sales

How To Create One New Product Every Week

February 12, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Having an arsenal of products increases your revenue. This belief fuels the big companies like Nintendo, but it also fuels many entrepreneurs.

Many self-published authors strive to publish as many books as they can in an attempt to make revenue from numerous assets.

Some people have created dozens of Udemy training courses that generate revenue every day without any additional work.

This belief is one of the reasons that I have published over 20 courses on Udemy and self-published over a dozen books on Kindle. I may even end up with over 100 products by the end of the year.

Crazy to thing about the earning power in that. Of course, marketing is important, but the more products you have to market, the more earning opportunity exists.

That’s why in 2016, I have been creating one product every week. In some weeks, I create multiple products—all with value.

As you get more comfortable with creating products, you also become more comfortable with providing value, regardless of how many days it takes for you to complete a product.

The two products I focus on are Udemy courses and Kindle books. Right now I have a stronger focus on creating Udemy courses, but that can change later in the year.

Regardless of which of the two products I choose to create, I am offering at least one new product to my audience every week. One new training course or one new Kindle book, but something new.

And I am an 18-year-old in high school. I don’t do that to brag (ask anyone who knows me. I am the worst bragger on the planet) but rather to provide you with inspiration.

One of those “If he can do it, then I can do it too” types of inspiration.

So let’s dive into what it takes to create one product every single week.

Mindset Shift

The way you view product creation and your capabilities are essential in the entire process. If you believe in yourself, then it’s possible to create one new product every week.

If you think it is impossible, then you will be limited by your own belief.

There are many ways to set off a mindset shift. Maybe you look deeper into your secret heart.

Secret what?

The secret heart is the part of you that already knows exactly what you want. You don’t say any of these things out loud, but you know you want them. Better yet, you desire them.

Having strong ambitions that you keep to yourself can provide you with the motivation you need to enact the mindset shift.

Maybe you change the way you work so that creating one product each week looks possible. Maybe you do something every day that makes you feel proud of yourself.

You can even think about how you would benefit from creating numerous successful products. There are many ways to create a mindset shift, but you need to create the mindset shift to get into motion.

Have A Team Around You

I know many people who create several products every single month. Some of these people are my mentors. I don’t know any lone-wolfs who create one product every week.

To find the time to create one product every week, you must have a team behind you that makes certain parts of the process easier.

I don’t edit most of my videos. I usually send my raw videos straight to my video editor. That way, I don’t have to edit the videos myself. Then I can simply move onto the next product.

I also do little to none of my social media activity. Someone schedules my posts and grows my audience for me.

But anytime I say hi or engage with you, that’s me. There are certain things that can never be outsourced.

While certain things can’t get outsourced, you would be surprised at what could get outsourced. Some of the top Kindle authors are hiring ghostwriters to do most of the content writing.

Some Udemy instructors are engaged with co-creating courses with other instructors. Depending on who creates courses with who, the top instructors will put in half or close to none of the work associated with publishing the course.

I invite people to create Udemy courses with me (if my expertise apply) or for me (but I spice up the copy and promote it to my audience).

Basically, the people who create one product each week have a team behind them. In some cases, the team will simply make product creation easier for you. In other cases, the team will put in 100% of the work.

The amount of work your team puts in depends on your style and your team.

Create An Outline

For every product you create, you need an outline. The outline lets you know what makes the idea a complete product (or the person who you hire to create the product).

If you lack the expertise and need someone to create a product from start to finish without you, then you must tell that person to create an outline before creating the product.

The outline lets you take a more specific and clear path towards completing the product. I use outlines for all of my books, training courses, and blog posts.

They turn an otherwise foggy path into a path as clear as day.

My recommendation with creating outlines is to start with a brain dump in which you write down all of your ideas. After you write down all of your ideas for videos or chapters, you then organize them.

Put In The Work

No matter how effective your team is, you need to do some of the product creation. Even if you have ghostwriters writing your Kindle books for you, you need to get your feet wet and type your own Kindle books.

That way, you end up with more products, and you never lose touch with product creation.

If you can create one product on your own every week and get your team to create one product for you every week, then you would then publish two products every week.

That extra product per week would add up to an additional 52 products every year. If each of your products makes $100 per month, then we are talking about an extra $62,400 every year.

Follow The Path Of Least Resistance

The path of least resistance will allow you to reach your destination. One of the main reasons people struggle to create one product each month is because other tasks get in the way.

