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Creating Biz Crash-Course
7 Quick Tips To Help You Create Income
Creating Biz Crash-Course
9 Quick Tips To Help You Actively Create Income
by Charlie Pabst
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Copyright © 2014 Charfish Graphics, LLC
Disclaimer: Potential income sources and amounts are stated in this book, but no promises are made.
Results discussed herein are not typical. Any income you make was, is, and will continue to be dependent
upon your own actions, persistence, ideas, and possibly even luck. The author assumes no responsibility
for your personal results.
Intro
I
t is common online to hear about starting a
business or having a business. It is not at all
common to hear about creating business.
And I don’t mean creating a business. All that takes is
filling out some paperwork.
I mean actually creating business. As in bringing in
cheddar, getting more clients, actively selling more
products.
Too many concern themselves with having a business,
putting up a website, and placing papers in filing
cabinets.
That is not creating business, that’s administration. The
two are very often confused. Not to mention this stuff
becomes very unimportant and even wasteful when you’re
not even turning a nice profit.
So this crash course is a series of brief snapshots on HOW
you can start to actively bring in more business, make more
customers, and earn more money.
I welcome you!
1
The Barest Of Bare Minimums
B
ehind door number 1 is something that can make
you money.
Behind door number 2 is something else that can make
you money.
There is no door number 3 because it would be
irrelevant. Just pick door number 1...or door number 2.
Hell, pick both.
What’s behind those doors? The two fastest ways to
make consistent money:
1. Sell a service
2. Sell a product
If you want money coming in, you have to do one or
both of those things.
That’s so basic it hardly belongs in a book, but you’d be
surprised how many people never think of it. They’re
going to become a “professional blogger” or have a
website that gets tons of traffic.
When I consult people, I hear complaints about how
their website isn’t making money. I ask, “Well, what do
you sell?”
And they go, “Uh...what do you mean?”
Tsk tsk...not a good sign.
You need to offer something another person will pay for. You can create a
website that gets millions and millions of views a day, but if you don’t offer
anything for sale you are in fact creating ZERO business.
So, you have to have a service and/or product to sell.
Services include such things as: lawn mowing, landscaping, consulting,
SEO, tax work, video editing, etc.
Products include: bread, ebooks, courses, cars, cake, artwork, knitted
things, diet plans, and other things you can touch, hit yourself on the head
with, or stick in your mouth.
If you haven’t already, pick something you like, are skilled at, and for
which people will pay for. Those are each important because:
1. If you don’t like it, you won’t put up with it long enough to turn a profit.
2. If you’re not skilled at it, you’ll have trouble convincing people to part
with their money.
3. If it’s not valuable, people won’t want it to begin with.
2
The Magic Money Faucet
I
n the last chapter we talked about the need to find a marketable
service or product.
This can feel overwhelming because there are so many
bazillions of things you can sell or produce.
Luckily there’s a little shortcut.
The easiest way I know of to make money is to:
1. Find out how people already make money and/or
what they’re really interested in...
2. Create something which helps them do it better,
faster, more easily, and...
3. Sell them that.
This is all I do to make money. That’s it. Every product and
service I sell was engineered with someone else’s future benefit
in mind.
Examples:
My sister runs a personal concierge service. She basically does
the things rich people can’t do because they’re too busy
traveling and counting gold bricks. That’s a legit service and
they pay her for it.
Designers don’t like wasting time redrawing icons and coding things from
scratch. It’s a much better use of their time to purchase pre-existing design
assets and templates. Hence you’ve got places like ThemeForest.net and
CreativeMarket.com that are making a mint supplying designers things
we’re too lazy to make ourselves.
Nikki Elledge Brown is a copywriter and hits this from all angles. First, she
does copywriting for people who can’t or don’t want to do it themselves
(service). On top of that she recently launched A Course About Copy which
teaches people how to write more good (product).
3
Treating Your Website Like a Landfill?
T
oo many people treat their websites like a landfill.
They’re full of garbage, random links, and
advertisements that just didn’t seem to fit anywhere else.
