch a video and using videos for marketing. Some people would rather download an ebook. One of the reasons we always start our funnels with lead magnets is because historically, we get better conversion rates when we’re giving away a free report, a free lead magnet, or a free guide, or a free checklist. We get better conversion rates when we’re giving away a PDF than we do if we’re giving away a free video. Free video, quote, unquote, conjures up the image of watching free shit on YouTube. That’s just kind of, whereas something printed or something like a PDF, a body of work, tends to have more perceived value than a free video. Not saying that’s in all cases. Sometimes in some markets like golf, free videos are great.

Some markets work well by giving away a free video, something that’s highly visual, but in most markets, a free PDF works better. Now, when you want to engage them in a sale, oftentimes you need video. The written word in PDFs is great for getting the lead and for getting the sale. However, for generating awareness in a campaign, you’re using videos for marketing either on the sales page or you’re going to use video in the ad itself.

5. Increasing Conversion

Tip number five is just increasing conversion. The popular split test that we used to do five or six years ago was long-form sales video versus video sales letter. The video sales letter always converted better than, it was usually a 300% jump in conversion when you put the video on the page when you tested long-form sales letter versus video.

Now the test that is working the best is both. You need to have a video because the video is expected and there’s a certain portion of buyers who are going to watch the video. However, you also need to have text on that page too, because there’s a certain portion of video or buyers who are going to read the text and not watch the video. Or they will hit play on the video and using videos for marketing, and then they’re going to scroll up and down the page and hit your headlines. And they’re going to listen and read at the same time, but it won’t be congruent. So it’s just one of those things that you need to have both, especially on low ticket products.

Low ticket products, you’ve got to have both the video and the long-form sales letter. A high ticket, especially if it’s coming from a webinar, then the webinar is the video content. They watched a 30, 45, 60-minute video, and then they’re reading some sort of a bridge page before an offer.

Those are the five tips on using video in your marketing.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, go to DoneForYou.com/start. There’s a little chat box in the lower right-hand corner. And then also, if you would like to figure out how to use more video in your marketing, how to use it in your ads, all that stuff, go to DoneForYou.com/start. And we will put together an action plan for you and go from there. So I will talk to you soon, all right? Thanks. Bye.

The post Best Strategies On Making Videos For Your Marketing appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s GSDdaily episode number 131, and it is Create. We’re going to learn how to create videos that you can use for your sales copy, and also for your ads that are on Facebook and LinkedIn, or YouTube, or wherever your ads live.

This is one of those things that traditionally has been hard. Creating a video has always been an art, and up until five, six, seven years ago, it was difficult to create simple videos. Now, I mean, you have an incredibly powerful video camera in your pocket. You have tools, editing tools, mixing tools. There are so much functionality and so many easy, create simple videos that six-year-olds are doing it. When you own a business and when you’re marketing a business, all of this stuff you can use to market your business.

There are some simple things, some simple tweaks, and create simple videos that I use that have helped my workflow to the point where … For me, if I don’t have a good workflow, it doesn’t get done. If this video, this standing desk, was not here, I probably wouldn’t be doing live streams, because literally, I can just step up, hit Play, and I’m broadcasting, so it’s a nice, simple setup. Over the last four or five months, I’ve refined the set up a couple of times, just to make it a little bit simpler, a little bit more pain-free when it comes to turning everything on, going live, and then continuing with the day.

Now in terms of recording stuff, life is one thing, because you can just log into Facebook, hit the Go Live and you’re life. Do you know what I mean? Or, I’m using StreamYard, I can just hit Go, and then that’s fine. But when you’re recording something that you want to make sure is right, you need to have a script, and you’re probably going to need some editing. So, there are some ways to create simple videos that you can use some functionality to help ease the process.

Ways to Create Simple Videos

1. Recording Video on Mobile using Teleprompter App

If you prefer to record on mobile, then there’s an app that I, really, really love to use. It’s called the Teleprompter. It’s this app right there. Right there, Teleprompter. The reason I’m showing it to you is that if you go to the App Store and you type in Teleprompter, there are 30 million of them. So, this one with that icon is the one you want. It’s that black with the red. That’s the icon you want.

There’s a free version and there is a pro version. The free version is super cool. The paid version is super cool, but basically, the paid version allows you to input your scripts from a text file. You go in and you say … I’m just showing my camera here. There we go. So, “Do you have an automated sales system?” So we’re just going to hit Play. It’s going to count down. Three, two, one. Then, “Do you have an automated sales system, a sales funnel on your website that generates revenue, clients, and customers day after day?.

Now notice how it just shows at the top half of your camera, just at the very, very top half, so that when you’re reading it, you’re reading it and your eyes aren’t moving. So it’s only about that far. Your eyes aren’t moving. Well, they are a little bit, but you’re not moving anywhere up, down. You’re looking right below the camera, so you’re right there is where you’re looking. Makes a big difference. So, that’s one way that we end up to create simple videos.

2. Recording Video on Mobile using Spark Camera App

Another tool that I like to use I discovered from Ryan Nadel. In his book, he was talking about this tool called Spark Video. Spark Video is that app right there. It’s called Spark Camera, I guess. But basically, it lets you mash up a bunch of videos back and forth so that you can record a video, and it kind of auto-edits everything together. Not auto-edits, but what you’re doing is you’re capturing one video and then the next video and then the next video. Then what happens is it combines everything for you.

I do this for work and then also for personal too, so this is a video … Oops. Yeah, this is a video that I took yesterday. We went to the Halloween store, and then … Oh, it’s not playing the whole thing. There we go … maybe it’ll play the whole thing now. There it is. This is just one continuous video, so basically it’s no cutting. It’s just one video and it snippets all the … or, it splices all the videos together so it’s one video after another video after another video. Super, super nice for V-logging kind of things. So just two mobile apps that end up working well, the Teleprompter and then a nice video edit/video cut tool.

3. Writing Video Scripts (Sales, VSL and Ad)

Another thing that we ended up doing for all of our clients is we write video scripts. Whether it’s a sales video … First of all, video, full-motion video works so much better than it used to. It used to be that an ugly VSL that had a white background and black text converted better than anything else, because it forced somebody to read and then also listen, so you’re activating a couple of different modalities.

Now, everything has just gone full motion, so it’s imperative to have at least some full motion in your material. I’ve tested going back to old school VSLs and combining a couple of little full-motion things in there and it works well because now it’s just an ugly pattern interrupt. An old VSL format that we used to do six or seven years ago is now ugly, so it tends to work out pretty well. I like to combine the two now. Some of our sales material, you’ll notice that it is an old ugly VSL with full-motion video and it works out nicely.

What we do for all of our clients is we write the sales scripts, VSL script and an ad script. Ad scripts are typically between a minute and three minutes. VSL scripts are usually between four to six minutes, depending on what the price point is. There is a tool called EasyPrompter, and it’s been my favorite teleprompting tool. EasyPrompter is super, super nice. You can grab a script, so you can write a script, and then I have a pre-written one here. I’ve got about 17 million of them. I’m just going to copy it in there, and then we’re just going to say, “Start prompter.” When I start the prompter, then you can see here on your screen, I now have a prompter that I can hit Play on.

So, let’s see. There we go. Then I can adjust the speed of this thing. So, the speed I’m going to … Let’s say 17, so we’re just going to test out 17 and see if it works. And then I’m going to narrow this thing down, and then I’m going to put it right underneath the camera, so right underneath the camera on my computer, so this achieves the same thing as what our iPhone app did. I want to look right under the camera, but not too much side to side because I don’t want it to look like I’m reading.

We’re going to slim this down pretty well, then I’m also going to reduce the font size because I don’t need it to be super huge. We’re just going to slim it down. Now I’m going to read. All right. So, we’re going to pull that down, and then we’re just going to hit the Go button. Hit the Play button. Oh, that’s pretty slow. “How old is your website? Or …” That’s pretty slow, right? So, we’re going to do speed again. We’re going to go up to, let’s say, 28. We’re going to see what this feels like. Scroll up, then, “How old is your website? Or, do you even have one? These days, your website is a hell of a lot more than a business card.” That’s a little bit fast, so I ended up kind of running away with it or the script runs away with it.

We’re going to do 22. Let’s look at this. So, “How old is your website? Or, do you even have one? These days, your website is a hell of a lot more than a business card that gives away some …” That one was a little bit fast, but still pretty good. In that sense, now we can edit the video out. We have a good script, and I usually like to record these a couple of different times and then edit the best versions of them. When you’re recording with the Teleprompter, you don’t have to stop the recording all at once. You can hit Play, and then if you lose your place in it, just pause, finish a sentence, pause, and then kick back up to the top. Then you’re reading, reading, reading, reading, you lose your place again, just pause and then kick back up to the top.

Now, one of the most valuable things that an old professor taught me when we were talking about video a long, long time ago, and I don’t even think he knew that he was giving good advice. He might’ve just been making a joke. I don’t know. But he was like, “Oh, yeah,” he was like, “You’re getting good at the pauses.” And I was like, “I don’t know what you mean.” And he’s like, “Yeah, the pause is where you cut.” And I was like, “That’s pretty cool,” because nobody I had known way back then was doing how to create simple videos, like screen record video and stuff. It’s not like I’m a … learned video editing formally from anybody. Just mucking around with tutorials and stuff online.

But anyway, so I found that in editing, you always come to a pause? Wherever there’s a natural pause, you can break from a video editing standpoint. So a lot of times, it’s the end of a slide. Sometimes it’s the end of a sentence. Then if you don’t like the way that is recording, then you go back and you just repeat that sentence. Do you know? So now there’s not a real long break. You still have the same inflections and the same tonality. Just hit the break and then go back and then just repeat that sentence. In your brain, when you’re recording these things, you just take a mental note of the break so whenever you screw something up, you just go back to the previous break and then repeat that.

The other thing is if you end up getting talking real fast, then your Ts and Ss are very … There’s some strong sounds, some strong letters, and you can always edit over top of those strong sounds. So if there’s an S like Sam, let’s say, and you screw up what comes after Sam, but there aren’t any other really great natural breaks, then you can just edit over that Sam, that S, because that S is going to have the same sound regardless, so you can usually edit those two Ss together. Just another kind of weird little tweak after editing a million hours of sales videos over the years.

Just some interesting tips to create simple videos and ad videos. Between the Teleprompter app, between that Spark Video app and the Teleprompter and a webcam, you really should have pretty much everything you need to record these. And then from an editing standpoint, I mean, iMovie is a great one. I’m not real familiar with what Windows editing functionality is. They used to have a Windows Movie Maker way back in the day, but I haven’t been on a Windows machine in probably 10 years. So Windows Movie Maker, I’m sure, is probably something now.

Any iPhone has iMovie though, so you can use iMovie for free, cut up your videos and then export them as an MP4 file. Your iPhone iMovie isn’t fully featured, but it is good. I like to do a lot of quick video editing on an iPhone or an iPad, and then export it to a Mac where you can do some other more advanced stuff. I assume that they’re probably going to be making iMovie a little better on especially iPad, on iOS, or PadOS, whatever the iPad operating system is now.

That’s about it. That’s all I got for you today. Some cool tools from a video editing/video creation standpoint. Tomorrow, we’re going to talk about automating your sales video, and that was kind of what prompted this whole week of the video is tomorrow’s conversation, which is how to automate playing and stop a video, because there was an issue that came up with a client over the weekend. Just audio and browser things are just so weird now with video, so tomorrow we’re going to talk about that and I will talk to you soon.

The post Ways To Create Simple Videos For Your Marketing That Work appeared first on Done For You.

Introduction: Write A Book To Get Clients

Welcome to today's episode, where we delve into the transformative power of writing a book to get continuity clients. While many experts will tell you that a text can elevate your brand and open doors to speaking engagements, the real gold lies in its ability to attract and retain clients. Let's explore how you can easily compile your existing work or create something new to publish a book that will serve as a magnet for continuity clients.

The Funnel Factor: A Case Study

Before diving into the mechanics, let's discuss a real-world example—my book, Funnel Factor. This 274-page book is a compilation of blog posts and materials on my website, Done For You. I revamped it using a fantastic tool called Scrivener, which we'll discuss shortly. The book now sells for $19.95 on my site and $29.95 on Amazon, serving as a valuable asset to attract continuity clients.

Section 1: The Scrivener Advantage

Why Choose Scrivener?

Scrivener is a robust authoring tool that allows you to compile your existing works into a single platform, be it blog posts or emails. With 14 years of writing, Scrivener has empowered me to repurpose my content to write a book to get clients.

How Scrivener Works

The software organizes your content into workbooks, making it easy to drag and drop material as you see fit. I've used Scrivener to manage all my email copy, blog posts, books, and sales copy, making the writing process more efficient and less time-consuming.

Section 2: Publishing Your Book on Kindle

The Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Platform

KDP is Amazon's one-stop-shop for all your publishing needs and is perfect for when. It's where you can manage your book listings and is incredibly user-friendly. Multiple books are listed here, including Funnel Factor and my upcoming Automated Webinar playbook.

Editing eBook Details on KDP

KDP allows you to set up all the necessary details for your book, from the title and author to the description and keywords. While keywords may not be crucial for the book, they are vital for your Amazon author profile, which often ranks high in Google searches.

Uploading Your eBook File

After filling in the details, the next step is to upload your eBook content. You can write your eBook in Word or Google Docs and then use Kindle Create to convert it into a Kindle-friendly format. Once uploaded, you can also preview how your book will look on a Kindle device.

Assigning ISBN and Pricing

KDP can assign an ISBN for you, or you can purchase your own. I recommend buying a pack of 10 ISBNs from Bowker, especially if you plan to write multiple books. Pricing for your eBook can vary, but it's essential to consider your goals when setting the price.

Section 3: The Strategic Importance of Having Your Book

Building Brand Loyalty

Writing a book to get continuity clients isn't just about the immediate sale. It's about leveraging Amazon's brand loyalty to build your own. Offering your book on Kindle Unlimited or allowing lending can also increase your book's reach.

The Perceived Value

The price you set for your book can also contribute to its perceived value. Whether you offer it for free to attract more readers or set a premium price to uphold your brand's value, the choice is yours.

Expanding Your Reach to Get Continuity Clients

Writing a book allows you to tap into ecosystems beyond your own, like Amazon, to generate awareness, cash flow, and, most importantly, continuity clients. So, if you haven't considered writing a book to get continuity clients, now is the time to start.

Thank you for joining today's episode. Special thanks to Jay Conner for his kind words. Until next time, happy writing and client-hunting!

If you have any questions, go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the little application, and we will take care of you. And if you need anything at all, just let me know.

The post From Author to Authority: Write a Book to Get Clients and Elevate Your Brand appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s episode of GSDdaily. This is Create number 126, and we’re going to talk about continuity clients. So this entire week is going to be continuity clients. We’re going to talk through creating offers, automating the process, scaling continuity clients, and going from there. It’s also a holiday so happy labor day, which I shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s Monday. I’ve been doing this Monday through Friday forever. We’re just more of the same.

So continuity clients are something that we have been implementing for a lot of clients recently, or a lot of businesses because more and more of what’s going on in the world is business models are structuring around membership and it’s smart, so from a statistical standpoint, the average subscription vendor, so that might be a membership site. It might be a software offer like a SAS offering. It might be a coach or consultant. The average subscription vendor is growing 30 to 50% annually. So they are almost… 50% annually, if you’re going from a hundred to $150,000 in revenue a year or a million to 1.5 million a year in revenue by adding a subscription or by adding a membership site, it’s a, really, really big deal.

1. Make a Membership Site

Wishlist Member Plugin

There are lots and lots of ways to do it. If you look at it from a just kind of like a business landscape standpoint, there’s a guy by the name of Stu McLaren and had to be 10 years ago, Stu McLaren introduced a piece of software called the Wishlist Member. Now Wishlist Member is a WordPress plugin that we use, we still use for all of our membership sites, for a lot of our client membership sites.

Wishlist Member was the first real big piece of software that made kind of an impact on WordPress sites. Before you needed like this weird mix of using aMember plus, Moodle was the education platform. And then there was like three or four different kinds of pieces of software that you meshed together. And then it created this membership.

Stu McLaren came along and his partners, created this WordPress plugin that was just you dropped it in, you added your members, you protected your pages, and that was it. And they’ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who have built membership sites from Wishlist Member.

Tribe Platform

Well, Stu McLaren went to create a training platform called TRIBE and TRIBE is it’s an education platform for creating membership sites. They have a very fascinating model. So they launched twice, I think it’s twice a month or twice a year, they do a big multi-video launch in a webinar. And then they open it up for a couple of weeks at a time and just jam a bunch of members through. So it’s an interesting model and their memberships are typical $1000, $2,000 a year.

Every membership has its pricing, but by and large, you have these like a Stu McLaren model, a TRIBE model that is being added to business models all around the world. It might be a coaching business that adds a subscription website. Might be an author who adds a membership for some continuity, might be a software offer that gives some accountability to its members through a Facebook group that they pay for. So there’s a lot of different ways subscription can work, continuity can work in your business.

2. What To Sell

Books or Courses

Now the first thing you need to think about in creating this continuity offer is what are you going to sell? And I think it’s probably important to start with figuring out what you have. So if you know what you have, you might have a book and you’re like, I sell a bunch of this book and I can put together a membership site that might be $49 a month or whatever. And I can put recordings of videos, or I can go through an outline chapter by chapter, and create a little video course that is this membership content. And maybe month one is chapter one and month two is chapter two and month three is chapter three.

So you can go through and just bullet out what are the different pieces of my book. And then you can map out what are some video content that I can pull out based on that. And there you get a membership site. So if you’re putting together an email list, you can sell this membership site to your email list or whatever.

Consultation and Coaching Services

Another way of thinking about continuity is let’s say you have a digital product. And you’re like… Well, some people, they’re sending in emails and support requests and asking, how can they get more me? So another great way of adding continuity to your business is by offering to consult or by offering to coach. And that’s very one-on-one. You’re charging X amount of money for access to you twice a month, or once a week, or once a month, however much time you want to be accountable to your clients.

Maybe it is a hundred percent scheduled, so it’s every other week you jump on a coaching call with them. Maybe it is only when they need you, so they send you a text and say, “Hey, I need you, let’s jump on in the next couple of days.” Okay, cool. So what is the fee associated with that? Some of our clients will charge $1000 a month, other ones will charge $2,500 a month. Some of them will charge $5,000 a month. It just depends on the transformative impact that they have.

Coaching Clients

The coaching clients, in creating the offer, the best fit’s your clients, the best fit’s the people who are coming to you. It is just about figuring out what kind of value you provide, how much is that worth to them? If it’s a business development, coaching let’s say, or business consulting, then that could be worth five or $10,000 a month. For life coaching, maybe it’s 1000 a month or 500 a month. Health and fitness coaching, maybe it’s 500 a month or 200 a month. It just depends on what impact you’re having in their life, how accountable they are to you. If it’s 100%, one-on-one weekly calls, you can’t charge 200 bucks for that. If you have 10, 15, or 20 clients, you are maxed out and you’re not making any money for it. You are on the phone all the time with your clients around clock.

However, if it’s 1000 a month or 2000 or 5,000 a month, you can have two clients or three clients or four clients, and you can be at their beck and call whenever you want. There’s a lot of different ways to kind of cut it up. Now, one thing I’ve talked about in a previous live stream was this idea of assisted, it was assistant coaching or assistant consulting. So that’s where you have a product as a baseline for your coaching. And then you coach on top of it.

They go through this weekly or monthly course where they watch some videos, they download reports, all that stuff. And they learn about what they want to learn about, they learn about the thing you teach and they are… They’re able to put it into practice in their life, then you provide the coaching or consulting element to it.

So they can ask you questions. They can be accountable to you, but you don’t necessarily need to teach them the whole thing right off the bat. It’s assistant coaching or assisted consulting. So it’s another nice offer that helps with that continuity play. Those are just some ways to throw a continuity aspect into your business. Now there’s something I think of whenever I think of like any kind of transformation or any kind of… Because really when somebody buys continuity, they’re buying the transformation, then they understand that the transformation isn’t going to take place right now, all in one shot, they’re buying a subscription, they’re buying a block of time with you generally.

There’s a story that, there’s not a story, but back in my Pepsi days. We used to every Sunday morning, it saves money, but every Sunday morning we’d have to build these huge displays. Whenever you’re walking out into like the vestibule of a grocery store, you see the big Pepsi displays. It is like the super bowl display or whatever.

Every Sunday morning we go in like four o’clock in the morning and we wheel our pallets of pop out into the lobby. And we start ripping apart, whatever was there and started building something back up. As you’re putting together this big super bowl design, with a goalpost in it, it looks like complete shit. You got pop everywhere, you got stacks of everything everywhere, but then a couple of hours later, you can step back from it after having lifted about 18 tons of pop and putting it where it needs to go, you can step back and say, that is a football display.

And then you clean up all your stuff and you wheel it to the back room. But what I mean is whenever you’re going through any kind of transformation or journey, the beginning is always going to be messy. So understanding that and coaching and teaching that and addressing that in the first couple of modules of your course is going to make all the difference between setting the stage for that transformation and not.

So it’s just something you want to think about when working through this continuity relationship with your clients. And if you have any questions at all, just go to dfy.com. There’s a little chat box in the lower right-hand corner. You can schedule a call with us and we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Increase Your Revenue By Creating A Continuity Offer In Your Business appeared first on Done For You.

On our GSDdaily this week, we’re going to be doing something a little … Well, not just this week. In the future, we’re going to be doing something a little bit different. This is episode number 121. 121 episodes delivered Monday through Friday at 10:00 AM-ish Eastern. It’s about time to just change it up a little bit, so what I’m doing is every week we’re going to have kind of individual slices.

New GSDdaily Weekly Episodes

Previously we were kind of training on a topic for a five-day plan, but I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately that they have just a variance in the schedule, which is kind of cool. Basically, they have a couple predetermined, like every Monday they’d talk about this and that and whatever. So we’re transitioning into the same thing.

Monday – GSD Create

The title of that particular episode is going to be GSD Create. It’s going to be creating a business, starting a business, tips, and tools you need to start a side hustle, all of that stuff. The creation process of a business.

