Source: Radu Hahaianu emailX

Contrary to the point, if you were only promoting other people’s products, like an affiliate program, you would only get paid a commission of about 50%.

However, there are certain affiliate programs which pay out 100% commissions. This is great for you, but it’s also considered a loss. The owner of the product is collecting your customers, which you worked hard for to get on your list.

To give you an example of what can happen if you have no product, I’ll tell you a story about a friend of mine. Let’s call him John.

John makes a killing online…. $1000, $3000, even $10,000 a day. That’s how much he makes. Don’t get me wrong here: his “tactic” is great for making “quick cash,” but not for long-term success.

This type of business also requires you to monitor all the time, so it’s not something you can “set and forget”

To be brutally point-blank with you here, John lost over 75% of his revenue, literally overnight.

So what is he doing? He’s doing 100% Google Adwords Arbitrage. Basically it’s like buying something for $1 and selling it for $2. You bid on keywords to promote other people’s products.

Let me ask you: If you could spend $100 on advertising and get a

$200 return on investment, would you do it? Of course you would.

But what happens if Google, one day, jumps your campaign from

$1 per click to $5 a click? You wouldn’t notice the change until you’ve actually checked your account to see that you owe a ton of money to Google.

John was affected by, what we call, the “Google slap”. This is when Google Adwords makes adjustments where they penalize advertisers who have landing pages with little or poor content. In cases like this, advertisers will suddenly experience higher minimum bids.

The bottom line is — you can’t rely 100% of your efforts on one thing, especially something you can’t control. To ensure that you have total flexibility and control, you need your own product.

This brings us to the main topic – “10 ways to create your very own info-products from scratch.”

I’m not going to teach you how to build your site, design your graphics, write your salesletter or bring traffic to your site…there’s already enough information about these topics.

Now, without further ado, let’s start creating your product…

Product Creation Method #1: “Use Private Label Content”

One of the easiest and quickest ways to product creation is to

look at purchasing existing products that you can private label and then resell as your own.

Private label rights give you all the benefits of having your own product without the time and effort of creating it yourself.

Many people who purchase private label content don’t extract much value from it. They think that private label content is always used as site content – and fail to see other options, which could easily be more profitable.

For instance, did you know that most private label content can be repackaged into physical and electronic products, such as books, without breaking the terms of the sale? Well, if you didn’t, you do now. All you have to do is check the terms of your PLR content provider. If he/she allows you to repackage it into products and re-write it, you’re all set to go.

You may have dreaded the idea of creating a book from scratch, but you needn’t worry about creating a book with private label content. It really isn’t all that hard; and it’s rarely time-consuming. In fact, if you have no interest in making the product unique, you can simply replace the author’s name with your own – and immediately put it up for sale.

I personally recommend trying to tweak the product before selling it. If you want to do that, here’s what I suggest:

  1. Download Open Office at the following URL: http://www.openoffice.org. Open Office is an alternative word processing software which allows you to turn normal word processing documents into PDFs by simply clicking an
  2. Scan your computer for some good private label content packages you already own. If you really want to make this technique work for you, you may want to select a package that is related to something you already

Since you understand this market and have a strong foothold, you won’t have to struggle with a new learning curve.

  1. In most situations, your PLR content will consist of a series of articles on a particular subject. If this is the case, take those articles and paste them into an Open Office document. Next, start looking at the titles of the

Think about whether or not there is a good, natural way to weave them all together into a single book. If there’s no particularly good way to do it, you can make each article a chapter; and market the book as a “collection of essays.” Just remember to order them in a way that will make sense to a reader.

  1. Edit the PLR content. Not all PLR content is cleanly edited. You will want to give the articles a quick glance to make sure they do not contain any grammatical or factual

If, for instance, you’re selling a marketing product and you’re an Internet marketer, it could be quite embarrassing if you take credit for factual errors your PLR content provider made.

