During December 2000, Joshua and Jennifer Feinberg were looking for a career change… a new business. While their computer consulting practice was highly successful by most traditional measures, the couple was looking for new challenges and a greater sense of professional gratification.

Joshua, a former content provider for Microsoft’s small business reseller group and a 13-year veteran computer consultant, was looking for a way to take the computer consulting services they offered locally and repackage their expertise and unique training approach into tools that could be offered Worldwide. One day while surfing, Joshua stumbled across Antion.com and this really opened up Joshua’s and Jennifer’s eyes to a whole new realm of possibilities.

In May 2001, at the U.S. SBA’s National Small Business Week conference in Washington, DC, Joshua and Jennifer launched SmallBizTechTalk.com. During the next 16 months, their subscriber list gradually grew to nearly 7,000 with roughly 40,000 unique visitors a month. During the early stages, SmallBizTechTalk.com provided dozens of free “how-to” technical articles on a variety of small business technology topics such as Microsoft Word templates, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Outlook, data backup techniques, tech support tips and software purchasing guidelines. However, SmallBizTechTalk.com needed a viable business model to move from “free” to “fee” and that’s when Joshua and Jennifer started focusing their attention on creating a product line.

During the late 1990s, Joshua did a lot of freelance writing for both Microsoft’s Direct Access and Solution Provider programs, as well as technology trade publications like Windows NT Magazine. Joshua’s first book, Building Profitable Solutions with Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server (Microsoft Press, 1999), also provided a great deal of credibility, which led to many speaking engagements, and helped build up a following of loyal computer consultants.

While the dot-com implosion dramatically killed off many of the media outlets catering to Joshua’s small business technology niche, Joshua knew he still had a very important message to get out there – and thousands of his readers were waiting for him to do “something”.

The Product Line Launch

During late 2001 and early 2002, Joshua was putting the finishing touches on his next book, What Your Computer Consultant Doesn’t Want You to Know (101 Money-Saving Secrets of Expensive Techies). This 288 page, self-published paperback book would be the catalyst for transitioning SmallBizTechTalk.com into a viable business model.

As the book moved from manuscript to publication, Joshua and Jennifer had already begun a rather extensive traditional PR campaign, drawing on what they learned from self-publishing experts such as John Kremer and Dan Poynter, as well as do-it-yourself PR gurus Joan Stewart and Dan Janal.

However, Joshua and Jennifer concentrated most of their efforts initially on just the book sales (a $19.99 product). In addition to the paperback book, they also produced a Companion CD-ROM (a $39.99 product) with hundreds of follow-up action items, in a variety of electronic formats.

Initially Joshua and Jennifer predicted that about 10% of buyers would purchase both the paperback book and CD-ROM. However, they were pleasantly surprised to find this number closer to 35% -- roughly one out of three buyers, through creative use of up-selling/cross-selling, were purchasing both products in the same transaction. This validated that customers were willing to spend substantially more than $19.99.

SmallBizTechTalk.com started selling the paperback book and Companion CD-ROM in late June 2002. While sales were slow early on (about $1,200 during the first five or six weeks), sales really started to take off when Joshua and Jennifer introduced one extremely crucial element: downloadable reports.

Downloadable Reports

In early August, right around the time the first print run of the paperback book arrived from the printer, Joshua and Jennifer began selling a set of eight special reports, available for immediate download, priced anywhere from $5 to $12. Each report is anywhere from 5 to 15 pages in length, about 400 words/page in a two-column format, and was extremely rich in actionable content, checklists, templates and worksheets.

Three of the special reports were designed for small business owners and five of the special reports were written for small business computer consultants. All eight of the reports were adapted, updated, repurposed and expanded on from Joshua’s earlier articles, his first book and some workshop content.

Special reports were a huge success from almost day one. Interestingly enough, the special report sales significantly boosted book sales – providing a synergistic effect. Many customers purchase either several of the downloadable reports in the same transaction or purchase the full set of eight reports for a discounted price (about 10% off) of $63.

Teleclasses and Teleclass Tapes

In late August, SmallBizTechTalk.com began offering its first teleclasses. Focusing on two different learning tracks, catering to the needs of both the small business owner/manager and the small business computer consultant, SmallBizTechTalk.com saw only a modest response to its first two teleclasses.

However, based on advice from Tom Antion, the teleclasses are all taped both in-house and by the telephone bridge company, so that each teleclass results in another product to offer.

During just the four-week period following the first teleclass, SmallBizTechTalk.com has already sold twice as many teleclass tapes than initial registrations for the live teleclass events. Most buyers of the teleclass tapes also purchase the paperback book, Companion CD-ROM and several special reports.

The Benefits of a More Complete Product Line

So now that SmallBizTechTalk.com offers a paperback book, a related CD-ROM, a set of eight downloadable special reports and teleclasses (both live and in recorded form), they’ve found some very interesting results.

Only 1/3 of sales are coming from the paperback book. The balance of SmallBizTechTalk.com’s sales are from even higher margin digital and audio products.

The price points and initial sales activity have also “validated” that SmallBizTechTalk.com’s customers are willing to invest in (a) learning how to lower their IT support costs and (b) growing their computer consulting practices.

How The Shopping Cart Fits Into All This

Because of SmallBizTechTalk.com’s innovative use of up-sells and cross-sells, Joshua and Jennifer have been able to convert buyers, who came in looking for $5 to $19.99 products into buyers ending up with anywhere from $63 to $109 in their shopping cart on checkout.

Just in the six weeks since SmallBizTechTalk.com introduced special reports, sales volume has already grown to just north of $4,000/month. This is largely due to downloadable special reports and teleclass tapes -- and their almost 7,000 e-zine subscribers and 1,500+ visitors/day coming from natural search engine traffic.

And the best part – Joshua and Jennifer still have at least a half-dozen major tasks and projects scheduled to put into place this fall that will dramatically accelerate their sales growth.

Components Used in SmallBizTechTalk.com’s E-Commerce Solution

q http://www.KickStartCart.com for integrated shopping cart and related marketing functions

q Mindshare Design’s PMG for weekly newsletter distribution and subscriber management

q Iongate/Nova for realtime credit card processing

q Interland for basic Web and e-mail hosting

Total Monthly Recurring Costs (before Internet access): approximately $110

Upcoming case studies

Rob Dale
Caroline Corser
Jeffrey Mayer
Bill Brooks

If you would like your case study used, attend Butt Camp, apply what you learned and tell us what happened to your business. mailto:tom@antion.com

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