With the technology available today, you can record your screen and stream it online quite easily.

For instance, Camtasia is the standard for recording your screen and editing it, too. You can get that here: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

Note: As of right now, there is a free trial. The MAC version is cheaper than the PC version (if you have both types of computers). And you can get student discounts if you are taking college classes, too.

If you create a series of training videos, you could easily whip out an entire product in less time (and for less money) than hiring a writer.

These videos are perfect for tutorial “how to” type products and anything that involves showing your target audience step-by-step how to do something online.

Because you are creating videos, you are creating a high value product.

PLUS what’s even cooler is that you can stream your iPhone and iPad onto your computer screen, too, using this http://www.airsquirrels.com/reflector/ So, if you wanted to demonstrate using tools on your screen, you’d just record your computer screen with Camtasia.

Just like all of the other ideas we’ve talked about in this course, you can use this as part of your big picture or just have it be your main course.

Ideas for programs:

• Getting started with WordPress
• Taking WordPress to the next level
• How to use Fiverr
• Getting started with (insert any software program here)
• How to be more productive in (insert program)
• Productivity Hacks (in a program, or towards a goal, or to achieve a specific result)
• How to write faster
• How to write fiction
• How to optimize your YouTube station
• How to use Periscope (remember Reflector???)
• How to design a coloring book
• How to use Photoshop to create a design for your next Teespring project.
• How to clean up a virus
• How to be more efficient on Facebook and cut your notifications off
• Step by Step how to customize your WordPress blog with Genesis
• How to grow your list on your blog
• How to run Facebook retargeting
• How to set up your Podcast
• How to Format your Book for the Kindle
• How to Write Copy that (gets a specific result)
• How to Win at (computer game)
• How to Get the Ladies to Contact you on a Specific Dating Site
• How to Track your Carbs and Lose Weight using the Best Free tools

And, that’s not even using the coolest thing.

• Behind the scenes… How I Helped my Client to Double Her Traffic

Case studies are awesome. Don’t be afraid to do them.

Once your product is done, have someone transcribe it so you can include a printed guide as well for even more added value.

If you have a microphone or headset or even just a telephone, you can record your voice and have an infoproduct done in an hour.

How to record a call:

• I record my calls using Skype and Pamela
• You can also use Instant Teleseminar which is very user friendly.

There are a LOT of high end programs out there that are nothing but audio.

How do you take advantage of this product creation method?

Well, you can come up with a series of topics and questions and then do them if you already know what you want to cover.

Or you can decide on a topic and then ask your list or visitors what their questions are. Ask everyone who signs up for your teleseminar the same question “What is your #1 question about __(topic)___?” and use those questions as the basis for your content. Just go through the questions and answer them.

You don’t even have to be on the call alone. If you need support, grab a friend to interview you or to feed off for the call. Or if you want to be the sole expert, you can have your VA ask you the questions and you can just answer them.

This one is pretty straight forward, but I do want to make sure you don’t overlook this as an option. Seriously, there are coaches out there that charge $1997.00 for a series of audios. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.

• Plan it out.
• Record it.
• Sell it.

That’s all there is to it. 🙂

Record a Coaching Call.

If you have coaching clients, ask one if you can record the call and use it to teach others.

If you don’t have any takers, offer a free coaching session to someone who IS willing to let you record the call.

How to record a call:

• I record my calls using Skype and Pamela
• You can also use Instant Teleseminar which is very user friendly.

Just be sure to do a test before you record so that you don’t lose your recording.

Tips on doing this well:

• Make sure to connect with the client in advance so you can work on a specific problem together. Specifies sell much better than general chatting will.
• Sell it as “behind the scenes” and let them know how much they are paying verses hiring you for their own private call.
• Think about what you want to upsell to these people, since they’ll know what your coaching program is like and will be interested in more.

Live Instant Messenger Chat.

Jimmy D. Brown recommended this to  me one time while I was working for him as his Affiliate Manager and I think it’s brilliant.

He said to open an Instant Messenger session (or Skype chat) and start chatting with a friend about your topic. You can have your friend ask you specific questions or just have a general plan. After a bit of time, your product will be done and it won’t feel like work. Just copy and paste the chat session into a word document and clean it up (or even better, hire a Virtual Assistant to clean it up for you and turn it into a pretty report).

You’ll be amazed, not only at how quickly you’ll have your content together, but also what ideas and topics come up during those chat sessions. Get in the habit of doing this once every few weeks and you’ll have all kinds of reports ready that you can sell.

Go through your list of online buddies and ask a few to donate content. They’ll benefit by getting the free advertising and exposure from your readers, and you’ll benefit by receiving additional content for your project.