  1. Make the document look nice. Bold and underline chapter titles. Use a clean font, such as Georgia, Tahoma, Verdana, or Times; and make it large enough for readers, but not too large (otherwise it will look like you’re overcompensating for a lack of content). Size 14 may be

Create a clear table of contents. And, if you want to score points with your customers, create a clean internal-linking system, so that your table of contents links to book chapters. You can easily do all of this using Open Office.

  1. Turn your word processing document into a PDF. If you’re using Open Office, all you have to do is click that little PDF icon on the left hand

And there you go: in a short six steps, you can create a professional-looking, high quality electronic product. Since someone else did all of the writing and research for you, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to do everything.

But you don’t have to stop there. You could do something that most PLR product buyers don’t – something that would make your product stick out from the rest. You could take your book and convert into audio or even video; and either package it with your electronic book or sell it separately.

Most audio and video recording products are pretty inexpensive today. All you need is a microphone and something like Camtasia. If you want to do things as cheaply as possible, you could download a copy of CamStudio, which is completely free.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you should have a high-quality professional product. All you need to do is market it.

To find out more about how you can use PLR products effectively, go to the following URL: www.PLRSecretsExposed.com.

Product Creation Method #2: “Interview an Expert in Your Field”

Another fast and cheap way to make a product is to interview an expert in your field – either on audio or through email. Not only will this make for a fast, cheap product-creation process, but it will also give instant-credibility to whatever it is you create.

While “gurus” may be hesitant to take JV offers, they will be significantly less hesitant to give interviews, since the end result will be increased publicity – which is something that most of them welcome, as it increases the value of their brand. This means that finding an expert who is willing to do an interview will be far from impossible – even if it doesn’t seem easy at first.

Now, there are a number of different ways in which you can conduct this interview. I personally suggest you approach it like this:

Send the expert an email telling him/her that you’d like to conduct an interview. In that email, explain that you are willing to do it either through email or using audio (i.e. through Skype or some other conferencing system). Let the expert decide whether to conduct it through audio or email. This will make him/her far more likely to respond and to accept the interview.

If you can get an audio interview great. In general, audio and video products have a higher perceived value. If, for instance, you offer an exclusive audio interview with guru such-and-such, you are likely to pull far more interest than if you sell the same product, but in report format.

Now, with that said, there are some people who prefer products in PDF format. For that reason, you will want to either create a transcript of the audio conversation; or hire someone else to do it for you. You can hire someone on http://www.elance.com to do this for a relatively low price. A better place would be http://www.escriptionist.com.

If you end up conducting the interview entirely through email, you will want to spend the time to come up with some relevant questions. It’s often easy to succumb to the temptation of being lazy and sending your interviewee trite, uninteresting questions. But remember that if

you do that, you’ll get pretty bad answers, no matter how interesting the person is. Additionally, you’ll find that whoever you interviewed will be less likely to want to work with you again in the future.

Alternatively, rather than imposing a long interview on a single expert, you could ask for the expert opinions of multiple people. For instance, I once created a report which basically asked one question:

“What is your number one traffic method?”

I asked about 15 top marketers and compiled it into a report I used as a lead generator.

When a potential buyer sees that the wisdom of 15 experts is packaged into your single report, they’ll have a tough time resisting it. Additionally, if you’re only asking experts to give you about 1-3 paragraphs worth of advice, they’re not going to fiercely resist your proposal. Instead, they will probably be more than happy to give you advice; and to be lumped into the category of expert, along with other people they may admire.

So there you have it: find an expert or experts, interview them on audio or via email, package it in a flashy way; and, in no time, you’ll have an excellent product that you can sell to your list.

Product Creation Method #3: “Use Articles from Article Directories”

Initially, you might think the idea of taking freely available information (i.e. articles from a directory that is free to browse) and bundling them into a book isn’t exactly the brightest product-creation strategy in the world; however, in order to think that, you’d have to ignore how well repackaged anthologies and classics volumes have sold over the course of decades…

Indeed, repackaging, aggregating, and/or putting your own “twist” on something that already exists does add value that customers are willing to pay for. People who buy your product may technically have access to all of those sources, but if they don’t know they exist – or if they don’t want to shift through all of the garbage to find the few gems

– then you have provided a helpful service: you have conducted the research and have compiled high-quality information for them.

