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Building a Profitable Online Business: What Works (And What Doesn’t) in 2012 by BRIAN CLARK and SONIA SIMONE www.TeachingSells.com By Copyblogger Media

Teaching Sells Report 2012

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Page 1: Teaching Sells Report 2012

Building a Profitable Online Business:

What Works(And What Doesn’t)

in 2012

by BRIAN CLARK and SONIA SIMONE

www.TeachingSells.com

By Copyblogger Media

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By Copyblogger Media

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You may republish excerpts from this report as long as they accompanied by an attribution link back to

http://teachingsells.com.

Copyright © 2007-2012 Teaching Sells.

Some rights reserved.

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Isn’t it time we quit talking about “making money online”?

When you look at what Amazon, iTunes, Google, Facebook are doing … as well as countless e-learning and other technology companies (with more showing up every day), it’s pretty obvious that it’s not “making money online” any more.

It’s just making money in the world we live in.

If you’re looking for another one of those “business in a box” solutions, you should close this report now. Because Teaching Sells isn’t a “money-getting system.” It’s a framework to create a real-world business.

Websites don’t make money. Businesses make money.

It doesn’t matter if you want to make $100 a month or $100,000 a month. It doesn’t matter how many or how few hours you’re ready to commit.

Until you think of what you’re doing as a business, you’re going to spin your wheels.

Everything else can be learned. (There are a few people out there who will tell you that entrepreneurship is some kind of special “inherited trait” held by the chosen few. These people have what we like to call a reality problem. We give you permission to ignore them.)

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This report and our 20-Step Road Map exist to give you a basic orientation to building an e-learning business. For some, that’s all they need to move forward and start creating something epic. Others will want more support and direction, which is where the complete Teaching Sells course comes in.

Either way, let’s get this thing started ...

Ever feel like you’re late to the party? It’s easy to look around at all the success we can see — the big membership sites with thousands of members, the multi-million dollar online businesses.

So much has happened in the online world that it’s easy to feel like we’ve missed the bus.

But you haven’t missed out, and you aren’t too late. Not even close.

It’s still really earlyTen years from now (heck, probably two years from now) we’ll look back and we won’t be able to believe how primitive the tools we use today are.

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The economy is doing a hard shift, there’s no doubt about it. After the economic earthquake of 2008 (and all those aftershocks), millions of people are still figuring out what it means for them.

Companies look different. Employment looks different. Recreation looks different. Relationships look different.

Travel looks different. Even health and wellness are undergoing major revolution.

Everything right now is new and changing.

Which, as you may have noticed, is exhausting. And creates stress.

And that creates interesting problems you can start solving for customers — no matter what your area of expertise.

The boom — for people like us — doesn’t end until things stop changingHow long do you think it will take for the world to quit shifting radically under our feet?

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10 years? 20 years? Maybe more?

As long as we’re in this world of profound instability, we can help others by teaching them how to navigate that change and come out on top.

Our customers are learners — and they don’t need stale authorities who mastered what was needed in the last century. They need the true experts who can teach them what they need to know today.

That is why teaching is the foundation of a great business in the 21st century. Because this is the century of

never-ending learning.

There’s no doubt that these are “interesting times.” There’s a lot of stress and worry. You’ve probably got some of that in your own life.

But there’s also tremendous opportunity — and especially, opportunity to do great things by helping other people out. You can’t beat that.v

So don’t worry at all that it’s “too late.” We’re riding the wave of:

» Business based on helping people, rather than mindless consumerism

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» An explosion in online education

» Small, super-nimble companies — that are often made of just one or two people

» Extreme social anxiety about change

» Astonishingly powerful communication technology that keeps getting better, and cheaper

» Growing suspicion of traditional learning venues like universities

It’s like the entire world economy has lined up to make a really amazing business for you. (How cool is that?)

So step up. Maybe you’ll join us with Teaching Sells, or maybe you’ll just incorporate some of these ideas into the business you have today.

We don’t care if you do it part-time or full-time. We just want you to do it.

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Make a More Progress by Working Smarter, not HarderDo you ever have days when you’re too exhausted to figure out what you want for dinner?

You don’t get to that point because you’re training for a marathon or spending all day at the gym. You get there by making too many decisions — overtaxing your decision-making “muscle.”

If you’re creating an online business, the odds are you’re making it harder on yourself than it has to be.

There’s all kinds of amazing research being done about willpower and the physical limitations of your brain.

And one of the most exhausting things you can do is to make decisions.

