Warning: Do You Know What Your Information Is Really Worth?

 

To look at some of the clueless discussions on marketing forums, you’d think it was possible for anyone at all to launch an information business in any niche at all – and be massively successful.

Sweet dreams. Wishful thinking. Fond hopes.

(Even harsher epithets may apply to this mindset.)

Look, the Web has made it incredibly simple and ridiculously inexpensive for anyone to hang out their shingle and launch a business.

But this doesn’t automatically mean that anyone and everyone will succeed, no matter what.

Quite the contrary.

The only infopreneurs who build lasting information businesses online (or even offline) are those who have mastered the important philosophy of delivering great value to their market.

A crucial question every budding information marketer would benefit from asking himself or herself is this:

What is my information really worth?

The answer is rather simple. It depends upon…

What You Know That Has Value

Well, all of us know something. But that doesn’t automatically make it valuable.

For example, like my little niece, you may know how to catch grasshoppers. She’s got a knack for it. In the flash of an eye, she’ll grasp a green little insect, and proudly hold it up for everyone to see.

She can even teach you how to do it, step by step. She’s been doing it for years, and is even something of an expert at it.

But does that have value?

Not really. Oh, you could stretch your imagination and come up with weird ways this could come in handy to someone – but even if you love catching grasshoppers, there’s little likelihood that this skill will translate into something profitable or valuable around which you can build an information business.

But…

My niece has another skill. She writes poetry. And short stories. Has done both for some years. And has a process she follows to come up with ideas, flesh them out, and set them down on paper.

Her talents have earned her appreciation and applause at school. Her work is showcased in a ‘creative corner’ in her classroom.

She can teach other youngsters how to plan a short verse or outline a story and then create it. That’s a more valuable skill to an audience of creatives who want to learn how to write poetry or pen short stories.

The big lesson I’m trying to drive at here is this…

Not Everything You Know Has Value

As an infopreneur, one of your first challenges is to identify those areas where your knowledge, experience and expertise are actually valuable.

Not merely of interest, fascination and entertainment to you.

Many new marketers who hop aboard the infopreneur bandwagon are in a hurry. They decide to write and sell an ebook. They’ve heard how easy and profitable it is. They are carried away by the thought of not needing an agent or publicist or publisher. All they have to do is simply upload their manuscript to a print-on-demand service (like online retail giant Amazon.com) – where their book is instantly in front of a global audience of millions.

So they write the book of their life. It’s a labor of passion. Their heart and soul goes into the work. And because they are experts on the subject, the material is rock-solid. No one could write a book on this subject that’s better than theirs.

But when it comes time to sit back and bask in the glory of being a best-selling author, they are shocked, hurt and disappointed.

Because even though it’s listed on Amazon.com, even though they have a website selling it, even though the price is so attractively low…

No one is buying their book!

That’s when they start lashing out – at everyone.

Information marketing is a scam. No one gets rich selling ebooks. Only scammers make money on the Internet. Nobody recognized great talent and real value any longer. There’s too much competition out there to win.

And on and on and on… but no!

The Fault Is Yours – Right From The Beginning

You made the critical mistake of assuming that everything you know is valuable.

It is not.

And more to the point, when it comes to creating and selling infoproducts or building information resources that attract a loyal following, ‘value’ is a term that’s defined by your audience.

What is valuable, and how valuable it is, will be determined by your readers, listeners and viewers.

You don’t get to decide.

You certainly have the opportunity to inquire and discover what they want.

This means conducting surveys, running polls, asking questions, and observing your competitors. By understanding the minds and hearts of your target market, you gain precious insights into the problems that keep them awake late at night, the dreams that wake them up early in the morning, the hopes and ambitions that fire them to keep going.

And when you deliver solutions that help them overcome hurdles, move closer to their dreams, inch nearer to their destinations, enjoy the journey better and laugh or smile along the way… then your offering is considered valuable.

Once again, how valuable is decided by them.

Your audience. Your market. Your prospects.

You don’t have a say in the matter.

This is a tough lesson for infopreneurs to learn. Some resist it at first, then think it over, realize the logic behind this truth, and accept, adapt and evolve.

Others doggedly and stubbornly persist in trying things out their way – and after repeated failures, either give up – or change their approach.

Your choice is simple.

Decide to be smart.

Or bang your head against the wall long enough – until you learn to be smart.

Everyone Is An Expert

Let’s say you’ve raised a child. She’s five years old. Started going to school.

You may not think of yourself as an expert parent.

But here’s the thing.

To a new mom who is struggling with the challenges of how to bring up her first-born infant, lying sleepless in her bed worrying about what to do, what to feed her, where to find the best clothes and toys, which diaper is the best, what vaccines she needs, and a thousand other questions running endlessly through her mind…

You Are An EXPERT!

