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Here, Wendy Wallace interviews Kevin Riley from www.productcreationlabs.com

When I began my own journey into info product creation, I was fortunate to come across products by Kevin Riley – short reports and ebooks that were easy to follow, step by step and showed me exactly how to do what it was that I was wanting to do.

Watch the videos below and you’ll find an amazing wealth of product creation tips, techniques and mindset ideas as Wendy grills Kevin and pulls out all kinds of valuable information for you.

In this 9 short video series you’ll hear nuggests of wisdom to help you start creating your own successful information products and make money as you stop trading your time for dollars and set up your own info-preneur business.You’ll learn how important it is to create a line of products to set up your own product funnel.

It is highly recommended that you take notes – and most important – take actions afterwards.

It may take a moment or two for the player to load below. If it doesn’t load shortly – refresh your browser.

Note: Occasionally — especially after pausing for a while — You Tube will display the notice “We’re sorry, this video is no longer available”. Simply refresh your browser and the videos will be available again.

After watching these videos on creating your own info products, you’ll understand and realise how you can maximise your results and profits by turning your expertise into products.

For more information on Kevin, visit www.productcreationlabs.com

I’m sure you’ve discovered some great tips on how you can profit from your own information products today.

“Leadership is not about knowing everything, it’s more about knowing how to distribute the energy of a group.”

 Enjoy this short clip and discover the important keys to be a great leader.

Quality leadership skills can be learned by anyone, regardless of age, position or skill levels:

- stand out, encourage followers, inspire them, motivate them, build their trust and confidence,

but above all else, walk your talk and show your followers or  your team what they can achieve.

Stand up, nurture your followers and use these keys to be the best leader you can be.

Danette Hibberd

Product Funnel Formula

It’s a fact that being a coach, consultant, trainer, speaker or an independent service professional, you’ll never be able to maximise your results by trading your time for dollars. Instead, with the tools available today, you can now easily position yourself as an expert in your niche as well as productising and packaging your knowledge to raise your visibility, your credibility and your profits.

Outlined below are the 10 keys necessary to set up your business in 2010 to achieve maximum profit and maximum results from your expertise. Become the go-to expert and the obvious choice provider in your niche.

1. Principle. This is ‘an underlying law or assumption required in a system of thought’. In other words, it is a belief. To become the expert in your field, you must recognise and believe in the value of your own skills and knowledge. Even if you have doubts, perception is everything and the secret is to behave with confidence. Others will be convinced and you might just believe it too. You must BE the expert that you are, and not the expert that someone else is. Once you recognize yourself as an expert, and believe that you’re and expert, you can willingly go out and confidently position yourself as one.

2. Purpose. Being clear on the purpose of who you are, what you serve, what you expect from those you work with and what you expect to happen when you present your offering to your market are all vital to your success. People who focus on what they’re doing and not why they’re doing it will clearly never win in business or in life. So, if you want to become the go-to expert in your niche, you need to go beyond your tasks and identify exactly how your work will affect those you serve. Defining your purpose is not about the tasks you do, but it’s about the reason for the tasks.

3. Proposition. What product or service are you offering the market? Do they want it? Are they willing to pay for it? Is there a reason they should buy it from you? These are questions for which you must clearly know the answers if you want to stand out from the crowd. Knowing the outcome your customers will achieve from buying your expertise is all about their results rather than the process of what you do. Defining the right proposition is key to being successful in effectively selling your expertise and becoming the go-to expert in your field.

4. Position. Positioning yourself as the expert in a clearly defined and profitable market will enable you to make maximum profit from your expertise. Once you fully understand your market, you’ll be able to find more of the customers you want to work with, you’ll stand out from the competition and you’ll be able to develop a much better range of products and services that your audience will crave. Knowing your target market isn’t just about who they are or what they want. Instead it’s about using your knowledge of the market to specifically customise your products and services to meet their needs in the most effective way possible. Your goal is to position yourself as being the obvious choice when your target market is seeking a solution in your field of expertise.

5. Pinpoint. Without clear focus on a very small number of opportunities, you will dilute your results. Today you are inundated with silver bullets or bright shiny objects that may distract you from achieving your goals, so it’s important to pinpoint your focus on your target and take the necessary action to chase it. It’s been said “If you chase two rabbits you will catch neither one. But, when you’re eating rabbit stew, you won’t even recall the one that got away”. Pinpoint your focus, pick one rabbit, chase it and catch it.

