What You Can Do With PLR Content?

Today is a follow-up to the post I wrote about Private Label Rights content, which I basically described what it is, as well as the other type of “rights” that are available like “Reseller” and “Master Reseller” rights.

In this post I am going to talk just a little bit about some different ways you can use PLR content to; help build your subscriber list, help you create awesome sales pages and helping you with making some money online.

But first I want to say again to all you bloggers out there reading this… I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU USE PLR CONTENT FOR POSTS IN YOUR BLOG!!!

Also, I am just going to go over a few simple ways here to use PLR content. If you want to really learn lots of different way to utilize it… I strongly suggest you sign-up for our FREE COURSE. It is a 2-week course where we send you a new chapter each day with lots of useful content. Okay… enough with the free sales pitch.

As I said in the previous post, PLR content comes in many forms nowadays like; articles, ebooks, graphics, software, audio and videos… and each can be used in different ways. I have never personally used any PLR audios or video yet, but I can see where they have their place.

Since I don’t want to make this some monstrous post I am just going to go over 3 different ways you can use PLR content to help you with making money online…

Create an eBook as a gift for subscribing to your newsletter. If you read my previous post, “5 Best Bribes to Build a Subscriber List” you know that offering a free eBook is a great way to get people to subscribe to your mailing list. Now finding good PLR content is a great way to create this type of gift. There is literally tons of great PLR content out there on every niche imaginable, so finding content for your eBook shouldn’t be too hard.

You probably can find an already completed eBook on whatever niche you are in, but I would never go that way. It is much better to find many different articles that you like on your desired  subject and save them in a folder. Then when you find all you need… take them and lay them out in an order that would make sense to your readers.

Next comes the fun part of the process. I would then go through each article word-by-word and change them up as much as needed. I would reword them, add to them, and take away any text that was not needed. I would add links where needed, as well as affiliate links to hopefully generate a little extra cash. That is basically what I would do.

Next I would create an eCover for the book. Fortunately, I can do that myself, so I don’t have to hire anybody. But if you don’t… it is easy to find someone to create you a good one for $20 or less. Then just turn the project into a PDF file and you are done.

Create an awesome sales page – Not all, but many PLR providers that offer eBooks often give you complete sales letters along with graphics for each eBook they have available. The cool part about that is all the sale letters come with private label rights too. That means you can take your favorite parts from each sales page and create your own. I can honestly say that I have almost zero copywriting skills when it comes to creating a sales page, but I have hundreds of PLR eBooks with sales pages on my external hard-drive to grab from.

Now most of the copywriting that you get isn’t as high quality as paying someone 10K to create for you, but they do the trick. When I have a project that needs a sales page I can just grab a line or two from one source and maybe a few from another and slowly build myself my own unique sales letter. Unlike a swipe file where you use it mainly for ideas… with a PLR sales letter you can take a sentence word for word if you like, but I always think you should modify it a little.

Making money online with PLR content – There are unlimited ways to make money online with PLR content, but I will quickly go over a few of the ways I have made money over the years with it. Again, if you want more details you should sign-up for our course.

- Create an eBook and sell it. Follow the instructions I mentioned above on how to create an ebook… just make sure you really give it your own unique touch.

- Create 2 or 3 eBooks like above, but instead of selling them, offer them as FREE bonuses for purchasing a product through your affiliate link. This is an easy way to sell a lot more affiliate products.

- Create niche information sites and earn money through Adsense. Again, you definitely need to change the articles up quite a bit to make them more unique for Google and the other search engines, but I have made a TON of money from Google Adsense with a few of these type sites over the years.

- For more ways… sign-up for my FREE COURSE! *** NO PLR CONTENT WAS USED IN CREATING THAT COURSE ***

Here I go making my post way too long again, so I should stop. I was going to tell you how you can get a ton of PLR Content for FREE, but I will have to save that for tomorrow

Our First Meetup.com Experience

I was searching for a local internet entrepreneur group in my area, and I found one called Meetup. I asked Doug if he knew anything about it, and he thought it was a networking group. It did sound interesting, so we talked our wives into letting us go out to do some research. Research usually means a few beers, so we packed up the laptop and headed out the door.

