As a member of the Wealth Builders Club India (WBC), you are making lots of changes to improve your financial future.

You have already assessed your financial and investing habits of the past and have committed to do some things differently going forward.

But of all the new things you are doing, there is nothing more important than the new series I'll be introducing today. I'm talking about the Wealth Builders Club Extra Income Project.

The idea behind the Extra Income Project is simple. The surest and fastest way to grow your net worth is to increase your income and then direct all of that income toward one of the other WBC wealth-building activities.

We are going to begin this series with an income opportunity that is, in many respects, one of the best I know of. I am referring to making extra money as a freelance direct-response copywriter.

What is a freelance direct-response copywriter?

It is someone who works from home (or just about anywhere), writing sales messages for companies that sell products directly to consumers.

Take Paul H., for example. Paul was stocking shelves in a supermarket when I met him. Now he's making $300,000 per year as a copywriter. This is how Paul describes his life now:

I spend most of my time in a little historic town in the Vermont countryside and one week per month a short walk from the beach in South Florida.

I have no bosses, no commute.

I write from an extra room I set up in my home. Some days, I'll head to the local coffee shop, just for a change of scenery.

For a break, I'll walk over to the old Equinox Resort for lunch- or take our dogs, Yukon and Betty, over to Hildene Meadows for a run.

I absolutely love the freedom of it!

My neighbours think I've taken early retirement-probably because they never see me working.

In many ways, I have retired. Because, for the first time in my life, I decide how my days will be spent. Some days, I'll feel like working for a few hours (typically in the morning). Other days, I'll play some golf, tennis, ski-or just hang out with my 13-year-old son.

But what surprises people most (and may surprise you, too) is the income my “retirement” lifestyle gives me: around $300,000 per year. The income potential from copywriting is significant. If Paul wanted to work fewer hours, he could do so at the drop of the hat. He could work just two hours per day and make $60,000. Or half days and make $150,000.

You can see why direct-response copywriting is so high on my list. It's the money!

But it's not just the money that makes being a freelance copywriter so appealing. It's the freedom it gives you to create your “ideal” career.

That's what Krista Jones did. After 18 years as an engineer, Krista was ready to find a less stressful, more satisfying career. “It was easy for me to walk away from my career after I [learned the skill of copywriting]. I had all of the work I could handle. I feel like I'm finally leading the life I was meant to live.”

Paul began copywriting as a 30-year-old. Krista was in her 30s too. But you can get into the game at any age. Take Starr Daubenmire, who became a copywriter at 58 after she was laid off from her job as a quality control coordinator.

Says Starr:

I realized I was living the copywriter's life when I became glad I had lost my corporate job. Believe me, I was terribly insulted when it happened, and it was a huge blow to my confidence. But now I know I have the skill and determination to depend on myself-not someone else and especially not a corporation that viewed me as a statistic, rather than a real person. Now I don't worry about the company's bottom line-I take care of my own. Starr's been a copywriter for several years now, and she says, “The freedom factor just keeps getting better. I can take a two-hour lunch and go for a swim. I can run to the school and pick up a sick grandchild. And I can work from anywhere I like-home, the bookstore, while traveling. Absolutely nothing beats being your own boss!”

And you don't have to commit yourself to working full time to enjoy the benefits of copywriting. Many people work part time as freelance copywriters to supplement their current incomes.

Let's take a closer look at this income opportunity.

What Is Direct-Response Marketing?

Companies use direct response to sell everything from mattresses to financial newsletters… from health supplements to fruit baskets. Nonprofits-from political candidates to environmental organizations, to children's aid groups-raise billions using direct-response techniques, too. And let's not forget the multibillion-dollar business-to-business market, one of the most lucrative and in-demand niches of the direct-response industry for copywriters.

All of them use direct response because a well-written letter can bring in millions of dollars-for a fraction of the cost of opening a storefront or selling wholesale to retailers.

Direct-response marketing allows companies to reach the people and businesses most likely to buy their products… simply by sending letters and emails to those who have shown an interest in similar products in the past.

But a direct-response promotion is nothing without the right words. It needs to convey the right message… say the right things… be structured in the right way… and be written to make the prospective buyer take action.

And these days, more and more selling is done online. Through websites, emails, landing pages, discussion boards, and forums-even through the pages of well-known social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

The Indian e-Commerce market alone is worth about $ 13 billion, according to an IAMAI-KPMG report.

That's where the copywriter comes in.

Income Potential

Advertising copywriters typically make from $50-500 per hour. (That's $100,000-1 million per year, working 40 hours per week.) How much you can make per hour depends on two factors: how good you are and what kind of businesses you work for.

Competent copywriters can find plenty of work writing sales brochures and letters for local businesses in India as well. Writing copy for a six-page brochure, for example, will take between two and five hours-depending on the skill of the copywriter. I'm told that at the local level, businesses would be happy to pay Rs. 25-30,000 for a brochure.

Good copywriters tend to work for larger companies with national or international reach. Such companies spend millions of dollars on advertising every year, so their budgets for copywriting are much larger. Writing a sales package for a new product might take the copywriter 40-60 hours. The compensation for such a package could run into hundereds of thousands of rupees (or lacs, as you would say in India).

The best copywriters (and there are hundreds of them) charge a base salary for writing copy, and then demand royalties on sales that their letters generate which can easily double or triple their base fees. Sometimes royalties can bring lacs of rupees in commissions while the advertisement is running.

I know this essay seems like sales copy. But I can tell you from having spent more than 30 years teaching ordinary people how to write sales letters that copywriting is a seriously good way to earn extra income.

When Monica Day first heard about the income potential of copywriting about 10 years ago, she was skeptical. But she was “desperate” and “broke,” so she decided to give it a try. Three years after making the decision to become a copywriter, she claimed $134,408 on her income tax return. And it was all from copywriting!

Make $206,000 Writing One Letter per Month!

Get paid $206,000 to write 12 letters? It can (and does) happen.

A writer with an established track record can command $8,000 per letter. So 12 letters pays $96,000 in writing fees alone.

Now let's say six of those letters become “controls”-which means they bring in the most money and keep mailing time after time. If, over the course of a year, each of those six letters mails five or six times, your royalties can add up to another $120,000.

That's over $206,000 per year, writing one letter a month!

More letters equal more writing fees. More controls equal more royalties!

The Size of the Opportunity

One of the best-kept secrets in the advertising world is how large the direct response industry is. When you think of advertising, you typically think of Madison Avenue executives designing magazine ads and television commercials. But the big market for copywriters is the direct-response industry-with yearly sales of $2.3 trillion worldwide.

In fact, direct-response advertising is larger than magazines, television, and radio advertising put together. And it is fast becoming the dominant form of advertising on the Internet, as well.

Direct-response marketing represents 54.2% of all ad spending in the U.S.

30% of the $55 billion spent on direct marketing in the U.S. is for online campaigns

There are more than 3,500 companies in the direct-marketing services industry

Every $1 spent on direct-marketing ads brings in an average of $11.65 in sales

Direct marketing generated 8.3% of the total U.S. gross domestic product in 2010. The leading industry organization, the Direct Marketing Association, cites that there are 1.4 million employees working with direct-marketing companies in the U.S. Because of its immense size, the direct- response advertising industry employs hundreds of thousands of freelance copywriters and is always looking for more.

That means plenty of opportunities for new writers-the ability for copywriters to pick and choose where they work…and the possibilities of outsourcing to an English-speaking country like India.

Copywriting Is the Perfect Transitional Income Opportunity

Most Wealth Builders Club members have part- or full-time jobs. That means they don't have the ability to jump into copywriting full time. They need to continue making money while they learn their new trade.

Copywriting offers you the chance to do just that. You can learn the skills you need in the evenings, on your lunch breaks, after dinner, or on the weekends. And you can begin your own freelance career working odd hours too.

As Ed Gandia of Marietta, Ga., says:

In 2003, I had advanced to a point in my sales career where weekly travel was inevitable. I was at the top of my field, earning a great living. But as a new dad, I didn't want to be away from home all the time. Plus, I was getting tired of continually rising quotas-an inevitable reality when you're in sales. Eleven years of chasing numbers had worn me out. I was ready for a change. Yet I didn't want to sacrifice my high income and my family's financial future.

Copywriting allowed me to develop the skills I needed to transition away from a six-figure sales career and into a six-figure copywriting business. In my first full year as a freelance copywriter, I earned $163,481. Copywriting Is the Perfect Part-Time Retirement Business

If you are retired and dread going back to work full time, copywriting can offer you the opportunity to enjoy a good secondary income without working 40 hours per week. Many copywriters do that, especially after they have achieved their financial goals. They keep writing because they love to and because it brings in extra income-which is always welcome.

Take Kelly Richardson, for example. He wrote to me a while back to thank me for introducing him to the copywriting opportunity. He says, “Working VERY part time (I'm still a full-time high school English teacher), I've just cleared over $40,000 in project fees in the past year.”

Fringe Benefits

I've said that direct-response copywriting is one of my favourite extra income opportunities because of the flexibility it offers and also because of the extraordinary income potential. But there are many other benefits, as well. For example: You don't have to dress in business clothes. You can work in your underwear. By working at home, communicating with your clients by phone or email, nobody will ever know the difference.

“I don't even have to get out of my pyjamas,” says copywriter Penny Thomas, who discovered copywriting after being laid off from her investment-banking job right before Christmas 2002.

You don't have to work with people you don't like. Once you develop expertise in some market, it won't be hard to find as much work as you want. With more potential clients wanting you than you can afford to service, you'll be able to “fire” those who don't value your services (i.e., pay you enough) or are disagreeable in any way.

By learning the skill of copywriting, you can derive all sorts of “fringe” benefits.

You will find that you are a more persuasive thinker and talker. You will better understand advertising as a consumer. And you will become a better thinker simply through the practice of writing copy every day.

Another benefit of being a freelance direct-response copywriter is travel. Since you can write from anywhere, you can work and travel anywhere-while getting paid.

As Paul H. says, “I've been on dozens of trips over the years: Barbados, France, Spain, and beautiful five-star resorts throughout Canada and the States. My last trip was a seven-day cruise aboard a Crystal Cruise ship. And since I actually worked on these trips, I paid for none of them.”

If you like to write fiction or essays, learning copywriting can only improve your skills. As Steve Sjuggerud, editor of the investment newsletter True Wealth, says, “My success in investing has come from learning and applying the secrets of the investment masters-Soros, Buffett, Templeton, etc. My success as a writer has come from learning and applying the secrets of [copywriting].”

Perhaps the greatest benefit is peace of mind. As Cheryl Malcham, a “retired” freelance copywriter from Mercer Island, Wash., says, “The ability to pay my bills no longer worries me, even in these rough times. I know I can always market my skills to an endless list of clients and keep enough copywriting projects rolling in.”

What It Takes to Succeed

When most people think of writing professionally, they assume that it takes a great deal of natural talent to succeed. And some professional copywriters like to keep this idea alive because it is flattering to them. (I make six figures as a writer. Therefore, I am a creative genius.)

The truth is that having a natural talent for writing, though helpful, is not at all necessary. Some of the best writers in the business have no formal writing background at all. They just like to write and have learned the skill of copywriting. If you can write a simple letter or tell a simple story you have the fundamental writing skills you need.

How could this be? Writing novels and poems and essays requires skill and creativity. But writing sales copy is simpler. The reason for that is the most basic principle of the sales process: At the emotional level, most people are the same. We tend to respond the same way to exciting stories, to big promises, to hidden secrets, to personal invitations, etc., in a predictable way. Successful salespeople understand those patterns. As a student of direct-response advertising, you can learn those patterns and employ them to write letters that sell.

In my experience, it takes about six months of guided practice to attain competency as a copywriter. At that point, you should be able to begin soliciting clients at the $50-per-hour range. If you continue to practice your trade diligently, you can become relatively expert at copywriting in another 18-24 months. By that time, you should be able to take on larger clients who will be happy to pay you $100-500 per hour. (You normally don't charge by the hour. You charge by the job. These hourly figures are estimates based on average productivity.)

The examples and figures I am enlisting here are quoted in US dollars. That is because copywriting has already made it big in the US market with thousands of writers earning millions of dollars working from the comfort of their home. And looking at the growing Indian economy and the fast rising internet penetration, it holds immense money-making potential in India as well.

This opportunity is available to everyone, everywhere, just as long as you are online.

One of my colleagues in India, let's call him D.S., began writing copy because he loved the small town he lived in too much to go to some noisy city and get a full-time office job. His copy brought in some decent earnings, but as his experience increased so did his income. In fact, I happen to know he recently wrote a package of sales letters for an Indian company based in Mumbai that brought in almost Rs. 2 crores in a two-week sales campaign. He gets a revenue share of 1% on that. That's 2 lacs for less than a month of part-time work while sitting in his beloved hometown in southern India, far away from any office or traffic! Not a bad deal, right?

And that's just the first campaign. Now, every time they use any of his sales letters - he gets a percentage of sales, without doing any additional work. So imagine if he just writes one successful sales letter a year for five years - after five years he will be collecting commission on all these without even having to work at all.

And you can bag that kind of opportunity too. Copywriters can travel the world and still work. Wherever you are, whatever your currency, these figures apply to you too - you just have to pick up the basics, and look in the right place.

How to Get Started Now

If you think you'd like to become a freelance copywriter and make extra income that way, you can get started immediately.

Indians already have the advantage of a good command of English. You don't need to have great writing skills - all you need is to learn the best copywriting techniques.

The first thing I recommend is that you read the manual that American Artists & Writers Inc. (AWAI) has prepared for us. It's called Copywriting 101: Secrets for Launching Your Million-Dollar Writing Career. It will give you a more detailed idea of the benefits and advantages of this line of work. It will also give you more examples of how copywriting has changed the lives of many AWAI members.

You will receive the manual as part of the WBC reports.

If, after reading that special report, you are still excited about the opportunity, you can check out some of the AWAI courses too, such as The Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting.

I recommend AWAI enthusiastically. It was based on my original teachings and has been revised and improved a dozen times in the past 15-odd years with the help of the insights of many of today's best copywriters. If you want to learn this amazingly valuable skill at home in greater depth, there is no better program.

First, check out the free report we will send you and get a sense of the great opportunity this brings to you.

Best, Mark

* Editor's Note:

Dear Reader,

After having read the report linked below and looked up and spoken to several copywriters I was convinced that that this was a good idea. But it was not until I received an envelope with my name on it that I understood how prevalent copywriting is around me.

The envelope was addressed to me, but it was unexpected. It was about two pages long, and intrigued about its contents I read it through. It was an unsolicited direct-response marketing promotional letter from some pest control company. And it definitely got my attention. The letter I received was quite poorly written, not incorporating any of the copywriting techniques I had read about in the AWAI report and it still caught my attention. Imagine if it was well-written and could get a response from even a few hundred of the thousands of households it was sent to? Clearly there is a need for better copywriters out there.

Now that I am aware of this area of marketing I see opportunities everywhere. As soon as I finish my copywriting course I plan to reach out to the pest control company and offer them my services. I have already started putting the word out to family and friends that I am available as a freelance copywriter, and am going to assess all the online opportunities that are mushrooming in my Inbox everyday.

Once you read the copywriting manual I recommend you do the same, because you will see its enormous potential too.

Click here to download the Copyrighting Report.

Happy copywriting,

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club

*

Can you take a photo like this?

Every time I see photos by Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, or like the one above by Walker Evans, I tell myself I should take up photography as a hobby. What I admire about their work is that these single images deliver beautiful little stories straight to the heart. But what inspires me is that they are so simple. They look like something I could do.

I have many friends whose hobby is taking pictures. Some of them are quite good, as you can see here:

Photo courtesy Gwen Gove

Photo courtesy Trish Irish

Photo courtesy Trish Irish When I first had this fantasy many years ago, photography was a challenging pastime. One needed expensive SLR cameras, lots of attachments, access to a lab, and a good deal of technical knowledge.

[“SLR,” short for “single-lens reflex,” is a term associated with film and digital cameras. SLR cameras use a mirror between the lens and the film, or image sensor, to provide a focus screen. This means the image you see in the viewfinder (or LCD) will be the same as what appears on film or as your digital image.] Nowadays, the barrier of entry is much lower. You can buy amazing digital cameras for a fraction of the cost of the old SLRs. Even the cameras on iPhones and iPads produce great photos.

And developing and editing photos is now an easy task. Dozens of online photo shop services that make sizing, cropping, framing, and color correcting easy are available.

In short, creating beautiful photos is easier than ever. And that is why millions of people all over the world are becoming amateur photographers every year.

But this Extra Income opportunity essay is not just about becoming a skilled photographer. I also want to talk about how you can make money by taking photographs-money that can serve as a nice second income if you put your mind to it.

I wouldn't have believed it was possible to earn income as a part-time freelance photographer had it not been for a friend of mine who started a newsletter on the subject several years ago.

For about 10 years now, Lori Allen, the director of The Photographer's Life (a division of American Writers & Artists Inc.), and her team have been teaching people how to make extra money through travel writing.

I commend you for the complete due diligence you appear to be committed to in the Palm Beach Wealth Builders Club. Club member Pat F. But several years ago, Lori realized that her team was overlooking a big opportunity. They realized that more and more, the folks who took their travel-writing program were writing in to say they were having success selling not only articles, but, increasingly, articles with photos.

They looked into it and discovered that magazine editors love it when writers submit photos with articles, because it makes their jobs easier. Otherwise, the editors would have to commission photographers to take the pictures they need.

Typically, these editors pay from a couple of hundred to more than a thousand dollars per photo. But they won't accept any photo. They have very specific requirements that most amateur photographers simply don't understand.

That's when Lori decided to develop a program to teach the trade of professional freelance photography to amateurs-people with simple cameras. The program went public in spring 2005 and has been a huge success ever since.

Can You Really Make Money Taking Photos? I asked Lori about the income potential of taking and selling photos-and I asked her to be realistic. She said, “If you can get past the idea that it's only pretty pictures that sell… and you can learn how to spot what it is that photo buyers really want, it's possible to make $50-500 per photo as an amateur. That's fantastic money for something most of us do, anyway-taking pictures.”

I asked for examples.

Stock photography, travel photography, and local photography are the three biggest markets Lori talks about in their programs.

When you sell your photos as stock (“microstock” is what it's called when you do it online-the only kind of stock photography really open to amateurs), you send your photos to an online warehouse (a microstock agency).

It reviews the photos. Accepts or rejects them. And then makes them available in an online catalog for buyers to search and buy. Shelly Perry, a photographer who sells her images as microstock, said she “earns, on average, $0.87 per photo per month from sales through online stock agencies.”

As of this writing, she has more than 3,366 photos on file with one agency, which amounts to more than $2,800 per month in passive income. She doesn't have to lift another finger and she'll still continue to earn $2,800 per month.

Think about that. If Shelly stopped taking photos today, she'd still earn enough money every month to cover two car payments, a weekend getaway, and a mortgage payment and still be left with money to save.

The Math of Photography Let's take a look at the math of stock photography and how much money you can earn doing it…

LookStat.com published an article about the math of stock photography titled “How to Make a Million Dollars in Microstock.”

It crunched some numbers and found that if you make $4 per image, and you add 400 new images to your portfolio per month, you'll be a millionaire in fewer than three years.

Sound ambitious?

It should. Four hundred images per month is a lot of photographs. And in stock, your photos have to be technically perfect, so 400 images is really more like 4,000 whittled down to 400 after you take out all that won't pass muster.

So let's look at some more attainable math…

Let's say you start now with zero images in your portfolio. And instead of uploading your photos to one agency, you upload to four.

If you upload 20 photos per week to four different agencies, that's 320 new images for sale per month.

Assuming you'll earn around $1 per image per month (a much more realistic goal), by this time next year, you'll have made over $23,000.

Keep uploading 20 new photos to four agencies per week, and your monthly income will continue to grow…

In your second year, you'll make $69,120.

In your third year, you'll make $115,200. It keeps going up from there.

Of course, this is assuming you can upload 20 new photos per week, that they're all accepted, and that you can maintain an average income of $1 per image per month.

To do that, you'll need to consistently take good photos that sell. And you need to reserve some time at night or on weekends to learn how to edit your images in a program like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, as it's an absolute necessity that your images get processed before you submit them.

Local photos are a different market. Photographer Rich Wagner sells his local photographs as fine art, postcards, greeting cards, and even to magazines featuring articles about his hometown.

“My best-selling image is one I took just 15 miles from my house,” he said. “I waited for fall when the leaves were just right and the sky was clear blue.

There's a tower in the distance-one everyone who lives here has to pass on their way to work, school, or the airport, so it's iconic.

“That image has earned me over $20,000 in the last five years. Others sell for between $45 and $800 a piece. Photography is not my day job. It's a hobby that has now put all five of my daughters through college.”

And travel photos sell too. These are pictures you take while on vacation or out doing touristy things in your hometown.

Travel photos sell best to magazines, newspapers, websites, and guidebooks. But they also sell locally and to microstock agencies.

Lori told me this about selling travel photographs: “Our members have the most success selling their travel images with a travel article. For both a small 300-500 word article and one to two photos, they might earn $500-1,500. Some publications pay more. Others pay less.”

Patrick Stevens, whose wife is a travel writer, says he sometimes gets more for his photos than his wife gets for her articles. Together, they can turn a vacation with the kids into nearly $3,000. She writes the travel stories. He takes the pictures. The kids step in as models when needed.

Here's one of their more recent magazine spreads about Colorado Springs, Colo. This one appeared in an airline in-flight magazine…

How Big Is the Market for Photography? The market for travel writers is huge. And the market for freelance photography is just as big.

Worldwide, more than 15 million photographs are published each year. That's more than 40,000 per day.

That's big. But what is more important for our purposes is this: Freelance photographers produce the great majority of published (and paid-for) photos.

Stock photo agencies are constantly on the lookout for new talent. Magazine editors are too. And in the past few years, the Web has become a huge market of its own.

That means there are plenty of opportunities for you to sell your photos… once you know how to take salable photos. That's why this is a perfect Extra Income opportunity.

Where Can You Sell Your Photos? Photo opportunities exist everywhere. On the roadside… at work… while talking with friends… in your backyard… a nearby zoo… special events… festivals… sporting events… pie-eating contests… and more…

Just take a look around you-at magazines, newspapers, books, trade journals, technical manuals, and almost any published material. Look at the cover and flip through the pages. What do you see? Photographs.

Someone has to take those pictures. Why not you?

Amateurs Become Professionals Meet Tim O'Rielly. A San Diego resident, Tim has long enjoyed taking pictures of his home city. On walks and even at work, he finds time to snap photos of people and places and things that catch his eye. But different from the tens of thousands of amateur photographers in his area, Tim sells his photos for cash. He recently netted $2,000 for just 10 shots.

Tim also sells photos that he takes on vacation. He recently traveled with his family to Kauai, a beautiful Hawaiian island, and had his expenses paid, just for taking pictures.

And take a look at this photo:

Photo by Shelly Perry This is Lori and her husband at their wedding. It sells online as microstock and has sold more than 200 times like this and also in black and white. On iStockphoto.com, the smallest one sells for $19 and the largest for $70.

Buyers have included photo editors, graphic designers, and small businesses. Here's how some of them have used the image…

Tim, Shelly, Rich, and Patrick aren't doing anything you can't learn to do. You don't need expensive equipment or technical knowledge. All you need is a short education on how to identify and take salable photos-something I'm going to talk about in this essay.

Imagine traveling to Tahiti for a vacation but treating it like a self-assignment. You shoot plenty of pictures that you can sell when you return home.

Or finding yourself in the Bahamas touring a local zoo and swimming with dolphins on a nearby island, all for free.

Or whisking your spouse away on a three-day weekend to Vancouver Island at someone else's expense…

These particular trips did not come from my imagination. They came from my research. They are the stories of ordinary people who decided to make extra money taking photos. Two of them, in fact, were brand-new to photography!

If you've been looking for a fun and creative Extra Income opportunity, this could be it. I'm going to outline a plan that can help you get started.

Here's What You Need to Get Started A decent camera (see box for recommendations) A willingness to learn a few things that set your photos apart A computer to edit your photos (this makes a big difference in how much you can earn from your photos). How to Buy the Right Camera By Lori Allen Don't get too wrapped up in buying the latest and greatest equipment. The best equipment is made of metal and not plastic. Great for durability.

But it's heavy, and if you're just starting out, you'll find yourself less likely to take it out of your bag because of its weight and sophistication.

Not only that, but when your pictures turn out blurry, too light, or too dark, you'll have a dozen bells and whistles to check before you find the culprit.

You'll spend your first days frustrated with the equipment before you even get a chance to shoot.

Photography should be fun. The more fun it is, the more pictures you'll take. The more pictures you take, the better you'll get at it.

Each market requires a different level of picture quality. Local photographs and some travel photographs can be created with simple point-and-shoot cameras. Microstock agencies are tougher, and the ones that pay the best no longer accept photos from a point-and-shoot.

Regardless of which market you choose, there's a new mirrorless camera technology that's all the rage. Both Panasonic and Olympus are recognized leaders in this Micro Four-Thirds market, and each makes first-rate equipment.

Here's a good place to start browsing for mirrorless cameras if you decide to get one.

Mirrorless Cameras India

Can Anybody Do This?

Anyone could do this. As I've explained, the barriers to entry are low. The market is huge. And the demand is only getting bigger.

You don't need to take exotic pictures to make money. The subjects that are most in-demand are very simple to take. For example, here are a few on demand in microstock agencies right now:

A man or woman walking a dog with a collar Doctors examining patients Candid family shots Beach and travel shots People in business suits Multiethnic groups Seasonal photos-Christmas, Holi, etc. Hobbies-golf, knitting, swimming, biking, scrapbooking, fishing, reading, sunbathing. It's not hard-as with any new income opportunity-but most people will convince themselves that freelance photography is “not for them.” They will tell themselves that they don't have the time to learn, don't have the little extra money it takes to get set up, or don't have the creativity to succeed.

The truth is Lori's group has trained people from all walks of life to do this- teachers, retirees, boat captains, flight attendants, retired military, T.V. producers, politicians, real estate agents, event planners, software consultants, massage therapists, doctors, nurses, small business owners, retired CEOs, firemen, technical writers… you name it.

How to Get Started You can get started immediately by buying or renting a camera, joining a local photo club, reading a few books, and just getting out there and taking pictures.

Composition and exposure are the two most critical elements behind a good photograph. Learn them.

Here are two good resources:

Balance in composition Knowing what your subject is. “Practice first by putting your camera in 'Program' mode,” Lori says.

“This will keep the flash from popping up but will otherwise put your camera in automatic mode. Cameras have come so far, they're right about 90% of the time. You should override what your camera suggests only when you know enough to know it's making the wrong choice.

“Put it in 'Program' mode (or 'P') and focus on composition. After that, you can learn how to manipulate your camera's aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to get the creative effects you want.”

Lori has free videos online for explaining these more advanced settings but warns not to get too bogged down with the technical specifics before you learn good composition and what it takes to create an appealing photograph.

“It doesn't matter how technically perfect your photograph is if no one likes to look at it,” Lori says. Take things one step at a time.

Here are the free videos:

Aperture (an adjustable opening in an optical instrument, such as a camera or telescope, that limits the amount of light passing through a lens or onto a mirror) Shutter speed ISO (in digital photography, ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor) Understanding how these three things work together. Additionally, here are some recommended books about photography:

Bryan Peterson's Understanding Composition Field Guide: How to See and Photograph Images With Impact Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color and Composition in Photography The Photographer's Mind: Creative Thinking for Better Digital Photos The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression. I've looked into courses online about selling your photographs, including PhotoSecrets and Digital Photography School, but none are as good as the course that Lori produces.

I've watched Lori and her team's progress from the beginning, and I've been very impressed with not just the quality of the teaching but the success their students have enjoyed.

I asked Lori to put together a list of places where you can sell your photos with details about the types of photos that sell best in each market. You'll find it here…

Where to Sell Your Photos Market #1: Magazines, Newspapers, and Websites Large publications like Conde Nast Traveller and National Geographic don't usually work with amateur photographers. But small publications, local papers, and limited-budget websites do.

To get a good idea of what sells, pick up a few publications around town and flip through them. Before you contact the editors, get a sense for the kinds of articles and photos they like to run. These are the types of images that will sell best to them.

Market #2: Fine Art The unofficial definition of a fine-art photograph: A photo that someone buys to hang on their wall at home, in their office, or at their establishment (if they own a business).

Rich Wagner, the photographer I told you about earlier, says, “People buy fine- art photos that 'mean' something to them. If you live in Paris, your photos of the Eiffel Tower could prove quite lucrative. But if you live in Connecticut, the likelihood of selling your Paris pictures as fine art is pretty slim.

“If you want to sell photographs locally as fine art,” he explains, “you've got to take local photographs. Among my best-selling photographs are pictures of the cows in the field next to our local airport, pictures of our local bakery, pictures of the town hall, and pictures of the local high school baseball field.” Market #3: Stock Agencies I am now a Wealth Builders Club subscriber and believer. Your approach exudes honesty and integrity, and the Wealth Builders Club will be the deciding factor in reaching my goals. Club member David B. Online stock photo agencies, such as iStockphoto or Shutterstock, are, in general, happy to work with amateurs, but they do expect near-perfect photographs, so you've got to have a good digital camera and an eye for composition.

It doesn't cost you anything to upload your pictures, and buyers can download whichever pictures they choose for anywhere between $1 and $20 or more, depending on the size of the image they want.

You, in exchange, get a royalty for each image. Anywhere from 20-40% of the photo sale. Your Next Step: What to Do, Starting Today If you already have a camera (point-and-shoot or otherwise), program it to shoot with the best quality, largest size possible.

If you don't know how to do this, look it up in your camera manual (or look online). Camera companies sometimes set the default on their cameras to the smallest settings so you can fit more images on your memory card.

This is fine if you're just creating photos for a photo album. But if you want to make money from your photos, change your settings to record the largest amount of data possible and buy an extra memory card. It's an investment that will pay off in spades and save you frustration. Learn to take better-than-average shots. Watch online videos, read books on photography, flip through magazines, and look at the photos that are getting published. What do you like about them? Can you create photos like that? Invest in a class or Lori's program to improve your skills. Take lots and lots of pictures. When you get home, you can weed out the best shots; the more you take, the more possibly good shots you have to work with. Keep in mind that not every shot is a winner or salable, and that's all right. That's why you want to take a lot while you're there.

Try, of course, to make each shot interesting. Looking at your subject from a variety of angles might give you a new idea or a fresh perspective… taking several shots will help ensure you get the right one. Two More Stories to Consider Efrain Padro Efrain Padro spent nearly 20 years practicing law before pursing photography. Like 95% of Lori's members, he didn't go to school to become a photographer- but he knew that it was his true passion. So he left the briefcase behind and picked up his camera.

Now he's selling pictures to a wide variety of clients who pay him anywhere from $100-500 a pop for the use of his images.

And on top of the income his photos generate, he's able to use his photography to bag all-expenses-paid trips like his most recent six-week trip to a beautiful Caribbean island. There, he took pictures similar to the types of things that you probably photograph on vacation-the beaches, sandcastles, and rainforests.

The only difference is that he later sells his photos for a profit, while yours likely get buried on your computer.

Terry Robinson Before Terry Robinson attended one of Lori's programs a few years ago, he had sold a handful of images to family and friends for $25-50. But when he got home, he immediately put to use the secrets and tricks he picked up. In his spare time, he set up a photo shoot in his hometown (you don't necessarily have to travel beyond your back yard to make this work)…

And he made $275 on his first set of images.

Today, he “works” only part-time. When he wants extra spending money, he breaks out the camera and knows he can make $500-1,000 in a single weekend.

The point: Neither of these guys had formal training as photographers. They took classes, watched videos, and practiced, sure. But if you can learn how to create good photographs and whom to sell them to, you can turn a fun photo hobby into a viable income stream. An income you can take with you anywhere in the world - whether you do it full-time, part-time, or even just on vacation.

To learn more about this Extra Income opportunity, Lori and her team at The Photographer's Life have prepared a special report. It will give you more information about earning income from photography and tell you more about Lori's program.

The report will tell you about:

The kinds of photos that sell best … whether its people, places, objects or landscapes there's a market to fit the type of photographs you enjoy taking … Where to sell your images … and where you can get started to make your first sales … How to earn money from photos that you already have on your computer … Three important tips for getting started … Advice on what kind of camera is best for you straight from our photography professionals … Stories from regular people who have turned their interest in photography into a way to earn money … And much more …

Best, Mark * Editor's Note: This extra income opportunity was originally scheduled to be released later in the program. But I've had a lot of emails from you urging me to release it earlier because it sounds fun, exciting, and we're eager to start. So here it is!

The special photography report is a great resource for starting on this opportunity. You will receive this report next week.

I will also send you my own report explaining how I got this email from CanStockPhoto.com where I submitted pictures I found on my computer from a trip

I took to Arunachal Pradesh 3 years ago, with no intention of ever selling them!

