doitmarketing doit-marketing Teaching Sells - Building a Profitable Online Business: What Works (And What Doesn’t) in 2012.
Isn’t it time we quit talking about making money online? When you look at what Amazon, iTunes, Google, Facebook are doing ... as well as countless e-learning and other technology companies (with more showing up every day), it’s pretty obvious that it’s not >making money online< any more.
It’s just making money in the world we live in.
If you’re looking for another one of those >business in a box< solutions, you should close this report now. Because Teaching Sells isn’t a “money-getting system.” It’s a framework to create a real-world business.
1. By Copyblogger Media
Building a Profitable
Online Business:
What Works
(And What Doesn’t)
in 2012
by BRIAN CLARK and SONIA SIMONE
www.TeachingSells.com
3. By Copyblogger Media
Isn’t it time we quit talking about “making money online”?
When you look at what Amazon, iTunes, Google, Facebook are doing … as
well as countless e-learning and other technology companies (with more
showing up every day), it’s pretty obvious that it’s not “making money
online” any more.
It’s just making money in the world we live in.
If you’re looking for another one of those “business in a box” solutions, you
should close this report now. Because Teaching Sells isn’t a “money-getting
system.” It’s a framework to create a real-world business.
Websites don’t make money. Businesses make money.
It doesn’t matter if you want to make $100 a month or $100,000 a month.
It doesn’t matter how many or how few hours you’re ready to commit.
Until you think of what you’re doing as a business, you’re going to
spin your wheels.
Everything else can be learned. (There are a few people out there who will
tell you that entrepreneurship is some kind of special “inherited trait” held
by the chosen few. These people have what we like to call a reality problem.
We give you permission to ignore them.)
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4. By Copyblogger Media
This report and our 20-Step Road Map exist to give you a basic orientation
to building an e-learning business. For some, that’s all they need to move
forward and start creating something epic. Others will want more support
and direction, which is where the complete Teaching Sells course comes in.
Either way, let’s get this thing started ...
Ever feel like you’re late to the party?
It’s easy to look around at all the success we can see — the big membership
sites with thousands of members, the multi-million dollar online businesses.
So much has happened in the online world that it’s easy to feel like we’ve
missed the bus.
But you haven’t missed out, and you aren’t too late. Not even close.
It’s still really early
Ten years from now (heck, probably two years from now) we’ll look back
and we won’t be able to believe how primitive the tools we use today are.
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The economy is doing a hard shift, there’s no doubt about it. After the
economic earthquake of 2008 (and all those aftershocks), millions of people
are still figuring out what it means for them.
Companies look different. Employment looks different. Recreation looks
different. Relationships look different.
Travel looks different. Even health and wellness are undergoing major
revolution.
Everything right now is new and changing.
Which, as you may have noticed, is exhausting. And creates stress.
And that creates interesting problems you can start solving for customers
— no matter what your area of expertise.
The boom — for people like us
— doesn’t end until things stop
changing
How long do you think it will take for the world to quit shifting radically
under our feet?
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10 years? 20 years? Maybe more?
As long as we’re in this world of profound instability, we can help others by
teaching them how to navigate that change and come out on top.
Our customers are learners — and they don’t need stale authorities who
mastered what was needed in the last century. They need the true experts
who can teach them what they need to know today.
That is why teaching is the foundation of a great business
in the 21st century. Because this is the century of
never-ending learning.
There’s no doubt that these are “interesting times.” There’s a lot of stress
and worry. You’ve probably got some of that in your own life.
But there’s also tremendous opportunity — and especially, opportunity to do
great things by helping other people out. You can’t beat that.v
So don’t worry at all that it’s “too late.” We’re riding the wave of:
»» Business based on helping people, rather than mindless
consumerism
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»» An explosion in online education
»» Small, super-nimble companies — that are often made of just one or
two people
»» Extreme social anxiety about change
»» Astonishingly powerful communication technology that keeps getting
better, and cheaper
»» Growing suspicion of traditional learning venues like universities
It’s like the entire world economy has lined up to make a really amazing
business for you. (How cool is that?)
