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ProBlogger: Creating Products Week: How to Create Products for Your Blog

ProBlogger: Creating Products Week: How to Create Products for Your Blog

Link to @ProBlogger

Creating Products Week: How to Create Products for Your Blog

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 08:37 AM PDT

Theme Week (1)

Darren  says: Today is part 4 in our ‘creating products’ week here at ProBlogger and now that we’ve done a lot of the ground work and decided on what product to create, we’re moving onto the all-important challenge of actually creating the product that we want to sell on our blog.

This is a huge topic and one that we can’t possibly go into great detail on, as it really does depend upon what kind of product you want to make – but below Shayne gives a great insight on how we do it at ProBlogger.

As usual – I’ll chime in with my perspective along the way.

When I suggested this as a post topic to the ProBlogger team for product, I perhaps underestimated the true breadth of what I was saying. The reality is, to give you all the detail you’d need as a blogger to create a product of your own, it would be multiple books’ worth!

So what I’ll do today is give a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the ProBlogger product-building machine – so you can then adjust what we do for your own specific circumstances.

I’m also going to assume that you’ve read both what to do before you create a product and what product should I create so we can focus purely on the construction side of things.

Think About ‘Selling’ First

When we agree on building a specific product (it might be an eBook, a service (like our SnapnDeals site), a private community (like ProBlogger.com, or even an event), the very first thing we do is: ‘sell it‘.

By ‘sell it’ I don’t mean to our readers, but sell it to ourselves.

This can either be in a team discussion or more formally in what I call a ‘sell sheet‘ – a document that contains all the vital information around the product (drawing on a lot of what you would have done in yesterday’s post).

The reason I like to sell first, build later is sometimes you can get so swept up in the romance of an idea that the practicalities and benefit to your readers get lost in the excitement.

Darren says: Today when we create a product, we go through a more intentional process as a team of ‘selling’ the idea to ourselves as a team.

However, for my first eBooks I didn’t have a team and the ‘sell’ was largely an internal dialogue that I had in my mind.

I remember for my first photography eBook I had three topics that I was considering creating an eBook on. I was tossing up between eBooks on landscapes, portraits ,and something more general on techniques.

I took myself through some of the things that Shayne talked about in yesterday’s post to help me narrow down on the one I’d choose, but also as part of that process, began to think about ‘benefits’ of each eBook and how I’d sell them.

I listed each of these on paper and found by doing so I not only worked out which one I thought we’d sell more of – but by listing how I’d sell the eBook, I was then able to go and write something that would fit those benefits (i.e.: doing this improved the product).

I didn’t know it but in many ways I created the ‘sell sheet’ that Shayne talks about above.

Learn more about how to create a ‘sell sheet’ in this video. It’s a short excerpt of a webinar that Shayne and I ran for ProBlogger.com members last week on the topic of creating and selling eBooks. The full webinar goes into more detail but I thought this little section might help you work out what to put in your sell sheet.


Planning

Once we’ve created our ‘sell sheet’ we lock in a date for launch.

These dates are not just chosen to be when the product is ready – we also take into consideration other factors such as what else that’s happening on the site content wise, what else is happening in the wider business and other seasonal factors. We typcially allow for 4-6 months for creating an eBook and much longer for things like the ProBlogger community.

One of us, depending on the type product we’re developing, will then start to plan out how to create the product.

We don’t over-formalize this process, but rather focus more upon identifying:

  • the key stages of product creation
  • the resources well need
  • the costs we’ll incur

We know that having a plan is important, but also that plans change so we don’t want to be too regimented.

If you’re building your first product, you might not actually know all the different stages. That’s when I’d be going and looking for advice. Find a mentor or mentor group that’s got experiences with these types of products. Pull a favour with someone you know that’s some a similar thing before. Get them to go through all the critical steps and be making lots of notes.

Doing this might create more questions than answers, but a least now you know the questions!

Darren says: Our planning process today is more complex today than when I first started. For example when we create an eBook Jasmin (who manages all the production) will map out key dates and deadlines for all our different processes.

So ahead of time we know when the eBook outline will be completed, when the writing needs to be complete, when the content will be handed over to our designer, when we need to have a title and cover concept finalised, when we need to start creating sales pages, when we need review copies for affiliates, etc.

Having these dates in place even before we start creating the product is really important. We have multiple eBooks at different stages of production at any one time (plus other projects and events on the go) so without timelines like this projects stall.

For my first eBooks, I didn’t have quite so formal a process but I still created a basic timeline and listed out the things I’d need to complete. I also listed the things I’d need to research (eg. shopping carts), the help I’d need to find (a designer) and the skills I’d need to learn that I didn’t yet have (e.g. writing a sales page).

