Robert Plank

Reading time: 5 - 8 minutes

I really do want you to succeed and the way I made the change from a college student with no money to someone who had a residual income was by phasing out freelancing and creating info-products.

Freelancing is good to start off but you definitely need to establish yourself as an authority in your niche and make a product that people can buy that has your name on it that proves you know what you're talking about and teaches them what you know.

I have made all kinds of training courses about PHP, webinars, list building, WordPress and more and I want you to do the same in whatever niche is your favorite with these simple steps.

Step 1:  Four Part Outline

You can take any problem and solve it in 4 steps. If you take it in even more steps, you aren't solving it simply enough. Let's use creating a website as an example. Here's 4 steps: Get a domain, get a web host, set up a WordPress blog, write your first post. How about writing a sales letter.

Have a headline that tells a story, list benefit bullets, explain features, then demand a call-to-action. If you're explaining something to someone, the best way is in 4 steps. No more, no less. Figure out how to solve a problem in 4 steps.

Step 2: Audio Dictation

Most people hate writing. I have gotten to the point where I liked writing but still it's not my favorite thing to do and I know that I could speak more consistently and faster than writing. I'm pretty sure you are the same way. Hence, you know your subject well enough that for each of the 4 steps, you can explain at least 3 things about it. Let's go back to the webpage example before where I said you need a domain name, a web host, a WordPress blog, and content.

When I explain how to get a domain name, I could tell people why you should only stick with dot com, how to decide on the perfect domain name that's not too long but is also short and explains what it is you're going to be offering.

I could tell people which registrar to get their domain and then what to do after, which could – this is into the second part, the web host – how to choose a web host, how to register with this web host, how to set up automatic billing, how to connect that domain name to the web host and how to get support from that web host and so on.

If you can talk for even 10 minutes about each of these 4 things, that's a 40-minute audio product. That's almost a complete CD. Chances are that especially on some of the advanced topics, you might talk for longer than 10 minutes, and if you can speak for an hour, you're doing great.

Step 3: Sales Letter

From that 60-minute audio, I'm sure you can find lots of things to talk about, reasons why your audio is the best, what people can expect to get out of the audio when they're done and why you are the most authoritative person to listen to. Your sales letter doesn't have to be that complicated.

If you can list 10 good reasons why people would want to buy what you have to offer, you can take some of the better reasons, turn them into sentences, take the really best reason, turn it into a headline, add an order button, and you have a basic sales letter.

Now, all you have to do is promote it to your list and to high-traffic areas, like forums, and get a handful of initial sales. Now, what re you going to do with that money?

Step 4: Reinvest Into a Transcript

Every minute that you speak is about 150 words of written material or a little over half a page.

That means your 60-minute audio is going to be over 30 pages in length. That's a complete report.

If you can add in things like bullet points or checklists, the report will be even longer, but the point is you now have a book and an audio book to distribute digitally, and that means that if your audio was only $10 or $20, now that it is bundled with the written version, it is now $30 to $40.

(Optional) Bonus Step #1: Membership Site

You do want to get that price point to $100, don't you?

Then put it all into a membership site. The simple fact that people can come back into your membership site for eternity, even if they lost their password, is worth slightly more. I have bought CDs of software before that charged me an additional $5 to have a lifetime download area. In this case, don't give people the choice, make them purchase access to this membership site where they will receive your report, your audio, and lifetime updates.

At any point in the future, if you decide to sit down and speak for 10 minutes, that is a bonus that can be found in your member's area. That means at this point, you now have your membership site priced at $50 or $60.

(Optional) Bonus Step #2: Live Q&A Bonus After Six Months

Now, here's the final step towards getting people to the $100 mark. There's something weird about the price point between $50 and $100 and that's why people don't really by in that range. If someone is willing to buy or pay you more than $47, they're probably willing to pay $97.

Don't bother pricing at $57, $67, $77, or $87. Just skip right to the $97 mark. I only price in this range if I am steadily increasing my price to $97.

Because you're a marketer, you could price your training at whatever it's worth and whatever you want. What I like to do is offer a live Q&A or a question and answer bonus, people can ask me any question they want for an hour or 90 minutes.

Once that's done, I will put the recording in the member's area and now, that member's area contains a report, an audio, additional bonus audios, and a Q&A video webinar recording, which is all worth much much more than $100 but just because you like your subscribers so much, you are going to price it at $97 and that price will be a bargain and that's why you take one idea and turn it into a $97 or a higher training course.

