Deborah Ager is the founder of Radiant Media Labs and creator of the Book Activation Method workshop. She is an author who has written and co-edited several books, and she helps experts turn their knowledge into published books to grow their businesses, gain visibility, and attract more clients. Deborah has a background in both marketing and writing, and she uses her experience to guide business owners through the process of planning, writing, and using a book as a business tool.
1. master market and idea 2. align with mission: book sales, speaking, which publisher, authority 3. mining your material: blog posts, existing presentations, themes and ideas 4. mark out the tools: find the time/space to write, calendars, Evernote 5. map your mind: get messy with a mindmap 6. brain to book: break to-do list into do-able chunks, word count or time goal, schedule, write or speak 7. marketing
Quotes:
“We’re not fighting fear or trying to eliminate it. Instead, I’d rather embrace it because it’s going to show up no matter what.” – Deborah Ager
“When we’re experts around our own topic, it’s hard for us to see it with fresh eyes.” – Deborah Ager
“When you share stories, especially case studies, people feel more connected rather than feeling like they’re being sold to.” – Deborah Ager
Takeaways:
02:26 Many people are afraid to start writing a book, but taking small steps every day can help move past that fear.
05:02 Before writing, it’s important to know who your book is for and how it will help your business.
08:31 A book doesn’t have to be long; even a short book can be useful if it shares your main ideas clearly.
10:49 It’s normal to feel nervous as you finish your book, but looking back at your past work can help you feel more confident.
13:04 Using your old blog posts, talks, or presentations can make writing your book easier.
Rob Slee is an author, investment banker, mentor, and business owner who specializes in helping entrepreneurs and freelancers increase the value of their time. He wrote the book “Time Really Is Money,” which explains how people can scale their businesses and focus on higher-value activities to earn more per hour.
$50/hour business (where you are the value proposition)
$500/hour (where you manage employees)
$5000/hour (where you only deal with the culture, niches, and business model)
$50k/hour (changing industries)
$5m/hour (changing the world)
Quotes:
“Working the hardest and putting in the most hours doesn’t necessarily equate to value—it often just leads to early heart attacks.” – Rob Slee
“The higher you go in the value ladder, the fewer hours you work, but the more value you create.” – Rob Slee
“We all settle at our comfort level, sticking to tasks we know how to do—sometimes better than anyone we could hire. As owners of our time, whether we run a business or manage our own schedules, we tend to fall into familiar routines.” – Rob Slee
Takeaways:
01:53 If you own your time, you should focus on the tasks that create the most value, not just work harder.
04:43 Spend your time on high-value activities and let others handle the lower-value tasks, even if they don’t do them perfectly.
08:24 Build simple systems or checklists for tasks you outsource so you don’t have to keep explaining things.
18:36 Write down how you spend your time for a week to see where you can make changes and focus on higher-value work.
Nathan Hirsch is a serial entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and e-commerce. He is the founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com, a platform that connects businesses with reliable remote workers, and the co-founder and CEO of Portlight. Nathan started his entrepreneurial career by selling textbooks in college before building a successful $7 million Amazon drop shipping business.
Nathan Hirsch from Freeeup.com has several insights about outsourcing your team in the departments of biz-opp, e-commerce, marketing, and web development. Nathan began his entrepeneurial journey wiht a business that re-sold textbooks, and has since branched out to supplying workers for e-commerce businesses.
Quotes:
“If you can identify businesses that people rely on but that fail to satisfy the end consumer, that’s a great opportunity to step in and create change.” – Nathan Hirsch
“If you’re not making your end customer happy, eventually someone else is going to find a way to do it.” – Nathan Hirsch
“I’m all about calculated risk. If this business is doing well, why not pursue it? I can always go back and apply for jobs later.” – Nathan Hirsch
Takeaways:
01:14 Starting a business by solving a problem you see around you can lead to success.
04:58 Making customers happy should be the main focus of any business.
06:21 Doing all the work yourself at first helps you understand your business before hiring others.
13:26 Hiring can take a lot of time, so finding a faster way to get good workers is important.
23:05 Always have training materials ready so you can easily replace team members if needed.
Corinna Essa is an internationally recognized expert in social media marketing and the owner of Social Media Worldwide, a company that helps businesses grow their online presence without having to manage the day-to-day work themselves. She is known for her practical approach to social media, focusing on building real connections and providing value before making sales. Corinna is also an author and shares her knowledge through her blog and YouTube channel, both named Social Media Worldwide.
Corinna Essa from Social Media Worldwide wants to help you and your social media marketing efforts. She has a unique strategy when it comes to social media, which involves spending $1000 on an initial ad campaign to a free offer with no call-to-action, to then retarget (cookie) your best prospects and run ads to that already-engaged-audience.
