Success Unscrambled Podcast

Hello ladies, in today's episode we will be looking at how one work from home Mother went from failure to astonishing success.

Motivational Humourist

Meet Sasha, a Motivational Humourist and a Facebook Business Strategist.  She is a Mother and she got the opportunity to fulfil a dream of hers to become a well travelled motivational speaker.  She then had to give that up as she needed to work from home full time due to a change in her circumstances.

She created the title of Motivational Humourist herself and her explanation of that title is that she loves empowering women to discover the self-confidence that they lost along the way and she is doing this through laughter as she believes that laughter makes the soul sing.

You can find the joy that you thought you lost.

She has over 200,000 engaged fans on her Facebook Page and many other business owners keep asking her for help so she turned that into a work from home business as well.

How It All Started

Her journey started like many of us where she worked in corporate America and other office jobs for 25 years before she decided it was time to pursue her dream of becoming a motivational speaker.  While doing this her Mother became ill so she needed to find a way to work from home and care for her Mother and daughter.

So she started off with coffee mugs which she took to a trade show.  On the day of the show, it was raining which did not deter her as she had a tent (marquee).  However, at the end of the show, she did not sell a single cup/mug so the show was a failure and she needed to find a way to get rid of these mugs.

12 months prior she started a Facebook Page for fun where she posted funny quotes and interacted with her fans.  Following her demise at the trade show, she decided to post a photo of one of her mugs and asked anyone who is interested in them to private message her.

Her Work From Home Success Story

She sold 10 in the first 15 minutes and all the mugs were gone in less than 2 days.  In the following 6 months, she kept being sold out of stock.  So far this was working out as a great work from home idea.

Facebook algorithm changed over the next 3-4 years and she needed to pivot her business because selling those mugs were becoming less successful than when she first started out.

She eventually almost closed her e-commerce store as she only continues to sell one or two things including the unbreakable token.

She has now moved to digital products which she likes much better than shipping and managing physical products.

What She Enjoys The Most

She has built a tribe of mainly women, there are some men on there as well.  These women know that it is a place that they can come to so that they can laugh, feel motivated, become inspired they can even nod their head in agreement at something someone else has said.

These women visit the page every day so that they can be reminded that they are worthy, they are enough, they are good and they can tackle their journey, however, they want to whether it be one step, one mile, one footstep at a time while they work at home.

She gets feedback from her fans all the time via messages and emails to let her know that her Facebook Page has made a difference in someone's life.

While only in her 20s she happened to be at a conference where she realised that she had to sleep through the first half before she had the opportunity to get on the dance floor.  Little did she know that it was at this conference a seed would be planted that was pivotal in her making a decision to realise her dreams 25 years later.

Sasha's Guilty Pleasure

Once a week she and her daughter go to a local barbeque restaurant and they get something called Hill Billy Fries.  See photo below and listen to the podcast for a detailed ex...

Here are the deets about how to start a podcast from someone who has done it from trial and error.  I wanted to find out for myself rather than copying someone else's choices. Yes, I made mistakes but you don't have to at all.  The truth is I love adventure.

It feels like it was yesterday when I took the plunge into the world of podcasting.  I do remember always wanting to get started but I felt that I needed all the professional equipment to get stuck in.  I investigated all the bits and pieces of technology and started to save but that all fell to pieces when I found out that I need to have major surgery.

How on earth am I ever going to achieve the goal of starting a podcast with all these obstacles that keep popping up? Two months before I began I decided to do some heavy reading on how to start a podcast.  There is a lot of material available as well as several different blogs.

Almost all the 'experts' advise on getting a microphone so I had my eyes and heart set on the beautiful Rode Podcaster.  Have you set your eyes on this beauty?  Hmm!  They all suggest getting a mic stand and pop filter to reduce the spittle and have P and S sounds.

You may be surprised to learn that as of this writing, episode 22 I still have not obtained a microphone. Shocking! I know so how on earth can I do so many episodes without a professional microphone? Well, stay tuned to find out more as my journey was not an easy one but it surely is worth it as I am really enjoying every moment.

