HPO=Hot Product Ownership:

Action: Develop a list of 12 product ideas

In our last icon, we looked at what it takes for you to break even. But I know YOU. I know you all too well.

You aren't lookin' to break even. You want to make money. Maybe a lot of it. Maybe enough to fund or help fund retirement. Maybe enough to liquidate those bills hangin' around your neck like a noose. Maybe enough to give you freedom.

There are two steps:

Step One: Dial a lot of combinations and keep dialin' until you hit the RIGHT combination.

Step Two: Pump up the innovation and speed

First, you gotta DIAL in multiple combinations until one works. That means you gotta promote products at different price points using different sources of visitors or traffic until you find ONE that sells gangbusters.

If you're creating products, THEN you experiment with the price of the product, HOW you promote or sell it, where you get the visitors from. You keep experimenting with the MIX until something clicks.

Most people dial one combination, it doesn't work, so they quit. That's NOT how the Game is played. The Game is you keep on dialing up combinations until you hit the right one. This is called persistence.

You experiment with different price points for your front-end products, the initial one the customer buys, the back end (repeat business) products, where the visitors come from and what the pitch is or the marketing message.

I covered this well in a product called The Round Table. I think you can buy it from us on an OTO for one of our products. It's not cheap but if you contact us, we can help you get it if you want to learn more.

Once it clicks, you RAMP it up, amp it up, make it happen. The KEY to that is this formula:

Innovation x Speed

Innovation means coming up with NEW IDEAS that excite your customers and potential customers. You do THAT using "next link in the chain" thinking.

Then for SPEED you create systems and checklists, document stuff, then get help in the form of outsourcers or employees. Of course, by this point, you have the cash flow to more than pay for that.

In one of the next steps, you will be conducting a survey of your 12 best product ideas.  That means, you need to come up with 12 product ideas, not just one. 

There are normal products that are the bread and butter of a business.

Then there are BLOCKBUSTER products that create businesses from scratch. These are the products that have the power to bring large numbers of new customers into your fold.

I call them "New Blood" products because they bring new blood into your business. That's what your survival depends on. If you don't have a way to get new customers into your marketing funnel, you don't have a business.

Job #1 in business is to have a way to GET new customers.

The key to that is the blockbuster product idea.

I've been fortunate in my career to have a number of these products. For example, "Amazing Formula" was and still is legendary and holds a strong place in Internet marketing history.

"Gimme My Money Now" largely created the whole mini-site craze.

"Push Button Letters" spawned a whole new generation of software programs for creating sales letters.

"Design Dashboard" and "Product Dashboard" are a few of my hits.

But that's me. Let's talk about YOU. How do YOU create not just an ordinary info product, not just a regular info product, but a bonafide blockbuster that draws hundreds or thousands of new customers into your marketing funnel?

The secret of creating blockbuster products is to NOT do what everybody else does! It's that simple.

Everybody else copies successful products and knocks them off. That's the way to NOT have a blockbuster.

The Marlon Sanders tested, proven formula for creating blockbuster info products is 3-fold:

Step one: Create products are the NEXT LINK in the chain

I call this "next link in the chain" thinking. " You don't wanna be so far out ahead of everybody that you get lost in the wilderness.

You wanna be just one step ahead of the other products in the field. Yet, it needs to be on a topic or angle no one else has covered yet. The WAY you do that is by looking at the development of the product over time and looking at what the next logical step in the chain is.

For example, you had the Apple Newton, then the Palm Pilot, then the Ipod, now the iPhone and Siri. What's the next logical step in that chain? It's a "Siri" that can actually DO things for you, calll places, schedule reservatons and so forth, NOT just talk to you.

Any product that exists in the market is the result of a PRIOR sequence of products. And if you look at that sequence, you can take a pretty good guess at the next logical step.

In Red Factor, I called this the underserved market.

In Guerilla Marketing terminology (a topic I covered when I spoke at Joel Comm's outstanding "Next Internet Millionaire" event), this is a "flanking" move.

That means you attack uncontested territory where there is little resistance. You don't battle leading products head on. You go where other people aren't.

One time I heard a great runner for the Detroit Lions, say that the secret to his success was running where the defense wasn't. That's flanking! Uncontested ground.