If you’re constantly reinventing the wheel, you’re going to get tired

And when your brain gets tired, there’s no amount of willpower or “toughing it out” that you’ll be able to manage. Your poor brain literally doesn’t have enough fuel to keep making those decisions — so you’ll do

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what’s easy, or what you’ve always done in the past … or you’ll just do nothing.

If you’re going to build a business (online or offline, for that matter), you need to start working smarter rather than always harder. You need to cultivate some habits of simplification, so you can conserve your energy for the most important decisions.

The danger of reinventing the wheelDo you know this story?

Back when NASA started launching manned spacecraft in the 1960s, they found out that the astronauts couldn’t use pens to write with while in space. The ink wouldn’t flow down through the pen in a zero-gravity environment. NASA decided to retain a man named Paul Fisher to design a pen that would work in space.

$1.5 million later, they had a solution. NASA now had a pen that worked in zero gravity, in a vacuum, and in a drastic temperature range.

The Russian cosmonauts had the same problem, of course. So they used a pencil.

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(Note: this anecdote isn’t historically accurate, and has become a bit of an urban legend, particularly after appearing on the popular show “West Wing.” The truth is both the US and Russia used pencils at first, and Paul Fisher independently created the pen and sold 400 of them to NASA for a song. But the story’s still a good one, and it’s instructive.)

The reason the exaggerated story is so widely embraced is because it rings true.

All of us have done it — put out huge amounts of time and effort creating elaborate solutions to problems when a simple answer is right under our noses.

So the central question for a business owner becomes: How can we stop overcomplicating when we could be executing?

Here are some of the techniques we use at Copyblogger Media to get valuable, successful products out the door, year after year.

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1. Use a proven framework

In our story about the space pen, the right answer was “use something that already works today.”

Now, this gets tricky because business today looks very different than it did even 10 years ago. Just like our rival space programs, we’re solving problems in a new context, which means we’re going to have to do a little bit of trailblazing.

But whatever kind of business you’re building today, someone out there has successfully done something you can learn from. Without directly copying, you can use their success as a rough framework for what you want to create.

We’re going to talk later this week about why online education is the smartest foundation for a business today. (And at Copyblogger Media, we’re confident that this is going to continue to be true for many, many years.)

And the truth is, one of the more flexible, proven frameworks around for online education is the one we’ve developed at Copyblogger.

From the early days until today, when we want to build something new, we use a framework. We call it our “road map,” and it outlines the steps we need to take to launch a new product or service.

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Using a solid framework removes a lot of unnecessary decision-making.

You’ll still be making key decisions, of course. But it’s much easier to decide, “OK, what copywriting angle will we use for our launch” rather than, “Uh, what do I do next?”

2. Beware of shortcuts

One of Sonia’s favorite business sayings is,

Don’t take shortcuts, they take too long.

Because business is complicated, there are all kinds of people who want to sell you “Surefire 30-Day Money-Getting Systems.”

They’ve tried to figure out every single step for you, so you can simply fill in the blanks.

Which is a nice idea … but it’s going to cost you time, not save you time.

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That’s because every business is unique. You’re working with a unique combination of what you can contribute, what market you most appeal to, technical abilities, external realities like the economy or the SEO landscape, content creation skills, time, place, and topic.

No one can give you a step-by-step “system” for taking all of those highly individual elements and putting them together into a business.

Shortcuts tend to work for a brief time (if at all), eventually sending you back to square one where you have to start all over again.

And unfortunately, those “foolproof systems” are often what worked for that marketer in the past. Once they’ve squeezed all the value out of it, they sell it to you.

What worked then may not work at all now — and it may be worse than useless tomorrow.

Choose a flexible framework, not a rigid system. If you feel like you don’t have time to do it right, remember that you definitely don’t have time to do it over.

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3. Ready, Fire, Aim

We don’t want you to get seduced by silly shortcuts.

But we also don’t want you to put out content on your blog and in social media for year after year before you dare to ask for any money.

While you’re doing that, a nimble, smart entrepreneur is snapping up your topic and making a nice living.

Once you have your framework in place — your road map that tells you where you’re going and the key milestones on the path — you’re ready to start conducting some small experiments.

At Copyblogger, we’ve been big fans of the “Minimum Viable Product” model since long before Eric Ries wrote his great book on The Lean Startup.

A Minimum Viable Product (or MVP) is the smallest product you can release that still serves a vital need for your customer.

It can be challenging to find the courage to send a product out there that you know isn’t perfect. (We have a whole module on addressing those challenges, and we also help students out with that in our live group coaching sessions.)