6. Productise. Remember, your time and your knowledge are the most precious things you can sell, and you need to make the most of your expertise to make sure your income does not depend on how many hours you work. To maximise your profit, you need to find a way to package whatever skill, knowledge or intellectual property you have for those who want to know more. Products provide great marketing tools, they increase your credibility, they enable you to reach a much wider audience, they provide additional streams of income and with products, you can create a tangible legacy for your family.

7. Promote. Promotion of your products online is an attractive and inexpensive way of reaching the widest possible market via media such as your website or blog, ezine or newsletter, teleseminars and webinars, article marketing, pay per click advertising, social marketing, joint ventures, forums, podcasting and in more recent time, video. Also consider the various offline techniques including public speaking, press releases, advertising, direct mail and networking. Of course there are many more avenues to promote your expertise. Don’t hide behind your computer. Get out there and be visible.

8. Partner. Whatever business you are in, the fastest way to build your reputation and increase your visibility is working together with other people. The more you can involve and be involved with others, the greater your chance of success. Creating powerful partnerships with other people and businesses who share your target market will help you profit from your expertise much faster.

9. Proof. Testimonials and product reviews from happy customers and leaders in your field are one of the best ways in building your credibility. They also provide a great sense of security to new customers and show potential customers that you are trustworthy, reliable and have the expertise in your niche. When people read testimonials they gain confidence in your products and services and are far more likely to buy from you. In fact, setting yourself up as the expert in your niche will be much easier when you have solid testimonials.

10. Powerful Presence. Your success involves more than just your knowledge and skills. More importantly, you must create a positive impression in the minds of others. You need to present as the CEO of your business, walk your talk, and have a powerful visual presence.

Make this your year. Implement the strategies you teach and do what you inspire others to do. Being correctly branded, productised, packaged and promoted, you will be a dynamic marketing tool and will maximise your profits and maximise your results. You will become the go-to expert in your niche in 2010.

Click on the link for more content-rich coverage with audio (almost 2 hours), discover how to productise, package and promote your expertise for absolute maximum results and profits with the recent teletraining covering The 10 Keys To Become The Go-To Expert In 2010.

By Danette Hibberd

© Copyright 2010 Product Funnel Formula

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER OR WEBSITE? Feel free to do so as long as you include the following complete text with it:

“Founder of www.ProductFunnelFormula.com, Danette Hibberd teaches female entrepreneurs, service professionals and women in business the proven step-by-step system guaranteed to productise, package and promote your expertise for maximum results. Discover how you too can Grow Your Prospects, Your Prestige AND Your Profits!”

To receive your F.R.E.E. Report “11 Quickest Ways to Monetise Your Expertise and Fill Your Product Funnel” valued at $47 and weekly idea generators, resources and tips to create your info products, visit http://www.ProductFunnelFormula.com

You can quickly capture your market online with these viral marketing tools and tactics:

* eBooks
* Reports
* Workshops, seminars or online course
* Video or audio

In order to make these marketing tools viral you’ll need to make sure they accomplish a few things. Viral means that they’re passed from person to person and the more quickly items are passed, the bigger the market you’ll be able to capture. So what makes someone pass along a bit of information? They’d forward it to a colleague or friend if it is:

- Entertaining. Humour is a great way to capture a viral market online. People love to laugh and if you can make them laugh and market your business at the same time, you’re onto a winner. Video is the easiest tool to capture an online audience with humour. Try creating a funny advertisement and upload it to YouTube.

- Thought provoking and/or controversial. Controversy can really get people talking. However, you must walk a fine line when going viral with a controversial book, report, video or other product because it can backfire. Think carefully if using this tactic.

- Valuable. Regardless of the fact that there’s an abundance of information available online today, people still hold quality content in high regard. If you can create an informative product, people will share it with others.

But how do you use a viral product to promote your business?

When using something like a video or audio, you can market your product or service directly in the content. You can also make sure to incorporate your company name and URL into the content.

The same holds true for any print product like an eBook or a report. Simply make sure that you include a link or two back to your website. You can also place an “about the author” type page inside your book or report and a separate page to promote your products and services. Always remember to include a specific ‘call to action’ at the end of your product, telling users what they should do to get more. If you’ve provided valuable content, they will be glad you’ve let them know how they can learn more from you. The choice on how you promote yourself is yours; just make sure to let people know where to go for more information.

To capture your online market with viral marketing you’ll also want to make sure your viral content is placed where your audience hangs out. Use social networking, advertising and PPC, article marketing and so on to draw attention to your viral product. Get the word out and then let your viral content do its job.

