I am getting a lot of questions about my new Marketing Matters video podcast and so I thought I would do a series of ongoing blog posts about how I set it up, including the video podcast equipment that I use as well as the why behind the new show.

Be sure and check back to keep getting updates on my podcasting journey. Also, please share this with your friends on facebook who might want to do a video podcast for themselves.

Note: Some of the links are my affiliate links. If you feel like using my suggestions great. It not it is no problem as well.

The Why Behind The Show

I would like to start out with the why behind the show. This is what fuels the how in the first place and also, is something important that I think people should think about.

For about 10 years, I have been making money online. I have made money from all sorts of things. I have written successful ebooks and even built a travel site that was 100% written by ghostwriters which pays my mortgage each month (One sidenote that many of my listeners already know about is I have never even flown on an airplane before).

You hear a lot about making money from your passion. I have been able to do that for years. I have also been able to make money from things that I am not so passionate about because I have developed my skills of marketing online. My friend Tomaz from Freedom Ideas is who turned me onto the concept of being pasisonate about your lifestyle.

As I get older and my goals have changed, I decided to make a change in my business. I want to only work on projects where my passion and energy is there AS WELL AS buyers are present. Being passionate about something doesn’t mean that people are going to hand you money for that. You still have to have a real solution to a real problem someone is facing. Look to see what people are buying right now.

I asked myself a few questions.

• What do I talk watch,read,think,dream,search google about on a fairly consistent basis?
• What would I do if I didn’t need money anymore (of course this is besides watching movies in my tricked out home theater room ha)?
• What are my values?
• Do people spend money on the things that I am interested in?

Well, on a weekly basis, without fail, I am talking about marketing and business, usually with my marketing junkie buddies Jonathan, Scott and Greg. If I am not doing that, I have my 160 gig ipod jammed with marketing audios and videos on various business related topics. I relax to Dan Kennedy talking about writing salescopy to influential people. I am a geek in this area.

I also don’t like to write. When I do write, I write very detailed and elaborate brain dump’s about topics but they are few and far between. Writing for me is extremely slow. I am impatient and want to make something happen now. Even with this post, I wrestled about just sharing it on video instead of writing. However, I chose writing because I feel I don’t want to lose any important details I want to share with my readers about this whole process.

One of the questions I asked has to do with how I want to leave this world and what I believe (values). On the front of my car, I have a plate that says “Start A Business Make A Difference“.

I believe entrepreneurs have the power to change the world. We come up with the ideas and give people the jobs to carry those ideas out. We are the ones out there selling people solutions to peoples problems that can change their life. Some of those solutions can change a their financial family tree.

Example: John D. Rockefellar was the first billionaire. Not only was he successful in business, he created the Rockefellar Medical Institute  which has saved thousands of lives by finding cures for diseases.

I like video. I have been doing videos since 2006. Most were what I call “ghetto faboulous” but they made me money because they built the know like and trust. I enjoy doing video. I am comfortable on video.

I am sharing all this with you because I wanted you to see my thought process of how I came to start Marketing Matters.

When I analyzed all my answers, I came up with:

I would like to do a video show on the topic of marketing that gives people specific activities that they can use to grow their business. I also want this project to help social causes that I believe in as well. I want to build a community of people like my buddies Jonathan, Greg and Scott to hang out with and talk about my favorite subject.

I then went to work on the name. I wanted something that people could easily remember. I thought of the word “matter”.

We all want to matter to someone. We want our message to matter. To be successful, your marketing DOES have to matter. Also, using the word matter is a bit of a play on words since we donate money to rescue orphans in Peru when someone buys our products. We matter to the orphans. This is how I came up with the name www.MarketingMattersPodcast.com.

 How I Setup My Video Podcast

In this section, I would like to discuss the process and steps I went through to setup my video podcast. I am not an expert on this topic and don’t claim to be. There could be better or worse ways to go about it but this is what I did.

