Online Coaching can be Lucrative Business

Making money by coaching others to solve their problems is big business. Just do a Google search for “online coaching” and you’ll find 590,000 results. There are all kinds of coaches out there, online executive coaching, online life coach, health coach online and the list goes on. There are lots of people earning a good living online by selling their coaching services, me included (see 1on1 coaching).

Who is a coach?

A coach is someone who takes his/her knowledge, experience and expertise in a particular field and teaches others to be successful in their own fields. It is not necessary for your clients to be in the same field as you, for example a leadership coach can help business owners in a variety of industries to be successful in their respective businesses. Or you could be an expert in business-to-business (B2B) copywriting and coach general copywriters to become successful specialists in B2B copywriting.

There are even coaches for coaches. A more experienced coach can teach new coaches how to master their own coaching skills. They are like mentors who are always there for you to answer questions and guide you when you are at a loss. There is very good money to be made in doing just that. [Read more]

Optimize, Promote and Monetize Your Mini-Sites

This is my second article on mini-sites and how to use them effectively in Internet marketing. You can read the first part at Creating DiY Mini-Sites – Spend a Little, Make a Lot!

Assuming you’ve got your mini-site ready and uploaded to your hosting server, it is now time to move onto Phase II. That’s where you’ll optimize your mini-site for your chosen niche to find your page, promote it using methods to attract qualified traffic and finally monetize it to make money.

Search engine optimization (SEO) for mini-sites

At first glance, it may seem like a difficult task to optimize a single web page. It is natural to assume that a website with hundreds of pages or an authority site would have a distinct advantage over a mini-site. After all, a large site can optimize for hundreds of keywords and phrases since it may have thousands of pages.

Sometimes being small can have its advantages. A mini-site targets a specific niche or product. That means it can target keywords/phrases that are very specific to that niche. You can optimize your mini-site for long-tail keywords that may be ignored by those gargantuan sites but are very important to your niche or product.
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Creating DiY Mini-Sites – Spend a Little, Make a Lot!

Don’t let the name, mini-sites fool you. These small, highly focused websites or sales letters are the key to maximizing your profits from a targeted niche.

You don’t have to spend a large amount of money on software, how-to eBooks, or video tutorials. You can begin creating profitable do-it-yourself (DiY) mini-sites if you learn a few basic principals first.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the basic steps and then point you to some resources if you need additional help. So let’s get the ball rolling…

What is a mini-site?

A mini-site is typically single-page a website that focuses on selling a product or service to a particular niche. Sometimes a mini-site may have more than one page such as Affiliate Program, Support, and Online Demo etc. However, the vast majority are a long pitch page. The laser-like focus on a product and/or niche is what makes mini-sites so good at making you money. When done right, of course!

Advantages of a mini-site

A mini-site is probably the simplest online business model for making money. There are several reasons for their success:
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5 Deadly Mistakes that can Kill Your Upsell

It’s not enough to know what upselling is. Ask any successful online entrepreneur or businessperson and s/he will tell you that it’s taking care of the extra details while you tweak your process, often make the most dramatic difference in upselling.

One way Internet marketers often fail to do this is by not being aware of the most common upselling mistakes.

Mistake #1: Overselling

This happens when you attempt to upsell too many items all at once. Providing too many chances lead to confusion and often, the customer just clicks away. There goes your upsell!

Mistake #2: Not Keeping It Relevant

Similar to overselling, one of the biggest mistakes new Internet marketers make is offering items that are unrelated to your original offer.

For example, offering a Special Report on “Improving Your Golf Swing in Ten Easy Steps” as a cross sell for an eBook on “Knock Your Socks Off Sales” would almost certainly not be as successful as offering an accompanying Special Report on “Hot Button Sales Triggers.”
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The Prime Real Estate on Your Site You MUST Use for Upsells

You may be thinking about something exotic like pop ups, rotating banners or Flash animations or other bells and whistles to draw attention. Nope, it’s much simpler than that and far more effective in upselling.

I’m referring to the often-overlooked prime real estate on your website that is viewed by every subscriber and customer. You are making a big mistake if you are not using this spot for upselling. Can you guess what I’m talking about?

It is your thank you page!

Every subscriber has to visit the thank you page (you are using an opt-in option for building your lists, right?). Don’t just say something bland like, “Thank you for signing up for my newsletter.”

Instead, offer them one of your paid products at a discount and over deliver by throwing in a surprise free report (with links to affiliate products and your own products for backend sales).

Use this idea to create something similar for your own thank you pages and watch your upsells explode.

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The 4Ps of Website Domain Name Selection

Your are probably familiar with E. Jerome McCarthy’s classic 4Ps of marketing that he first proposed in 1960. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, here’ a quick recap:

Product — an object or a service that is mass-produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units.

Price — the amount a customer pays for the product.

Place — the location where a product can be purchased. It is often referred to as the distribution channel.

Promotion — all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace

When it comes to Internet Marketing, probably one of the first things you have to do is choose a domain name for your online business. This is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. To help you with this important first step, I’ve come up with the 4Ps of website domain name selection.

