There may be no faster way to create a great product than by interviewing an expert in your niche. You set a time for the interview, prepare a few questions, record it, and possibly get it transcribed. Total time? Maybe 2 hours, tops.

But exactly what is it that you, as the interviewer, need to do to make the interview great?
To put it another way, how do you ensure that your listeners are going to stay riveted by the interview and be thrilled that they took the time to listen to it?

Here’s 17 indispensable tips for conducting a memorable podcast interview:

1. Have fun with it. If you’re all stressed out about doing this interview, odds are it’s not going to turn out well. You’ve got to relax and have a good time. Laugh. Joke a little. Smile. Did you know people can HEAR if you’re smiling? It’s true. And the more at ease you are, the more comfortable your guest will be, too.

2. Do some research. Know the person you’re interviewing, and by all means know something about the topic.

3. Confirm the details with the person you’re interviewing. This includes time and date, length of the interview and how they will be communicating (phone, skype, etc.)

4. Forget the umms, errs and ahhs. Please. If it takes you a second to think of the word you’re looking for, so be it. Don’t fill that time with incoherent sounds.

5. Do use the highest quality equipment possible. You can have the greatest interview ever, but if the sound quality is terrible then no one is going to listen.

6. Don’t ask yes or no questions. “Do you like to play tennis?” “Yes.” Have you been playing for long? “Yes.” Do you win every tournament?” “No.” How dull can you get? Always ask open ended questions that cannot be answered with simple yes’s and no’s.

7. Listen. I mean really LISTEN to the answers your expert is giving you. Your audience can tell if you’re just playing along rather than being fully engaged. So engage. Be prepared to ask spontaneous questions based on what you’re hearing. The best interviewers aren’t afraid to pursue new avenues and unearth new discoveries.

8. Don’t just ask “what,” also ask “why” and “how.” Learn everything you can from the person you’re interviewing. Go in depth and find out the reasons behind the reasons.

9. Remember that you are the interviewer. Don’t try to steal the show and don’t talk over your guest. You are there to elicit information, they are there to share their expertise. Don’t try to fill both roles yourself. If you do, you’ll annoy your guest and irritate your audience.

10. Don’t ask more than one question at a time. “How do you propose to do project A, and while you’re doing it do you also run the xyz program, and how do the two integrate into your discombobulator?” Sheesh. Think of your poor interview subject and just ask one question at a time.

11. Don’t say anything like, “I wanted to ask you…” or “My next question is…” Or even, “How are you?” Get to the topic at hand and keep the interview moving. Please.

12. Prepare your questions ahead of time. This will ensure you don’t get stuck for something to ask. Prepare follow up questions for each question. Or if the purpose of the interview is to teach a task, you and your guest might prepare an outline of the steps you’ll cover. In either case, this is a guide to help you along, not something written in stone. Be flexible.

13. Don’t keep your guest in the dark. Let them know beforehand what to expect and any pertinent details they should know. Offer to send them the questions you plan on asking. Thank them for participating. You should thank them when they agree to the interview and again in any conversations or correspondence you have both prior to the interview and after the interview.

14. Show your enthusiasm for both your topic and your expert guest. Enthusiasm is contagious, so share yours liberally. Your guest will appreciate your enthusiasm, and your audience will be more engaged.

15. Remember who your real VIP is – it’s not your guest and it’s not you, it’s your audience. You are doing this interview for them, so your first priority is to get your audience great content they want or need.

16. Relax. It’s not Mars-landing science, it’s just an interview. Don’t get stressed – think of it as an adventure.

17. Make mistakes. Look, you’re going to make them regardless, so why not put it on this list? You’re going to trip over your tongue, forget what you were about to say, or mispronounce a word you use all the time. It’s okay. Fix your mistake, smile, laugh, and move on. Your audience will love you MORE for the mistakes you make.

…Or the life of someone you love.

85% of people suffer from low self-esteem, lack of confidence, or just a general feeling of not being “good enough.” That’s 17 out of 20 people who are afflicted with enough self-doubt to make success difficult and life hard.

It starts in childhood: Something is said that makes you feel inferior, or you interpret something to mean that you are somehow “less than.” You replay it in your mind until it becomes a fixed grove winding deeply throughout everything you think and everything you do.

Low self esteem and lack of confidence affects your life on every level. But so does finally learning – deep down inside where it counts – to really, truly, finally love yourself. It’s transformative. It’s simple. But it takes lots and lots of practice to overwrite all of that bad programming you’ve endured in the past.

I recently discovered a Kindle book that can totally change the way a person thinks about him or herself. The author hit rock bottom. He was sick of the misery and the pain.