Managing the social media accounts. Growing those social media accounts. Creating pictures for your blog posts.

The list goes on and on.

Your team can eliminate all of those tasks from your list. All of the tasks I mentioned used to take up a giant portion of my day. Now they don’t even take up a second of my time.

I have outsourced them all. And the way I make a profit is by repurposing my newly gained time towards product creation.

With rapid product creation and everything else, time is money. Use it wisely and reclaim as much of it as you possibly can.

In Conclusion

Rapid product creation involves putting in the work every day and thinking differently. Instead of being the lone-wolf, you must create a strong team that can eliminate some of the phases associated with product creation.

For certain products, you may end up putting in no work to create those products.

However, you should be prepared to create one product on your own every week and then send it off to your team. That way, any product your team manages to create without much of your involvement is a bonus.

What are your thoughts about rapidly creating products? What tip do you think is the most important for creating one product every week? Which products would you create? Sound off in the comments section below.

Where Social Media Fits In The Sales Funnel

December 23, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media can make you a lot of money if you know where it fits in the sales funnel.

I hear a lot of talk about making money on social media. People believe that their social media audiences should result in a higher income.

But most people find themselves disappointed. They wonder if all of the time they spent on social media was worth it.

Social media isn’t the problem. The problem is how most people approach making money on social media. We can clearly see the problem in the first tweet I ever sent on Twitter

First of all, the link is broken now. The more important point is that this tweet makes no attempt at building a relationship with my audience. It was the good old “buy this product.”

I didn’t give people enough time to know, like, and trust me.

For a few weeks after that, I continued using social media wrong. My tweets were Amazon affiliate links and my blog posts (before this blog) had a strong focus on getting the sale versus providing value.

Then I focused on using social media to build the relationship with my followers. Once I changed the way I used social media, my revenue increased.

Here is the most important thing you will ever hear about making money on social media:

Social media is the best platform for generating indirect sales.

What does that mean? Social media is a platform where people get to know, like, and trust you.

Social media is also a great platform to promote your landing pages and get subscribers. The way I make money on social media is by using it to grow my email list.

Subscribers are far more likely to buy something you recommend than your social media followers. The logic is the expectation of each platform.

People are used to finding discounts and product information in their inboxes. In fact, some people welcome it.

People go on social media to escape important decisions. They want to interact and see what’s happening. They want free stuff.

In the sales funnel, social media is the very first stage. After you get your followers to complete a few other stages (i.e. subscribing), then some of them become customers.

Okay, that sounds nice. But I don’t have a landing page. Now what?

The quick answer is to create your own landing page as soon as possible. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages while other people use LeadPages. Both are excellent tools to have.

But I know that (unfortunately) not everyone will want to create a landing page right away. Don’t go back to promoting affiliate links to sales pages.

At any moment, there are dozens (or hundreds) or marketers who are asking affiliates to sell their products. These marketers offer training courses containing a wide variety of material.

At least one of those training courses will be within your niche.

These marketers put a lot of planning into their training courses’ success. They write the copy, set up the landing pages, and have affiliate links that ensure affiliates receive their proper commission.

I occasionally promote other people’s landing pages on my social media accounts for a few reasons:

#1: They have all of the email copy set up for you. These emails are optimized to get a lot of opens, clicks, and sales.

#2: The product is created for you. All you have to do is promote the landing page with your affiliate link.

#3: Each sale equals a big commission. The commissions you receive as an affiliate for a training course can get very high. Some people will provide you with a $500 or higher commission per sale.

#4: You get a better idea of how it all works. Maybe some day, you create your own training course and have your own team of affiliates.

It’s just a matter of finding people in your niche who offer this type of opportunity. Then all you have to do at that point is ride with the opportunity.

Is There Any Room For Direct Sales?

I am not actively pursuing direct sales from my social media audience. I prefer promoting landing pages and building the relationship before I offer any products.

With that said, it is possible to do some direct promotion.

I find myself looking through Kim Garst’s tweets again and again. She’s a social media expert with over 420,000 Twitter followers.

She will occasionally do a direct sale on social media that leads people straight to one of her sales pages. However, most of her tweets entice a relationship to be built.

Indirect sales are the best way to go. If you use social media to generate direct sales, my recommendation is to do so with a big discount involved. Discounts grab anyone’s attention, regardless of which platform the discount is discovered on.

When we buy something for a discount, we feel super smart. That’s the main reason discounts result in more product sales.