If in the future you want to increase the price beyond $97, throw in some live training and make it a webinar course.

Is this the way you create your $100 training courses? What is your method? Please explain it to me...

Do you agree or disagree?

Reading time: 5 - 8 minutes

I know you have at least one idea for a product. Maybe you haven't made a product yet or you've made many products in the past.

How do you know that your big idea is something that everyone else is going to pay money for? We're going to figure out right now if your idea will be profitable in two stages – the research stage and the creation stage.

Stage 1: Research

I don't believe in doing more than 30 minutes of research to figure out if your idea will make you money. I say this because I know of too many marketers who have spent a month or 6 months or a year researching as an excuse not to do anything. Let's spend 30 minutes and figure out if your idea is worth it.

The first thing you should do is check forums. What's the hot topic inside the #1 forum in your niche? When I go to my favorite marketing forum, I find that the threads with the most replies are about articles, membership sites, and ClickBank.

When I go to my favorite programming forum, most of the replies are about PHP frameworks, WordPress plugins, and outsourcing.

Don't bother making a report about something unless it's a hot topic that a lot of people in your small niche are talking about. I'm not a believer in going mass market unless you have a lot of money to invest. If you're just starting out on a niche, start in the niche.

Now that you know what everyone is talking about, figure out what people are paying for. You have friends in the same niche you're in, right? What have they all bought recently? What big launches are going on in your niche? What have you personally paid for? There's no point in getting into a niche unless people are willing to spend a bare minimum of $100 on you.

I have bought products showing me how to make a software outline, how to write faster, how to create video, how to make audio products, and they have all accelerated my path towards getting things done.

The final part of your research now that you know what people are talking about and what people are buying is finding out what your competitors are doing. Go to Google and search for the niche you're in.

If you are thinking about creating a course on how to sell on eBay, search the forum you're on for the word "ebay." Search Google for "eBay eBook," "eBay guide," "eBay course," "eBay video." Go on amazon.com and look for books in that niche and DVDs in that niche as well. This is good because not only does it show you what areas to target but also what your price point should be.

You should match your price point fairly well to your competitors but price slightly higher, that way you will have a higher perceived value.

Stage 2: Solve It

Now that you've done your research, you should know how to adjust your idea to deliver the best solution by answering people's questions on forums, figuring out what they're paying for and duplicating or doing the job better than your competitors. Now, it's time to create the product.

I have never spent more than a few days making a simple lead generation product, and by lead generation, I need a product that's $100 or cheaper. Your product will be a lot better if you write it without distractions and write it as fast as possible. You can always go back and make version 2.0 later.

What's more important than spending or wasting a lot of time on creating a product is to add your own "how to" information. I can go online right now and find lots of tips and advice about placing an eBay ad.

I can find lots of videos on YouTube showing me the mechanics of placing an eBay ad, but I want you to show me what makes an eBay ad profitable. I want you to tell me exactly what steps I should take from start to finish from having something to sell on eBay to actually placing the ad and making the sale and what to do after that.

Also think about what simple problem can you solve for them. For some people, an eBay problem might be that they cannot get people to read their ad.

The sooner you make your info-product not just "how to" but also problem and solution-based, the more people are going to benefit from your book, the better reviews it's going to get and you'll have an easier time making a sale. And finally, what success stories can you gather from the people who use your product?

Here's something to think about. If someone has not yet bought your eBook or home study course, all they have to go on is your pitch page or sales letter.

That's why you need to make your sales letter as best as it can possibly be and the way I like to make a sales letter better is to gather testimonials or proof and show that on the sales letter – so, people who have not yet bought can see that others have benefited from this training.

And that's how you're going to create the perfect info-product and make money doing it. First, researching it in forums by what's making money, what your competitors are doing, and then create that product by offering your own unique how to, solving a problem, and gathering success stories from those people whose problems you have solved and place it back on the sales letter.

Did this help you make your next info-product? Where have you been lacking?

In the research stage or in the creation stage? And how will you get better? Leave me a blog comment below right now while it's still fresh on your mind.

Your thoughts?

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

I am going to tell you something right now that I hope will get you over that hump of making your next information product. It should also change your minds about what your customers are actually paying for and what information you should be giving away.

My mentor for many years was a guy called John Calder. He was really arrogant (which is a good thing!) and the best piece of advice he ever shared with me was, "Don't tell people everything you know."

But what does that mean?

Leave Room For A Sequel!

Here is something to think about: How come every movie you watch does not end with all the characters dying? Because there is a chance that the movie will get a sequel and that some or all of the characters can be in movie number two.