Tuesday – GSD Automate

We’re going to be going into automation, so it’s going to be GSD Automate. That’s going to be marketing automation, it’s going to be traffic. Not traffic. Marketing automation, for the most part, setting up triggers and rules, email marketing, anything that happens on an automated basis.

Wednesday – GSD Scale

It is going to be Scale, and that’s going to be all of our paid traffic stuff. So it’s going to be paid traffic tools, it is going to be maybe some SEO stuff, content marketing, anything that you would do to scale a business.

Thursday – GSD Expand

Thursday is going to be Expand. To expand is your business is set up, your business is automated, your business is running traffic, and you’re scaling through paid traffic. You’re scaling through traffic and visitors and all that other stuff. And expand is the different things that you can do to grow your revenue. So that might be introducing new upsells. It might be finding cross-sells, moving into sideways businesses, or using your list to promote affiliate products. It’s all those other ways that aren’t necessarily clicked in, money out, but it’s all the additional things that you can do with the asset that you’ve built.

Friday – GSD 5MG

On Friday, it’s the end of the week. We’re going to do a recap of the week, and then we’re also going to do tools. There’s this type of show that I have been thinking about putting together. I’ve put a couple together called 5-minute Guides, and it’s an executable that you can do in five minutes or less that is going to have a massive impact on your business. So one of them I did was a two-stage retargeting process that I implemented in five minutes or less on screen. So something like that I think will be pretty worthwhile for those too. That’s the scenario.

That’s the Monday through Friday plan that we have moving forward. GSD Create is going to be blue, and then each of the verticals, each of the types of shows is going to have different colors, and then that’s all going to marry up on the website to individual places so you know exactly where to go if you want to find a back episode or whatever. So that is the plan. Super excited about it. Teaching the same thing. Literally, through 120 episodes, I’ve taught so much shit that I don’t want to go back and rehash some of the stuff that I got into early, so this is an interesting format to continue talking about.

It’s a format that I’m excited about, whereas the last couple weeks of the old format, they were great, delivered a lot of content, but increasingly I was like, “Man, I don’t know what I’m going to talk about,” and whatever. But now Monday, you know if you’re creating a business, tune in on Mondays. If you’re automating a business, tune in on Tuesdays. Scaling, you’d tune in on Wednesdays. So you can of course tune in any day, every day, we would love that. But you know that this is the show you need to be on if you’re creating a business every Monday. So that’s the idea.

Brainstorming a 6-figure Course

Today, we’re talking about brainstorming a 6-figure course. This is an exercise that I’ve gone through quite a few times in quite a few different ways with quite a few different clients, and it always has a lot of in it. Do you know what I mean? It’s a useful way of putting your material or your content down into some sort of a tangible form. And I’ve noticed that often, it’s one of those things that you just have to think hard about it once, and then get the material out of your head. From there, you can create something super, super cool.

Now, the thing that you create, it can be a video course, it can be an audio 6-figure course, it can be a book, an eBook, a report. You just want to think about it once, you want to plot out your chapters, plot out your modules, and then from there, you’re able to just kind of flesh them out. So there’s a couple of ways to get into this. The one that I love is mind mapping. So let’s flip over here to mind mapping software.

Mapping Software

I use MindMeister for my mind mapping, and let me make this a little bit bigger for you. I wrote this thing six years ago, I called it the rapid-fire framework, but basically what it was is if you go through it, you come up with an idea, and your idea is the thing, the experience, the history that you have, that you have some sort of unique, intimate knowledge about, and that other people would pay you to learn. So for instance, totally outside of my wheelhouse, I’ve been exploring other things, especially in reading and whatever else.

But this morning, so I was reading about … I just downloaded randomly a day trading book. So I’m kicking through some day trading stuff and I’m like, “Well shit, day trading is not for me. I don’t invest in the morning and get out by lunch. That’s just not my thing.” But it was an example of something, this guy was a very, very, very powerful, popular, successful day trader, and he had all of these algorithms and all these methodologies and stuff that he employed as a day trader.

Now it was stuff that he just did in practice and he’s been doing it for 20 years and it’s second nature to him, but me learning it as a beginner, I’m like, “Well shit, there’s just so much here to learn. There’s so much here I can sink my teeth into if I wanted to be a day trader.” Now, I don’t. So as I was learning about it, immediately I’m like, “Well shit, this just doesn’t sound like me. Okay, cool.” So close up the book, but in the meantime, I learned about this other thing called swing trading. Didn’t know about swing trading either.

So swing trading is where you take a position in a market for more than a day, but less than a month, usually. And so it’s not quite long-term investing, it’s mid-tier trading, I guess. So ended up downloading another book about swing trading. Now, written by a different author, written by somebody different, so somebody who mastered swing trading and they had been in swing trading for 10 or 20 years. Now, I bring these two things up because we had our day trader. The day trader was massively successful at day trading. Day trading was his thing.

So he, in putting together this book, this beginner 101 level day trading book, sat down and he said, “Okay, what does a beginning day trader need to learn from me? What can I bring to the table? How do I transfer my knowledge from my brain into his brain?” Do you know what I mean? And this case it was my brain. So what he did was he came up with an idea, and there’s a couple of ways that you can come up with your idea. You can come from your friends, peers, family, what do they want to know from you? What questions do they ask about what you do for a living, or how you got through a certain situation, or how you did something?

That something, there might be an inkling of a way that you can create a 6-figure course, you can write a book, whatever. You can ask an audience if you already have a list, what they want to learn from you. You can dig in and find out what’s hot in the market, so you can go to Google Trends or you can go to a Google keyword tool, which we’ve talked about many times in the past, and see what people are searching in Google.

And the reality is, the pandemic has … there are so many people searching for so many different things in much greater frequency now. Day trading is a great example of one. Since March, the number of searches, the number of information, the number of 6-figure course on day trading and investing in stuff has all tripled because people are at home, they have a little bit of stimulus money, and they’re looking to generate money. So investing through an app like Robinhood is a pretty interesting way of doing it, and there are a lot of people who have day traded to riches that way.

All of that is fueled by Google searches. Then what you want to do is you want to record your material in some way. It might be a live call, it might be audio, it might be a coaching call, and then you create the rest of the offer. Now, this stuff is very sales funnel related, but what I wanted to do was bring it back to this idea of rapid product creation. So if we go in, this is MindMeister here, we’re going to go in, we’re going to create a new mind map. So we’re just going to hit the little plus button. It’s creating a mind map. And then we’re going to say, “Your new course.”

For module one, and I hit tab. So MindMeister has quite a few hotkeys that you can learn, but if you hit tab, it creates a new branch. This is going to be module one. Now, what is going to be in your module one? Now, no matter what you’re talking about or what you’re trying to teach, module one is always going to be some sort of discovery or introduction. So it’s a baseline. Now you want to assume that if 100 people read your book, 100 people listen to your video course, they’re coming from 100 different points of view. So they all have their own unique experiences, their unique history, their unique challenges and solutions, and all that other stuff.

They’re all coming to you from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds, so you want to assume that. And then in your first module, module one, your discovery module, your introduction module, that’s where you set the stage for the rest of the book. So it might sound weird, but it needs to be a 101 level. “Thanks so much for buying this book. This is what we’re going to learn,” blah, blah, blah. “We’re going to talk about this in the chapters. I’m going to teach you this stuff.”

That is your module one. Very, very simple. You don’t need to get complex. All you’re doing is setting up the rest of the book in module one. Now, most 6-figure courses is going to have five modules, six modules, somewhere in there. Especially if you decide to put one module out a week, then six modules are good because it ends up being about a six-week program, which might be an eight-week program. So module one as an introduction is perfect. That’s week one.

Then in week two, week two is always going to be like building a foundation. So module two is going to be the foundation. Now in a lot of 6-figure courses, the foundation isn’t necessarily experiential, meaning it isn’t something you do. Especially a lot of courses that I take or have been through or have helped put together, your module one is the discovery. It is thank you. It is confirmation. It’s the reaffirmation that the customers and the member is in the right place at the right time. Whereas module two is going to be, “Let’s start building a foundation for the rest of this book. For the rest of this video course.”

So the foundation is, is largely mental a lot of times. So a lot of the 6-figure course that we’ve built for clients, real estate investing, business opportunity, business development, self-help, self-improvement, a lot of those courses, module two is really about identifying the foundation for what your member, your student needs to learn, needs to set up. And a lot of times that is mental. That is getting your mind right and is the fundamentals. There’s lots of kind of foundational stuff that goes into module two.

Let’s say we were building a business development 6-figure course. So business development, module one is going to be, “Thank you so much for buying the 6-figure course. It was a great decision on your part,” blah, blah, blah. Module two foundation is going to be, “Okay. You’re here because you want to grow your business. Now let’s break down what your business is. What are your products? What are your services? How many employees do you have? What niche are you in? Is it a growing niche? Is it not? What is your search results? What aren’t they?” So your foundation is going to be identifying all those things.

Now, module three. Let me just go to module three, which is going to be some sort of build.  What you’re doing is you’re layering tactics, strategies, tools on top of this foundation to make it better. By and large, it ends up you’re improving on. So at that point, you’re improving on the foundation that you’ve already identified. On business development, it might be, well, module three is optimizing a website for better results or optimizing ads for better results or moving your team around so that you’re able to grow more efficiently, or putting in processes and procedures so that you’re able to manage more effectively.

It’s always, how do we improve on the previous thing? We’ve done a lot of real estate 6-figure course, and module one is discovery introduction, module two is finding properties. Always. It’s always finding properties in real estate. Module three is always putting people on a contract. It is acquiring that. Not acquiring, but it’s usually putting properties under contract so that they can then build on top of them. And then module four is always an improvement.

So module four is an improvement. So then in the improvement module, what we’re doing is we’re saying, “Okay. We learned the foundation. We learned the build. Here’s the improvement. Here’s what you can do to improve the results that you got in the build phase or improve the results that you’re getting long-term, and then module five is usually … Module five is usually a recap. It’s not a recap, but it’s more like a summary. So module five is you establish your foundation, you put some things in place, you improved on those things, and then the summary of those things. “This is where you are, and this is what you’re going to be doing over the next year,” or whatever. And then module six is usually a recap.

There’s a lot of things you can do in the meantime. So you can end up going from module six in your recap to pre-selling the next 6-figure course. But there’s a lot of things there that you can do. But by and large, this is kind of the framework that all of your material is going to stem from. Module one is the discovery or introduction, module two is the foundation. So it’s identifying the foundation, whether it’s mental, whether it’s in real life, whatever.

Module three builds, so it’s setting things up so that they can grow and improve or transform. Module four is an improvement, module five is a summary, and module six recaps. That puts together a six-week course that you can sell for $497. $997. The price itself depends on the transformative impact that your course is going to have.

So that is basically how we brainstorm the 6-figure course. Brainstorm material. Now in here, once you get to module one discovery, or once you’ve kind of brainstormed the chapters and the modules or the outline for your 6-figure course, then you go through and you continue fleshing stuff out. So module one is going to be, “Thank you.” Then it is going to be, “What you need to know. You made the right choice. Three things. Three things that separate winners from losers.” What separates winners from losers. Any kind of introductory level material.

Then your foundation is going to be all of the things that you need to have to kind of set it up in your … like for real estate. If we do real estate here. So this is going to be, “Finding properties. Who needs to be on your team? What to know legally. What to know financially.” And then basically, all of your foundational stuff. Module three is going to be putting those properties under contract. And then legal stuff, financial stuff.

And improvement is going to be rehabbing a house. We’re just going to say, “Contractors, interior, exterior.” Then module five. Module five for this one isn’t necessarily going to be a summary, but it is like cash out. So, “Cash out.” And then it’s going to be, “Selling, renting, wholesaling,” whatever. And then module six is going to be a recap. So this is going to be, “What went right? What went wrong?” So this is a general kind of bare-bones framework that you can just drop in whenever you want to create a new 6-figure course, but all in all, you already thought about all of the hard pieces of it.

Now, if you want to create this 6-figure course, you just turn on your computer and start recording a video or you open up Google Docs and you start writing down your process. So you write a lesson, thank you confirmation kind of lesson. Then you write a lesson that is what you need to know. And then you read a lesson that is, “You made the right choice,” and then so on and so forth down the way. So another thing, if you’re selling a multi-week course, you don’t need to have the whole course up and running before you start selling, you just need a couple of weeks. Or at most, the first month. You just need to be ahead of where your students are, so that’s worth knowing too.

But that’s about it for brainstorming your course. It is a pretty simple process, you just need to dedicate a 30-minute time block to it. So sit down, figure out what it is, how you’re going to structure your course, mind maps are a great way to do it. Or you can just grab a piece of paper and start writing it down. And then from there, you’ll be off and running.

For Questions and Guide

So tomorrow, we have Automate, which is going to be all about marketing automation. If you have any questions, thoughts, or anything, just go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the little application there, and then jump on a call with us and we’ll go through and put together an action plan for you for your traffic, for your sales funnels, for your offers, all of that kind of stuff.

The post Brainstorming Your 6-Figure Course And Launch It appeared first on Done For You.

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how to use two different kinds of tools, two different kinds of software to make sure that clients and prospects are moving through the build better funnels the way that they should be, the way that you want them to be. No funnel is ever impervious to weird shit going on. I mean, it might be a button, it might be a link, it might be a page that redirects differently. It could just be a user… Not error, because there isn’t an error, but user misinterpretation.

When you build better funnels and systems, you expect that people are going to be going through them in one way, especially a sales phone. You expect they’re going to go from page to page. You want it to happen, of course. I mean, that’s what you engineer the thing for users and customers will always find some weird side door that you didn’t intend for them to find. They will go down a rant. They’ll hit a navbar which leads to a sidebar link, which leads to an image that still has a link in, whatever. Users will find all the weird shit that’s going wrong with the build better funnels. So the point is, to make sure to track all that stuff so that you can, A, test and roll out fast, but then also make sure that you’re squashing the little bugs as they come up.

Two Software to Build Better Funnels

There are two pieces of software that we look at all the time when we are split-testing funnels when we’re ramping up ad spend and trying to get more sales. We talked about one of them here. Well, we’ve talked about both of them yesterday. We walked through and did an A/B split test yesterday. I showed you some results of how that works to build better funnels. There’s an additional feature that I want to cover with you today on what that looks like inside Visual Website Optimizer.

The other tool that we talked about, we didn’t look at, was Inspectlet. What it does is it records the screen of the person who was moving through your page. And what you can do is, mobile of course, is small and mobile graphics and wide, you have your desktop layout, but what it lets you do is you can find all the little quirky bullshit things that happen when you’re designing for a mobile, tablet, desktop. So, you can see a bunch of different things and how it renders on a screen. You can see how people are interacting with it. You can see what they’re doing, and I’m going to show examples of both of them today.

1. Visual Website Optimizer (VWO)

So, first, we’re going to go into VWO. We talked about the Automated Webinar Playbook and the testing that we’ve been doing for the Automated Webinar Playbook yesterday. So yesterday, we walked through, the split test and how we’re testing different headlines. And then, you also saw that we have a control and a variation that is working out pretty well. So, those are the ones that we’re testing right now. What we didn’t cover were these heatmaps in click maps. If you look in our report, our control and our variation one have received predominantly most of the traffic. You can marry that up with this heat map. We have a control heatmap and a variation of one heatmap to build better funnels.

2. Inspectlet

You can go through and look at those guys, see where people are clicking on a page, but there’s a tool that’ll do you one better. And that is this Inspectlet. So, this piece of software right here also does heat maps and it does screen recordings. And here’s an example of one of the things you get. So right now, it is set to record all DoneForYou software, our doneforyou.com website traffic comes. So this is, for instance, a visitor, somebody who hit the DoneForYou page. They spent a total of 33 seconds on the page and this is how they interacted with it.

What they did, you can see there’s a little scroll bar up top. All they did their cursor is right there. So, that was pretty unimpressive. It was pretty unimpressive. I mean, there wasn’t anything too crazy going on there. Let’s find one that is a little bit longer. So this one, we got one that was… It was a blog post, it looks like. So this one, the total session was 44 hours, which meant they actually had it loaded and they had it loaded in up on their screen, but didn’t do anything with it, and right now it’s not loading. I don’t know what that is. So let’s look, we got another one, five minutes, and seven seconds. So let’s look at this one.

What did they do? This is a sales page that they were on. So, I don’t know if maybe the internet is down or what. It can’t be down because I’m talking to you. So this person also had some other sessions too. Maybe it’s just all my examples might not be working right now. Let’s find a different one.

Anyway, basically what the software does is it records the screen. We saw it up top, but it records the screen and how somebody is moving through the page. You can see what they’re reading, you can see where their cursor is. You can see how they’re moving through. But, one of the most useful things is seeing how they’re interacting with it on different screens.

Any of the new page builders, website builders, let you put different campaigns together. They let you put mobile layouts and specify, this is your mobile layout, and then this is the tablet layout, and then this is the desktop layout. And you can have your images show up above features in blocks, or you can switch it. So your features and block are above the image or buttons or whatever.

When it’s desktop if it makes it wide. You can go through and format that stuff, show special images on mobile or just special images on the desktop. It can show different opt-in forms on mobile and desktop. There’s a lot of different things that you can do there. What these screen recordings in Inspectlet lets you do is they let you say, okay, this is how people are interacting with the page. It’s on an iPhone, let’s say. Hopefully, it comes back up. So, let’s see, we got 42 seconds here. Let’s see if it loads. Come on, load. Maybe it won’t load. All right, we’re just going to wait for that for a minute. See if got some heat maps. Maybe we can look at some heat maps here.

Heatmap of Done For You Website

All right, let’s look at this one. Let’s look at a heat map of our homepage. This one might not come up either. It might just be that software’s down, which is odd. This one’s still not loading. I think all my examples are pretty much toasted today. So, we might need to revisit this thing, might need to actually go through and revisit heat maps and click maps a little bit later. But, at the end of the day, what we want to do is we want to optimize the buying experience as we go.

Oftentimes that is just understanding how people are moving through your webpages. It’s understanding how people are interacting with your opt-in forms and your confirmation forms and everything else. And realizing that not everybody’s going to do exactly what you want them to do. And sometimes it’s a device issue. Sometimes it’s somebody who is moving through, they’re moving through the sales process and there’s a device snag that you didn’t think of.

A great example is one time we had a page that looked great on the desktop. It looked great on the tablet. And it was video, and then there was an image with an arrow and it pointed over to it to a sales purchase block. Looks great on desktop, performed great on desktop, performed great on mobile, but it wasn’t until we looked and saw how it looked, the recorded version on mobile and the arrow was pointing out to the side and it was pointing to nowhere because the order form had moved underneath on mobile.

It wasn’t until you saw it, you’re like, “Oh shit, that’s a stupid mistake,” and it’s easily fixed and correctable, but it wasn’t until you saw it in the screen captures, you’re like, “Oh, wow. Yeah, that makes total sense.” Just something to watch out for. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be able to revisit this. I mean, I hope the software comes back up and we’re able to show you some heat maps and some click maps in a way that makes sense because something highly visual like that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when I can’t show it.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com/start, and then we’ll jump on a call. We can implement some of this stuff, even though you haven’t been able to see it today, but we’ll show it to you either tomorrow or Friday. So, I’ll talk to you soon, all right. Thanks. Bye.

The post Creating Better Funnels Using Screen Recordings appeared first on Done For You.

In today’s episode of GSDdaily, we’re going to talk about course stuff. This week we’re going to talk about course ascension. We’re going to talk about selling and creating bigger box digital offers, things like accelerators, things like boot camps, not necessarily your introductory kind of digital course, but your upper-end stuff, your upper-end material. So today, I kind of retooled this week a little bit real quick, it was going to be kind of self-help, kind of personal development. We’ll probably do a personal development one next week, but today I wanted to dig into this material.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn, creator of Done For You. We specialize in creating offers, building sales funnels, and then also setting up marketing automation and traffic for your offers or offers in general. It doesn’t have to be yours, just in general. Today what we’re going to talk about is this idea of course ascension or digital product Ascension to have a better money mindset. Right now digital products are fucking crazy. Everybody is trying to package their knowledge in a way to sell something to somebody. It’s just one of those things like I’ve had more conversations that deal with, how do I package my course? How do I sell my training? How do I sell it for $1,000, and $2,000, and $5,000?

Digital Product Ascension

Your knowledge, information and experience are very valuable to the right person. Product Ascension can be answered in twofold.

1. How do you transfer your knowledge into somebody else’s brain in a way that makes the biggest impact in their life, the biggest transformation?

2. How do you segment your prospects down into your ideal kind of customer avatar so that they pay top dollar so that they can experience the transformation?

How we do this, how you end up doing a high ticket product, a high ticket offer that is backed by some sort of a digital thing, is this. We set it up like a triangle or a pyramid if you will.

Here you see that we have our course ascension process. The course ascension process is pretty simple.

Course Ascension Process

1. traffic and sales material

So much of what we’ve done in these dailies is the traffic and the sales material. We’ve talked about Facebook traffic, content marketing and about SEO traffic. We have also talked about many, many, many different types of sales funnels. The automated webinar sales funnels, and the high ticket sales funnels, and the VSL upsell sequences, and all that stuff.

2. Offers

The thing that is in the middle of the triangle, are your offers. Those are your digital product. Those are the ways that you communicate your knowledge to somebody, you transfer your knowledge into somebody else’s head.

Digital Product

At the very, very, very base level, we have a digital product. The digital product is a collection of videos. It is a collection of PDFs. It is a collection of written material, audio, basically all of the things that are needed to package your information, to package your expertise in your material. Most of the time that digital product is created at least in its very, very early stages, like a table of contents. We’ve been through mind mapping quite a few times in this series. We’ve been through mind mapping your ideas, turning your products into something saleable online.

Oftentimes, it’s like module one is a discovery module. It’s kind of foundational. You bring everybody together with module one.

