Small Business Tips

Creating Auto-Responder Series as a Source of Passive Income

Passive Income Challenge Day 9.
Creating Auto-Responder Series

In every niche, there are products and services that you can recommend that pretty much stay solid for years to come. If you can identify those products and services, then you can create evergreen content around those products and services so that you can promote them on a schedule via autoresponder to each subscriber based on when they subscribed.

When you set up an autoresponder you can set it up in a way that delivers messages on a schedule based on when the person signed up. Using tags, you can also set everything up so that it delivers certain messages to your subscriber on various days. For example, after they get the welcome information, you can schedule that every day a single email goes out in the series to your subscriber.

A subscriber who signed up 30 days ago will be on a different schedule than someone who signed up a week ago. The messages are evergreen, so it doesn’t matter what time of year they are sent out. These messages may last for several years and still seem fresh if you word them right.

If you choose the right content and products, you shouldn’t have to update it that much. If a product goes out of popularity and isn’t working anymore, you can change and edit the emails that promote that product. That way the content and information is still good, you just change the product you recommend.

Here are some examples of evergreen content:

Niche: Life Coach
Email Series Topic: 365 Days of Positive Affirmations

Niche: Keto Diet Support
Email Series Topic: 365 Keto Lunch Recipes

Niche: Money Mindset
Email Series Topic: 365 Days to Retraining Your Money Mindset

Niche: Getting Through Divorce
Email Series Topic: 365 Days to Moving On

Each email doesn’t have to be lengthy. It can be 250 words of solid information that helps your subscriber solve their problems and promote a product or service to them at the same time.

creating auto-responder series passive income challenge

Remember that for the most part, you can break up content to make it fit a year-long series. For example, if you have a lot of content that has several points per article, you can break down those points to one point per email to spread out the information and to make it last longer. You can also break down a book into more than one email too. Use your imagination and think outside the box to create your 365-day evergreen email series. Find five to ten products to promote and spread them out through the emails to monetize your effort.

 

Writing and Publishing Books as a Source of Passive Income

Passive Income Challenge Day 7.

Creating passive income can be challenging, yes, but it can be a fun challenge. One great way to make passive income is through publishing books and today, it’s easier than ever to start writing and publishing books yourself. Who knows, you could be the next Stephenie Meyer. Heck, if you are not a writer, you can hire someone to do it for you! (but where is the fun in that?)

Choose a Niche

This is very important when it comes to creating books for Kindle. Look at the types of books that sell the best and try to create something in that niche if you understand it and can do the research or hire someone who can. Writing and Publishing Books

Hire a Writer

If you don’t want to write, or would rather have someone else do it – then hire a writer. You just give them the idea, a brief outline of what you’d like in the book, and let them do the work. You can use your name as the author or a pen name. It’s up to you how you want to proceed in this case. Note of caution: If you hire writers, run the work through a plagiarism checker.

[Tweet ““A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.” ~ Angela Carter”]

Edit the Book

Don’t have the writer edit the book, even if the writer is you. Always have someone else do the editing. You can hire an editor as easily as you can hire a writer. The editor can check for plagiarism issues, grammar, and fact check as well as improve the overall writing in the book before it’s published.

Create a Book Cover

Hire a graphic designer to create the book cover. You can also create book covers using software like Canva.com. Remember, you want the book cover to look really good and professional. When it comes to books, people really do buy by the cover, so it’s essential to get that right.

Layout the Book

A Kindle book needs to be laid out the way that Amazon wants it laid out. They have directions on their site.  It does change sometimes, so it’s best to use their guidelines when laying out a book. It can be challenging to layout a book with a lot of images, so you may need to hire a professional to do that too.

Upload it to Amazon Kindle

Once the book is finished and the cover is done, it’s time to upload the book. Again, you can hire someone to do this for you, making this mostly hands-off other than the up-front financial investment required to get started publishing when you outsource.

The great thing about Amazon is that they take care of customer service, payments, returns, and even sales taxes for you. Each month, they send you a payment directly to your bank account for your sales. With the right types of books, you can build a portfolio that earns six figures a year. You just must find the right niche that is a good seller.

