The Truth About Making Money While You Sleep

Posted on 14. May, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of person sleeping in a hammock

Want to hear about the day in the life of a so-called “successful entrepreneur?”

Yesterday, I stayed in bed until about 2 PM. I watched the last few episodes of Mad Men. Around sunset, I took a leisurely stroll down the beach. When I got back, I hung out with a friend for a couple of hours, ate dinner, and went to bed.

In other words … I goofed off.

And while I was goofing off, my business generated a pretty decent chunk of revenue.

You want to know the coolest part?

I did absolutely nothing to “earn” it.

I didn’t check my email. I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone. I didn’t write anything.

If I wanted to, I could do the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and it would keep on trucking all by itself. Parts of my business are so automated I could actually die, and it would be months before anyone noticed.

You might think, “That’s not right. Nobody should be able to goof off and get paid for it.”

But you know what?

I’m totally unashamed. Here’s why:

I worked my ass off to get here

For the past three years, I’ve worked at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for stretches of around six months without taking a single day off.

For the vast majority of that work, I wasn’t paid a dime. Rather, I was building a machine capable of running on its own.

That’s what truly successful entrepreneurs do:

We build money machines.

We take our expertise and transform it into systems that run without us. Sometimes that means hiring employees, but in my opinion, the best system to put in place is something infinitely cheaper, easier to manage, and simpler to create right now.

(Ready? I’m going to lay my super ninja, “make the internet your ATM” breakthrough secret weapon on you.)

The best “money machine” you can build is content.

Why is content King?

Well, we could argue about whether it really is King or not, but most of the marketing world is coming to understand that content is important … maybe even indispensable.

Why?

Well, think about this:

These days, some of the highest paid people in the world are the copywriters who craft the “junk” you receive in the mail. The best ones charge a minimum of $100,000 to create a single direct mail piece.

Obviously, there’s a lot of research and thinking and smarts involved, but here’s what’s funny:

A beginning copywriter will compile demographic data, conduct focus groups, dutifully collect the official line on what the product’s USP is supposed to be — you know, all the normal marketing tomfoolery.

An experienced copywriter, on the other hand, often finds the best salesperson in the company, hands them a tape recorder, and says, “Tape yourself doing your next 10 sales calls.”

From there, our crafty copywriter transcribes the sales calls, isolates the most persuasive elements, and organizes those into a letter. Then they mail the letter to 200,000 people.

It’s not necessarily less work. It’s smarter, more effective work.

Some would say they aren’t being “creative.”

Instead of reinventing the wheel, they’re taking a salesperson whose methods already work, distilling and cloning that salesperson 200,000 times, and instead of paying each of those clones a salary, they can be distributed in the mail for around a buck apiece.

The point? (And I do have one)

Your blog post isn’t just a blog post. Your podcast isn’t just a podcast. Your video isn’t just a video.

They’re components of a system.

If you’re not getting any results from it, it’s not the media’s fault. Blog posts and podcasts and videos and any other media can and will create sales …

… but only if the system wrapped inside the media is effective. If the system sucks, the result will suck, and the flashiest and most whizbang media in the world won’t save you.

So, the question becomes:

How do you create content that sells stuff?

Let’s talk about that next.

How to get paid to goof off

Sounds awfully nice, doesn’t it?

Well, here’s the “secret” formula:

  1. Find somebody who is good at selling stuff (maybe that’s you)
  2. Create content that duplicates what they do
  3. Distribute said content to as many people as possible
  4. Repeat the process until you have the desired level of income
  5. Go goof off (hooray!)

If you want to “make money while you sleep,” you’ve got to create the kind of content that does the work for you.

Really, that’s it. It’s the whole shebang.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. And I’d be lying to you if I said anyone can do it.

The fact is, most of the top marketers in the world have experience selling one-on-one. Look into their past, and you’ll find they were on a sales floor, going door to door, or on a telephone, talking directly to customers and convincing people to buy.

Most people are too squeamish to do that, and in my opinion, that’s the real reason why almost everyone fails at making money online. They try to create a piece of content that does the selling for them, but they have no idea how selling works, so they essentially end up cloning the worst salesperson in the world.

That’s not going to get you what you need. Your content is an extension of you, and if you suck, your content probably sucks too.

Does that mean you’re doomed if you hate to sell?

Fortunately, no.

Mainly because you probably don’t understand what selling is.

If you’re afraid of selling, you probably have visions of pushy car salesmen chasing old ladies through the dealership parking lot, willing to say or do anything to make the sale.

And it makes you nauseous. You would rather change careers than become somebody like that.

But here’s the good news:

Good salespeople are not pushy. Good salespeople will never lie to the customer. Good salespeople usually aren’t even called salespeople. You give them your money in exchange for something you want, never even realizing you participated in a sales process.

That’s what you need to learn how to do.

If you’re still terrified, the other method is to study master salespeople and marketers and try to model what they do. In other words, build a swipe file.

The only problem is, you don’t know exactly what to model. In the beginning, you duplicate elements that don’t matter, and you ignore elements that are essential. It’s only after years of trial and error that you finally get the hang of it and do it right.

