You Can Profit From Something You Suck At
June 26, 2008
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If you’ve gone through all your hobbies and interests and you still can’t come up with a business idea - maybe it’s time to look at the things you suck at.
Now, notice I’m saying the things you suck at - not the things you hate. Or maybe things that you don’t necessarily suck at - you just haven’t got really good at them yet.
My first website (in the nineties) was a travel site. I would like to say that the site came about because of my amazing passion and knowledge on all things travel. But that would be a huge lie. The truth was, I was hopeless at planning travel. Whenever I decided to go somewhere, it was completely random. And I never did any research at all.
As you can imagine, I picked some really bad areas to vacation. And the final straw was Crete. As usual, I picked a hotel at random from the brochure. And just before we boarded the plane, I noticed a book about the island, so I decided to buy it for something to read.
So, I’m on the plane, flicking through the book and I find a section on the area of Crete we’ll be staying in. And I’m reading through the description, hoping to find at least one positive thing about the part of Crete we’re staying in. But its all bad - the biggest dump on the island - a place to avoid at all costs.
The travel guide turned out to be accurate. But we made the best of it, as you do in this sort of situation. But that was when the penny finally dropped for me. The truth was, I always picked the least desirable places to travel to because I made more effort deciding what to make for dinner on an evening than I put into researching where we were going to go.
And when I started doing a fair bit of research, not only did we end up visiting nicer places, but I also discovered that I enjoyed research and planning. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to build my own niche travel website and start my first small business.
It could happen to you too. Are there areas of your life that you do badly in? Could they be improved upon, if you increased your knowledge a little? You never know, you may enjoy doing it so much that it helps you come up with a great business idea.
Dirty Little Secrets 3 - The Rule
May 6, 2008
In the third part of this series on writing an ebook or information product, I think it is important to mention “the rule”. And if you’re serious about writing an information product, this is the one rule you should never break. And it’s a simple one: Never ever write an information product that doesn’t work.
If you are promoting a “how to guide” it has to do what it says on the packet. And it should work for anyone who is willing to put your advice into practise. This may seem like common sense, but not everyone follows the rule, which is why there’s so many crummy information products on the Internet.
If There’s So Much Crap Out There, Why Do People Buy Electronic Information Products?
Despite the crap - there’s also some good info products. And they’re often far more up to date than what you’d find in a real book, simply because of the length of time that it takes to get a traditionally published book on the shelves.
Also, you can keep an information product shorter and give the reader only the information they’re actually looking for.
For example, in The Dirty Little Secrets Of An Informer, I explained how I wrote and sold a guide on how to save money on niche travel. The guide showed specific ways to save hundreds of dollars on hotel rooms within Walt Disney World (Disney owned property).
It was short but there was a huge market for the information. And it worked - I’d tested every single method myself. But just in case the information failed for anyone who bought it, I included a guarantee which entitled readers to their money back.
So How Do You Know That Other People Will Like What Your Product?
This is tough part. Just because you think your information product is great and it really worked for you, doesn’t mean that other people are going to like it. So you need to test it before you try to sell it to the masses. You could send it out to those who have websites in your niche, or ask friends or family to read it. I don’t recommend doing this - they may tell you it’s good so they don’t hurt your feelings. You really need to test it on people who would be willing to buy it.
To test the product mentioned above, I sold a handful of copies on Ebay and another auction site. And I didn’t wait for buyers to leave feedback, I emailed them straight after the transaction to ensure they were happy with the product and remind them that there was a money back guarantee. Their positive feedback gave me the confidence to market my product to a wider audience.
If The Product Is Short - Will People Actually Want It?
They will, so long as you tell them how short the product is up front and exactly what it will do for them. My product saved readers hundreds of dollars and they seemed happy enough with that. I could have padded it out with lots of additional information, but they weren’t buying it for extra info, they were buying it to save money. Besides, I gave additional info away for free to help me sell the product. If you’d like to know how to do this, click here to subscribe in a reader (it’s free), so you don’t miss the next article in this series.
If you’re interested in writing and selling an ebook or information product, check out The Dirty Little Secrets of an Informer and Dirty Little Secrets 2 - The Investigation also.
The Pros And Cons Of Outsourcing Your Life
May 2, 2008
Outsourcing isn’t just for business. In fact, outsourcing many areas of your personal life is going to become increasingly popular over the next decade, because thousands of people are tired of working long hours, only to waste even more time doing personal chores when they get home.
