Become an Author and Become the Authority – Part 2

Customers want to feel they made the best decision when making a purchase.

Typically they’ll ask; “Why should I do business with you instead of your competition”.

Factors such as price or offering additional value certainly help. However, nothing helps more than a reputation of authority.

It convinces potential signups that you know what you’re talking about. This is a more effective deal closer than the price or package deals alone.

Thanks to Jim Howard from the Last Big Seminar, I will show you how to become and present yourself as an “Authority” through the power of your very own book as we expand upon what was discussed in Part 1 of this series.

It’s probably safe to say that a book likely won’t make you millions or even thousands of dollars by itself.

As mentioned in the previous article, a book acts as a super business card, with a few hundred pages to brand you as someone knowledgeable.

It’s a way to convince people to do business with you and not end the journey.

So how do you write a book?

Let’s take a look at some key steps towards the goal on this path.

Write A Book To Become The Authority and Attract Paying Members – Wait! It’s Easier Than You Think! – Part 1

One of the questions potential sign-ups ask is:

“Why should I join your membership. What makes your membership site different than your competition?”

You can try to convince them with more value, or a cheaper signup fee. Those things work, but the best thing is to become a recognized authority.

If you can present yourself as someone knowledgeable in your field, your claims become more valid because you’re someone they trust to know their craft.


Thanks to Jim Howard from the Big Seminar, I can show you how not to be just known as a mere expert, or even a guru, but rather “The Authority”.

What’s the Difference?
An expert is someone with special skill or knowledge.

These people know the insides and outsides of their field. It’s usually due to significant training or experience. Such a person doesn’t usually teach others although they may share their experience.

Turn Potential Members Into Real Members

If you are a membership site owner then you need to be an effective online marketer.

Even if you are an expert when it comes to advertising or getting the word out in person or print, you need to also generate online interest.

Typical marketing, network marketing, relationship building, advertising, content marketing – it’s all the same, right?

Wrong! It is not all the same.

Find out how the differences can affect your membership site.

The ultimate goal of content marketing is to build an opt-in list full of people who will value your information and become a loyal customer/member.

Once everyone in your list learns that your content is valuable, they will look forward to messages from you (and will trust your opinions).

The features and tools you are talking about should be factual and accurate. What they are and how they work. To really grab the attention of your audience, the benefits should be focused on and spotlighted within your content.

So how do you find and feature the benefits?

You learn to look closely and pull from the features themselves.

—–

Copywriter John Carlton states;

“We’re not as logical as we’d like to think we are. Most of our decisions are based on deep-rooted emotional motivations, which we then justify with logical processes.”

One of the main ingredients with online marketing is to emotionally motivate your audience. This is the golden key that fits the lock of indecision.

Have You Considered A Fixed-Term Membership?

Internet marketer Jimmy D. Brown coined the term “Fixed Term Membership” when he created his program.
Membernaire

Jimmy created his approach before membership site plugins, like WishList Member, were as readily available as they are today. His approach was innovative because he used an auto-responder sequence to deliver his content.

You bought his fixed-term program, added your name to the list, and then received the training via email.

Two aspects of Jimmy’s approach are particularly worth noting for membership site owners:

1. Fixed-Length Membership
2. No Mid-Course Restarts

Continue reading to find out about these techniques.

Overcoming The Retention Problem

Retention is the biggest problem of an ongoing subscription site.

Experts will tell you to expect a three to four-month “lifespan” of a subscriber. After that, they will most likely cancel.

Proven Methods To Really Annoy Your Business Network On Facebook

Facebook is arguably the current leader when it comes to social media.

While other social networking sites may bypass Facebook’s popularity in other countries, overall, Facebook is king.

With that in mind, it’s very reasonable for companies to want to create profiles to tap into the 500 million Facebook (and rising) accounts.

However, many companies jump in without learning how to properly use Facebook and only end up annoying their customers.

Here’s how to avoid annoying your Facebook business network.

Post a Never-Ending Stream of Advertisements
Overall, your intent on Facebook is to bring in more revenue. However if you’re obvious about it, you’ll drive people away.