So step up. Maybe you’ll join us with Teaching Sells, or maybe you’ll just
incorporate some of these ideas into the business you have today.
We don’t care if you do it part-time or full-time. We just want you
to do it.
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Make a More Progress by Working
Smarter, not Harder
Do you ever have days when you’re too exhausted to figure out what you
want for dinner?
You don’t get to that point because you’re training for a marathon or
spending all day at the gym. You get there by making too many decisions
— overtaxing your decision-making “muscle.”
If you’re creating an online business, the odds are you’re
making it harder on yourself than it has to be.
There’s all kinds of amazing research being done about willpower and the
physical limitations of your brain.
And one of the most exhausting things you can do is to make decisions.
If you’re constantly reinventing the wheel, you’re going to get tired
And when your brain gets tired, there’s no amount of willpower or
“toughing it out” that you’ll be able to manage. Your poor brain literally
doesn’t have enough fuel to keep making those decisions — so you’ll do
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what’s easy, or what you’ve always done in the past … or you’ll just do
nothing.
If you’re going to build a business (online or offline, for that matter), you
need to start working smarter rather than always harder. You need to
cultivate some habits of simplification, so you can conserve your energy for
the most important decisions.
The danger of reinventing the wheel
Do you know this story?
Back when NASA started launching manned spacecraft in the 1960s, they
found out that the astronauts couldn’t use pens to write with while in space.
The ink wouldn’t flow down through the pen in a zero-gravity environment.
NASA decided to retain a man named Paul Fisher to design a pen that would
work in space.
$1.5 million later, they had a solution. NASA now had a pen that worked in
zero gravity, in a vacuum, and in a drastic temperature range.
The Russian cosmonauts had the same problem, of course. So they used a
pencil.
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(Note: this anecdote isn’t historically accurate, and has become a bit of
an urban legend, particularly after appearing on the popular show “West
Wing.” The truth is both the US and Russia used pencils at first, and Paul
Fisher independently created the pen and sold 400 of them to NASA for a
song. But the story’s still a good one, and it’s instructive.)
The reason the exaggerated story is so widely embraced is because it rings
true.
All of us have done it — put out huge amounts of time and effort creating
elaborate solutions to problems when a simple answer is right under our
noses.
So the central question for a business owner becomes:
How can we stop overcomplicating when we could be
executing?
Here are some of the techniques we use at Copyblogger Media to get
valuable, successful products out the door, year after year.
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11. By Copyblogger Media
1. Use a proven framework
In our story about the space pen, the right answer was “use something that
already works today.”
Now, this gets tricky because business today looks very different than it
did even 10 years ago. Just like our rival space programs, we’re solving
problems in a new context, which means we’re going to have to do a little
bit of trailblazing.
But whatever kind of business you’re building today, someone out there has
successfully done something you can learn from. Without directly copying,
you can use their success as a rough framework for what you want to
create.
We’re going to talk later this week about why online education is the
smartest foundation for a business today. (And at Copyblogger Media, we’re
confident that this is going to continue to be true for many, many years.)
And the truth is, one of the more flexible, proven frameworks around for
online education is the one we’ve developed at Copyblogger.
From the early days until today, when we want to build something new, we
use a framework. We call it our “road map,” and it outlines the steps we
need to take to launch a new product or service.
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Using a solid framework removes a lot of unnecessary
decision-making.
You’ll still be making key decisions, of course. But it’s much easier to
decide, “OK, what copywriting angle will we use for our launch” rather than,
“Uh, what do I do next?”
2. Beware of shortcuts
One of Sonia’s favorite business sayings is,
Don’t take shortcuts, they take too long.
Because business is complicated, there are all kinds of people who want to
sell you “Surefire 30-Day Money-Getting Systems.”
They’ve tried to figure out every single step for you, so you can simply fill
in the blanks.
Which is a nice idea … but it’s going to cost you time, not save you time.
