Archive for September, 2009

It has been almost half a year since the economy fell from its height several months ago. Many people are out of jobs, jobs threatened of being cut or wage reductions. The grave thing is that no one knows for certain when things will begin to turn around. However, we all still need money to pay the bills that keep coming regardless of whether our job is there or not.

There is a source of income right now that if tapped can bring us from that walking on eggshells feeling to one of security. That source of income is the Internet and the selling of knowledge. With so many out of jobs and seeking education, the sales of information based products is on the rise. With a little time and investment, one can create a secondary income that could outweigh your primary over time.

It has been hypothesized that in this new millennium, that the single full-time job or income may disappear and be replaced with two or three different streams of income. The single guaranteed incomes of yesterday are a thing of the past. At first, we had single person incomes, then two person incomes. Now, it is quite possible to see multiple streams of income with the tools available on the Internet that allow for continuous money making 24 hours a day.

Whether we be seasoned professionals or graduates just out of high school or college, we need to begin to see the need to diversify our careers and move from looking for the safe haven to creating our own financial safety net so that we can continue to live comfortably when one stream of income may get tough.

Many of us use the Internet everyday to shop and do research. However, because of our “old” training forget to look to the Internet to market products and ourselves. Not only does it it help market ourselves directly to others searching, but we don’t have to actively do it ourselves either. The Internet can be considered the only 24 hour employee that does not need to take coffee or lunch breaks. Hence, it is working for you all the time. So, why not employ the Internet to help us with our never ending need for more income.

There are many different ways to go about using the Internet to earn an income. The most common is opening an online store of some sort and sourcing physical products to sell. The other option is selling information based products. Both can be sold either individually or through a shopping cart based system.

Either choice, when marketed properly, can earn you a healthy income. You are no longer just marketing to a local area around you. The whole world is your market. Those looking for your products will find you rather than you having to search them out on your time. Just make sure that your product is of value to your customers and is available at an affordable price. Also, don’t forget to allow a way for your customers to reach you as this WILL help increase your business online.

Information technology has always been a race to see who can claim the bragging rights to who has the newest technologies. In the race to have great marketing, it is also important to know how the tools that to best utilize those tools.  If the tools developed for us are used properly they can greatly help our advancement.

New developments in software are constantly coming out and marketed to us. Everything that comes out is almost forced upon us not for what it can do for us, but just as a money maker. Yes…we all need to make money from our products, but those products also should be more useful to us than the previous versions. Most of the time, the new features that are developed are geared more for large enterprises than the small businesses which certainly outnumber the large corporations. Very few of the advancements in software technology help the little guy do his work more efficiently. New features that help the small business come along every few years rather than every year like most software packages.

For example, software productivity suites such as Microsoft Office come out almost every year to every other year. However, putting the cost of upgrading aside for the moment, when was the last time that a new feature was introduced that enabled a great new feature for the masses? It’s been a while. Most of the recent versions have features that support expensive network infrastructures rather than helping someone create a better document that is viewable by everyone without needing yet other piece of software.

In order to keep up, we are forced to have to have the newest and we all then can claim we have the newest. But…Does the newest thing on the market actually make your business better? In my experience, it’s not the amount of solutions you have or the amount of money that has been spent; rather, it is the way in which those tools have helped to increase your productivtiy and get the job done faster. In most cases, the same thing we had a few years ago will get the same job done in the same amount of time. All that changes, for the most part, is the user interface.

As the old addage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, for the most part it is correct. But, if what you have is doing the job for you and helping you to increase your bottom line, why upgrade to a new version just because it’s there. One thing I always do when a new package is announced is to look at what it has to offer me before I hand over the money. If it offers a ground breaking development over what I have, I’ll go for it. But, if it’s really insignificant, I’ll wait till the next version and repeat the process next time meanwhile increasing my ROI on my last investment.

In an age where more and more is done via the Internet, our tools need to be able to reflect this major change in the way we work. If developments don’t move in that direction, then there is no need to change our tools. The same tools from the past will continue to do the job. It’s not what you have, but rather how you use them to your advantage that makes the tools useful tools and investments.

It has always been acknowledged that the greatest way to get business and acknowledgment in a field is to pre-sell yourself. The traditional ways of doing this was through public speaking and writing articles. Through the use of these mediums, people remember you and when they need your services they will call on you to render your expertise to them.

The newest way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise is through the web. The Internet offers many great avenues through which one can publish their knowledge on a particular subject whether it be on a career or a hobby. Web sites on a particular niche that you are familiar with is a great method of getting published and sharing your background at the same time. However, unless someone has the newest Internet enabled phone, getting access to that information  could be a challenge.

Publishing ebooks is the answer to getting your knowledge published on the Internet as well as into a format that could be taken offline to read later on just about any device that can open an ebook or digital document. To some, this is a topic that is hard to comprehend. I have found this myself in talking with people new to the concept. So, What is an ebook?

An ebook is basically the digital equivalent of a traditional printed book which can be read on any computer, mobile device or dedicated ebook reader. They are typically written using a word processing program on a computer or hand-held device, saved as a standard file such as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file.

The great thing about ebooks is that you can embed hyperlinks into them which readers can then click to gain access to websites. Because ebooks can be handed from one person to another, it is a great form of marketing one’s products or services while explaining the topic in detail. This will not only establish yourself as an expert in the topic, but also lead your readers to your website(s) or blog for more information.

Creating ebooks is quite simple. All one needs is a word processor such as Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Write, AbiWord, or Corel WordPerfect. You simply format your document the way a book or report would be written and then saved as a PDF file that can be universally be read. If your word processing program doesn’t have the ability to save to PDF, there are many FREE utilities that will do it for you, such as CutePDF.

After you’ve created your PDF, how you choose to market it is up to you. You may simply choose to give it away free as a promotion or sell it as a product on an online store, eBay, or dedicated web page. 

For more information about the process of writing, promoting and using ebooks, download the Ebook Creation Toolkit.

I hope that you all begin to explore the many uses of ebooks in marketing your skills and hobbies and make a little money too in the process.