Go back and reread that. Many people skim over it, thinking that it won’t work, but I’m telling you that it does.

Partnering up is one of my favorite ways to create an info product. If you go through your list of buddies and ask a few to donate content it works.

For instance, my older product OutsourceWeekly.com is a course that I teach about outsourcing. If you’ve gone through that course then you can tell that when you get your weekly report each week that there’s often times a guest expert in there who has contributed the majority of the content.

For example, the weekly lesson on hiring your kids for tax benefits, I know nothing about that, but I know somebody who does. So, I talked to my friend who is a financial planner who had a product on that, and she donated it just for the exposure to my customers.

I do the same thing. If I know somebody is creating a product about a topic that I know – and I’d like my name in front of their customers, then I’ll volunteer to write a lesson for them or contribute content that I already have to their product to help their students to benefit from their material and also I get my name in front of them.

There are so many different ways to do win-win scenarios when you’re partnering with other people.

One of the best examples I’d seen of this was actually put together by my friend, Debbie Drum and Amaryllis Harrop when they compiled a program called Recycle Riches (which appears to no longer be online).

Anyway, I was approached about contributing to the program, and unlike many many requests that I get, they made it SUPER easy.

Here’s what they sent me.

• What the program was.
• Why they wanted me in it.
• They said I could teach the topic by contributing something that I already had created, or I could create something new for them.
• The brainstormed some ideas for my topic.  (So I didn’t have to think up one from scratch.) Since this was about recycling your content, they suggested that I could contribute about blogging, infoproducts, or using PLR. Or I could come up with my own thing.
• And, to finalize it, they said I could send them the training in any format. Audio, text (a pdf), or video and they would handle the rest.

So essentially they made it super easy for me to participate, which made it a no-brainer for me.

And, I know they did well with sales on their program because I promoted it and I made sales. So, they had a hot topic, great experts, an easy to consume format and an affordable price. Win, win, win!

 

 

If you already know about this method, GREAT. Use it!

However, if you don’t know already, I may be your favorite person on earth in just a few moments.

There are people online (including me) who make it our mission to create “Done for You” content that you can use as if you created it yourself to create your own products and programs and grow your business.

For instance, I co-own a site called “Coach Glue: We Make Your Clients Stick to You“. What we do at CoachGlue is stated on the front page:

We design and create high-end coaching programs, workshops, and content for business coaches that you can customize, license, brand, and sell to your own clients.

Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds. We spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to create everything from interactive workbooks to complete Coaching Workshops that Business Coaches can then take and then dig in and customize, personalize, and monetize. We also provide PowerPoint slides and scripts so that the Coach can literally download one of our products, change the slides a bit and then hop on a webinar an hour later to present the material. (Although I certainly wouldn’t recommend that.)  In our larger programs, we also include written checklists, sales pages, webinar sign up copy, action guides and so much more.

You can see a video walkthrough that my business partner, Melissa Ingold, and I did to explain how Coaches can take our Teach Your Tribe packages and turn them into a monthly coaching program.

If you’re a business coach, go grab the Teach your Tribe program.It’s a fantastic shortcut!

What if you’re NOT a business coach?

But you may be thinking “Nik, I’m not a business coach!”

If that’s the case, then you’re still in luck. 🙂

Since 2005, I’ve been selling Private Label Rights (PLR) Content. What is that exactly? Well, it’s the same as “Done for you” content that I was describing above, except you can get topics covered from weight loss to finance to parenting and everything in between.

Plus the variety is huge. Get everything PLR articles, videos, graphics and even full reports and ebooks.

Yep. You can take that content (LEGALLY) and use it as a starting point to create your next products OR use is as a way to add bonuses to one of your products.

Here’s an example from one that I used a few years ago.

I had a lot of people asking me how to sell their infoproducts once they got them ready to go.

Back then there weren’t as many options, but one that was easiest was Clickbank. So, I was browsing my friend Alice Seba’s PLR site at the time and I found a “How to Sell on Clickbank” PLR report. It looked pretty basic (because that’s what it was which was fine) and I knew some major tricks to make it better that I could add to it. I also wasn’t in love with the order of steps, but the key is that I  knew that I didn’t have to start from scratch to create my own version!

So, I grabbed her guide and dug in. I spent about an hour or two moving things around, editing it, and adding more info and turned it into more of a case study. I recorded a few videos where I thought it would help my students to understand better. Then, I added a few bonuses, and sold it to my peeps. They LOVED it.

Here’s proof. Yes, it’s ugly and no, it’s no longer for sale, but it served its purpose at the time. (Remember, you don’t have to be perfect to be profitable. God knows, I’m not!)