Writing and Publishing BooksWoman sitting on couch writing in a book with laptop and textbook beside her, writing and publishing books

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TVS has launched the Inspired Action Mastermind!

A premium mastermind for mission-driven, service-based women entrepreneurs who are ready and willing to put in the work it takes to reach the next level!

Inside the Inspired Action Mastermind, we are an intimate group of entrepreneurs, all of which are committed to the success of one another’s businesses. It is a mastermind that provides the support and guidance you need to help you move your business forward. Because, when you’re in the right mastermind group, you can start to see your business and yourself through someone else’s eyes as you support one another and leverage each other’s experiences.

If you are ready and willing to shift your mindset and tackle all the hard questions to accomplish your dreams, then join us.

Learn about the Inspired Action Mastermind

iting and Publishing Books

Creating Info Products as a Source of Passive Income

Passive Income Challenge Day 6.
Creating Info Products

You may not realize it, but information products, known as Info Products, have been around longer than the internet. An info product is simply a way to provide information to the customer about a specific issue, problem, or circulate information. The info product can be any type of medium, such as a book, video, membership site, podcast, the list goes on. It can also be a combination of all the above.

If your audience needs the information, then you should create it. Period. It can be something like “How to Become a Minimalist” or “Lose Weight in 30 Days” or it can be a book about your journey to success with tips for the reader to follow. It can be in a variety of forms, a combination of forms, and if it covers information that your audience wants, it can also be a source of passive income for you.

Here is how to make that happen:

Create the Content

Once you decide what you want to create as an information product then you need to decide how you’ll create it. You can create it yourself, you can get help by hiring someone else to do it for you. You can sift through all of the content you already have and piece it together into one info product. You can even combine several types of information products together, such as a podcast episode with a workbook, and create an amazing info product that everyone in your niche will want.

Get it Up for Sale

Once you’ve created and packaged the product, you’ll want to sell it. The best way to sell it is in a way that you can get affiliates to also promote it and earn a commission on it. It’s a lot cheaper to pay commissions than it is to pay for reaching people on your own via advertisements on social media. If you can attract super-affiliates, that’s going to explode your sales.

Set Up Promotions

You can set up promotions in a passive way. Once you load the information into your autoresponder, into your social media schedule, and get it up on your blog as a post and a page, all you must do is promote it and let others promote it. Then you’ll start raking in the income passively from here on out.

Provide Customer Service

Once you start selling the info product, you will need to provide customer service. You can set up some automation on this process by using a searchable helpdesk and ticketing system. But, you will only have to create that one product one time.

Once it’s set up, providing customer service will be your only role in making money on the sales. If you create a product that is more evergreen content, then it will last a long time and you can almost create an entire business off of one great information product!

creating info products, passive income challenge day 6

How to Know if Your Vision Board Will Work

How to Know if Your Vision Board Will Work
Creating a vision board is a fun activity and some people hold vision board parties filled with friends, fun, laughter, music, and food. Who doesn’t love a party and what’s not to like about cutting out photos of your ideal life?

However, some people are quick to dismiss vision boards as being “woo woo” or magical or as a creative puzzle that just doesn’t work. Whether your vision board will work for you or not boils down to a few simple tips; follow the tips, and you’ll likely see success. Ignore the tips and you’ll likely get distracted, frustrated, and angry that you wasted time making the board.

How to Know if Your Vision Board Will Work
Less is More

Typically, people like to fill a gigantic piece of cardboard with dozens of photos of their hopes and dreams, everything from the dream mansion by the ocean to the diamonds and private yachts. But how can you focus on achieving all those big-ticket items all at once? Most people can’t focus on multiple goals at once – especially huge ones – so they get distracted and miss important opportunities. Edit the number of photos you use on your vision board and decide which of those goals you want to reach first.

Prioritize Your Goals

What is most important to you: working a 4-hour workweek or living by the ocean? The fancy sports car or the ability to travel around the world? These are just examples, of course, but you need to prioritize each photo you find and really ask yourself WHY you want this on your board. Is it truly important to you or is it a flashback from your childhood? If a photo isn’t important to you, your subconscious will know that and you will only get distracted or confused about what you should be working toward.