This method of learning selling does work. Just be prepared to starve for a few years as a penalty for being a scaredy-cat. :-)

Either way though, there’s good news:

You don’t have to work until the day you die

Unless you want to, of course. Some entrepreneurs would have it no other way, and I respect that.

Also, it’s important to realize sometimes you don’t have a choice about when you quit.

As I’ve written about before, I have a (supposedly) fatal disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and every year, I lose a little bit more strength. While I’m fairly productive now, science says I’ll eventually lose the ability to move everything but my eyes. Which isn’t the end of the world, but it will slow me down.

Honestly though?

I’m not worried.

Already, my business makes more than enough money to take care of me, and every day I work to make it less and less dependent on me. One day, I might be forced to step away, or I might not, but really, that’s not the point.

The point is peace of mind.

Because of my business, I can afford the best medical care anywhere in the world. Because of my business, my family will be taken care of, regardless of what happens to me. Because of my business, I can scale beyond helping just one or two people at a time and help millions.

Strategic content is what lets me do all that.

And goofing off?

That’s an added bonus. Living is one thing, but enjoying your life is quite another, and nothing is quite so empowering as getting up every morning and knowing you can do whatever you want, not just because you’re the boss, but because your business goes on running without you.

So, learn how to sell effectively.

Clone yourself by creating lots of awesome content.

Distribute that content far and wide.

And then goof off, if you want to. Life is short, my friends, and I don’t know about you, but I intend to savor every last moment of it.

About the Author: In addition to serving as Associate Editor of Copyblogger, Jon Morrow is on a mission to help good writers get traffic they deserve. If you’re one of them, check out his blog about (surprise!) blogging.

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7 Timeless Business Lessons You Can Learn from Hollywood Screenplays

Posted on 04. May, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Copywriting, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of hollywood boulevard street sign

I love movies. In fact, movies are what led me into copywriting and eventually to building a successful software company.

Better explain that one, huh?

Back in 1997 when I bolted from the big law firm and moved down to Austin, my plan was to become a screenwriter. Feast or famine, damn the consequences, starving artist type stuff.

Well, instead of writing screenplays, I got caught up in the Web 1.0 boom, and read a lot of books about the film industry in my downtime.

Turns out, being a screenwriter in Hollywood ranks somewhere below “best boy” and “key grip” when it comes to actual influence. Not exactly inspiring.

The only way to have true influence in the film world as a writer is if you are also the director and/or producer. That fact made me realize that I am really an entrepreneur, not a pure writer.

And being an entrepreneur is so much like being a Hollywood writer / director / producer, except you operate in the real world. But often the writing part gets neglected, and that ultimately hurts the business.

I’m not only talking about writing in the content marketing sense. Anyone starting a business is primarily responsible for both the big story and the day-to-day tales, in one way or another. Online, that responsibility is amplified by the benefits that great storytellers enjoy in the social media environment.

Odds are you’re the writer / director / producer of your own business. So here are a few concepts and tips on how to the nail the story — while you’re also directing and producing a profitable business.

I’ve based this loosely on Alex Epstein’s Crafty Screenwriting, and I offer links to a few screenwriting classics down below.

1. Hook

This is the element of a movie and a business that makes it unique. Your USP, your elevator pitch, your remarkable benefit. Without this, the odds for success go way down. Your audience must have a compelling reason to do business with you.

2. Plot

Plot is where the meat of the story takes place. In business, this is where you live your big story. Without a cohesive plot, the movie is a mess, and that’s true for any business as well, online or off.

3. Characters

In these days of the micro-business, you’re definitely the bankable star that needs to carry the flick, but the people you employ and contract with are also characters in your business story. Cast them well.

4. Action

In film, action is what characters do, while dialogue is what they say. In business (especially online), actions speak louder than words when it comes to how you treat your customers and clients. But action in business is more than that — you’ve got to actually implement those big ideas of yours, rather than waiting for someday to come along.

5. Dialogue

While action is key, the dialogue can make or break a film or a business. Thanks to social media, we can now speak and listen to our customers and prospects. Start a real dialogue, listen and respond well, and these “outsiders” become star characters in your story, too.

6. Genre

In film, genre refers to the general audience classification a particular movie falls into. In business this is comparable to your niche. If a film speaks to the wrong genre, it can fail spectacularly. It’s the same in business if you have a great product but you’re speaking to the wrong audience.

7. Rewrite

The magic in any script (and therefore any movie) is not in the first draft, but in the editing. While in business it can be bad to constantly change directions, it’s often the case that your initial story will need tweaking, based both on feedback and changing circumstances. And sometimes, you’ll need to do a total rewrite to stay competitive. The key to that challenging task is to stay ahead of the curve, and proactively modify your story rather than reactively trying to change course to save the ship.

Creating a winning business and writing a winning screenplay are oddly similar tasks. And if you want to learn how to tell better stories and write better copy, you could benefit from learning the craft of screenwriting and applying it to your business and marketing efforts.

If you’re interested in telling great stories, check out these classic screenwriting books:

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee.

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field.

So here’s to you and your winning business story …

Editor’s Note: This is a Copyblogger Classic post, originally published in September, 2006. We’ll be republishing classic content from the archives from time to time, updated — as this post has been — to be sure the advice is as relevant as ever.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger, CEO of Copyblogger Media, and Editor-in-Chief of Entreproducer. Get more from Brian on Google+.

