The first eBook we ever sold, my wife wrote. It is called “Raising Leaders, Not Followers.” Basically it was an eBook designed specifically for homeschoolers, teaching them how to raise their kids for leadership positions. My wife approached me with the idea, and I said, “Honey, it is not really a barn-burning topic. I just do not know that you are going to make any money with it.” Well, she proved me wrong. She sold $11,197 the first 19 days. How is that for internet marketing 101?

Not too shabby, right? On the heels of her first success, my wife started thinking about another eBook for the Christmas season. She said to me, “Sweetie, I am going to write another eBook about preparing your heart for Christmas. It seems like a lot of people get close to Christmas day and end up discouraged because they were not really prepared for the season. The presents are great, but what do they do next?”

I told her, “That is a great idea, but there is so much free stuff on the internet about Christmas. How do you think you will get people to buy it?” I was not too optimistic, but she proved me wrong again. She sold over $2000 with her Christmas eBook. It turned out to be an unexpected bonus. And now every year, we roll it out a month or so before Christmas, and every year we get the same bonus.

You see the principle here? Well, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, I will be the first to admit. But when I saw my wife do these two things, I thought, I can do it myself. And I got my chance to start an internet business pretty quickly.

I had a red pickup truck. It was a Ford F150. My daughter had taken it to high school. She was playing softball with the high school. And all of a sudden, her teammates were screaming, “Gentry, your truck is on fire!” She looks up. There were flames going 20 feet high out from under the hood.

Turns out Ford had recalled the cruise control switch in this particular model. And I could see why. Once we got the fire put out, we could see that the truck was totaled. I called Ford, but all they could do was apologize. It seems they had notified me of the recall by sending me a notice to my previous address in Texas. But we lived in Idaho.

I decided to start an online business, so I put up a little website that said, “My truck caught on fire.” I had pictures of the truck, and I opened up the hood and showed how all the engine compartment was burned up and all the wires were burned up. I said, “Why don’t you help me while I help you? I’m going to give you all this free internet marketing stuff. Graphics package. Some software. eBooks. Marketing tips.” All this stuff I had compiled and got free off the internet. I compiled it into a product and sold it for like $47. And I made $5,470 in the first 9 days.

I hope what you are seeing from these real-life examples is that you can succeed on the internet. Seriously! All you need is a little online business how to and you can begin making a profit.

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2010

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Are you starting an online business?  Stephen Beck can help by showing you how to make your first $1000 on the internet. Grab a FREE link to his webinar replay, where Stephen shows you exactly what you should do: http://www.YourOnlineBasics.com.

What are the benefits to operating a home-based business marketing digital products?

1.) The first benefit is low overhead. If you were to own your own physical bookstore, there would be a tremendous amount of overhead you would have to worry about.

With a traditional business there are significant costs and investments required to keep that business operating. You typically have to have a lot of customers just to cover your monthly expenses, much less make a significant profit. A PDF ebooks business can put you in profit mode with a relatively small amount of customers.

A digital products business doesn’t have anywhere near that type of overhead. You can operate the business out of your own house with no inventory and no employees. The reason why you don’t need any inventory is because your products are digital, and they are located on the Internet. Therefore, they don’t have to be stored in your house.

2.) Another benefit to operating a digital ebook publishing business is the high profit margins that are associated with that type of business. When you offer a product online, the large majority of your expense associated with that product is in the initial creation process. You may invest either time in producing the product yourself or money in hiring people to produce the product for you.

Once your final product is created your main investment required to get your business up and running is in how you market your products. However, even in the marketing of your products there are many ways you can do this for free. By doing this for free you literally have zero costs associated with selling the product.

How do these lack of expenses affect potential profits in this type of real home business? Assuming you made a $500 investment in product creation, this will give you enough money to hire someone to write an ebook for you in some markets. Once you made this investment, you now have a finished product that you can take to the market.

3.) The next step is to promote your business, which you can do by using free marketing strategies like article marketing, social network marketing and so on. You set a price point of $47 for your product. With this price point it only takes 11 sales to make your money back. Any other sale after that is full profit for your business since you have no other costs ongoing.

As the owner of your own ebook publishing business you have a business that is truly portable. You can operate your business anywhere in the world as long as you have access to a computer as well as Internet access

In fact you don’t even need to have a telephone anymore for your business. There are programs available that allow you to turn your computer with an internet connection into a telephone using Voice Over IP technology. You truly have a business that you can run from anywhere in the world.

Selling pdf ebooks online can literally be a dream business for you. You can follow these steps to start an internet business and begin seeing profits this week!!