Take Action

Vision boards are not mystical or magical; just because you put the photos together and post it in your office doesn’t mean things will start magically appearing. Even if you want to win the lottery, you still need to take the action to buy the ticket, right? The same is true of vision boards. If you want to buy your first home, take some action: do some research or hire a realtor, talk to a mortgage broker to get pre-approved, and then increase your marketing efforts to find more clients.

Believe that You are Good Enough

Mindset is everything when it comes to making goals a reality. If you fall victim to the negative self-talk that says you’re an imposter or undeserving of reaching greatness, then you will be less likely to take action toward those goals. How many times have you talked yourself out of creating a class or program because you think, “Who wants to learn from me?” Changing your mindset and releasing the blocks that hold you back doesn’t happen overnight but when you hear those negative thoughts invading, say out loud, “Why NOT me? Why shouldn’t I be the one to reach success? If not me, then who and why do they deserve it more?”

If you’re willing to take action, you will reach your goals. If you want things to be handed to you, then you’ll remain stagnant in your business and in life. Vision boards are tools used to visualize your goals and dreams and WILL work if you use the tool correctly.

Did you know TVS has launched the Inspired Action Mastermind?

A premium mastermind for mission-driven, service-based women entrepreneurs who are ready and willing to put in the work it takes to reach the next level!

Inside the Inspired Action Mastermind, we are an intimate group of entrepreneurs, all of which are committed to the success of one another’s businesses. It is a mastermind that provides the support and guidance you need to help you move your business forward. Because, when you’re in the right mastermind group, you can start to see your business and yourself through someone else’s eyes as you support one another and leverage each other’s experiences.

If you are ready and willing to shift your mindset and tackle all the hard questions to accomplish your dreams, then join us.

Learn about the Inspired Action Mastermind

How to Know if Your Vision Board Will Work

How to Know if Your Vision Board Will Work

5 Ways to Make Vision Boards Work for You

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I love vision boards. Vision boards are meant to be a tool to focus on what’s important in your life – focus on your family, business goals, or living a carefree lifestyle. Make Vision Boards Work for You

What you need to know about vision boards is that how you create your vision board or what it looks like aesthetically doesn’t have any bearing on how well it will work.

If you have the Martha Stewart crafty gene in you, make your vision board as pretty as can be. Add pieces of fabric, paint an abstract background with your favourite colours, or dig out your long lost scrapbook supplies and utilize those beautiful printed papers and fun stickers.

However, if you are ANYTHING like me, you don’t have a crafty gene nor have the desire to develop a crafty side – have no fear: you can still make a no-frills vision board that suits your style and that will work!

5 Ways to Make Vision Boards Work for You
Cork vision board.

Buy an inexpensive corkboard and use thumbtacks to attach your photos. Using tacks makes it especially easy to move your photos around or to take some off after you’ve reached your goals.

Vision books.

If you have multiple goals for different parts of your life, then creating a vision book keeps all those goals on separate pages but still compact in the same book. A simple journal or a larger scrapbook serves the purpose. However, make a concerted effort to look at your book every day or find a unique way to keep your vision book where you can see it often instead of closed up on your bookshelf.

Digital vision boards.

For those who can whiz around the internet at the speed of light, digital vision boards are time savers. Search for a free template or use Canva’s grid template. Simply upload your photos and quotes to your chosen template and save. Save it as your wallpaper on your computer and phone. Go one step further and get it professionally printed on photo paper at your local photoshop.

Hang a single photo.

In a 60 Minutes interview, Adelle said that she hung a photo of an Academy Award near her treadmill where she saw it every day, just to keep that goal at the back of her mind. She reached that goal in 2013 when she received the Oscar for her song from the James Bond movie, Skyfall.

Write a vision statement.

For those who are born wordsmiths, forget about the pretty pictures and write out your goals instead. However, write it as a letter to yourself, 10 years into the future. Describe what you’re doing and where you’re living, among other things, as if you’ve been living that life for 10 years and are giving an update to your long lost friend. That’s exactly what Luvvie Ajayi did as a training exercise for her job. She went from being laid off from the job she loved to be a NY Times Bestselling Author! You can read Luvvie’s story here.

