Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 44
Sign: Aries
City: New York City
State: New York
Country: US
Signup Date:
03/13/07
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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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5 Secrets to Selling More Teleclasses with Transcripts
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
I just love articles like the one I've posted below confirming that transcripts are indeed a good thing. You may have noticed I've posted two articles today — the coincidence being that they are both from "Queen Donnas." Donna Gunter is the Online Biz Resource Queen (TM) and the article I've posted before this was from Queen Mama Donna Henes, the author of The Queen of Myself: Stepping into Sovereignty at Midlife. Now let's read what Queen Donna Gunter has to say…
Teleclass Marketing: 5 Secrets to Selling More Teleclasses with Transcripts
by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)
While iPods and other mp3 players have taken the world by storm, I'm still a visual girl. For me, that means I'd much rather read something than listen to it. If it's a video of a software or service demo, I might be persuaded to view that, if I have the time and if I have no other choice. For the most part, I'd rather read about it. I have tons of audio files stored on my hard drive, to most of which I've never listened. They'll probably languish away on my computer, only to be deleted one day when I've forgotten why I downloaded them in the first place.
However, the ones I have "listened to" are the ones which also offered a written PDF transcript. Okay, so it's cheating a bit to say that I've "listened" to them, but those files that came with transcripts got my attention much more quickly than those without.
I realize that I'm in the minority here. The audio and video methods of conveying information online are here to stay, and the majority of Internet users like and prefer those methods to reading. Studies also indicate that when an online business owner adds audio or video to a site, traffic and conversion rates increase dramatically.
The written word, however, is far from dead. I'm discovering that there are more and more people who prefer to learn by reading (or maybe we just attract one another). If you offer teleclasses or webinars as a part of your business model, here are 5 reasons you should offer transcripts with your teleclass recordings:
1. Multiple Learning Styles. As previously established, offering both an auditory version and a written version of teleclass content appeals to both kind of learners. Granted, transcribing can be tedious if you're doing it yourself. However, most one-hour teleclasses can be transcribed for about $100 USD. If this investment resulted in a 30% increase in your conversion rate or download rate, it would be a worthwhile investment, don't you think?
2. Printable Format. Unlike audio files, which require some type of device to play them, PDF transcripts can be printed and carried with you. So, if your portable device battery dies or if you're in a situation where electronic devices aren't permitted, you can get the information that you need from the printed transcript instead. Call me hopelessly out-of-date, but I even print out and bind larger (greater than 100 pages) PDF ebooks if I believe they are something to which I'll continually refer. I still prefer to go to my office bookcase and pick up a resource rather than search for my copy of the same resources in my computer files. I've had my readers tell me that they regularly print the PDF files they buy from me and refer to them constantly. Perhaps your readers will do the same?
3. Upsell New Products. Transcripts, unlike audio files, offer the opportunity to upsell your reader to new products or services. In the transcript, you can add several pages that serve as a sales letter for a new product, or include an order form that is similar to one that appears on your site. You can easily update the offer in the future by inserting new pages.
4. Immediate Gratification. If your reader is viewing the electronic version of your transcript, she can immediately click on the hyperlinks you include and see the sites to which you refer in the teleclass. The mp3 listener, on the other hand, may not have Internet access at the time she's listening to the audio file, and consequently has to write down the URLs mentioned and then view them when she's back online. I've lost more slips of paper in this situation than I care to remember, which is yet another reason that having a transcript appeals to my learning style so much.
5. Second Profit Center. If you're selling the audio of a teleclass or webinar, you can offer the transcript as an add-on to the price of the teleclass for an additional fee. I constantly see online entrepreneurs offering a teleclass for $29 and then permitting the buyer to add a PDF transcript for just $10 more. This method offers visitors a choice and appeals to a wider variety of buyers than offering only one option might.
Teleclasses and webinars are a profitable way to boost your online business. Add transcripts to your offerings, and see your profits increase even more!
Want to see the template I use to format my transcripts? You can, if you're a member at OnlineBizU.com. Get your template here.
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.
4:50 AM
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Spring Fever
Category: Life
I just love spring. Here's an article written by a dear friend on the wonders of spring…
Gaudy, Giddy, Giggly Spring Fever
by Mama Donna Henes
During the first part of spring, the vernal birth waters break. The skies open. It rains, it pours, it mists, it drips fertilizing fluids from the heavens, which fructify the fields. The air is damp like a baby's bottom. The land is soaked through, water logged. The mud, like mucous, like after-birth, is seething with the stuff of life.
The defrosting sodden soil is teeming, churning with every creepy crawly thing that ever slithered out of a swamp. Hordes of birds descend, drawn by the juicy feast. Animals awaken from their pregnant hibernations, skinny, starving and suckling their young. Birds and beasts, alike, set out on a concerted feeding frenzy, gorging themselves and their ravenous, insatiable, mouths-ever-open offspring.
