Location-free

I am visiting relatives today. And doing a teleseminar.

Teleseminars are a great way to generate income form anywhere. I make thousands most months from doing teleseminars.

If you are not yet doing teleseminars, why not?

It’s not that hard, if you know what you are doing. I stumbled around for several years not knowing much. Finally I learned and mastered the medium.

If you want to save some stumbling around and get started, check out the training I am doing with Ruth B. of NICABM.com.

http://www.nicabm.com/teleseminar/2010/howtocreateteleseminars//?affid=spkrlBn1101

About teleseminars

Hear me talk about setting up and doing teleseminars and what they might be good for in your work. This one, even though it has already happened, is available still. Visit: http://www.billohanlon.com/Teleseminar/Training.html

Teleseminar upgrade

I got into this Internet-based income stuff a few years ago and learned it a little at a time. The first thing I did was create some products; some ebooks and audios. They did pretty well and allowed me to free up my time to learn even more and create more free time and passive income.

I am now in a long-distance relationship; my girlfriend lives in Seattle and has a practice there. It’s easier for me to go visit her than it is for her to miss days in her practice (and income) to come visit me. Luckily I have that luxury since I have set up both passive income sources and location-independent ones.

The best location-independent source of income I have discovered is a teleseminar. I began doing them a while ago and initially used a free service (http://www.freeconferencecalling.com/). I would do a free teleseminar to create a mailing list of interested people and then try to get them to buy some related product (like my online bookwriting course). That worked okay, but wasn’t that lucrative. I was training people to expect free stuff. So I began doing paid calls in which I charged for the call, but would promise people they would get the recording afterwards if they were too busy to get in the call or they couldn’t make the scheduled time work. That was good, because I made money on each call and still a few people bought other products after the call.

Then I realized that since I had recorded the calls I could turn them into audio products or get them transcribed and turn them into ebooks or reports. That worked a bit better and I made more money. Until the day I scheduled one of these calls, charged for it and the recording function on the call didn’t work. Worse than that, it was a series of four calls and two of them didn’t record, even though I had tested it again in between the calls to ensure that it was working after the first one didn’t record. I had to spend lots of time recreating the calls. What a pain!

So, I decided to stop being so cheap and invest in a paid service that would work better and have a few more features. I found it in Instant Teleseminar. They built a cool web front end for the call, automatically recorded it as a backup in case I forgot to push the record button and also let me give slides and other links as part of the web site. People could listen over the web or on the phone. They could hear a replay after the call or get a download. I could have up to 250 people on the call rather than the previous free service’s limit of 100 people. Everything was automated and worked really well.

Then they upgraded the thing (and renamed it to NConnect). It’s even better now. You can see who is on the call. People can “raise their hand” to ask a question or make a comment and you can manage that (if you’ve ever been on a call without that ability, you know sometimes several people try to talk at once and that wastes precious time). As the host, I can raise the volume of other people on the call if their voice is softer or not coming through well. It has a noise suppressor in the line so it is much clearer.

As you might be getting the impression, I love this thing. I have signed up to be a referral person for it (and I make a referral fee for anyone who signs up and sticks with it after the free trial), because I am going to tell everyone interested in making location-free and passive income about this thing. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial (make sure you schedule some call and use it right away-even if it’s only to have a friend interview you to get a recording and create a product right away so you can see how easy to use and great it is). If you plan to do teleseminars with any frequency, this thing is really worth it. It’s really easy to set up, learn and use. I got a call set up my first time on it in a few minutes.

Use this link (it costs the same with or without my referral):
http://NConnects.com/ProductInfo/?x=781496

Want to Learn Something? Google and The Web are your friends

Sometimes people ask me how I have learned a lot fo this Life of Freedom stuff (email marketing, creating web sites, blogging, online shopping cart, audio editing, video editing, autoresponders, affiliate income, joint ventures, automating and organizing software, outsourcing, teleseminars, webinars, etc.).

The quick answer is that I used Google to search and find video or written tutorials that would teach me most of it. Of course, sometimes the software vendor has videos on their sites.

So, when you want to learn something you don’t know how to do, Google it.

Choices

I was on a teaching trip recently and was staying in a hotel. When I arrived for breakfast, I was struck by the amazingly good service during breakfast. When I arrived, I was instantly greeted by the main server. He asked me if I wanted to store my luggage behind his till out of the way. I did. Notice he didn’t tell me to store it there, although it would have been challenging to navigate the restaurant with my bulky luggage. He ASKED me if I wanted to. Then, as I sat down, he asked me if I wanted coffee. I told him no, but I could use a glass of orange juice. He brought it instantly. He then asked me if I was in a hurry and wanted to order quickly. Why, yes, I was (I had to get up very early to get to the venue on time). And I knew what I wanted. He took my order right away. Wow, again. The food came quickly (he also got the order extra right). I watched as he greeted others. He asked one fellow whether a certain table would be all right. Yes, the man answered, but as he sat down with his newspaper, the man immediately stood up again and said: This table doesn’t have enough light. There were about sever tables open and the server said. Look around and choose the one that has the right light for you. The man did. Wow, again. He brought me my check before I was done eating (I had already told him I was in a hurry, so he didn’t ask). He asked me if I wanted another glass of milk (I did). He was great. What was so great about this guy and the service?

I began to see a pattern: Ask people what they want, give them options and respond to their preferences. Pretty simple and pretty rare.

Are you doing this with your business and products? Are you asking customers what they want? Are you listening to them when they tell you? Are you giving them lots of choices and options for the form of the products and services they can get from you?

