Let’s start with you and what you know. Through a combination of experiences unique to you, you’re now an expert… probably in several areas. Let’s just pick one to work with in this series. It could be  a hobby area, a professional expertise, a book you’ve written, or any number of things.

In fact, it may be something that comes so naturally to you, you’ve done it so long, you’ve taught other people so easily, that you don’t even realize that it could be earning you money online. That’s where you’re wrong, my friend.

Right now there are millions of people coming to the internet every day looking for answers to their questions and problems, and you can be that answer. What if there was a way to connect those people with their questions with you and your answers? Well, there is!

The beauty of the internet is that you can offer information products 24/7 on a simple website that can be earning you some nice extra income every month, or even a full-time income like many of our clients, some of whom have now left their former occupations to be full-time information specialists, free from their daily commutes, office politics, and income limits.

Information products give you the power of leverage and passive income, meaning you can clone yourself in a way and let automated systems sell for you 24/7 while you’re doing something else, even sleeping! If someone comes online at 3 a.m. and is looking for an answer that your product can provide, you can wake up to a bigger bank account than when you went to sleep!

In the next article we’ll be looking at different kinds of information products you can create for every learning style, including text, audio, and even simple video. We’ll also tell you the quickest and easiest way to get started.

Why the variety? Because your web visitors are real people with a variety of learning style preferences.

If someone hates to read, you’ll want to give them audio or video options. If someone else prefers to sit in the recliner with a cup of tea, you’re going to give them something to read. If someone likes to learn in the car or on their iPod, you guessed it, audio is best. You meet them where they are to make it attractive for them to buy from you.

So what can you do in text products? For your readers, you can create:

• Special reports to sell or give-away to get more subscribers
• Articles like this to put online
• E-books to go more in-depth
• Ezines or print newsletters
• Tips booklets for great hand-outs or direct mail
• Blog posts to keep your content fresh and new
• Outlines – ideas from creating one product can keep you in new ideas for lots more.

What about folks who like to listen? It’s easy to create:

• Teleseminars, free or paid – I’ll tell you about some free services
• Expert interviews that you record and make the mp3’s available for download
• Audio CDs for easy learning in the car
• Podcasts for shorter online “radio shows” that position you as the expert

And don’t be afraid of video. It’s never been easier or more do-able for enormous exposure online:

• PowerPoint presentations with your narration and explanation as you go through the slides
• Webcams capturing you in live action to make that personal connection with your viewers
• Portable little video cameras like the Flip recorder that let you make quick videos wherever you are, maybe demonstrating something that will become a best-selling product for you.

Your head may be swimming right now with all the possibilities, but let’s get back to where it all starts, with what’s inside your heart and head. You need to first get that out and into words that you can then use in lots of ways. More on that next time.

Thanks for reading. I hope your wheels are beginning to turn in thinking about profitable new products. Remember, our team is here to help you get started.

Getting all this good content starts with words, and the best way to do that is to record some audio and get it transcribed. As one of my mentors, Alex Mandossian, says, “Write with your mouth, not with your hands.” Just like that old M&M’s commercial.

Why is this such an easy way to get lots of content? Because for most people talking is a whole lot easier than writing. For some reason we tend to stiffen up and get formal when “writing,” like there’s someone who’s going to grade us with a red pen. Forget it, just talk.

What can you talk about and how can you capture it? Here are some proven ideas that are working for thousands of other info marketers just like you.

In any niche, there are experts or other aficionados just like you, and you can interview them with questions that you know would be of interest to your web visitors. In fact, it’s very smart to even ask your visitors or subscribers exactly what they’d like to know when you talk to this expert, so the interview is highly attractive to them.

People love to talk about what they love doing, and you will have no trouble finding folks and getting them to volunteer an hour to share great information with your listeners.

Another option is to interview someone who’s got a product that would be of interest to your subscribers. Don’t make it salesy, but be genuine and dive into the product details to let your listeners know exactly what they can expect and why it could be helpful for them (or not).

Either way, it helps position you as an expert and someone they can trust. If the product owner has an affiliate program, and most do, you can even earn commissions when your listeners decide to purchase it after the call, but be up front and let them know it’s an affiliate link. Remember, you’re building trust for the long term and not just focused on immediate sales.

Doing teleseminars is extremely popular these days because it’s a powerful way for you to leverage your time and expertise and get seen as an expert by your listeners. Again this could be you doing all the teaching (tele-class), or have a guest on (expert interview).

The point is that you invite folks to the call and to participate with questions and answers at the end if you have time. It’s a powerful way to build up your community of followers and lead them into other products that you have.

You can easily use one of the free services listed below to just call and record dictated articles, reports, newsletter segments, chapters of an e-book, or anything else if you find it easier to talk than write. Lots of people do, and you’ll sound more natural that way if writing is not your thing. Then get them transcribed and you’ve got your raw material, in just a few minutes of your time.

Here are two services that are free to use and can capture your audio, record it for free, and give you the mp3 file that you can then use in lots of ways.

www.TheBasementVentures.com
www.FreeConferenceCall.com

Neither of those are affiliate links for me, they’re simply two places that I’ve used and had good results with. There are complete instructions on those sites.

Okay, you’ve got your audio files, now what? Let’s turn that talk into profits! Next time we’ll talk about how to find and work with a transcription service, what to look for, and some major mistakes to avoid.