First I went and registered my domain name with Godaddy. Next, I went and setup hosting over at hostgator. I still use their baby account to host all my sites.

Once my hosting was setup, I went and chose a wordpress theme. I wanted a simple and clean look to the site. I chose the fast blog theme. There are some great themes out there that work well with video. I know whoo themes has some you might want to check out.

Once I got my theme installed, I activated the plugins I wanted and added my aweber code for people to subscribe.

I also went over to Fiverr.com and got my logo done for…you guessed it…five bucks!! Crazy right?

Now that my site is up, I needed to make sure I have everything to actually put together a show.

I knew I wanted to do video interviews with people over skype. I also knew I wanted to have them split screen. Bill Myers, which is one of my secret underground mentors, helped me with a cheap but awesome solution. It is called, Replay Telecorder for Skype. It allows you to do split screen interviews and I think it is only $20. I need to mention that I use a pc so I am sure it is a bit different on a mac.

Next, I needed a good webcam. I wanted to do a professional show. Many new computers have awesome webcams so you might not need to buy one yourself. I bought the Microsoft Livecam HD webcam. It is awesome and simple to get started.

One of my inspirations for doing a video podcast is David Siteman Garland who runs The Rise To The Top. He has a great video podcast on business and health topics. I decided to use the same audio equipment he uses for his show since there is no use in reinventing the wheel. I bought the :

• Rode Podcaster USB Dynamic Microphone
• Nady MPF-6  6-Inch Clamp On Microphone Pop Filter
• Rode PSM 1 Shockmount For Podcaster
• Rode PSA1 Swivel Mount Studio Microphone Boom

The great thing about the microphone is it hooks right into my usb ports. It sounds awesome as well. I would say this is a mid to higher range mic. Highly suggest using it.

I use the easy video player to play my video podcasts. It is awesome and simple to use. I have them hosted on a Amazon S3 account.

Once you are setup, you want to make sure that you have a good background with good lighting. Remember, do it right. Make it professional. I have heard it said, act like Oprah is watching your show. If she likes you, it could change your business overnight.

Once you do a show, you will want to edit the show. I use Camtasia for that. You can also use Sony Vegas Studio. Another option is to outsource it all together. You can find great work for a really cheap price like I do.

I decided to get a nice video intro done as well to spice my show up a bit. I paid $100 for mine which is a STEAL.

I believe that is it for this post. In the next post, I will discuss putting together the content of the show.

What are your thoughts and questions?

In a previous post, I shared 7 cool things you could do by making an extra $500 a month in passive income.

Today, I am going to share a lengthy post on what I feel are the best ways to make an extra $500 a month in income. This is not a be all end all list either.

This is THE LIST that has all the ways that I PERSONALLY make a living on the internet and have for over 9 years. One thing I want to mention as well is all of the models can be expanded into WAAY more than $500 a month.

I personally hate when people are teaching things that they are not qualified to be teaching. Don’t you?

We have too many people out there teaching people how to make money that have no business doing so. I am not going to be doing that in this article.

Here are a list of the business models that I PERSONALLY make a living from and will be covering in this article. They are in no certain order of importance.

1. membership site
2. info products
3. online network marketing
4. affiliate marketing
5. google adsense
6. offer a service
7. consulting or coaching
8. E-class

Before we begin, I feel there are some things that you should know about AND take care of BEFORE you choose one of these business models. I want you to be successful and these are the things that I would tell my best friend if he called me up for advice.

Are You Ticked Or Broke Enough To Make More Money

That is an odd question to ask and even seems counter productive right?

Let me explain…

Now, I am not a goal setting expert by any stretch (just a college drop out who has figured some things out). Remember, I am only going to teach you what I personally use to make money and be successful.

When I was 23, I was in Bible college and I had no idea what I was going to do for a living. I just knew I wasn’t going to be a “broke loser” when I was 30.  I didn’t have have to drive a vette or have a mansion, I just knew I wanted to marry a good woman who was smart and attractive (I got what I wanted).