Our Meetup group was held in a quaint coffee shop (quaint meaning small) and the room was packed. The host charges a minimal fee (only $3 in our case) and he provides a one hour presentation from a well outlined series of topics. Our host was very welcoming, entertaining, and we felt like we fit right in. He wasn’t selling anything, which I liked, and Doug asked several questions during the presentation that were quickly responded to. I am the internet entrepreneur virgin, but I like to talk a lot. Doug has the knowledge and experience, but he prefers to let me handle most of the verbal duties. We work well together in this way. My motto is “Ignorance is bliss” and I usually live up to the task. Take this short story for example:

I used to go to a nightclub hypnotist with a group of friends for the entertainment of it. While I was always a willing participant during the show, my skeptical friends could not allow themselves to get hypnotized. I enjoyed being a willing volunteer rather than a witness to the volunteer’s stupidity. At the end of each show, the Hypnotist would thank his audience for attending, and especially those who allowed themselves to follow his “Power of suggestion” which is also known as hypnosis. Then he would tell us that each show is only as good as his subjects, and this is also true with each Meetup group.

Nice segue, huh? I hope I didn’t lose too many of you with my story, but it does prove a point. You get more out of life when you participate in it. I hope that by reading this article, you look up your local meetup group and give them a try. Try different topics, and you may just meet some very interesting people. That is what we are all trying to do in the first place, isn’t it? Making connections, sharing thoughts and business techniques. If you have a great idea, share it with us and our viewers.

We are definitely not the first people to mention Meetup, but we do want to share it with you and hope you give it a try. What have you got to lose? You should go in prepared with a list of questions, and also bring an open mind. You find some of the brightest things said are not the ones that you bring with you. I am usually reminded that I talk too much, and I don’t let others into the conversation. I am working on this one, really I am. My father used to tell me that God wanted me to listen and not to speak, that’s why he gave me two ears but only one mouth. So here I sit quietly, but I can type pretty fast with my two hands! Always trying to out smart the fox!

Have any of you been to a Meetup group? What was your experience? My dad also said it is nice to share, so let’s have it!

What Do You Guys Think of Flippa?

I am a HUGE fan of SitePoint.com. They are one of the top sites online for website designers and programmers, plus they have tons of information on most anything web related. I highly recommend that you check them out, if you haven’t already. I have been a member  since their early days and I actually wrote an article for them back in 2001 called, “Turn Your Parked Domains into Profit Machines“. Yes, I was ahead of my time

Well earlier this year, I read about Website Flipping and thought it sounded like a pretty easy way to make some money, so I gave it a shot. I ended up flipping about 8 sites in a couple months and it was pretty profitable.

I sold all my sites through SitePoint’s Marketplace under the Start-Up Sites category. It was great because it only cost $10 to auction off a site and that was it. If your site did not sell, you would have to pay another $10 to re-list it, but that wasn’t too bad.

Well I guess SitePoint has been pretty successful with their Marketplace so they decided to create a spin-off company called FLIPPA… just for buying and selling websites. They removed those two services from SitePoint and moved it all over to Flippa, so you cannot buy and sell domain anymore on SitePoint.

Now I have not tried them yet, as the pricing structure has changed quite a bit and with the small margins I made flipping start-up sites, I am not sure if it is worth it.

Instead of the $10 I was paying before, they now charge $19 to list a site. On top of that… they have a new 5%  “Success Fee” (capped at $498) which you have to pay if your site sells.

Now if I were selling sites that sold for several thousand dollars, those fees would not be as big of a deal, but for selling start-up sites, where you are lucky to get a few hundred dollars (if that), that really digs into your profits. Especially if you have to re-list them one or two times.

Now I am not here to say anything bad about Flippa, as I have not tried them yet. I would love to hear the opinions of those of you that have used their new service, or hear your thoughts on their new pricing structure.

Please leave your thoughts in the “Comments Section” below…

Make a Plan and Hit the Road

The most successful people I know that are making money online had some type plan that they followed to get to where they are today. I never use to as I just went through life plodding along not knowing where life was going to take me.  If you don’t have a plan, now is the time to start.

Planning for your business is no different than the planning I did for my family’s trip to Disneyland. Here’s how it works.

You have to know where you’re starting from. In this case we’d start from our house, but on other trips there might be a different starting point.

For a business your starting point is your current business situation. What’s your competitive situation? Your financial situation? Your staffing situation?

You also need to know where you’re going. In business, this would be your goal. What do you want to be different at the end of your trip? How will you know that you’ve succeeded?

