Product Creation Panel

This was the second most-asked-for topic. The information in this section alone is worth many times the price of the entire seminar.

The presenters are: Brian Johnson from Strategic Profits, Jim Curley, whose business depends on new products to survive, and Harlan Kilstein, a product-creation machine.

The panelists deliver some great information on creating and marketing your own products quickly, easily and at a low cost, from how to figure out what people really want to know (and will pay for) to different methods of creating the product based on your interests and skillset.

Harlan and Jim explain their own product creation strategies, so you come away with specific blueprints you can follow for yourself.

0:45 John: How to create a book in 20 days

Start with a big idea (how to raise puppies for fun and profit, how to steal cars in an urban area and not get caught, etc.)

The easiest thing to start with is a “how to” and you can modify it later.

The title of your book should be a headline. It should be descriptive and let the reader know what the book is about. Don’t be too cute if you want the book to sell.

Ebooks can be more fluid. They can be as short as you want.

This is about writing a physical book.

2 reasons to publish a book:

1. To sell and make money. It could be a course. His first book became a course. Add worksheets, etc.

2. As a calling card (credentialize yourself

Start with a stack of 3×5 cards.

One card is the main idea

A book should be 150 – 200 pages

4:53 John tells the story about his epiphany about the value of having published a book.

15-20 cards support the main idea. These become the chapters

1-12 cards for each of the above: ideas that support them.

If you have 10 things for each you are right on. If you have 20 for one of them, split off into 2 chapters. If you only have one, combine it with another.

He hangs them on the wall, in rows

The bottom 10 should have one idea each. They are the pages of your book.

Then when you sit down to write, you can pick a card and write about that.

Do about 10 per day.

Don’t worry about sehues between pages.

You will end up with 180 pages.

Suggestion from audience: use post-it notes instead of index cards

12:30 Brian Johnson: Get someone to interview you.

Mistake: Creating a product because you want it. Start with the custome and focus on what they want.

Harlan: Joe Polish, Eben Pagan, Tony Robbins all create products this way.

John: You can sell them one by one or package them into groups to sell.

15:30 Brian: We use webinars to evaluate the market as much as to create a product. If one is more popular they create a product about that topic.

17:40 Brian talks about how they use webinars to updell people into their “Founders Club”

19:10 Brian discusses price testing for the Founders’ Club

John also talks about the classic pricing models that they used in direct mail and tells how it changed online and the results he has been obtaining at different price levels.

21:55 Mary Ellen (From Early to Rise) discusses considerations in testing and how to determine what prices to test.

23:36: Jim Curley: Make product creation a function of the company. Constantly have products in process.

DVDs Have to find talent, shoot and edit video, writh ad, create webpage, create email campaign, fulfillment.

Can’t do this yourself. They have an outsource team that they use, also use online services and have hired students.

You have to put the machine in place to create product after product.

They produce at least 12 DVD products per year and have been doing it for 20 years. They do other types of products, as well.

They find overlooked prodessionals. Not the current big names. Not Tiger Woods but the people who make a living teaching and have a story to tell.

28:50 Brian: Spend 80% of your time on marketing and 20% on product creation

30:14 Harlan’s method for creating a product

Ceate marketing first. Create sales letter and figure out your back end. When you create your product, just get it done. Give yourself a deadline.

Pick a big niche.

Go to Amazon and buy everything about that topic.

Google topic and print out all the sales pages.

Look for an opening. What can you do that isn’t already there?

Outsource everything, even the copy

get it done.

Go after PWM…players with money. He started in the golf niche because there was a lot of money there and people wanted to buy.

Deliver product as PDF, audio, video, should be something they can download.

He sold a product and gave a choice of download or DVD, and no one wanted the DVDs

While waiting for the product, create the website.

Copywriters should create products for themselves.

38:50 John: During market research a good freelancer actually becomes an expert because they often wind up knowing as much or more than the expert himself.

41:56 Joe Polish: If you are not the expert, associate with experts and that will give you credibility as well. A lot of experts will consent to being interviewed.

44:18 John: Make sure you check out the competition. Consume the information necessary to become an expert.

45:08: Brian: He will go to a copywriter who has studied the market, give him the concept and ask him what needs to be in the product to get it to sell.

John: Use surveys, whatever is necessary to find out what people want.

Jim: At OHP, Doc O’leary is not the expert, he is the one that brings in the experts. He can be fluid, because he can bring in all different experts. He can also get experts who have different takes on the same topic and make multiple products.

John: Doc O’Leary is a great storyteller. his emails are opened because he shares the reader’s passion. He is the one people want to hang out with.

Question for Harlan: How much do you do upfront? He says that he buys the books, creates a short outline, and sends them the top 10 or top 20 and the outline and tells them to run with it.

Mary Ellen: If you ahve an idea and love it, you don’t knwo if anyone else will love it. She creates a PPC campaign and sees hwo popular the idea is.

Harlan: Use the Keyword Tool and books on Amazon. That is all you need to determine if there is a market. Don’t spend a lot of time.

Question: What do you do about copyrighting and trademarking?

You don’t really have to worry about that, especially before you are successful.

53:00 What are the best questions to ask in a survey?

John: You can either go really specific or very wide. It depends on the market and how much they will give as an answer.

Brian: Puts questions on emails and on blog posts to get additional information.

1. Emerge from your comfort zone and think about a book that you could write that will showcase your expertise and bring in new clients.
2. Use note cards to lay out the chapters and pages as John explains in the video.
3. Each day, fill in at least 5 cards.
4. In 20 days you will have enough content to fill a 100-page book.
5. Create the book as a PDF. Do it yourself or hire someone on Upwork.com or another freelance site.
6. Create an account on Kindle Direct Publishing (they have combined digital and print publishing, so CreateSpace doesn’t exist any longer), upload your book and create a cover.
7. Order copies and distribute them to everyone who may be a prospect or who may know a prospect.

John talks about speed reading.  We describe a method you can use to read books more efficiently in this post.