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How the Explosion in Online Education can Revolutionize Your Business

Posted on 03. May, 2012 by in Blog, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of keyboard with *learn* key

Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley are doing it.

Companies, both big and small, are doing it.

Solopreneurs are doing it.

And bloggers have been doing it … they just haven’t been making any money at it.

It’s a trend that Copyblogger saw coming … in fact, Brian built a course to teach it way back in 2007. (And he built a number of successful businesses on the same principles before that.)

“It” is online education — and it’s gone from being an interesting sideline to a major social and economic trend.

This trend’s going to be around a little longer than planking or Pinterest. Because there are some very solid factors underlying the shift to online education … and they’re only getting stronger.

Online education is at a tipping point. And that’s awesome news if you’re a Copyblogger reader. Let’s talk about why.

Online education is now a juggernaut; more than 6.1 million current college students took a Web-based course in fall 2010. Nearly a third of students have taken one during their college careers. ~ Boston Globe

Traditional education is in trouble

Smart writers like Michael Ellsberg and Josh Kaufman have been pointing to a shift in how universities are serving students.

The traditional model of “get a degree and land a sweet job” just isn’t working any more, at least in most professions. I’m still a big fan of universities — but we have to face the fact that they’re quickly becoming a pricy luxury.

Students are looking for other ways to learn what they need to learn — without the six-figure price tag.

“Normal” people live online now

Is your mom on Facebook? Mine is. And the weirdest thing about it is … it’s nice. It lets me keep up with what she’s doing, and share the exploits of my charming hooligan six-year-old.

I first got online in 1989. But the internet doesn’t belong to weirdo early adopters like me any more. The internet, assisted by the smart phone, is woven into our lives like it never has been.

That means that normal people — not just web junkies like you and me — are willing to consider online activities that never would have occurred to them before.

It means they look at online education and think, “Hm, I would do that.”

The world is changing faster than traditional education can evolve

Almost every aspect of our lives is changing. Business, socializing, church, family life.

All that change is coming faster than we can handle. We all need help with some aspect of the change that’s swirling around us.

Which means if you can master some element of the changing world, and stay on top of it, you can help customers do the same.

Great businesses are built by solving tough problems. And mastering change is one of the toughest problems we all face … every day, and in every aspect of our lives.

Traditional education has a tough time with this. If you want to study ancient Greek, you should be set. (And more power to you, because I think that is cool.)

But if you want to study technology, nutrition and fitness, marketing, communications, or any of the other myriad ways people make a living, you need the latest information.

Online learners are … well, learning

None of this would matter if online education didn’t work as well as face-to-face learning.

But it appears to actually work better.

In a 2009 report based on 50 independent studies, the U.S. Department of Education found that students who studied in online learning environments performed modestly better than peers who were receiving face-to-face instruction. ~ Mashable

Online learning allows students to go at the pace that’s right for them. When online education is well designed, it gives plenty of opportunity to not only absorb the theories in the material, but to discuss it meaningfully and put it into practice.

Students can replay “lectures” if they need to. They can interact with other students online in ways that far surpass traditional classroom discussion.

Even something as simple as being able to “attend class” when you’re at your most refreshed can make a huge difference. (I am pretty convinced that I learned exactly nothing from the few 8:00 a.m. college classes I attended.)

So is there still room for the small entrepreneur?

The rise of the “big guns” in online education is actually awesome news for the small (or micro) business wanting to get into an education-based model.

The big players are showing more and more people every day that online education is real education.

That we don’t have to shuffle into a physical room with an instructor physically present to learn.

That we can take the very best education and make it widely available, instead of limiting it to a few hundred people at a time.

That we can learn at our own pace, on our own time, when and where it’s convenient for us.

Harvard and Berkeley will continue to do a brilliant job teaching law and microbiology.

But you may very well be able to do an even more brilliant job teaching small business tax planning or vegan sports nutrition.

Or pet-sitting. Or crochet. Or how to get a novel published.

Where to go if you need some help with that

You might remember that I mentioned that Brian Clark taught a course around this very idea, back in 2007.

That’s Teaching Sells — a comprehensive course in how to build an online education business. It takes your passion for creating smart, interesting, useful content, and wraps it into a business model. (Actually, there are 10 business models in the course, but who’s counting?)

You can learn a little more about what Teaching Sells is (and isn’t) here: What is Teaching Sells?

And if you’d like to learn a lot more (as well as get tons of free advice about how you can start taking advantage of the online education trend), sign up for the Teaching Sells email list.

We’ll send you articles, special reports, an invitation to a live webinar … and of course, we’ll let you know more about how to join us inside Teaching Sells, if that feels like a good fit for you.

Catch you there …

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media, and a co-creator of Teaching Sells. Get more from Sonia on twitter @soniasimone

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Case Study: How Digital Photography School Became a Multimillion Dollar Online Business

Posted on 14. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, Entrepreneurship, Featured, persuasion, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of Entreproducer thumbnail

People in the blogging and online marketing world know Darren Rowse from Problogger.

Many, however, don’t realize that Problogger is an industry sideline where Darren shares what he learns from his primary business, which is the multimillion dollar web venture Digital Photography School.

