Are you struggling with all of the writing that’s required when you have an online business? Don’t despair. You can become a writer if you stick with it and write something every day.

For more than thirty years, from the time I was in junior high school until I decided to become an entrepreneur, I had wanted to become a writer. The problem was that I did very little writing, and when I did write I refused to edit or rewrite any of it later on to improve the writing. While I was working as a classroom teacher I told my students they had to write every single day if they expected their writing to improve. It turns out that advice was valid.

When I came online at the end of 2005 I saw that I would have to start writing if I wanted to build a successful business. I started writing each day and even challenged myself to write 100 articles in 100 days. However, I did not do this…

It only took me 78 days!

At some point, around day thirty most likely, I had turned into a writer. I now MUST write each and every day or else I feel like I’ve forgotten to do something, like turn my oven off or let the dog out. My writing has improved greatly, and it is a pleasure to see how much I can create. As Dorothea Brande discusses in her beautifully written book, Becoming A Writer, one must not be an ‘occasional writer’ if you wish to be successful.

How Can Becoming A Writer Impact Your Life And Your Online Business?

Writing is the most universal form of communication. We are able to shape our thoughts and ideas into words and reach people around the world when we write. Whether it is a blog post, an article, a short report, an eBook, or a printed book, the written word has the power to move mountains.

My recommendation is that you start by writing about topics you are interested in. We all write much better when we are excited about the information we are sharing. Become more disciplined by writing every day for about thirty minutes. Figure out when you are most alert and ready to be productive. I call this your ‘Prime Time’, and it will be different for everyone. My best hours for writing are from about seven until ten in the morning, so I make an effort to do some writing every morning during those hours.

Great, prolific writers are not always born this way. Make the time to write, stay focused on your topic, and do this every single day until you have got yourself into the habit of writing. You will be amazed at where this will take you.

Recently I asked some of my online friends whether they preferred to attend live events for business and marketing training, or if webinars they could watch from home were sufficient. It turns out that many people strongly prefer one over the other, and others are more flexible when it comes to online business training.

The main reason I asked the question was that I have been attending the NAMS Total Business System live event in Atlanta this weekend, where I am a marketing trainer and faculty member. Twice a year I speak and present at this conference, and then throughout the year I’m a part of the online training that is part of the membership site associated with this excellent business training program. Some people attend the live events twice a year, while others regularly show up for the weekly webinar trainings.

One person I asked, Pamela Wynn, brought up an excellent point when she said that she loves the live stream when she is unable to attend in person. NAMS does not currently offer a live stream, but perhaps that could be discussed for the next live NAMS in August. Live stream, if you are not familiar with this, is a way for you to watch the live event from the comfort of home via webinar, based on having video cameras set up at the event location so that it can be ‘streamed’ in real time to locations all over the world.

Traveling to a live business training event can be difficult for some people due to a variety of scheduling conflicts. William Chaney said, “I would enjoy the live events but not because I learn more, but because I get to inner act with the instructors and my fellow “classmates”. However, travel has not worked for me over the past year. For the money I spend on hotels and air travel, I can purchase much needed products to help me on my quest.”

Tara Kachaturoff said that because of her other commitments, it’s best for her to attend webinars. She can only attend local events live.

Melissa Ingold says “I love being able to learn from home because traveling to all kinds of events just isn’t doable when you have kids. The reason I decided to go into business for myself was so that I could take care of my kids and be with them, not so I could travel more than I’m home – which I’ve seen so many business owners fall into and it kind of defeats the purpose of being a freedom based entrepreneur. However, I think going to some events is a great for networking and learning. I’ve never been to an event yet, but I plan to attend my first offline event this August.”

Others like to learn from both webinars and live events. Robin O’Neal Smith said, “I like both! Live events are great for networking and asking questions. I also enjoy and learn a great deal from webinars.” Adrienne Dupree agrees, stating that “I love live events so I can meet the people I hear online. I also am a webinar junkie. I could attend a webinar every day if I had enough time. There is so much information out there.”

Some of my friends feel very strongly about the importance of attending live events. One of them, Brad Spencer, says “I prefer live events by far…webinars are too linear the way most do them. Live events= party atmosphere (educational party) Webinars= (most times) boring like high school (full disclosure: I know you’re a pro teacher, Connie, and you rock!”

Colin Theriot explains, “You MUST attend live. The networking is the whole point. The WORST is when you go to a live event and a bunch of the people there just go up to their rooms and go to sleep instead of mining the gold that is in the hall and at the hotel bar and out to lunch, etc.”

