Chapter 15 Product Creation

Chapter 15, Product Creation...

"Every Online Step.com Training Course"

I don’t have to tell you that to make the most amount of money online, you need your own product. Even if that product is nothing more than a short 5-10 page report you use to generate leads for other products and services you’re an affiliate for.

The problem has always been coming up with solid ideas.

What you have to keep in mind is that whenever I say product, I don’t necessarily mean an ebook. Your own product could be a short video tutorial, a short report, an eCourse, etc.

What I’m giving you here is a reference to help motivate you and stimulate ideas when you’re looking for a way to add some extra cash to your bottom line.

This is a no B.S., no fluff chapter so take a little time to read it and more importantly put this information to some good use.

Idea #1:

Create an Email Course with Reprint Rights for Quick and Easy Cash

Why should you bother with creating an eCourse? People online don’t know who you are and for the most part they simply don’t care.
People tend to care about themselves first and then anyone else who seems to care about helping them get what they want. That’s something you should always keep in the front of your mind.
Show people that you care about helping them get the things they care about and in exchange they will be more than willing to give you their money. What you want doesn’t really matter to anyone but you.
I know that sounds harsh but it's the gospel truth.

You can show people that you value them by creating informative email courses that do more than just try to sell them a product you want the commissions from.

An eCourse (or email course) is just a series of lessons on a related topic distributed at set intervals through an autoresponder. They are created to teach people how to do something you already know how to do pretty well and not to sell them a product or service.

I’m not saying that your lessons shouldn’t contain links to products that make you money, just that you can’t make that your primary goal. An eCourse isn’t a giant ad for products you sell.
If people never buy the main product you want them to buy, they should still get enough quality content from your email course to do something with.

That actually makes them more receptive to your product offers. Most publishers push ads in people's faces without giving them enough information on the topic to really make a buying decision. Don't do what your competitors do. Be better than that.

Ideally an eCourse should be high-quality content with very few links to products directly related to the content of your lessons. I mean it only stands to reason that people would be interested in more information just like the information they're reading.

By providing quality information before asking people to check out a for sale product, you introduce a level of credibility to your recommendation simply because most people don’t bother to take the time to give helpful information before trying to sell a product.

The Easy Way to Create an Email Course

Create a series of short tips or strategies related to a specific topic.
When you create a compilation of tips and strategies you can basically make every email relatively short and to the point. People want information they can quickly read and use. Authors who publish “real” books also know this.

Here are a few titles of books I found on Amazon.com…

147 Tips For Teaching Online Groups
187 Tips for Artists: How to Create a Successful Art Career
52 Tips for Texas Hold 'em Poker
50 One-Minute Tips to Better Communication
101 Saxophone Tips : Stuff All the Pros Know and Use
101 Guitar Tips : Stuff All the Pros Know and Use
101 Keyboard Tips : Stuff All the Pros Know and Use
101 Nutrition Tips For People with Diabetes
100 Tips for Acoustic Guitar: You Should Have Been Told
500 of the Most Important Health Tips You'll Ever Need
20 Communication Tips for Couples
I could go on and on but you get the point.
And you don’t need hundreds of tips for an eCourse. Ten or twenty would do the trick. Remember, they don’t have to be long. They could each only be one or two paragraphs in length as long as they deliver on the information promised in the title.

Quick Tip: ==================================================
I’ve found that specific numbers attract more attention than round numbers. For example, instead of 10 or 20 tips, you could create an eCourse with 7 or 19 tips. Numbers like that make people take notice so that’s just something to think about.
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This is one of the easier ways to go because you ultimately don’t have to do a lot of writing and you get to create a 7-19 or more part eCourse quickly. The more tips you come up with, the more chances you’ll have to sell people your products because you’ll have more contacts with them. Just make sure to make every tip worth the read.

The More Traditional eCourse Route

Generally people will create an eCourse not only to showcase their knowledge but to promote affiliate products. Personally, I've found that it's better to promote a single product throughout your eCourse instead of having multiple products mixed in.

Keep in mind that if you're going to create a series of tips like I talked about earlier then it may be ok to promote multiple products since each one of your tips may be suited to a separate product but generally speaking it's best to keep people's minds on the one thing you want them to do.
The major difference between an article and the content you write for an eCourse is the fact that your email courses should have three things an article normally wouldn’t.

1) A more conversational tone. For the most part, articles are limited to 500-700 words and that only leaves you with enough room to throw out a few cold hard facts at people. An eCourse (a good one at least) is written in the same way this report was written. In a conversational tone like you’re writing to just one person and teaching that one person how to do something.

2) A clear picture of your personal authority/confidence. You can show people they should look to you as an authority by the way you write. Exude confidence in your words. Stand by what you say without caring about who will think you are wrong. It’s important to keep in mind that many people have shifting beliefs that are easily swayed by anyone who happens to believe in something (or appears to believe in something) with more conviction than they do.
If you believe that you are an authority more than people believe that you are not and you steadily make an effort on a consistent basis to show your authority status, people will start to accept it.
Never apologize for your views on what you say and when you write. Expect people to follow your lead. Be confident in yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish and that will show through in anything you write. Confidence is the major thing here. Do your best to really know what you’re talking about and work from there.

3) Plenty of examples to back up your thoughts. With email courses, people are expecting more than just a short and sweet straight to the point article collection. They want information they can take and actually use right now. To make your information usable you have to give examples of what you’re talking about.

What I'm saying is this...

If you're telling people to do something, try to follow your own instructions and see what happens. If you don't get the result you want, keep modifying your instructions until you can actually accomplish what you're trying to teach people.
If you do that with the next product you sell, you'll have people lined up (money in hand) waiting for you to sell them something else.

The "Secret" To Coming Up With Hot Topics To Write About

The secret is... there are no secrets for coming up with “hot” topics to write about. It’s a fluid process that’s based on two simple things all good products are based on.

1) A problem your target market has or an answer to something their curious about. If you don’t know what people want to know more about then ask them. Since people want solutions to their problems or answers to their questions, they'll likely tell you exactly what you want to know.