DPS has 500,000 subscribers, and 5,000,000 monthly site visitors. But Darren started many years ago at the same place we all do — zero. (Problogger, which is still a much smaller site, came after, not before, DPS.)

Robert Bruce interviews Darren about the start, evolution, and future of this amazing content-based business that started with a simple passion for photography. In this concise 26:49 minute audio case study, you’ll discover:

  • How Darren built a massive, responsive audience from scratch
  • How to start producing content when you don’t have all the answers
  • A short lesson on the value of great headlines
  • Why creating content acts as a powerful product development lab
  • How he adapted his content plan to grow his audience even more
  • How Darren’s early revenue model looked
  • How his revenue model has evolved into a product model
  • Why traditional book deals are a distraction to his business goals
  • How to build and sell your first product online

You’ll get instant access to this case study, and much more, when you subscribe to my free multimedia newsletter — Entreproducer.

Also get instant access to all of this …

5 Ways a Minimum Viable Audience Helps You Create a Successful Startup

How do “lean startup” principles apply to digital media entrepreneurs? In more ways than you think, if you start first with a minimum viable audience, rather than a product.

3 Reasons Why Online Advertising is the Worst Model for Your Startup

When people think about starting a business based on online content, they naturally think of making money with advertising. Truth is, that’s harder than it sounds, and could be the least profitable approach you can take.

How to Build Profitable Hyperlocal Websites

Everyone is excited about hyperlocal (online content related to a very limited geographic area, such as a town, neighborhood, or even a single zip code within a city), but no one seems to be making any money from it. Here’s how to make hyperlocal profitable.

Three Ways to Fund Your Online Startup Without Investors

Content creators and online entrepreneurs often begin their journey trying to figure out how to get money. Not from customers, but from investors. Is this necessary? Not always. Here are three creative ways to fund your content-focuses business without giving up part of your company.

Video: Jason Calacanis on Pivots, Content Apps, and Independent Web Video

Serial content entrepreneur Jason Calacanis has traveled a long, winding, and successful road as a new media producer. Love him or not, Jason is one guy who’s hard to ignore, and digital media entrepreneurs would be foolish to do so.

Why the 21st Century Author is an Internet Entrepreneur

Can writing a successful book be treated like an Internet startup? Yes, because it’s not about “self-published,” it’s about being a publisher, or a digital media producer.

Get Free Instant Access Today

You’ll get instant access to all of the above, plus fresh weekly updates going forward, when you subscribe to Entreproducer. No worries … because there’s absolutely no charge.

See you over there?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger, CEO of Copyblogger Media, and Editor-in-Chief of Entreproducer.

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5 Harsh Realities of Making a Living Online

Posted on 05. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of winding desert road

Okay, show of hands.

Who else is sick and tired of so-called gurus telling you making money online is easy, and all you have to do is follow a few simple steps to become a millionaire?

You know it’s not that easy.

You aren’t dumb.

You’ve tried building an online business, and you’ve experienced for yourself how tough it is.

As such, anyone who starts by flashing paychecks and testimonials and all the normal gimmickry immediately loses credibility with you. Not because it’s fake (necessarily), but because it’s not the whole story.

For example:

  • What’s the downside of building an online business?
  • How much time and money does it take?
  • What’s the harsh reality of online entrepreneurship when you’re starting from scratch?

Nobody ever answers those questions. And until someone is willing to cowboy up and spill the beans, you’re just not listening.

So … I’ll tell you.

Harsh reality #1: Compete … or die

Most people who catch the entrepreneurial bug fall into one of two categories.

They either have an idea nobody else has thought of, and they think they’ve stumbled across a gold mine, or they have an idea that’s not original in the slightest, and they’re depressed because there’s too much competition.

Well, here’s a shocker:

Both are suffering from delusions.

The first group is delusional because they think a lack of competition is a good sign. Once upon a time, that may have been true, but the Web has matured, and for the most part, all of the profitable niches have somebody serving them.

Nowadays, if you can’t find any competitors, then 99 times out of 100, there is a fatal flaw with your idea and you haven’t discovered it yet. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s true.

The second type of entrepreneur is delusional because they think competition is a bad sign. A bit pessimistically, they assume there isn’t any room for them, and if they try to enter the same niche, they’ll get crushed by the hardened veterans already occupying it.

But it’s not true. You can compete in any niche if you’re a good marketer, and the best part about seeing a crowded niche is you know there’s money in it.

The truth is, there’s no way around it. You have to compete. You have to become a good marketer. You also have to learn how to coexist with other good marketers.

If you don’t, you’ll never be successful. At least not for long.

Harsh reality #2: Traffic is never truly free

Free traffic. It’s enticing, isn’t it?

Too bad it’s a fairytale.

Yes, there are traffic strategies you can use to get traffic without paying money for it, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. You still have to pay for it. You just use a different currency:

Time.

Strategies like blogging and SEO and video marketing can indeed help you get all the customers you want without spending a dime to get them. Instead though, you’ll invest hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours of your time.

Of course, maybe you don’t care. Maybe you have more time than you do money, and so you’re happy to invest it into building an online business. That’s the exact situation I was in about three years ago, and honestly, it was all worth it.