So you’ve got your starting point and your goal. Now you need to figure out how you’re going to make the trip.

What resources will you need?

If I’m driving to Disneyland, I might want to rent a van to carry my family and all our gear. Maybe it would be a good idea to get a GPS system to make sure we don’t get lost. There are two other resources to think about: money and time.

What’s the trip going to cost?

On a real trip you’ll be thinking about gas, food, hotels, park admission and other expenses. For a new web site you should be thinking about the cost to register a domain name, designing a website, hosting the website, marketing, etc…

How long will it take to make the trip?

On a road trip you want to think about how often you’ll stop and what speed you’re going to drive and where you should spend the night. For a business journey, you want to lay out the milestones that will measure your progress and serve as review and decision points.

Here’s another question that I like to ask when I’m planning a trip: What would be fun to do? There may be attractions along the way that we want to stop at. There may be things we want to plan to do at our destination. I like making a list of those as we think of them.

If you’re planning for your business ask the question this way: “What would we do if money and time were not an issue?” You’ll be amazed at how many of the things on your list turn out be possible.

Most books and articles on planning make it seem like a straight-line, one-time-through process. But no trip I’ve ever taken was like that. Neither was any business plan.

The planning process always goes around and around until things jell. That just seems to be the way it is.

And when you do hit the road, a flat tire or road construction can change your plan. So can the sight of a place you want to stop but hadn’t planned for.

Business is like that, too. You can’t plan to cover all the surprises, good and bad. So plan to be flexible.

Planning really is the key to success whether you’re driving to Disneyland or making money online. And, since you already know how to plan a trip, you won’t need any more of those fancy planning books.

Advertise Your Business Offline with High Quality Custom Embroidered Apparel

There are tons of ways to draw traffic to your website, but the most effective form of advertising has always been from positive word of mouth. For one thing, it is free and very effective as long as it is sincere and the product lives up to your promise. You never know if someone is being paid to advertise a product (celebrity endorsements) or if they actually use the products they are promoting. I know that when I get my hands on a cool new gadget or product that I love I tell everyone about it. I think it is great to share the wealth, and once you begin doing this, you gain an incredible amount of credibility when the product backs up your promises. The next time you promote an item, your friends or clients are sure to jump on it based on your recommendation alone.

Now it is important from a branding standpoint to get your image, logo, name, etc. out there for the world to see. You know how to get your image out there online, but don’t forget to promote your business offline as well. We searched many online apparel companies to help us promote one of our blogs by using custom embroidery on our work shirts. We compared the quality of the shirts, customization of our logo, speed of processing and shipping, ease of use of their design program, and more importantly the cost of producing a quality product. We also took into consideration their customer service, follow up, and strength of their guarantee policy. We also checked with our local merchants, and compared staying local – vs. outsourcing online. We ended up with one company that stood out above the others, and that is the Queensboro Shirt Company.

What started out with a small order of a dozen polo shirts in several different colors, we were so impressed with the quality of the shirts and the value of their competitive pricing that we have since ordered t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, many different styles of polos, and the warmest fleece pullover all featuring our logo. We are walking billboards promoting our business everywhere we go. Competition is tough and you need to do everything you can to promote your business. Having a great logo is a start, but don’t be afraid to get your image everyplace you can. Hats, shirts, briefcases, notebooks, coffee mugs, water bottles and more. The more you get your image in the public’s eye, the more likely you are to get noticed.

Imagine you are at a convention, and no one knows who you are. Unless you like those “Hello, My Name Is” stickers that you write your name in with a sharpie, you are less likely to do business with any prospective clients. Now imagine you have your custom logo professionally embroidered on a stylish polo shirt, and everyone in the room knows that you are the Head Honcho from your company. Suddenly, the room is buzzing with excitement and you are at the center of that buzz. Now I am not promising that a custom logo on a shirt will make you the center of attention, but it works for me. I can tell you first hand that it is a great icebreaker when someone walks up to me in a crowd and asks me what my company is all about. That opens the door, and a great salesman will follow through until the sale is made. If I was just wearing a dress shirt and tie, would I have made that contact? I would say not.