When a visitor lands on your site, you should
consider yourself lucky. Remember,
you’re competing with nearly a
billion other websites. The last
thing you want to do is confuse
people or make them feel unwelcome.
What would scare them away? For starters:
1. Clutter
2. Confusion
3. Lack of focus
The Problems with Websites...A Summary
One major problem with websites is having nothing of much value.
Another problem is actually having very valuable things, but burying
them so deeply that nobody can find them. Either way the result is the
same: no sale.
Once you decide upon a service or product (chapter 1) you’re going to
help people with (chapter 2), put them on your site.
Don’t be shy about it. If you sell consulting, say so and say it proudly right
at the top of your site.
If you sell a course, don’t bury it. Put up a big banner that says, “Buy My
Course!” (Or maybe something a little less pushy. Play with it.)
Not everyone is going to buy your stuff. But nobody will buy your stuff if
they can’t find it.
4
The Money List
P
eople say the money is in the list, and it’s true.
Having a huge Twitter following and thousands of
Facebook friends is great, but those are terrible arenas for
making money. Nathan Barry, who is great at selling online,
calculated that his email subscribers are worth around 15
times more than his Twitter followers.
So you need a list. And you need one early. Like now. Go to
Aweber or MailChimp, set up an account, and start collecting
people’s emails.
Why is email so effective?
First, it’s much more visible than social media. What you
publish on social media platforms won’t even be seen by all your
direct followers, much less anyone else. On the other hand, people
see everything that lands in their inbox.
Second, the people on your list are already partially your people.
You’re not cold-calling them anymore. They voluntarily signed up,
right? So they’re fans, they like you (or at least are trying to for the
time being), and they’re just an email away.
Put sign-up forms in strategic places
I don’t think you should have sign-up forms all over your website, as
that gets a little pushy and salesy. Instead, I place my forms in
locations I think make more sense.
One place is in the sidebar, where people traditionally look for this sort of
thing. My stats show that’s not the best location for my particular sites, but
it works and I get a lot of sign-ups.
The highest converting form on my site is the one that shows up at the
bottom of blog posts. (That’s coded into my single.php template, if you’re a
WordPress person). It makes sense to place forms there, because if someone
just finished reading your post and liked it, they’re more likely to want to
stay in touch.
Offer an incentive
While I haven’t always done this, offering an incentive for signing up can
be very effective. Tons of people offer free ebooks, mini-courses, sample
chapters of premium books, etc.
Be warned that some people will sign up only to get the freebie and then
immediately unsubscribe, so you might see a little more churn with this
method. Honestly I’m happy either way. If your best work is getting out
there, you should have no complaints. Plus if your freebie is really good,
you might make a massive fan out of that person and they’ll come back
later anyway.
Continue to give people what they want
After a while you’ll start seeing trends as to where people sign up. Meaning
certain blog posts, for example, will get more comments and earn you more
newsletter sign-ups.
This is worth tracking. In fact, it’s almost like doing surveys, in that people
are essentially telling you what they want. If you can keep giving them
that stuff, you’re going where the action is.
Promote but don’t over-promote
About 95% of the time (or thereabouts...it’s not an exact science) you
should use your list to provide valuable, free, awesome content. The other
5% of the time, people will be all right with you trying to sell them stuff.
Read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook if it isn’t clear to you why you should give
more than you get.
Bottom line...give away a lot of good stuff before you ask for a lot of
good money.
5
Be an Authority With The
Know, Like, & Trust Factor
T
his is a chapter about becoming an authority in your
field, and what better way to start than by
discussing the magic of cheeseburgers.
Individually, the components of a burger
aren’t overly exciting. A slice of cheese is all
right, a bun is pretty boring, and you don’t
see people walking around gnawing on a
solo beef patty. But put all three together
and you’ve got yourself a tasty cheeseburger.
Authority is a similar composite, only it’s
made up of people knowing, liking, and
trusting you.
You’ve maybe heard of this Know, Like, & Trust Factor before. It is just
what it sounds like so we’re not gonna dwell on it long.
