Creating Products Quickly
While you could sell almost anything online, the best thing to sell is information products. Why? Because...
- They are easy to make (I'll show you how to make a product in 2 days)
- They don't cost much to make
- They can have huge profit margins
- They are unique with very little competition
- They don't require a lot of support
- They are easy to deliver
- They are easy to manufacture in huge quantities
There are a few more things that you could sell online very well - softwares, video games etc. But I won't go into them on this website.
| NOTE: Read this page only if you've surfed a few magazines and zeroed in on your hot market. You'll just be wasting your time if you read about product creation without deciding which market to target. |
Product Formats - The Basics
Moving on, there are many kinds of info products that you can sell:
- Booklets, reports, folios and hotsheets - short introductory products usually sold at low prices
- Books - a more comprehensive product with details
- Courses, home study packages - more detailed than books, sometimes interactive
- Seminars - teaching live, in person
You can charge highest for seminars and lowest for booklets and hotsheets.
Product Funnel
What I usually do is create a product funnel.
1. I create 4-5 hotsheets on different subtopics that a market would be interested in. And sell them for $5-7-10. Usually, these are my trust building products. I don't get rich with them. But people can buy them and evaluate me and trust me.
2. I then create a more detailed report. And sell it for $30-50-97. Usually, these reports could be in audio format. If this sells well, I create another report on a related topic and sell it for $30-50-97.
3. After that, if I sell a lot of detailed reports for $97, I create a course or a package and sell it for $300-500. Some people even sell courses for as much as $2000. Its not hard to create a course. Instead of one audio or video, you create 4-6 audios and package them and sell them together.
Remember: The hardest thing to do is make the first sale. Subsequent sales are much more easier because you've already build trust with the buyer. So, the more products you have, the faster you'll grow rich.
The nitty-gritty details of product development
The easiest way to create a product is:
Interviewing people!
Interview 3 people for 20 minutes each and you have a one hour audio or video product! Suppose you selected painters as your target market, all you have to do is call up 5 painters and ask them how they find their inspiration. Thats one product for you. Call 5 other painters and ask them how they sell their paintings. Thats another product for you!
There is no easier way of coming up with products than interviewing others.
Product Packaging
Interviewing people is but just one way of developing information products. You can earn the most amount of money by writing "How To" reports. You can charge more for the report: "How to sell your paintings in 2 weeks" than you could charge for an interview with the same information.
While interviewing is the easiest way of coming up with products, if you learn to package that interview into a "How To" product, you'll make a lot more money.
You could also do this: interview people. Create a "how to" product with the information you learnt while interviewing people. And then sell the how to product for $97 and give away the interviews as a bonus to people.
You can have your how-to product in the following formats:
- Digital / Paper - I've successfully sold 30 page reports for $50. How long would it take you to write 30 pages? 1 week? 2 week?
- Audio - 10,000 to 14,000 words give you 60-80 minutes audio. How long would it take you to write a measly 10,000 words and then record it?
- Video - You need even less than 14,000 words for a video. Because, in video, you can spend time in demonstrating how to do something.
You can charge the highest with video products and the lowest with digital or paper products.
How-To Product Writing Formula
How to create paper, audio or video products is a course unto itself. It takes certain knowledge to easily record audio products or create video or dvd products. I can't go in depth on these topics on this free website. So, I'll do the next best thing.
I'll give you a quick writing formula that I use to write kick-ass how-to products everytime. And then, I'll provide you with a list of resources that can teach you the details required to write and record your how to products.
The writing formula is simple:
"The secrets of telling a story well are three:
1. How to end
2. Where to begin
3. What to leave out."
- Roy H. Williams |
Thats the formula.
1. Figure out the end. The solution you are selling. (What is the solution? Why is it better than all the other substitute solutions? How to implement the solution?)
2. Figure out the beginning. The problem that your hot market has. The itch that they would want to scratch. (What is the problem? What will be the consequences if the problem is not solved?)
3. Figure out what to leave out of the report. All you need is the problem, its solution and a few case studies and testimonials of people actually using the solution to solve the problem. Thats it. Leave everything else out.
Tools for producing How-To Products
The writing formula is very powerful and if you use it, you'll produce better how-to products than 90% of the people out there. Here are some tools that will help you become an expert information product developer - and become better than 99% people selling information products online.
Digital / paper:
How to write a book effortlessly in 14 days - the most comprehensive and detailed course on writing quickly (a bit expensive, but worth the price) (has a very informative free email course too that you should subscribe to)
How to write and publish an ebook in 7 days - An ebook on writing ebooks by Jim Edwards and Joe Vitale. Some very good ideas in it. Amazingly affordable.
Audio
Audio C4 - a very very affordable product that teaches everything you would want to know about creating audio products
Video
Producing How-To DVDs for Profit - This DVD by Bill Myers is the blble of DVD product development! Bill Myers will get you started in creating DVDs for less than $100 with tools you might already have (camcorder and computer)! This DVD is extremely affordable and could be your ticket to making high-end video products.
Also... Bill Myers is the product developer's guru. He has produced reports, books, videos, DVDs, CD-roms, softwares and tools for various hot markets. And has had more home runs developing products than anyone else I know of. If you are serious about developing products quickly and selling them for a lot of money, you got to subscribe to Bill Myers membership site.
(Bill Myers membership site could overwhelm you with a lot of information. And so you might want to delay subscribing to it until after you've successfully developed your first information product. Subscription is very affordable.)
Duplicating & Fulfillment Resources
Once you've produced your product, you could hire one of the following companies to duplicate your report, CD or DVD and ship them.
Cafepress - duplicates paper and CD products (No DVD, but does allow printing of customized tshirts and calenders and a whole host of other products)
Doctor Duplicator - CD and DVD duplication. Many top internet marketers use this service.
Mimeo - prints paper products only - very cool online interface. Very high quality. A bit pricy too.
Lulu - paper, CD and DVD duplication.
You can maintain the best quality control and keep very high profit margins if you develop your own products. But if you don't want to develop your own products, there is one other way too...
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