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club

*

The Photography Report - How (and Where) to Sell Simple Photos for Cash

To learn more about this Extra Income Opportunity, Lori and her team at The Photographer's Life have prepared a special report. It will give you more information about earning income from photography and tell you more about Lori's program.

Click here to receive it now.

If you are interested in pursuing this Extra Income opportunity, I recommend you invest in Lori's program. There's no better way to get up to speed on taking salable photographs. Here is a bit of what you will learn:

The difference between a snapshot and a $5,000 photograph: five tricks you can use to bump up sales

The tips you need for shooting in a variety of locations and situations- beach scenes, night photography, snow, rain, sunsets and sunrises, waterfalls, landscapes, pets, fireworks, sports, street photography, and more

Why the most important asset is not your camera but your eyes. Learn classic principles of composition from great artists, painters, sculptors, and architects… and you'll never take an average photo again

How to use your camera's built-in features to ensure you get great lighting in every image. The Average Joe doesn't even know these exist!

Why your camera's automatic mode will work for some pictures but will leave others looking washed-out or too dark-and what you can do about it

11 things I bet you didn't know your little camera could do

How to use natural light-and window lighting-to snap salable product photos of everyday household items

The press photographer's trick to taking sharp photos-even among a crowd of pushing fans (it's real easy and will help you snap perfectly focused pictures in crowded situations)

Advice on buying the right equipment (if and when you upgrade)… how to set your fees and present your work professionally

How to encourage editors to buy more than one photo at a time: Master the secret to writing great photo captions. These are tricks that will set you apart from the amateurs, giving you a much- better-than-average chance of getting your photos bought.

Best, Mark

*

Editor's Note:

This report itself has a lot of great information that can get you started right away. In addition I will also send you a special report on how to get your pictures on stock photo sites next week.

At the end of this report you will find information about Lori's paid program that Mark has mention. It's a great program, like he said, and it is for those of you want to take this idea further. You can also get in touch with me if you have any further questions about it.

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club ,[Report available in Wealth Builders Club folder in Documents]

The Flash Guide for Stock Photography

What are stock photography sites? Stock photography sites are online sites that collect and sell inexpensive royalty-free images to anyone who wants or needs them. Buyers can be anyone - magazines, book publishers, interior decorators, home architects, website developers, marketing companies, even bloggers looking for pictures to display on their websites.

How can you upload images on these sites? Stock photo sites collect images from 'contributors'. Contributors can be anyone, anywhere in the world, who has pictures they would like to sell - people like you and me. Stock sites accept your pictures based on 2 criteria - need and quality. Need is not such a big issue - more about how to get photos approved in the section below.

How do they pay? Once your pictures are approved they are uploaded on the site - people can then buy them. When someone buys and downloads your picture, the site pays you royalty. The payment for a single picture can vary from Rs. 15 - Rs. 300 (about 25 cents to $5). The site collects your royalty as credit and when it reaches a minimum amount - anywhere from 1500 to 5000 rupees, depending on the site, then you can request a payout.

Think about what that means if you have 100 photos up on a site? Even if you make just Rs. 50 on a photo each month, that's 5000 rupees - and all you did was upload. And the best part is you can upload the same picture on multiple sites - I have included a list of ten proven sites at the end of this document.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves - first you need to get that many pictures approved and accepted on the sites. Then, you need to wait a few months before your pictures get noticed and start selling. Finally, if you really want to be successful, you need to find alternative ways of marketing your pictures - to create your own audience.

The world is your market. Stock photography brings this enormous market right to your doorstep. If you are prepared to learn a little bit about the stock photography business, with a little patience and effort this will become an opportunity where you can make more than a decent income.

In this report I will address:

How to Get Pictures Approved How to Make Your Pictures Sell List of Best Stock Sites

How to Get Pictures Approved

Quick Tips: Don't give up if you get rejected the first time. Read forums on the stock sites you want to join - each has its own peculiarities. Look at the best seller photos and come up with different angles/versions of those. Have a diverse portfolio, but have your own style/niche to try to stand out. Keep learning - there are a tonne of workshops, free online classes, etc. Join photo clubs to keep the passion of photography going, and to keep taking more photos to uploads. Know the basics - Try to learn the very basics of photography. Those concepts which Mark had shared in his original essay. Light and exposure, focus, and composition. Just a few simple concepts really - but ones that can dramatically improve your approval rate.

Critique your own pictures honestly - Look for imperfections at full size -these will get your picture rejected. Every single image you submit to a stock site should be inspected at 100% by you. Even if the photo looks perfect at a small resolution it can be blurry/grainy etc. in full size. If you submit too many pictures that are rejected, you will ruin your approval rate, and lower your earnings.

Do some basic editing: This step is easier than it sounds. Basic editing simply means cropping, adjusting colour, sharpening images, etc. In most photo editing software you can do all of the above with the click of a button. Often there is a button called Auto Fix or One-click fix, and just by clicking it the computer will adjust colour, exposure, etc. Sometimes it will even give you multiple enhanced options and you just have to pick the best looking one. I always do an auto colour enhance before I submit. For some reason my pictures always look a bit washed out at first - and enhancing makes the colors really come alive.

Note: I have used a regular compact Canon auto camera for all my pictures. Nothing fancy at all. See my uploaded images here

I have also included some one-click editing examples below. These are very low resolutions so are not good, but will give you an idea. Editing software you can use:

- Microsoft Photo Editor which usually comes free with the computer is good and easy to use - used for examples below (Windows)

- Pixelmator & Paint.net can be found online - both are incredibly user-friendly (Windows)

- GIMP is the best free editing software (comparable to Adobe Photoshop) and will be especially useful if you learn more about editing.

- For Mac I use the iPhoto that comes free with the computer.

Figure 1: Original Picture Figure 2: One Click Auto Edit

Figure 3: Original Picture

Figure 4: After One-click Black and White Edit

Read the contributors manuals for each site - They will explain the requirements of size and quality you need. To check file size and image size and resolution right-click on the image, and click on properties.

Remove any recognizable logo - In addition to people, you also need property releases for recognizable buildings. And no recognizable logos of any kind are allowed. Images should be retouched to remove any recognizable logos, trademarks, vehicle license plates, copyrighted products or other intellectual property, if necessary.

Write good descriptions and keywords - With each photo you must submit keywords to make it searchable. Look at your image and think about what obvious words describe it. Put those down as keywords first. Then - look at your image again, but this time instead of descriptive words think of abstract ideas, feelings, or concepts that it conveys. For example in an image of a golden Buddha statue - you would include the obvious words Buddha, statue, gold, but you should also include the concepts of peace, spirituality, worship, landmark, etc - things that the image clearly conveys.

However, be careful not to go too abstract - if the keywords don't connect your images might be rejected. Single words separated by commas work best. Also, search engines only search for keywords, not titles or descriptions, so if there are important words or phrases in your title or description include these in your keywords as well.

How to Make Your Pictures Sell

Consider giving free images - Some stock sites have the option to give your images free sometimes. While this may not seem like a very good idea at first, it actually is. The free section gets a lot of traffic which showcases your premium portfolios and leads to sales.

Research images that sell - Most sites have a list of popular images, or a list of what they want. Make sure you know what sells to get more sales. Here are some ideas. If your image is not marketable you might get this rejection. However, not to worry - different sites have different criteria for acceptance.

Popular Images That Sell:

People - all stock photo sites want images of people in all shape, or forms - people running, eating, thinking , smiling, children playing etc. They ar starving for people pictures. But there is a catch.

Pictures of people must be accompanied by a 'model release' - which means the model in the pictures has to sign a document allowing you to upload the picture. So you can't upload pictures of strangers - but friends and family are always helpful in this case.

Management - Images depicting anything business-related - HR, Leadership Innovation, Training, Communication - all the business buzz words are usually a huge hit, probably because PowerPoint Presentations are such a popular management tool and they always need interesting images to bring them to life.

Healthy - fitness, outdoor activities, diet-related images always seem to be pretty popular.

Food - Pictures of exotic food and fruits seem to be a big hit - and of course all Indian food is hugely popular around the world

Focus on the larger sites -The process of uploading and keywording images can be very tedious so direct your energies to the sites that will give you the biggest returns. Find a list of proven sites at the end of this report.

Find a niche - There are two strategies for making money one is with a wide range of diverse images, or a wide selection of very specific images - for example just images of animals doing funny things. If you want your work to really stand out, the latter idea, developing a niche - will help you beat the competition and make significant sales. You can just try a few and see which one ends up being a hit. For example, I happen to have some scuba diving pictures that I uploaded. Now every time I go diving I will take pictures specifically with this purpose, and hopefully this will become my niche.

http://www.canstockphoto.com/orange-stripe-fish-20179091.html

Market from outside: On your website, on your email signature,

9 Sites that Accept Stock Photography Submissions

Big Stock Photo

Quick Tip: Some online stock photo agencies charge you a fee to upload your photos. I do not recommend these as there are many proven sites that let you upload for free, like teh ones on this list. And once you start making money you can always choose other avenues Over 6 million stock photos

Sign up for a free account, read the tutorial, and take Bigstock's “photographer test.” Once you pass (it's very easy), you can start uploading photos for approval right away. Wait to see which of your photos are approved, then add keywords, titles, and descriptions.

With BigStockPhoto.com, you will earn $0.50 cents (Rs. 30) for every credit that a customer spends on your image, up to $3m (Rs. 180) per download. If you allow customers to print your image on products such as posters, greeting cards or any other products, you will receive a special licensing commission at 35% of the sale. You can ask to be paid when your balance reaches $30 (Rs 1800).

Shutter Stock

Over 16 million images

Sign up for a free Shutterstock account. Read the image requirements and submission guidelines. Send in your 10 best photos. If at least seven are accepted, you're good to go. If Shutterstock accepts six or fewer, you have to wait a month and try again.

With ShutterStock.com, you will earn $0.25 (about Rs. 15) cents per download of your image until you have reached $500 in lifetime earnings, then you will earn 33 cents going up to 38. The reason that the royalty rates for images at Shutterstock.com are lower than other stock photography sites is because they sell subscriptions to customers who download many images. But this also means more images will sell. You can request a payout when your balance reaches $75 (Rs. 4500).

IStock Photo

Over 7 million image files

Sign up for a free account and read the “Stock Photographer Training Manual”, take a quick test. Send in three test shots. Even if they're rejected at first they'll tell you why and give you another chance. If you get rejected three times, iStock will stop you from uploading more photos for several months before you can try again. So after the second rejection take a look at what's going wrong before you carry on.

With IStockPhoto.com, you will earn a royalty rate of 15% for each download of your image. If you have had at least 250 downloads and a minimum 50% approval rating, you can choose to make IStockPhoto.com your exclusive agent so that you will get a higher royalty rate of 22% to 45% per download. (that means you only sell your pictures here - this is something you an consider at a later stage).They also accepts audio and video contributions. You can request a payout when your balance reaches $100 (Rs. 6000).

Alamy

Over 26 million stock images

Read the contributor contract and sign up for a free membership to sell images. Send in four of your best images for review and approval by signing in, clicking on “My Alamy” at the top right of the page,and then clicking on “Upload images” under “Organize images.” An email will tell you if you are approved or not. It's one of the better paying agencies 60% royalty fee on all of your images.

Canstockphoto

Over 5 million images

Sign up for a free account. Then sign in and proceed to the Photographer Application. Then, you'll upload three images as examples according to their size requirements. Once you're approved, you can start uploading your images for sale.

This is the agency I find most useful - they are very clear with their feedback why they have rejected any files. You can make corrections and upload them again, as many as you need. They also have a very quick turnaround time - one day. Usually I only upload files to other sites if they have been approved here. When you hit $50 (Rs. 3000) in income, you can get paid.

123RF.com

Over 11 million royalty-free images online.

Sign up for a free account, and choose sign up to be a photographer/contributor. Sign in and agree to the terms, then upload 10 photos for inspection, using the online form. According to size specifications. You should get an email in two days telling you if you've been approved

You're paid 50% of each image sale. If you refer buyers, you'll receive 15% of the price they pay for credits for three years. If you refer photographers, you'll get 10% of their image sales for six months.

Crestock

Open a free account. Once you've uploaded your images, you can add description and keyword to your images. Once your images are ready, follow the prompts to submit your images. If you need help submitting your images, check out their Image Upload Guide. When your account balance reaches $50 USD (Rs. 3000) you can request a payout. This is another site I really like because of how much helpful information they have.

Indian Sites

Images bazaar & Shot India

Create your profile on shotindia.com and upload pictures (starting with 3 samples for approval) with description keywords. Your images will sell on this site and also, if they qualify, will sell on the parent site imagesbazaar.com. You cannot directly upload to imagesbazaar. When your picture sells, you will earn royalty of 50% of the selling price. See more info here.

Also see this video of the founder Sandeep Maheshwari.

India Picture

Sign up for a free account as a photographer. Go to Work With Us - Become a Contributor. Upload samples and wait for approval. You get a 50% royalty.

Additional Resources

Some free videos compiled from Mark's reports & other useful sites. Aperture (an adjustable opening in an optical instrument, such as a camera or telescope, that limits the amount of light passing through a lens or onto a mirror) Shutter speed ISO (in digital photography, ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor) Understanding how these three things work together. A free course on the Art of Photography. There are loads of free ideas on the Photographer's Life starting with this. And here too.

There is an 80% chance that the extra-income strategy I'm about to talk about will interest you.

In an interview in the Indian Express Jon P Fine, Director of Author and Publishing Relations at Amazon.com said, “India is one of the top 10 publishing markets in the world and also the third largest from the English language standpoint. Couple these facts with the incredible story-telling tradition that comes out of the country and, I think, it is set for an incredible explosion.”

I'm sure a large number of you dream of writing a book. As the saying goes, everyone has a book inside them.

That's today's topic: how to write and/or publish an e-book.

I have written 20 books so far. I found publishers for (or published myself) 16 of them. Four of those 16 sold fewer than 5,000 copies. Four sold between 5,000 and 10,000 copies. Six sold an average of 25,000 copies, and two sold 50,000 copies.

Selling 50,000 copies of a book is nothing for Stephen King or Malcolm Gladwell. But it is very rare. Less than one-tenth of 1% of all the books published hit that mark. Those books - Automatic Wealth and Ready, Fire, Aim - were New York Times and Wall Street Journal best sellers.

You'd think that having a best seller would put you on easy street. In fact, the biggest advance a publisher ever paid me for one of my books was $40,000 (about 20 lac rupees). And as far as I know (I haven't checked), I never earned a single cent in royalties.

The point is: It is very unlikely that you can make serious money by writing a book. But that doesn't mean you can't make some money. So if you think you might want to write and publish books, this month's Extra Income Opportunity may appeal to you.

The traditional book-selling market made it very difficult for writers to make any money. The reason: The vast majority (something between 90% and 98%) of published books sold fewer than 100 copies. That meant that book publishers lost money on more than nine out of every 10 books they marketed. They couldn't afford to pay big advances for books, so they didn't.

Publishers made money on the super sellers-the books that sold hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies. Those authors got rich. The rest starved.

That has all changed in recent years. The advent of the Internet and Internet-based businesses such as Amazon has rendered conventional publishing models obsolete. That's bad for most book publishers, but it's not bad for you as an aspiring writer. You can make a lot more money today than you ever could in the past.

The easiest and most lucrative way to publish a book today is to do it yourself. And the cheapest way to do that is to deliver your book electronically-as an e-book.

That's what I want to talk about in this lesson: how to write and/or publish your own e-book. I'm going to run you through the process, step by step, and then I'm going to introduce you to a program that can fill in all of the details.

The Economics of E-book Publishing

Let's begin with the income opportunity this strategy affords you.

In the old days, an Indian best-selling author whose last book sold 50,000 copies might expect to get an advance of Rs 2 lacs - 20 lacs on his next book. At 20 lacs that's a net fee of Rs 40 a book.

If you publish 50,000 copies of an e-book today, you can make a lot more money than that. That's because a publisher has to share the money your book made with a big staff and fees to 99 other less successful writers. So if you cut out the traditional publisher that much more money goes directly to you.

As an e-book publisher, you get to keep between 50% and 75% of the cover price. So your net compensation for the same 50,000 books would be between 75 lacs and a crore! Of course, it's not realistic to expect that you will publish 50,000 copies. Take a look at the following schedule to see how much you can make:

10,000 copies approx Rs 10- 15 lacs 5,000 copies approx Rs 6- 7.5 lacs 4,000 copies approx Rs 5- 6.5 lacs 3,000 copies approx Rs 4- 5.5 lacs 2,000 copies approx Rs 3- 4 lacs 1,000 copies approx Rs 2-3 lacs

Even if you sold only 500 copies, you'd still make between Rs 75,000- 1 lac.

That's not too shabby-if you like the idea of writing and publishing e-books.

The ABCs of Book Writing

Let's talk about what it takes to write a book. First, a few questions that may come to mind:

Question: Do you need a degree in English and training to write a good book? Answer: No.

Both Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi, best-selling Indian authors, had backgrounds in the banking sector before they became full-time writers.

Question: It's not easy to write a book. Some people take 10 years to write a single novel. Is it realistic to expect to be able to write at least one book per year? Answer: Yes.

Most authors are not only writing a book a year, but they are also writing in addition to their full-time jobs. It's only when their writing careers take off and become lucrative enough, do they quit their full-time jobs.

Bob Bly, another author friend of mine, has published more than 60 books in the last 20 years. That is an average of three books per year. Before the Internet, his books were long-250-350 pages. But he had a formula that allowed him to write them part time, while he earned a living as a copywriter and marketing consultant.

Right now, I'm working on 12 books simultaneously, and writing books is very much a part-time gig for me.

One of the benefits of e-books is that the public's expectations of them are different. They don't have to be thick and glossy anymore to be considered valuable. An author can sell an 80-page book that provides good-quality information for Rs 750-1500 through the Internet. Refunds for books of this price are usually very low - 2- 4% is the range.

Question: What does it take to write a successful e-book? Answer: The first and most important requirement is knowledge. You have to know the subject about which you are writing. Usually, this means writing about something you've been doing for many years. It could be marketing. It could be cooking. It could be about Indian history.

Brian Tracy puts it this way: “You must know 10 words for every word you write, or the reader will know that you are talking off the top of your head.”

For instance, if you want to write on success, you must already be successful. If you write on money, you must already be rich.

A Formula for Writing E-books

Later on in this essay, I'll recommend the best program we've found that will teach you the nuts and bolts of writing and publishing e-books. But before I direct you to it, I want to give you some of my own ideas-things I've discovered about writing well and quickly since I wrote and published my first book, Information Peking (Macmillan), about 30 years ago.

Begin With a Tipping-Point Idea

Best-selling non-fiction books usually have, at their core, one really good and interesting idea. This should be about an issue people are already thinking about. It should present a solution that feels different but right. In other words, it should be 80% expected and 20% surprising.

To find that “tipping-point” idea, you must do a lot of current reading. Read the best-selling authors and journalists in the field. Find out what they are writing about. Also read the reviews of these books, taking note of praise and criticism. Read through chat sites. Get involved yourself, if you like.

Your objective is to find out what the current conversation is about. What are people worried or excited about? What questions are people asking? What are the worries keeping them up at night?

This research will get you close. By the time you've spent 40 or 50 hours working like this, you'll have dozens of ideas that you'll want to write about. And if you've taken good notes, you'll have hundreds of interesting facts and phrases that you will be able to use in writing your book.

Now you must identify the single, captivating idea on which you will base your book. It should be new in some way. You can't merely copy someone else's idea. You need a twist that makes your idea just a little bit smarter or more useful or more memorable.

I have written about this process of finding the “big idea” several times. If you would like to read more about it, you can go here.

Once you have identified your tipping point idea, you need to write it out as a 2,000-5,000-word essay. Begin with the main idea. State it simply and directly. Then follow that with three to five very good facts that prove it. Put your best facts first. Then list the most likely arguments someone might make to refute your idea. One by one, refute them. Then restate your big idea.

That one essay will give you a very good skeleton for your book. You can use it to structure the following chapters. The first chapter explains the big idea. The second chapter provides the first and most impressive proof. Subsequent chapters advance other proofs. And then you have a chapter for the refutation of each major objection. And, finally, one last chapter that restates your case.

Later, you can use the original essay you wrote to sell the book. You can find websites that will take it as editorial material and provide their readers with a link to a landing page where you will sell the book.

Essays on Writing

I could write 100 more pages on writing. But I know you don't have the time right now to read them. Instead, please check out these essays on the subject. When you have time, read them. How to Write About Big Ideas How to Come Up with a Big Idea How to Come Up with a Big Idea Part 2

But you can also use that same chapter as an introduction. Many best-selling books use this formula. It seems to work.

Each of the chapters should, if possible, begin with a story. There is no better way to get your reader involved in your idea and open to accepting it than by telling him a story. So when you are doing your research, be sure to jot down or record any illustrative stories you hear. These are golden.

Don't worry about grammar, spelling, and punctuation. There are word-processing programs that can help you with those technicalities. And don't worry about style, either, at this point. You don't need to be a wordsmith to write effectively.

The main things you need are good ideas. If you have them, you don't need to express them in fanciful terms. Simplicity is best. There happens to be a computer program that will help you express your ideas simply. It is called the Flesch-Kincaid (FK) index.

It is a way to measure the readability of your sentences. Your goal is to get an FK score of 8 or less. You will find this difficult if your ideas themselves are not clear. Rewriting your sentences so they achieve an FK score of 8 or below will help you become a master at clarity.

The FK index is easy to use. And it is widely available. (Almost every word processing program can run this index for you automatically.) If you want to learn more about this, go here.

Every chapter of your book should focus on one main idea. You should state that idea early in the chapter and then prove it by giving your reader at least three-and, preferably, a half-dozen-examples that illustrate your point.

Some authors spend years writing a single book. But if your goal is to create extra income for yourself, you don't need to spend that much time. In the beginning-when you are not used to writing-you will spend lots of time learning. But as soon as you get the knack, you should be able to write a book every six months.

However good you become at writing, you will always benefit by having a good editor look at your copy. Finding good editors is not as difficult as it may seem. There are hundreds of online magazines and websites on writing that advertise editors. They don't charge all that much. When you find someone who “gets” your ideas, it will make everything so much easier.

I would also recommend three books I've written on the skill of writing advertising copy. They are Great Leads, The Architecture of Persuasion, and Copy Logic! for all three These books focus on writing advertising copy. But the principles involved are exactly the same as the principles involved in writing best-selling non-fiction writing.

How to Market Your Book

After you get started writing-but before you've finished your book-you should start to think about selling it.

Thanks to the Internet, there are dozens of ways to market and sell your books these days. Some are more efficient than others.

If your goal is to sell a ton of books, you should consider becoming a recognized expert and a guru in your field.

This is much easier today than ever-again, thanks to the Internet. The way to do this is to gradually develop a list of people who might be happy to buy all of your books. You can do this by starting a blog in which your write about your topic on a regular basis.

You can write just 100 words per day. Or you can write 500. You can write criticism, book reviews, articles, random thoughts, whatever. Just stay on topic.

Then take a course on Internet marketing to build a list of readers. Since your content is free, it shouldn't be too difficult to build a list of hundreds and then thousands of readers. To subsidize that website, you can sell advertising or, better yet, sell little reports that you've written. Thousands-no, hundreds of thousands-of people are doing this right now all over the world.

Use Industry Expertise

There are a number of books and programs that should be helpful. Here is a selection you may wish to check out: How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit The Prolific Writing System: How you can become a successful prolific writer in any niche Writing Tips: 50 Writing Tips On How To Write Like A Pro Today - Make Writing Easy Writing E-books for Fun and Profit

This strategy won't happen in weeks, but it will build month by month while you are busy with the rest of your life. Then, before you know it, you will have a file of readers who see you as an expert on your subject matter. These people will prove to be very good buyers.

You can also extend your prospect list by making “affiliate deals” with other Internet publishers in the same industry. These deals are very common practice today. You give them the liberty to publish your blog entries, and they do the same for you. Then you each advertise to the other's lists.

As you develop a substantial file of readers, you can reach out to other publishers who have similarly sized files. If they are smart, they will be happy to agree to “cross promote” your files. You publish their essays to your files. And they do the same for you.

As the income starts flowing, you can build your list through pay-per-click (PPC) and search-engine optimization (SEO) marketing. There are dozens of good programs available on the Internet to teach you these strategies.

These are just a few of the most common ways to market your book on the Internet. But I want to tell about the most powerful way to market your e-book in conjunction with the strategies I just told you about.

The Kindle Revolution

So what is the best way to market your e-book? It's Amazon's Kindle platform.

The Kindle revolution has begun, and it's making many people wealthy. Kindle is Amazon's electronic/digital e-book reader. Amazon first introduced the Kindle in 2007. Fast- forward to 2011… Last year, there were more than 1 billion Kindle devices in the world. The market for them is growing at a blistering pace. E-book sales grew more than 117% in 2011 alone, and revenues topped $2 billion.

It's not just Kindles. Demand for devices like iPads, smartphones, or other tablets has soared. And people want to fill their mobile devices with content.

Last year, Amazon announced it sells more e-books on its Kindle device than it sells all other books combined (hard and soft cover).

Think about this for a minute. Amazon, the world's largest bookstore, sells more digital books than physical books! Think about the opportunity this presents for authors.

Once you finish writing your e-book, you can instantly access Amazon's millions of Kindle customers.

Amazon also has more than 200 million credit cards on file. When Amazon customers search for other products, Kindle e-books appear in the results right next to physical products. Amazon is desperate to become the dominant player in the digital publishing space. So right now, Amazon lets e-book publishers keep as much as 70% of profits from sales.

There's never been an easier and more lucrative time in history to publish and sell your own books.

So how can you get a piece of Amazon's Kindle platform?

The easiest way to get going is to create an account on createspace.com (Amazon). This site will allow you to download a Microsoft Word template that will make it easy to format your book, including creating a table of contents, index, and even designing a cover.

This will be a good first step to get you started. And you can then go to Amazon to market your book. You pick a price - I recommend $2.99-9.99 (Rs 15-600) if you want to make a good royalty - and Amazon will help you through the rest of the process.

After Amazon formats the book, you will get a “page proof,” which will allow you to see how the book will look in printed form. If you have changes, you can make them. After it's as you like it, all you have to do is push a button and then, within a few days, Amazon will publish your book!

Putting your book on Amazon will start the sales process, but you shouldn't expect to make many sales simply by having your book listed. You have to get people to look for your book. There are many, many ways to do that.

One idea I've already mentioned. Take the essay you've written-the one that outlines your “big idea”-and shop it around to websites that publish information relevant to your idea.

Offer free rights to “one-time” use of your essay as long as they link to your Amazon listing. If you are good at doing this, you could easily generate dozens, even hundreds, of sales every time your essay is published.

You should also send out news about your new book to friends, family members, and colleagues. Ask them not only to purchase the book but also to post reviews of it on Amazon. Good reviews (and most of them will be good) will boost sales.

You can send copies of your books to book reviewers and critics. Be sure to send a short but strong letter explaining why your book would be of interest to their readers.

There are hundreds of Internet radio shows that cover all sorts of topics. These shows are always hungry for “content.” Those that pertain to your topic should be very willing to give you an interview.

Now, if this process sounds overwhelming, don't worry. Our research team has uncovered the best program on the market to teach you everything you need to know about using Amazon's Kindle platform to sell your e-books.

It's Ryan Deiss' Number One Book System. Ryan and his team will get you selling 100 e-books per day. Even if you don't meet that goal, here are some reasons why checking out his program is worthwhile…

The Number One Book System program takes you step by step through what you need to know about writing your book, publishing it through Amazon, and advertising it effectively.

It's the difference between wandering your way into a forest at night with nothing other than the clothes on your back or having a flashlight, map, GPS, food, and some water.

You'll learn how to select the perfect markets on Amazon, how to create content, how to design a best-selling cover, how to format your work to fit Kindle, and how to list your books for optimum search.

You will have the guidance of an expert. For example, Ryan Deiss wrote an e-book titled How to Purify Water. He got 11,981 free downloads in just five days… from an obscure and boring topic on filtering water.

With Ryan's program, you can also network with other self-publishers. Everyone who has bought this program can contact each other through the club's forum. You can ask these people to edit, revise, download, and review your e-book.

Thousands of people have used this program.

Writer Scott S said he “can't recall the last time I was able to say that I got WAY, WAY more value than I paid for. Absolute genius.”

We wanted to be sure this program worked, so we tested Deiss' method ourselves. We put together a short e- book of my essays and posted it, as the Number One Book System recommends.

In the first three weeks, with minimal effort and no paid advertising, we received 976 downloads. Now, most of these were free downloads as part of the recommended initial promotion period that Amazon offers. But we became one of the top 10 best sellers out of all of the books on Business and Investment on Amazon.

We'll keep you updated on the progress of our e-book as we move to the next stage of generating sales.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the Number One Book System program here.

What if You Can't Write?

You don't have to give up your dream of publishing a book if you simply can't write. There are several ways to make money by publishing books without actually writing them.

One clever way is to republish public domain books. Public domain books are those for which the copyrights have expired. You may not think that books that are no longer copyrighted could be sold, but you'd be wrong. I happen to work with a very clever publisher who is doing that right now. (Visit Laissez Faire Books for more information.)

Another thing you can do is license books that other writers have written. I have done this recently with several writers I admire whose books haven't yet been published. I created a book publishing company called Cap & Bells Press. We have published one book already (a book of my poetry) and are in the process of publishing a half-dozen more.

If you have a good idea for a book but don't want to write it yourself, you can commission an author to write it. There are many websites where you can find such authors. (Elance.com is one, freelancer.in is another) Most of these people work cheap. And some of them are very good.

Again, these are just a few of the many strategies you can use to realize your dream. If you start now, in less than a year, you can be a published writer or a publisher of writers and start enjoying the cash flow that comes from Internet publishing.

Best, Mark

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Editor's Note:

There are several publishing houses in India, both small and big, where you can explore publishing options. Many offer self-publishing at various prices - from as little as a few thousand rupees to a few lacs - depending on the services included i.e. editing, marketing, cover design, etc.

Although e-book publishing requires no investment - since no printing costs are involved - successful authors recommend that a little investment should be made to make your book professional - editing/cover design/typesetting… a minimum of Rs. 15,000 can get you started.

When author Mainak Dhar self-published 'Zombiestan' on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing in 2011, he paid for an editor and cover design. He also purchased an ISBN number, because it gave the exercise 'a professional touch'. He now has over 10 books on the Amazon bestseller list.

But all authors will tell you to be patient. Books take time and effort to start selling, and unless you are a stroke of genius and incredibly lucky you will not become a millionaire. But you will make that extra income and will get the coveted label of published author!

Some self-publishing options in India:

http://cinnamonteal.in/

http://pothi.com/pothi/writer

http://www.zorbapublishers.com/newsite/index.php/self-publishing

http://www.partridgepublishing.com/India/

https://notionpress.com/guided-publishing

https://kdp.amazon.com/

http://www.power-publishers.com/

https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords (Flipkart partner).

http://www.self-publish.in/#books

Editor's Note:

Several of the Extra Income and business ideas we share with you through Wealth Builders Club India include providing services, or selling products online. We truly believe that word of mouth is the strongest and most effective way to get clients and begin making a reputation for yourself. However, we also strongly believe that a Social Media presence can boost your sales, establish your reputation, build brand awareness, and make it easier for customers to find and contact you.

Most young entrepreneurs are optimising social media to build visibility for their brands with low investments of time and money. We realised that you could use some of these tips too, (if you're not already doing so) to promote your Extra Income venture or business idea.

Ritika Bajaj, our entrepreneurial editor has spades of experience in this area, so she created this concise report especially for you. It gives an overview of the various social media platforms available and how to manage them effectively in your journey into entrepreneurship. It is easy. Anyone can do it. And anyone who hopes to sell anything online definitely should.

So go through the guide, get online, and please write to us with any questions or clarifications.

Thanks, Anisa Virji

Managing Editor, WBC India

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From Social to Successful (S2S) Designing your Online Personality

From tips on content creation to how frequently you should change updates, this reports gives you a comprehensive account on the best way to create and use an online presence for your brand and business. By following this guide you can create an online presence for yourself within minutes.

This guide will address:

Why to use Social Media Key Benefits How to Get Started Creating Good Content Tracking Your Metrics Blogging

At the end you will also find a handy guide to the most popular social media networking sites and how to use them.

Why Use Social Media

Social media works on the basic premise of networking - the common belief that “who you know” often supersedes “what you know”. Where earlier people used offline avenues like parties, events, meetings and business conferences to talk about their professional life and businesses, today people use the internet to connect with others and do exactly the same thing.

A social network comprises of friends, friends of friends, family, colleagues, work associates and more. As an entrepreneur and a professional, these platforms work very well to tell people about the latest events in your life and business.