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13. By Copyblogger Media
That’s because every business is unique. You’re working with a unique
combination of what you can contribute, what market you most appeal to,
technical abilities, external realities like the economy or the SEO landscape,
content creation skills, time, place, and topic.
No one can give you a step-by-step “system” for taking all of those highly
individual elements and putting them together into a business.
Shortcuts tend to work for a brief time (if at all), eventually sending you
back to square one where you have to start all over again.
And unfortunately, those “foolproof systems” are often what worked for that
marketer in the past. Once they’ve squeezed all the value out of it, they sell
it to you.
What worked then may not work at all now — and it may be worse than
useless tomorrow.
Choose a flexible framework, not a rigid system. If you feel
like you don’t have time to do it right, remember that you
definitely don’t have time to do it over.
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3. Ready, Fire, Aim
We don’t want you to get seduced by silly shortcuts.
But we also don’t want you to put out content on your blog and in social
media for year after year before you dare to ask for any money.
While you’re doing that, a nimble, smart entrepreneur is snapping up your
topic and making a nice living.
Once you have your framework in place — your road map that tells you
where you’re going and the key milestones on the path — you’re ready to
start conducting some small experiments.
At Copyblogger, we’ve been big fans of the “Minimum Viable Product” model
since long before Eric Ries wrote his great book on The Lean Startup.
A Minimum Viable Product (or MVP) is the smallest product you can release
that still serves a vital need for your customer.
It can be challenging to find the courage to send a product out there that
you know isn’t perfect. (We have a whole module on addressing those
challenges, and we also help students out with that in our live group
coaching sessions.)
But the truth is, you don’t know what’s perfect for your
customers. Only your customers know that.
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Being brave enough to fire off your MVP — and then over time making it
absolutely perfect for your individual audience — is the smartest way to
both bring in revenue quickly and make the kind of remarkable product that
21st-century audiences demand.
Just remember to keep an eye on your framework. That’s what keeps the
MVP model from devolving into “wandering around in the dark.”
The Best Way to Make Money with
Content is Simple
If you’re blogging or otherwise creating content online in the hopes of
making money, there’s a good chance you’re following a fairly complicated
and time-consuming strategy. You’ve got to publish every day and attract
lots of links, so that after a year or so, the Google Gods will bless you with
plenty of long-tail search results that will bring you traffic.
Once that happens, you’ll have to keep blogging for another year, and hope
to build page views, so you can make money with AdSense or some other
form of advertising. The money is pretty meager, but if you work hard,
maybe one day it will add up to enough — if you just keep at it and never
ever quit producing more and more free content.
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Or you could simply create content once and sell it over and over.
If you think this isn’t pragmatic, you’re in for a shock. Tell me the niche
you’re publishing in now, and I’ll show you someone who is selling the same
basic content and likely making more money than you.
How simple is that?
That’s the simple solution to making money with content that has been
around for centuries, and it’s still going strong.
If you want to make money with content, charge for it.
But you might have noticed that not all premium content is created equal.
The most successful content-based businesses today are education
businesses.
Sometimes education is what you sell.
Sometimes education helps what you sell work better.
Sometimes you give all of the education away for free, but you profit from
the tools your customers use to put the education into practice.
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As it happens, we offer ten different business models in Teaching Sells. And
students have combined and re-combined those in countless different ways.
You’re in the business of transforming your customers into
the people they want to become.
And unless you sell an IronMan-style robot suit, that transformation comes
in part by changing their thinking.
It comes from education.
Audiences are readier than ever to pay for online education
Online education was a really good business model in 2007, when Teaching
Sells was launched.
It’s an amazing business model in 2012.
Learning online gives people the results they want (in Teaching Sells we call
these the “benefits of knowledge”). In the way they want it. On their own
terms, when and where they find it convenient.
Millions of people all over the world are turning to online education to make
the transformations they want to make.
And smart, small-scale entrepreneurs (like you) are ready to serve them. Is
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Is Blogging Dead?
No, of course not. It’s just getting started.
But a lot of bloggers get it backwards. They think of the blog as their “main
thing,” then try to monetize it.