But the truth is, you don’t know what’s perfect for your customers. Only your customers know that.

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Being brave enough to fire off your MVP — and then over time making it absolutely perfect for your individual audience — is the smartest way to both bring in revenue quickly and make the kind of remarkable product that 21st-century audiences demand.

Just remember to keep an eye on your framework. That’s what keeps the MVP model from devolving into “wandering around in the dark.”

The Best Way to Make Money with Content is SimpleIf you’re blogging or otherwise creating content online in the hopes of making money, there’s a good chance you’re following a fairly complicated and time-consuming strategy. You’ve got to publish every day and attract lots of links, so that after a year or so, the Google Gods will bless you with plenty of long-tail search results that will bring you traffic.

Once that happens, you’ll have to keep blogging for another year, and hope to build page views, so you can make money with AdSense or some other form of advertising. The money is pretty meager, but if you work hard, maybe one day it will add up to enough — if you just keep at it and never ever quit producing more and more free content.

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Or you could simply create content once and sell it over and over.

If you think this isn’t pragmatic, you’re in for a shock. Tell me the niche you’re publishing in now, and I’ll show you someone who is selling the same basic content and likely making more money than you.

How simple is that?

That’s the simple solution to making money with content that has been around for centuries, and it’s still going strong.

If you want to make money with content, charge for it.

But you might have noticed that not all premium content is created equal.

The most successful content-based businesses today are education businesses.

Sometimes education is what you sell.

Sometimes education helps what you sell work better.

Sometimes you give all of the education away for free, but you profit from the tools your customers use to put the education into practice.

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As it happens, we offer ten different business models in Teaching Sells. And students have combined and re-combined those in countless different ways.

You’re in the business of transforming your customers into the people they want to become.

And unless you sell an IronMan-style robot suit, that transformation comes in part by changing their thinking.

It comes from education.

Audiences are readier than ever to pay for online education

Online education was a really good business model in 2007, when Teaching Sells was launched.

It’s an amazing business model in 2012.

Learning online gives people the results they want (in Teaching Sells we call these the “benefits of knowledge”). In the way they want it. On their own terms, when and where they find it convenient.

Millions of people all over the world are turning to online education to make the transformations they want to make.

And smart, small-scale entrepreneurs (like you) are ready to serve them. Is

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Is Blogging Dead?No, of course not. It’s just getting started.

But a lot of bloggers get it backwards. They think of the blog as their “main thing,” then try to monetize it.

Instead, turn your perspective around. You run a business — and your blog supports that business.

One of the best ways to use your blog is as an attraction strategy, a way to find new potential customers. That means that “monetizing” with advertising may not be the right revenue model for your business. And of course the idea that selling advertising is a simple automated process is a crock perpetuated by Google AdSense.

If you’re not making loads of money with AdSense, but you’ve got tons of page views, you’ll need someone actively selling your space in a very competitive marketplace.

Remember: to make money online, you’re always selling something — even if it’s just space on the page.

I want to tell you about a hard lesson I learned back when I started publishing online in the late 1990s. Back then, the most prominent strategy

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for making money with free content was email publishing. I was fascinated by email publications that offered everything from tech tips to simple daily jokes, and yet made hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue (or so it seemed).

Boy, did I learn a thing or two from that.

The Lesson I Learned About Advertising-Supported ContentThe ezines I created had solid content — they got glowing reviews in other ezines, in newspapers, and in magazines like Entertainment Weekly.

What they didn’t do was make a lot of money.

I had come to the ezine game a little late. It was actually a lot like blogging for ad dollars is today — it takes a huge investment of time and effort to earn money from free content and advertising. I realized that to make money from advertising, I was going to have to learn how to attract sponsors, rather than wait for people to beat down my door.

Then, the bottom fell out.

When the dot-com fiasco imploded in the spring of 2000, the online

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advertising market all but disappeared, especially for small independent publishers. Somewhat despondent, I took comfort in the fact that I had been supporting myself the whole time both as a lawyer and a marketing consultant with very little promotional effort. I had been simply using ezine publishing strategies to promote my services, and this had easily made me more money than advertising ever had.

I shifted gears and started using content to market other virtual service companies in 2001. I built a company that had no employees, no true physical presence, and no offline advertising into a multi-million dollar selling machine.

The money was good, but management of even independent contractors in the offline world was a pain, so I also worked on creating my own products to sell online.