Gift Buying
To me, shopping has to be one of the most mind numbing chores. And even shopping on the Internet still wastes a heap of time. If you feel the same way, you could outsource the purchasing of gifts for friends and loved ones - especially at Christmas. Personally, I would go a step further and outsource the gift wrapping too.
Pros: Saves time.
Saves forgetting and upsetting loved ones.
Cons: Your shopper may buy something that sucks, offends, or causes an allergic reaction.
You could be in trouble if a recipient asks questions about the gift.
Means entrusting your credit/debit card details to your shopper.
Learning
You can spend hours researching something you want to learn, only to find a couple of pieces of useful information among piles of crap. Why not save yourself some time, by outsourcing some of your learning?
Pros: Saves time.
You can get the researcher to make notes of the key points, meaning you don’t need to read the rest.
Cons: Could be costly if the researcher struggles to find what they’re looking for.
The information may not be accurate, depending upon what sources they use.
Vacation Planning
Some people spend more time researching their vacation than they spend planning any other aspect of their life. This is fine if you enjoy it and you have the time. If not, you could outsource all the planning and booking of your vacation.
Pros:Saves time - you just need to turn up.
Cons: You’re relying on the tastes of someone else to choose what is best for you.
They may not necessarily get you a great deal.
Vacations aren’t always as enjoyable if you don’t get involved in the planning process.
Cooking and Shopping
Cooking and shopping can easily eat into several hours of your life per week. Plus, if you finish work late, your family could be passing out with hunger by the time you’ve prepared the evening meal. So it may be worth outsourcing it.
Pros: Saves time.
You can relax when you finish work.
Cons: Expense.
Unless you’re not fussy about what you eat, you’ll still spend time putting shopping lists and menus together.
Your shopper may not be as fussy as you would be about freshness and quality of food.
Housework/Laundry
Housework and laundry can be a pain - especially if you’ve been working all day and you have kids. Outsourcing could be a big time saver.
Pros: Heaps of time saved.
Your house is always tidy.
Cons: Losing things. Cleaners have a habit of putting things back in the wrong place.
Trust is a big issue - not just with regard to theft, but confidentiality too.
It’s difficult and noisy to have someone cleaning and hoovering your house if you work from home.
Do you outsource any of these areas of your life, or do you plan to in the future? Can you think of any other things you could outsource to free up your time and make your life more enjoyable?
Related Stuff
The Pros and Cons Of Outsourcing
Money For Nothing: Tim Ferriss Guardian Article.
49 Decent Virtual Assistant and Personal Outsourcing Resources
Dirty Little Secrets 2 - The Investigation
April 29, 2008
The most time consuming aspect of writing an ebook or information product is the research. And if you’re going to produce something useful, you’ll need to immerse yourself in your topic. So it makes sense to choose a subject you already enjoy, or something you’re keen to learn about.
Choosing a Topic
1) Make a list of all the subjects you enjoy and all the ones you’d like to learn about.
2) Highlight the topics in your list that would be easy to get started on because you have knowledge, experience or access to specific information.
3) Out of those highlighted, choose the one that appeals to you most and make a list of possible sub-topics. For example, if your chosen topic is Caribbean travel, you might come up with the following: Caribbean travel on a shoestring, island hopping in the caribbean, live and work in the caribbean, dangers to avoid in the caribbean, luxury travel in the caribbean.
Make sure your topic is in demand:
1) Check out Amazon to ensure there’s at least a couple of books on your broad topic - Caribbean travel in this case.
2) Visit and participate in discussion forums. What sort of questions are people asking? What sort of information are they looking for? This will help you to choose a sub-topic. And don’t just limit yourself to forums that cover the broad topic. In the case of the Caribbean travel - you could also look at budget travel forums, moving abroad, luxury travel, working overseas etc.
3) Discover how many people are searching your subject online. There’s a few tools you can use to do this. I prefer Wordtracker, as it will give you hundreds of different keyword searches for particular phrases. You can get a free trial of Wordtracker here.
Related Reading: The Dirty Little Secrets Of An Informer
How To Write And Publish Your Own Ebook In As Little As 7 Days
This is a series post. If you’re interested in writing and selling an ebook or information product, click here to subscribe in a reader and make sure you don’t miss the remaining articles in the series.
Do you read ebooks yourself? What makes you choose an ebook over one that is published traditionally? Do you usually find that the information in ebooks and information products is of lower quality? Or is it more up to date than the info that can be found in traditional books?