The biggest marketing advantage of an online presence is that it increases the reach of a product or service much faster and enables direct conversations with the end consumer. The response to any new product or service is immediate and if followers like what you're doing, they will set off a chain of “likes”.

You may get followed by thousands on Twitter, your Facebook likes could go into several hundreds and your Linkedin connections will read your expert views on a particular topic.

In fact, Pepsi doubled its Facebook fans from 8,181,075 to 17,426,884 in a year! According to Noel Gill, in his article Social Media Facts of 2013 - Facebook, Twitter & Youtube Infographs George Smith, Pepsi's social strategistsaid: “It's nice to be able to have that direct conversation with people, and not have to rely on a specific media channel to push this, or buy TV constantly to push that message”.

For absolutely free, or very cheap, you can use the same marketing strategy that Pepsi is using. Social media brings the world to your brand, instead of you having to put your brand out there in newspapers and hoardings.

Key Benefits of Social Networking

Communicate better with customers: Social Media platforms are direct mediums from which you can have conversations with your end users. You can also use them to socialise and build a network.

Save costs on marketing and advertising: Unlike traditional advertising you don't need to book ad space in dailies or magazines and pay heavily for them. You can start a business page or your own personal blog for free and launch your products and services at no cost.

Position brand and services: Social media becomes an easy way to position your brand and all that it stands for. From your brand logo to the brand values, you will be surprised by the brand recall an online presence will create.

Increase web traffic: By monitoring your social media activities through various metrics and analytics, you can gauge exactly how much traffic is coming to your website and how many of these are translating into sales.

Build search engine rankings: The more useful and compelling content you put on the internet, the more you will be searched. Intelligent insights, manufacturing tips, your own views on issues go a long way in bringing up your name on various search engines. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO helps you tag keywords that will come up in relevant searches.

Experience customer satisfaction in real time: Social media is a chance to get instant feedback from your customers. Any query can be replied to instantly and you can build a more personalised relationship with your consumers. They will now be talking to the face behind the brand rather than customer care.

Generate leads for potential business: By using some paid services on Google and Facebook, you can actually generate more targeted leads. A unique search facility identifies consumer behaviour and directs them to your site. You can also post your online ads and listings on other relevant sites. For example: You could cross-promote chocolates on a gifting site.

Gain a competitive advantage: It may be a clutter out there on cyber space, but not having a presence means you're as good as non-existent. Creating a robust online personality will not only give more visibility, but may also eventually enhance your profits. Just being there and having a conversation with consumers, means having an edge over those who are not online.

How to Get Started

Choose your platform: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google+ seem to be the most popular with users. All these give you an opportunity to post updates, photos and links to videos or other sites. If you think your product or business works best with pictures, sign up on Pinterest or Instagram, and to show live videos have a presence on YouTube or Vine. If you are a research house or corporate with loads of PPTs and surveys, use Slide Share.

Create a page: The first part of creating an online personality is by creating a visually WOW page. Be it your personal Facebook page, your personal blog or even Twitter, what matters is how creatively you spice it up with design and content. The key to doing this is by keeping it as personalised as possible. Let it speak of you and your brand. Put up your best pictures, give enough content for people to know you and your brand better, and keep updating and retaining the novelty.

Build a fan base: Your next step is to grow your contacts and fan base. Add friends of friends, colleagues, invite customers to like your page through online promotions like e-mail blasts and put your social links on every collateral. From visiting cards to hoardings, companies are splashing their social media presence through every avenue they get. On a business page on Facebook, you can even promote your page by paying for the number of fans you want to add onto your page.

Create interesting content: Each social media platform has different dos and don'ts for its content, which we will explore further below in the report. Content for each has to be tailored differently. But the general rule is to be original, be positive, give enough information, and keep the tone interactive.

Check and compare with competitors: It's a good idea to keep track of what other brands like yours are doing to increase their social media presence. You may get some interesting ideas and learnings just by observing their interactions with their own followings. Many brands use interactive surveys, games and regularly post on different general purpose issues just to keep the conversation alive.

Use analytics to monitor the buzz: And to track just exactly how much impact your social media presence is having on your brand and its sales, use one of the many monitoring software available and create a dashboard that is customised for you. Such analytical software helps you track everything from site visits, to demographics, to the geography that is responding to your content. So you know exactly who your customers are and where they are. You can also learn what kind of content seems to be getting the maximum responses and even the number of conversions your site has had. By conversions it is meant the number of people who actually bought products or made enquiries through any of your social platforms.

Social Media Stats

Social Media Stats for 2013 by Digital Buzz Blog states that:

4.2 billion people access social media sites from their mobiles Use of social media has generated double the leads from other avenues like trade shows and traditional media and tele-marketing Women check out brands more than men on social media 23 percent plus marketers globally are investing in blogging and social media More than 42 percent of web users consult social media before making a purchase

Social Media Stats for India - 2014:

205 million Indian internet users 86 percent of Indian web users visit a social networking site 40 million check online reviews 57 million want brand related information 3900+ Indian advertisers ran online ad campaigns in September 2013 10 percent of India uses a smart phone Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are among the top 3 social networking sites

Creating Good Content

In an in-depth article titled 40 Social Media Marketing Benefit Related Tips, Heidi Cohen states how “To support loyal fans, you need to be present and engaged on social media. This means regular interactions.” The best way to ensure you have regular interactions with your followers is by providing them with regular and informative content. Keep all conversations open and encourage more users and followers to talk to you openly and positively. Following are some pointers to help you in developing your own unique content:

Give clear information: From details on you, your company, your products and contact details, to updates on new services, provide any information that you think will benefit your followers and consumers.

Maintain brevity: Keep status updates as crisp and relevant as possible. A post on something topical, a line on your thought for the day, a picture that says it better, all help to keep the audience engaged without putting in too much effort.

Start a dialogue: The idea of social media is to have a conversation. Post questions, invite people to comment on your updates or throw in the odd survey that helps you get more information on your consumers. Ask them to share their own views on the product and even post their own pictures. And remember to keep the tone casual, chatty and positive.

Keep sharing: Sharing of information is in the DNA of social media. Share your own views, links to other important and interesting articles and websites, repost videos or pictures that you like, or just about anything you feel will help your followers. And please don't hesitate to share other people's work, because paying it forward will come back to you full circle on social media. As you promote and 'like' other people's work, they will like yours too.

Make it visual: Colourful and bright pictures, short videos and presentations all help in putting forth your messages across in a more creative and captivating way. Research has shown that including a visual element increases the viewership to more than 90 percent. Check out an interesting infographic that states the same:

Keep a schedule for updates: If you want to time your updates to catch that peak traffic hour when most people are surfing on their phones or during lunch hour when office goers browse Facebook, be sure to schedule your updates correctly. Facebook, for example, has a scheduling calendar which will post for you even when you're busy. All you need to do is key in your update and choose the time and day to post it. This can be done for the whole week as well. So your weekends can actually be used constructively to plan your social media calendar.

Tracking Your Metrics

➢ Manage various social media

➢ Track social demographics

➢ Consolidate data on one dashboard

➢ Create content through collaboration

➢ Enable different users access for different reasons

➢ Provide reporting and analytical tools

➢ Determine suitable timings for publishing content

The most popular software are: Google Analytics, Sprout Social, HootSuite, Sendible and Cyfe Dashboard. Each of these have their own unique features and can manage a host of metrics. More details on how each software works can be found in an interesting blog by Dan Virgillito: 5 Social Media Dashboard Benefits to Help Marketers

Catch the Blogging Bug

Why Blog: Blogs are being used extensively by most individuals and companies to talk about who they are and what they do. They are personalised pages that are not websites but still give you a glimpse of the culture and ethos of a person, brand or organisation. They are platforms that enable individuals to jot down their own stories and experiences without looking for any external publisher. They sometimes also act as portfolios for your writing and professional knowledge. You can create your own blogging page on any of the sites mentioned below or you could blog via other social media platforms like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Google+.

Info: According to statistics, 6.7+ million blog through blogging sites while 12+ million blog through social networking sites. More than 77 percent of internet users read blogs and 23 percent of internet time is spent reading blogs. Some B2B marketers generated 67 percent more leads after using blogs effectively.

Content: Blogs are typically short informative and personalised articles that capture an expert view on any topic. The trick here is to be authentic, give out interesting statistics, ideas and research but to always have that touch of creativity and 'you-ness' in it. Be sure to tag keywords and add categories, so they get captured in Google searches. Add interesting pictures, links to videos or infographics to make it interesting for the reader. Keep the design and content of your page vibrant and easy-to-read. Get yourself noticed and heard!

Top 15 blogging sites: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Svbtle, Quora, Postach.io, Google+, Facebook Notes, SETT, Ghost, Squarespace, Typepad, Posthaven, Linkedin Influencers, The fallen heroes

WBCI's Handy Guide to the most popular social networking sites (in order of importance) and how to use them

FACEBOOK

Info: According to a recent survey, India alone has over 100 million Facebook users. The world at large has 1.28 billion monthly active users and the count is only growing. More than 2.5 billion pieces of content are shared by a user in a single day source:. And it is one of the best ways to dialogue and communicate with customers without being in their face. Every major or minor business now has a Facebook page.

Content: After you create a profile start posting updates. Simple topical updates of 2-3 lines, YouTube links, pictures, surveys and event announcements can engage consumers on Facebook. Make sure your information is authentic and stirs up conversations. Ask questions, request participation, create a call to action in some way or simply let people share their own views on your page. Because it is picture-heavy you can display your product - whatever it may be.

Frequency: Statistics show that 23 percent of Facebook users log in at least five times a day. Thus you can safely update content between 1-5 times a day.

LINKEDIN

Info: 300 million+ total users. 18 million Indian users. More than 2 users sign up every second. A majority are graduates and post graduates and in the age group of 35+ years. It is largely a business-centric site, with over 1.5 million professional groups.

Content: It's a place to put up your complete profile/resume. You can get endorsements from all those you've worked with and state exactly what you did at each job. People are recruited through Linkedin and the more professional your content is, the better. You can participate in discussion groups on topics of your expertise and also have a company page to promote your services and HR requirements.

Frequency: Keep your profile as updated as possible. Put up occasional and relevant bits of professional advice. Feel free to blog or take part on group discussions.

Google+

Info: 1.6 billion+ total users. 22 million users in India alone. The average users spends 7 minutes a month on Google+. It has a majority of adult users. Brands have had positive conversations with their users, at least 43 percent of the times. It provides an opportunity to create circles of users under different categories. A platform that is growing everyday with many brands collecting huge numbers of active followers. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi use Google+ a lot.

Content: Topical comments, interesting quotes, pictures and videos can be updated here. Animated GIF files make for interesting viewership on Google+

Frequency: Most Google+ users log in atleast once a week. With such a statistic, updating atleast 2-3 times a week should suffice. But if you have more content, feel free to decide what works best for you.

TWITTER

Info: Twitter has 255 million monthly active users, 1 billion+ total users, and 33 million Indian users. 500 million tweets are sent per day.

Content: Most of Twitter followers look for content that makes a statement. Followers follow you for what you say and who you are. Celebrities, authors, media gurus, artistes and other influential leaders have followings that go into hundreds of thousands just by virtue of who they are. Tweets are short statements that communicate a point. To make your tweet popular, write “Please RT” at the end of it. Include links to articles in your tweets to get retweeted. Also use hashtags (#) before important words to be found easily.

Frequency: 46 percent users tweet at least once a day. But if you are a company and one with a lot of information to share, a good number is 30-50 tweets per day.

Pinterest

Info: 15 million users in India. It's a site that is all about discovery and largely covers areas that are of interest to women like décor, fashion, babies, weddings and recipes. Women are the majority of fans here forming 69 percent of the users. Food forms the top category of pins and repins. American brand Nordstrom has the largest following on Pinterest.

Content: Bright and interesting images can be uploaded into the different categories. You can even re-pin images that you find interesting.

Frequency: Upload as many images as you like and simply repin if you think that's easier.

YouTube

Info: It has more than 1 billion users. 100 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded on the site every minute. 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every day. 40 percent of the traffic comes from mobile phones.

Content: Short or long videos created on various topics, snippets from old and new movies of all genres, music videos, TV shows, just about anything you need to see a video on. Create your own home video on kids, recipes, expert advice, learning tips, subject knowledge and share them with the world. Embed Embed these video links in articles, add these video and the s after article, blogs and presentations and capture your audience's attention.

Frequency: Limitless amount of content can be uploaded here.

Instagram

Info: Instagram is all about sharing photos and now 15 second videos. More than 16 billion pictures have already been uploaded onto this site. An average user posts atleast 40 photos. It is the favourite social network for site among 23 percent of the youth. Every second almost 8000 pictures are being liked on Instagram. MTV has the largest brand following on Instagram.

Content: Keep the content youthful and trendy. Post funky pictures, short 15-second videos. Add updates with hashtags on keywords.

Frequency: Upload as frequently as you like.

So Get Online Now

So now that you have so many tips to help you build your social media presence, join the social media bandwagon soon. Brainstorm on all the innovative ways you can display and talk about your product and services on these multiple and far-reaching platforms. Devote some time from your busy schedule to understand the workings of these social sharing sites better.

Remember that the results of social media marketing take some time. You will start seeing gains within minutes - likes, friends, recognition, retweets… But keep at it and over time you will build a client base, reputation, and a trusted brand. If you don't have millions to spend on print advertising, social media is your answer. Although there have been some debates in the advertising industry about the benefits of this, a social presence is important - an avenue of marketing that won't go away and cannot be ignored. Like it or unlike it, you better get on it!

Resources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/03/12/the-hidden-benefits-of-social-media-marketing-why-your-strategy-may-be-working-better-than-you-think/

http://revmediamarketing.com/five-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/

http://heidicohen.com/social-media-marketing-benefits/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-dashboard/

http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-using-social-media

http://money.howstuffworks.com/5-ways-social-networking-can-help-your-career.htm#page=0

http://adsolutions.yp.com/small-business-marketing-center/small-business-marketing-articles/8-benefits-of-social-media-for-small-business

http://www.pamorama.net/2013/06/30/the-top-benefits-of-social-media-marketing-infographic/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/03/12/the-hidden-benefits-of-social-media-marketing-why-your-strategy-may-be-working-better-than-you-think/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/top-benefits-social-media-marketing-infographic

http://startengaging.com/top-10-benefits-of-using-social-media-to-grow-your-business/

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/education/books/the-marketers-guide-to-slideshare/

http://www.slideshare.net/iibea/digital-statistics-2014-india

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-social-media-stats-2013/

http://soshable.com/5-quick-social-media-stats/

http://www.socialdon.com/blog/social-media-facts-of-2013/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-dashboard/

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-statistics-2014_b57746

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http://penworth.com/marketing-tip/cool-infographic-social-media-stats/

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/08/16/best-blogging-services/

Being a doctor is widely viewed as the ultimate career. It promises personal satisfaction, prestige, and income.

But reality is different.

Becoming a doctor is enormously difficult and expensive. You spend years studying like a fiend in college. Then again in medical school, followed by three or four more years as an intern.

After all of that, the actual experience of being a doctor is much less satisfying than it used to be (according to studies). And less remunerative.

It may surprise you to know that most doctors earn, on average, less than $135,000 per year. In India that number is significantly lower at about Rs 10 lacs per year. Some specialists, such as heart surgeons, can earn several times that. But unless the doctor becomes a businessperson, running his own medical practice, the chances of earning more than half-a-million dollars per year are slim.

And there are significant expenses that go along with running a business.

On top of that, the hours are long and stressful. In India,the average general practitioner works 48+ hours per week, and sometimes without breaks. In

other words, being a doctor today is not what it's cracked up to be.

A Young Woman Who Found out the Hard Way

Thanks again for the wonderful work you all have been providing. - Club member NG Dr. Lissa Rankin discovered this the hard way-through experience.

At first, Dr. Rankin was seeing 25 patients per day. Eventually, she was seeing 40 patients per day. That meant five patients per hour-assuming a nine-hour workday (with an hour for lunch). And it gave her only 12 minutes per patient.

In fact, because of paperwork, the time she was actually able to spend with each patient was closer to five minutes.

Lissa was frustrated. Plus, her partners were pressuring her to work even more. Their reimbursements were shrinking, while their overhead and malpractice insurance costs were skyrocketing. And there was no solution in sight.

In 2007, Lissa decided to leave her practice. It wasn't an easy decision. Breaking her contract cost Lissa her retirement savings. She also lost her house.

“I couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't fair to my patients or me. I was devastated,” she said.

For several years, she made ends meet by selling her artwork and taking on odd jobs. But she never lost her interest in medicine- especially women's health issues. This led her to start a blog: owningpink.com.

A blog is a great way to turn your passions or expertise into a reliable, continuous income stream. Done right, you can easily earn $5,000 per month or more.

From Doctoring to Riches

Lissa's experience as a doctor gave her a unique perspective. And her blog soon gained traction. By 2011, it had 30 contributors. Last year, she began offering coaching courses. So far, this has given her an income of more than $300,000, with much more to come. She also signed a six-figure deal for a book, Mind Over Medicine, which is coming out this summer.

Could this type of income opportunity be right for you? That's what we will explore in this edition of the Extra Income Project.

What Is a Blog, Anyway?

“Blog” is a portmanteau word-a combination of “Web” and “log.” It is an online journal of thoughts and opinions on a particular subject. Usually, a blog consists of a series of “posts,” with the latest one appearing first.

If you write about a topic that has broad appeal, you might have a large following. If you choose a topic that is of interest to a limited audience, you might have a smaller but more avid following.

In recent years, professionally edited “multiauthor” blogs have developed. But most are still the work of individuals covering single subjects. They write about everything from business and politics to health and fashion.

Many people have made fortunes with their blogs. A few examples:

Arianna Huffington founded The Huffington Post, a news blog, in May 2005. AOL acquired it in 2011 for $315 million. The Huffington Post rakes in an estimated $2.3 million per month in pay-per-click revenue alone.

Pete Cashmore was a teenager when he started Mashable.com in 2005. Thanks to this wildly successful news blog, he is now worth approximately $95 million.

Kevin P. Ryan launched Business Insider in 2009. Today, this trusted source for business news has more than 5 million visitors daily.

With Lifehacker.com, Gina Marie Trapani turned simple tips to make life easier into an advertising cash machine. She is worth an estimated $109 million.

And right here in India, from Top 10 Earning Blogs and Bloggers In India:

Amit Agarwal, an IITian in Computer Science with career experiences in Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, blogs about Science and Technology in his blog Digital Inspiration and makes about Rs. 600,000 p/m. He is one of India's foremost professional bloggers.

Jaspal Singh founded his blog Savedelete.com in 2004 and writes about technology. A mechanical engineer by qualification, Jaspal is now a professional blogger and makes approx. Rs. 240,000 p/m

DNA Editor-in-Chief Sandip Dedhia along with seven other and founded blogsDNA.com. This blog gives technology gyan and info on the latest gizmos. His blog earns approx. Rs 200,000 and is among the top 3 blogs in India in terms of revenue.

Harsh Agrawal became a full time professional blogger in Sep 2008 after quitting his job in the IT firm Convergys. His blog is a treasure for information on blogging, WordPress, SEO and technology. Aptly titled ShoutMeLoud, it makes approx. Rs 180,000 p/m and is among the top 5 blogs in India to make the highest earnings.

And these figures are from 2012. Their incomes and blogs ever since have only been growing, giving inspiration to a whole new generation of bloggers. Most blogs don't bring in anywhere near this kind of money. But there are many, many blogs out there that are making people hundreds and thousands of extra dollars each month.

My Own Story

I spent 10 years writing essays on business under the pen name of Michael Masterson. They were posted on a website called Early to Rise (ETR).

I never thought of this as a blog because my essays were automatically sent to my readers via email. With most blogs, the reader has to go to the actual blog site to get the information. In fact, the difference is only technical-a “push” versus a “pull” format.

ETR began as a hobby. Every few days, I'd write something about leadership or negotiating or what have you and email it to some people I knew who were interested in that sort of thing. They, in turn, would email it to people they knew.

I love the freedom to publish whatever I want on my blog. I can share any travel story… any photo… and not worry about an editor rejecting a story idea or a stock photo inspector rejecting a photo. I get to express who I am to the world and help people escape to fascinating destinations through the words and photos I share. - Beth Caton Within months, thousands of people were reading my essays. That's when Bill Bonner, a friend and business partner, suggested that this could be a moneymaker. We came up with the name Early to Rise and started promoting it through search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click marketing.

It took off like a rocket. And before we knew it, ETR had 900,000-plus subscribers and was generating more than $10 million per year in revenues.

In the beginning, I wrote all of the essays, most of them about business. But as our readership increased, I started to invite experts on other subjects to write for us. This increased the value of ETR for our subscribers. It also reduced my workload.

Eventually, I felt that I had run out of things to write about. So Bill and I turned ETR over to two of our readers-the young entrepreneurs who are publishing it now.

I met quite a few bloggers during the years that I worked on Early to Rise. Most of them weren't making much money, and it was easy to see why. They knew next to nothing about how to write and market an informational website. They were making lots of very basic mistakes.

Meanwhile, people like Lissa Rankin have been earning substantial incomes from their blogs. As a result, American Writers & Artists Inc. (AWAI) launched a program to teach its members how to do it.

I'll tell you more about AWAI's program in a moment. First, let's examine the benefits of blogging.

The Benefits of Blogging

The benefits of blogging for income are considerable. You can work from home. You can work as much or as little as you want. You can write about subjects that interest you. You are your own boss. And you can make a good deal of money.

Needless to say, blogging is a great way to make money without the constraints of a 9-5 workday.

Since this is an Extra Income Project essay, I want to give you some general suggestions on how you can establish your own part-time blogging business.

I spoke to Lori Allen, the director of AWAI's travel division, which operates the blogging program. She gave me lots of information on how it works. She also told me about lots of people who became successful bloggers by taking advantage of the program. For example:

Steven and his wife Dana took a trip to Ecuador in search of a retirement paradise. They found it in Puerto Cayo, “a quiet fishing village practically undiscovered by the rest of the world, where untouched Pacific beach stretches out for miles…”

They decided to build a home there, and Steven started a blog to share the details. To his surprise, there was a lot of interest. People wanted to hear more.

So he continued to use his blog to talk about his experiences in Ecuador. He's written about the beaches he's discovered… about the culture. He's even written about the bugs. (If you think finding a spider in the shower is scary-how about finding a scorpion? Yikes!)

Steven is simply writing about what his life is like in Ecuador. But his blog is earning him and Dana an income that's helping to fund their retirement.

I'll tell you more about people who have turned blogging into an income opportunity in a minute. But first, let's look at how this business works.

How Blogging As a Business Works

Think of a topic that interests you. Let's say you like coffee. So you simply start writing little bits and pieces about what you know about coffee.

I enjoy all of your articles about enjoying the good life. - Club member JY You could write about camping, picnicking, traveling abroad, selling a house, raising culturally aware children, or dealing with allergies. Just about anything.

A blog, as I said, is an online journal about a topic that interests you. To make money from a blog, you should have interesting ideas, strong opinions, and good judgment. If you do, your readers will be happy to pay you for additional information and advice. This could be in the form of books or special reports that you put together.

The most common way to make money from a blog is with advertising. (These are the little ads you see off to the side when you're browsing a website.) Say your topic is camping. A company that sells tents will pay you to advertise its products on your blog. The more readers you have, the more you can charge for your ad space.

If you do what I did with ETR and get your readers to automatically receive your posts via email, you'll make even more money from advertising. The reason for this is simple: By sending out your blogs, more people will read them. And that translates into more sales for your advertisers.

The Income Potential

Blogging is fun. But it's not “just” fun. It's also profitable… when you do it right. Successful part-time bloggers earn 20 to 50,000 or more every month. Full-time bloggers make in the lacs -enough to support themselves and their families.

For example:

- Rahul Bansal started DevilsWorkshop.org in 2006 to give information on technology, social networking, gadgets and internet related articles. He writes with two other bloggers, Aditya Kane and Sauravjit Singh and is making almost Rs 120,000 p/m - Nirmal started his blogging career in 2007 with NirmalTV.com. He is a Civil Engineer and Software Engineer but currently a blogger by profession earning over Rs 2 lac pm. His blogs effectively instruct newbie bloggers. - Neeti Mishra, a second year arts student and a professional blogger at 19, earns approximately Rs 20,000 per month. She clocks in about 28 to 30 hours per week for her blogging activities. - At the age of 18, Sushant Risodkar is a part time blogger making thousands of dollars from his blog SmartBloggerz. It's a great resource for those interested in making money online. - Harsh Agarwal, one of India's most popular professional bloggers, with not one but eight effective and earning blogging sites to his credits writes: “Hi all, I'm Harsh Agrawal a solopreneur and professional blogger. I blog at ShoutMeLoud.com, where I talk about various aspects of creating and managing blogs and I'll show you how to generate full-time income from it. I'm 26 years old and based in heart city of India - New Delhi.” Shout Me Loud alone makes almost 2 lac rupees a month.

Your First Step

If earning extra income by writing a blog is of interest to you, your first step is to learn as much as you can before you start. The perfect way to do this is through AWAI's program.

Additional Blogging Resources

There are other blogging resources you may wish to consider.

Books: How to Start a Blog That People Will Read

Blog, Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community

Start Your Own Blogging Business

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six­ Figure Income

Websites: WikiHow: How to Write a Famous Blog

Learn Blog Tips: One Stop Guide for Making A Full-Time Income Blogging

Shout Me Loud

Monetizing Indian Blogs I'm talking about Money­Making Travel Blogs: Your Step­by­Step Guide for Turning Adventures and Hobbies Into Income by Paula Pant.

While the program's title implies that it's only about travel blogs, the step-by-step guide applies to all kinds of topics.

As Lori Allen (director of AWAI's travel division) puts it, “Lots of people have blogs. Our program helps them create LUCRATIVE blogs about traveling or any other interests they want to blog about. These are the techniques bloggers are using to earn upward of $10,000 per month.”

Paula Pant isn't just the author of the program. She's successfully implemented her own step-by-step advice with her blog (affordanything.com).

She started the blog for her own enjoyment, as a hobby, because she wanted to share her travel experiences with others. After a year, she was earning a full-time income.

Money­Making Travel Blogs: Your Step­by­Step Guide for Turning Adventures and Hobbies Into Income consists of:

A step-by-step guide that you can read on your computer or print out A series of online videos that hold your hand through the whole process Advice on what your blog might look like… what to write about… how to promote your blog… and how to pursue moneymaking opportunities And there's bonus material on how to start a blog in 19 minutes or less.

You can watch all of the videos in a single afternoon and be up and running in a week. After that, you'll use the program as support-for ideas to keep the blog going, grow your readership, and ratchet up your income.

The program includes everything you need to know to launch-and operate-a successful, profitable blog.

What Are You Waiting For?

As a member of the Wealth Builders Club India, you already know the importance of having extra streams of income. That's what allows you to plan for the future and live a financially secure life.

And blogging is ideal as one of those extra income streams. It won't even feel like work. You can write about something you love, work as much or as little as you want, and work from wherever you want.

I urge you to get started today.

With the help of AWAI, it will be easier than you think. As always, we don't make a dime for recommending AWAI's or anyone else's programs. In fact, we negotiated with AWAI to get the lowest pricing ever published on this program.

To learn more about Money­Making Travel Blogs: Your Step­by­Step Guide for Turning Adventures and Hobbies Into Income, just click here.

Best, Mark

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Editor's Note:

The number of bloggers making money in India is increasing every day. And the potential is huge right now. India needs Indian bloggers blogging in Indian-styles about Indian things. Right now, we often have to turn to international blogs - but why should we? Our lives are distinct and so should our online experience be. So whatever your expertise, ideas, thoughts… take the time to put them online… and you will have an extra tap to fill your income bucket.

By the way, some of the Indian blogs in the article (under additional resources) are dedicated to teaching us how to make money from blogs, and are a wealth of information. So learn all you can there. And let me know what you think. As usual, we will create in-house reports to address any information you require on the subject.

To your successful blog,

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club.

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In your wealth-building journey, whatever business venture you decide to embark on, whether online or offline, an online presence and website are crucial to your success. All businesses - whether B2B, B2C, NGO's, local or global need to get online, and get found to reach customers in this age of 'Google it'.

When you build a website, your first question should be:

'How do I get listed on a Google search?'

This report is the answer to that question.

Not just getting listed, but getting on the first page of a Google search, or a search by any search engine is your main goal. A presence on the first page of a Google search is like a free ad for you every time someone searches for you or your product.

This report will show you what steps you need to create a holistic online marketing strategy, and to optimize your website for search engines, which drives traffics to your site, builds awareness of your brand, and ultimately brings in clients.

SEO, Search Engine Optimization

SEO, search engine optimization, is the process that makes your site understandable by search engine programs.

Google, which is about 70% of all Internet searches released a new Quality Rater's Handbook emphasizing the acronym E-A-T to be used for rating websites - “expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness”. If you can create a high quality website which is trustworthy and filled with expert and authoritative content you are sure to be ranked highly.

To make your website findable by search engines, and rank highly in the internet hierarchy, you need to optimize in these four ways.

Part 1: CREATE OFF-PAGE LINKS

The most important thing you can do is get other websites to link to your page (backlinks). This is easier said than done. Why would other websites want to link to you? Here are 5 ways to get links from other sites:

Write good content. Fill your website with entertaining, educational, or otherwise useful content. When people like it they will link to it.

Write free content for others, such as a guest blog, and link to your own website. This is good for both parties - they get content, you get links!

List your websites on free local directories. Some good ones are DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, Business.com, Yellow Pages and Best of the Web. They offer good quality backlinks and although some charge a fee they might be worth the investment. Here is a list of free directories.)

Link to other websites. Connecting with other bloggers and posters will create relationships - so when you link to their sites they will be likely to link back to you when the content is relevant.

PART 2: ON-PAGE KEYWORDS

Resource Guide A guide for beginners to learn Keyword research 10 Keyword placement techniques for higher ranking How to rank#1 in Google Search Putting keywords in certain places on the web page makes it easier for search engines to search. You can put them on headlines, sub-headlines, body content, image tags, and links. Here are 5 ways to optimize keyword use:

Pick one primary keyword for each page, and focus on optimizing that page for that word. If you use too many keywords on a page, it will lose its importance and credibility because search engines won't be able to categorize it properly.

Include primary keywords in headline and description. Search engines give more weight to these.

Include the keywords in your main content but make sure they are relevant with the rest of your content because Google is way too smart. If it sees that you have included keyword that have nothing to do with the content you will lose rank, or even get blocked from search engines.

Include keywords in the filename of images you use on the site (e.g. yourkeyword.jpg), or image descriptions because this helps with searching.

Include the keywords in the page URL. For example if a primary keyword for my post is happiness I make it appear in my URL, which is

Most websites give you easy options to enter and edit meta tags (i.e. keywords) without knowing anything about programming websites - through plug-ins that you can install easily.

This is what meta tags look like in HTML documents: Title: The title of the page is seen at the top of a web browser, and the main headline displayed in search engine results. Meta Description: A short description of the page. Meta name=“description” content=“Common Sense Living is a site that brings common sense wealth building and lifestyle ideas to readers.

And remember always write content naturally - if you try to stuff in keywords where they don't fit it will show - to people and to search engines. Spam is one thing both can recognize!

PART 3: ON-SITE LINKING & SITEMAPS

Resource Guide How to submit Sitemap to Google Search How to submit sitemap to Bing search engine You should also link internally on your website. Link one page to another, and one blog post to others to send additional traffic to them. Interlinking will cause your readers to spend more time on your page increasing your rankings. The words you use should also be keywords - this will help Google connect your keywords as well. So if you are writing a post about SEO - link the word SEO to another post you may have referred to the same topic.

Sitemaps help search engines discover the content on your site, basically search engines send 'robots' that 'crawl' your website to understand the content, and sitemaps shows them the way. There are many websites that can create a sitemap for you. If you are using WordPress (more on that in the Blogging report WBC is creating fro you), you can use Google XML sitemap plugin to create sitemap for your new WordPress site.

PART 4: BRILLIANT CONTENT

This is the last but definitely not the least important aspect of SEO. Offer unique content because people need good content and will automatically come to you. If your content is valuable it will rank highly, for example if people go to your website and spend more time on it then Google will rate your website higher.

Have some useful, detailed and permanent content that will draw in traffic continuously, but also create regular content to give people something to come for. Vary your content - not just text but images, videos, games, slides, all of these will add value to your site.

Search engines keep changing the way they search for content. They used to be completely keyword focused, but now they are more query focused - searching based on questions users ask rather than just keywords. So design your content and write your headlines to answer questions users may be searching for.

Even though search engines keep updating their search algorithms, the basic premise of a good website remains the same - good content. The better the content on your website, and the more user-friendly your site is, the greater it will rank. Remember your audience, who is reading your content, and will they love it? If they do, search engines will love them too. SEO will help them find your content and make it available to users.

When it comes to successful websites - quality content is paramount.