To marry an attractive and smart woman, I needed to have a good job. I couldn’t work at 7/11 and get what I wanted.

This desire I had was VERY strong – still is 10 yrs later.NOTHING was going to stop me from being successful.I was not going to quit.

So what does this mean to you?

You have to be ticked off with your job enough…

You have to be broke enough…

You have to be persistent enough…

….to make $500 or more per month in passive income.

Don’t focus on the money. Focus on WHAT it will do for you.

2 Simple Exercises To Do Before You Begin

If you feel comfortable, I would love to have you write in the comments area the answers to the exercises if you would like to share.

1. Please write down any and hopes, wishes, and dreams that you want to see happen when you start your business. Be very specific.

Note: I break my life up into projects. I have a website that pays for different parts of my life (mortgage, retirement,debt). I kind of got that thought process from Tim Ferris who wrote The Four Hour Work Week.

2. Please write down 5 things that you can do between today and tomorrow that will help you get closer to your dreams

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

By doing these two simple exercises, it will help you stick with your business long enough to see success. I would maybe write the dream list on a card and take it with you.

You Don’t Have To Be A Technical Geek

One of the other things I want you to know about is you don’t have to be a geek to start an internet business. You can hire geeks like I do to do it for you. DO NOT let this stop you. Building a website is much easier than it use to be.

Here are nine business models that anyone can follow to make an extra $500 OR MORE and that don’t require much money to get started. Again, this list is in no certain order but they all work very well.

1.  Start A Membership Site

Membership sites are great because usually the income is reocurring and comes in each month. I say usually because a membership might just have a one off payment. There are many ways to do it.

I have a membership site that has a monthly membership where members get a monthly resale right product that they can sell and keep 100% of the profits. I let people try out the site for free by giving away a rare interview with Jon Leger on a 30 day website traffic blueprint.

The key to being successful with membership sites, and any other business for that matter, is to find out what problem people have that is so important or painful to them, that they will pay money for it.

I have had several membership sites and have charged different prices. You don’t have to know everything about everything. In fact, you can outsource your entire membership site if you want. I teach you how here.

5 Membership Site Ideas You Could Use Right Now

I would like to get your wheels spinning so here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Car Club – You take a certain car or vehicle and start an online membership for that group. I own one of only ten thousand Saturn Sky Redline’s and I plan to start a site for people who love this car. I may only charge a yearly fee for this site. You could do this for any niche. Another example is Indian motorcycles. I got that idea from the show American Pickers.

2. Weight Loss – I sold a membership site that only targeted people who wanted to lose 30lbs or more. I niched it instead of being generic. Another idea is maybe women who want to lose weight after having a baby. It is really important to focus on a certain market.

3. Tool – Create some sort of tool that people need for their business and charge a monthly fee for it. A great example is the email service I pay $19.95 a month for called Aweber.

4. Hobby - Find a hobby that a lot of people enjoy as well and create a resource membership site filled with tips.

5. Animals - People spend a TON of money on their pets. I know we do. You could start a membership site on a certain type of pet or breed. Give the pet owners tips and techniques to take better care of their pet.

2. Create An Info Product

This is one of my favorite ways to earn money. There are a million sites on info products so I am not going to repeat what has already been said. What I am going to do is share the two models that I use, give you some examples, and give you some tips.

There are a lot of ways to create info products. I have done ebooks, reports, downloadable videos. I have charged high prices and low prices. It just depends on what the topic is and the extent of it. I typically create very specific products, only targeting very specific problems. Also, my products are usually small and step by step.

Like I just mentioned, I follow really two models. They are Jimmy D. Browns’ The Copy System and Josh Spauldings Info Product Success Formula. I have found HUGE success using both. I am a huge fan.