My list was basic and written on a notepad next to my computer. I had to add a lot to it as I went but by at least having something in front of me each day I kept momentum going.


Outlining Your Product

Once you feel comfortable with the plan, it’s time to start outlining your product in more detail.

If it’s an eBook, it will be your table of contents, if it is an e-course outline, the structure and modules, if it’s a community or service, start to map out and wireframe all the different sections and moving parts of the site.

Think of it like drawing up the plans to a house you’re about to build yourself, or hire someone to build it for you.

Now it’s time to build. This is either going to be yourself or you’ll give the green light to someone else.

If it’s yourself, you need to allocate some time. It might be a specific day you allocate, or one hour a morning, or you might be lucky and be able to just bunker down for a few weeks at a time to write.

Figure out an approach that you’re most likely to stick to, and make sure you block out that time in your diary. Once you have done that, it’s up to you to stick to it.

Whilst in creation mode, you should continually check in with your ‘sell sheet’, to make sure you’re still driving towards solving the same problem you set out to, but don’t let it slow your progress. We’ll have time to review later — just keep building and building.

When you get about halfway through the writing or building stages, if you’re anything like me you’ll get a case of the mid-build blues.

You’ll probably start to feel fatigued, disillusioned, distracted, and will wonder if anyone is going to buy what you’re creating.

This is the stage that a lot of great products die – and that’s a real shame.

When you feel those emotions creeping in, I want you to dig deep, find any motivation or inspiration you can, and keep going! Just push to that 60,70, 80% completion mark and you’ll feel closer to the end.

When it’s done you’ll be thankful you did!

From Darren: I won’t lie to you here… some of my least favourite moments in the last 12 years have happened midway through creating products.

The reality is that it is hard work to build something like this, and that to get it done, you need to find a way to focus and be disciplined (something that this blogger with a very short attention span and little will power struggles with).

For me it meant asking those around me to keep me accountable, setting aside time to focus (I’ve been known to lock myself in motel rooms for weekends) and setting myself little rewards for meeting milestones.

The other challenge that I often face mid-product creation is that of fear and doubt. How will people perceive what I’m creating? Will anyone buy it? Is it any good? Am I wasting my time?

I’ve written here about some of how I deal with these fears and doubts.

Lastly, try to keep the WHY of what you’re doing in focus (see yesterday’s post for more on why WHY is so important).


Polish Your Product

Just when you think you are finished… that’s when I can give you the bad news… you’re not!

It’s time to polish.

This is the final 5% that can really make your product stand up.

At this point you need to switch your mind from make mode to review mode, and I’m sure you’ll come up with a few small changes that will make things better.

Involve some of your friends, family or even some of your readers in this review process and you’ll significantly improve your product.

Listen to the feedback you get from and act on what you hear, but be aware that there is a trap.

The key is to remember that you’re ‘polishing’ not ‘perfecting’. There’s no such thing as a perfect product – you need to let that idea go.

There will be always things that you want to change and add to theoretically make things better. It will be never-ending and I can tell you with 100% certainty, you’ll never make a single dollar if you don’t finish your product, so loose ends or not — ALWAYS BE SHIPPING!

Darren says: I think most people fall into one of two categories when they’re at this point.

The first group ‘finish’ creating and never want to look at their product again. The result is they do little reviewing/polishing and ship products that could be better.

The second group spend so much time polishing and perfecting that they either don’t ship anything because the product is never ready or they end up with a product that is over engineered.

Identifying ahead of time which group you’re in and coming up with strategies to combat your weakness is important.

If you’re in the first group (like me) involving others in the review and polish can be helpful. Also blocking out time for this important task is important before you rush off to your next idea.

If you’re in the second group setting a deadline for shipping can be important too. There has to be a point where you stop!

My last advice for this stage is to echo what Shayne says about involving others. If you’ve authored your product yourself you are probably too close to it to be objective and will miss obvious errors and deficiencies – so whether it is by paying others for editing/proof reading or by giving a small group of readers free access in return for feedback – get others’ feedback before you launch your product.


Outsourcing

A special note for those using suppliers to create your product: for a lot of you, the biggest resource you’ll use will be yourself. However, technical services you might create, or online courses and communities, might involve a wider team.

Your choices on who works on your project can have a huge bearing on the end result. Don’t just pick someone at random, or the cheapest resource you can find.

Make sure they understand exactly what you are trying to achieve, make sure they have the skills and experience to deliver what you want, and make sure they have the commitment to see it to the end.