Module Two, you’re digging into the basics of the thing you’re teaching. Module three, module four, module five, all build on each other. And you might have five modules, you might have six modules. You might have five or six videos per module. How you build it, we’re going to talk a little bit about that later in the week. But the digital product itself is the container, the thing that you are selling. Oftentimes, a simple digital product, you’re looking at selling it for $97 or $497, or $397, or $997. It just depends on what kind of transformation somebody is going to get from it. It’s going to be, what is the value that they receive? If you’re teaching somebody how to build a business that is going to make half a million dollars a year, that is a pretty high value.

So that course is probably not going to be $67. That course is probably going to be a couple of thousand dollars. Do you know what I mean? Because it has such high value associated with it. Now, if you’re teaching somebody how to build a nightstand with two by fours, that course might only be $7 because it doesn’t necessarily have that big of a transformative value in it. So that’s the idea behind a digital product. The pricing, depending on the pricing, you’re looking at selling it with a webinar or selling it with a VSL upsell sequence or something like that. Now the next evolution above a digital product is what we call assisted group. Your assisted group offers assistance in the course. What you’re doing is you’re using the course to be the baseline educational piece of the offer.

What happens is every week somebody goes through the course. They get a week unlocked or a module unlocked, or a couple of lessons unlocked or whatever. They’ll learn, so maybe Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, they go through the course material. They take all of that in, maybe they do a homework assignment or whatever. Then on Thursday or Friday, they have some sort of group coaching or group training that brings everybody together and answers all of their questions. Now, the assisted group is a higher-priced experience than just a digital product that you consume and go through on your own. The assisted group also, if you think about it is college or high school, especially now.

Your assisted group kind of courses you, now with so many schools in the country just being digital-only, it’s really kind of an assisted group process. COVID is teaching your people, your customers how to do these assisted group digital courses. And so it’s just something to think about. Whereas before this kind of stuff was very like, it wasn’t weird or it wasn’t an alternative, but it kind of was. So we’ve been selling digital courses and eBooks and everything online forever, but now everybody’s being thrust into the mainstream here for the digital course, digital product kind of thing. So the assisted group is what everybody’s going to be learning from.

You have a baseline course that you go through, whether it’s videos, whether it’s textbook, whether it’s material or whatever. And then you have some sort of teaching experience or a group coaching experience, or a group learning experience that bolts everything together. And that might be done in a Facebook group. It might be done in a Zoom call. It just depends on your preference. Then the next level up above the assisted group is assisted one-on-one. Assisted one-on-one is pretty infrequent. Assisted one-on-one is you go through the lesson material, the digital product yourself first, and then you get on a one-on-one call with your mentor, your teacher, you’re whatever, your coach, you get on a one-on-one call to review the material.

Now this assisted one-on-one, this is going to be like a $2,500 a month kind of experience, or 2,000 or 5,000. Again, it depends on the transformative impact of it, but you’re looking at a much more expensive offer, which means that when you were selling this assisted one-on-one when you create the base digital product and then you’re doing like biweekly one-on-one calls, you can charge a lot of money for it because there’s only one of you and you have your experience and everything. And then you’re answering questions of your student and making the course material applicable in life for them. So you’re able to help them use it in their life. Now, above that, so assisted one-on-one infrequent would be like twice a week or maybe once a month, or once every two weeks or once a month.

Above that, you have your assisted frequent one-on-one. So this is like weekly one-on-one coaching. It’s also like, there’s, one of the things we’ve been doing a lot of for clients is like virtual CMO, virtual CFO, virtual COO kind of offers. So that would be like your assisted one-on-one. So a lot of times the virtual CXO offers have a course that the team or companies go through. And then they get access whenever they want to the person, whether it’s through Slack or text message, or whatever. So that would be like an assisted one-on-one frequent. And that of course, is a pretty high dollar price point.

Above assisted one-on-one is done for you. So any kind of a done for you offer that is hands-off for the client, hands-off for the customer, and then you do it for them because they’re not required to learn. They’re not required to jump on a coaching call. They don’t need to jump on a one-on-one call. All that they’re paying for is a done for you offer. And then above that, you have a mastermind. So a mastermind is where you have a bunch of people who are in a networking relationship with each other. They’re able to bounce ideas off of each other and able to pick each other’s brains. There are so many different benefits from a mastermind just in terms of being exposed to other people’s viewpoints, being exposed to what’s working in other industries, or even in your industry.

But the mastermind is the upper, upper, upper level of how you’re going to ascend through digital courses. Almost every highly respected course creator has a mastermind. Sometimes the mastermind is $10,000 and sometimes the mastermind is 25 or 50 or 75, or even $100,000. But there’s usually a mastermind at the top end of that pyramid. So when you’re looking at your business model when you’re looking at what you’re trying to create, consider a mastermind, consider a done for you offer, consider the assisted course offers down below. Now, if we go up the side on the left-hand side, you see that we broke it down here. So the digital product itself is very DIY. It’s a very self-starter. So somebody is going through the offer, going through the product on their own time. It’s a self-study, home study kind of an offer.

Then we have assisted group, assisted one-on-one. Those are done with you. So those are done with your offers. It is up to them to go through the material, up to them to go through the course. However, you’re able to interact with them and help them, and anchor them in the course material and help them implement that stuff in their life. Then we have the done for you, which is DFY, of course. And then we have a mastermind. So everyone has an upper-end mastermind offer. Like I said, most digital products, most creators, most vendors, have a mastermind or they’re part of a mastermind that they sell. So that’s the essential model of courses, of digital products. As I said, it all starts down here with the traffic, kicks up through the sales material.

Oftentimes, there’s a low-end digital product, then that goes through an ascension ladder. And the ascension ladder usually has assisted group, assisted one-on-one, done for you offers, and then masterminds. So that is how most of it looks. Sometimes people end up just hanging out down here in the digital product space. They don’t want to get on the phone with clients, don’t want to get on the phone with customers and don’t want to do coaching or mentorship. If they do explore those upper-end models, then they’ll hire somebody for it. They will teach coaches their methodology, and then the coaches will run people through this. But it’s a way of generating quite a bit more revenue once you have a body of work that you can use to anchor the rest of your process.

Does anybody have any questions about that? It’s all kind of a shotgun scenario. But let’s see comments here. Okay, cool. So we’ve got one. When can you introduce a mastermind? Great question. You can introduce a mastermind really whenever you want. I would say that you have to be anchored in the space a little bit. You need some customers that you’re going to sell it to. You can’t necessarily go zero to mastermind without being either, A, pretty entrenched in the market, or B, very well networked. So it’s one or the other. You can start at a low-level mastermind. Masterminds have this weird… There are mastermind groups that are $197 a month, free mastermind groups and mastermind groups that are $50,000 a year.

It just depends on what you’re trying to put together. If you’re trying to put together an elite level mastermind, then the charge is $25,000 a year for CEOs who are at the helm of businesses doing 10 million or more per year, then it’s a different scenario than somebody who is looking to put together a mastermind of digital product creators who are just starting. Yu always have to consider your target market when putting together the mastermind. You read Think and Grow Rich. I don’t know that that’s where the idea was introduced, but I think that’s where the idea was popularized. But a mastermind is just a collection of people who can feed off of each other and uplevel themselves and their businesses and their lives, I guess collectively.

That’s the idea of a mastermind. It doesn’t necessarily have to be business-related, but it can be. So in starting your mastermind, it doesn’t need to be something that you have, it’s $50,000 a year. It can be a free mastermind just among friends and then it can grow. So it just depends on what it is you’re trying to put together. In the course ascension model, masterminds typically end up at the top of the pyramid in terms of price scenarios. And they also help you greatly increase the revenue that you’re getting. There are a couple of masterminds that start at masterminds and they don’t have anything below them. They don’t have like assisted one-on-one, don’t have a digital product or books. It’s a little bit more difficult to pull off that way, but it’s doable.

Let’s see. You said you can charge up to $1,000 per digital product. Typically, for digital products, you can charge up to 997, 995, $1,000 for a digital product alone. In some spaces, the financial space, the real estate space, you can usually charge up to $2,000 for a digital product, business development too. Every once in a while, you see an outlier that’s like 3,500 or $4,000 for a digital product. But usually, that outlier has some of these assisted models. They have assisted one-on-one or the assisted group or whatever. Just be mindful when you’re going to introduce a product into the market. Like, do you want to take on some clients? Do you want to do some group coaching with it?

Because oftentimes if you do, you’re able to generate quite a bit more revenue that way because some people just want the course, but then other people also want the coaching and mentorship in it too. So just something to think about. I think that’s about it for today. For the rest of this week, we’re going to talk about courses. So I’m not real sure the blow by blow, but we will get it all squared away. I will talk to you tomorrow, have a fantastic Monday.

For Questions and Guide

If you need anything at all, just go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the little form, and we’ll jump on a call and talk about it. I’ll talk to you soon.

The post Growing Your Business Through Digital Products appeared first on Done For You.

Today, we're going to talk about how to create automated webinars!

Automated webinars have revolutionized the way businesses interact with their audiences. These evergreen webinars offer the benefits of live sessions without requiring the host to be present each time. If you want to leverage this powerful marketing tool, you're in the right place. This guide will walk you through how to create automated webinars that engage and convert.

Step 1: Identify the Offer You're Going to Sell

What's the Offer at the End of the Road?

Before you dive into how to create automated webinars, it's essential to figure out the offer you plan to sell at the end. Is it a product, a service, or perhaps an exclusive membership? I know this will guide your webinar's content and ensure that it leads naturally into your sales pitch. Please look at your audience's pain points and how your offer solves them to make the transition seamless.

Step 2: Crafting the Perfect Marketing Hook

Finding Your Webinar's Unique Selling Proposition

You can brainstorm a compelling marketing hook to make your automated webinar stand out. You can use frequently asked questions from your audience as inspiration. Addressing common problems or misconceptions in your turn can make it resonate more with potential attendees. The theme should be an enticing preview of the value that you're about to deliver, compelling your audience to stick around for the entire session.

Step 3: Storyboarding Your Webinar

The Blueprint of How to Create Automated Webinars

Storyboarding is a crucial planning step in creating your automated webinar. It helps you outline all the segments of your webinar, ensuring a logical flow and aiding in slide creation later on. Include the following elements in your storyboard:

1. Social Proof: Customer testimonials or case studies to build credibility.
2. About You: Introduce yourself to establish authority.
3. Problem Explanation: Clearly define the problem you will solve.
4. Problem Education: Dive deeper into why this problem matters.
5. The Solution: Could you showcase your offer as the solution?
6. Pricing: Discuss the cost and payment options.
7. Urgency: Could you create a sense of urgency to prompt action?
8. Risk Reversal: Offer guarantees to mitigate perceived risks.

Step 4: Creating the Slide Deck

The Visual Element of How to Create Automated Webinars

You can use tools like Google Slides, Keynote, or PowerPoint for the slide deck. Ensure that your slides are clear and correspond to your created storyboard. Use visuals like images and videos to break up the text and make the content more engaging.

Step 5: Recording the Webinar

Capture Your Content Flawlessly

Software like Screenflow, Camtasia, or Zoom can be handy for recording your automated webinar. Please ensure you're in a quiet environment, and do a test run to ensure that audio and video are clear. If you're new to these platforms, each offers excellent tutorials on how to get the best out of your recording session.

Step 6: Automating the Webinar

Leveraging Technology for Evergreen Content

Once your recording is ready, the next step in creating automated webinars is to make them evergreen using platforms like EverWebinar.com or StealthSeminar. These services allow you to set the schedule, automate the chat to make the session interactive, and integrate various marketing tools for a comprehensive automated webinar experience.

Landing Pages and Conversion Optimization for Automated Webinars

Now, let's talk about the face of your automated webinars: the landing page. It's essential to have a landing page that's optimized for conversions. If you're using ClickFunnels, WordPress, or any other platform, please make sure to A/B test rigorously to maximize your ROI.

Step 7: The Follow-up Strategy (This Is One Of The Most Important Parts)

Post-Webinar Engagement

After your webinar has aired, it’s time for the follow-up. Design an email sequence to nurture leads and guide them further down the sales funnel. Personalize the emails based on user behavior during the webinar for better results. Don't forget to create social media posts to engage attendees and offer them additional value.

Pro-tip: A/B tests different types of follow-up content to see what resonates most with your audience.

Automated Webinar Replay Video: The Game-Changer

In our recent discussions, we've delved deep into automated webinars, promotional offers, and the various types of presentations you can host. Yesterday, we broke down the funnel structure for automated webinars and explored email strategies and essential equipment.

Today, let's get into the post-webinar actions you can take. You see, most people underestimate the importance of what happens after the automated webinars are over. But it's a goldmine for revenue. You can grab our comprehensive guide on this subject at Doneforyou.com/legendary.

A shocking fact: Up to 85% of your revenue could come from your automated webinar replay sequence alone. Yes, you read that right. If you ignore the replay sequence, you're essentially throwing money away. Gone are the days when the live event was the main show; now, it's all about the replay.

Automated Webinars Replay Strategies That Convert

In the automated webinar replay itself, you have an array of tactics to employ. Whether running a live webinar or an automated one, the recording will be available to your audience, but the method and timing can differ. Please keep an eye on your metrics; for a $97 product, you can expect about a 30% conversion rate, and adjust your expectations accordingly for higher-priced offerings.

The Power of the Six-Email Replay Sequence in Automated Webinars

Post-webinar, seize the opportunity to maximize sales with a six-email replay sequence. This targeted strategy has been fine-tuned for optimal results for our webinars and those we run for clients.

Day Zero

The first email directly links to the automated webinar replay without strings attached.

Day One

The next day, we resend the link. We want our audience to absorb the automated webinar content before moving forward.

Day Two and Three

Days two and three feature links to the automated webinar replay and the product's order form. Two CTA's, double the chance to convert.

Day Four and Five

By day four, we're focusing on the order form. It’s time to shift gears and begin introducing urgency into the equation.

Wrapping It Up

Automated webinars are a crucial part of your funnel, and optimizing every aspect, from emails to landing pages, can make a massive difference in your ROI. Always be testing, constantly be optimizing, and never underestimate the power of a well-planned post-webinar strategy.

That wraps up our deep dive into automated webinars. Stay tuned for more actionable insights!

Wrapping Up: Your Quick Checklist on How to Create Automated Webinars

1. Identify your end-of-webinar offer.
2. Craft a compelling marketing hook.
3. Develop a detailed storyboard.
4. Create an engaging slide deck.
5. Record the webinar.
6. Automate the webinar using specialized platforms.
7. Implement a follow-up strategy.

By following these seven steps meticulously, you'll know exactly how to create automated webinars that educate and convert your audience into paying customers. Good luck!

The post The Ultimate Guide to Creating Automated Webinars appeared first on Done For You.

In today’s GSDdaily, we’re going to talk about picking the right call to action for your webinar. We’re also going to talk about the tools and tech and gear and stuff that you need to pull off a webinar that you can sell high-ticket products and services on. This entire week we’ve been going through this, which is a PDF that we put together on, the Automated Webinar Playbook. You can get this thing for free at… I’m going to change this little ticker here, so download PDF at, there we go. All right. You can go ahead and download this PDF for free at doneforyou.com/legendary.

Now, the reason it’s legendary is this is our L1 funnel, which is basically, it’s a high-ticket automated webinar funnel and it walks through the exact process of creating something automated that sells for you. It sells your coaching program, your consulting program, your high-ticket digital product, your lead magnet, or not lead magnet. Sometimes you need a lead magnet, but it sells all that stuff for you. In the last couple of days, we’ve been walking through this guide. Yesterday we talked about this, where is it? Right there, we went through this sales funnel process. And then we went through this piece, which was the checklist on all of the material that you need to pull off one of these funnels. So that was yesterday’s thing.

Maximizing the Conversion of High Ticket Offers

Today what we’re doing is we’re talking about maximizing the conversion of our high ticket offers. We’re going to walk through the next probably 10 or so pages of this guide, but when it gets to maximizing the conversion of high ticket offers, your webinar does a lot of work. I call it the triple trigger.

Webinar

Your webinar helps you generate leads and you’re generating leads to cold traffic or warm traffic or your email list. You’re getting people to raise their hand and say, “Yes, I’m interested in the thing that you were offering,” or “I’m interested in the challenge that you’re presenting and the challenge you’re going to be solving on the webinar.” “Yes, I am interested in transforming my business or myself into that thing that you’re going to be educating on.” That’s what registering for a webinar means. Now that makes the webinar an awesome lead-generation tool, if nothing else, but webinars do so much more than that which will be your high ticket offers.

You usually have webinars anymore a little bit shorter. They’re don’t go for 90 minutes like they did five or six years ago. Most webinars are 30, 45, or 50 minutes kind of it tops out at. Your webinar really generates a lead. It engaged in bonds with a prospect. What you’re doing is kind of compressing that whole awareness, interest, desire, action, you’re compressing it into a 60-minute chunk of time. You’re getting awareness from the prospect. They are becoming interested in the thing that of your high ticket offers. They find themselves desiring the thing, hopefully, if they’re the right customer avatar and all that stuff. Then they take action on it. It’s this compressed block of time that you’re going to get somebody engaged, interested in taking action. The last piece is the call to action.

Now in maximizing the conversion of high ticket offers, there’s a couple of things you have to take into consideration.

The first is who is your target avatar? Are they a busy executive who was in no way going to ever schedule something on their calendar, like an hour block of time for a web-based presentation? They’re going to have one of their underlings do it. If that’s the case, then you need to engage with them immediately. On-demand. And sometimes you need to engage with them with a PDF first, showcasing your ability and then inviting them to the webinar. Others, very aspirational markets like business development, business opportunity, a lot of times you can schedule that webinar out in advance and people are going to sign up for it. But the key to maximizing your conversion of high ticket offers on the webinars is presenting the right call to action that matches up with the prospect.

The Framework of Successful Webinar

Here’s kind of the framework of the successful webinar. In most markets, in most niches, the call to action should drop around 45 minutes. So part of then is because when somebody blocks out time for a webinar, they usually block 60 minutes. What you want to do is you want the call to action to land about 40, 45 minutes in, and then have some time to decompress from there. Answer some questions, maybe drop a couple of testimonials, whatever. You want to have a very brief intro section. I tell a lot of our clients the biography and the introductory part of the webinar needs to be this big in comparison to the whole webinar. People don’t care about you. They don’t care about who you are and what you can do for them. All they care about the problem that you’re going to solve for them.

They don’t necessarily care about who you are until after they learned about the solution. So it’s important to introduce yourself because that’s just good manners. But, at the same time, don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about your accolades and your education and your experience and your history, because most likely it doesn’t matter yet. It will matter afterward. It matters after you showcase your ability, but not right now. So the bio can be real short, then you talk about the solution, and then you can even get into your story or how it ties in with your story or whatever, but you need to deliver value.

We always use questions in our webinar and that is to engage the audience thinking, to engage the thinking of the audience. And here’s why. Whenever you’re asked a question, your brain answers that question, regardless of if you kind of consciously come up with the answer yourself. Whenever you posed with a question, your brain answers it, which is it engages it. Sometimes that comes up to the conscious level, where you can verbalize your answer, but if you’re asked a question, your brain’s going to answer it. So that’s why we use questions. It engages folks. It aligns with their thinking. And a lot of the times what we do, we do three successful questions and they start very broad, you can think of it as a funnel that will be your high ticket offers.

Start very broad and then the next question is a little bit more narrow. And the next question is even more narrow. And that last question is what sets up the rest of the presentation. Then what you do is you move to content for like 20 or 30 minutes. You talk about your four-step system or five hacks or six questions or six secrets or whatever. And then you transition them into the pitch. And that’s where the call to action comes in. So the call to action itself is… There’s an art in moving from good content to a good call to action. And we always try to make it as seamless as possible.

We try not to make it real abrupt. Now we’ve covered and there’s so much more to cover other than this, but all we have is 45 minutes in this presentation. So what I did was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I put together a coaching program where it’ll reveal the secrets of the universe and you can have access to blah, blah, blah money.

It needs to be more elegant than that, so we try to have a nice transition between the content and how that content that they just learned can be further reinforced or further accelerated by the high ticket offers. So that tends to work pretty well. And then right here in the PDF is some notes that you can take as you kind of go through it. And choosing a call to action that matters. This is kind of what the whole high-ticket webinar thing is all about. The call to action you need when you are selling high ticket offers is a strategy session. So the call to action is going to be signing up, booking a call on your calendar or your team’s calendar, your sales rep’s calendar, whatever. So the webinar sets up the sale, but it doesn’t sell the thing.

The webinar sets up the sales call and the sales call sells the thing. And the sales call is only effective if the high ticket offers are great for both sides, meaning the prospect gets something solved that they need to have solved, the solution for their problems, and then, of course, you or your company are providing the solution and you’re happy about the client, or you’re happy about the project too. So that’s one of the best ways to maximize conversion to high ticket offers.

What I usually tell my clients is when you have a webinar that is set up like this, where it’s a webinar that goes into a strategy session call, typically you’re going to close like one in four when you’re first starting. Because the webinar, if it’s doing its job is kind of talking about the high ticket offers, talking about the problem, talking about the solution. Just the fact that somebody went through that webinar and then ultimately booked the call and then answer some questions on an application.

Then we know that they’re going to be a good fit or not a good fit. And if they’re not a good fit, don’t even waste your time on the call. So you don’t have to, if you don’t want to, you know what I mean? So give him a call. Have a great call. Sometimes it’ll be a one-call close or two call closes or three call close or whatever. But as long as you’re serving your prospect, then you’re going to close some sales. As far as the tools.

The benefits beyond sales, first of all, you build your email list because your webinars are great lead-generation tools, you’re selling more of your product or service, and you’re also connecting with your audience in a way that is different than just a kind of a cold website. So those are three of the biggest benefits that you get out of this webinar. Now, the tools that you’re going to need.

Tools to Conduct Webinars

So the tools in tech have changed a little bit. A little bit, but not much. There are so many things now, especially now, like mid-pandemic, that we’ve been shoved into needing to use. We’ve had to figure them out. Not us, we’ve been using it forever but now the population is just a whole lot more comfortable with Zoom. Everybody has webcams. Everybody knows how to do video through their computer, for the most part, and if they don’t know how to do it, video through the computer, they know how to do it through their phone.