Remember, like a snowball increasing in size as it speeds downhill, viral marketing will quickly build momentum and capture your market online.

Danette Hibberd
Product Funnel Formula

Writing articles and creating content for your website is perhaps the single most important marketing and business-building strategy available to online business owners. However, in addition to simply creating content, you want to have your visitors actually read your articles. Articles that are compelling pull the visitor into your website where they’ll continue to search for more valuable content. They will begin to not only remember your website as a source of good content but also as a reliable business.

Submitting your articles to directories is a common business building strategy, but what’s the point if they just sit there? Writing great articles, on the other hand, can cause a flood of traffic to your website, virally spread your message around the internet and raise your visibility and credibility immensely.

Here are five top article success tips to get more bang from your articles:

Article Success Tip #1 Compelling headlines are a must. Your headline is the first thing that your visitor or reader will notice. It must grab their attention by appealing to their emotions, making a promise, offering a benefit, inciting controversy, arousing curiosity or stating something newsworthy.

Article Success Tip #2 Your article’s layout is very important. How you present your content may very well be the next most important factor in getting your article read, right behind your headline. Articles that are heavy with long paragraphs are often skipped. Not because the reader isn’t interested in the content, they’re just not interested enough to spend the time reading the article for value.

In general, people tend to skim when they read online, and an article that is difficult or cumbersome to read won’t be read. Instead, use shorter paragraphs, short sentences and formatting like bold type, bullets or numbers, and subheadings to help your reader make a decision to read your article.

Article Success Tip #3 Your intro paragraph is next in line in importance to getting your article read. It should be short and to the point, yet still compelling. Your intro paragraph is used to set the stage for the rest of the article. It’s where you let your potential reader know what you’re going to tell them.

Article Success Tip #4 Photos, graphics and illustrations come next. For some reason we’re attracted to content with images. Maybe it’s because it breaks up the content or maybe it’s because a few good images can help you tell your story. If you can include relevant images in your content, it will draw the eye of readers.

Article Success Tip #5 Credentials is the last tip. Sometimes a website visitor does two things: they read the headline and then they scan down to see who wrote the article and if they’re qualified to talk on the subject. This is particularly important if you’re publishing articles on websites, blogs and ezines that are not affiliated with your business website. Create a bio paragraph that puts you in a good light and boosts your credibility and authority.

Getting your article written is only half the job. Getting it read is the other half. And in addition to the above article success tips, it is of course essential that you market your content with a variety of marketing and traffic generation strategies.

Increase your credibility and visibility and ultimately your profits, with these article success tips.

Danette Hibberd

Product Funnel Formula

How Audio Motivates Purchases

# Personality - One of your biggest assets as the owner of a small business is your personality, and this is often difficult to shine through your website with simple text. Adding audio to your mix makes it extremely easy to communicate that personality to your audience. If people like you, and we’re assuming they do, then they’re more likely to purchase from you. You can use audio messages to connect with your audience and influence liking. Even a simple welcome message is a great start.

# Authority – People buy from people or companies they consider to be an authority in their industry. Audio is an exceptional tool for you to use to demonstrate your authority on your niche topic. “How to” audio messages, interviews and lessons are all tools to demonstrate authority.

# Social Proof – We often make purchasing decisions based on the opinions of others, particularly if those “others” are people we respect, admire, or want to be like. You can tap into this social proof trigger by interviewing an expert or posting audio testimonials on your website.

How to Use Audio on Your Website

We’ve already touched on a few ways you can use audio on your website to influence buying triggers. There are essentially two paths you can take. You can use audio as a product in your catalogue or as a marketing tool.

Audio Product Creation: Audio lends itself to many profitable products which you can sell or give away as a thank you or bonus, for example:

* Email training courses, workshops, and seminars
* Tutorials
* Podcasts
* Guest interviews

Audio Marketing Tools: Many of the above items, which I’ve mentioned as products, can also be used as marketing tools when they’re given away as freebies or thank yous. In addition to the above, here are some other possibilities for using audio in your marketing strategy:

* Product reviews
* Personal message
* Sales content
* Viral marketing
* Testimonials
* Advertisements

Audio lends itself to a whole new audience which of course is good for you because the more followers you have, the better. When creating your content strategy or looking to the future, begin using a variety of content formats in your product catalogue and to market your business. Watch your business grow as you use simple audio on your webiste or blog to boost your list growing and retention strategies. And watch your sales grow as well.

