The sad reality for me is that selling online has not worked very well in the area of guitar lessons. I have had sales in each area but wasn’t able to get it to a significant enough level. While there may be reasons for this, every once in a while it’s good to look back and see what has worked in your life.

For me, this has been IT consulting in the niche area of integration. It has allowed me to get good hourly rates and work at home. I had to ask to work at home, it is not often available and sometimes even frowned upon. But since I’m in a niche they often have no choice.

It might make sense for you to persevere if you have a lot of passion but after many years of trying you might have to re-evaluate the situation. It’s a tough spot to be in.

By getting high rates and working at home, I’m able to have a great quality of life. I also take months off in between contracts (which I’m doing right now) so although I haven’t been able to realize my dream of selling online products exclusively, it’s the next best thing.

So take a minute to think about what’s working in your life and do more of that.

Truthfully I’ve made the vast majority of my money from IT consulting. Businesses have the means (money) and desire to improve their business via technology. So sometimes you have to face facts and go where the money is. Luckily over the past couple of years I’ve been able to land remote, work from home contracts from my country home on the east coast. Technology allows us to work from anywhere nowadays (Skype, VPN software, email, Desktop sharing such as Webex, Live Meeting and even Google+ Hangouts.

I’m getting calls almost daily for integration projects using webMethods and turning them down since I’m finishing up a contract as we speak. I feel bad turning down projects with millions of people unemployed (at least in the US) but I need a bit of a break after this project. Also I’m getting into mobile development (phones/tablets, etc) so there is some potential there to go into that business.

People around the world are sharing content as part of the social experience. We can learn from each other so the teacher/student barrier is becoming blurred. I enjoy sharing what I learn, as I learn jazz guitar or mobile phone development for example. Selling content and knowledge is pretty difficult these days, although I think it can be done. The people I know that are successful seem to be mostly focused on internet marketing or things for enterpreneurs (ie things that have a financial motivating factor).

So the basic question is can digital content continue to be sold or will the prices tend to zero? Many people use the content to market their services, since that is a live, personal experience that can’t be digitized.

Let me know your thoughts below in the comments.

I looked at sites like e-junkie (monthly fee) and payloadz (fee per transaction) but I figure a one time payment for a WordPress plugin would be cheaper in the long run. I combine this with the free e-shop plugin for WordPress.

The sales are tracked through affliate links (ie yoursite.com/yoursalespage?affid=myaffiliateguy) where ‘myaffiliateguy’ would be the id of one of your affiliates. Then when they make sales for you, you can pay them via the admin panel often via paypal, so no admin nightmares of mailing out cheques each month.

If you have a wordpress site (you do, don’t you?) and products/services to sell, then you might want to consider using the Affiliate Platform plugin for WordPress. Even if you don’t sell products you can use it as a lead generation system (tracking leads through a contact form on your site).

I’m thinking of starting a website where good quality remote jobs will be posted for free. These will be screened and possibly allow you to rate the employers.

What do you think? Would you pay a small fee to view a legitimate work at home job? Would you pay a monthly fee to access all the work at home jobs? Post your comments below.

Points, Badges and Leaderboards

By adding game mechanics to a website, people are able to check in, ‘like’ content, share content on Facebook or Twitter which earns them XP (experience points) and various badges. Influencers will earn points if other people click their links from Facebook and Twitter. Leaderboards show the rankings of point getters as a Top 10 or a relative leaderboard which keeps visitors from getting too discouraged by the top point getters.

Integrating Game Mechanics

“Phase 2 will take things to a whole new level, integrating game mechanics into the guitar lesson content itself.” Similar to a video game, students will progress through lesson content, gaining points and advancing through levels where they will be able to unlock ‘goodies’ such as free webcam lessons with Will, free video lessons and other awards.

Virtual Currency

“Virtual currency is another cool idea. Students will be able to either earn points to unlock new lessons or buy virtual currency with real dollars to save the time of getting the required points”.

Structure Learning Environments

“While there are a lot of free lessons out there on YouTube (Will’s free video guitar lessons have over 1.3 million views and 4000 subscribers) they are usually on a variety of topics with no overall structure. Using game mechanics, students can progress through a series of structured lessons like they would in a video game, known as levels.”

Game Psychology

Will says that many students are used to a structured environment that video games provide, via game levels, and are also motivated by rewards, badges and leaderboards. “There is a lot of psychology at play here, so why not use it to help students to learn?”, asks Will. “Some people are able to study guitar knowing that in a number of years they will be able to play proficiently, but others need to be motivated by shorter term goals.”