There are a lot of online merchants that offer low cost printing or embroidery. I would compare not only the price they offer, but the quality of their work, their testimonials or customer reviews, and how long they have been in business to see if they are a worthy company or a flash in the pan business. We have ordered frequently through Queensboro (as evident by the picture of me above) and have also referred them to our business associates as well. Some orders take a while to produce, but that is a reflection of the volume of business they do. They do offer faster turnover for an additional fee, but if you are cost conscious you would be better served to plan ahead and save a little money by waiting for them to arrive through the normal production process. They stand by their work, and even after the product has been delivered, they continue to offer specials to their valued clients. They will keep you informed of new items, discontinued item deals, and more. They are a company that is in it for the long term. Stack the odds in your favor, and contact the Queensboro Shirt Company for all of your custom embroidery and printing needs. They are simply the best.

Sometimes it Pays to be a Nice Guy

In one of my previous posts I wrote about how you can make money online by saving money on things you buy. Here I want to share a story of how I saved A LOT OF MONEY by just being a nice guy. This has actually happened to me a few times, but this is my favorite one.

This happened a couple of years ago. I had to get a root canal for a tooth that I let go for too long. I was sitting in the dental chair when the Endodontist came in and introduced himself to me. He was a very personable guy and loved to chat. During the entire procedure he talked to me and it was hard for me to answer, because my mouth was held open with clamps and I had a rubber damn in there to keep the stuff from going down my throat. But he kept talking and asking me questions, so I figured it would be impolite not to respond.

Somehow we got on the topic of what I did for a living, and at the time I was making a good percentage of my income with Google Adsense sites. I think at the time I was bringing in about $300 a day pretty consistently just from Adsense. So, during all the drilling and water flushing I was trying to explain to him how I was doing it. I was surprised to see how interested he was in my business, as I knew he made good money at his profession. He explained to me that he did make good money, but he only made money when he was drilling teeth. He said he had always been intrigued by people running Internet businesses, and he would love to have a business that makes him money 24 hours a day.

So, when he was done with my root canal I asked him if he had a few minutes so I could show him the basics of my business. To my surprise he said sure and told his assistant to tell the next patient that he was running a few minutes behind. So we went into his office and got on the Internet and I spent about 30 minutes showing him my Adsense account and the basics of what I was doing. I also gave him my business card and told him if he had any questions to give me a call. That was it!

I then went into the reception area to pay my bill. The girl behind the counter told me it was going to be $795 (which they had quoted me on the phone). I had just pulled my checkbook out to start writing the check when the doctor peeked out from behind the door and said to her, “I’ll take care of that for Mr. Dillard” and thanked me for all the information. My jaw almost hit the floor and I asked him if he was sure, and he said “Absolutely”. So I shook his hand, thanked him, and went on my VERY HAPPY way.

How about you guys… have you ever had anything like this happen to you? If you have or you know someone that has, please let us know in the comments section below. I am sure the rest of our readers would love to hear about it.

Two EASY Ways to Make Money Online

I was reading a post of one of my favorite bloggers the other day and he was writing about how to save money registering domains at Godaddy by searching for online coupons. That made me think about two of my favorite ways to make money online.

Now making money online does not always mean bringing in cash. I believe if you can find a way to save money when purchasing something that you need, you’re actually making money. That’s why they say, “A penny saved, is a penny earned”. So here are two ways that will definitely save you money if you always try and put them to use.

1) Before you purchase anything online, do a search for a discount coupon. MANY online merchants offer discounts all the time on different products they are selling or discounts on entire orders if you purchase at least a certain dollar amount. You will notice that many merchants have a special box at the end of their order process asking if you have a coupon code. That means that there quite possibly is a coupon out there waiting for you to save money. All you have to do is find it.

Just last week I saved money when purchasing some business cards I had printed, and another $20 on my office supplies I ordered from Staples. Now I believe I only saved $5 or so on the business cards, but 5 bucks is 5 bucks. That’s not bad when you consider it only took me about a minute to find the coupon code on Google.

2) The second way to make money online (ok… save money) is to just ASK! This actually works offline even better, but it works on both, as I use this all the time. I owe this great tip to my brother’s ex-Father-in-Law. He was this little old grumpy (and very wealthy) man and everywhere he went, he ALWAYS haggled at the price. He treated every shop merchant, restaurant server or service provider as a garage sale operator, and tried to get a better deal than they were offering. Now it didn’t work all the time, but he told me he saved a TON OF MONEY over the years just asking and that has always stuck with me.