Repackaging articles is a completely legitimate and effective way to make products. In fact, if you look at a number of successful book series, such as Chicken Soup for the Soul (http://www.chickensoup.com), they’re nothing but repackaged stories that were submitted to an editorial board. The editors simply put their spin on the stories by creating an introduction, conclusion, and theme (for each book).

There’s only one important caveat to keep in mind (and keeping it in mind will make the product-creation process easier): you cannot legally use articles from directories to create products unless you solicit the permission from their authors.

What that means is straight-forward enough: rather than selecting 3-4 articles at a time, sending out emails to the authors, and waiting for responses, you should take a different approach. Find 20 or more good authors at article directories such as:

http://www.ezinearticles.com http://www.articlecity.com http://www.goarticles.com

(More resources in the “Hot Resource Cheat Sheet”)

Rather than picking through their articles first, immediately email each of them asking if you can use their material in one of your upcoming products. Tell them you will place their respective resource boxes in your book, so that they receive credit for their articles.

Some authors will respond quickly to your email. Others will ignore it. Rather than waiting on the slow responders and non-responders, go with the authors who respond quickly. Immediately start sifting through some of their articles and grab the ones that look best to you. Ideally, you will want to come up with some type of theme, too; and then select articles that best match your theme.

In total, you will probably want to select between 10 and 30 articles for your book, since each article will run about 300-400 words, which will take up only slightly more than one page.

Again, if you haven’t downloaded Open Office at this point, it’s a good idea to do so. You can find it at the following URL: http://www.openoffice.org. Not only is it completely free, but it will make all product-creation products much easier by allowing you to create clean PDFs by simply clicking one button.

Product Creation Method #4: “Outsource Your Product Creation”

If you’re in a bind and need to get a new product on the market quickly, one of your best options is to outsource the entire product- creation process.

Why write your own product, create your own graphics, and produce your own audio and video? Not only is it a bad use of time (which you could otherwise spend marketing), but it is also a bad way to create a product.

Think about it: why are you singularly qualified to do all of these things? People who write for a living are likely to write better; people who do graphic design work will likely make a better logo or book cover; and people who do audio and video regularly will likely do a better editing job.

…Even if this weren’t the case, it is still much faster to outsource the entire product creation process. If you do it all yourself, you will find yourself suffering from writers block, neglecting other important tasks, and struggling with basic technical issues. Let someone else do it; and pay them to get it done fast. Your primary concern should be designing and executing a flawless marketing campaign…

So where’s a good place to start? First, decide what you’re going to create and really think hard about whether or not it will sell. If you’re selling an IM product, ask what is it that people want right now. Do they need information on traffic-generation or information on using YouTube effectively? Also, ask yourself how do they want it packaged. Do they prefer video and audio to ebooks – or do they like both? Write all of this down.

Next, in detail, consider how you want the people you hire to create this product. Do not heap the details on high enough to stifle their creativity (or to waste your time), but include enough tips and constraints to make sure you end up with the product you actually asked for initially.

When submitting your product to a writer, graphic designer, or video/audio creator on http://www.elance.com or http://www.guru.com,

include your detailed-instructions for how he/she should create the product. Additionally, tell him/her to feel free to email you at any point to get more information. As a last measure, you could also require the freelancer to check in with you, say, once or twice before submitting the completed product.