2) Your ability to effectively/quickly solve that problem or satisfy that curiosity. If you’re not sure how to solve the problem your target market has then go out and learn enough so that you do. There have been plenty of times people have wanted to pay me for something I didn’t really know how to do. I just went out and learned, did the job (in some cases that meant outsourcing the job and becoming the middleman) and collected the money.

Creating great content is never really more complicated than that. You should never just randomly come up with eCourse topics because that’s called guessing and if you guess you run the risk of spending your time and effort creating something no one but you thought was a good idea. When in doubt, always ask what people want because they'll tell you.
You can always learn how to do what people tell you they want to know how to do or simply find people who already know something and pay them to create your eCourse content for you. You pay them once then profit from that information for years into the future.

That’s a fair agreement. And remember, eCourses aren’t really long enough to stress about anyway. When you get right down to it, they may be only 7-15 pages (printed out) but because people are looking to buy reprint rights to eCourses for very specific reasons (I’ll get into those reasons later) you can command prices of up to $50 or more per person.
You’d have a hard time getting that much from a 7-15 page report in PDF format. It’s not the length of the information people are paying for. You’ll see exactly what I mean a little later.

If you already have a few articles on a related topic then you have the basic ingredients for your eCourse, but if not, I’m going to lay down a simple “blueprint” you can quickly follow to create your own email course in as little as two to three days.

Coming Up With Solid Ideas for Your eCourse

If you don't already have a bead on what type of information people want...

#1: You should first (if you have a responsive enough list) ask your subscribers. Ask them specific questions like "If I was going to create an email course that you could buy the reprint rights to, what type of information would you like the email course to cover?"

Just so you don't get answers that are all over the place you may want to give people options to choose from like... copywriting tips, how to (do something specific), get more traffic, etc. The great part about going to your list for answers is that you know you have people waiting to buy the rights to your eCourse when it's done and there's nothing like working on something and knowing you'll get paid for it.

#2: Use idea generator #2 to spy on what your competitors think are hot topics.

#3: Use idea generator #5 to spy on what information other publishers are putting out there.

#4: Also use idea generators #10 and #11 to come up with ideas.

#5: Keep an eye on news and current trends to stay on top of what's recently been on people's minds. One way to do that is with http://news.yahoo.com/ You'll see headlines sorted by Top Stories, Most Popular and broken down into topics that allow you to narrow your focus and find what you're looking for.
You're Actually Looking for More Than an Idea

What you're really after is a concept or theme to your email course. I've seen eCourses that jump wildly from one topic to another and had no flow. What happens in a situation like that is the people who read a disorganized eCourse like that become confused and confused people don't buy. At least not from you.

Ultimately you'd like your email course to persuade people to buy something but if you confuse them, they aren't likely to buy anything at all. Lead them in one specific direction.

With that in mind, you need to have a clear objective in mind before you start writing. Your eCourse needs to have a single theme that fits in line with a specific product or specific products you want to promote. My personally feeling is that you should limit the number of products you promote. Focus attention on one or two products you want people to buy.

It's extremely important that you understand the goal of your eCourse before you start creating it. Figure out if you're going to promote a single product (recommended) or promote multiple products throughout your course.
What you decide really does have an effect on how you'll write your course. The easier method is to promote a single product.

The Concept Gives You Ideas To Write About
Once you have the concept nailed down, it's easy to write your course.
You'll see what I mean in a minute.

In my personal opinion, the best way to settle on a concept for your eCourse is to take a look at what types of products are selling well at the moment. Take a look at Idea Generator #11 to see why. Doing this puts you on the path to creating something people have already shown an interest in which makes it easier for you to sell the rights when you're done.
You could also just find a quality product you'll earn a nice commission from and build an eCourse around it. There doesn't necessarily have to be a lot of buzz surrounding the product because if you give people an easy way (through your eCourse) to profit by promoting that product, you won't need any buzz.

Let's say that a product on how to create your own products is hot right now. You may want to develop an eCourse on product creation and tie it into that product. Since a hot new product would have lots of active and motivated affiliates, you could tell people they could use your eCourse (after they buy the rights) to promote that product.

Which One Sounds Better?

"Product Creation Secrets"

Or...

"Product Creation Secrets: How To Quickly Write Yourself
Any Size Paycheck You'd Like Every Month Like Clockwork!"

Quick Tip: ==================================================
Having the ability to crank out hot products is just like being able to write your own paychecks. Especially if you're selling the rights to those products. Any time someone can buy the rights to a product instead of creating it themselves, they'll jump at the chance so having the ability to create products is like having a license to print money.
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One of the worst things you can do is give your eCourse a boring title because people will just ignore it and you won't make much money selling the rights to it. Creative titles can make a HUGE difference in the way people look at your course.

I said creative. Not cute. Make sure people know what your eCourse is about just by reading your title. If you get too cute, people won't know what you're talking about and since most people are in a rush, they won't stick around to try and find out.

Your offer has to sound good in order for people to want it. Bland product titles will make getting your course into the hands of your target market on a mass scale virtually impossible. People want something out of the ordinary that catches their attention.

Everything is salesmanship.

Your product titles are basically just headlines.
Copywriting applies to your sales letters and to the emails in your eCourses. After all, your eCourses should be able to actually sell the products you created it to sell.

With A Concept In Mind, The eCourse Almost Writes Itself. Well, Sort Of.
The concept or theme is the first step. Next you need to create an outline. But to do that, you need to build a few benefits around the them of your eCourse.
Your concept: Product Creation

How Many Articles: 5

You have to look at the big picture. After someone finishes your course, what are the five main benefits he/she should have gotten?