Sometimes, we won’t even care much for a product but buy it to feel like smart consumers.

In Conclusion

Social media is the best platform for generating indirect sales. Once you use social media with that in mind, you will get more sales in the long-term.

What are your thoughts about social media’s position in the sales funnel? Do you think direct sales work or that indirect sales are all you need? Sound off in the comments section below.

10 Easy Ways To Get More Product Sales

April 29, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

how to get more sales

Is getting product sales on your mind? With a massive inventory of products and millions of products getting created every year, it is harder to stand out in a world that gives us countless choices. In fact, it will be impossible for someone to buy and use every product that will get created this year. Getting more product sales requires you to stand out and grow an audience, but there are various components that go into standing out and growing your audience. In this article, I will discuss 10 easy ways for you to get more sales for your products.

#1: Create Landing Pages With Autoresponders

Landing pages are effective pages that are optimized for getting email subscribers. Landing pages are simply pages that promote free products and have a form where people can enter their email address. The only way to access the free product is by entering an email address which is why landing pages are very attractive.

If you are using a service like iContact or Aweber, you can have your new subscribers go through an autoresponder. An autoresponder is a series of emails that are spaced out by a day or two. These emails allow you to strengthen your relationship with your readers. At the end of your autoresponder must be a product related to the free product you just offered.

If you have more than one product, then you can create multiple landing pages and autoresponders. I have landing pages and autoresponders set up for multiple training courses, and I will continue to create landing pages and autoresponders for my future products.

#2: Test Out One Variable Every Week

Sometimes, one small change can make a big difference. If you want to get more sales, you need to test small changes to see which ones will lead to more sales. You need to test out one variable for your product every week and see how many sales it gets. If your product makes more sales that week, then the one small change you made is a keeper, and you should apply that change to some of your other products. If your product makes fewer sales, then you should go back to the old way. It is important for you to only test out one variable every week because if you make multiple changes to your product in a short amount of time, then you won’t know which change resulted in an increase or decrease in sales. Maybe you averaged the same number of sales by testing out multiple variables, but one of those variables could have halved your sales while the other one could have doubled your sales—still giving you the same average amount of sales. You want to keep the variable that doubled your sales, but you won’t know what that variable was if you change too many things at once.

#3: Promote Your Product On Your Blog

The best way to promote a product on your blog is through the menu. That way, your product doesn’t take up too much space on your blog, but it takes up just enough space on your blog to be noticed. I am careful about promoting my products on my blog because I don’t want to be over-promotional. Moreover, I want people to visit my landing page and subscribe that way so I can lead them through the autoresponder sequence. It’s still good to promote your product on your blog and occasionally reference it in your blog posts. Some people buy my products because they heard about them on my blog before hearing about them anywhere else.

#4: Get On Joint Ventures

Joint ventures are growing in significance. In a joint venture, you and a marketer agree to promote each other’s products to your email lists. You tell your subscribers about someone else’s product and that same person tells the people on her list about your product. Joint ventures allow your product to reach new audiences and generate more sales in the process.

#5: Connect Your Products Together

Many people like to list their products. At the end of the public speaking event, the public speaker may mention some of the products he created and list them one by one. That’s not connecting your products together. That’s simply listing what you have.

Connecting your products together is far greater than listing them. When you connect your products together, you are letting your customers know that your products properly segue from one into the other. Think Part One’s and Part Two’s, but every product you create properly fits somewhere in the sequence. You may have two unrelated products, but if you can create a bridge in between those two products filled with the proper segues, you can get the two most unrelated products to be connected. What’s the segue from a Twitter book to a Pinterest book? What’s the segue from a photography training course to a Javascript training course? What products would you need to (and want to) create to form the proper bridge? If you don’t want to create products that create the necessary bridge, you can simply expand on those two areas. For the photography training course, you can create more products relating to photography while for the Javascript training course, you can create more products about coding languages. Just make sure no product stands alone.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1NM9pnK”]Connect your products together so none of them stand alone. [/tweetthis]

#6: Build An Email List And Communicate To It

A landing page is a great way to grow your email list. Here’s one of my landing pages (the free product will show you how to get more email subscribers, so it’s relevant here). However, a landing page and an autoresponder can only go so far. Many of the people who go through your autoresponder will choose to not buy your product. Then again, that’s with practically every product. Most people who see a product won’t buy it. That’s simply the nature of the game.