Step two: Create products that offer an "in-your-face" benefit

If your product angle or idea has a benefit that isn't clearly different from everything else, you'll be swimming in a sea of "me too" products.

The blockbuster product has to escape the sea of sameness. The benefit needs to be BLATANTLY obvious, so people don't have to figure it out. In a 15 second description people should be able to "get" the big benefit of the product.

Think of it this way -- You sell by COMPARING. You're comparing your product to other products OR to the alternatives people have to purchasing your product. And the REASON to buy from you vs. another product or taking another route or alternative needs to be blatantly obvious.

In Diffusion of Innovation theory, it's called a "relative advantage" vs. the alternatives.

Step three: Create products that have undeniable PROOF of value

That proof can be success stories or testimonials.

It can be case studies.

It can be a demonstration.

But the breakthrough product needs PROOF that it delivers on the big benefit.

For Amazing Formula, I had over 100 pages of testimonials I collected and published as the product sold. An idea I owe to Bob Serling.

Design Dashboard had my own web sites as proof as well as some strong success stories.

Product Dashboard had a long history of successful product launches as proof I knew how to create info products.

Push Button Letters had the benefit of fast results. You could get thet software, use it and get an immediate result yourself, so there was no doubt about the product's value.

Gimme My Money Now was a contrarian product that went totally against the prevailing wisdom of the time (and still prevalent today) that you need to create web sites with content in order to get traffic.

Gimme was the first product to advocate the 2-page web site model. That was its uniqueness.

If you follow the 3 steps above, you'll create what I call "Evergreen Profit Trees" that bring in hoards of new customers into your marketing funnel AND grow profits for you year after year after year.

Just by having them on your web site and leaving them there, you'll rake up those tidy little long tail profits. You can have a whole host of these money trees in your online catalog and make easy sales year after year after year.

Here are the steps to do that.

Read the Product Finding Checklist

Read the Product Finding Checklist. When you click the link below it'll open in Microsoft Word, in .doc format.

Click here to open

Or, "right click" on the link and choose "Save Target As" to download a copy directly to your hard drive.

You must have a product that you own or control with high demand and differentiation. It isn't enough to promote products owned by others. You have to own or control your own product. Controlling means that you have an exclusive on the product for a set time period.

Look at What People Are Already Buying

Look at what people are already buying.

Get product ideas from there. Add a unique angle or a twist. Combine 2 or 3 ideas.

Can you add to the product or service?  Can you subtract something out and change the price? Can you bundle two or three things together?  Can you add value to the product or service?

Here's a concept that will serve you VERY well if you follow it -- find out what people are ALREADY buying then give them a really good reason to buy it from YOU! Unfortunately, people wanna buy what THEY wanna buy, not what YOU want them to buy nor what they should buy.

It's one of the hardest lessons in marketing. You can't fight the market. We all KNOW we should eat our veggies. But you know, I have a steakhouse down the street from me, not a veggie house.

What is the Next Thing They Have to Buy?

AFTER people buy this, what is the NEXT thing they HAVE to buy to obtain the result they want?

Become the next logical step in the progression of products. 

BEFORE People Buy This, What Do They Buy?

BEFORE people buy this, what do they buy?

Reach the potential buyers with your product promotion by tapping into the chain before your competitors do. One way to create products is to look at what's ALREADY selling then figure out how you can create a somewhat similar product and IMPROVE it considerably.

Look at an existing product and then ask yourself, "What will be the next logical improvements that will be made to this product? YOU can be the one to make those enhancements.

Create Solutions

Create solutions to pains, problems and headaches

Ask people what they really want. What keeps them up at night. What their problems are.

Look at the Successful Products in the Marketplace

Look at the successful products in Clickbank Marketplace

Go to http://www.clickbank.com.  Click on the clickbank marketplace.  Look at the top products in each category. These are the ones that are selling.  To come up with an idea of what you can sell, first study what people are currently buying.

Ask yourself, "Why are these the hot products right now?"

I don't recommend directly knocking off products. But you can use your knowledge of what people are currently buying to come up with your own ideas.