So he got out of bed, staggered to the desk and wrote the following in his notebook:

“This day, I vow to myself to love myself, to treat myself as someone I love truly and deeply – in my thoughts, my actions, the choices I make, the experiences I have, each moment I am conscious, I make the decision I LOVE MYSELF.”

After that moment he began telling himself, “I love myself.” He said it when he woke up, throughout his day and when he went to bed. He said it like a mantra in his head, over and over again.

Things gradually changed for him. His body healed. His life got better. Fantastic things started to happen for him. And through it all, he kept repeating to himself, “I love myself, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself.”

Even if you don’t think this will benefit you, please consider trying it anyway.

You don’t have to believe it, you just have to say it over and over again to yourself. It’s a practice. You won’t see a miracle the first day, but you will begin to notice subtle changes in the way you feel and the way you view your business, your connections and your life.

Despite being a quick read, “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” by Kamal Ravikant has much more to offer than I can write here. I highly encourage you to get it, read it and let it be a reminder to love yourself and those around you more every day.

I got out my trusty calculator and did a little math. Assuming you make your own information products, what would it take to earn $100,000 in a year if you work with affiliates and pay them 50% commission?

$47 Ebooks: You’d need to sell 355 of these a month, or 12 per day.

$97 Teleseminars and Webinars: You’ll be selling 172 seats a month, or 5.7 per day. Think no one would pay that kind of money for a teleseminar? If your information is timely and valuable, they’ll line up for it. For example, stock market and forex trading advice would fit this category.

$197 Audio Courses: You only need to sell 85 of these a month, or 2.9 per day. Now who’s going to pay $197 for an audio course? Actually, a lot of people. The trick is to make a big promise, record on a library of CD’s, and make sure you fulfill that promise. Example titles might be; 7 Days To Speaking Confidence or perhaps Improve Your SAT Scores by 33% In Two Weeks or even How To Become A Master Pick Up Artist Practically Overnight.

$497 Video Courses: I know what you’re thinking – who’s going to pay $497 for a video course? The truth is, many people have paid TWICE that amount. Sample title? How about… How to Generate a Six Figure Income in 90 Days. Oh yes, and to earn $100,000 a year using affiliates at 50% commission, you’d only need to sell 33.5 a month. That’s practically one per day.

Now then – would you rather make 12 sales a day, or 1 sale a day? Are you ready to step up and start selling big ticket products?

And by the way, other products you can sell for $497 and MORE are…

– Home Study Courses (video, audio and written material)
– Online Study Courses (video, audio and written material, plus it’s more interactive and more likely to actually be used by the buyers.)
– Seminars and Workshops
– Group Coaching

So let me ask you a question: What if you put on a killer online study course and you charged $997 – how many sales would you need to reach that $100,000 mark (assuming all sales were made through affiliates?) Just 16.7 per month.

Or what if you charge $2,000 for your seminar – you’d only need 100 attendees to make a $100,000 payday.

Or if you charge $300 a month for group coaching – you’d need just 55 members.

And in any of the above scenarios, what if you didn’t use affiliates? What if you made all the sales yourself? Then of course you’d only need half as many sales to make just as much money. So in the $997 product example, you’d only need 8 or 9 sales a month to generate a $100,000 income.

If you’ve been paying attention here, you might have noticed I left out one major possibility. Do you know what it is?

Recurring subscriptions or membership sites. 355 members paying $47 a month yields $200,000 – half for you and half for your affiliates. Can you retain 355 for the full 12 months? You’ll have to offer killer content and incentives to come close.

One more thought – what if you do a combination of the above? Perhaps you choose two things, or three or four. Then instead of earning $100,000, you’re earning $200,000 or more.

I’ll let you in on a secret: We tend to get so bogged down in day to day thinking that we forget to step back and look at the big picture. And so is it any wonder that we think small, instead of thinking in numbers like these? You can indeed attain these marks and more, but the first step is to think the thoughts and the second is to believe you can do it.

And you already know the third step – take action on a massive scale and don’t stop until you reach your goal.

Social media sites provide an unprecedented opportunity to network and grow your business online. Don’t throw away this golden ticket by making these 12 costly mistakes!

1. Posting long, messy, nasty URLs. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly.

2. Posting too often. Rein this in by posting only when you actually have something significant to say.

3. Not spacing your posts. Sending 20 posts in 10 minutes and then not posting the rest of the day is – well – dumb.

4. Not making sense. Posting, “ARGGHHH” with no other information just annoys people. Post complete thoughts that actually mean something.

5. Too much personal stuff. You’re doing social media to promote your business or service, right? Then keep it 90%+ business and less than 10% personal.