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So much time is spent describing traditional vision boards but as you can see, creating a non-traditional vision board or writing a vision statement is just as powerful. The most important point is voicing your goals and taking action to achieve those goals. How you package up your vision is completely arbitrary.

TVS has launched the Inspired Action Mastermind!

A premium mastermind for mission-driven, service-based women entrepreneurs who are ready and willing to put in the work it takes to reach the next level!

Inside the Inspired Action Mastermind, we are an intimate group of entrepreneurs, all of which are committed to the success of one another’s businesses. It is a mastermind that provides the support and guidance you need to help you move your business forward. Because, when you’re in the right mastermind group, you can start to see your business and yourself through someone else’s eyes as you support one another and leverage each other’s experiences.

If you are ready and willing to shift your mindset and tackle all the hard questions to accomplish your dreams, then join us.

Learn about the Inspired Action Mastermind

 

Make Vision Boards Work for You

make vision boards work for you

How to Identify Your Target Audience and Ideal Customer

One of the most important issues to address in your business life is how to identify your target audience and ideal customer. Without honing in on a specific target audience, you run the risk of missing the mark. There are several easy steps to identify your target audience and ideal customer.

how to identify your target audience

 Set Your Goals and Keep Your Goals

One of the best ways to identify your target audience is by setting goals for your business. Once you have set identifiable goals, your ideal customer will present him or herself.

Keeping true to those goals will ensure that your target audience and the ideal customer will return time and again.

Measure Your Goals

Once you have established what your goals are, it is important to revisit those goals and measure them on a regular basis.

A great way to measure your goals to see if they are up-to-date is to utilize social media. Have your customers or clients take a survey or enter a contest to see whether or not your company is meeting and exceeding their needs.

Make sure to communicate with customers on social media. Respond to their comments, and communicate via Twitter. See what the competition is doing and what trends are trending. Follow those trends.

Choose a Niche

Once you have set your goals and have established ways to measure those goals, make certain that you stick within your niche. Often times, business owners tend to waiver outside their niche. Sometimes creative ideas just seem to flow and flow; however, you must be true to your niche at all times. This is how you will be able to identify your target audience and your ideal customer. How to identify your target audience.

Create a Sub-Niche

Once you have created a niche, see if you can break it down further and create a sub-niche. A niche would be something like divorced women and a sub-niche would be divorced women with small children. Perhaps your business is a life coaching business that empowers divorced women with smaller children to educate themselves so that they can provide for themselves and their families.

Once you start your new business, you will begin to notice who is responding and who is not responding. In this way, you can measure your target audience a little better and hone in on your ideal customer.

For example, you may notice that divorced women with older children may be in a better position to use your products and services as compared to divorced women with younger children. Your target audience may present itself a little bit differently than you had planned.

Stay flexible, keep an open mind, but once you have established your ideal customer, make certain to keep it there and dedicate all your time and effort to that target audience and its ideal customer.

How to identify your target audience.

How to identify your ideal audience.

5 Ways Vision Boards Help You Reach Your Goals

5 Ways Vision Boards Help You Reach Your Goals

Do you set goals for yourself, either in your personal life or for your business? If not, how do you know you’re growing or making progress? When was the last time you allowed yourself to daydream about the type of life you want? What is your WHY, the reason behind all the long hours you spend on your business?

Creating a vision board has become a popular activity in recent years, especially as the New Year approaches and people think about the past year and the New Year’s resolutions they want to keep. A vision board is simply one tool that helps you visualize your dreams and your goals. How so, you ask? Let’s explore 5 ways vision boards help you reach your goals…

Vision boards make you focus on what’s important to you.

Whether you combine a personal vision board with a professional one or keep them both separate, thinking about what you want in life or in business forces you to prioritize what’s important. Do you want to buy your first house or move to a warmer climate? Putting a photo of your dream location by the beach will inspire you to work harder and not undercut your prices. If you want to move, you alone can make that happen and you’ll make better business decisions based on that desire to move.

Visualization stimulates the creative side of your brain.

Placing your vision board within sight of your desk or computer serves as a daily reminder of what you want to achieve. Some believe keeping it open by your nightstand helps stimulate your subconscious before you go to bed, which makes you motivated upon waking. With your creativity soaring, keep a notebook handy to jot down any ideas you have for a new course or coaching program you want to create.