Here are a few of my very successful products

www.MostConnectedMarketer.com – This is a great example using Josh Spauldings Info Product Success Formula

www.FreeDownlineBuilderChecklist.com – Another great example using Josh Spauldings Info Product Success Formula

www.RaiseMoneyQuick.com - This is a great example using Jimmy D. Brown’s The Copy System

Here is a really powerful tip for you. One of the biggest mistakes I see newbies make is they are focused on all the wrong things in their business. Here are the only three things that you need to work on to build a very successful online business (Taken right from Jimmy D. Brown’s course)

- Traffic Generation

- List Marketing

- Making Offers

3. Online Network Marketing

One of the ways that I make a living online is through network marketing or direct sales as some call it. I have an online greeting card mlm company that I have promoted since 2007.

I have been very successful with the company and was able to pay cash for my dream car using the money I made from the business.

It wasn’t always like that though. I had joined 6 other companies and did not have any success until I did two things.

1. I joined a company that fit ME. – Not every company is for everyone. I found a product that I believed in and have stuck with that same company since 2007.

2. I also started to learn how to generate leads online. I built my downline up to about 150 people using the internet. The key to making network marketing work is being able to talk to enough people to find the players.

By the way, I am not against marketing offline as well to generate leads for my business but I have gotten very good at meeting people online.

If you want to promote your mlm online, then you might want to download my free 6 step checklist that I follow even to this day to generate free leads.

Extra tip: Typically 1 out of 5 will join a business. Set a goal to try and do one presentation per day M-F. Take the weekends off. You should be able to recruit 4 people per month into your business. By following my 6 steps, this shouldn’t be a problem.

4. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is basically promoting other people’s products and services and receiving a commission for it. You can promote just about anything on the internet and get a commission for it. Many people start out this way because they feel putting together their own product is a lot of work. That is a myth by the way.

I have a buddy that has a site on vacuum cleaners. He writes reviews about them and people click on his affiliate links to get more information. Some of those people buy online. He is making over $10,000 a month with this model. That is just an example of what is out there.

You could put up a site about your digital cameras or gardening and there are a million products that you could promote. There isn’t a cost to start selling the items. The great thing about it is that you don’t have to ship anything. They do it for you.

The biggest tip I can tell you about making money with affiliate marketing is try the product that you are promoting and write honest reviews or articles about the product.

By doing this, your story and experience will pre sell people into buying that product.The biggest affiliate checks that I receive are the ones where I have personal experience with the product.

Let me give you a real life example of one of my biggest affiliate products that I promote.

I am a HUGE fan of Dr. Evoy’s SiteBuildIt website building software. I have a travel site that pays my mortgage each month and has for a long time with very little work on my part. I used SBI to build that site and it gets about 2000 people per day to the site for free.

I wrote about my experience with SiteBuildIt and discussed the seven reasons why I think someone should use it for their business. All I did was share my experience with SBI and that one blog post leads to many affiliate sales.

Another tip is to offer a bonus to your prospects if they buy through your affiliate link. This has worked VERY well for me. You an see an example of how I do it here.

5. Google Adsense

My mortgage is paid compliments of the Google Adsense program. Basically Google will pay you when someone clicks on the ads that you place on your website.

Many people know about my travel site called www.CoolestPlacesToVisit.com. It is a site that I started in 2007 as a research project to show people that you can make money online with no special connections.

The cool thing about my site is i haven’t even worked on this site in 2011 and yet, I have received a check from Google on the 28th every month. It REALLY is passive income.

The key to making money with adsense is having enough traffic to your website. You will need about 500-1,000 visitors per day to your website to make at least $500 a month. It is VERY doable though so don’t let that scare you away.

There is a great free report by Josh Spaulding called The $5 Formula that I suggest you download if you are interested in this particular model. Josh is a good guy and this short report really does give you a step by step model. The way he teaches in the report is you only need 17 visitors per day to hit your goal.