As a global population, we’ve all figured out the video to a much better degree. That makes your job infinitely easier now. Here are some of the mics that we use. It’s totally up to you if you want to use this stuff. I used to always say that like Apple’s tools, Apple laptops, and stuff, the camera and stuff were great. They’re not so much anymore. I guess this new line of MacBook Pros and stuff that are coming out, they’re going to have like full 4K cameras or at least 1080 cameras.

Microphone

The two pieces of equipment you’re going to need is a microphone. There are some examples here.

1. Blue Snowball
2. Blue Yeti
3. Audio-Technica AT2020

You can find blue snowball and blue yeti at Best Buy. You can also order them online. I use these. This is an Audio-Technica AT2020. They have a USB variant and then also a music recording variant. I don’t know if I can share this. Of course, it’s kind of short, but that cord right there. I don’t know anything about recording music, but I do know that this is a I think it’s an XLR cord and then it pipes into a mixer. So that’s what I use. I have an AT2020 on my desk over there too. A USB variation.

Camera

1. Logitech HD Pro

That way we have a uniform recording on videos and stuff. The Logitech HD Pro, this camera, has been nice. I have been using something different though. This is an actual 1080 camera that pipes into a USB connection on the computer, which is sometimes why I have issues with their video. It works, but the setup was kind of created for gaming. Then I have the same thing over on that computer there. There are some lights now. These lights, super-nice, but now they have LED variations. There’s a light there, which is the same as this light here. I have one that kind of sits. You can see it on my glasses.

Now you’re not going to be able to unsee it. But so we have one of these lights and then I have like a ring light over on that computer, which helps out quite a bit too. And let’s see, that’s it for tools. And then software. Here, let me show you these though. Let me pull up a web browser page because I want to show you kind of what I have been using from a camera set up.

This is a camera set up that I have been using. You can see that I last purchased this thing on April 28th. So I have two of these cameras. Well, so what happened was is I would have just bought two webcams, but with the pandemic, everybody started buying webcams. So I was looking around and as a good solid brand-name webcam was $189. And I was like, “Well, shit, why don’t I just buy a camcorder, and then I can use it for other stuff if I want to?” So I ended up grabbing two of this camcorder. One for this, and this is what I’m looking at now, and then another one over there, which is what, when I’m like at my sitting desk, is what I use. And then I got an HDMI-to-USB adapter.

It’s, basically, one of these things. Now there are lots of different variations of this. And a lot of them are from China. It just depends on the kind of what you want to go with. I ended up going with, let’s see the brand of the one that I have, a HornetTek video capture. HornetTek, H-O-R-N-E-T… there it is.

This is the one that I grabbed. I have two of these and what it is is it’s an HDMI cable on one side and USB out of the other side. So it’s a passive device. A lot of gamers use it. What they do is they use an HDMI splitter and then one side goes to their TV and the other side goes to their computer so that they can stream shit on Twitch or whatever. I think that’s how it works. I’m not 100% positive. But just in reading the reviews, I saw that a lot of people were doing just that. There are all kinds of others… I think there’s one called an Elgato, which is one that I read about quite a bit. But there are lots of different kinds of video capture tools.

This is just what I’ve been using. Do you have a camcorder that outputs HDMI, then you can use one of these things and get a great camera resolution on it. And then we talked about mics. So those are probably the two most pivotal things. I also have one of these. Sling Studio. I think it’s at myslingstudio.com. Yeah. So I have a Sling Studio too that I record. And it’s a video-camera switching unit. So you can record anything on iOS. You can have an iPhone, iPad always recording inputs as well as these, which is pretty cool for camera switching. I don’t do it on the live streams, but I do on some of the other videos. So just a couple of things from a webcam standpoint.

Now, when we get to webinar software, there are so many different types of webinar software out there that will help you do these webinars. From a tried-and-true standpoint, GoToWebinar is nice. I have been a GoToWebinar user forever, but I do have to say that I switched to Zoom for so many more things, just because it’s easier. GoToWebinar, you don’t need to download software or Zoom you don’t need to download the software. You send a link and everybody just has it. GoToWebinar, I found that so many people were using Zoom that now GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting, having to download stuff for the conferencing, which was just a pain in the ass. And so we stopped using it. We moved over to Zoom.

In terms of automated webinar stuff, there’s EverWebinar is still the best. EverWebinar. Great tool from a marketing standpoint. Let’s see. And those are kind of pretty much the only tools that we use from a webinars standpoint. Any more though, literally, on Monday, we talked about the on-demand webinars, which is pretty much all we do anymore. So it’s, basically, a landing page that kicks over into a webinar room page. The webinar room page is set to have a video that automatically starts. So it’ll, the webinar room page, the video just automatically goes live. And then there’s a webinar replay page that has a call to action button underneath it. So we don’t even use special software for it anymore. We just use a Vimeo web player that shows up.

Let’s see. And I think, for the most part, that’s about as far as we were going to get in this guide today. Email marketing software. For the most part, we use like ActiveCampaign or we use our CRM, which is access or we’ll use like InfusionSoft or Keeper and Ontraport. Those are pretty much the email. So if somebody opts in for the webinar, they get the email through those email marketing platforms and we tie all that stuff in, and then the webinar gets delivered from there. I’ve got some stuff on webinar tools. All right.

I think probably the last thing we need to talk about, and we kind of touched on it yesterday, which is just all the different emails that you need to pull this thing off. So you need the webinar promo emails, the emails that go out promoting the webinar. You need the webinar replay emails. So that is the emails that go out after somebody attends the webinar and those emails promote the webinar. They promote high ticket offers. If this is an evergreen webinar, you can do evergreen webinar promo and evergreen replay emails.

That’s really about it from an asset standpoint. You need a sales presentation too. You have to do the webinar slides to have the webinar. Then we have a little checklist here – microphone, your camera, your lighting, the webinar software. What are you going to use for that? What are you going to use for email marketing? Then what sequences are you going to run? If you have any notes, go ahead and write to them there.

For Questions and Guide

If you have questions on putting the whole thing together, go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the little application and jump on a call with us. We’ll go through an action plan for you, with you.

I want to talk about your funnel, your traffic, the webinar set up, and all that stuff. And I will see you tomorrow. Tomorrow we’re going to get into the replay, which is the replay and the replay email sequence. Probably 85% of your sales are going to come from the replay. It’s a bigger part of the high-ticket sales system than the webinar itself, is the replay. We’ll cover that tomorrow and I will talk to you soon.

The post Choosing A CTA That Converts High Ticket Offers appeared first on Done For You.

Today’s GSDdaily is a continuation of our last episode. We started talking about the automated webinar playbook that you have access to when you go to, I dropped it in the post, but downloaded it here. It’s doneforyou.com/legendary. And just so that everybody knows what… Got a little ticker there. If you are just showing up, then you can see that you can download this report by going to legendary.

Basically, what we did on our last episode as we talked about this idea of selling high-ticket, highly-complex offers through strategy sessions. That was like coaching, consulting, all of that kind of stuff. Then we went through and talked about strategy sessions as a rule, like things that you need to do from a strategy session standpoint. We talked about setting up a high ticket, high-growth sales machine, automated webinar funnel. And we got all the way down to this section.

We talked about what the quickest path to cash is and we gave you a little… If you print this book out, then you’re able to fill in what your quickest path to cash is; whether it’s a book that is half done or a software project that just needs a front end website, a course that you recorded two years ago that needs some automation put on the front of it or whatever.

Then, we got down into this part, which was right there… We are going to talk about the high-growth sales machine, the architecture of an automated webinar. So, and here’s where it gets… Well, for me, it gets fun because we’ve built these things hundreds and hundreds of times.

Automated Webinar

In an automated webinar, there’s this kind of framework that you put around it. So the automated webinar itself is just this thing right in the middle and the high-growth sales machine. So let me see if I can draw. I think I can draw on this. Maybe. Let me see. No, I can’t. Anyway.

The webinar itself is the thing right in the middle. It’s right there if you can see my cursor. And basically, we have a lot of different traffic channels that we can plug into.
So if you already have an email list, then you can mail your email list to the offer. If you have retargeted traffic, you can retarget some of that traffic to your new webinar. If you have social media traffic, if you are an influencer, you can point those folks to the new webinar. This will add to have a high-growth sales machine.

What we generally start with is first as an email. If we have a client or we’re rolling something out for ourselves, the very, very, very first thing we do is launch to the email list.

Reasons we do that:

A) People already know about us and hopefully they will like us

B) To train Facebook‘s pixels. So much of successfully running traffic now is based on Facebook’s algorithm. Google’s algorithm. You know, everybody has their algorithms. And it’s important when you’re rolling something out to train those pixels, to train the algorithms. That way Facebook knows exactly who to target; otherwise, they have no idea. They don’t know what you’re looking for and who is good for you and who is not good for you. So you want to make sure to train the pixels. And the easiest way to do that is to use a set of data that you know is perfect for you. And there’s no more perfect data than buyers list and prospect lists. So you mail the automated webinar, you train the pixels and then you start a Facebook campaign with those results.

If you have 100 webinar registrations, 200 webinar registrations, you’re training the pixels and then you tell Facebook, “Go find me another 1,000 people just like that.” Do you know? And then this is the budget per day. And then you set up the ad campaigns and all that other stuff.

Now we don’t usually go directly to a webinar registration, especially for a high-ticket thing and high-growth sales machine. You can’t go from cold to selling a $5,000 thing right out of the gate. It doesn’t work. It just totally doesn’t work… I was going to say, unless you’ve been in the space for 10 or 15 years, but then the brand… They’re already warm to the brand.

I’m thinking of some of the folks out there. You have your Frank Kerns, your Grant Cardones, your Gary V. You know, if they were to run a cold webinar, offering a $5,000 or thing, they’re going to crush it… Pun intended, I guess because I said something about gravy. But they’re going to crush it because of the brands.

Because if they put 3,000 people on a list, you’re going to find they’re going to get a great conversion on a $5,000 offer because there are 3,000 people on the list or 3,000 people on the webinar. Do you know what I mean?

Unless you have a huge brand that you’ve spent years, decades kind of cultivating, you’re not going to be able to just rush out and start selling this $5,000 thing. You got to kind of warm them up. And that’s why we put this free report here.

The free report, the ebook, the chapters, or whatever is a free six to an eight-page lead magnet. We’ve talked about them quite a bit before, but you give it away for free in exchange for an email address. Then you invite them to the webinar.

Onboarding Sequence

Sometimes there’s an onboarding sequence, which is these yellow emails right here. That’s trying to get them into the webinar. They’re probably going to download the ebook, page through the ebook, then open your emails. And then after a couple of days, they’re going to sign up for the webinar, knowing that you know what you’re talking about. Knowing that you’re going to give them value for being on the webinar.

Generally, that’s the best way to go. Sometimes we can run cold traffic directly to the webinar registration page. It just takes a little bit longer to sell them. So it might be, they watched the webinar after a day, but then they buy six days after that. That’s thanks to this second set of yellow emails, which is the webinar replay sequence.

Webinar Replay Sequence

They sign up for the webinar and then they’ve dripped out the emails from there. And then all of those emails, point to one of two things. They either point to the webinar replay, the webinar replay being the day one and two of the webinar replay sequence. They point to the webinar and say, “Thanks so much for watching it. Here’s the webinar just in case you missed something.”

Then on day three of the replay sequence, you promote two things. You promote the webinar replay and the call to action for the offer. And then day four and then day five, you promote just the offer. So the call to action.

Then you have buyers, and the buyers go off into the fulfillment section. So you’re fulfilling stuff. Or if they don’t buy, then you send them to the next offer; the next offer in your mix, the next offer in your thing, whatever. (Wow, that was loud.) So that is the architecture of an automated webinar.

Now there are lots of things you can do before and after this. I mean, afterward, you can send them a down-sell into a payment option. You can send them through a sequence of videos that warm them up for the next offer. You can send them through blog posts, and then drop another offer next month. This isn’t the end of their life cycle with you. It’s just the end of this funnel.

There are lots of things you can do, but this is kind of that matrix, that thing where they come in, they bond, they learn, you peel off some buyers and then everybody else moves deeper into your email process and hopefully they buy something next week or next month or next year, even.

One of the things that I find perplexing oftentimes is after like 30 days or 60 days, people just don’t email their list; which drives me crazy because those people oftentimes… People don’t turn on buying until it’s two months, three months, a year, or two years. We’ve had people buy… Six years they’ve been reading my email and then all of a sudden they come in, you know what I mean?

But if I didn’t continue pursuing that relationship for six… It’s not even pursuing that relationship. You’re emailing your entire list. Do you know?

You’re basically whether they’re new, whether they’re old, they’re getting the same content; it’s just a broadcast email. So it’s just something to think about and knows that you’re creating content and consciously for is the people who signed up yesterday and the people who signed up four years ago. It’s just something to think about.

Now, the automated webinar typically… You generate traffic from various sources. It might be an email list, it might be Facebook, might be LinkedIn. We usually try to focus on one and then we’ll branch off into others. But one kind of leads to others because you might have Facebook traffic as your primary traffic driver, but then you get back in front of them from email.

Some of our physical products, like e-com clients, I mean, Amazon is a primary driver of traffic or sales and traffic for them. So there’s always different verticals that you can tap into. As soon as you get stable and profitable in one, I usually try to find that second one so that we know just from multiple streams of income standpoint.

Now you always want to point traffic to a lead magnet first or point traffic to the webinar registration page which is typically a targeted ad. And then you want that automated email sequence follow-up to be in place. You know, you want the webinar follow-up to be in place, the call to action, and then the fulfillment or the next offer.

On this page 15. I don’t want I’m thinking. So page 15 is we have, you print this thing out. There’s all of the different stuff that you’re going to need to pull this webinar off.

You’re going to need the webinar presentation, which is a video usually. But the webinar presentation is going to be a slide deck. It’s going to be the video recording and then like the edits of that thing. And then the other piece of creativity that you’re going to need as the lead magnet and lead magnet does have a piece of creativity that you…

Anyway, the lead magnet itself is going to have a piece of sales material – you have a sales process or a sales responsibility I should say. What you want to do is you want to deliver enough content that somebody is… They’re finding value in it. They have an aha moment. They have a takeaway moment from it, and then you transition into the webinar or the offer.

Then you have your core pages. So your core pages, you need a lead magnet landing page. You need a lead magnet confirmation page. So those. Yep. Lead magnet confirmation page. That’s for the lead magnet. So they have an opt-in page and then a download page. And then for the webinar, you need the webinar registration page, the webinar room page, and then the webinar replay page.

The webinar room page, the only difference between the webinar room and the webinar replay, they both have the video and it’s both the same video, but the room page drops the call to action when the call to action is stated on the webinar. So like 50 minutes in 30 minutes and whatever, and you say, “Click the button below to sign up for a free strategy session, where we talk about the boom, boom, boom, boom.” Whatever.

The link is going to appear and then it stays there for the rest of the presentation. The webinar replay page is a second page and is only used in the replay email sequences. And that replay page has that call to action link, usually like after five minutes. I don’t usually have, well, sometimes I do. I guess it just depends.

But you can either have that call to action button immediately on the page, or it’ll show up after a couple of minutes so you don’t scare somebody off, but it’s up to you. And then you want to have a strategy session scheduling page.

You can just link directly through, to like a Calendly scheduling page or Acuity scheduling or whatever. Sometimes we find that you get a little bit better take rate on those if you have a video or some content directly from you or directly from the sales guy or whatever, talking about why they should be signing up.

It might be the Calendly embed with a video on top, and the video on top walks through what you’re going to do on the page or what you’re going to do on the call. And that’s just reiterating it right from the webinar.

4 Sequences For Webinar Funnel

1. Lead Magnet Fulfillment Email (Onboarding Sequence)
2. Webinar Promo Sequence
3. Webinar Replay Sequence
4. Strategy Session Promo Sequence

Then there are four sequences that you need here. So you need your lead magnet fulfillment email. So that’s, “Thanks so much for downloading the email. Here’s your link.” You need your webinar promo sequence. So if we look up here, this right here, you need this webinar promo sequence, right? That first yellow block.

Then you need your webinar replay sequence. And that is this yellow block right here. And then you need your strategy session promo sequence. Typically, it’s not actually here, but oftentimes if they don’t sign up for a strategy session from the webinar replay set, then we usually wait like three or four days and we just do like a hard push of the strategy session itself. No reference to the webinar, but just the, “Hey, we’re here to help,” kind of thing.

That is the architecture of the webinar funnel which will be your high-growth sales machine, and this is your checklist of the things you’re going to need to facilitate that, to build it so it will become your high-growth sales machine.

Is this helpful? Did you guys like today’s high-growth sales machine? So, tomorrow we’re going to pick up here… Tips for maximizing conversion. We’re going to go through probably the next 10 or 15 pages, but today was the big one because it’s all about architecture and flow and the things you’re going to need to pull this kind of a webinar off for your high-growth sales machine.

A lot of them, you probably already have, like in one way or another, and then we’ll just continue through this document here. And if you have any comments, just go ahead and drop them in here. So it looks like we got a couple. All right, cool. So, let’s see.

One of them was, “Where does content marketing fit into the mix?” So content marketing, oftentimes, like if we’re looking at this diagram here, content marketing is a traffic source, so it’s still going to be over here.

Yep. It’s still going to be over here on the left-hand side of this grid here. So rather than social traffic, retargeting traffic, PPC traffic, and blog traffic are going to be your content marketing traffic.

It could be advertorials. It could be, there are lots of different things that we can use here, but it’s going to be over in the left-hand column.

For Questions and Guide

Any questions at all, just let me know. Doneforyou.com/legendary is where you can grab the report and I will see you tomorrow and we’re going to talk about maximizing conversion through this process.

So I’ll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.

The post How to Design A High-Growth Sales Machine For Your Website appeared first on Done For You.

Video Transcript:

Hey, what's up? This is Jason Drohn. Welcome to GSDdaily number 64.

Today, we're going to talk about how to brainstorm your first ebook or your first textbook, or not textbook, but paperback or whatever. We're going to talk about how to brainstorm your first product, and there's a lot of ways that you can go about brainstorming your product, but there's a couple that we write like really, really well, mostly because they have some sort of user-generated news to them, and we'll get into that in a minute.

For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn, and I created DoneForYou.com. We specialize in three things, creating offers, building sales funnels, and setting up marketing automation, and then those offers sometimes are books, sometimes are digital products, sometimes are coaching programs or software or whatever. We help folks take what is in their head and execute on it. One of those things oftentimes is trying to figure out how to make sense of the mess that is going on in their head. Not necessarily even a mess, but I was on a call yesterday, and our client was like, "I'm a shy guy, so being that I am a why guy, I am a visionary, I know where I want to go, but sometimes it's, I have to then communicate it to an integrator who can take my thoughts and knowledge and run with them, basically execute on the direction that I want to go without me having to like execute on it," and that talent is hard to find in running a business.

Then why the guy or the visionary, oftentimes the knowledge that is trapped in their head is the knowledge that you build a business around. It might be standard operating procedures, it might be the way that certain strategies that they have used and unlocked, and they've had experience with, but until you package up that knowledge and put it in somebody else's head, then it becomes very difficult to scale, or grow, and sell, so it's not necessarily just leadership, not necessarily just scaling an organization, it is also communicating and teaching and selling products, and selling services, and so ... Do you know what I mean? Especially like this knowledge-based work, this information-based, this information economy that we have come to know and love, it's the knowledge that was created in one person's head, and then it was transferred somewhere along the way. That transfer is oftentimes through a book, through a digital product, through a coaching program, through webinars, through teleseminars, whatever.

Until you can get very clear on what knowledge is most impactful for your end-user, it's difficult to figure out what to write. It's difficult to figure out what to create because you don't have an end-user in mind. You don't have ... You're creating the roadmap that they are then going to follow, that they're going to follow word by word by word, so you have to put some thought and time into how to brainstorm this body of work, this content, this book, whatever. Today's live stream, what we're going to do is we're going to walk through some different ways of how to brainstorm your ebook, and that might be, it could be an ebook, it could be a digital product, whatever.

There's a couple of tools that I like. Yesterday, we talked a little bit about the Dummies, Dummies.com. We talked about Amazon and niching out your stuff. Today, what we're going to do is we're going to discover what people want us to create, what they are into. The first place, not the first place, but one of the things that I love to do, and I do it all the time, is I will create a survey. Oftentimes, Wufoo ...

I'm just going to share my screen here. Wufoo is one survey platform, so we're just going to kind of take a tour of the internet, and then I'm going to walk through actually setting up one of these things. Wufoo is an online form builder. You can sign up for free. You can do a ... They have a live demo account, but basically, what you want to do is you want to put together a short survey that asks your prospects, your readers, your audience what they want to learn more about.

The first time I ever did this, so way, way back when I first started online, I wrote an ebook. It was an 18-page ebook called Client Crusher. This ebook, I wrote it, I didn't have a list of my own, I didn't have any audience. This was before Facebook and YouTube. Maybe not before, but in like the early, early days, so I wrote this 18-page ebook on how to pick up local clients and work with them, do internet marketing for them because that's how I was paying my bills, and so I knew a little bit about internet marketing.

This was 10 years ago, so I knew about internet marketing, I knew about SEO, I knew about paid traffic and websites, and I built a bunch of websites, so from a digital standpoint, it was pretty solid. I was working with local businesses, and this ebook, called Client Crusher was my 10 strategies on how to close these clients. Now, I didn't know this, but those 10 strategies were very well ... They're rooted in like some pretty good NLP practices. I mean it's, some of it, I just thought I was doing good business, but I was generating some clients, so basically what I was trying to do is I was trying to help and teach the person who was a couple of feet behind me, so this person was entering into the internet marketing space, not generating money from selling their own thing or selling affiliate stuff, but then turning around and helping other businesses with their internet marketing.

10 years ago, everybody needed help with their internet marketing. The market wasn't flooded as it is now with people who think they know how to write content and do SEO, so this ebook, gave away for free, 18 pages long, it took me a weekend to write, and I gave it to a friend and had her put it in our membership area. Well, she put it in her membership area, and a couple of days later, I checked my stats and I had 230, 240 downloads, which was incredible because I had worked for the previous six months, I'm building my email list. I had like 12 people on my email list, and then all of a sudden, in two days I had 250 people on my email list. That was eye-opening for me, and basically, that was my first audience.