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Focusing on goals makes you recognize new resources or opportunities.

Visualizing yourself living in a warmer climate (or whatever your primary goal is) will motivate you to work towards that goal but you’ll also notice new opportunities or resources which can lead you to reach your goal. These resources may have always been present but now that you’re focused on your goal, you will see them in a new light: as a way to help you reach that intended goal.

Break out of your comfort zone by stating a big, scary goal.

Are you stuck in a rut because you’re afraid to break out of your comfort zone? Acknowledging big goals – as scary and outrageous as they may be – will help you step out and take on new challenges, all in the name of reaching that scary goal. If your goal is to speak in front of an audience of 5,000 at your favourite conference, then you’ll start to see more opportunities for smaller speaking engagements. These smaller gigs will give you lots of practice and build your name recognition so when the organizers of your favourite conference advertise they’re looking for speakers, you’ll be well prepared to submit your name.

Seeing a big goal forces you out of the daydream and into action.

Nothing happens without some action on your part. Vision boards are not magic tricks; they are instead a tool that spurs us into action because we finally have clarity and know what we want out of life. Visualize your ideal life then approach each day with action steps that will lead you toward that ideal life.

Aside from these reasons, creating vision boards can be a very relaxing and fun family activity. So grab some glue and some old magazines and start daydreaming!

Vision Boards Help You Reach Your Goals

vision boards help you reach your goals.

Content Repurpose Masterclass FREE for Insiders!

Content Repurpose Masterclass

Have you ever taken an inventory of all your blog posts, videos, and other content you’ve created over the years? How many pieces do you think you’ve created, across all formats? If content creation is a part of your marketing plan, then I’m guessing you have numerous pieces taking up space on your hard drive. FREE content repurpose masterclass

Take a quick look in your hard drive, your blog dashboard, all your social media platforms, your YouTube channel, and any other private storage places you have, such as Vimeo, Amazon S3, or Dropbox. If you’re surprised at the number of content pieces, then you’ll want to take part in the Content Repurposing Masterclass”. I am hosting the masterclass Tuesday, for free, to all followers of the TVS Facebook Page!

In this masterclass, I will walk you step by step how to take all this original content and repurpose it into something brand new that your audience will love. You’ve already done the hard work by creating the content, now we’re going to tweak it and find a new use for it.

woman's desk with water bottle, and notebook for the Content Repurpose Masterclass with her laptop FREE MASTERCLASSBecause this is going to be hosted on the Facebook Page, this is the one and only time to access this masterclass for free.

So, join me Tuesday, September 29, 2020, at noon MDT! A room will be set up inside the group and we will start promptly at 12 pm! I’m willing to bet you’ll be surprised at how much content you can repurpose and work back into your marketing and sales plans.

 

Here’s to your success, I hope to see you there!

Follow the FB Page for Free Training!

ontent Repurpose Masterclass FREE for TVS Insiders!

How to Craft Great Blog Titles

I’ll let you in on a little secret. The most important part of your blog post is your title. Here’s how to craft great blog titles.

How well you write, how well-researched your content is, or how pretty your images are means nothing if you can’t get readers to click through and start reading your post. And the single most important thing when it comes to getting readers’ attention is having a great blog post title.

It’s also the most important on-page factor when it comes to SEO. So, if you’re hoping for lots of free traffic from Google and all your favourite social media sites, you need to be good at crafting great blog post titles.

30 blogging for business masterclass, woman working on her laptop with a cup of coffee wearing a pink skirt and high heels, how to craft great blog titles

Start With Your Keyword

The key with great blog post titles is to strive for a balance between a title the search engines will like and one that your readers will find interesting and engaging enough to make them want to click on it. To get that balance just right, I like to start with a keyword or key phrase that I want to rank for in the search engines.

Open up your favourite keyword research tool – like the Google Keywords for example – and play around with it until you come up with the keywords or key phrases you want to rank for.

For the sake of illustration let’s say our keyword example is “best blog hosts” and the post will be a review of five of the best hosting companies for WordPress blogs. “best blog hosts” is the keyword we want to rank for in this example.