Copyright Danette Hibberd

Product Funnel Formula

Here are six quick tips for getting and keeping more clients.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 1. Become the specialist. It is normal for people to be attracted to a specialist in any industry, rather than a generalist.
Therefore, ensure you niche yourself and your services in an area that you can easily become the expert.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 2. Ask your clients for referrals. There’s nothing wrong with doing this and is a strategy often overlooked by many business owners. In fact, customers are often happy to refer you to others, they just need to be reminded to do so. And, if you can create a referral program where your current clients receive a discount or credit for your services, then they’ll be even happier to refer your business.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 3. Always be a consummate professional. If you’re an excellent person to work with, you’ll keep your clients coming back for more – even if your rates are a bit higher or your timeline a little bit longer than other service providers. The truth is, we place a high value on our business relationships, at least the clients you want to work with do. And if you can build a strong relationship with your clients, you’ll keep them for the long haul. They’ll also talk about you and refer your offerings to others. And word of mouth is a great, and free, marketing tool.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 4. Communicate with your clients on a regular basis. Although preferable, you don’t have to have an opt-in list and an email marketing campaign. But if you regularly connect with your clients, you stay in the front of their mind when they have a need or when someone asks them if they know of a good service provider. There are two approaches to regular client communication and you can combine the two approaches as you see fit. They are:

- Send your client list an email at least once a month, highlighting a promotion. For example, “10% off any orders of $100 or more for the month of January.”

- Send your client a note when you’re thinking of them. For example, “I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal and thought of you.” This helps build a relationship to them and it’s a great way to stay connected.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 5. Get yourself out there and get noticed! Participate in social networking, blog and be a guest blogger. Network at relevant events, and take every opportunity to speak about your services. Generate awarenesas about you and what you offer. One new client can turn into thousands of dollars over the course of a year and they can refer other clients.

Attracting and keeping clients tip 6. Be helpful. Be willing to help and inform others in your community even when there isn’t any apparent reward. Whether you believe in the law of attraction or not, when you give to others, they give back. This doesn’t mean you give away your services; what it means is that you’re willing to help others by providing insight, information and a listening ear when they need it without expecting anything in return.

If your client has a challenge or is trying to resolve an issue you can help them with your experience, then offer to help them. They’ll appreciate it and you never know when they’ll be able to return the favour.

Much of the technique of attracting and keeping clients has to do with building relationships. Connect! Implementing the above quick tips for attracting and keeping clients will have you building a sustainable, profitable service business.

About the Author (text)

If you want to earn more money whilst working less by turning your knowledge into passive income, Get your FREE report “11 Quickest Ways to Monetise Your Expertise and Fill Your Product Funnel” by Danette Hibberd http://www.ProductFunnelFormula.com

To start your frenzy about your new info product, join forums and comment on other blogs that are talking about topics similar to what you discuss in your info product.  Or go to a discussion forum and join.  Social media websites such as http://ning.com allow users to create their own social network and invite others to join their groups. This is a great way to promote your info product and to possibly recruit new affiliates.

Make some announcements using your favourite social media and watch the news spread like wildfire. If you have an existing affiliate program, send your affiliates articles, banners, and other tools that will help pump them up and make them want to sell your newest info product.

A new way to create excitement about your product is to host a teleseminar or webinar to showcase your product to your target market. These webinars get people excited about the product and they are more likely to make a purchase so be prepared to accept pre-orders. At the very least, collect the email addresses of your attendees so you can let them know when your info product actually launches.

Download this free report – Product Launch Survival - Discover How To Avoid The 10 Worst Product Launch Mistakes Most Business Owners Make

Another way to create buzz is to offer your product for review to a few heavy-hitting bloggers or marketers in your field. Reading a testimonial or review of a respected expert can reinforce the customers desire to buy your product.

Be a guest on a relevant podcast to spread your news even further. At the very least, if you’re short on time, consider running some audio ads on podcasts with a large following for more exposure.

While you can launch an information product with pizzazz on your own, if you are totally lost and know you’ve got something good to sell, you can create a frenzy about your new info product by following strategies other people have used successfully. Whether you decide to go it alone or use the help of a product launcher—take the time to do your own research and be as creative as possible.  A product launcher may give you ideas on how to be creative that you hadn’t thought of but the final marketing decisions are yours. Since your name is on this information product, you must be proud of the marketing plans.