Now, these were not your typical ebooks telling people how to sell ebooks or other Internet marketing stuff. My model was to partner with people who had the right credentials, collaborate on information products (usually with a business-to-business or health and wellness focus), and then I sold them online using every strategy I had learned over the years.

In 2005, I got out of my offline businesses completely and went totally online.

Although I started Copyblogger in January of 2006 and at one point it made money from sponsorships, I now bring in the bulk of my income from

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selling content through various web properties, and using content to market related products such as software.

And business is getting better, not worse.

Forget About Blogging for Bucks and Make Some Real MoneyCopyblogger has allowed me to raise my profile to the extent that I have a wide choice of partners to collaborate with on profitable projects. It’s what attracted the platinum group of business owners that came together to form Copyblogger Media.

Most of what I do these days is behind the scenes — I produce web projects and let other people be the stars.

It’s worked out well economically.

But I’m not the type to wave big checks in the air or flaunt my income. It’s not my style.

I will say that my blog is one of the most popular in the world, and yet the revenue it once brought in from advertising is laughable compared to what I make from my other online projects.

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In fact, in the past several years I’ve found that sponsorship revenue or other advertising just couldn’t compete with the blog’s ability to promote my own businesses. That’s why we don’t currently run any outside advertising on Copyblogger at all.

So, blogging can be vitally important, but most likely it will open doors for you that lead to revenue or help you promote things you are selling, as opposed to generating a ton of money from advertising. On the flip side, many of my projects involve no blogging at all (although I’m always using blog software), and only small amounts of free content for promotional purposes.

I’ll talk about that more in a bit. But first, let’s talk about the myth that all content on the web “wants to be free.” We can do that by going back to an earlier technology that faced some of the same challenges we do.

Did Free TV Kill the Film Industry?Back in the 1940s, the film industry in the United States was very different from what it is today. The major studios employed permanent staffs of writers, production planners, set builders, and captive stars, and cranked out huge amounts of assembly-line formula films — often up to 30 a year per studio.

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A lot of the content was pretty bad, but it was the only game in town.

Then, two bad things happened to the film industry. First, the US Supreme Court forced the studios to give up their ownership of movie theaters due to the monopolistic stranglehold that resulted on film distribution.

The second bad thing was a new-fangled invention called television.

Now, the content on television wasn’t any better than the formulaic garbage served up by the film studios, but it was free. Everyone wailed and gnashed teeth and predicted the demise of the film industry.

You might see a few parallels with today already.

But as you know, that didn’t happen, because the studios changed course. They abandoned the in-house assembly-line production techniques and adopted the current method of putting together teams of independent talent on a project-by-project basis.

This move to customized production resulted in the beginning of the “blockbuster” approach to filmmaking, which in turn empowered independent filmmaking. The goal was to create a movie-going experience rather than regularly- scheduled schlock.

Television was free, but it wasn’t until the late 70s that the content became anything remarkable.

And as we know, free network television has reverted back to mostly lame and treated like a second cousin, thanks to cable and award-winning

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content from premium channels like HBO.

That’s right ... not only did free television NOT destroy the film industry, it managed to be subverted by paid television. While film and television may face other unique challenges in the digital age, one shouldn’t make the mistake of believing that “free” is a new or permanent position.

People who don’t learn from history are often doomed to miss out on the next big thing.

People Will Pay for Information that has a Higher Perceived ValueA lot of niche information on the web is a lot like free network television — it’s of poor quality, dubious accuracy, and riddled with interruptive advertising. Despite the few success stories, social media is filled with too many blogs that do nothing but regurgitate news and offer unqualified opinions that no one really cares about.

Unfortunately, it’s this bunch of noise that people find when they use search engines. And the good stuff out there is usually not comprehensive or well organized, and regular people don’t want to do in-depth research to learn.

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They want to learn from a trusted teacher.

This presents an opportunity for those who recognize that everything moves in cycles, and that there will always be room for quality paid learning experiences and community amongst the sea of noise. As we’ll see in just a bit, there are vast opportunities in raising the perceived value and the actual value of information by simply putting it in a more learner-friendly format.

In other words, creating something of value that people will pay for is not that hard if you understand what people actually value and respond to.

Let’s look a little bit closer at that issue, because it’s one of the golden keys to success when it comes to making good money online.

You’re Not Normal, and That’s (Mostly) GoodIt’s true. Statistically, you’re not normal. (Congratulations.)

If you’re currently blogging, publishing or marketing online, you have already begun to develop some of the most important skills for success in the 21st Century. If you’re active in social media, you’re learning skills you

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can use for a lot more than telling people what your cat had for dinner.

