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The “Dark Side” Of Selling Info Products…

Posted: 09 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

For the last two years, my product has been one of the top selling fitness products in the world…

Along the way, I’ve learned that you can make a lot of money and change people’s lives with information products. But there’s also a “dark side” to selling info products that some people can’t really deal with…

1. You have to “hard sell” and use direct marketing

There’s really nothing wrong or “immoral” about using direct marketing or hard selling. However, some people think it looks “cheap” and “scammy”. I used to think this way too.

However, if you want to be successful with an info product, you have to learn how to write long sales letters (or videos) and you have to be very good at selling. Most of the time we only have 1 chance to make the sale with direct marketing, so every tactic has to be used. Things like free bonuses, free shipping, discounts for ordering right now, scarcity tactics and 200% money back guarantees are all proven to work when selling information products.

2. You have to always be willing to sell the customer more products (upselling)

I have no problem using upsells with my products. All of the products we sell HELP the customer get better results, so I am always going to try and sell them more products. This means more money for me and better results for the customer.

Some people don’t like the idea of upselling. However, it works very well and is used by everyone from Amazon to McDonald’s.

If you think upselling is a “bad thing”, you probably have some internal issues that you need to work out when it comes to selling. This was my problem when I first started my info product. Once I finally realized that people WANT to buy more stuff from you, I found it easier to make upsells that my customers wanted.

3. 95% of the people who buy your product will NEVER use it.

This is particularly tough for some people to swallow.

When I first started, I personally felt “bad” knowing that most of the people who bought my products never even used them. However, this is something you have to get over quickly if you want to be successful with an info product.

You absolutely should do everything you can to motivate your customers to use your product. Things like success stories, quick start guides, and eliminating the “fluff” from your product are essential to getting them to take action.

You can also go out of your way like we do to provide our program in audio, video and text format. This increases the likeliness that someone will actually use the product.

4. Sometimes what your customer’s WANT, isn’t what you want to sell…

For my fitness products we started out not selling supplements because we really weren’t that big on them. We tried to be the anti-supplement brand.

However, after realizing how much our customer’s wanted our advice on supplements we became an affiliate for a good supplement company and began recommending their supplements. This little change has added a significant amount of revenue to the bottomline for us.

I’ve seen the same thing in the dating industry when I do consulting for a client there. Almost every guy just wants “pick up lines” to get the girl right away. Well, it doesn’t work like that. But that’s what THEY want. So you kind of have to give them the pick up lines” that they want, and also give them a bunch of other stuff that will actually work.

In the end, you always want to give your customer’s what THEY want and not what you think they need.

If you have any questions or comments, leave them below and I will answer them…

- Justin

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