I’ve talked a lot about building a personal brand here on the blog. It’s a subject I’m super passionate about and something that I know works all too well, when it comes to your overall business growth as an entrepreneur doing business in todays marketplace.

However, building that brand, launching it and marketing it to the world to gain the attention you want / need to take everything you’re doing to the next level is just the start. As an influencer, you have to be seen to sell (something I discussed in depth in Episode 42 of my podcast) – doing so drives authority.

You can’t and shouldn’t be seen as giving ‘everything’ away for ‘free’.

Don’t get me wrong, there is something to be said for providing massive value for your audience on a regular basis (for ‘free’) – answering their questions, delivering solutions to help take care of their problems. But, if you want to build a brand that turns into a business, eventually… you’ll have to sell something!

The good news is, for us savvy modern-day entrepreneurs, help is at hand when it comes to all the work needed to be done to make that happen – in the form of virtual staff.

A lot of you will know that my new book, Virtual Freedom comes out in April and I am on a major mission to try and get it into the hands of as many entrepreneurs as possible, hoping to change the mindset of an entire generation of business owners that think that in order to be successful, you have to work yourself into the ground – the same can be said for coaches, consultants, speakers, solopreneurs, bloggers, podcasters and anyone else focusing on building their brands online.

So, today I’d like to share a couple of product ideas that I highlighted in Virtual Freedom, directly from the book (literally!) and the process breakdown needed to make them ‘happen’, so that you can start to get smarter when it comes to your business growth, and the money that you end up making, via your brand.

And I’m going to wrap up the post with one simple, fast and easy-to-implement way that you could literally make money from TODAY via your online platform!

Let’s do this!

Monetization Strategy #1 – The Self Published / Kindle Book

Anyone has a book inside them. I talked about my feelings on this subject recently, and the response was amazing!

And here’s the really cool thing about outsourcing – you don’t have to be the one that actually sits and types up every single word of the book. You can have a content writer help you draft different outlines and guidelines, as well as a General Virtual Assistant help with transcribing podcast or video material that you’ve already produced that has the possibility of being repurposed. There are plenty of amazingly good writers available for hire online – either on a per-task, or a per-project basis (rarely will you find the really good writers happy to commit to full-time employment).

Virtual staff can also help collate articles you’ve written, top notch material from your competitors that you want to re-work and feature and any other related content you want to include in the book.

The less of the grunt work you do, the better.

Here’s a snap shot directly out of the pages of Virtual Freedom that shows you how easy it is, and who does what for you from your team.

As you can see, it’s not rocket science and can easily be put into play with a little effort and guidance.

Of course, if you have a moral issue with having someone else ‘write’ the book for you, that’s fine – no problems. Utilize the team around you for everything else, such as the research, editing, design, etc., and focus in on creating the best content you can instead.

Monetization Strategy #2  – The Video / Audio Course

If you’ve been online for any period of time, it’s no doubt a given that you’ve either thought about, or even already launched a paid online course in some way, shape or form. They are a great way to monetize your brand.

You pick a subject (perhaps after surveying your audience), put together an outline, and then start to produce the content. It can be a large course with several components and modules, or a very short, easy to digest course such as my 7-Day New Business Bootcamp – note: this is NOT a paid course, I give it away as my opt-in offer 🙂

Either way, you’re encapsulating your experience and know-how into a digestible form for your audience to pay to gain access to. Below you’ll see another shot from inside the book – although this focuses on simply ‘creating a video’, you can see how easy it would be to put everything together, if you had a team of VAs helping you along the way.

Just like with the first monetization option, creating a course is the natural conclusion to helping your audience with ‘paid for’ content that solves a problem and enables you to answer a number of related questins on any given niche, or subject.

Try it. Seriously.

Sit down and put together a course outline. It’s my betting that if you’ve not done it before, you’ll find out that just like a book, you’ve got a course inside of you, too!

Here’s that ‘ONE WAY’ to Make-Money-TODAY option:

Monetization Strategy #3 – The Coaching Service

People are happy to pay for products and services. It’s been happening for decades.

However, the one trend that I’ve seen develop over the last couple of years is people paying for access. More and more customers are happy to either full-on invest in services that involved access to the head honcho, or for direct time with them.

When I launched my VA recruiting company, Virtual Staff Finder, we included a 30-minute consultation with me, personally, in the sign-up fee to help them clients ready to start working with virtual staff. It was a great model, but we soon discussed that the scalability of the service wasn’t there because I was, personally, involved in the process – so we removed it.

When we did that we had a lot of people say that they appreciated the one-on-one time with me, and that they would even be willing to pay a premium for coaching. Hence I launched my consultation services, which I still run today, but with very limited time dedicated to it each month.

Above you’ll see an image of me at a coaching session for a local company here in the Philippines. Proof that you don’t need to just focus on this part of monetizing your brand – just online. Keep an open mind.

If you think about it logically, it’s an obvious sell-on of your brand. People come to you, because they like what you have to offer, the solutions to their problems that you provide, answers to their questions, etc., charging a fair fee for one-on-one coaching is one version of the natural conclusion to that relationship process.

My Challenge – Should you Choose to Accept it!

Here’s a simple 3-step process I want you to follow – today. Seriously. TODAY! 🙂

1. Create a Coaching Services page on your blog / website – make sure there’s a clear message behind what you’re offering as a coach / consultant, and be sure to include key takeaways for your customers, too. Price up your time, and add a ‘Buy Now’ button, obviously!

2. Tell your online network that you’re now offering coaching – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+… everywhere. If you want to gain customers fast for this thing, tell your audience about it. Say that you’re only taking on a few clients to start with, to create scarcity.

NOTE: If you do this properly, with a focused effort behind it (and unless your blog readers consist of just your spouse and your Mom!), I’m betting that you will get an order in the first few hours. I did. And I see no reason why you won’t either. Even if something doesn’t come in instantly, don’t let it discourage you.

3. Collect testimonials – once you’ve got your first one or two orders, and you’ve done the coaching itself, collect testimonials from your customers and embed them (either video, audio, or just written with a photo of the customer) on your coaching services page, to encourage additional customers.

Not Starting, is Stopping You from Growing!

As I said at the top of this post, you have to be seen to sell. 

Not monetizing your brand will not help you, in the long run. Remember, you audience decides what products and services you create, to turn into a genuine business. Blogging, podcasting, video blogging, it’s all fun – really, it is. But to make this a long-term, worthy business you need to make money from it.

Question: Do you have products or services (directly related to your brand – not affiliate stuff) for sale on your site already? If so, tell me about them in the comments below.

Either way, I’d love to see your coaching pages, so please link to them, too!