Booklet Tips on Hot Topics to Write About
Food, kids, pets, money, health, and sex. Yes, these are each topics with large audiences and interest, at least in North America and some other countries of the world. You may have personal or professional expertise in one or more of these topics. Seems like any of those would be a great place to start writing a booklet, wouldn’t it?
Join me and Paulette Ensign on Friday May 15th, 2009 at 9 am Pacific on the Get More Business Show as I interview her about how to use Tip Booklets for building a coaching business.
I would agree, to a point. That point is marketing. Successful, easy, cohesive marketing is based on your level of enthusiasm about the topic you choose topic, and how it all fits in with the rest of your life. If your business is focused on one of those topics mentioned at the beginning of this article, then by all means, write about it and begin as soon as you can. If your business is NOT focused on one of those topics, and you are writing about it because of the ready market you think you’ll find, then you will probably be setting yourself up for conflict, chaos, and collisions.
What excites you in your business or in any other part of your life where you spend a large portion of your time and effort? Notice how readily you talk about that interest of yours, probably to anyone who will listen and for as long as they’ll listen. And that interest may not have anything to do with food, kids, pets, money, health, and sex. You might be an expert on road safety, like one of my clients. Is that a real sexy topic? To many of us, no, not even close.
I’ll ask you a different question. How do you feel about the results that one of my clients has experienced, selling over a million copies of a booklet on road safety to agencies whose mission it is to educate the population about that topic? That’s exactly what this client did.
Or your interest could be about creating acoustically well-designed meeting rooms. A sexy topic? Not to most people. However, the meeting planners, architects, speakers, and many other related people and organizations have a huge interest in the topic and relish a tips booklet on the various aspects to consider.
So, like I said, you already have a magic bullet. You will find it by noticing what gets your juices going, what captures your attention, what prompts you to want to know more than you already know about the topic and how it relates to your everyday life. It’s what drew you to the business you’re in or the cause you support.
When writing a booklet about a topic near and dear to your heart, you will see ways to market the booklet popping up everywhere you look. There will be manufacturers, retailers, publications, and associations who will want thousands and hundreds of thousands of your booklet. Their universe could require literally millions of copies.
It will be easy to expand your product line because your clients and prospective clients will guide you with requests for different formats of your content and you will be excited about it. You will have so many choices on your plate that the challenge will then become what to do first from among all the possibilities. Will you create audio products or card decks or foreign language versions of the tips booklet you just wrote? What about an entire electronically-published product line on your topic?
So, what ARE the hot topics to write about? Food, kids, pets, money, health, and sex? Only if it’s already a passionate part of your everyday business activities. Otherwise, I think you may have found you’ve got the magic bullet for the best topics for YOU to write about.
Take your topic to the next level with a step-by-step system so you can add to those hot topics out in the world.
© 2008, Paulette Ensign
Everything you need to create "Tip Booklet" Stream of Income
Paulette Ensign has sold over a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. For information on creating your own tips booklet and leveraging a booklet manuscript into other products, contact Paulette Ensign, Tips Products International 858-481-0890, San Diego, CA
Paulette has a complete home study course designed to provide overviews of writing, producing and marketing your booklets, and for in-depth marketing and delivery methods. We have another course focused on the advanced level of licensing. Choose one or both courses, depending on your comfort level, experiences, budget, and learning style.
It’s Your Turn!
If you’ve been attempting to write the post, articles and facilitate the teleseminars but it’s not working it could be that you’re missing some vital behind the scenes info. The Coaches Profit Wheel Online Business Audit could help you identify what’s missing.
Tell me, what are you working on now? Leave me a comment – I still can’t read your mind!
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What do you Squidoo?
Squidoo is the world’s most popular site for building free, single pages about your passions.
Highlight books, blogs, vids, online shops, or just spread the word about stuff you love. Bonus: you raise money (for you or charity) at the same time. It’s fast, free, and supereasy.
Squidoo is a network of user created lenses or single pages that highlight one person’s point of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. Lenses aren’t created to hold content, but rather they are created to recommend and point to content elsewhere on the web.
So, maybe by now you’ve heard of Squidoo and maybe you even have a lens or two. Today I interviewed a man that has over 300 lenses and expects to be earning about $2000 per month in passive revenue by year end.