So you’ve got your mp3 and you’re ready to get it transcribed. Now what? If you’ve never worked with an outsource provider before, or if you have and it’s been a problem, here are some important guidelines and some common mistakes and what to do instead.

First of all, don’t ever forget that the quality of your products is the quality of your reputation online. It’s simply unavoidable. When people see your “stuff,” it represents you. Even on a tight budget you want things done right, on time, professionally, and to present you in an attractive light. That doesn’t have to cost a bundle, but it does take careful selection when you’re getting help.

What should you look for in choosing a transcription service? First of all, you can always find very cheap workers overseas on the freelance sites like Elance, but their English simply doesn’t work for this purpose. That can be a great place to get very good rates for services like web design, programming, and graphics, but not words.

We’ve had an awful lot of clients come to us after using discount transcription services, and their transcripts need a major clean-up or just need redoing. It takes as much time to fix it as it would have to do it right in the first place. It’s just not worth it. Why pay twice, frustrate yourself, and waste time?

You want to look for a company with a strong track record and great testimonials. Without knowing their work yourself, you can only go on what others say based on their own experience. It may be tempting to try a family member or “friend of a friend,” and if that works for you, then great. More often it ends up in some strained feelings and awkward situations when it doesn’t work out.

When evaluating your online options, look for a company that offers an objective way of billing, not per work hour. There’s no way to know how much work they can get done in an hour.

It’s more objective to pay per audio hour, because that’s completely measureable and you can know your cost right up front, based on the length of your audio file. Ideally you will find a company that has a choice of prices based on turn-around time, which lets you meet your project’s timeframe and budget.

Then contact the places you’re considering and see how their customer service is. You want a company that will respond to you quickly and courteously. After all, this is your business on the line. You’re looking for a potentially long-term relationship with this outsource provider as part of your virtual team. You may want to give them a small job first to see how it goes.

Bottom line, you’re going to compare reputation via testimonials, pricing options, response time, and even their expertise. Our company specializes in information marketers, coaches, authors, and solopreneurs. We don’t do corporate meetings, focus groups, medical, legal, insurance, academic dissertations, or that kind of thing.

We want to partner with you as part of building your own information empire online, starting with your transcripts, and that’s how we’ve build a stellar reputation over the years.

Next time we’ll bring it together in discussing how you can plan out a full portfolio of information products starting with your transcripts.

Now let’s talk about some ideas on how to structure a powerful portfolio of information products to reach the broadest needs of your visitors and build  those really important long-term relationships for long-term profit.

The very common and tragic mistake you may be making is having just a few products, or even none at all. Do you even have a give-away product like a free MP3 or 5-day e-course to offer your visitors to start building those crucial relationships on your site? I can’t tell you how many sites I visit that don’t even have that very basic element, and here’s why that’s such a huge mistake.

Studies show over and over again that out of 100 visitors to your site, you’re lucky if 1 or 2 make a purchase on that first visit. 1-2% is a very common sales ratio for online sales for a typical visitor.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but that means that 98-99% of your visitors do NOT buy on the first visit. And if you don’t have a freebie to offer them that appeals to their needs or problems and to get them to raise their hand to hear more from you, they simply go away and will likely never be back. You just wasted all that effort and cost (in time or money) that it took to get them there in the first place.

Don’t do it! Developing a freebie – whether text, audio, or video – is so simple with the many ideas I’ve given you. Don’t worry about making it perfect, just get it done! You can always improve on it, but get something up there to collect names and emails of your visitors with something of value, so you can have a way to keep the dialogue going and start building trust with them.

That attractive freebie has got to be #1 on your list if you don’t have it done yet. Let’s move on then.

In considering your full portfolio, you need products for various learning modalities and various price points. Whatever you have now, evaluate where your gaps are and target that.

If you have audio mp3’s that you make available for free or low cost, what about an e-book at a slightly higher cost? If you have an e-book at say $27, what about bundling that with some audio and selling them together for $57? Or make an audio version of your e-book available for those who prefer to listen.

Those lower cost products are valuable to build trust and your reputation with your visitors, as well as to provide some regular passive income.

Now let’s look down the line a little. Bundling products is an easy way to offer some higher priced options, and if you give some discount for buying the bundles, you’ll get more sales.

You can offer a series of calls as a tele-class, say four or five modules, and those typically will sell for anywhere from $147 up to $597. Why do these prices always end in 7? I don’t know, they just do. A lot of marketers have tested prices, so let’s go with it. It works.

The point is, a series of tele-classes is a good upper-range product. Some new customers will jump right in here, while some will start with your lower-priced stuff first. Don’t assume anything, just make it all available and let them choose.

For maximum income, you may want to consider developing products like live workshops or seminars, boot camps, private and group coaching, and membership sites. All of these require content, and lots of it.

And where does all that start? With getting the words out of your heart and head, spoken, transcribed, and packaged.

So we’ve come full circle and I hope you’ve got ideas busting out all over. It’s so exciting to work with our clients and be part of their info empire building. Our whole team gets a lot of satisfaction out of doing our job well, so you succeed faster and bigger.

I hope these ideas have your wheels turning for taking your own expertise and turning it into lots of products that can be providing passive income for you, as well as establishing you further as an expert in your niche.

We’re here to help you, as we’ve helped many others over the years. We offer a free 20-minute phone consult to hear your ideas and give you some feedback, as well as to answer questions on our services. Please get in touch via our Contact Form if we can help you too.