Tag: Product Creation

The Micro Business Specialist On the Hot Seat

Well I admit it.  I’m a little nervous about an interview I am doing next Tuesday at 1PM EDT with Henry Gold.

I am one of 35 internet marketers Henry is interrogating as part of his “Destroy Gurus” program.  I’m hoping you will listen in to give me some moral support.

I’m not sure I like this “Destroy” idea. He’s talking about ripping into us with tough but fair questions. Kind of disconcerting.

Henry’s ultimate goal is positive however.  His hope is that this series of interviews will help new and established marketers pick up some useful tips.

As many of you know, I believe in this concept of learning from others. That’s why I did my Blog Talk Radio series I called Yearlings.  If you listened in to any of them, you know that such interviews can be packed with actionable information.

I expect to have the 7 interviews I did packaged into a product by the end of this month, although I am having to learn some new skills in the process of creating it. I encourage you to keep an eye out for my product, but in the meantime please listen in to the Henry’s Destroy Gurus series.

You need to sign up for it, but don’t worry its free.  Just go to http://DestroyGurus.com/84

Doing interviews like this is just one of 7 ways I know of to create information products.  And in many ways it’s the easiest.  I describe all seven in one of the modules of my 8 part Internet Marketing Intensive series.

As part of Henry’s Destroy Guru’s program I am offering the module on Information Product Creation as a free gift. So if for no other reason sign up so you can grab this for yourself.  http://DestroyGurus.com/84

Now finally, the selfish reason I have for asking you to attend my interview is that Henry’s got a contest going for the 35 of us involved.  People who listen to the interviews will be asked to vote on the value of the content we provide. I’m hoping you will not only listen, but give me your vote.

I will do my best in return to offer useful material based on my experience to date.

[tags]Destroy Gurus, internet marketing Intensive, yearlings, information product, interviews, Henry Gold, product creation,Giveaways[/tags]

Learning How to “Make My Own Product”

Most internet marketers start out by promoting other peoples products, which is fine but almost everyone who is a success online recognizes that ultimately you need to make your own products.

However, for most people, creating content such as writing E-books, designing E-covers or writing sales letters is a nightmare.

There is a way around the problem.  You can always hire someone else to do the work.  Now this is a real option for many, but if you are pursuing internet marketing because of a cash deficiency in the rest of your life, this option becomes less real.  You still need to develop your own products, but rather than create your own or hire a ghost writer to do it for you, you are going to invest a much smaller fee and acquire private label rights material.

It’s the same as buying a ghost writers work after they have finished rather than before.  The best part is that because the ghost writer is sharing the finished work with a number of people they can sell a license to use it to you and a small group of other people at a fraction of what it would cost to do it solely for you.

Once you have the rights to the ghost writer’s manuscript, audio file or video, you are free to edit the content any way you want.  That allows you to do as little or as much as you wish to personalize the product.  In either case, you can put your name on the product as the author.

If I have pretty much left the product as is, I tend to use the term, “Presented By:” rather than claiming authorship, although I could.

As a general rule, its a good idea to change the front page graphics, but again there is no law that says you must.  Typically, I spend a fair amount of time re-editing the manuscripts to make the flow of words more similar to my natural voice. But again this is not required.  It helps a lot though if the ghost written content is of good quality to start with.

Unfortunately, not all PLR is created equal. You have to identify and follow one or more trusted resources who won’t sell you junk.  Thankfully there are quite a few quality resources out there.

One of the “Good Guys” that I recommend is Khai Ng’s PLR.   One thing I like about Khai is that he focuses on lucrative, money generating niches like self improvement and personal development.  These are evergreen niches.  The products you create using his PLR will last you for years.

Khai’s products are written in good American English and are in demand by big names such as David Cavanagh, Jeremy Gislason, Simon Hodgkinson, Edmund Loh, Ian Del Carmen, John Delavera and many more.

He is currently running a huge promotion in which you can pick up a raft of highly desirable titles for a fraction of the normal cost.

Go here for more information on Khai’s offer:  Khai Ng PLR

In future posts, I will mention a few other “better” PLR resources.   I recommend you try Khai and a few others over the coming few months.

