Need Advice on Selling Information Online

[dr_pie]

<div class="bbWrapper"><span style="color: #222222"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">I have been absent from this forum for the better part ofa year as I have been developing my business idea and my product. MJ&#039;s book was the final piece of inspiration I needed to get off my a$$ and start doing something. So after I finished the book I came to this forum. I saw all the amazing things people were doing and decided to get cracking. So I spent the last year in lock down mode researching and creating my product. I am now on the verge of launching it to the world. <br /> <br /> I am a humanresources professional with over a decade of experience in all areas of HR. One of my largest portions of work has been recruitment. I have literallyrecruited for 1000&#039;s of jobs from entry level right up to executive levelpositions in various organizations. As I became an expert in this area italways fascinated me just how repetitive recruiting is. Once you know the processinvolved and the types of questions to ask it is really quite easy. That saidit is also really easy to mess it up and make a very costly hiring mistake.<br /> <br /> I felt that if I could design an easy to follow process on how to recruit forany position, those companies that don&#039;t have access to an HR professional or arecruiter could learn and do it themselves. So for the better part of a year Ihave been writing an easy to follow guide book on how to interview and havesuccess.<br /> <br /> I am now a month away from launching my website and seeing if I can generateenough income to unplug from the corporate world. I have done a lot of researchon how to sell information type products but I wanted to see if any of you haveany experience in selling similar types of products and the best ways togenerate traffic and sales to your site? I have done research on SEO and thinkI have my key word search down. I am looking at using a site like Clickbank totake care of the transaction side of things as well as help with affiliatemarketing. I will also be blogging, Facebooking and Tweeting to create positivelinkbacks.<br /> <br /> Any lessons learned would be very helpful along with tips on how to generatetraffic and sales.</span></span><br /></div>

 

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[FreeMan]

<div class="bbWrapper">If you are using Clickbank you will probably need a few sales before a decent number of affiliates pick it up. <br /> <br /> So if your SEO and other free traffic techniques aren&#039;t getting you sales you may want to look at paid traffic for a short period to get the initial burst of sales. <br /> <br /> If you haven&#039;t done so already, include an affiliates page with tools they can use eg images, links, excerpts, etc. You can also include an affiliate link to Clickbank for people who haven&#039;t got a Clickbak account yet.</div>

 

[healthstatus]

<div class="bbWrapper">Your product sounds more like a membership site, than just an ebook. I would probably give away a chapter or two of your guide as bait to get people on an email list, create 2-3 videos of you talking about the costs of hiring the wrong person, common mistakes you see, and that sort of thing.</div>

 

[Chris_Willow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="dr_pie" data-source="post: 269350" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=269350" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-269350">dr_pie said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Any lessons learned would be very helpful along with tips on how to generatetraffic and sales. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> From my experience you need two things:<br /> 1) credibility<br /> 2) followers and fans who like you<br /> <br /> When that&#039;s taken care of, launching a product will be the easy part.<br /> <br /> I&#039;m thinking you could use LinkedIn to your advantage. Share hiring related content, help others with hiring related questions and build your reputation that way.</div>

 