So, if you need to know how to start a podcast here is the 7 really important steps that you need:

* Mindset

* Niche Research

* Frequency

* Equipment

* Podcast Hosting

* Marketing

* Design

Let's do a deep dive into each of these items to get a better understanding of what is needed for you to become successful.

1. Mindset

. Picture this, you get all excited and jump in then by episode 4 you realise that actually, this may not be for you after all.

Think about the amount of time, energy, preparation and savings (not too much) you would have invested at this point only to leave your listeners wondering what on earth is going on?  So, the right mindset is super duper important if you really want to know how to start a podcast.

Just like a blog a podcast would need dedication, passion, interest and long-term input in order to reap the fruits of your labour.

2. Niche Research

Can't I just see how it goes? Do I really need to do niche research?  Hello! Of course, you need niche research, how are you going to know what your audience wants, where they hang out and how are you going to last 5 years finding topics regularly to talk about?

No matter how passionate you are about a topic niche research will help you to structure your podcast episodes in such a way that you are adding value to the lives of your audience.  I already covered niche market ideas for your business in a previous podcast to check that out for the details on how you can conduct some niche research.

3. Frequency

How often will you be producing an episode is the question you need to address very early on if you want to know how to start a podcast.  The reason is that a podcast is a series of episodes so the moment you create one then you would be expected to continue with the series.

Do you have the time to create a podcast episode every day? Every week, 2 weeks or month?  This is going to be very important as it also helps you decide how much monthly hosting you would need to make your podcast always available to your audience.

Also, as I already mentioned in a previous paragraph you will need to take the time every week or month or d...

Hello ladies, how you gals doing today?

Today's podcast episode looks at the top 20 tools used by successful blogs and how we can use them to our advantage. I have broken down these 20+ tools into 5 categories including:

a. Writing/Creation

b. Design

c. Plugins

d. Engagement

e. Video

A. Writing/Creation

When it comes to writing or creating a blog post I am not referring to your blogging voice or creative flair I am more looking at the tools that you can use to polish or enhance the piece that you created. Here are six tools that are used on successful blogs to achieve results:

Google Keyword Planner

I have used this for many years to help me create content for blogs, videos, podcasts and even books. It would make sense for you my fellow blogger to use this one to complete some research especially since our blogs don't exist in a vacuum but because we depend on the Search Engine Results Pages to display our blogs when someone is searching for one of our relevant keywords.  this keyword tool is great for getting keyword ideas, monthly searches and the level of competition by other businesses for these keywords broken down by country or city.

Wordtracker

This tool is very similar to the Keyword Planner except that it gives what I called the commercial intent ranking of each keyword. This would be good for a business selling products online.

Buzzsumo

This precious tool is good for giving content creators an idea of what is popular right now so that you and I can take advantage of the latest trends.  You can also connect with key influencers so they can help you promote your relevant content.  See an example in the screenshot below:

The statistics they have on influencers are nothing short of amazing. It is looking at someone's bio or clout before you meet them in person.  See screenshot.

 

Hubspot's Blog Topics Tool

I find this very handy as it allows me to take one main topic like Facebook Marketing and break it down into several segments so that I can have content ideas for several months completed in just one click of a button.

CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer

As the name suggests this handy tool helps you to do a proper analysis of your headline before you hit the publish button so that you can take advantage of the best headline possible for your post. Check out the score for this blog post below:

Grammarly

After you spend so much time writing and editing your blog post the perfect 2nd pair of eyes would be using a tool like Grammarly to double check or even triple check that you have used the correct grammar all the way through. I have it switch on even now as I am writing this post.

B. Design

Next up is the design element and I have 5 tools to share with you that successful blogs use to improve the user experience.

Smartmockups

This is a tool that is definitely too cool for school as it lets you do mockups of your products, books, software or almost anything you can imagine.  It is super amazing because it allows your prospects to experience the product somewhat even before the click the buy now button.  Here is an example for you:

Photoshop or Canva

These two design applications are great for so many things. Canva is free and you can design all your social media covers, posts and pins in here but if you would like a more professional finish as well as the freedom to really customise then take a look at Photoshop.

