2020 Productivity Challenge

The more things change in my online business as an author and entrepreneur, the more they stay the same. It was on a warm spring evening in 2010 that I began to write a new blog post about productivity. That post ten years ago turned into a 21 day challenge and the beginning of an annual challenge (the 2020 Productivity Challenge this year) where more than eight thousand people have now fully participated…

***Want to Take Your 2020 Productivity Challenge To Go? Scroll to the bottom to download Your PDF Version – No Opt In Required

What’s new in the 2020 Productivity Challenge? Last year I turned the 2019 Productivity Challenge into a 30 Day Free Membership Site. You may still sign up and go through it because the content and training remains relevant, perhaps more now than it was a year ago. This year I am back to the original format, where I add something new each day. There is no need to opt in if you are on my list already. If you leave a comment I will know you were here and I’ll be able to answer your questions. Let’s get started with your 2020 Productivity Challenge!

Day 1 – Become an Expert on Something… Anything

Thinking back to my younger days I realized I was in the school library or public library more often than anyone I knew. I was interested in learning about everything I loved – animals, science, authors, and more. As an adult coming online in 2006 I became interested in SEO (search engine optimization), eBooks, mindset, productivity, time management, and membership sites, just to name a few topics. Soon these became topics I had some expert status around and that I could write and speak about, create information products on, and teach in my ongoing courses and Mentor Program.

I want you to do the same so you may benefit in a similar way. And I’ll remind you I said to become an expert, not the expert.

~ Choose Your Topic of Expertise for the 2020 Productivity Challenge ~

What topic will it be? Choose a general topic and the get more specific. For example, when I helped people to write, publish, and market an eBook during my first two years online, several other people were already doing something similar. That’s how I knew there was room for someone new. Competition online becomes “coopetition,” where many people cooperatively compete with the goal of opening up the topic to more people around the world and making more ideas, opinions, and teaching styles available. This also tends to increase sales for everyone in the process.

I brought my own ideas and experiences to the table in my new online business. And the eBooks my students and clients wrote were non-fiction, and typically written with the intent of positioning themselves as an expert and/or promoting their business, online or offline. This brought great joy to me as my students became more experienced and their businesses took off. We learned from each other and the ideas flowed.

Once you’ve chosen some area you would like to become an expert in, do what other experts do; write about it, talk about it, share your thoughts and ideas on social media, create a simple product about how others can know more about it, and come up with your unique approach and perspective on this topic. Shout it from the rooftops, whisper it into the wind, and soon people will think of you when they are reminded from any source about the topic you have claimed as your own.

Day 2 – Utilize the Content You Already Have

If you tell me you do not have lots of content, specifically private label rights (PLR) content, I won’t believe you. We all have content we haven’t used and that we may never use unless and until someone like me challenges you to do so. I even have a resource page filled with links to free PLR from people I know and trust here.

I challenge you to sort through what you have and come up with something you can put together quickly to give away as a bonus for an affiliate product you will recommend to others who would benefit. Right now I’m creating a new information product and I am using PLR on the topic (SEO – search engine optimization) as one of the bonuses.

Please let me know what you come up with and on Day 3 we’ll talk about how to promote the affiliate product and your bonus using social media.

Day 3 – Promoting an Affiliate Product with a Bonus on Social Media

The first step is to choose an affiliate product to promote. For this example I will use Sharyn Sheldon’s current PLR package. Sharyn’s private label rights courses are second to none and I make lots of income by setting them up as my own. I need to log in to her affiliate center to retrieve my link, and then I will shorten it using Pretty Link.

Now it’s time for me to share my link and the details of the product for sale on my social media profiles. I use the sales copy from Sharyn’s page, as well as her images. This is perfectly acceptable when you are an affiliate and sharing the exact product the sales copy and the images were originally created to promote the product.

Now you want to decide what to offer as a bonus for those who purchase through your affiliate link. This could be a 30 minute “laser focused” call with you, or one of your products or courses, or something else that would be perceived as being relevant and valuable.

I want you to try this for yourself. You may recommend one of my products or one from another product creator. My affiliate platform is Nanacast and my affiliate site is at Affiliate Links and Tools. I also have several lower priced products on Warrior Plus and I am CRGreen there.