My point is that it’s so much easier for me to look at product and start from a draft and see what I would like to improve upon it than it is for me to stare at a blank piece of paper and think, “What do they want to know? How can I explain this the best possible way? What are their questions going to be?”

I could stare at that blank piece of paper all day and just be like, “Ugh! I don’t know what they need to know. I don’t know how to help them.” So, sometimes if I get a PLR product then I can go, “Well, this part needs to go, this part needs to move, let’s rearrange it like this, and I’ll add here, and enhance here, add my personal experience, add some examples, some screenshots, throw some videos up to demonstrate where things are.” Boom, it’s done.

The important thing is that I started that product with PLR and I completely redid it in a day.

Where to look for the good stuff? 

Coach Glue – obviously

Easy PLR – again, it’s mine and it’s solid look at the reports, but also the articles can usually be turned into a report pretty easily, too.

Personal Development & Improvement PLR– Perfect for Business Coaches, Success Speakers, WAHM blogs, Health bloggers, and Life Coaches.

Hire a Writer

This is an option if you’re just simply putting off creating your infoproduct.

Simply go to a site like Elance.com and you’ll find many qualified freelancers willing to write content for your website.

This is highly recommended for infoproduct creation – especially if you’re stuck or procrastinating. Even if you receive the draft and then edit it to add your personality, you’ll save a lot of time and effort verses writing all of the content yourself.

Of course, a major obstacle for this for many people is the cost. There are always ways to optimize the amount you pay and the quality that you receive. You’ll learn some of the tricks of the trade as you go.

Hire a Transcriptionist

If you can talk a mile a minute but hate to write, you can still have a book or ebook in your name. Write and then hire a transcriptionist to turn that into a beautiful book for you. I’ve used http://thesmallbusinesstranscriptionist.com in the past and have been very happy.

Hire an Interviewer

Remember in an earlier lesson that I talked about Maruxa Murphy? She used to run the show for David Frey. He had regular telesummits with lots of world-renown experts. Well, it was really Maruxa running the show under David’s guidance. I was amazed how efficient and effective she was.

She was an interviewer for hire. (And more obviously, but you can tell that there’s an advantage to having a great interviewer working for you.)

Hire an Audio or Video Editor

I use http://multimediava.com/services-rates/ – and have for years. Christina is awesome and super efficient, too. Why struggle to get your program out the door because it’s not perfect yet.

Hire a Coach

When you don’t know which direction to go, or who to hire, my advice is always that it’s time to hire a coach.

Here are some recommendations for finding the right coach for you. 

If you’re unsure how to start hiring people, then check this out (or hire a coach that can help you to hire the right people): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnSHogw3JnE

Grab her program Train your VA to Make You Money here.

Remember that you don’t have to overcomplicate things. You can easily record a video product with your phone. And, if that works for your niche, go ahead and do it. 🙂 It may not be perfect, but who cares if the information is solid. And, if you do want a better video, cameras are much more affordable now and a tripod is easy to get (or grab a teen and have him/her record you). Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

What are some niches where this does work?

• House and Home  (Faux finishing, choosing colors, organization)
• How to train your dog
• How to train your cat (JUST kidding!!! As if you can train a cat.) 😉
• Parenting (Teach sign language to your baby, homeschooling, discipline with love)
• Exercise (Yoga, exercising in your office, safe pregnancy moves)
• Sports (Wrestling, football, cheer, coaching)
• Health (Cooking, juicing, raw foods, vegan, making baby food)
• Hobbies (Guitar, sewing, cards/poker, magic)
• Personal Development (Self-improvement, goal setting,  productivity)

There are so many different ways where video adds a ton of value as compared to having your customers trying to look at little diagrams or drawings or just visualize something while they’re reading it. So, definitely consider creating a simple video course.

Even if you’re just standing in front of a white board and you’re demonstrating a concept, or in front of an easel. One of the products that I bought that I just love, was just a meeting where they pointed a camera at it and there’s just a paper easel up in front and they’re talking, brainstorming, and doodling on this easel.

I loved it just because of the energy. To see these different people come up and explain their ideas, it’s fantastic. So, it doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to be done so you can start selling it.

Examples:

Here’s a Baby Signing program with demonstrations of hand signs.

 

And, here’s part of a training program that Melissa Ingold did.

 

 

Awhile back, I got a new amazing coaching client (someone who I really respected already and was a fan of). We started working together and she was complaining about how frustrated she was writing her ebook. She wanted my help to find a writer to outsource it to.

I was literally floored. This is how the conversation went.

