You Can Do It!

Good morning, folks. I hope this day finds you well. Another
swell Fall day here in Tulsa. Cool and sunny just the way I like
it. I've had a fascinating week. Every year in Tulsa, SpiritBank
holds an annual entrepreneurs contest for the best business idea,
plan and sales pitch. As a Strategic Partner of the bank, I was
asked to help coach three companies in the running for the
$30,000.00 award.

I got a chance to meet some really clever people with great,
commercial ideas. Each has great potential and tremendous passion
for what they have created. Any of them could be a multi-million
dollar business over the next few years. Last year's winner was a
company called Seeking Sitters and they managed to use their
award to launch a multi-state business that is raking in the
moolah.

You can do this, too.

The American Dream is far from dead; it's just been lying
dormant while people tend to their financial wounds from the
flailing economy. Anything is still possible if you have the
drive and conviction. Convince the right people that your plan
holds water and you might be able to find the initial seed money
to launch your dream.

Of course, the Internet still holds the greatest promise for
entrepreneurs because it has the lowest cost of entry for most
ideas. It's relatively easy to create a web site and start test
marketing without spending your life's savings.

Many of the people who cross my path are folks just like you who
either have developed a product or service or want to monetize
their passion or subject matter expertise. In most cases, you can
spend under $5,000.00 to get your presence online and begin test
marketing to target audiences.

I always say start local. So many people make the mistake of
trying to market to the world. You need to find your audience
first and then market to them in your own backyard. If you are
successful there, it is much easier to leverage local success to
regional success and then regional success to national success.
It is a step-by-step process.

Try to remember that regardless of what you may think, the world
is not your oyster. Everybody may not need your product or
service or information. There is a market for everything, and the
failure of most people is finding and understanding the needs of
that target market.

I can't count the number of times someone has approached me
without ever doing basic competitive analysis. Know who you are
competing against in your own backyard. Understand who they
market to. Look for commonalities and leverage differences. But
do gather the market intelligence and start locally the way these
entrepreneurs competing for the SpiritBank Award are doing. It's
the only way to succeed.

Now when it comes to web sites, I hear a lot of complaints from
people about the lack of visibility their sites get on the search
engines and about the general lack of traffic their sites
receive. If you look at these sites, it is usually
understandable. So many people try to do it themselves when they
have little to no experience or talent for either graphical
design or writing sales copy. While I understand the desire to
do-it-yourself and manage start-up costs, it's just plain stupid
to go down this path unless you truly know what you are doing. In
most cases you are wasting your time and money and setting yourself
up for failure.

For digital products such as ebooks, courses, software tools and
online services, there can be no doubt that compelling graphics
and copy are essential parts of a successful launch. When people
can not reach out and touch or see your product, you need to make
the intangible tangible. This starts with compelling graphics.

It used to be a simple 3D ebook cover or box shot did the trick,
but even these are evolving into more complex product shots
displaying not only an ebook, but audio, cd, dvd, and reports
in combination shots in an attempt to show depth and breadth of
product and sell at a higher price. This approach does work. You
can see some examples of these types of combo shots I have been
creating for clients here:

http://www.ebookcoverartist.com/home.htm

The more realistic and expansive the product looks, the faster
the prospect makes the buy decision. And that's what it is all
about: implanting the need to buy your product through compelling
graphics and sales copy. These combo shots take work, so be
prepared to pay significantly more for this type of graphical
design, but the investment should be worth it. If you need
something like this, drop me a line at info@schneiderman.net to
discuss your needs.

I know a lot of you write your own copy because you can not
afford to have someone else to write it for you. Here's a
suggestion: I can edit a lot faster than I write from scratch.
Send me your copy via email and for $150.00/hour I will read it,
edit it, and improve it. For short form letters (3-5 pages) I can
do this in about an hour. For longer letters or email series, it
will run about two hours. This could be an easy way for you to
improve things quickly. Again reach out to me via email at
info@schneiderman.net.

Keep on dreaming. You can do it. I know you can.

All my best,

Steven