It was the first time that anything that I was doing well from an internet marketing standpoint, so what I did was I turned around and I let, with this list ... The first email was giving them the report, which is great. Then, the second email was asking them, a couple of days later, I sent out an autoresponder email that asked them what they thought about the book or the report. It wasn't even a book, and I linked to a survey, and it was a Google survey. Was it Wufoo, SurveyMonkey?

They all do the same thing. I mean, they have their intricacies, of course, but Wufoo is great. SurveyMonkey is great. There's Typeform, which is pretty. There are Google Forms, which is what I ended up using for this particular project.

Google Forms, it's just a free form builder. You can add your fields and do some drop-down boxes, but I only asked three questions. Question number one was, "How did you like the book? How did you like the report?" Question number two, or question number one was, "What did you like about the report?"

Then, question number two was, "What didn't you like about the report?," and question number three was, "How can I make it better next time, or what would you still like education on? What would you still like to learn?" What happened was, is of the 230 people who downloaded the report, I got like 100 or 110 or something answers to this survey, and what I did was I chunked all of them together. Like I took their answers and I put them in blocks. Like this one was how to sell. This block was how to execute for those clients.

This block was how to manage the clients from a customer service standpoint. This block was pricing strategies. What I was able to do was based on their questions, based on what they wanted to learn more of ... Mind you, it was only 200 people who I sent this out to. It's the same as if you were to blast something out to social media. 200, 300 friends are going to see it.

Some of them are going to respond, some of them aren't, but basically what I was able to do is chunk these categories of questions together, and then I created videos, answering all of those questions in those same chunks, so this became module one, and then module two, then module three, module four, five, six, and seven. There were seven modules in that introductory course, and it was 100% driven from a survey, which is awesome because I didn't have to think about it. Like I didn't have to think and research and say, "Okay. Where am I going to go? What are people searching for?" which is all good stuff.

It's great to do some keyword research before you create something to see how much demand there is. It's great too, but if you have an audience who wants the knowledge that is wrapped in your head, very simply ask them what they want to learn from you, and then create whatever it is they want to create. In creating this video course, this seven module video course based on their answers, what I did was I created it, recorded all the videos, put $67 price tag on it, had all the videos like edited and everything else, and then I offered it for sale, but I offered it for sale to my list of 230 people, who many of whom filled out that survey, saying they wanted more information, and I gave them a 50% discount on the course. That was my first-course sale. The first time I sold the digital course online was that, was that Client Crusher course.

That turned into a product called Local Money Matrix, which we made probably half a million dollars on and the two or three years that it was life. That was the evolution of that thing, and it all started with a sample report. In that report, I just asked, "What do you want to learn more about? What did you like? What didn't you like?"

The insights that I got from that were what changed my path, I mean, in and of itself. I mean, that was the first course I released. Then, we released some more courses, a bunch of courses, and then moved down the affiliate rabbit hole. In every instance, we stopped whenever we were about to build something from scratch, or whenever we were about to create something. We would stop and survey the audience, survey the list, and say, What questions can we answer for you?"

"What do you want to learn more about?" I work with a lot of my clients, and that's one of the first things we do, is when we're about to create something new, we go to their customer list or their prospect list and say, "What do you want to know? What can we help you with? What is one of the challenges that you're having right now that you would like some help or insight or training or education on?" Oftentimes, those conversations, those surveys, they lead to some of the biggest breakthroughs in your business.

They put you on drastically different paths because now, all of a sudden, you're seeing what people want and what they will pay for, and what is going to make a difference in their business. That is what doing business online is all about. I mean, so many people confuse what happens online with this being kind of a new age thing. Internet marketing and online sales and digital business, it's not new. I mean, it's not a new age thing.

It's not, sales funnels aren't new. People have been doing it forever, selling upsells and downsells and complimentary offers. I mean, there was a book written in 1999 about basically how to maximize the value of an offer, and it was complementary of sales and offers, and everything. The technology has been used forever, but before that, it was used offline, so the online business is just an extension of good, solid, real-world business practices. The medium is different.

You don't have a person who is engaging in that sales conversation. You have a page, and the video, a video that is written and copywritten so that it maximizes conversion, so the sales copy works. You have best practices on upselling order forms and one-click upsells and all that other stuff, but at the end of the day, business is business. Getting people to buy something is getting people to buy something, so when you can use your prospects and your customers on how to brainstorm your products, to guide what you're building, then they're that much more invested in what you're building. They will help you, they will purchase your stuff, they will help you ...

They'll help you in a lot of different ways, so whenever you build something new, start with a survey. Start by asking your folks what you should be building. You can do some ... You can do some research. You can do some keyword research. You can look for keyword phrases that people are searching for and typing into Google.

You can look for related offers. You can look for competitors. You can do all of that stuff, but it all pales in comparison to just asking people what you should be creating, and it's really ... I mean, that's always where we start how to brainstorm offers. Now, once you get the idea of what people are creating, or once you survey your list or survey your prospects and figure out what you need to be creating, the next thing, the next part of how to brainstorm your first ebook or your first digital product or whatever, is going and doing a mind map.

I think the next place we need to go is a mind mapping tool, and I brought this up quite a few times on these dailies because I use it all the time. I think it's an indispensable kind of tool in my arsenal, at least. Let's see here. It's MindMeister, and for those of you who ... I just need to log in. One of these accounts is a pro account.

All right, there we go. Let me see if I can just drop this in here. Can I drop it in? All right. I think I need to go and share a different screen, so ... All right.

We're going to share the MindMeister tool. All right. This is a tool called MindMeister that I use all the time. You can see by the number of programs we have here or the number of mind maps, but basically, how this works is you kind of start in the middle, and then you move out, so you start with a kind of a central idea. We're going to do like right-aligned.

Now, this particular mind map, we always start in the middle, and we start with our thing, so in the ... How to brainstorm just for sake of like kind of the example. We're going to brainstorm the Client Crusher course, so basically how to attract clients and sell them into your agency business. We're going to do Agency Attraction is going to be the name of the digital course. This isn't a real course, this is just us how to brainstorm something.

We type in Agency Attraction, and then what we do is we can hit the little plus arrow, so it adds like the next piece over or the first branch I should say, and then we're just going to do Chapter 1, or we can do, let's do Part 1. Then, we're going to hit enter twice and Part 2, Part 3, and then Part 4. We're on the phase of how to brainstorm a book here now. Now, let's go ... Part 1 is going to be all about, let's say attract ... Nah, it's not going to be attracting clients.

Part 1, yeah, so let's do ... Part 1 is going to be client-attracting. Yeah, let's do that one. This is ... Let's see. We'll have a chapter on networking for business, the chapter on local advertising, chapter on direct mail, which is a thing.

It's coming back because there's no other postcards or letters or stuff in people's mailboxes, and then we'll do another one on referrals, getting referrals, let's say. We have a paid strategy, people strategies. Now, Part 2 is pitching. This is getting them on the phone, but to say on the phone what to offer on the phone, and then objections. Then, Part 3 is going to be closing the deal. Part 3 will be how to close the deal, and we have to keep prospects warm through email, how often to call them on the phone, should you send text messages?

Then, Part 4 is going to be implementation, management. This book, Agency Attraction, if it's broken up into these four parts the first part is all about attracting your ideal client, networking for business, local advertising, direct mail. Then, Part 2 is going to be getting them on the phone, what to say on the phone, what to offer on the phone, what are your offers, and then how to handle objections. Part 3 is going to be how to close the deal, keeping prospects warm through email, and there's a calling section and a text message section, and then there is, once they become a client, there's implementation, client management, and then handling upgrades. If this was in a book, would you buy it?

If you were trying to build an agency and you're looking for clients, would this be enough for you to buy it? Would you want less? Would you want more? If you were writing a book about attracting people into an agency, does this then now serve as your roadmap? Of course. Now, a lot of hard thinking has already been done, so okay.

Part 1 is networking for business. Well, what are some of the ways that you would network for business? Well, I can think of a couple. I would join SBAs, join masterminds, join business owner groups. There's a lot of ways that you can join certain groups or volunteer it on boards. There are five ways, five different kinds of subheadlines that now you can write about.

You, as a master in your world, of your discipline, you'll have all of this information kind of in your head, about your thing. It might not be an agency. It might not be internet marketing, it might be planting a garden, or it might be setting goals, or it might be career growth. There's all kind ... I mean, you have your own ... You have the thing you're proficient in, you know the thing that you love, so this mind map is a way to start getting all that stuff out of your head.

I have created hundreds of these things and hundreds of books and hundreds ... Not hundreds of books, but hundreds of books/courses/reports, and so I have done ... I like creating content, so this is easy and it's not easy the first time. It's usually, the first couple of times, it's like, it's kind of grueling. You're going to sit down with a couple of cups of coffee and you can be like, "What am I doing?" you know, but it will get easier.

The point is that once you get used to it, once you get used to this mind mapping and the strategizing before you go live, you will realize that the hard work is already done, so you don't have to worry about putting a whole lot of thought into it. You can just show up and write, or you can just show up and have live streams, or you can just show up and talk. I mean, a lot of these live streams that I do, I mean, they're done for a myriad of reasons, but one of them is because, at some point, I wanted to create the content for a course or a blog post or whatever. Not necessarily just to do live streams. I mean, it's all great content and it's very valuable and the people who tune into it like it, but it's not to have a hundred thousand followers.

I mean, we have a hundred thousand followers, that'd be awesome, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to communicate with one person and have them implement maybe a strategy. If you can get a book done or get a book out and influence then a couple of people, then we start changing the world pretty quickly. Do you know what I mean? It's about this idea of knowledge transfer.

That is how to brainstorm books. We talked about surveys and forms, and we just talked about mind maps. I think we've covered quite a bit today. If you have any questions at all, go to DoneForYou.com/start and fill out the little form. We'd be happy to connect, put together an action plan for you, look at your paid traffic strategies, look at some optimization.

If you have any questions for a future show, go to DoneForYou.com/GSD, and we'll get you taken care of. All right. Thanks. Bye.

The post Create Your Own Ebooks Using The Best Techniques appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s presentation. For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn. I’m the creator of doneforyou.com. We specialize in three things and creating offers. We specialize in building sales systems that convert. Then we also specialize in setting up marketing automation so that your business runs without you. And what we’re talking about, and so I got on a roll and then audio cut out, and then that’s it. So it is what it is, right? So the audio is good. I’m watching my audio level indicator there. So everything seems to be working okay.

Should you sell, publish an ebook or print-on-demand

In the previous sessions, we have talked about how to set up sales funnels to sell your eBooks. Your eBooks, your digital work, whether it’s an ebook, whether it’s a paperback. We’ve talked a lot about sales funnels. We’ve also talked about formatting Kindle books and the benefits of selling digitally versus selling print. Today what we’re going to do, and this is an extension of the same conversation, which is, should you sell eBooks on your website? Should you sell print-on-demand? Paperback? What are some of the caveats of both? And that’s what we’re going to discuss.

First of all, we talked about traditional publishing. We talked about self-publishing a little bit.

self-publishing = you can keep more money

At the end of the day, you can keep more money. You can take dollars out of doing what you’re doing. Self-publishing is print on demand for lack of a better term, meaning as the book or the product gets ordered, then it gets created, packaged, and shipped.

CreateSpace

It happens like lightning-fast. Amazon created, or they bought a company called CreateSpace. CreateSpace was this innovative platform that you could upload your doc file, your PDF, whatever. They’d format it as a book, they’d send you a proof, and then they would mass distribute it.

They would send it to Barnes & Noble. They’d send it to Amazon. They’d send it to all the places that you wanted to sell your paperback.

Kindle Digital Publishing

Amazon had their Kindle Digital Publishing, which is the way that they, and then they ended up merging them. So now they’re on the same platform. Kdp.amazon.com is where you do both. It’s where you sell your Kindle books, publish an ebook, it’s also where you sell your physical paperbacks for sale on Amazon. And then it also, they have a distribution to some other providers too.

Digital products and eBooks versus Print-on-Demand

Now, I wanted to bring these two things together so that you could understand how they help it work on a macro basis. Partly because right now in the pandemic that we are in, books are not essential, so for the longest, for like a month, a good month after the pandemic broke out in the United States, I read books all the time, physical books. I like physical books more than digital books. So I order a lot of physical books. What happened was I would order these physical books and I would have a ship, it would take three weeks for them to ship them to me. And I know the warehouse is a couple of hours away, so there was a problem.

What happened is I ended up having to buy a couple of Kindle books because there were books that I wanted to get through. After all, they were highly relevant to something that I was doing right now. I wanted to get through them, educate myself on something, and then implement it and turn it around really quickly and I couldn’t do that. So I ended up having to buy the Kindle book and the audiobook. I listen to audiobooks all the time too, but I had to buy the Kindle book, which is fine, but I can’t highlight a Kindle book quite the way that I would, well, a physical book. The way I read physical books, I don’t have any books here. The way I read books, I highlight them. Then I go back through and take some notes.

I’m a diligent reader now, not when I was in school. What happens is so many people, so many internet marketers, so many people who are selling digital courses,  publish an ebook, and everything online, what they’re doing is they’re putting together a free plus shipping offer or a digital offer.

Digital Offer

The digital offer is such that, or the free plus shipping offer, you have a tripwire. The tripwire is a low-end offer, four dollars, and 95 cents, or a dollar, or two dollars or free plus shipping. So it might be a free physical book, and then it’s $4 and 95 cents to pay for the shipping or $6 to pay for the shipping. So it’s a free thing. It’s a low-end offer. And then they match you up to, usually a $37 upsell.

Maybe it’s, it might be 97. It might be 67, but they match you up to an upsell. If you don’t take that, they send you to a down-sell. And the down-sell is 17, 27, 37. Then they match you to another upsell and that second upsell is usually quite a bit more expensive. Usually, it’s a couple of hundred bucks or whatever. Because of this upsell path, you generate more money for a buy, throughout life with this prospect.

Physical Books

Now, when you sell on your own and publish an ebook when you have your physical products, your books, and you’re shipping your books, you’re fulfilling them in your processor you’re taking the money for the books yourself.

First of all, you’re not paying some marketplace like Amazon 30% or 60% to hold for their service in there. You’re keeping 100% of the money. You’re also paying for the book. But the point is you get to 100% control the upsell path. So you can go from a tripwire offer up to the upsells, all the way through the matrix maximizing your order value. You might take a four-dollar and 95 cent buyer and turn them into a $100 buyer just by going through the right upsell sequence. And that is really what maximizing sales funnel conversion is all about. Now, a publishing house, they’re not controlling pricing, they’re not controlling the product. They’re not controlling deliverability, when you’re working with them, at least.

In this aspect, you are controlling all aspects of the pricing and deliverability, which gives you maximum control over the buying process.

Ebook or Digital Product

Advantages

Now, the good part about publishing an ebook and digital product is that you have instant delivery. You can, your offers are instantly deliverable. You have a higher price point, so you can charge as much as you want for this stuff. There are no deliverability issues. So at the end of the day, you just give somebody a download link and that’s all. They open it, they read it, whatever, you don’t have to worry about the mailbox or anything like that. There’s no fulfillment, there’s no printing, there’s no warehousing, which is huge.

That’s what Amazon’s 30 or 60%, that’s what they get you for because they’re printing it, warehousing it, fulfilling it, the whole deal. Do you know what I mean? That’s what you’re paying the money for. Sure, you have to take that on. But if it’s digital, you don’t, you just, set up the matrix, and then you just go from there. And you also get higher margins when it’s digital too.

Disadvantages

1. Less Credibility

Now the bad part if you publish an eBook and digital products is possible there’s a little less credibility. So you might not necessarily get the maximum amount of credibility when you publish an ebook because everybody can write and publish an ebook and everybody can throw it up online. Whereas if you have a physical book, you have the credibility that is associated with that physical book.

That’s a big thing. Do you know what I mean? That’s a big benefit of having a physical book is having credibility. The credibility is transferred because you have this physical book, this manifestation of your work that you’re able to sell to them. Now, if you don’t have a physical book, if you just have a digital book, then you can’t hand it to somebody. You can’t say, “Here you go. Here’s a book.” It’s like, “I’ll send you a link,” and then it’s no different than a webpage. So there might be a little less credibility when you have just a pure ebook.

2. Higher Refund Rate

You also might have a higher refund rate. People might not necessarily appreciate it when you publish an ebook as much as the physical book, they might not even read it because they don’t have something physical to crack open and read. So they might consider it, they might send a refund. Some people don’t and won’t understand, and this is less of an issue now than it was a while ago. But sometimes people still don’t understand eBooks. They don’t understand how they read them. And some buyers don’t value them as much, even though they pay more for the ebook itself.

Print-on-Demand

Now, some print-on-demand stuff. Having a physical book that Amazon prints for you or somebody prints for you and you print as the orders come in.

Advantages

1. Print what is needed. You only print what you need, which is fantastic.  An order comes in, then it is printed, and then it is shipped.

2. Lower Refund Rate. It is a physical item and they receive it in the mail.

3. You also have higher customer satisfaction normally.

When somebody is receiving something in the mail, you usually get better conversions. And then people usually like it better because it’s a physical, tangible item that they have access to. And then there’s also higher perceived value because it’s a physical book and it’s more traditional.

4. Higher Credibility. A lot of the credibility that is bestowed on authors is now bestowed on you.

Disadvantages

1. Higher Cost

Now the bad side of print-on-demand, higher costs. I mean, you have to pay for the book to be printed. I have eight and a half by 11 textbooks that are being printed now. I’m waiting for the proof copy. I should be getting it in the mail. That eight and a half by 11 text copy is $22 to print. That’s just the cost of it. It’s full color. I mean, it’s beautiful. I’m hoping it’s beautiful, but it’s $22 a print and it’s a textbook, it’s 274 pages long.

Obviously, the pricing, the pricing of that textbook is 99 bucks on Amazon. So higher costs. And even then, I think I’ll only make like 10 bucks per sale because it’s the cost of printing, and then the Amazon shipment fulfillment, all that other stuff.

2. People don’t get the item immediately

At the end of the day, I get my 10 bucks. Do you know what I mean? Another bad thing about print-on-demand, people don’t get the item immediately like they do digital, and people, you can update the product. So like when publishing an ebook, if something changes, you can log in, make the change, add it to the PDF, and then that’s it. Whereas, you can’t do that with a physical book. You can’t change something that is already sitting in somebody’s library. They understand that, but that also means that once they have that thing, the relationship is stopped unless they opt-in or do something else with you. But you can do both. And that’s the beauty of it.

You can do physical and digital products

If somebody doesn’t buy your physical product, you can down sell the digital product. You can offer them a free plus shipping offer or a free. If they don’t buy, you can exit pop them into a four-dollar and 95 cents digital offer. If somebody doesn’t take the digital product, you can down sell the physical product. So there are lots of ways that you can move back and forth between physical books, print-on-demand, and also digital products. And you just need to remember, the two mediums are two products. At the end of the day, two things, the two mediums, are two different products. It’s two different offers.

You’re going to have two different sets of sales copies. They’re going to be the same. They might even be on the same sales page, but you might have two different buttons or you might exit pop into the digital-only offer for 4.95. One of the beauties, like we’ve been testing a lot of different products and offers, right now, the thing that is working better than anything else is a 4.95 digital ebook. So it’s five bucks. In the world of tripwire offers, it is sitting in the same place as a free plus shipping offer did before the pandemic because access to availability, access to actual physical books, and shipping physical books because they are nonessential is slow and expensive.

People are opting for buying digital books. And now I don’t think the industry is ever going back to physical because I mean, even the cost of a print of a $3 paperback and the $3 in shipping, it’s still just a pain in the ass compared to just publish an ebook And now we have grown accustomed to reading eBooks, into valuing eBooks, at least $5 worth. Do you know what I mean? So that’s one of the beauties of what has happened lately or what is, in this digital transformation, it’s one of the nice things about how this is all working out on publishing an ebook. So you’re going to see a lot more of that in the future, the digital books and moving away from the physical textbooks.

For Questions and Guide

With that, if you have any questions at all, go to doneforyou.com/start. Fill out the application. I am happy to, and we’ll jump on an action plan call, and we’ll talk about your sales funnel and your traffic, and everything else. So many questions at all, let me know. Go to doneforyou.com, check it out and I’ll talk to you soon.

The post Publishing an Ebook and Print on Demand appeared first on Done For You.

Today we’re going to talk about Amazon self-publishing or self-publishing in general. You have your publishing houses and publishing houses are notoriously hard to get into, and even when you do, they don’t necessarily get you the results that you couldn’t already get for yourself. I mean, so many publishers, so many artists are moving to self-publishing anymore. Amazon self-publishing is as simple as uploading a book, writing.

The hardest part of self-publishing:

• creating your material
• brainstorming the thing that you are going to be writing

That’s really the hardest part about it, but once you brainstorm it and then you can sit down and fill in the blanks, then the rest of it is pretty easy. There are so many different ways to sell that thing. Of course, you can sell it on your website, on your Amazon, with Apple iBooks, and on Kindle.

What we’re going to talk about today specifically is selling on Kindle, just because it is the one that most people are the most familiar with because everybody has some sort of a tablet anymore or a Kindle reader. The process is as seamless as possible. If you can put together just a document if you can write a letter, then you can write a book and you can publish a book on Amazon.

I’m going to show you some of it because I have three up on Kindle. I’m going to show you how Amazon wants you to format your book and the software they provide for that. And we’re going to talk about some of the ins and outs of it. Now, this isn’t necessarily just a Kindle party or an Amazon party.

• You can write your book and then sell it as a PDF on your website.
• You can put it in iBooks.

There are so many different platforms, but Amazon is just really the biggest. That’s the one we’re going to concentrate on. Now, everybody, do I sound okay? So I am using a mic, a Level U mic. All right. It looks like I’m good. Nobody’s bitching yet. So, that’s good. That’s awesome.