Debbie O’Grady shared that “I love attending live events to meet face-to-face with the people I’ve “met” online. It gives me the chance to interact and know people better.

As Jeremy Ginn put it, “There is something powerful about shaking hands, eye to eye, smile to smile that you just miss on a webinar!”

How do you feel about this issue? I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether you prefer attending live events or webinars to grow your online business.

In today’s world of constant ‘noise’, how do you best connect with your target audience to share our message and begin the relationship that can turn into a conversation for our business? In an effort to engage our audience in a way that will allow them to consume our information, we must be proactive in our marketing. Here are some of the best strategies that are working well for experienced online entrepreneurs.

Content Marketing to Connect With Your Target Audience

This is the art of creating written, audio, and video content to attract new prospects and to reaffirm your value to ongoing clients. I do this with my blog posts, articles for the directories and offline publications, my YouTube channel, my books on Kindle and in paperback, my teleseminars, my two podcasts on iTunes, my short reports, and more. The key is to just get started and your content creation plan will fall into place almost effortlessly. I also recommend that you do all of your own writing in order to find your voice and get into the habit of creating content regularly.

Storytelling

Share your life experiences with your audience in a way that allows them to get to know you on a deeper level. If you think about some of the greatest people in history, it’s their stories that we remember. We think of Abraham Lincoln as the man who walked two miles to return some money to someone who left it in his store. We remember people because of the actions they take, the choices they make, and the way they handle adversity. That’s their story, and you will want to tell yours in a way that allows your audience to know you a little better each day.

Audience Engagement

I’ve become very well known for making ‘huge profits with a tiny list’. By engaging the people you already know, instead of simply looking for more new people all of the time, you can build a successful and gratifying online business. I learned this early on when I won an affiliate contest where most of the people had more than twenty thousand names on their lists. I only had about two thousand at that time, and still came in first. Connect regularly with the people who have already raised their hand in a vote of confidence for you and what you have to offer.

Audio and Video Connections

We connect more easily with people whom we have met in person, but that isn’t always possible when you work online. Instead, use teleseminars, podcasts, photographs, and videos to make your connection with people around the world seem closer. When I attend a live event anywhere in the world, people rush up to greet me because they recognize my face or my voice. A picture is worth a thousand words and our voice holds great power for connection with others. You can do the same thing to make yourself larger than life on the Internet.

How are you spending time each day to connect with your target audience?

Mike Berger, Santa Clarita ‘Man of the Year’ in 2006, is a humanitarian and community activist. He is also a long time Rotarian, serving for thirty-one years so far, and that’s how I first met him in 2006. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Michael Hoefflin Foundation, has served on the Board of Trustees for College of the Canyons, and has served as president of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce. I am proud to call him my friend.

He’s a financial consultant who starts his day at five in the morning, and seems to have endless energy when it comes to helping others. Mike first got involved in Rotary and in the Chamber of Commerce more than thirty years ago as a way to help his business, and soon realized that being a part of philanthropic groups makes live more joyous and meaningful.

I’ve worked side by side with Mike with various hands-on projects over the years, and he believes that getting your hands dirty is the best way to understand and connect with people in need. Most recently we worked with a group from our Rotary Club to clear the brush from an area used by Carousel Ranch.

His advice to people just starting out, who believe they do not have the time or the money to volunteer, is to find a group that resonates with you and that you can relate to in a personal way. He first helped the Chamber of Commerce by setting up the bar for their monthly mixers. He found this to be an excellent way to meet people in the community. He also helped out at the charity golf tournaments and met many people who were also active in this way. Volunteering in your community is an education in itself, and you never know what doors might open when you are active with a variety of groups and organizations. Mike says that we must put our ego aside and be willing to help out by showing that we are interested in doing so.

We also discussed his involvement in the Michael Hoefflin Foundation, an organization that assists the families of children who are going through cancer treatment, as well as with funding for cancer research. Mike first met Chris Hoefflin, the father of the boy, Michael, for whom the organization was named. He saw a need and moved forward to help them to achieve their goals in a bigger way.

His connection with Carousel Ranch began when he sat on the Santa Clarita Planning Commission. They needed a location to do their great work, which involves the use of horses in equine therapy for severely disabled children. No one wanted this group in their neighborhood, and Mike helped them to find a permanent home.

The Planning Commission position came about after JoAnne Darcy became a councilwoman, and then became mayor of Santa Clarita. She asked Mike to work with the Planning Commission to help carry out the vision for the City. He served for three terms, helping to build out various parts of Santa Clarita, including Bridgeport and the mall. He goes into great detail about what his job entailed during this process. Santa Clarita is a planned community, and you can hear the excitement in his voice as he shares some of what it is to come in this community.

