Paul Myers' Need To Know - A Review
Paul's free ebook (Need To Know) quite simply shows you what you need to know to be (more) successful online.
And this is my review.
It's a slightly biased review, I admit - I'm a big fan of Paul Myers - but don't worry, because...
Need To Know is free, and really useful for anyone wanting to have more success online! :-)
All you have to do is give Paul your name and email address, and you can download Need To Know immediately - well, just as soon as you confirm your subscription to Paul's excellent TalkBiz News newsletter, that is.
And you can then unsubscribe from TalkBiz News immediately after downloading, should you so desire. But if you really want to learn about doing business online, you'll read a couple of Paul's newsletters first. If you know what's good for ya, anyway! ;-)
Anyway... If you want to skip my 'review', you can download Paul's Need To Know ebook here!
Otherwise, as Paul would say, read on MacDuff...
Need To Know: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...
Okay, I don't want to spend too long reviewing Need To Know. After all, this is a free ebook we're talking about here! You don't have to pay $47, or $97 or even $997 to read Paul's words of wisdom. Though I'm sure they're worth all of those amounts (and more!), in the right hands.
So let's cut to the chase.
Paul runs an excellent newsletter called TalkBiz News. And to get more (of the right kind of) subscribers he's now decided to offer a freebie ebook to get them! And he's doing it via an affiliate program. Yes, none of that sounds terribly original I agree, but Need To Know is no ordinary free ebook and the affiliate program is out of the ordinary too (as you'll see if you read on...)
The Good...
Basically, Need To Know, is a distillation of Paul's online business experiences, as expressed in his highly popular, highly opinionated, highly useful TalkBiz News newsletter. (If you want to see how email marketing should be done - it's about relationships, it's about managing expectations, it's about listening, it's about asking for the sale, and it's about comedy too (oh yes it is!) - then I highly recommend you subscribe to TalkBiz News, just to see how an expert email marketer does it.)
Subjects covered in Need To Know (and TalkBiz News, for that matter) include copywriting, testing, focus, leverage and having fun! :-)
The chapters look like this (as you can see Paul likes to have fun with words, whilst he communicates):
Introduction:
Getting the most from this book
Chapter 1: The 5 Things it Takes to Succeed
Online
Chapter 2: The 7 Things You Must Include in Everything You do Online
Chapter
3: Cover Your Assets
Chapter 4: Become a "Model"
Citizen [Know Your Business Model]
Chapter
5: Revenge of the Psycho-Billy Cadillac [Create Projects]
Chapter 6: Gimmick, Toy or Tool? [About Focus]
Chapter
7: Of Wombats and Men [The Real Purpose of Grammar]
Chapter
8: The Most Important Skill [is... ;-) ]
Chapter
9: "Where's the Party?" [Benefits versus Features]
Chapter
10: Winning The Content Contest
Chapter 11: Are You THAT Boring?
Chapter
12: How to be Interesting in Print
Chapter 13: The "THUD!" Factor
Chapter
14: The World is Your Playground
Note: I added the words in square brackets. [Just in case you thought Paul was a square-brackets kinda guy. He isn't! But I am...]
The subtitle of the book is this: "What You Must Know to Achieve Real Success Online"
Not too shabby, really, especially when you consider Need To Know is FREE!
Here's a sample of what you'll find near the beginning...
"The biggest problem most people have with making money online, and the reason so many flounder around for years, frustrated and disillusioned, is that they don't have a clear plan. They don't know how to figure out what they need to know for their own business, and they don't know how to adjust when they learn new things or see new offers. The second biggest is having a plan, but not knowing how to tell if it's realistic. They just don't know what they don't know."
I've read this ebook, twice, and I intend to read it again on a regular basis. Because, as my business savvy improves, I'll be able to understand (and apply) more of what Paul covers in Need To Know, and I'll be able to make more positive changes to how I do business online.
Already I've made the following change for 2009:
I've decided to
make time for up to 5 short-term
'projects' in 2009 I'll either learn about
and do
something new - e.g. in my case learn how to sell my
own products
- or I'll commit to doing something fun
that still enables me to pay my monthly
mortgage, or I'll
come up with an original way to get 50 inbound links to
one of my websites...
Just thinking of the projects was stimulating in itself.
And, as Paul puts it, 'projects are finite things, with measurable
steps along the way'.
These are some notes I took down from Need To Know.