Amazon Self-publishing

With Amazon self-publishing, the good parts, the good aspects of Amazon self-publishing you control the pricing, so the pricing is 100% something that you control, and at the end of the day, you’re able to set whatever pricing you want. So if you want to charge a hundred dollars for an ebook, you totally can. I think you can charge up to $250. Not that you’re going to sell anything for $250, but you can charge up to that if you would like. You control the pricing, you also make more money per sale. Because you’re not sharing with anybody. Well, you are sharing it with Amazon, but you’re not sharing it with anybody else. So you’re able to charge whatever you want to charge. And it works out the same regardless.

There’s two different pricing, compensation plans that Amazon offers. There’s 30% and 60% pay to you and they each have their different parameters.

Advantages

a. Everything is owned by you.

Also, you control the content. You’re responsible for it. The copyright, everything is owned by you. The book is owned by you. The publishing house quote-unquote is owned by you. You own the publishing rights are owned by you, everything is owned by you when you do Amazon self-publishing.

b. They run the distribution.

I mean with Amazon self-publishing, they distribute so that’s their role in it is they run distribution, and then they also can syndicate the book out to other booksellers too. You can use that content however you like. If you want to publish an ebook and then somebody comes along and wants to buy the movie rights or whatever, then you can sell them the rights because you’re the only one who owns it.

Just a weird little side note. One of the things that I have been watching a lot lately is these content libraries. Like Rogan’s content library. I think Spotify snapped it up for a hundred million dollars or something. There are these huge content libraries that are being purchased. The rights are being purchased to them for lots and lots and lots of money. Podcasts there’s actually, Apple is appointing a couple of people to do nothing, but listen to podcasts and then go out and figure out which of the podcasts can be turned into shows for Apple TV. There is just so much innovation that’s happening around content right now. You retaining the rights to the content means that you have a lot of upsides down the road that you can play with.

c. You don’t have deadlines for your editors.

Now, you don’t have editors breathing down your neck. So that’s a thing and a bad thing for when you are working on this stuff, because the good side is you don’t necessarily have the pressure that the editors bring. You don’t have deadlines. The bad part is some people respond very well to deadlines. If you don’t have somebody breathing down your neck, are you going to get it done? Hopefully, the answer is yes, but the answer might be no.

d. You control the publishing of your book.

If you’ve had a book that has been sitting on your hard drive for a long time, you need to make it a personal mission to get that thing done and upload it to Kindle, or you can publish it as serials. And that is the big chapter. One chapter, you have a chapter a week that you can, or a chapter a month that you can publish.

Somebody pays 99 cents per, or they can pay a dollar for the whole thing. It’s just a different way of publishing that might make a lot of sense for you if you are having problems just actually getting it done. You manage the buying process. So when you own the PDF, you manage the buying process, which is beneficial. So you can do whatever you want to do from a buying standpoint. However, you also manage the buying process.  If you’re trusting Amazon for that, then what ends up happening is you don’t so you’re relying on all of Amazon’s backend fulfillment and all Amazon stuff, as opposed to controlling the upsell cycle on your own.

For instance, when I walk through some of Amazon’s stuff, you’re going to see that I have books on Amazon, but then I also sell the digital downloads on my website. Well, the reason is that we’re able to get some buyers and get some leads off of Amazon, which is fantastic. It’s the largest marketplace in the world, but at the same time, we’re able to upsell them more effectively on our website. We can upsell them from a book to a course, to whatever, as opposed to Amazon, which is just going to try to sell them complementary books. And then that’s it. It’s just a very subtle distinction to be aware of.

At the end of the day, Amazon self-publishing, you control the whole deal. That’s the good part, all the good things. The bad things are you control the whole deal.

Disadvantages

There’s a disadvantage in controlling everything because you control everything.

1. You need someone to put all stuff in place.

If you don’t understand technology, if you don’t understand marketing, sales copy, and all these other things, then you need to have somebody on your team who does and that’s just a fact of the matter. If you want to do an upsell for a book, you absolutely can on your website or whatever, but you need to know somebody to put that stuff in place.

These are all the bad parts of Amazon self-publishing. Whereas if you worked with a publisher, you could just say, “Hey, I have an idea for a second book or a video course or whatever. They could figure out how to execute on that for you.”

2. Nobody’s pushing your book except you.

Nobody’s marketing that thing except you, you don’t have an agent. You’re not on podcasts. You’re not the one hustling for it. There it’s a drawback to the traditional side and you’ve got to figure out logistics when you have your books like distribution and printing and pricing and marketing. Distribution is easier because Amazon’s service also gives printing and distribution for you. You tap into Amazon’s printing presses and Amazon’s distribution network, which makes it super nice. You can set your pricing, but then you’ve got to give 30% or 60% back to Amazon, which is nice, but it pays for the distribution of the printing. And then, of course, you have your marketing on top of that too.

Kindle Create

Now we’re going to go check out Amazon. We’re going to go look at some of the Amazon self-publishing resources, mostly though we’re going to start by kicking over into Amazon create. I got some awesome love. Man, very cool. All right, so let’s go over to, I’m going to share this Kindle create, let’s see if this works. All right. So this is Kindle create, and it is a book publishing platform. Basically, Kindle will let you create eBooks, textbooks, and then they have some new stuff like comic books. So your eBooks and you’re physical… Your eBooks, basically you can upload them to Amazon. You format them and create, them upload them to Amazon as a visual file. And then they take them. They let you preview them.

You can set the pricing for them and that’s it. I did a textbook for Funnel Factor, and I’m excited for it to show up. But so the textbook for Funnel Factor is it’s an eight and a half by 11 books. And how I formatted it was I uploaded the PDF to Kindle Create. Kindle Create, went through, let me format all the pages, and make sure that they all looked okay. I uploaded them to Kindle. The book is full color, which I’m excited about checking out, but it’s $22 to print every single copy, which is crazy, but at the same time it’s full-color and it’s huge. I’m just looking forward to checking it out. So there’s a proof coming on the seventh.

We’re going to create a new project from a file. You have the option of creating novels, essays, poetry, narrative, or nonfiction, or you can do textbooks, travel guides, cookbooks, music books. So your novels, essays, poetry, narrative, nonfiction, those are going to be all your books. Like the stuff that you’re going to write and upload. And then your textbooks are going to be, well they’re textbooks. So something like this guy.

If we go here, all right, you can see that. This book was created inside the KDP, inside Amazon. The nice little book, basically it was formatted inside this Kindle create, but by and large, nice book, black and white, it’s got a matte cover. And then you can see the table of contents, which was all formatted inside of Kindle Create too. And then ultimately the book cover.

The nice little piece that was done up in here. So we are going to start by choosing the language, which is going to be English. We’re going to choose a file. So the file that we’re going to create… So Kindle Create basically you take a doc file and then you’re able to, you’re able to edit it. You’re able to space it and make sure that the page breaks were okay. Make sure that the table of contents is where it needs to be. Let me just go and let me find the Funnel Factor or one of the other eBooks that I put together. We can look at what it looks like from creation. So Create, which is the paperback that you just saw. I’m going to open this guy up.

We have Kindle packaged the books. All right. So, and then we’re going to do this one. So the Kindle…

It might not let me do it. That’s okay. So Kindle Create is going to let you… You import your doc into Kindle Create, and then you can do the page breaks, bolds, table of contents, and all that other stuff. And then what you do is you flip over, so once you’re happy with it, then what you do is you flip over into, let’s see, application window, we’re going to go to Kindle Create here. So this is Kindle Create, and you have lots of different format options, your table of contents, and all that stuff. And then what you do is when you’re happy with it, you go to Kindle direct publishing. So if you’ve never seen Kindle direct publishing, basically what it is is it is your bookshelf. So you can create eBooks and paperbacks. For book content, you can upload your manuscript.

You can upload a PDF if you want, you can upload your .doc file, but it’s better to format it inside that Kindle Create and then upload it because what it does is it takes your document and then packages it together real nice and tight. And then it uploads to Kindle in a format that Kindle understands. Same with the Kindle or same with the paperback. The paperback used to be published through CreateSpace. CreateSpace was purchased by Amazon a long time ago. And then it was brought into the fold, into this Kindle visual publishing.

Here you can see that I have four books out. There’s Phoenix formula, which I wrote a long time ago. And then there is Convert, there’s Create, which is the one that you just saw. And then I just uploaded Funnel Factor. Funnel Factor is going to be that eight and a half by 11 textbooks. It’s 270 pages long, it’s full color, it’s $20 to print. I have it priced, the paperback priced at $99. And then the Kindle eBook is priced at $29 and then Create and Convert, or both at 14.95 USD. And then here we have a paperback 19.95 for create and 9.97 for convert.
So now if we go into, let’s go into the Kindle eBooks. And since we’re talking about Amazon self-publishing. So we’re going to go into Kindle ebook and just look at ebook details. So log in.

Let me pull up my browser, which is just going to be fun because… All right.
There we go.

So these are the Kindle. These are the ebook details of my Create book. The book you just saw. So basically book title, we just have defined as create. Then we have a subtitle, “Transform What You Know Into How You Get Paid.” We can give this thing a series. So if we want to do a series, earlier I talked about serial books. If we wanted to do serial books, we could give this thing, a series name, and a series number. So it might be the first book in a series.

You think of Game of Thrones, or, any of those guys. So it’s part of a series. Then we have an edition number and then we have the author. So the author is my name. Any other contributors you want to mention and then the description. This description is what shows up in Amazon on the listing. Then we have publishing rights. I own the copyright. We have different keyword phrases that we can rank for, or that the book shows under. And then we have age in the grade range. I don’t have anything selected there.

I’m going to show you this real quick. These are the four books that I have up there. Now we’re in Create. So let’s go look at Create real quick. To learn how to monetize your skills, talents, and experience online. Now, look in here, if we go into the ebook details, we have, “Learned how to monetize your skills, talents, and experience online.” So it’s just some copy. You need to write here. And then publishing rights. I own the copyright. Categories, we can pick two categories, and then we have the grade range and then preorder. So obviously it’s already released. So there’s nothing to preorder here. Now, if we go to the Kindle ebook content, this is the harder part. Not the harder part, but the part that Kindle Creates software makes easy. So basically we have our ebook manuscript here, so we upload it.

Now, notice this PDF file format. This PDF file format is what Amazon Create, the Kindle software, outputs. It’s a project file, Kindle project file. So when you upload it, then it’s the PDF. It’s a PDF, but it’s a format that Kindle recognizes. So you upload it and everything appears the exact way that it should be appearing for your folks. Now, then we have uploaded a cover. You already have. So I already created the cover and you can also use a cover creator if you want to make it a little bit easier. With an ebook, it’s just the front cover. Because that’s all, it’s a digital file so that’s all anybody sees. When it’s a physical book, it’s front and back. So you actually, it’s front and back with the spine down the middle.

You just design a wider graphic. And that graphic wraps around the book when it comes out of the printer. Then we have our online previewer. So you can grab this preview we’re here. You have to preview it and sign off on it. Graphically, like in the browser, before you can get approved. And then once you get approved… Well, once it’s approved graphically, you can actually… It goes through approval, which takes a day or two, and then it’s for sale on the website.

You can order proof for your cost, or you can order as many of them as you want. But the proof is the thing that you signed off on. Then we have our ISBNs. So eBooks do not require ISBNs, but physical books do. So if you’ve never purchased an ISBN, BOWKER, B-O-W-K-E-R is the place you need to go purchase ISBNs. It’s been a long time since I have purchased ISBNs.

I bought a 10 pack years ago and I still have that 10 pack. I don’t, I don’t quite know how to get back to the ISB numbers, but books in print. Yeah. I’m not real sure, it’s somewhere here. Because Bowker controls the ISBNs. So years ago when I bought my first, it was like $135 for one ISBN, or it was like $195 for a pack of 10 ISBNs. And I was like, “Well I hope to be writing more books. So I should probably just grab this 10 pack while it’s here.”

I don’t know if it was a sale or a discount or what, but that was eight years ago or something. So I’m still filling up those ISBNs. But this is where you would go and get them. All right. Now, so Kindle ebook, you have your ISBNs. I have ISBNs for my Kindle books. You don’t necessarily have to, but, as I said, I have 10. And then for pricing, this is the pricing piece.

When you’re setting up your Kindle book, we have all territories, worldwide, is where our book gets purchased or gets sold. Now this particular book, I have a 35% royalty plan. So if you mouseover. Let’s see. So select a royalty plan and set your Kindle ebook list prices below.

You have a 35% plan and a 70% plan. Now the 35% plan lets you price your eBooks between 99 cents and $200. Whereas the 70% plan has to be priced between two 99 and nine 99. So, you have your different rates and then you have your royalty at 14.95. My royalty on this ebook is $5 and 23 cents. It’s quite a bit better than the 25 cents that I would have been paid as a publisher, this book is also available for Kindle book lending. If somebody has the book, they can lend it to somebody else. And then it’s also in KDP select. So KDP select means that other people if you are part of Amazon subscription, Amazon’s $10 a month unlimited subscription then you can check out this book too. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about making money from the book.

It’s about attracting buyers, attracting readers, attracting people who want marketing into our field, into our sphere of influence. They can start seeing videos and re-targeted ads and all that other stuff and moving them through a buying process. I think that about covers today for the Kindle digital publishing and setting everything up. The hard part of this is writing the book. Once you write the book, then the rest of it can be accomplished in an afternoon, but it is the process for Amazon self-publishing.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions, go to doneforyou.com/blog and I’m happy to answer. And if you would like to talk about putting together an action plan for your business, where we talk about your sales funnels, your digital marketing, your products, your creation, all that other stuff, go to doneforyou.com/start.

The post Amazon Self-Publishing Helps In Increasing Your Revenue appeared first on Done For You.

Today, we’re going to talk about the tools and tips and techniques to help you manage your business online, manage your digital business management software, your internet business, or your website, or everything from managing people to managing invoices to managing traffic and all that other stuff. I prepared a little presentation for today, which is pretty cool. I have just a lot of tools that we use in running our business from a day-to-day standpoint. That’s really what I wanted to go through and talk about in today’s presentation.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name is Jason Drohn. We have a lot of people hitting the stream, hitting live stream, or coming from referrals or shares or whatever. So my name is Jason Drohn. I’m the creator of doneforyou.com. We specialize in three things, helping companies create offers, building sales funnels, and then ultimately running traffic and automating those sales funnels. The sales systems, I should say.

One of the questions that we get asked all the time, especially when our clients who are growing or scaling, end up being interested in the tools that can help them get more done more efficiently, I should say. Now, because there are only so many hours in a day, all of us, have 24 hours. Everybody from Tony Robbins to Bill Gates to Warren Buffet, we all have 24 hours in a day. That’s the great equalizer if you will. If you can figure out how to squeeze more out of those 24 hours, you’re going to be that much farther ahead.

One of the best ways to do that is by utilizing and automating tools or utilizing tools and business management software that can help you get more done in the time that you are working. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Business Management Software Tools

Tools that you can use to help you get more done. Some popular tools that we use all the time.

• Zendesk
• FreshBooks
• MindMeister

Three of the biggest tools that we use on a day-to-day basis. Zendesk is the biggest one and is our help desk. FreshBooks is invoicing and managing contractors. And then mind mapping is MindMeister.

• Basecamp
• Axis
• Ontraport
• AcrtiveCampaign
• GoogleDocs
• Slack
• Dropbox

In project management, we use Basecamp all the time. And then content management, CRM, email, there’s a lot of different options here. Ours is Axis. We use Ontraport as well, internally. A lot of our clients use ActiveCampaign. We use Google Docs for a lot of managing documents and spreadsheets between the team when multiple people need access to the same thing. We use Slack all the time, and then we also use Dropbox quite a bit, although less frequently now that we’re getting into using Basecamp for a lot of stuff.

1. Zendesk

I’ve been with Zendesk for a long time. They have a couple of different plans that are helpful for a startup or an entrepreneur. I think their introductory pricing plan is like two bucks a month and you pay per year, and it gives you one account, one support account.

One of the reasons that we rely on a tool to manage support that isn’t just email is because support threads and support requests are important. As a business management software owner, you want to know if somebody is emailing in over and over and over again. You want to look back over the record of that person’s history rather than just file them away in a support folder. So that way the support desk keeps track of all that stuff. It also threads your responses. You can pass it to a different team member.

It is also the advantage that you have a better idea of the history of that prospect, and then you can also integrate that with other tools.

Can be integrated with Slack

You can integrate it with Slack, you can integrate it with your invoicing tool, you can integrate it with your CRM. And then it provides just a more robust history of that prospect or customer or client or whatever. Zendesk is just the tool that we use and never really found the need to go find anything different. The fresh desk is a big one also in the space.

2. Freshworks

The Fresh suite, the Freshworks suite, I should say, has grown incredibly huge. They have lots and lots and lots of different features. Collaboration, ticketing, there’s a help widget and analytics, and all kinds of other crazy stuff in here, but it works out nicely. Zendesk is just the one that we use.

3. Drift

Another one that we use that wasn’t listed is Drift. Drift is the chatbot that we have on our website. In a previous podcast, we talked about setting up a chatbot funnel, and Drift is the tool that we use for that. Nice stuff. It does both the conversational widget thing, so you can have a little chatbot that shows up on your website, and then you can also run a bot.

You can build the bot so that it sends people through different workflows. That is in one of Drift’s bigger plans or whatever, but it’s nice stuff.

4. Freshbooks

We use FreshBooks for invoicing. And I think FreshBooks is very much an industry-standard anymore. So again, I’ve been with FreshBooks for probably 8 or 10 years now. So really, really great cloud accounting business management software, and that’s just what handles all of our contractors in invoicing. Nice, really simple to use. It’s cheap, so you don’t necessarily need to worry about anything too complicated when you’re running it.

5. MindMeister

And then for mind mapping, I use MindMeister. So MindMeister, M-E-I-S-T-E-R. MindMeister, fantastic business management software. It helps you build mind maps. I generate a lot of mind maps when I’m in product creation mode or when I’m working with a client in product creation mode. We handle a lot of client project builds, so what we’ll do is we’ll schedule some time to get on, brainstorm a project, and we always brainstorm it in this mind mapping business management software, MindMeister. Or it can be any of them. There are lots of different ones. MindMeister is just the one that I’ve always used because it has an iPad app and an iPhone app. So you can brainstorm on the go. You can do brainstorming on your Apple watch if you want. I’ve never done that, but it’s a feature that they talk about.

But mind mapping, incredibly powerful just for connecting different ideas. A lot of times what we’ll do is we’ll put the name of a course in the middle, and then we’ll figure out what the modules are going to be, and then we go out another layer and we figure out what the lessons inside those modules are going to be. And oftentimes it just starts as a stream of consciousness, so we just start it there and then we just fill it in and we start connecting the dots, connecting the modules, or connecting the sales pieces, very workflow-like. So it helps us visualize our thoughts well.

6. Basecamp

Another one that we use, another tool is Basecamp. So Basecamp, industry leader when it comes to project management. Again, we’ve been using them for a long time. I think everybody’s used them or tried them in terms of project management. It’s a great tool for working with clients and for keeping track of internal workflows. It’s very easy to use. It doesn’t get all crazy when it gets into really, really deep Gantt charts and everything else when it comes to project management. A lot of times they’re slow to adopt new features, but the features that they adopt are powerful and they’re really easy to use and they’re really easy for people to understand, whereas something a little bit different, like a sauna, which is a free project manager, or at least it was free. It might still be free.

7. Asana

Well, you can try it for free, but Asana, really, really great business management software as well. Also an industry leader. It’s just sometimes a little bit more difficult to use, it’s a little bit less intuitive, depending on what you like. You can always go back and forth. You can look at Trello too.

8. Trello

Trello was another project management software. There have got to be 2,500 project management SaaS apps out there, so finding one that works for you is the name of the game.

Asana is one, Basecamp is another, Trello was another. You just got to find something that works for you, works for your team. Then in terms of CRM, there’s a couple that we use. Contact management. Pipedrive is one we use for sales-specific stuff. So when you’re doing sales calls or consultative sales sessions or strategy sessions, Pipedrive is a great tool for it. Somebody can schedule in, inside the tool it creates that deal, the deal then you can take through in the individual deal stages, which is nice.

9. Axis

If you’re looking for something a little bit more… This less consultative selling, like fewer phone sales and more marketing automation, then our application is an app called Axis. It’s a marketing automation suite. Does email marketing, text message marketing, all that stuff. We use it for a lot of clients.

10. Ontraport

The one that we use for anything involving an order form is Ontraport. So Ontraport does affiliate management, they do order forms. It’s a tool suite for that. It’s quite a bit more expensive than triggers or whatever, but it works out nicely. If you have a business management software that’s doing some decent volume, when you want to consolidate your order forms, your affiliate management, your email marketing, your pages, all that stuff into one solution, Ontraport is a great way to do it.

11. Google Docs

Google Docs I don’t think I need to review because Google Docs is just a great way of basically working on documents and spreadsheets and stuff as a team.

12. Slack

Slack, we should talk about Slack. We use Slack all the time. So Slack is a workplace chat. There were probably three-ish years ago, we were on a short road trip or something, my wife and son and myself, and I’ve was in Skype and I was in email and I was in text messages and all these different things. And I was like, I need to just bring the team into one application, and that one application was Slack. And then since then, they’ve added quite a bit of functionality. So we do a lot of marketing automation triggers inside Slack from the APIs. I think I talked about that in a previous session.

So when somebody has a sales page or when a lead comes in or whatever, it triggers a little cue, a little bump in the channel, and lets us know that there’s somebody new in the process. But more than that, it brings our entire team into one platform, and now we have partners in this platform because, for the most part, everybody uses Slack, so you can have different channels, different groups, different companies within the same Slack interface.

You can merge and bridge quite a bit of stuff together. So now I have just partners and friends in our Slack channel that we’re just working on stuff together or attempting to work on stuff together sometimes. But yeah, so that’s the idea behind Slack. We did use Skype. Skype just got overrun. I was constantly getting barraged with invites and stuff that I didn’t want so I just basically signed out of Skype and that’s it. Slack is by invite only. So the only people on my channel are the people I invite, or when we get an invite from a different channel.