Her: I hate hate hate writing this ebook and I don’t think I’ll ever finish it. I’ve even gotten to the point where I’m avoiding opening it because I know I’m going to hate it. How do I outsource this thing?

Me: And why are we writing an ebook?

Her: Because I’m supposed to have one, aren’t I?

Me: For what purpose exactly? A free lead generator? An infoproduct that you can sell? Or are you writing it to sell on Kindle? What is the goal here?

Her: To have a product to sell on my site.

Me: Well, let’s back up a touch here.

Let me get this straight. You want to hire a writer to write this for you when you’re totally passionate and opinionated about [topic] and have an important message to share. Meanwhile, YOU are amazing. You’re beautiful, smart, knowledgeable in your field, passionate, charismatic, well-spoken, and magnetic. If you want to create something to sell, let’s rethink this and instead do a series of little videos, a hangout, or a teleseminar where you can spend an hour and have it done – and have it be AWESOME! We CAN find a great writer and the ebook would be good, but this is about getting YOUR message out and growing YOU as the obvious expert when it comes to your field. Do you want your words or someone else’s?

Her: You mean, I don’t have to have an ebook? I can just talk?

Me: Yep. It’ll be done in an hour and your customers will LOVE it!

Her: Well, let’s do it then!

And, she did and it was…. Awesome.

The moral of the story is know your strengths and know what’s easy for you.

If the experts are telling you that you HAVE to do webinars but you’re a prolific writer, then by golly, WRITE your heart out!

It may be the opposite of this story, or it could be something else that we cover later in the book.

You’ll know it when you spot it.

The Motivation

But why? Why should you create your own infoproducts?

The fact that you’re taking this course tells me that you have a pretty good idea of why this is important, but I still want to explain why this is important to me and why I drill this into the heads of my coaching clients until they get it.

Everything (Yes EVERYTHING) becomes easier in business …
once you have your own quality infoproducts.

What about…

• Making money? Yes.
• List building? Yes.
• Affiliate marketing? Yes.
• Getting interviews and exposure? Yes.
• Attracting coaching clients? Yes.
• Booking speaking gigs? Yes.
• Opening doors like crazy? YES.

How? It’s simple.

Once you have created a quality infoproduct, you’ve just moved your business credibility ahead of 90% of everyone else what you’re competing with out there for visibility, leads, customers, and even references from others in your business.

The major things that you can do beyond that to grow your business would be speaking, winning awards, and writing a book. But we’ll take it one step at a time. This will move you ahead in that process.

For instance, let’s talk about affiliate marketing.

I did well with affiliate marketing years ago when I started off. I promoted on my blog and to my list and made sales and I was happy. What I did NOT know at the time was that my affiliate marketing results would go through the roof once I started to build my own list of customers – people who purchased my products. Once I did that, and I was following up with my customer list about cool things that I found, I realized very quickly that the majority of my sales were coming from my customer lists – NOT my leads lists.  Eek!

Why do you think that was?

Because those people had already purchased something from me, had paypal accounts or were willing to use their credit cards to buy online, and were buying things things that were recommended online (which is how they ended up on my customer list in the first place).  They weren’t just looking around at stuff. They were BUYING.

Suddenly it made sense. I reworked my business to release more products through my own sites and then I followed up with my customers about other great programs that I discovered (especially when I was able to find deals).

Very quickly my overall profits increased as I released those products. I was no fool. I saw the writing on the wall, and, have created or co-created well over 500 infoproducts since then. The results are always the same. My customer lists always outperform my leads lists that I build from free content (webinars, blog posts, etc.).

The Problem

So why isn’t everyone creating infoproducts then?

Many people new to online business panic when they realize just how much writing is involved….

For instance, if you wanted to take the leap into creating your own infoproduct (and I hope you will), you may be stuck before you even get started, just thinking about all of the work ahead of you.

1. First you have to write the ebook or report – and this is where most people give up and never finish.
2. Then, you need some sort of a sales page.
3. Next, you’ll want to create some promotional tools like solo ads and blog posts to sell your infoproduct.
4. Then, the gurus tell you that you’ll want at least a few related products to offer your customers – so you have to do it all over again.

Yowza. If you’re not a writer, that may be enough to cause you to run for the hills before you even get started.

I hear ya. I hear ya.

But, it gets even worse.

You may not only dislike writing and put it off to do other things first, but you might also struggle at it.

I’m not picking on you. There are things that I struggle at too. For instance, editing video.

There are also things I really STINK at, as well. 😉 (Like anything design-oriented. I hire people who are much better than I am to handle those tasks. Otherwise, my graphics would look like a 2nd grader created them. No offense to 2nd graders.)