By mid-spring, the tantrum storms, like the terrible two's of the early, chilly part of the season, have finally stilled. The winds and rains have gentled. There is a new calmness, a certain steadier confidence in the air. Nature has dug in Her roots and taken hold. Once-tentative buds have unfolded and flourished.
Flowers, food and forage are abundant and extravagantly fragrant. The leaves on trees and bushes are that particular fluorescent pea green shade that we see only once a year at this time. Earth and Her species are spread green with the surging effervescent, aphrodisiac substance of life. The sap, the shoot, the root, the bud, the bark, the branch, the trunk, the tree of life.
The second half of spring is the growing time when life seems to shoot up out of the ground and keep on going forever forward, reaching and grasping for growth. This is the energy that we used to call, "the wonder years." All the vernal new-borns, having outgrown generations of teeth, baby down, feathers, pelts and ridiculously expensive sneakers, are now frenetic with raging hormones. All-too-ready, set, to go and strike out on their own, determined to produce and reproduce.
The merry month of May marks the high-spirited puberty rite of passage into adolescence for the flora and fauna offspring of Mother Earth. The season, itself, is a bang-up celebration of exuberant youth in all its boundless energy, innocent ardor and potential creativity. And all the land is dressed up and decorated for the festivities.
On these glorious days of May, it feels as if the whole world is in the throes of a contagious spring fever. We are aswirl in a delirious dance of motion, emotion, an exhilarating carnival ride of heady smells and riotous color. Life all around is gaudy, giddy, giggly.
The mood is catchy and we get carried away in the enthusiastic spirit. Almost without giving it any thought, we are suddenly cheerful, hopeful and optimistic, as Nature, Herself. And we are ready to spring forward into life with renewed energy and verve.
Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, award-winning author and popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than one hundred cities for thirty-three years. She has published four books, a CD and an acclaimed journal. In addition to teaching and lecturing worldwide, Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy in exotic Brooklyn, NY where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion. http://www.DonnaHenes.net
4:20 AM
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
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MT Nest
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
I've been debating posting my feelings for some time about leaving the world of medical transcription. Definitely, I'm still doing general transcription which I've seemed to segueway into. And I have had a project where I've been transcribing medical school lectures. But that is not true MT work. I have not done true MT work since last summer. I realize I won't be going back to it either, thanks to the current sorry state of affairs that surrounds at-home medical transcription.
Really processing that I've left medical transcription behind is a bit of the "MT Nest" syndrome. I had been a medical transcriptionist for 18, 19 years. I remember the early years when I was totally enthused by my decision and the chance to make what was a then-decent wage without heading to an office – other than my home office – every day. I remember spending so much time and energy on it in the beginning, constantly learning new words and phrases as I took on a busy city hospital with multiple specialties as an account I would have for fourteen years. Later, I would see once-busy MT agencies start to lose their accounts one by one, as outsourcing and voice recognition would become more popular. The reality was that my career choice was never going to take me into retirement began to sink in slowly over the past years.
So I am definitely forging new paths right now. I am testing the waters of becoming a VA incredibly slowing by making inroads in general transcription. Whether I will scout out a VA career choice more thoroughly remains to be seen. An interesting thing has happened, though, as a result of my transcribing so many Internet marketing audios: I seem to have picked up the ropes of Internet marketing, through osmosis I suppose! Yesterday, I spent a good two hours instructing a friend how to expand her business using the same marketing techniques I had been typing! She seemed to think my knowledge was expert and endless – which I can say it is not! I wonder if this is something I might pursue in the future as I continue to learn more about marketing…
Oh! And to leave off on a slightly wiggy note (as most of you by now are used to the free spirit in me) – I will tell you one thing that I am pursuing right now: my tarot card readings. Yes! You read that right! In the early 90s, I had a very active tarot-by-phone counseling service that I did in my spare time (like I had any!) when I wasn't doing medical transcription. I managed to become a Certified Professional Psychic Counselor. See, surprised reader, this is just like me having a full-blown midlife crisis right before your eyes! If you're interested in a reading, please get in touch with me at Diane [at] thrivingandtranscribing [dot] com. No kidding.
Changes will be coming to the Web/blogsite over the coming months as I further define my new path. Who knows what lies ahead? I only know it will be interesting…
10:12 AM
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Thursday, May 08, 2008
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A Mental Vacation
Category: Life
Short and sweet here: I haven't completely disappeared. I'm taking a bit of a mental vacation (and starting to plan for a physical vacation.) It turns out that it's not a good thing to be "recreation deprived" according to this article from Monster dot com.