13. Dropbox

Dropbox is another one. Online file storage. You probably know… I think everybody knows about Dropbox in general. Cloud-based storage. you can share files back and forth with each other. You can have shared folders so that you have one folder on your computer, everything you drag into that computer, then you can share back and forth or you can review stuff. We use it all the time for clients when we have copy and images and videos and that kind of stuff that needs to go from one person to another. We’ll use Dropbox to make sure to send it. You can also send stuff in Slack. You can send stuff in Basecamp too.

Let’s see. Covered chat, invoicing, project management, Dropbox. I think that’s really… Oh, merchant processing.

14. Stripe

Many different ways to process credit cards. The one that we use most often is Stripe, so the one we recommend most often in Stripe. Your invoicing tool, your FreshBooks, or your Freshworks, or your invoicing tool is going to integrate with a merchant processor. It used to be that you needed to set up an authorize.net credit card merchant. For you to take your credit card, you had to actually have a merchant account, and then you ran that credit card through the merchant account and it took forever to get authorized for one of these things. Power Pay, years ago, 10 years ago, was the standard for underwriting for information products and coaching programs, because they allowed more high-risk things than physical products.

You had Power Pay, which took their cut, and then authorize.net, which took their cut, and then… There were lots of layers to credit card processing. You had to apply. A week later, you get approved. A week after that, you get your login, None of this was easy or quick. Probably five, six years ago, Stripe was founded and Stripe now makes merchant processing as difficult to set up a PayPal account.

Signing Up Account on Stripe:

• create a Stripe account
• fill out their form
• verify your identity using social
• give them your bank account information, which is the bank account that they’re going to deposit money into for you.

There are no monthly fees. There is a per-transaction fee as with all credit cards. And then you integrate it with whatever order form you’re using.

For FreshBooks, Fresh is the invoicing business management software. It integrates through Stripe or authorize.net, but for this example through Stripe, to then take the credit card payment, it processes the credit card payment, and two days later, it gets dropped in your bank account. It even has instant payouts if you want to pay an extra small little fee, then they’ll pay you instantly and just direct deposit it right into your bank account that same day, like 10 minutes after. So there are lots of things that Stripe does that traditional merchant processors don’t do. However, Stripe kicks and denies any application that is high risk. What are some of the ones that… So sometimes it supplements it doesn’t like, sometimes Forex trading a lot of the times it won’t take. Once you apply though… What was the other one?

There was one we ran into. It might’ve been financing. Merchant process… No, I forget what it was, but there was one that as soon as they applied, they just got denied straight away. And then I want to say we appealed with… We appealed the decision because they thought it was one thing and it ended up being another thing and then they reversed the decision so it worked out fine anyway. But different verticals will be treated differently inside Stripe. So let’s see… Merchant processing. I think that’s really about it. We talked about chat, we talked about file storage, we talked about project management, contact management, Google Docs. We talked about support invoicing and mind mapping.

Oh, some of the stuff that I’ve kind of been into lately in terms of tools, business management software, and tools, Canva’s one, we’ve talked about Canva when we were talking about Facebook ads.

15. Canva

Canva is a fantastic tool for creating Facebook ads, for doing quick little thumbnails and gifs and stuff. We use it in almost everything today’s GSD Daily thumbnail is done in Canva. So what else? I think that’s really about it. Those are pretty much the tools that I find myself using the most often, regardless of where they’re at. So if anybody has any questions, you can go ahead and drop them in the things. This is a pretty short session here.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about people. So outsourcing, managing people, outsourcing project management. Maybe we’ll go through Basecamp, go through Upwork, talk about some of the outsourcing of modules.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, just go to doneforyou.com/blog. Fill in the little thing. If you would like to schedule a call where we work through an action plan for your business, talk about sales funnels, marketing, business management software, creating your products, that kind of stuff, you go to doneforyou.com/start.

The post Management Software To Increase Your Business Revenue appeared first on Done For You.

In this episode of GSDdaily, we are going to talk about the tools and technology needed to create digital products. Stuff you can sell on your website, whether it’s ebooks, video courses, membership sites, all that kind of stuff. Basically, ways that you can package your knowledge and then sell it online. We’ve worked with a lot of people for a long time to package their knowledge. And for us, it follows a very similar path.

We’re going to talk about the tools, but getting you out of your head is a pain in the ass. It’s not that you don’t know how to do something. Oftentimes it’s difficult to teach something you inherently know or something that you figured out at one point in your life.

One of the biggest burdens that we’ve seen in helping people, we organize their business and create digital products and sell membership sites and all that other stuff.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to walk through the technology to make some of that happen and the software to make some of that happen. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Jason Drohn. I created doneforyou.com quite a few years ago. We specialize in three things; helping people create digital products, helping people automate their sales funnels, and they also deal with their traffic and automation on the backside.

Today we’re going to dig into how to create digital products. By and large, product creation, there are a couple of tools that you can use. So to create digital products, you don’t need much. You don’t need much in terms of software and technology to create an ebook. Once you get into video, video tends to be a little bit, not more difficult, but a little bit more intense.

To create digital products like ebooks, you just need, at the very minimum, you need some sort of a word processor. Microsoft Word is on pretty much almost any computer. Google Docs, you just need a Google account and then you can log in and get access to Google Docs. Then that gives you spreadsheets and Docs and all that other stuff.

The magic is just exporting it as a PDF. Once you’re able to export it as a PDF, then you’re able to sell that thing on your website. And you can also use a piece of software called Kindle Create, which will let you do ebooks and stuff and upload them to Kindle. We’re to talk about that in a minute. I’ll just take you on a little tour like I did yesterday.

Software for Audio Capture

For audio capture, some of the good ones.

• QuickTime
• Audacity
• Zoom
• StreamYard

QuickTime is a great tool. If you’re on an Apple, you can record on QuickTime. Audacity is a free piece of software that you can use to record your MP3s too. Where there’s a will, there’s away. You can use voice notes on your mobile and grab and record audio. Or you can jump on Zoom and record audio. Or you can jump on, this is StreamYard and I can record my video and my audio from here. So there are so many different ways of recording yourself if you have something to share. Do you know what I mean?

Software for Video Capture

What’s up, Mars? Mars said hi. There are so many ways of recording yourself. If you’re comfortable. Even if you’re not comfortable with it, you can use a piece of tool.

• Camtasia
• Screenflow
• iMovie
• Final Cut Pro
• Screenflow

As one of these video capture tools like Camtasia or ScreenFlow, which we’re going to kick through in a minute.

In terms of stuff, in terms of gear, again, you don’t need much.

Tools for Video Capture

• any mobile phone
• HD webcam
• Camcorder
• Mic

Any mobile phone, any newer webcam is going to work just fine. I have been recording the last couple of videos on just an old HD webcam. This is an actual camcorder because right now, for whatever reason, webcams are super expensive. Well, we know the reason because everybody’s buying a webcam. But it was like, that webcam, that old webcam, was $170. This camcorder that I’m recording on was $220, and it’s an HD camcorder that you can do other things besides just hookups through the web. So, by and large, it works out pretty well. So I’m going to kick through Amazon.

Then mics. You can have something like this. This is an Audio Technica AT2020, which is that top result there. There’s a Blue Yeti, which is just a brand name. Most people have a Blue Yeti. That tends to be the one. Or any wireless mic. I have Amazon…

I got this camera, Vixia HF R800, which is the top result. It outputs through an HDMI cable, and then it… This camera sends the signal to a little, it’s like a game capture card. For the gamers who want to stream their gameplay on a computer, then it sends the HD signal into a USB port on the computer. And that USB port had a malfunction yesterday. That’s why it ended up being weird. But with this camera, I’m really happy with it. And then it’s paired with this and AT2020. An Audio Technica AT2020 mic, which is this guy.

There’s a couple of different versions of this thing. This is a USB version, which is this one. So it just goes USB port directly into the computer. This guy is super nice. I bought this thing eight or nine years ago. I bought the stand eight or nine years ago too. And then once I decided I wanted to start podcasting with doing these with a standing desk, I was like, wow, I need something that stands. And then this ended up working out pretty well.

The other version of this mic ends up going into a mixing board. A little bit cheaper going into a mixing board. So this one has the full, I don’t know exactly what the cable is called. I’m sure other people… Mars says, “Advice to anyone showing up is to listen to what this fella tells you.” That’s funny. Thank you, Mars. I appreciate it.

Mic, camera, and then the webcam. From a web game standpoint, you can work with just about any webcam you want. You don’t even need a webcam. This is the one that I have, the C920 is the one that’s over there. And I got it a long time ago. But there are all kinds of webcams and they’re all… It looks like they’re all kind of coming down in price, but these are not brand names. They look like it, but they’re not. So if you’re a brand-name person, then just make sure you’re on Amazon and looking for the right kind of thing.

iMovie

Literally, your mobile device is going to work just fine. Being able to record a video on this guy, and then I record the video on my phone all the time and then edit it using something like iMovie. IMovie if you’re on a Mac. So iMovie is a fantastic tool if you’re on a Mac. It’s free and a part of the Apple suite. It’s beginner-friendly. You even have iMovie on an Apple device and you import a bunch of clips, you can move them around, you can cut them. You can do some general video editing. But you look at some of these YouTube streamers and they’re doing this super, super simple video editing. And a lot of them are just doing it right on their mobile device. It’s not magic, even though that’s what Apple is telling you it is.

Final Cut Pro

I also use Final Cut Pro. So once you graduate out of iMovie, then Final Cut Pro is probably where you’re going to end up landing. Final Cut Pro, fantastic software. It’s iMovie but to the next level. So you can do all the production-ready stuff in Final Cut Pro. I’m not real sure what the windows equivalent is, but I’m sure if you were just to Google it, then it would tell you.

ScreenFlow

Let’s see. There is ScreenFlow, which ScreenFlow is how I record all of our tutorial videos and stuff. Anything that is not a live stream ends up being ScreenFlow. It’s just software that records in different tracks. So you have your video track, you have your audio track, you have your camera track. And then you can move them around, you can dub them out, you can cut them, you can move them above each other. So basically they’re like layers in Photoshop. And then you can edit your videos that way.

This is the tool that I use most often. Even some non-complicated video edits, sometimes it’s just easier just to drag it into ScreenFlow, chop a couple of things, and then export it as opposed to starting a project in iMovie, or starting a project I Final Cut, or whatever. I end up using ScreenFlow more than almost any other piece of software, just because my video edits tend to be a lot less intensive or intense than more… Somebody does video full time. Do you know what I mean?

Camtasia

Camtasia is a piece of software that you’re going to be able to record your screen, just like ScreenFlow, only for Windows. So there is a Camtasia product for Mac, but almost everybody who’s on a Mac uses ScreenFlow. So you can use try the Windows version or try the Mac version. I came from a Windows world. Eight years ago I was on a Windows machine and I did a lot with Camtasia. Moved to Mac, downloaded Camtasia, tried Camtasia, didn’t work all that well. And then I tried ScreenFlow, stuck with ScreenFlow. But Camtasia would work on a Mac too. But it’s pretty much the only thing you got on a desktop.

Snagit

If your videos are going to be shorter, Snagit works well too. I’m not sure if Snagit has a Windows counterpart. We’re going to go look. So Snagit is also by TechSmith, also by the same company that Camtasia is, but it’s a very, very simple editor. You can make small cuts, but even that ends up being a little bit burdensome. But if you’ve just got to grab a quick screen recording video and then do some voiceover and then send it off, Snagit’s going to work well. It’s great for working with people.

It’s easier to describe a stat or a result or something, so I will open up Snagit, record a quick video, and then send it off to them. Or a team member. You record a quick video, you send it off to him. There are lots of other kinds of tools like Loom and some other ones, but Snagit is the one that I just use.

Tools

• Microsoft Word and Pages
• Google Docs
• Amazon Kindle Create

Let’s see. Now in terms of tools, I don’t think Microsoft Word and Pages require any tremendous amount of detail. Google Docs, I don’t think we need to go there. If you just go to docs.google.com, it’s a word processor, you can edit as a PDF, and that’s it. The one place I do want to go is Amazon Create. Amazon Kindle Create is the name of it. So there is a piece of software called the Kindle Creates that basically what it does is it helps you format your ebook for the Kindle marketplace and also for the Kindle browsers.

Kindle Create

If you look, there is Kindle Create. I’m just going to grab this link and let me share it here. Kindle Create. I don’t think I have it on this computer. But basically what Kindle Create does is it lets you take your PDF, your doc file, whatever, and then you can import it into Kindle Create, and then it sets it up to be a Kindle ebook.

In creating your eBooks, Kindle is something you need to think about. You’re not going to make that much money on it. So if you sell the PDF from your website, you’re going to make, seven bucks, 10 bucks, five bucks, 12 bucks, $27, whatever. Whatever your pricing is, and that’s 100% yours. With Kindle, you have two different royalty levels and you’re only going to make a couple of bucks per sale, but you’re able to tap into all of Kindles buyers. All of Amazon’s buyers. So you’re qualifying buyers. You’re leveraging the Amazon network to generate buyers and leads for yourself. So it’s a network you need to think about.

Kindle Create is a way that you format those books. You can also format textbooks and stuff too. Here, this textbook right now is formatted as a Kindle version and I created this one… Here, I’m just going to drop this link. So I created this Kindle book and this textbook using Kindle Create. And this textbook is full… I’m waiting for a proof copy. But the Kindle book is a Kindle book as you would expect a Kindle book to be. And then the paperback is a full eight and a half by an 11-inch textbook that is 274 pages long. And hence the textbook nature, I was like, a hundred bucks, sure. Let’s do it. And this was created using that Kindle Create.

Creating Ebooks

I also create digital products like ebooks. The Convert ebook and the Create ebook are both ebooks up there now. I did the same thing here. Kindle Create created these ebooks. I use this software, the Kindle Creates software to format them, add the table of contents, upload them. And it took about an hour of work. So after the doc files like created, then you import it into Kindle Create and then you upload it and go from there. So that works out pretty nice.

Audio Recording

Now, audio recording, the easiest way to record audio, absolutely easy is just to record a video and then strip the audio out. If you record a video using StreamYard, Zoom, ScreenFlow, your camcorder, your mobile phone, whatever, and then you import it into any video editor. Then what it’s going to do, any video editor is going to let you detach the audio from the video clip. Then you detach the audio. It becomes a freestanding layer. Then you just delete out the video. And now you have an audio layer that can be saved as an MP3 file. So if you want audio, that’s how you should do it. If you just record the video, you might as well, you’re going to be recording it anyway. So unless you’re outside and, I don’t know, whatever, doing, whatever, then just record the video and strip off the audio.

If you do want to record the audio, just the audio, use a voice notes app on your mobile phone, or whatever. Audacity Project is an old timepiece of software that you can export MP3 files on. Look at this interface. It’s awesomely 1998-ish, but it works well. So there’s that. But it’ll work if you want to just record audio.

There was one other thing. Oh, I just ran across this new tool called Descript, and I was just talking to a client about it. Descript is the name of it. What it does is you can import any audio or video file and then it does a machine learning transcript on it and then you can scrub through the video based on the text.

If you want to go in and just grab a chunk or do social media clips out of a video like this, a 25, 30-minute video, or of an interview, you can actually write down the pieces of the places you want to remember in the interview or the video, and then afterward you can go and scrub to those places, chunk it out and then create digital products content that way. So this is a tool that I just started playing with. It is super cool. It’s very interesting. In terms of workflow, I don’t have it anywhere in my workflow yet, but I think it’s going to probably make up the pre-editing of social media clips and stuff. So very cool stuff there though.

Do you have any questions? Any questions you’d like me to answer? I think we’ve covered all the product creation tools. I don’t have too much else in terms of software and technology that I think we need to talk about. Just looking around and seeing if there’s anything else. There’s the gimbal, which I think is important. So mobile gimbal. It’s one of these things. There are lots of different brands and stuff now. It’s a stabilizer. So it’s got a couple of axes on it so you can hold the camera in front of you and then it’ll go back and forth. That works out pretty nicely.

Creating digital products is mostly about recording your thoughts.

But other than that, so creating create digital products is mostly about just recording your thoughts. And oftentimes when clients come to us and they won’t help in getting everything set up, the best place really to get started is to start brainstorming. So we’ve talked about MindMeister yesterday, but it’s a way for you to get in and figure out what you want to teach on, what you want to write about. A lot of where our product creation sessions start is just by having one central topic and then you go through and you figure, what are all the offshoots of that topic? What are the categories, the chapters you want to talk about, and then fleshing each of those out? Each of those things ends up being modules.

Once you fill those out, once you start recording that video, the content, and whenever, then you can edit the video, it becomes a product. And then once the product is created, you move into the sales process. Yeah. So if you would like to create digital products, if you would like to start a coaching offer consulting offer, figure out how to use these tools and this technology and stuff to create your offers, then go to doneforyou.com/start, fill out the form. Book a call with my team. We’d be happy to take you through and brainstorm your offer and brainstorm all of that stuff. Help you put everything together. I think that’s about it.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about business tools. Software and tech for the business side. The business of doing business. Things that can help you automate some of your workflows, automate some of your days, integrate into your processes, and go from there.

The post How To Use Tools And Technology To Create Digital Products appeared first on Done For You.

Welcome to today’s presentation and happy Memorial Day. It is Monday, and this is episode number 51. Today we’re going to talk about some pretty cool stuff. We’re going to talk about how to create a website, the tools and technology, and the stuff you need to create a website and get started.

We will create a website from scratch. If you already have a website, then this is probably going to be a lot of reviews that aren’t necessarily needed. But if you don’t have a website or you want to create a business online, or if you want to move your business online, then what we’re going to talk about now, you need to know, because even if you’re going to have somebody else do it, you still need to know it.

In the next few lessons this week, we’re going to talk about the tools and technology you need to move online or to get started online. We’ve talked a tremendous amount about the different ways, the different things, the different ways to sell stuff online. What to sell, how to sell it, how to upsell it, how to build sales funnels, and everything else. I thought we just needed a week of software and tech to round it all out.

What we’re going to go through are the tools you’re going to need to create a product, to create a website, to do what you need to do online. You’ve already really got a good idea of the different types of products, the different types of offers, the different services that you can offer, so this is more about just giving you the ability to reach the hundreds of thousands of people outside of your city walls or outside of the city limits or away from where you are so that you can sell it to them.

Five Categories  To Grow Online Business

To grow your business online, there are five different kinds of tools you need. Five different categories, I should say. And this is how it’s going to be split up this week.

1. Website Tools
2. Product Creation Tools
3. Business Tools
4. Management Tools and Resources
5. Networking

Website tools are today. The second category is product creation tools. So if you want to replace yourself, then we need to figure out how to capture your knowledge, your brilliance, your expertise in a product that can then be sold online. Episode three or lesson three is going to be business tools. And the business tools are different things that help make running the business easier, and this is important right now.

Things like slack, things like communication, things like customer support and CRM and invoicing and tools, and all of that stuff. It’s the business tools that you need to run a digital business. Thursday, we’re going to talk about people in management tools and resources. People, think of outsourcing, think of HR, think of payroll, think of those kinds of things that there’s software to make it all easier. We’re going to cover that on Thursday, and then Friday is going to be networking. How to network with other potential prospects and also how to network with employees and clients and people on your team and everybody else. That is the docket for the week.

Now, not all of these are required when you get started.

You don’t need to have tools from every category, every scenario. As you start to scale, you’re going to want to make sure that you keep an eye on all this stuff, though. You’re going to want to know what tools are out there so you know when you need to add it to your mix. And new tools, new software launches every day, and the right software tool can save you hours a week, letting you do more with the hours of the day.

A great example is one we’re going to talk about a little later the week, but it’s called Canva. Canva is an image editor. You can create banners and graphics and images and book covers and all kinds of stuff. But what it does is it takes 15 minutes out of a banner creation process that you can then use somewhere else. So sure, you can do the same thing in Photoshop, sure, you can do the same thing in Illustrator, but with Canva, they already have the templates. You can just drop them in and you’re ready to go.

Website Tools

We’re going to talk about website tools. Now, when you have a website, there’s a lot of different things, a lot of different fundamental things that you got to be aware of.

1. Domain Name

The domain name is the place that somebody types into the search bar. You know this. I mean, just in watching this video online, you had to negotiate a domain name at some point, whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s Facebook, whatever you had to type it into a URL bar somewhere.

The difference is, is when registering a domain name for your business, for your website, there are a couple of places you go to. GoDaddy and Namecheap are two of them. I use GoDaddy, I use Namecheap. They’re both comparable in terms of services. We’re going to go take a look at them in a minute.

2. Website Hosting

You also need website hosting or web hosting. Web hosting is like the computer that lives out there online that holds the files of your websites. GoDaddy has web hosting, Namecheap has web posting, and you can buy them from the same place. I usually get hosting from Media Temple. I like Media Temple’s hosting. You can get it from hostgator.com. Web hosting is relatively cheap, 10, 20 bucks a month. That is, you’re renting server space from a server firm and your website lives there and you’re paying for it to always be connected to the internet.

This last resource is something called Cloudflare. Cloudflare is recently a public company, but what CloudFlare does is it, without getting too in the weeds, it gives you free SSL certificates. It’s a very simple SSL certificate, but regardless it’s a free SSL certificate. But more importantly, it gives you a free CDN. CDN stands for content delivery network, which means any big file that you have on your website, it helps that file load super quick when somebody pulls it up. In that way, it helps your website load faster.

Godaddy

GoDaddy is where most of our domain names are held. It’s where most of our clients have their domain names. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the webspace. You can get your domain names here, works well. It’s a domain registrar of domain registration. The one thing, the one little tip I’ll share is I like to go to domainr.com, D-O-M-A-I-N-R .com to find domain names. A lot of times people, they’re like, “Wow, that’s a great domain name. Where’d you find it?” I’m like, “Well, domainr.com.”