What am I saying, exactly?

I’m saying that…

Maybe you SHOULDN’T sit down and write an ebook from scratch.

Maybe you SHOULDN’T focus on writing and selling small reports like this one.

Maybe you SHOULDN’T concentrate on a business model that involves writing.

Maybe you should focus on coming up with other ways to showcase your expertise – other ways to build a business that makes money. (Translation: Ways that stress you out less.)

Yes, you CAN still create your own infoproduct… but you can do so without the stress of staring at a blank page.

This course is for you if you’re saying “HALLELUJAH!” In the coming pages, I’m going to share a bunch of ways that you can create your own infoproduct without writing it yourself from scratch – without tears.

This is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style book.  Simply choose the path that will be the most EFFORTLESS and most PROFITABLE for you!

I hope I can inspire you to create and launch your first (or next) infoproduct. I can’t wait to hear your success story.

Before you dig in, you’ll notice that this course I will ask you to decide up front whether YOU will be the expert, whether someone else will be, or whether a group of people will share in the expertise. In the example here, my client knew that SHE wanted to be the expert. However, that’s not always the case.

Let me explain.

1. You as the Expert.

If you are the expert (or want to eventually become one) then you may wish to feature yourself as the focal point in the product.

But don’t worry! You do not have to know everything about the topic you choose. You just have to know more than someone else in order to become the expert. So, don’t panic. Goodness knows that I do not know everything there is to know about Internet Marketing and Online Business. No one does. BUT! I do know enough to help others (and have proven success in certain areas) – which is what qualifies me as an expert. So, whether you’re an avid golfer or a backyard design fanatic – you know more than others do about your topic and can help them to improve.

My friend, Carrie Wilkerson tells a story that illustrates this very well. She said that to every 3rd grader, a 4th grader is like God.

It’s true. You don’t have to know everything. You just have to know a bit more than someone else – or, I dare say that you just need to have your own perspective to the material. Heck, I’ve taken courses where the person I was learning from didn’t have the same street cred as I did, but their perspective on the material was fresh and gave me a new way to look at things. That was worthwhile to me and made me happy that I’d paid for the course. 

2. Someone Else as the “Expert”. You as the Reporter.

If you are not the expert (yet) then it’s perfectly acceptable to feature someone else as the expert. As I always say “Expertise is like Cooties. You catch it by close proximity.”

So, by being associated with experts, you can become one by being associated with other experts. (I’ll show you how in the coming pages.)

Again. I want to state that interviewers become experts by association. Can you say “Oprah”? By interviewing other people, she became one of the most famous – and wealthiest – people on the planet.

Don’t worry. You can still become the expert – and you will through the collaboration. Even if you want to be the expert down the road, it’s okay to create your first product by interviewing a person (or persons) that actually has the credibility and has the credentials that you don’t have yet, and is truly an expert. That’s okay, because by association then you start to become an expert, too.

If you’re going to be interviewing other people then you want to decide if there’s going to be you and one expert, or if you’re going to do a group project. I’ve been a part of both of those as well.

3. You as the Connector/Collaborator. Share Stories of “Regular” People.

If you are not the expert and don’t know anyone who’s an expert in your niche – or for whatever reason choose not to feature an expert, then you can simply be the collaborator.

The best example of this is the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. They aren’t experts and they certainly aren’t writing their own material. They just collect stories, compile them, and publish them.

If you’d like to be featured in their books (or would like to see how they run their shop), you can find out how on their website. ChickenSoup.com  It’s pretty easy. I’m in one of their books and the process was painless. 🙂

Other examples of this type of process might be interviewing a bunch of moms who have ADHD children, or extremely obese people who lost weight, or dog owners. They may not be considered experts, but their stories are helpful and inspiring to others.

There’s no one way to do this, so it’s hard to say, “Do this model.”

1. One, I don’t know who you know.
2. Two, I don’t know if you want to be the expert or whether you’d prefer to find an expert.

4. Other Types of Projects.

We’ll also get into other types of products that you can create that don’t require you to be a fluent writer or really an expert at all.

Any of these work. It’s just a matter of choosing one and getting it done.

The big things to think about are …

• Why you’re choosing this model?
• Why you’re doing the product?
• How you can help people?
• When will it be done and live? (As I always say “Unfinished projects do not make you money!”)

The key is that you want to 1. help people and 2. make money.

Having a project half done on your hard drive will serve neither purpose.

So, like I said, this is a “Choose your Own Adventure” course. Choose where to start, check out some ideas and then GET ‘ER DONE!

Let’s dig into some specifics in the next sections.