Marketing Initiatives

SEO should be part of a digital marketing strategy. Below are some other activities you can adopt to make sure your strategy is comprehensive and your business gets the most possible return.

SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING

Provide an option to “Like,” tweet”, and otherwise share your page, product, or article so people can click on them to spread the word around. The more shares your site content gets the more popular your website becomes and increased traffic means increased rankings. Refer to the WBC social media guide.

EMAIL MARKETING

According to Jacob Nielson email newsletters remain the internet's best tool for supplementing a website. By sending out a newsletter from your website you can send users news and articles you want them to see including new blog posts, images, replies to their comments, offers on products, etc. Remember to give them the option to unsubscribe from your newsletter.

PAY PER CLICK (PPC)

Resource Guide 5 steps to pay-per-click advertising that works Start a Successful Pay-Per-Click Campaign The beginners guide to setting up an adwords account PPC is an online marketing tool, where as the name suggests you pay when people click on your ad to come to your website. You place ads on various online websites - and when that ad is clicked the user is redirected to your website. By paying to drive traffic to your website the results are faster than with SEO where you build credibility slowly over time. Another advantage is that you pay by the click so even if you have a small budget you can still advertise. Here's how PPC works: Through programs such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, you set a budget (start with a few hundred rupees a day), and the type of person you want seeing your ad, and Google will place your ad in strategic places deducting from your budget only when someone clicks. The more you are willing to pay per click the more chances your targeted keyword will receive the most exposure.

However, even with PPC it is eventually your content that keeps users on your site. And you need to make sure you get the right kind of user to your site and are not paying for random clicks.

Tracking Your Marketing Efforts

Google Analytics, is one of the most useful free website analytics software that can be easily installed. You can track goals and conversions, integrate search keywords to see what people are looking for on your site. Scrutinise and analyse your data from all angles. But don't jump to conclusions. If you want to change something, get someone else to look over your data first and corroborate your idea.

Bring On a Digital Marketing Expert

Although PPC and SEO both sound simple, they are not quite that easy. You can put in a lot of effort with very little reward if you don't get your strategy right. If you have the budget bring on an online marketing strategist to design your online marketing, SEO and PPC campaign to make them as effective as possible. This can be a one-time deal, getting a freelancer to optimize your online ad campaign, and show you how to track it. It will give your website a great start , and save you from re-doing a lot of work later on.

Use the above ideas to create a comprehensive strategy, and your online business is sure to make waves.

As we've discussed before, the surest and fastest way to grow your net worth is by increasing your income. So far, we have featured six opportunities, including copywriting, blogging, e-lancing, and photography, among others.

In this issue, instead of introducing a new opportunity, I want to take a break and talk about how easy it can be to earn a very high income where you're at now.

Regardless of what work you are currently doing, whether you've landed your dream job or are giving tuitions to pay the rent, the work habits you develop now and the type of employee you are can make a huge difference in the amount of wealth you eventually acquire.

It stands to reason-I think you'd agree-that to get a better-than-average salary, you have to be willing to do a better-than-average job. If you put into action the recommendations I'm going to give you, your income will increase substantially in the next few years. Specifically, I will show you how to elevate your income to six figures in five years or less.

If you can boost your income by, say, 25-50 lac rupees in the next five years yet maintain the same expenses you have now, that will be a whole lot more money you'll be able to invest in your future.

The advice I'm going to give you is based mostly on my personal experience and the experience of about a half-dozen protégés of mine-a select few-who have skyrocketed to the top of their fields and now enjoy the benefits of achievement: better career options, more favourable networking opportunities, more helpful mentors, and a higher income.

How I Boosted My Annual Income From $14,000 to More Than $1 Million

Before I got married, I was an average worker-by which I mean that I showed up. Woody Allen has famously said that 80% of success is just showing up. I know what he means. He's talking about an aspect of extraordinary success that often involves being in the right place at the right time. But his maxim doesn't apply to becoming a great employee and earning an extraordinary salary.

For that, you're going to have to do more than just show up. My years of just showing up provided me with lots of experience, jumping from one interesting job to another, but it never got me a very high income. In fact, I don't think I got a single decent raise until I was married and realized I had to do more than just get to work and do my job.

After I was married and had a child, I got serious about work and started getting good raises. My starting salary at that time, as an editor with a Washington, D.C., based newsletter publishing company, was $14,000 per year. Four years later, I was earning $30,000. That's an increase of about 21% per year. Making a 21% increase every year will get you very rich over time.

But when you are starting off in a career and moving up, the increases you get tend to be considerably higher than what you get later. Given the business and industry I worked for then, I could have expected my income to double again in the next 10 years. (That's assuming I continued to be an above-average employee.) An increase from $30,000 to $60,000 in 10 years represents a yearly rate of 7%. That's not bad, but I wanted more.

A year later, in 1982, I decided to get rich-and within a year after making that decision, I was making $150,000. Two years later (maybe sooner; I can't remember), my income was in excess of $1 million. I was earning more than $1 million per year, back in the early 1980s, and I was still an employee! Looking back on that experience, I see that my income “acceleration,” as it were, occurred in two phases.

Thank you again for all of the great work you and your team do. It's always a pleasure to read your valuable work. Club member DS The first phase was in transforming myself from an ordinary to an extraordinary worker. The second phase was in moving up from extraordinary to invaluable. An ordinary worker works the way most workers do.

An extraordinary worker does substantially more than the average worker. Aninvaluable worker makes such a significant contribution to the company that losing him or her would be considered a major financial misfortune.

By the way, please excuse my use of the adjectives “extraordinary” and “invaluable.” I know they sound pompous, especially since I'm talking about myself. I'm using those words because they convey something important in their literal meanings.

Let's get back to my story and see how these stages of work performance affected my ability to demand a higher salary.

How I Became an Extraordinary Employee

In 1982, as I said, I was working as the editor of a couple of newsletters (one about Latin American politics and another about African business and economics) for a small Washington, D.C., based publishing company. I was earning $14,000 per year, and my wife was earning less than that. Our two salaries could barely cover our ordinary living expenses.

On top of that, I was attending graduate school and we were paying off student loans. Then our first son was born. For the first six months of his life, he slept in an open drawer in our bedroom.

Recognizing that I had to take the monetary side of my work more seriously (up until that point, I was concerned mostly with trying to become a famous writer), I knew I had to change the way my boss, Michael, and his boss, Leo, felt about me.

Until then, they saw me as a bright kid who was on the border of being more trouble than he was worth. I got to work and did my thing, but I had the typical young writer's hatred for everything that had to do with the business side of business. I didn't like marketing, and I loathed sales. I didn't even like to include renewal forms in the envelopes that carried our newsletters.

I would be perfectly happy to try to make the editorial content of the newsletters better-if Michael were to ask me to do that-but he would be wasting his time if he thought I was going to help him with a sales letter. That prejudice against business had to change, I realized, if I expected to get an above-average raise.

My target was to get a $2,000 raise. If I didn't change my work habits, I knew, my raise would probably be about $500. So I decided to win over Michael and Leo.

I began by working longer hours and doing everything Michael asked- immediately and well. He remarked on the improvement in my productivity. Within a month, he was favouring me over the other employees, ever so slightly, when it came time to delegating responsibilities.

Knowing that Leo was very concerned with expenses, I spent a week looking into ways we could reduce them. Although we were a small organization, we spent a good deal on typesetting and printing. By calling around town to typesetting shops and printers, I was able to come up with a plan to reduce our yearly costs by about $48,000.

I presented my plan to Michael by way of an interoffice memo, copied to Leo. Even though he had nothing to do with my cost-cutting idea, I was careful to give Michael partial credit for it. To win Leo's attention, I wasn't going to risk losing Michael's approval.

Leo boosted my income to $16,000 several weeks later. That was my goal, and it represented, I realize now, a 14% increase. That was about five times the company's average and probably more than I deserved.

But I think both Leo and Michael were so impressed with my transformation from an average, semi-talented, reluctant-to-help writer to a helpful member of the business team that they wanted to reward me.

I was happy with my raise but at the same time realized that unless I continued to improve, my next raise wouldn't be as big. I'd get a better-than-average increase, because I had turned into a better-than-average employee, but that wouldn't satisfy me. To get more, I knew I had to give more.

So, without being asked, I redoubled my efforts to keep expenses down and worked to improve the editorial quality of our newsletters. As a result of my efforts, the newsletter renewal rates improved. This brought in more revenues and higher profits.

Over a period of three years, I came up with dozens of ideas that reduced costs and improved the quality of our products. By my coming in early, working late, and being the go-to guy when problems arose, my salary increased from $16,000 to $30,000. That was a 23% yearly increase.

Thirty thousand dollars doesn't sound like a lot today. (You will earn that or more starting out.) Back then, however, it was substantial, especially when one considers my industry and the business I worked for.

In my first three years of paying attention to my job, I learned one very important secret about making a lot of money as an employee: To earn significantly higher raises than the average person, you must perform at a significantly higher level than your co-workers.

As long as your work performance is ordinary, you can't expect anything more than an ordinary salary. But if you change your work habits and contribute substantially more than your fellow workers, you can rightly expect to be paid substantially more than they are getting.

How I Became an Invaluable Employee

In 1985, I moved to Florida to take a position as editorial director of a bigger newsletter-publishing company that had set up shop in Boca Raton. I applied my newfound work ethic to my job as editorial director-with a vengeance.

My starting salary-at $35,000-was already an improvement. But by applying what I'd learned to this bigger, faster-growing company, I was able to bring about bigger improvements. Instead of boosting renewal income by $50,000 per year, I could make a $500,000 difference.

The same ideas. The same amount of work. But applied to a larger, faster- growing company. That was the second important secret I discovered about making a great income as an employee: It's not just what you do at work that matters but for whom you do it.

To get the maximum value out of the hard, smart work you do, be sure that you are working for a boss who's willing to promote you and also for a company that is growing (so that there will be better positions waiting for you).

This is a wealth-building secret you shouldn't gloss over. In assessing the job you are shooting for, give serious consideration to the person you'll be reporting to, the part of the business you'll be working in, and the business itself.

What you want in a boss is a smart, experienced person who is going places. The things you want in a department or division are growth and an orientation toward sales. What you want in a company is a potential for significant growth. What you want in an industry is also growth potential.

If you have a choice, you should opt for a smaller, faster-growing company over a larger, stable business. The larger business will give you more perks and the appearance of more stability, but the smaller, faster-growing company will give you a much greater chance to boost your income.

Getting Rich

Remember-there are three factors in getting rich: how much you invest, how long you invest it, and over what length of time you invest it. How much you save is a function of how much you make. The faster you can boost your income into the

25 lac plus category, the faster you'll be able to start saving significant chunks of money each year. That's why we are putting so much stress on income. My decision to become rich had an extraordinarily powerful effect on everything I did thereafter. Before then, the business problems I faced often seemed confusing.

If, for example, I was faced with the recommendation that we improve the quality of the paper stock of our books and newsletters, I wouldn't be sure exactly how to respond.

Yes, a better quality of paper would improve the look. However, it would cost more.

What to do? Given the new perspective I'd acquired by committing to getting wealthy, I had a simple way of thinking it through: How much would it cost-and how would that equate to any possible improvement in sales? If the cost exceeded the perceived financial benefits, my inclination would be against spending.

Before deciding to get rich, I was confused by a host of interests that were antithetical to building the business and making profits. I was interested, for example, in winning industry awards and developing prestige in the marketplace. Since neither of these goals had any discernible benefit in terms of making the business grow, I now saw them as inappropriate personal indulgences.

When you put your business before yourself, problems that once seemed foggy clear up quickly. Challenges that once seemed important drop suddenly to the bottom of the priority list, and other objectives rise up.

In a matter of weeks, I reorganized my staff (fired someone who was holding me back and hired a superstar who had worked for a vendor), changed our product line (got rid of a favourite publication that never made any money), and streamlined the marketing department to make it easier and faster to launch new promotions.

Because of the work I did, my boss, JSN, increased my salary by $20,000-to $55,000. Although $20,000 was one of the biggest raises he'd ever given (and the biggest I'd ever received), I wasn't satisfied. I asked for more.

“I really appreciate the raise,” I told him, “but I've decided to become rich. And to hit the target I've set for myself, I need to make $70,000 this year, not $55,000.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he leaned over and looked me in the eye: “But you're not worth $70,000,” he said. Having anticipated that “welcome back to reality,” I was prepared with an answer: “I know I'm not worth that kind of money,” I admitted. “But if you'll invest in me now, I will make it up to you 100 times later on.”

JSN was (and is) one of the best negotiators I've ever known. If he wanted to, he could have dismantled me at that point. But there was something about the earnestness of my plea and the confidence of my conviction that won him over. He thought about it overnight, and the next day he called me into his office and told me not only that he would give me the $70,000, but that he also hoped to someday make me into a millionaire.

I had done something that day that was much more important than I realized at the time. I had successfully negotiated a huge increase with an exacting boss- and had also gotten myself a world-class mentor. JSN was someone who could, and did, teach me how to get rich. He'd gotten rich three times over in his past careers. The newsletter-publishing business was going to be the fourth one.

And JSN had done himself a favour that day, too. In letting me know that he believed in me and intended to help me, he won the lifetime loyalty of a young man who could-and did-help his business go from just $1 million in sales that year to more than $100 million.

In an effort to achieve a dramatically higher personal income, I had transformed myself from an average worker to an extraordinary worker. And by deciding to become rich, I had taken my transformation one step further: I had become-to the business-almost invaluable. Let's reiterate. To get your income into the Rs 70-80 lac-plus range in five years or less, you need to do three things:

You must develop the working habits of an extraordinary worker You must attach yourself to a fast-growing company You must become an invaluable employee of that company.

Before I teach you specifically how to do this, let me first show you what elevating your income and getting big raises can do for you.

Your Boss Doesn't Know It Yet… but You're Getting a Big Raise Next Year

My brother hired SP for $20,000. On the same day, he hired LJ for $30,000. They both had the same qualifications: college degrees, a bit of experience interning for investment companies, and the desire to make a lot of money. SP stood out from day one. He was the first one to work every morning and stayed after everyone else, including my brother. LJ was good but rather ordinary.

Ordinary Pay Raises Will Make You Poorer, Not Richer Most people go through their lives working for businesses they care nothing much about, dealing with problems they'd rather not face, and getting paid wages they'd very much like to change. In the past year, the average salary increase in India has been about 10%.

During that same period of time, inflation increases only 3% per year. Fast-forward 13 years. SP is making more than $2 million every year, and LJ is making $38,000. SP has already outpaced LJ by more than $10 million. By the time they both retire, SP will have a net worth well in excess of $50 million, while LJ will be lucky if he has anything in his bank account.

What accounted for the difference? It was not intelligence. It was not ambition. It was simply the fact that SP decided to become a superstar, while LJ was content to be ordinary. That's how I see it. But let me try to prove it to you with some simple arithmetic.

Amit Ordinary is 25 years old, makes an ordinary 3 lac per year income, and gets ordinary 10% yearly increases. Over a 40- year career, he will make a little over a crore of ruppees.

Renu Superstar, also 25, follows our career- Ordinary Pay Raises Will Make You Poorer, Not Richer

If Renu keeps her expenditures down and lives on the same amount of money that Amit is making, she will retire a crorepati, while Amit will be forced to live on bare essentials.

If a mere 5 percentage points can make that big a difference, there is no doubt that bigger pay raises can make you much richer.

If you did make yourself invaluable to your employer and if the business you worked for was growing and profitable, it's perfectly reasonable to think that your compensation could rise from 3 lac to 15 lac in five years and then from 15 lac to about a quarter of a crore thereafter.

I have worked with dozens of young executives who have enjoyed that kind of income appreciation.

None of them are older than 45 (most are in their 30s), and they are already all multimillionaires. If they continue as they have been-and there is no reason why they shouldn't-they will all be among the top one-half of 1% of the population in wealth when they decide to retire.

When it comes to earning an income, “just showing up” doesn't cut it. You should now realize the following things: If you are satisfied being an ordinary employee, you will never earn enough money to grow wealthy.

If you contribute significantly more to your business than your fellow workers do, you can expect to see significant pay increases over time. These increases will be enough to give you a better lifestyle, but they will make you wealthy only after many, many years of scrimping and saving.

It is only by making yourself an invaluable employee that you can expect your income to skyrocket.

Keep in mind that there is nothing in the future estimated salary table that allows for the compounding benefit of working for a great boss in a strong division of a fast-growing company. Nor does this table take into account what can happen if you make the transition to being an invaluable employee early in your career.

That's what this wealth-building strategy is all about: dramatically boosting your salary by dramatically boosting your value-and fast.

Let's take a look at how salaries work in a typical business environment so you can see how you can make that happen for yourself.

Three Ways to Get Promoted Faster

Extraordinary employees get extraordinary raises-but how do you speed up the process? Remember, when you get recommended for a promotion, your superiors are betting their reputations on you. To make them take that risk, you need to do more than just a good job. You need to do three things.

Stand out from the crowd. Make sure you have a broad range of competencies and abilities in many areas. It's great to have strengths, but if you have only one area of expertise, you run the risk of being cast in the same role again and again. You want your employer to recognize your potential to perform well at a variety of tasks.

Get to know people outside your department. Turn every possible opportunity-whether it's a holiday party, your lunch break, or a meeting -into a chance to meet someone new inside your company. Develop a friendly rapport and establish yourself as reliable and competent.

Once you've made contact with someone new, ask him to introduce you to his co-workers or even his boss. This network of corporate contacts- including colleagues, subordinates, and superiors-can help you when you need a new challenge or want a promotion.

Plan for every possible outcome. While you may not be able to anticipate every possible outcome, you should have a game plan in place for several different scenarios. Think through what you would do in a given situation and how you would react if a meeting went badly or if a sale fell through. Your ability to change directions when you meet an obstacle will show your employer just how adaptable you are.

To these recommendations, I would add the following: You should try-to whatever extent possible-to demonstrate the skills of the job you are seeking as soon as you realize you want it. There's no better way to show your capabilities than by starting to do the relevant tasks before the job opens up.

First, volunteer to help the current jobholder. A job worth having is usually complex and demanding. That means the person whose job you want will probably feel-sometimes, at least-swamped. How could this person resist your pleasant proposition to do the chores he or she doesn't have time for?

Remember, the most important factor in getting ahead is to gain the trust of the people you work with-your subordinates, your colleagues, and your superiors. And you can't possibly get their confidence unless you merit it.

I am talking about respecting the fundamental unwritten rule of hierarchy: “If you support my position, and you prove yourself to be superior, when it is time for me to move upstairs, I'll recommend you to replace me… but only if I can trust you to continue to support me.”

When it comes to self-preservation, people are at their smartest. They listen with their full attention. They watch what you do. They overhear what you say to others. So be careful. And make up your mind that you will always have integrity with others.

Businesses exist to provide products and services to consumers. Healthy businesses measure their success in terms of their long-term profits. As an employee of a business, it's your job to help your company produce those long- term profits. You may think your job is something other than that.

You may think, for example, that your job is to answer the phone or deliver the mail or write marketing copy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your job is to produce long-term profits. In other words, your job is to help your company make more money.

The secret to getting above-average raises each year is to accept that as your fundamental responsibility-and to transform the work you are doing now in such a way that it will produce those long-term profits. The better you can do it, the more money you will make. It's as simple as that.

Salespeople generally make more than accountants, right? That's not because salespeople are smarter than accountants. Nor do they necessarily work harder. But the job they do is seen as more financially valuable than the job accountants do. That is the one and only reason they get paid more.

If you are working as a low-ranking employee right now, don't worry. The plan I'm going to give you works just as well for you as it does for top brass. In fact, it works better!

Phase I: How to Transform Yourself Into an Extraordinary Employee

If you want to dramatically increase your personal income, you must dramatically increase your corporate value. And as I said before, that means transforming yourself from an ordinary employee to an extraordinary employee and then from an extraordinary employee to an invaluable one. Here are five ways to make that happen:

1. Get in early. There is no better way to demonstrate your commitment to your company than by getting to work earlier than everybody else. Getting to work early sends a good message: “I'm here! I am eager to work! I'm ahead of the crowd!”

2. Understand your responsibilities. You may have received a job description when you were hired, and it may do a pretty good job of telling you what you have to do. But until you understand how what you do affects your boss's bottom line, you'll never be able to make good decisions about which projects to focus on.

The best way to do that is to make an appointment with your boss and ask, “What are the top 10 ways I can make you more successful at your job?”

Don't worry about appearing to want to curry favour with your boss. Tell your boss you realize your chances of success depend on his or her success. Say, for example, “I'm not asking for specific to-dos. Once I know your main objectives, I will be able to make good decisions on my own. That's why I'm asking. Because I want to make sure my work plan is in gear with yours.”

3. Focus on what's important. Once you know what your boss needs from you, apply Pareto's law to your work. Pareto's law says that 80% of the success of just about anything comes from 20% of the attention it's given.

So list your boss's top 10 priorities. Then identify the two that will have the greatest impact on his or her success. (Hint: They will probably have something to do with improving the company's bottom line.)

Those are the priorities that you will focus on. (Keep in mind that your boss may not know what his or her priorities should be. After working with your boss for a while, you may have a better idea of what will contribute to his or her success than he or she does.)

4. Never say no. Employees often wonder whether saying yes to every request will make them look weak or dependent. The answer: no. Your boss wants a “yes” to every request he or she makes of you.

Saying no-though sometimes warranted-may sound like you are moving against him or her. If you have already established your work priorities by taking steps 1, 2, and 3, you'll have no problem identifying requests that don't contribute to your boss's (and your) success.

When asked to do something of that nature, tell your boss that you will be happy to get to it at some time in the future, but at the moment you are working on things that you believe he or she would rather be done. Then, list what those things are. Chances are the boss will modify or even drop the request. If not, you can be sure there is a good reason why.

5. Improve your skills. Unless you keep growing-in terms of your knowledge and skills-you can't expect your income to keep rising. Ask questions about every aspect of your business that is related to what you do.

Find out what you can about the other areas-especially sales and marketing. Read executive memos. Take work-related courses. Have regular chats about business with the power people in your business. Implement what you learn in your work.

6. Communicate your progress. Doing your job well is good.

And getting better at it as time passes is better. But unless you let your boss and other powerful people at work know about your progress, you can't be sure they will help you.

Make it a habit to update your superiors, in writing, on the challenges you face and the objectives you've achieved. In promoting yourself professionally, follow these three rules:

Tell the truth. False promotion is worse than none at all. Be generous with credit to others. Stay humble and credit other people for their assistance when they have, in fact, helped you. When reporting your accomplishments, be specific… and keep your ego in check. Be conscious of your boss's ego, too. Give him credit whenever anyone compliments you on some achievement. A statement as simple as “I couldn't have done it without Aarti's help/wisdom” will usually do the trick. And take the time to write your boss and key fellow employees the occasional memo thanking them for their help.

How Hard Do You Have to Work?

Developing these six work habits isn't easy. You may be thinking, “I'm not sure I want to work that hard.” If so, consider this: Most employees work to simply get by. Some actually try to do as little work as they can get away with.

Even employees who seem productive often waste much of their time doing noncritical work like writing long memos about issues that aren't critical to the business… or arguing points that don't much matter… or working on projects that don't really affect the company's bottom line. In most businesses-which likely include the company you get your first good job with-only a very few people get in early and stay focused on what really matters.

Many employment experts explain that workers fall somewhere on a bell-shaped curve when it comes to diligence and follow-through. At the bottom of the curve are the loafers and goof-offs. In the middle is the silent majority that does just enough to get by. At the top are the relative few who are motivated to achieve.

When you understand the dynamics of any such group, you understand that a modest amount of hard work will put you beyond both the terminally slothful and the lump-along middle crowd.

Just by being modestly ambitious, you will rise to the top third of almost any organization. But getting up the last few rungs of that ladder-into that top 20% -will be tough, because the few you are competing against are competing hard.

Chances are they are as smart and talented as you, with the same (or more) basic resources. They may even have better contacts. But there is one thing they don't have more of, and that is time.

You can do better than someone who is smarter, richer, and luckier than you-as long as you are willing to work harder than that person does. People who rise to the top work long hours, but not excessively long. They are at their desks early-at least an hour before others-and they stay later (though it may be only a half-hour later).

I find your newsletters interesting and love Mark's philosophies. Club member L M. But what they do best is work smarter when they work. They do the necessary things first, even if they are difficult. They learn what they need to know and don't waste business time learning unimportant stuff. They are willing to harass and cajole, tease and criticize, flatter, and pout to get the job done.

They spend a few minutes every morning organizing their days and a little while every Monday morning planning their weeks. They select their tasks based on what will achieve their goals, not on what happens to end up in their inboxes. They manage their jobs; they don't let their jobs manage them. Hard work is, by definition, hard, but it's not all that hard if you know why you're doing it. Phase II: How to Transform Yourself Into an Invaluable Employee

By working harder and smarter to accomplish more, and by letting key people know what you are accomplishing, you'll find it pretty easy to get above-average raises. But how do you earn those really high incomes? I'm talking about 15-50 lac rupees or more? The answer, as I've indicated before, is twofold:

Step one: Learn (and eventually master) a financially valued skill.

Step two: Apply that skill to your company's core profit­generating activities.

Good employees earn good salaries because they are valued personnel.

But great employees earn amazing salaries because they are considered invaluable to the company. To be truly invaluable, you have to be, more or less, irreplaceable.

The closer you can get to seeming to be irreplaceable, the better your chances of radically increasing your income. The most important thing you'll need to do is this: Master a financially valued skill.

Step One: Learn a Financially Valued Skill

A financially valued skill is one that plenty of other people are willing to pay you good money for. How good? Let's use the number we've been shooting for: 15 lac per year. What specific skills are going to command that kind of salary increase? What are the skills that typically get that kind of money in the workforce?

There are three basic kinds of jobs in the business world: administrative, technical, and profit generating.

Administrative jobs include most positions in corporate management, product fulfillment, operations, and customer service, as well as some positions in finance and accounting.

Technical jobs include most positions in information technology and engineering and some positions in the legal, financial, and accounting fields.

Profit-generating jobs are those that are directly involved in producing profits for the company. Profit generators include marketers, salespeople, copywriters, people who create new products, and the people who manage all of these employees. In most companies, the leading profit generator is, of course, the CEO, because the CEO's main job is to deliver a bottom line.

Administrative workers, on the average, constitute the poorest-paid group. Generalists by training, they compete against a large pool of other generalists in jobs that require no special skills or talents.

If you are an administrator, and a very good one, you can expect to see your income rise as your performance improves. But more likely than not, it will be at the 4% or 6% level-probably not enough to meet your wealth-building goals.

Today, you are going to promise yourself that this year you will learn (or perfect) a financially valuable skill. You can't earn a high income, consistently, unless you have a financially valuable skill. To merit a lot of money for your time, you must do something very well that creates value for others.

There are not many such skills. You can, though, create value by speaking convincingly or writing persuasively or leading effectively. And sometimes, knowing how to get people out of serious trouble (think “doctor” or “lawyer”) can be very valuable.

Knowing how to fix a computer or analyze a spreadsheet is not the kind of skill I'm talking about. Neither is the skill that's required to draw up architectural plans or run wiring or the like. These are all valuable skills-just not financially valuable. If you understand the difference, you know something important about moneymaking.

For today, I want you to forget about all of the interesting talents you have that nobody will pay you for and focus, instead, on developing the one ability that can make you big money. If you can't think of anything, pick from the following list: writing, copywriting, phone sales, person-to-person selling, motivating people, or advertising.

This list should be sufficient to get you going. My friend, JF, developed his financial skill in a deliberate and purposeful way. As a result, his annual income (on a current basis) has climbed from 25 lac to 40 lac rupees. That's quite an accomplishment for one year.

It's entirely possible for you to do the same thing. It starts when you identify your financially valuable skill and set about to improve it.

If you are not currently (or haven't been trained to be) a salesperson, marketer, product creator, or profit manager, don't despair. You can keep your official job and still make the transition over to the money side of your business.

The objective is to start making significant contributions to the bottom line and let the bosses know that's what you are doing. Here's how to do that: Ask yourself which people in your company make the most money. Identify at least three distinct jobs.

Now ask yourself which of those jobs you would most like to do. Find out what it takes in terms of hours and days. Find out what it typically pays and when it pays more and why. Ask about the daily routine, the common problems, the biggest challenges, and the best rewards.

Ask. Observe. Read. Keep it up, day after day, until you start to feel as if you understand the job.

When you feel ready, talk to your boss about your plans. Then approach key people in the department you're interested in. Tell them (honestly) that you think their field is something you'd be good at. Say you've been learning about it in your free time and you'd like to volunteer to help them out whenever you can so you can learn even more.

People will be impressed by your willingness to dive in and give them a hand. If your intentions are sincere and your follow-up is diligent, you'll soon enjoy a reputation for being an up-and-comer.

Make Yourself Into a Marketing Genius

Skilled marketers are consistently among the highest-paid individuals in any industry. They earn high salaries, extraordinary bonuses, and the respect and admiration of colleagues and competitors. Marketers who master their trades are all but guaranteed a life of wealth, security, respect, and satisfaction. The best marketers know how to apply three fundamental principles.

The First Principle: The Difference Between Wants and Needs

In today's consumer-driven economy, it's easy to mistake a want for a need. When you realize that your customers don't need your product or service, you recognize that the way to convince them to buy it is to stimulate their desire for it.

The most effective way to do that in your advertising is to do the following things:

Promise your prospective customer (usually implicitly) that taking a certain action (buying your product) will result in the satisfaction of a desire (want) Create a picture in your prospect's mind of the way he or she will feel when that desire is satisfied Make specific claims about the benefits of your product and then prove those claims to your prospect Equate the feeling your prospect desires (the satisfaction of a want) with the purchase of your product.

The Second Principle: The Difference Between Features and Benefits

A pencil has certain features:

It is made of wood It has a specific diameter It contains a lead-composite filler of a certain type It usually has an eraser at the end.

These features describe the objective qualities of the pencil. So if buying were a rational process, selling would be a matter of identifying the features of your product. But, as you just learned, buying is an emotional process.

And that means you must express the features of your product in some way that will stimulate desire. You do that by converting features into benefits. For example, the features just listed might be converted into the following benefits:

It is easy to sharpen It is comfortable to hold It creates an impressive line It makes correcting easy.

The Third Principle: The Difference Between Benefits and Deeper Benefits

The reason some marketers do a better job than others is that they understand the difference between benefits and deeper benefits. In our example, for instance, what might be the deeper benefit of having a pencil that sharpens easily?

To figure that out, master marketers ask themselves these questions: “Who are my target customers? And why, exactly, do they want little things (like sharpening pencils) to be easy?” Of course, there's no single answer to such a question. It depends entirely on who those target customers are. If they're busy executives, their deeper reasons are going to be different than if they're busy housewives.

Master marketers who understand these deeper motives can create stronger advertising copy, because they will be appealing to emotions that are closer to their customers' core desires.

Where to Go to Learn Financially Valued Skills

There are many ways to learn financially valued skills. You can learn pretty much everything there is to know about sales and marketing, for example, by reading these books:

My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples The Copywriter's Handbook by Bob Bly Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith.

Step Two: Apply That Skill to the Company's Profit Stream

Here's a way to think about getting above-average raises. I call it the 10-for-1 rule. If you want to get a raise that's Rs 50,000 more than ordinary, make sure you've been a major contributor to an idea that will generate at least Rs 5 lac in additional net profits for your company.

If you want to increase your current income by, say, 10 lac rupees, you are going to have to find a way to increase business profits by about a crore of rupees. And that's not just a crore of rupees. It's a crore of rupees this year and next year and every year thereafter that you expect to maintain that much-higher-than-average salary.

In general, you'll have the best chance of having that kind of impact on your company's bottom line if you are working in one of several key, profit-generating areas: sales, marketing, product creation, and/or profit management.

Yes, some engineers, attorneys, and corporate administrators earn $150,000 or more. But in companies in which such functionaries earn big money, the marketers, salespeople, and profit-center managers are earning $250,000- 500,000-sometimes more! I'm not saying you should abandon your métier if you've been trained as a computer analyst, engineer, or accountant.

I'm just saying that if you want to make a super-high income, you have to become a super-significant contributor to your company's bottom line. And that means you have to become an influential force in product creation, marketing, sales, or profit management. Here's how you start:

First, figure out how your business creates profits Then, figure out how your job contributes to that process Next, modify your job so that more profits are produced as a result of what you do Finally, make sure that the people who are in charge of giving raises know how much more money you are making for the company.

So how much do you know about your company's core profit strategies? Answer these questions:

What is your company's primary competitive advantage? How is that advantage employed in (1) product creation, (2) marketing, and (3) sales? Can you name five primary benefits of your company's top-selling product/service? Can you name the chief secondary (psychological) benefit of this product/service? Can you name one unique selling proposition (USP) for each of your company's top-selling products/ services?