The same is true with your report creation. Do you try to put everything you know about a certain subject in one report? Sure! Can you put EVERYTHING there is to say in that report? Of course not!

A great example is my "Time Management on Crack" report. This is something that started off with me just explaining how I get things done, how I'm so productive. Then, I later added in formulas for writing, for blogging, for video creation and so on.

In fact, it has now tripled the size and got ten times' as much information - and I am still adding to it! But is that my only product about time management? Of course not!

Lance Tamashiro and I have a Membership site all about time management called, "IM Productivity Secrets." I also have a report called "100 Time Savers" that lists 100 quick and easy things you can use to save a minute a day.

Even though "Time Management on Crack" is the best report anyone could ever get about time management, I do have a prequel to "Time Management on Crack," called "100 Time Savers" that is at a lower price point and gets people ready for the main course, and I have a sequel to "Time Management on Crack" called "IM Productivity Secrets" which is a monthly membership site that contains ongoing training. And none of these products have any overlap.

You don't have to give away every single thing you know, because you might have a Volume II of your product.

Keep It Simple!

Here is the next thing to think about: Do you know how your cable internet gets from your computer out into the world? Probably not. I don't know either. But I still can USE my internet.

Do you know how your power company pumps electricity into your home? I don't either. But I still know how to turn on a light switch.

I can teach subjects, such as time management, without knowing exactly how psychology works, or how everything in my brain works. People don't have to know all the details.

My copywriting report, "Fast Food Copywriting," doesn't explain every single facet about copywriting, because I don't KNOW everything about copywriting. What I do know is how to accomplish a task. And that is all you really should be explaining in your paid materials, is how you accomplish a task and how other people can do the same thing you do.

I have many home study courses teaching people various things about PHP and WordPress. All I do is show how to use a certain script or WordPress plugin, and how to tweak it. That's it! Do I explain in every single report exactly what a function or a variable is? Not necessarily. I just show how to put those things into action.

And that leads me to my final point about not telling people everything you know: You deserve to get paid for your expertise.

Here is a really easy formula to decide what information you should charge for, and what to give away. If the information you are teaching about your subject is a step-by-step "How to" process, people should pay for that. But if all you are sharing is a simple tip, that is free article content or blog post content.

Inside "Fast Food Copywriting," I explain my step-by-step process for copywriting. But I also have hundreds of articles about copywriting that explain simple ideas like a headline or bullet points.

In "Time Management on Crack," there are five productivity levels you can master. There are also over 28 formulas when it comes to article writing, report writing, copywriting, and more.

I share my general time management advice in articles and in my blog posts. But the "How to", the Step-by-Step, people have to pay for that.

I hope you are now ready to knock out that next article or report - because guess what? You don't have to tell people everything you know!

Did this blog post help you? Tell me in what way... that comment form won't bite.

Thoughts?

Reading time: < 1 minute

A split test of mine recently finished and the conversion rate increased from 2.21% to 3.92% by changing JUST the headline -- but not even the words on the headline... the COLORS!

Imagine that, an additional 14 signups to a "$47 every 2 weeks" membership site -- an extra $1400 monthly passive income -- from such a small change.

Why does this happen?  Why does split testing even work?

I'll tell you why... it's because: Read More »

Now it's your turn. I want to know what you think. Comment below with a quick response...

Reading time: < 1 minute

This is something I was thinking about presenting at my next live seminar...

But I'll share it with you here anyway!

It's something that most people who teach "productivity" leave out, and I see marketers FORGETTING this over and over again, even though they should know better.

This is "supposed" to be a programming concept but when I worked with other programmers, almost none of them knew about this, let alone implemented it...

It's Keeping Your Stuff SHIPPABLE!

I'll explain.  Think about the order you see items (as a buyer) in a "fully optimized" sales letter... Read More »

Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

A couple days ago I asked my list if they had a membership site yet... I got 300 responses to that question and I want to share the results with you right now:

• 165 people, or 54.8% own membership software
• Out of that half that owned membership software, 89 people or 53.9% have at least one paying member
  
• Total, those 89 people who had a profitable membership only accounted for 29.6% of the responders

So Strange!

Some of these people paid $197, $297, even 4000 bucks for a membership script but only half of them are doing anything with it.

So let me share with you a couple of reasons that stopped me from creating membership sites (I've created 19 of them in the past 12 months... and only ONE before that time period!)

Read More »

Your thoughts?

Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

Leave me a comment below to share your thoughts with me.