Recently, I friended a popular soft drink (It’s a really good soft drink). At first, I got recipes that called for the drink. That’s fine because it’s another way to use the product and increases my enjoyment because I do enjoy the soft drink.

Then I started getting more updates to just drink the product. There was nothing subtle, just suggestions to drink, followed by more requests.

I don’t mind advertisements, but I do mind the feeling of being bombarded and thus removed them.

Mindlessly Like Everything

“Just wanted everyone to know orders will be delayed. Our factory burned down last night.”
- Jen (and 2 other people) Like This.

Mindless “Likes” such as the above example show that at best you aren’t reading posts and at worst you appear to take delight in bad things.

Refrain from liking everything (since you may like something inappropriate) and if you outsource your social networking, make sure those posting on your behalf know to do the same.

To ensure this, make sure whoever is in charge of your social networking has a good understanding of your language so there’s no misunderstanding.

How To Handle Freebie Seekers

If you have a paid membership site, chances are you’ve come across the “Freebie Seeker”.

You know, the person who wants everything you have for FREE.

They expect that everything you create and produce should be free (because everything is, right?) and as soon as you put anything behind a “paywall”, they start going crazy.

So how do you deal with these people while maintaining a profitable business?

Here are two proven strategies…

Manage Expectations Early

The first thing to understand about the Freebie Seeker is that one of the reasons they expect your content to be free is because somewhere along the way, their expectations were not managed properly.

Perhaps you’ve never sold anything before – and therefore they have a skewed sense of reality from someone else’s site (who was giving everything away for free).

Perhaps you’ve given everything you’ve ever created away for free – and therefore they expect you to continue to do the same.

Perhaps you’ve been a prolific blogger and have been freely posting everything on your blog – so why would they expect you to start charging?

Whatever the case may be, it’s YOUR responsibility to manage their expectations.

“Hey! Can We Talk?” – Interviews On Your Membership Site

A question regarding getting interviews came into the forum a while back which I replied to and then
decided that it would be a good idea to write up a post based on that response.

I’ve heard the question posed before; “HOW do I set up an interview with an expert (or anyone) for my Membership site?”

What follows are some thoughts and suggestions to help answer that question which will enable you to score valuable interviews that can be posted on your site for your members to benefit from.

Interviews are a great way to gain and present other people’s knowledge to your members.

As much as you know about a topic, there is most often someone out there with even more knowledge on the subject (or who can at least present an alternate perspective than your own).  Fresh content is vital to a Membership site so you should seek it out in any and all forms that you can.

You may even want to interview someone with a conflicting view point. If done correctly, a discussion between two people with opposite opinions can be entertaining and informative for an audience.

Just be sure that this type of exchange doesn’t devolve into two individuals simply trying to convince the other they are wrong or a continuous case of each one talking over the other other as members will tend to tune this out.

Don’t Be Stupid With Your Marketing

If your customers are getting “ticked”, your sales are likely to suffer.

In this article I outline 2 “stupid tactics” that I’ve seen marketers use that are guaranteed to anger your customers.

The thing is…

All it takes is a little “tweak” and you’ll go from “chump” to “CHAMP”.

Take a look…

How Does Your Membership Site Stand Out?

As with most everything in this world, you are going to face some competition. This is true when it
comes to your membership site as well.

Who will stand out and offer the best membership site to their members? Will it be you?

Potential members tend to gravitate toward the company that they find the most value in, the person they most relate to, integrity they most admire.

Is everyone seeing these values within your community?

Can You Raise Prices Without Losing Members? – Part 1

Many membership site owners eventually realize they have to raise prices in order to “keep the light

s on”.

Eliminating wasteful practices, up-selling, cross promotions, and even highly effective ad strategies may still result in the very real need to raise prices.

When the payments coming in are out-weighed by the time and effort put forward, it’s time for a price increase.

Once this decision is made, how can you increase your prices without upsetting current members and making the revenue problem even worse?

Upset members quickly turn into former members.