But I wish somebody would have told me up front how much time it would be.

In my opinion, the absolute minimum is 10 hours per week, and at that rate, it’ll take you six months or more to start seeing any results. The faster you want to go, the more time (or money) you have to invest.

You pick which it’s going to be.

Harsh reality #3: You’re a slave to technology

You want to know the worst part about doing business online?

The technology.

If you want to build an online business, you’ll have to learn about WordPress and web hosts and domain names and FTP and security and hundreds of other little technical details. Worse, you don’t just need to learn about each of them individually. You have to learn how they all interact together.

And it changes. Constantly.

You might say, “Well, I’ll just hire somebody to do that for me,” and that is an option. Sites like eLance and oDesk have made legions of technical people readily available at a comparatively affordable price.

But it also means being dependent.

When you want to put up a new site, change something, fix a problem, whatever, you can’t do it yourself. You have to wait for someone else, and when you’re depending on a freelancer, you might wait for days, costing you thousands of dollars in opportunity costs.

In my opinion, you have to learn at least the basics, or you’ll never survive. You can pick up most of it in a single weekend if you have the right collection of study materials, and you can pick up the rest here and there as you go along.

No matter which route you decide to take though, technology will always be a problem. And unless you’re a techie by nature, you’ll come to hate it.

Harsh reality #4: People don’t buy from strangers

So, you’re one of the few people with a good idea. You’ve built a website. Surprise, surprise, you’re even getting a nice little trickle of traffic.

Now all you have to do is put up a link to something for sale, and visitors will buy it, right?

Afraid not.

Online, people are paranoid. If they’ve never heard of you, they automatically assume you’re a scam artist, and they approach everything you say with skepticism.

So, you have to let them get to know you. You have to prove you’re an upstanding business person. You even have to convince them you have their best interests at heart. (You do, don’t you?)

And that takes time.

These days, smart marketers don’t drive traffic to a website and immediately expect to make a sale. Instead, they offer visitors an incentive to get on their email list, and then they send them great content at regular intervals to build a relationship with them over time.

Honestly, it’s a lot of work, but the upside is, after a couple of years of nurturing your mailing list, you have hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who trust you and will buy pretty much any product you release. Guard that trust, and it can sustain your business for years.

But if you’re a stranger?

You don’t have a chance in hell. It’s as simple as that.

Harsh reality #5: You may never make millions

Finally we come to the harshest truth of all:

Only a tiny, tiny percentage of online entrepreneurs ever become millionaires.

Yes, it happens, but not very often. I would guess less than 1% ever make it that far.

Does that mean you should quit?

I don’t think so. While the vast majority of online entrepreneurs never become millionaires, a fair number of smart, hard-working people do make a pretty good living online.

No, they can’t buy their own island, but they can put their kids through school. They live in a nice house. They go on regular vacations, usually toting along their laptop so they can keep the business up and running while they’re gone.

Many of them are service providers of some sort. Some are information publishers. Still others sell physical products. They’re like any other business owners, really. They just get most of their customers online.

Again, they’re not getting super rich. At the end of the year, maybe they take home 100K. Maybe not even that much.

But they’re fine with it.

They don’t have to commute to work every day. They don’t have to deal with a boss. They don’t have to miss their kid’s ballgames.

Granted, the entrepreneurial life does come with its own set of challenges, but most people who succeed are more than happy with the trade-offs. I know I am.

Of course, becoming successful is the hard part

Probably 90% or more of the people who try building an online business never even make a single dollar.

Not because it’s a scam, not because it’s impossible, not because they’re incapable … but because they can’t figure out how it all works.

The truth is, building an online business is a lot like constructing a huge jigsaw puzzle. Unless you can see the picture on the front of the box, you’ll end up fumbling around for years trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. I sure did, and most of the other successful entrepreneurs I know did too.

And honestly, that sucks.

There’s nothing anyone can do to change the five harsh realities I’ve outlined in this post. No matter how much you want to, you can’t survive online without learning how to compete, generating a steady stream of traffic, mastering at least the basics of technology, and building a relationship with your customers.

But fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out how it all fits together?

We can do something about that, by God, and no I’m not talking about some expensive course that underdelivers or something, either.

On Monday, Johnny Truant and I are getting together and holding a webinar where we give you the picture on the front of the puzzle box.

You don’t have to pay us for it. All you have to do is show up.

That cool with you?

Here’s what to do next

Before you leave, I want you to share this post with your friends.

Lots of people are trying to figure this whole online thing out, and so we need to make sure they find out about this webinar. So, tweet the post, share it on Facebook, email it to your friends and family.

After that, click here to register for the webinar. We only have 1000 seats, and this post is going out to around 170,000 people. You want to make sure you claim your seat.

We will have a recording, assuming there are no technical glitches (see what I said about being a slave to technology?). The only way you can get the recording though is to register for the webinar, so go ahead and sign up whether you can attend or not.

If you have any questions you’d like Johnny and I to answer live, go ahead and leave them as a comment here on this post, too.

We’ll try to craft the presentation around some of the most common questions we get, so that way everyone is getting exactly what they need to move forward.

Cool?