Creative Market

As the name suggests this a market for creative people as it offers you the ability to buy templates, fonts and creative packages to save you time and the stress of starting your projects from scratch.

Thrive Themes

Shownotes: How to start a successful blog in 10 days or less is the focus of this episode from concept to go-live and everything in between. Listen to learn more.

00:09 Hello ladies out here are you guys doing today.

00:16 OK.

00:17 So today we're going to be looking at how to start a successful blog in one week or less. Let's get right into it. OK, I have a lot to cover today and I don't want to have it running for a long time. So what I'm going to do is I'm also going to put or set up a course or starting a blog course video course that is and I'm going to invite you to pre-register for a course when it's ready I'll let you know when it's done. How does that sound? OK. Right. So how to create a successful blog in one week or less, let's get right into it.

1. Mindset

01:08 So you know I always see this but having the right mindset about getting into blogging is so very important because sometimes it can take you 12 months to 36 months before you realize the gains of the effort that you put in.

So, in other words, this blogging thing is a long-term project it's not something that you sort of do it for five weeks and then that's it. It's a long-term project. Just like podcasting, I guess.

So having the right mindset and the ability to do it on a frequent basis is so very important especially for your audience.

2. Passion

01:57 In order to start a successful blog you first need to know what you're passionate about because you would need a big reason why you would continue to do day after day or even week after week or month after month generate or start a successful blog for your audience.

And if you were doing that or writing a blog on something that you're not passionate about you're going to run out of speed in a matter of days or weeks because it's just not something that is has a building fire in your soul that would want you to write passionately about it for a very long time to come.

02:41 I myself have been blogging for probably about seven years and different blogs I can start a successful blog and in no time at all with my eyes close so to speak. But it takes commitment. You would have the odd time when you probably wouldn't be able to produce the content.

So what I would advise is that you do well to avoid that is to create a few blog posts in draft mode so you can actually schedule several posts just in case you come up to a busy time. Or you have an emergency in the family or whatever it is. You can actually rely on those. All right. I don't want to spend too much more time yakking unnecessarily. So here we go.

03:36 Also you need to decide what or how much time do you have to commit to blogging so you don't have to do it every day. But you know once a week is nice once every two weeks is nice as well. It all depends on you and the audience. All right so mindset and passion. That's the first topic we've covered that now.

3. Niche Research

03:57 Next topic is research that sorry niche research. So although you may be passionate about the subject depending on what you want to blog about. For example, I'll give you a good one. Social media say for example you decide you want to blog about something like social media.

And as you probably know or maybe you don't know this so many things change in the social media. In the last seven years, lots of things on Facebook has changed in LinkedIn and in all the different platforms that people use for social media.

04:36 Things change in a matter of months or weeks. They've got a new version or they've changed the type of videos they change the size of the post, they change everything. Ever. Ever so often.

04:49 The only thing that's consistent probably is the name. All right. So I covered niche research already in one of my previous podcasts I would invite y...

Shownotes: Build a Brand for Your Blog

How to build a brand for your blog or business is the focus of today's episode.  I will be covering 7 key areas that you need to consider before getting your logo designed or any artwork completed.

Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at how to build a brand for your blog or business. The areas we'll be covering would be the business mindset, your audience, we get a little bit into personas, the actual customer experience, design, the marketing plan and then finally we're gonna close off with the customer journey. All right, so let's jump right into it.

Business Mindset

In terms of business mindset, which is the first area we're looking at, it's just the mindset of the business. Obviously, you have your particular mindset of a long-term strategy of how you're gonna work, but this one is a mindset from the ... I prefer to call it the business mindset from the business point of view. Why, what do you do as a business? Why do you do what you do? What value are you bringing to your customers and what are you going to improve for them and for their lives?