1.    An understanding of why creating your own products is important.
2.    A few easy ways to generate hot product ideas.
3.    How to get other people to create products for you.
4.    Where to find "hungry" consumers who are in a ready to buy mood.
5.    How to easily persuade people to buy the products you create.
You basically want to list as many benefits people will get from reading your eCourse as you can think of then narrow the list down for as many articles as you want to write. Each benefit will become the starting point for each article.
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An Example Outline

Title Of Your eCourse: Product Creation Secrets – How To Quickly Write Yourself Any Size Paycheck You'd Like Every Month Like Clockwork
How Many Articles Will Your eCourse Contain: 5
Article 1: Why You Need To Create Your Own Products
Article 1 Topics
1. Why you need your own products.
2. Why your competitors make more money than you do.
3. Why you probably won’t make much money online unless …
4. How I figured out what was going on …
5. If you want to break free from the frustration of constantly seeing people who are no smarter than you making more money than you do with a lot less effort, you need to stay subscribed to this course and put what you’ll learn into action.
Note: The basic idea is that in every article you want to tell people how hard things are for them right now, your own experience or the experience of someone else going through pain and frustration with the same problem you just pointed out to them and the solution.

People won’t care about your solution unless you point out the problem so each article you write has to have an element where you point out a problem before you advise people on putting your solution into action. And as always, use the search engines for research (links to related content) to back up what you’re saying.

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Article 2: A Few Easy Ways To Generate Hot Product Ideas
Article 2 Topics
1. Your biggest obstacle for coming up with good ideas.
2. Most people give up before they even start and I’ll tell you why.
3. Why you don’t need a lot of creativity to come up with solid ideas people would be willing to pay you for.
4. 5 ways to generate solid product ideas.
5. Why you need to stick around for the next email.
And so on …
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What you actually want is for your articles to all tie into one another so that people will look forward to receiving each one. You want them to feel like something is missing if they miss one of your emails. At the end of each article you want to let people know what to look forward to next so each article becomes essential reading.
Creating your outline is one of the most important things you can do because if you don’t know where you’re starting from, it’ll be hard for you to get to where you want to end up.

It’s kind of like asking someone for directions to their house and when they ask you where are you right now, you say “I don’t know”. If you don’t have a solid starting point, it’s hard to end up in the right place.
Sometimes I can sit down and create a 5-7 day eCourse in as little as a day or two simply because I understand what I just told you.

When Your Outline Is Ready …

After your outline you need to really think about how you’re going to come across in your emails. I talk in depth about persuading through your writing in my "Highly Controversial Relationship Marketing Secrets" report. You need to always make sure that you write in a way so that you appear to be the person you want people to see.
You have to remember that no one knows what your intentions are or even if you are a nice and credible person they should listen to. You have to portray the person you want people to see through the way that you write. This takes a conscious effort on your part. Again, you could be the greatest person in the world who’s willing to help people achieve every dream they’ve ever had but if you come across like a boring nobody in your emails, that’s what people will see and that's who they will think you are.

You have to make a conscious effort to make people see you the way you want them to when you write.
How to Flesh Out Your Articles And Write Them
When you have a solid outline in place for an article, actually writing it is the easy part. You have to remember that your #1 goal in each article is to try and build a relationship with the person who is reading it. You do that by providing solid information in a conversational way while making a conscious effort to show that you care about helping that person achieve a goal.

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to write a quality article is to use the search engines to fill in the gaps between what you say and what other people are doing. You want to provide examples of people successfully doing what you’re telling people they should do. But, before you do any of that, I want you to write as much as you can in the most helpful way that you can without putting in any links at all. Make notes in your article of where you think you’re going to put in links but don’t distract yourself with any of that in the beginning.

Make the effort to provide quality content that pretty much stands on its own before you add in one single link. That way, any links you add in later will serve to reinforce and add credibility to your content.
The reason I suggest you do that is because it’s much easier to write if you can just sit down and write without being interrupted. If you take the time to search for information to back up what you’re writing about as you’re writing, you run the risk of losing your original train of thought and in turn you’ll end up with an article that has no flow.
Add in your links later to “beef up” your content but make sure that your content is already there. Give people all the information you promised them and then worry about adding links to related content or affiliate offers. The content comes first.

The Basic Formula For A Never Ending Supply Of Content You Can Use For eCourses
Some people would like you to believe that the reason they can churn out one information product after another is because of their years of experience coupled with “special” knowledge you could never hope to gain. They want to discourage you so that you don’t ever develop enough confidence to compete with them.
Give me a break.

I could tell you that my years of experience is why I can create so many special reports while others struggle with a simple article but this wouldn’t be the whole truth.

True, experience is part of the equation... but the other part is that any person who seems to have a constant supply of information to write about is someone who writes all the time. I mean every chance they get whether they’re preparing a report or not. Writing just to get the ideas they have down on “paper”.

Experience comes from doing.

For example...

Many of the reports I release were rewritten, updated, edited and pieced together from information I had already written and never finished because at the time I may have gotten distracted with some other project or just lost interest for some reason.

When you write a lot (and it gets easier the more you do it) it's easy to come up with new products because you have a constant supply of original information you can "borrow" from and rewrite however you see fit.

You have great ideas all the time that you simply dismiss for one reason or another. Maybe you believe that your ideas aren’t developed enough to create an actual product out of or you just don’t have the time to fully develop them and you know what? None of that matters.

Write down your ideas when you have them because even if you don’t see a use for them right now doesn’t mean that you won’t later. Write them down. Also write down as much as you can about why you’re writing about something.
In the same folder with every .doc or .txt file you create, you should have a text file with all the details about what you were thinking when you originally wrote down what you wrote.
Why?

Weeks, maybe even months later when you come back to things you’ve written... if you write down why you’re writing about something then it’s easier to get back into that state of mind and pick up where you left off. You won’t just be looking at an unconnected idea that you don’t know what to do with.

Believe me I’ve been there and that’s why I know the value of writing down why I wrote something in the first place.
Write down complete ideas you have. If you originally start writing something because you were going to create a report, make a note of that. Make a note of your complete plans for anything you write down. Trust me, it makes picking things back up much easier.

Do this as often as possible and before you know it... you’ll have a formidable collection of powerful ideas, concepts, tips and strategies you can borrow from to create sizzling hot products whenever you want. When you do come out with your product, no one will know or care that part of your “brand new” release is actually recycled from information you previously wrote but never put out there.