Joe Dillon, also known as, “Captain Squid” is a Giant Squid on Squidoo. This means he is recognized as one of the best lensmasters around. Joe was on “The Small Business Guru & Gadget Guy” Podcast today, as our guest and expert on Squidoo.
<side note>A Giant Squid, by the way, as the story goes is a lensmaster that has published 100 quality lenses. Geez, these guys must have a lot of time on their hands or there must be a financial strategy to all this lens making.
Today Captain Squid - uh, Joe, gave us the basics on Squidoo. You can download the show here. We had a couple of short conversations prior to the show and let me tell you there is some serious strategy behind every lens this guy builds.
Over at the Captain Squid website there’s a gold mind of information. The basics are free. You can find video tutuorials in the Captain’s Training section.
It’s a facinatingly interactive alternative to Article Marketing – well maybe not an alternative because as Joe pointed out on the call it’s actually works the same as article marketing in creating a viral spread of your links but it’s more because it’s so interactive.
Oh, and there are angel Squids that give blessings – blessings boost lens ranking. Why is that important? The more popular the ranking the better the payout is from the revenue share. Oh, didn’t I tell you? Not only is it free to create a lens, and create as many as your heart desires, but Squid Inc shares the revenue from Google Adsense, Amazon, Ebay and the like.
I must confess, I too have become addicted to Squidoo. I’ve just begun, with 6 lenses now published and two more as WIP (works in progress). I’ve been reading the Captain’s “Lens Publishing Checklist” (you’ll have to subscribe to get your own copy). I’ve got much to learn but you can be sure I’ll be posting again on Squidoo.
Come take a look at my lenses and join as a favorite so you can see what I am up to on Squidoo.
First is my Lens for The Small Business Guru, and then…
- Press Releases on the Internet – about how the Internet has changed Press Release submission; along with how and where to submit.
- (of course) Get More Business Podcast – contains all my show listings
- Referral Marketing Best Practices – many resources on how to build a business by referral
- SmBizGuru Favorite Lenses – I had to have a lens where I saved and shared my favorite lenses that I really liked.
- and just for fun I created a “SquidWho” page for Beth Moore - one of my favorite people. I have YouTube Video’s up on the lens for Beth.
- Next I’ll begin creating a lens for each of my guests that I’ve had or will have on my Get More Business Podcast. This is going to be fun!
I’ve got more ideas than I can type fast enough! Gee I wonder if Squid Inc is still awarding Giant Squid Status?
Many lensmasters use their lenses as a tool for affiliate marketing. Not a bad idea!
Tune in to our next show – date, time and guest will be posted at the TalkShoe page soon. Check it out here.
“Does my small business need a budget?”
“I only have a small business, I don’t need a budget.”
“I don’t have enough money to budget.”
For many small business owners, the word “budget” is something for the bigger company – maybe they’ll have one when their business “grows up.”
What is a Budget?
The simple explanation is a budget is a plan for how you will manage all financial resources and all expenses for your business. The basic equation that you want to demonstrate in a budget is as follows:
(estimated )Sales minus (estimated) Expenses = Profit (or loss)
How to create a Budget
If this is your first time to work on a budget for your small business, you might work from the perspective of having to list cost of goods or services plus all of your operating expenses to start the process.
*How much does it take to operate your phone line?
*What is the cost of other utilities?
*How about the cost of a company vehicle, or what is the cost of transportation if you’re using your personal vehicle to also serve as a company vehicle?
*Do you need any supplies or inventory to operate your business?
*How about any employee payroll, payroll taxes or independent product or service providers?
Remember to include everything you spend money on to operate your business even if you allocate some of the expenses to “petty cash” expenses, such as parking or bridge tolls while traveling to see clients.
I recommend that you create annual budget, in addition to a monthly budget, so you can identify any expenses that you may have that come up only once or twice a year such as insurance and include them in your list of expenses. This allows you to amortize or spread the cost of this out over several months so that you can plan ahead for the expense.
As you work on your list of expenses keep in mind that these are the expenses that are necessary to operate your business. These should not be items from your “wish list” unless you want to budget in some expansion or growth. You may want to create a budget with just the necessities and another version of your budget with expansion expenses listed so that you can see the cost of both separately. With a dollar figure to work with of your total expenses you are able to set the standard for or evaluate your sales figures. If you are new to your business you may need to use the dollar amount of your expenses to help you determine what your sales need to be in order to cover all costs and show a profit. If you have been in business for a while you can evaluate whether or not you are producing a profit by looking at historical sales figures.