But you can just start typing like, “I want a cool URL.” I want a URL is available, as are all of these variations, except for this one, iwanta.com is taken. Now, if you do something like “battle,” so obviously all of the battles are taken. Now, if we do “battlenet,” all the battle… There’s one. It’s potentially available. Somebody just liked my stuff. You can potentially buy this from 101domain or Ethio Telecom. Let’s do this battle network to battle network, Battletech is a premium domain name, battle mobile, battle network systems, battle network.org is available, so you can register from these places. When I’m going through and trying to find good domain names, this is a tool that I love. You can do quite a bit of stuff with it.

Namecheap

Then Namecheap, a lot of times Namecheap has cheaper domains for like all those weird TLDs like .io. app .treat… All that stuff. Namecheap will usually have a little bit more inexpensive domain registrations. Media Temple is where I like to host most of our projects. This DB managed is a pretty good service. And then this Grid shared hosting is also a great service.

A lot of times I’ll start projects on this Grid shared hosting and then I’ll move them to this DB managed to host in time. And then HostGator is probably the best-known web host. If you’re an affiliate, it’s also really great because they’ll send you $100, 105, $110 per new signup so you can promote this stuff, promote HostGator, and it will pay you pretty well.

CloudFlare

Then CloudFlare is the last one. Cloudflare is the SSL CDN. Basically, how you set it up as you import your DNS records in the Cloudflare, and then you move your name servers to Cloudflare and it acts as an intermediary. And then it takes and throws your big files on a CDN for quick hosting. One of the reasons we like it is because we can mess with DNS records, point it to different A name records and stuff pretty easily from a client standpoint, without needing to go in and completely move around DNS records. It gets a little bit complicated, but Cloudflare is nice for just making sure that things are served up quickly for you.

Website Software

Now, the next group we’re going to talk about, we’re going to talk about some of the software to use on. All right, so next up we’re going to talk about software. In your website tools, there’s the software that runs your website.

WordPress

Oftentimes and most always, almost always, we use WordPress. So WordPress is a content management system. It started as blogging software years and years ago. I discovered it when I first got started, so back in 2006, and it was like version 2.1 Or whatever, and it was just blogging software. And then it grew up to be this content management system that houses your pages, your blog posts, your images. It’s very extensible. You can add as many plugins as you want, all that stuff.

Plugins

1. OptimizePress

We use OptimizePress as the marketing theme that sits over the top of WordPress. With OptimizePress, you can make great marketing pages.

2. Wishlist Member

You can also install a plugin for your membership directory. That is the Wishlist Member.

We’re going to go back to our browser here, we’re going to talk about WordPress real quick. WordPress itself, like it’s really great. It’s free so you just download it, you install it on your website. Most website hosting companies have a quick one or two quick installs of WordPress. It is that popular. But one of the best things about it is you can add as many themes or as many plugins as you want. All of these themes are free. You can just add these themes. There’s plenty of premium things if you want to pay for a theme, but all of this stuff, all these themes are free.

From a plugin standpoint, there are lots and lots of plugins that give you additional functionality for your website that you can install. There’s also a lot of premium plugins too.

3. Jetpack

Like here we have Jetpack, which is a plugin that adds stats and adds social sharing and stuff to your WordPress site. There’s bbPress, which adds a forum to your website. There’s BuddyPress, which adds a social, like a social network piece to your website like Facebook. There are lots and lots and lots of different plugins.

There are thousands of plugins that you can install for a variety of different reasons. If you need to do something in WordPress, most likely there is a plugin for it. There’s an incredible SEO plugin. And there’s an anti-spam comment plugin. If you want to go back to the old editor, you can use it here. There’s the contact form plugin. There are lots and lots of different ways that you can use plugins to extend the functionality of your website without necessarily needing to pay anything for them.

Why do we use OptimizePress?

We use a plugin theme, it’s a marketing page builder inside WordPress called OptimizePress. The reason we use OptimizePress is:

1. You don’t have to pay monthly for it, which is awesome.
2. You own the data, which is awesome too.

You’re not building something in a third-party piece of software that then is… I mean, it’s owned by you but you have to pay 99 or 199 or whatever a month to use it. We use OptimizePress, we love OptimizePress. I have ever since OptimizePress 1. They’re in OptimizePress 3 now. It’s a tool that we always use and we always roll it out.

If you want to create a membership site on your website, Wishlist Member is the way to do it. And with Wishlist, you… It’s a very simple membership plugin. It keeps track of your members, it keeps track of your content, it keeps tracking your membership levels, and lets you do a send or drip content out to two members. It protects your images, it protects the pages and the posts, and everything you would want a membership to do.

It’s not overly graphically pretty. It was originally coded a long time ago so it isn’t quite as robust as a plugin like LearnDash. LearnDash has a lot more functionality. It’s a lot prettier, has a lot of pretty graphs in it. But functionally, it’s very similar to Wishlist Member, but LearnDash is great for doing some additional things. They have some baked-in membership functionality and drip functionality that Wishlist Member doesn’t have. LearnDash is a great one to use.

Now, if we want to… The next caveat, the next piece, the next side that we’re going to go to, we need to talk about is email marketing. With email marketing, once you start a business online and you are generating leads and prospects and visitors to your website, then the important thing is that you’re keeping a list of these people. So if you have a business and a website but you don’t know who is buying your stuff, you don’t know who is opting in for your newsletter, then you don’t have much. You just have a website that you can’t necessarily reach out to customers and you can’t do anything from a promotional standpoint except to hope and pray that they come back. That isn’t good.

With email marketing, what you can do is you can create a list, you can give away something for free, a lead magnet. There’s plenty of resources on Done For You for creating a lead magnet. You can give away something for free, a free PDF, a free report, a spreadsheet, a video course, or whatever, give it away for free. And then you can, in exchange, somebody can download that free thing and give you their email address. Now, the email address you can use to then market future stuff to them. You can put them in an autoresponder and then they receive emails as they go.

Some of the best email marketing software, Axis is ours. We created Axis for our clients. There’s one called Infusionsoft. There’s one called Ontraport and ActiveCampaign. We’re going to go over and take a look at those. All right, just want to go back to the browser window here. Now, so Axis, as I said, is ours. We created it. It’s trigger-based email marketing for coaches and creators. People with courses, coaches, consultants. Basically what we do is it manages clients, manages contacts. You can upload docs and files right to a customer record. You can write emails, write text messages, and set all those up to fire out when you want them to fire out.

And then there’s another one that we’ve used for forever, long, long time. I think I’ve been a user of Ontraport for eight years now. And the only reason we still use them, because we have Axis is just that they have some order form. They have order forms and a lot of our order forms are already set up in here, so we haven’t necessarily moved the order forms out. But Ontraport, fantastic tool, and two things that Ontraport does well, order forms is one. The second one is managing affiliates. You can have an affiliate program inside Ontraport, which ties in with the rest of everything else. There’s a page builder, there are some membership functionality tools. Ontraport is nice stuff.

I would consider it as a class two CRM. It has a ton of functionality. It’s not necessarily like in ActiveCampaign, which we’re going to talk about next. ActiveCampaign is very much sending emails, sending broadcast messages, triggering some auto-responses and stuff, but doesn’t do order forms, doesn’t do affiliate marketing, doesn’t do postcards. There’s a lot of things that the ActiveCampaign doesn’t do, but it does do quite a bit of other stuff. Ontraport is very much a full-featured business platform, whereas ActiveCampaign, like Axis, is every email marketing. It’s very trigger-based. You set up an automation campaign and it fires whenever a tag is added and goes from there.

And then the last tool is I think in our next piece. To sell anything online, you have to have a shopping cart. One of our favorites is an easy one. It’s called SamCart. It’s one page, one order form that you can set up. And then from there, you just post the link on your website, and somebody hits the page, they fill in their first name, last name, credit card information, whatever, they hit submit and then their orders processed. And SamCart has both affiliate marketing on the backside and also has a great upsell functionality too. If you just need order forms to generate revenue, then SamCart is a way to do it.

You can also use Infusionsoft, Ontraport. You can even use a piece of software called ClickBank. ClickBank has digital order forms, and then they also have an affiliate component to them as well. There are several different order forms, different ways you can make money, but SamCart ClickBank, SamCart’s the best. All you need is an order form. If you need an order form plus CRM, plus all of that stuff, then I would go to Infusionsoft, which is now Keep, or Ontraport. And then we get to our last couple of places. If you’re going to have a digital business, you need to have digital support.

I would say the best customer service desk that I have seen that I have used out of all the ones we tried to Zendesk. Nice, simple. It’s a cheap plan from a support desk standpoint. It keeps track of all your help tickets, so when somebody writes in, then you’re sure that you’re responding to that person. It’s a much better experience than simply just having an email inbox and then answering emails as they come in.

This way, all the conversations are threaded, you know you’re responding to somebody and you’re able to solve their issue and then you close up the support tech and you move on to the next. Zendesk is a great tool to use. Another one is FreshBooks. If you need invoicing, FreshBooks is the way to do it. There are lots of invoicing tools too. I mean, I’ve been with FreshBooks, I think for eight years so I haven’t looked for any other ones. FreshBooks is nice.

And then I talk about MindMeister quite a bit, online mind mapping for brainstorming products and keeping track of ideas and all that stuff. This is another indispensable tool that I wouldn’t do without. That rounds up the website tool piece. And I talked about it for 30 minutes, that’s crazy. Tomorrow we’re talking about product creation tools and I’m going to go through and talk about how to record your video, your voice, your thoughts, your products, your experience, your expertise so that you can package it up and sell it.

For Questions and Guide

If you have any questions at all, just go to doneforyou.com/blog and fill out the little form and ask a question for tomorrow. And if you would like to go through and talk about how to build one of these, build a website, build a business, build a sales funnel, set up marketing automation, anything else, and just go to doneforyou.com/start.

The post How To Use The Best Tools To Make A Website And Start Your Online Business appeared first on Done For You.

Introduction: The Ultimate Guide To Writing an eBook

Welcome to the world of Internet marketing! You might be wondering how to get started if you're new here. One of the most effective ways to establish yourself and generate leads is by writing an eBook. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from idea to publication.

The Importance of Digital Products in Internet Marketing

Before diving into the guide to writing an eBook, it's essential to understand the role of digital products in internet marketing. Digital products like eBooks, video courses, and membership sites are not just additional offerings but the backbone of an effective marketing strategy. They are valuable lead magnets and can be upsold into higher-ticket items like coaching and consulting services.

The Roadmap: Different Types of Digital Products

Writing an eBook is just one of many digital products you can create. Others include video courses, audio programs, membership sites, and software. Each of these products serves a different purpose and appeals to various audiences. The key is to choose the one that aligns with your skills and business goals.

Know Thyself: Aligning Your Skills with Your Digital Product

Consider your skills and preferences when deciding what type of digital product to create. For example, if you're an extrovert who loves interacting with people, a webinar or teleseminar series might be more your speed. On the other hand, if you enjoy the writing process and can spend hours crafting content, writing an eBook could be the perfect fit.

The Power of Testing Before Creating

One advanced tip for newcomers is to test your product idea before fully committing to it. You can set up a website, create a sales page, and even add a "buy" button to see if your product resonates with your target audience. Use tools like Google Analytics to track clicks and gauge interest. If the data looks promising, you can create your eBook or other digital product.

Guide To Writing an eBook: The Step-by-Step Process

Planning Your eBook

Before you start writing an eBook, plan out its structure. Decide on the chapters, sub-sections, and key points you want to cover. This will serve as your roadmap during the writing process.

Crafting the Content

Once you have a plan, start writing. Focus on providing valuable information that solves a problem for your target audience. Use a conversational tone to make the eBook more engaging.

Editing and Proofreading

After the initial draft is complete, take the time to edit and proofread your eBook. This step is crucial for ensuring the quality of your product.

Design and Layout

The next step is to design the eBook. You can either do this yourself using software like Adobe InDesign or hire a professional to do it for you.

Publishing and Promotion

Once your eBook is ready, it's time to publish and promote it. Use your website, social media channels, and email marketing to get the word out.

Conclusion: Your Next Steps in Digital Product Creation

Writing an eBook is just the beginning. Once you successfully create and market your first digital product, you can explore other types like video courses, membership sites, and more. The sky's the limit!

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By following this guide, you'll be well on your way to writing an eBook that establishes your authority and is a powerful tool for lead generation and internet marketing.

Writing an Ebook

Today's lesson is going to be a guide to writing an ebook. It's the simplest of them all. Ebooks or PDFs, when I first got into this idea of digital products, ebooks were like fucking game-changers. People were charging $37/47 for a PDF download from a website, which was revolutionary. That was, well, 14 years ago, 12/14 years back then. And then Kindle came out with an E-reader, the ugly Kindles, the ones with the keyboards, but it revolutionized digital reading. So now there are Kindle books, iBooks, and a lot more.

The idea of digital books is commonplace, whereas before, you had to in the confirmation email where you sent the PDF. You had to link to Adobe Reader, a free program everybody could use to read a PDF. But you had to link to it because the software wasn't native on a PC yet. Browsers didn't have it automatically embedded in their browser. You had to download it to read it. And now, you can open an ebook no matter your device.

Writing an ebook is the least complicated information product in the world to create. It's short in form, like reports. They're brilliant for lead generation, little eight to 10-page PDFs, meaning you can give them away and easily collect email addresses.

The process or guide for writing an ebook is a PDF that you sell and distribute from your website, allowing you to charge more and keep 100% of the sales price. That's what any book is; an ebook is something you sell. It's a digital file you sell. You can keep the money. Ebooks typically sell for $37/$27 if you're selling from your website.

Right now, many people are selling for $4.95 as tripwire offers or as low ticket introductory lead generation, buyer qualification type offers, and they work well there. That's the idea for these digital files. You can also sell them on Amazon Kindle or iBooks. However, you will be making less per sale due to Amazon and Apple's extensive distribution network, so you have to pay a percentage because of their distribution. But first, let's talk about putting them together.

1. Structure

Typically, in writing an ebook, you need to have a structure.

• cover page
• table of contents
• a bio
• introduction/story
• body
• conclusion.

You've read books; you know what books look like. The important thing is figuring out the hook and transformation you will make for your reader. At the end of this, we will talk about mind mapping and putting together your ideas in a book form because the software is pretty straightforward.

2. Word Processor

All you need is a word processor to write an ebook.

• Google Docs
• Microsoft Word
• Apple Pages

You can export all of those word processing software as a PDF, and then your PDF is good. Then you're done. They all have a native inbound table of contents, scripts, and stuff. The software takes care of all of that stuff for you.

3. Brainstorming the Topics

The hard part is brainstorming the topics, the table of contents, and the things you want to discuss. The hardest part of the guide to writing an ebook is figuring out what your case will be and what you want to talk about. Because once you have that, you can go through and fill in the paragraphs between the content.

You can also record audio or video and then have it transcribed to quicken the process using software like rev.com, which is precisely how I create these podcasts. I Livestream these things, then send them to a transcriptionist, pay a buck for 25 minutes, so they transcribe the content into texts. And then, for me, I can use it however I want. I can put it in an ebook if I want, and I have. I can add it to the blog, and I do, so there are many different ways once you have the content that you can use or write it. And then, when it's done, you export it as a PDF, and you upload it to your website.

You export it, a PDF file, and you put the PDF file in your WordPress site, or on Amazon Cloud, or in Dropbox, or whatever. However, you want to send that PDF out, and then you link to it. And then boom, you have a digital file that you can sell for 27/37 bucks, five bucks, ten bucks, whatever you want to sell it for.

4. Ebook Cover

Now, I recommend putting together an ebook cover. It can be a digital cover like this where it's standing up. It's pretty, it looks like a book, and that's fine. It conveys that it's got a tangible feel to it: trust. Then there's some mental imagery there and all that stuff.

I have found lately that having an image in an even block, a flat photo works just as well because even on Amazon, people are used to buying books with just a flat idea. It doesn't need to be all this, although it can be if you would like. I use a piece of software called CoverActionPro to create that. I'm sure there are a million other ones. I don't even know if CoverActionPro is around anymore, but there are Fiverr people who will do it. Even though people understand that they're downloading a document, they like to see it. We have some graphical representation for the book. It doesn't have to be a book, but we want to have some imagery representing it because they want to see a cover.

Having an image also increases conversions three or four times. If it's just a straight-up text-based sales page, then it won't convert as well as it would if it had an image that did represent the book. You can get ebook covers designed on Upwork and Fiverr. As I said, you can use a Photoshop plugin. I'm sure there's standalone software you can use for it. And if you're using Upwork and Fiverr, post a job on the job boards and choose a bidder. It's going to end up being pretty cheap.

5. Ebook Format/Length

Now, there are a couple of different formats when you're writing an ebook that you should be familiar with. They're not formats; it's more terminology about different ebook lengths. So, I think of 30 to 100 pages for an ebook. That is something that somebody's going to sit down and read and go through and all that. Now, a guide, in my way of thinking, is 10 to 30 pages, so it's enough to get into a specific topic but not enough to go nuts with it. Do you know what I mean?

A report is usually given away for free, and it's 8 to 10 pages, or you charge a couple of bucks forward, or it's in addition to membership or something very concise, very particular. It's 8 to 10 pages, meant to solve one problem. So, it's just how I view digital downloads. There are lots of other ways. You can call it white paper. You can call it a one-pager or two-pager if it's super short. So, there are lots of other things you can call ebooks, but those are the ones that tend to resonate the best.

Also, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be the norm. Many people use the words temporary or interchangeable. So a report is something you give away for free, a guide has punchy, quick value, and an ebook is meatier and should be less expensive. It's one of the reasons why we like our Funnel Factor Report. I call it a master guide because it's 274 pages long. It's not even an ebook; it's way more than just a guide to writing an ebook. It should be a textbook.

6. Ebook Pricing

Several titles, manifestos, blueprints, and video reports. I have heard that before. Typically, pricing for your books, if you're downloading it from a website or enabling to download it from your website, let's say, you're going to charge 27 to $37 for it, 47 to 67 is less common. You can get away with that for a digital download if it's highly specialized, like a particular tech procedure. Something will have a very high transformative effect on your user if it's technical.

Kindle, iPad, and Digital Reader are usually 10 to $12. They can go up to 40, but if it's a digital download through a different marketplace, they're usually 10 to 12, 10 to 14, somewhere in there. Ours are typically priced at 9.95 for digital readers, and then the books are generally 14 bucks like the paperbacks. So, that tends to be where it is.

Mind Mapping

Now, I wanted to walk you through that the idea behind writing an ebook isn't revolutionary. It's a Word document you export and put on your website as a PDF. That part's not complicated. The hard part is getting through the creation of a table of contents and thinking through the idea. So we're going to go in mind map just a little bit. I want to introduce you to mind mapping. I did this a couple of weeks ago, and everybody liked it. So we're going to do it again.

Now we're going to go to MindMeister. MindMeister is my favorite mind-mapping tool. And then, we're going to go through, and we're going to create a mind map from scratch. Let's say... I need to show you my screen, don't I? That would be very helpful. All right. I will stop this screen and share my next screen, the other application, so that will be my mind mapping application. All right. Okay. You can see my screen now. Now I'm going to make it big. There we go.

When brainstorming your book, usually start with a mind map. Let's say the book is How To Create Digital Products. It is kind of what we will discuss this week, but How To Create Digital Products. Well, the first thing you want to know, this will be chapter 1, is. We're going to call it Discovery.

Usually, the book's first few sections are Discovery or some introductory material to ensure everybody's on the same page.

Chapter 1: Discovery

Discovery is going to be skills and talents. We want to ensure you're talented and know what you're doing. Goals and aspirations: your digital product in your book must fit into your goals and how you want your life to look.

Proficiencies

Then we get into proficiencies. I probably didn't spell it right. But the experience, what you're good at, and then transformation, what you can help others with, will be your Discovery. You'll go through an introspective journey and maybe figure out what you can help others with.

Chapter 2: Product Types

Your next chapter, chapter 2, is going to be Product Types. And so once we know what we're into or can help other people with, we will talk about how to package that stuff. It can be found in the guide to writing an ebook, building video courses, membership sites, or associations. Then, once we know what kind of products we will create, how about we discuss designing those products?

Chapter 3: Marketing

We're going to do marketing: Marketing Those Products. Now that we know the next chapter is Marketing, we will need a website, not a webinar.

We don't need a webinar for this. We will need a website, Google Ads, Facebook Videos, etc. And then, after that, we're going to talk about upsells, let's say. So will all those other services we can sell as a companion to that front book. Companion offers. That might be consulting, coaching, and so on.

What we did was we just basically brainstormed what our book could be or could look like. You can take yourself through a similar process, a similar brainstorming process. We started with nothing and said, "Okay, we want to create a book on digital products.". If you look at any book, your first chapter is usually introductory material. What it's doing is bringing everybody to the same point, to the same understanding, the same level of experience.

Everybody picks up a book with different messages in their head and different ways of thinking, education, backgrounds, and experiences. They pick up this book, and now you're trying to push everybody into the same train of thought.

The first chapter usually sets the baseline for that train of thought. So Chapter 1: Discovery, generally. You need to know these things to get to Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is where the actual meat of the book starts. Chapter 2, in our case, will be "In writing an ebook, video courses, membership site," whatever. And your chapter 2's going to be different. Chapter 2 might be.

If you write about business development, it will be one thing. If you're writing about how to make money online, MLM offers, or real estate investing, your chapter 2 will be different. Chapter 3 typically builds on chapter 2, and chapter 4 builds on chapter 3. And then, in the end, you recap the entire book, and before you know it, you have an ebook that A, you can sell, and B, will transform somebody's life.

It will be a work you can then use to generate more business, create more revenue, unlink time for money, live a placeless life where you can do what you want, work with who you wish to, and all that stuff. So, that is the idea behind digital products. That's why writing an ebook and creating video courses, membership sites, and everything else are influential. Now, we went a little bit over today. Does anybody have any questions in the comment box? Just let me know.

Okay, cool. So today, we talked about writing an ebook. Let's look at a roadmap here.

Tomorrow, I think we're going to talk about video courses. We might do audio programs. We might tie it in with video courses. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to do it yet. We'll probably do video and audio together because you rarely see audio without the video.

Usually, video is created, audio is stripped out, and we'll discuss that tomorrow. Still, I will put together a course video, slides, and everything. Tomorrow, we will discuss different video software and getting in there.

 

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