Instead, turn your perspective around. You run a business — and your blog
supports that business.
One of the best ways to use your blog is as an attraction strategy, a
way to find new potential customers. That means that “monetizing” with
advertising may not be the right revenue model for your business. And of
course the idea that selling advertising is a simple automated process is a
crock perpetuated by Google AdSense.
If you’re not making loads of money with AdSense, but you’ve got tons
of page views, you’ll need someone actively selling your space in a very
competitive marketplace.
Remember: to make money online, you’re always selling something — even
if it’s just space on the page.
I want to tell you about a hard lesson I learned back when I started
publishing online in the late 1990s. Back then, the most prominent strategy
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for making money with free content was email publishing. I was fascinated
by email publications that offered everything from tech tips to simple
daily jokes, and yet made hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising
revenue (or so it seemed).
Boy, did I learn a thing or two from that.
The Lesson I Learned About
Advertising-Supported Content
The ezines I created had solid content — they got glowing reviews in other
ezines, in newspapers, and in magazines like Entertainment Weekly.
What they didn’t do was make a lot of money.
I had come to the ezine game a little late. It was actually a lot like blogging
for ad dollars is today — it takes a huge investment of time and effort to
earn money from free content and advertising. I realized that to make
money from advertising, I was going to have to learn how to attract
sponsors, rather than wait for people to beat down my door.
Then, the bottom fell out.
When the dot-com fiasco imploded in the spring of 2000, the online
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advertising market all but disappeared, especially for small independent
publishers. Somewhat despondent, I took comfort in the fact that I had
been supporting myself the whole time both as a lawyer and a marketing
consultant with very little promotional effort. I had been simply using ezine
publishing strategies to promote my services, and this had easily made me
more money than advertising ever had.
I shifted gears and started using content to market other virtual service
companies in 2001. I built a company that had no employees, no true
physical presence, and no offline advertising into a multi-million dollar
selling machine.
The money was good, but management of even independent contractors in
the offline world was a pain, so I also worked on creating my own products
to sell online.
Now, these were not your typical ebooks telling people how to sell ebooks
or other Internet marketing stuff. My model was to partner with people who
had the right credentials, collaborate on information products (usually with
a business-to-business or health and wellness focus), and then I sold them
online using every strategy I had learned over the years.
In 2005, I got out of my offline businesses completely and went totally
online.
Although I started Copyblogger in January of 2006 and at one point it made
money from sponsorships, I now bring in the bulk of my income from
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selling content through various web properties, and using content to market
related products such as software.
And business is getting better, not worse.
Forget About Blogging for Bucks and
Make Some Real Money
Copyblogger has allowed me to raise my profile to the extent that I have a
wide choice of partners to collaborate with on profitable projects. It’s what
attracted the platinum group of business owners that came together to
form Copyblogger Media.
Most of what I do these days is behind the scenes — I produce web projects
and let other people be the stars.
It’s worked out well economically.
But I’m not the type to wave big checks in the air or flaunt my income. It’s
not my style.
I will say that my blog is one of the most popular in the world, and yet the
revenue it once brought in from advertising is laughable compared to what
I make from my other online projects.
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In fact, in the past several years I’ve found that sponsorship revenue or
other advertising just couldn’t compete with the blog’s ability to promote
my own businesses. That’s why we don’t currently run any outside
advertising on Copyblogger at all.
So, blogging can be vitally important, but most likely it will open doors for
you that lead to revenue or help you promote things you are selling, as
opposed to generating a ton of money from advertising. On the flip side,
many of my projects involve no blogging at all (although I’m always using
blog software), and only small amounts of free content for promotional
purposes.
I’ll talk about that more in a bit. But first, let’s talk about the myth that all
content on the web “wants to be free.” We can do that by going back to an
earlier technology that faced some of the same challenges we do.
Did Free TV Kill the Film Industry?
Back in the 1940s, the film industry in the United States was very different
from what it is today. The major studios employed permanent staffs of
writers, production planners, set builders, and captive stars, and cranked
out huge amounts of assembly-line formula films — often up to 30 a year
per studio.