Because you know things about raising a child that she doesn’t. Yet.

Everybody is like that. Everybody has a unique area of expertise. Yes, it’s always going to be relative. But then, if you position your expertise in relation to the right audience, you’ve got yourself a niche market.

And that’s the beauty of being a value-creating infopreneur.

By looking within yourself to identify areas of real value where you can help others less experienced and less expert than yourself, and then offering your precious insights to those audiences, you’ll effortlessly create a perception of always delivering value.

It’s heartbreaking to see the desperate efforts of an obvious newbie trying to embrace the “fake it till you make it” mindset and offering advice and guidance about an area where he or she has little if any experience.

Far easier to approach this through positioning yourself in front of the right market – and being perceived as a real expert.

So you’ve just started out in building a Web business, and all that you’ve managed so far is to get your first website set up. Think that’s worthless? Well, think again.

Let me break down the process for you to understand better.

• You first planned your website – what goes on it, where, how it will look
• You learned about domain names, web hosts and FTP
• You studied HTML and programming languages – or researched and found experts who would help you with it
• You created (or outsourced) content for your website
• You chose or designed a look and feel that matches your business and brand
• You selected a Web hosting service that’s reliable and affordable
• You tested different elements of your website for usability

And there’s probably much more that you went through before designing your first website.

Now, here’s my question:

What prevents you from teaching all of this to a person who has never built a site before – but needs one?

Nothing!

In fact, it’s an excellent way you can add value to such a prospect – because you’re teaching something you’ve done and know well.

Now, if you tried to teach the same prospects how to drive thousands of visitors to your brand new website, without having ever done it yourself before, you’ll be exposed very quickly as a fraud.

So tap into your real expertise, no matter how limited you believe it to be. Position yourself in front of an audience that will benefit from this expertise. And launch your infopreneur career from a platform of always providing value.

Your Expertise Grows

When your daughter turns five and goes to school, you don’t stop being a parent. And you don’t stop facing new parenting challenges. Indeed, they only grow more complex, and take on different facets. You navigate those troubled waters, learn and grow more expert.

When your website is up and running, your job as webmaster isn’t finished. You still need to grow your site with new content, add a blog, carry out marketing tasks, attract visitors, build a mailing list and sell your product or service. As you learn to do each of these things better, you grow more expert.

And because your clients and followers are themselves very likely to be progressing through the same learning curve, crossing the very same phases in their parenting, web business building, or other niche activities, your growing expertise will continue to help them.

Along this path, something magical happens.

They trust you.

Because you started out delivering value, and continued doing it, you generate trust in your audience.

You didn’t start out trying to pretend to be a know-it-all who was the supreme master of everything on parenting or web design. You correctly presented yourself as an expert in a very specialized and narrow field that you had credentials to support.

Then, by dint of your hard work, and constantly growing your own skills, knowledge and experience, you rose to be recognized as being expert in other related areas as well.

That’s how influence is gained. Steadily. In incremental steps. And with a growing crowd.

There’s something you can do to make it happen faster.

Showcase Your Expertise

If you’re a “reluctant infopreneur” (like me!), then the thought of trumpeting your accomplishments and achievements from the rooftops or screaming them through a megaphone is something you dread and shrink from doing.

I’ve always been shy and reserved. Even to this day, it makes me uncomfortable to talk about things I’ve accomplished in my business and my professional life. But there’s one thing that gives me the courage (or kick in the pants) to keep doing it… and that’s my infopreneuring purpose.

By sharing my expertise with others in my market, I attract new clients and fans – who in turn help spread CHD awareness and raise money to sponsor life-saving heart surgery for my little patients.

If keeping quiet and hiding from marketing my skills may lead to the death of a child in need, then there’s no way I’m staying silent… even if that means stepping far outside my personal comfort zone.

So I market myself aggressively online.

You can overcome your own hesitation and mental hurdles by focusing on your unique purpose too. Because by showcasing your expertise, you’ll progress far more rapidly through the steps to information marketing success.

When you prove your skills through reviews and testimonials, screenshots and results, peer endorsements and industry awards, then your target market will gravitate towards you – and speed up your success.

This will help you more quickly achieve the purpose for which you chose to become an infopreneur, extending your reach and letting you help many more people.

That’s what makes learning and implementing marketing strategy and tactics so important for information marketers. It involves identifying your strengths and talents, assessing their true value to your audience, enhancing this perception through constantly adding even higher value and showcasing the impact you’re making on people through your work.

Smart infopreneurs do this. And you should, too.

All success

p.s. If you haven't yet read my free "The Smilenaire Way" report, grab your copy here - and decide if you're ready to start smiling every day in your business. (When you are, click here)

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Tags: infopreneur, information, purpose, value, worth

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