All righty then. We’ll talk to you soon.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. He is selflessly sacrificing his byline link in an effort to get you on the webinar. If you haven’t registered yet, stop procrastinating and click here.

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Why You Should Build an Audience Before You Build a Business

Posted on 30. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Radio, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

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Where do great business ideas come from?

What about products — how can you know (or at least make a highly educated guess about) whether your idea will actually fly in the market?

In his must-read book Breakthrough Advertising, master copywriter Eugene Schwartz wrote:

“This is the copywriter’s task: not to create mass desire — but to channel and direct it.”

Though Schwartz aimed that truth at copywriters, it’s also a good starting point in explaining Brian Clark’s Minimum Viable Audience model for building businesses and products that people want.

Build an audience through content marketing. Let them tell you what they want. Build products and offer services based on their desires and needs. Prosper.

In this episode we discuss:

  • What is an Entreproducer?
  • Why you should build a Minimum Viable Audience before anything else
  • How to build a profitable business around content marketing
  • How to succeed in business without outside funding
  • Why focus groups and surveys don’t work
  • How to find and build a product that people actually want
  • How Brian built Copyblogger with a Minimum Viable Audience

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

The Show Notes:

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

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How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform

Posted on 16. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Radio, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

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Chris Brogan is everywhere.

From the outside, it seems that in just a few short years, he’s created an independent publishing and speaking empire with nothing more than his personality and a laptop.

The truth of his story is a lot more compelling.

He spent 10 years writing into the void. He flew to conferences around the country broke, eating leftover granola bars. He struggled to pay the mortgage, to pay the electric bill. After eight years of work, he had an audience of just 100 subscribers.

He eventually created an invaluable content platform that now gets up every hour of every day and goes to work for him.

It didn’t come easy for Chris, and it didn’t come fast, so he’s on the show today laying down some wisdom and advice that can make your own road to creating a content platform that works for you a lot less brutal …

In this episode we discuss:

  • How to write 2,000-4,000 words a day
  • The critical importance of brevity in the digital age
  • Why every online writer should read (and study) The Shipping News
  • 2 ways to find endless content ideas
  • Why it took Chris 8 years to gain his first 100 subscribers
  • Brogan’s best advice on how to create a valuable content platform

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

The Show Notes:

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

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A 30-Minute Copywriting Course from a Master of the Craft

Posted on 02. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, Copywriting, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Radio, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

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John Carlton is a professional copywriter who charges $2,500.00 for his one-on-one consulting calls.

In this 30+ minute interview, he decided to lay out some of his best advice for carving out a career in the writing trade. And he decided to give it up at no charge.

Part 1 of this interview went over well last week. Make sure you don’t miss it.

If you write persuasive copy (and content) as a freelancer, or for your own business, do not miss Part 2 below for some of the most valuable tips and trade philosophies you’ll find online …

In this episode we discuss:

  • The 5 “Carlton Copywriting 101″ philosophies
  • How John wrote his most famous (and best-selling) headline
  • The Professional Copywriter’s Code
  • The old-school tactic that can jump-start your copywriting career
  • How to find the hooks that people respond to
  • Why copywriting is not a “mystic” art
  • How to use dead guys as mentors
  • John Carlton’s best advice for copywriters trying to make it

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

The Show Notes:

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

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The 5-Part Recipe for Profitable Unpopularity

Posted on 01. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of book cover for Unpopular

There are days (not the good days, the other ones) when social media marketing feels a lot like high school.

There are the cool kids everyone wants to be like. They have a ton of friends (in this case, hundreds of thousands). Of course those aren’t real friends, but still, from the outside it looks like it would be pretty awesome.

On the not-so-great days, we get carried back to those painful high school memories when we were the geeks, the dorks, the outcasts. And that seems like a problem.

But Erika Napoletano wants to slap a little sense into you on that topic … to let you know that your geekiness, your dorkiness, your weird way of looking at the world can be the source of your success.

If you’re strategic about it.

So forget about the so-called cool kids for a few minutes, and let’s talk about what it means to be productively unpopular.

Unpopular is the name of a new book by Erika Napoletano, who’s otherwise known as the chief redhead at RedheadWriting.com. Erika’s an SEO copywriter, a business strategist, and a dispenser of unpopular (but useful) advice.

She also curses a lot. A lot of my friends curse a lot. I’m not sure what that means.

Why it’s not such a bad thing to be unpopular

Most of us marketing online tend to be seduced by numbers.

We want to reach some magical number of followers on Twitter, or Likes for our FaceBook page. We want traffic to sweep down onto our sites like hordes of starving locusts. We want clicks and eyeballs and page views.

But numbers can only get you so far.

Yes, when it’s just you and your cat reading your blog, you have work to do.

Yes, you need a certain critical mass — what Brian Clark has called a “minimum viable audience.”

But that critical mass is a lot smaller than some of the “popular” sites might make you think.

Erika’s recipe for unpopularity

Is there a difference between being Unpopular (in Erika’s terminology) and just plain old failing?

In fact, yes there is. Out of her years working with companies to create more effective marketing strategies, Erika has put together a “recipe” of five key ingredients for unpopularity.