In order to build a brand, you need to know the lifetime impact you're going to have on them as a customer. What is the character of your business? Probably you think that's a little bit weird because a business doesn't have a character, but actually, it would include something like culture. What is that work ethic that you want to build a brand around for your business? So, when your customers interact with your business or your readers interact with your blog, how would they describe you in one word? Are you fun? Are you professional? Formal? What is the character of the business and then another thing to look at then, would be your customer ... Sorry, your narrative statement. Who you are as a business and how you can communicate with your customers. A narrative statement is, again instead of saying the character of your business in one word. You're seeing who you are and what you do in probably a Tweet. 140 or 100 characters.

I'll give you examples of a few of them that I picked out for this particular episode to help you build your brand. One of them, the examples I wanna give here is existing brands on the market and what it is their one-liner says about them. I work my way from the top. I have Apple. I am doing this search live so I went and looked at the Apple website and they're featuring their iPhone X, which as you know launched only recently and it says here, "Say hello the future." What does that say to you when you go to the website and it says, "Say hello to the future." The likes of Burberry, I went on there and they, instead of having sort of a one-liner phrase, when you go to the homepage, they just have a sort of an iconic photo of the people who they represent or who their typical customer would look like with their clothes on.

It's a headshot of a model and she has really cropped blonde hair with, I don't know how to explain it, but a trendy outlook, but that one photo says a lot about Burberry, who they represent and what it is, the experience they want the customer to have from visiting their website on the first impression. Next up, I have Harley Davidson. They've got several different phrases, but on the one that I went and then had a look at, a specific phrase, it says, "This will leave a mark." Then I went to Issey Miyake, just in case you don't know what it is, it's a brand of perfume. Men and ladies and in this particular one, they were featuring their latest I guess perfume or cologne for men and the catchphrase on there is, "Designed by water." And then finally up, we have here Michael Kors. Again, just in case you don't know who Michael Kors is, it's a really, really popular brand for handbags for ladies among other things and the catchphrase as soon as you enter the site on the landing page it says,

Shownotes: Today's podcast will look at writer's block and what can be done to significantly reduce this challenge for bloggers, writers and podcasters by as much as 99%.  Interested? Listen to the podcast to learn how you too can have an ocean of content for your blog.

Writer's Block Be Gone!

Alvern: Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we're going to look at how to never experience writer's block again. I know that sounds like a really big claim. As you know by now I do podcasts as well as blogging. I've been doing that for probably 10 years now. I have a bit of experience when it comes to blogging, and maybe I'm gifted. I doubt it very much, but there are always ideas rolling around in my head. For those of us whenever you experience a block. A writer's block, it can be very difficult as to what you need to write next. Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to write good details in words, because it's just rolling, and rolling, but for those days where you just need a little bit of help to really give a rich, valuable content, you may want to adapt or adopt.

1. Mindset

These are a few methodologies. I have here eight of them, and I'm hoping I'll cover them within the 20 minutes that we have allocated. I promise not to rush. I'll have to do it again or divide it into two sections, which I know you probably don't like, but we'll see how it goes. Okay so let's get talking.

First, on the list, I have mindset. My thinking behind this is as you can imagine for someone like me who I have to produce a podcast every single week. If I want it to be successful I need to adopt a certain mindset. Even if I decide I want to blog even. That mindset is I have to get it done. I can not give up. I have to get it done. I started this journey, and I wouldn't stop until I die sort of a thing.

It depends on where you are right now in your journey. We, women, have all sorts of things happening in our lives. Could be your children, or partners, or careers, whatever that may be, family situations, stress, all of that. It depends on where you are right now, and what goals you have written down.

I guess what I'm trying to say is make sure you have set a goal. You start with the end in mind and say okay. Especially when it comes to mindset. This is what I want to achieve in two years, three years, five years, 10 years time. This is what I want to achieve. I set the goal.

So say for example I said I want to have a podcast series with 200 shows in it. Yeah. Podcast with 200 posts, or 200 podcasts. Interchangeable these phrases, but you get what I mean. You set that goal. Altogether 200 podcasts, or say 500 podcasts. If I do the calculation with it being once a week, it will take me roughly 10 years to 500 podcasts.