Eventually you will identify a small cadre of PLR providers you can trust and count on.  Once you do, it will be a simple matter to focus on the mechanics of bring the product to market rather than sweating over grammar and punctuation.

[tags]Khai Ng, PLR, Private Label Rights, product creation, make my own product, make your own products[/tags]

How To Go From 0 to $50,000

This was a particularly good message from Marlon Sanders today. I not only promote Marlon’s products, I buy them and use them myself. I enjoy his weekly newsletter and this article seems as succinct a how and what summary as I’ve seen lately. I hope you enjoy it.

How To Go From 0 to $50,000 —

Even If You Don’t Know How, Even If You’re Starting From Scratch, Even If You Don’t Think You Can, Even If You Think
It’s Dreaming

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I want to talk today about how to build something from nothing.

The awesome thing about your online business is you get to come up
with an idea, put it out there FAST and see how it works.

I want to look today at a process for going from scratch to $50,000.
I’m going to break it down into stages:

Stage one: Going from nothing to something

Out of ALL the stages, this is the absolute hardest and yet it’s the most
exciting.

When you go from $50,000 to $100,000, that’s not nearly as exciting as going from scratch to $50,000.

There are 3 things you need to go from scratch to something:
Eyeballs, Pitch, Product.

I call this the “Basic Formula.”

The FIRST thing you have to do is figure out your Basic Formula. After that, it’s relatively smooth sailing.

In this issue I’m using some terms you may not know if you’re a newbie. This link is your best friend:

http://www.marlonsnews.com/internet-business-marketing-terms/

a. Eyeballs

You can’t sell something to someone unless you can get your message in front of their eyeballs.

There are two parts to getting eyeballs:

— Figuring out what eyeballs you WANT to reach
— Reaching them

Ask yourself this question: Where do the folks I wanna reach hang out?
What do they read? Where do they go?

Key: Start with the forums they go to. You can almost always find the forums they hang out in. Then from there, you’ll discover the web sites they go to, the blogs they read and the products they buy.

If you own Promo Dashboard, I refer you to row one for detailed info on this step.

Remember those three things. They are key. You sell them what they already buy in places they already go to and read. These sites are where you do Google site targeted placement or where you buy banners or who you approach for joint venture offers.

b. Pitch

Once you find the eyeballs, you have to develop two pitches.

Pitch one is the email capture pitch. The pitch you make that gets people to give you an email address.

Pitch two is the one you make for a product or service AFTER you get the email.

Once you get 250 people on your list, you can start doing ad swaps like Jit Uppal teaches. But you gotta prime the pump by getting some people on the list yourself.

Everything boils down to the pitch.

I don’t care if it’s a webinar pitch, teleseminar pitch, sales letter pitch, video pitch.

And it’s all pretty much the same formula just changed up a little to match the medium.

The urgency step (on my 12-step formula) is different for a teleseminar or webinar vs. a sales letter.

But it’s ALL a pitch.

If you can’t pitch by talking or writing, you better hire someone who can. True story. But once you learn the TRUE 12-step formula and UNDERSTAND it, you’ll see how to do it quickly.

Most people do NOT understand either “The Amazing Formula” nor my
real 12-step sales letter formula. People just grasp at the obvious parts
and miss the REAL guts.

Once you truly “get it” you realize you CAN pitch even if you think you can’t.

Here’s one of the most useful little big picture formulas you’ll ever learn:

Story + {Benefits – cost} x urgency

Another formula I use is:

probability x saliency = expectancy

Maybe I can talk about that in a future ezine issue.

Anyway, you gotta learn to pitch by doing Power Point videos (slides),
real video, webinars, teleseminars, audio or letters. You MUST be able to pitch in one of those formats or hire someone who can.

c. Product

You either promote your own or someone else’s. I recommend your OWN because then you can go out and get your affiliate army.

Theoretically, you could do that with PLR (private label rights). PLR is good for quick cash or for getting started. For a bit longer term solution, you need your own product.

There are so many easy ways to create products fast now, there ARE no excuses for not having your own. Really, there are no excuses. It’s about you and your TV set.