In short, you can’t just be known. People may know you but not like you,
so they certainly won’t buy from you.
Being known and liked...that’s a bit better, but it’s still not a sure thing. I
know and like a lot of people that I wouldn’t trust touching my guitars.
So, you have to be known, liked, and trusted. All three, all at the same time.
You want to be THE person people know about and turn to in your
particular niche.
You want to be the guy or gal that appears like magic in people’s heads
when they think about your industry. It could be web design, copywriting,
drawing robots, WordPress security, business consulting, cooking. It
doesn’t matter. What does matter is that when Subject X comes up, boom!
You come right up with it.
How you earn this is by:
1. People knowing you. This means first and foremost that you have to
be visible. Get out there and produce, write, share, Tweet, reTweet,
share more, podcast, videocast. Just get visible.
2. People liking you. Do all of the above while being nice, accountable,
responsive, saying thank you, answering Tweets and emails in a
timely fashion.
3. People trusting you. Again, this requires all of the above, plus you
putting out more good content, getting other authorities in your field
to take notice of you, helping people out, and getting them better
results in their own lives.
Why is this so effective at bringing in business? Because once you’re an
authority, people (1) think of you and (2) think of you in a certain light.
Then other people start thinking of you in that light. They tell their friends
who tell their friends. Pretty soon, you own a corner of the internet worth
$1,000 per square pixel.
Example:
For a while I was (and still am somewhat) the “ebook designer guy.”
People didn’t write me to ask if I designed ebooks because they already
knew. Instead, initial emails from clients asked about my prices
and availability.
This means you’re established. In means people are already interested. It
means the audience is already warmed up and ready for your big show.
The motor is already running, you’ve just got to point the car in the right
direction. (Need more metaphors? ‘Cause I’ve got ‘em!)
Once you’ve established yourself as a go-to person in your industry,
customers will come from all over. In fact, there are a couple folks I’ve
never even worked with who consistently send clients my way.
Seriously now, if you can not spend a dime on advertising and still have
people sending you clients just because they’ve heard of you…
that’s money, baby!
6
Use Your Words
T
he words you use to attract customers are important. Here I’ll
show you.
Version 1: “I’m a web designer.”
Version 2: “I will design the pants
off your website. Your new site will
get so much traffic you’ll need to
spray it with visitor repellant.”
Both say vaguely the same thing, but one
does it with style and the other doesn’t. Neither is particularly amazing,
but you see what I’m getting at.
Number 1 above...read it again. What do you know about that guy? Not
much. He designs websites. He might be funny, talented, terrible, boring,
or even Satan himself...you just don’t know. And neither he nor his
message are memorable. Once you leave his site, that guy’s as good as
dead. (Also not much potential for Know, Like, or Trust there, eh?)
How about number 2? You know he’s a web designer. You also know he
has a fun personality. He’s also confident so may be really good at his job.
It’s also memorable. Spraying your site with visitor repellant...that’s a
good visual. That’s the kind of thing that gets passed on to friends over
lunch burgers. “Hey, Bob...guess what I saw today...” And one thing’s for
certain, there’s a much better chance you’ll stay on his site to find out
more about him.
See, writing changes things. It helps your message be assimilated. It makes
whatever you’re trying to get across get across even better.
It’s also a preservation technique. Like embalming fluid. Want your
message to die and be forgotten? Write boring. Want your writing to live on
and on? Don’t write boring.
Now, a lot of people think they suck at writing. Probably many of them are
correct. And while this isn’t a course on copywriting, there are some simple
tips I can give you to breathe life into your words.
Write For YOUR People
YOUR People are the people who resonate with you. Paul Jarvis calls them
his rat people and said this about them:
I’m talking about the people that get what you do,
appreciate it, and love you for it. Everyone else? You
can safely ignore.
This is exactly the mindset you need. Write for Your People. In fact, do
everything on your website for Your People.
Now...first thing is to forget everything you know about writing.
Okay...no...not everything. Keep capitalizing, punctuating, and doing all that
basic construction stuff. Destroying the recognizable features of the English
language will not do you many favors.