As long as you update your information accordingly it won’t matter how long it’s been gathering “digital dust” on your hard drive because it will be worth what you’re asking for it.
An eCourse is nothing more than a set of expanded articles on a related subject written in a conversational tone. That’s it really.

Writing a lot gives you a never ending supply of content you can package together and sell for hundreds, or thousands of dollars in profits per month. You never really have to create a free newsletter where you give all of your information away. Instead, you can sell your information and get paid for the time and effort you spend writing.

Some people spend weeks writing a series of related articles then publish them for free in a newsletter hoping to get paid when someone buys one of the affiliate products they link to in their articles.

What they don’t realize is that they could have turned those related articles into a simple eCourse and gotten paid up front for their work and still collected the money from the affiliate products later.

I don’t know about you but I like the idea of getting paid as soon as I finish writing something as opposed to sitting back and waiting for someone to buy a product they see in one of my articles.

The Right Way to Recommend Products Inside eCourses

This can be part of the fleshing out stage where you add in links to information that backs up what your article is talking about even if that information is for sale. The reason this doesn’t tick people off is because those links (even though they lead to products that you may get a commission from) show products that are perfect examples of the technique I happen to be talking about in that article.

In other words, those links are part of the content.

I’ve seen eCourses where you’ll be reading the article then get an ad right there in the middle for some product that’s not even related to the contents of the eCourse itself.
Now that’s a little annoying.

However, when you make any links you present a natural extension of the content you’re writing, people will visit those sites to see what you’re talking about with an open mind.
The Real Key

Don’t make every link a link to a product or service you’ll get paid from. It’s not necessary and it serves the purpose of turning off people’s advertising alarm when they see that you’re also linking to information you believe will help them even if you don’t get paid from it.

The bottom line is if you find links to resources that fit in with your content and offer genuinely helpful information to your readers; don’t keep it from them. It’s your job to deliver on your promises and if you have to link to non paying products to do that then do it.

The Main Thing You Have To Remember

No one is reading your articles because they are experiencing a shortage of advertising. They get bombarded with advertising every minute of the day so the main thing to remember is that you’re trying to provide people with helpful information that can take and do something constructive with.
If after reading an article you just wrote, you realize that there isn’t much usable information in it, rewrite it until there is. Your goal should be to create articles so informative that people take action on each one because you’ve provided them with enough solid information to do so. A lofty goal I know, but something to strive for nonetheless.

One Secret To Unforgettable Articles

You can really hammer a point home and create an article few people will forget if you learn to weave stories throughout your material. People are fascinated by stories. If you don’t believe that, just ask any woman what happened on “One Life To Live” or “All My Children” yesterday. You might notice their eyes light up and you’ll probably get more information than you actually wanted.

Below you’ll find resources all about storytelling. What I want you to keep in mind is that you’re not really looking for literal information but more of a feel for how to tell stories that get your point across.
Sure, some of the information below is literal “how to” type stuff but a lot of it is not so you need to really think about how you can apply it.

All of the resources below are free unless otherwise noted. This is just one of those things you’re going to have to read up on.

There isn’t really a step-by-step system that will help you as much as reading everything you can find about how to tell a story and by reading stories written by other people. There is no shortcut but it’s worth the effort.

One of the biggest obstacles you may face in using stories is not knowing how to start. Take a look at this collection to see how writers start their stories.

Again, this is a resource you should study to see how writers start and expand their stories.
Listen, read and learn how it’s done.

Using Your Common Senses

Almost nothing will help you connect with people more than a good story that illustrates a point you’re trying to make. Stories work especially well in emails so think about ways you can pre sell a product through email before you send people to a site to buy something.

An Easy Way To “Cheat” A Story Beginning

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to start a story is to say something along the lines of…

“I was talking to my sister the other day and she was telling me…”
Or…
“Just the other day, I was talking to a friend of mine and you wouldn’t believe what he told me…”
Or…
“Let me tell you a story…
Or…
“Last week I was reading the paper when a striking article caught my attention. The reason I’m brining it up is because…”
Or…
“I was sitting here at my computer wondering how to start this letter when an interesting story popped into my head…”
Or…
“When I was younger…”
Or…
“Have you ever…”
Or…
“How often do you check your email? I check mine every couple of hours and it’s a good thing too because I just got an email from another marketer talking about (insert whatever) and that reminded me of something I wanted to talk to you about…”
Or…
“Last week…” or “A few months ago…” or “Yesterday…”, etc.
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In other words, you begin a written story the same way you would start one if you were talking to someone face to face. There’s really nothing to it. Forget all the fancy rules you’ve been taught about writing and just write.
You’ll start to get used to the idea of having a written conversation with the person you’re writing to and stories will naturally flow from your mind to your fingertips.

Just start "talking"/writing and don't try so hard to come up with an opening. Sometimes the harder you try, the harder it is to come up with something.

You can also just start telling a story with no lead in phrase. That tends to pull people in because they have a need to know what’s going on. In other words, if people are lost in the beginning of your article, they tend to keep reading to try and make sense of what's going on.

Remember earlier when I told you that the brain doesn’t like loose ends? Use that to your advantage. If you can get people to read more than a sentence or two, they’ll keep reading to find out what’s going on. That's the big deal with using stories.

They suck people in. Once you've come up with an idea and created a rough outline, the next thing you need to do is take action.

As far as products go, eCourses are one of the easiest to create. After a bit of practice you should be able to churn out a 5-day eCourse in a day or two and pocket a few hundred to a few thousand dollars in profits quickly.

I know I've written a lot of information up to this point but there are basically only four steps you need to follow.

1.    Come Up With A Solid Idea For Your eCourse
2.    Create The Outline For Your eCourse
3.    Take Action And Start Writing
4.    Put Together An Appealing Reprint Rights Offer.
If you've ever written an article, you can easily get paid for writing a few more.
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The "Quick Cash" eCourse Secret Most People Never Talk About
This applies to selling reprint rights to the eCourses you create.

Really the only thing you need to keep in mind is that as long as your eCourse is on a broadly appealing topic of interest to your target market you will get a fair number of people to buy reprint rights to your eCourse.

Why?

