Beginners: How To Make Winning Products (& Money) With $0 And No "IM" Experience (In 3 Easy Steps)
Hi all,
Time for a long but helpful, value-packed, and beginner-friendly post.
So here's where this idea came from:
I recently surveyed a list of mine and asked them what problems they were having, what questions they had with IM.
Although about 70% of them wanted to know about traffic generation, I got one very different response that I wanted to address here because I know it's a HUGE problem most beginners are struggling with.
In fact, it's something that keeps a lot of people "beginners", not making any real money online and it has a surprisingly simple fix.
Here's the gist of the response I received (slightly reworded):
"How can a person who is new to IM venture into the IM niche as a successful product creator? How do you create products in the IM niche if you aren't an expert in it?"
That's a good one, isn't it?
Now, I know a lot of you don't have anything set up yet.
So, I'll share something with you. I could charge for this information (and I was going to, actually), but I think I'll share it all for free instead.
Here's the deal: Product creation is about providing value. It's about providing solutions to problems. Along those lines...
There are 2 Truths in Internet Marketing that should really get your wheels turning:
People think you need to be making money online (or have 5-figure weeks in Clickbank and such) to make and sell winning products and provide value to customers.
Well guess what? You don't.
You don't even need to create "how to make money" style courses necessarily, which is something I've found a lot of beginners believe.
Your products just need to help the buyer achieve an end goal and save them time and/or frustration. (Or, in short- provide value to them.)
Here's an example: Jason Fladlien (who I'm a bigger fan of every day) has a product out on how to write an article in 7 minutes or less.
He doesn't tell you how to syndicate that article, which directories to submit it to, resource linking strategies, or how to make thousands of dollars with it... just how to WRITE IT in 7 minutes.
And guess what? Though it's not a complete course on how to be a millionaire, it DOES help people write an article in 7 minutes or less. And it sold like hot cakes.
Learn how to be an information marketer, or someone who "markets information".
Here's a secret I wish I would have known very early on in my business career. It's a "dirty little secret" successful product creators understand:
Really think about this, because it's horribly powerful and not just applicable to the IM landscape.
But for those who want to crack into it anyway, here are some interesting thoughts:
Did you know that you don't need to know anything about SEO to crank out a winning product on it? Or how about this: you can make that product effortlessly, with $0, and without a single web page ranked?
How, you ask? Well, just use a little creativity.
How could you both get questions answered AND create products at the same time, all without doing any of the work?
And that brings me to the "3 easy steps" I mentioned in the title of this thread...
Step 1) Find a problem people are having.
Step 2) Find someone who has the success/experience in the given area and interview/ask them how they're doing it.
Step 3) Turn the answer(s) into a product.
Now STOP.
Don't go thinking, "Oh great, another interview product". That's partly wrong. It's a LEVERAGE product.
Yes, you will be contacting these people asking them to share their experience with you (via recorded interview or just written responses), but there's a way of doing it that you can template out to any situation and make it work.
And btw- don't go thinking you can't do this. You can just email the person and send them questions that way, you don't have to jump on the phone with anyone. If you can't send an email, then I don't know what to tell you.
I want to give you concrete steps in addition to the theory behind it (that's how I roll).
So, here are some specific ways you can implement this 'leverage' concept:
Let's stick to IM for this example, since this is the Warrior Forum and all. Heck, let's use the problem 70% of my list is having: traffic generation.
Example 1- How to Create a Product on Traffic Generation
Knowing beginners don't have a lot of money, how about I narrow "traffic generation" down to free traffic, specifically SEO.
So... How would I create a product on how to rank sites in Google (SEO) if I had NO sites already ranked or any experience in SEO to begin with?
Here's what I would do:
...And BAM! I'm the marketer that would release the product, so I'd be associated with being an expert on SEO. Not directly, but via association. It's MY product, but I'm leveraging other people's experience
Now how about another example? Let's do something in the other direction.
How about getting affiliates to promote your products? How would I make a product on how to get affiliates to promote my products if I don't have any products, have never had ANY affiliates promote anything for me and have ZERO experience with any of it?
Example 2- How to easily get affiliates to promote for you
After about a second of thinking, this is an easy one too:
Right there, you got the knowledge AND the product. It's a win-win, wouldn't you agree?
And look, those are 2 ideas you can run with right there.
Notice how easy this is though? You wouldn't need to be an expert on anything to implement this 3-step strategy.
And better yet, every single person you ask will have a different answer from that last one, so what's that mean?
...This tactic won't get saturated!
And hell, along those lines you could even compile 5-10 different responses on a given topic into one product to add beef to it. The possibilities are endless.
Tips: Though you can implement this strategy with ANY niche imaginable, there are certain factors that make IM the best market to go into. To name a few:
I'm not saying this wouldn't work for other niches. In fact, I already made a product on how a guy named Jim Katsoulis tore it up in the fitness niche using interviews as a basis. It can work in any niche you want, but the factors above make IM very attractive.
...And that's all I have for now!
Honestly, take this stuff seriously. Leverage is a vital part of online business in my opinion, and it can VERY quickly get your business off the ground, if you learn how to use it in a positive way that adds value and helps people out
Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.
-Tom
Time for a long but helpful, value-packed, and beginner-friendly post.
So here's where this idea came from:
I recently surveyed a list of mine and asked them what problems they were having, what questions they had with IM.
Although about 70% of them wanted to know about traffic generation, I got one very different response that I wanted to address here because I know it's a HUGE problem most beginners are struggling with.
In fact, it's something that keeps a lot of people "beginners", not making any real money online and it has a surprisingly simple fix.
Here's the gist of the response I received (slightly reworded):
"How can a person who is new to IM venture into the IM niche as a successful product creator? How do you create products in the IM niche if you aren't an expert in it?"
That's a good one, isn't it?
Now, I know a lot of you don't have anything set up yet.
- No list
- No products
- No money
- No experience
So, I'll share something with you. I could charge for this information (and I was going to, actually), but I think I'll share it all for free instead.
Here's the deal: Product creation is about providing value. It's about providing solutions to problems. Along those lines...
There are 2 Truths in Internet Marketing that should really get your wheels turning:
- You don't need to be making money online to provide value to people.
- And, ironically, by providing value to people you CAN make money online.
People think you need to be making money online (or have 5-figure weeks in Clickbank and such) to make and sell winning products and provide value to customers.
Well guess what? You don't.
You don't even need to create "how to make money" style courses necessarily, which is something I've found a lot of beginners believe.
Your products just need to help the buyer achieve an end goal and save them time and/or frustration. (Or, in short- provide value to them.)
Here's an example: Jason Fladlien (who I'm a bigger fan of every day) has a product out on how to write an article in 7 minutes or less.
He doesn't tell you how to syndicate that article, which directories to submit it to, resource linking strategies, or how to make thousands of dollars with it... just how to WRITE IT in 7 minutes.
And guess what? Though it's not a complete course on how to be a millionaire, it DOES help people write an article in 7 minutes or less. And it sold like hot cakes.
Learn how to be an information marketer, or someone who "markets information".
Here's a secret I wish I would have known very early on in my business career. It's a "dirty little secret" successful product creators understand:
In the IM world, you either have experience or you know how to leverage it.
Really think about this, because it's horribly powerful and not just applicable to the IM landscape.
But for those who want to crack into it anyway, here are some interesting thoughts:
Did you know that you don't need to know anything about SEO to crank out a winning product on it? Or how about this: you can make that product effortlessly, with $0, and without a single web page ranked?
How, you ask? Well, just use a little creativity.
How could you both get questions answered AND create products at the same time, all without doing any of the work?
And that brings me to the "3 easy steps" I mentioned in the title of this thread...
Step 1) Find a problem people are having.
This is where you'd peruse highly-trafficked niche-related forums to see what problems people are having. Check the thread view counts and the number of replies to easily determine popular threads.
(I know this sounds cliché, but it's cliché because it works. Don't make this hard; go to the place people in your niche hang out. In my opinion, forums are the BEST place for market research because you can get an instant pulse on the niche.)
Step 2) Find someone who has the success/experience in the given area and interview/ask them how they're doing it.
What do I mean by this?
Well if the problem I'm researching is SEO and ranking sites in Google, then someone with "success dealing with this problem" would be someone with websites ranking in the top 10 in Google.
Those are the people you want to target: people who have experience with the problem you're trying to solve.
Then simply contact them and ask them for an interview. They provide the content, you don't do any of the work, and you get a product.
Step 3) Turn the answer(s) into a product.
This is the easy part. Take their responses (or the audio file if you recorded one with them) and turn it into a product. Don't worry about sales copy and all that... This is about making products themselves. End of story.
Now STOP.
Don't go thinking, "Oh great, another interview product". That's partly wrong. It's a LEVERAGE product.
Yes, you will be contacting these people asking them to share their experience with you (via recorded interview or just written responses), but there's a way of doing it that you can template out to any situation and make it work.
And btw- don't go thinking you can't do this. You can just email the person and send them questions that way, you don't have to jump on the phone with anyone. If you can't send an email, then I don't know what to tell you.
I want to give you concrete steps in addition to the theory behind it (that's how I roll).
So, here are some specific ways you can implement this 'leverage' concept:
Let's stick to IM for this example, since this is the Warrior Forum and all. Heck, let's use the problem 70% of my list is having: traffic generation.
Example 1- How to Create a Product on Traffic Generation
Knowing beginners don't have a lot of money, how about I narrow "traffic generation" down to free traffic, specifically SEO.
So... How would I create a product on how to rank sites in Google (SEO) if I had NO sites already ranked or any experience in SEO to begin with?
Here's what I would do:
- I'd go to the Google Keyword Tool and find keywords that are competitive but not too competitive. I'd target keywords that get 10,000-20,000 searches per month. This indicates competition, but not TOO much competition. To rank here, you'd need to know what you're doing and have some kind of SEO game plan.
- Next I'd Google search those keywords and browse the top 10 results for each one, looking until I found either websites or blogs that are clearly affiliate/marketer-driven. Indicators of this would be affiliate links, opt-in forms, backlinks, and/or strong on-site optimization (which, by the way, you can tell from simple FireFox Add-Ons).
- Contact that site owner and ask for an interview. Do this with each site you find until someone says YES. Hell, it only takes one "yes" to make a product. (Ah, the power of perseverance.)
- Turn that into a product.
...And BAM! I'm the marketer that would release the product, so I'd be associated with being an expert on SEO. Not directly, but via association. It's MY product, but I'm leveraging other people's experience
Now how about another example? Let's do something in the other direction.
How about getting affiliates to promote your products? How would I make a product on how to get affiliates to promote my products if I don't have any products, have never had ANY affiliates promote anything for me and have ZERO experience with any of it?
Example 2- How to easily get affiliates to promote for you
After about a second of thinking, this is an easy one too:
- I'd start by going to Clickbank and look for products that have a Gravity of 20-30. This would indicate affiliates are promoting the product, but the product isn't a super best seller, with the product owner totally inaccessible.
- I'd contact him/her saying I'm an affiliate marketer and wanted to interview him/her for a product I'm creating and I wanted to feature/promote their product in it as well.
- Ask them what they did in the beginning to get affiliates to promote for them to gain traction, and how they grew that number of affiliates to what it is now.
- Turn that into a product.
Right there, you got the knowledge AND the product. It's a win-win, wouldn't you agree?
And look, those are 2 ideas you can run with right there.
Notice how easy this is though? You wouldn't need to be an expert on anything to implement this 3-step strategy.
And better yet, every single person you ask will have a different answer from that last one, so what's that mean?
...This tactic won't get saturated!
And hell, along those lines you could even compile 5-10 different responses on a given topic into one product to add beef to it. The possibilities are endless.
Tips: Though you can implement this strategy with ANY niche imaginable, there are certain factors that make IM the best market to go into. To name a few:
- if you interview someone in the IM niche, they can double up as an affiliate for your product (which can be VERY powerful)
- the Warrior Forum gives you a hyper-active community with a built-in source of traffic
- you can launch these quick and easy products as WSOs, getting large exposure to hungry buyers very quickly (to my knowledge, no other industry has anything like this)
- when contacting the people for interviews, you can mention you plan on launching the product as a WSO... More exposure for them (you promote their product/site on the interview) and you can split the profits to make it more beneficial to them
- you can pick up affiliate traction for your products even easier, since you're essentially marketing to marketers
I'm not saying this wouldn't work for other niches. In fact, I already made a product on how a guy named Jim Katsoulis tore it up in the fitness niche using interviews as a basis. It can work in any niche you want, but the factors above make IM very attractive.
...And that's all I have for now!
Honestly, take this stuff seriously. Leverage is a vital part of online business in my opinion, and it can VERY quickly get your business off the ground, if you learn how to use it in a positive way that adds value and helps people out
And lastly, a word of advice: don't create these value-packed products to just finish and sell. Use them! If you did it right, the value should be there, so why not use it in your own business? Don't always think in terms of just creating content to sell... Create content to help build a business, use it, and then sell it. What do you think you'd make more money doing: using the information or just selling it? How about you do both? (...By the way, you should.)
Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.
-Tom
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