This is the kind of unpopularity that builds fierce loyalty with the customers who are right for you … and lets the rest move on to something else. In other words, the kind that builds a great business that makes plenty of money and gives you a lot of joy along the way.

Rather than try and paraphrase Erika’s recipe, I’ll quote it for you here:

  1. Personality: Your brand is a who and never a what. People do business with people.
  2. Approachability: If you haven’t created a personality that lets our audience know they can talk to your brand, you need to rethink the personality you created.
  3. Sharability: Your brand personality along with the welcome mat you put out for your audience dictates how, why, and how often people whare you with the people in their lives (also known as your potential customers).
  4. Scalability: Every unpopular brand pays attention to infrastructure — if you’ve spent the effort on creating an approachable personality that makes your audience want to share your brand, growth is inevitable and you must be able to deal with it.
  5. Profitablity: You’ve invested in the who and put out the welcome mat. Word’s gotten around, and you’re growing. You’ve built the infrastructure to support the growth. Now, how do you make sure you remain solvent and keep on track so that you can point your brand toward generation revenue? The emotional and practical impliations of profitability.

So is it just about being a jerk?

(Erika uses another word, but I’ll keep it family-friendly here.)

It would be easy to think Erika is advocating being offensive for its own sake, or tearing down what’s popular in order to attract attention.

But Erika’s too smart a businesswoman for that, and she knows very well that attention for its own sake will never make you rich. (Or happy, for that matter.)

Anyone can be a train wreck. Unpopular isn’t about being a loudmouth or even (necessarily) a contrarian — it’s about how humility, courage, and purpose can lead you to create something much stronger than any of your “Me-Too” competitors will be able to conceive of.

Who should read Unpopular?

You should add Unpopular to your shelf if you’ve had trouble coming up with a unique business identity that feels real and compelling.

You’ll also get a lot out of it if you ever go through periods when you feel like you’re spinning your wheels as a business owner, working harder and harder without getting any traction.

You should not pick up Unpopular if you’re not willing to think of what you do as a business. (Even if it’s just you and your computer, working three hours a week because that’s all the time you can carve out right now.)

You should also avoid it if you have an issue with “salty language.” Erika is on the Blazin’ Buffalo Doritos end of that spectrum.

And finally, you should pick up something else if you want “quick fix” techniques. While there’s plenty of tactical advice here, it all works in a context of a larger strategy. Without the strategy, the tactics won’t do much for you.

Why strive to build an unpopular brand in the first place? Because …

Above all, unpopular brands are loved. Adored. Not by everyone and not by just anyone — but by the right people.

We’ve got two free copies to give away!

Erika has kindly given us two free digital copies of Unpopular to give away.

To enter your name for the giveaway, just click the handy Tweet button a few lines down to retweet this post.

We’ll pick two names at random in an entirely unscientific manner, and our lucky winners will get a copy in either Kindle, Nook, or Google Books format — your choice.

Or if you’re the impatient type, you can go grab the book here.

How about you — has taking an unpopular angle ever benefited your business? Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. She welcomes your salty business insights on twitter.

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The One Skill that Makes an Online Entrepreneur Unstoppable

Posted on 29. Feb, 2012 by in Blog, Blog Psychology, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of woodworking tools

Pop quiz, hotshot: What’s the most important skill you must have in order to be successful as an entrepreneur, especially in an online business? 

Is it salesmanship? Is it social media savvy, or SEO knowledge? 

Is it writing and content marketing? (Because I know a great blog about that.) 

Or is it tech stuff, like the ability to set up and manage a functional website, capture leads, manage an email list, and so on? 

If you answered any of these, important as they might be, sorry, you’re wrong. 

You don’t need to possess any of those skills, because you can outsource them, or you can go out and learn them anytime you want.

You can learn anything nowadays, usually for free. Want to learn how to field-strip an obscure Russian firearm that hasn’t been manufactured since 1927? I’ll bet someone has made a YouTube video showing you how. 

All the knowledge in the world is literally at our fingertips. Yet only a handful of people break through from wanna-be-successes to true successes. So what’s missing? 

What entrepreneurs need most isn’t knowledge. What they need is the ability to evolve.

You must analyze and adapt

There’s a lot of talk in branding circles about how if you don’t keep doing what people have come to expect from you, you’re just confusing your audience. You’ve got to have a niche, and that niche has high, unclimbable walls around it. If you do something odd and out of character, or not in your currently accepted area of expertise, people won’t know what you stand for and hence won’t buy anything from you. 

What terrible advice. 

Even big companies that become dogmatic get slaughtered nowadays. Look at the music and film industries, and the crap they tried to hand us to protect themselves while their inflexible bulks drowned. 

Now, look at the success stories.

  • While Borders bookstores were dying, Amazon led the e-book revolution with Kindle. They also went from selling books to selling everything under the sun, and started providing tech services like Amazon S3 media hosting.
  • Google entered a market that already had dominant search engines, like Yahoo and Lycos, but then branched from search into apps, smartphone operating systems, voice communications, mapping and navigation, commerce services, and just about everything else. And now who’s the household name?
  • Copyblogger started as a blog about copywriting. Then it became more about internet marketing and small business. Then it began creating products and merging with partners, now selling premium WordPress themes, content optimization, and landing page software.