As you conduct business during your budget year you should compare your actual income and spending with what you estimated. This will allow you to manage your spending so that you don’t over spend and cut into or eliminate your profits. You will also be able to see if sales have met expectations in order to cover expenses and still remain profitable.
Who should Budget?
Every small business owner should budget, no matter the size of business. I have heard some small business owners say their business is too small to budget, but that is not true. If you don’t have a written plan for what your financial obligations are and how your revenue will cover those obligations and leave some money unspent, then your business will never grow. In fact, you may out-spend your revenue and put yourself out of business.
Why Budget?
Budgeting for your small business gives you control over your finances. By looking ahead to what you know or can reasonably estimate what your expenses will be, you can then make financial decisions that will keep you from over-spending, or give you the freedom to invest in the growth of your business.
When Budget?
Every small business owner should have a budget to start their business and then review it annually. I recommend that small business owners review their budget several months before the end of their fiscal year. When I say review the budget I’m talking about comparing projected budget with actual. In the comparison you can see if your estimates were realistic. You and your CPA can also plan for last minute tax strategies, or plan to implement strategies in the up coming year’s budget.
The Goal in Budgeting Remember, the goal of having a budget is to stay in control of your finances in advance. Setting the standard for your spending and revenue and having a tool to compare with actual will give you the control that you need to stay profitable. At the very least it will give you an indication of whether or not your business is actually profitable and not just busy.
Melody Campbell, Business Coach invites Small Business Owners to do an “Extreme Marketing Make-Over.” Receive her Special Report “5 Strategies that Any Business Owner can do for an Extreme Marketing Make-Over” along with having access to her blog and weekly show “Get More Business Podcast at: http://www.TheSmallBusinessGuru.com
Ipod Nano Winner! “The Content Maven”
Remember back in December when I ran a contest? Guess what I have a winner! The plan was to announce the winner on December 10th. We only had one person that commented on the contest. Somehow I managed to see some information that made me think the comment that was posted was from someone in the UK. One of the rules of the contest was that the individual commenting needed to reside in the USA. A reader of my blog called my attention to this error.
Sorry, Meryl! This is much delayed but nevertheless rectified. Let me introduce to you our WINNER!
Meryl K. Evans, Content Maven, has written and edited for AbsoluteWrite, ECT News Network, The Dallas Morning News, Digital Web, Lockergnome, MarketingProfs, PC Today, O’Reilly, Pearson, Sams, Wiley, and WROX. Meryl has written copy for businesses as well as Fib-or-Not? and Meet, Mix, and Mingle games.
Meryl writes and edits content for businesses and publications. She helps business build and maintain relationships with clients and prospects.
She is Editor-in-Chief of Shavlik’s The Remediator Security Digest, a popular newsletter on computer security with over 100,000 subscribers. She’s also the editor of Professional Service Journal, an email newsletter for business-to-business (B2B) service providers, Intel Solution Services’ Connected Digest, and TailoredMail’s Focus eJournal.
Those who want to improve their Web sites can get guidance from the Web Design Guide @ InformIT and blog. Want some CSS inspiration? Check out the CSS Collection.
Meryl is also an educator with New York University’s online graduate program. She has worked for two Fortune 500 telecom companies, federal government in Washington, D.C. and IT consulting. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos.
Here is the comment that won:
I use various strategies when in need of sources for my business. If I need a product, but don’t know which brand or model — I do research on the Internet to narrow the list.
Once narrowed, I check reviews, blogs, and articles on the product keeping in mind that some reviews could be biased. After deciding on the product, I use shopping comparison sites to find the best deal.
Also I check for the basics: Is transaction secure (some places still haven’t caught on)? Is it easy to contact customer service? Does the store/seller have a good reputation? How is payment handled?
Please check out Meryl’s Website. You can contact her at her website. Congratulate her! And, if you need writing projects done, she’s the one to call.
Today (December 10th, 2007) is the LAST DAY!
