Yay, Steppers! Just made the first honest-to-goodness money from my information product so far. To test-market, I posted on Fiverr.com that I would teach “how to do 100 pushups in a row for $5”. And there was a taker!

In today’s post we’ll document  Shoestring Steps ONE and TWO. By the time we get to Shoestring Step FIVE we’ll be looking at five figures a month if I’m right about this little biz opp.

Fiverr.com keeps a buck for brokering the transaction, so I only get $4. Greedy Bastards.

Five Figures? Kurt… didn’t you just say you sold the program already for only five BUCKS?

Ah, but that’s the BEAUTY of selling information. Once you sell it one time, you still have the ‘product’ on your ‘shelf’ to sell again. Hey, and five bucks is five bucks. Well, in this case it’s four bucks, because Fiverr.com keeps a dollar.

But that’s not what really interests me. I’m just looking for proof of concept here: does anyone really CARE enough about being able to do 100 pushups in a row to actually spend some coin?

Looks like they do! That’s encouraging, because it’s what I’ve selected to do for my next 30 day challenge. NOT the pushups… I’ve already done THAT. No, I’m looking to make $1,000 in 30 days with my information product. That’s the purpose of this, my second Challenge.

Let’s catch y’all up on the activity to date…

Shoestring Step ONE: Get OFF Your ASS

So without a product, without a list and with only a vague idea of what I wanted to offer for my information product on October 3, the actual work began on October 23. That’s when I did Shoestring Step ONE: Get OFF Your ASS. Here’s what getting off (ahem!) uh… top dead center looked like that week:

1) started a free YouTube account and posted two videos from my cellphone
2) secured two domain names: www.howtodo100pushups.com and www.icando100pushups.com
3) got hosting for the first domain name, and
4) started setting up a new blog on the topic: How to Do 100 Pushups.

To do this, I spent a total of $18.46 so far. The challenge is not only to make $1,000 in 30 days, but to spend less than a night out at the movies (with a date and popcorn… c’mon 😉 ) to start out.  That $5 I got from Fiverr.com will help defray the costs going forward, but  even so I gotta be Shoestring cheap. There’s another dollar that definitely needed spending though…

How to Capture Leads for your Biz (Shoestring Step TWO: Find Out The W’s)

The blog page that is working right now  at www.howtodo100pushups.com is a simple “squeeze page”; this page’s ONLY purpose is to capture leads.

A "Squeeze Page" has only one function: to capture leads for your product, info-product, or service

On this page there are no groovy bells and whistles, no place to go to browse content… only ONE thing for a visitor to do: After watching the video of me demonstrating proper form for a pushup and reading the bullet points and benefits of subscribing… a visitor can only subscribe. Or leave the page. There’s a form to the right where my visitors can add their name and email information if they want access to the next step in my program.

That’s it for this Step. All I want to do right now is identify 1000 or more people that are interested enough in doing 100 pushups and whose skepticism is low enough to give me a shot. I’ll reward Subscribers with top-shelf information about how we’ve seen dozens of Students get to this level of performance, keeping them interested … while learning more about THEM.

So after getting two videos shot for How to do 100 Pushups, and posting them on this page… I also set up an Aweber account for $1 for the first month. The right side of the squeeze page allows a Subscriber to input their name and email for the next step in the “100 pushup” program. That info is uploaded directly from the page to Aweber. Then I can send personalized emails to people on my growing list.

Next on the List… Driving Traffic

So far, I haven’t used any ‘paid’ advertising methods yet. But the Squeeze Page has captured information from friends of mine that went over from Facebook. Again, we’re looking for proof of concept: is the page working, are people able to subscribe? One of my pals told me that he had trouble seeing the second video. Good thing to iron that out BEFORE paying any money to send traffic to this page.

Almost half a dozen confirmed Subscribers. Goal is 1,000 in the next few weeks. Wish me well!

So far I’ve spent $19.46, minus the four dollars from Fiverr.com. So that’s $15.46 I’m definitely out so far, and traffic can be expensive. Before spending money on traffic, I’ll see if I can’t get ten or fifteen more friends to subscribe, ask them about their experience with the website and use their feedback to work out any more kinks. THEN… I’d better find some really cheap ways to get traffic to the squeeze page.

I’ll keep ya posted! Til then,

Keep Stepping,

Kurt
*IMPORTANT NOTE: OH! hey Steppers, I’ve officially decided to extend my own deadline for this, my second “30 Days” challenge. Why? Because I didn’t officially DO anything in the three weeks between my boastful beginning Oct. 3 and my next post Oct. 23. SO… give me until November 23 to finally make a grand from it? Hope you do cut me that slack.