If you go to Will’s Online Guitar Coaching site, you’ll see a ‘MiniBar’ at the bottom of the screen where you can check in, like pages, share content, check what badges you’ve earned and see how you rank in the leaderboard. It will be interesting to see the development of game mechanics with this site.

At a deeper level, I and others believe that social media is largely ego-based. People like to talk about their lives, what they are doing, things they like and so on. But even more than that they seek feedback on what they share – when you post something and nobody ‘likes’ it or comments on it, don’t you feel bad? It’s like being ignored, which our ego doesn’t like. It diminishes the ego, the sense of self, whereas we seek to increase the ego and our sense of self. People like status, that’s why many people seek more followers, friends and fans on Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Businesses are using social media for a variety of reasons, the main one being that’s where people are. Plus they can share articles or posts you create with their friends. Companies use contests, quizzes, giveways and other fun things to try to get people to engage with their brand.

I believe the next big phase after social media will be the gamification of business. This means adding game-mechanics and fun to your business, increasing engagement and hopefully sales by taking advantage of the deep ego-based desires we all have as people. While people like to share content and be perceived as people who find cool stuff, gamification can track the amount that each person shares (or other desirable actions) and reward them with badges and other rewards.

Companies have been doing this in many ways already. Two good examples are the reward systems that airlines and grocery chains use. When you travel, buy groceries or use a certain credit card you get points that can be used for travel or free groceries. It provides loyalty as you will likely go back to redeem the points. Tens of millions of people are playing Farmville and other games on Facebook and other sites. Features such as leaderboards (people with the most points)and badges (a graphic showing your status) can offer a lot of incentive as it provides a sense of achievement and status, displayed for the world to see.

Huffington Post just added badges to their website. Foursquare offers mobile checking in and mayorships.

I believe that gamification goes further than just points and badges, although that’s a good place to get started without overwhelming your followers. I believe it should be tightly integrated with the way you educate your customers and the way they even buy things.

Let’s take teaching guitar online for example. You can reward people with points and badges for sharing and liking content, visiting your site (checking in), posting comments and so on. But what about the learning process itself? Imagine you could have a student watch a video, answer a quiz and if they get it right they unlock a free lesson. The points they accumulate could be redeemable for more lessons or a free webcam lesson with the teacher.

Imagine how you could provide rewards and incentives to encourage your customers to take certain actions. Or solve problems. Or help educate your customers.

So how do you get started? One way to get started is to read Game-Based Marketing, Total Engagement, then check out BigDoor which offers some free tools to get you started. Or contact me.

The return flight for 2 people was about $2,000, the hotel is over $100 per night and the rental is a few hundred dollars. The flights in particular are a lot more than they were a few years ago, probably in part due to higher fuel prices. There were no WestJet flights on Saturday out of Moncton and most of the flights leave at 6:30am. Plus there are no direct flights to Calgary, so we will be stopping in Toronto on the way. Needless to say flying has become an expensive, annoying pain in the butt, and I haven’t even talked about US security pat downs!

When I travel for an IT contract I either charge an increased hourly fee or add the travel costs (flight, hotel, car rental, meals) to the invoice. So the client ends up paying more money which is bad, right?

With all this annoyance and cost I hope that employers will start to take advantage of all the available technology such as Webex (for virtual meetings, desktop sharing), Skype (basically free long distance, desktop sharing, video chats), VPN connections (for secure connection to network) and of course email and phone.

The first piece of advice I have is ‘Just ask‘! Many of us assume our bosses won’t let us work from home so we don’t even ask.

The second piece of advice is ‘Prepare‘. You have to prepare what you will say, and what you will do if he says no. Perhaps you can start with one day at home and show the boss how much work you get done. Then expand from there. You have to be willing to quit if he says no, so perhaps you will want to have another job offer in your back pocket first.

I found what originally worked for me was that I had to travel to another city each week for a project. Then over time I got tired of all the travel so when the contract was up for renewal I said I would only work remotely with perhaps a final visit at the end of the project. So the factors involved here are: establishing trust with the client, making yourself indispensable (there were few people with my skillset in this geographical area), and negotiating at contract extension points. So I committed to my initial contract. It’s definitely harder as an employee as there might not be much incentive for your boss to let you do this.

After I got used to working remotely I basically couldn’t go back to commuting. So I decided I only wanted to work remotely but would allow an initial on-site visit. Then to my surprise the client accepted and said I didn’t even have to travel to the site since other companies involved in the project were also in other geographical areas.

I recently bid on a project with another company and mentioned that I wouldn’t be travelling (a four hour time zone difference). The client was okay with it and we won the bid! So here are two examples where I obtained remote work without a face to face meeting, and for a new client to boot.

Also check out this article titled “How to Convince Your Boss to Let You Work from Home“.