This is a VERY simple model to follow.

All I did was…

1. Decide on a niche

2. Do keyword research to find out what content I was going to have written

3. Write an article on each keyword or have a ghost writer write it for cheap like I did.

4. Publish the article on your site.

If you want a rinse and repeat model then this might be the model for you.

6. Offer a Service

If you asked me what is the quickest way to make money online, I would say offering a service is the quickest.

There are all kinds of services that you could offer online and make $500 extra per month.

7 Services People Are Paying For Right Now

Below are a list of services people are paying for right now. Think about something that you could offer.

1. Ghost writing

2. Virtual Assistant

3. Article Spinning

4. Website Design

5. Graphic Design

6. Affiliate Manager

7. Backlinking Service

This is only a small list of possible services that you could offer. The great thing about offering a service is that there is very little, if any money involved to get started and only your time invested.

7. Start Consulting or Coaching

If you enjoy talking with people, you might want to consider starting a coaching or consulting business. There are some people who would rather go to the source and hire an expert on the topic instead of buying their information product.

One great thing about coaching is it would be fairly easy to hit your $500 a month goal since getting personal help would obviously cost more than a book.

The above picture is a picture of my clients Jordan and Steve. I helped them get to $4,000 a month in residual income by coaching with me. Another cool thing about coaching is the since of accomplishment when your clients have success. There is nothing like it.

I do coaching a couple different ways.

1. Phone Coaching – For people who want personal help, I offer a package that involves 4-7 hours. This is obviously the best way to go for someone wanting quick results.

2. Email Coaching – For people on a budget, I offer email coaching where the client can email me one question per day M-F. You an see how I do it by going to www.CoachingWithDave.com.

One big tip that I can give you is DO NOT be afraid to walk away if you don’t feel like there is a good fit. DO NOT be desperate.

There is plenty of business out there. Don’t beg for business either. It NEVER works. Just because someone has money to hire me, does not guarantee them a coaching spot with me. I want to know more about the person. I usually do a small session with someone to find out a few things about them first.

- Background information

- What are they trying to accomplish

- What are they expecting to get out of my coaching

- Do I feel like they are action takers (I look for people who will take action with what I teach them)

If you feel like starting a coaching business, think about a problem people are having and consider offering them a solution to their problem.

Here is a cool tip for you. Be sure and use stories to sell people into your coaching. Stories sell and facts tell. One of the ways that I do it is I interview my clients and give the call away for free. There is no sales pitch on the call.  I ask them questions on what I taught them that helped them so much. People love it. I use BYO Audio to record my calls or skype.

Here is an example of one of those calls.

8. Create a 4-6 Week E-Class

Ok how could I not use this picture?

One way to make some good money is by having an e-class. It is a class that is taught online for a length of time, usually 4-6 weeks where the students get lessons and coaching from you. You an charge from $297 to $997 and people will pay it to have that personal coaching from you.

One way I have done it is with my network marketing info product. Although, I shared everything my prospects need to build a network marketing downline using the internet, people still wanted more.

I created a 4 week class where I fleshed out my report into 4 weekly lessons and offered one on one coaching. I charge $297 for the class and people have enjoyed it.

Consider doing the same thing and charging $497. All you need is ONE student per month! You think you can do that? I think you can.

My Best Advice For You

You now have several proven business models to choose from and successful examples that you can follow. What I suggest that you do is pick one model and follow it from start to profit as my friend Lynn Terry says to do.

One of the things that I teach my elite 12 coaching clients is to focus on making $2000 a month in six months and think about starting one project every six months for two years. You could have four projects making a total of $8,000 a month which is conservative.

Ask Me One Question And I Will Answer

If you would like some free coaching from me, please ask one question below in the comments section that you feel you need help on. I will answer each question personally.

What you might want to consider is “What is your BIGGEST challenge in making an extra $500 a month?“.

I hope you found this article helpful. Please let me know your thoughts.