I have used that method many times myself over the years, but not to his extreme. I cannot tell you how much money I have saved, but I am sure if I totaled it up it would considerable as well.  I actually used this method last week as well to save money on some software I wanted that an internet marketer was selling. I remember he had it on sale several weeks before “For a Limited Time” and I missed the cutoff date by at least a couple of weeks. So I sent him a heartfelt email explaining that I really wanted to purchase the product, but at the time he had the sale I just didn’t have the extra money (which was the truth). So I ASKED him if there was anyway I could still get that sale’s price. The next morning I got up and had an email from him saying that he usually does not do this sort of thing, but he would make an exception in my case, but not to let anyone else know he gave me that deal. He then gave me a special link to make the purchase at the discounted price. Now that saved me about $50 and all I did was send a very simple email.

So the lesson here is to try to SAVE MONEY wherever you can and that will keep more money in your pocket! I have couple great stories of how I got some really EXPENSIVE services for free for just being a nice guy, but I will save those for another post.

If you have some money saving tips, please add them to the comments below so our other readers can benefit as well.

Gurus Make More Money Online And Have A Lot More Fun While Doing It!

As you can read, in our tagline we call ourselves “Guru Wannabes”. We have had more than a few people ask us why we want to be called “Wannabes”, as they think it has negative connotations. I don’t think that at all. I think there are a lot of people out there that are “Guru Posers”… people running websites claiming to be experts in their particular field, and in reality they have very little experience at all. They’re just out to make a fast buck. That’s just not us. We want to be experts in our field and are working hard to gain that experience, while sharing that information (with you our readers), but we are not to that “Guru” status yet, and we are not going to pretend we are.

That’s not to say that we don’t have any experience, as I have been running websites and making money online since way back in 1998. I have tried many, many different ways to make money online over the years. Some have had great success, while others have cost me a ton of money and brought little in return. During that time, I have learned A LOT of lessons and I plan to share them with you each week.

So why do we want to be Gurus, and why should you think about becoming a guru in your particular field as well?

GURUS MAKE MORE MONEY ONLINE THAN THE AVERAGE MARKETER -

• Gurus are known as experts in their fields and people tend to flock to them for their advice and line up to purchase anything they are selling.
• Gurus have an easier time getting JV partners. As a guru, most everyone in their field knows who they are, and when they are seeking to joint venture with someone, the Gurus are usually one of the first people they will contact. Also, when the Gurus are looking for people to JV with, it is much easier for them to find partners, as they usually have built up quite and impressive Rolodex.
• Many times affiliate merchants will give Gurus a larger percentage of their affiliate commissions versus a regular affiliate. They do this because they know that Gurus usually have a large subscriber list of customers already in place that they have already built a “trusting” relationship with.
• Gurus have better opportunities come their way. There are lots of people out there that create great products, but have little or no marketing experience and can’t make any money trying to sell their product. So they contact a Guru that is in their particular niche and partner up with them. Many times when you see new products released where it says, “Guru’s Name & Joe Blow Present this Awesome New Product”, the Guru had nothing to do with the creation of it. He is just putting his name on the product to help sell it, in return for a good percentage of the sales. It’s basically like Celebrity endorsements.

GURUS SEEM TO HAVE MORE FUN THAN THE AVERAGE MARKETER -

• Gurus often get treated like Rock Stars at seminars and events. Many times Gurus don’t have to pay the admission fees that the regular attendees have to shell out, plus they get special passes to all the cool parties and everyone wants to hangout with them.
• Gurus take the best vacations. Well at least that’s what it looks like to me from all the photos and videos you can see on their blogs and in their newsletters. I guess it’s easier to take great vacations when you are making more money than the average marketer.
• Gurus get lots of cool stuff for FREE. I am sure that at many of the events and seminars that people buy them drinks and even dinner just so they get a chance to hangout and talk with them. I know I have done my fair share of drink buying. They also get all sorts of cool stuff sent to them for FREE, in hopes that they will try whatever it is and perhaps promote or review it on their websites.

That’s just a few of the reasons we want to be Gurus. But the main (and most important) reason is that most Gurus are very well respected in their particular fields, as they are usually extremely hard workers, who provide valuable information to the masses. That is what we are looking to accomplish.

How about you? Would you like to be a Guru in your niche, and if so why?