At the end of the day it’s your name attached to the product not theirs, so choosing the right person is so important.

Be Proud

Above all – be proud of what you create.

Even if the product isn’t as commercially successfully as you hoped it to be know that by creating it you’ve achieved something only a small number of people will in their lives.

For that, you get a hat tip from me!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
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Creating Products Week: How to Create Products for Your Blog

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney

My Preparation Adventure in raising money for the PAR Program

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Post image for My Preparation Adventure in raising money for the PAR Program

Raising_moneyIn the next couple days or so I will write full post about my journey, mostly focused specifically on my experiences dealing with each VC/Angel firm/fund, but before that I wanted to pre pend it with some over all thoughts.

About 6 months or so ago I was at a pretty crucial point with the PAR Program. I needed to start building a sales team and beef up staff overall. One of the problems with knowing how to do programing, marketing, sales, blogging, monetizing and what not is that you can do it all… you just can’t do a good job with any of it.

About every month I would get frustrated at our lack of growth and just being spent. But then I rally and think I can figure it out and do it all. Then I find myself back in that same spot 30 days later.

I knew I had to make a change.

Before raising money I had an interesting option.

There was an offer on the table from one of the largest “full service” Internet Marketing Agencies. It was a merger offer. From their perspective the PAR Program was the missing link to their “full service” agency. From my perspective it was a great fit because they were going to instantly make a sizable equity purchase plus provide infrastructure in the form of an existing, proven, sales force to accounting services and just about everything else. It seemed like a magic bullet for me and would let me do what I actually do best… market and rapidly grow. But at the last minute, I got cold feet. The possible, although unlikely, downside is that I felt the company might not have the bandwidth to focus on the PAR Program with everything else they had going on and in a year or so I could be at square one with the company, only then I wouldn’t have full equity.

Obviously, I have my own money that I could put into the company but, well, I wanted more than money.

This may sound weird… but bare with me.

Money is not a rare commodity.

Everyone has it. I have it, you have it, even unemployed people have it. What I needed was experience and education in building a real company. People that have experience building a sales team, know how to manage people, figure out all the key things that need to happen to make things work…

My true goal in raising money was getting investment from people that can bring that kind of experience and education. When it comes to marketing and selling I feel I have no equal on this planet. Yes, I know it’s cocky but I truly believe that. AND I have a fairly unparalleled track record of consistency over the last decade. So to me this was a no brainer for a fund/vc to invest in the company and help us do this with their money/resources.

Now, fortunately I have many amazing friends who have raised money… and some are even GP’s at major firms. Pretty much all of them told me that I needed to take time away from everything and purely focus on preparation to pitch firms.

I needed to make a professional deck- one that I pitched and one that I sent out, have a VERY detailed spreadsheet laying out my 5 year plan, prepare a one sheeter, and various demo videos of the platform.

So I did just that. I made more than 100 revisions to my deck after doing constant “demo” pitches to my friends. I went to Atlanta and spent a couple days with my brother in law who is an excel NINJA. We laid out the basic framework and started to plug in some numbers. I fell in love with excel and how the dynamic pivot tables worked. I started getting as much data as I had on everything we had done so far. I quickly learned that my KPI (key point indicator) that everything should formulate off of was sales. Then it was just writing the formulas for how many client managers, copywriters, programmers, graphics people, and just about everything else in relation to new clients (sales).

Then figured in all the salaries for all those people and… wow… this was amazing. I adjusted the variable of sales per month and boom instantly forecasted when I need to hire X. It’s actually much much more intense. I think there is over 80 adjustable variables in all that dynamically populate all my other tabs like labor, web services, marketing, customer growth, a bazillion other things and of course a P&L. You have to see it to believe how awesome my excel thing is. I even had it calculate company valuations based off of our 5 primary perceived competitors exits/IPO’s. I was asked by my friends who had already raised money if they could use it with their own stuff for future raises and stuff.

Then the business plan. Holy crap. I have never written a business plan before in my life. This was very tough for me. I did so much research and what not I can’t even put it into words. You can download my business plan (I am not sure this is the latest revision as I am always updating it).

After the business plan was done the one sheeter was fairly simple.

So now I was ready.

I will save the adventures in pitching until the next post but the big thing is that the preparation of raising money gave me such incredible insight into what makes my company tick, what goals I need to hit & when, and my key performance indicators.

For me this experience educated me SO much on how to run a real company.

What will come in future posts will probably surprise people (probably get me in trouble too) and I guarantee the end will blow you away.

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