The bitter irony is that the vacation-deprived usually think they're doing everybody a favor by continuing to work themselves to the brink of exhaustion. But the reality is that they're costing everyone — their coworkers, their direct reports, their organizations, their families and themselves.
What are your vacation plans?
3:58 AM
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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Oh, My Matronly Ways...
Category: Art and Photography
Well, they say every picture tells a story but what's up with this? Last Saturday I posed for my friend Kris Waldherr's soon-to-be-released Doomed Queens book. Apparently, I was channeling forth Catherine of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII's wives who somehow managed to avoid getting the ax (so to speak) and was merely locked up in a dungeon for the rest of her days — or something like that. See, that pointy little hat that I'm wearing that looks like a house served as some kind of cosmic past life antenna and had me declaring a very queenly "Oy Vey!" Kris was really resourceful making that headgear, you know, applying a stapler so close to my head I didn't know what hit me — or didn't. Anyway, we had a blast and when Kris finishes the sketch I will post the result. Thanks, Kris for a fun Saturday afternoon!
12:25 AM
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
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Yes, I Sent Myself Flowers
Category: Life
Ooooh! Aaaah! I felt that in honor of the recently wrapped-up Administrative Professionals Week, I would just send myself some flowers (since after all, I am self-employed.) I chose these lovely Gerber daisies and heck, since Earth Day just passed as well, I decided to pick organic ones for good measure. Why not? Hopefully this may prompt you to do something equally self-indulgent if you haven't already!
1:53 PM
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Saturday, April 19, 2008
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An Auspicious Meeting
Category: Life
Was I lined up today on Fifth Avenue to spy the Popemobile? Nope! See — not only was the Pope in town, but my dear friend Carolyn, who came to check out her old stomping grounds in the city. Although I did watch the mass at Saint Patrick's Cathedral like many on television on this gorgeous Passover weekend, the highlight for me was meeting the woman who I had developed a fun and close friendship with — all via the Internet. How exciting when cyber buddies meet face to face! Seeing that it was turning out to be a pan-religious weekend, she and I met up at the fabulous Rubin Museum of Himalayan art which couldn't stay open long enough for us. A nice day all around!
8:31 PM
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
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A Funny Thing Happened...
Now this is a really sweet story to share with you. As many of you know, I'm also a writer. I recently responded to an ad from a job board that will remain unnamed to do some Web-based writing. I — and a huge group of other responders — got an email back a few days later stating, in a pretty insulting way, to find the good writers in the group (hadn't we already sent samples?) we should submit a few paragraphs describing — of course — their Web site. It is needless to say that they would not be paying us for this "test."
Well, here's the beauty of this. Aside from the immediate red flag that went up for me as in "Someone is trying to get something for nothing," the person who composed this offending email sent it to the group with all our individual email addresses, not as a blind email. So it didn't take long for us — the writers who were going to be taken advantage of – to begin communicating with each other! Now it looks like we will be forming a group of some type (whether its social or professional is yet to be determined) to help us stick together in the face of outright scam-ishness. See? A nice story!
9:46 AM
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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Geriatric Health Care Crisis
Seventy-eight million baby boomers are headed for old age, yet the healthcare workforce in the United States does not appear prepared in the least for them, says a Wall Street Journal article.
Underscoring the fact, I believe, that our society really seems to have little respect for the elderly (or the folks — often family members — that help care for them,) we currently have just one physician specializing in geriatrics for every 2500 Americans.
The compensation folks involved in Geriatrics receive may be partly to blame:
The report blamed misplaced financial incentives for much of the shortfall. Doctors specializing in geriatrics averaged income of $163,000 a year in 2005, compared with internists who earned $175,000 with no specialty training. Other specialists, from surgeons to radiologists and dermatologists, can earn more than twice as much.
Meanwhile, half of those workers caring directly for the elderly — helping them dress, bathe and eat, for example — are paid less than $9.56 an hour, the report notes.
Don't even get me started on the fact that most home health aides are women earning a mere pittance for the valuable skills they provide. Which naturally reminds me that Equal Pay Day is coming up on April 24…
4:37 PM
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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Happy Tax Day!
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
Happy Tax Day? I must be kidding, right?
Well…maybe this might be the day to turn things around. I recently found out by posting and reading posts on an email group for medical transcriptionists that, although it's all fun and groovy being self-employed, more MTs are familiar with paying Uncle Sam through some installment agreement plan than they care to admit.
However, Salon has a terrific article on What Every Freelancer Should Know about saving money on taxes. Read it, it's fun — no kidding. And it also contains a couple of good links on buying health insurance.
Meanwhile, here's to all of you getting refunds and Economic Stimulus checks, too. But remember, there are scams out there. Read Cindy Morus' advice here.
10:06 AM
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