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A lot of the content was pretty bad, but it was the only game in town.
Then, two bad things happened to the film industry. First, the US Supreme
Court forced the studios to give up their ownership of movie theaters due to
the monopolistic stranglehold that resulted on film distribution.
The second bad thing was a new-fangled invention called television.
Now, the content on television wasn’t any better than the formulaic garbage
served up by the film studios, but it was free. Everyone wailed and gnashed
teeth and predicted the demise of the film industry.
You might see a few parallels with today already.
But as you know, that didn’t happen, because the studios changed course.
They abandoned the in-house assembly-line production techniques and
adopted the current method of putting together teams of independent
talent on a project-by-project basis.
This move to customized production resulted in the beginning of the
“blockbuster” approach to filmmaking, which in turn empowered
independent filmmaking. The goal was to create a movie-going experience
rather than regularly- scheduled schlock.
Television was free, but it wasn’t until the late 70s that the content became
anything remarkable.
And as we know, free network television has reverted back to mostly
lame and treated like a second cousin, thanks to cable and award-winning
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content from premium channels like HBO.
That’s right ... not only did free television NOT destroy the film industry, it
managed to be subverted by paid television. While film and television may
face other unique challenges in the digital age, one shouldn’t make the
mistake of believing that “free” is a new or permanent position.
People who don’t learn from history are often doomed to miss out on the
next big thing.
People Will Pay for Information that
has a Higher Perceived Value
A lot of niche information on the web is a lot like free network television
— it’s of poor quality, dubious accuracy, and riddled with interruptive
advertising. Despite the few success stories, social media is filled with too
many blogs that do nothing but regurgitate news and offer unqualified
opinions that no one really cares about.
Unfortunately, it’s this bunch of noise that people find when they use search
engines. And the good stuff out there is usually not comprehensive or well
organized, and regular people don’t want to do in-depth research to learn.
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They want to learn from a trusted teacher.
This presents an opportunity for those who recognize that everything
moves in cycles, and that there will always be room for quality paid learning
experiences and community amongst the sea of noise. As we’ll see in just
a bit, there are vast opportunities in raising the perceived value and the
actual value of information by simply putting it in a more learner-friendly
format.
In other words, creating something of value that people will pay for is not
that hard if you understand what people actually value and respond to.
Let’s look a little bit closer at that issue, because it’s one of the golden keys
to success when it comes to making good money online.
You’re Not Normal, and That’s
(Mostly) Good
It’s true. Statistically, you’re not normal. (Congratulations.)
If you’re currently blogging, publishing or marketing online, you have
already begun to develop some of the most important skills for success in
the 21st Century. If you’re active in social media, you’re learning skills you
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can use for a lot more than telling people what your cat had for dinner.
You already know there’s a huge shift going on thanks to globalization
and the growth of the Internet. Any work that can be outsourced is on the
chopping block, with more jobs going overseas every day.
But people like you, who can create and express ideas online, will be at the
top end of the economic spectrum.
I’d even go so far as to say if you’re only just now seriously looking into
publishing online content, you’re way ahead of 97% of the population.
But those of you who have gotten started actually publishing online are
truly not normal — because you’ve taken action. Most people will tell
you they want to be entrepreneurs, make money from home, and free
themselves from working for the benefit of their boss.
But unfortunately, “telling” you or “thinking about it” is as far as most
people go.
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Most People Never Take that First
Step
Most people never take the necessary action to make their dreams come
true, even though it’s usually just a matter of showing up and getting
started. If you’ve taken that first big step, congratulations.
Although it may not always seem like it, simply getting started is the main
thing that keeps people from achieving their goals. As long as you keep
going and realize that everything that goes wrong is making you better,
smarter, and stronger, you can’t lose.
On the other hand, another way in which you’re not normal may be holding
you back.
You are likely way above average when it comes to navigating the Internet.
You likely understand it better, understand how to use it, and are generally
good at finding what you need online.
Most people are not like you at all. In fact, the average person is far less
sophisticated when it comes to navigating online than you might imagine.