Because most of the people who will buy reprint rights to your eCourse are not doing so because they want to study what you wrote.

They will use your information (instead of creating their own) to get others to join their newsletter, buy affiliate products through them, as a bonus with other products they sell, etc. In other words, they will use your information as a tool to get other things they want.

I know it sounds strange that people will buy reprint rights to an information product they have no real interest in using themselves but that’s the beauty of selling reprint rights to certain types of information products like eCourses.

Many people only care about what they can do with your information (or what your information allows them to do) and not what they can learn from it. As long as your information is of interest to a segment of your shared target market, others will buy that information to target those people.

As long as you attach your course to a quality product that will pay people nice sized commissions, they will want to use your course to get those commissions. It's an easy sell at that point because you've given people an easy way to promote a product.

IMPORTANT: This Is What You Must Always Remember

Even though many people will buy reprint rights to your information with no real interest in using the information themselves, you must always make sure you sell them a quality product because there are a lot of people out there who will read what you write.

Your real goal in all of this is to establish yourself as someone who puts out quality information so you have to be sure to keep that in mind. The people who buy reprint rights to your products extend your reach and introduce you to possibly thousands of people you may never have been able to reach on your own.

So in effect, people end up paying you for the rights to tell other people about you. People who may eventually buy other product from you if they like the quality of your work.

Just think about how introductions work in person. Let's say you're out with a friend and you both run into one of their friends who you don't know. When they introduce you, how you present yourself says a lot about who you are. That being the case, the quality of your work speaks for you before people get a chance to find out more about you.
Make sure you give them the right first impression.

You Basically Get To Name Your Price

What people want in the Internet marketing niche is an easy system they can simply plug into and start making money. They don't usually have the time to sit down and create something of their own so it's just easier to pay you for something you've created.

I’m not saying that you can put any old information together and people will buy it in droves. No. Although it’s true that for the most part people are simply looking for a system they can plug into without doing any work to make some extra money you still need to come up with good ideas and lay out your information in a way people would be proud to present.

The point I just made is that people aren't buying the reprint rights to your email course because they're anxious to read what you wrote. Sure, they'll read it, but mostly just to make sure it's something they would be happy to associate their name with when they use it for their own purposes. I've made $1,700+ a week by understanding what I just told you.
People aren't buying your information. They're buying the rights to make money from your information. There's a big difference. They're paying for the convenience of not having to create something for themselves to make money with.
The Easiest Sale To Make

I constantly talk about the easiest sale to make is when you can sell someone something that helps them do more of what they already want to do. People in our market want to make the most money possible from whatever they do.
That's why they consistently buy up reprint rights to anything they can get their hands on. Creating and selling reprint rights to your own eCourses is one of the easiest things you can do to make some quick cash and hopefully I’ve given you a few ways to get started.

Idea #2:

Use Article Directories to Spy on What Your Competitors Think Hot Topics Are
Marketers write free, informative articles for one reason. To get exposure for whatever it is they’re trying to sell. They spend their time researching ideas and putting together information on certain topics geared towards specific markets.
Use their time and effort to your advantage by “spying” on what they believe are hot topics to write about. It could very well spark some of your own ideas. At the very least you should take a look at as many articles on the subject you’re thinking about writing on as possible. That’ll give you an idea of what your target market is used to seeing. Knowing what your target market is used to seeing you can take concrete steps to make your information better.

Article Directories – Most Viewed Articles
http://www.ArticlesBase.com - Pay special attention to the “Most Viewed Articles – Last 30 Days” and the “Recently Submitted Articles” towards the bottom of the page.

http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com/Most_viewed - Another site that shows you a list of their most viewed articles.
http://www.Freezine-Articles.com - This site (to the right) shows you the top 10 most viewed articles on their site.
http://www.IdeaMarketers.com/library/topviews.cfm - You’ll see the top 200 most viewed articles to spark your ideas.
http://www.ArticleAlley.com/top_articles.php - Thousands of their most read articles are shown so make sure you give them a look.

Other Article Directories

When you browse the sites below, be sure to look for their most recently submitted articles. This will give you some ideas of what marketers who write articles feel are hot topics.

http://www.UltimateArticleDirectory.com
http://www.Article99.com
http://www.ArticleCity.com/search.shtml
http://www.Free-Articles-Search.com
http://www.ArticleFinders.com
http://www.ArticleBlast.com
http://www.ArticlesFactory.com
http://www.ArticlePros.com
http://www.Ebusiness-Articles.com
http://www.EzineArticles.com
http://www.EzinePlug.com
http://www.Amazines.com
http://www.ReprintArticles.com

What you have there is an active research tool that evolves monthly to show you what’s most recent and the topics that people have shown the most interest in. I haven’t seen this idea mentioned anywhere else so I wanted to make sure that you at least heard about it.

Idea #3:

Strengthen a Weak Point in a Competitor’s Successful Product
All this really takes is you going out and looking at (and buying) other people’s products that are out there successfully selling and finding a weak point to improve on.

Forget the people who say this idea is unethical because it isn’t unless you do something unethical with it. Nearly all of the information products you see today came about because one person learned an idea from another person. Ideas cannot be copyrighted.

Only the explicit expression of those ideas can be copyrighted.

What I mean by that is if I see someone come out with a software program that does something great and it’s selling well, I can come out a similar software program that is what I see as an improvement on what I feel are the weaker points of the other program.

I'll give you two examples:

PDF Brander- This is a tool that allows you to upload a PDF that your visitors can customize with their own links then download to give away. There is a $97 setup fee with a $47 monthly fee. This tool allows people to customize your pdf through an admin interface making things easier on them.

Viral PDF - This is a tool that allows you to upload a PDF and a brander that your visitors can download to customize your PDF with their own links. Instead of an interface, people need to download your PDF and the tool that allows them to customize it.

Both tools essentially do the same thing but in different ways. I believe that "Viral PDF" came out after "PDF Brander" to give people a more affordable way to do the same thing. The "weak point" in this case would be that "PDF Brander" requires you to pay a monthly fee where "Viral PDF" does not.