Today is the Last Day! If you don’t get your entry in to with this Apple Nano by 11:59 pm tonight you won’t even have a chance. I am so excited…I can hardly wait. I will choose the winner for this wonderful gift tomorrow (12/11/2007) and post the winner on 12/12/2007. Check your email – come back and check the blog to see who won…heck, to see if YOU WON! Okay, here’s all the details again…
Dont forget to enter The Small Business Guru’s Christmas 2007 giveaway!
Have you heard we’re giving away an Apple Nano this week, right on time for the holidays!
The Small Business Guru is teaming with goWholesale to find out more about
how you use the internet to source products and services for your business.
The Apple Nano will go the person that gives us the best tip on using the
web to source products for their business.
* Leave a comment below with your answer.
* You may only enter The Small Business Guru’s Christmas 2007 giveaway
once. You can enter different giveaways, but you can only enter this one
once.
* Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older.
* Winners will be selected by The Small Business Guru on December 11. The
Apple Nano will be shipped shortly after.
* Entries can be submitted until Monday, December 10th, 11:59PM EDT.
Good Luck! And check out goWholesale’s Sourcing Survey 2007 for a chance to
win an Apple Touch!
Remember, you also need to leave a comment here on this blog as well as take the survey !!!
Don’t forget! You WANT that Apple Nano, Right?!
Dont forget to enter The Small Business Guru’s Christmas 2007 giveaway!
Have you heard we’re giving away an Apple Nano this week, just in time for the holidays!
The Small Business Guru is teaming with goWholesale to find out more about
how you use the internet to source products and services for your business.
The Apple Nano will go the person that gives us the best tip on using the
web to source products for their business.
* Leave a comment below with your answer.
* You may only enter The Small Business Guru’s Christmas 2007 giveaway
once. You can enter different giveaways, but you can only enter this one
once.
* Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older.
* Winners will be selected by The Small Business Guru on December 11. The
Apple Nano will be shipped shortly after.
* Entries can be submitted until Monday, December 10th, 11:59PM EDT.
Good Luck! Leave a comment on your best tip on using the web to source products for your business AND complete the survey at goWholesale’s Sourcing Survey 2007 for a chance to win an Apple Nano!
Remember, you also need to leave a comment here on the blog !!!
I’m going crazy working from home!
As seen on Yahoo Answers…
Does anyone else work from home?
I was just wondering if others here work from home and how they keep it together? 6 months ago I went from working in an office to working from home (same job) and I find myself missing the interaction with the real world. I am currently in a situation where I cannot work outside the home. So I was wondering what others do to help with the monotony? I take breaks and go for walks but then just end of feeling miserable and guilty because I should be working. How do others cope with the downside of a home business?
My Answer…
I have worked from home for over 16 years and I really love it. I have lots of interaction on the phone and through email with customers and vendors.
Here’s what I recommend:
1. Plan breaks – sounds like you may be taking “unplanned” breaks, so maybe you feel guilty because you haven’t given yourself permission. Realize that these breaks are very necessary to your optimal productivity.
2. Schedule intervals of people contact – make a phone call, go to a networking meeting, get involved in an online discussion group that will assist your work at home with information or ideas.
3. Listen to motivational cd’s or videos while you work. Depending on the level of concentration you may or may not be able to do this. If you can still get your work done while listening this is an excellent way to inspire yourself and keep you from getting bored or sleepy.
The following story is a great analogy -
There was once two men cutting wood. One man just chopped away without stopping even to eat. Finally after chopping wood all day he was done and completely exhausted.
The second man started by sharpening his ax, then he chopped for a while, then stopped to sharpen his ax. This continued until about lunch time – half way through his day. He had chopped double what the first man chopped and he was not exhausted.
The moral of the story is much more can be accomplished when you take time to sharpen your saw. It is not very productive to work yourself in to exhaustion — or bordom!
Small Business Basics
Last week I was invited to speak to a class of seniors at a local privat school in my town. The Careers teacher had a segment to cover on Entrepreneurship. Not a surprise, but half the class came from homes where one or both parents had their own business. Let me rephrase that…the parents of these students were “self-employed.”
One of the emphasis I placed on the topic is the difference between business owner and self employed. Using Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
The two books that affected me the most on this particular topic of owning the business versus being employed by yourself were first of all Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
If you don’t have these books you should add them to your library.
