Empty Your Head Online & for Profit

This is a guest post from Jim Kukral. He shares tips on going beyond just offering free content as a lead-generator…but selling your content and profiting from it.

I was on the phone today with a guy who was a 25+ year Hollywood veteran screenwriter. This guy knew how to analyze, create and sell content, within the Hollywood system.

But what he didn’t know was how take the vast knowledge and skill he had accumulated and create content to profit with.

There’s a disconnect.

You have Internet Marketers, and you have everyone else. Internet Marketers see content as something you use to create an action. Either a sale, or a word of mouth mention, or a subscriber, or a lead, etc… Content is a tool to reach a goal. Everyone else… they think content is content. It’s something you create and distribute, usually free, and that’s that.

That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with creating content for free. In fact, more people should do it. However, there is a point in time when you finally say to yourself, “Wow, I really should be taking the knowledge and skill that’s in my head, and start putting it on the Web… and sell it.”

Let’s face it. Everyone needs money, unless you’re independently wealthy and or don’t care about food, clothing and shelter. You, yes you, the teacher, the artist, whomever you are, you will eventually reach a point when you want to take the content you’ve been creating for years and find a way to make some revenue from it.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Let me stop you right now. Because you’re probably thinking that all content should be free. Here’s a question for you. When someone teaches someone else how to do heart surgery, should they get paid for teaching that skill? Everyone knows a lot about something. You know what you know, and you have millions and millions of potential customers out there who want you to teach them what you know.

Once you understand, and accept, that fact, you’re going to have a much easier time creating content that you can profit with, and remember, there’s nothing wrong with profit.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Make it easy for them to buy. One of the biggest mistakes people make when selling online is not making it easy enough for their customers to buy from them. If you can’t afford a credit card merchant account at first, at least put some Paypal buttons in place.

2. So how do you deliver your content and get paid for it? A great tip is if you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin for WordPress called Wishlist Member. It allows you to easily add a private area to your blog that only paying members can see. Then just hide your premium content there and give access to those that pay you.

3. Price accordingly. I use two criteria when setting prices. The first is determining how great the need is. In other words, how bad does someone HAVE to have what you’re teaching. If you’re selling them advice on how to pass the bar exam to become a lawyer, well, then that advice is probably worth a lot more than teaching someone how to create a killer paper airplane.

The second criteria to determining successful pricing is understanding your audience. Is your course for children? Guess what, they don’t have any money. Their parents do though. If you overprice a course to a target audience that is broke then you’re not going to sell anything. On the same hand if you underprice a course to an audience that has money then you’re going to lose the sale because to them, higher price = higher quality. Best advice: pick a place in the middle and start there.

About the Author:

For over 15-years, Jim Kukral has helped small businesses and large companies like Fedex, Sherwin Williams, Ernst & Young and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how find success on the Web. Jim is the author of the book, “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money“, as well as a professional speaker, blogger and Web business consultant. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com. You can also follow Jim on Twitter @JimKukral.

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