Winning Stack – Page 10 – Tips, tricks and Resources for Online Entrepreneurs

August 11, 2011August 11, 2011

The Power of Free – the Freemium Business Model

How do you build a business by giving content away for free? I wondered this myself when developing my initial sales strategy for Chinese Learn Online. Here were the issues I had to deal with:

I had no marketing budget.
I had no brand recognition, and thus no credibility with my customers.

My solution? Give my main product away for free! Then offer an upsell to a paid product. (This is also known as a freemium strategy).

This solved both issues above.

By making the product free, it attracted a lot of users, who then recommended it to other users.
Using the product sold users on its quality, thus building credibility.

Obviously this freemium strategy only works if you have a good product to begin with. One that people would recommend to others.

The next issue was what to offer in the upsell. I had to make sure that whatever it was, the core product had to remain free and completely usable without purchasing the upsell. Some options here include:

Supplement the functionality of the product.
Provide a more convenient delivery system of the free product.

I used both options in my case. I sold PDF transcripts of the free audio (the audio was still completely usable without the transcripts). I also sold a bulk download of the free lesson packages. This let a user download all lessons of a set together, rather than having to download them for free.

There are many famous examples of the freemium model at work, with people paying for items that can be had in other forms for free. Many authors have had huge sales of books that are also available in free PDF form. In this case, users are willing to pay for the physical form over the free digital version.

Can the freemium model be used successfully in your business?

For more ideas based around freemium and other free models, read the excellent book Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing by Chris Anderson.

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August 11, 2011November 1, 2012

How to Turn Ideas into Action

If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s coming up with ideas. Some ideas come from real sources, like reading a great blog article with great tips on how to improve my business. Or reading a new book on marketing.

Other ideas come from more unexpected sources. I might be at a park, watching kids play, and get an idea for a new website or iPhone app. Or I might hear a song, or wake up from a dream and have new found inspiration. Perhaps it was the solution to a design problem that I had been mulling over recently. Or maybe it was a new way of tackling an existing problem, that I hadn’t thought of before. Either way, our mind works in mysterious ways and sometimes requires rest to come up with a solution.

In the past though, these ideas escaped me soon after they arrived. The excitement and details that seemed so vivid when they were first realized, just didn’t seem so exciting when I tried to later recall them.

I realized that I was missing out on a lot of wasted opportunity here, and needed to come up with a better system. In recent while, I’ve developed a three step system for myself, based around tools that are absolutely free!

Step 1: Brainstorm

I’ve been using the evernote app quite regularly recently. The beauty of evernote is that it can be used as a web app or mobile app. I regularly use it through my browser. on my iPhone and on my iPad, depending on where I am and what I’m doing at the time.

I keep several notes running, based around different themes. Each project I’m working on (that deserves inspiration) has its own note. So if I have an idea to improve one of my apps then I’ll click on the note for that app, and add to any existing notes that might be there already. If I just thought of a way to improve the usability of one of my websites, then I’ll click on the note for that site, and add to it there. If I’m reading an article online that inspires me somehow, then I’ll open up my evernote tab and add to the relevant note there.

One of Evernote’s key features is that the notes you create are always synced, no matter what device you entered it from. It even handles pictures and recordings, if you think that conveys your idea more effectively.

The key at this stage is to get the idea down as quickly as you can, without worrying about the details too much. Don’t even judge if the idea is that great or not at this stage.

Step 2: Maintenance

Over time, the notes I maintain on Evernote start to build up with several ideas in each of them. This is where some maintenance is required. Once a week, I open up my Evernote app at work and start to go through each note. This is when I reorder the ideas I have collected into a more logical form, and maybe change the order around a bit so that they make more sense.

I may find that some ideas aren’t practical or as relevant now as when I first noted them down. That’s ok though, as it’s part of the process. Along the way I will find some really good ones that need to be acted upon.

Step 3: Action

At this stage, I take all the ideas that can be implemented right away and put them in my daily task manager. I use Google Tasks in Gmail myself, but any task manager application should work. For each day of the week, I list out the tasks that I plan to accomplish that day, some of which may have come from my earlier idea list.

I’ve found this new system to work well for me, as I’m now able to record and act on new ideas that come to me from any source, at any time of the day.

Do you have a system in place to capture ideas and thoughts that come to you? Are you able to act on them efficiently?

August 9, 2011August 22, 2011

Want to succeed? Find these people.