Dave

You can actually change your life by just making an extra $500 per month in extra income. It’s true!

If you look around at the hype on the internet about starting a business, all you read about is making an extra $5,000-10,000 in 30 days with very little effort. Now, I am not against that and nor do I believe that there aren’t people doing that, however that is not the norm.

In this post, I would like to get you to think about the possibilities of what you could do in your life by just making an exta $17 a day or $500 a month. I think you will be shocked…and hopefully inspired.

1. Pay Off Debt

It is no secret that debt destroys marriages and relationships. Having debt causes massive stress in the lives of individuals. Also, by having debt, you miss out on business and investment opportunities that could really change your life. The quicker that you get a plan to pay it off the better.

When I was in college, I ran up A LOT of student loan debt (and I am not even a Dr. lol). Instead of credit cards, I used my 0% interest loans. Terrible mistake! As I got older, I got a few more loans and some other debt. It was not good. Slowly but surely, I paid off all my debt except for my student loans. Lord willing, I will be debt free within a year. I can tell you, those times were stressful for me.

There are tons of financial books out there with various plans. Find one that you feel good about and FOLLOW it. Listen, $500 extra per month thrown on your debt can make a big difference in your life. That is how I got started.

Leo Quinn is a good friend of mine and has a great system for paying off debt. I used his program to get my credit report looking better. He has sample letters and such that I used to clean everything up. You can check out his “How To Own Your Paycheck Again!” program. I highly endorse it.

2. Remodel Your House

Have the pictures in Southern Living created the desire to make a few changes around the old homestead? Are you simply tired of the way your house looks—both inside and out? Is your kitchen from the 1950’s, but you are still using it in the 2000’s? Or has your family outgrown your house, but you do not want to move?

If you earn an extra $500 a month that can be dedicated solely to your remodel project, you have the potential to get a great return on your investment when you go to sell your house or just provide a nicer atmosphere for your family to enjoy.

What would you remodel with your extra money?

3. Invest For Retirement

Wouldn’t it be nice to have the cash reserves readily available to take advantage of a good investment when it comes along?

If you had an extra $500 a month to invest in mutual funds, real estate, or the stock market, you could start building a portfolio that would allow you to make more investments, travel, or retire.

A simple investment of $500 per month could earn you interest for number of years. That would be your extra money working for you to help you create the life you only dream about now.

Take a look at many of the financial calculators online and start playing with some numbers. You will be amazed at how just a little investment of $500 can add up to thousands of dollars.

Have you figured out what your number is so you can retire?

4. Buy Your Dream Car

Is your car about to give up the ghost? Maybe there is a car that you have been wanting for a while but couldn’t afford it on your family budget. An extra $500 a month coming in should be enough to cover a car payment and insurance.

Even better, use that money and pay cash for your car like I did last year. That way you don’t take on any new debt. The picture of the car above is mine. I was able to pay cash for it last September with the extra money I made in my home based greeting card business.

I LOVE my turbo charged Saturn Sky Redline (260hp  )and have wanted one ever since it came out back in 2007. I just wanted to wait until the timing was right.

What type of vehicle would you buy if you had an extra $500 a month coming in each month?

5. Go On A Family Vacation

I know of one family that goes to Disney world each year. It cost about $5000 and they do it every year. Imagine all the memories that they have created on those family vacations. That could be you if you have $500 a month extra you could put towards saving for that epic vacation.

One of the things I have been able to do is pay for a log cabin in one of our favorite places which is Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It feels good to walk in and pay for it each year. We invite my family and my in-laws to join us for three days. We LOVE it.

Where would you go to create memories?

6. Give More To Charity

I think most people are good people. I think most people would love to do more for people if they had the means. $500 a month that goes to your favorite charities or maybe your church could go a LONG WAY in someone’s life. There are some great organizations that could use a generous donation.

