A few weeks ago I decided to go to the movies with a girlfriend. We chose Prince of Persia.

As it happened, it was opening weekend so I hadn’t seen the reviews. However, I was a little worried about seeing it. The previews made it look sort of muddled and I was a bit puzzled by the choice of Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead. (He never struck me as the action adventure type hero.) Worse yet, it was based on a game.

Yee gads. Why did I agree to see this movie again?

Needless to say I walked into that theater with VERY low expectations.

So imagine how happy I was when the movie DIDN’T suck. Yes I know, it got some bad reviews. But truly, if you’re looking for a light, mindless, action packed summer flick, Prince of Persia delivers. (And I was also pleasantly surprised at Jake Gyllenhaal — talk about some nice eye candy.)

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I’m writing to you from sunny San Diego (which is FINALLY sunny). First I was at Nancy Marmolejo’s I Heart My Biz event, then I walked the San Diego half marathon yesterday, recovering today and tomorrow then off to Lisa Sasevich’s Invisible Close Speak-to-Sell Bootcamp. (If any of you want to join me “virtually” I’ve arranged for you to get a backstage pass to Lisa’s event here: http://tinyurl.com/mejmxs )

Whew.

So while I don’t have time to give you a full article this week, I still wanted to share some tips I learned from Sandra Martini, Business Optimization Specialist, www.SandraMartini.com, about getting things done. (Seemed timely with everything I know I have going on and my guess is you have the same challenges.)

Sandy spoke at Nancy’s event, and she was the perfect Saturday morning speaker because it was about taking all the great ideas we got during the event and turning them into reality.

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This series was inspired by the first time I dipped my toe in the info-product pool. You can read my story on my blog: http://www.michelepw.com/blog

Last week I talked about the mistakes entrepreneurs make when they create an info-product. (You can check it out on my blog.) This week I’m covering the mistakes they make when they try and sell it.

Ready to get started? Here we go:

1. Your expectations are out of whack with reality. I once had a self development consultant tell me he wanted to sell a million dollars of his $497 product in one year. So I ran the numbers for him on what he would have to do to get that. He got very, very quiet.

Look, I’m all about thinking big. I’ve thought big my entire life. But if you want to do more than simply think big and actually accomplish big things, you need to understand what it takes to get there.

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This series was inspired by the first time I dipped my toe in the info-product pool. You can read my story on my blog: http://www.michelepw.com/blog

So this week I’m going to talk about the mistakes entrepreneurs make when they create an info-product. Next week I’m going to talk about the mistakes they make when they try and sell it.

Ready to get started? Here we go:

1. They don’t create a product their ideal clients actually want. This can manifest itself in several ways. Here are a few of the big ones –

* Your ideal clients NEED this product, never mind that they don’t actually WANT it. Case in point — how many of you say to yourself on a regular basis “I really need to exercise more.” And how many of you are rushing off to hire a personal trainer to force yourself to exercise more. Or take out spending money altogether — how many of you are simply shifting your daily schedule around so you DO start exercising more? Or how many of you say “I really need to floss regularly.” How’s that flossing going?

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My first information product was an ebook called “Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.”

Bet you didn’t know that, did you? That’s because it was a complete flop.

Yes, my first foray into the wonderful world of info-marketing was pretty much a train wreck.

So why I am talking about it now? Because I realized the other day the lessons I learned were invaluable and my failures could help you become a success.

So sit back, grab a cup of coffee and let me share the story of my first info-product. It was about six years ago (2004). This was my beginning of my 2-year “transition” period, where I transformed my business from freelance copywriter with 80% of my business coming from local businesses to entrepreneur/business owner with a national and international client base and having the resources and team to help my clients on a much bigger scale.

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This is a great question. And here’s where I want you to start — by assessing your current situation.

Even before you put together a plan, you need to do this. Because if you don’t have a good handle on your current situation, you’re not going to be able to put together a plan that emphasizes your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

So here are some things you should look at:

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This is a great question. And the answer is you can’t. BUT there are steps you can take to minimize annoying people.

First, let me explain why it’s impossible to create a buzz/launch a product without annoying some people. If you want people to buy from you, you need to ask for the sale. And if they don’t want to buy from you, eventually they will get annoyed with you asking for the sale. (Buying is an emotional process, so the only way you’re going to get people interested in buying in the first place is if you push a few emotional buttons.)

But if you don’t ask for the sale (and you need to do it more frequently now because people are hanging on to their money tighter) you won’t get as many sales. So you have to decide what your threshold is in terms of annoying people or making sales.

Now, there ARE steps you can take to keep the annoyance to a minimum. If you provide high quality information during your launch and if you’re honest with people when you contact them (in other words, no more “my server crashed so if you couldn’t get in, that’s why and you should try now” unless your server really DID crash.) Give them good, honest reasons for contacting them and it won’t be nearly as annoying to them.

When most people think of marketing, they think of advertising. That’s not exactly true.

While advertising is a part of marketing, that’s all it is. A part. Marketing is much bigger than that.

A better way to think about marketing is anything you do that touches either your customers or potential customers.

Yes, I do mean anything. Whether it’s sending an invoice, handling a complaint call, running a radio ad or sending an e-mail, you’re marketing your business if you’re touching a customer or a potential customer.

That said, let’s talk about ways to use marketing to increase business and get new customers. To simplify things, I’ve broken it down into five key components:

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Are you planning on doing a product launch in 2010? I’d love to get your biggest question about how to create and/or execute a successful product launch. Here’s the link to give me your question:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VT2QGQX

I’m going to be hosting a preview call on Feb. 18 where I’ll be answering all your questions about product launches. Stay tuned for more details!

The short answer? Yes and no.

Now before you click away and say “boy that wasn’t helpful” let me explain what I meant.

Yes you CAN sell without feeling inauthentic or hype-y or like you need to take a shower. I regularly create copy that does this for myself and my clients. The trick is to connect with your ideal clients on a deep level (more on that in a moment).

But why I said no is because you STILL have to ask for the sale. There’s really no way to get around that. And depending on how sensitive you are, asking for the sale might still feel very uncomfortable for you.

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