[Jason K]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="healthstatus" data-source="post: 269392" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=269392" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-269392">healthstatus said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Your product sounds more like a membership site, than just an ebook. I would probably give away a chapter or two of your guide as bait to get people on an email list, create 2-3 videos of you talking about the costs of hiring the wrong person, common mistakes you see, and that sort of thing. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I agree. This doesn&#039;t sound like a clickbank product. It sounds like a high-end, corporate product you should be selling for $997 or $1997. Maybe you were thinking more? Could be. Part of the marketing I would use if I were in your shoes is &quot;How much does hiring the wrong person cost you?&quot; and calculating that out. Also, how to make the right hiring decision the easy way.<br /> <br /> Hiring managers are far worse at hiring than they think they are...they believe they have a 6th sense. Nope. Stats are that they would get better results drawing the name out of a hat. But you can&#039;t tell them this: they don&#039;t want to hear it. You have to come at the problem sideways.<br /> <br /> You do not need clickbank for transactions. Paypal will do just fine. Have a backup payment processor in case something happens to paypal or your paypal account. You don&#039;t want your button to go down and not be able to accept payments. <br /> <br /> Get a coding pro to help you. I am not a pro by any means, but I set up an integrated membership site that communicates securely with paypal. It knows when someone has bought a product, and automatically sends them to a page where they can self-register (instead of me having to set up their account). Took probably 8-10 hours of learning and trial &amp; error. You simply google things or look them up in the training files when you have a question, or as you move along each step. Once you&#039;ve done it the first time, it&#039;s a lot easier to duplicate.<br /> <br /> Traffic once again will be your issue. So you have to market this thing as high-end, because your expertise should be rare if you are as good as you say you are. And get in front of your audience. Who&#039;s your market? HR Managers, sure, but business owners too. And department heads who hire or recommend on hiring. Where do they go? Where can you encounter them online? Banner advertising can be quite affordable.<br /> <br /> You could have a winner here, but it will probably be a sleeper to start with as you go through the learning curve. Can I give you what I think is the best supercharging advice I can think of? Get someone famous to endorse your product. Doesn&#039;t even have to be someone ultra-famous...how about a dozen business owners in a particular field? Then get the ad in front of other business owners in that field...<br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: center"><a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/attachments/frowner-webp.4801/" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/attachments/1/1747-db4721a9a139b9bc85509413f9776312.jpg?hash=ru1-zJkoZZ" class="bbImage " style="" alt="frowner.webp" title="frowner.webp" width="113" height="168" loading="lazy" /></a><br /> <br /> <b>[size=+1]<span style="color: red">&quot;12 structural engineering firms <i>can&#039;t</i> be wrong.&quot;[/size]</span><br /> Aleph, Canfield, Dencor Levy, HalfieldJY Press, Kholder, Miles Miller, Ovaltar, Prime Real Estate Developments, Rigel, Sittler Mechanical, Unicon, and Xeon Ferrous...<br /> They all have Dr. Pie&#039;s Principled Hiring Practices on their side...and they get the right new hire, every time. And that&#039;s great, because we don&#039;t want our buildings falling down.</b>&#8203;</div><br /> <br /> Generates some mass, doesn&#039;t it? I should go do this for one of my products...<br /> <br /> I would also seriously consider multiple websites for multiple niches...brand the outside differently, and keep the inside the same...one say for distribution warehousing, another for restaurants, a third for banks...</div>

 

[dr_pie]

<div class="bbWrapper">Thank you for the feedback. I fully agree that most hiring managers are terrible at interviewing and selecting the right people. To take it one step further most HR people or recruiters are equally as bad. You have a lot of people making a lot of money to do a very poor job. To be fair, even with the best interview process (and interviewer) you will only have an 80% success rate. There is 20% through human error that will make a bad hiring decision no matter how much interviewing, testing and assessment you put someone through.<br /> <br /> What I am selling is interviews. I have created a system that allows the hiring manager to hire for any position. They are given the exact questions to ask for any job. Along with that they get a guide book that breaks down in 9 steps how to structure and conduct a proper interview process. It is concise and simple to follow.<br /> <br /> My target audience for this has always been small business. Those who do not have the resources to afford professional hiring support and those that do not have the knowledge or experience to do it themselves. My product is geared towards giving them the skills and confidence to interview all the while avoiding poor hiring decisions.<br /> <br /> With that in mind, that is why I thought Clickbank would be the best option to help market the product once I start generating sales. My price point was going to be below $50 for the entire package and test it from there. I’m not sure a business would pay $900 or more for an interview and guide book. <br /> <br /> I would be interested to hear feedback regarding my price point as well as using Clickbank vs Paypal. Maybe I will start a new thread on the Clickbank vs Paypal option.<br /> <br /> Thanks everyone for your comments. Very, very helpful. I will keep you up to date as to my progress.</div>

 

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[healthstatus]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="dr_pie" data-source="post: 270181" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=270181" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-270181">dr_pie said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I’m not sure a business would pay $900 or more for an interview and guide book. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> It is WAY too LOW! All you have to do is tell them the cost of ONE bad hire because they didn&#039;t ask the right questions. I would start testing at $295 and go up.</div>