I now want to refer to them whenever I write copy. They show you how to engage
with your reader - in this case, that reader is you! So how do you think I'm doing
so far, eh? :-)
Need To Know (Copywriting) Tips:
a)
"Where's the party?" e.g. focus on benefits not features
b)
"When you make someone laugh, you reset their attention span."
c)
"Challenge your readers. Make them think."
d) Ask yourself,
is it... "Useful. Relevant. Interesting." ?
Well, is it? ;-)
By the way, don't be mislead into thinking that this is just another ebook about the importance of creating and selling products online. Yes, this is Paul's thing but there are business principles being discussed that can help any type of online business, even the adsense publisher model that I mostly belong to.
Download link for Need To Know
The Bad...
Okay, if I have one criticism of Need To Know is that it challenges you to take stock of what you've got - all the resources you have access to (ebooks, contacts, software etc.) - and it challenges you to come up with fun projects you'll do in your spare time (to have fun, but to also learn stuff that might be useful in your main business), and it challenges you to write your copy in a more engaging way (make em laugh, Danno!), and it challenges you to test, test, test, and it challenges you to do other stuff too, that I'm too challenged to remember right now...
And guess what? Doing all of that is, er, a bit challenging!
So I'd love it if Paul could come up with a plan of attack - a schedule of when to do what - as a bonus with this free ebook. Ideally, if Paul could come up with a beginner schedule, an intermediate schedule and a schedule for advanced internet marketers that would be best. (Though these advanced types could probably come up with their own plan, I guess!) Yes, it's probably asking a bit too much to want a bonus for this freebie but if you don't ask, you don't get (do you Paul? ;-) ).
So Need To Know *is* in itself a tad overwhelming.
MY SUGGESTION: Read the whole book through once, without taking notes, and then read and do one chapter at a time! Yes, each chapter contains enough business wisdom to change/improve what you're doing online, it really does!
Download link for Need To Know
The Ugly...
Okay, now I'm not saying that Paul Myers looks like Eli Wallach here, though the cowboy hat photo I've seen of Mr Myers is a bit fuzzy, it's true! No, the 'ugly' I'm referring to is the fact that I am not just mentioning Need To Know for your benefit only! :-O
Yes, if you subscribe to Paul's newsletter - which you have to do to download Need To Know - and if you then subsequently buy something Paul's selling (yes Paul sells stuff, as well as provides great information for free - shocking, I know! ) then I will earn a commission on what you buy.
Yep, it's called affiliate marketing and Paul's trying something no-one else seems to be doing right now: an affiliate program for a ezine/newsletter that isn't based on lead-generation (i.e. generating subscribers).
And this benefits you too! As Paul has promised to reveal the data for his affiliate program to all subscribers of his newsletter! What works, what doesn't, who buys, who doesn't, etc!
So you'll get a great idea whether a Cost-Per-Action affilate program can work in email marketing (as opposed to the more traditional Cost-Per-Lead model). Don't worry, Paul will explain it all much better than I can as his results come in (including explaining the jargon, I'm sure)... :-)
Now that might just might be of interest to you, no? And even if it isn't you still get a great newsletter and a great free read in Need To Know.
Seems that Eli Wallach wasn't that ulgy after all, eh!
Download link for Need To Know
The Wrap-Up...
All those words for a free ebook!
Blimey!
Look, if you're still wanting more to be convinced about downloading Paul's Need To Know ebook then I have four words for you:
In the end, it is the only way. So download the ebook, check out a few issues of TalkBiz News, and make time for some of Paul's wisdom to seep into your business life. If it's a mistake, or you don't like the Need To Know ebook, you'll know soon enough...
"To live your life your own way is the best last word." -- Paul Myers
You can't argue with that. Well, I can't anyway. Can you?
Cheers for reading
Steve
PS I've been a subscriber of Paul Myers' Talkbiz News for many, many years. I did unsusbcribe in 2008 as I just felt overwhelmed by information (I pretty much unsubscribed from all my newsletters, actually). But as soon as I regained my focus, and as soon as I made space for continued learning - VERY important, to keep on learning - I made sure to re-subscribe!
And Need To Know discusses this focus, the so-called information overload, and a whole load of other things that you, er, need to know, to make sure that you "move closer to what [you] want faster than whatever else [you] could be doing". Told you I'm a fan, didn't I?