If you do this all correctly – and ensure that you find high-quality freelancers – you should have no problem generating a better product in a fraction of the time it would take you to do alone. Additionally, since you paid for it, you will be far more compelled to take action and sell it…

Product Creation Method #5: “Run a ‘Money-Making’ Survey”

Conducting a survey is one of the best ways in which you can get relevant information about your own list or target market in general. After all, if you’re planning to market your product to your list, shouldn’t you first try to find out what it is THEY want? Don’t assume they’ll simply buy anything from you. If you create something that appeals to them, they’ll be far more likely to buy it…

Running a survey is one of the easiest ways you can get their opinion on what product you should create next. I personally suggest conducting two different surveys at the same time. The first survey should collect extremely basic information from all of the respondents. It could say something like the following:

“I’m planning to create a new product in the next month. I want to help you solve the biggest problem you encounter as a marketer. So please select the problem from the list below that you struggle with most:

  1. Getting traffic
  2. Converting traffic into sales
  3. Creating products
  4. Finding profitable markets
  5. Keeping your list active and interested
  6. Other (please specify)”

Something like that could be the first survey. Attached to that first survey should be something like this:

“I’m also planning to give away three free copies of my product once it is completed. If you are interested in receiving my product for free, please explain – in detail – what you believe prevents you from being successful as an Internet marketer. I will award a free copy to the three best answers.”

This is a relatively non-aggressive way to extract important information from your list. The first part should give you a rough idea of what problems people encounter without bogging you down with a lot of unnecessary information. If your list members mainly can’t convert

traffic, then maybe they need some help writing better copy. There you go.

The longer responses will give you even better information. Even if you don’t use them for that particular product, you can use them in the future. Not only will they give you better information to aid the product- creation process, but they will also help you to write the salesletter. All you have to do is turn their questions and problems into answers that are covered in the ebook.

Once you’ve determined what you need to talk about in your ebook, all you have to do is write it yourself or outsource it. In fact, you could even write it as a sort of Q&A. Take problems or questions your list members sent you, and answer them one-by-one in your ebook.

Product Creation Method #6: “Let Your List Members Make Your

Product”

Here’s a slightly different approach of the previous method: rather than having your list members tell you what product to make, have them make the actual product for you.

Now, initially, you might think that all information must be flowing from you to your readers, but that is not the case. Think about who your readers actually are: they’re people who are also in the same field, some of whom have been successful in a number of ways. Rather than assuming they know nothing, give them the benefit of the doubt. You may be surprised when you find out who is on your list…

Here’s how to implement this method: next time you send out an email to your list, tell them everything. You can say something to this effect:

“I’m planning to launch a new product in the next month. I’d like to draw from your wisdom, rather than my own. I know many of you are experts in different areas. You know a lot of things that I don’t; and I think many of you can offer this list things that I cannot. With that said, I’m going to give you an opportunity to get published in my next ebook.

All you have to do is let me know the biggest problem you’ve encountered as an Internet marketer – and then tell me how you overcame it. Please include details about yourself, such as your occupation, experience, and website (if you own one). If I like your story enough to include it in my ebook, I will send you a free copy.”

Here’s an important hint: if you haven’t realized it yet, name recognition is extremely important in Internet marketing. Gurus may tell you that becoming successful is as simple as following some traffic- generation formula. While that’s sometimes the case, those gurus often achieved their fame by improving their name recognition.

By getting their name all over the place, they spread their fame and improve their credibility – and simultaneously improved the value of their brand. This is why you still see gurus giving testimonials for a lot of products: they need to remain a household name in order to increase their customer base.

…And this is precisely why everyone will jump all over your offer to get put in an ebook. If they’re Internet marketers, they absolutely NEED the fame in order to improve their status. As their status improves, they’re likely to get more attention from people with big names, which will help them to further improve their brand.

Once you’ve compiled a number of high-quality stories, you don’t have a lot of work left to do. You simply need to arrange them in a logical order using Open Office, edit any grammatical errors, add your own introduction and conclusion – and then hit the PDF icon.

And there you have it: in a matter of a week or so, your list members will have done most of the dirty work for you. You now have a product that you can readily market to your attentive list.

Product Creation Method #7: “Collect Forum and Blog Posts”

People who frequently visit forums and post on blogs tend to be highly accessible. Even if they are busy people, if they regularly post on a blog or forum, it probably won’t be impossible to get in touch with them. They’re “around” in the sense that they check their email and private messages at least once each day.

