Do you know how to create your own product to sell?

Straight off the bat, here are a few key takeaways:

  • Define and understand your niche before creating a product.
  • Identify a hungry audience with strong emotions and limited solutions.
  • Aim for long-term customer relationships and not just single sales.
  • Being an “expert” is relative; sharing your experiences and solutions can be enough.
  • Success depends on target audience responses, not personal biases.

This article will be talking about refining your niche, becoming an expert and the blueprint for making $100K a year from your own information product.

This is part two of a series on how to create an information product, written from guest writer Leevi. If you’re thinking selling a digital product online is a good choice for you, settle in and enjoy this series. — Yaro

Last week we talked about market research and finding a “who” to sell to:

Part 1: How To Create A Product That Sells

I gave an example of taking a general fitness product and attaching a “who” to it and thereby giving that product a specific target market. This helps me lay the foundation for all my marketing efforts as I know exactly who I want to talk to, what their wants, needs and desires are.

Table of Contents

How To Create Your Own Product To Sell (3 Ways To Make $100,000)

How To Create Your Own Product To Sell: The Lucky Ones
Selling Your Own Product: When I Cringe
3 Ways To Make 100K Online Selling Your Own Product
Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle Of Product Creation

How To Create Your Own Product To Sell: The Lucky Ones

  • Focus on the solution and target audience in product creation.
  • Identify audiences with strong emotions, already seeking solutions.
  • Aim for long-term customer relationships, not just single sales.
  • Affiliate marketing is a viable option, avoid overwhelming sales pitches.
  • Continue adding value, helping customers achieve their goals.

Recently I have been helping a friend of mine in the early stages of product creation, which is great because I have caught him before he has become “product obsessed” like most clients I talk to. While we talked briefly about his idea for the product we spent a majority of time discussing “what solution he was providing” and “who he was providing the solution for”. And we dug deep into market research, walking in the prospects’ shoes and really understanding their hopes, dreams and desires.

This is the hard stuff, but this is the stuff that makes the difference between a product that sells and one that flops. We will get to how to create the product but that is the easy stuff.

Last article I talked about the three mega niches. Here are some guidelines on how to narrow down your niche a bit more…

Tips for identifying a hungry audience:

1. Is the person experiencing pain and urgency, or irrational passion? (In other words… a strong emotion to seek out a solution?)

2. Is there an audience proactively searching for solutions… and already spending money to satisfy this desire, want or need?

3. From the prospects’ perspective, do they have few or no perceived options?

4. Is there potential for a long term relationship? (Meaning… are there backend options/opportunities?)

Most of these points are overlooked when creating a product. The last point isn’t even talked about usually. Big mistake. Most businesses know it is far easier to sell to someone who is already a customer than to get a new customer in the first place.

“Does that mean I have to create more products to sell them?”

You can do that but you can also be an affiliate and promote other peoples products. Don’t be like most people and alienate your customers with a bombardment of continuous sales pitches (read more about how NOT to do email marketing).

The same principles that got them to buy your product in the first place still apply with the added bonus they now trust and know you a little more. So you continue to add value and help them along their journey and solve their problems. Along the way you promote some products that are beneficial to them. End result? They get closer to their end goal and you get paid. Everyone wins.

Selling Your Own Product: When I Cringe

  • Clients often overlook market research and niche identification.
  • This leads to flawed products and ineffective selling strategies.
  • Success relies on target audience feedback, not personal biases.

As I mentioned earlier, most of the time when I take a marketing or copywriting job, clients are well past the “market research and product creation phase” and well into the “I’ve got the greatest product, sell it for me!” phase.

Usually I am hired to market or write copy for a product that is inherently flawed from the outset due to poor market research and lack of niche identification. I spend most of my time with the client asking them about their market research, niche validity, the “who” they are selling to etc.

Usually I come up empty handed and all I am left with is “I thought it would be a really good idea” or “I ran it by a few friends and they also liked it”.

Totally flawed logic. It’s like asking someone who is not your prospect what they think of the copy on your salespage. Who cares what they think! You only care about what your target audience thinks about your salespage, about what potential customers think about what you have to offer. Remember: remove your ego from the sales process.

3 Ways To Make 100K Online Selling Your Own Product

  • Make $100K by selling a $37 eBook to 2703 people, less than 10 sales per day.
  • Earn $100K by selling a $297 audio program to 337 people, about one sale per day.
  • Generate $100K by selling a $47 teleseminar to 2128 people, or 177 attendees monthly.

Breaking it down like this is similar to my goals article. Where I talked about a writer making 100K from 333 monthly subscribers.

The potential to make 100K from your own information product can be done relatively cheaply and once you see the figures it will astound you.

Let’s have a look:

$37 eBook$37 x 2703 sold = $100,011

If you break that down per month 2703/12 = 225 eBooks sold per month!

Less than 10 a day.

Are there 10 people in the world that you can help with your knowledge or benefit from what you have to say?

$297 Audio Program$297 x 337 = $100,089.

337/12 months = 28 audio programs per month

Less than 1 a day.

You can easily record audio with your computer if it has mic or a cheap plug in/headset. Use the free audio program audacity.

Divide your topic into about six sections that you think you could talk for one hour on. That will make six CDs. If you know your topic really well (and you should you’re the expert in it), you should easily be able to talk about it for six hours.

Use a company like Disc Makers to put the audio onto CDs.

Why CDs and not just downloadable audio? You can use downloadable audio, but I think the perceived value is cheaper. Sometimes an actual physical product that needs to be shipped will have more perceived value in the customer’s eye.

$47 Teleseminar $47 x 2128 =$100,016

2128/12 months = 177 people a month

For $97 a month (two paying customers) you can use instant teleseminar and set up 250 US and Canada dial ins.

Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle Of Product Creation

This would be the biggest hurdle for most people looking to create an information product.

To be honest, it is not that hard to be an expert. You may have encountered, got on your own journey and solved a major problem. If you validate your niche you may find that others are also having that problem. Well, you solved it so you can share your experience with them. And as long as the problem shares some pain, urgency or irrational passion then you have a good starting point for a potential product.

Often we don’t need to be world class experts on a topic. Remember we are not writing a thesis or giving a University lecture. We are simply helping people on their journey.

On a journey from A to D, you may only be a “C”, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help people get from A to B. In fact, I often feel that when you are less removed from where your prospects are starting you can better appreciate and remember what it is like to be in their shoes. When you become too far removed you easily take for granted all you know and what you can do, and you may forget what it is like to be a beginner and what steps they need to concentrate on.

Leevi