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2010

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck can show you online business set up steps and how to make your first $1000 on the internet.  Pick up a FREE link to his webinar replay, where Stephen shows you everything you should do: http://www.YourOnlineBasics.com/go.html.

There are many reasons why you may want to learn how to create an ebook to earn online profits. It is one of the simplest ways to start your own business at home. It is also a way you can make money right away without having to make a large upfront investment.

1.) What is an information product?

It is any product that delivers information to a customer. It can be in the form of a pdf ebook, an audio or mp3 file, or even a video. Since it is easier to write an ebook, that is what we will focus on.

2.) How do I write an ebook?

The first step for success when you write an ebook is to take the time out to pick out a strong market. Don’t just pick a market that you have an interest in. Make sure that others have an interest in this market as well.

In addition, don’t make the mistake of being too broad and general in your market. You want to look to solve a specific problem and cover a specific topic. People who search online usually have a specific challenge that they are looking to address, and when you write ebooks that address that challenge, you will make more online profits.

3.) How do you select an appropriate market for you to write pdf ebooks?

Look for a market where there’s plenty of interest, like for example, the scrapbooking market.

There are millions of searches a month for scrapbook-related keywords and phrases. There is even a network marketing company dedicated to scrapbooking. You can create a number of pdf ebooks for this market.

In addition to their passion, the scrapbook market is a proven market that people spend money on. Scrapbooking is literally a billion dollar industry when you take a look at the amount of money people spend on scrapbooking materials as well as books and information and classes on the topic.

By creating an information product to help scrapbook creators design and create the perfect scrapbook, you meet a huge need to a hungry market. You can write ebooks and they are willing to spend the money to solve the problem of creating the perfect scrapbook for them.

Don’t worry if you have no interest in this market. There are plenty of other markets that this concept works for just as well, if not better. Some examples include sports, certain types of games, certain types of businesses and other hobbies. Just pick one that has similar characteristics to scrapbooking, and you are on your way.

Once you have selected your market, the next step is to select your topic and write an ebook for it. With your topic, you want to focus on a specific area. So with scrapbooking, instead of writing an ebook on how to create the perfect scrapbook, you might choose instead to focus on selecting the right paper or creating the perfect album.

Finally, you want to write an ebook on the topic. The most common and effective format for an ebook is to use the format of pdf ebooks. These types of ebooks can be read on any type of computer and can be created using any Word Processor combined with a pdf creator. You can also make an audio recording of your ebook and give it to a transcriber to convert it into a pdf ebook for you.

It doesn’t have to be difficult to know how to create an ebook and earn online profits from it. Simply follow these guidelines and you will be well on your way to building a successful business.

___________________________

Copyright Stephen Beck, 2010

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Are you interested in learning more about internet marketing basics?  Stephen Beck is an expert, and he can help you make your first $1000 on the internet.  Pick up his FREE webinar replay: http://www.YourOnlineBasics.com/go.html.

The funnel concept is a great way to visualize your business when you sell your knowledge over the internet. Understanding how it works is some of the best business start up advice anyone ever gave me.

What I want you to do is to get in your mind a picture of a huge funnel. This funnel should have a wide opening at the top and a small opening at the bottom. Entering the top of the funnel is easy because of its large width. However, emerging from the bottom of the funnel is more difficult. This is because of how narrow and thin the bottom end of the funnel is.

This funnel is exactly how the process of building a business works. It is easy to sell your knowledge if you are offering it for free in a report. It becomes a little more difficult when you charge $10 for information. It becomes even more difficult if you are charging $37 or $67 for additional information. This is why you need to have multiple products in your ebook business.

Why do you want to set your business up to sell your knowledge like this? You do so because at the top of your funnel is where you are going to have the most amount of people. As you continue to move through the funnel you are going to have fewer and fewer people. Generally speaking, more people will buy your $10 eBook than your $500 home study course. This is because when you charge more, it requires a higher level of commitment.

As you offer these products, you have to do more to make your customers feel comfortable. The marketing process that you use to give away a free report is not necessarily going to be as effective if you are marketing a $200 coaching program. People need to feel confident that your product can help them and that it will be worth the investment. Otherwise, they will hesitate and you will not make the sale. However, if you do a good job at this, not only will they buy, but they will promote for you also.

This is the power behind the funnel philosophy. When you first get started in selling information, you typically only care about having one product to sell. You just want to make that first sale. However, those who understand the whole view know they need many products with many price points. They also understand that they want more complicated products that serve their customers as they grow.