6. Being boring. Posting that chocolate tastes good (No! Really??) or that you had cold cereal for breakfast is so……..
~ yawn ~
………………. Excuse me, I fell asleep for a second.
See what I mean?

7. No picture. Yes, you need a profile picture. And yes, it should be a good one. If need be, pay to get your portrait taken – it’s worth it.

8. Wrong picture. Your profile picture needs to be of YOU, not a puppy or a cheerleader (unless the puppy or cheerleader is you.)

9. Not giving credit or attributing the wrong source. Give credit where credit is properly due. Always.

10. Being wrong. Again, check your facts if you’re unsure.

11. Being a jerk. No matter how much you disagree, the other person is never an idiot, a moron or a jack***. Remember, once you put it on the net, you can NEVER take it back.

12. Getting political. You’re entitled to your own politics, but they have no business mixing with your business. Keep them 100% separate at all times.

13. Using TrueTwit. Someone wants to follow you, so you punish them by making them click a link and enter CAPTCHA code? What a great way to frustrate new followers and lose them in the process.

14. Ignoring shares and RT’s. Someone retweets or shares something of yours, what do you do? If the answer is nothing, you lose. Instead, THANK them for sharing your content and start a conversation.

15. Spamming. Think about community, relationships and building trust as your first priorities. Yes, you can send out an affiliate link now and then, but most of the time you should be sending content or having a conversation.

Most marketers using social media make at least 3 of these mistakes regularly… But not you. You’re smart. You read this article, and are going to use social media wisely, and profitably from now on!

Need some serious cash in a flash? Assuming you already have a customer base, here’s what you can do:

1. Identify your best customers. If you have only two lists, one of prospects and one of people who have actually made a purchase from you, then of course choose your list of buyers. But if you have a list of repeat buyers or customers who have made large purchases from you, then you want to choose that list. Whoever your best buyers are, those are the ones upon which you want to focus your efforts.

2. Talk to these people. You might call some of them if you have phone numbers, or more likely you will send them an email or survey. Identify what they most need and most want right now. Some things they might need, and other things they might want. What you’re really looking for is the one they both need and want.

3. Based on what you learn, create a high value offer with a matching price tag. In other words, you’re going to offer tremendous value and charge accordingly. This won’t be for all of your customers, but then again you’re only targeting your very best customers with this offer.

4. Make the offer to your valued customers. If you’ve done this correctly, you should see a nice cash infusion into your business, and this entire process can be done in less than a week.

Hi We’re the Dansie’s Richard and Patricia

We Welcome you to our News Letter.

Do you enjoy being creative building, and making things from whatever you have on hand or around the yard.

My wife and I like to work in our back yard creating and building different things. Together we have built a waterfall, and small lighthouse.

Our Waterfall

Smart marketers are not limiting themselves to the English market.

Instead, they are taking their best selling products and getting those products and the associated product funnels translated over to French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

Here’s how to do it:

Unless you’re really sure you want to invest the money, do NOT go with a professional translation service because the cost will be too prohibitive. Not to mention their translations can be too dry and boring to be effective, especially on the sales material.

Instead, find someone on Upwork or Fiverr who is fluent both in English and the language you’re translating your work into.

They must be fluent enough to thoroughly know the slang and colloquialisms of that language.

Have them translate the product, the sales letter, the emails, the squeeze page, etc.

Also have them translate a month’s worth of PPC ads to bring in new subscribers to your funnel. You’ll want a month’s worth because it can take you that long to test and tweak your ad campaigns.

Then retain that person with a small monthly fee to handle all customer support emails for you.

Rinse and repeat with another language.

No Products of Your Own? No Problem…

Negotiate with product owners for the rights to sell their products in other languages. You might pay them a flat fee, or a percentage of sales after your initial expenses are recovered.

You could build an entire business doing this one thing – getting licensing rights to popular products and translating them to various languages.

And if you’re fluent in another language, then you don’t even need to hire a translator if you’re willing to do the translation yourself.

Your very best products – the premium stuff making you the most money – is worth even more than you think it is.

Let’s say you’ve got a successful membership site. You’re charging $20 a month and you’ve got 300 subscribers.

That’s $6,000 a month you’re bringing in, before expenses.

Obviously you’re doing well with that, right?

So what do some marketers do?

They make an info product teaching how to do this very thing. How to set up the site, how to get the outsourcers to create the content and how to get subscribers.

And they charge maybe $9 or $17 for a WSO or JVZoo offer on this product.

That’s one way to go.

But there is another method – one that generally makes more money with less hassles, and it’s this:

Making a premium offering.

Let’s face it – there are significant advantages to attracting $500 customers over $10 customers in the online marketing field.