If you know your business the way you should, you will have quick and confident answers to all of these questions. If they leave you guessing, you have work to do.

Ask yourself this: “In the eyes of upper-management people, is the work I do considered (1) nice but unnecessary, (2) necessary but not of much interest to them, or (3) essential to the growth and profitability of the business?” Income producers are viewed as not just “good” but “necessary” and “desirable.”

By making yourself one of the few people in your company who know how to bring in the bacon, you give yourself the greatest chance of getting big raises, big promotions-and, eventually, a six-figure income.

Not Sure Which Skill to Master? Try This One.

Of all the skills you can have-the ability to speak like Winston Churchill, the skill to paint like Rembrandt, whatever it takes to calculate like Albert Einstein -none will help you achieve wealth as well as knowing how to sell things. So if you're not sure which financially valued skill to target, I recommend becoming an expert in the kind of sales that make your company profitable.

Every private enterprise functions the same way. To keep doing what it wants to do (and to make a profit from it), it has to (1) attract customers at a reasonable cost and (2) convert them into repeat buyers. Every successful business is based on understanding the correct answers to two very simple questions:

1. What is the most cost-effective way of attracting customers?

2. What is the best way to keep those customers buying?

If you can learn to see your business that way and can one day discover the correct answer to those two questions, you will quickly become recognized as an invaluable employee. That will happen because you will understand your business from the inside out.

Once you've figured out what you can do very well, promise yourself that you will spend some time every working day developing that skill. If you use your daily task list as explained in The Pledge, you will make great progress. Make that commitment now. In addition to the extra income you'll enjoy, I know you will be able to achieve all of your objectives in life-even those that have nothing to do with money.

Best, Mark

Ritika Bajaj I was introduced to blogging sometime in 2009. It actually developed from my own need to express myself on some platform other than a paid one. I was writing for clients, magazines and authors, but seldom for myself… It was an avenue to express random thoughts, to debate with my own mind and kept me committed to writing even on the days when I had no work.

As a writer, it gave me full creative license. I initially jotted down thoughts on my experiences, then went onto specific areas of interest. I soon discovered that I did have an audience. And I could garner it on my own strength. I didn't need to be published in any magazine or on someone's website. I just needed to write good content from my very own desk.

As a writer, blogging gives me a huge thrill. I enjoy tracking the number of reads my blog post gets. And the exciting part is that this viewership comes from across the world. And what's more, if you put some marketing sense into it, you can even generate income.

So just what is a blog and how does one use it effectively to represent their knowledge and generate income? This report sets out to answer these questions and more…

WHAT IS A BLOG?

A blog is the truncated form of 'web log.' It is made up of many “posts” or “entries” that are presented in reverse chronological order, which means you will see the most recent one on top and you will have to scroll down for the older ones. Blogs are like personal diaries that are stored on the worldwide web. They initially started out as being a space for people to archive their own collections of reads and links and eventually became a place for them to present their own thoughts and expertise.

Source: Maksim Kabakou / Shutterstock

Problogger describes blogs as: '…a website in which items are posted on a regular basis… Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”… A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files)… Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”… Some blogs discuss personal experiences.'

A unique feature of blogs is that they have a personalised conversational tone. Almost like getting to know the writer while you get to know the topic that is written about. Not surprising then, that bloggers form their own communities. You'll find regular followers commenting on blogs and you'll find bloggers sharing the content from other similar bloggers.

Problogger's quote here is useful in understanding the same: 'A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there's also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.'

Today blogs have become the take-off points for many ventures. They've become platforms for making money through advertisements, affiliate marketing, selling e-books and conducting online coaching sessions and webinars. All this from the comfortable space of your home.

HOW TO START BLOGGING

Choose a service provider

Free services: Bloggers can start blogging through many services available online. There are essentially two routes to take: One, the free services provided by various blogging sites. All you need to do is sign-up with your basic details and start writing. These free blogging sites are good for basic blogs and also provide some enhanced features that can be bought. Most features essentially aid in further customisation of the blog.

Some free blogging sites WordPress Blogger Xanga Tumblr Medium Svbtle Quora Postach.io Google+ Facebook Notes Sett Ghost TypePad Posthaven LinkedIn Influencers

Popular blog host providers

Hostgator BigRock GoDaddy HostingRaja FastWebHost MicroHosting DreamHost Bluehost Web host providers: The second route that a lot of bloggers eventually take is to host their blogs on a host provider service. This is pretty similar to starting a website. The advantages of paying for this service is that you get a unique domain name and full control of the domain panels, personalised e-mail ids, much more storage space and bandwidth, and ready-to-use templates for designing your blogs. What also helps is that the hosting provider gives you technical support when needed. Most of these services are available in the range of Rs 1000- Rs 4000 per year depending on what features you opt for.

Choose a Niche

Blogging is an extension of yourself. It's about your passions, your views on subjects and your areas of expertise. Darren Rowse in How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog quotes his friend saying: “Probably the best place to start thinking about what your blog should be about is to consider what YOU are about.” This also serves in giving the blogs a personalised tone characteristic of the blogger.

Blogging is a regular and long-term activity. It's something you would like to do a few times a week and for as long as you can. And it's something that people will eventually associate with you. Thus it's important to write on a topic that you can sustain for years to come. It's also essential to keep in mind that the topic already has an interested audience. Like most demand and supply rules go, there should be a specific target audience readily available for your blogs. The more specific your blog topic, the more your viewership.

A bad idea is to choose your blogging topic backward. Don't see what's popular or trending and then write about it. That's an act you won't be able to sustain for long. What you would rather do, is understand what you're good at and then figure out how it can serve the reader. You should also do some research to find out if the topic has lived its life on the internet, are there already too many posts on the topic or is it just beginning to get popular.

Before you start blogging on your chosen niche, survey the web. See what people in your area of expertise are writing about and how. Understanding competition will give you a sense of the readership, the popular styles of writing and also tell you the missing gaps in that particular blogging niche. You will then feel more confident about what you're offering and how best to package it.

An important question to ask yourself is, how prolific are you? Given that you will be blogging a lot about the topic and also generating products and money-making streams from that area of expertise, you should have enough content to keep you going for a while. You will also have to rehash some of the content in different forms. All this requires creativity and commitment.

Identify if your chosen niche can generate revenue for you. Keeping this factor in mind will help you set realistic expectations as to exactly how much money you can make from your blogs. While the blogs needn't have mass appeal, it should have a reasonable market. And you'll be surprised how extremely niche topics like knitting and crochet also find an audience for their blogs and conduct successful tutorials.

10 Tips to help you blog better

Know your stuff well: When you blog, it's not important to only love what you write about but also have a fairly good understanding of the subject. Blogging is your journey into writing reams of information on your topic of interest. Make sure you can both write and answer questions on the topic.

Be conversational in your tone: For blogging the general rule is to blog like you talk. Text that has an academic or business tone generally does not work well as it does not connect with the reader. The idea is to not 'talk down' or 'talk up' but create a chatty still respectable feel. The blog should sound like it's coming from you and going straight to the reader. It should have elements of personalisation like the occasional anecdote or two.

Think differently: The blog world is a cluttered one. The only way you will stand out is if you're saying something in a different way. Find the most creative and sometimes even outlandish way to present your theory, you never know what works with the audience. Also, don't forget to format the blog interestingly - use really good titles, subheads to break the thoughts and even quotes to highlight the important lines.

Avoid grammatical and spelling errors: A shoddy approach to language will never be forgiven. Do spell checks on your text. And for grammar, here's an interesting quote from Top 10 Blogging Tips for Beginners by Mariel Sunday Wangsgard: “Readers are fairly forgiving of misplaced commas and the like. But don't you dare mix up “their,” “they're,” and “there.” You'll be in a world of trouble from the grammar police. There all over the internet.”

Don't sound frivolous: A superficial understanding of the topic will come through easily in your writing. So to sound authentic enough and to gain knowledge and depth on a given niche, research as much as possible before you start blogging.

Add pictures and infographics: Good photographs lift a blog tremendously. They bring more viewership and can be used effectively to promote the blog on social media platforms too. So don't forget to take your camera wherever you go or dip into your existing archives. If you feel nothing works, you can use some of the stock photography sites online. Infographics are also being used effectively with colour and illustrations being brought together to describe the topic. A human illustrator or software like SmartDraw are some that can be used.

Keep the blog theme simple: The less cluttered the design of your blog, the better. It is essential that people focus on the written word more than the surrounding design. Choosing light colour schemes and clear fonts all help toward making the blog more readable.

Include categories, keywords and hyperlinks: These are important features of a blog and help the content become more search-friendly. Categories help you slot the topic under different heads. For example features on entrepreneurship can come under business, startups, inspirational. Within the content, pick out words that you feel will be relevant to those who search for articles on those topics. And finally, create hyperlinks to other sites which you may have mentioned on the site. This enables Google to club articles of similar interest for the reader.

Invite co-authors: An interesting way of keeping the reader engaged is by bringing in another voice into your blog. By partnering with another expert from your niche, you will find a host of new ideas, a diverse writing style and a new readership that he/she brings with him.

Content is king: Ultimately good content works better than anything else. People will keep coming to read your blogs if they value what you're doing. Thus the first and last rule of creating content is to focus on the content itself, to ensure it's substantial, well-researched, well-presented and unique. This can be a challenge but all you need to do is focus on the task at hand and spend some time on it. Jeff Bullas gives an important insight in 6 Lessons from the Top Bloggers: A Beginners Guide. He states, “The biggest reason why people seem to have such a hard time getting good content out is because they don't take enough time to make something valuable.”

Promote your blog

Once you have your blog ready, the next part is to use every avenue available to promote it to a diverse readership. Some of the ways you can do this are:

Using social media: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin are all great social media platforms to spread the word on your blogs. Twitter in particular is used by bloggers the world over by linking Tweets to their links. Creating a bitlink to help you save space on the 140-character limit on Twitter. Read more on how to optimise social media in this WBC report.

Commenting on others' blogs: Blogging like most online channels is about communities and camaraderie. So keep a track of what people in your niche are blogging on and post comments appreciating their work. Another way of participating is by joining online forums and group discussions.

Making it SEO-friendly: SEO is all about coming up on the first page of Google searches for a particular topic. SEO is a way Google clubs information on similar topics and presents them to the user depending on what keywords the person searches for. To enhance your SEO operations focus on the titles, words in the blogs, links, words in the link and create authentic and relevant links to other sites. An interesting video on the website Search Engine Land will help you understand this better. Also read our own WBC report on SEO

Creating collateral: Bloggers are constantly promoting their blogs through regular e-mailers to their existing audience. This works well when you have a good database of people who have signed up to read your blog and bring them back to your blog in a more structured way. Making PDF books and reports with a little more information than the blogs also makes your audience feel special and keeps them engaged.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING

Once you have all the above in order, it is now time to see how you can make some money from the whole process.

Using affiliate marketing: This works well if your blog is already getting a lot of footfalls. It is often referred to as “performance-based advertising”. You can market your blog to retailers and brands and give them some space on the page. When the reader visits your blog and clicks on those ads, he will be directed to the advertiser's homepage. This will give the advertiser more visibility and may even increase his sales. Each time a reader clicks on the ad, the blogger gets a fee on it. He additionally gets a percentage of the sales if the reader makes a purchase on the advertiser's website. This can be done independently by tying up with companies directly or through agencies like GoogleAdsense (https://www.google.co.in/adsense), BuySellAds or AffiliateWP which find relevant advertisers and carry out the whole process for you.

If you conduct affiliate marketing yourself, it may take more time and effort but the rewards will be plenty as you can negotiate your own rates for the ads. It will also make your enterprise more local in its positioning, giving you an added advantage to strike more deals in the future. The best way to find relevant advertisers are by looking at your own industry. For example, a travel writer can display ads from a local travel agency, a food blogger can display ads of local restaurants and chefs, a fashion writer can tie-up with fashion houses in the city or designers etc.

Writing paid content: Many companies and services are happy to pay bloggers of their industries for writing unbiased reviews on their products. Car companies are known to do this often as are travel agencies. Since they know their bloggers have a huge following, they encourage them to write and link the content to their websites. But to build credibility it is preferred that the blogger states if it is a paid review or not.

Social media management agencies also often outsource their content for their clients to freelance bloggers. Send them a pitch with your blog, and they may just give you regular business.

Selling products: E-books and webinars can be sold through your blog using a payment gateway. If you are a retailer and sell physical products then you could push the sales of those through your blog too.

Coaching online: Nowadays bloggers are not just blogging but also coaching. Since most successful bloggers tend to write on 'how to' topics, it becomes a natural transition for them to move into coaching online. Some charge hourly consultation fees and use free services like Skype to chat with their students.

This was just an introduction to blogging. Once you start, you'll realise what a big and diverse industry it is. What's more, you'll even realise how much money can actually be made from blogging. Ofcourse the income will take time to grow. But many successful bloggers have been able to give up full-time jobs to blog on what they feel passionately about. Read more in Mark's article on how to blog to make money.

So start your journey into the blogosphere soon and let us know how it goes!

Resources: http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging http://www.blogher.com/my-top-10-blogging-tips-beginners?page=0,9 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/15/how-to-choose-a-niche-topic-for-your-blog/ http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/blog3.htm http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/12/13/6-lessons-from-the-top-bloggers-a-beginners-guide/ http://www.learnblogtips.com/top-3-young-indian-bloggers-interview/ http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ http://www.dailyseoblog.com/category/blog-marketing/ http://www.dailyseoblog.com/9-effective-ways-provide-value-interesting-readers/ http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/word-help/create-format-or-delete-a-hyperlink-HA010165929.aspx

An important part of entrepreneurship and wealth-building is the sending out of business proposals. These can really be clinchers when it comes to gaining more business and building revenue. In today's times, business proposals have become more creative, using more imagery and better stories to convey what an organization can do for their prospective clients. What's more with many software now available, templates for proposals have become more standardized, easy-to-use and colourful, keeping in sync with the brand's ethos and values.

Through this report, we tell you how to make that first impression a lasting one, by putting all the punch you can into creating a stellar proposal that no one will be able to say no to. So use these tools and go win more business!

The Purpose Of A Business Proposal

A business proposal works in many ways. It is the first piece of communication that goes out to a company that is looking to use your services. Sometimes, the company clearly knows what it's looking for and asks you to develop a proposal to address a certain problem or service they need. This is called a 'request for proposal' or RFP.

At other times, a proposal can be used to reach out to new companies and look at probable collaborations in the future. Either way, your business proposal can be used as a tool that aptly reflects your enterprise and everything that it stands for.

While a business proposal will talk about what your enterprise has to offer, its primary focus is always on how your enterprise can benefit the company you're writing to and address its issues. This factor is at the foundation of all business proposals and also determines the eventual tone, look and feel of any proposal.

The difference between a business plan and business proposal

The terms business plan and business proposal are sometimes confused and used interchangeably. But the two have completely different meanings. A business plan is developed by an enterprise to understand its own future plans and growth trajectory. It could include the current business model, expansion plans, funding needed, markets targeted and the enterprise's ability to scale and make an impact. This is often presented by entrepreneurs to boards, angel investors, etc. It basically works as a road map for employees internally as well as for future investors.

In a post, The Winning Elements of Business Proposals, Darrell Zahorsky explains: “Unlike a business plan, which is written to run your company and raise capital, a business proposal is an unsolicited or solicited bid for business.”

This then brings us to business proposals. As is clearly stated, business proposals are used to garner more business and attract new clients. By their very nature, they are expected to talk more about “what we can do for you” rather than “what we are doing.” As you will read later in the report, all the language used in the proposal should convey how your association with the company you're writing to will help them make their own product or service better. Hence, the focus in business proposals is always on how your enterprise can make a difference to your client's business.

The Types Of Business Proposals

Solicited proposals: These are proposals sent out by companies asking for different vendors/organisations to bid for a particular service or business. They clearly state requirements for the proposals and sometimes also have a predetermined template. And while this may seem restrictive to the more creatively-inclined among us, there is scope to play around here as well - The choice of words and corroborating graphs and images used can set your proposal apart.

Unsolicited proposals: Your enterprise will reach a stage where it needs to expand its services or business. You may wish to partner or collaborate with other companies or you may simply want to reach out to big clients in a more effective way. This can be done by clearly stating how your services can benefit them more specifically and enhance their own business. This is the purpose of an unsolicited proposal. And here you can be as creative as you like and still retain the business-like informative tone.

What A Business Proposal Should Cover

You company's vision/mission statement: In the first part of the proposal briefly state your company's goals and values. This will set the tone for what has to follow and once done and out of the way, you will not need to come back to it again.

The client's problem statement: Once you've stated your own goals, it is then important to briefly state the client's problems and your assessment of them. This becomes a simple way of addressing the needs of a client. For example, if you're a public relations company and you're pitching to a client with low visibility, you can state: We understand that you are a brand with a long legacy and a credible body of work but with low visibility in the media. We realize your need for an understated presence but in today's times with so much clutter on print and social media, we believe you need to make your company's image felt more prominently and for the right reasons among both competitors and consumers.

A proposed solution for the client: In the case of a solicited proposal this is easy as you will simply state what you have that will help the company address the problem. In an unsolicited proposal, you can highlight your key offerings and then explain how each can be used to solve different business issues of the client. It is extremely important to research everything you can about the client here and understand exactly where you see gaps and how your enterprise can help the organization fill those gaps. In continuation from the previous example, your proposed solution can be: Being a PR firm of longstanding repute in the country, we will leverage our network in print and social media to enhance your visibility in your core market segments.

What sets you apart: This is essentially about stating what your company does differently from the rest and hence why your proposal should be considered over others. These could be factors like your competitive pricing, advanced technology, timely delivery, employee strength or any other information that makes the client more confident about choosing your company over another. So don't feel modest here, highlight your strengths and make sure they stand out.

Testimonials showcasing credibility: Previous success stories, endorsements or positive feedback from clients, or any other awards or recognitions are a good way to build the credibility of your enterprise and will add more weight to your proposal.

A brief mention of the client's competition: When you research on your client, it helps to find out and briefly allude to the general happenings of the industry. If there is something particular that your client is not doing, you can make a recommendation and give examples of how others in the industry are following those practices effectively.

An estimated timeframe for the job: It works to project certain timelines for the proposed project and its delivery. This also shows the client that timely work will take place.

An approximate pricing: If the proposal is specific, then a breakup of the costs can be worked out. If the proposal is generic, an approximate costing for the different jobs that will be undertaken can be given.

A call to action: Once you have finished detailing all the above, you can ask the client for a meeting to further discuss the proposal or you could ask for a response acknowledging the receipt of the same and ask if they have any further queries or need any more details.

A thank you note: Finally sign off by thanking the client for making time to go through the proposal.

Important Tips To Keep In Mind

Proposals are not about you, they're about them: You may be tempted to keep writing about your company and all its achievements, but remember that a proposal is always about the client and not about you. It should instead “sell the benefits” you can offer to the client.

Tell a story rather than just state facts: Storytelling in any form or medium works. If you have success stories from the past, interesting ways you cracked a solution for a client in the past, bring them out and use them in your proposal effectively. Keep the story brief but engaging.

Tailor it to suit the needs of each client: Your proposal at no cost should look like a copy-paste job. If there are no elements that are personalized for that particular client's industry or company, be sure it's going to get trashed very quickly. So take an effort to customize each proposal for each new client.

Reiterate the important points: There's a common belief for proposals and presentations that you can't stress the important points enough. So tell them and keep telling them about the key aspects of the proposal. Highlight the salient features any number of times.

Emphasise your value add through the language used: A lot of your proposal depends on the language used. You don't want to write too much or too less. But in all that writing retain the focus on the client and continue to bring out how the association will only benefit them.

Feel free to share your ideas: People hesitate to give too many ideas to a client who is still not on board. But don't refrain from sharing your solutions with the client as that's the only gauge of your expertise. Whether he partners with you or not, your job is to give the proposal as much innovation as you can.

Keep the size compact and effective: A proposal should be smooth-flowing easy-to-read and time-efficient. If it's too long, you may have to worry about the reader not reading it all and if it's too short, he may think you haven't put enough thought into it or your body of work is not that big. For this you can use one simple philosophy: give to him the size of proposal that you yourself will enjoy reading.

The Look And Feel Of A Business Plan

Focus on language: Language is paramount in all your communication as an enterprise. In proposals particularly, here are a few rules that are followed:

Use active voice v/s passive voice Keep information brief but not too brief Let the tone bring out your personality Use industry-specific jargon Ensure there are no spelling or factual errors Delete words that are unnecessary

Make bullet lists: Break paragraphs where possible into bullets, this creates a further ease in reading as well as highlights the points better.

Use data: Insert any findings you already have and present these in the form of graphs, charts or tables. This will reinforce your research as well as add visual aids to your proposal.

Include images: To break the monotony of a proposal, feel free to throw in the occasional image that is relevant. This gives relief from continuous text and also works as an effective tool in conveying your message.

Create a design: Designing proposals that are in sync with the brand's identity and logo colour scheme are common nowadays. These templates can be created by graphic professionals, design agencies or by using easily available software online. The idea is to first create a masterslide and then let each consecutive slide follow the similar theme.

Use a legible font: Use a font that is not too ornate. A sans serif font with minimum curves is preferred in proposals. The size of the font can vary depending on the page size.

How Proposal Software Online Can Help You

The benefits of using online software are many: They help you organize your information better. They provide ready templates for design. They can incorporate your branding into the design. They provide a host of graphic options, infographics and icons. They can help you track if and when the user has received and read your document. They help convert documents into PDF format. They allow multiple users to work on one document. They provide resources on creating and writing better proposals. They help you manage and archive the different proposals sent out.

Many of these software have free trial versions before you purchase them and most are in the range of Rs 2,000 - Rs 8,000 depending on the features you choose.

Some of the software available online are: Bidsketch, Xait, IdeaBox4.me, NiftyQuoter, GetApp, Quoteroller, eintelli, Client Sky

Resources: http://www.howtowritetheproposal.com/proposal-writing-basics http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/10/24/insights-lofeld-proposal-tips.aspx http://www.portent.com/blog/random/great-proposals.htm http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/3-ways-to-make-a-good-presentation-great.html http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-us/resources/startups/startup-financing/7-Tips-for-Creating-a-Great-Business-Proposal.aspx?fbid=5WeMn-ltA2J http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/21834 http://www.solar-system-school.de/bodenstein/proposal.pdf http://blog.bidsketch.com/articles/how-to-write-a-business-proposal/ http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Business-Proposal http://www.bidsketch.com/tour/#prettyPhoto http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/bizlettersamples/a/proposal.htm http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2013/05/13/business-proposal/ http://smallbusiness.chron.com/tips-write-business-proposal-2892.html http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/12-tips-for-writing-a-winning-proposal-HA010024506.aspx http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2010/3389/six-keys-to-writing-a-great-proposal

We've presented several extra income opportunities to you. This one gets its leverage from the amazing way the Internet has flattened out the world of commerce.

Before the Internet, breaking into a new business was mostly a local affair. You got an idea, created a product, and tried to sell it in your own backyard. If it worked, you could expand outside your local market.

Eventually, if you were very good and somewhat lucky, you could have a national or even an international enterprise.

Today, the Internet gives you the chance to market internationally-from day one.

Take the idea of selling inexpensive Chinese goods to customers anywhere else in the world., for example. People in the U.S. are doing it, people in India can do it, in fact I will send you details about that opportunity very soon.

Prior to the Internet, this was a tough business to get going. You'd have to travel to China, negotiate deals with wholesalers, find a trustworthy shipper, get an importer's license, and then find a market to sell your products back home.

That would involve beginning in your local market and then gradually expanding, if you were good and successful, to a regional and then a national level. Today, you can do all that in two steps. Buy the goods you want from the sites we recommend and then sell them on eBay or Amazon or through some other Internet venue.

A recent income opportunity we discussed was blogging. Blogging is a great way for writers to make extra income by developing an Internet audience and then attaching advertising to their essays or websites.

I am new to your services and love them. I believe they are the most honest, straight- forward, and easy-to- understand material that I have ever known. Thanks. Subscriber A G. Today's opportunity is like the blogging model in the sense that it takes advantage of a website and monetizing the attention of your visitors. But the big difference is you don't have to stick to a regular publication schedule, as you do when posting to a blog.

A moneymaking website delivers a truly PASSIVE source of income. You add new content to your site as and when you want to. No schedule… no JOB.

The main thing you need is enthusiasm for something that other people are enthused about too. That could be knitting or gardening or cooking or car maintenance or pet care or cricket or brewing beer-the list is endless. The main idea is that it should be a hobby or activity that people get passionate about.

For the purpose of identifying what I'm talking about here, let's call this kind of opportunity moneymaking websites for enthusiasts.

From Passion to Paycheck

Let me give you a good example. It comes from Nick Usborne, a guy I've known for many years. One of Nick's hobbies is coffee. (In fact, when he read my Living Rich report on “Drinking Like a Billionaire,” he sent me suggestions on how to improve the section on coffee.)

In 2006, Nick was making a good living as a copywriter but he was spending almost as much as he was making. He realized that to get ahead he needed to create a second income stream. And what he really wanted was a passive income stream.

He decided to start a website on something he enjoyed and loved-coffee!

Nick wasn't an expert on coffee by any means, but he knew more about it than the average Starbucks customer. He also knew that coffee was a big, international business.

He did a quick search on the Internet and found there were already several seemingly successful websites talking about coffee, such as coffeereview.com and coffeeuniverse.com.

These sites were comprehensive, but because he had a copywriting background Nick knew that being comprehensive was not always a great thing. Sites that provide a great deal of general information can attract a lot of eyeballs, but sites that have authority and offer opinions are usually more effective at attracting buyers.

Further research identified a dozen more targeted sites that appealed to the connoisseur. Nick's idea was to create a site that would be more specific and opinionated than the big data-oriented sites, but also more accessible and friendly than the sites for coffee snobs.

He called his site coffeedetective.com.

Coffee Detective was an instant success for Nick. It didn't make a fortune, but it did well enough to encourage him to start a few more. Each website took a little while to get going, but once it was up and running the workload dropped dramatically.

Today Nick has several websites that bring him a monthly income of up to $4,000 (over 2 lac rupees), although he's made as much as $7,877 (about 4 lacs) in a single month.

Since he started in 2006, he's made more than $200,000 (over ten million rupees!) in passive income from his websites for enthusiasts. And he never works more than a few hours per week!

Is a Moneymaking Website for Enthusiasts a Good Extra Income Opportunity?

When we introduced the Extra Income Project, we promised to show you dozens of ways to generate more cash… without having to leave your job, spend a lot of startup money, or kill yourself working long hours.

Every extra income opportunity we have presented to you so far has had to meet certain criteria.

These criteria include:

Anyone should be able do it (it's easy and simple to understand) You should be able to start it from home You could work part-time or on weekends You could begin without investing a ton of money.

A moneymaking website for enthusiasts fits the bill. You can start part-time with a few hours of effort per week. You can get started for as little as $100 or a few thousand rupees. And you don't need to be a computer geek or Web expert to do it.

As I said, Nick's Coffee Detective is just one example of a moneymaking website for enthusiasts. There are thousands of other examples among hundreds of topics.

Take Lisa Irby, for example. She has a passion for fitness. It started as a personal challenge to find the best ways of flattening her stomach. As a result, Lisa became somewhat of an expert on keeping her stomach flat.

This inspired her to start her own website, called Flat Stomach Exercises. She wanted to help other people battling the same problems she had. She says her website gets about 6,500 visitors per day and brings in four figures per month.

Another guy, Tomaz Mencinger, has been working in tennis clubs and academies for around 10 years. He loves to teach people everything he knows about tennis. So in 2005 he decided to create a website about his passion, called FeelTennis. Now he's able to reach thousands of people rather than just a few on the court each day.

Then we have Sara Ding. In her early 30s, she was struggling with short-term memory loss, high cholesterol, hypothyroidism, and low blood pressure.

Sara was experiencing all of these health problems due to malnutrition caused by a poor diet. During her research to find out the best way to get her body the nutrients it needed, she discovered juicing. She became very enthusiastic about juicing and decided to launch her own website about it, juicing-for-health.com.

Today, not only is she healthy, but she doesn't have to worry about her finances anymore, either.

These websites are real. The money is real. And regular people like you and me are behind them.

And the same is true in India. Indian websites are mushrooming. I have seen successfull sites about yoga and ayurveda, beauty and makeup, cars and sports. And one of the most successful Indian websites to date was started by a young girl with endless enthusiasm for Bollywood gossip MissMalini.com whose readership has grown from 10,000 visitors in 2010 to 500,000 today!

If this piques your interest let me walk you through the process of setting up your own enthusiast website.

But before we do that… let me ask you a question. Did you notice how all of the examples above are about people who really enjoy writing on the topics they have chosen?

In fact, they would probably write these sites without any expectation of making money. These are topics they are truly enthusiastic about. This is a game-changer when it comes to making a passive income-because you get to make thousands of rupees extra each month, but without the feeling that you are “working.”

Anyone Can Do This

You don't have to be a world-class expert to start an enthusiast website. All you need is passion, persistence, and the knowledge of how this business model works. You simply supply the passion and persistence. We will give you the knowledge of how this market works and step-by-step instructions on getting started.

Step One

The first step is to choose a hobby or activity that inspires you. Begin by scratching out a list of everything you enjoy. Make the list as long as possible. Don't worry if your passion seems crazy or even embarrassing. Crazy and embarrassing can be good!

After you have at least 10 (but hopefully several dozen) topics, you will begin to narrow them down by asking the following questions:

Is this something that is difficult or complicated? (Collecting butterflies, rare coins, etc.) Is this something that requires skill? (Golf, fishing, playing the santoor, building airplanes, etc.) Is this something that needs tools or parts? (Repairing old radios, vacuum cleaners, motorbikes, etc.) Is this something people have strong opinions about? (Wine, cooking, meditation, etc.) Is this something that sounds crazy or embarrassing? (Skydiving, sexual fetishes, eating dirt, etc.)

You are looking for “yeses.” The stronger the yeses, the better. You can then get rid of topics that don't have that many yeses.

Of the remaining topics, think about the ones that YOU feel you could really get behind and write about enthusiastically.

Step Two

This is where we figure out the online supply and demand for your topic ideas. Supply represents the number of websites and pages that have already been published on your topic by other people and companies. Demand represents the number, or universe, of people who are actually looking for information on your topic.

As you have perhaps already figured out… you don't want too much supply, and you do want a healthy level of demand.

To see the supply number, think of a search term that matches your topic and type it into the search box at Google. Just above the list of search results you'll see a number that tells you how many results are being listed.

To find the “demand” number, you can use a free tool like Google's AdWords Keyword Planner. This will tell you how many times people use that search term each month.

If this sounds complicated, don't worry. It doesn't take long to get the hang of figuring out a promising supply/demand ratio. And you'll use this ratio to identify which of your topic ideas has the most potential.

For now, let's focus on the “demand” figure, which represents your universe of potential site visitors.

Take yoga, for example, if you are enthusiastic about yoga. A quick look on Google AdWords gives me a universe of 5 million people.

That is a lot of people.

Or how about one of my favorite topics-Jiu Jitsu? Every month more than 1.8 million people scour the Internet looking for information on Jiu Jitsu.

So both yoga and Jiu Jitsu might be good topics for a moneymaking website of this kind. (When you start working on this, you'll also be looking at the supply figures, to make sure your topic isn't too competitive.)

The purpose of this step is to find a popular topic that has a sizeable universe of prospects, and not too much competition.

And yes, this process works. For example, Tomaz Mencinger, whom I mentioned earlier, is bringing in $3,000 (1 lac rupees) per month in extra income from his tennis site. And Tomaz tells us that it hasn't yet reached its full potential.

Step Three

After you have determined your topic has the universe you need, find an angle that makes it unique in some way.

I told you that Nick saw a gap between the large coffee websites that offered general information and the connoisseur websites that appealed to coffee snobs.

Every site, forum, or blog he went to was for the “coffee geeks,” the people who freak out if their coffee is brewed two degrees too hot. So Nick decided to fill gap by providing the basics.

Nick's angle was to create a website for people interested in coffee that was not too snobby, but still comprehensive enough for these beginners to become experts.

Then there's Nancy Hearn from Phoenix, Ariz. She has an incredible passion for the health benefits of water. Nancy's site, Water Benefits Health, teaches the health and fitness benefits of drinking water. Her site brings in anywhere from $1,000-3,000 per month with minimal effort.

What you are doing in this step is one of the most important things you must do if you hope to make money from your website.

Every good book on entrepreneurship will tell you that it is easier to sell a product or service if it has a unique selling proposition (USP).

Usually this is some quality or characteristic of the product or service that is lacking in the competition. But sometimes it can simply be a different approach.

For example, let's say your interest is in pet care. You search the Internet and find that it has a sizeable universe. So you think, “How can I narrow this down?” You could narrow it down by focusing on just one kind of pet, so you choose cats.

