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Gihan Perera's Articles

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Tell The World I was recently listening to a presentation I made to the National Speakers Association of Australia way back in 1998. What is the Ideal Length for a Teleseminar? The second most common question people ask me about teleseminars is about how to design an effective teleseminar (The most common is about how to make the technology work, but I'm not going to cover that here). In particular, many people would like to know the ideal length and the right mix of talking and audience participation. One Great Idea or One Trick Pony? The theme of this year's National Speakers Association of Australia conference, which I attended last week, was "One Great Idea". Life - Be In It I know I'm showing my age here, but I remember the "Life. Be in it™" health campaigns that were popular in Australia during the late 1970s, when I was in primary school. Head First Well, here I am on holiday in Italy (in case you hadn't figured that out already ). The weather is beautiful, the scenery is spectacular, and the food and wine are plentiful. I seem to be doing nothing but eating, drinking and putting on weight. To be fair, I've also been doing a lot of walking to help make up for it, and I've got it all figured out: By the time I leave Italy, all I have to do is to walk back to Australia and that should just about even things out! Sell Umbrellas When It's Raining During my recent trip to Europe, I spent four days in Rome. Unfortunately it rained pretty much all four days I was there. How to Negotiate The Best Speaking Fee Every Time On a forum for speakers, one of the participants raised the question about whether to stand firm on fees or whether to reduce them under certain conditions: What Are YOU Worth? In my recent two-day Internet marketing Boot Camp in Auckland, one of the most important questions raised was, "How do I find the time when I've got so much else going on in my business?" So What? Converting Features Into Benefits Make sure that the words you use on your Web site are benefit-oriented rather than feature-oriented. Instead of telling your potential customers what your product can do (features), tell them what it can do for them (benefits). In other words, describe the product in terms of the result it offers rather than the product itself. Keep Your Site Current A few years ago, Stanford University in California, USA conducted a massive survey of over 4,000 Internet users in North America and Europe. Their objective was to answer this question: "What makes a Web site credible in the eyes of Internet users?" Is your Web site turning visitors away? One of the biggest problems with Web sites is that the very first page on the site is turning people away. Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? Understand the relationship that you have with people who interact with your business. Broadly, they fall into three categories: The top group, which I call "friends", are your customers - that is, people who have paid you in the past for your products and services. Focus on the Best Returns When most people think of leverage, they think of adding more value to what they already do. And in fact that is the most common way I help clients. Engage Your Visitors Immediately Let's face it. Most Web sites are boring. Research about Internet users shows that if you don't capture your site visitor's attention within 8 seconds, they will leave - probably never to return. Yep, eight seconds is all you've got. That's the average time that an Internet user takes to make a decision about whether to continue looking at your site or - with one click of their mouse - go somewhere else. Don't Get Obsessed With Web Site Traffic How to convert visitors into customers Most Web site owners have an overriding obstools on with getting "site traffic" - in other words, getting more people to visit their Web site. It's as if getting more visitors will automatically mean more customers, and hence more money. Don't Assume They Will Buy on Their First Visit Many Web site owners put all their eggs in one basket. They assume that somebody will visit their Web site, read all about the products and services on offer, and immediately make a decision to buy. That's almost always a mistake. Not every site visitor is ready to buy. Sometimes it takes more than one contact (some research indicates that it takes up to 6 or 7 contacts) until they are ready to move from being an interested prospect to a paying customer. Get Over It! A friend of mine was recently lamenting the fact that he spends too much time trying to persuade people to take action. He said he would much rather tell them to "get over it" and accept the need for his services, and then he could help them really make a difference. Spin: Turn One Idea Into Many Products When I talk to experts about creating information products, the most common complaint I hear is, "I don't have the time!" Is that true of you as well? If so, maybe you're not taking full advantage of the material you've already created. Creating new material is fun - and important. But don't overlook the opportunities to take your existing material and spin it into other forms. I'll give you a specific example ... The Trouble With Free Search Engine Traffic How to get high-quality traffic to your Web site - FAST How to find hot markets and responsive customers Many Web site owners struggle to get their site to the top of the search engines. And if you're working in a popular area, believe me - it is a struggle. The Fastest Way to Get Traffic to Your Site How to get high-quality traffic to your Web site - FAST Lots of people would like to get their Web site to the top of Google's free listings. But that's precisely the problem: You're competing with lots of people. It's certainly possible to get to the top - after all, somebody has to be there! - but it takes a lot of time and effort. Alternatively, you could pay a search engine marketing company to do this for you. Why Seth Godin is Wrong About Podcasting I've just finished reading Seth Godin's book Small Is The New Big. It's a collection of random blog posts made into a book (Now that's an easy way to write a book!) I love Seth Godin's stuff, and I've got most (all?) of his books. But I think he's wrong about podcasting. Do Your E-Books Have Value? How to convert your intellectual property into profitable e-books This article appeared in Speakeasy, the magazine of the Professional Speakers Association UK/Europe. It’s been three months since I attended the PSA conference in the U.K. and the CAPS conference in Canada. And the NSAA conference in Australia is just a few weeks away! An E-book Success Story How to convert your intellectual property into profitable e-books When one of my clients, Max Hitchins, released his latest e-book "365 Marketing Ideas For The Hospitality, Tourism & Travel Industries", he sold in excess of $4,000 worth of e-books within 24 hours. So would you like to know how he did it? Google, Oprah, The Secret and You I'm sometimes surprised when people talk about the cost of something without any reference point. For example, when they hear that advertising on Google might cost them $10 a day, they will say, "It's too expensive". My response: Compared to what? Sure, $10 a day is expensive if it ends up getting you $5 in return. But if it makes you $11 a day, it's worth it, isn't it? Practical Podcasting For many years, I've been making the point that if you're an information expert - a speaker, trainer, coach, consultant, author or the like - your message matters as much as your method of presenting it. Your competitors aren't the other people doing it the same way as you; they are the millions of others delivering the same message in different ways. Ask and You Shall Perceive How to find hot markets and responsive customers How to get high-quality traffic to your Web site - FAST Here's the single most important secret for successful marketing: The Magic of Ebook Reprint Rights How to convert your intellectual property into profitable e-books I wrote my latest e-book "The Seven Fatal Mistakes That Almost Every Business Owner Makes on Their Web Site" as a lead-generation tool to get new subscribers to my e-zine. Are You Ready To Go International? Although North Americans were the dominant population on the Internet, that has now changed, and the rest of the world has caught up rapidly. And while English is still the most widely used Internet language, it's not the language of choice for many, many Internet users. Hello? Hello? Is There Anybody Out There? I read about a survey of major consumer companies with Web sites. The survey was looking at how well the Web sites received and responded to customer comments. According to the survey, more than half of their Web sites either had no way for people to make an enquiry on-line or - if they did have such a method – they didn't bother responding within ten working days. Don't Sell Too Soon Listen to this article: MP3 File (from the Expert's Gold podcast) When people search the Web, most of them are asking the question "How can I do X?", not "Where can I buy X?" If you treat your site visitor by answering their question rather than promoting your service, you're serving them better. You'll also be way ahead of practically everybody else in your market! While they're pushing products, you'll be building high-value relationships.
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