A $10 customer tends to be skeptical. They need a lot of convincing because they’re pretty sure nothing works.

That’s because thus far, they haven’t met with much in the way of online success.

And when they buy your $10 program, they often need help.

A typical query: “How do I take payments?”

You: “Have you heard of Paypal?”

Your customer, “Sure, but could you walk me through on how to set that up?”

A $500 customer, on the other hand, tends to be on an entirely different level. They’ve likely already experienced online success, which is why they can see what you’re offering works.

They don’t have as many questions. And they know that any basic answers they do need (like how to set up a website, or Paypal) can be found online, rather than expecting you to do the work for them.

It’s paradoxical, I know.

A $10 customer needs $100 worth of your time. Or more.

A $500 customer generally doesn’t need help. But even if they do, you don’t mind spending the time with them because they’ve paid you good money.

So to get back to my original point, don’t sell your knowledge short.

Packaging your know-how and experience into a $10 product may lead to more frustration for you than anything else, even if you do have a great upsell.

Since, in this example, you’ve got a membership site that’s doing well, you could:

• Offer to build them a similar but non-competing website, complete with 6 months of content
• Offer to coach them one-on-one on how to build their site themselves (far more valuable, since they will then own the skill)
• Work with membership site owners to get their subscribers up to a certain level

And so forth.

And for any one of these things, you can easily charge $500 – $2,000.

Get 10 customers, and at $500 each you’ve just made $5,000.

To make that same money selling a $10 book or program, you’d need to sell 500 copies, assuming you make all the sales yourself without affiliate help.

Now then, how about getting the best of both worlds?

Create the inexpensive product and sell it without any personal coaching. Make this clear – they get the information, but you’re not holding hands for 10 bucks.

If they want personal help, you can offer that as an upsell.

And if they’re truly serious, you can offer one of the above three options at full price as well.

Of course, the $10 and $500 is arbitrary. You will set your own prices as you see fit.

For example, setting up a full membership site with six months of content is obviously worth a great deal more than $500.

As long as you’re not setting up direct competitors to your own membership site, you can do this every single month if you like.

Using this method alone, you can easily double your income.

And membership sites are just an example. This works no matter what you’re doing online that is making you good money.

…how could you do it?

We’ve come up with not just one, but potentially 4 different ways to make a million dollars in 12 months.

Not an easy task, but it’s certainly possible.

And if you only do 1/10th as good, that’s still $100,000.

First, before anything else is even considered, you need to find a very important reason WHY you want to make a million dollars in 12 months.

The stronger your reason, and the more often you play out that reason in your head, the better your odds of achieving your goal, regardless of which method you choose.

Now then…

Method 1: The Chris Sacca Method

Chris initially became a millionaire by leveraging $10-20 thousand dollars into 12 million dollars by taking advantage of a flaw used by online trading brokers.

When the market crashed, Sacca found himself $4 million in debt. He negotiated to have it reduced, and then paid off the balance in no time.

So how did he earn his next millions? That’s the method we’ll cover here.

Of course, if you do happen to find a flaw in online trading software that you can take advantage of, terrific. Otherwise, you might try copying Chris’ second method:

Sacca created a fake company, complete with a great looking website and business cards.

Frankly, your company doesn’t have to be fake, it can simply be new. Make sure you choose an impressive sounding name like the Sadlias Group.

Now get tickets to every networking event in your field. Go to these events and network like crazy, making contacts with entrepreneurs.

Look for people who want to change the world, and find ways to help them make that change.

Introduce yourself and – get this – offer to help them out for free.

That’s right, for free. Do you want to stand apart from everyone else at that event? Do you want them to remember you, contact you and work with you? Offer to help them for free.

Using this method, Sacca became one of Twitter’s first four investors.

Even if this method doesn’t make a million in a year, it will make your life interesting, exciting and highly relevant. You’ll find outstanding mentors to help you along.

And you’ll make contact with investors who can back you when you decide to start your company for real.

Take notes along the way, so when you do make your first millions, you can write your tell-all book letting people know the inside story of how you did it.

Method 2: Day Trading

This is a great way to make money fast. And it’s an even better method to lose money even faster.

You’ve got to be good. You’ve got to know what you’re doing. And you’ve got to leave all emotion and ‘gut instinct’ behind as you follow proven, trusted methods that work.

Frankly, it can take you 2-3 years of daily practice just to get good at this.

Then again, you might have the capability to make a million in the first year. It is completely possible, just not highly likely.

If you choose this method, invest in the best education and hundreds of hours of practice trading.

Your best shot: Start with $10,000, margin it to $30,000, and find 180 trades that will return 2% or more in 1 to 2 days.