My point is don’t write for a college professor. And don’t write for the “the
people of the internet” either. There’s no such person. And if there was?
What a jerk, right?
No the internet is NOT your ideal customer.
You are writing only for Your People. I mean ideal customers, the visitors
you want to attract, your True Fans.
You want to attract the people you resonate with and who resonate with
you. The magic is that by targeting your true customer, at the same you’ll
automagically filter out people who aren’t your ideal customers.
If you try to appeal to the masses, you’ll only get massive unengagement.
Tweet that!
You only need a small piece of the internet pie to make it. Mind you an
interested and passionate piece.
You have a personality. Use it.
Your personality is a powerful secret weapon you should utilize when
you’re writing for public consumption.
Some people will like the personality you show and others won’t. The ones
who don’t like it will mostly bail out and leave you in peace. Well...you can
expect some occasional trolling too, but you know what they say. Having
haters means you’re doing something right.
But the people who like your personality will become even greater fans of
yours, and this paves the way for future sales and business relationships.
Edit
You have to edit your writing. Have to. Stephen King had this to say about
removing useless material and it’s about all that needs to be said:
I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I
rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below
the machine-generated signature of the editor was
this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise
for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.
Good luck.’
Actually...you should probably just read all of On Writing by Stephen King.
Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of his fiction. On Writing is non-fiction and
about the craft of writing. It’s actually quite amazing and it’ll make you a
better writer.
7
Communication Rules
T
his goes along with the Know, Like, & Trust Factor
chapter but it deserves mention of its own.
Communication. It’s insanely important, and a lot of
people ignore it completely. Which means if you don’t
ignore it, people will love you.
It alone can make or break a friendship,
marriage, business partnership, sales
meeting, client transaction, anything.
Done poorly communication ruins things.
Done well, it builds stuff. It pulls in customers,
clients, and relationships better than any guru’s
business course in existence.
Nowadays, I think this is even more true
because finding people online who
communicate well is very rare.
Some folks won’t communicate with you at all just because they’re off in
spaceland and oblivious to things beyond their nose. Some folks will check
your Twitter following to decide if you seem important enough to deserve
a response. Some folks will respond only to be offensive.
Don’t be those people.
If you can be the guy or gal who communicates readily, happily, and
friendily, (I think I made that word up) people will take notice. Believe me.
If you don’t, try it for a month. Respond to everyone who writes, Tweets,
Facebooks, waves, and sneezes in your general direction. It’ll pay off &
you’ll make more friends.
Communication was the ONLY thing I utilized to launch my business. It is
really the ONLY thing I use now to keep business coming in. If things slow
down and I need commissions, I just communicate. It doesn’t even really
seem to matter where or to whom. I just put out a ton of communication
and clients flow in.
It’s like magic. But with science instead.
8
Be Extraordinarily Visible
I
mentioned earlier in the book that I don’t advertise or
market myself. However, don’t misunderstand. There
is still marketing going on, it just isn’t me out there on
a street corner with a bullhorn.
My advertising is done by virtue of visibility.
My name is in the footer of few dozen highlyvisible websites, and inside
hundreds and hundreds of
ebooks. This is marketing and
it creates business.
So that’s tip #1: Show up wherever you can
and stamp your name on things.
If you don’t happen to design websites and have
nowhere to randomly stamp your name, here are some ideas:
Where to gain visibility
There are so many places to be visible nowadays it’s ridiculous. A few of
the best places to publish your content are:
✦
On your own website
✦
YouTube
✦
Podcasts
✦
Instagram
✦
Dribbble
✦
Pinterest
✦
Guest posting on sites bigger than your own
The amazing thing about these places is that you can simply post what you
do on an ordinary, average day and people start following you.
I’m not talking just about finished, polished products either. I mean even
your screw-ups, behind-the-scenes stuff, making-ofs, sketches, in-progress
work...people love it because it’s educational. Sometimes even more so
than a finalized product.