You already know there’s a huge shift going on thanks to globalization and the growth of the Internet. Any work that can be outsourced is on the chopping block, with more jobs going overseas every day.

But people like you, who can create and express ideas online, will be at the top end of the economic spectrum.

I’d even go so far as to say if you’re only just now seriously looking into publishing online content, you’re way ahead of 97% of the population.

But those of you who have gotten started actually publishing online are truly not normal — because you’ve taken action. Most people will tell you they want to be entrepreneurs, make money from home, and free themselves from working for the benefit of their boss.

But unfortunately, “telling” you or “thinking about it” is as far as most people go.

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Most People Never Take that First StepMost people never take the necessary action to make their dreams come true, even though it’s usually just a matter of showing up and getting started. If you’ve taken that first big step, congratulations.

Although it may not always seem like it, simply getting started is the main thing that keeps people from achieving their goals. As long as you keep going and realize that everything that goes wrong is making you better, smarter, and stronger, you can’t lose.

On the other hand, another way in which you’re not normal may be holding you back.

You are likely way above average when it comes to navigating the Internet. You likely understand it better, understand how to use it, and are generally good at finding what you need online.

Most people are not like you at all. In fact, the average person is far less sophisticated when it comes to navigating online than you might imagine. You might think no one will buy “X” because you wouldn’t, but that’s the wrong way to look at it.

The average user still finds the Internet baffling beyond email and basic search. And they often find what they find baffling as well.

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Understand that and you’ll realize that you can offer quality learning environments that people are happy to pay for. What you might be able to piece together on your own from freely available information, they can’t and they won’t.

And that’s an opportunity.

There’s one last way you’re likely not normal. And with this one, you’re definitely going to have to get over it if you really want to become a player in the next phase of the Internet.

You’re not normal because you like to read. Guess what? Most people don’t.

Take a look at these sad facts. These come from a study held a few years ago — the sad truth is, they’ve probably only gotten worse.

» 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

» 42% of college graduates never read another book.

» 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

» 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

» 57% of new books are not read to completion.

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Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.

And yet ... there’s a book that’s been written on just about any topic you can think of.

What if all that knowledge could be delivered in a format that more people could actually get something out of, and that they happily pay you for?

People who don’t like to read still want to learn. In fact, they will be required to learn continuously to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

That’s where you come in, and that’s another big opportunity. They’re called virtual learning environments, and there’s a lot of money to be made with them.

Becoming a pioneering early-adopter doesn’t require the vision of a Steve Jobs. It doesn’t require some kind of special genius. It’s simply a matter of looking at the world around you and taking action — action that helps other people.

You already have everything it takes. You just need to get started.

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Teach and Grow RichWe are currently living in a state of accelerated change that is increasing in speed each year (if not each month). This environment demands what’s been coined as continuous learning, an adaptive trait that has very little to do with what you know, and more to do with how fast you can continue to learn new things.

Continuous learning requires continuous teaching. That means that one of the most rock-solid businesses you can get into is developing interactive learning environments — starting right now.

And it’s just not business, trade, and financial issues, either (which are gigantic markets). Think about the demand for personal development training in creativity, productivity, critical thinking, communications, and advanced interpersonal skills. This type of training will be as important as substantive and technical information when it comes to being an economically productive person.

Add in hobbies, health and wellness, spirituality, coping skills, technology tutorials, parenting issues, and a whole host of things that are right around the corner that we haven’t yet imagined, and you start to realize how big this is.

In short, there’s a mind-boggling number of niches and angles to work, should you be so inclined to play an influential role in the inevitable future.

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Creative Adaptation is the 21st Century GoldmineIf you’re a coach or consultant, you already have subject matter expertise that can be converted into an interactive learning environment that allows you to work with more people, earn more money, and spend less time doing it. But even if that’s not the case for you, one of the most amazing aspects of this opportunity is the ability to creatively adapt existing textual content into a more learner-friendly format and environment.

Let me give you just one example off the top of my head.

Let’s say you’re a big fan of productivity books. Now the thing about productivity books is, the advice is very compelling, but readers forget it two minutes after they set the book down.

There are better ways to get the core information into your customers’ heads.

You could create a course that acts as a synthesis of the very best ideas and techniques from all the top productivity gurus. You can fully give credit to the source material, because you’re adding value by editing, organizing, and reformatting the content for better learner comprehension, retention, and use.