Here’s how you can take advantage of this:

Create a list of popular forums and blogs that are closely related to your product. Next, SCOUR each of those blogs and forums and dig up the good, high-quality posts. In many cases, they can be quite rare.

As you find these high-quality posts, start emailing each of their authors to find out whether or not you can include them in an ebook. If they’re forum posts, you may be able to send a private message. In your email/PM, explain that you will add all of their information to the ebook, including a live link to their site (if they have one).

Again, most people who are selling something will welcome the exposure. They will also be flattered that you chose to include them in a volume of the best blog and forum posts on the Internet about that particular topic. You could title it something like this: “Best of the Internet: Bloggers and Forum Posters Take on . . ..” That name would be amenable to both buyers and posters.

As a rule of thumb, try to avoid using a subject line that looks spammy. Again, these people likely check their inboxes at least once a day – but they also probably receive a lot of spam that, frankly, they have no interest in reading. You’re writing to them as an outsider.

If they’re an expert, they’ll assume that most people who aren’t also experts (and who have chosen to contact them out of the blue) are probably beggars with little to offer – or, worse, spammers.

Again, from here (once you’ve received permission), it’s all busy- work. You just need to compile the posts, edit them as needed, add an introduction and conclusion, include the authors’ information, select a

good mix of fonts and effects – and, presto, you’ve got yet another excellent product as soon as you click that PDF button.

If you want to score bonus points with your list members – and also make more sales – you could also use video to try out some of the methods outlined in the blog posts; and, in the process, show your list members exactly how they can do them.

But when it comes down to it, your primary focus should be to roll out a good product in a reasonable amount of time. If the videos are going to bog you down – and possibly terminate the project – then don’t do them. Go for simple and complete…

Product Creation Method #8: “Bring a Camera – Interview an Expert”

If you’ve ever been to any live seminars, you probably spent several hundreds or even thousands of dollars on tickets, airfare, and travel expenses. Ultimately, for this price, you ended up with a lot of good information… but there were two problems: a) most of the information didn’t apply to your specific business model; and b) you simply didn’t have the time to implement it.

Well, guess what? There’s a way you can squeeze more value out of these seminars and it doesn’t involve taking notes or focusing harder. In fact, there’s a way you can literally MAKE money by going to seminars, even before you implement any of what you learned…

What do you have to do? Bring a camera and use it to interview at least one of the dozens of experts there. It’s really that simple. In a mere 5 to 10 minutes, you will have original content that is easily worth the amount you spent on tickets, airfare, and your hotel.

So what’s the rub? There is none. You just have to be prepared, so that you are able to actually spot the experts, engage them in a conversation, ask whether or not they are willing to conduct a 5-minute interview, and then actually do it.

At a minimum, you should do the following before you even leave for the seminar: 1) scan the list of attendees for experts and “gurus”; 2) come up with a large list of good questions that you can ask said experts and gurus, so you don’t bumble through the interview; and 3) make sure you bring a decent-quality digital camera.

Once you have that audio/video, all you’ll have to do is convert it to a format that doesn’t take up as much space; and then begin packaging it as a product. Create a transcript of the conversation, package it with the video, and consider including some supplementary information. If, for instance, the guru in question suggested that you try some specific technique – then consider trying it out, getting some screen captures of it, and then adding that to the product.

And there you have it: a fool-proof way to EARN money by simply going to seminars, finding experts, taping the conversation, packaging it correctly, and then selling it in the right markets…

Just to show you an example of how easy it is to interview an expert, check out the “quick” interview with well-known marketer, Ewen Chia:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YpzY2GDpO2E

Product Creation Method #9: “Compile Directory and Freely-Available Information”

The Internet is spilling over with freely available information. Even so, many people are unable to find what they need and when they need it. For this reason, they often purchase ebooks that compile and present this information to them. Even though the information may not be exclusive – or even surprising – they purchase it to avoid wasting time with fruitless and time-consuming searches.