That helps but there are hundreds of websites dealing with cat care. How can you make your website unique? You decide that your website will focus on some special interest that you have.

It turns out that you are also a vegetarian. So you decide to create a website to teach and help people who want to feed their cats a vegetarian diet. This is loony but as I said, crazy is good. Sure enough, you'll find more than 4 million results on Google when searching “vegetarian cat food.”

Or you could devote your website to communicating with your cat telepathically. This is both crazy and embarrassing (or it should be), but it will certainly give your website a USP.

Not every USP sells. You will discover that later in the process-when you test your website.

Step Four

After you have chosen your topic and its USP, it's time to choose a domain name. A domain name is basically your Internet address. For example, our domain name is commonsenseliving.co.in.

It's very simple to create a domain name. All you need to do is go to a website like godaddy.com, type in the name of the site you'd like, and godaddy.com will let you know if it's available and for how much it costs.

Step Five

Once you choose a domain name, you can start setting up your website. A content management system (CMS) makes this possible. It also allows you to design, publish, and update your content seamlessly.

This used to be difficult and expensive. But thanks to sites like SiteBuildIt! and WordPress, it's simple for non-techies to do. And affordable too.

For example, SiteBuildIt! makes it easy for anyone to set up, manage, and maintain and monetize a website-without having a degree in website development. You pick a template you think best suits your website and then start filling it in. All this in one place for Rs 1500 or less each month.

Step Six

Now it's time to fill up your website with content. It needs to be chock full of facts, statistics, articles, reviews, and, most importantly, insights and opinions. It needs to show the universe of prospects that you have something useful and unique to offer.

Here are a few steps to help you get started:

Determine your audience. Are they beginners, experts, or somewhere in between?

Choose a point of view. You're an expert, and that's why we should listen to you. Maybe you're an amateur with a few years of experience. Or you're just like the reader and want to share your journey with them as you learn about your specific niche.

Remember why people are on your site, what their needs are, what questions they may be looking for answers to. Most people will come to your website in search of the answer to a particular question.

Find content ideas by using Google Alerts, Google Insights, and Google Trends. Follow related blogs, check out customer reviews, and browse newspapers and best-selling books.

Immerse yourself in social media. This not only is a great way to find inspiration for content ideas but can also tell you which aspects of your topic people get the most passionate and enthusiastic about. (Once your website is published, you can get a ton of visitors through social media too. Use our social media guide to learn how.

Write your own content-you can get inspiration from all the sources I mentioned above, but writing it in your own style with your own unique perspective is what will keep readers coming back.

Develop your own unique voice. This will make you stand out from your competitors.

Keep your writing style simple. Use short sentences and paragraphs with simple words.

Keep all your content on-topic, and optimize all your pages to get the highest possible listings in the search results. Use our Search engine optimization guide to help you.

This may sound like a challenging task, but let me assure you, it's not. The content management systems I mentioned earlier, such as SiteBuildIt!, offer tools to maximize your search results by utilizing keywords and other strategies.

How You'll Make Money With Websites

How much money can you make with a website for enthusiasts?

There's really no typical or standard answer to this question. There are websites that make millions of rupees per month and there are those that bring in just a few thousand rupees.

Since this is an extra income opportunity and not a full-time business, our marketing plan is designed to bring in hundreds or thousands of dollars, not millions. But the great thing about this kind of website is that once you get it going, it becomes relatively easy to gradually grow it without working terribly hard.

Remember Nancy Hearn? She spends just 4-5 hours per week on her website about drinking water. Spending this little amount of time will eventually bring in $3,000 (Rs 150,000) per month, she believes.

Once you have your website set up and the content on your topic loaded, there are basically four ways to generate money from your site:

AdSense (contextual advertising)

Other advertisements

Affiliate products

Selling your own products.

The “easiest” way to make money from a website is with contextual advertising.

I say this is the easiest way to make money for three reasons. First, you don't have to find the advertisers. There are services you can use that will provide them for you. Google AdSense is the most popular of these services. But there are also The Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ads Network, Chitika, Bidvertiser, and several others.

Second, you don't have to write and design these ads. The service company supplies them. Third, you don't have to process or track the orders.

Remember, one of the core values of this moneymaking website model is that you make PASSIVE income. With contextual ads, you just add a bit of code to your site pages, and then the ads are automatically served. All you ever have to do is check your AdSense dashboard-if you are using Google AdSense-and see how much money you are making each day.

My outlook on wealth building has changed a lot in the past year, and being a member of the Wealth Club has altered it even more. I have just finished reading The Pledge, and I bought three more of Mark's books, which I plan to finish in the next two weeks.

Thank you Mark Ford for the knowledge I have received and will receive in the future. Subscriber CXL You can also make money by hosting traditional banner ads. With banner ads, you don't get paid per click but by impression. For example, an advertiser might pay you Rs 250 for every 1,000 times visitors to your site see its ad.

This kind of advertising, by which you are paid per 1,000 impressions, can work well once you have a ton of traffic coming to your site, but it probably isn't your best option during the early months.

But don't worry. In addition to contextual advertising, there is another way to make money from day one… and this can become a huge source of income for you.

It's called affiliate marketing.

This is where you sign up as an affiliate with an online merchant or network of merchants. You link to its product sales pages from your site, using a unique affiliate link.

If someone clicks on your link and goes on to complete a purchase at the merchant website, you get a percentage of the sale price.

Depending on the nature of the product or service, this commission can range from 10- 50%. In some cases the fee can be 80% or more!

Totalgadha.com, a website for students preparing for MBA entrance exams, was at one point earning INR 15 - 20000 per day from marketing alone.

Lastly, you can offer your own products or services. You can sell physical products if you want, but that involves trips to the post office. If you want to stick with the passive income model, you simply sell e-products, such as e-books and guides.

These are purchased through your site, and then the payment and delivery process is automatic. So even while you're away on vacation, your site will continue to display, sell, and collect money through e-product sales.

On her website about writing, Mridu Khullar makes good money selling a series of e-books on the various aspects of becoming a succesful freelance writer.

Once It's up and Running

Let's review the benefits of having your own moneymaking website for enthusiasts:

It's inexpensive and relatively easy to set up.

Your reach is national or even international.

You don't have to be an expert, just an enthusiast.

You can do it part time when you want from your home.

Every page you publish can make you money indefinitely.

You're building a long-term asset.

Moneymaking Websites Versus Blogging

You may be wondering what is the difference between a moneymaking website and a blog-the extra income opportunity I introduced in a previous essay.

In many ways, they are the same. You write about something that interests you. You develop readers and followers. And you advertise products and services to those readers.

One big difference is that for the most part a blog tends to be tied to its writer. And because a blog is all about the writer, it's not a very easily sellable asset.

But a website can become a very valuable and sellable asset. In fact, Nick once turned down an offer of over $100,000 ( 5 million rupees) for his site.

Why would someone offer to buy his website?

His website is focused on the brand, Coffee Detective, not Nick Usborne. In other words, even if he sells the website it doesn't affect the market… consumers will be interested in coffee whether it's Nick writing about it or someone else who shares the same passion and enthusiasm.

You might wonder why Nick refused that six-figure offer. After all, that's a pretty nice chunk of cash for what is essentially his hobby. Well, he simply did the math and figured out his site would make him a lot more than that over the next few years.

Besides which, Nick sees his coffee website as an important part of his retirement planning. When he retires, he wants a “portfolio” of websites that continue to deliver passive income, month after month and year after year.

That said, there may come a day when he does want to cash in and sell the site. And because his site is a stand-alone brand, he can do that.

Plus, blogging can be more of a JOB. To keep readers interested in your blog, you'll typically need to add a new post at least twice a week, preferably every day. This means you have to stick to a publication schedule and be at your desk.

And remember, blogs attract comments-or at least the good ones do-and as the writer and publisher, you need to be around to respond to those comments.

A moneymaking website is not a job. You can work on it every day if you want. But you can also take a break for a week or two. Nick tends to work on his moneymaking websites in bursts, when he has the time.

And when he goes on vacation for 10 days, that's fine… the site will look after itself. Not fine if it were a blog.

Does that mean blogging is bad? No, not at all. If you love to write and have no problems writing a few times per week, blogging is for you and you can make great money.

But if you're looking to create an asset that generates passive income, moneymaking websites could be exactly what you are looking for.

Are You Ready to Start Your Own Moneymaking Website?

If you'd like to learn more about how to write your own moneymaking websites, please click here now.

And for a little more guided assistance, our friends at American Writers & Artists, Inc. is preparing your free 30-day launch protocol The Secret of the 1-Hour Work Week.

By now several of you have read AWAI's reports and know that their home-study programs are designed to help people develop the critical skills to acquire financial security, independence, and freedom.

The launch protocol will give you a more detailed idea of how you can create multiple income streams by writing an information based website.

It also includes examples of how creating information websites has changed the lives of so many AWAI members.

Inside the manual, you'll learn:

The Secret of the 1-Hour Work Week

What Is a Moneymaking Website?

Explore the “Underground” World of Profitable Online Writing

Five Reasons Why You Should Get Involved

Why Publishing Your Own Information Website Is Such a Great Way to Make Money Writing Just One Hour per Week

The Foundation of Your Website

Insider Tips on Choosing the Best Topic for Your Moneymaking Website

Make up Your Mind to Get Started on Your Own Moneymaking Website

How to Accelerate Your Success by Working With the Best in the Business

Make the Most of the Extra Income Project.

Someone once said, “The best time to launch your new website is five years ago. The second best time is now.”

As a member of Wealth Builders Club India, we expose you to the some of the best ways to generate extra income. But it's your job to figure out which ones work best for you.

The manual will be ready soon. Be on the lookout for it in your inbox. In the meantime, figure out your interests andget ready.

Best, Mark

I spent the past five years being a freelancer, in addition to running my own enterprise, which was largely focused on design and content development for all mediums. Since I had been a part of the media and a writer and editor by profession, my freelance jobs were mostly in writing. And during that time, I wrote and edited just about any topic. From writing website and blog copy to editing non-fiction books, from press releases to advertising copy for hoardings, there was little I hadn't touched.

I have met many people who are juggling full-time jobs and freelancing assignments with quite some ease. Their freelance assignments are making them almost as much money as their jobs, sometimes even more. And some eventually break away to become full-time freelancers or “solopreneurs” as they're called today.

The number of freelancers is growing, and especially in emerging economies like India. An article titled, The Freelance Economy Is Booming. But Is It Good Business?, has shown statistics from one of the world's largest freelance websites, Elance, stating that: The U.S. has the greatest number of Elancers, with nearly 716,000. India is second, with more than 359,000; Pakistan is third, with more than 113,000; and the Philippines are fourth, with more than 89,000.

There are many reasons for the boom in the freelance economy. One primary factor being that companies are finding it more cost-efficient to reduce hires and outsource some specialized jobs. Did you know that the function of CFOs could also be outsourced? Check this Indian website MyCFO.in which is a service provider for freelance CFOs.

Moreover as women have entered the workforce in a bigger way and are looking to pursue their careers while they continue to be caregivers, freelancing has become their chosen option, giving rise to websites like Gharkamai.com.

The internet itself provides a host of money-making opportunities for those who wish to increase their income or start their own independent businesses. Thus, freelancing is not just becoming a feasible and lucrative career but also a scalable 'business'. And in this report, we'll show you just how.

Work from Anywhere Work from Anywhere Source: Pincasso / Shutterstock

WHO IS A FREELANCER?

Steven Bradley in How to Scale Your Freelance Business writes: “The definition of a freelancer is a person who sells services to employers without a long-term commitment to any of them.”

Freelancers essentially work on assignments or projects that are typically short-term in nature and more on a contractual basis. This flexibility allows them to take on more diverse work and even work for a wide range of people in different sectors. It also gives them the freedom to choose where they want to work from and who they want to work with.

Freelancers today call themselves solopreneurs, coaches or consultants. Some even go by the title of “virtual assistants” to reassure clients that they can depend on them for just about anything.

But freelancing, just like any other business, has its pros and cons. Here's discussing a few.

THE BENEFITS OF FREELANCING

You can work flexi-hours: One of the biggest benefits of a freelancer is to able to decide exactly how many hours you wish to work. And this also largely correlates with how ambitious you are as a freelancer. If you decide you want a certain turnover, then you may work more than employees with fixed hours. But if not, you can decide the number of hours you would like to clock each day, giving you ample time to take in your other hobbies and activities.
You can work from just about anywhere: Freelancing saves you the hours of commute to a workplace. It also helps you conserve energy for other activities that you wish to pursue. And with the internet and its various features and apps, you can now even set up office at an exotic location. The Suitcase Entrepreneur by Natalie Sisson specifically gives valuable tips for those who would like to conduct businesses while they are on the go, travelling to new destinations.
You can increase your income: In addition to your salary or existing business revenue, freelancing brings in that extra income, the jam on your bread and butter. And what makes it better is that the income needn't be predetermined. Your working rates can be decided by you purely by the perceived value you bring to the project on hand. You'll be surprised that on some days, the income you make freelancing will be more than your per day cost to your company.
You can build your portfolio: Freelancing is pretty much like running a business with a service you have to offer. But what makes it interesting is that every client's need will be different and this will increase your repertoire in your particular area of specialization. For example, a writer like me, who initially just wrote magazine articles went onto doing website copy, press releases and even text for calendars and other promotional material. This added to my portfolio and I could offer a wider variety of services, eventually becoming a one-stop shop for all content requirements.
You can enhance your skillset: In addition to your existing skillset, you will draw upon other skills too to promote and grow your business. Skills like marketing, accounting, and PR will be learned. Similarly you will gain more insights about the intricacies of client management. Not to mention, you will become more adept at juggling time and resources, particularly if you are already on a job and managing clients alongside.

SOME FREELANCING LIMITATIONS

It can be very time-consuming and with limited scale: Freelancing can become a very time-consuming process. Unlike a job it has no fixed hours for delivery. You may need to make submissions at odd hours, and more so if you you're doing it in addition to a job. Sometimes it may demand more time than was anticipated at the start of a project. If you're a consultant, you may realise that one session with a client is not enough and that you need to do more sessions and this could eat into your time for other jobs. This also means that freelancing can be very limiting in terms of scale if it is completely dependent on you and follows the 1:1 formula.

There will be days of too much work or none at all: There will be times when you will be flooded with work and enquiries and then there will be times when you're twiddling your thumbs wondering if you should get back to a full-time job. Freelancing tends to be extremely erratic by its very nature. If you're moonlighting from an existing job, this gives you some breathing time but if you're a full-time freelancer the dip in revenue and work can often be a worrying experience.

You will have more than one boss, and sometimes very interfering ones: Yes, time is not the only thing you're juggling; you will also be managing several clients at the same time. And sometimes they will all want delivery “by yesterday”. Unlike the structured nature of an organization, you will see yourself reporting to multiple clients and this can be very unnerving initially. As freelancers, get ready to accommodate clients' unreasonable demands, or other interference with your work.

You may have to chase payments: Most freelancers take a 50 percent advance before they start any assignment. But once your relationship with the client grows, this rule becomes fluid and you continue working for the client, thinking the payment will come in. By and large, a person who has been a good paymaster at the start, will be a good paymaster till the end. But there may be that odd case, where the person doesn't pay you on time and you have to constantly follow up for money which is due to you.

Clients and income can both be erratic: There are one-off clients and repeat clients and then there are clients who suddenly disappear on you. You may have started a project with someone, continued it for a year or two and then without informing you, the client either ends the association or has ended the project. Don't take it personally. The reasons for ending an association are often professional rather than personal. Similarly, if you're a full-time freelancer, a monthly income stream is difficult to predict, unless you are on a retainership with a company.

But despite all these odds, once you've decided to become a freelancer, there is nothing that can stop you from making a six-figure income sitting at home and building a vibrant work portfolio while doing so. Let's take a look at some simple ways in which you can scale up your freelance business.

HOW YOU CAN SCALE UP

Increase working hours: Most consultants charge an hourly rate or they estimate the time taken for a job and give it a fixed rate, translating to the fact that the more hours you work, the more you can bill. But while this will ensure a growing income, it may just burn you out faster. So be careful before you take on too much work. Account for time you need for other activities in the day as well.

Grow your clients: One way of ensuring a constant stream of revenue is by constantly building your client base. This will ensure more projects at any given point in time and will mitigate your risks as a freelancer. But while building your network of clients, ensure that you work mostly with those who match your own sensibilities and values as this will provide greater longevity to the association.

Increase rates: One way of increasing revenue is by increasing your charges. Freelance services more or less have arbitrary rates because the value of your services largely depends on the project at hand. For example, two lines for a hoarding which reach out to thousands of readers may cost much more than the rate of a full article, because of the nature of the medium. Similarly when you consult for a company of 100+ employees vis-à-vis a company that has 10+ employees, the rates will differ because the impact of your service differs.

Build services: This essentially means adapting your service to multiple mediums and platforms. A writer can move from print to digital to writing short scripts for films while a coach can move from offline consultations to virtual consultations and eventually group webinars. Another aspect of this is to keep adding onto your repertoire of skills and keep learning. For example, today publicists don't just offer PR but also bundle up social media and event management in their offerings. This helps clients as they don't have to deal with many agencies.

Use sub-contractors: One of the fastest and most effective ways of scaling up is by working with other freelancers who you can sub-contract the work to. This may cut into your profits initially but it will eventually compensate in terms of volume and save you a lot of time. This is the first step in converting your freelance service to a business. But while growing your network of sub-contractors, check on their credentials and deliverables. Also as a contractor, make the terms clear, give clear briefs of the work to be done, and pay your vendor bills on time.

Create a product range: Since you can't be physically present 24/7, there are some ways that you can make money even while you don't work. For instance, if you have a website which displays your services, you could also start selling other digital products like 'How-to' guides, research reports and e-books. This will ensure revenue even while you're sleeping. Another way is by selling ad space on your site and even directly selling products of other individuals and companies that align with your services.

Enhance productivity: The easiest way to do this is by creating templates. From a billing template to your briefs to the client, try and template everything. Routine jobs like accounting and other documentation like the signing of contracts can be easily templated. But even for creative tasks, a minimum templating is possible. For example, if you're a web developer, create some fixed templates from which the client can choose what he/she likes. Once that is done, the detailing and customization will become much faster. Also create a step-by-step workflow, so that you can anticipate exactly what the client needs at what stage. The more organized you are, the more productive you will be.

TIPS FOR BEING A BETTER FREELANCER

Project a brand, not an individual: No matter how small you start out, think and work like a brand. Even if you go by your own name, brand what you can from your stationery to visiting cards to websites and contracts. This projects you as an entity and a professional one at that. It also makes the transition from an individual service to a business easier.

Optimise the internet: The internet is a Mecca for all entrepreneurs. From sourcing vendors and clients to creating a website that displays your services and products, maximize this medium to grow your freelancing business. Additionally, use social media, apps and other online services that can help you put systems and processes in place to work smoother. For example, Google Docs can enable you and your vendors/clients to work collaboratively on a project.

Concentrate on promoting yourself: Just like any other brand or business, you have to constantly put yourself out there on all offline and online platforms. Attend networking forums, start dialogues on social media, create regular promotional material to update your clients of your recent work and keep an eye out for other service providers in your field.

Give that little extra to your clients: Freelancing is a service industry and thus it becomes extremely important to put the client at the heart of the business. It always helps to go that extra mile for clients as they will not only come back to you time and again but also put out the good word about your services. So do what it takes to put them at ease – work once more on that iteration they request, don't hesitate to give some free advice and make that extra call to see if they are happy with the work done.

Throw in the occasional freebie: This is a promotional tool that is being used increasingly by most online services. A free consultation, a free e-book or a free chapter to a paid book are some of the ways online consultants are building their client lists. This also happens offline by giving free talks at conferences that could potentially bring you more clients or by offering a free service like throwing in an e-mailer after designing a whole website.

Create a product, not just a service: When you develop products rather than services, freelancing has a higher probability of becoming scalable. Like the previous example of the web developer, you can package the web templates itself as products and create an easy-to-use manual for the client. This means you create the product just once but you benefit from its sales multiple times. Thus less effort, more revenue.

Build systems independent of you: Just like a company you manage, a freelance service is also about good management skills. So take time to put processes in place. For example, create checklists for vendors, give them the necessary brief for submissions and presentation so that each time you don't need to repeat your requirements. Use online tools like Sendible, Hootsuite etc. to ensure your social media avenues are updated without you spending too much time on them.

Sub-contract, but don't say no: When you begin to start looking at freelancing as a business and not just a solo enterprise, you will realize that just about anything can be outsourced and you can easily find a gamut of service providers. Thus don't completely reject a project till you are sure that there is absolutely no way you can deliver. Saying no to a potential client right at the start is tantamount to losing him/her forever.

Think value, not time: Very often freelancers doubt their charges, wondering if they're billing more than they should. But that's a feeling you will overcome when you truly believe that you are bringing a lot to the task at hand - you bring multiple years of experience, a skill that already has a market worth, time that could have otherwise been used on another job and finally and most importantly, you add value and make a positive impact on the client's enterprise.

Run it like a business: A freelancer can eventually become a business person and if you think like that from the start, scaling up will almost be an automatic process. But this means putting in several hours into research and development, marketing and promotions, client and vendor management and strongly focusing on revenue targets. It simply means thinking big and believing in what you've set out to do!

Are you a freelancer waiting to take off and make a mark in the booming freelance economy? If so, remember these valuable tips from this report and let us know if we've given you more ideas and spoonsful of courage.

You could also read Mark's views on freelancing in the article Retire Next Year #2 Turn Your Skills Into Cash With E-Lancing and our other WBC reports that can help you in starting your own business:

How to Craft Great Business Proposals - It has some useful strategies to bag more clients.

WBC India's Report on Social Media - It has interesting facts on why you should use social media to grow your business.

3 Letters to Make Your Business an Online Success: SEO - It shows you how to enhance your website's presence and make it more searchable on the internet

Blogging Basics for Beginners - It provides insights on how blogs can be used to promote your services.

Resources:

http://www.slideshare.net/davidortinau/how-to-scale-your-freelance-business-and-maximize-profit?utm_source=slideshow02&utm_medium=ssemail&utm_campaign=share_slideshow http://studioblog.envato.com/freelance-business-scaling/ http://www.writerprofits.com/how-to-scale-up-your-freelance-writing-business/ http://leavingworkbehind.com/scaling-freelance/ http://passivepanda.com/freelancing-part-v http://passivepanda.com/freelancing-part-iv http://passivepanda.com/freelancing-part-iii http://passivepanda.com/freelancing-part-ii http://passivepanda.com/freelancing-part-i http://blog.bidsketch.com/everything-else/beyond-freelancing/ http://www.vanseodesign.com/online-business/scaling-freelance-business/ http://blog.fundbox.com/5-ways-scale-grow-freelance-business/ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229277

Dear Reader,

We recently sent you Extra Income Opportunity # 6: Make $4,000 Each Month by Taking Your “Hobby” Online. Today, we're sending you a special report. It will give you a more detailed idea of how you can create multiple income streams by writing an information based website.

Inside the 30-Day Launch Protocol, you'll learn:

The Secret Of The 1-Hour Work Week

What Is A Money-Making Website?

Explore The “Underground” World of Profitable Online Writing

Five Reasons Why You Should Get Involved

Why Publishing Your Own Information Website Is Such A Great Way To Make Money Writing Just One Hour A Week

The Foundation Of Your Website

Insider Tips On Choosing The Best Topic For Your Money-Making Website

Make Up Your Mind To Get Started On Your Own Money-Making Website

How To Accelerate Your Success By Working With The Best In The Business

Please click here to access your free report. [Report available in the Wealth Builders Club Folder]

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club

Ritika Bajaj I remember at one of my previous jobs, a big media house, my boss once said to me, “Marketing is the life blood of an organization. The true test of a product is when it is a marketing success.”

These words hold true for most businesses, small and big, online and offline. Enterprises see their growth and sustenance from carefully planned marketing strategies. And most organizations dedicate a large amount of their resources, both people and money toward their marketing efforts.

According to a blog, the popular electronics brand Samsung was spending more on marketing than R&D last year. It may have led to some concerns among people if it was neglecting technological innovation but in order to counter its arch rival Apple, marketing seemed to be the need of the hour. Samsung had to be heard and seen when it launched its new products.

Marketing as a term has several connotations; it is a wide term that encompasses many aspects. It is a constantly evolving concept that needs continuous rethinking and reworking. Just one report may not do justice to such a vast subject, but we believe it will give you many great ideas for your own venture.

This report will first talk about the great impact that marketing can have and some ideas that you can use to increase sales and awareness.

Simple & effective, in the marketplace! Work from Anywhere Source: Arina P Habich / Shutterstock

What is marketing?

To quote from an article Marketing and advertising tips “Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” (The UK Chartered Institute of Marketing, CIM, official definition 2012.)

Thus, in marketing, the relationship with the customer or potential customer defines all the marketing initiatives. The definition also brings out the fact that marketing initiatives should eventually be profitable, they should help bring in the revenues.

All the activities undertaken in marketing ultimately determine the relationship between the enterprise and its various stakeholders.

Let's look at the popular Indian brand Nirma for example. Do you know how it started? In the late 60s, a Gujarati man Dr. Karsanbhai Patel in Ahmedabad started manufacturing detergent in his backyard. Dr Patel went door-to-door like all traditional salesmen, sold his detergent to families in the city and promised them a money-back guarantee if it didn't work. He had good knowledge of science, he priced his detergent cheaper than the ones available in the market and he finally went onto overtake the leading detergent brand Surf.

The earnest and effective marketing strategies of this man went onto create a household product that continues to ring in our minds even today. But the essence of this case study is that Dr Patel kept the consumer at the heart of his work.

Since marketing depends on relationships and relationships are sustained by positive and ongoing communication, marketing too uses communication as its basic premise.

Communication in a business could include all internal and external communications, from setting and defining the company's core values internally to using promotional tools like advertising, PR, direct marketing tools, social media and online marketing as well as tele-marketing to talk about the product offering - the trick in marketing is to use communication tools as effectively as possible.

Why marketing is important to your business?

Connects you to the customer: Marketing is really your first step in building a relationship with your customer. It is what makes the customer notice your product or service and then decide whether he/she wants to avail of it and start a relationship with your business.

Inspires brand loyalty: Just as a business needs to continue for years or generations, likewise marketing ensures that communication is an ongoing process with the customer. It ensures that your customer also believes he has a relationship with your product, and turns to you for all his future needs.

Pushes sales: Every marketing effort is ultimately directed towards increasing sales. The success of marketing is when viewers of your product convert to buyers and users, in marketing parlance these are “conversions”. Any marketing initiative should be directed by the aim of getting more buyers and users into your business.

Focuses on profits: All marketing efforts impact the bottomline of companies. Thus a company's turnover can get positively impacted if its marketing initiatives are focused and innovative and can similarly get negatively impacted if it is neglected.

How is marketing different from advertising or PR?

The term marketing is often confused and used interchangeably with advertising and PR. But they are very distinct terms.

Marketing is a larger umbrella term that includes advertising and PR, but the latter two do not include marketing.

Marketing covers everything from company values and targets, to market research and surveys, to advertising and PR, to an analysis of the final targets and objectives achieved by all these initiatives.

So what exactly are advertising and PR then?

Advertising: Marketing uses advertising to reach out to the customer. Print ads, TV ads and radio jingles as well as billboards and sales brochures, are considered traditional advertising. Online communication through Facebook ads and banner ads on websites, are a newer mode of advertising. Advertising, therefore, is the different materials and mediums used for marketing. Through advertising, businesses create unique concepts that enable brand and product recall in the minds of the customer. Like for example the Nirma jingle that became so popular, Sabki pasand Nirma…

Advertising also helps to make a marketing strategy more measurable and statistically driven by measuring viewership, responses etc.

PR: Public relations is a mechanism used to send out communication about the product or service to different media. This is done in the form of press releases which are sent out before a product or service is launched. The publicist or PR agency pushes the message to targeted media and get editorial write-ups for the product or service. This results in articles and features that make readers accept the product more readily since they are more likely to trust a publication with credibility than a new service/product. PR initiatives are also conducted to salvage the reputation of a particular service or product. Like the many interviews we see of Bollywood stars after a Bollywood debacle, with them talking more about the making of the movie, so that some part of it interests you and you still go and see it.

The Marketing Mix

The proportions in which you use advertising, PR, marketing and research depend on different factors like the product, place, type of promotion and price among the other 7Ps. This is also known as the 'marketing mix.'

For example, an individual who is merely selling his own service and credentials, may find it more effective to use PR and social media marketing where he can talk about his own views and expertise as those will display his knowledge in his industry in a more personal way.

A big electronics brand or fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company that depends on a multitude of users, may place more emphasis on traditional advertising methods that reach out to larger audiences.

Nowadays, more and more companies are using online and offline marketing tools to gain more customers.

7 Basic Steps to a Marketing Plan

Step 1- Get feedback: Start with conducting surveys to find out how your product or service is perceived. This can be done by sending out a questionnaire to a focused group. This will give you a good sense of who your customer is and what they are willing to pay. A free online service called SurveyMonkey can be used for this.

Step 2- Research market trends: Research the trends in your industry and understand what your competitors are already doing. This will help you position your services differently and help you further define your Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Search for similar words like your product or service on Google and Bing and see what comes up. Additionally, peruse websites that have similar services.

Step 3- Define your objectives: The next step is to determine exactly what you plan to achieve with your marketing initiatives. Set certain targets and goals, both quantitative and qualitative. Put a certain figure to the revenue, to the number of people you wish to reach, and state clearly the key messages that your marketing effort should communicate. These objectives can be short, medium or long term.

Step 4- Develop your key offerings: Marketing is largely about positioning and this becomes easier when you are completely clear about what you are offering and how it is different from what already exists. This gives you a competitive advantage in the market, it makes you stand apart from the rest. And more often than not your competitive advantage will be your core competence - whatever you do best, will be the best offering.

Step 5- Create a business plan: This essentially maps out the way forward for your enterprise. It will tell you exactly how much you need in terms of resources and enable you to make projections for growth. Business plans include all the costs a business incurs plus projected revenue targets and how they will be achieved and in how many phases. The clearer you are about what you wish to achieve, the easier it will be to make a marketing plan and justify its expenses.

Step 6- Determine a marketing budget: This will largely be a result of how much you can earn from the investments made from your marketing effort. Thus, projected gains from your business plan will help you budget resources to your marketing. When planning a marketing budget, you will also have to decide how you wish to allocate resources for the different streams of marketing like traditional advertising, online and electronic marketing, PR etc. Traditional advertising tends to take more monetary resources but social media marketing and direct marketing may take more human resources.

Step 7- Execute with speed: With rapidly changing market dynamics, speed will give your marketing plan an edge. As soon as you decide when and how you want to conduct your marketing initiatives, don't waste any time getting started. Roll out the plan and make iterations as quickly. Markets evolve very fast and you must too with equal speed. In earlier times, marketing was largely proactive but in today's times with the internet and digital marketing, it is more reactive. Thus be prepared to make changes in your plans and get ready for surprises.

The Marketing Mix: Use these 7Ps to grow your revenue

The 7Ps theory of marketing

What started out as the 4Ps of marketing have today become 7Ps. These Ps essentially comprise the marketing mix and will give you guidelines on how to plan your marketing strategy.

Product: Your product offering is key to marketing. Very often a product is developed first and then a demand is created for it. But the reverse actually works better. Identify what products the market needs and then determine your offering. A product can be both tangible like goods that are sold, and intangible like a consultation or an online tutorial. Several aspects make up a product like its design, technology, packaging, branding etc. But products are eventually known by their quality, and the use and satisfaction that the customer gets from it.

Price: A product's price is mostly determined by what people are willing to pay for it. The more you charge, the higher will be expectations of service and quality. That does not mean you should price your product or service cheap, it just means you should have competitive pricing. You can give further value for money by providing some value-added services. The price determined should also incorporate the profit margin.

Promotion: This could include any mechanism that a company uses to spread its message on a product or service, like building a corporate identity by designing an effective logo and name, advertising through various media like print, TV, radio or internet. Additionally launching a PR campaign, participating in exhibitions, building user-friendly websites, creating informative brochures and announcing exciting offers are other promotional methods. The basis of promotions should be a consistent and clear message, to attract the customer, present not just the features but also benefits of the product and allow the customer to communicate back to the company or service provider, also known as customer engagement.

Place: This is nothing but the marketplace for your product. If you are into e-commerce, the website is your marketplace, if you are a local retailer, the city in which you are based is your marketplace. Thus the place will determine which marketing mechanism comes into play more. You will then be able to decide better if social media marketing works better for your products or mainstream advertising and other promotions. But nowadays even websites like Flipkart are using hoardings and newspaper ads while big consumer brands are also making a social presence, but the preferred avenue will depend on the exact place you're goods or services are sold from.