Quotes:
“When everyone starts doing the same thing, then it stops working. Marketers destroy everything, because they overdo things and then it stops working for everyone else who jumped on it a bit too late.” – Corinna Essa
“Getting cold traffic is easy—almost every social network now offers advertising tools. Getting clicks and traffic isn’t the hard part; the real challenge is driving conversions.” – Corinna Essa
“People forget the importance of warm traffic, and they don’t take the time to turn cold traffic into warm traffic.” – Corinna Essa
Takeaways:
00:52 Social media works best when you focus on giving value and building trust before trying to sell anything.
04:42 Paid ads should first send people to useful content, not straight to a sales page.
12:33 If you post for free, aim for about 80% helpful content and only 20% promotion.
16:01 Using retargeting lets you show sales ads only to people who already showed interest in your first ad.
21:49 Turning cold traffic into warm traffic takes time and money, but it leads to better results in the long run.
What would you do if suddenly, tomorrow, you were no longer allowed or able to use WordPress for your websites? And you had to go back to HTML, FTPing files… sounds terrible, right?
Well… there is a secret “new frontier” for you and your WordPress sites and that’s managing them remotely. You can see all your sites in one place, update all sites, 1-click login to any WordPress site, compare sites and add plugins…
I could never go back to NOT using a tool to manage all my WordPress sites in one place (such as Website Remote) — it’s like being without WordPress, or without GPS, or without a car to drive…
AND — Lance, myself, and our team have been adding some cool new features to our Website Remote tool:
1. Website Groups: you can now “bunch up” your sites and say… let me only update this group of my 10 client sites. Or install this one plugin on my 25 test sites…
2. Cloud Storage: we now give you 1GB of free storage with Website Remote so you can store your favorite plugins in one place (perhaps premium plugins or maybe free plugins that are hard for you to find, or you forget to find) — and choose a plugin in that cloud storage and send it off to one, all, or some of your websites
3. Plugin Packages: you can also “bunch up” your plugins… and say, here are my 5 bare essential plugins for SEO and security… here are the 10 plugins I use for a membership site, here are the 20 plugins I use on a test site…
You can mix and match plugins in a package. You can choose 3 of your plugins from the cloud and combine them with 10 free plugins, for example…
So — that means you can login to Website Remote today, click the “Essentials” and “Membership Plugins” packages (bunched up plugins that are some you uploaded and some free ones) — and maybe click the “Client Sites” and “Membership Sites” groups you created…
And basically install 15 plugins on 35 of your WordPress sites, without having to login, remember passwords, or upload each and every time…
This is HUGE (yuuuuge), we believe this changes the way you’ll use WordPress forever, and it’s only 99 cents to get started today:
Gerald Leonard, author of The Culture is the Bass, has advice for you on developing a company culture that works. If you’re tired of miscommunications and employee turnover, and you want a team that works together, then you’ll want to tune in to discover the seven principles you could be missing;
Larry Becht from The Expert Media Group has a lot to say about ClickFunnels, his preferred tool of choice for setting up landing pages and funnels, especially since it now includes “Backpack” for running an affiliate program and “Actionetics” for tracking your visitors. Larry specializes done-for-you website setup and you’ll want to hear his thoughts about hiring a professional to setup your pages quickly.
Marty McDonald from Bad Rhino Inc. stops by to share some interesting social media marketing strategies that can apply to any business, online or offline. Marty shares some case studies with Victory Beer and Blind Squirrel Apparel and how he’s been able to track improvement with his clients while being entertaining with his content and marketing specific calls-to-action.
Can you relate to having “too many ideas” and you’re not sure if any are any good?
Maybe you’ve done the legwork for this website or that website… registered some domain names, setup an empty WordPress blog that will “one day” hold your membership site… maybe you’ve bought some resale rights content…
Maybe you’ve recorded some interviews, videos, audios, or written some sort of report down that you one day want to put into a membership site… a site where someone pays you to get access.
And then what happened? Life got in the way, right?
Something came across that was more urgent and you had to switch gears to make money now…
Or you came across something more exciting and you said… I’ll put my current hopes and dreams on the “back burner” to try something else…
I’m not sure about your current situation, but many people that are currently struggling with making money and creating a profitable membership site have this problem:
— not enough time, too distracted, too overwhelmed, too stressed out
— confusion about what to do next or what to “click” and generally getting FRUSTRATED with websites in general
And even worse, the “sting” every time you check your internet marketing business on your phone or your computer. I’m sure you know what the sting is:
there’s a little of bit of that sting or that anxiety when you check your email, stats and sales and the number is either at zero or you wish it was way higher
another bill for that web host, a quick charge for those handful of domain names you didn’t use… should I continue renewing those domain names every year or cut some of them loose? And then what was I paying that yearly domain fee for?
thinking about or browsing through the massive clutter of half finished projects, ideas, websites, and files… just a huge mess… sting
wondering if this will all be worth it and feeling the “lifetime cost” of all the little e-books and things continues to pile up and sting…
Can I tell you what my personal opinion is (which you can say is either right or wrong) about you, your upcoming membership site, and the future of you and your online business?