John D. Rockefeller is my favorite businessman of all time. He made a ton of money while he was alive. That isn’t all he did either. He gave away a massive amount of money to start schools and other ventures. You might of heard of the Rockefeller Medical Institute. That one institute has saved thousands of lives by curing diseases. All of this has happened, and keeps happening, long after Mr. Rockefeller has passed.

Who would you give to if you made another $500 a month?

7. Pay For Childcare

Owning a daycare…THAT is the business to be in! ha!

We are expecting our first child in October and so I have now been enlightened on the cost of child care. It’s NUTS!!!!

With an extra $500 a month of passive income coming in each month, child care wouldn’t hurt so much.

I hope this has given you some ideas on how $500 a month could change your life. One of the things that has worked for me is creating projects to pay for my lifestyle. I have websites that pay for my debt, mortgage and health insurance….all with passive income.

So what would YOU spend your $500 on if you had it coming in each month passively? Please comment below.

P.S. Another idea for you is to pay your house off early.

P. P. S. If you are needing to raise money quick, you might take a look at my ebook “50 Ways To Raise $50-1,000 In 30 Days Or Less“.

One of the hardest things to do in business is to generate enough prospects for your business in hope that some of them will convert to paying customers or clients.

In this post, I am going share with you two amazingly simple ideas that you can use to generate local internet prospects.

1. Meetup.com - I am shocked that more people don’t know or use this site to generate leads for their business.  Basically, it is a site where groups of local people meet about a certain topic.

I am joking around of course, but if you wanted to market to left-handed women who like to knit, there is a meetup group somewhere in your town. ha!

Seriously though, using the power of Meetup is just smart business. You can join for free and start attending other Meetup groups about whatever topic you choose or you can start your own.

When I put together a marketing plan, I try and think of marketing to “groups” of people. That way I can go through the numbers quick enough to get to the people who want to pay me for my product or service.

If you think Meetup is something that you would like to check out for yourself, be sure and download my free report 5 Proven Ways To Generate Unlimited Free L.O.C.A.L. Leads Using Meetup.com.

You will discover how to make money from the members before they even do business with you (I share two case studies with you). This method allows you to erase the cost of your marketing efforts.

2. Local Tips Website – This idea is a simple one to put together and if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing, could be a great option for you.

Here is the overview of this concept:

Put together a website giving away free tips on a topic that your market would be interested and drive traffic to it using partners and other other mediums mentioned in my free local lead generation report.

Start by putting up a basic website that allows visitors to get free tips from you by giving you their name and email address. A great example is my local lead generation squeeze page.

As far as content goes, you will write some tips to give away but where the magic happens is you gather 3-5 partners that target the same prospects as you do BUT do not compete with you.  Have THEM provide content as well. Drip the tips through email using an autoresponder. Once or twice per week is a good idea.

Have each person pitch in some money (50-100 bucks a month) to market the site in the newspapers locally. If you find just a handful of partners, it won’t cost you a dime to market your business because you can pass on the cost to the other partners.

How cool is that?

Take just one of these ideas (or both), and run with them. Don’t be shocked if you start generating leads for your business. Success leaves clues.

Dave

One of my favorite ways to create info products to sell is to interview experts on the phone.  In fact, I have done about 84 interviews since 2006.

There are a few options that you can choose from but I prefer to use BYO. It is an audio service that I call when I am ready to record. I just switch over and call into a phone number BYO provides me and I enter a code. I then switch back over to the other line and wait for the beap.

The great thing about BYO Audio is within minutes, I can download an mp3 of the call or publish it right on my website.

I have been using them since 2006 so that should tell you how happy I am with the service.

You can get a 30 day trial by going here.

In this article, I want to share with you my experience of outsourcing content for some of my websites and how you can do the same.

Hiring a ghostwriter is something that people think only celebrities do or Presidents do when they are writing a book. However, there are writers all over the internet that will write articles for you on any topic that you can think of.