Now, that could be a very long time, but I need to pace myself in the very beginning and say I'm going to do it once a week. In order to increase that amount of time. Say five years I need to be doing podcasts twice a week, and I have to ask myself do I have time twice a week to do a podcast? Yeah.

Within that goal setting you've developed this long-term strategy of where you want to be, and in six months time, 12 months time, 24 months time, etc. Make sure it's something that is sustainable. You can be talking about something that's a fad. Trying to think of a really good example. I don't want to say something that would actually not be a fad. Let's see. What was a fad a few years ago that is no longer in existence now? Maybe you could have written something like ... Oh, it just came to my mind, and it just totally went. That wraps every ... Of course all the photos.

Something that's temporary. Something that you know that probably wouldn't be in existence for pretty long time to come. Like the hat for example. Vines. Those videos. If you want to write about Vines for a long time to come,

Shownotes:  How to create a Facebook page that rocks is the title for today's podcast, it is part 2 in the series. the four areas we cover are creating the Facebook page, geting your custom URL, getting your first 100 followers and using 3rd party software to automate the posting process.

Alvern: Hello, ladies. Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at how to create a Facebook page part two. If you have been following along, we did the part one about three or four weeks ago, and I decided to delay part two because I wanted to make sure that I dxplained the whole niche research process and resources that are available for you to do a proper niche research, because it's so very important that you do sufficient niche research before you create a Facebook page.

All right. The areas we're going to be covering today is the actual creation of the Facebook page. Then we will be talking about your custom name or custom URL. We will then head over to how to get your first 100 followers on your Facebook page. Then we will be closing off by looking at third-party software that you can use to manage your posts daily. Let's jump right in.

Facebook Page Creation

You've done all of your niche research. If you didn't get a chance to follow along on the part one, I will actually include a link here as well. You've done all the niche research. You decided on the goal of your page, your Facebook page. You've outsourced or even created the necessary artwork for yourself. You have at least a month or two months of posts lined up. You have all of your content ready, basically.

If you are having difficulty sourcing images at a low cost, I discovered in the meantime, from between my last podcast and this one, this really, really cool resource where you can actually get over 400,000 images that you can access for as low as or for under $30 month. They not only have images, but they have lots of other resources on there, as well. I include I link to the page. I have a page there that will actually give you details on that, so I'll put a link here as well. Alright.

If you missed part one, please, it's important that you go back and get all of your content ready before you even click the Create Page button, or at least before you publish it ... Publish the page to the public. Because if you don't have the necessary ... Or it's not up to scratch then the results that you would get wouldn't be as good as if you had done everything and making sure you result in a really good quality Facebook page.

Having a Website is Imperative

Alright. You've all the information gathered. You've registered a domain name. I think I mentioned this in the last one. I'm not 100% sure. The joys of taking long to do the part two. Before you create a Facebook page ... Well, it depends, really, on what the goal of the page is for. If it is ... The only thing you're going to be using is the Facebook page for ... I'm trying to think what you can do. An isolation of any other external resources. Because mainly, if you have a website, it will really help. Probably something I probably need to talk about.

You got all your information, and what you would need to do then, if you don't have an existing website and what you plan to do is sell products or services, or anything like that ... Just remember that one of the most important or best piece of advice I can give you from my over 10 plus years experience doing this, is to please, please, please don't grow your community or your tribe 100% on the Facebook platform. Because you have to remember all of the content belongs to you. You're putting it on the Facebook platform. The Facebook platform does not belong to you. You may generate a really beautiful Facebook page,

Show notes: Niche market ideas is the focus of today's podcast.  The areas we will cover include wholesales (2nd part), forums, AliExpress and Pinterest.  If you find the content valuable remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the links with your friends.

Niche Market Ideas

Alvern: Hello, ladies! Alvern here. I'm so excited to meet you guys on the podcast today, after being a little bit sick last week. So very excited because it's part three on the niche research series. And most importantly, it's the final one. But I have so much exciting stuff to share with you today, I hope you really enjoy it.

