Leveraging Your Thought Leadership
If you’re an expert, you’re probably sitting on a gold mine of potential information products you can create quickly and at low cost. In this webinar, I’ll show you how to turn books into webinars, workshop handouts into on-line courses, PowerPoint slide shows into marketing material, and more.
Watch the recording here:
In a webinar last month, I spoke about how you could take a single idea, convert it into many information products, and use them to add value to your existing presentations, workshops, coaching sessions or other products (If you missed that webinar, watch the recording here).
In the webinar, I showed this slide, which shows the five products I think are the best to start with:
I’ve chosen these five because they add high value to your clients and audiences, and are reasonably easy to create. Let’s look at them in a bit more detail …
An on-line course is a series of “modules” you send by e-mail automatically to your participants. Create an on-line course for a workshop or keynote presentation, so participants get on-going reinforcement and education.
On-line courses are easy to create (because they are just e-mails) and deliver (because the delivery is handled by software). They are a really easy way to extend a one-off event into a longer program.
If you’d like to experience an on-line course yourself, you can sign up to some of mine here.
Another easy way to add value is to offer clients and audiences individual access to you – for example:
Many eGurus worry about being swamped with questions, but in fact it’s usually the opposite. Usually, very few people take up your offer, and those who do will usually respect your time and really appreciate your advice. In any case, if you’re worried about people abusing this privilege, you can set boundaries (90 days, 15-minute phone calls, etc.).
Many eGurus try to make money from public webinars, but that’s a difficult job unless you’ve got a strong database already or you’re an experienced Internet marketer. A far better way to use webinars is to offer a planning webinar some time before a presentation or a support webinar some time after it (or both).
These webinars usually don’t take as much preparation as stand-alone webinars, you’re typically presenting them to a small group, and they are low-stress events because they are just one step in a bigger process.
When I run my workshops, I usually offer both types of webinar: A planning webinar 2-3 weeks before the workshop and a support webinar about two months after it.
If you want to give your attendees and participants additional resources, put them on a password-protected area of your Web site, and give out the password at your event. You could choose to limit the access to, say, 90 days, or just offer access forever.
Of course, there are other ways to share these resources – such as putting them on a CD, DVD or memory stick. Sometimes those other methods are more appropriate than a password-protected area on your Web site. But don’t overlook the perceived value of providing a password to your attendees.
You might want to create a full-blown membership site. But be careful you don’t bite off more than you can chew! A membership site takes much more work – both now and in the future. Start with a simple password-protected page at first, and graduate to a membership site if you find there’s a demand for it.
Yes, membership sites do work! If you really do know there’s a demand for it, you know you can create on-going resources for members, and you have a strong network (of affiliates, suppliers and potential members), by all means go ahead and create a paid membership site.
Members pay a monthly or annual fee to join, but you can provide, say, 3 months free membership for workshop attendees and conference audiences. This is a high-value bonus for them, because you are (presumably) providing valuable resources for your other paying members. It also takes no extra work on your part, because you’re providing these resources anyway, and these extra members just tag along for the ride.
So there you have it: My top five easy ways to add more value to your current offerings. Which of these could work for you? You don’t have to do all five, but I’m sure you can add at least one of them to your business with very little effort.
Don’t just create a single information product – such as a book, a video or an MP3 file. Always create a bundle of related products, so your customers get more value and you increase your sales (and profits!). In this webinar, I’ll show you how to turn a single product into a more valuable product bundle, and also explain how to promote them to your existing clients so you can boost sales and profits.
Watch the recording here:
Whenever you create a new information product – whether it’s a book, e-book, audio program or even a full membership site – don’t stop at just that product. Instead, spin your product into different forms, and sell them as a complete package. This has a number of benefits – not only for you, but also for your customer.
Some people like reading, others listen to audio programs at the gym, others watch a lot of video, and others only learn when they are actively participating in the learning. By producing your product in different formats, you help your customer consume it in the way that most suits them, rather than whatever happened to be most convenient for you.