There are many ways to get you and your product noticed, before it’s even launched, so see what others are doing and start creating some industry buzz for yourself.  Use social media, host a teleseminar, or visit forums and start chatting about your project. Create a pre-order landing page so you can gather possible customer email addresses prior to the actual launch.

While you’re going through this process it’s also a good time to look at what your competitors are doing in this area. Take the time to do your research and see how many ways you can find your competitor on the Internet through searching. Take notes and strategize ways to get your info product recognized. If your competitor wrote a press release about their product, you should write one too and search for places to post and announce your product.  If nothing else you’ll find inspiration for things to add to your idea box.

Download this free report – Product Launch Survival

Simply click on the links below to open each issue in a new window.

*  Issue 103

*  Issue 102

Enjoy your browsing,

Danette Hibberd

Product Funnel Formula

Growing your prospects, prestige and profits

This is a question I’m asked many times. Let me explain.

Often we download our audio files to our iPod or mp3 player, and sometimes we even burn them onto a cd to play in the car. If you’re like me, things happen and we get interrupted. The next time we go to listen to the recording we were part way through, we have to start again – from the beginning. By now, we now the first ten minutes by heart and we wonder if we’ll ever hear the end.

That’s one big reason why we would want to break down longer audio files into a number of shorter tracks.

Another reason is – if we want to upload the file onto our website – or have a file for customers to download, we may want to reduce the file size. This can be achieved by having a number of smaller files.

So, here are a couple of options you may choose to use to break one longer audio file into a number of shorter ones.

Using Audacity:

A much overlooked feature within Audacity is the ability to automatically split an audio track every X number of seconds, or if you prefer, you can split the track X number of times. This will allow you to “seek” to a certain part in your recording by using the ‘next track’ button in your cd player or the chapter forward arrow on your mp3 player.

Here’s how you can perform this.

1.  Launch Audacity

2.  Go to File > Open and browse for and select the desired audio file.

3.  Go to Analyze > Regular Interval Labels.

4.  Choose “Label interval” for “Label placement method” and enter the interval (in seconds) for the length of desired splits into separate files.

5.  Go to File > Export Multiple

6.  Choose the “Export format” and configure as desired (eg, mp3, 128 kbps CBR or if preferred wav 16 bit PCM. The latter is preferable if you are burning a cd – it may not be compatible with all cd players. Another advantage for this is having a WAV file exported in Audacity means your burning program won’t have to convert them before burning as an audio cd. The export process is also quicker when using WAV instead of mp3. Quality loss is minimal.)

7.  Choose “Labels” under “Split files based on”.  (Note: Don’t check “Include audio before first label”.)  Choose “Numbering consecutively” under “Name files” and type in the name that you wish to use for the mp3 files.

8.  Click “Export”.

9.  You need to continue clicking “okay” for each separate audio track as Audacity is wanting you to enter tag information for every single file. (This is a pain! but necessary … so just do it!)

Because audacity is now exporting your files, a different window will pop up for each separate file. That’s okay – just let it go and don’t try to cancel during this process. It might take a while, depending on the file size, so go and make a cuppa and come back if you wish.

10. Browse to the folder where you saved the files to. You should now have a group of files numbered sequentially and named according to your settings.

11. The final step – burn the mp3 files to a data cd or burn to an audio cd for regular players, or save to your iPod or mp3 player. Make sure you’ve placed them in the correct order before burning or saving.

Note: As your audio files are being re-compressed during this process, you may experience a slight loss of quality. Honestly, this isn’t really noticeable and worth it to be able to select your best starting point each time.

If you wish, you can download Audacity here. Also download the Lame MP3 encoder to enable you to export your files as mp3’s.

Using Mp3splt-gtk:

This is a free multi-platform tool which enables you to split large mp3 or OGG files without the need to re-encode. There are a number of ways to perform this including:

a.  Autodetecting silences

b.  Use a local CDDB or CUE file

c.  Download album or track length info from freedb.org (if files are commercially available recordings)

Other options include splitting the track by fixed time segments as well as unwrapping mp3 wrap files.

Despite the multiple ways of splitting files, the method I feel you’d be most interested in is splitting by autodetecting silences.

It will be necessary to provide the parameters such as

1.  the threshold level to mark a ’silence’

2.  the cutpoint offset (0 being the beginning of the silence, and 1 is the end)

3.  minimum silence to detect

4.  how many silences to process

5.  whether to remove the silences between tracks.

You may also wish to visually create and edit your splitpoints by using the ‘player’ tab or by typing in time values (seconds or minutes).

You can download this free Mp3splt-gtk program here.