Take a look at what I’m doing just on Twitter to get a better idea of how you can get started right away.

On Day 4 we’ll get into the steps you can take to create your own simple product.

Day 4 – Why You Must Create Your Own Product

I began my online journey as an affiliate marketer. I was also blogging on a dozen different blogs (it was my belief that I was a woman of diverse interests and didn’t think I had to choose a single niche) and selling some affiliate products through my posts on various topics.

It turned out a dozen blogs was at least ten too many and not choosing a niche gave me no place to start a following of interested prospects and customers. By the end of that first year I was down to three blogs, had chosen (or settled) for the niche of eBooks, and knew that having my own product was the only way to increase my income.

It was a struggle for me to decide what to create. Finally I decided that I could show others how I was writing blog posts and repurposing them into articles to submit to the directories. I could also share how I was finding the products to recommend within my posts that were continuing to earn me more and more income each month.

The live course I created was a three session teleseminar training with a downloadable Study Guide. Individuals were not hosting webinars back in 2006 because this technology was initially intended for the corporate world, Facebook Lives were not possible because Facebook was still limited to those connected to a college or university who had the appropriate email address, and Zoom was not even a gleam in the eyes of the creators of this popular platform. Free teleseminar lines were available and that’s what most of us used until Instant Teleseminar was created in 2007 by three people (Alex Mandossian, Armand Morin, and Rick Raddatz) I knew through my new Mastermind group.

Think about your ideas for a product you can create. It must be simple, relevant to your target audience, and on a topic that allows you to share your knowledge and experience. My first product met all three of the criteria I just mentioned and everyone who purchased the course when I first taught it live, or later when I packaged it to sell as home study was thrilled to have the information I was sharing.

Please do not overthink this process. Ask people who know you well to tell you what they think of when they think of you. In my case, people close to me reminded me of how I had helped them with various types of writing over the years, when they struggled to find just the right words or to convey a certain message to one or many people. Then I thought about my twenty years as a classroom teacher and all of the children from Kindergarten through high school, most of whom did not speak English as a first language I helped with their writing every day. So choosing the niche of helping others to write, publish, and market an eBook to sell on their own website (this was years before Amazon or Kindle or self-publishing) made sense on several different levels.

The right product or course or membership site is out there for you. On Day 5 we will explore different niches and you will begin your outline upon which your first product and your future as an online entrepreneur will be launched.

Day 5 – Outlining Your First, or Next Product or Course

Even though I considered myself to be a good student, outlining was not a favorite activity of mine during my school career. If I was asked to turn in an outline along with a completed paper, many times that outline was created after the paper was done. I’m not proud of this and now see the great value in outlining everything I intend to create before actually putting together the product, course, presentation, short report, sales letter, or full length book. Here is what I suggest for your simple information product to get you started on the path…

• Give your product a “working” title. Filmmakers and other creatives tend to do this and it gives you a concept idea right away. This can and probably will be changed as you continue to create your product.
• Write down what your product is about. Describe it in as much detail as possible.
• Who will be served with this product? All businesses, online and brick and mortar are in business for the sole purpose of serving a specific group of people who want, need, and will benefit from what will be offered.
• Write a headline that would get the attention of your target audience. Write another headline. And another. Getting used to the idea that your salesletter will help you to create an excellent product is one of the best kept secrets in the industry.
• Make a list of the features of the product you are creating. Now make a second list that lists the benefits of each feature. People buy benefits, not features.

Spend as much time as possible with the five points I have shared here. Leave a comment if you have questions or would like some feedback on what you are hoping to create as your simple information product.

Continue through this 30 Day Productivity Challenge here...

I have a wonderful surprise for you at the end of the 2020 Productivity Challenge! It’s the PDF Version of This Entire Challenge, Formatted as a Special Report.

I’m bestselling author, marketing strategist, productivity and time management expert, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and I would love to connect further with you to help you to achieve your goals. If you are interested in learning how to optimize the syndication of your content, please take a look at my popular Syndication Optimization training course and consider coming aboard to increase your visibility, credibility, and profitability. I’m here to serve you!