When you have a large email list, and you communicate to the people on your email list, you are opening the door to returning customers. Once every six weeks, you should promote your products to your email list. The money is in the list, but only if you interact with the people in your list in an effective manner.

#7: Use Social Media To Promote Your Products The Right Way

Social media is not the place to say, “Buy my product! Buy my product!” Social media is a place where posts with pictures and stories rule. If you can turn your product marketing into an effective story or advice in the form of pictures, your efforts will really pay off. Take for example Kim Garst who recently published Will The Real You Please Stand Up, got the book on multiple bestsellers lists. For part of her book’s promotion, she went on Twitter and tweeted to her large audience of over 300,000 followers. The tweets were valuable, contained pictures, and promoted her book all at the same time. Her tweets spread, got attention, and led to more book sales. Here is an example of one of her tweets about the book.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1NM9pnK”]You can use #SocialMedia to promote your products, but only if you use it the right way.[/tweetthis]

#8: Offer Discounts

Why doesn’t love discounts? Discounts are attractive because they make us feel like smart buyers who know how to effectively spend our money. Offer discounts to your subscribers and social media followers so they are more likely to buy your products. Discounts may not generate as much money, but you’ll get a sale, a customer who can spread the word, and your product will get more exposure.

#9: Over Deliver

When you offer a product, be sure to include bonuses and give your customer more than what he was expecting. Over delivering doesn’t necessarily change the amount of sales you make for an individual product, but your customers like when you over deliver. Some of your customers will expect an over delivery in your future products and become returning customers. Over delivering in your products doesn’t lead to much short-term sales, but for the long-term, you could get thousands of returning customers who expect you to over deliver and are grateful for all of the value you provide in your products. All you have to do at that point is consistently over deliver.

#10: Create More Products

One way to get more product sales is by creating more products. A second product opens the doors to returning customers. 20 products opens the doors to a higher percentage of your customers becoming returning customers. If you have one book about Twitter and one book about Pinterest, it is possible for you to get returning customers. However, some people will like Twitter and not care for Pinterest and vice-versa. If you have additional books about Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and a few other social networks, then there is a greater likelihood of a customer becoming a returning customer. One of the options is bound to attract a customer’s attention.

In Conclusion

Getting more product sales is on the top of many marketers’ strategies. Part of getting product sales is the marketing itself, but another part of getting product sales is the experience you provide for customers who buy your products and the experience you provide just before someone buys your product. It takes a lot of marketing to get numerous sales for your products, and in some cases, the marketing is more challenging than creating the actual product.

Which tip did you like the most? Do you have any additional tips for us? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Advantage Of Having Few Choices

September 11, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Decisions are made faster as impatience builds.

When there’s only a few products to choose from (less than five), consumers are most likely to buy something.

Although they may not be returning customers until the next product comes out, you are sure to get more sales from some product versus getting some sales from many products (it is possible for products to make a lot of sales even if there are a lot of other choices).

When it comes out that the company plans to come out with a new product, they get tons of sales for the new product because the impatience of the consumers goes out of the roof. The new product becomes sold out in a matter of days.

The Problem With Having Few Choices

September 10, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

We get impatient or just leave.

There are plenty of companies that are creating incredible products.

The problem for some of these companies is that they don’t offer enough choices. That company might have come out with a product you have been using for 5 years, but it’s been 7 years ever since they introduced a new product. Basically, it takes a long time for new choices to become available.

When consumers see the choice selection for the first time, they have two choices.

They either buy a product (or more than one) and get impatient waiting for the next product to come out, or they just leave because the guy across the street has more options.

In addition to that, if the consumer doesn’t like your options, they won’t buy. With fewer options, you are narrowing your list of consumers down to a specific subset.

Going After Sales On A Blog

September 8, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Is the wrong approach.

Going after subscribers is the right approach.

The subscribers are more likely to remember who you are since you provide free content.

Not all of them will, but some will tell their friends about your blog.

Your subscriber count goes up.

You offer something for free to your subscribers.

Your subscriber count goes even higher.

Soon you have thousands of subscribers.

Let’s say you get 5,000 subscribers and only 10% of those people buy your product. That’s 500 sales!

Now let’s say you had 100,000 subscribers and only 10% of those people buy your product. That’s 10,000 sales!

Even if you got a sale by going after the sale, you won’t get a returning customer. They’ll forget about your blog and look at a similar one.

You don’t get sales by going after the sale. You wait for your subscribers to look at enough of your content until they decide what you’re selling is actually worth buying.