You decide which do you want more? To watch TV shows for a week or to have your own product.

And if the answer is to watch TV shows, hey — no problem. If you want to keep trading your time for dollars, I don’t have a problem with that. More power to you.

If you want to trade products for dollars, you have to create them.

You can even get PAID to create them, which is the best.

People get hung all up on being perfect. I fall into that trap too. We’ve spent about 6 months TOO long creating Traffic Dashboard. It’s a stupid, dumb trap.

Get good content put into a consumable product and blow it out the door with tight promotion.

That’s how you make your first buck.

Everyone for some bizarre reason thinks the easiest part should be going to $1,000 in sales. If you do it right, that’s the hardest part of making it up to $50,000 — and beyond.

Fifty G’s is 4 G’s a month. I have friends who did that their first or second month in the business. That is NOT normal. What I see as normal is people muck around for 6 months a year or however long it takes for them to grasp the basic principles of direct response marketing.

Then they figure out their formula. Then they sometimes explode overnight. And others just slowly build. Most give up before that because they think it is supposed to be super easy and fast to start with.

They think step one should be easy because it’s step one. No, step one is the hardest of all steps if you do it right.

There are tons of gimmicky ways to make a G or more. But they don’t figure out the Basic Formula for you so you can’t expand, grow and scale your business.

You MUST unlock your Basic Formula to scale up to 50 G’s then 100, 250 and 500 G’s.

I know you’re thinking, “Can’t someone just give me the ‘Basic Formula?’ No, they can’t. Where do you advertise, with what hot buttons, with what email capture page, with what types of follow up emails with what type of pitch?

Those are all elements of the Basic Formula. If nothing else, the way you pitch will be different from how anyone else pitches. So you have to figure that piece out.

People can give you some of the pieces. But you still have to put it all together.

Once you stop thinking the first step should be the easiest and realize that if you do it right, it’s the hardest and after that it gets tons easier, all of a sudden you have the perspective you need to make strides much faster — as ironic as that sounds.

Basically, step one is experimentation and practice. Experiment with traffic sources, lead capture pages, different pitches. You’re unlocking the secrets to your Basic Formula via experimentation and practice.

Stage Two:

Once you have a bit of a list, a product that sales and a pitch that sells the product, you’re ready to go to a thousand or two thousand a month.

Once you hit the right formula for where to find eyeballs, what kind of incentive gets them to join your email list, what their buy buttons are and how to pitch them in a way that gets a response, you move up to the next levels fast.

See, the WHOLE secret is in the first step.

The hardest thing to do is to unlock the initial combination. Now, the next challenge is how to get more traffic.

If you’re running an affiliate program like I do, you might want a contest. Check out my current one:

http://www.promotemarlon.com/june

I’m not really into the huge prizes like a lot of programs offer. But if you’re in a highly competitive space like Internet marketing, I’m not going to blow smoke up your anatomy.

The competition for affiliates in this space is intense and there are a lot of huge prizes thrown around. This isn’t bad. Some of the marketers do a really, really good job at providing great incentives for affiliates to promote.

As an affiliate, you can score great swag as an affiliate. If you’re a product owner in this market, you better be ready to compete for affiliates. Fortunately, in niches the competition is far less stiff — and sometimes almost non-existent.

But I’d STILL rather be the one at the top of the food chain, not the bottom. The product owner with the affiliate army is at the top of the whole entire food chain. Well, above him are services like aweber, getresponse and so forth.

Those are people making the biggest bank. The point of profit flows upwards in the value chain if you’re read Michael Porter (author of the seminal book Competitive Advantage).

Anyway, stage two is about traffic because you’ve already done the hard part. Finding out eyeballs, finding a pitch they buy from, getting them on a list.

Now you just ramp up and 10X what you already did.

Once you UNLOCK the formula, you often hit the vault fast. I see it all the time. Someone figures out the combination and boom. They rocket almost overnight.

In stage 2 you often blow out 2-4 products fast and the profits roll in so quickly it’s almost dizzying.

Stage 3: Consolidating gains and growing more.

At this point you have growing pains. Customer service kicks in. Holy smokes.I need a refund. I didn’t order this. Could you splain to me which of your 4 products I should buy.