By focusing your efforts on providing value, you will build up the level of trust that your customers are willing to invest in you. Your product portfolio funnel should illustrate this goal by including escalating values of products with escalating price points. Now you should not expect to have this trust coming out of the gate. However, you do want to have a goal to shoot for and build towards because it is absolutely essential if you want to build a big business and sell your knowledge.

______________________________

Copyright Stephen  Beck, 2010

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck can teach you online business set up steps and how to make your first $1000 on the internet.  Pick up a FREE link to his webinar replay where Stephen shows you everything you should do: http://www.YourOnlineBasics.com/go.html.

I also have CDs and video tutorials that cover a wide range of topics from parenting, making biblical decisions, the biblical view of debt, and how the Old Testament saints were saved…to the value of practical skills for your children, small businesses that kids can start, how to turn a recording into a product and is ebay right for you.

As if that’s not enough, I’m using my experience as a contractor to create home remodeling audios. After all this time, that specialized knowledge still comes in handy!

Would you like to know how much equipment it takes to churn out 100 CDs in two days?

- A personal computer, just like the one you’re reading this with.

- A printer, also like yours.

- A CD-burner (You can use your personal computer, but I don’t want to burn mine up with so many copies.  So I bought one at Office Depot for a hundered bucks)

- DVD cases at 37 cents a piece

- Blank CDs, $.17 each.

- Finally, CD labels, at $.20 each.

Add it up – that’s not a huge capital outlay to create all of these CDs. Creating an ebook is even cheaper. Why don’t you give it a try?  Think about your own situation. What are your skills? What specialized knowledge do you have, and how can that start your own online business?

It doesn’t require a large capital outlay to record an interview, a “how to” audio or video, or an e-book. Simply find your area of expertise, seek your niche, and go for it!

The Internet is a huge place, and there are many niches. Whatever your expertise, there is a demand. Spend some time doing research and making a plan. You can learn how to make money on the Internet by following a few simple steps.

You must believe in yourself. Others just like you have created e-books, audios, tutorials, home study courses, even seminars. Try selling other people’s products, or earn commissions by recommending other products. There are many small businesses that kids can start, and many low budget Internet marketing strategies for small businesses. Find the one that works for you, and you too can become an Internet success.

All you need now is confidence, the knowledge you can do whatever you want. The first step is always the hardest. Maybe try starting with a free blog, a great way to test the waters! Whatever you choose, I have faith in you. You CAN do this, and we can show you how. Let’s get started!

_____________________________

Copyright Stephen Beck, 2010

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck can teach you online business set up steps and how to make your first $1000 on the internet.  Pick up a FREE link to his webinar replay, where Stephen shows you everything you should do: http://www.youronlinebasics.com/go.html.

While some people believe free eliminates demand for paid, I have found the opposite to be true, especially in situations where the free product fails to cover as much depth as the paid product. You should be excited when you see a free product because that shows there is interest in your target market.

Keep in mind that there are several topics that you can locate information on at no cost. The challenge is that it would take a significant amount of time to locate the information. Convenience is worth spending money on. It is more convenient to find information in one location. The average person does not want to search on a bunch of websites and put the information together. They want it right now and in your home internet business you can provide it to them.

Think about all the situations where people spend money to save time. Think about all the situations where people pay more for higher quality, especially if the quality of the free products is low. This is exactly what you are doing when you create a product to sell on the internet.

Ideally you want to offer a free mini-course to build a list of prospective customers prior to launching your ebook for sale. Prospective customers that like your mini course trust you and are more willing to spend money with you. People place a greater deal of value on something that costs them money. Money creates value. If you are able to provide the best information in one place, you will have demand even if there are alternative free sources out there.

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck shows families how to make money on the internet. Check out Stephen’s 3 free videos at http://www.8weekstoprofiits.com so your family can start right now.

One payment company that you can use for digital info products is Clickbank. While it only handles digital products, it is great for newcomers to the industry. Another reason why Clickbank works well is because they handle the transaction on your behalf. It is not even necessary for you to see the credit card information for your customer. The only negative is that you cannot use them for physical products even if they support a digital product.

What happens if you want to sell information products that are in physical format? You have two options, either option #1 where you provide the physical product as a bonus to the digital item or option #2 where you use a different payment processing company to handle the physical product.

If you want a payment processing company that handles both types, look at 1ShoppingCart. It comes with the ability to receive payment for both physical and digital products. The only disadvantage is you will have to pay for this service in the form of a monthly service fee. Therefore, you will need to look at your revenue generated per month and see if it makes sense financially.