You may have heard that you should narrow your focus down to just one website at a time, dedicate X days or X hours to getting it done…
Maybe you’ve also heard that you should make the simplest, ugliest, most no-frills site as possible that DOES have a buy button, so you can get just one member and go from there…
And… what is/was very reassuring to me is that after you FINISH that first money making site (FINISH meaning you get one single paying member) then not only does it become a lot easier to make your next site (because you’ve done it before), it’s actually more fun because you now know this money making thing “works” and isn’t just a hobby…
So can I tell you what I “think” you should do today?
Unsolicited Piece of Advice #1: Drain the Website Swamp
Your previous websites, business expenses, half finished sites, etc. don’t matter. If you have a mess of a folder, a mess of 10 half finished sites and you aren’t making progress on any of them, isn’t it time to clean up the mess and drain that huge “swamp” of stuff? Get some simplicity, clarity, focus?
I’m no neat-freak, but if I sit down on the couch to relax and there’s papers or “stuff” on the counter, I get huge amounts of anxiety… enough where I can’t calm down and I can’t think… not a good mental place to be. I’m the same way with any clutter on my desk OR if I have a ton of files on my desktop OR a ton of dangling unfinished projects…
Put it all away. You can bring “the mess” back to the forefront after completing just one membership site… so how do you do that?
Unsolicited Piece of Advice #2: Make it Pretty and Perfect “Tomorrow”
Priorities. What do you need in order to take payments online?
a domain name (.com name such as membershipcube.com that people can type in to find your site)
a website and landing page (a simple sales letter, we include Paper Template in our Membership Cube course)
a way to take payments (we use PayPal and if you want something fanicer, switch out that piece later)
a membership site to take payments, control access and provide content (PDFs, videos) — we provide this in Membership Cube as well
What about… 1-click upsells? Downsells and OTO Fancy graphics? Professional videos? An affiliate contest on social media? Those are nice to haves and not must-haves…
Here’s what I think… setup your membership site today with Membership Cube (we provide the 1-click template so it’s done in seconds) and don’t worry about that fancy stuff until “tomorrow”… just get that functioning membership site completed today.
Your membership site is done today in one click and by the time tomorrow rolls around, it will be “today” again and time to focus on the important stuff… filling up the membership site with content in a day (module two) — and you can save the fancy graphics and everything until “tomorrow” (which is still a day away at that point)…
Day three… you could jump into module three of Membership Cube which is the one to beef up your sales letter and make it easy for others to join your site — but guess what? Fancy graphics and procrastination land is still “tomorrow” at that point…
Unsolicited Piece of Advice #3: Don’t Plan, Course Correct
Finally, many people think they need a master plan of some kind. They can’t make membership site #1 because they want to know what membership site #10 is going to be…
If that has been your way of thinking up until now, how has that been working out for you?
Sure seems like a recipe for stress and being spread too thin, if you ask me.
The problem with mapping out your entire life is that the sales and feedback you get from the mini-launch of your next membership site will completely change the trajectory of your internet business moving forward.
For example, you might setup that quick golfing membership site and it leads to a couple high ticket coaching clients that wouldn’t have paid you unless they find you through that single-payment training course they bought from you (membership site) first…
Or maybe you whip up a single-payment quick weight loss membership site and it leads to you setting up some sort of monthly auto-ship service where you mail your members a bottle of pills or a some sort of algae liquid through the mail. You wouldn’t have scaled your business to that point unless you had that validation — sales of the weight loss course to prove that your idea works. Stepping stones.
Perhaps you create a training course about drone flying and you realize that there is a huge demand for an additional membership course about drone racing. Your “first wave” of members actually ask you to create something for round two, and they buy it.
What Your (Attainable) Goal Needs to Be
It’s good to have a goal, but if you don’t have cashflow in your business, your goal is very simple: to just make one sale of ANYTHING, even something that’s 10 or 100 bucks. Once you see how easy that is (and maybe you’ve been making it too complicated without even realizing it) you might say:
that was fun, I want to do it again
I want to scale my business so the next site makes even more money
this small success gives me an idea for the next thing that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise
I finally see the value in focusing and finishing what I start as opposed to being spread too thin or spinning my wheels
There definitely is value to trying out a couple of things (think of it as “career day” or that “starter income”) and then look back and think… did I enjoy that? Did I make enough money and if not, what small steps will I take so that not only make more money, but I generate that doing the things I enjoy doing?
To make sure you’re on the right track,
look BACK at your past mistakes
in addition to looking FORWARD
so that you don’t continue making the same mistakes.
Setup a membership site quickly so that your thinking doesn’t have time to get in the way of you taking action. Making money is more important than being 100% perfect and planned out, and this is the path you can jump on right now to flesh out your idea, click a button and set it up using our template, and have a site ready to take orders… not in three months from now, not in three weeks from now, TODAY:
