Reconsidering the products you've put on hold

9 replies
A few months ago I finished up an ebook and sales copy, but lost confidence in the product for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the less than lukewarm reviews I managed to get from a handful of friends.

But over the past few days I decided to dig into my treasure trove of ideas and products in various states of completion and picked the first one that caught my eye. I popped open the folder and began reviewing the sales copy I had written and was like "Holy crap, I'd buy that if it were for sale!".

Then I went through three or four others from the back burner and discovered that I have slowly created about a dozen or so great products and workable plans, all at times when I had lost confidence in myself and the marketplace in general.

So I'm pulling out the product that's the most ready for sale and giving it a try soon.

So what does any of this have to do with you?

Well, how many ideas or products do you have laying around that you've lost interest or confidence in?

Do you have half-finished projects and ebooks that you can quickly put some work into and get them out there now, rather that trying something new... again?

Just a few thoughts and maybe a nudge in the right direction. Hope it helps someone

Paul
#hold #products #put #reconsidering
  • Profile picture of the author dvduval
    For me, this process you describe is more the norm than the exception. For example, just this week we launched a Link Cleaner product that I started I believe in 2008, but never had a solid launch. Finally, this weekend we made a few hundred and this will be a product with great recurring sales.

    The secret to writing is in rewriting, whether that be an ebook, or software in my case. You have to keep refining it over time, and you can't always get the perfect product on the first try. You keep making it better over time. That is why books have "editions", and the best non-fiction books have MANY editions (and software has versions or releases).
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Short
      Originally Posted by dvduval View Post

      The secret to writing is in rewriting, whether that be an ebook, or software in my case. You have to keep refining it over time, and you can't always get the perfect product on the first try...
      Excellent insight. And congrats on breathing new life into your Link Cleaner product. I hope you have great success with it

      Paul
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      I write stuff for marketers and my current clients keep me comfortably
      busy. But if you make me the right offer, I'll write stuff for you too.
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      • Profile picture of the author David_Thompson
        Originally Posted by Paul Short View Post

        Excellent insight. And congrats on breathing new life into your Link Cleaner product. I hope you have great success with it

        Paul
        dude what's up man, haven't seen you around man
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      • Profile picture of the author ExRat
        Hi Paul,

        How are you doing?

        Reading your post makes me want to make another point to you, but I'm guilty as sin of the same crime...

        Just get rid of the confidence problem and all will be solved.

        but lost confidence in the product for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the less than lukewarm reviews I managed to get from a handful of friends.
        Should you really be shelving products for this reason? What if the marketplace bought it in droves? How will you ever know? What's the worst thing that can happen?

        I popped open the folder and began reviewing the sales copy I had written and was like "Holy crap, I'd buy that if it were for sale!".

        Then I went through three or four others from the back burner and discovered that I have slowly created about a dozen or so great products and workable plans, all at times when I had lost confidence in myself and the marketplace in general.
        Same answer - there's a lesson there, which is that the only problem that these products had were 'lost confidence.'

        As I said above, I'm guilty as sin of the same thing and I don't have a handy, workable solution, except to simply force myself to never change plans due to lost confidence - to just totally ignore it as if confidence doesn't matter at all - but I don't have the confidence to do that...{/irony}.

        Reconsidering the products you've put on hold
        ...or never put products on hold again.

        But it's much easier said than done, I know...I need to take my own advice.

        Hope that makes sense.
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        Roger Davis

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        • Profile picture of the author Paul Short
          Roger (ExRat), thinking back about the time I've spent in the marketing game, the times I've done the best are when I went totally against the status quo. So 'getting approval' as I've made the mistake of doing recently goes against what I've done in the past that's gotten me good results.

          I'm dusting off everything right now and putting it out there in a non-conventional way. Some of it has to stick

          Paul
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          I write stuff for marketers and my current clients keep me comfortably
          busy. But if you make me the right offer, I'll write stuff for you too.
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  • Profile picture of the author David_Thompson
    Originally Posted by Paul Short View Post

    A few months ago I finished up an ebook and sales copy, but lost confidence in the product for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the less than lukewarm reviews I managed to get from a handful of friends.

    But over the past few days I decided to dig into my treasure trove of ideas and products in various states of completion and picked the first one that caught my eye. I popped open the folder and began reviewing the sales copy I had written and was like "Holy crap, I'd buy that if it were for sale!".

    Then I went through three or four others from the back burner and discovered that I have slowly created about a dozen or so great products and workable plans, all at times when I had lost confidence in myself and the marketplace in general.

    So I'm pulling out the product that's the most ready for sale and giving it a try soon.

    So what does any of this have to do with you?

    Well, how many ideas or products do you have laying around that you've lost interest or confidence in?

    Do you have half-finished projects and ebooks that you can quickly put some work into and get them out there now, rather that trying something new... again?

    Just a few thoughts and maybe a nudge in the right direction. Hope it helps someone

    Paul
    Paul I have the same problem like you man I lost confidence in myself and the marketplace too and just left it all on my dashboard...

    Now I'm getting these products updated so things are back on track..
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  • Profile picture of the author Valdor Kiebach
    It was just today that I decided to use my old desktop PC for something and had a quick look through the harddrives in it and found 4 unreleased products in various states of completion so I put them on a flash drive so I can complete them on my laptop.

    I have a lot more than 4 but decided not to do to much at once otherwise I would just end up with unfinished products on a flash drive.
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  • Profile picture of the author angela99
    Originally Posted by Paul Short View Post

    A few months ago I finished up an ebook and sales copy, but lost confidence in the product for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the less than lukewarm reviews I managed to get from a handful of friends...

    Do you have half-finished projects and ebooks that you can quickly put some work into and get them out there now, rather that trying something new... again?

    Paul
    Paul, I always have products in various stages:

    * Stage 1: Bare idea, with brainstorming;

    * Stage 2: Early draft, to get structure, and the POINT of the product (what will the reader get from it? Will it make a real difference in anyone's life? How?)

    * Stage 2a: Sales page: a draft of the sales page. Benefits?

    * Stage 3: Testing on students. Share the material and processes from it. Is it usable? Can they do whatever it is?

    * Stage 4: Final draft.

    At any one time I have around ten projects in various stages. Some projects die at Stage #1. Others have problems at Stage #3. That's OK. I can reuse as blog posts, or as part of another project.

    Big tip: avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. I had a tendency to do this too. When I started writing as a novelist 30 years ago, I was looking for a blockbuster book, one that would make me rich and famous. :-)

    It took a couple of years of intermittent writer's block for me to understand that writers just write.

    You write every day. It's good or it isn't. It's just what you wrote on a particular day. Nothing is final. You have no real idea whether it's good or not, you can only guess. You're usually WRONG. You're a rotten judge of your own material.

    For that matter, so are others.

    Paul, re your "lukewarm reviews I managed to get from a handful of friends..." STOP DOING THAT.

    I've never asked family members or friends to read my writing. What can they say? They have no idea what you're trying to do. They won't pay you for it.

    Even professional advice can be wrong. Over the years, I've had two New York literary agents "helping" my career. They almost helped me right over a cliff, and were far more trouble than they were worth.

    You only learn whether a product is "good" or not when you sell it.

    In a nutshell: get products into the marketplace. COMPLETE PRODUCTS AND SELL THEM.

    WSOs are great for testing products. If a product bombs, so what?

    Dud products are WONDERFUL. You can usually learn much more from them than from your successes.

    I know it's hard to get products out there. You leave yourself open to rejection. But you're not what you created. You're growing and learning. The dud product of today helps you to create tomorrow's blockbuster...

    Cheers

    Angela
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  • Profile picture of the author David_Thompson
    just been having words with my programmer to completely redesign my app for a release it's been well over 18 months sins I did anything with it..

    Plus all the other projects we have just sitting on our desktop...
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