The questions never end.

In the beginning you handle these yourself. But at some point it eats into your productivity and you HAVE to hire part time help. This person will make you a small fortune because they let you go back to expanding on the Basic Formula.

Often at this stage you hire a webmaster who also does customer support. That way, they can help with web pages and such.

If you’re lucky you hire someone really freaking talented and smart who grows with you in the business.

For my friend Lee McIntyre, I think James was the best hire he’ll ever make. For me, it was Lisa.

Stage 4: Repeating the Basic Formula

Once you have your Basic Formula down pat, just REPEAT it to grow.
This works up to around $250,000 to $500,000 and then you often have to change your formula.

But by that time you’ve blown WAY beyond $50,000 obviously.

Somewhere between 1/2 million and a million in sales a year a major
shift has to be made in how you create and promote products and run
the business.

This is less if you run a continuity-based business.

Now, let’s go back and look again at how you make it to 50 G’s.

Fifty G’s a year is 4 G’s a month. That’s a G a week. Or $200 a day. Sell
a front-end report for $7 to $27.

Back end it with $100. Get 100 to 300 visitors a day and depending on the quality of the visitors you’ll be there. Later you add on a $500 product after the $100.

Pop two 500’s a week and there’s your G.

50 -100 front-end sales should pop you two 500’s a week, all depending on your market, positioning, demand and a bunch of other stuff.

This is how you make it there.

Best wishes,

Marlon Sanders

Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Amazing Formula That
Sells Products Like Crazy and the KING of Step-By-Step
Internet Marketing.”

Join me on my new Round Table where for 6 intense weeks I’m going to walk you step-by-step, blow-by-blow through my Basic Formula revealing what it is, how it works, why it works, how to do it, mistakes to avoid, how to pitch, how to find or create products, how to get eyeballs and so much more.

http://www.marlonsanders.com/roundtable

Check out all my products here:

http://www.getyourprofits.com

(SIGN UP AS A RESELLER, put YOUR reseller URL and ID where
the above link is, post this on your web site and make some
dough for spreading a killer guide everyone will want to
read.)

//////////////////////

REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to use the above
article without omission and including the resource box.
You have the right to insert your reseller URL for any
products I mention

[tags]Marlons Sanders,product creation, basic formula, Amazing formula,[/tags]

Information Product Creation: Ghost Writers

Getting a ghost writer to create your information product for you is a great idea if you do not have the time or skills to do a great job yourself. In the video below I provide some practical tips on the process.

[tags]Product creation, information product creations, internet marketing, Earl Netwal, Micro Business Specialist, Internet marketing intensive, ghost writing, [/tags]

Info Product Creation: Interviewing Experts

One of my favorite ways to create a product for sale or giveaway is to do an interview with experts or others with a special point of view.  If you have been following my Blog Talk Radio series caller Yearlings, you will know that the interviewee need not be world famous.  Yet if you try you would be surprised how many famous people you can actually get to participate in an interview – if you ask.

[tags]product creation, information product creation, internet marketing, [/tags]

What’s it all about, Alfie?

For Baby Boomers of my age, the title will resonate a little.  I wanted to take a little diversion and discuss just what the economic act was we are engaged in as internet marketers.   We are gatherers and distributors of information to a needy public. We deliver what we do, just when the public needs it, which is defined as when they are looking for it.

We gather information in various niches and reshape it, edit it, convert it to ebooks, videos and podcasts and more.  Then when someone who is looking for information buys our ebook, we are fulfilling and economic need and engaging in an economic act.

How we assemble the raw materials of the content, is less important than the act of actually getting it to them.

I take this diversion and make this little fuss, because there are still some who somehow find private label material to be somehow less perfect way of doing things.  Instead, PLR or any other content source you use is fair game if your objective is to satisfy the end users need for information. And that it the economic function you play.

Now this doesn’t mean you disregard the intellectual property and copyrights of others. But it does mean you can feel extremely ethical when you are acquiring research and other content and using them as you see fit – when you use them according to the specific rights you obtain for them.