Mike recommends that everyone find a mentor who will guide you as to the groups and organizations that you can become a part of right away. This can be the first step in your personal growth as a leader in your community and as someone who is seen as caring about others and being willing to serve.

How do I get past the fear of wasting time writing a book that doesn’t sell?

– by Jim Edwards

One of the primary things that stops many people from writing their own ebook comes down to fear. Fear of writing an ebook that doesn’t sell.

This fear can often debilitate even the most competent writers, let alone someone who wants to dip their toe in the waters of self-publishing for the first time. As someone who wrote his first book in 1994 and published his first ebook in 1997, I’ve felt this particular pang of fear more than once in the last 20 years. But, as with any fear, knowledge and action will help you get past any mental roadblock.

These four “magic buttons” will help you sail right on through to the promised land of self-published ebook success!

Research Carefully

Most people write a book because they get a “killer idea” and just “know” that everyone will need it. As soon as you think “everyone” needs your ebook, you’ve set yourself up for some major heartache. Careful research ranks as the first and, debatably, the most important step in the ebook writing process. Careful research comes down to knowing, without a doubt that:

1. People are interested in your topic. The fastest way to gauge interest is to look at the Google Keyword tool to see how many people search for a specific topic and its related search terms. The other way is to look at the number of books on that topic for sale on Amazon, as well as to see if your main search term is one of the automatic suggestions in the Amazon search box.

2. Are they buying? It’s really easy to see how well books sell on Amazon. When you do your research in step 1 above, just look at the sales ranks of the books that show up in your searches to gauge market size in a niche. Any book with a rank of 20,000 or lower is selling well on Amazon.

Focus on Solving Problems

For non-fiction ebook topics, solving a problem is the easiest way to help boost your chances of selling more copies. People with a problem, especially an intense problem, will spend time and money (or both) to solve it. Solving problems also makes creating a title, description, cover, and keywords for your book MUCH easier because you have a central focal point.

If you want to succeed with your first (or next) ebook, figure out which problems your target audience really struggles with and help them with a fast and effective solution neatly wrapped in ebook form.

Make It Fast and Good!

The surest way to fail with an ebook is to never get it written. The second surest way to fail with an ebook is to write a bunch of crap content. Write the damn thing while you’re young enough to enjoy it. The type of ebook I’m talking about here can be as short as 30 pages (500 words per page in your word processor). The only caveat to this 30-page length is that your content’s quality level must top the charts. You can’t publish crap and expect to get much traction before the negative backlash of public opinion will stop your sales dead in their tracks.

Reframe Possible Outcomes

Whatever you focus on typically becomes your reality. If you focus on crappy sales, you’ll get crappy sales. If you focus on creating great content instead of selling your ebook online, people love and want to tell their friends about, that’s what you’ll most likely get. But if thinking positive doesn’t get your mindset turned around on this issue, then let’s take a look at the “worst-case scenario.”

Worst case scenario: Your ebook doesn’t sell. So what!

You have so many options for using your ebook content to build your business, it’s enough to make your head spin. Here’s how you can use your ebook even if it doesn’t become a best-seller:

1. Free bonus to join your list

2. Chop up into articles to drive traffic

3. Convert to video on YouTube to drive traffic

4. Chop into Blog Posts for SEO

5. Free Report for affiliates to brand and share

6. Sell (resale) rights to the content

7. Turn your ebook into a coaching program

8. Automatically deliver as a paid / free course via autoresponder

Bottom line: if you want to be successful with your ebook, do your research, turn out great content, get it done, and be open to new possibilities. Only good things happen when you follow these steps.

Jim Edwards

Selling online since 1997, Jim is an Internet Marketing Expert, Author, Elite Mentor and Coach

He specializes in helping individual entrepreneurs, small business owners and authors to understand how to use technology to build your online business.

Jim is the author of dozens of ebooks, hundreds of webinars, over 1,000 blog posts and articles.

His flagship ebook “How To Write and Publish Your Own eBook… in as little as 7 Days” – newly revised and updated with V2.0 – has been helping book and ebook authors create their own best-selling ebooks since 2001! Get more information about Jim and how he can help you get more readers, make more sales, and skyrocket your credibility here => http://eBookWritingProfits.com

If you are a small business owner, author, coach, consultant, or entrepreneur, you have more than likely discovered that having an Internet presence is crucial to your success. This online presence can take shape as a blog, a traditional website, or even a Facebook page, yet the one page that will help you to attract all of the clients and business you want is none of the ones I have just mentioned.