At the time when “PDF Brander” came out, it was the only tool available to create custom PDF’s people could brand with their own links and people bought it because it was the only option.

If you're giving away free ebooks then you may not want to pay a monthly fee to do that. Sometimes it takes a little time for the free ebooks you give away to produce sales but whether your free ebook produces sales or not, you're still stuck with the monthly payments that have to be made. I heard people complaining about that and shortly after "Viral PDF" came out.

As long as you don’t reproduce someone else's idea, product or software word for word, you can create your own version of their idea and sell it and there’s a very good reason why it’s ok to do this. Especially when it comes to information based products.

Have you ever bought an information product it seemed like everybody was raving about but it did absolutely nothing for you?

Do you ever wonder why?
I’ll tell you.

People mainly express their views and ideas from their own perspective and when you really think about it, you’ll realize that it’s kind of hard not to. When you read a product that doesn’t work for you it may be because the author’s perspective on things is so different from your own that you can’t relate to what he/she is talking about.
However, someone else can create a similar product with a few minor “improvements” and just about knock you out of your chair. Most likely because that person is writing from a perspective you can relate to because it’s so similar to your own.

I don’t know about you but if there’s a great product out there that other people are using to produce amazing results and I can’t really understand enough of it to make it work for me, I’d want someone else who does understand the idea to give me another perspective on it that’s easier for me to relate to.
Wouldn’t you?

Again, I’m not saying that you can copy someone else’s work word for word because that will just get you into legal trouble. I am saying that you can take an idea you get from someone else and express it in your own way. As long as someone can’t sit down with your product and someone else’s and see the same words, phrases (basically the exact same product) then you should be ok.

What I recommend is that you take an idea and actually use it to do something specific so that it really becomes yours because you're going to use the idea in your own unique way. Then you can simply express that idea based on what you did with it.

Here’s the thing…

People buy multiple products on the same topic all the time. Why? It’s because they are looking for multiple perspectives on the same ideas. That’s the way this business works.

If someone buys an information product on a certain topic, it’s a fair bet they’ll buy other similar products. So whenever you see something out there successfully selling; there’s always room for you to step in and profit too especially if the product is really successful.

You can be sure that many of the people who were using "PDF Brander" bought Vial PDF to see if it was better than what they were already using.

Idea #4:

Contact Publishers Who Cater To the Target Market You Want To Reach
You can approach and ask these publishers if they wouldn’t mind telling you about some of the most pressing questions they get asked by their subscribers. I know there’s a certain fear that goes along with asking strangers for stuff but what’s the worst that could happen?

They could say no and you wouldn’t get something from them you already don’t have. You have nothing to lose by contacting publishers and asking them if they wouldn’t mind helping you out.
In return, you could give them free reprint rights or first crack at promoting the product you create.

You can find lots of publishers at sites like:

http://www.EzineLocater.com
http://www.NewsletterAccess.com/directory.php
http://www.New-list.com
http://www.Ezine-Dir.com
http://www.Subs.Zinester.com
http://www.EzineSearch.com/search-it/ezine/
http://BestEzines.com

The one thing you always need to remember when you ask someone for something is... "What's in it for them?"
You need to know that before you ask because that's all the person you're asking for cares about.
What can you offer someone that will make them care more about what they're going to get more than what you get? Answer that and you won't hear no very often.

Idea #5:

Subscribe To a Lot of Lists That Cater To the Market You Want To Reach
Publishers constantly rack their brains every week, two weeks or every month (depending on how often they publish) searching the net for information their readers (their target market) would be interested in. You can use their hard work to your advantage by joining their lists and spying on what they send out.
I suggest you get a separate email account somewhere that you only use for subscribing to email lists for research.
You can get email accounts at places like:
Mail.com – Free
Mail2World.com – Yearly Fee

The world of email publishing offers fast results. If a publisher starts to publish crap then they lose tons of subscribers so they are constantly testing ideas to see what works the best. As with anything else, don’t take what you see at face value.

Use your own brain to determine what’s worth taking a closer look at and what to ignore.

Quick Tip: ==================================================
Pay special attention to products and services that are repeatedly mentioned in multiple newsletters because that might be a subject you want to develop a product on. People have short attention spans so if you can tie your product topic into a subject that is already fresh on people’s minds; you have a better shot at getting them to buy.
===================================================

This idea also applies to newspapers and TV. Current events are pushed out there by major corporations with million dollar advertising budgets so why not take advantage of the ideas they put in people’s heads? If the news media does a good job of making people aware of a certain topic and getting them interested in more information on it, there’s nothing wrong with you creating a product on that very topic so that you can put some extra cash in your pockets.

Idea #6:

Create Offers for Women
I’m going to let you in on a little secret that can instant bury your competition because many never consider branching out from their main product to target specific types of people.
What do I mean by that?
Simply this…

If you’re a man, do you realize that women make up at least half of the world’s population? With that in mind, why does there seem to be so few information products out there geared towards women? Women want a lot of the same things men want but the majority of products (at least in the online marketing field) are targeted primarily at men.

Read all of this because I’m going to tie everything up in a few minutes. Marketing specifically to women is a largely untapped market so you can cash in immediately if you hit women with something that catches their interest. Something they can relate to and pass on to other women.
Change Your Focus - Cater Your Message To Women

Below I’ve listed some sites that cater specifically to women and the things that are of interest to them. That’s a huge and largely untapped market. I’m a guy and most of the information I see out there is from other guys so I know women would appreciate information that’s created with them and their needs and perspective in mind.

You have no idea how much people crave information that’s tailored to what they care about written in a way they can relate to.

Quick Tip: ==================================================
Pay attention to the information that’s presented and see if you can come up with ideas that take what you see and twist them in a way that would be appealing to the women who frequent those sites.
===================================================

Most women say that us guys don’t listen and that’s a big clue to what I’m saying. Women will tell you what they want if you just listen long enough. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not (if you’re a guy) but women have no problem buying products that interest them. Find out what topics are of interest to them build around that.