You might think no one will buy “X” because you wouldn’t, but that’s the
wrong way to look at it.
The average user still finds the Internet baffling beyond email and basic
search. And they often find what they find baffling as well.
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Understand that and you’ll realize that you can offer quality learning
environments that people are happy to pay for. What you might be able to
piece together on your own from freely available information, they can’t
and they won’t.
And that’s an opportunity.
There’s one last way you’re likely not normal. And with this one, you’re
definitely going to have to get over it if you really want to become a player
in the next phase of the Internet.
You’re not normal because you like to read. Guess what? Most people don’t.
Take a look at these sad facts. These come from a study held a few years
ago — the sad truth is, they’ve probably only gotten worse.
»» 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high
school.
»» 42% of college graduates never read another book.
»» 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
»» 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
»» 57% of new books are not read to completion.
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Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
And yet ... there’s a book that’s been written on just about any topic you
can think of.
What if all that knowledge could be delivered in a format that more people
could actually get something out of, and that they happily pay you for?
People who don’t like to read still want to learn. In fact, they will be
required to learn continuously to survive and thrive in the 21st century.
That’s where you come in, and that’s another big opportunity. They’re called
virtual learning environments, and there’s a lot of money to be made with
them.
Becoming a pioneering early-adopter doesn’t require the vision of a Steve
Jobs. It doesn’t require some kind of special genius. It’s simply a matter of
looking at the world around you and taking action — action that helps other
people.
You already have everything it takes. You just need to get started.
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Teach and Grow Rich
We are currently living in a state of accelerated change that is increasing
in speed each year (if not each month). This environment demands what’s
been coined as continuous learning, an adaptive trait that has very little to
do with what you know, and more to do with how fast you can continue to
learn new things.
Continuous learning requires continuous teaching. That means that one of
the most rock-solid businesses you can get into is developing interactive
learning environments — starting right now.
And it’s just not business, trade, and financial issues, either (which are
gigantic markets). Think about the demand for personal development
training in creativity, productivity, critical thinking, communications, and
advanced interpersonal skills. This type of training will be as important
as substantive and technical information when it comes to being an
economically productive person.
Add in hobbies, health and wellness, spirituality, coping skills, technology
tutorials, parenting issues, and a whole host of things that are right around
the corner that we haven’t yet imagined, and you start to realize how big
this is.
In short, there’s a mind-boggling number of niches and angles to work,
should you be so inclined to play an influential role in the inevitable future.
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Creative Adaptation is the 21st
Century Goldmine
If you’re a coach or consultant, you already have subject matter expertise
that can be converted into an interactive learning environment that allows
you to work with more people, earn more money, and spend less time doing
it. But even if that’s not the case for you, one of the most amazing aspects
of this opportunity is the ability to creatively adapt existing textual content
into a more learner-friendly format and environment.
Let me give you just one example off the top of my head.
Let’s say you’re a big fan of productivity books. Now the thing about
productivity books is, the advice is very compelling, but readers forget it
two minutes after they set the book down.
There are better ways to get the core information into your customers’
heads.
You could create a course that acts as a synthesis of the very best ideas
and techniques from all the top productivity gurus. You can fully give credit
to the source material, because you’re adding value by editing, organizing,
and reformatting the content for better learner comprehension, retention,
and use.
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Think about a teacher in the classroom. He or she doesn’t write the
textbook (at least not usually). He teaches the concepts contained in the
textbook according to a curriculum he designs and implements, with the aid
of audio / visual teaching aids, testing and classroom interaction.
That’s what you’re trying to simulate in a virtual learning environment. It
works for the benefit of the learners, and that’s why it’s well worth paying
for.
Teaching Sells
I’ll say it again ... There’s never been a better time in history to be a person
who can clearly communicate ideas.
The Internet will be the primary delivery medium for all distance learning
and training efforts, and will play a part in most local teaching.
You want to create a community of learning. Do that right, successfully
market it, and you’ll never worry about figuring out how to “make money
online” again.