Some people don’t have time to read an entire book, but would happily read a short e-book summary of the main material, and then dip into the book for the most relevant material. If you provide both versions, you help that customer get full value from the book. If you hadn’t provided the summary version, some customers would have bought the book with the best of intentions, but might never have got around to reading it.
Some products are designed to be consumed in isolation, but others lend themselves to group learning. For example, if you write a book about sales techniques, you could include a collection of PowerPoint slide shows for sales managers to use in their weekly meetings. This not only greatly enhances the value of the book, it also means you can charge a much higher price because it could now be positioned as a twelve-month resource for sales managers.
Even a book, which is typically consumed by one person at a time, could be seen as a group learning resource. For example, if you added a postcard with key questions for discussion, you could make it easier for book clubs to choose your book for their meetings!
In this busy, time-poor world, it’s becoming harder and harder for people to consume your product – in whatever format you produce it – at a single session. You can help them get more from it by also delivering it in stages. For example, you could invite readers of a book to sign up for an automatic e-mail course that sends them a weekly reminder about one concept in the book. Or you could conduct regular webinars about the book, connecting your readers with you and each other.
A common objection to bundling products together in this way is the concern about duplicating your material. For instance, is it acceptable to provide an audio version of your book if it’s the same content as the print version?
In general, the answer is Yes! Your customers will appreciate you taking the time to create the material in different ways, especially if you explain how they can use the different products to get full value from the package.
It’s not enough to just lump a whole bunch of products together, call it a package, and hope it sells! You must get your strategy right, and create a program that delivers material in a variety of ways to match different learning styles and audience needs.
My webinar and e-book program “Your E-Learning Strategy” shows you how to do this. You’ll learn:
Many eGurus and thought leaders don’t know how to leverage their ideas into multiple formats easily. When you see how easy it is, you’ll be able to quickly expand your Internet footprint without a lot of extra effort. In this webinar, I work through the chapters in my book Fast, Flat and Free, showing how some of the book’s content was derived from other content.
Watch the recording here:
Register for future webinars in the series here (there’s no cost).
Don’t write a bad book. Don’t even write a good book. If you’re going to write a book, write a great book. But don’t just sit there twiddling your thumbs while you’re waiting until you’re ready to write A Great Book. You can still write; just do it in other ways.
Despite my science and engineering background, I’ve never been a devotee of Star Wars, Star Trek or much other science fiction. However, as a teenager I do remember being a big fan of Doctor Who (Yes, I know that’s showing my age).
I’ve just finished reading Michael White’s book “A Teaspoon and an Open Mind: The Science of Doctor Who”, which talks about the science behind time travel, alien life, interplanetary voyages, robots, and the like.
It’s a science book for the layperson, with only a few passing references to Doctor Who. But it’s those links – tenuous though they might be – that make the book unique. And that made it worth reading for me. If not for this quirky angle, it’s doubtful I would have picked up a book about cosmology.
The traditional publishing model has its drawbacks, but it has one benefit as well: An in-built quality control process. You can argue about the quality of some of the books that have published, but there’s no denying that a publisher adds several extra layers – such as market testing, editing, proofreading and layout – that generally improve the final product.
But that’s no longer the case.
The good news is that now anybody can publish a book.
The bad news is that now anybody can publish a book!
It’s now fast, cheap and easy to be a published author (Want proof? Write something, upload it to Lulu.com, pay a few dollars, and you’ll have a hard copy of Your Book in your hands within a week). As a result, the book market is cluttered with thousands of useless, low-quality, “me too” books.
If you’ve got nothing new to say, say nothing.
Don’t write a bad book. Don’t even write a good book. If you’re going to write a book, write a great book.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write at all!
Don’t just sit there twiddling your thumbs while you’re waiting until you’re ready to write A Great Book. You can still write; just do it in other ways:
In fact, these are the things that will help you express your half-formed ideas, test them in real life, and polish them to make them better. Do these things first, and you’ll earn the right to write that great book.
When I talk to experts about creating information products, the most common complaint I hear is, “I don’t have the time!”
Is that true of you as well? If so, maybe you’re not taking full advantage of the material you’ve already created. Creating new material is fun – and important. But don’t overlook the opportunities to take your existing material and spin it into other forms.