One way in which you can capitalize on this is to quickly generate a product that caters to this crowd of people. Rather than creating “original content,” create a massive archive of information that is freely available already. You can use phone books, free search tools, directories, wikipedia, and other freely available information to contribute to your product. It doesn’t matter how you get the information, provided you are legally able to include it in your product.

Additionally, keep in mind that your product need not be an ebook.

In contrast, you could create a membership site; and, on that site, include updated links and information about a particular topic. To make this concept less abstract, check out the following site: http://www.seizecars.com/.

If you’re not familiar with this genre of products – you pay for access to an auction membership site (in this case, it’s for cars). You are then given access to a treasure trove of links and information about auctions on the Internet and at brick-and-mortar auction houses.

Basically, for the low price of purchasing a membership, you get the chance to spot cars that are thousands of dollars cheaper than they normally would be.

With that said, everyone using these sites could dig up every piece of information for “free”; however, they choose to pay for the convenience and for the updates (and oftentimes on a monthly basis). In order to replicate the success of these sites, you must start by finding a niche that people need information on. Internet marketing is actually a good niche in that respect. Indeed, people are trying to learn more about it all the time.

Once you find that niche, start digging up information. Compile massive lists of step-by-step instructions, product catalogs, addresses of suppliers, relevant email addresses – and so on. After you finish that, organize everything into a clean and straightforward list.

It may take you a week or so to collect all of the information and to organize it, but in the end, you’ll have a useful, high-quality product – and you wont need a big name to sell it.

Product Creation Method #10: “Make a Product Tutorial Using Video”

On a daily basis, people under-use most software programs on their computers. Whether at work or at home, people tend to be clueless when it comes to fully-employing the features of Excel, Powerpoint, Dreamweaver, or other popular software products.

Even though all of the information is right there (somewhere in the help index), users are generally disinclined to explore and find out new things if they have to sift through a lot of text. Instead, they usually work with the 1-2% of the features that seem most obvious to them.

This leaves an absolutely massive opening for you as a product creator. All you have to do is take instructions that are already there – stashed away in some obscure index – and put them in video format. People tend to find video tutorials far more accessible than book tutorials; and, for that reason, are more likely to watch a video series on, say, Excel than they would be to crack a 800-page book that exhaustively explains Excel (or search through a large, confusing help index that does the same).

There are several keys to being successful with this method. The first is breaking up the videos into categories that make sense and are accessible. If each video is 3 hours long, that isn’t going to help people a whole lot if they need a quick tip for making graphs or databases.

Instead, try to break them up into smaller videos with focused tips.

Another important thing to consider when you make videos is how to present the material. If you simply fly by the seat of your pants and don’t write a script, you’re more likely to confuse viewers than to enlighten them. Instead, write a clear script and practice it several times. Remember that your only goal should be to take something that is normally confusing and make it really simple to understand.

You don’t have to apply this to Excel, Access, or Powerpoint.

Instead, think about how it could work in your particular field. If you’re an Internet marketer, try this: come up with a list of ten things Internet marketers do often, but tend to do wrong. Take keyword research for instance: almost all Internet marketers do it, but many get it wrong.

All you’d have to do here is create some videos of you performing keyword research. You could then give a step-by-step explanation of what you are doing and why; and then explain what common pitfalls are and how viewers can avoid them.

The possibilities are endless. All you have to do is come up with a few video series themes and then actually create them.

You can see how I implemented this strategy on a lot of my products.

Conclusion

I love learning new ideas, concepts and strategies. I can say that, without doubt, I’ve invested thousands of dollars on business education, alone.

Existence is one thing, but growing is another. We either grow or we die, just like a plant.

These strategies and tactics mean zero to you if you do not put any application. Apply what you’ve learnt and I can guarantee you – you will have a higher chance of actually having something out there instead of procrastinating and waiting for that “magic pill”.

Source: Radu Hahaianu emailX

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