Six Success Factors – How to Create Products

The fourth in a series of blog posts based around Rich Schefren’s webinar is the most exciting yet! Here I am going to focus on how you can create killer products rapidly! After reading this post you will be able to create unlimited products which will have your blog readers and opt-in subscribers salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on the latest report, ebook, webinar, training course or whatever you produce! Grab a cup of coffee and focus – this is going to be great!

1. Using Your Prospects’ Core Complex

It is vital you build a close relationship with your customers. If you can understand what their beliefs, feelings and desires are then you will not only be able to sell effectively, but you will also be able to create products which fulfill all of the above.

Rich attributes his success to having a list of all the feelings he believes his customers have, which enables him to create products which alleviate them. For example, your customers could feel:

• FRUSTRATED and DISAPPOINTED with their progress
• CONFUSED about which path to take
• LONELY because they spend too much time in front of their computer
• DEPRIVED because they cannot afford every new product and course which is released
• SELF DOUBT because it must be THEM doing something wrong
• STRESSED OUT about the gap between their dreams and current reality
• EMBARRASSED at their lack of progress if family members are involved
• RESENTFUL about all the marketing promises which have been made to them

It does not matter if the above does not apply to your target audience, the important thing is to know who your audience is and who you are creating products for.

This is important – UNLESS you know who you are creating products for, the chances of you creating a killer product are slim to none!

2. Focus on Pain, Problems & Frustrations

Did you notice that all of the above customer feelings were negative?

Remove a negative which already exists for your customers – pain sells best!

This is because people find it easier to focus on a negative they want removed rather than a positive they would like to have and if your products and marketing can hone in on this, your chances of success are vastly improved.

Don’t believe me? Think about this:

• People avoid their spouses, bosses and neighbours to avert EMOTIONAL pain
• People take enormous amounts of drugs to alleviate PHYSICAL and MENTAL pain

It is a similar concept to what was discussed in my post about setting up an online business, in that to determine what you want, you need to be clear about what you don’t want!

Remember, your chances of success are so much greater if your product can remove a pain, problem or frustration than it would if it just gives benefits.

3. Use Amazon as a Research Tool

This is a very powerful concept which I was not aware of until Rich revealed it and he also believes very few people will take action on this, even if they know about it!

Simply:

• Visit Amazon
• Find the books on whatever topic it is you are looking to create an ebook, course etc. on
• Read the comments about the book, both good and bad

When you have done this, you will learn the following:

• The language they use. If you want your marketing to be effective, you need to use the same language
• Why people LOVED certain books. What did those books have in them that made them so good?
• Why people HATED certain books. What was missing from those books?

When you know what people love and want and also what they hate and don’t want, you will know exactly what you need to put in your products (and what NOT to include!)  and your marketing will improve as well.

4. Get Good at One Format

While you should use all the available formats to communicate with your customers, i.e. written, audio and video you should become very good at one of them.

I believe my best format is the written word but Rich suggests you should become good at video because it can easily be transformed into an audio product or transcribed into a written one. Video is something I am working on improving.

The reason you should get good at a particular format is because when working with a particular format becomes second nature to you, it allows you to concentrate on what is most important – the content and you will complete your products much faster.

5. Create Products in Chunks

When you know what your product is going to be about, create the product in pieces which are interchangeable into other products.

This will allow you to create new products out of several products you have created in the past.

How many times have you seen products from the same people which look remarkably similar to something they released six months earlier?

This is because they products are structured in a way that makes them easy to repurpose or use sections of it to create free reports, teaser products etc.

Work smart, not hard!

6. The Best Model – Get Paid to Create

This concept follows on perfectly from creating your products in chunks.

What you can also do is create and sell a “second version” of something you did previously, such as Rich’s GPS program and Alex Jeffreys’ coaching, both now in their second incarnations.

During the second run you can modify and improve the product so that eventually it can be systematized and get paid for the privilege of doing so.

Using Rich’s programs as an example, he sold the program before he created it. He then created it as he delivered it.

The benefits of doing this is are:

• Being paid a lot of money to create something is always a great motivator.
• You work to strict deadlines because you need content in place ahead of the next session otherwise your customers will not receive what they were promised.
• You receive feedback along the way so you can include anything you missed out rather than having it all done beforehand and then having to make changes along the way.

You may not be able to do this immediately, but when you are a little more established this is the best way to go about creating products.