Here are 10 things you’ll need to know to succeed in this next wave of the
commercial Internet:
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»» How to target a vast audience with a niche angle
»» How to have a unique, entertaining approach to content
development
»» How to choose the right medium for the right content for effective
learning
»» How to create content that sells itself
»» How to effectively leverage the audiences of others with win-win
proposals
»» How to develop multi-format content with free and inexpensive tools
»» How to build airtight paid membership websites
»» How to choose the best business model for your topic and goals
»» How to increase profits with advanced training and a la carte sales
»» How to further leverage your skills as a highly-paid consultant
It’s a fast-paced arena, especially when it comes to the amazing new tools
that allow non-technical people to produce dazzling content.
Teaching Sells is a training program that reveals how to do all of the above
and more. My business partners are content marketer Sonia Simone and
software developer and illustrator Tony Clark. We’ve built a
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34. By Copyblogger Media
number of interactive learning memberships sites ourselves — businesses
that aren’t just profitable, but highly satisfying. And at this point, we’ve
taught hundreds of others how to do the same.
Stated a different way, this is what we’re doing right now to make money —
now and into the future.
Which brings up the obvious question — if this stuff is so powerful, why are
we willing to teach it to others, at any price?
That’s an excellent question, because that’s how a lot of Internet marketing
“training” happens ... the gurus who actually make money in other niches
will often only share information when the tactics and strategies are losing
effectiveness.
That’s not the case here. What this is about is you getting a jump on the
future while making money right out of the gate.
We’re willing to teach our own techniques and strategies for these 3
reasons:
1. The number of possible topics that can be developed here is so huge
that it’s doubtful we’ll ever lose out in a competitive situation with
one of our students.
2. Providing training for continuous learning is also so huge that there’s
money to be made in sharing and teaching the way to do it, and
Tony, Sonia and I feel that we’re highly qualified to be the ones
teaching. When we first started talking four years ago, we realized
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we’ve been on almost identical paths for the previous 10 years when
it comes to using educational marketing and training strategies in
our businesses.
3. The Copyblogger Media team have already come up with so many
ideas of our own, we can’t possibly do all of them ourselves. So, it’s
likely we’ll be recruiting business partners and associates from the
ranks of our members (in fact, that’s already happened three times
already). There are simply not enough people around who know
what we need them to know right now, so it makes sense to put
people in a position to partner with us.
Frankly, number 3 makes this all worthwhile to us. Like I said, there’s
certainly money to be made teaching people to build, run, and market
virtual learning environments. But the money to be made in all the potential
consumer and business-to-business areas (starting now and into the future)
is gigantic.
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What Now?
Now, you’re at something of a crossroads.
You may choose to jump into e-learning on your own -- creating a business
that’s valuable because of the value you create for other people.
You’ve got lots of free content from this launch that will help you do that.
(Be sure you refer to the 20-Step Road Map, it will keep you from going off
the rails and make sure you stay focused on your business goals.)
Or you may decide you want some help.
You may want a step-by-step course that walks you through the specifics
of defining your market and topic, building out your curriculum, creating a
site, and crafting a powerful marketing platform, rather than struggling with
all of that on your own.
You may want coaching and QA sessions to get you out of the inevitable
stuck spots. (Every entrepreneur faces these, and you’ll want to have a
plan for how to deal with them.)
You may want a community of peers to bounce ideas off of, to form
partnerships with, and to shed some new light on your thinking when
you’ve come to an impasse.
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If those would be helpful to you, Teaching Sells might be the right vehicle
to help you see what the next level looks like. We’d be honored to have you
with us.
(Stay tuned this week as we wrap up the launch and welcome our newest
group of students. If you can join us on Monday for the live webinar with
Chris Garrett and Sonia Simone, we’ll be giving you some more specifics
about how to build your e-learning business … and if this is the right time
for you, about how to join us inside Teaching Sells.)
Thanks for reading. And don’t forget that we’ve got a lot more free content
for you, so stay tuned.
Best Regards,
Brian Clark and Sonia Simone
Co-founders of Teaching Sells
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