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Think about a teacher in the classroom. He or she doesn’t write the textbook (at least not usually). He teaches the concepts contained in the textbook according to a curriculum he designs and implements, with the aid of audio / visual teaching aids, testing and classroom interaction.

That’s what you’re trying to simulate in a virtual learning environment. It works for the benefit of the learners, and that’s why it’s well worth paying for.

Teaching SellsI’ll say it again ... There’s never been a better time in history to be a person who can clearly communicate ideas.

The Internet will be the primary delivery medium for all distance learning and training efforts, and will play a part in most local teaching.

You want to create a community of learning. Do that right, successfully market it, and you’ll never worry about figuring out how to “make money online” again.

Here are 10 things you’ll need to know to succeed in this next wave of the commercial Internet:

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» How to target a vast audience with a niche angle

» How to have a unique, entertaining approach to content development

» How to choose the right medium for the right content for effective learning

» How to create content that sells itself

» How to effectively leverage the audiences of others with win-win proposals

» How to develop multi-format content with free and inexpensive tools

» How to build airtight paid membership websites

» How to choose the best business model for your topic and goals

» How to increase profits with advanced training and a la carte sales

» How to further leverage your skills as a highly-paid consultant

It’s a fast-paced arena, especially when it comes to the amazing new tools that allow non-technical people to produce dazzling content.

Teaching Sells is a training program that reveals how to do all of the above and more. My business partners are content marketer Sonia Simone and software developer and illustrator Tony Clark. We’ve built a

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number of interactive learning memberships sites ourselves — businesses that aren’t just profitable, but highly satisfying. And at this point, we’ve taught hundreds of others how to do the same.

Stated a different way, this is what we’re doing right now to make money — now and into the future.

Which brings up the obvious question — if this stuff is so powerful, why are we willing to teach it to others, at any price?

That’s an excellent question, because that’s how a lot of Internet marketing “training” happens ... the gurus who actually make money in other niches will often only share information when the tactics and strategies are losing effectiveness.

That’s not the case here. What this is about is you getting a jump on the future while making money right out of the gate.

We’re willing to teach our own techniques and strategies for these 3 reasons:

1. The number of possible topics that can be developed here is so huge that it’s doubtful we’ll ever lose out in a competitive situation with one of our students.

2. Providing training for continuous learning is also so huge that there’s money to be made in sharing and teaching the way to do it, and Tony, Sonia and I feel that we’re highly qualified to be the ones teaching. When we first started talking four years ago, we realized

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we’ve been on almost identical paths for the previous 10 years when it comes to using educational marketing and training strategies in our businesses.

3. The Copyblogger Media team have already come up with so many ideas of our own, we can’t possibly do all of them ourselves. So, it’s likely we’ll be recruiting business partners and associates from the ranks of our members (in fact, that’s already happened three times already). There are simply not enough people around who know what we need them to know right now, so it makes sense to put people in a position to partner with us.

Frankly, number 3 makes this all worthwhile to us. Like I said, there’s certainly money to be made teaching people to build, run, and market virtual learning environments. But the money to be made in all the potential consumer and business-to-business areas (starting now and into the future) is gigantic.

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What Now?Now, you’re at something of a crossroads.

You may choose to jump into e-learning on your own -- creating a business that’s valuable because of the value you create for other people.

You’ve got lots of free content from this launch that will help you do that. (Be sure you refer to the 20-Step Road Map, it will keep you from going off the rails and make sure you stay focused on your business goals.)

Or you may decide you want some help.

You may want a step-by-step course that walks you through the specifics of defining your market and topic, building out your curriculum, creating a site, and crafting a powerful marketing platform, rather than struggling with all of that on your own.

You may want coaching and Q&A sessions to get you out of the inevitable stuck spots. (Every entrepreneur faces these, and you’ll want to have a plan for how to deal with them.)

You may want a community of peers to bounce ideas off of, to form partnerships with, and to shed some new light on your thinking when you’ve come to an impasse.

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If those would be helpful to you, Teaching Sells might be the right vehicle to help you see what the next level looks like. We’d be honored to have you with us.

(Stay tuned this week as we wrap up the launch and welcome our newest group of students. If you can join us on Monday for the live webinar with Chris Garrett and Sonia Simone, we’ll be giving you some more specifics about how to build your e-learning business … and if this is the right time for you, about how to join us inside Teaching Sells.)

Thanks for reading. And don’t forget that we’ve got a lot more free content for you, so stay tuned.

Best Regards, Brian Clark and Sonia Simone

Co-founders of Teaching Sells