Whether you’re creating a blog that will act as the hub for your business or registering a domain for a niche site, you need to take the time to find the right domain because changing domain names after you’ve built up traffic and credibility can do irreparable damage to your business.
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Use Upsells to Convert One-time Sales into Lifetime Customers

You’ve done all the hard work and driven traffic to your site and your sales page is converting well. Why settle for a one-time sale when you’ve done all the heavy lifting?

How can you get your customers to spend more money without feeling any undue pressure while you make a bigger profit? I have two words for you, Upsell Profits!

What is upselling? It is the act of selling add-on or extra products to customers. It sounds easy enough but the reality is, you have to learn how to effectively upsell without turning off your customers.

In order to make a one-time buyer into a lifetime customer, you need to build a trusting relationship. You cannot do that if all you are doing is pressuring the customer into buying more so you can squeeze every dime out of them.

An ill-timed or poorly planned upsell can make you lose the initial sale instead of making you more money. Unless the customer feels like they are getting more value for their money with your upsell, they will reject your offer outright and may be annoyed enough by your amateurish attempt to oversell, they may abandon their first purchase.

Here are two quick ways to create a good upsell:

1. Make the right offer – the add-on product or upgrade in your upsell should help to educate your customer as to how it would enhance their experience with the first product. They may not even be aware of the product that you are offering. It is your job to make them first understand the benefits of the upsell before asking them to buy. Obviously, your upsell offer must complement the original product. Otherwise, you will come across as a pushy salesperson forcing them to buy more.
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7 Essentials for Information Product Marketing

In my last post, I talked about the five basic Internet marketing business models. One of the most profitable models is Info Products Marketing.

Let’s look at the seven essential things you must have to be a successful information products marketer.

1. Your own domain
It is possible to sell your information product without a website, however, you will find it almost impossible to make a significant amount of sales without one.

Choosing a domain name that closely relates to your product name is always a good idea. For example, you’ll find my info product, “The Easy Guide to Unlimited Traffic” at www.ezguidetounlimitedtraffic.com. The product and the domain names were carefully selected after doing a keyword research for popular terms related to website traffic.

There may be occasions where a domain name may not be available. Let’s say you are selling/promoting an affiliate info product and the domain name related to the product name is already taken. One way for you to still get a good domain name is to add “the” or “my” to the beginning of the name and see if you can buy that name. Ex. www.myaffiliateproductname.com or www.theaffiliateproductname.com.
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Choose the Right Internet Business Model for You

The sad fact is that 95% of Internet marketers fail in their online business. Choosing the wrong Internet business model is often the reason for this alarmingly high failure rate.

Most nebwies buy every eBook and video training course they can find on marketing their online business. Many join expensive membership programs to learn how they too can work only 4 hours a week and rake in the big bucks just like their favorite marketing guru promised.

Sorry folks but it ain’t gonna happen unless you choose the correct online business model that’s right for you.

Internet marketing is full of choices when it comes to different business models. The key to your success lies in doing your homework and finding the one business model that agrees with your way of thinking, business philosophy and your passions.

Once you find a marketing business model that you like, stick with it. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time, money and energy hopping from one business to another. Trust me when I say that’s the “secret” to making money online.

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Upselling Your Expertise

In my post yesterday, Upselling in a Down Economy, I wrote about upsells mainly with tangible products, even if they are digital downloads.

How do you create upsells if you are a coach, a consultant or a copywriter? Someone who is selling his or her expertise rather than a product? In my earlier post, I did mention one idea where you use lifetime upgrades to upsell.

In this post, I’ll focus exclusively on upselling services. I’m going to use examples from two people who I consider masters of their own domains, Jimmy D. Brown and Steve Slaunwhite.

Coaches and consultants:

Here is one very effective method that I learned from Jimmy.

Offer personalized Q & A coaching. As an Inner Circle member, part of his Membernaire™ program (Yup, that’s an affiliate link), people get to send him specific questions by email, one per day, Mon. – Fri. Jimmy responds with personalized answers which are specific to the question. This is way beyond your standard FAQs that you find on most sites

He charges $197.00 per month for this additional service and there’s a maximum limit of 50 members. You do the math, that’s an extra $10,000 per month in profit and he calls it the “entry level” method of coaching!
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Upselling in a Down Economy

Everyone knows these are tough economic times. People have less money to spend and credit is tight or nonexistent. So trying to upsell in a recession may sound like an oxymoron.

It may not be as difficult as you think. Yes, it does require you to be more creative and think outside the box to convince your customers to spend more money.

Let me give you two real-life examples to illustrate my point.

Case study #1: Residents along the Gulf Coast are snapping up natural gas standby generators

Those of us who live along the Gulf Coast have horrific and vivid memories of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike last year. The 2009 hurricane season is officially upon us and folks don’t want to take any chances this year.

Mind you these things are not cheap or an impulse buy, they range from $7,000 and up, to above $50,000.

Despite the bad economy, local dealers of natural gas generators are doing booming business and are swamped with calls from worried homeowners. How are they able to sell a big-ticket item that may not even be needed if we are spared from being hit by a major hurricane again? [Read more]

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