[tags]Internet Marketing,Economics,Internet marketing economics,PLR,Private Label Rights,internet marketing intensive,micro business specialist,Earl Netwal,information product creation,product creation[/tags]

Using Video for Infromation Product Creation

In the last session on Product Creation we discussed audio, which is nice an easy and quick.  Video requires a bit more to edit, and frankly I just do small shots so I can re-record when I need to.  Eventually, I and you will need to get more professional but for the time being quick and dirty videos can grab and hold attention, communicate yourself as a real person and create a more valuable learning platform combining visual with aural and in the case of powerpoint based videos that power of reading to the learning process.

Out society has grown up watching TV so the video format is clearly a widely accepted way to share information as I try to do in today’s video on video.

[tags]product creation, information product creation, Earl Netwal, Micro Business specialist, video product creation, create a video, [/tags]

Creating Audio Information Products

I like creating audio products, its easy to do, and easy to edit.  I like the free audacity tool for recording.   It took me a while to figure out a few things and I don’t know what I don’t know, but it produces good results. Just Google for Audacity.  You might want to search for a quick start guide, although I figured it out without directions…eventually

There are full featured products in the $200 range that will permit you some additional capabilities, but I see no reason not to start with Audacity.

I record, edit and export as an MP3 that can be downloaded and listened to anywhere.  It’s a great way to reach people who listen to  information while jogging, or driving or relaxing.  As such it’s a podcast that reaches the aural audience.

Audio recording are also a great tool for writing a blog post, report or major book.  Once you create your outline, you speak your copy.  You can edit as needed and even rearrange sections.  Once done, you can get it transcribed. It tends to be much quicker than writing.   This approach may allow more of your personality to show in the work and that is usually a good thing.

Just in passing, I should note that I got some useful direction on audio from Doug Champigny when I took his Powerstart 2010 course.  Doug really did a good job with that one.

[tags]Product creation, audio product, audio product creation, Micro Business Specialist, Internet Marketing Intensive  [/tags]

How to be an “Expert”

One of the biggest obstacles for many people, that keeps them from creating their own information products to give away or sell online is the feeling that they are not “expert” enough to share information.

This is a misunderstanding, but common, so in the video below, I describe how one might go about creating an eBook from scratch in a brand new niche that you know nothing about and then spend a little time clarifying what an expert is.

[tags]Product creation, information product creations, internet marketing, Earl Netwal, Micro Business Specialist, Internet marketing intensive, Expert, what is an expert [/tags]

Write Your Own Information Product

Of the seven approaches the creating an information product the first and most obvious is to write your own, the old fashioned way.  As I mention in the video below, you do not need to be an English major to write a good and useful information product.

In fact, you may be better off with fewer big words and literary allusions, and stick to the facts with simple clear sentences.

Once created you want to protect your intellectual property by converting your file to a PDF document.  Personally, I use the free Open Office Word Program which allows me to export the file as a PDF with a simple click of a button.

[tags]Product creation, information product creations, internet marketing, Earl Netwal, Micro Business Specialist, Internet marketing intensive, Expert, what is an expert [/tags]

7 Ways to Create Information Product Content

I’ve identified seven different basic approaches to information product content creation.  These I group into three categories as explained in the brief video below.  The next series of posts will discuss each of these information product content creation strategies in more detail, one by one.

[tags]product creation, information product creation, internet marketing intensive, internet marketing, Micro Business Specialist, Earl Netwal, [/tags]

Product Creation Criteria Part 2 of 2

In the last post in this series on product creation I share the first three of six product creation criteria. They were Demand, Price and Title. In today’s video I discuss the remaining three criteria, content, format and affiliate links.

In out next video we will begin discussing 7 different ways to create content. As you will see, you won’t necessarily need to be an accomplished writer nor do you need to be an expert in your niche – at least not yet. And you will still be able to generate a quality product that will make you customers happy.

[tags]product creation, internet marketing, internet marketing intensive, product creation criteria[/tags]

Product Creation Criteria

There are six key criteria that you need to keep in mind when contemplating creating a product for sale on the internet.  These are Demand, price, title, contents, format and affiliate links. I explain the first three of the six in the video below.