Write down every idea you get and know that you don’t have to actually create a product from your idea yourself.

http://www.IVillage.com
http://www.ConcerningWomen.com
http://www.DivaTribe.com
http://www.WomenTodayMagazine.com
http://www.EzineArticles.com/?cat=Women's-Interests
http://www.BetweenFriends.org - Tips for busy moms
http://SheKnows.com
http://www.Digital-Women.com
http://www.WomanOwned.com
http://www.FoDreams.com/services/directory.php
http://www.AdvancingWomen.com
http://www.BlueSuitMom.com
http://www.WomensForum.com
http://www.AWomansResource.com
http://www.4Woman.gov
http://www.BriefcaseMoms.com

Here’s the thing…

Women have the same hopes, dreams, fears, feelings and insecurities that men have. As you absorb more and more information from sites like the ones I’m listing, you’ll start to realize that creating products targeted specifically for women doesn’t require much more work than creating a regular product you try to sell to everyone.
People are mainly interested in information that comes from their point of view or that at least tries to come from their perspective so targeting women with your information gives you an advantage over competitors who for the most part ignore a large segment of our population.

Quick Tip: ==================================================
The cool thing about developing products specifically for women or any other market for that matter is that you can then go about selling your information to those markets using the same sites and resources you used to find out about them in the first place.
===================================================

Yes, that even applies to magazines.
What you could do is contact the magazines you’re subscribed to and ask them what their article submission guidelines are so that you can start submitting your own articles to them.
Remember, you can get other people to actually create your articles so if you find a market that has a lot of passion about their chosen subject, you can get your own information created for that market and get free advertising to those people by submitting your own articles.

If you need to find magazines that cater to women to subscribe to, I found a few sites for you to check out:

Amazon.com
DiscountMagazines.com
Magazines.com
MagazineBlowout.com
MagazineLand.com
Mags4Cheap.com
MagsOnTheNet.com
MagMall.com
NetMagazines.com

That should be enough to get you going. Those sites allow you to buy subscriptions to various magazines on a wide variety of topics at discount prices!

In general, people who subscribe to various magazines are constantly hungry for the type of information those magazines produce so they’re an ideal market to sell information to.

Again, most of your competitors completely ignore the offline market, which is why you should not.
If you want to learn how to quickly write quality articles look at:
The Article Speed Writing Formula

Last, but certainly not least, listen to your customers. Ask, and then listen. Women will tell you everything that you need to know about how to market to them and how to make them want to buy your products. Just ask and listen.

Idea #7:

Create a Product Based on Something You’ve Actually Done
I know that seems obvious but if you pay close attention you'll see that many products out there are about how to do something instead of how the author did something.

There's a subtle difference there and it's an important one.
For the most part, people are very insecure about their ability to do something for the first time so learning how to do something from someone who has already done it is appealing for that very reason.

The average "How To" product just isn't as appealing as the "How I Did It And How You Can Too" angle.
If you don’t know how to do something other people would also like to do, then go out and learn how to do something constructive.

Everybody who knows something at one point didn’t know what he or she now knows. They went out and learned what they know and there’s no reason why you can’t do the same.

The whole point of your short report is to demonstrate to people who don’t know you that you know what you’re talking about and therefore are someone they should listen to and buy products from.
Teaching people from your own experience instead of just telling them how to do something you haven't really done yourself is a great way to get them to trust what you say in the future.

The biggest thing is that when you’re writing a short report from your own experiences is don’t hold anything back. You’ll always have something else to write about later so don’t hold back. Give people all the information you can give them about the subject they trust you to provide information on.

If you do that, you’ll have no shortage of people lining up to tell others about the quality of your products and when they do that, you’ll have no shortage of checks to fill up your bank account.

Idea #8:

Ask yourself questions like “Wouldn’t it be great if…”, “I wish there was a way to…”, “What’s the best way to…”, “There has to be a better way to…” and so on.
This is similar to the previous idea generator. It’s basically just a variation on the same theme. Your brain (like everyone else’s) just hates an unanswered question. When you ask yourself questions, your brain will continue working on an answer even while you sleep.

Your brain hates “loose ends” and will always seek to tie them up.

With that in mind, try to ask yourself questions that the people in the target market you’re trying to reach would ask themselves. The questions I just gave you are pretty standard and I’m sure you can come up with a few of your own with a little thought.

If you can hit on something you want to know about and there aren’t a lot of products already out there, you could be in a great position to step in, fill a void and cash some checks where your competitors never even saw an opportunity for profit in the first place.

WARNING: The hidden danger with this approach is that you could end up creating something no one but you wants so before you put any real time into developing a major product always do small scale tests and expand from there if you're not sure an idea will fly.

You might want to do something like this...

1.    You write an article and judge the feedback. If the results are positive move to...
2.    Creating a short report on the same topic. No more than 10-20 pages. It could even be to your advantage at this point to give your report away for a short period to gauge the response. If the response is overwhelmingly positive then you might want to...
3.    Create a more detailed (for sale) report perhaps with audio and/or video that gives people exactly what they need to put your information to good use.
Creating a detailed report with audio and/or video right from the start could be a big waste of time if there's no real interest in the subject matter so if you're not sure about an idea, test the waters first and see if you get any bites.

Idea #9:

Borrow ideas from magazines that feature successful people and hot topics.
Borrow ideas from magazines that feature successful people and hot topic articles.

Magazine editors are “under the gun” every month to produce quality articles on relevant topics their readers would be interested in. Why not use their hard work to your advantage. Subscribe to magazines that cater to whatever market you’re thinking about writing for so you can use ideas other people have taken the time to research for your own use and profit.

Get magazine subscriptions at sites like:
Amazon.com
DiscountMagazines.com
Magazines.com
MagazineBlowout.com
MagazineLand.com
Mags4Cheap.com
MagsOnTheNet.com
MagMall.com
NetMagazines.com

I mean seriously, magazine editors put a lot of work into coming up with great information for their readers every single month and if you’re truly dedicated to making more money, you need to at least stay on top of the current information that’s out there. Don’t let the net be your one stop source for information.
That’s how you get left behind.

