The Six-Figure Second Income: How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job (13 page)

fol owing along on their computers. They listen to you on the phone but their computers

are logged into a special service that al ows them to see your computer desktop.

Let’s talk about why teleseminars are such fantastic tools and then we’l discuss

webinars.

A. Teleseminars Are the Most Inexpensive Way for You to Deliver Live

Content

Words on paper are great for many things, including the book you’re reading right now.

But if I were discussing the topic of teleseminars right now with you on the phone, you

might be even more engaged in the topic. People are natural y attracted to

conversations.

B. Teleseminars Can Be Intimate in the Proper Sense

If you’re good at delivering content via teleseminar, then each member of the audience

feels like you’re talking only to him or her. This is powerful! When I have hundreds of

people in my boot camp audience it’s of course impossible for me to be up on stage

and deliver the feeling that I’m talking to one single person. I can walk around, make eye

contact, and shake your hand and al of that is helpful—but you stil know you’re in a big

audience.

With the teleseminar I can make you feel like just you and I are on the line. I may not be

referring to you by name but I can stil talk to you directly. If my material is interesting to

you, I’l keep your attention for the whole time.

C. The Teleseminar Can Be as Active or Passive as You Want It to Be

You can choose to have a lively question-and-answer discussion on a cal where

everyone participates, or it can be an audience listening to two people in an interview, or

it can simply be one person delivering a message to the audience. The best method

depends on the group that’s on the cal . My favorite type of cal is the interview because

there’s a lot of energy when you get a good interviewer together with a good expert.

D. You Can Record the Call Once and Play It Back Multiple Times

As long as you take simple precautions, your cal can become evergreen as they say in

the business. When you record the cal , do not include smal -talk like, “Wow, that Super

Bowl game was something, huh.” That dates you as having delivered the cal in the

winter. If you do intend to use a cal again, just edit out those sections and the cal can

become effectively timeless. That means you can do the work once and get the benefit

again and again. It doesn’t get better than that.

E. Your Audience Doesn’t Need to Know How Many Other People Are

on the Line

Let’s say you are starting a new type of info product and you have not yet built up a large

list of prospects. You could conduct a teleseminar where only one person was on the line

—or even no one else was on the line—but as far as listeners were concerned, it might

have been hundreds. I’m not suggesting that you lie to listeners, but you simply need not

tel them how many other people are on the line.

This is excel ent for the person just starting in a business. Compare that to running the

risk of renting a room at the local hotel and trying to fil it for a live presentation. You

might be very successful at packing them in, but what if there’s a blizzard or some major

news event that day? You paid for the room, and your dad and one other person showed

up.

If you had conducted the teleseminar and recorded it, then your dad and that one

person would stil have received good value for the cal but you could later replay the cal

for lots of people.

As great as teleseminars are, webinars can add even one more dimension to your

presentation—those visual learners now can see your presentation as wel as hear you.

When I’m in the early stages of an info product I may not yet have a polished visual

presentation, in which case I’l do a teleseminar. But after I assemble interesting visuals

like pictures, screenshots, and PowerPoint presentations I usual y move to the webinar

format.

Note: As I described earlier with DVDs, it’s dangerous to assume that your customers

or prospects are al sitting in front of their computers, nondistracted and ready to absorb

your material. Therefore, it’s important to design a webinar to be effective for people

who might cal in and listen to your presentation while driving. You’l quickly lose them if

al they hear is, “Okay now go to the top right portion of your screen. . . .”

Warning: Do NOT Open Up the Lines So Everyone Can Hear

Everyone Else!

I can tel you from doing literal y hundreds of teleseminars that this is a prescription for

great suffering on the part of listeners—and for poor results too. The more people you

have on the line, the more you’l hear an absolute cacophony of dogs barking, car horns

honking, dishes clanking, babies crying, and the very worst—someone who cal s into

your line and puts you on hold so the entire cal gets treated to elevator music.

You simply must put yourself in conference mode where al the cal ers can hear you but

only you can speak. Later in the cal if you choose to open up the lines for questions, the

technology exists for you to let people speak in an orderly fashion.

Remember the concept of repurposing: Once you deliver the teleseminar or webinar

you can get a transcript made of the presentation and sel that along with the audio of the

cal .