In the next video in this series I will discuss content, format and affiliate links. This series is based on the material in the Product Creation module of my 8 module program called Internet Marketing Intensive. To learn more about it click on the advert at the top right of this page under the blue Twitter Bird.

[tags]product creation, product creation criteria, Pricing products, Demand considerations, Title considerations, [/tags]

Do You Want A Job or a Business?

In this third session on product creation, I want to drive home a very simple point.  I do so, because I am guilty of doing this wrong in the past.  When I started my first significant home based business I took my hobby which was a version of stamp collecting and created a job out of it as an eBay marketer.

I thought I had a business, but all I really had was an online tread mill, where I was working long hours getting product scanned, described and listed every day and then packaged and shipped.  Frankly it took the joy out of my hobby and did not lead me where I wanted to be financially.

Thus in today’s video, I want to stress just one point.  You need to be thinking about creating a business online an not a job.

[tags]affiliate marketing,information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, home based business[/tags]

Affiliate Marketers, You Need to Change

The easiest way to start making money on line for most people is via affiliate marketing. But, if you really want to make significant money you  need to give serious thought to creating your own information product.

In this second video in my Information Product Creation Series I explain some of the reasons why.

[tags] affiliate marketing, information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, ethical bribes, opt in forms, email marketing [/tags]

Information Product Creation – an Introduction

I am starting a new series today on Information Product Creation. I intend to do the bulk of this via short videos recorded with my Flip Camera.  The first is below.

[tags]information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, ethical bribes, opt in forms, email marketing[/tags]

Muscle Your Way to Profits

I was going to write the third of my planned three part series on free traffic tools I’ve been experimenting with today, but I will save that for after Thanksgiving.

Because, today Doug Champigny just released another of his famous PLR 3 packs.  The fitness niche is huge with a lot of people spending big bucks to bulk up and get fit.  As such, it is a natural niche for you to spend a little money and some time on. And with this package from Doug, it couldn’t be easier.

Each of the three packages comes with the product, a ready made sales letter and 25 articles you can use as part of a follow up email campaign or rewrite and set up on the article directories to drive traffic and backlinks to your new site.

Fitness PLR Pack

The topics are…

  • Mixed Martial Arts
  • 6 Pack Abs
  • Gaining Wright 101

To be most effective in using these products you want to…

1. Do some quick keyword research to find terms that have at least 500 searches in a month, but less than 50-100,000 results when you search for the keyword in parenthesis: “keyword”  These are the keywords you will have the best chance at getting traffic from fast.

2. Pick a couple of the best of these, and search for a good domain name. Now sometimes I cheat and just add it to my www.askearlabout.com/keyword site, but you will get better results if you spend $10 and get a niche specific url.

3.  Decide if you are going to sell the eBook or give it away.  If you already have a list in the area, I would consider selling it.  If you are just starting in the niche, offer it as a freebie to start building a fitness niche list you can sell to for years to come.

4. Review the eBook and make any edits you want and add links to it to other products you have, and/or to affiliate products. This is how you make money even when you give the books away.

5. Load the sales page to your site, and make any changes or edits you wish, although the sales page provided is great as it is.

6. Add a blog to support the project. You can use the 25 articles as content over time.

7. Alternatively, you can use some of included articles as a series of follow-up emails to keep in touch with your new list, and build loyalty and trust with them, or rewrite some of them articles and submit them to the article directories.  I usually, put these in my blog first and then upload them to the directories. That allows them to do double duty, and gets my blog the initial credit in Google’s eyes.

8. Now that you’ve finished the first of the three packages, repeat of the rest.  If you decided to give away the first eBook to build a list, consider selling the other two to the list you have built. The choice is yours. But with three eBooks on closely related topics, you have the makings for a nice niche that you can grow and develop over time. Or consider offer one or two of the ebooks as a bonus when people buy one.

So now it’s time to take action.  This package will save you countless hours compared to creating your own similar products, and could easily be the core of a great new profit center for your online enterprise.

Go grab Fitness PLR Pack and put some muscle into your online profits.

By the way any one of the products in this package is well worth what Doug is charging for all 3.