I’ll share the process I use myself for leveraging new material. This won’t suit everybody, but at least you’ll see an example which you can copy or adapt.
Every week or two, I write a feature article (just like this one) for my newsletter. I send this to my mailing list.
My Internet marketing assistant extracts this article from the newsletter and adds it to my Web site as a stand-alone article.
My assistant then submits this article to the most popular article directories (places that accept articles for re-publication).
I record myself reading the article out loud, on my iPod. I “top and tail” it with an intro, outtro and theme music, and publish it to the Expert Gold podcast.
My assistant copies the article across to the First Step support FAQ blog. If it’s relevant, I’ll also copy it across to the Magnetic Messages blog.
Finally (for now!), my assistant copies it across to the Leverage Matters Vault, a growing directory of resources about leverage, on-line marketing and product creation.
I’ll admit that I don’t do this every time I send a newsletter. But I do it often enough that I’m regularly publishing my material in various forms. Even though it’s the same content, different people consume it differently – so they appreciate getting it into different ways.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even mentioned re-using this material in e-books, special reports, audio CDs or books!
How can you use this? Remember:
I first started using the Web in its early days (which was only as far back as 1994). There was no Amazon.com, people were just starting to put Web addresses in e-mail, and Yahoo was just a small Web site being operated by two university students from their spare room.
In those days, there were very few commercial Web sites. When commercial Web sites did come along, almost all of them were for promoting businesses. In other words, they were like an electronic brochure. And let’s face it – most commercial Web sites today are still just electronic brochures.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. After all, it’s perfectly OK to have a Web site that promotes what you’ve got to offer.
My point, though, is that there is so much more you can do when you’ve got a Web site. In particular, your Web site gives you the chance to build new low-cost, high-margin products – all based on your existing expertise.
Look at that last sentence again: You can create products that have a low cost (to you), but you can sell at a high margin. Some of them can sell for two, three, ten or even hundreds times their cost, which means greater profit for you.
Suppose you operate a life coaching business, and most of your clients see you for a two-hour personal coaching session once a week. That can be a profitable business, because it mostly involves your time rather than cash out of your pocket. But it’s also a time-consuming business, for the very same reason.
What if you could deliver your coaching without the time investment of spending time with each client? In fact, what if your coaching business was making money even while you were asleep?
Yes, it’s possible – using your Web site.
Over time, you’ve probably discovered a few common principles that apply to a large number of clients. Of course, each client has different requirements, but I’m sure there are some principles that apply to them all – for example: setting clear outcomes, breaking down tasks into small steps, taking action every day, measuring progress regularly, creating rewards for achievement, and so on..
You could use this expertise to build an on-line course, which is based on these common principles that you use. The course is delivered by e-mail, and delivered automatically at weekly intervals.
Of course, this isn’t a substitute for your one-on-one personal coaching. But some people would actually prefer the on-line version – perhaps because it’s less personal, can be done on their own time, is cheaper, or suits their learning style better.
People who visit your Web site could buy the on-line course directly. Your Web site would enrol them in the course, which means that you send the course information in weekly e-mail messages. Of course, this would all happen automatically, so that you’re not spending your day keeping track of what e-mail goes to which person!
Many of our clients are professional speakers, who present at conferences and training sessions to live audiences. Many of them are now using on-line courses to deliver their material in another way.
The idea of providing on-line courses isn’t limited to people who sell “information”. Whatever business you’re in, you have the potential to leverage your expertise.
Here’s the key question to ask:
What do you know that you can teach your customers?
When you know the answer to this question, you know your unique expertise. And because it’s something that your customers would like to know, there’s a good chance that they are willing to pay for it.
For example, suppose you operate a pet shop. What do you know that customers would like to know? One example that springs to mind is dog training courses. Some people will take their dog to classes, but others might be quite happy to buy this information on the Internet.
What if you don’t know how to train a dog? That’s OK – get somebody else to write the course for you, and split the profits! Don’t be limited only by what you know – you can also gain leverage by considering what else your customers are interested in, even if you don’t have this expertise yourself.