Want to succeed in life? Surround yourself with really good people. People who make you better and stronger in life. Here are the types of people you should look for:

People who motivate you. This group could include your spouse, family and close friends. They encourage you to succeed, cheer you on from the sidelines and congratulate you on your victories. Conversely, stay away from people who bring you down or demotivate you.
People who depend on you. This group could include your kids or aging parents. These are the people who you want to provide a better life for. So having them around motivates you to succeed.
People who complement your skill set. This group could include web designers, coders, artists and other people with skills you don’t have. You could convince them to join your team, or hire them as free lancers or consultants.
People who know other people. These could be friends who have lots of friends. Or it could be people who organize networking events.
People with resources. This group includes investors, mentors and other people who could help you succeed by pointing you in the right direction.
People who inspire you. These could be people in different fields who have overcome obstacles to get where they are, whose work ethic you admire. Or maybe they are just plain positive and optimistic, no matter what the situation.
Marketers and Salespeople. Even the best plans and ideas won’t get very far without the right marketing and promotion behind it. If you don’t have the skills in this area, find someone who does. Pay them using commissions or affiliates to get your product to the masses.
People who are going places. Remember that classmate in high school that you just knew would be a millionaire someday? Or that girl you thought would win the Nobel Prize one day? Or how about the valedictorian who you could see being the president someday? One way to get where you want to get is to find someone else who is going there, and hang on to their coattails!

I can think of people in each of the above categories who have helped me along the way. I’m also constantly meeting new people in my life to help take me to the next stage.

Which people in your life do you owe your success to?

August 8, 2011August 10, 2011

What we can Learn from Charities

Just finished reading a great post by Seth Godin on the benefits of giving to charity and why more people don’t do it. One common reasoning goes like this:

Whatever I give won’t be enough, so why bother giving anything at all?

Another reason I can think of is:

Once I put this dollar into the donation box, what happens to it? Does it really go towards helping the right people?

As marketers, these are the issues that charities need to overcome in order to promote themselves and succeed.

Are there similar issues that your audience has, that your business needs to overcome, in order to succeed?

August 7, 2011

The Value of an Idea

Every business out there started with an idea. Initially it was just a thought in someone’s mind. Somewhere along the line, someone (might not be the same person) decided to take that thought and turn it into a business idea. That idea was then launched as an actual business. After that, it would have to be priced, marketed, maintained and tweaked before it ever became a success.

Each of these steps required key people to execute them properly. If any of the steps or people were missing along the way, then the idea would never have succeeded.

We have seen this play out several times with ideas that sound great on paper, but don’t work out so well in the real world. Then there have been others that may not have sounded so good on paper but ended up doing really well.

Many people focus the majority of their time on finding the next big idea, and then work hard to protect it from being stolen by others. Ideas are plentiful. Here are 999 great ideas to get you started. Take that energy and instead divert it towards developing the idea and finding great people to help you launch it.

“I was an overnight success all right, but 30 years is a long, long night.” (Ray Krok, McDonald’s Corporation)

August 6, 2011

Save that Marshmallow, and Reap the Benefits!

Would you pass the Marshmallow Test? In this test, first conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in Stanford University in 1972, kids were left alone in a room with a marshmallow on the table. Those who could hold out for 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow were promised a second one as a reward. This tested the concept of delayed gratification. It turns out that those who could succeed in this test as a kid, were also most likely to succeed as adults later in life. (Read the book Don’t Eat The Marshmallow Yet!: The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life (affiliate link) or watch this video to learn more about the test and its results).

This concept plays out in many aspects of life. In school we are encouraged to study hard at home, while our friends are out partying or playing video games, in order to get good grades that will lead to better career options in the future. Doctors encourage us to watch what we eat and exercise now, in order to lead healthier lives in the future.

How does this apply to business? The decisions you make today will affect the future of your business years from now. Life will tempt you with “treats” at all stages in order to knock you off your end game. The people who succeed are the ones who can stay focused, put things in perspective, and maintain a long term focus.

All the revenue I earn from my businesses today, are a result of the actions and decisions I made years ago. If I hadn’t taken all the small steps along the way back then, people wouldn’t be purchasing my products today. Thanks to that work, I’m now reaping the rewards over and over again today.

Take the time now to find ways to keep improving your business. That time you spend now will pay off handsomely years from now. You can thank me then.