If you're not sure where to find lists of products that sell really well, just head over to the Clickbank Marketplace. http://www.clickbank.com

Please Note: I'm not suggesting you create or find a product TO sell on Clickbank. You do have to get permission to sell products on Clickbank over a certain price point. But a LOT of people get started there and they handle the affiliate payments for you. So it's not a bad option.

We show you how to get set up to take credit cards for products priced at any dollar amount, either digital products or physical products so don't worry about that right now. You can use the Clickbank Marketplace to see what DIGITAL products are selling and get ideas.

Find Discarded Products!

Find products that have been discarded

Look for products that were advertised online or in magazines and have been abandoned. Contact the product owner and ask if you can have the exclusive rights to sell the product in exchange for a 10% royalty, or whatever you can negotiate.

Find Products No One Knows About

Look on Amazon.com for products no one knows about.

I've found a number of great books on Amazon that have never been marketed.  These book authors will probably be quite willing to strike a royalty arrangement

Look Offline For Products you Can Sell Online

Find products that sell offline but are not being sold on the Internet

The Standard Rates and Data services publishes the Direct Mail Rates and Data in the U.S.  The web site is at http://www.srds.com. 

In this volume you will find thousands of products that are being sold offline.

Could you take a product that is being sold successfully offline and sell it online? Of course you can because people are doing it all the time!

More Ideas For Finding Product Ideas

Step one: Gather raw materials for your idea generation

You can't create out of a vacuum. You need stimuli to jump start your creative juices. Here are a few ideas:

a. Surf your favorite topics on Amazon.com.

What I've found is you'll typically come across books with great titles that no one knows about or aren't even in stock.

Make a list of any such hot titles that you find in your search.

b. Take a trip to the bookstore and buy magazines with articles that have a relationship to your topic.

Even if your niche is very narrow, there are probably magazines you can find with articles related to your topic.

c. Try a search on newslibrary.com

This is a spiffy online site that searches a large number of newspapers and magazines.

Print out any articles that look interesting and are somehow related to your topic.

d. Keep a swipe file where you dump articles, notes or tidbits that have the kern of a good idea in them.

e. Search blog posts and ezine articles for juicy tidbits that grab your attention.

Search your topic on technorati.com and print out any blog posts that look intriguing. Go to ezinearticles.com, search your topic and look for articles with great titles or meaty information inside. Print those puppies out.

f. Search prnewswire.com and businesswire.com for press releases related to your topic or target audience.

Print 'em out and stick 'em in your swipe.

g. Look for forum posts with high numbers of views.

When you see forum posts with high readership numbers, print those out.

Resources For Finding Your Own Product To Sell

The topic of product creation and/or finding products to sell is such a broad topic you need a whole separate product on it. I've tried to give you a few tips.

If you want to create your own info products, my Product Dashboard takes you step-by-step through that whole process.

How To Create Your Own Product Fast

You can use Wordpress and Optimize Press or Profits Theme as I've discussed on other icons to create a membership site with pages. Literally, you can do this in 20 minutes once you know how to use the software.

What's awesome about both those programs is they already have GOOD designs for membership and content pages ready to go. Before you can say "Look ma, I got a product," you can literally have something nice looking.

All you have to do is learn how to use the software. Again, these programs are THEMES you use with Wordpress. They're a piece of cake to install. Then you create a new page, choose your TEMPLATE, drop in your content, set up your menu and you're off and running.

Next you need content.

You can use Screenr.com to QUICKLY create screen capture videos. Or, the standard product is Camtasia. You can bang out 5-10 minute videos practically at the speed of light once you learn how.

Throw up 3 videos that are 5-10 minutes in length on each page, put up 6 or 7 pages and now you have a PRODUCT ready to be sold. All you need is a nice image for the header and you can grab that for 5 bucks on fiverr.com.

Next, throw this bad boy up on a Rap script (Rapid Action Profits) with a 100% commission, contact some potential affiliates and you're off and running.

Now you have people banging out your list at high speed because you're having all those visitors go to a squeeze page you ALSO set up with Optimize Press or Profits Theme.

Next, you fire up your emails and send promos for affiliate products to your list. BANG! Now you have money coming in, your list is popping and life is good.