At no point did Brian Clark say, “Woah, wait a minute… a blog that sells WordPress themes? That’ll confuse everyone” and ditch the whole thing to go back to only publishing posts about writing. 

Mindlessly sticking to what used to work is overrated.

The evolution of a lovable jackass

If you’re thinking that you’re no Amazon, Google, or Copyblogger, then let me tell you my story as a one-person business that’s doing pretty well these days. 

Nobody knows how to describe me. This includes myself. People ask me what I do, and I never know what to tell them.

Sonia Simone called me (in public, in a Blogworld keynote, thanks Sonia) a “lovable jackass.” It was amusing to me at the time, but now I realize that it’s flat-out apt. It should be my tagline, because it’s just about all you can pin on me. 

Here’s a brief outline of my journey so far:

  • Three years ago, I wrote a humor blog.
  • Two and a half years ago, I did a ton of technology services, like blog setups.
  • Two years ago, I did even more and expanded tech services, but also had begun coaching. I wrote about business a lot.
  • A year ago, I still did some tech work, but was teaching and coaching more. I’d co-created Question the Rules (which is re-launching in a 2.0 version right now, by the way) and a few other courses. I’d tell you that what I blogged about was “personal development for entrepreneurs.”
  • Six months ago, after having been goaded into “leveling up” my blogging, I wrote more “epic” posts, coached, and sold information products. I was also in charge of the Virtual Ticket program for Blogworld, including acting as its host and MC.
  • Now, as of two weeks ago, I’m a novelist. I’d describe my blog as being about human potential and personal development. I do almost no technology work and not a lot of coaching.
  • In the next few months, I’m going to start a podcast, work on a new novel, write more of those epic blog posts, talk a bit about DIY digital publishing, and host Blogworld’s event again.

That’s a lot of change in three years, but I can tell you one thing for certain: if at any point in that chain I’d stuck to my guns and said, “I’m a humor blogger,” or “I’m a tech guy” or “I’m a marketer” and refused to evolve, I’d be out of business today.

Change your mind. Right now.

Sometimes people ask me why I talk so much about stuff that’s intangible, stuff that you might describe as “upping your mental game.” The reason is because it’s the only thing that makes a difference. 

Meaning: You don’t need more knowledge, because you have access to more knowledge than you can handle.

What you need is the mindset to actually go out and use what you know.

You don’t need skills. You need meta-skills.

  • You’ve got to learn to be uncertain and take risks. If you stay within what’s known and safe, you will never be truly successful. Doing what’s uncertain and risky isn’t easy, and that’s why the people who dare to do it are rewarded.
  • You’ve got to learn to lead, which simply means going out and doing things. If you do things instead of always thinking and talking about doing things, then congratulations, you’re a leader. Others will follow.
  • You’ve got to learn to solve problems. I unschool my kids because I believe that children don’t need to memorize facts — especially in a world that changes this rapidly. They need to learn how to look at a situation, determine which resources they need, and then go find those resources in order to solve the problem. We must all learn to fish instead of relying on others giving us fish.
  • You’ve got to start believing you can do it. That sounds rah-rah, but it’s very important. We train ourselves into believing that we can do some things and can’t do others. Think you can’t do calculus? Wrong. You can’t levitate on Earth without assistance or superpowers. There’s a huge difference between those “can’ts.” (Other manifestations of this: “I’m not that kind of person,” “I wasn’t raised that way,” and “What will my parents/friends/neighbors/Twilight fan club think?”)

You’ve been a little bit brainwashed by the circumstances you’ve lived through. It’s okay, because we all have. But what you need to understand is that that cultural brainwashing puts you at a disadvantage as an entrepreneur. 

It may sound trite to talk about upping your mental game … but if you don’t do exactly that, you’ll be stuck forever.

How to up your mental game

I wrote a post here last week about how damaging “blind obedience to rules” can be to an entrepreneurial business.

This post is pretty much saying the same thing, except that it’s about how damaging it can be to blindly obey the bogus rules you’ve established inside your own mind. 

My solution to addressing both kinds of rules is the same. 

I’m hosting a webinar this Friday that’s all about developing the mind-changing attributes that are necessary for success (and survival) as an entrepreneur. It’s called, Breaking Rules for Fun and Profit: 21 Lies About Business, Money, and Life That You Don’t Even Realize Are Holding You Back, and What To Do About Them. 

Can’t make yourself do what needs to be done in your business? Are you afraid? Are you uncertain? Do you get stuck? Do you know everything you need to know — and know exactly what you need to do — but just … can’t … seem to … do it? 

That happens because you’re believing lies that you’ve been told or have learned, and have internalized those lies as rules and limitations. But they’re not true.

They are not true. 

This webinar is free. If you want to up your mental game and learn how to get over the hump, signing up for it would be a great start. 

You can sign up for Friday’s webinar here. I hope you can join us. 

In the meantime, how are you struggling in your mental game? Let me know in the comments …

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant just released his novel The Bialy Pimps despite the fact that it’s totally ridiculous for a business and human potential blogger to write a novel about fame and bagels. He is also attributing the testimonial “This book takes ‘lovable jackass’ to a whole new level” to Sonia Simone, even though she didn’t technically say it.

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