People: This essentially comprises the people who represent your brand, product or service. If you take care of customer service yourself being a small business, ensure you focus on this aspect equally. It includes everything from projecting the brand values to after sales services. If you have a team of personnel, training them about the various services and ensuring they get the ethos of the brand right is one part of the marketing process. All the people you work with should more or less be speaking the same language as you.

Process: This is largely for the services industries but can also positively influence other industries. A process essentially is about how a company delivers a service. For example, how long does a web user need to wait before his transaction is complete on your website, how much time do you take to reply to a query from a client, how long do you have to wait before a call center personnel responds to your call. The smoother these processes, the more repeat clientele you will get.

Physical Evidence: It is difficult for a first-time user to decide on an intangible service and new service provider. For these reasons organisations get testimonials from their previous clients. This gives the customer some idea of prior customer satisfaction and since it is endorsed by a user and not just the company, the service offered gains more credibility. Thus keep a record of all your customer feedback and testimonials and use them as creatively as you can to market your services.

An eighth P has been added recently called productivity and quality. Productivity is about optimizing systems and costs to produce goods and service more efficiently. One way organisations increase productivity is by standardizing processes, another is by reducing costs on the production. Quality is largely relative and depends on the customer's perception but it works as the key differentiator and will bring back your customer time and again.

10 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses Think like your customer: It is easy to believe that you can sell what you want to sell. But when you think like your customer and talk like your customer, your marketing communication will become more effective.

Develop a great product: No matter how much you market, the customer will only return if you've given him a great product. So focus on building something that combines both utility and innovation, and that has quality while still being value for money.

Stand up for ethics: In a world of increasing malpractices, consumers want to know what your company stands for and how it delivers its services. They want to make sure your product or service is ethical and transparent. They want to believe they are buying services from a 'right' and ethical brand. Clearly state your value charter, be as clear and honest as you can about what you produce and how, get all the certifications and licenses you need.

Focus on building a brand: A brand ultimately gives your product its identity. Find a good name for your service or product, get a good logo designed by a small or medium-sized agency and use it in all your marketing collateral. Even if you just go by your name, choose a good font and stylize all your stationery and other material that your client will see.

Get people talking: Word of mouth is one of the fastest and cheapest ways of growing your market but it is definitely earned the hard way. It takes a lot of research, continuous innovation on the product/service and great customer service.

Network, network, network: Build a network by talking to just about everyone on your product/service. They could either convert to users or become potential vendors. Attend associations relevant to your industry and other business forums to network.

Conduct seminars, participate in exhibitions: If you are a consultant or an expert, give free talks at any avenue that you feel has the right target audience for your services. If you sell products, be a part of exhibitions, where you can take some space and create awareness without spending too much.

Try buddy marketing: This could be a great way of piggy backing on someone else's marketing campaign and they can do the same when you conduct yours. Buddy marketing, or cross promotions can be done simply by adding your own pamphlet in someone else's brochure and they can do the same when you send out any material of yours. Similarly for digital marketing, you can place your ad on someone's site and they can place their ad on yours.

Emphasise good service: When service is at the heart of your enterprise half the marketing battle is won. So find more innovative ways to enhance the customer service experience. You can make it more friendly, more prompt, be open to feedback and make changes where necessary. Also provide the added free service to make your old customers feel more special.

Create unique communications: Nowadays the avenues and scope for communicating creatively and effectively are many. They needn't be expensive either. Creating PDF brochures that don't have any mailing costs, sending out e-mailers, creating postcards and bookmarks that don't have heavy printing costs are some of the ways in which you can stay connected with your audience and inform them about your new products or services. The use of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to show pictures of your work and other social media platforms also help promote your services. Armed with these ideas, get ready to plan the marketing strategy of your own small business. If you need any help, feel free to write in to us or share your views and ideas with other Wealth Builders on WBC Conversations.

Resources: http://www.businessballs.com/market.htm http://marketing.about.com/od/marketingtipsandadvice/a/10smbizmktgtips.htm http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/marketing-sales/2014/07/22/back-to-basics-five-steps-marketing/ http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing/9-best-from-buffer/ http://www.businesslearnteach.com/ http://www.cim.co.uk/files/7ps.pdf http://www.cim.co.uk/files/usp.pdf http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/2861?e=cadden_1.0-ch07_s08 http://business-fundas.com/2011/the-8-ps-of-services-marketing/ http://toostep.com/insight/success-story-of-nirma http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-success-story-more-about-marketing-than-innovation-350582

This will be the 7th proposal of the Extra Income Project. (I've decided to call them “proposals” because I realize, in retrospect, that what I have been doing is making proposals to you, month after month.)

You hired me to give you suggestions for bringing extra income into your life. I promised that I'd recommend only things I've done myself. I've been doing that.

I didn't promise to motivate you to seize these opportunities, but there is no denying that I've been doing that. Despite the negative reputation of motivational writers, I find that I'm happy to be one.

Reason: Success is 10% knowledge and 90% execution. I have endeavoured to tell you the most important lessons I've learned in each case. But I'm acutely aware that if I don't persuade you to take action, I will have failed. And you will have, too.

So that's how I see what we've been doing. We have a business relationship. Our goal is your success. We cannot achieve that goal unless I give you both the knowledge and the motivation to take action.

And since I can't possibly know which of the various opportunities will work best for you, I come to you with proposals: “Here's something that might interest you,” I say. “It's an activity that can provide you with Rs. 1,000-10,000 per hour. It doesn't require any skills you can't easily learn. It doesn't require a large capital investment. It can be done from home. And you might actually enjoy it!”

Many people reading this have already selected an opportunity. Some are already generating extra income. But some, no doubt, are still waiting to take action.

When we began this project, I thought that 12 opportunities (delivered once per month over one year) would be plenty. And I still think it should be.

But I've also realized in doing this that there are certainly more than 12 good and proven ways to generate extra income. So we decided to bring in experts on these topics and have now created many more opportunities. We wanted someone who was a proven entrepreneur, someone who had multiple streams of income, and someone who was a good teacher.

The choice was obvious - Bob Bly, who is the personification of the ideas we've been talking about for the whole series.

Bob earns well over half a million dollars per year and became a self-made multimillionaire in his 30s. His income streams include copywriting, consulting, Internet marketing, speaking, and writing. Clients include IBM, AT&T, Forbes, Intuit, Brooklyn Union Gas, Siemens, and ITT Fluid Technology.

He is the author of 80 published books, including Start Your Own Home Business After 50 and How to Write and Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit, both from Linden Publishing. He also writes a column on business-to-business marketing for Target Marketing magazine.

I'm very happy that Bob has accepted the opportunity to write for the Extra Income Project series. I shouldn't be surprised, because he is, after all, an opportunity seizer.

Mark, keep up the good work. I look forward to each and every thing issued by The Wealth Builders Club. Club member WN. In the future, Bob will be proposing some very interesting and attractive new opportunities for you to consider. We'll keep sending these to you as Extra Income proposals as we uncover them. He will adhere to the format we've established: explaining the opportunity, the requirements, and the challenges, and providing you with a 30-Day Launch Protocol you can use to get going if you are interested.

And today he's going to be helping me out in presenting my next proposal-a very pleasant way of generating extra income that we've both been doing for many years: making money as an independent consultant.

And now here's Bob Bly…

Is Business Consulting a Good Extra Income Opportunity?

For more than three decades, I have earned an annual six-figure income as an independent consultant-and my proposal is that you may find consulting an ideal source of extra income, too.

When Mark and his team first started the Extra Income Project, they promised to show you dozens of ways to generate more cash. I know… that's a very broad statement.

That's why they brainstormed for months, determining very specific criteria each and every opportunity had to meet. So far, they've been successful at delivering on their promises and I am ready to continue delivering opportunities that meet their standards.

Let's review these criteria, the backbone of this project.

First, anyone should be able to do it (it's easy and simple to understand). Second, you should be able to start every opportunity from the comfort of your own home.

Third, you can choose to work part-time or on the weekends.

And finally, the opportunity should not require a tremendous amount of start-up capital.

After reviewing these criteria, I'm pleased to say business consulting fits the mould nicely.

Why I Love the Consulting Business

Here are some of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic about the consulting trade and its many business advantages:

Consulting can be a lucrative profession. Even a novice consultant can earn Rs. 10 lac or more per year. Some of the top independent consultants I know have annual incomes exceeding the Rs. 50 lac mark.

You can work from home. No more wearing a suit and tie, no more commuting, no more horrible bosses, no more office politics.

You can basically work when and where you want. You set your own hours. Work as much or as little as you want-spare-time or full-time. And with a laptop and a smartphone, your “office” can be anywhere you care to travel.

Start-up costs are under Rs. 50,000 and overhead is minimal. All you need to work from home is a PC, a phone, and a high-speed Internet connection.

No employees are necessary. You can have them if you want, but I prefer outsourcing routine work-proofreading, bookkeeping, graphic design, my website-to virtual assistants and service providers… again, minimal overhead.

No licenses or certifications are required. No special training. You don't even need a college degree-and certainly not an MBA.

A Billion Dollar Global Industry

In 2012, the U.S. market for management consulting grew 8.5%, to $39.3 billion. In 2013, the global market for consulting services of all kinds-including management, operations, human resources, and IT-was $415 billion.

In the United States, 991,400 people work as consultants either independently or as employees of consulting firms. Consulting fees can vary from $400-6,000 per day. A lot of consultants I know are in the $1,000-2,000 per-day range. J.A., atop marketing consultant, once advertised that he charged $2,000 per hour.

In India, too, the consulting industry has grown exponentially in the last few years. Many newcomers have entered the sector and have started lucrative businesses as consultants. India reportedly enjoys more than 5 percent of the Asia Pacific consulting industry business which was expected to reach almost 40 billion dollars by 2012. (Source)

The hot favourite areas in the Indian consulting industry are in corporate strategy, outsourcing services, human resource management and operations management. All of these consultants routinely charge a monthly retainer or project fees of several lacs.

As a rule of thumb, consultants who charge toward the higher end either possess highly specialized expertise or render a service that saves or makes the client a lot of money.

The overwhelming majority of consultants I meet charge by the hour or by the day. Some charge by the project. A minority charge based on results-e.g., an operations consultant might charge a percentage of the money his suggestions save his client.

I asked Mark what he likes best about being a consultant. Here's what he said:

The money is good, but what I like best about being a consultant is the actual experience of it. I get to work with smart, competitive, motivated people. They come to me with problems or challenges, and I tell them what I know.

I don't have to do any tedious work. I don't have to waste my time sitting in on stupid meetings that go nowhere. I simply have good, fun conversations with people who value my opinion. And a sizeable portion of my consulting these days is done at my favourite cigar bar, where I am relaxed and enjoying myself.

I don't have to do spadework, because my clients aren't paying me to do such work. They are paying me for my judgment-for the wisdom I've acquired over the years doing what they are doing now. I tell them what I know. I tell them what I think. And I don't feel obligated to do any more than that. It's a great way to make money.

I have been able to make a good living from consulting because I know something about starting and growing entrepreneurial businesses. My clients are people who want me to help them become wealthy. Giving someone the tools to double or triple their profits is something that can be worth a great deal to the right person.

Consultants are experts in a particular field, skill, or topic: e.g., financial planning, business management, fundraising, search engine optimization, social media, obtaining grants, project management, lean manufacturing. Mark is an expert in entrepreneurship, particularly taking businesses from small in size to multiple millions in revenues.

Now, at this point, you may object. “All well and good for Mark, with his many years of experience. But how can I be a consultant? I don't have any special expertise or knowledge.”

I would argue that if you believe this, you are wrong. As economist and author Gary North puts it, “You possess a lot more knowledge than you think.” Adds Gary: “I have found that successful specialists often think, with regard to their specialized knowledge, everybody knows that.

“The fact is, hardly anyone knows it. In many cases, the specialist's knowledge is valuable to those who don't possess it, far more valuable than the possessor imagines.” It is for this reason that consultants can charge a lot of money and clients will gladly pay their high fees.

How Do I Get Started?

For some people, the choice of a consulting niche is obvious. My friend E.G. was involved in a major corporate implementation of SAP software for his employer. After that, he became a successful SAP consultant, in essence telling other corporations how to do what he had already done.

If you are unsure what your consulting specialty should be, ask yourself these questions:

What do I know?

What is my education?

What is my work experience?

What are my major accomplishments?

What do I like?

What am I really passionate about?

Make a list of your answers. Review the list and identify the areas in which people or companies routinely pay money for assistance. Pick the one you like best and build a consulting practice around that field.

I think you already have a pretty good idea of what consulting is, and Mark has said it pretty well: Consultants are in the advice business. Based on our experience and knowledge, we tell clients how to accomplish goals they feel they cannot accomplish on their own.

The dictionary defines a consultant as “an expert in a particular field who works as an advisor either to a company or to another individual.”

Clients have a problem. They feel they need advice or guidance in a certain area. A woman who is getting married may feel overwhelmed by the details of planning a big wedding. So she hires a wedding consultant to help her plan the big day.

Top 20 Consulting Businesses Thriving Today

Although you can be a consultant in just about any field these days, the current top 20 consulting businesses include:

Auditing: From consultants who audit utility bills for small businesses to consultants who handle major work for telecommunications firms, auditing consultants are enjoying the fruits of their labour.

Business: Know how to help a business turn a profit? If you have good business sense, you'll do well as a business consultant, advising entrepreneurs how to multiply sales and profits or reduce costs, as Mark does.

Career counselling: With more and more people finding themselves victims of corporate downsizing, career counsellors will always be in demand. Career counsellors guide their clients into a profession that will help them be both happy and productive as an employee.

Computer and IT consulting: From software to hardware, if you know computers, your biggest problem will be not having enough hours in the day to meet your clients' demands!

Design: Almost every area of business and home life entails some form of design, from corporate logos to interior design for a home, to consumer products such as laptops, tablets, and cellphones.

Environmental consultants: These technical experts show corporations how to make their plants comply with Environment Protection Act (EPA) and other emission standards.

Executive search/headhunter firms: These people find white-collar workers for employers looking to hire support staff, professionals, and managers.

Grantsmanship: Countless organizations depend on grants to fund their work, and those grants don't drop down on them from the sky-they have to apply for them. Once you learn how to write a grant proposal, you can name your price.

Human resources: As long as businesses have people problems (and they always will), consultants in this field will enjoy a never-ending supply of corporate clients, both large and small. (People-problem prevention programs could include teaching employees to get along with others, respect, and even avoiding sex discrimination and violence in the workplace.)

Investments: Consumers turn to financial planners, money managers, and other professionals for advice on investing their money and building retirement nest eggs.

Management: Management consultants help senior executives in corporations become more effective managers and leaders as well as plan strategy and run the business.

Manufacturing: Companies need to implement the latest ideas from lean manufacturing to six sigma, but often their staff does not have the expertise-so they turn to experts in these disciplines.

Marketing: Can you help a business write a marketing plan? Or do you have ideas that you feel will help promote a business? If so, why not try your hand as a marketing consultant?

Payroll management: Everyone needs to get paid. By using your knowledge and expertise in payroll management, you can provide this service to many businesses, both large and small.

Public relations: Getting good press coverage for any organization is a real art. PR consultants provide clients with creative public relations ideas that gain media coverage and increase visibility.

Sales training: Almost all companies are under pressure to increase sales, and there is an entire sales training industry ready to show them how.

Safety: In industries ranging from construction to chemical processing, companies rely on consultants to meet the required industrial safety standards and ensure safe operations.

Social media: A whole new crop of consultants are helping clients get a handle on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Tumblr, Instagram, and other social media sites.

Telecommunications: Businesses both large and small rely on outside technical experts for help in implementing optimal voice, video, and data communications systems.

Web consultant: Independent Internet experts provide services ranging from website design and hosting to search engine optimization and email marketing.

How You'll Earn Big Consulting Fees

Consultants usually serve clients in one of three ways:

Advice: The consultant listens to the client's problem and goals and then advises the client on how to solve the problem and achieve the goals.

Example: Mark tells business owners how to make their businesses more money. But he does not do the actual work.

Training: The consultant trains the client and their staff to give them the skills needed to solve the problem and achieve the goal.

Example: My friend G.B. does not write letters, memos, and other business documents for corporate clients. Instead, he trains their employees in writing skills so they can turn out their own letters and memos.

G.B. specializes in business writing skills for the insurance industry. Yet he has never worked in insurance. What he delivers to clients is his extensive knowledge of business writing combined with his ability to teach writing in an effective and engaging manner.

Implementation: The consultant executes the advice after the client reviews and agrees to it.

Example: An accountant may make suggestions on how to reduce taxes, but he also does the actual preparation of your tax returns.

For many years, my friend T.K. was a computer programmer for a large electronics manufacturer. When she parted ways with her employer, she hung up a shingle as an independent website designer and also offers hosting and search engine optimization services, mostly to small local business clients.

Where to Find Clients

Who hires consultants? There are several types of clients that buy consulting services:

I don't know how to thank you enough for all the help you give us in teaching and instruction all along the way. Club member BA. Some consultants work with individuals. For instance, there are consultants who help high school seniors with their college application essays. Career consultants help individuals write resumes and coach them on job interviewing skills. Wedding consultants also work for individuals: brides-to-be.

Other consultants, such as Mark, work with entrepreneurs and owners of small- to medium-sized businesses that want to get bigger. These clients want results and practical advice.

Still others are hired by big corporations such as the Fortune 1000. These clients do like meetings and will want you to put your advice into a report. They can be bureaucratic, with layers of management hierarchy to deal with, a condition that the consultant may find frustrating and counterproductive.

Where to Go for Help

I have created an audio course “The Six-Figure Consultant,” where I go into details on the steps required to start and run a successful consulting business. These include:

Picking a consulting niche or specialty

Identifying the target market you want to serve

Deciding what specific services to offer your clients

Determining the fees you will charge

Setting up your home office

Building your reputation as an expert in your field

Generating sales leads for your consulting services

Selling your services to potential clients

Writing a consulting agreement

Establishing your working methodology

Rendering services

Getting paid

And more.

We have also put together especially for you a 30-Day Launch Protocol for “The Six-Figure Consultant” course at no cost.

The purpose of this report is to give you the opportunity to truly see how you can benefit from this and to get you started on the fast track to consulting success.

We're confident that our 30-Day Launch Protocol report can start or jumpstart your career as an independent consultant.

The Business Consulting 30-Day Launch Protocol report will reach your inbox soon.

Best, Bob Bly

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week Mark sent you an extra income opportunity on how to start a consulting business. Bob Bly promised you his report, a 30-Day Launch Protocol that can 'give you the opportunity to truly see how you can benefit from this and to get you started on the fast track to consulting success.'

This report has five parts to get you started in consulting:

Is Consulting Right for You

How to Get Started

Making the Sale

Surviving As a Novice Consultant, and

Where to Go For Help.

Additionally, there are three audio links at the end to audios from Bob's course. These links are a bit heavy and may take a little time to load, so please be patient.

To access this report, please click here.

To your successful business,

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club

Would you like a simple formula for earning extra income?

Here it is: Find a popular product that is selling for Rs. 5,000. Find someone in China to knock it off and sell it to you for Rs 500. Then sell it to the market at half price - Rs 2,500.

This is the formula the Walton family used to make Wal-Mart the biggest retailer in the world. It is also the formula that Target, Macy's, Rooms to Go, Amazon, Best Buy, and just about every other major retailer in the U.S. has used. And they account for just a fraction of the billions of dollars' worth of Chinese products imported into the U.S. every year.

Even Big Bazaar in India uses a similar format, they import items from manufacturers and producers really cheap and sell them at bargain prices to consumers.

Nobody can resist a bargain. And that's how these retailers stay in business. By selling in-demand goods at discount prices.

This is the next essay I'm writing as part of our Extra Income Project. This is about developing a part-time import/export business.

Import/export is a great opportunity for spare income. You don't need a lot of money to get started. (I'd like to say that a reasonable minimum investment is probably in the Rs 1-1.5 lac range but that you can actually “test the waters” for as little as Rs 2,500.) And you don't need official office space or a fulfilment center.

In fact, Amazon has made selling and shipping the products you import so easy, you don't even have to store inventory at home. With the right account, they'll accept your merchandise straight from your supplier, take orders online, charge the customer's credit card, and ship them the product. All for a fraction of the sale price.

Common Sense Living had featured an entrepreneurial couple Amit Sarda and Natasha Tuli of Soulflower who do exactly that - they import good quality soaps and beauty products from Thailand and other Far East Asian countries. In the last few years, their business has grown exponentially with the help of e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart, who both take their orders and oversee their execution.

What's more, this is something you can do in your spare time. By limiting the number of products you buy and sell (and by using websites like Amazon to handle your fulfilment and order management), you can limit your involvement in the business.

Getting the cash flow started may take some effort and persistence, but once it's flowing, it generally keeps flowing without much additional work on your part.

Another thing I like about this business is that it has the international dimension. Some people enjoy getting to know other countries and cultures. If you do, this may be good for you.

I have a friend named Bernard. He came to the U.S. from England about 25 years ago and started a business selling furniture shortly after he arrived. He made a pretty good living for a while because he was a great salesman. But when he started importing Chinese knock-offs of popular furniture lines, he became rich.

I have another friend, George, who made over $1 million in less than a year by simply brokering wholesale health products that he purchased in China. Once he found a Chinese manufacturer that could provide the products he needed, he phoned up the CEOs of several dozen-health supplement businesses. When they heard how cheap his products were, many of them gave him orders. Before long, he was making more money than he ever expected to make. And it was easy!

In India, Shabbir M imports a product called DampFree that absorbs the moisture in homes, offices and cars. Over the years, he has increased his product range for more diverse uses but continues to get most of his orders online.

Bernard and George experienced the immense wealth-building advantage of being able to sell a popular product for a fraction of the market price.

I have talked about this strategy for more than a decade. But until now, I have never been able to recommend a specific way to do it.

In the old days, you had to have big bucks and/or big balls to get into the Chinese knock-off business. You had to travel to China, meet with dozens of suppliers, select one you thought you could trust, and then pay him a large sum of money to meet his minimum manufacturing requirements.

But all that has changed, thanks to the Internet.

In fact, there is one site-a mega-site-that can give you pretty much anything you could possibly want. You can say what you want and how much of it you want, and it will give it to you at the price you need… almost instantly.

You can use this site-and some support services that are tied into it-to set up your own international trading business, acting as a highly commissioned broker, hooking up buyers with Chinese manufacturers.

This is a very exciting situation. For the first time in history, individuals can compete with the world's largest retailers. They can buy modest quantities of popular products extremely cheaply… and have them delivered to where they are in a matter of days.

India is a country of entrepreneurs. There are tens of millions of us who are constantly looking for ways to start new businesses to increase our wealth. Most people have no idea how easy it is to start up a Chinese import trading company… but word is getting out. The time to get into this, if you are interested, is right now.

A Program You Can Do From Home

We've included this as one of our selections for the Extra Income Project because it has all of the key characteristics we are looking for. For example, you can:

Start it from home Work part time or on weekends Begin without investing a ton of money Do this simply and easily.

If that sounds good to you, read on.

Another thing I like about this particular “extra income” opportunity is that it takes advantage of the strongest buying emotion there is: getting something for a bargain.

If you can identify a ready market and deliver to it products at half price, it makes the selling process much easier. And later on, after you have developed a relationship with your customers (after they trust you), you can sell them other goods at higher margins.

I did this myself many years ago. My partner and I had a contest and sweepstakes business that needed thousands of little gifts-such as bracelets and cutlery-as “consolation” prizes. We made a connection with a merchant in New York who was able to supply us with all sorts of inexpensive Chinese knick-knacks for pennies on the dollar.

Recognizing the opportunity, we began selling somewhat more expensive goods-watches, jewellery, radios, and even small TVs-for crazily low prices. We were eventually selling more than 30,000 items every month.

Selling inexpensive knock-offs from China is hardly a new industry. The experience I just told you took place in the '80s. Since then, Chinese goods have become a mainstay of consumption across the world.

What's new is Internet access to Chinese distributors that will permit you to buy in small quantities. This allows you to test various offers and markets while you are still in the first stage of your business development.

In talking about this to the WBC staff recently, someone asked me about the challenge of selling products in a weak economy. But here's something to keep in mind about recessions: When consumers are feeling bad about their financial situations, they don't buy fewer products (as they should). They buy more.

Buying lifts their spirits. It makes them feel better about themselves. So they buy more, but they shop for bargains.

This is a big trend. Another one is the move to online shopping. Sales on Amazon.com in 2005 were $8.49 billion. In 2011, they climbed to $48.08 billion. That's a 466.31% increase in online sales in only six short years.

Flipkart India is projecting sales of $ 1 billion dollars by 2015. And in 2011 their sales were only $10 million. That's how fast they see the online market growing.

The combination of bargain and online shopping gives this business opportunity a powerful advantage. It spells opportunity for the individual entrepreneur who wants to follow in the footsteps of the Walton family or the Bansals of Flipkart and get into this wonderful business of selling Chinese goods to the huge Indian market.

The simplest way to enter this business is to identify products that are already in demand and buy them from China. But you can also create your own product if you have a good idea.

Make Money With Your Own Good Ideas

An example is Valerie, a housewife who wanted to earn extra money to help pay for her kid's college education. Several years ago, there was a popular trend in children's wear called “footie” pajamas. These were soft, one-piece items that looked and felt comfortable.

Valerie had the idea that adults might want to have their own footie pajamas. She had no experience in the textile business and knew nothing about product sourcing or how to run an online business.

Yet, using very little money, she was able to create a home-based business that eventually grew to seven figures. These days, she works according to her own schedule and answers to nobody but herself. She is very happy with her new life. She attributes her success to finding a source that allowed her to import the pajamas exactly the way she wanted them, for pennies on the dollar, from China.

Similarly Neha Agrawal launched Mumsbuddy.com, an online portal that caters only to expecting mothers and toddlers. Her wide range of online mothers' and children's products include everything from clothes to party paraphernalia. All with the basic aim to make a mother's shopping easier online. She imports most of her stuff from China and some other countries to cater to all types of demands.

There are plenty of others like Valerie, too. For example:

A woman, pregnant with her first child, started her business back in 2004. She needed some maternity wear but didn't like what was available at the stores she shopped in. The clothes were bland and unflattering. She was looking for something a little sexier and more exciting, but the only places that carried what she wanted were very expensive boutiques. She figured there were a lot of other pregnant women in the same boat. So she found a source in China for the kind of maternity clothes she wanted to wear and went into business. Today, her company brings in over $1 million per year.

A married couple started importing flags from China in 2001 and reselling them on the Internet. Their business took off right away, so they expanded their offerings. Now they are generating revenues of more than $25 million per year!

In Mumbai, two brothers Nirav and Sunil D. import sports water bottles, melamine crockery, home artefacts and even games like chess boards and poker sets from China and sell them online through their website. They now also personalise the products for big orders from corporates and sports teams.

The Opportunity Is Yours for the Taking

You can start your own business by importing Chinese goods and selling them directly or on the Internet. You can get exactly what you want and have it made so cheaply you probably won't believe it at first.

You can have the manufacturer deliver it wherever you want, too-to a distribution warehouse, to a wholesaler, or to the end customer. It's as easy as pushing a few buttons. That's how sophisticated this “underground” market has become.

What you need first, though, is just a little bit of education. You need to know how to:

Research all the really hot markets right now

Locate reliable manufacturers

Create purchase agreements that ensure your full satisfaction

Find buyers eager to take your products at big discounts.

A few years ago, I worked with an entrepreneur named Marc Charles who had experience importing products from China. The idea was to create a program that would give the beginner all the information he needed to start an import/export business. We agreed that the program:

Must be easy to understand

Should be written for the layman who has no experience importing or selling products

Must cover all the bases, from understanding what sells to locating the right manufacturers and getting the product into the hands of the right buyers

Needs to explain how this business can be started on a kitchen table

And finally, it must be something our readers can set up for themselves part time or on weekends.

A couple of months later, he sent me the product to review. It met my requirements in spades.

Now Is the Time to Take Action!

Here are eight reasons why you should consider getting into this market right now:

You can start out small. Many an empire has been started from a spare bedroom or the kitchen table. You don't need a huge office or a lot of overhead.

You will be your own boss. No more stupid memos and dress codes and meetings! You have the chance to do everything the way YOU want to.

You can make your own hours. You can work two hours in the morning and go golfing the rest of the day, if you feel like it.

You have unlimited profit potential. You can make as much money as you can spend. Want to make an extra Rs 10,000 per month? Okay. Need to make an extra Rs 6 lac? No problem. It's all up to you. The sky's the limit.

You don't need any employees. (If you've ever had employees, you know what I'm talking about.)

You can run your empire from anywhere. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection. Go ahead, work from the side of the pool. It'll be our little secret.

You can learn everything you need to know in under an hour.

But I left the best for last…

You don't need to have a ton of money to get started. You'll actually learn methods that can get you started for less than a few thousand rupees.

Import/export is a multibillion-dollar industry. And the fastest growing portion of it, I predict, will be small- time entrepreneurs taking advantage of the new Internet technology.

AWAI's travel division has put together a special report about this extra income opportunity that you will receive next. This report will introduce you to the art of buying products overseas and selling them for big profits.

It'll walk you through the steps you need to get up and started in less than a week using sites like Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo Small Business and even Flipkart and Jabong in India, that handle all of the fulfilment and hard work for you.

In this report, you'll also meet my friend, Marc Charles.

He is often referred to as “The King of Business Opportunities.” He has launched more than 40 successful businesses over the last 28 years (and advised on many more). One business (an ad rep agency) produced more than $6 million in sales in 36 months with a start-up budget of less than $2,000.

Marc began his Internet adventure in 1993 by reviewing more than 8,500 websites for Yahoo! Unplugged. His reviews (which became a best-selling book, online resource, and interactive CD) were featured in Wired, Bloomberg Personal, Internet World, Internet Edge, Web Digest, and Business 2.0. In 1999, he developed the first email newsletter advertorial. (And email advertorials continue to be one of the most powerful marketing tools on the Internet.)

Marc's passion is identifying brick-and-mortar and Internet business opportunities for start-up entrepreneurs.

With the Importing Fortunes program, his goal is to help aspiring entrepreneurs get in on this lucrative market quickly and easily.

If it feels like I am really trying to sell you on Marc's program, it is not an accident. I believe this is a bigger market than information publishing, and information publishing is the business that has, until now, been my No. 1 recommendation to aspiring entrepreneurs.

But I like this better because you don't have to know anything about writing to get in on it.

Plus, the market for manufactured products is even bigger than the market for information. All you have to do is find out what consumers are already buying and then sell them the same things at a fraction of the cost.

Remember… this is the beginning of a big trend. The sooner you get in on it, the better you will do.

Best, Mark

*

Editor's Note:

Dear Reader,

The idea of starting a business without a great deal of planning and proposals, risk assessments, and investments, seems a lot to digest. But after digging into this idea a little bit I'm completely convinced of its viability.

Amazon.in has recently started a marketplace in India, only their tenth in the world. As Mark mentions above, their fulfilment service handles everything from receiving your products from oversees suppliers, storing and shipping them, to handling customer service and returns. And better yet, they are offering promotional prices for a whole year that will cut your costs almost in half.

One WBC member has recently started selling a variety of products online through Amazon's FBA service (Fulfilment by Amazon) and is having great success. It's hard work, he said, but it works, and trying it at a small scale had given him the confidence to expand and go bigger. Another WBC member, JJ, wrote this helpful article on Amazon's services.

The most intimidating part of the process to me is all the customs and duties issues that importing from China gives rise to here in India. However, a browse online also showed me that there are quite a few reliable importers who will handle everything import related for a customer, with completely transparent and easy-to-understand costing structures.

And then, of course, there is Alibaba, the world's largest online marketplace connecting buyers and sellers. They stock absolutely everything, have great pictures of the products, and their Gold level suppliers always prove to be reliable. And you can simply check online for inexpensive, hot selling items, and order them from Alibaba.

However, the thing that makes this venture most doable in India is the idea that if the product is branded well, and cleverly enough, you don't have to import from China at all. You can source inexpensive products from within India itself and sell them at any of the online businesses that have exploded onto the scene recently, such as Myntra, Flipkart, etc.

Do read the free report that Mark recommends in his essay when you receive it next, as it will give you a clearer idea of what you need to focus on to ensure a successful business, and higher earnings.

And please do write to us with your questions and thoughts on this approach. As always, I will address them in my next update to you.

I wish you great eCommerce success,

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club *

Dear Reader,

In the last essay Mark sent you an extra income opportunity that several of you had been waiting for, and I believe will benefit from. 'Import/export is a multibillion-dollar industry. And the fastest growing portion of it, I predict, will be small- time entrepreneurs taking advantage of the new Internet technology,' Mark said.

Mark also promised you a special report about this extra income opportunity that will introduce you to the art of buying products overseas and selling them for big profits.

It'll walk you through the steps you need to get up and started in less than a week using sites like Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo Small Business and even Flipkart and Jabong in India, that handle all of the fulfillment and hard work for you.

