Tom Rauch

Building a Web Presence for Your Virtual Practice

(the first in a series of how-to’s and tutorials to help you decide what web-based technologies make sense for your virtual holistic practice).

What is a blog, exactly?

Blog is short for “web log.”  Not the most elegant name, but it’s here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

A blog is a website, just like any other website accessible through an Internet browser.  Blogs many of the same basic technologies as many other websites you’ve visited.  They have pictures, buttons, fill-in boxes, hyperlinks, etc.  You can embed video clips, process customer orders, have people opt-in for newsletters – all the things you would expect to find on a fully-functional, high powered website.

Blogs are unique in how they organize content, especially content created by the owner of (and visitors to) the blog.  Blogs are highly interactive.  As you may know, blogs got started and became popular because they were a simple, easy way for a blog owner to create the equivalent of their own personal online newspaper or magazine.  In fact, I was introduced to blogs through my good friend Jim Pire about the time of the second Gulf War.  Residents of Iraq who had Internet access started posting blog entries that were many times more accurate (and compelling) than the late, often-sanitized news dispatches from the Western new agencies.

Blogs allow visitors to the site an opportunity to post comments about an article that the owner/author has written.  I’m sure you’ve seen this feature in many websites (lots of “traditional” newspapers now allow readers to comment on articles posted.)

Blogs became popular in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s because they are so simple to set up and make functional “out of the box.”  Also, the most popular blogging software (Wordpress, which I use) is free.  You just download to a server, install it (which takes about 5 minutes), apply a theme (of which there are literally thousands to chose from, many of which are also free), and your now blogging.  Posting is easy, responding to comments is easy.

Then, of course, it gets a lot more complicated after that , depending on what you want your blog to do for you, your business, and most important – your clients.

Next Post: The Pro’s and Con’s of Using Blogging Software for Your Site

Online Client Intake Forms

I know many of you are interested in creating on-line Client Intake Forms.  Working with clients in a “virtual” environment virtually (ha!) demands it.

But setting up online forms can be tricky, especially if you want to do it right (i.e., have your clients’ information saved to a database or spreadsheet for easy querying and reporting; have different kinds of inputs on the form itself — text boxes, multiple choice, list boxes, etc.)

Well, would you believe I created this  simple online Client Intake Form in about 15 minutes, and it does all the “right” things — saves data to a spreadsheet, can accommodate different types of inputs, and you can choose from over 60 different “themes” to give the form itself a unique and professional appearance.

Oh — and wait, there’s more!  It’s all free.

I’d love to create a tutorial that shows you how to do this — if you’re interested, post a comment!  If enough people ask for it, I’m happy to do it!

And many thanks to Kristin Hoppe at Food Therapy,  a San Francisco-based holistic nutrition coaching and education company for letting me use this Client Intake Form!

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Check out the form by clicking here.  (after you view the form, if you want to come back here, hit your browser’s “back” button)

The Business Case for Building (and Selling) Information Products

There are six  good reasons for you to build and sell information products.

• First, you can create them with little or no overhead, depending on the complexity of your product of course (more on that later).
• Second, you can distribute them at little or no coast, especially if you sell them over the Internet, where your clients can pay for the product using on-line systems (like PayPal) and download it immediately.
• Third, you can establish yourself as an authority in your field — there’s nothing like having a book, or guide or training program that YOU put together that other people find helpful.
• Fourth, when you put together a product you are most of the time “teaching back” what you know about your discipline to a less-informed audience. This process inevitably forces you to organize your ideas and knowledge in a cogent, coherent and systematic way. I’ve learned a lot about what I know by having to teach it to someone else.
• Fifth, an information product can open doors to additional opportunities for you and your business. If your clients like this product, they will inevitably ask “what’s next” or “how do I do the next step in the process?” which — guess what — can be another information product you create.
• Sixth, good information products are tough to imitate. If you and I sell the exact same product (a DVD made by someone else for example) how are you going to generate more sales than me? By doing a better job marketing, or having better strategic alliances, or more eyeballs landing on your site than on mine. But if I create a unique product that meets the need of a specific market, you are going to have a hard time getting people to switch over to yours.

So, lots of great reasons to create an information product, and obviously lots of people have started to take advantage of the enormous potential profits. But does everyone who creates and sells an information product profitable?

Information products and profitability

Well, no. Creating information products sounds easy, but harder than you think. I know. I’ve been working for months on a product — Client Centered Coaching for Holistic Practitioner — that I thought would take weeks. Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong, and wrong again.

I remember Bill Gates saying before he wrote his first book “The Road Ahead” that writing a book couldn’t be all that hard. And you know Bill — he’s a pretty smart and determined guy, so maybe he was right? How hard could it be? Well, even Bill Gates learned the hard way that writing a book is WAY harder than it looks. A humbling experience for the Richest Man in the World!

Now, you may not be writing a book, just a “simple” product that you want to sell for $19.95 on your website. Maybe its a guide, or a demonstration or a training program to help your clients (or potential clients) do something better, faster and cheaper. A product that adds value beyond its price point in the eyes of your clients — which is why people buy stuff in the first place. Maybe even a product that generates a “buzz” in your target market because happy and highly satisfied clients are raving about your product.

Sound good? It should, because if you get it right, you can make a lot of money have a lot of fun in the process. And learn a lot about your discipline, your target market, and most important (I believe) about yourself because building one of these products takes creativity, persistence, patience and persistence. Did I say persistence twice?

In upcoming posts, I’m going to breakdown the process I used to create my information product to give you insights on how to do it, and know what you are getting yourself into. My product might be more ambitious than the one you are contemplating, but I think anyone who is thinking seriously about creating an information product will learn valuable lessons from my experiences.

Stay Tuned!