If you want to know the systems I use these days for conducting teleseminars and

webinars, just go to www.sixfiguresecondincome.com and type “teleseminar” into the

search box.

25. Trial Software

The expectation bar has been raised in the world of software. Few people are wil ing

these days to take a gamble on instal ing semi-functional software during a trial period.

They want instead to see the software work in its ful -featured form before deciding

whether to buy it. If you ever are in a position to offer software for sale, that’s the way to

go.

26. iPhone Application

I refer to the iPhone only because it’s the leader in having separate applications written

for the phone, but of course the
BlackBerry
and other phones also are active in this

area. Just a short time ago there were few good phone software applications—or apps

for short—but things have rapidly changed as the phones have become more capable.

Now it’s possible to hire a geek and have an app written for phones for about the cost

of having a T-shirt designed. Because apps are a relatively new phenomenon, they have

a certain cachet or coolness about them. Instead of quickly concluding “
My
situation’s

different
,” you’d be smart to ponder if your info product might benefit from an app.

Maybe it’s a quick calculator or a database to look up information that varies by region,

city, or time of year.

Offering your app for free could bring you many new prospects for your product. If the

app is good enough, you could charge somewhere between 99 cents and $19.99 for it.

27. Software

This is no different from trial software in Number 25, but you could consider offering

software that requires payment up front but that carries a ful guarantee if the customer

decides to return it.

It’s worth noting that current software is moving away from the model that prevailed in

the last several decades, where you buy a box of software and instal it on your

computer. The trend now is to pay for access to software that’s available on the web with

nothing to instal on your end. This removes a major headache for customers who

become extremely frustrated and angry about instal ation problems. It also al ows you to

make quick upgrades to the software without shipping piles of disks and incurring more

instal ation-support headaches.

28. Online Calculator

You know those postal mail promotions where on the order form it asks you to take a

sticker from one spot and place it on another spot? Those companies are not being sil y

or arbitrary but are incorporating what’s known as an
involvement device.

Whenever you can involve a prospect in a physical act it helps to increase attention

and sales. Online calculators are great involvement devices even if you offer them for

free. Popular ones have included “What’s your REAL age?” This tool asks you a series

of questions to determine how old you act versus how old you real y are. Other

involvement devices calculate something related to weight loss or your likelihood of

finding your true love.

It’s good practice to have prospects use the calculator without your asking for any

name or other contact information. Then in order for prospects to see the answer, you

ask for a name and valid e-mail address and send the answer to that e-mail address.

This system ensures that you do not have people typing in [email protected] as their e-mail

address simply for the sake of getting to the next screen with the answer.

As with iPhone apps, it’s definitely worth thinking about what type of calculator you

could offer.

29. Interview Series PDFs

I’ve already spoken about this excel ent product, but just in case you’re not sure what a

“PDF” is, that term stands for Portable Document Format. It’s now a practical y universal

method for displaying a document online because it works on just about any kind of

computer brand under the sun and the reader tool is a free download. It’s superior to

sending a Microsoft Word document to customers because they may not own that

software.

30. Free PDF

Nothing much to say here other than it’s a good way of delivering content before you ask

for money.

31. Free Audio

Similar to a free PDF, a free audio interview or presentation is an excel ent way to hook

people in the good sense of the word. They can hear your voice and decide if they like

the content you deliver. It could be as short as 10 minutes or a ful -blown hour-long

interview.

32. Consultation

This is more of an advanced tool for when you have trained consultants on your staff. I

(Dave) offer free consultations in my real estate investing business because many

prospects aren’t sure if they’re cut out to be investors. By offering them a free 30-minute

consultation, they get to ask their questions of one of my staff and they’l get customized

answers.

Does it cost me good money to hire and train those staff members? Yes. Do some of

the prospects end up concluding that real estate investing is indeed not for them? Yes.

But it’s a good way to give before you get, as we discussed before. Besides, it often

helps people who are stuck at the stage of my situation’s
different
—during the

consultation they get a chance to explain their situation and we determine if it is in fact

compatible with real estate investing.

33. Lunch or Dinner Seminar

This is another advanced technique for when you have an established product or

service. What you do is send invitations either to prospects on your list, or to new names