Here’s one simple suggestion that implements this strategy: Offer your material in multiple forms: digital downloadable audios AND CDs; downloadable or streaming videos AND DVDs; ebooks AND print books; live courses, online courses AND teleseminars. You get the point. Your customers will vote with their orders and money and you can focus your future efforts of creating more of what most of them want (but still leave the other forms available as there are always people who want the less popular forms). You can’t always ask (although you can sometimes), but you can give lots of options (which is sort of like asking). People like choices (not too many or they can get overwhelmed). They like it “their way.” In this world and life, which often feels out of control, giving little moments of control to people can go a long way.

And, in case you were wondering, I left that server a big tip (30%). He not only earned it but he taught me something.

Types of Teleseminars

Continuing on the topic of teleseminars.

There are various types of telecalls and teleseminars

Preview calls
These are usually free calls that are appetizers for some paid calls or courses (whether live, on the phone or the web).

Free calls
Use these to build a following, credibility or an email mailing list. Make sure you give lots of content and valuable information on these calls. They are not just teasers for the real stuff. In an Internet marketing model, giving valuable information or gifts away for no cost is a smart method. The reputation you get and/or the email addresses you collect will be the foundation for Your Life of Freedom. Get people to register and deliver the telecall access information to them by email. Then follow up with autoresponders (I will go into detail about autoresponders in a future post) or future mailings as marketing.

Small group consultation or training
You could offer supervision or small group trainings through one of these calls.
Record call and sell or podcast (more on podcasts later)

Open calls with topic and questions
Have a basic topic and introduction and open the call to questions. I did one called Publishing 101, in which I spoke for half the call on the essentials of getting a book written and published, then opened up to questions for the second half of the call. I gathered names for my email list and I turned this call into an audio product.
Record call and sell or podcast it later

Interview an Expert calls
Find someone who would like the exposure to a new audience and interview them on a topic. These calls can be paid or free. If they are free, you could do a joint venture or partnership with the person offering some product and you collect affiliate referral fees for anyone who signed up or bought their product or service through the call (you/they track this by offering a coupon code, setting up a special web page or affiliate code for ordering).

Teleseminars as a model for multi-purposing your content for more income

In the last post, I introduced teleseminars. Another way to think about teleseminars is that they can be dual or triple-purpose content and can help you create three streams of income from one activity.

When I do a teleseminar, I make sure I record it. Then I offer the recording as a downloadable digital audio file (usually an MP3, which is universally accessible by Windows or Mac users and a relatively small size and which is fine for talking-only recordings). I often also get a transcript of the call by sending it to someone in India that can transcribe an hour-long audio for about $30. I make this transcript into a PDF file (after buffing it up just a little-sometimes the transcriptionist cannot make out some words or gets some names wrong; sometimes I speak ungrammatically and I want to clean that up a little).

Imagine that I offer a call, as I did in early 2009, on “How to Make an Extra $500 a Month” (See details about the call on this page: http://www.billohanlon.com/Products/audiodownloads/billohanlon.html. 120 people signed up for it at $50. That is $6000 revenue for one hour on the phone (obviously there is some prep time; setting up the call; preparing handouts and marketing materials; so make it 3 hours total). That’s $2000 an hour. Not bad.

But here’s where the passive income part kicks in. I sell the audio with the handouts (and I often throw in some bonus audios, transcripts, ebooks or handouts) for $60 after the call. In the several months after the call, I have only gotten about 10 people to buy the product, but that is another $600 from the same 3 hours of work (raising the hourly rate to $2,200). And that income will continue to come in for the next few years.

If I sell the transcript for $15, even more income is generated from that one activity.

Now, do a call several times a month and it adds up. The key is multi-purposing your content. Some people want to be on the live call. Others prefer (or have to) listen to the audio download. Still others prefer to read the material. And, you will discover, some will want it in all three formats. Have someone in the room in which you are doing the call with a video camera to record it on video and you have a fourth version, which others will prefer.

Teleseminars as a source of location-free income

One of the several elements of Your Life of Freedom is to set up sources of location-independent income; that is, when you can earn money from anywhere, rather than any particular location (office, city, state or country).

One of my favorite sources of location-independent income is a teleseminar. You can almost always find a phone (webinars are more complex and need a fast Internet connection; I’ll cover those in a future post).

One thing that, right now, is amazing about teleseminars is that you can set them up and run them (and even record them) for free.

You can have a less sophisticated and more limited service for free teleconferencing service at http://www.freeconference.com/ (there are many others-Google the term “free teleconference”). They offer free teleconference services and free recordings of those calls that you can download from their site after the call as a digital audio. You can record interviews that you do with others or for classes and workshops that you offer, then make products out of those recordings, which I’ll cover in a future post.

I use an amazing service called InstantTeleseminar (http://instantTeleseminar.com/productInfo.asp?x=781496 – disclosure: I make affiliate referral income if you buy after using that link; it doesn’t cost you any more, though, so why not support me and this blog if you are going to use them?). They offer you a free telebridge line (that is a telephone line that can take up to 250 callers at the same time), tools to record your calls (which you might want to do to create a digital product if the call lends itself to that), and the ability to control various things during the call (like muting, getting questions before and during the call). They also give you automated tools to set up a web page people can listen in on the call online (no telephone charges) and can give participants access to web links and handouts. It’s mighty cool and I have used it to generate thousands of dollars of revenue. It costs me a monthly fee but is well worth it for my purposes and uses.

There are several types of teleseminars and many uses for them, but I’ll cover all those in future posts.