One of the things I picked up from a friend of mine named Tomaz who is a six figure internet marketer is that there are two thoughts to approaching an internet business.

1. Making money from your passion

2. Being passionate about a part of your lifestyle and finding something to fund that part of your lifestyle.

I do both.

I LOVE anything about business, marketing, and internet marketing. I could talk about it 24/7. I am lucky that I can make money from it because it is a subject that people are interested in and always will be.

However, I also have websites which make me money but I am NOT passionate about. For instance, I have a travel site that pays my mortgage each money without me having to work. It was ENTIRELY written by ghostwriters from NAA.

Benefits of Hiring Ghostwriters

By hiring ghostwriters to write for me…

1. I could focus on other aspects of my business like traffic.

2. I didn’t have to research and write about topics that I wasn’t passionate about. I could let the good writers over at NAA to research AND write on my behalf.

3. My time was spent doing things that I wanted to do with my life  (time is VERY important to me).

Hiring ghostwriters didn’t mean that I couldn’t add value to people which is extremely important to me. It is the same thing as McDonald’s franchise owners hiring others to make the hamburgers and provide value to the visitors/customers.

Places To Hire Ghostwriters

Here are a few places that you can find ghostwriters to write for you. These are in no certain order.

1. Google – Shocker right? You can google just about anything and find what you are looking for including ghostwriters.

2. Need An Article – This is the site that I use and have used for three years to hire my ghostwriters. I know the founder, Scott Foster. He is a good Christian guy and provides a great resource. Basically you join for $9.95 a month and you can post your project in the members area. A writer will then pick up your project and have it back to you within forty-eight hours! Crazy right?

The cool thing about the site is…it is cheap! I pay $6.27 for a 550 word article and about $9.75 I believe for a 750 word article. They do press releases and all sorts of things.

3. Elance - This is an auction site where contractors bid on your project. (Think Ebay but the opposite.)

4. Odesk - This is another very popular site where many of my friends hire full-time contractors from overseas to work for them. Contractors bid for jobs as well.

5. Vworker – This is another auction site that I have used for six years now to find good workers for all sorts of projects.

NOTE: If you would like to know how I outsource my business and have NEVER been ripped off then you can check  out a video I created called Simple Outsourcing Video. It seems to be very popular with people who are afraid to outsource.

Check out those resources and decide which one works best for you.

My 6 Best Insider Secrets For Hiring Ghostwriters

I would like to give you my best secrets to hiring writers to write over 400 articles for me in 3 years. If you have outsourced article writing before as well, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

1.  Test first – I don’t load up a writer with a bunch of article request until I have tested them on a small scale with a few articles first. Once I test them out, I roll it out BIG TIME.

2.  Work history check - I like to look at what a person has done in the past before I hire them. Ask for samples and/or look at testimonials of what others have said about the potential writer.

3.  Compliment - Writers are humans too.

Make sure that you compliment them when they do a good job. People do business with people they know,like, and trust. If they like you then they are more likely to give you their best work. We tend to like people more when we rceive compliments.

4.  Pay a bonus - When people are offered incentives, it is a known fact that as long as the incentive is good, people will do better or more to make sure they get the incentive. I like to let my writers know that if this “project” goes well, I will pay them a nice bonus. My bonuses are usually cash and are maybe $100-200.

Remember something, the content that they are writing for you is something that you will make money on for YEARS to come so it makes sense to pay them a bonus to get their BEST work.

5. Work with them long term - Most people hate marketing and trying to find new customers. I like to let my writer know that I like to work with people long term and if they do a good job, I will send them more work. Again, this helps get the best out of my writer. They WANT to do a good job.

6.  Give them examples - If you want them to write good content for you, make their job easy. Include good places that they can research and even examples of articles that you would like them to model.

In closing, start viewing yourself as an internet property manager and start doing high level activities. Consider outsourcing your content.

Dave