Easy? No. Doable? Possibly.

Method 3: Sales Funnel

Build the best sales funnel you can – everything from a free product to get subscribers onto your list, to a $10,000 product you sell to your best customers and everything in between.

Think about this: To earn a million dollars, you can sell any of the following:

1,000,000 products for $1 apiece

100,000 products for $10 apiece

10,000 product3 for $100 apiece

1,000 products for $1,000 apiece

100 products for $10,000 apiece

10 products for $100,000 apiece

1 product for $1,000,000

Look at Dollar Shave Club and you’ll see they’ve chosen the first option on this list – selling a $1 product to millions of guys.

But if you have an effective sales funnel, you can take those $1 customers and upsell them to your $10 offer, your $100 offer and so forth.

Once you start selling $1,000 products, it no longer takes massive sales to reach that magical million dollar mark.

Things to remember – focus more on what people WANT than what they need.

Sell them the way they want to be sold.

Make the entire experience fun and easy for the customer.

Whenever possible, find ways to make your messages go viral, even if there is no immediate pay off.

Your primary goal is to get as many qualified people onto your list as possible.

Your next goal is to move them up the sales funnel by always giving them great value for the money.

Do these two things and your final goal of making a million will take care of itself.

Method 4: Sales

If you’re already good at sales, or you can acquire sales skills fast enough, AND you have the right product to sell, then you can make a million dollars in a year.

Obviously you want to sell very high ticket items with high commissions to scale your income faster. And of course already having a sales background will be a tremendous help, if not a necessity.

If you want to take this route and you’re willing to invest 2-3 years, it becomes much more likely you will succeed.

Spend the first year becoming great at sales. Study sales techniques, get a great mentor, work in sales 10-12 hours a day.

And during your first year, find out what kinds of products pay the most in commissions. Make contacts in those industries and get yourself a job where you can make the most money.

Then spend your second and third years making that money.

It will take plenty of hard work, but it will be worth it.

Method 5 – ??

These first four methods should get you thinking.

And maybe, just maybe you’ve got an even better idea.

Like creating the next social network, winning the lottery, doing a one million dollar deal… there are plenty of ways to make lots of money.

The trick is to pick the one that works for you, and then work it tenaciously until you succeed.

It’s true… One promise is all it takes, and being precise pays.

Which of these two products would you most likely buy:

“How to sell stuff using Facebook ads”

Or…

“How to make 461 affiliate sales totaling $8,384 in commissions in the next 72 hours using $112 in Facebook ads”

The second one, right?

How about these two…

“How I lost weight”

Vs

“How I lost 93 pounds in 6 months and went on to win 2 bodybuilding championships at the age of 42”

Of course, it’s the second one that gets your attention.

Why is that?

Because the second titles are exact and precise, which is exactly what people buy.

Vague isn’t interesting. It isn’t sexy. And it doesn’t make sales.

To be clear here, we’re not just talking about having great titles. That’s crucial of course, but so is this:

Base your products around just ONE main promise.

Compare these two:

“The complete, no-holds-barred, definitive encyclopedia on Facebook Marketing”

Vs

“The 3 step formula to selling almost anything on Facebook and making a profit within 24 hours, guaranteed.”

The first one presumably covers everything you could imagine about Facebook marketing.

The second one makes a single, precise promise.

Guaranteed, the second one will outsell the first one 10 times over or more.

Choose one thing and cover it in depth. This is what makes sales.

It’s easier and faster to make this type of product.

It’s simple to explain in your sales material.

And it’s a no-brainer for the customer to grasp.

They know exactly what they can expect, which makes it far easier to get the sale.

And best of all…

…let’s say you’ve got a book/program/software that covers or does a whole range of stuff.

If you break that product down into ‘one promise’ products, you will have more products to sell, and you will sell more of each product.

You might want to read that last sentence again, because it is a million dollar piece of marketing advice if you understand and implement it.

Make the title of your product a single promise.

Then go deep, not wide.

Rinse and repeat.

Using this method you can crank out a product a week instead of a product every month or two.

Frankly, if you work on this full time, you can do even better than that.

And you’ll actually sell more of each product.

Paradoxical, maybe.

But it flat out works.

One last example:

You’re building a WordPress plugin that does everything but the kitchen dishes.

Stop.

Break that plugin down into several small plugins, with each plugin delivering on a single promise.

Your marketing just became easy as pie.

Your sales letters and videos will practically write themselves because it’s now so simple.

People will better understand what you’re offering.

And you will sell TONS more.

Okay, I’ve harped on this enough.

One promise products – be specific – go deep, not wide – rinse and repeat.