Giving a student chocolatier some chocolate is one thing. Letting them in
your kitchen is something else entirely.
Remember you are not alone in doing what you do. Not by longshot. There
are thousands of other people out there with similar interests, trying to
make it in the world. Just like you were in the early days, some of them
need some help, hand-holding, inspiration, or even just new hope in
knowing they’re not alone.
If they see you producing, working through problems, showing how and
why you do what you do, they will become True Fans.
You instantly become an authority in their eyes and before you know it,
they’re looking to you for more advice. And lots of ‘em will pay to get it.
Do numbers matter?
Yes, numbers matter. At least a little. You can’t hide out in a closet with
your paintings and expect to make money with your art.
But numbers matter a lot less you might think. In fact, did you know you
can make a living with just a few thousand monthly pageviews?
It’s true...I did it. In fact I’m doing it still. I built a six-figure business off a
site that gets 1,500-3,000 pageviews a month.
How is that possible? Well, basically it’s all in the previous chapters. My
site is for My People. When visitors reach my site, they immediately know
exactly what they’re in for. Many of the ones who stick around become
clients. And the ones who don’t stick around weren’t supposed to be my
clients in the first place.
9
How Teaching Can Make You Money
T
wo of the most effective online marketing campaigns I’ve ever
seen didn’t appear to be marketing campaigns at all.
Chris Coyier runs a site called CSS-Tricks.com. As an overview
of the site, he talks about CSS (the language that styles
websites) and how to harness it to do awesome things. It
has a huge audience because, let’s face it, a LOT of people
are web designers and want to design better and faster and
more sexier.
(That’s one lesson we talked about at the very beginning of
the book: teach people to be better at what they already do and
how they make money.)
When Chris was redesigning his website, he thought it might be fun to let
people watch him do it. They’d be able to look behind the scenes and see
how the design and coding process went while his new site was being built.
Sound like something fellow designers might be interested in learning?
Well, it was. He started a Kickstarter campaign and made almost $90k.
Teaching people can make you a lot of money.
Sean Wes, who specializes in hand lettering, did something similar.
How did Sean “market” himself? First by sharing his work, and LOT of it,
on his website, Dribbble, Instagram, etc. Just by showing his work, he was
attracting people interested in learning his art form.
Sean decided to create a hand lettering course to teach his skills in fine
detail. The course would be made up of high-end, very professional video
tutorials showing exactly how he does what he does.
While the videos for the course were still being produced, Sean shared
sneak peeks of them on his website. Of course there was a sign-up box on
those pages, and people could opt in to be informed about the course’s
approaching launch. At one point Sean was getting hundreds of newsletter
sign-ups every single day.
That’s a lot of interest, and he made close to $100k launching that course.
Sean learned a lot of these marketing tricks from Nathan Barry, who
consulted Sean during his launch. Nathan himself is a master of doing
launches just like these, having made over $300,000 in a year by publishing
his courses.
Nathan got his start by teaching people how to do app design.
Then he taught people how to use Photoshop.
After a few really massive launches, people of course asked Nathan how to
do really massive launches. So then he taught them that too by creating
Authority.
Teaching teaching teaching. It allows you to market without really
marketing at all. It’s not sleazy and it’s not pushy. It’s just giving people
what they’re already interested in and getting them a step closer to making
money on their own.
People love learning, getting better at what they do, acquiring abilities,
increasing potential, and making more money. The “marketing” takes place
just by having an awesome website where people can pick up tricks of the
trade and watch you, the Authority, at work.
Incidentally, the most popular blog post on my design website is how I
approach designing logos. That blog post is almost seven years old now
and pretty timeworn, yet people still love it. Why do they like it? It’s
educational for budding designers.
Summary
T
his book lists just a few ways for you to actively start making fans and
creating more business for yourself. There are other ways...infinite
ways probably.
But these ones work, work well, and often work very quickly.
I would love to hear from you if have any comments or questions.
Seriously...get in touch. I respond to every email I get personally.
For now, I really appreciate your time and can’t thank you enough
for reading!
Best of luck!
Charlie