In this report, you'll meet Marc Charles. He has launched more than 40 successful businesses over the last few decades. One business (an ad rep agency) produced more than $6 million in sales in 36 months with a start-up budget of less than $2,000. This report also talks about his 'Importing Fortunes' program, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs get in on this lucrative market quickly and easily.

So click here to access the free report, and as always, do let us know what areas of questions and challenges arise for you.

To your entrepreneurial success,

Anisa Virji Managing Editor, Wealth Builders Club

You deal with it every day.

You receive it from many sources.

And it has the potential to make you a small fortune… It's information. Information is easily available today. But it hasn't always been this way.

Back in 1450, Gutenberg invented metal moveable type (the printing press) to publish books and pamphlets.

In the 1730s, the first magazines were printed.

And starting in 1836, the first paid advertisements ran in newspapers.

Skip forward to the 1980s, when Apple introduced the first desktop computer. Now control over production was available to people outside the publishing industry.

The combination of the desktop computer and the Internet made possible your Extra Income opportunity for today: information marketing.

I got started in the information business in 1981. My friend, info-marketing guru Fred Gleeck, proposed the idea.

At first, I thought, “Who needs this? I write real paperbound books for real publishers.” But I decided to give it a go.

I started with an e-book on freelance writing called Write and Grow Rich. To date it has sold more than 1,300 copies.

I saw there was a huge market for information products and a lot of opportunity to grow. So I continued down the path of marketing information products online.

The second information product I sold was on Internet marketing, “The Internet Marketing Retirement Plan.” It was even more successful.

Since the Internet has created a worldwide marketplace, average people like you and me can start businesses and take control of our own income.

What Is Information Marketing?

You may be asking, “What is an 'information product' or 'info product?'”

An info product is any written, audio, or video content that teaches the reader how to do something. This could be how to invest for retirement or a tutorial on building birdhouses.

Info products include, but are not limited to, books… e-books … webinars … podcasts … videos… CDs… special reports… seminars… boot camps… coaching… online classes… newsletters… membership sites… and more.

Prices can range from Rs. 25 for a short e-book to Rs. 25,000 for a weekend conference or boot camp.

According to the consulting firm OutSell, last year American businesses and consumers spent over half a trillion dollars buying information products.

And this trend is slowly being replicated in almost every other country.

Creating and selling info products is big business.

Why Information Marketing Is the Perfect Home­Based Business

When Mark began writing essays for the Extra Income Project, he promised to show you a dozen ways to generate more cash.

To follow through on his promise, Mark and his team brainstormed for months. They determined specific criteria every opportunity had to meet before they brought it to your attention.

Let's review these criteria to see how solid this opportunity is:

Anyone should be able to do it (it's easy and simple to understand).

In information marketing, there are things you must learn. But it's not rocket science. And in your 30-Day Launch Protocol, which will reach you soon, you will learn what you need to know to get started.

You should be able to start every opportunity from the comfort of your own home.

You do not need an outside office or warehouse to be an information marketer. You can do it at home. All you need is a desk and a computer with a high-speed Internet connection. With a laptop, you can even do it at your kitchen table, local coffee shop, or on the beach.

You can choose to work part-time or on the weekends.

Since you don't have to meet or talk with anyone on a daily basis, you can do the work whenever and wherever you please. And the “work” will take only a couple of hours per day.

The opportunity should not require a tremendous amount of start-up capital.

You can get started in information marketing with just a few hundred dollars.

After reviewing these criteria, I'm pleased to say information marketing fits the mold nicely.

But what makes info marketing any different from other forms of Internet marketing? Let me explain…

Information Marketing: The Real Story

Producing good information is far more lucrative than focusing on making a lot of money quickly. The reason is that you build trust with your audience. And they'll come back to buy from you again.

Information marketing has received a bad rap because some marketers have defrauded their audience by selling them a lot of junk and delivering little value.

A lot of these information marketers brag about how they are making fortunes on the Internet, showing pictures of their mansions or Rolls-Royces on their websites.

But you wouldn't be that type of marketer. You wouldn't sell people junk.

Thankfully, there are other industries in which marketers take a different, more low-key sales approach. These information marketers sell “how-to” advice on everything from fashion and relationships to auto repair and carpentry.

The possibilities are endless.

Here are some topics that sell well on the Internet:

Money-making topics: starting and running a small business, investing, trading, or self-employment opportunities Relationships: getting a date, finding romance, finding a spouse, or attracting the opposite sex Major consumer purchases: buying a used car, buying a vacation home, saving for your child's college, or buying a boat Hobbies and crafts: coin collecting, sewing, macrame, model-building, or even gambling Health and fitness: exercise, weight loss, self-defense, or nutrition.

Is Information Marketing the Right Extra Income Opportunity for You?

Information marketing has a number of advantages.

First, every info product you create is unique. No one else can sell that particular product, unless you permit them to, since no one else will have the same knowledge, wisdom, and experience to share.

With merchandise, you sell products bought from a wholesaler or manufacturer - just like countless other online marketers who sell the exact same products on their sites.

But info products can be electronic. Instantly delivered over the Internet-they eliminate the headaches of shipping merchandise.

There is no cash outlay. No inventory to buy. No high-rent facility to store your inventory.

Here are two examples of people who have done it:

P.Y. was a motivational speaker who taught businesses how to use marketing effectively. She did this by going to conferences worldwide.

She would try to sell her books in the back of the room after the events for next to nothing.

But no one would ever buy them. With 100 gigs per year, P.Y. grew tired of flying.

Today P.Y. hosts tele-seminars and sells bundles of her recorded and written advice via advertisements on many industry websites.

And she does this all from her home… or while on vacation.

After a long battle with multiple sclerosis, M.L. decided to use the wisdom he had gained from his disease for the larger good. M.L. first started doing seminars for combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorders on how to take control of their conditions.

To expand his business, he turned his seminar material into e-books.

M.L. is legally blind, so he must work with website developers to help him with his websites. He continues to make money while inspiring people through his e-books, which he sells on Amazon and his own website, and he still does the occasional in-person seminar.

These are just two examples of people with different experiences and skillsets, taking control of their financial situations. They decide their own hours and work from the comfort of their home. And there's no reason why you can't do the same.

Does the idea of distributing your expertise (on something that you're passionate about) appeal to you? Let's look at what it takes to get started.

How to Get Started

You do not need to be a Web genius or tech-nerd to get started.

What you do need is the willingness to produce high-quality, useful content. And the desire to continue learning to provide more value to your audience.

Step One: Choose a Niche

The first step in becoming an information marketer is to pick a niche or topic. All the information products you produce will relate to this core topic. For instance, if your core topic is gardening, you might produce a report on hydroponics, but not on auto mechanics.

Why?

To succeed as an Internet marketer, you must be a specialist. You can't be a freelance writer, jumping from topic to topic. People buy info products from people they consider experts. If every book you write is on a completely new topic, you do not establish yourself as an expert in any particular field.

Also, information marketers build lists of people who are interested in getting information on a particular topic. If these people join your list because you offer information on website design for example, they will likely not buy a book on sculpture from you.

How to Choose Your Niche

Of course, your info product should be something that you know a lot about. You may think that you are not an expert in anything. But I assure you, you are. With the wide array of information on the Internet, there is a “how-to” product for almost every possible skill or hobby. If you are only good at writing in cursive, for instance, someone will want to learn that skill.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when thinking about what to choose as your field of expertise:

What is something that friends and family come to me to get answers about?

What are some of my favourite activities?

What is something that I pride myself on? (My garden, housekeeping, budgeting, investment choices, etc.)

What skills has my career taught me?

As mentioned earlier, you can publish your information in many different formats. Here's a shortcut to creating your first product…

Step Two: Create Your First Product

Make a list of questions your potential customers might have about the topic. Then, have a friend ask you the questions. Record yourself answering the questions. You can capture the conversation with a digital recorder, on a conference line (such as www.freeconference.com), or with a video camera.

In India you can use websites like: Sabse Bolo, Free Conference Calling and Eagle Conferencing

Then you can post the recording on the Web and start selling it. Or sell a physical audio CD that you ship to the customer. You can literally create your first info product in about an hour!

A variation of this is to invite people to attend a one-hour tele-seminar. You can offer it free or charge a small fee. If you want to charge for it, simply record the event and sell the audio recording after the seminar is over.

I Have My First Product, Now What?

Once you have a product, you must take several steps before launching your information marketing business.

When you read these steps, don't get too afraid. They are much easier than you think. Some steps will require general knowledge that we will teach you. Other steps will require specialized skills that you should already know. If you don't know how or don't want to do something, you can outsource it.

You can hire people who do the things that you can't-for peanuts. One source for help is www.elance.com. You can hire website developers, programmers, and copywriters. Other resources include www.odesk.com (similar to Elance) and www.fiverr.com (where you can hire people from around the world to do something for only $5).

In India, avail of websites like Freelancer.in FreelanceIndia.com and WorknHire.com

Step Three: Get Your Own Website

There are four parts to starting a website:

Choose a company to store your website.

Build the layout and look of your site.

Set up a shopping cart on your website to take orders.

Choose an autoresponder to follow up with clients through e-mail.

To begin with, you need to create a simple website on which you advertise and sell your products.

Your first step to getting online is to choose a name for your website.

Your website name (also called a “domain name”) is what people will enter into their browser to find you. It is simple and affordable to buy a domain name through a company such as www.namecheap.com or www.godaddy.com.

For India, in addition to the local GoDaddy you can visit websites like Big Rock, HostIndia.net and India Domain for good deals.

Next, to get your website online, you need to choose a company to store your website and all of its information. This is a hosting service. It runs about Rs 125 onward per month.

Normally the same sites give you a domain name and provides the hosting facility.

Once you have your company chosen, you can begin to build your site. There are plenty of vendors who can write the copy and design your website (also called a “landing page”). Or you can try writing your own sales copy. To see a sample landing page, go to www.theinternetmarketingretirementplan.com.

[“Copy” is what marketers refer to as the actual text, language, and promise of an advertisement.]

Make sure your hosting service has a customer-service phone line staffed by real people. When your website goes down, you want to get it taken care of right away. The longer your website is down, the more customers you are losing.

When you've chosen your hosting company, ask if it can work with you to install the shopping cart software on your site. When you buy something online, this software lets you place your order and pay for it with a credit card. I recommend the service Web Marketing Magic.

Web Marketing Magic also comes with a type of software called an “autoresponder.” This software can automatically send out e-mails at predetermined times. For instance, when someone orders an e-book from me, they immediately get an e-mail with a link that allows them to download the book.

This happens automatically. I don't have to do anything, other than writing the initial e-mail copy. Automation is one of the benefits of Internet marketing. There is very little routine labour on your part.

How You Make Money

There are two ways you make money as an info marketer.

Income Source #1

The first is direct sales of your products. People visit your landing page, read your copy, want the product, and click on a button that says, “Order Now.”

The order button is hyperlinked to your shopping cart where the customer can order and pay for the product online. It's all automatic. No labour on your part is required.

You make money on every sale. For electronic products such as streaming video and e-books, there is no product fulfilment or shipping cost, so you keep 100% of the money.

For physical products, such as DVDs and audio CDs, your profit is the sale price minus the cost of goods. You also pay for shipping and handling, but you can add that cost to the price of the product so you don't pay for it.

Income Source #2

The second source of income, known as “affiliate sales,” is when other marketers sell your info products to their customers. In exchange, you pay them a commission on each sale ranging from 25-50%.

A great way to start building your business is by affiliate sales. At the start, you'll likely have very little Web traffic and a tiny e-mail list of prospects.

By getting bigger info marketers to suggest your product to their large prospect lists, you can make sales you would not have acquired on your own. One time, an info marketer sent an e-mail to his list of 450,000 subscribers advertising a $19 e-book I publish. Within 24 hours, we sold 982 copies.

Expanding Your Info­Marketing Business

Here is something you may not know about the Internet marketing business: One of the best ways to make sales is to build your own list of prospects. Capture names and e-mail addresses and then e-mail sales messages to them promoting your various products.

Some Additional Resources

The Official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing: Build a Million­Dollar Business in 12 Months By Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, and Robert Skrob

Sell Your Brain Power: Information Marketing in 7 Easy Steps By Fred Gleeck

Outsourcing Mastery: How to Build a Thriving Internet Business With an Army of Freelancers By Steve Scott

Terry Dean

Offers coaching to beginning Internet marketers http://www.terrydean.org/

Fred Gleeck

Another good Internet marketing coach http://www.fredgleeck.com/ One word of caution: You can't simply gather email addresses, put them on a list, and start e-mailing promotional messages to them. That's spam, and it is illegal. It also doesn't work.

What does work is to have a page on the Web where people can voluntarily join your e-mail list (a process called “opting in”). The page where people enter their e-mail address is a “squeeze page.”

To get people to opt in to your e-mail list, you must offer something valuable to them. Typically, you offer a free e-letter and some other incentive such as a free special report. For an example of one of my squeeze pages, click here.

Of course, you first have to get people to your squeeze page to see your free offer. There are many different ways to do this. Some examples include banner ads, postcards, Google AdWords, e-mail marketing to rented e-lists, and advertising in other people's e-newsletters.

Banner ads are the ads that you see at the top or on the sides of websites. Postcards are exactly what you think… but instead of saying “hello” from a vacation spot, they advertise for your product. They are very successful, since the potential customer usually receives them at home.

Google AdWords has changed the face of Internet marketing. You choose one or more keywords that are relevant to your product. This helps match the person searching for answers to you.

For example, if someone searches, “How do I perform basic maintenance on my motorcycle?” and you sell an information product on how to maintain your motorcycle, you may choose the keywords “motorcycle,” “maintenance,” and “DIY.” Click here to learn more about Google AdWords. It can be one of the best ways to sell your product.

A technique that has worked well for me is the “swap.” Here, you approach an Internet marketer who reaches the same audience as you. You say you will send an e-mail to your list offering a free subscription to their newsletter, and in exchange, they will do the same for you. I have acquired hundreds of new subscribers every time I have done it.

Now, here's the trick: Don't disenchant people by bombarding them with sales promotions as soon as they sign up for your e-letter. They will leave or “unsubscribe” from your e-list.

Remember what I said: First send them free yet valuable content on your topic. If you demonstrate that your information is high quality by giving free samples, your prospects will pay for products that are more detailed.

What do you give away for free and what do you charge for? The rule of thumb is that free information tells people what to do, but paid information shows them how to do it.

You May Be Wondering….

You may be thinking that earning extra income through information marketing sounds a lot like one of our previous proposals: starting and running a moneymaking website.

It is similar.

The difference is focus.

With a moneymaking website, it's all about visitors to your website. You are giving readers your thoughts and opinions. You hope they find value in what you say and come back again and again. With enough traffic, you can charge for advertisements.

Ads make money for you in two ways. First, you can set up ads that pay you based on how many views the ad gets (the more people that see it, the more you make). Second, you can make money by how many people click on the ad (each click earns you money-they call this pay-per-click marketing). You can even have some ads link to products where you get a commission off of every sale (what's called an affiliate commission).

Information marketing is different. Your reader has to pay to access your content. And the coverage of the topic is broader. Information marketers drive people to a specific sales-oriented page. The goal is to have them read some information and buy your product. This paid content is usually part of a marketing funnel (a design of when and how to market products to customers).

Therefore, you earn your revenues from customers, rather than advertisers.

Information marketing also focuses on only one topic. It provides everything the reader needs to know about that subject. This isn't always so with a moneymaking website. Usually a blog does have a niche or theme, but the content can vary more than an info product.

You can combine these strategies to earn even more income. For example, you could run a blog on being an extreme couponer. The blog could provide general information on how couponing works, as well as the benefits. Meanwhile, you could sell an info product related to couponing. It would provide the in-depth, “how-to” content that the reader must know to become an expert, instead of just information on a website.

Where to Go for Help

The Internet has become the global repository of information. Much of it is free. But if a book or home-study course is authored by a recognized expert in the field… and if it contains insider tips and tested strategies not available for free online… consumers will gladly pay a fair price to get their hands on it.

So are you ready to start your own information marketing business?

If you'd like to learn more about how to start your own moneymaking websites and want a little more guided assistance, read our 30-Day Launch Protocol.

In this 150-page report, I take you through each step of setting up your information marketing business.

Topics include:

Instructions for creating your first product for under Rs. 50,000. How to find what information people are looking for How to create audio CDs Ways to increase sales How to handle guarantees and refunds And much more.

Your 30-Day Launch Protocol will be in your inbox soon.

If after reading the 30-Day Launch Protocol, you want to take the next step in your info-marketing business, check out my program “The Internet Marketing Retirement Plan,” by clicking here.

Best, Bob Bly

The service industry is something that quickly comes to mind when we think about business. Maybe you can start a residential cleaning service. Or maybe you can start an event planning or carpet cleaning company.

How much you can make depends on what service you provide. And you'd be surprised by how much money can be made running one of these businesses.

Service businesses include everything from blue-collar hole digging… to middle-level technical work… to white-collar executive work… and, finally, the professions.

For this specific Extra Income opportunity, we'll be looking at service businesses that are easy to get into. If you make up your mind to do a great (not just good) job at fair or cheaper-than-average rates, hire the right people, and keep your promises, you'll find yourself climbing to the top of the ladder in no time flat.

Here is a list of some of the service businesses we investigated.

1. Carpet Cleaning

I bet you didn't wake up this morning thinking, “Wouldn't it be great to clean carpets for a living?”

On the other hand, the idea of owning and operating a highly respectable local business is worth some serious consideration. But if you consider that you could start with a minimal investment and very little overheads, that it's simple to market and could generate immediate profits, and that it could be leveraged into a substantial enterprise, carpet cleaning has to pique your curiosity.

This business offers a low cost of entry, freedom, personal satisfaction, and most importantly… substantial financial potential.

The carpet cleaning industry is recession-proof because almost every home with a carpet needs to be cleaned at least once per year. And there are tens of millions of people every year who buy new carpets. When the economy is weak, many people opt to get their old carpets professionally cleaned instead of investing in new carpet.

And when new homes are being built, there's even more carpet to clean. Those who do buy a new carpet will still need to have it professionally cleaned within a year.

Additionally many stores have carpeting and they often need it cleaned multiple times a year. If you can get contracts with shops that means even more business for you. Either way, there's a growing demand for a quality carpet-cleaning business.

What Can I Make?

Most carpet-cleaning business owners easily earn upwards of Rs. 1500 per hour. This is therefore a small business opportunitiy that has the potential for a large hourly return.

By working a mere 20 hours per week making Rs. 1500 per hour, you could bring home Rs. 30,000 per week, over Rs. 12 lac a year. If you employ multiple people you could expand and work many more hours each week.

And with carpet still being quite a popular flooring option, it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The demand for professional cleaning services for homes and businesses is climbing.

Getting Started

To get started, there will be certain start-up costs.

Your first consideration is equipment plus a vehicle in which to transport it. If you go with new equipment, the costs do get pretty high…

You will need money for company registration and insurance, if required. The insurance will prevent any frivolous lawsuits from draining company funds. But a business registration is all you'll need to get started.

You'll want to do some research to find the best suppliers to get the best deals and best products.

In short, here are six easy steps to start your carpet-cleaning business:

Study and learn the trade

Choose a niche… this will make sales easier

Get the proper licensing and insurance

Find the right equipment

Make a website

And start getting the word out.

2. Baby-Proofing Homes

Just think of the average home from a little child's point of view. The trouble a baby can get into is endless. There are many hazards including electrical outlets, cords, poisonous products, sharp edges, cabinets, and drawers, to name a few. Making a house safe for babies is called baby-proofing.

Baby-proofing products are now available online, but new parents would prefer the job professionally done so as to be completely confident of their baby's safety. So many new parents are now paying good money to eliminate these hazards.

You'll need a strong sense of what dangers exist for babies and small children in the home and how to prevent them. You'll need good people skills to work with parents, many whom may be on the overanxious side.

And you'll need to be able to handle Mom, Dad, and possibly grandparents hanging over your shoulder while you install all the child-proofing latches and other safety devices.

The key here is to help families avoid accidents. And with a smart marketing strategy, you'll be in high demand.

Your services will include touring homes, installing safety latches, removing dangerous objects, and making parents aware of all potential hazards.

The advantages to this business are that you can work from home, you can start out part-time, and you'll provide a needed, appreciated service.

Also, this is a new market in India. Now that many families have two working parents, and parents cannot have an eye on the child every second, baby-proofing has become necessary. However, there are not yet many services available to plug this gap.

What Can I Make?

The owner of Safe Baby, a Mumbai-based child safety agency, says professional child-proofing agencies can charge a minimum of Rs. 8,000 for basic child-proofing of an apartment.

That's a pretty good payday. If you scheduled just one full-service job each week, you could easily make several lac rupees per year working part-time.

Getting Started

You'll need basic tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches, and a cordless drill, as well as a tidy supply of baby-proofing devices. And since this is a business that hits about as close to customers' homes and hearts as possible, you'll want to be sure to carry liability insurance.

Start-up costs will include the basic tools, a business registration, and insurance.

Your customers will consist mostly of parents and grandparents, but you might also target businesses that find babies onboard - look for ones that have children's play areas set up, such as nurseries and childcare services.

Place ads in local papers and try to get featured in articles. Send brochures to pediatricians. Introduce yourself to business owners and leave brochures. Go on a local radio show to talk about baby-proofing. Write a blog on your website about tips on child safety. You can even sell baby-proofing products on your website.

3. House Cleaning

With just a bucket of cleaning supplies, some rags, a mop, a broom, and a vacuum cleaner, you can begin a residential home-cleaning business. And this recession- resistant business is one of the fastest-growing service industries around the world.

With both adults working in households nowadays, they are pressed for time, and don't necessarily want a full-time maid in their home so they turn to outside sources to keep their houses clean. That creates an excellent extra income opportunity for you.

You can employ and train people so as to ensure professional cleaning services. So you need to get familiar with the basics of cleaning before you start.

A cleaning business can be operated from your home on either a part-time or a full-time basis. This flexibility will appeal to a lot of income-seeking individuals. But before you rush out to buy those mops and brooms, remember that cleaning houses is hard, meticulous work. And whoever does it, needs to be in good physical condition.

Find staff that can handle the physical demands, trustworthy and pay attention to details.

What Can I Make?

Websites such as Spaceworxindia.com quote a minimum of Rs. 5,000 for their deep cleaning services for small homes.

Brett Krkosska, who turned a successful cleaning business into a business-coaching profession with his website, homebiztools.com, says the income potential of a residential cleaning business is unlimited. Best of all, you can start bringing in money within two weeks. Within a few months, “You can have a full- force house cleaning business.”

Getting Started

You can literally start a house cleaning business for less than Rs. 50,000.

Your biggest expense will be a good, reliable vacuum cleaner. Also plan on spending on all the extra accessories you'll need to do a complete and thorough job. The rest of the money you'll use to buy cleaning supplies (a mop and bucket, a broom and dustpan, and rags).

You'll also need reliable transportation to carry your gear and staff to your clients' houses. Essentially, your vehicle is your company on wheels. Keep it well maintained and don't overlook the marketing advantages of a sign promoting your business.

The hardest part of starting your own cleaning service is obtaining those first clients. Start by asking friends and family members if your company can clean their homes and then get permission to use them as references. Build your client base slowly.

Your first-year goal should be to get 5-15 clients per week, depending on the number of hours you want to put into your business.

4. Pet Sitter, Dog Walker

If you love all things animal-related, this is the profession for you. As a professional pet sitter/dog walker, you will care for people's pets while they're away or at work. This will be for the day or for longer periods of time, such as during vacations or business trips.

Pet sitters play with clients' pets, feed them, brush them, and possibly give them medications. They often offer other services to make life easier for their customers, like cleaning up accidents, changing litter boxes, bringing in newspapers and mail, watering plants, and taking out trash.

Both pet-sitting and dog-walking are still in their infancies as recognized professions.

In fact, the outlook for pet sitters and dog walkers has never been better. With more single young professional urban Indians living with pets for company, there is a need for someone to look after their pets when they are out or away for business trips.

Some pet-sitting service providers will visit the clients' homes to care for their pets, others provide kennel/day-care services where the clients can leave their pets for some hours or days when they are gone. Many kennel services offer additional advantages, such as pet training, grooming, etc. to expand their business.

What Can I Make?

How much you make as a pet sitter depends on where you're doing business and how many visits you can make in one day. Or how many services you offer.

Kennel services in Mumbai charge about Rs. 5-700 per day per dog for basic services. Add-on services can easily bring this up to twice that. Depending on how much space you have you can keep several pets in your kennel/home at a time. You can also take birds and cats.

Once you build up your clientele, you'll be able to hire someone to do the dog walking and caring for you.

So you see, once you've established a certain amount of clients, you won't have to spend much time at all for a sizable income.

Getting Started

This makes the opportunity even more attractive.

There is very little barrier to entry. According to entrepreneur.com, start-up costs should be below Rs. 1 lac. And in reality, probably far less.

All you need is a love for animals, patience, a place, and a business license.

To get the word out about your business, just follow our suggestions from earlier.

5. Event Planner

If you're an active person who has creative ideas, excellent people skills, and strong organizational skills, the event planning business could be a source of extra income you could tap into.

Event planning is growing in every country, especially in India. With weddings becoming bigger and festivals being celebrated with much pomp and show, you couldn't be in a better place.

The expanding middle class like to celebrate key moments in their lives-weddings, anniversary parties birthdays and reunions-with flashy events.

Also growing is the children's party business from first birthdays to extravagant sweet 16 parties.

You can also organize conferences, receptions, and seminars for non-profit organizations. Comparatively speaking, you won't make as much money on non-profit events, but the training you get will enhance your experience and earn you some exposure.

Not everyone will enjoy this type of work. You must have strong organization skills, be able to perform well under stress, balance multiple demands, meet deadlines, and network extensively. The hours can be long and irregular, especially in the time leading up to a major event.

What Can I Make?

A reputed event planner can earn anywhere from a few thousand to a few lac rupees per event.

Or they can charge a fee that ranges from 20-30% of the total project budget.

If you can do just one or two major events such as a flashy wedding in a month that can get you over a lac for part-time work.

Getting Started

An event-planning business can easily be operated from a home office. The actual cash you need to get started is small, as the clients will absorb most of the costs for the events.

But you will need a computer, printer, fax machine, telephone, some office supplies, business cards, and brochures advertising your services. If you already own a computer, your start-up costs should be less than Rs. 25,000.

You also must have reliable transportation, as you'll be driving to check out facilities that could be venues for events. Be sure the vehicle is properly insured

6. Home Decorating

If you have an “eye” for design and for coordinating furnishings and accessories, the home decorating field could be an ideal home-based business and a means of earning a respectable profit.

The home improvement industry is hot, and that spells extra income opportunity. With more and more developers building more residential and commercial complexes, the need for interior decorators' services are definitely on the rise in India too.

While some homes may come furnished, homeowners will still want to add that something extra to give it their own personal touch and that's where your work will become important.

Most interior decor professionals have taken a diploma course in the subject. But if you have a good eye for colour, texture and design, all you need to do is browse several home decor magazines, visit home stores and understand the general trends in the industry.

What Can I Make?

Fee structures vary from designer to designer. You could charge a lump-sum project fee or a rate per square-foot that you design, a common practice in India. You could additionally get an official agency commission from the vendors you source materials from.

The advantage of this opportunity is that you can take on just as many projects as you can handle. So even if you do 3-4 homes a year, you should be able to earn revenues of a couple of lac rupees.

Small jobs in the interior decoration space will also give you handsome earnings. So don't hesitate to take on just one room or bathroom or kitchen that a client enquires for. This may help you get an inroad to other projects that the client may have in mind for the future.

Getting Started

Many home-based interior decorators get their start by providing decorating services for family and friends. This approach provides an opportunity to practice your decorating skills in a less-stressful environment and get some experience in calculating the cost and time requirements for various projects.

Emily Clark started her business this way two years ago. She wrote about her experience on her blog, emilyaclark.blogspot.com:

“When I decided that I would start working for myself… I honestly just hoped to get two (non-family/non-friend clients) within the first three years. I volunteered my services to a few friends. It was great practice.”

The basic start-up costs are fairly low, especially if you already own a computer and have reliable transportation.

You'll need a variety of sample books of wallpapers, fabrics, flooring, paint colours, etc.; kitchen, bathroom and lighting catalogues; letterhead and envelopes; business cards; marketing materials such as brochures advertising your services and prices; and, most importantly, a personal portfolio that includes photographs and signed recommendations of your work (remember to get them from family and friends when you are just getting started).

7. Window Cleaning

Every window you see is a possible few hundred rupees in your pocket. And homeowners and business owners are willing to pay you good money to keep those windows clean because they hate washing their own windows.

In fact, a 2009 study found that 80% of homeowners avoid washing their windows because of the time, energy, and hassle required to get the job done.

Best of all, it's a learn-while-you-earn type of job that requires no specialized training. And it's a recession-proof business. Windows keep getting dirty regardless of how the economy is doing.

You need to be in reasonably good shape to be a window cleaner. The job requires a lot of lifting, climbing, stooping, and movement of the arms. You can count on getting quite dirty sometimes. And since most of your work will be outside, you must be willing to work in all kinds of weather.

But if you like working alone, window cleaning can offer some worthwhile financial rewards, and you can have your business up and running in a matter of days.

What Can I Make?

Window cleaning can be a very lucrative business. Services in Mumbai like TimeSaverz charge a minimum of Rs. 1,000 for a one-bedroom house. So the more number of rooms you do per home, the higher your billing will be.

Thus if you do even one home per day, you could earn approx. Rs. 10-15,000 per week. Not bad for work that just takes up to a few hours every day.

And like most home-cleaning services, you can provide time slots that the clients can choose from - depending on what suits their convenience. This will further help you plan your day and other businesses better too.

Getting Started

Your out-of-pocket expenses to start the business will be minimal.

You can purchase three sizes of squeegees, two holsters, professional razor scrapers, and a scrubber.

Add to those tools a bucket or two, some sponges, a ladder, and some cleaning solution and you're ready to start work. You should earn enough in your first two or three jobs to easily cover your start-up costs.

Look around your area for homes that are relatively old and need constant repair work and cleaning. Some of their windows will be old-style but they will need more cleaning and maintenance.

And don't overlook areas with brand-new construction. After construction is done, a lot of work is needed to clean the construction gunk off the windows.

Once you get a few residential jobs under your belt, you can turn your attention to small businesses and stores, and perhaps apartment complexes and private bungalows.

8. Pool Service

If you enjoy the outdoors and have any experience cleaning and maintaining pools, a pool service company is a great business you can start from home. Every home, hotel, country club, or apartment complex with a pool represents a prospective client.

A pool service company is a lot like lawn care. It's also seasonal in some places.

However, as I mentioned earlier, there are ways to pick up some business in parts of the country where pools are used through the year, like Mumbai and Goa.

Most pool maintenance companies usually offer a variety of services including:

Adjusting the water's chemical balance

Maintaining the pumps and filters

Scrub and skim the pool

Repair any pool-related systems

Cleaning the pool deck and exposed tiles

Fill chlorine feeder.

Here's what your typical week will look like: making your rounds; checking and adjusting chemical levels; maintaining pumps, skimmers, filters and other equipment; and doing routine cleaning. In addition to pools, you can service spas and hot tubs, too. The advantages to this business are that you can start part-time if you like with a minimal investment. Plus, you get to work outdoors.

It's essential in running a successful pool service that you keep the expenses to a minimum and make sure you are charging the proper rates for pool service in your area. You can help keep expenses lower by running your business out of your house, using a small truck to save on gas, and shopping the different suppliers for the best prices on chemicals and equipment.

What Can I Make?

Pool cleaning services start at a minimum of Rs. 5,000 per pool. So even if you take on the maintenance of two pools per day, you should be able to make atleast Rs. 50-60,000 per week.

Pool cleaning requires extra attention and care as it involves people using it every day. Thus great attention should be paid to details and quality of products like the disinfectants used etc.

As your team grows, you can take on more jobs. But at the start, go easy and take on only what you can handle. You will still make at least a couple of lac rupees per year in profits.

Getting Started

There may be certain government and health control regulations that you may have to keep in mind, so be sure to check with your country's laws before moving forward. You may also need to get liability insurance.

A big attraction to this business is the minimal barrier for entry. For as little as Rs. 1 lac you can be up and running.

Many of these costs will be single, one-time charges such as your business registration and much of the equipment. The ongoing costs will include chemicals, insurance, and any other variety of costs.

The basic equipment needed to get up and running includes:

Pool poles

Hoses

Skimmers

The proper chemicals

A way to transport your equipment

And don't forget plenty of sunscreen.

As you can see, starting a pool service company doesn't require much to get going.

As you can see, all these businesses give you the freedom to work as little or as much as you like. At first, more time may be needed to get started, but once you have a crew in place, your work will be minimal.

This report will help you decide if these are opportunities you'd like to pursue.

Best, Mark