Quick Tip: ==================================================
If you’re going to be developing products for women and other markets it’s almost a requirement to get yourself a couple of yearly subscriptions to various magazines. Most of your competitors are so stuck on the Internet that they become blind to other sources of information. That’s to your advantage.
===================================================

The whole point of staying current is the fact that many of your competitors don’t. They simply wait around for the nearest “guru” to sell them a product with “current” information in it to work from. Don’t do that. You were born with a brain of your own. Use it.

On top of all that, study the case studies of people profiled in all of the magazines you choose. They are in those magazines for a reason. Find out what idea, invention, insight, etc, led them to where they are. There just might be a hot selling topic in there for you.

Another reason you’ll want to subscribe to magazines, newspapers, online newsletters and the like is so that you can start to develop your own “idea base” that your brain can draw from to generate profitable ideas whenever you need them.

The biggest secret I can give you is that you have to become a student in order to become a better teacher. If you want to teach others, you have to make an effort to constantly learn new things so that you have the ability to constantly give people new direction and insights.

Always look to learn something new for the rest of your life.

Idea #10:

Get together with another marketer to brainstorm ideas and maybe create something together.
Forget about the word competition for a moment because the second you start working with someone else, they are not your competitor. They are your business partner for as long as the two of you are working together. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying… “Two heads are better than one” so test it out to see if it’s true for you.

If you’re truly stuck for ideas, even after going through the previous nine idea generators, you might need to approach someone else who does what you do to work on something together.

Who knows? Nothing may come out of the partnership, but on the other hand, you could end up with a solid idea or product you wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s worth the effort. I routinely bounce ideas off a few people I trust because it’s hard to do it all alone sometimes.

COLLABORATION - Get More Done With Less Time and Effort!
It's so much easier to brainstorm ideas and/or write half of an information product instead of facing a whole project that has to be written from scratch.

Usually what happens is two people get together and decide who is going to write/create what then they part ways and start writing periodically checking on each other's progress if need be. Another reason this is so ideal is that two people can bring more to a project than one person can alone.

You see, I could write a report and some people wouldn't get any- thing out of it, but a marketing friend of mine could write about the exact same thing and get rave reviews and vice versa. Co-Authoring a project helps you to reach more people.

Besides...

Two different perspectives in one product gives it more depth than anything you may be able to create on your own.
When you send out emails looking for a potential co-author or just someone to kick some ideas around with, take a step back and ask yourself if someone had sent you the email you're planning to send out if you'd be interested in the offer.
If you can't honestly answer yes... Rewrite it until you can.

Speaking as someone who has written more than a few email offers, you should ALWAYS speak to the other person's interests. Show (in your email) why a person should even consider what you're proposing. There's really no reason to be scared. Sometimes people will say no but that only leaves you with something you didn't have anyway so it's no big deal.
The big key is to think about what's in it for them?
You need a solid answer to that question.

Everyone is looking out for his are her own self interests. Find out what's important to another person and show them how what you want them to do helps them get closer to their goals. Downplay what you get but don't hide the fact that you get something. It makes people suspicious.

Your offer must be completely WIN-WIN or you can forget it. This isn't the time to be selfish. Look at the big picture. If you co-create an eCourse with someone this week, why not create another next week?
If you offer up a one-sided deal where the benefits YOU get far outweigh those of your writing partner... It will be hard, if not impossible to get that person to work with you.

Ask yourself what would it take for you to get the other person to wonder what YOU will get out of the deal because you've presented so much of what they'll get from working with you.

Always think WIN-WIN and you will have no problem finding people eager to work with you.
Think beyond an ebook.

Ebooks are losing their appeal. Everybody's got one and the sad fact of the matter is that many people who create them could care less about providing solid content. Once people have downloaded their share of worthless ebooks they won't even look twice at yours.

If you're going to write an ebook, don't call your ebook and ebook. Basically anything else you can think of is better. Special Report, Course, Manual... etc.

You could easily get together with another writer to put together a 'hot' special report in 7 days or less. It all depends on how much writing you want to do. Other marketers are going to be creating products anyway so Why not work together?

Idea #11:

Turn someone else’s BIG product launch into your next payday.
One thing people either don't know or tend to overlook is the fact that just because a product is selling well doesn't mean that people actually want the product.
What I mean by that is this...

How many times have you seen a sales letter for a $97 product for example but were only interested in one or two of the bullets listed in the sales letter? You would gladly pay $7-$10 just for the few pages that contain the information talked about in those bullets.

Many times, the sales letter isn't what gets me to buy a product. Most of the time, only certain things a product says it'll teach me will catch my attention.

With that in mind, whenever you see a product out there selling well you should study the sales letter to see if you can develop a simple report based on one or two of the bullets that catch your eye. With the resell rights craze that’s going on right now this could easily spark the idea for your next report. Keep your eyes open and look for opportunities.
This gives you an instant link to a product a lot of people will be out there promoting, so not only can you sell them your low-cost front end report but you can back end them on the product that gave you the idea for your short report in the first place.

Just think about it.

If someone is interested enough to buy a report just based off one of the ideas you got from the higher-priced product, you know they should be interested in that product so you have nothing to lose by sending them to the sales letter for it through your affiliate link.

In a way this is like getting paid to presell an affiliate product. The one thing you need to remember though is that your report needs to stand on its own. It can't be a sales letter for the affiliate product you want to promote. That will just tick people off.

Make it so that your report does what you told people it would do whether they buy another product or not. Your report has to stand up on it's own based on the quality of your information.
Read that last line again and always remember it.

Whenever someone does a big product launch (especially the ones where the product costs $495 and up) they're creating a market of buyers who want the type of information they're selling.

Many people won't be able to afford the big price tag but they still want that type of information.
That's where you can swoop in and pocket some extra cash.

Tying your short (low-cost) report in with a major product launch is an easy way to get paid. Just pay attention to your email and notice when you see a big buzz about a certain product.

Let other people do all the hard work as far as getting people to want certain types of information. You just step in and profit from their efforts with a short report you already know people want because everybody is already talking about the subject. This is much more profitable than trying to guess at what to write about.

Continue To Chapter 16, List Building...

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