I am talking about creating an opt in page, which is also referred to as a ‘squeeze’ page, ‘landing’ page, or ‘shy yes’ page. This single web page serves the purpose of letting visitors find out who you are, what you do, and how you can best serve their needs. I have many of these set up for my business, and they all continue to bring in excellent leads every single day.

Your opt in page will start with a headline at the top, stating the problem your target audience is facing and needs to solve. For example, if your business is dog training, your headline might read something like:

“Are You Tired Of Your Dog Jumping On People Every Time Someone Visits?”

You would then go on to introduce yourself to the reader, and to tell them that you had a similar problem with your own dog. Then you would tell them that you have a free report or a video that will help them to solve their problem quickly. The idea here is to sell them on the idea of signing up for the free gift, and not to tell them about all of the other services you provide and products you sell. There will be plenty of time for that later on, after they have opted in.

Include three bullet points to describe your free gift, such as:

• Learn how to get you dog to behave around visitors
• Find out what it means when your dog is aggressive around strangers
• Receive 5 tips for turning your dog into a docile and loving pet

At the bottom of your opt in page you will invite readers to enter their first name and email address to receive their free gift and more information. This is required by federal law to ensure they have given you permission to contact them via email.

If you’re an author, set up an opt in page where people can receive more information on your topic after they’ve read your book. I have done this for each of my books, and you can an example of one of my recent ones at http://TimeManagementForEntrepreneursBook.com. You can see that the page is a simple one that promises to deliver more training on effective time management strategies for entrepreneurs. I receive new leads at this site regularly, and once they have opted in I am able to connect with them on a deeper level that if they had only read my book.

Your free report can be just a few pages in length. I recommend combining three or four of your blog posts into a report on your topic. The idea is to provide the very best information possible to build your credibility with your new prospect and to begin establishing your ‘know, like, and trust’ factor from the very beginning.

This marketing strategy works in every niche and for every topic. It’s simply a way for you to reach out to potential prospects by showing them how you can solve their most pressing problems.

You will want to experiment with different opt in pages to see which ones work best for you. Also, try using video on some and just written text on others to see what your target audience responds to best. You can see an example of creating an opt in page using a short video at Viral Report Marketing.

It happened almost every day while I was a classroom teacher; someone would turn in a paper without a name on it. After a while we could recognize the handwriting, and the students came to know who the likely culprits were and would hand the paper back to them and wait for their signature.

During those years I decided that it was a lack of confidence that kept someone from making sure the teacher knew whose paper they were reading. It seemed like it would take the entire school year for me to finally make the necessary connection with that child that would finally encourage them to be proud of their work.

Little did I know that I would encounter a similar problem when I came online. On a regular basis I receive emails from people that contain no name at all. The ‘from’ section of the email only contains their email address, and they do not sign their name or have a signature line that lets me know who they are. Unless their email address contains their name, I am unable to guess as to who is contacting me.

I asked some of my colleagues if they are experiencing the same situation, and the answer is a resounding Yes!

David Perdew, founder of NAMS, shared that they spend much time tracking down e-mail addresses or corporate names to figure out who the person is and which products they are talking about. In their new support desk, they’re actually making the name, product and the URL in issue required fields.

Dale Anderson made me laugh when he said, “Whatever made you think that a child who did not bother to put their name on a paper would develop into an adult who would do any differently in their email communication? I know you are just too optimistic at times, and this is one of them.”

Make sure that you are communicating professionally with email by taking a look at your own messages. Does your first and last name appear in the ‘From’ area? Do you sign your name at the bottom of your message? Do you utilize a signature line so people can learn more about you and what you do? These email communication tips can help you to build your business in a professional way.

In this sixth episode of Online Marketing Tips With Connie Ragen Green, my newest podcast series, I discuss how to get started online with affiliate marketing. I define affiliate marketing as ‘recommending what you love’. We discussed the importance of choosing a niche, setting up a hosted WordPress site, only recommending what you have used and benefited from, and affiliate contests.

I also answer questions on a variety of topics related to affiliate marketing and online business success, including how to shorten your links, how to become my affiliate to promote my products and courses for lifetime commission, starting with Amazon as an affiliate for books and other products, using Squidoo to create sites to recommend products and services you are an affiliate for, and much more.

Also, you can now pick up my training on winning affiliate contests for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets.

Be sure to download your Study Guide to follow along with the podcast. I always create these to give you a frame of reference as to what I am discussing during that episode, as well as to share valuable resources and online marketing tips with you.

Be sure to subscribe to this new podcast series over at iTunes