I’ve talked a lot about on-line courses, and that’s just one example of the type of product you could create and sell on your Web site. Here are just a few other examples:
There’s really no limit to the possibilities when you start exploring them for your own business.
The beauty of creating on-line courses – and indeed, many of the other products you can create on your Web site – is that you do all the work once, and then everything happens automatically. You write all the course material once, schedule it to be sent out at weekly intervals (or monthly, or whatever schedule you choose), and then everything else takes care of itself. It’s the ultimate form of passive income, because it really can make money for no on-going effort.
I’ll share a few real examples of work we’ve done with clients to help them leverage their expertise. This will help you to get your creative juices flowing for your own business.
The first is Allan Bolton, who runs Quality Health Australia. Allan speaks at conferences and sells on-line courses to corporate clients. When he speaks at conferences, he gives out a password for audiences to get access to on-going health material and on-line courses. You can visit Allan’s site, but you won’t be able to sign up for his courses because they are only available to clients.
Kerrie Mullins-Gunst, at KMG Consulting, offers a free mentoring course on her Web site. By offering a free course, Kerrie achieves a number of things:
David Penglase, who runs David Penglase Seminars, says that his on-line courses have made him “a truckload of money”. David saw the potential for on-line courses right away, and they paid for his entire Web site within three months. He offers courses for sale on the Web site itself, but in fact most of the course income comes from selling them as part of his training packages. He not only makes more money, it increases his credibility because clients see that he can offer on-going value, not just a one-off training course.
The last example I’m going to give you is professional speaker Keith Abraham, who has really put a lot of thought into making this make money for him. Keith recently estimated that his on-line courses have been responsible for bringing him at least $350,000 of business.
Wow! Imagine what you could do with an extra $350,000.
Like some of the other examples you’ve seen, Keith uses on-line courses in a number of different ways:
Keith gave us one of our best client testimonials, which I’m happy to include here:
“You would be crazy if you didn’t use Gihan’s CourseBot software. We have over 6,000 people log on receiving emails of information from us every week. For the small investment, I can remember winning one project worth $120,000 that was because we had this software.”
Don’t underestimate the value of creating on-line courses and other Internet-based products that are based on your expertise.
Sure, you can build a successful Web site without them, but you’re leaving lots of money on the table.
You already know how much time, effort and money it takes to get people to visit your Web site. Then you have to convince them to buy from you. Then you have to persuade them to complete the order. Then you’ll work hard to establish a long-term relationship with them.
Are you going to waste all that effort by just selling them your standard suite of products and services? Even if these are high-margin products, why not invest a bit more time up-front to create even more products for them?
When I was travelling back from Auckland to Perth recently, I was watching the greatest movie of all time on my iPod. The movie, of course, is Casablanca:
It struck me that the last time I was watching this movie, it was at an outdoor cinema, under the stars on the big screen. And the previous time, it was at home, watching a DVD on TV.
So here is a movie made 65 years ago, created for the big screen only, and within the last 12 months, I had watched it three times in three completely different places: DVD, big screen and iPod.
Of course, nobody thought about this in 1942 when it was first shown in cinemas. But the beauty of digital information is that it’s so portable.
Are you doing the same with your content?
What material do you have that is currently published for only one medium? Your clients or customers now have new tools to consume material in different ways, at different times, and on their own terms. Are you making it easy to them, or are you getting in the way?
For example, if you publish a podcast regularly, are you also publishing that as an audio clip on your Web site? And are you adding the same audio clip to your blog? Different people will see it in those three different places.
Or, when you write an article in your newsletter, do you also publish it on your Web site? And add it to your blog?
You don’t have to change the content.
I’ve talked in the past about how to change the content of an article or a blog post to create new content. But here, you don’t even have to change the content. It’s just a matter of using the same content and publishing it in a different place. That makes it easier for people to find in the place that is most convenient to them.
Don’t worry about them complaining that you just duplicate all your material and you’ve got nothing new. On the contrary, they will probably only see it in the one place they like to read it, listen to it or watch it. They’ll thank you for making the effort to make it easy for them.
© Copyright 2013 Gihan Perera. All rights reserved |
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