As an alternative, you can also use PayPal or MouseECommerce. PayPal is free to use. They allow you to sell digital and physical products but if you are selling both, you should use Clickbank to handle the digital and PayPal for the physical version. Here is how the process to sell information products would work. Let us say that you have a product that consists of an electronic book and an audio CD that matches up well with the content in the book. What you would do is let your customer buy your ebook through Clickbank and then offer the audio CD on the download page of the ebook using PayPal.

These are some examples of the way to handle transactions for your products. 1ShoppingCart is your best option if you have a steady stream of sales and make enough to cover the monthly fee. If you are just starting out, the best option for you would be to use Clickbank to handle the digital product sales and PayPal for physical product sales when you sell information products.

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck teaches people how to start their own coaching business. Read more free articles by Stephen at www.squidoo.com so you can start today.

Have you ever seen a funnel before? If so, you know that it has a large opening at the top and a small opening at the bottom. You can fit a lot of items into the top of the funnel. However, only a small amount of items can fit into the bottom of the funnel. This is because the bottom is tighter and has a limited amount of space available.

When you are running a real online business your product portfolio should look the exact same way. At the top of your portfolio should be free offers that people can obtain with no strings attached. A perfect example is a free article you write on a blog. As you continue on through your portfolio, you should require more but offer better value. You might offer a free report in exchange for an email address. You then offer a $10 report, a $50 book, a $100 training program and so on.

By having a number of products at different price points, you give your customers high quality information that they can use. What this does is build trust in you and makes them more willing to spend even more money with you. As they progress through your marketing funnel, it becomes more difficult because the price point creates more friction and hesitance. A higher price point requires a deeper level of commitment.

As a result, it is important that you take the time to build confidence in you in the mind of your customers. You need to demonstrate to them through your marketing process when you sell your knowledge that you care about them and not just their money. The key to these online business opportunities is to build trust in the mind of your customers. This will help them to understand your message and they eventually become promoters of your message, which is how you find affiliates.

This is exactly how the funnel works in your internet marketing business. As you begin your real online business, your main focus is to find something to sell. If you can do that, you know you can make money. That being said, the business owners who recognize this process will make more money and will have more customers doing higher value transactions with them because of this. As the needs of their customer, they are able to meet those needs.

By focusing your efforts on providing value, you will build up the level of trust that your customers are willing to invest in you. Your product portfolio funnel should illustrate this by including escalating values of products with escalating price points. Now you should not expect to have this coming out of the gate. However, you do want to have this as something that you can shoot for and build towards, because it is absolutely essential if you want to build a big business when you sell your knowledge.

1. Write down everything you need to do
In order to manage your time you must identify what you need to do each day. You do not need to jot down the stuff you can delegate, just the stuff you have to do personally. Make sure you have access to it so you can constantly refer to it. Do not worry if you are not able to get everything done, you can always add it to tomorrows list.

By making a list and tracking your progress, you will get more done. List the most important to-do items first and prioritize accordingly. Just the act of doing this will make you more productive and if the unexpected occurs, you would have at least taken care of a lot of the high priority tasks.

2. Checking email can waste a lot of your time.
 One of the biggest mistakes you can make when you promote home-based business opportunities is checking email constantly. Constant email checking often results in hours of wasted time a day. You should have a designated time throughout the day that you check email, ideally after you complete some of your more important activities during the day.

One common misconception is that email is not distracting if you do not reply, only check. This is not true because even if you only read, it still takes some of your mindshare away from other activities that are more productive for building your business.

3. Do not Waste Time Surfing the Internet.
Monitoring your web surfing time can be a challenge. Many times you do not even realize how many hours you spend on non-productive web surfing activity. If the home-based business opportunities that you promote are your primary income, you may have to spend a significant amount of time on the computer. However, that does not mean you have to spend that time surfing the net. Instead, it should be spent working on activities that promote and develop your business.

4. The phone can waste a lot of time during the day. 
Depending on what type of home based business opportunities you are promoting, you may have to spend a lot of time on the phone. However, there is a difference between productive calls and unproductive calls. You should screen your incoming calls either through a personal assistant or a voice mail so you are not wasting your time. When you are working on your most important activities, avoid answering the phone during those times. Instead use that time to generate business by developing content and driving traffic to your web site.

Take some time to evaluate how you spend your day. Look at the time you spend on email, on the phone and surfing the internet. Apply some of these suggestions so you can improve your time management ability. 

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Copyright Stephen Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.

Stephen Beck shows families how to sell their knowledge to increase their customer base. Read more of his free articles at http://www.squidoo.com/ebooks-3.