So today we'll be looking at niche market ideas. And the areas we're gonna be covering is the second part of wholesale, we're also gonna be looking at forums, be covering over AliExpress, and then finally we're gonna finish up with Pinterest.

So, let's jump right into it!

Thomasnet.com

So, under wholesale, we have the second part, I'm going to be looking at two websites. The first one is called ThomasNet.com. So that's ThomasNet.com. It's quite a popular site if you are a person who wants to create your own physical product or you want to sell products directly from the distributors or from the wholesalers themselves, or, should I say manufacturers themselves. It's a really really popular site. It has been around for a hundred and twenty years, but you probably never heard of it because you would never be interested in developing your own physical products. So if you want to create your own, for example, something that needs to be cast in a mould, a fitting, or some sort of a little metal hanger, or, you know, anything like that, this is the perfect site to go to. You can go in and have a look at manufacturers; there's manufacturers across the range.

Like I said, it's been around for over a hundred and twenty years, and they cover six million products. I'll let that sink in for a second. Six million products. And if it is, you'd think you can't find anything on there that you'd like to either resell or a manufacturer can actually take one of their products and customise it for your particular market niche, then, I think rethink this all over again. There are over half a million suppliers on there, and they have their own product catalogues as well as you can list cover supplies on there.

So, that's a good website. You can come up with a really big search bar and all you need to do is put in whatever idea. So, say, for example, the hanger. So if you, for example, you wanna ... Decide you want to go into creating these lovely hangers for women only. That will be space-saving hangers, or hangers that's eco-friendly, or, you know, hangers for scarves, or whatever it is. You just type in hangers there, for example, or clothes hangers. And you see the manufacturers who make the normal standard hangers, and then you can go to them and say, "Well, I have an idea for a prototype, of XYZ hanger, maybe hangers for knickers, whatever it is you want to do hangers for. And they will be able to create a prototype for you and then come back and let you test it in the marketplace.

There are also suppliers of weight-loss products there as well, so if you want to create your own weight-loss concoction, tablet, capsule, whatever it is, you can find them on there as well. So, really really brilliant site if it is you want to be selling physical products.

Thomann.de

The next one up is Thomann.de. So, I'll spell that; it's: T-H-O-M-A-N-N-dot-D-E. And for those who prefer the phonetic alphabet, it's Tango-Hotel-Oscar-Milo-Alpha-Nico-Nico-dot-D-E. It's a German website, and what it's popular for, it's considered the largest online and mail-order retailer for musical instruments.

Shownotes: Facebook Business Page Market Research is the topic for today's podcast.

We will look at the Google Keyword Planner, Books and Magazines then close with tradeshows and farmers market which is a wholesale element.

Alvern: Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we'll be looking at your Facebook business page market research.

Last week, we had part one, so today will be part two. Last week was Facebook business niche research, so the Facebook business market research.

Alright, so, in the breakdown, I'll be covering five different areas, and I'm really, really hoping that I don't go overboard, in terms of time. We may have to do a part three, depending on how quick this goes, but hopefully it will only be one part, as opposed to having a third part.

Alright, so, the five areas I'll be covering today are AliExpress Express, forums, wholesale, books and magazines and the keyword planner.

Google Keyword Planner

So, let's start with the keyword planner. The keyword planner is the Google Keyword Planner. You would need to login to access this one. Essentially ... I remember, a few years ago they had it that you can just access it without having to login but now you need to be logged in to access it. All you need to have is a Gmail account or your own business account that's linked to your Googlemail, for example.

When you look up the Keyword Planner, you have the option to go to the Google Keyword Planner. Sometimes, when you login it takes you straight to the section to run campaigns and ads. Just ignore that, and at the very top, I think maybe it's the right hand corner, you go in under the tools and you see the keyword planner there; you just click on that. What it does, essentially, it allows you to research how many times specific keywords are being searched ... well, probably not specific keywords ... general keywords. Because you have your narrow keywords, you've got your broad phrase search. We just realised I've probably never covered over a topic or podcast going on ... explaining the whole idea of keywords and all of that, so I might actually have to do a podcast on keywords.