[insert page=’business-blogging’ display=’content’]

Make It Interesting

Now that we have the keyword, it’s time to make it interesting for our readers. There are plenty of different ways to turn our example keyword into an interesting blog post title. Here are a few ideas:

·         The Three Best Blog Hosts Reviewed – Read This Before You Sign Up
·         Looking For a New Home for Your Blog? The Best Blog Hosts Reviewed
·         My Top 5 Best Blog Hosts Revealed – Here’s Who I Recommend
·         Wondering Who The Best Blog Hosts Are?

·         Is Your Host One The Best of The Best Blog Hosts List?

Do you see how this works? Start with the keyword and then try to think about why your readers would be looking for this information. Focus on what’s in it for them by sharing content that will help them out.

Stay Authentic and Stick With Your Style

Last but not least, stay authentic and stick with your own style. This is particularly important if you’re an established blogger. Don’t just copy and paste the blog post titles above. They may not reflect the style and tone of voice of your blog posts. In other words, they may not be you. Balance the need of the search engines to easily find what you’re content is about, the need to keep things interesting for your readers, by using your own voice.

You may find it helpful to write a few different blog post titles down and then chose the one that resonates most with you (and hopefully with your readers).

Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to read 52 Blog Ideas for your business, who couldn’t use 52 blog ideas?

4 Easy Tips for Brainstorming Blog Post Ideas

Have you actually spent the time to sit down and start brainstorming blog post ideas? There is nothing worse than sitting in front of your laptop, attempting to write a new blog post with nothing but a blank screen staring at you. We all have those days where inspiration just doesn’t strike and we can’t come up with a single workable post idea.

Or maybe you’re in a rush and you need something quick you can write and publish to stick to your blogging schedule and keep your readers happy. You don’t want to spend a bunch of time trying to come up with something to write about.

In either scenario, it’s nice to have a list of blog post ideas ready to use. And that’s what we’ll work on today. I’ll walk you through a simple little brainstorming exercise that will result in dozens of blog posts ideas you can use over the coming weeks and months, or whenever you need a little extra inspiration.

Grab a notebook and pen, and let’s start brainstorming a whole list of future blog posts. I prefer to do this exercise with pen and paper, but if that’s not your thing, by all means, use a word document, spreadsheet or whatever program you prefer for brainstorming topic ideas.
30 blogging for business masterclass, woman working on her laptop with a cup of coffee wearing a pink skirt and high heels, brainstorming blog post ideas

Step 1 – Log Into Your Blog and Make a List of Your Categories 

Start by making a list of all the categories on your blog. You may have a pretty good idea of the main ones or the ones you use the most, but there may be some you are forgetting.

Log into your blogging interface and look up the categories you have set up. Copy them down in your notebook, leaving at least 10 lines of space below each category.

Step 2 – Come Up With At Least 10 Blog Post Ideas Per Category 

Now that you have your list of categories, come up with 10 blog post ideas for each category. Don’t censor yourself, just jot down the first things that come to mind. Remember this is a brainstorm. The idea is to generate ideas. You’re free to tweak, edit, and reject them later. For now, get them on paper and come up with a long list of potential post ideas.

Step 3 – Rinse and Repeat As Needed

One of the best things about this technique is that you can repeat it whenever you need a new batch of blog post ideas. By the time you get back to this brainstorming technique (which means you’ve used up all the previous ideas), it will be easy to come up with fresh blog post topics for each category. And since you’re focusing on coming up with ideas for each category, no area of your blog will be neglected over the coming weeks.

So grab your notebook or download the worksheet for today, whichever is best for you and give it a try! See if this simple idea doesn’t help you generate a long list of future blog post topics.
Brainstorming Blog Post Ideas

Download this FREE Excercise Worksheet

Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to read 52 Blog Ideas for your business, who couldn’t use 52 blog ideas?

Now, hop into the Workshop and tell us the categories that you have on your blog! Then go through and make suggestions to others, who have posted theirs, and let them know what you would like to see!

 

P.S. Do you know someone that would benefit from this 30 Day Blogging Masterclass? Send them over to the sign-up page to join us.

 

[Tweet “”Never put off writing until you are better at it.” – Gary Henderson”]

Brainstorming Blog Post Ideas