 

[dr_pie]

<div class="bbWrapper">Would you recomend ClickBank?</div>

 

[healthstatus]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="dr_pie" data-source="post: 270191" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=270191" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-270191">dr_pie said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Would you recomend ClickBank? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I think this is the wrong question at this point, but you asked:<br /> <br /> No, I think the only thing ClickBank brings to the table is the ability to harness a lot of people selling your product and giving them a cut. But the affiliates that ClickBank mainly has, are into making money online, health issues and consumer marketing, not B2B.<br /> <br /> I would get a Paypal business account, then depending on the amount of the sale and volume, look at getting credit card processing account.</div>

 

[AllenCrawley]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="healthstatus" data-source="post: 270183" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=270183" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-270183">healthstatus said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> It is WAY too LOW! All you have to do is tell them the cost of ONE bad hire because they didn&#039;t ask the right questions. I would start testing at $295 and go up. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Yes, I agree $50 is way too low. You&#039;re not selling something to the &quot;make money&quot; niche which likes to buy as many low priced products as possible hoping to find the &quot;magic bullet&quot; to making money. You&#039;re selling to a specific and narrow niche. So, I agree with healthstatus that you should start testing at $295. <br /> <br /> I don&#039;t necessarily agree that you should create a membership site. I think you can sell an exhaustive book on the subject. Look at Marketing Sherpa. They sell books for hundreds of dollars each. Again... just for the books. Their newest Email Marketing Benchmark Report is nearly $450. Same for their new Marketing Analytics book. For most of the books and reports they sell, the lowest price is for the pdf version only and with a printed version for an additional $50. Here&#039;s the kicker... they update their books and reports every year. Maybe you could do the same thing.<br /> <br /> As far as how to get some traction for marketing your info, do you frequent any HR forums? This could be a huge way to get some initial exposure. Get on there. Answer people&#039;s questions. Freely give your wealth of information and don&#039;t hold back. When you&#039;re ready to launch you&#039;ll have gained a ton of credibility with those forum members. In fact, along the way, I&#039;m sure you find out some additional pain points you could address in your product.</div>

 

[dr_pie]

<div class="bbWrapper">Man you guys make one think. I was certain that I was going ClickBank and that I would start my product at $47. But you are right that ClickBank is really consumer based info products and not business to business. Also, maybe I am under selling product. I think I am going to start two new threads that will deal specifically with ClickBank vs another option and also my price point. Thanks to you all for your feedback.</div>

 

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[DennisD]

<div class="bbWrapper">If you include professionally produced video tutorials you can triple pricepoint.<br /> That&#039;s where I would reinvest profits. Make it real easy for the customer to NOT mess up.<br /> <br /> An instant-download video guide with an option physical DVD.<br /> You can use clips from the DVD in a youtube SEO campaign to promote the product.<br /> <br /> Within the video teach them key things you taught in the book. Show examples of real live interviews, and some bonus tips.</div>

 

[Bigguns50]

<div class="bbWrapper">Having been in HR, if you can solve that problem... even make the hiring more successful, I think $295 is low.</div>

 

[LouieLouie]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 8218" data-quote="dr_pie" data-source="post: 269350" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=269350" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-269350">dr_pie said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I am now a month away from launching my website and seeing if I can generateenough income to unplug from the corporate world. I have done a lot of researchon how to sell information type products </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I am interested in your project here, and curious how it&#039;s going for you.<br /> <br /> Have you taken it to the market yet? Any luck?<br /> I am working on a similar product and would love to chat,<br /> Would you PM me<br /> thanks in advance</div>

 

[AllenCrawley]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23791" data-quote="LouieLouie" data-source="post: 451838" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=451838" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-451838">LouieLouie said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I am interested in your project here, and curious how it&#039;s going for you.<br /> <br /> Have you taken it to the market yet? Any luck?<br /> I am working on a similar product and would love to chat,<br /> Would you PM me<br /> thanks in advance </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/is-it-time-to-park-my-fastlane-idea-and-move-on.59421/" class="link link--internal">https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...e-to-park-my-fastlane-idea-and-move-on.59421/</a></div>