A keyword is, essentially, a word that a user would put into the search engine, or Google search engine, or Yahoo, or Bing, to look for something. So, say for example, you want to look ... a storm is coming, and say the storm was called Peter, and you want to see information in the news or articles or blogs written on Storm Peter. You just type in Storm Peter, which is your keyword, and the results will come up in the search engine results pages.

This is for all the search engines, or even if you would look in some sites they have Google assisted search as well. If you have exact matched keywords ... so if it's, for example, Storm Peter, or you want to see if Storm Peter is going to be hitting Miami for example, you would put in Storm Peter Miami; that's also an exact search. Or if it is you have a more broader search like, damage done by Storm Peter in Miami, the keyword there is obviously Storm Peter, which is the exact match, but this is a phrase or more broad search. That's why they call phrase match or broad match. But if you just type in the two words, Storm Peter, that's an exact match. Alright?

Alright, so, the Keyword Planner helps you to look at keywords searched, obviously, using the Google search engine, and how many times those keywords are searched every month. It isn't really 100% accurate but it's more or less there. It's a good indicator. And the reason why you want to do this is just to see, for example, you decide, like I mentioned in previous podcast, you wanted to go into, for example, the DIY niche, and you want to see how many people are searching for a phrase 'how to restore a farm house,

Show notes: Niche research for Facebook Ads is the focus of today's podcast.  We will be covering research using Facebook for Business, Amazon, Clickbank and a number of other areas.

Alvern: Hello ladies, Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at niche, niche, or niche research. Like I mentioned in the last podcast, where we discussed the things that you need to do before creating a Facebook page or should I say, creating a Facebook business page. All right, so for niche research, I believe you're going to break down the presentation, or the topic into two parts. This is going to cover part one. I didn't actually realise how much can be covered, based on I would say, my past experience and what I've learned in the space over the last 10 years.

Today we're going to be looking at niche research using Facebook, Amazon, Clickbank, and a few others that I'm going to mention. Then next week, we'll be looking at five other places that you want to do your niche research, in order for you to make the final decision as to whether to go down the roads between two or three niches, or even sub-niches. You're really going to niche down like I said last time, you can have a very broad niche, but you want to make sure you narrow focus on that specific niche.

Why Niche Research

All right, so before we lose where we are, why you would want to do niche research, that's one thing I probably didn't mention last week or the week before. One of the reasons why you want to do a niche research, or well, actually a few reasons why you want to do niche research. Number one, you want to validate the reason why you wanted to go into that niche. Get validation from what's happening in the marketplace at the moment.

Number two, you want to get a better understanding of the lingo used in that space, because in order for you to create the ads on Facebook, or maybe another social platform, you want to be able to know what lingo to use, so that you can actually speak to your audience. Number three, apart from the lingo, you want to be able to understand what are the popular items that people are interested in, in the particular niche.

For example, if it is you want to get into cycling, but not just the broad area of cycling, because you have mountain bikes, you've got road bikes, you've got dirt bikes. You want to, say you want to niche down into road bikes. You want to find out all about the different types of care that are being used in that particular niche. For example, you've got winter cycling gloves, summer cycling gloves. You've got winner socks, summer socks. You've got all different types of pedals. Using that particular niche, you've got different gears, 8 gear, 16 gear, et cetera. But you get what I mean. Then you have all the different trips, the different events that happen every year. Some people take part in just the regular road races. Then some of them get involved in triathlons.

You want to be able to understand what's happening in that niche, in a much deeper sense. Number one to see what's happening, so you can sell products in that niche, if that's what you plan to do, and engage your audience. Or if for example, you wanted to write a book about something that's happening in that niche. Whatever that main goal is, you want to do the niche research. Make sure you can actually talk about this topic for a very long time to come, in say 5 to 10 years. You can keep going on and on because it's something you're passionate. You understand how your audience feel, what they react to, what they're passionate about, et cetera.

All right, so that's 'the big why' about the niche research. Now you sort of know the reasons why you want to do niche research. What we're going to do is look at where you go to do your niche research. One of the first places,